PrairiePundit

The Hill: Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz (R) has won the state's Senate primary runoff election, all but guaranteeing him a spot in the upper chamber and giving the Tea Party one of its biggest victories of the election cycle. Cruz led Texas Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst (R) by 54 percent to 46 percent, with 21 percent of precincts reporting. The Associated Press has called the race. His win will go down as one of the Tea Party’s biggest win of the year, alongside Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s (R) primary win over Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in May. It also will add another hard-line conservative to the Senate, whose voting record is likely to dovetail with those endorsed him: Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Cruz is considered a lock in the general election: The state leans heavily to the GOP and Democrats failed to recruit a serious candidate for the seat. ...  It is...

Kathleen Parker: The same week that President Obama's health regulations go into effect, forcing people of faith to violate their conscience or shut their doors, Mitt Romney was preaching the gospel of economic and religious freedom in Poland and Israel. By that juxtaposition, the contrast in candidates could not be starker. Romney's recent tour, the reporting of which has tended to focus on his "gaffes" — noting, for instance, that economic culture matters when it comes to a nation's prosperity and his questioning of security at the London Olympics — has provided a more-important glimpse of how, as president, he would view and reward Europe. His speeches and comments in both Poland and Israel were testaments to the strength of U.S. alliances based on shared economic principles, as well as a rebuke to Obama's perceived lack of conviction regarding same. Romney pounded his free-market message by noting Poland's heroic struggle for freedom against an oppre...

It is the most modern drone currently flying to my knowledge and will give the US Navy a leg up when it becomes operational.    You can find more pictures and background information on the plane here .  Because it is unmanned it has a much longer flight radius that will allow the US to launch attacks from carriers well out of the range of enemy aircraft.

Reuters: Rebels fighting to depose Syrian president Bashar al Assad have for the first time acquired a small supply of surface-to-air missiles, according to a news report that a Western official did not dispute.  NBC News reported Tuesday night that the rebel Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen of the weapons, which were delivered to them via neighboring Turkey , whose moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad's departure with increasing vehemence.  Indications are that the U.S. government, which has said it opposes arming the rebels, is not responsible for the delivery of the missiles.  But some U.S. government sources have been saying for weeks that Arab governments seeking to oust Assad, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been pressing for such missiles, also known as MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems, to be supplied to the rebels. ...  This was inevitable after the government forces started attacking ...

CNN: A group of conservative black pastors are responding to President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage with what they say will be a national campaign aimed at rallying black Americans to rethink their overwhelming support of the President, though the group’s leader is offering few specifics about the effort. ...  This follows the attack of Democrat officials on the Chick-fil-A chain after they learned the owner of the business favored the traditional definition of marriage.   Obama has already alienated Catholic leaders because of an attempt to require their institution to provide contraceptives and abortifacts.  Taken together they show a real hostility and intolerance for mainstream Christianity.

Holman Jenkins: ... "You didn't build that," Mr. Obama explained to the nation's entrepreneurs, and has been explaining ever since. He only meant to say we need government as well as private initiative, and who could disagree? This argument is anodyne, dispositive of nothing that is in dispute. ... Of course, it's healthy not to be overawed by the successes of others, and to remember the American institutions and policies that let entrepreneurship thrive. But if Mr. Obama lost the point in the soundbite that so bedevils his campaign, it's because his campaign doesn't have a point.  Mr. Obama himself chose to lash his re-election bid to his tax hike for the rich. His tax hike isn't valuable to him because of the revenue it would raise (which isn't much). It isn't valuable to him because it somehow fits into his green-eyeshade management of the budget (neither he nor his party in Congress have shown much interest in managing the fisc).  Hi...

This described as an argument for greed, but it is much more important than that.  Milton Freedman was one of the most intelligent men whoever looked at motivation and how the economy works.  It is too bad Obama did not study Freedman.

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a> The treatment has been unfair and many in the media are trying to distract from the real problems so Obama will not have to talk about them. I thought Romney did well on his trip.  The flap in London was generated by the British media that was apparently upset that he would repeat what they had been saying about Olympic preparations.  What Romney said was certainly no gaffe.  In Israel, the Palestinians could not handle the truth about their failed culture.  Romney is a lot smarter than Obama and he is not going to pander to Palestinian phony outrage. If you watch the interview, I thought Romney came across as very presidential.

