Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

JULY 1,  2011

A CASE COLLAPSES – We're at least fortunate here in New York that the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., has some class and some respect for his profession.  His handling of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case is a model of what an ethical prosecutor must do.  Vance is the son of the late Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Today, after weeks of being the victim of a journalistic lynch mob, similar to the academic and journalistic mob that almost destroyed three lacrosse players falsely accused of rape at Duke University, Strauss-Kahn was released on his own recognizance, and had his bail returned.  There is even talk that he will eventually be able to resume his career as one of France's most respected statesmen, and might even run for president of France, something in the works before he was yanked off a plane at JFK International Airport, based on the accusation of a hotel housekeeper. 

The news that the case against Strauss-Kahn is in pieces has stunned France, but there has been surprisingly little anti-Americanism in the reaction.  Indeed, Vance's ethical behavior will help to undo a great deal of French anger.

Strauss-Kahn is free to travel about the United States, but cannot leave the country yet.  The case against him has not been formally dismissed, but it is crumbling.  When a prosecutor like Vance says openly that his office has doubts about the credibility of the only witness to the alleged sexual assault, he is pretty much throwing in the towel.  Yes there is presumably DNA evidence of a sexual encounter with the housekeeper, but that could have been consensual.  Also, "evidence" has to be defined.  The mere presence of some DNA, like hair or skin cells, on the body of the accuser is not persuasive.  She's a housekeeper.  She had access to Strauss-Kahn's clothing, dirty laundry, hairbrush and other items that contained his DNA.

The case against the now-resigned head of the International Monetary Fund began to falter when the DA discovered some stunning evidence, as reported by The New York Times, which is doing a much finer job here than it did in the Duke case.  It involved a recorded phone call:

When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ ” the official said.

It was another ground-shifting revelation in a continuing series of troubling statements, fabrications and associations that unraveled the case and upended prosecutors’ view of the woman. Once, in the hours after she said she was attacked on May 14, she’d been a “very pious, devout Muslim woman, shattered by this experience,” the official said — a seemingly ideal witness.

Little by little, her credibility as a witness crumbled — she had lied about her immigration, about being gang raped in Guinea, about her experiences in her homeland and about her finances, according to two law enforcement officials. She had been linked to people suspected of crimes. She changed her account of what she did immediately after the encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. Sit-downs with prosecutors became tense, even angry. Initially composed, she later collapsed in tears and got down on the floor during questioning. She became unavailable to investigators from the district attorney’s office for days at a time.

And...

Suspicions of the woman’s associations arose relatively quickly: within a week of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, the authorities learned of a recorded conversation between the subject of a drug investigation and another man, who said his companion was the woman involved in the Strauss-Kahn matter, according to another law enforcement official.

COMMENT:  The presumption of innocence is one of the most sacred principles in our law.  It was never accorded to the three boys at Duke.  It was not accorded to Strauss-Kahn.   

In both cases, there were racial overtones  –  an African-American accuser at Duke, an African-Caribbean accuser in New York.  This clearly complicates a case as the press, perhaps for understandable historical reasons, wants to tread carefully and avoid humiliating the accuser. 

This story is far from over.  My own gut feeling, and I have no independent evidence to back this up, is that it may grow as we learn more about the accuser's international associations.  When he was first arrested, Strauss-Kahn was said to have theorized that this was an internationally inspired set-up.  People laughed.  There isn't any reason to laugh any longer.

July 1, 2011       Permalink

AND ANOTHER GUY TO WATCH – AT 10:06 A.M. ET:  We've been urging the Republican Party to skip a generation and pick an exciting, winning presidential candidate, like Marco Rubio.  The guy has it.  From NRO:

Earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio made an auspicious debut.

Unlike so many first turns in the upper chamber, Rubio’s stirring remarks, which celebrated American exceptionalism, caught fire. The Florida Republican’s words were cited by Senate colleagues and championed by conservatives. To no one’s surprise, the push to put Rubio on the 2012 ticket only increased, even though the charismatic freshman continues to swat away the chatter.

