Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com has published an interesting story regarding the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to its Guantanamo recidivism studies. CNSNews.com’s reporting is worth your read, but most of the information released by the DIA was already known. It is clear that the DIA withheld the most explosive documents in its possession.
CNSNews.com says that on January 15, 2010, it submitted an FOIA request to the Defense Department, asking for “the most recent report regarding recidivism of detainees released from Guantanamo Bay. Specifically, this is for a report that provides information on terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay who were released and were caught or suspected of committing terrorist acts after their release.”
But the DoD did not provide the “most recent report.” Instead, it supplied dated information that has already been superseded by publicly-available versions the DIA’s recidivism study.
Let me explain.
The document cited in the opening paragraph of CNSNews.com’s report is an older version of the DIA’s recidivism report. CNSNews.com leads off with this sentence: “On Jan. 7, 2009, less than two weeks before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report indicated that up until that date there had been 18 confirmed and 43 suspected cases of detainees who had been released from the Guantanamo Bay prison and who had returned to terrorism.”
This week, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak brought his son Gamal to Washington to attend the kick-off of renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Back in Cairo, the unprecedented family visit will no doubt reinforce the widespread belief that Mubarak is planning a hereditary succession in the Arab republic. It will also confirm, for many, the rampant speculation that Egypt’s president of nearly 30-years is gravely ill.
Since March, when Mubarak paid a lengthy visit to a European hospital specializing in oncology, reports have been circulating that the president is suffering from pancreatic cancer. Recent photos showing the once robust man cutting an uncharacteristically gaunt figure do little to dispel the rumors. Regardless of his diagnosis, the octogenarian’s tenure in office would appear to be nearing an end.
Mubarak’s passing from the political scene will mark the end of an era. It will also mark a nadir in Egypt’s regional stature.
Fifty years ago under President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Cairo was the undisputed military and diplomatic power in the Middle East. Nasser’s speeches mobilized crowds; his army toppled foreign governments.
Today, a once respected and feared Egypt is but a shadow of its former self. Mubarak appears tired and sick. Meanwhile, facing profound challenges at home and its first political transition in nearly three decades, Cairo has largely retreated from regional politics in favor of focusing on internal matters. On almost every front, Egypt evokes a waning regional power.
There are some bright spots. In recent years, Cairo has experienced an annual GDP growth of nearly 7 percent, and even posted impressive numbers during the global economic downturn. But the dynamism ends at the frontier.
Mubarak’s White House cameo notwithstanding, it’s been years since Egypt has exercised significant diplomatic clout in the Middle East. Cairo’s diplomacy has proved especially anemic with its Palestinian neighbors.
Egyptian officials, for example, state they would “not accept the establishment of an Islamic emirate” in Gaza. For the past three years, Cairo has tried to broker an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to forestall this outcome.
As we reported earlier, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is downplaying his urging of DOE employees (and not just the political appointees) to take part in last Saturday's Al Sharpton counter-rally in Washington, describing it as a "back-to-school" event. And as CATO's Neal McCluskey reminds us, this all has a familiar ring:
As I just blogged about, last year the Obama administration scared parents and taxpayers across the country by sending politically charged material to all public schools to prepare them for the president’s planned address to the nation’s children. Only after it took serious heat for that did the administration have the most alarming material changed. And then what did it do? Declared that the address would obviously be but a simple back-to-school speech, and tried to make everyone who knew what had actually transpired seem like a partisan attack dog.
Just as bad, says McCluskey, is Duncan's calling education "the civil rights issue of our generation."
This only about a year after helping to kill an education program widely supported by many of the people he and Sharpton insist they want to empower. I’m talking, of course, about Washington, DC’s, Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program that was proven effective. But the heck with success—Duncan and President Obama let the union-hated program die.
Saying one thing and doing another is called "being hypocritical." Next time, try doing what you say others ought to do. In other words, practice what you preach.