It is a good ad, that hammers Obama for failed policies. The evils of liberalism have been exposed.

Michael McShane talks about the attempt to keep private schools from accepting vouchers through the threat of litigation.  This is more evidence that teacher's unions are not looking out for the welfare of the students.  It is pretty disgusting conduct.  No wonder public employee unions are held in such low regard.

Josh Barro: Jonathan Chait says the president’s "you didn't build that" speech  revived racial resentments about redistributive fiscal policy, partly because the president was speaking in a “black dialect.” Maybe this was a problem with the speech, but the key problem was much simpler: The president was needlessly insulting. He wasn’t just calling on successful people to pay more in tax but was being dismissive of their accomplishments. I agree with David Frum that the  most toxic part  of the speech is  Barack Obama  talking about the sources of success: I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. Really? The president is always struck by people who take credit for their own successes? Obviously, every successful outcome in life...

Washington Times: Report: Illegals released by feds committed 19 murders, 142 sex crimes Some have paid a high price for Obama's pander to Hispanic voters.

The blue line does not bode well for the economy.  The Washington Post has a story on the chart here .

This is a positive ad that tells his resume in a very personal way.  I suspect we will see more of the  "believe in America" theme.

Washington Post: War came late to this little farming town set amid rolling hills in the Syrian countryside east of Aleppo, where the absence of upheaval was long construed as an implicit signal of support for the government led by President Bashar al-Assad.  But once the battle started in May, it unfolded at lightning speed, at least by the standards of a revolt that is dragging into its 17th month. Residents are celebrating their near-complete victory over regime loyalists after the town’s last army garrison fled Sunday, its food supplies gone and its morale shredded.  With that, al-Bab became the farthest point in a swath of rural territory stretching south from the Turkish border toward the city of Aleppo that has slipped beyond government control in recent weeks.  The unraveling of the regime’s authority here in this northern province has been overshadowed by the  battles for control of the cities  of Homs, Damascus and, most recently, the provincia...

NY Times: Islamists in North Mali Stone Couple to Death A local official said the couple was executed on accusations of having children outside of marriage. While I think children are better off when born to married parents, they are clearly worse off if the parents are murdered because of some primitive religious laws.  What I find troubling is that too many liberals make excuses for the evils of Sharia even though many of them would be its first victims if it were imposed as it has been in Mali.  It is the interpretation that our enemies want to impose on the whole world.  We should take them at their word.

Mark Levin calls out Kathy Griffin for attacks on Willow Palin.  Kids are supposed to be off limits, except for leftist "comedians?"  Since when has it been alright to call a kid a whore because you don't like her mother's politics?

Deroy Murdock: "We'll invest $15 billion a year over the next decade in renewable energy, creating five million new green jobs that pay well, can't be outsourced, and help end our dependence on foreign oil," candidate Barack Obama pledged in a November 1, 2008 radio address. Three years and eight months later, as unemployment has exceeded 8 percent for 41 straight months, Obama seems incapable of keeping this promise. With the worst employment figures since at least 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics' started measuring them, Obama has made a dog's breakfast of jobs - green and otherwise. Consider three key Department of Energy programs. DOE's website boasts that its "clean energy" initiatives - dubbed 1703, 1705, and Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) - loaned $34.7 billion and launched "nearly 60,000" jobs. This totals a staggering $578,333 per position. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, private em...

Mathew Vadum: Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is the activist Left’s number one congressional target this election cycle because he poses an existential threat to progressivism, a prominent professional left-wing organizer suggests. West is “a national rising star in the Tea Party,” Becky Bond explained during a panel discussion at the Campaign for America’s Future’s recent Take Back the American Dream confab in Washington, D.C. The famously outspoken retired Army lieutenant colonel with the special talent for getting under Democrats’ skin “is going to start to define” what the Republican Party stands for, said Bond, president of the well-funded Credo SuperPAC. A super PAC is a kind of political action committee that may raise and spend unlimited funds from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals to overtly advocate for or against a candidate. Credo SuperPAC is an outgrowth of Credo Mobile, the wireless reseller that donates part of its profits to leftist groups such as the Geo...

