PrairiePundit

He makes an interesting case.

Guardian: The US is pushing the Syrian opposition to maintain dialogue with Bashar al-Assad's regime as details emerge of a controversial "roadmap" for reforms that would leave him in power for now despite demands for his overthrow during the country's bloody three-month uprising. Syrian opposition sources say US state department officials have been discreetly encouraging discussion of the unpublished draft document, which circulated at an unprecedented opposition conference held on Monday in Damascus. But Washington denies backing it. Assad would oversee what the roadmap calls "a secure and peaceful transition to civil democracy". It calls for tighter control over the security forces, the disbanding of "shabiha" gangs accused of atrocities, the legal right to peaceful demonstrations, extensive media freedoms, and the appointment of a transitional assembly. ... Whay are we trying to save the job of a guy who is murdering his own people? I

Reuters/Arab News: Facing domestic political pressure, Pakistan’s government escalated the war of words with the United States, with its defense minister repeating calls for the US to stop using a remote air base for drone strikes and to vacate the base. Relations between the two uneasy allies have been on a downward slide for months, but deteriorated after the May 2 raid by US SEALs in Abbottabad that killed Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden’s presence in a military town less than a kilometer from Pakistan’s version of West Point reinforced suspicion in the United States that elements of Pakistan’s security establishment may have helped hide him. Wednesday’s remarks by Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar that the US had been asked to vacate Shamsi Air Base, in the remote southwest part of the country, was the latest salvo as the two countries tussle over their interests in an Afghanistan settlement and the Pakistani government seeks to publicly distance itself from Washington. ... This

The Hill: After criticizing Obama, Cornyn plans to attend fundraiser Thursday night Cornyn was criticizing the President for leaving town instead of would with Congress on the debt limit.  That does not suggest that it is wrong or hypocritical for Cornyn to attend events since the President is unavailable to negotiate.

Washington Post: Three U.S. soldiers were killed this week in a rocket attack at a U.S. base near the Iranian border, the military said Thursday, bringing June’s death toll to 15 and marking the bloodiest month for U.S. troops in Iraq in two years. U.S. military commanders have said in recent months that they feared such an increase in violence would accompany the planned withdrawal of most American troops by the end of the year. Military officials in Baghdad and at the Pentagon blamed the mounting death toll on the growing sophistication of weapons that insurgents and Iranian-backed militia groups are using, including powerful rockets, armor-piercing grenades and jam-resistant roadside bombs suspected of coming from Iran. ... Now, according to Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, the primary threat to the Americans comes from three Shiite militia groups operating in Iraq, which officials said they believe are being trained and equipped

Check the Daily Mail for more humorous shots by the military.

Daily Mail: Mother suffering from post-natal depression was banned from joining an NHS support group... for being too UNHAPPY Logic seems to fail rationed health care program in UK.

BBC: Four arrest warrants have been issued by the UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the court said. Hariri's son, Saad, welcomed the indictments and described them as a "historic moment" for Lebanon. Local reports say the warrants name senior members of the Shia militant and political group Hezbollah. ... With Hezbollah now a strong force in the new Lebanese government, it is difficult to see how any arrests could be made, our correspondent says. In a policy statement, the government said it would "follow the progress of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon... as long as it does not negatively affect Lebanon's stability and civil peace." ... I do not anticipate the Hezballah will follow the rule of law. It is too bad. We might find out who Damascus and Tehran gave them the order to kill Hariri.

NBC News: Computer hackers shut down al-Qaida's ability to communicate its messages to the world through the Internet, interrupting the group's flow of videos and communiqués, according to a terrorism expert. "Al-Qaida's online communications have been temporarily crippled, and it does not have a single trusted distribution channel available on the Internet," said Evan Kohlmann, of Flashpoint Global Partners, which monitors the group's communications. The attack was carried out within the past few days by unknown hackers targeting al-Qaida's Internet communications systems. It was "well coordinated and involved the use of an unusual cocktail of relatively sophisticated techniques," Kohlmann said. "My guess is that it will take them at least several days more to repair the damage and get their network up and functioning again," he said. ... It may become an annual event. The same thing happened last year. Let us hope that we

Sen. Hutchison has 80 cosponsors for her bill to make sure the military is paid.

This is a great ad.  It uses Obama's own words and the facts to point to his failure.