In the wake of Joe Miller's upset over Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's GOP Senate primary, there's been a lot of buzz for Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, who is challenging moderate GOP congressman Mike Castle in the September 14 primary. This week, the Tea Party Express endorsed O'Donnell, a former conservative activist who has worked at the Republican National Committee, Concerned Women for America, and the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth. The Tea Party Express says it's going to spend $250,000 on the race, and its new radio ad touts conservative radio host Mark Levin's endorsement of O'Donnell. Some other conservatives, like RedState.com's Erick Erickson, have endorsed O'Donnell as well.
In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD late this morning, O'Donnell said there's no difference between Mike Castle and the Democrat in the race, New Castle County executive Chris Coons. Asked if there are any issues on which Castle is better than the Democrat, O'Donnell said: "I don't think so."
Castle has plenty of moderate and liberal positions, but his supporters point out that Delaware is one of the most Democratic states in the country, and Castle could be Delaware's Scott Brown.
Would O'Donnell have voted for Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race? "I'm not a Massachusetts voter," she replied, dodging the question. Would she support a conservative primary challenger against Brown? "Again these are hypotheticals," she said, "that I can't answer." Did she do anything to actively support Scott Brown in Massachusetts? "Did I? Well, a lot of folks on my campaign team did," said O'Donnell, who rejects the comparison between Brown and Castle. "Scott Brown is so much better than Mike Castle," she said.
Castle has supported at least a couple bills that Brown now opposes--cap-and-trade and the DISCLOSE act, for example--but there are issues on which he sides with conservatives. Castle supports extending all the Bush tax cuts, voted against Obamacare, and supports repealing and replacing Obamacare if possible. Though Castle supports legalized abortion, he voted against taxpayer-funding of abortion in Obamacare and against partial-birth abortion. Castle would be a likely vote for Republican-appointed judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, though Castle has not, to my knowledge, said how he would have voted on these nominations. (Castle has not responded to an interview request from THE WEEKLY STANDARD.)
Whatever the upside to Mike Castle, it isn't good enough for Christine O'Donnell. She refused to say if she would endorse Castle if he wins the primary and refused to say if she would run as a third-party candidate if she loses the primary, saying such questions are hypothetical. "That’s a moot point, I don’t see how we can’t win," she said.
Ideological differences aside, questions have been raised about O'Donnell's financial history. According to a March 21 Delaware News Journal article posted on knowchristineodonnell.com, O'Donnell is using campaign funds to pay for half of the rent at her residence:
Greenville Place lists the prices of a town house rental between $1,645 and $2,020 a month, depending on the number of bedrooms and square feet.
O'Donnell said she pays half of her rent with campaign donations because she also uses the town home as her Senate campaign headquarters.
"I'm splitting it, legally splitting it and paying part of it," she said. "This is our technical headquarters."
O'Donnell said she has separate, private quarters and that staffers, like Hust, live in the other portion of the home.
O'Donnell tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that while she does pay rent on what is technically her legal residence with campaign funds, she also has a separate permanent residence, the location of which she won't disclose "for security reasons." O'Donnell said that her campaign office and home were vandalized in 2008, and she's fearful that her opponents will do the same this year. Says O'Donnell:
They’re following me. They follow me home at night. I make sure that I come back to the townhouse and then we have our team come out and check all the bushes and check all the cars to make sure that—they follow me.
That’s what’s disgusting, as you can see from the YouTube videos. They knock on the door at all hours of the night. They’re hiding in the bushes when I’m at candidate forums. In 2008 they broke into my home. They vandalized my home. They wrote nasty notes on my front door, on my front porch. They jeopardized my safety. They did the same thing to our campaign office. They broke into our campaign office. They vandalized our campaign office. They stole files. My campaign signs that had my picture—they put a spear in my mouth poked out my eyes, and cut out the part of my heart, and wrote nasty names all over those campaign signs.