John Podhoretz: While in Israel, Mitt Romney said something every sane person knows to be true: There is great cultural and political meaning in the fact that Israel has prospered while the Palestinians have festered. “Culture,” Romney said, “makes all the difference . . . you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality.” He didn’t specify what he meant by “culture,” but you can take your pick. You want a political culture that works to create conditions under which an economy can thrive? Since signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, Israel has spent two decades working to unshackle its economy from its socialist roots, with remarkable results. The Palestinians? They’ve created what the House Foreign Affairs Committee has called a “chronic kleptocracy,” with foreign aid and investment shamelessly stolen and diverted to the bank accounts of the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and its gangsterish local strongmen. According to Jim Zanotti of the Congressional R...

Bruce Thornton: ... These reactions are drearily predictable, including the incoherent charge of “racism” against somebody making a cultural argument. More important, once again Palestinian revanchist obsessions, anti-Semitism, and the jihadist death cult are ignored, and the reasons for Israeli defensive measures passed over, while Western materialist obsessions like “racism” “colonialism,” and “national aspirations” are used to explain destructive behavior the origins of which lie in cultural and religious dysfunctions. Thus if you want to explain Palestinian economic backwardness, start with the Arab rejection of Israel’s legitimacy, one grounded in Islamic doctrine and culture. For all the duplicitous talk of the “two-state solution,” a critical mass of Arabs simply does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Nor is this rejection a consequence of an “illegal occupation” of an “Arab homeland” by neo-colonialist Jews abetted by Western imperialists. When four Arab armies invaded ...

Houston Chronicle: Texas ranchers and dairy operators Monday backed a request by national agricultural producers to suspend the nation's Renewable Fuels Standard because it is causing corn prices to soar and livestock producers to suffer. A coalition including the National Cattlemen 's Beef Association and National Pork Producers Council petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency for a waiver "in whole or in substantial part" to the output requirements under the Renewable Fuels Standard for 12 months. "An unsustainable situation has been created by the drought combined with the lack of cushion in corn supply due to the tremendous demand from ethanol producers," Tom Super , a spokesman for the National Chicken Council , part of the coalition, said Monday. Texas did not have any organizations named on the petition, but cattle, hog and dairy producers in the state not only endorsed the request. Several called for ending the fuels standard altogether. ...

IBD: Still smarting from his "you didn't build that" comment, President Obama opened another window into his far-left thinking. According to his world view, Americans keeping more of what's theirs is a "giveaway." Speaking last Wednesday in New Orleans at a campaign event, Obama talked about "another trillion-dollar giveaway for millionaires" in reference to an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. A day later, White House spokesman Jay Carney did the same thing. He called the extension "another $1 trillion giveaway to the wealthiest Americans." What they are talking about is the House Republicans' opposition to legislation approved in the Senate that would raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year, a sum less than the president makes yet is somehow considered to be the mark of wealth. As a president who has done a good job of insulating himself from anyone who would challenge him, Obama wasn't asked to explain his st...

Guardian: As they stood outside the commandeered government building in the town of Mohassen, it was hard to distinguish Abu Khuder's men from any other brigade in the Syrian civil war, in their combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards. But these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida . They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year. They try to hide their presence. "Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags," said Abu Khuder. "They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?" But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even p...

CNBC: With just 100 days left until the U.S. presidential election, investors are beginning to make bigger bets on which candidate will carry the day.  One analysis concludes that last week's sharp three-day market surge can only mean that Wall Street is banking on a victory from Republican Mitt Romney .  That's the logical interpretation one can draw from a rally amid conditions that otherwise would demand a selloff, Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Adam S. Parker said in an analysis that asserts there is no other reason now to like stocks than a Romney win.  "The problem is that it’s impossible to be bullish and right for the right reasons," Parker said in a note to clients in which he reiterated his 2012 price target for the Standard & Poor's 500 [.SPX 1385.30 -0.67 (-0.05%) ] at 1,214, which would mark a 12 percent drop from the current level.  "Nearly every day someone expresses surprise that our base case is for the equity mar...

Washington Times: Thailand ’s security forces bought more than 1,500 fake “bomb detectors” for $30 million, investigators say, and the  army currently deploys them against Islamist rebels despite a  U.S. Embassy warning that the devices are as useless as “a toy.” The  Department of Special Investigation  ( DSI ) announced this month that the manufacturers and distributors of the devices fraudulently sold them to  Thailand's military , narcotics bureau, airports and other security agencies. The  DSI  has sent the case to the  National Anti-Corruption Commission  for further investigation. About a dozen government agencies purchased 1,576 the hand-held units, called GT200 and Alpha 6. Despite the investigation and the  U.S. Embassy  warning,  Thailand ’s top defense officials insist the devices work. “Do not say the GT200 used as a bomb detector in the far south does not work,” Defense Minister  Sukumpol Suwanatat...