Gloria Borger: ... "Call me naive," President Obama said at his news conference today. "But my expectation is that leaders are going to lead." Mine, too. So imagine my surprise when the president came to his own press conference -- which he called -- without anything much new to say on possible ways get to a deal to raise the national debt ceiling. Plenty of talk about gamesmanship, about deadlines and about how even Sasha and Malia are mature enough to do their schoolwork before it's due. Oh, and by the way, the president also told us, Congress isn't actually here enough to get its homework done. "They are in one week, they are out one week," he told us helpfully, as if perhaps we should mark our calendars. "You need to be here. I've been here. I've been doing Afghanistan and Bin Laden and the Greek crisis." He is, after all, the president. Good to know that he's doing his job. And it's not that he's wro

Caucus Blog, NY Times: ... White House officials say that such accusations have not gotten under the president’s skin. But in the more than hour-long news conference, Mr. Obama made clear that he views the upcoming high-stakes negotiations over the nation’s debt as a test for the Republicans of the very leadership skills they say he lacks. Mr. Obama did not lay down a “red line” beyond which he would refuse to negotiate. But he repeatedly dared Congressional Republicans to side with oil companies, hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners against the interests of the elderly, schoolchildren and the middle class. His tone throughout was defiant. ... It is hard to influence people and persuade them when you are demonizing them and their position. While the Republicans have been criticizing Obama for showing a lack of leadership, it is hard to call this type of false choice leadership. It sounds like typical Democrat demagoguery in support of the same old tax and spend polic

Washington Times: With two Republican contenders for the 2012 Senate race in Texas dropping out recently to run instead for a House seat, conventional wisdom has the GOP contest shaping up as a two-man showdown between the “establishment” candidate, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and the tea party insurgent, former Solicitor General Ted Cruz. But party insiders and political observers in the state say that assessment is premature. Mr. Dewhurst officially hasn’t declared for the race, and Mr. Cruz may still have serious challengers for the tea party mantle, despite the departures of Fort Worth auto dealer Roger Williams and former Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, another tea party favorite. Both men set their sights instead on the new District 33 congressional seat in the Fort Worth area, one of four new districts added in Texas as a result of the 2010 census. Mr. Cruz, the Harvard-educated son of a Cuban-Texan, has been at the top of early fundraising totals and picked up a

Roger L. Simon: He hasn’t declared his candidacy yet, but Texas Governor Rick Perry pulled on his cowboy boots and waded into the presidential area of foreign affairs this week, sending a strongly worded letter to Eric Holder urging the attorney general to investigate violations of U. S. law by organizers of the Gaza flotilla. According to numerous recent media reports,American citizens and organizations, together with a coalition of violent anti-Israel organizations from other countries, have organized efforts to breach Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip as early as this week. According to those reports, as well as information alleged in a lawsuit recently filed by Dr. Alan J. Bauer and his attorney, Robert J. Tolchin, and additional information provided by Shurat HaDin: at least to of the participating ships – The Audacity of Hope (DL 2894 AF) and The Challenger II (DL 8172 AC) – are registered in Delaware; ... In his letter to Holder, the governor specifies the U.

Washington Examiner: Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., claims that the Republicans' opposition to tax increases and any increase in the national debt ceiling is a sign that they really want to throw Granny and the military over the cliff. The GOP, he said, "would rather stop paying our men and women fighting overseas, force deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare ... than tell big oil companies and corporate jet owners to pay their fair share." This is known as the Washington Monument Strategy, and professional politicians resort to it whenever their spending addiction is seriously threatened. Here's how the WMS works: When revenue is short, the politicians threaten to shut down the most vital public services first. Locally, it's the police and firemen, while in Washington, it's Social Security checks and military pay. That's how the politicians insure that a maximum number of people feel the pain and will cave in to demands for tax increases instead of s

Moe Lane takes on the President's demagoguery on taxes at his hews conference. The President can be shameless sometimes.  But, he has given Karl Rove some material for future ads.