I would be a fool to be pressured into disclosing where I live, when I know that the stakes are even higher this time. What makes me think they wont do the same distasteful things they did in 2008 when the stakes are even higher, when we’re even more viable. I mean come on, John, you’re a class act. You don’t want to—you know that this is a security issue. You know what they’re capable of.
Is O'Donnell suggesting that Castle supporters vandalized her office in 2008, when she was running for Senate against Joe Biden? “I’m not sure who did it, but I know for a fact that Mike Castle and [Delaware GOP chairman] Tom Ross were campaigning against me,” O’Donnell says. “They’ve been sabotaging my candidacy since 2008. So who knows who did it back then.” O'Donnell says there are no police reports of the 2008 break-in because she didn't want to make an issue of it at the time. She claims to have pictures of vandalized signs.
Asked by a conservative Delaware talk show host this morning about outstanding campaign debts from her 2008 campaign against Joe Biden, O'Donnell said she is still paying them off. And though it took her 12 years to pay off outstanding debts, O'Donnell says she did receive her diploma from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Asked about a financial disclosure showing that O'Donnell only had $5,800 of earned income last year, O'Donnell told me that she actually made more but didn't have to and wouldn't disclose how much. "The only thing they can use against me is that I’m not a multi-millionaire," said O'Donnell.
There haven't been any recent public polls on the Castle v. O'Donnell primary, though an August 5 Rasmussen poll showed Castle leading Chris Coons, the Democrat, 49 percent to 37 percent, while O'Donnell was trailing Coons 36 percent to 46 percent.
O'Donnell's campaign manager Matt Moran thinks that this poll isn't accurate, calling it "more of a push poll." "Scott Rasmussen has to pay his bills," says Moran. "We understand that the RNC and NRSC have long tentacles."
It's 80 miles south of Vermillion Bay in the Gulf Mexico. Early reports called it an explosion, but later reports call it a fire. Robert Gibbs announced at the White House press briefing that the Mariner Energy platform was "not in active production" and the depth of the water at the site is about 340 feet.
The Coast Guard reports that all 13 of the platforms workers are accounted for and one is injured.
Mariner Energy, owner of the production platform, said in a press release that no hydrocarbon spill has been reported after an initial flyover of the incident.
"Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident," the statement said. "The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate."
Bobby Jindal will hold a press conference on the incident at 1:30 p.m.
A mile-long oil sheen spread Thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico off Lousiana, west of the site of BP's massive spill.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform owned by Houston-basedMariner Energy Inc.
He said Mariner had deployed three firefighting vessels to the site and one already was in place fighting the blaze.
The good news is the water is so shallow compared to the Deepwater Horizon that correcting a leak could presumabley be done with traditional methods. Jindal's statement on the incident seems to suggest oil flow has already been cut off:
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said on Thursday afternoon that production from a burning oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut.
Jindal said operator Mariner Energy's (ME.N) senior officials told Louisiana officials the flow of oil from the sea floor had been stopped. The fire seen on the platform was from flammable material in storage on the platform.
Nate Silver and Jonathan Chait disagree with my recent assessment that the health care law has been a factor in the political decline of the Democrats. Both of them make essentially the same point: you can't prove it! Well...yeah! Absent a poll asking people if their main reason for opposition to the Democrats is health care, the best we can do is make a circumstantial argument.* This kind of argumentation happens all the time, especially over at FiveThirtyEight: Every time Silver offers up a statistical correlation, he's making a circumstantial argument. Nothing wrong with that. And while correlation does not necessitate causation (and all that jazz), there is a very strong circumstantial argument to be made here. Consider the contrary assertion: The president and the Democrats' numbers dropped sharply between Memorial Day and Labor Day of last year, right when the health care debate heated up, then declined again between November and December as each chamber passed their versions of it; yet while the bills were manifestly unpopular, it was not a reason for the decline. Does that really make sense?
