A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times quoted me as saying that Senator Boxer could face tough reelection battle. One online commenter harrumphed:

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The Telegraph is reporting that President Obama has threatened to withdraw support from any Democrat who refuses to support his health care monstrosity. He will not make campaign swings through their districts before November, he will not help them raise money, he will not offer them a soft landing of a cushy job if they lose re-election, he will not stop unions from pulling their financial support.

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The United States has announced that it will report its own human-rights failings to the United Nations, in particular the UN’s Human Rights Council, half of whose members are degenerate dictatorships.

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Who knew that Israel itself would provide the excuse the Obama Administration needed to turn America against its longtime ally and redirect the course of Jewish history?

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When China fell to the Communists in 1949, there was a decades-long outcry over the latest domino that had fallen to Communism: “Who lost China?”

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The extraordinary double standard at work between the West and the Muslim world is one of the most troubling elements in the ongoing clash of cultures. 

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     Two years ago, Dhaba Almontaser, aka Debbie, lost her chance at being principal of the Khalil Gibran Middle School after the New York Post revealed her affiliation with a group that had printed Intifada NYC tee shirts.  Dhab/Deb first denied that she knew anything about the shirts, then shifted to explaining that intifada was a harmless word that really meant “shaking off.”  That’s a curious way to describe the death of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians killed during the First and Second Intifadas.  It’s like saying that the American Revolution is about going around in circles, which is actually what Dhab/Deb was doing in her public interviews.  She sued the Dept of Education for forcing her to resign and her case was dismissed.  Every American knows that losing the first round is just the opening salvo to an unlimited number of litigations, especially when other people are paying your legal fees so that case will be appealed.

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Tom Hanks—actor, producer, featherweight thinker—has made some very silly comments regarding his understanding of World War II in order to flack The Pacific War, a miniseries he produced for HBO.

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We are in the world George Orwell and Ayn Rand saw coming. It is a world where words no longer have meaning and A is not A. Consider the following two examples:

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When we last saw New York Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, she had succesfully buried an outrageous provision in an Intelligence Appropriations Bill coming out of her committee. A few weeks ago, she had OK’d a clause that would have allowed the prosecution of CIA agents involved in using enhanced interrogation techniques on al Qaeda terrorists. Even some of her fellow Democrats saw the insanity of what she tried to do and worked with Republicans to have the provision removed.

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Unless conditions change drastically, Iran will have the atomic bomb. Maybe sooner, maybe later, but the Iranians will have it.

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     Robert Halderman has been sentenced to six months in jail for trying to extort money from David Letterman regarding his affairs with several women on his staff.  In exchange for pleading guilty and apologizing to Letterman and the world, the Emmy award winning producer must also perform 1,000 hours of community service and remain on probation for four and a half years.  David Letterman, on the other hand, has seen his ratings rise ever since he pre-empted Halderman’s threats by revealing his own pecadillos to an audience that laughed uncomfortably, unsure of whether the talk show host was joking or serious.  Even though having sex with underlings is frowned upon and even punishable, no repercussions have accrued to Dave who deftly switched his role to that of injured party, with nary a peep from NOW.

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A Mexican town official has taken an interesting approach to graffiti abatement, but it got him fired, Associated Press reports. 

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Finally, someone in authority in the Jewish faith has realized that if you can’t beat them, you should at least let them join you. 

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Some guy named Eamonn Daniel Higgins from Laguna Niguel, Ca. was arrested Monday for running a ring that helped dozens of Arabs get U.S. student visas, Associated Press reports. 

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New York Democratic Congressman Eric Massa finds himself in the middle of a political cyclone. Last week, he said he’d not seek re-election amid allegations he sexually harassed a male staffer. Over the weekend, he signaled he’d resign effective this afternoon. As of now, he may. Or he may not.

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In the February unemployment report released today, 36,000 jobs were lost, and the total unemployment rate—which includes those who have given up looking for work and who are only working part-time when they’d like full-time work—ROSE from 16.5% to 16.8%. Almost 15 million Americans are out of work, many for weeks and even months at a time.

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     Who could invent a scenario as improbable as a lying, fraudulent, mob-inciting, unelected, race-baiting, black hack sitting in judgment on a blind, black, lying governor who’s pinch-hitting for a whoring white hypocrite who had to resign?  New Yorkers will all have vertigo before Albany gets sorted out but I confess that nothing made me sympathetic to David Paterson’s plight until Al Sharpton convened the group of black democrats to consider whether to withdraw their support from him.  This took place at a restaurant in Harlem Thursday night and you can bet that the reverend never paid for his own dinner, just as he claimed he never paid for the clothes hanging in his closet which he said were simply on loan to him.  David Paterson may be injudicious and on the dole, but so far, none of his sins of omission or commission rival those of the Tawana Brawley defender, the Steven Pagones accuser, the rabble-rouser who officiated at four days of violence and looting in Crown Heights that culminated in the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum, or the man who inflamed a crowd in Harlem until a store (rented by a Jew but owned by a black church) was torched, customers were shot and seven employees died from smoke inhalation.

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As I write this, the Administration and its allies in Congress are attempting to pass their health care reform bill with a simple majority vote, through an arcane budgetary process in the Senate known as “reconciliation”. There are many details, but only one is important: a reconciliation bill cannot, under Senate rules, be filibustered, so the Democrats only need 51 votes to pass it, rather than the 60 normally required to shut down debate and take a vote. (The House does not permit a minority to prolong debate, so all the Democrats need in the lower chamber is the same 5-vote majority they won in November.)