BBC: Nato forces in Afghanistan say they have killed a senior militant they suspect of involvement in the attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. Ismail Jan died in an airstrike in the eastern province of Paktia on Wednesday, the alliance said. BBC correspondents say he was a leading commander in the Haqqani network, which is linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Nato and Afghan intelligence believe Haqqani members helped mount the hotel attack, which left at least 20 dead. There has so far been no independent confirmation of Ismail Jan's death. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the hotel attack, but Nato said it was carried out jointly with the Haqqani network. The group has bases in Pakistan but focuses its attacks over the border in Afghanistan. It has been accused of carrying out a number of high-profile gun and bomb attacks in Afghanistan in recent years. A statement from the Nato-led Isaf force said Jan was suspected of providing "material supp

Telegraph: The strike last week is believed to have wounded the two leading militants and came amid increasing concern among US officials about growing ties between Shabaab and the global terror network, the Post said. “They (Shebab fighters) have become somewhat emboldened of late and, as a result, we have become more focused on inhibiting their activities,” it quoted an official as saying. “They were planning operations outside of Somalia.” The US military could not immediately be reached for comment. The official quoted by the Post said the two commanders had “direct ties” to Anwar al-Awlaqi, a charismatic American-born preacher believed to be hiding in his family’s native Yemen. The US military has carried out a number of attacks in recent years against top al-Qaeda militants believed to be hiding in Somalia, but last week’s incident appeared to be the first drone strike, the Post said. Last Thursday residents reported huge explosions near Kismayo, a southern port town

AP/Washington Times: The military commander who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden is warning that the escalating demands on U.S. special operations forces are hampering their training and could slowly eat away at their combat readiness. Vice Adm. William McRaven said demand for the elite forces around the world continues to grow, so there often isn’t enough time to train between deployments. And he said the helicopters and other equipment they need are not available to units in the United States who are preparing to deploy. Special operations forces “cannot indefinitely sustain current levels of overseas presence,” said McRaven, who has been nominated to replace Adm. Eric Olson as commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command. “The resulting pressure on the force and our families is too great, and the pressure is creating a dramatic effect on our readiness. ... There is much more. The Obama administration is using these guys up with its counter terror campaign

Independent: For sale: Coastline, ports, Olympic venues and banks The good news is they will probably be better run and will probably generate more tax revenue.

Guardian: A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon. Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences". He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear. "We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," the official said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit." ... This is one result of the failure of Obama's "engagement" policy with Iran. It is going

Toby Harnden: Peter Singleton, a California lawyer who has been assiduously courting Republicans across the state where the first contest of the 2012 election will be held, said it was “unthinkable” she would remain on the sidelines. “She’s the right person at this time,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “If you look at Churchill’s time, in 1938 Churchill was unelectable, in 1940 he was indispensable.” He added: “I can’t see her sitting this one out. The stakes are too high. It goes back to 1940. Can you see Churchill sitting it out? It’s unthinkable. Can you see George Washington in 1776 sitting it out? Unthinkable. He wanted to be back on his farm but they said we need you to be president of the republic.” For months, Mrs Palin has kept the Republican Party and media guessing about her intentions. In Pella to attend the premiere of the film The Undefeated, a documentary about the former Alaska governor, she seemed to encourage speculation she would take the plunge. She told

Daily Mail: They sound like something Q branch would issue to James Bond ahead of a difficult assignment. But this gadget was used to fight a very real target - the world's most wanted terrorist. A website has reported that the team of U.S. Navy Seals used pairs of night vision contact lenses during their mission to kill Osama Bin Laden. The site reports that Seal Team 6 wore the 'cat vision' lenses during the attack on the Al Qaeda leader's compound on May 2nd. A well placed source added that the lenses give the wearer night vision for a limited period without wearing the normally heavy and bulky night vision goggles. If the rumours are true, it will end almost a decade of speculation but the U.S. military would never confirm their existence. The rumour regarding the use of the lenses in battle adds to the array of technology the Seals used during their mission. As well as support from Black Hawk helicopters and unmanned satellite drones, they used wea

Ted seems to have some momentum in the race for the Senate nomination.  He is trying to win the money primary right now.

She may still jump in the race and many think she has a shot if she does.

 I think the two get along pretty well.

The Hill: The Texas conservative, who's weighing a late entry into the GOP field, beats other candidates among Tea Party members. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is the top choice of Tea Party supporters in a Republican presidential candidate, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The Texas conservative, who's weighing a late entry into the field of GOP candidates, beats other candidates among members of the Tea Party, the conservative grassroots wing of the Republican Party that's battling to shape the race for the nomination. Twenty percent of Tea Party supporters would like to see Perry as the nominee, according to a McClatchy-Marist poll released Wednesday. Perry displaces former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) as the top Tea Party candidate in Marist's April poll; Huckabee's since withdrawn from the race. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is the second choice of the Tea Party, at 17 percent, followed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) at 1