For his part, Silver says that my argument is "underdetermined" but also that it's "implausible that (health care) hasn't played some role." I suppose that both of these statements could be true at the same time, but that really requires some nuance, doesn't it?
One of the most innovative voices in the health care debate, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), is accelerating the process of exempting his state from some of the national reforms passed under President Barack Obama.
The Oregon Democrat is seeking to take advantage of a provision he helped write into the legislation that allows states to set up their own health care systems as long as they meet minimal requirements established by the Department of Health and Human Services. In a letter to the state's Health Authority office, Wyden announced that he will introduce legislation to accelerate the start date for state waivers from 2017 to 2014, if not earlier for Oregon specifically.
In addition, he strongly suggested that the state should use the provision to exempt Oregon from the individual mandate, which would penalize those individuals who refuse to purchase insurance coverage. The mandate was a feature of Wyden's own health care bill but has proved to be remarkably unpopular among voters.
Wyden is up for reelection this year. So far, he looks fairly safe. But it is peculiar, isn't it? An incumbent Democrat up for reelection is petitioning to get his state waived from one of the major provisions in the bill.
Somebody needs to tell Senator Wyden that the argument that health care has hurt his party's prospects is underdetermined!
In all seriousness, we can look to the actions of politicians to get a sense of the political effects of health care reform. Are Republicans running against it? Yes. Are Democrats in vulnerable districts running in support of it? Not really. Are some Democrats even running away from it? Yes. Is there a strong correlation between House Democrats who voted no and McCain's share of the district vote? Oh, most definitely.
Well that was quick. Just last week Matthew Futterman wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "as the U.S. Open begins on Monday, Andy Roddick will be celebrating his 28th birthday. He will also be facing what could be his last realistic shot at glory." Then suddenly, Roddick, ranked 9th, was ousted in last night's second round match by 44th-ranked Janko Tipsarevic, a colorful character from Serbia who sports an arm tattoo that reads, "Beauty will save the world."
During the third set, Roddick was set off by a lineswoman who called him on a foot fault. Video shows she was right—but she was wrong about which foot. The 2003 U.S. Open champion decided to make an issue not over the foot fault itself but the judge's mistaking the right foot for his left. (His serve would have otherwise been an ace.) And it was downhill from there.
So is this the end? Says Futterman,
Now Mr. Roddick is quieting whispers that he might be at the end of his career. "I'm going to throw a stat at you," he said defiantly after a straight-set loss to Gilles Simon earlier this month. "The average age of a top 100 player on tour is 27, so define end."
Here's one way to define it—the average age in the top five is 24.6.
Ouch.
And yet there is still so much for the young (in the nonprofessional sense) Roddick to look forward to. Such as spending more time with his wife, model Brooklyn Decker.
As usual, incisive explanation and analysis from the Taiwanese media outfit, NMA World Edition. This time the subject's the Ground Zero mosque controversy:
In this episode of "Better Know Your Democratic Governor," longtime Obama ally (and speech donor) Deval Patrick seems to commit a Kinsleyan gaffe when asked about the Glenn Beck rally held on the Mall August 28.
The rally faced criticism from liberals, particularly black leaders who believed it was inappropriate to hold it on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Most of those liberals were wise enough not to question Beck's right to hold a rally; just the wisdom and symbolism of the date and place. Gov. Patrick is not so sure about the Constitutional rights of those who disagree with him.
When asked whether he was troubled by the rally, he replies, "It's a free country. I wish it weren't. You know, you got to respect that freedom." Here's Massachusetts talker Michael Graham discussing the comment, with audio of the clip:
If I were the defense for Patrick, I'd argue that it's possible he was saying, in essence, "It's a free country. I wish it (the rally) weren't (held on that date). You know, you got to respect that freedom." But my, that would be an odd construction for that sentiment. In defending his remark, Patrick doesn't put forth that argument. He merely reiterates that it's a free country, and he wishes the rally hadn't been held that day.
