Internet Scofflaw

Since February, American intelligence has been crippled since the House Democratic leadership refused to allow a vote on a compromise bill and also allowed a temporary measure to expire. During that time, any terrorists anywhere in the world could escape surveillance by the simple expedient of communicating over the Internet.

Finally a new compromise has been struck and it includes House Democratic leaders, so there’s good reason to expect it will actually be voted on, and pass. Andrew McCarthy of National Review says it’s a good deal on balance. So does Phillip Carter of the Washington Post.

UPDATE: Actually, the House already passed the bill.

Michael Ledeen reports on mass protests in Mashad, one of Shia’s holy cities.

Sadly, there’s not a peep from the mainstream media in three pages of Google news results. (Although there is this story in an Italian paper about Iran barring the media from Mashad.)

As expected, Obama broke his pledge to accept public financing of his campaign. But in a fit of chutzpah, he presented his opportunistic reversal as a matter of principle. As the Washington Post put it:

Barack Obama isn’t abandoning his pledge to take public financing for the general election campaign because it’s in his political interest. Certainly not. He isn’t about to become the first candidate since Watergate to run an election fueled entirely with private money because he will be able to raise far more that way than the mere $85 million he’d get if he stuck to his promise — and with which his Republican opponent, John McCain, will have to make do. No, Mr. Obama, or so he would have you believe, is forgoing the money because he is so committed to public financing. . .

Pardon the sarcasm. But given Mr. Obama’s earlier pledge to “aggressively pursue” an agreement with the Republican nominee to accept public financing, his effort to cloak his broken promise in the smug mantle of selfless dedication to the public good is a little hard to take. “It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Mr. Obama said in a video message to supporters.

Mr. Obama didn’t mention his previous proposal to take public financing if the Republican nominee agreed to do the same . . . Instead, he cast his abandonment of the system as a bold good-government move. . .

Fine. Politicians do what politicians need to do. But they ought to spare us the self-congratulatory back-patting while they’re doing it.

And that’s not the end to the hypocrisy:

“John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs,” Obama said in his message to supporters yesterday. “And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”

To date, no conservative 527 groups have materialized.

On the other hand, there are liberal 527s out there, repeating Obama’s dishonest talking points while he ostentatiously holds them at arms length.

The Washington Post also reports that Obama has rejected McCain’s proposal for a series of town hall debates:

Although campaign finance issues rank low on lists of voter concerns, the McCain team pounced on Obama’s move, along with his rejection of the 10 town hall meetings that McCain has proposed, as evidence that his claim to represent a “new politics” is empty rhetoric.

(Via Extreme Mortman, via Instapundit.)

There is some potential good news here; this stuff was all reported and editorialized.  As Glenn Reynolds put it, the media bloom may be off the Obama rose.  Obama has benefited from breathtakingly positive coverage, and if he loses that, he may find that it was worth more than he’s gaining.

I don’t know if it’s true (everyone denies it, of course), but for your amusement:

Matthews denies he wants to host “Meet the Press”: “I love what I do. My Sunday show is a perfect fit for me. I hope they find a perfect fit for ‘Meet the Press.’ ”

Meanwhile, Matthews’ MSNBC cable cohort Olbermann, who was also at the memorial, is “threatening to quit if he isn’t installed as Russert’s replacement,” another insider said. “I know, it sounds ludicrous, but, then, Keith Olbermann is ludicrous.”

A rep for MSNBC said, “All of this is utterly untrue.”

Russert himself wanted Chuck Todd, the NBC News political director he hired, to succeed him, said one source, who added that MSNBC hosts don’t stand a chance of landing “Meet the Press.” The insider said, “They’re cable. They’re far too partisan. They have no gravitas. If gravitas is eight letters, they’re about seven letters short.”

(Via Jammie Wearing Fool, via Instapundit.)

They ought to try to get Cokie Roberts.  She’s liberal (which is probably a requirement), but she’s smart and not overly partisan.  She also has experience on that sort of show.

The artists reportedly softened King’s face to make him look less “confrontational and like a socialist leader.”  However, officials with the King memorial foundation refused to release a picture.  What’s that about?

(Previous post.)

They’re fact-checked by the NYT, of all people:

Because advertisement fact-checking reports like this one are never viewed as widely as the spots themselves, a good many people may take from this advertisement that Mr. McCain is supporting 100 years of an overwhelmingly unpopular war.

That’s the point.

(Via JustOneMinute, via Instapundit.)

Last February, Barack Obama spoke out against NAFTA, saying he would tell Canada and Mexico “that we will opt out unless we renegotiate the core labour and environmental standards.” However, Canadian television reported that a “top staff member” of the Obama campaign reassured the Canadian government that this was only (in CTV’s words) “campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.” The Obama campaign furiously denied the story, at times denying even that a meeting took place. (Obama put it plainly, “It did not happen.”) But then CTV named the representative, Austan Goolsbee, and the AP obtained an official memo regarding the meeting:

According to the writer of the memorandum, Joseph De Mora, a political and economic affairs consular officer, Professor Goolsbee assured them that Mr. Obama’s protectionist stand on the trail was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.”

Then unable to deny the meeting, the Obama campaign changed its tack, denying only the substance of the report, and claiming never to have denied the actual meeting:

In an interview with the AP, Goolsbee disputed a portion of the memo that quotes him as saying that campaign rhetoric “that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.”

