Degree of Madness

Nancy Pelosi cites Iran's "Goodwill" in Iraq

Hard to believe but Nancy Pelosi has managed to reach a new low.  In an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle, Pelosi downplayed our military successes in Iraq while giving credit to Iran.   Via Abe Greenwald:

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.  And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

Goodwill of the Iranians?  Whatever the military success?  Kinda makes our military success sound insignificant.  I guess it is to Pelosi.  Especially compared to the goodwill of the Iranians.

In the interview Pelosi mentioned that over 4,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq.  She failed to mention that Iran is directly responsible for many of them. 

Those Iranians, they're just so full of goodwill.   

Here is the video of the interview.  Via Ace (who notes the above passage is at the 62 minute mark)

John McCain has a good question for Barack Obama

The answer first.  Barack Obama has a vested interest in failure in Iraq.  He has no interest in hearing anything positive about our presence there.  No interest in hearing any good news about the progress OUR TROOPS have made.  He has made up his mind, please don't confuse him with the facts.  Obama spokesman Bill Burton rejecting McCain's proposal for a joint trip to Iraq:

John McCain’s proposal is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don’t need any more ‘Mission Accomplished’ banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge. The American people don’t want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer.

That statement should answer this question:

“Why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the president of Iran, but hasn’t yet sat down with Gen. Petraeus, the leader of our troops?’’ Mr. McCain said, to applause.

Good News from Iraq is not something Obama wants to hear. 

But wait!  Now Obama says he is considering a trip to Iraq:

Senator Barack Obama said today that he is considering visiting American troops and commanders in Iraq this summer. He declined an invitation from Senator John McCain to take a joint trip to Iraq, saying: “I just don’t want to be involved in a political stunt.”

In a brief interview here, Mr. Obama said his campaign was considering taking a foreign trip after he secures the Democratic presidential nomination. No details have been set, he said, but added: “Iraq would obviously be at the top of the list of stops.”…

“I think that if I’m going to Iraq, then I’m there to talk to troops and talk to commanders, I’m not there to try to score political points or perform,” Mr. Obama said. “The work they’re doing there is too important.”

Since when, Mr. Obama?  Tick Tock.

Obama's Memorial Day Vision

Barack Obama is a freakin' joke.  John at Power Line:

Barack Obama must be the most gaffe-prone politician in memory. Today, he delivered a Memorial Day speech in New Mexico. After greeting the local Democratic Party dignitaries, he began:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Memorial Day honors those who have died in our nation's military service. Is it possible that Obama does not know this? Sometimes the things that come out of his mouth defy understanding.

The fact that Obama is about to be nominated for President of the United States defies understanding.

The Dinner Guest

Fausta has posted "A lovely short film" by Joe Gleason and it is lovely:

Click through to You Tube for more information about The Dinner Guest. 

H/T:  The Anchoress

Rolling Thunder 2008

Jonn Lilyea at This Ain't Hell has it covered:

Every year this event gets bigger. This year, according to Fox News, Rolling Thunder included 350,000 motorcycles. I walked the route from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and after an hour and a half, there were still riders passing me. There were thousands more parked at various spots that didn’t participate.

Jonn has some great pictures and video. 

Via Gateway Pundit, video of President Bush and members of Rolling Thunder:

The pro-veterans and MIA biker group gave President Bush a leather jacket and vest when they stopped by the White House during their annual ride to support veterans.

Rolling Thunder is a national organization that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial support, food, clothing and other essentials to sanctioned veterans' groups, veterans and veterans' families in need, homeless veteran programs, women's' crisis centers, and toys for children. It is comprised of men and women with 40-45% being non-veterans with the balance being veterans from all wars and peace-time.

Thank you, Rolling Thunder.  Thank you, Veterans.  Scott Ott:

Every war exacts its toll.

We left our youth on the beach, and in the sweltering jungles, among the snowclad hilltops and in the choking sands.

Yet green limbs, pruned in the flower of life, have somehow rejuvenated this land. 

Those who died inspire us, and those who live return to lead and transform us.

We live in freedom because of those who left their youth on the beach, in the jungles, on the hilltops and in the choking sands.  They not only left their youth, they left their families.  We owe them all a debt of gratitude that we can never fully repay. 

"Phoenix has landed"

Great news:

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft successfully landed on Mars' frigid north pole region late Sunday in a risk-fraught mission to search for signs of habitability, the US space agency said.

"Phoenix has landed," a NASA official said as the safe touchdown was confirmed.

The Mars Phoenix Lander successfully deployed a parachute and then thrusters to brake in a tense seven minutes from 20,400 kilometers per hour (12,700 miles per hour) to manage a soft landing on its three legs.