“It’s pretty unbelievable and typical of the far left,” Cahill told the Herald. “When they don’t like what the other side says, they want to close down free speech.”
Patrick later in the day defended his radio remarks, stressing he has long defended freedom of speech. The governor said he meant that Fox TV host Glenn Beck should not have chosen the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech on its 47th anniversary to hold his “Restoring Honor” rally. The rally was held Saturday.
“I wish they hadn’t chose that place and that day to have that event,” Patrick said. “But it’s a free country. That was my point, and it has to be respected.”
Time on "Mr. Unpopular": A sense of disappointment, bordering on betrayal, has been growing across the country, especially in moderate states like Indiana, where people now openly say they didn’t quite understand the President they voted for in 2008. The fear most often expressed is that Obama is taking the country somewhere they don’t want to go. “We bought what he said. He offered a lot of hope,” says Fred Ferlic, an Obama voter and orthopedic surgeon in South Bend who has since soured on his choice. Ferlic talks about the messy compromises in health care reform, his sense of an inhospitable business climate and the growth of government spending under Obama. “He’s trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other way,” continues Ferlic, a former Democratic campaign donor who plans to vote Republican this year. “The entire American spirit is being broken.”
Tony Blair on George Bush: "One of the most ludicrous caricatures of George is that he was a dumb idiot who stumbled into the presidency," writes Blair. "No one stumbles into that job, and the history of American presidential campaigns is littered with the corpses of those who were supposed to be brilliant but who nonetheless failed because brilliance is not enough."
Boxer vs. Fiorina: During the hourlong debate in which both women exchanged feisty jabs, Fiorina called Boxer an agent of big government spending, taxes and policies that strangled America's entrepreneurial spirit. Boxer fired back by criticizing Fiorina for serving the interests of "billionaires, millionaires and companies that outsource jobs," rather than average Americans.
The question everyone here is asking is why—having been to China just this past May—the reclusive Great Leader and dictator of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong-Il, would return last week. More than four years had elapsed between his 2006 trip to China and his “unofficial” visit this past spring. So why was he back again after only three months?
Kim is often looked upon by the Chinese as some kind of crazy nephew. As much as they try to support him, spend time and resources and endure the international embarrassment of propping him up, Kim’s behaviour seems to become more—rather than less—erratic.
Occam’s Razor suggests his latest trip is a sign of the growing desperation that the Kim Family Regime is feeling in its efforts to ensure a smooth transition to a new generation of despot. Conditions in the country continue to deteriorate for the great mass of the poor, and there is a growing disparity between these have-nots and those who have been active in the growing number of private trading markets. Added to this discontent is the still palpable anger over a December 2009 remuneration of the North Korean currency, the won, which lopped two zeroes off the banknotes and then restricted the amounts of the old notes that could be exchanged for new ones. A large number of people had their savings wiped out.
Welcome. This is a regular feature I'll be offering every weekday, first thing in the morning. Basically, what I'll do is flag the most notable stories of the 2010 midterm campaign, and provide my two cents on what's really happening.
(1) Generic ballot. Still making the rounds a few days after publication is Gallup's out-sized Republican lead on the generic ballot: 10 points, 51-41. Wowsa. That would translate into a 55-45 Republican victory in the two-party vote. That's larger than 1994. Heck, that's larger than 1946. That's 1928 territory, which was back when the GOP won every congressional district in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, and even San Francisco. And that's GOP +10 among registered voters. Over at Pollster, Harry Enten argues, "the Republican margin on the likely voter model could be 5-10% greater than on the registered voter model."
I think the appropriate posture here is one of caution.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Gallup poll is bouncy. Obvious question: Just recently, the ballot had a Democratic lead of 6 points, so has enough happened to justify a 16-point shift so quickly? Similarly, President Obama has gone from -11 to +2 in his net job approval in the last two weeks. This is a bounce that nobody else has found. It's appropriate not to get hung up on the day-to-day or even week-to-week changes in the Gallup poll.
