PrairiePundit

Image via Wikipedia The Hill: Federal judges who have ruled on the constitutionality of healthcare reform have split along but party lines, but they all agree on one thing: The law’s fine for failing to obtain health coverage is a penalty, not a tax. The three federal judges who have upheld the law so far are all President Clinton appointees, while the two judges who struck it down are Republican picks, so the fact that there is common agreement on the point could be significant. Outside legal circles, the distinction may seem like a semantic argument, but the distinction between a penalty and a tax became a sticking point during the reform law debate. The Constitution grants the federal government wide latitude to impose taxes — but not penalties — for the population’s general welfare. The Supreme Court is expected to take up the healthcare law in the near future, and the question of whether the so-called individual mandate to buy coverage is constitutional will loom large....

Image via Wikipedia Daily Mail: To the anti-Gaddafi protesters, it has already acquired the title The Great Swordfight of Sabratha . On Friday afternoon 40 rebels brandishing 2ft swords and scimitars spearheaded a group of 1,000 men who clashed with army troops in Sabratha, a coastal town 40 miles west of Tripoli. It made for a bizarre spectacle. While Colonel Gaddafi has the most modern of arms at his disposal, his civilians were relying on weaponry that hadn’t been used in anger since the days of Lawrence of Arabia. ‘Some said the swords belonged to their grandfathers in the First World War,’ said Egyptian waiter Mahmoud El Masri, who witnessed the fighting. ‘It was a crazy sight, all these swords being wildly swung in the main street. I was hiding in a cafe but I saw them connect with the soldiers and I heard blood was spilt. ‘The men with swords were at the front of the protesters, leading them. It scared me but they are brave to take on men with guns.’ ... The Marine...

I am not sure what he is saying, but it seems to match the beat of the background music and the dancing girls. The NY Times explains its origins and what it is trying to say to an American rap tune.

Strategy Page: An Israeli UAV manufacturer (of the Heron series) has developed a four kilogram (8.8 pound) tilt-rotor UAV. The engines swivel for takeoff and landing, as well as for hovering. Called the Ghost, the UAV can operate for about an hour per sortie, go up to four kilometers from its operator and move as fast as 60 kilometers an hour, or just hover. The battery powered UAV is virtually silent, and carries day and night vidcams (which can be seen on the operators console). The Ghost is the second UAV to use this new tilt-rotor technology. Late last year, a larger version, Panther, was announced. This one has two electric props. IAI plans to offer a range of models, with wingspans of from two meters (6.2 feet) to 8 meters (25 feet). The initial working prototype had six meter (18.6 foot) wings and fuel cells that give it an endurance of six hours. This model has an eight kilogram (17.6 pound) payload that can carry day/night vidcams and a laser designator. ... There is no ...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife Robert Tracinski: The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence. Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left. It is a matter of survival for Democrats in an immediate, practical sense. As Michael Barone explains, the government employees' unions are a mechanism for siphoning taxpayer dollars into the campaigns of Democratic politicians. But there is something deeper here than just favor-selling and vote-buying. There is something that almost amounts to a twisted idealism in the Democrats' crusade. They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fig...

Cover of Franklin D. Roosevelt Katherine Kersten: Here's a quiz: Who said that the prospect of a strike by a government union is "unthinkable and intolerable?" Who said, "It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government"? Was it Reagan? Palin? Did Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker utter these provocative words? No, no and no. The first quote is from Franklin Roosevelt -- that champion of working people. The second is from George Meany , the AFL-CIO's legendary first president. Today, Gov. Walker is under siege in his bold fight to rein in public unions. Walker is one of a growing number of governors who aim to close their state's yawning budget deficit while engineering long-term fixes that will head off a fiscal train wreck -- the otherwise inevitable result of exploding public-union pensions and benefits. Walker's reward is to hear enraged Wisconsin teachers liken him to Adolf Hitler. President Obama condemns Walker...

Image via Wikipedia Washington Post: North Korea on Sunday threatened to fire cross-border shots if South Korea continues a leaflet-launching propaganda campaign, which aims in part to inform the hermetic North of anti-government revolts in the Middle East. In a statement carried by its state-run news agency, Pyongyang called the leaflets -- stuffed into massive, column-like balloons -- a psychological plot to "shake up our socialism and break the trust of our military and people." Calling it a matter of self-defense, North Korea said that it will "launch direct, targeted firing attacks" at any area where activists or military members are seen releasing the balloons. Though the North issues frequent threats to its neighbor, the latest warning comes one day before a U.S.-South Korean joint military drill that Pyongyang considers a preparation for invasion. In a separate statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency , Pyongyang also threatened t...