“That’s this guy’s language,” Goolsbee said of the memo’s author, Joseph De Mora. “He’s not quoting me.” . . .

Burton stood by the campaign’s handling of the story, saying the denials were in response to the “substance of the matter at hand” about whether someone representing Obama was consistent about his position on trade.

“At no point did we deny there was a meeting,” Burton said Monday, hours after Sen. Dick Durbin, a top Obama surrogate, denied the meeting on MSNBC. “We made it crystal clear to anyone who was covering it.”

That’s where the Obama campaign left it: he really would opt out of the treaty and his supposed reassurances to Canada were a misunderstanding.

Until now. With the Democratic nomination locked up, it’s time to roll back the protectionist rhetoric:

In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine’s upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn’t want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.

“Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA “devastating” and “a big mistake,” despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? “Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself,” he answered.

In other words, Obama’s opt-out position on NAFTA was (as CTV put it from the start) “campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.” Every single denial the Obama campaign issued was a a lie, from the actual meeting to the underlying substance.

(Via Instapundit.)

POSTSCRIPT: The campaign has admitted being in possession of all the facts when they issued their denials, so they can’t argue confusion. However, the story is muddled by the fact that the original CTV story contained some minor factual errors — such as whether the meeting happened at the Canadian Embassy or Consulate — so it could be argued that some of the denials were literally true. I’m comfortable calling a deliberate deception a lie, but if you like, you can read “lie” as “deception” in the last paragraph.

Canada’s National Post says it’s a bit late for introspection:

We don’t hold out much hope that a review of the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s powers to investigate allegations of hate speech will come to much. For one thing, the commission handpicked its own investigator. But mostly we are skeptical because even when calling for the review, chief commissioner Jennifer Lynch demonstrated no clear understanding of free speech or the value of protecting it.

There can be no doubt Canada’s human rights bodies — federal and provincial — are in need of investigation. They are out of control, far more interested in imposing political correctness than defending free speech.

They have become laws unto themselves, too, routinely suspending rules of evidence that have taken centuries to perfect.

Consider that Ms. Lynch’s own lead investigator at the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), Dean Steacy, recently testified at a hate speech hearing that “freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” . . .

It is increasingly obvious these commissions were set up deliberately to lower the standard of proof and get around rules of natural justice, thereby ensuring people who would never be convicted in court are punished to the satisfaction of the activists and special interest groups that hover around the tribunals.

Third parties not involved in the alleged offences may nonetheless file complaints. Occasionally, the plaintiff has been given access to the commissions’ investigation files and given the power to direct investigators. Truth is not a defence. Defendants are not always permitted to face their accusers. Normal standards for assuring the validity of evidence do not apply. Hearsay is admitted. The government funds the plaintiff but the defendant is on his own and commission investigators may attempt to entrap suspects by getting them to say or do hateful things they might not have done on their own.

No wonder the CHRC has a 100% conviction rate on hate speech complaints.

(Via Instapundit.)

Identity politics can be a minefield:

Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.

“This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama’s commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers.”

They can say that it’s not their policy, but this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in the Obama campaign.  And why not?  Today’s identity politics makes this sort of thing inevitable.

(Via Instapundit.)

The problem with inexperience:

An advisor, Daniel Kurtzer, to Barack Obama says that Obama didn’t realize what he was saying to AIPAC when he used the term”undivided” in reference to Jerusalem. According to Kurtzer, Obama had “a picture in his mind of Jerusalem before 1967 with barbed wires and minefields and demilitarized zones.” Kurtzer says that only after the speech did Obama realize it was a “code word” to use the phrase, “but it does not indicate any kind of naivete about foreign affairs.”

Oh, it doesn’t indicate naivete?  That’s a relief.

ASIDE: Even I knew that “undivided” meant not sharing the city with a Palestinian state.  Although, I suppose I shouldn’t say “even I,” since I have nearly as much experience in government as Obama does.

(Via Instapundit.)

Michael Ledeen writes on our bizarre, but hardly unprecedented, blindness to the nature of evil world leaders:

Clearly, the explanations we gave for our failure to act in the last century were wrong. The rise of messianic mass movements is not new, and there is very little we do not know about them. Nor is there any excuse for us to be surprised at the success of evil leaders, even in countries with long histories and great cultural and political accomplishments. We know all about that. So we need to ask the old questions again. Why are we failing to see the mounting power of evil enemies? Why do we treat them as if they were normal political phenomena, as Western leaders do when they embrace negotiations as the best course of action?

Read the whole thing.  (Via the Corner.)

IBD doesn’t like Obama’s plan to disarm America:

In a 132-word videotaped pledge (still viewable on YouTube), Obama agreed to hollow out the U.S. military by slashing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The scope of his planned defense cuts, combined with his angry tone, is breathtaking. He sounds as if the military is the enemy, not the bad guys it’s fighting. Here is a transcript:

“I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as president, I will end it.

“Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.

“I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending.

“Third, I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal.”

Video here, and his tone is indeed striking. (Via LGF.)

POSTSCRIPT: What exactly would it take for missile defense to be “proven”? Not a deployed system with 23 of 25 tests successful, obviously. I guess the only way to prove it is to shoot down an enemy missile in action. That’s the one proof we’ll never be able to get, if Obama has his way.