Washington Post: The top military official involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden said Tuesday that the Obama administration has no clear plan for handling suspected terrorist leaders if they are caught alive outside a war zone. Vice Adm. William H. McRaven told a Senate panel that contingency plans for detaining terrorism suspects are developed on an ad hoc basis and approved by the White House, but that there are no set rules. “That is always a difficult issue for us,” he testified. “No two cases seem to be alike.” In response to senators’ questions, McRaven said that “in many cases” suspects captured in secret operations by Navy SEALs or the Army’s Delta Force are taken to a U.S. Navy ship until they can be tried in a U.S. court or transferred to the custody of an allied country. But if neither option turns out to be feasible, the prisoner is ultimately let go, he said. “If we can’t do either one of those, then we will release that individual,” McRaven said in res

AFP: Iran has carried out secret tests of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of UN resolutions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday. Hague's comments came a day after Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 14 missiles in an exercise, one of them a medium-range weapon capable of striking Israel or US targets in the Gulf. In a statement to lawmakers, Hague said: "Iran has also been carrying out covert ballistic missile tests and rocket launches, including testing missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in contravention of UN resolution 1929." He said Iran had also announced plans to triple its capacity to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, adding: "These are enrichment levels far greater than is needed for peaceful nuclear energy. "We will maintain and continue to increase pressure on Iran to negotiate an agreement on their nuclear programme," including sanctions, he

Amir Taheri: Convinced that President Obama is preparing the United States for a strategic retreat, the leaders of Iran's Khomeinist regime have put their latest military hardware on show in support of their claim of domination in the Middle East. In a four-day "firepower show" that started Sunday, the Revolutionary Guard -- a parallel army -- is simulating attacks on US bases and warships in the Persian Gulf. Code-named Great Prophet, the exercises have unveiled a new generation of medium-range missiles designed to hit Israel as well as US military assets in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. The new weapons belong to the family of Shahab and Sejjil missiles developed with the help of North Korean, Chinese and Russian technology. The first generation of these missiles had a range of 75 miles. The new generation, just unveiled, has a range of 1,200 miles. "The Zionist regime is within [750 miles] distance from us," Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizade

Charles Hurt: Anytime you hear a politician talk about needing “revenue,” grab your wallet and run. Anytime you hear a politician talk about “raising” $600 billion in revenue, grab your wallet, any silverware you haven’t already melted down to keep up with taxes, and your children’s piggy banks. And run like the wind. These thieves have pillaged our government retirement program to pay for self-celebrating schemes that would land any officer of any corporation in prison. They made outlandish promises they knew they could not keep. They have squandered the precious taxes that we have already given them to pad their own political fortunes or so they could play Sugar Daddy to all those “in need,” such as the ethanol “industry.” Of course, the poor have fared no better. On them, the Washington politicians yoked impossible mortgages that the poor had no hope of keeping up with. In their maudlin self-love, the politicians tell themselves that they merely killed these people with kindne

William McKenzie: ... Here, then, are a few things his GOP opponents need to know about Texas' governor: Most of all, don't underestimate his ability to win. Since his days at Texas A&M University, Perry has known how to prevail. In the early 1970s, he won election as a yell leader. Those are the guys you see in white outfits doing contorted cheers during Aggie games. Back then, yell leaders were about as big-men-on-campus as you got. A&M was made up largely of boys - and a few girls - from small towns and rural communities. The campus was a far cry from today's cosmopolitan school. In that cauldron, Perry forged an ability to outmaneuver others that continues to this day. Remarkably, he has won every one of his political races. He started out in 1985 as a Democratic state rep, rising to state agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor, governor and, now, likely presidential candidate. Mitt Romney and crew need to especially understand that 1990 ag

San Antonio Express-News/Houston Chronicle: Marcelino and Hope Costilla used to watch rabbits, quail, deer and the occasional fox from their front porch rocking chairs. Now they look out onto a 20-slot RV park, a new business venture for the couple that represents their slice of the Eagle Ford shale play. Across cities in sparsely populated South Texas, hotels have no vacancies, small apartment complexes are full, and mom-and-pop RV parks like the Costillas' are popping up (and filling up) seemingly overnight to catch the overflow of oil field workers pouring into the area. The overnight-millionaire money came as mineral rights were leased to oil and gas giants along the 400-mile-long Eagle Ford shale formation, which lies under 24 counties and sweeps from the border across the state to East Texas. But as Eagle Ford production begins in earnest in South Texas, providing housing - and quickly - in sparsely populated counties appears be the next way for the enterprising to p