Mission officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, were seen on television cheering and giving each other hugs and high-fives after signals sent back from the craft confirmed the arrival of the first spacecraft ever to land on the Martian arctic.

Phoenix had only one shot at the landing and according to Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein it was close enough to perfect:

The team had been worried about the high risk of the project, with a roughly 50 percent failure rate on all Mars missions since the Russians launched the first one in 1960.

"Frankly, this was by far the hardest part," Goldstein said on NASA TV. "In my dreams it couldn't have gone as perfectly as it did tonight."

Updates will be posted at NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander section.

Phoenix team members celebrate the Phoenix landing on Mars, May 25, 2008.  (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona).

John McCain's VP Pick

Hugh Hewitt makes the case for a sooner rather than later pick by McCain:

Yesterday Jennifer Rubin --don't miss her analysis of Obama's appeal to Jewish voters yesterday-- made an argument on my show that Senator McCain should wait until after Senator Obama had selected his running mate in order to match the GOP ticket well against the Dems.

I see the logic, but think the time is now to throw the veep nominee fully into the fray and begin working these crucial states, town-by-town and precinct-by-precinct. Voters have to be engaged and persuaded about the very different paths being put before them.  McCain is doing this effectively, but having two voices that command instant attention doing so is a great advantage. The veep nominee will effectively double the fund-raising efforts for House and Senate GOP candidates and the national party as well, while also giving the media, old and new, a second source of news every day.  The Republicans need all the help they can marshall and they need it now, not two or three months from now.

Hugh makes a good point here.  The long, drawn-out Democratic nomination process has benefited McCain but that could come to an abrupt end soon and at any rate it does not help him get his own message out. 

Referring to Election Projection's latest electoral map Hugh states the need for McCain to pick someone who can "move the needle in PA, OH, MI, MN, WI, IA, CO, and NM".  Is there any one candidate who could move the needle in all those states?  (Hugh did say and).  If I were going to pick one from McCain's weekend guest list, I'd say Mitt Romney.  That's just a guess but judging from the states he needs help in, a Florida or Louisiana governor might not fill the bill.  There is another question mark, however.  Besides moving the needle in some of those moderate/weak states, McCain must make sure he hangs on to traditional conservative Republican voters.  Some have already abandoned his campaign.  This is a troubling sign and McCain must recognize it and factor it into his VP selection.  Whether or not a strong conservative VP will change any minds is unknown, but a lukewarm conservative will likely send more Republicans to the mall on election day.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal could possibly satisfy conservative fence sitters. 

James P. Lucier made the case for Jindal in March.  Lucier stresses Jindal's experience, he has at least as much as Barack Obama:

...Jindal, who was elected to Rep. David Vitter's seat when Vitter ran for U.S. Senate in 2003, was re-elected for a second term with 88 percent of the vote. That's not enough experience? It's as much experience in Congress as Barack Obama has to show for his three years. Oh, and by the way, Jindal, in his last term, had an ACU rating of 100, with 96 for both terms. In addition he has consistently taken the No New Taxes pledge proposed by Americans for Tax Reform.

Jindal may be young but he's been pretty busy:

...In 1991 he was a young Hill staffer working for U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery. One day McCrery asked him to look over some Medicare plans being proposed in committee. A couple of days later, he brought back to the boss a totally revised system that was so impressive McCrery introduced him to Louisiana Governor Murphy J. Foster Jr. A few years later, Jindal, at the age of 24, was appointed Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. He took hold of the state's Medicare program, which was running at a loss of $400 million, and in three years produced a surplus of $200 million. He later became chairman of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. In 2001, he was nominated by President George W. Bush and approved by the U.S. Senate to be Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation of Health and Human Services. If Jindal gets a chance to debate Hillary Clinton, Hillary will be fumbling for her cue cards.

Is this going to be an election about education? Jindal is an expert at that too. Jindal graduated from high school at age 16, took a bachelor's degree at Brown University, and then got a Masters degree at New College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. After he cleaned up the Medicare mess in Louisiana, he was appointed in 1999 as President of the University of Louisiana System.

Lucier closes with an appeal for McCain to choose Jindal and choose soon:

If McCain is to win, he needs not just numbers but enthusiasm. The Democratic primaries consistently have brought out twice as many voters as the Republican primaries. Jindal has already demonstrated that he can get voters enthused. The old rules that chose vice presidents for sectional balance or the ability to win big states are out of date. Moreover, Jindal record on issues and accomplishment can easily satisfy the base of the Republican Party. He rises above provincialism. His ethnicity will appeal not only to minorities at home who feel that they have been ignored, but will reach out across oceans to project the American dream to the world. Jindal has crammed a lot of legislative and executive experience into a career that is just beginning. If McCain wants to prove to conservatives that he means business and not empty words, he could not do better than to chose Jindal. Soon.