Instapundit reminds us of this old video. It’s got some currency again, with the latest claims that Democrats were bamboozled by President Bush.

UPDATE: Related item here.  (Via LGF.)

Jeff Goldstein looks at Obama’s accomplishments.  (Via Instapundit.)

This issue looks like a winner for McCain.  (Via Instapundit.)

The Economist, in its June 14 cover story, is the latest to see unmistakable signs of improvement in Iraq.

So says a report from the RAND corporation:

“The wolves have not encircled us yet,” the Denver Post opined in an article in 2006 entitled “Signs America’s Scientific Edge is Slipping”, “but there’s no denying the sounds of scratching at the door.”

This was a pithy summary of a mountain of reports from congressional committees, scientific panels and business groups. But a new report from the RAND Corporation’s National Defence Research Institute, “US Competitiveness in Science and Technology”, suggests that the panic is overblown.

The report demonstrates that America is still the world’s science and technology powerhouse. It accounts for 40% of total world spending on research and development, and produces 63% of the most frequently cited publications. It is home to 30 of the world’s leading 40 universities, and employs 70% of the world’s living Nobel laureates. America produces 38% of patented new technologies in the OECD and employs 37% of the OECD’s researchers.

There is little evidence that America is resting on its laurels, according to RAND.

It’s nice to hear such an encouraging report, but I think there’s still plenty of reason for worry, particularly when it comes to science, as opposed to technology.

A New York judge orders the state legislature to enact a judicial pay raise.

IHT reports:

Since taking office last year, Sarkozy has done much to roll back the legacy of French-U.S. relations left by Chirac, who had angered the Bush administration with his outspoken opposition to military action against Iraq.

That prompted some indignant Americans to rename french fries “freedom fries” and boycott products such as French cheese, drawing heavy publicity but only a modest following.

Personally, I’m still upset about the XYZ affair.

Quoted at Libertas, several European leaders tell the story of the Lisbon treaty. Nicolas Sarkozy says the (rejected) EU constitution couldn’t have passed anywhere if voted on by the people:

France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting No. It would happen in all Member States if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments.

How is the Lisbon treaty different? In substance, not at all, says the Irish foreign minister:

The substance of what was agreed in 2004 has been retained. What is gone is the term ‘constitution’.

Angela Merkel agrees:

The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.

So how is it different? Deliberate obscurity, the Belgian Foreign Minister explains:

The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable… The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (former French President and chairman of the EU constitutional convention) expands:

The difference between the original Constitution and the present Lisbon Treaty is one of approach, rather than content … the proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged. They have simply been dispersed through old treaties in the form of amendments. Why this subtle change? Above all, to head off any threat of referenda by avoiding any form of constitutional vocabulary.

The bottom line, again from d’Estaing:

Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly.

(Via the Volokh Conspiracy.)

The New York Post reports:

Two influential US senators got “VIP” loans from a leading subprime mortgage lender that saved them tens of thousands of dollars. . .  The Democratic pols, Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, both received the highly favorable loans under the designation “Friend of Angelo,” a reference to embattled Countrywide head Angelo Mozilo, Condé Nast Portfolio reported.

Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, while Conrad is chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee. The two senators refinanced properties through the VIP program in 2003 and 2004, the report said. . .

The report came one day after Democratic heavyweight Jim Johnson stepped down as chief of Barack Obama’s vice-presidential search committee after revelations he’d gotten Countrywide loans at very favorable rates because of Mozilo. . .

Dodd reportedly received two loans through the program in 2003 – $506,000 to refinance his Washington town house, and $275,042 to refinance a home in Connecticut. The more favorable terms saved him about $70,000, the report says. . . Conrad borrowed $1 million to refinance his vacation home, and saved at least $10,000.

(Via Instapundit.)

As always, Europeans reject EU transnationalism whenever they are given the chance to vote on it. (Via Instapundit.) Having learned from the past, no other EU nation allowed a public vote on the Lisbon treaty, but Ireland’s constitution requires one.

UPDATE: The vote was 53%-47%, similar to when they rejected the Nice treaty 54%-46% in 2001. That time they made a highly controversial second attempt a year later in which the treaty passed.

Dan Boren (D-OK) declines to endorse Obama for President. (Via the Corner.) He does say he’ll vote for Obama, so this sounds like he’s doing a delicate dance for re-election.

UPDATE: More Democrats won’t endorse Obama.  (Via Instapundit.)

As most of the country moves toward greater respect for self-defense, Seattle’s mayor has decided to stand athwart history:

On Monday, Nickels announced he had signed an executive order, which does not require City Council approval, directing employees to draft a plan in 30 days to create a “gun-free policy” on city property. He has not set a date for the prohibition to take effect.

“Our parks, our community centers and our public events are safer without guns,” Nickels said at a news conference with Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. “At many properties, including City Hall, you can bring a gun if you have a concealed-weapons permit. Under this order, people with concealed weapons will be asked to give up their weapon or leave.”

The city does not have the authority to arrest or fine people for bringing a gun onto city property. Only the state can enact laws governing firearms, and the mayor acknowledged the city could face a legal challenge.

The city can, however, charge violators with trespassing.

