Déjà Vu? Taliban/Militant Excesses in Pakistan
A current AP news item notes increasing anti-Taliban sentiment across Pakistan. In particular, a militia group of tribesmen in Upper Dir, over 2000 strong with volunteers from nearby villages and a town, has sprung up seeking revenge in the aftermath of a recent bombing of a Haya Gai mosque, killing 33 innocent people. The bombing was a Taliban response to local resistance to their moving into the area; the state of Dir is bordered on the west by Afghanistan and on the east by a former Taliban sanctuary, the Swat Valley. To me, these Taliban tactics resemble precisely the kinds of tactics (e.g., assassinations of tribal leaders) which backfired on Al Qaeda in Anbar Province and elsewhere in Iraq, not to mention the Islamic faithful worldwide. My personal opinion is that Pakistan needs to address the radical seminaries and rid the ISI (Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency) of elements sympathetic to relevant rogue organizations.
Two More Elected to the NBC Hall of Shame...
Tom Brokaw. From a June 5 Today Show interview between Brokaw and President Obama:
BROKAW: What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald? And what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?
OBAMA: Well, look, there’s no equivalency here.
Brokaw's question is one of the most unconscionable breaches of journalistic professionalism I have ever heard of. Perhaps we can blame "inexperience"; it's not like he's the only journalist to have hosted all 3 major NBC news programs (Today Show, Nightly News, Meet the Press), won two Peabody Awards and a dozen Emmys, and wrote a 1998 best-selling volume on WWII, The Greatest Generation. Brokaw is calling Israelis hypocrites of the highest order; he needs to personally apologize to the government and people of Israel and to the Holocaust survivors, victims and their families. Under what circumstances, Mr. Brokaw, do you think that the Israelis have rounded up innocent civilian Palestinians into concentration camps to emaciate them and machine-gun them to death? Where is your evidence to this smear? Do you have any comparable evidence of Jewish suicide bombers blowing themselves up in German pizza parlors or wedding receptions, killing dozens of innocent German civilians?
Keith Olbermann. On June 4, Keith Olbermann on his program named pro-life activist, blogger and columnist Jill Stanek the "worst person in the world" and labeled her readers "crazy". Apparently he thinks that Jill Stanek was outing the two other late-term abortion providers in the United States (one in Colorado, the other in Nebraska), essentially providing a road map for use by other vigilantes like alleged Tiller murderer Scott Roeder. The fact is, Jill Stanek did not list the addresses as charged and in fact condemned the Tiller killing. The other two doctors and pictures of their clinic facilities are a matter of public record, available through the Internet; the doctors market their services through abortion-related websites, for example, a June 5 Washington Post column listed the doctors and general location information. With even rudimentary Internet search engine skills, you can easily obtain street addresses, use multiple free Internet mapping software to get driving directions, and/or even satellite technology (e.g., Google Earth) (and that's even without looking to see if the information is avaialble online from the clinic itself). One should also point out that Tiller was murdered in his church, not at his clinic.
[Keith, meet one of her "crazy" readers. Jill Stanek is an inspiring figure whom doesn't just talk about protection of unborn children but has taken a constructive leadership role, resulting in enactments of a born alive infant protection act, both on the federal and state levels. This act requires medical personnel to save the lives of viable babies born alive as a result of abortion, e.g., provide the same breathing assistance technology used for other prematurely born babies. Along the way she had to face obstacles like state senator Barack Obama, whom was worried saving the lives of these babies would undermine abortion rights and/or place an undue burden on doctors.]
Supreme Court Lifts Hold on the Sale of Chrysler to Fiat
First of all, I predicted as much: "my gut feel is that the Supreme Court will uphold the rulings made to date, that the sale would go forward". Recall the issue is one of fundamental justice and contracts: the way assets in bankruptcies are usually settled is in a hierarchical fashion, i.e., securitized bondholders are supposed to be made whole before unsecuritized, etc. In essence, the Obama Administration flipped this, so the unions actually end up getting more, and the securitized bondholders got ripped off. This is a Pyrrhic victory for the Obama Administration political special-interest groups, the unions. It will cost GM and Chrysler an interest rate premium in the future to attract new financing, holding all other factors equal. I see almost zero chance I will agree to purchase or rent any vehicle from a company that stole from pension funds, credit unions, etc., to give to dysfunctional unions. This travesty of justice (you didn't think the Supreme Court was interested in justice and the rule of law, did you? Heaven forbid they should second-guess a lower judge in the tank for the Obama forces...) will not be allowed to stand. The day is coming, like it already has in Europe, when the American people will suddenly realize they need to vote pro-growth politicians into office, instead of electing Democratic demagogues whom run up the government tab for their special interest groups on their grandchildren's backs.
What really has me angry, though, is this other unethical tactic of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress of raising a false rush to judgment; we need the stimulus bill NOW; we need the Fiat deal NOW... Let me get this straight--Fiat is a business, not a charity. It has strategic reasons and an unprecedented opportunity for a foothold in the US market. Those business reasons are going to jump back into Cinderella's pumpkin at midnight if the Supreme Court gives due diligence. Chrysler is screaming like a stuck pig that each day in bankruptcy costs it money. Well, Chrysler, what did Ford do right that you got wrong?
Obama will learn there is a political law of karma--what goes around, comes around. Do you think Obama is going to win Indiana again in 2012? I hope that each and every stakeholder ripped off by the Administration and its crony unions is sent a reminder before the 2012 election.