NY Times: Democrats Move to Put Gay Marriage in Party Platform Well if they believe that , they must be prepared for the political consequences of taking a position that is not popular with many in their coalition.  Many Muslims think the death penalty is appropriate for gays.  Christians are more charitable, but many of them as a matter of faith reject gay marriage.  Democrats are also alienating many Christians who oppose abortion and contraceptives.  They should not expect people to change their religious beliefs because of Democrat political whims.  The first amendment was put there for a reason.

Daily Mail: Muslim preacher who tried to strangle his daughter, 16, for refusing an arranged marriage to her cousin spared jail Abid Hussain grabbed his daughter around the neck after she rejected wedding plans Her two brothers were also convicted of assault All three were handed suspended jail terms The sick culture of radical Islam should not be tolerated.  The UK is ceding its on more healthy culture to that of political correctness.

This ad presents a real problem for Obama, because it plays the full quote and we see the business owner refute the message.

If she is smart enough to drive a Ford pickup she is OK with me.  She is running against two other Republicans and any of them wild be an upgrade over McCaskill.  All three lead McCaskill in recent polling.

The Hill: Most voters support the repeal of President Obama's healthcare reform law, according to a new poll . Fifty-five percent of voters surveyed by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen expressed support for repeal, the firm reported. Thirty-nine percent, meanwhile, want to keep the law in place. Controversy still surrounds the Affordable Care Act, which the Supreme Court largely upheld on June 28. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has made "repeal" a cornerstone of his campaign, and roughly half of House GOP recently urged their leaders to continue pushing against the law. "We urge you not to bring to the House floor ... any legislation that provides or allows fund to implement ObamaCare," the members wrote in a letter, emphasizing that all funds for the law's implementation should be rescinded. ...  The defunding battle this fall could be another opportunity to put vulnerable Democrats on the spot.  If the poll is an accurate take on t...

This one is more about alternative policies to get the economy moving again.

LA Times: Newport Beach stuck with bill for Obama visit The Secret Service and Obama campaign both decline to reimburse the city for police security at a fundraiser. The city will be sending past-due notices. For hard pressed California cities the cost of Obama's fundraiser becomes an unintended in kind contribution.  It also tells you how over stretched the Obama campaign is.

The Ticket: Mitt Romney ended his trip to Israel on a controversial note, angering Palestinian officials by suggesting Israelis have been more economically successful because of their culture. "As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality," Romney told a group of Jewish donors at a Jerusalem fundraiser that netted more than $1 million for his campaign. The Republican candidate told supporters he began noting "enormous disparities" between neighboring countries during his time in the business world and cited a 1998 book,  "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by David Landes , which studied why some countries did better than others. "He says if you could learn anything from the eco...

Obama has changed his tune in the last four years and now sees merit in negative ads.  That is what happens when you are running behind and your o=policies have not worked.

CNN: Rebels captured a government military base Monday on the outskirts of Aleppo, the hotly contested Syrian metropolis that has seen more than a week of bloody clashes.  The base had about 200 Syrian troops and appeared to be under attack by rebels from three sides overnight.  "The battle lasted around nine hours," said Fazad Abdel Nasr, a rebel commander working in the northern Aleppo suburbs. Nasr said six regime soldiers and four rebel fighters were killed.  The rebels also gained heavy equipment to supplement the lesser weapons they had been fighting with.  "We captured four tanks in good condition, and they are now in the hands of the Free Syrian Army. Two were destroyed," Nasr added. ... The government appears to be reduced to using stand off weapons and apparently lacks the ground forces to take and hold the real estate within the city.  The troops maybe tied down trying to hold areas they reclaimed in Damascus.  The taking o...

Shawn Mitchell: Can Obama Seduce Young Voters While Robbing Them Blind? Again? He has a pretty good rant.  It does raise the question of why young voters would continue to support policies that have devastated their future prospects.

Kevin Williamson: San Bernardino: Penniless in Paradise The public employee unions and the "investments" in development projects have left a once prosperous city in a once prosperous state flat broke and filing for bankruptcy.   They are having trouble coming to grips with their profligacy.  Liberalism is seeing the ends it has created and for some reason the voters are still rejecting reality.