“We’ve lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means.”  (Via Instapundit.)

The AP reports.  (Via the Corner.)

Judge Barbara Walther — who ordered the removal of hundreds of children from the FLDS ranch in violation of the law and stalled their return — is under guard for her protection:

The home of the San Angelo judge who ordered the removal of 440 children from a polygamist ranch is under guard after Utah and Arizona authorities warned of “enforcers” from the sect, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Police assigned to Judge Barbara Walther’s San Angelo house were provided dossiers and photos of 16 men and women deemed a threat, the Deseret News said.

(Via Instapundit.)

What the article doesn’t mention is any credible evidence of an actual threat.  It’s hard to tell from the article (thanks, AP!), but this sounds like little more than blog comments.  It could just be bad reporting by the AP (of course), but it’s just as likely that this is a PR stunt by the authorities.

Reported today: Zimbabwean authorities stole food aid from children and Mugabe’s goons burned a woman alive.

Certainly not, most Americans would say, but some are not so sure:

“In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one’s legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk, and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment,” Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called “The Exceptional First Amendment.”

“But in the United States,” Professor Schauer continued, “all such speech remains constitutionally protected.”

Canada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France. . .

Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

(Via LGF.)

The article is pretty good, and it reminds us all why we turned our back on Europe in 1776. It’s certainly disturbing, though, that the New York Times would lend its (rapidly declining) respectability to the idea that we should limit free speech. The book review in which the NYT lent its pages to support censorship is here (membership required).

ASIDE: Remember that the NYT recently editorialized against academic freedom.

Also apropos of my conversation yesterday, here’s a (year-old) calculation of the costs of the Los Angeles light rail system, showing that it would have been cheaper for LA to buy every one of its riders a Prius.

To give this some currency, here’s a recent Bill Steigerwald article on America’s disastrous mass transit systems, with a particular focus on Pittsburgh’s Port Authority.

Apropos of a conversation I had yesterday, here’s a gallery of photos of Soviet environmental atrocities.  (Reader warning: some of these photos are quite disturbing.)  (Via Classical Values, via Instapundit.)

This should serve as a warning to those who think that unfree societies will protect the environment better than free ones.

UPDATE (2020): Fixed linkrot.

If it’s not enough that Olympic visitors will be supporting China’s oppressive regime, they will also be exposing themselves to espionage:

National security agencies are warning businesses and federal officials that laptops and e-mail devices taken to the Beijing Olympics are likely to be penetrated by Chinese agents aiming to steal secrets or plant bugs to infiltrate U.S. computer networks. Chinese government and industry use electronic espionage to “easily access official and personal computers,” says one recent report by the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a federally chartered panel comprising security experts from corporations and the State, Commerce and Treasury departments.

Equipment left unsupervised for just minutes in a hotel or even during a security screening can be hacked, mined and bugged, adds Larry Wortzel, who chairs the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a federal panel that monitors China-related security issues for Congress. China’s government also controls Internet service providers and wireless networks, he says, so computers and PDAs can be monitored and planted with bugs remotely, too.

“There is a high likelihood ? virtually 100% ? that if an individual is of security, political, or business interest to Chinese ? security services or high technology industries, their electronics can and will be tampered with or penetrated,” Wortzel says.

(Via Knoxville Talks, via Instapundit.)

Obama admits that he still smokes cigarettes.  (Via Instapundit.)

Obviously, this is something short of a scandal, but there are a few reasons why we should care.  As I noted last April, Obama’s campaign has seen in the past fit to lie about his smoking, and they’ve chosen to make political his ability to quit.  Also, as the ABC report points out, his continued smoking gives additional reason for concern over his refusal to release his medical records (in contrast to McCain’s open disclosure).

Of course, if it were revealed that McCain secretly smokes, I don’t doubt it would become a huge political issue.

It’s a third-hand report, but for what it’s worth: Investor’s Business Daily says that Colombian Trade Minister Luis Guillermo Plata says that US Treasury Secretary Paulson says that things are looking up for the Colombian free trade agreement.  (Via Instapundit.)

I hope so.  Recall that the Democrats changed the House rules to avoid a vote on the agreement, for no reason whatsoever.

Obama’s surrogates distort McCain’s remarks regarding Iraq.  (Again.)  (Via Instapundit.)

The US Senate votes to privatize its restaurants:

Year after year, decade upon decade, the U.S. Senate’s network of restaurants has lost staggering amounts of money — more than $18 million since 1993, according to one report, and an estimated $2 million this year alone, according to another.

The financial condition of the world’s most exclusive dining hall and its affiliated Capitol Hill restaurants, cafeterias and coffee shops has become so dire that, without a $250,000 subsidy from taxpayers, the Senate won’t make payroll next month.

The embarrassment of the Senate food service struggling like some neighborhood pizza joint has quietly sparked change previously unthinkable for Democrats. Last week, in a late-night voice vote, the Senate agreed to privatize the operation of its food service, a decision that would, for the first time, put it under the control of a contractor and all but guarantee lower wages and benefits for the outfit’s new hires.

The House is expected to agree — its food service operation has been in private hands since the 1980s — and President Bush’s signature on the bill would officially end a seven-month Democratic feud and more than four decades of taxpayer bailouts. . .