Romney or Jindal.  I guess the logical choice would be Romney now, and assuming McCain wins, Jindal could be the VP candidate in 2012, again assuming here that McCain will only serve one term.  That would suit me fine.  But I'm not one of the fence-sitters.  I will vote for McCain regardless because the alternative is unthinkable. 

New York Mom accused of "educational neglect" for missing meeting ***Updated***

***Update Below***

Please see Michel Dussack's response in the comment section. 

Miss a scheduled school meeting in Bronx, N.Y. and the Administration for Children's Services might send over caseworkers to check the contents of your refrigerator.  That's what happened to  Karen Dussack, whose son attends Bronx High School of Science.

The reason for the home visit isn't exactly clear from the article. The sub-headline says Dussack missed a meeting about her son's absences.  The article states the meeting was about her son "possibly failing gym"

Bronx HS of Science senior Michel Dussack has a "B" average, an 1890 SAT score and an almost full college scholarship for the fall.

But Dussack's mother was accused of "educational neglect" two weeks ago and was reported to the city's child-services agency - because she missed a scheduled meeting to discuss her son possibly failing gym.

[...]

Two caseworkers from the ACS showed up at Dussack's door in Bayside, Queens, on May 14. The ACS interviewed Karen and her husband, also named Michel, as well as their two children, Michel and his sister, Deborah, 11. They checked the home for smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors and examined the contents of the refrigerator.

The caseworkers were at the Dussack home for two hours.  I suppose Dussack could have refused to let them in but commenter Warren Bailey at Lucianne brought up a good, although scary, point:

...Perhaps the parents were afraid to stop the people from invading their privacy, because they might take their child away from them.

I wouldn't say that's entirely out of the realm of possibility. 

Common sense has left the building.  And to think, these are the people who are educating our children.

Wonder what they were looking for in the refrigerator anyway?  Lemonade?

***Update May 26***

Please see Michel Dussack's response in the comment section. 

Hillary, they used to love you...

But it's all over now. 

Is Hillary's "Kennedy assassination" gaffe the last straw?  Probably.  Katharine Q. Seelye:

Friday might have been one of the worst days of Senator Hillary Clinton’s political career. Her campaign, as everyone knows, was already struggling. But on Friday, she made a reference to Bobby Kennedy’s assassination — a terrible choice of phrase in a presidential campaign that features an African-American candidate.

Here is what she said:

Mrs. Clinton had been saying that some in the Obama campaign and in the media were trying to push her out of the race and she didn’t know why.

“Historically, that makes no sense,” she said, “so I find it a bit of a mystery.”

Question: “You don’t buy the party unity argument?”

Mrs. Clinton: “I don’t because, again, I’ve been around long enough. You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just don’t understand it and there’s lot of speculation about why it is.”

Was she suggesting Obama might get assassinated, in which case she would then be the nominee if she stayed in the race?  I didn't take it that way but I seem to be in the minority on that. 

Now I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton but I do believe in her comments about RFK she was simply trying to make her case for staying in the race.  Kennedy was still in the race for the Democratic nomination in June, although I agree with Seelye that the comparison was "not quite right":

She was referencing the assassination as a familiar timeline benchmark that might remind listeners that Mr. Kennedy was campaigning in June. (Her references were not quite right, since those campaigns began much later than this one, but that’s another story.) At the same time, she used an eye-popping word in the context of a presidential campaign with a black candidate.

Kennedy declared his candidacy on March 16, 1968. 

In any event it turns out it was a major blunder on Hillary's part, even though this is not the first time she has referenced the Kennedy assassination during the campaign:

“Primary contests used to last a lot longer,” she told Time magazine on March 6. “We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.”

Why the uproar now?  I think it's because the liberal media and the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party are fed up with her and she handed them a gift on a silver platter.

Turn out the lights, the party's over:

Say good night, Hillary. And go away

Be sure to take Bill with you.

Friday Night, Home Alone

Just a little, or a lot, tired of politics, I'm spending Friday night listening to music.  First stop, Gregg Allman, one of my all time favorites.  A musical genius all the way around, IMHO.  From a great album, Laid Back, These Days:

And Queen of Hearts:

My favorite Lionel Richie song, My Love.  Click for video.

And my all time favorite song, Star Baby by the Guess Who, (Not the Guess Who in the video, just their music!) Woo Hoo:

And, the best rock and roll song of all time, Carry on My Wayward Son, Kansas:

Now the fireworks are going off at the Hoover Met and I'm watching from the deck.  (It's not the Hoover Met anymore but I can't think of the new sponsor's name).  Think I'll close with The King.  What a hunk, what a voice.  I could listen to him sing the phone book.  My Way: