California: Thoughts on a Surreal Depression

Victor Davis Hanson  "In addition, they believe that the state government would look upon any employer of a large industry not as a partner that would alleviate unemployment and lessen county expenditures, but more or less a sort of target to regulate, advise, lecture, and chastise, both to justify the expanding government regulatory work force and to achieve a fuzzy sort of social justice. There are, of course, large plants and businesses here, but hardly enough to absorb the thousands entering the work force." 


calwatchdog

 


A Lesson for Israel Advocates from the OBL Reaction

http://fawstin.blogspot.com/

Volokh Conspiracy  "The hostility emanating to Israel emanating from these sources is not, primarily, a result of anti-Semitism or other Jewcentric mental maladies. Rather, it is a natural result of a cauldron of ideologies–pacifism, anti-liberalism, Third Worldism, hostility to the West, warmed-over Marxism, and so on, combined with a dash of naive human rights idealism–that dominates certain intellectual circles."

A Greenie fesses up

American Thinker  "First, that they don't really have an understanding of reality, for example, for their proposals to work, progress has to come to a halt and society stagnate, but industry has to reverse direction, not just halt. In human society, that can't happen.
"Second, that they have no basis in reality. Their "belief system" was based upon the near-religious belief that when energy supplies weakened, society would collapse, but society simply adapted and found more energy, a bad thing in his opinion. "

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

Issa Calls Holder to Account

Pajamas Media  "Project Gunrunner was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) operation in which as many as 2,000 firearms were allegedly allowed to walk across the Mexican border in an attempt to track down the “big fish” in the gun trafficking rings — and, presumably, the drug cartels. The attempt not only failed but, according to Issa, resulted in the deaths of two federal agents.
"Issa had previously subpoenaed documents and personnel from the Department of Justice and from ATF — and was flatly refused."

More on bin Laden

FURIOUS BIN LADEN SUPPORTERS VOW TO TAKE REVENGE

Muslim demonstrators march on the US embassy in London this afternoon



















"However, another man who prayed at the Mosque said the group were a dangerous minority. He said: "They are crazy. They all benefit from UK education and UK benefits.
""They get everything for free and yet they still complain. They are not Islam, they are for Osama.
""You see the people walking past and ignoring them. Most Muslims have better things to do then this."
"Meanwhile, EDL members chanted “USA, USA” as Muslims knelt to pray for bin Laden at the opposite end of the highly-secured embassy, in central London."

Osama Bin Laden Raid: Al Qaeda 'Playbook' Revealed 
"U.S. intelligence is now in possession of a veritable "playbook" of al Qaeda operations -- from potential terror attack targets to information on international safe houses and top commanders -- thanks to the Navy SEAL raid that took down Osama bin Laden Sunday, officials told ABC News today."

5 State of the Art Military Technologies That Helped Take Out Bin Laden

The last thing Osama bin Laden saw in this life













"Here are five cool technologies that very likely helped the elite members of Navy SEAL Team 6 get the job done."  Including dogs. PETA will issue a statement in three...two...one...

Pakistan's ex-FM urges resignations over bin Laden  Via Drudge

A Most Justified Jubilation "Why there should not be any moral qualms about celebrating bin Laden’s demise."   Do you think our left will now begin to condemn America for the killing of Admiral Yamamoto in WW2?   I believe we can assume he was unarmed.

Osama, Obama, and the Media  "On the eve of the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama was being criticized by his base as “leading from behind.” In a matter of hours, the president went from being an ineffectual leader to being roundly called “courageous” for authorizing a military operation on which no modern president would have demurred."

Is the Obama administration setting up to toss the SEALs under the bus?  "The Obama administration would be making a colossal mistake if it goes anywhere near turning on the SEALs who got bin Laden. But they have been making mistake after mistake since the successful raid. So I’m no longer confident they can manage to dodge making this one. And if your agenda of frittering away American power and influence remains in place, it’s not a mistake at all.
"Plus: The New York Times Magazine suffers from a case of bad timing…and worse judgment."

The Mahdi vs. Bin Laden  "My New York Post column today takes a look back at how Kitchener handled the forces of the Mahdi after Gordon’s death at Khartoum, and compares it with the recent killing of Osama bin Laden. My thesis is that, historically, jihadist movements have faltered and collapsed in the face of overwhelming defeats:"

Victor Davis Hanson:  The First-Person Presidency  "Here are a few excerpts from President Obama’s speech on Sunday night about the killing of Osama bin Laden."

“Tonight, I can report . . . And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta . . . I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . . I’ve made clear . . . Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear . . . Tonight, I called President Zardari . . . and my team has also spoken. . .These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief . . . Finally, let me say to the families . . . I know that it has, at times, frayed. . . .”

...."The problem of first-personalizing national security is twofold. One, it is not consistent. Good news is reported by Obama in terms of “I”; bad news is delivered as “reset,” “the previous administration,” “in the past”: All good things abroad are due to Obama himself; all bad things are still the blowback from George W. Bush."

Related to the previous article:  RUSH: The Man Who Shot Osama bin Laden – Liberty Valance Parody Song  "From I, Me, Mine Productions..."
Some time back a man in his early twenties asked me to proof-read an essay he wrote that was full of first-person references. In pointing that out to him, we discussed the fact that the abundance of first-person references in his writing indicated a very young man and one whose opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. It all pointed to self-absorption and the feeling that the source was only concerned with how the world's events affected him personally.

A Motivational Poster for George W. Bush’s Library

NRO via Lucianne

"I can hear the liberal cries of outrage, so to recap: The interrogations of KSM (which included waterboarding) and the interrogation of Hassan Ghul (held in “black site” prisons) were key to identifying the courier; the president then authorized military action in a foreign country without going to the United Nations or informing the host government; the military action was unilateral, and we did not consult with our allies; Congress was not informed of the military action; and it increasingly appears that no serious effort was made to treat Osama bin Laden as a criminal (reading him his rights, etc.). The monitoring of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s phone call was a result of an extensive global wiretapping system. Furthermore, as Charles Krauthammer notes, the helicopters used in the raid came from Bagram and Jalalabad; if we had withdrawn from Afghanistan on the antiwar Left’s timetable, we would have had no bases from which to launch this operation.

"Well done to one president for enacting all of these policy changes, and well done to his successor for keeping them in place."

Krauthammer: Evil does not die of natural causes

Charles Krauthammer  "The bin Laden operation is the perfect vindication of the war on terror. It was made possible precisely by the vast, warlike infrastructure that the Bush administration created post-9/11, a fierce regime of capture and interrogation, of dropped bombs and commando strikes. That regime, of course, followed the more conventional war that brought down the Taliban, scattered and decimated al-Qaeda and made bin Laden a fugitive.

"Without all of this, the bin Laden operation could never have happened."

....
"...But it was not until 9/11 that we took him seriously. At which point we answered with a declaration of war of our own, offering the brutal, unrelenting and ferocious response that war demands and that police work prohibits.
"Including bin Laden’s execution. It’s clear there was no intention of capturing him. And for good reason. Doing so would have been insane, gratuitously granting him a second life of immense publicity on a worldwide stage from which to propagandize."  Emphasis added.

http://www.mideasttruth.com/cartoons.html

Rectal-Cranial Inversion Moment of the Day

Kathleen Sebelius

Neal Boortz  "C’mon folks … seniors are going to “die sooner” if we implement a voucher system for Medicare? I thought that we had gotten rid of moonbats like this when we sent Alan Grayson packing.

"Government bureaucrats can be counted on to support government control to the end."



 

No Tears For Osama In Pakistan

GlobalSecurity.org  "Aside from the conspiracy theories and hearsay, the unexpected silence of the religious parties and public points to a change in the popular mood. The people of Pakistan seem to be fed up with Taliban and Al-Qaeda violence both in and out of the country. The same people have already rejected the religious and political parties on several occasions in the recent past, including the Safia Siddiqi case, the Raymond Davis release, and the drone strikes.
"The immediate impact of bin Laden's killing will be to demoralize the militants. In the longer run, we might see some fragmentation of Al-Qaeda, something like what happened with the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, which split into four groups after the killing of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud. Yet far more important, as the relative lack of reaction on the streets demonstrates, is the deepening disenchantment of ordinary Pakistanis with jihadi ideology. This, in turn, will lead to a decline in sympathy with militant organizations and the pro-Taliban religious parties. And that can only be for the good."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/kencatalino

Michael Moore to America: Shame on You For Celebrating ‘Execution’ of Bin Laden  "Somewhere a child is going hungry, somewhere an American serviceman or woman could use a helping hand, somewhere someone is losing their home — and THIS is what Michael Moore is using his power of celebrity to call attention to.
"What an extraordinarily revealing set of priorities:"...

White House Wants to Track and Tax Your Mileage

Newsmax "The new tax scheme, designed to help fund transportation spending, would determine your mileage by installing electronic equipment on your car. This would involve monitoring your location and how far you’ve traveled.
"Fox host Lou Dobbs offered this reaction to the trial balloon on his radio show Thursday: “We’ve got an effective unemployment rate of nearly 17 percent in this country, and these idiots want to tax car mileage. It’s nuts, what they want to do,” he said." 
You can be sure Mr. Obama will not dither for days about going after you and me.
Hat tip to the California Chronicle.

Al-Qaeda data yield details of planned plots/ Helicopters used in raid

Washington Post  "Among the files recovered from captured computers and flash drives were documents detailing a previously unknown plan to attack the U.S. commuter rail network, intelligence officials confirmed. The plan, which described a sabotage attack to occur on this year’s 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was being actively considered as recently as February 2010, Obama administration officials said."

US: Helicopter Used in Bin Laden Raid Could Fall into Enemy Hands  "It appears to have an unusual tail assembly, possibly hinting at a type of previously-unknown stealth capability.    "US officials are worried the China or enemy states could use the technology in the helicopter to advance their own military capabilities, FOX reported."

Another Shot of the Secret Helicopter Used In Bin Laden Raid

"OK, here’s another view of the tail rotor from the crashed mystery helicopter used in the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. All I’ll say is that it sure doesn’t look like it came off even a modified MH-60 Black Hawk. It looks like a stealthy new aircraft."

  More here.

Al-Qaida confirms Osama bin Laden's death  "The writers of the statement appeared unaware of the announcement by American officials that bin Laden's body had been buried at sea. The statement warned against mishandling or mistreating bin Laden's body and demanded that be handed over to his family, saying "any harm (to the body) will open more doors of evil, and there will be no one to blame but yourselves.""

Will this be the next "truther" quest? Leon Panetta, not Obama, issued order to kill bin Laden?

White House fumbles getting its Osama bin Laden story straight  From DEBKAfile  "Two days after the US President Barack Obama's triumphal announcement that Osama bin Laden was dead, the White House was grappling with a serious credibility problem: Questions and contradictions are mounting about the how and why US elite SEALs killed the most wanted man in the world at his mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2. New information proving the first stories wrong comes not just from a defensive Pakistan government but also from US officials."
Personally, I couldn't care less how OBL got it. Be thankful these leftists weren't press darlings when we killed Yamamoto in WW2.


http://terrellaftermath.com/

 PJ Tatler  "I was told – in these exact terms, “we overruled him.” (Obama) I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s “persistent hesitation to act.” There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so. President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.
"I was correct in stating there had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper."

More details here.  " Nothing changed with the president’s opinion – he continued to avoid having one. Every time military and intelligence officials appeared to make progress in forming a position, Jarrett would intervene and the stalling would begin again."

 This report suspect   " Upon closer inspection of the article, it appears a well-informed. A little TOO well informed. Why would an insider talk to some blog instead of Fox or the NYT?
"Also, some of these points (presumably)come from private conversations. Even the highest aides aren't there for personal conversations of the President. Until we get a report from a real news source, it's not true. "
From the article comments.

Victor Davis Hanson: Rules for Killing Rogues "Americans rejoiced at news of the end of this psychopathic mass murderer, and, privately, are probably relieved that he was not captured and extradited to Guantanamo. If bin Laden had been taken alive, we might be revisiting the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s failed efforts to try in a civilian federal court bin Laden’s subordinate, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the master planner behind 9/11.
"But what, exactly, are the moral, legal, or practical rules in going after terrorist leaders or the savage dictators of rogue regimes?"