All told, [the Senate Restaurants] bring in more than $10 million a year in food sales but have turned a profit in just seven of their 44 years in business, according to the GAO.

In a masterful bit of understatement, Feinstein blamed “noticeably subpar” food and service. Foot traffic bears that out. Come lunchtime, many Senate staffers trudge across the Capitol and down into the basement cafeteria on the House side. On Wednesdays, the lines can be 30 or 40 people long.

House staffers almost never cross the Capitol to eat in the Senate cafeterias.

It’s a perfect little tale of private versus government management:

In the past 10 years, only 20 new items have been added to the Senate menus. So rare are new entrees that last year’s arrival of daily fresh-made sushi was treated in some senatorial quarters as if a new Nobu had opened in the Capitol dining room.

Even revenue in the once-profitable catering division has been decimated, as senators have increasingly sought waivers to bring in outside food for special events with constituents and private groups.

Operation of the House cafeterias was privatized in the 1980s by a Democratic-controlled Congress. Restaurant Associates of New York, the current House contractor, would take over the Senate facilities this fall. The company wins high praise from most staffers and lawmakers, who say they are pleased with the wide variety of new items offered every few months.

Most important to Feinstein, Restaurant Associates turns a substantial profit — paying $1.2 million in commissions to the House since 2003.

This makes good sense, and it’s surprising to see a Democratic Senate agree to do it.  They’re own interests were at stake, though, so maybe it’s not so surprising.  Since they used a voice vote, there’s no way of knowing how individual Senators voted.

Meanwhile, talk of nationalizing health care proceeds apace.

POSTSCRIPT: It would be been even smarter if they had hired a different contractor than the House, to introduce some competition, but I guess there’s a limit to how much free enterprise Senators can tolerate just to get good meals.

(Via the Corner.)

This is strange:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels on Sunday to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia’s government.

Chavez sent an unexpected message to leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia’s democratically-elected government were unjustified.

“The guerrilla war is history,” said Chavez, speaking during his weekly television and radio program. “At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.”

The strong statements were uncharacteristic of Chavez, a self-described socialist who earlier this year called on world governments to remove the FARC from terrorist lists and suggested the guerrillas should be recognized as a legitimate insurgent force.

“Uncharacteristic” is an understatement. What could account for this? It’s possible that Chavez has decided on a Qadhafi-style rehabilitation of his image, but that doesn’t strike me as likely.  Perhaps this has something to do with the captured FARC files?

If not, more attacks on EU diplomatic missions cannot be ruled out.

IBD doesn’t like it.  (Via LGF, which has the video.)  The Democrats haven’t run anyone this hostile to defense in years.

POSTSCRIPT: Missile defense is just one part of Obama’s diatribe, but I have to ask:  He calls missile defense “unproven” despite dozens of successful tests.  What would it take for such a system to be proven?  Can anything “prove” the system other than intercepting a real missile in flight?  That’s the one proof that Obama wants to make sure we can never have!

There’s a downside to incorporating Daily-Kos-style diaries into your official campaign website, as BarackObama.com has done.  When anyone can post a diary/blog, the world can hear from some of your supporters that you would prefer remained silent.

Charles Johnson finds that the Obama campaign has not been very vigilant in deleting the anti-Semitic material posted on their web site.  Being a helpful sort, Johnson has started doing their work for them.  Of course, he kept screen captures.

Or freedom of religion or freedom of the press either, for that matter. To wit: Stephen Boissoin, a pastor, wrote a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate, criticizing the “wicked” homosexual agenda. The letter was published. A professor at the University of Calgary filed a complaint with the Alberta “Human Rights” Commission.

The Red Deer Advocate folded before the case was heard, agreeing to institute a new letter policy stating (pdf link, paragraph 6):

The Advocate will not publish statements that indicate unlawful discrimination or intent to discriminate against a person or class of persons, or are likely to expose people to hatred or contempt because of …sexual orientation.

But the Red Deer Advocate was just a sideshow. The real case was against Rev. Boissoin. The commission’s Lori Andreachuk ruled that (paragraph 357):

Having considered the Charter [of Rights] and the balancing of the freedoms set out in the Charter, I have interpreted the [Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism] Act in a manner which respected the broad protection granted to religious freedom. However, I have found that this protection does not trump the protection afforded under the Alberta human rights legislation in s. 3. to protection against hatred and contempt. I also take the view that s.3(2) required a balancing of these freedoms afforded to individuals under the Charter, with the prohibitions in s. 3(1) of the Act. In this case, the publication’s exposure of homosexuals to hatred and contempt trumps the freedom of speech afforded in the Charter. It cannot be the case that any speech wrapped in the ‘guise’ of politics or religion is beyond reproach by any legislation but the Criminal Code.

Having earlier found that the needs of censorship trump freedom of speech and religion, on May 30 she issued her remedy, ordering (pdf link, paragraph 14):

That Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. shall cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals. Further, they shall not and are prohibited from making disparaging remarks in the future about Dr. Lund or Dr. Lund’s witnesses relating to their involvement in this complaint. Further, all disparaging remarks versus homosexuals are directed to be removed from current web sites and publications of Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc.

and:

That The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. and Mr. Boissoin shall, in future, be restrained from committing the same or similar contraventions of the Act.