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When Republicans were in charge of Congress, the Democrats relished pointing a finger at a few GOP members who were under investigation for ethics violations. Some of these investigations were real, some were based on bogus charges and dismissed. But the Democrats plastered the entire Republican party as immersed in a “culture of corruption.”

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Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the Constitution explicitly empowers Congress “to Establish Post Offices and post Roads.”  I’m glad the Founding Fathers are not around today to see how the government they created has made a mess of everything it touched, including the Postal Service. According to today’s “Washington Post,” the Postal Service is broke and projected to lose $238 billion over the next decade. The postmaster general is now proposing mail delivery be cut to 5 days a week.

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     The most alarming predictor for the future educational state of American children is the newly released statistic that almost 40% of all births in the U.S. were to unmarried women.  80% of all single parent families are headed by women as are the majority of all families living in poverty.  Children raised in these conditions are three times as likely to drop out of high school and be chronically unemployed, prone to psychological disturbance, learning disabilities and criminality.  No amount of money spent on improving curricula or diminishing class size can make up for the deficit of a caring father for an economically disadvantaged child.  In fact, lack of a father in the home outweighs all other factors as a consistent prognosticator of failure in school.

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President Obama just completed his annual 90 minute physical and his physicians noted that he was fine health but made two recommendations: one, that he quit smoking, and two, that he “moderate” his “alcohol intake.”

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Someone is poisoning the children of Spain. 

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Carl Djerassi fled with his mother from Nazi persecution in Austria and flourished in the United States as a chemist and a writer, an entrepreneur and a teacher. In early 1950s he was one of three scientists whose work on synthetic progestagen laid the foundation for the first oral contraceptive pill, which the Federal Drug Administration approved for use in in 1960. Forty-nine years later (2009), the 85-year-old professor emeritus from Stanford University wrote of his achievement for the Austrian newspaper, Der Standard.

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Tough two months for the once-vaunted Harlem political machine:  Founding member Percy Sutton dies; Ways & Means Chairman Charlie Rangel cited for House ethics violations; accidental Governor David Paterson chooses not to run for election in wake of scandal.

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The cliché that Washington is deadlocked and dysfunctional is only partially true. Congress and Obama get done those things favored by lobbies with deep pockets that have their hooks into both the GOP and a fair number of Democrats. Thus, despite all the hullabaloo about deficits, the government is about to provide $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to the nuclear industry, which adds to government liabilities, and hence increases the deficit.

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     As if it weren’t difficult enough to determine absolute cause for human criminal deeds, the field has now been extended to animals.  Investigations are under way to decide whether Tilly, the killer whale who drowned his trainer in Florida this week, committed a homicide or involuntary manslaughter. (please note the word laughter in the second syllable) One whale expert claims that if the 12,000 pound orca had intended to kill, the carnage would have been much more devastating, thus proving that Tilly was merely whaling around in a manner appropriate to his species and size.  Unfortunately, Tilly has two priors dating back to 1991, lending support to the profile of serial murderer whose crimes are possibly pre-meditated.  In this respect, Tilly is more deserving of capital punishment than Travis, the humanoid chimp who had the mitigating excuse of being on Xanax at the time he demolished a woman’s face and hands.  Travis was killed by the officer dispatched to the scene of the crime, thus precluding the possibility of our ever reaching “closure” on what motivated his anti-social outburst.

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Today we saw a breathtaking exercise in absurdity. The health care charade was nothing more than a political vogue-ing session in which each side struck a pose. But the Democrats lost today for 4 reasons: 1. Big majorities of Americans hate their bills; 2. Big majorities of Americans want the big government spending stopped; 3. The Republicans presented sound and responsible ideas; and 4. The president was rude, arrogant, and imperious. (Trying to shut up Senator John McCain, American hero, by reminding him that “the election’s over”? I’m sorry, but the President is an obnoxious jerk.)

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My erstwhile employer, Newt Gingrich, vents on the legislative process (i.e., why the process leading to the current health care bills shouldn’t be trusted): 

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In his maiden voyage vote, the newest member of the Senate, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, voted the wrong way. Yesterday, he voted with the Democratic majority for the $15 billion “jobs” bill. Apparently, Senator Brown fell hook, line, and sinker for the Democrats’ line of BS that this WAS, in fact, a “jobs” bill.

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In a confrontation with a force like al Qaeda, whom the US is fighting in two major battlefields (Afghanistan and Iraq), and as allies are battling within a couple dozen countries on five continents, the guilty plea entered by a US Jihadist who admitted links to this Terror group and detailed his war mission against the homeland. This case deserves high level analysis. Najibullah Zazi is not just an “isolated extremist” caught in September 2009 while crossing a New York bridge with plans to bomb few tunnels - end of the story. Zazi’s “Jihad” story is way more than the impressive facts the Justice Department has already revealed. If we focus more on the journey of this determined Jihadist, we would discover that one of the “genomes” of homegrown Terror. In this essay, I’ll only follow the Government’s release:

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     After a juror has been selected for a trial, he or she is asked the following question:  Do you swear or affirm that you will try the matter in dispute and give a true verdict according to the evidence?  The juror is thus sworn in and further instructed not to talk about the case with other jurors except during their deliberations.  Now comes Judith De Marco, a juror in the attenuated Astor trial which ended in October, 2009, who claims that the verdict she rendered was based on fear and intimidation by another juror, not on her honest appraisal of the evidence.  A note had been sent to Judge Bartley during the trial indicating that one juror felt threatened by another but no investigation took place.  Instead, the judge coazed the jury to try harder, and after lengthy deliberations they reached the verdict of guilty.

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