Image via Wikipedia NY Times: In this city 30 miles west of Tripoli, hundreds of people rejoiced in a central square on Sunday, waving the flag of free Libya and shouting the chants that foretold the downfall of governments in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt: “The people want to bring down the regime.” Rebels, in control of the city, had reinforced its boundaries with informal barricades, and army units that had defected stood guard with rifles, six tanks and anti-aircraft guns mounted on the backs of trucks. In the central square here, a mosque was riddled with enormous holes, evidence of the government’s failed attempt to take back this city on Thursday. Nearby lay seven freshly dug graves belonging to protesters who had fallen in that siege, witnesses said. “We are really suffering for 42 years, and people are asking here for the same things as other people of the world — they want the real democracy,” said Ahmed El-Hadi Remeh, an engineer standing in the square. He and other re...

Time: Why Did Burma's Leader Appear on TV in Women's Clothes?

Image by isafmedia via Flickr NY Times: This year the spring offensive by the Taliban and other insurgent groups has a new and terrifying face: the insurgents are using suicide bombers who create high casualties to sow terror and are planning an assassination campaign as well, Afghan and American military analysts say. The insurgents’ deadly bet is that fear will trump anger and that Afghans will lose any faith they had in their government’s security forces and eventually turn to the Taliban. “You have to ask yourself — If you were the Taliban now, what would you do?” said Gen. Jack Keane , who retired from the Army in 2003 and is now a consultant to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander for Afghanistan. Given the massing of NATO forces in the south, the answer appears to be attack the urban, civilian population, creating widespread insecurity in an effort to reinforce the existing resentment of foreign troops and doubts about President Hamid Karzai’s government. In les...

Image via Wikipedia Michael Goodwin: ... Wherever you look, the bile runneth over. Beyond making fools of themselves with juvenile comparisons, the "social justice" crowd is inadvertently proving that public-sector unions are a privileged class. Touch them and you die from a thousand insults. One Democratic congressman wanted the real thing. Rep. Michael Capuano of Boston said Wisconsin protesters should "get a little bloody" to protect bargaining rights. He later apologized, but too late to rescue the era of civility President Obama urged after the Tucson shooting. Civility doesn't stand a chance against the entitlement culture of unions and their political puppets. What makes the responses so irrational is that there is an obvious problem. Many states and cities are dangerously deep in debt, thanks in part to union payrolls and pensions. Washington hangs on by virtue of its printing press. It's not as though American governments don't spe...

Image via Wikipedia Thomas Pyle: Decisions made over the coming months by our elected officials in Washington will either allow for robust development of U.S. energy resources in the Gulf of Mexico, or they will lurch this nation one step closer toward a national energy crisis of our own making. The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a stark reminder of the need to pursue our nation's energy resources in a safe, responsible way. But regulators in Washington have not been willing to recognize the seriousness with which the energy industry has responded to the Gulf spill, nor have bureaucrats in Washington acknowledged the decisive steps that have been taken to upgrade the safety equipment and procedures involved in deep-water drilling in the Gulf. A moratorium on deep-water drilling and a shutdown on the drilling permit process has essentially frozen new energy production in a vital energy sector, which is now responsible for delivering one of every four barrels of oil...

Image via Wikipedia Michael Ledeen: Yes it is true, not exactly as any one source has been reporting, but the two top leaders of the Green Movement , Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi , were kidnapped on Thursday night — when the streets of Tehran were full of armed men.  It was a typical Mafia-style snatch.  The two men — already under house arrest — were beaten and bloodied, and then were led out of their homes in blindfolds and handcuffs, stuffed in the trunks of their captors from the Revolutionary Guards and, along with their wives, taken to a location in Tehran, then, on Friday, to another in Parchin, and finally to a third location, a heavily protected private residence. So far only a few voices,  most notably that of Ayatollah Dastgheib (sorry for the link in Persian, but I can’t find a translation online yet), have been raised to denounce the action and call for the release of the hostages.  Needless to say, no Western leader has done...

Image via Wikipedia Peter Popham , Independent on Sunday: ... Why are all these revolutions happening now? Plenty of answers have been offered: the emergence of huge urban populations with college degrees but no prospect of work; the accumulation of decades of resentment at rulers who are "authoritarian familial kleptocracies delivering little to their people", as Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation put it; the subversive role of Facebook and Twitter, fatally undermining the state's systems of thought control. Absent from this list – to the combined bewilderment and relief of the US and Europe – are the factors that were universally supposed to be driving populist politics in the Middle East: Islamic fundamentalism coupled with anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism. As one Egyptian pointed out after the fall of Mubarak, at no point during weeks of passionate revolt did either the Israeli or the US embassies become a target of the crowd's fury, even though bot...

Click on the image for a larger view.  I think Obama could also use this sign.

Image via Wikipedia BBC: A former commander of Bolivia 's anti-narcotics police force has been arrested in Panama on charges of drugs trafficking, Bolivian authorities say. Gen Rene Sanabria was immediately transferred to the US to face trial. Bolivia has arrested three other senior police officers suspected of helping him smuggle cocaine to the US. Gen Sanabria was head of Bolivia's anti-drug agency until 2009, and was still working as an intelligence adviser to the government. Bolivian Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti said Gen Sanabria was suspected of travelling to Panama to organise further shipments of cocaine to the US, after allegedly despatching 144kg (317lbs) of the drug last November. He said Bolivia expected to receive details of the charges against him from the US on Monday, and did not rule out asking for his extradition. Gen Sanabria was arrested on arrival in Panama on Thursday, but this was not made public by the Panamanian or US authorities. ....

Image via Wikipedia NY Times: Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and other officials who are pushing to eliminate or weaken collective bargaining by government employees say their goal is to save millions of dollars and increase government’s flexibility to run its operations. The experience of a nearby state, Indiana, where Gov. Mitch Daniels eliminated bargaining for state employees six years ago, shows just how much is at stake, both for the government and for workers. His 2005 executive order has had a sweeping impact: no raises for state employees in some years, the elimination of seniority preferences and a far greater freedom to consolidate state operations or outsource them to private companies. Evaluating the success of the policy depends on where you sit. “It’s helped us in a thousand ways. It was absolutely central to our turnaround here,” Mr. Daniels said in an interview. Without union contracts to slow him down, he said, it has been easy for him to merge the procureme...

Image via Wikipedia Daily Mail on Sunday: No-one could argue that TV news anchors are under pressure to look good. Glossy hair, a smart suit and a flawless complexion are a given - especially in the new era of HD-TV. Whether a cotton thong is necessary to the job is another matter - and it landed Anrieta Hamper, a former news anchor at Ohio's 10TV, in court. Hamper tried to get a tax break for a whole host of expenses, including teeth whitening, manicures, gym fees - and lingerie. But she had her extensive list thrown out by the U.S. Tax Court, which ruled against her in a case brought by the IRS. It dismissed her claim that sportswear, bedding, loungewear and - bizarrely - cotton bikini underwear and thongs were needed for her role as a news presenter. Hamper, 38, applied for a deduction on $167,356 of expenses accrued over four years, during which time she was working as an anchor at rival station NBC4. She claimed she had to buy a different set of clothes for wor...

From the Guardian/Observer: Low earners exposed – new study People on low to middle incomes have had their ability to buy their own homes dramatically reduced Who knew? When government intervened to make home buying easier for those who could not afford it, we had an epic economic collapse.  I realize that was a couple of years ago and memories fade, but this is one we should keep close so that we do not repeat the mistake again.

Image via Wikipedia Sunday Telegraph: In a daylight mission, the RAF, Special Air Service and Special Boat Service used two specially equipped Hercules aircraft to snatch Britons from the country. However, 300 oil workers from Britain remained stranded in desert camps last night. The rescue teams, who flew out of bases in Malta , searched an area four times the size of Britain to locate workers before evacuating them back to Valletta in Malta last night. They were given food and water and medical assistance before being taken to hotels to rest. They will begin arriving home today. Within hours of them arriving back to safety, the international community ratcheted up the pressure on the Libyan dictator as the security situation in the country deteriorated. The British embassy in Tripoli was closed and its staff hurriedly evacuated. ... The rescues took place south of Benghazi, which has fallen to the rebels, and involved members of the SAS and SBS and support troops. The...