Wow. This pastor is forever barred from any disparaging statements against homosexuals or against Lund (the professor who filed the complaint), in any medium including public speeches. In America we call that “prior restraint.” He also is required to write an apology and pay damages.

There’s more, notes Ezra Klein, but this is enough, isn’t it? (Via the Corner.)

(Previous post.)

In the Maclean’s kangaroo court case, Nigel Hannaford of the Calgary Herald, predicts:

Goodness knows what the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will do with their hearing about Maclean’s and Mark Steyn. Probably what they did with their 1997 case against North Vancouver columnist Doug Collins: Release the steam by calling them horrible people but not quite hateful enough to be convicted, then write in some judicial refinement for future use against less well-equipped defendants who have no powerful friends and can’t afford counsel like Julian Porter and Roger McConchie.

(Via Instapundit.)

That seems likely to me. Ruling for the complainants here would be a Pyrrhic victory for the censors. As Andrew Coyne, a blogger for Maclean’s, wrote:

Actually I am rooting for [the complainants], in a strange sort of way. Don’t tell my employers, but I’m sort of hoping we lose this case. If we win—that is, if the tribunal finds we did not, by publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, expose Muslims to hatred and contempt, or whatever the legalese is—then the whole clanking business rolls on, the stronger for having shown how “reasonable” it can be. Whereas if we lose, and fight on appeal, and challenge the whole legal basis for these inquisitions, then something important will be achieved.

Philadelphia’s sheriff refuses to carry out a court-ordered foreclosure auction:

Sheriff John Green has spent 37 years in law enforcement. But these days he’s best known around town for the law he won’t enforce.

With the economy soft and thousands of Philadelphians delinquent on their mortgages, Sheriff Green this spring refused to hold a court-ordered foreclosure auction. His move raised eyebrows on the bench and dropped jaws among lenders and their attorneys, who accuse him of shirking his duty to enforce legal contracts.

Sheriff Green is unconcerned about the law:

Mr. Green and Judge Jones are casual golfing buddies. Still, Judge Jones warned the sheriff at a meeting soon after the announcement that a blanket moratorium on the sales was “unwise and more-likely-than-not illegal.”

Mr. Green says he never considered the legality of his decision to halt foreclosure sales. His aides say he is being cagey and that he saw himself as a catalyst to get the court to take action.

“It’s not the sheriff’s job to sell houses,” says Deputy Sheriff’s Officer Paris Washington, a veteran of the department and its head of training. “It’s the sheriff’s job to serve the people who elected him. Because he was elected by the people, he has to listen to the people. Aren’t the people the law?”

Philadelphia is the city that gave us the rule of law; now they’re turning their back on it.

(Via Snowflakes in Hell, via Instapundit.)

The latest messianic account of the one man who can heal our souls, comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, in a piece entitled “Is Obama an enlightened being?” Here’s the gist:

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

(Via LGF.)

Yikes.

The US is giving up on the worse-than-useless UN “Human Rights” Council, which is controlled by the world’s worst human rights offenders:

The United States has quietly informed Western allies of its intention to walk away from the U.N. Human Rights Council, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The U.S. delegation has observer status, with the right to speak, in the 47-member state forum, which meets in Geneva, and has never stood for election to the Council since it was set up two years ago.

Diplomatic sources and rights activists said that U.S. officials had informed the European Union on Friday morning of its intention to halt its involvement in the Council. . .

[The Council] is seen by critics as having fallen under control of a bloc of Islamic and African countries, which have a majority when backed by their frequent allies Russia, China and Cuba.

(Via LGF.)

Seattle may ban beach bonfires because they cause global warming.  (Via the Corner.)

This is so stupid.  A few bonfires on Alki beach aren’t going to make a whit of difference to the CO2 content of the atmosphere.  Fireplaces alone dwarf those few bonfires and no one would suggest that fireplaces are a significant CO2 contributor.  This sort of thing is just to send a message and make themselves feel good, at the expense of everyone’s fun.  It won’t even work, because people will just move their bonfires elsewhere, or hold them illegally.

Also, shouldn’t this sort of thing be done by an elected body, if it’s done at all?

Obama likes to claim that he doesn’t take money from lobbyists, which isn’t remotely true, except in the narrowest possible sense.  Mark Hemingway lists the many ways in which Obama is happy to accept money and other assistance from lobbyists.

After Mark Hemingway’s column on the dismal state of free speech in Canada, I feel comfortable making the bald statement above.  Of course, part of the reason I feel comfortable saying that is I don’t live in Canada.

In 1990, when the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that criminalization of certain speech did not violate the freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights, it was anti-Semites at issue.  Today, the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission handles complaints regarding all manner of non-PC speech.  And, throughout its 31 years of existence, it has never once found a defendant innocent.

MSNBC reports.  Translation: Obama will cry that his patriotism is being attacked whenever Republicans attack his demonstrably poor judgement on national security.

Fox News reports.

Russian Communists are upset that Putin’s regime is censoring them.  (Via Instapundit.)  Well boo hoo!  Speaking seriously, this is bad, of course, but I can’t help enjoying the irony.

When Glenn Reynolds linked this story, I assumed it was a Scrappleface parody. But no, it’s serious:

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Not long ago, we were told that the drop in violence in Iraq somehow didn’t count, because we limiting access to neighborhoods to keep out terrorists. If DC is so out of control that it can’t be managed without measures appropriate to a war zone, DC home rule as failed, and it’s high time we put an end to it.

(Previous post.)

UPDATE: More here.

Very few people will be surprised by this: Palestinian Textbooks Portray Jews in Bad Light.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana) was indicted on 16 corruption charges last June. Bizarrely, he remains in the House of Representatives, and was only stripped of his committee chairmanship by a vote of 99-58.

Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney announced indictments of his sister Betty, his brother Mose, and his niece Angela. Betty Jefferson is an elected tax assessor in New Orleans. Mose Jefferson was already under indictment for bribery.

BONUS: Name that party! If you know what party any of these people belong to, you didn’t learn it from the Times-Picayune story I linked. (Okay, I’ll tell you: Betty Jefferson is a Democrat too.)

(Via Instapundit.)

An optimistic take on the Bakken oil deposit, despite the USGS estimate.  (Via Instapundit.)

The US Navy has given up on aiding cyclone survivors after 15 failed attempts to get permission to help from the Burmese junta.

Old news, but I’m just now noticing it: British prosecutors have decided to drop the charges against a 15-year-old boy who called Scientology a cult. Alas, not for reasons of free speech.

AP reports.  I’m only surprised it took this long.

New York City is reeling from a $500 million underestimate of the cost of its pension system. How did it happen? It turns out that the actuary used by the New York Legislature was paid by the unions:

An actuary paid by public employee unions and yet relied upon by the State Legislature to determine the cost of proposals affecting New York City’s pension system underestimated their ultimate cost by at least $500 million, city documents and other records show.

In the hundreds of bills for which he has provided estimates to lawmakers since 2000, the actuary, Jonathan Schwartz, said legislation adjusting the pensions of public employees would have no cost, or limited cost, to the city.  But just 11 of the more than 50 bills vetted by Mr. Schwartz that have become law since 2000 will result in the $500 million in eventual costs, or more than $60 million annually. . .

Mr. North and other city employees made the calculations on the 11 bills when they were before the Legislature, but for the other bills, no alternative to Mr. Schwartz’s projections could be found. The New York Times reported last month that in an arrangement that had not been publicly disclosed, Mr. Schwartz was being paid by labor unions. He acknowledged in an interview that he skewed his work to favor the public employees, calling his job “a step above voodoo.”

This is classic rent-seeking behavior by the unions, which is to say, theft.  And for $500 million, whatever they paid Schwartz is a bargain.  There’s no mention that anyone will be prosecuted, in case you were wondering.

(Via Asymmetrical Information, via Instapundit.)

Fans of free speech and Canada might not want to read Andrew Coyne’s blog. Coyne has been blogging the BC Human Rights Tribunal’s proceedings in the Maclean’s case.

A while ago, Maclean’s, a Canadian news magazine, printed excerpts from a Mark Steyn book, America Alone, that suggests that the world might have something to worry about in radical Islam. Some Muslims got very mad, and demanded the right to write a rebuttal (with full editorial control) to be printed in Maclean’s. Unsurprisingly, Maclean’s said no.

End of story, you think? Ha! Not at all, because this is Canada. In Canada they have Human Rights Tribunals with the power to police content in speech and the press. The angry Muslims shopped around for a venue and settled on British Columbia, where they filed a complaint for “incitement of hatred.”

The particularly sad and yet strangely funny aspect of the proceeding is that the Human Rights Tribunal is not a real court. Unlike a real court, its members are not judges and there are no rules of evidence. Therefore, they can and do “admit” all manner of irresponsible “evidence,” such as expert testimony from non-experts, blog posts by third parties (even non-Canadian third parties), and even comments on YouTube videos. Everything short of bathroom graffiti, as Coyne puts it.

Unfortunately, this kangaroo court can assess real penalties. Indeed, it has already done so, simply by taking the case and forcing Maclean’s to stand “trial.” Too bad freedom of speech is just an “American concept.”

NOTE: The link above is to Coyne’s front page, where he liveblogged the proceedings. Here are permalinks to parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. (Last updated 6/7.)

POSTSCRIPT: It’s only Tuesday and it’s already been a bad week for free speech abroad, with Canada, Britain, and France censoring people for offending Muslims. Ironically, this sort of thing only supports Steyn’s thesis in America Alone.

UPDATE (6/4): Coyne reports that the “plaintiff” has actually made explicit in writing that censorship is their goal: “We anticipate that success in this case will provide the impetus for prohibiting discriminatory publications in the other provinces.” Not that there’s been any doubt, but it’s striking to see it admitted in writing.

UPDATE (6/7): As the proceedings neared a close, a court official informed Coyne that liveblogging is prohibited.  In a proceeding that centered around repression of the press, it seems appropriate.

In France, it’s a crime to write a letter in which you criticize Muslims.  (Via Instapundit.)

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Think the price of gasoline is too high right now?  Lester Lave, an Economics professor at my university, doesn’t think so.  He says the government should impose a $3.50 per gallon tax on gasoline, which would roughly double the (already high) price.  The government would spend the money to give roughly $1240 to each wage earner, by lifting the social security tax on the first $20k of income.

Lave says this would boost the economy.  (It’s hard to type that without laughing.  Fortunately I don’t have to.)