Rowan Scarborough: Russia ’s boast that it plans to extend its naval forces to bases in  Cuba , the  Seychelles  and  Vietnam  poses little strategic threat to U.S. interests in Latin America, the Indian Ocean or the Pacific, analysts say. It is more a political move than a military one, as President  Vladimir Putin continues to contest American supremacy, particularly during the Syrian crisis. The Russian fleet may number 300 ships, about the same as the  U.S. Navy , but its aging warships are less advanced than America’s high-powered guided-missile cruisers and destroyers. The Kremlin owns only one operational aircraft carrier, as opposed to Washington’s 11 nuclear-powered carriers and strike groups that comprise what is called a “blue-water” navy able to operate far from home. Moscow deploys few ships outside its waters, while the  Pentagon stations a quarter of the fleet at sea at any one time. “ Russia  is trying to punch abov...

Washington Post: Tens of thousands of protesters paraded through Hong Kong on Sunday, waving placards denouncing “brainwashing” by China’s Communist Party and calling for the scrapping of plans for “national education” courses in local schools.  The protest, organized by teachers, parents and student groups as well as local political organizations hostile to Beijing’s one-party system, demonstrated deep opposition to the introduction of classes that aim to boost knowledge of and attachment to China in this freewheeling former British colony of 7.2 million.  China  recovered sovereignty over Hong Kong  15 years ago in a blaze of fireworks and patriotic fervor. It granted the metropolis a high degree of autonomy as a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. But Beijing has grown frustrated that many in Hong Kong, though ethnically Chinese, do not identify much with the rest of the country, under Communist rule since 1949.  ...

Washington Post: The Supreme Court may have  declared  that the government can order Americans to get health insurance, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to sign up.  Nowhere is that more evident than Oklahoma, a conservative state with an independent streak and a disdain for the strong arm of government. The state cannot even get residents to comply with car insurance laws; roughly a quarter of the drivers here lack it, one of the highest rates in the country.  When it comes to health insurance, the effort to sign people up isn’t likely to get much help from the state. Antipathy toward President Obama’s signature health-care overhaul runs so deep that when the federal government awarded Oklahoma a large grant to plan for the new law, the governor  turned away the money  — all $54 million of it.  The idea that the federal government will persuade reluctant people here to get insurance elicited head-shaking chuckles at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, ...

Hugh Hewitt: ... ... Who knew that the Democrats' war on a chain restaurant would move quickly through the new media into the awareness of most Americans on the center-right, mostly skipping the clueless mainstream media?  Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is quickly walking back his bullying of the Chick-fil-A franchisee in the Windy City, but he is still identified with the attempt by the government to muscle down on the "Eat Mor Chikin" cows because the company's president, Dan Cathy, dared express support for traditional marriage in America, joining 30 states that have since 1998 adopted amendments to their state constitutions defining marriage as between one woman and one man, and the voters of North Carolina, who recently voted overwhelmingly to define marriage the old fashioned way.  Boston Mayor Tom Menino also went all Joe McCarthy on Cathy last week, telling the chicken sandwich purveyor that "[t]here is no place for discrimination on Boston's Freed...

Breitbart: When President Barack Obama blocked the Keystone Pipeline, Republicans said the move would encourage Canada to pursue oil deals with China instead of the United States and cede a massive chunk of North American oil assets to the communist nation.  Now, with China's state-run oil company CNOOC poised to cut a $15.1 billion deal--the largest ever foreign acquisition for a Chinese company--with Canadian oil company Nexen, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are in full backpedal mode. In a draft letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Sen. Schumer  writes : I respectfully urge you, in your capacity as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), to withhold approval of this transaction to ensure U.S. companies reciprocal treatment. Similarly, Rep. Pelosi is now sounding alarms of concern.  In a statement, Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hamill said: This deal prompts...

Houston Chronicle: The 300 offshore wind turbines proposed for the Gulf of Mexico near South Padre Island would rival the Tower of the Americas in height, with 280-foot blades longer than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. They would be almost twice the size of any turbine currently in the United States. The electricity produced could meet the demand of millions. But the towers, blades and transmission lines could also mar an iconic Texas landscape, restrict fishing and impair endangered species, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. They would also stand in the middle of one of the most important migratory flyways in the Western Hemisphere, according to the American Bird Conservancy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now working on how to evaluate this unprecedented proposal and if it should grant permits for construction. With no model to follow for this large of a development in the Gulf of Mexico, the corps has no proven methodology for examining the potential conseq...