Ramesh Ponnuru: The liberal writer John B. Judis, who means to offer a compliment, says it “may be the most radical thing the Obama administration has done.” He is referring to the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against Boeing Co. (BA) The company wants to produce airliners in a nonunionized plant in South Carolina rather than a unionized one in Washington state, in part because of repeated strikes at its facilities in the Puget Sound area. The NLRB says the move is illegal union-busting. Republicans and business groups are apoplectic. They call the complaint a payoff to the unions, question its legal basis and portray it as an assault on the country’s 22 right-to-work states, which prohibit making union membership a condition of employment. Sixteen Republican governors have asked that the complaint be dismissed. But rather than backing down, the NLRB has further angered its critics by proposing to speed up employee votes on whether to unionize. Employers say they ne

Daily Mail: The Taliban has issued a chilling threat to carry out a series of attacks against 10 targets in Britain, American and France to avenge the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. 'Soon you will see attacks against America and Nato countries, and our first priorities in Europe will be France and Britain,' deputy Pakistani Taliban leader Wali-ur-Rehman said in a videotape aired on Al Arabiya over the weekend. The Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, which swears allegiance to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, is blamed for many of the suicide bombings across the country and remains highly dangerous despite a series of army offensives against its strongholds in the north-west of the country, on the Afghan border. It has not demonstrated an ability to stage sophisticated attacks in the West, however, and the TTP's one apparent bid to inflict carnage in the U.S. failed. The group claimed responsibility for the botched car b

Stephen Hayes: Lieutenant General John Allen told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Afghanistan decision President Obama announced last week was not among the range of options the military provided to the commander in chief. Allen’s testimony directly contradicts claims from senior Obama administration officials from a background briefing before the president’s announcement. In response to questioning from Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Allen testified that Obama’s decision on the pace and size of Afghanistan withdrawals was “a more aggressive option than that which was presented.” Graham pressed him. “My question is: Was that a option?” Allen: “It was not.” ... It appears the White House tried to deceive the public about where the decision came from. That is just compounded the original mistake of deciding to pull the troops out too soon.  There is more in the article about the attempts to deceive.

It is hard tp argue with the data, but the command economy radicals probably will.

Daily Mail: Robber bitten in groin three times by Staffordshire Bull Terrier as he tries to raid off-licence It being the UK the dog and its owner are liable to be punished.

Guardian: Oil firms paid climate sceptic $1m I have received no payments for my skepticism, which has to do mainly with the dire predictions of doom with a warming planet.  I thin we and the Earth can adapt.  But, I find nothing wrong with skeptical scientist getting research grants, after all the environmental wackos who have bought the whole warmist idea get far more funding from governments and none skeptics.

The Hill: Kucinich has language problem in Syria Alicia M. Cohn -  06/28/11 06:35 PM ET Rep. Kucinich, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency, said Syria's President al-Assad is "loved and appreciated" by his people.… I think there had to be a transliteration error.  Kucinich is somewhat flaky, to coin a phrase, but he is not that flaky.   With Assad killing hundreds of his people, there does not appear to be much love on either side.

IBD: While the U.S. dithers with concerns about "dirty oil" from Alberta's rich tar sands, energy-hungry China makes Ottawa an offer it might not refuse. Memo to Washington: Pipelines can run west as well as south. When President Obama pledged to wean us off foreign oil, we hoped he didn't mean our friendly ally to the north, Canada. Granted, it doesn't have beaches like Rio, where we're helping the Brazilians drill offshore, but we had hopes nonetheless. Together, the U.S. and Canada have enough oil and natural gas locked up in shale formations, tar sands, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic and the Outer Continental Shelf to make OPEC pound sand. But we won't drill for ours and apparently, we don't want Canada's. With more than 170 billion barrels, Alberta has the world's third-largest oil reserves, behind only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and ahead of Russia and Iran. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to n

Washington Post: Leading Congressional Democrats immediately recoiled Tuesday from a new proposal to cut $600 billion in Medicare spending over the next decade — in part by raising the eligibility age. Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Tom Coburn (R-Olka.) unveiled the proposal as part of a bipartisan effort to produce the kind of savings necessary to achieve the $2 trillion in debt reduction both parties say is needed to convince reticent lawmakers to vote to raise the debt ceiling. It would raise Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 67 and assess higher premiums on wealthier seniors. The proposal echoes Republican demands that entitlement reform — especially deep cuts in Medicare spending — be a part of any agreement to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. But the swift rejection of the proposal among Democrats reflects the significant obstacles that remain to any agreement to cut the deficit and raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit. ... Democrats think there is som