Canton, Ohio has passed a law making failure to mow your lawn a misdemeanor punishable by 30 days in jail.

This made me check my calendar to see if it’s April 1st:

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will issue an urgent plea to world leaders at a food summit in Rome on Tuesday to immediately suspend trade restrictions, agricultural taxes and other price controls that have helped fuel the highest food prices in 30 years, according to U.N. officials.

(Via the Corner.)

The UN is calling for free markets and lower taxes?  Now I’ve seen everything.

Axelrod has the job of covering for Barack Obama on the surge:

He never disputed the fact that if you throw a surge of American soldiers in an area that you can make a difference.

Unfortunately for Axelrod, we have the Internet now. Here’s Obama, disputing precisely that fact:

We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality, we can send 15 thousand more troops, 20 thousand more troops, 30 thousand more troops; I don’t know any expert on the region, or any military officer that I’ve spoken to (privately), that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

(Transcript mine.) Here’s the video. (Via Power Line.)

For the record, the surge involved about 28 thousand troops (including support troops), and obviously they’ve made a tremendous difference. Alexrod can’t patch up the fact that Obama was simply wrong, indeed, could hardly have been more wrong. Obama displayed his poor military judgement here, and that of his unnamed military advisers as well. In contrast, John McCain long advocated the surge, even before it was adopted by the President.

Michael Totten is taking a break from his Iraq reporting.  In his latest report he visits the former Yugoslavia.

American Thinker has the story of how Scott McClellan’s book came to pass. (Via LGF.) Here’s the short version: McClellan writes a book proposal. No one wants it. George Soros’s publishing house doesn’t even read the proposal, but asks around and finds that McClellan is disgruntled. They talk to him about what the book should be, and only then buy the book. They “help” him write the book and edit it. The resulting book bears no resemblance to the earlier proposal.

To be clear, these facts are admitted by the publisher, according to the AP:

Osnos [the publisher] said he didn’t even read the proposal, but instead sought out people who knew McClellan and said they regarded him as an honest man unhappy in his job. According to Osnos, and the book’s editor, Lisa Kaufman, “What Happened” evolved as McClellan wrote it.

“The original proposal was somewhat general, so before making an offer on the book we talked to Scott at some length,” Kaufman said.

And in the publisher’s own words:

In nearly 25 years of editing books by public figures intended to provide historical perspective, I have learned that the full story only really emerges in the final editing. Even people who have lived through an experience in, say, The White House, The Pentagon or the Kremlin, can’t completely fathom what they’ve been through. They need help in explaining “what happened” — which is why that is McClellan’s title. There is much more to Scott’s book than the Plame story. He is very hard at work on the manuscript. We’ll then help him be as clear as he can possibly be about what he has concluded.

(Via Power Line.)

It’s not hard to read between the lines.

POSTSCRIPT: Trent Duffy gives McClellan both barrels. Ouch.

UPDATE: Expanded and reworded.

ANOTHER UPDATE: McClellan’s book proposal, before Soros got his hands on it.

The Telegraph reports:

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a “hate crime” and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that “no-go areas” for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year. . .

West Midlands Police, who refused to apologise, said the incident had been “fully investigated” and the officer would be given training in understanding hate crime and communication.

(Via Instapundit.)

The police threaten people with arrest and violence for exercising their freedoms of speech and religion, and then they won’t even apologize. Good thing Mark Steyn is alarmist. If one didn’t know that, one might worry that Britain is dying.

A new Rasmussen poll gives John McCain the edge over Barack Obama on most important issues. McCain leads 47-41 on the economy, 49-37 on Iraq, 53-31 on national security, and 44-38 on taxes. Obama has a slight 43-39 edge on ethics.  (Via Instapundit.)

It’s encouraging that McCain leads Obama on the issues despite the best efforts of the media. On the other hand, the election may well not come down to issues, since Obama’s campaign is primarily based on his personality, not the issues. Rasmussen didn’t poll on who would be better to heal our souls.

With the latest revelations of controversial messages from the pulpit at Obama’s church, Obama has calculated that it’s less damaging for him to leave the church than stay, and resigned. On this occasion, it’s worth remembering Charles Krauthammer’s column pointing out that Obama had vitiated his own famous “race” speech.

In that speech, incredibly, Obama argued that when whites are upset about the depraved language coming from his church’s pulpit, it is the whites who are being racist, not the man at the pulpit. If churches weren’t so segregated, he said, whites would be familiar with that language and understand it. Now that Obama has twice disavowed that language, where does this leave his argument? Is Obama also a racist, as his argument would seem to require? The alternative is that his speech was a bunch of baloney. Hmm.

The DNC has come to a deal whereby Michigan and Florida would be represented at the Democratic convention. In keeping with the principles the Democrats have established throughout their primary, the allocation of delegates from Michigan has nothing whatsoever to do with any election. The DNC panel decided arbitrarily to give 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama. Also, all the Florida and Michigan delegates will be second-class, awarded one-half of a vote. (Amazingly, they thought that would be better than cutting the number of delegates in half.)

This is the party that calls itself “Democratic.”

UPDATE: “They could’ve at least given them 3/5 of a vote.”  Heh.

If the facts don’t support your thesis, make up some better ones!  (Via Instapundit.)