Business Insider: The Texas Senate runoff Republican primary is Tuesday, and according to a new Public Policy Polling survey , it looks likely that tea party candidate Ted Cruz is going to trounce the more establishment Republican David Dewhurst. Cruz has a 10-point lead in the PPP poll, breaking the 50-percent threshold and up from a 5-point lead a couple weeks ago . Cruz also holds a 63-33 advantage with voters who describe themselves as "very excited," an important measure in a July runoff election where turnout will be low. The only reason Dewhurst is still somewhat competitive is because of a huge advantage among supporters that are "not that excited" to vote. ... Sarah Palin , ... is a favorable endorser for Cruz. Thirty-one percent of Texas voters said they were more likely to support a candidate endorsed by Palin, compared with 24 percent that were less likely.  ...  In early voting the poll shows a 55 to 40 Cruz lead .  Among Tea Party voters Cruz le...

Doug Ross says Richard Miniter's new book has the revelation.  The Daily Caller is expected to have more on the story Monday.

NY Times: Syrian Says Foreign Plot Is to Blame For Violence Only last week Syria said it would use its chemical and biological weapons against foreign forces.  It looks to me like they have just given themselves and excuse for using them against the rebels they are  trying to dislodge from Aleppo.  Reports this weekend indicated that Syrian army units were have a much more difficult time defeating the rebel forces.  I would not be surprised if the Damascus despots resort to WMD before they are driven from power.

Opinion Journal: Campbell Brown: Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators What better way to demonstrate their support for the students?  Well, I would like to see these people prosecuted by the District Attorney, rather than going through some administrative process ending up before an arbitrator who has an interest in pleasing the unions.  As with some other practices of organized labor there is a taint of corruption in how they manage their affairs.  Are these guys entitled to better treatment than Penn State?

Joesph Curl: ... Still, there probably wasn’t much going on elsewhere during “GaffeGate.” Wait, what’s that? The economy slid to 1.5 percent growth from April through June, down from 2.0 percent in the first quarter and 4.1 percent the quarter before that, you say? The New York Times put the story on B1. By then, though, the press had already moved on to the next scandal/gaffe. “ Romney closing Israeli fundraiser to reporters,” wrote the Associated Press’ Kasie Hunt. “Remarks to donors in communal spaces such as hotels are typically public,” she wrote, and: “President Barack Obama allows reporters to hear his words at fundraisers.”   Except for the 38 fundraisers he has closed to the press just this year, including one last week at the District’s Mandarin Hotel. The White House even refused to release the names of the 25 high-rollers invited.   Same as it ever was. And, there were several days worth of Obama gaffes in the news. You would think the media could be a ...

NY Times: Muhammed Muafak decided he had had enough when Syrian Army mortar shells struck near his house while his family was having the iftar meal to end the daily Ramadan fast. He packed up his 10-member household in Bukamal, the Syrian border town where they lived, and fled here to this Iraqi border town. He expected a warm welcome. After all, his country had taken in 1.2 million Iraqis during their recent war, far more than any of Iraq’s other neighbors, and had allowed them to work, send their children to public schools and receive state medical care. Instead, Mr. Muafak found himself and his family locked up in a school under guard with several hundred other Syrians, forbidden to leave to visit relatives in Iraq or to do anything else. “We wish to go back to Syria and die there instead of living here in this prison,” said Abdul Hay Majeed, another Syrian held in a school building, along with 11 family members. Mr. Majeed was refused permission for that either, he and other ref...

Breitbart: REWARD: $50,000 FOR 'KHALIDI TAPE' OF OBAMA AT ANTI-ISRAEL PARTY The tape has been in the possession of the LA Times for about four years, but they are unwilling to let the rest of the world know what was said at the gathering that included Obama.

Houston Chronicle: Are race relations better in Obama era? By attempting to suggest that every criticism of Obama is racist, liberals have demeaned the term and demeaned the President.  Policy differences are not personal difference and they are certainly not evidence of racism.  I don't think things are worse because of Obama or his critics, but they are worse because of his liberal supporters.