The generic ballot has other issues. My sense of it is that when one party has a lead in the real world, the generic ballot will often overstate that lead in the poll. So, the Dems win by 13 points in 1958, but the generic ballot that fall has them winning by 23. They win by 17 in 1974, but the generic ballot has them winning by 27.
Another point. To get a good sense of what these results mean, we need a decent historical trendline. We don't really have that here. It's not coincidental that this is the first time the generic ballot has the GOP up by this much. It's only recently that the Republicans have become competitive in the race to control the House. From 1932 to 1994, the Democrats held the House all but twice by splitting Northern districts and winning 70-90 percent of Southern districts. Since 1994, the GOP has remained competitive in the North, but now roughly splits Southern districts. That's why a year like 2010 could produce a Republican House majority, but the GOP couldn't even take the House in 1972 when Richard Nixon won 61 percent of the vote. The South was just off the table.
So, the fact that the GOP lead of +10 being "unprecedented" doesn't mean exactly what we might want to think it means. It's as much a testament to Republican non-competitiveness from 1954-94 as much as Democratic doldrums in 2010. In other words, the shape of the congressional elections has fundamentally shifted in the last 20 years. So, I wouldn't take a 10-point lead literally. I'd say a 10-point lead points to a solid House majority for Republicans, but these numbers should be read cautiously.
What's more noteworthy than GOP +10 on the generic ballot is that Republicans in Congress now outpoll Democrats on seven of nine issues, according to Gallup. What's amazing about this is that Gallup tested "Republicans in Congress" versus "Democrats in Congress" and gave voters the potential response of "No Difference." And even with this, the GOP is at or above 50 percent on terrorism, immigration, and federal spending. And on the economy, the GOP hits 49 percent. That's amazing because "Republicans in Congress" has long been a surefire way to generate terrible GOP polling numbers. Not anymore, apparently. Two theories as to why: (a) Republican candidates nationwide are rebranding the party's congressional image; (b) Democrats have really shot themselves in the foot. My money is on (b) with a twist of (a).
(2) Is Sarah Palin running for president? This is a taste of what will begin almost immediately after the midterm:
Last week House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio delivered a stinging critique of the Obama administration’s economic policies. But the White House’s swift and tart reaction to Boehner was both illuminating and sadly predictable.
On the day of the speech, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer offered a “pre-buttal,” ripped from the playbook of a presidential campaign. Vice President Biden joined the fray, donning his full-electoral jacket, reminding us once again that it was another president that got us into this mess.
Blame is like classic rock for this administration – they like it so much they never stop playing it.
Aiming a political fusillade at a specific congressional critique may seem normal in today’s rough-and-tumble 24-hour news cycle, but it’s a fundamentally flawed method of steering the ship of state.
Yet this tactical retort to a congressional appraisal was dismally emblematic of a broader governing style, demonstrating that the Obama White House fundamentally misunderstands the role of the presidency.
Presidents like Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush, occasionally, but rarely, engaged in personal tit-for-tat with congressional leaders. But whenever they did, it also weakened them and advanced their opponents. But this president has raised the practice to an art form.
Instead of positioning himself as the leader of the free world or as a post-partisan healer, Obama regularly inserts himself as a combative participant in Washington’s permanent campaign.
Alaska's soon-to-be-former senator Lisa Murkowski only won election in 2004 with 49 percent of the vote. Still, given the fact that 2010 seems to be a much stronger year for Republicans than 2004, you might think Joe Miller would poll better than 50% to 44% against Democratic nominee Scott McAdams (whose name the DNC's spokesman didn't know last week).
Of course, both candidates are fairly unknown right now, and Miller just won a primary by tearing down Lisa Murkowski. I presume the Murkowski dynasty does have some devotees who could be persuaded to support Miller if Lisa Murkowski gets around to supporting Joe Miller. But that appears to be a big "if" at the moment.