NY Times: Several heavily armed attackers stormed one of the capital’s fortified premier hotels Tuesday night, with sporadic shooting and at least two loud explosions booming as Afghan security forces battled to hunt down and fend off the insurgents for hours afterward. Coming within a week of President Obama’s announcement of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, the attack underscored the still precarious nature of security, even in the capital, as the handover to Afghan security forces begins in some areas of the country. The heavily guarded Intercontinental Hotel, which sits on a hilltop on the west side of Kabul, has a police guard at its base and intelligence officers stationed at the top of the hill and near the entrance, and it was not clear how so many attackers could have breached its defenses. The exact circumstances surrounding the attack and the number of casualties were not clear even in the early hours of Wednesday morning, as Afghan security forces cordoned off the

Daily Mail: 'Undesirable and dangerous' immigrant criminals cannot be deported from Britain, say Euro judges They should move the "undesirables" next door to the nutty judge who is concerned about their "human rights."   This is one of those absurdities that suggest the UK would be better off outside the EU.

BBC: Greece vote protests turn violent Here is how to deal with the the rioters. They are unwilling to take a cut in spending so increase their taxes to pay for the spending. Since they are mainly civil servants, the government can deduct the taxes directly from their pay.   It is the liberal way.

Glenn Beck considering moving his business to Texas, along with 150 jobs.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy It is an interesting interview.  She seems to understand what is coming and is prepared for it.

McClatchy: President Barack Obama is in a fragile position as the 2012 campaign begins: Only 37 percent of registered voters approve of his handling of the economy, his lowest rating ever, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. Another ominous sign for Obama: By nearly 2-1, voters disapprove of how he's handling the federal budget deficit, expected to hit a record $1.5 trillion this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. "It's a real caution sign ... the four-year lease on the White House is very much dependent on how people end up looking at the economy," said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which performed the survey. ... It the poll was of likely voters, Obama would probably be in even worse shape. He is still bitterly clinging to his liberalism, despite its failures in the real world. He is going to have to stop wasting money on "investments" that are not producing economic growth. He also needs to unleas

Uncertainty, regulatory overreach and the NLRB are hurting job creation.

Lawrence Lindsay: First, a normalization of interest rates would upend any budgetary deal if and when one should occur. At present, the average cost of Treasury borrowing is 2.5%. The average over the last two decades was 5.7%. Should we ramp up to the higher number, annual interest expenses would be roughly $420 billion higher in 2014 and $700 billion higher in 2020. The 10-year rise in interest expense would be $4.9 trillion higher under "normalized" rates than under the current cost of borrowing. Compare that to the $2 trillion estimate of what the current talks about long-term deficit reduction may produce, and it becomes obvious that the gains from the current deficit-reduction efforts could be wiped out by normalization in the bond market. ... The second reason for concern is that official growth forecasts are much higher than what the academic consensus believes we should expect after a financial crisis. That consensus holds that economies tend to return to tre

AP/Washington Post: A senior leader of an al-Qaida-linked terror group has been captured in northern Afghanistan dressed up like a woman — the latest in a recent series of cases involving male militants disguised as females, the U.S.-led military coalition said Tuesday. A joint Afghan and coalition force apprehended a leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and two of his associates during a nighttime operation Monday in Kunduz city, NATO said. ... “The leader attempted to disguise himself as a female by wearing a burqa, which is an all-enveloping cloak worn by some Muslim women,” the coalition said in a statement. “In the last two months there have been several instances of targeted males wearing burqas in attempts to disguise themselves in order not to be caught by Afghan-led forces.” The coalition said there also have been a handful of recent reports of female combatants in burqas. Kunduz and surrounding provinces are known hide-outs for the Taliban, al-Qaida and f

Ron Klein, Bloomberg: Two Problems: Weak Economy, Too Much Debt  

Michael Shear, NY Times Caucus Blog: ... “The challenge is to disagree without crossing into an area where you sound condescending, patronizing or nasty,” Ms. Dunn, a Democratic communications strategist said. “It’s about tone and it’s about respect.” ... I suspect the candidates will handle this challenge better than many in the media who are already attacking Bachmann for every perceived misstatement in a way they would never challenge President Obama. The media will tend to play up her misstatements the way they have Sarah Palin's while they continue to ignore Obama screw ups. That is the uneven playing field that Republicans usually have to play on, only it is more so for conservative women.