Look for the Rubio buzz to continue. In an interview with National Review Online, he says that he will take to the Senate floor for his second speech this week — and this time he will have President Obama in his crosshairs.

Rubio tells us that he will respond to Obama’s recent press conference, where the president reveled in class-warfare bluster. “Quite frankly, I am both disappointed for our country and shocked at some of the rhetoric,” he says. “It was rhetoric, I thought, that was more appropriate for some left-wing strong man than for the president of the United States.”

“Talking about corporate jets and oil companies,” Rubio says, missed the point. “Everybody here agrees that our tax code is broken,” he says, and he is open to discussing tax reform. “But don’t go around telling people that the reason you are not doing well is because some rich guy is in a corporate jet or some oil company is making too much money.”

Watching Obama brandish such talking points made Rubio wince. “Three years into his presidency, he is a failed president,” he says. “He just has not done a good job. Life in America today, by every measure, is worse than it was when he took over.”

“When does it start to get better?” Rubio asks. “When does the magic of this president start to happen?”

COMMENT:  Well said.  Rubio is a superb speaker and a guy with solid values that don't change with the passing breeze.  Yes, he's only a freshman senator, but he was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and has more experience than Obama had when he was elected.  The Dems therefore can't use the experience argument against him.

I'd love to see Marco Rubio eventually jump in.

July 1, 2011       Permalink

FASCINATING – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  There's a new presidential candidate in town.  From The Politico:

Thaddeus McCotter will file paperwork on Friday to become the eighth Republican candidate for president, a McCotter adviser told POLITICO.

Thaddeus who?  Although we have an exceptional readership, many readers might not be instantly familiar with the name.  Well, get ready.  This is one of the smartest members of Congress, and he actually can write!  And, I have to say, I love the name:  President Thaddeus McCotter.  I can see Henry Fonda in that role. 

McCotter spent four days in Iowa this week and came away “feeling positive” about his reception, the adviser said. His presidential campaign website will go live around noon tomorrow, allowing the four-term Michigan congressman to kick off his long-shot bid on the first day of the new fundraising quarter.

His presidential committee, dubbed McCotter 2012, will start out with funds in the six figures, according to the source. The campaign will not have to file a full fundraising report until the fall. McCotter had nearly half a million dollars in his House campaign account at the end of March.

The source said that former Iowa House Speaker Chris Rants will serve as McCotter’s senior adviser in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

Rants, who endorsed Mitt Romney early in the 2008 cycle, confirmed that he spent the week introducing McCotter to Iowans and the state of the race.

Note this:

Even before formally launching his presidential bid, McCotter has not shied from firing shots at those already in the presidential race. When frontrunner Mitt Romney visited Michigan earlier this month, McCotter declared that “struggling families, entrepreneurs and workers can’t afford policies that make Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama less than rivals, and more like running mates.”

In an interview with POLITICO last month, McCotter previewed some of the themes of a potential presidential run: “The challenge of globalization, the war for freedom against terrorists, the rise of Communist China and whether moral relativism erodes a nation built on self-evident truth.”

Now there's a guy I can admire.  Watch him.  His campaign may be a long shot, but McCotter has substance, and one day he may well go the distance.  The intellectual level of the Republican field just doubled.

July 1, 2011       Permalink

OTHERS WANT AN INDEPENDENCE DAY, TOO – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  Syria is still boiling while Western nations do some tut-tutting, and little else.  From Reuters:

AMMAN - Tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets nationwide on Friday shouting that President Bashar Assad should "leave", extending a protest wave despite a military assault on restive northwestern towns, witnesses and activists said.

Demonstrations ranged from the suburbs of Damascus to the Lebanese border, the desert bordering Iraq and Idlib province, where tank assaults on hill villages near Turkey killed three civilians overnight, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

That raised the death toll to at least 14 villagers in the last two days, it said.

"Bashar get out of our lives," read placards carried by thousands of Kurds who marched in the northeastern city of Amouda, according to a YouTube video taken by a resident.

The renewed protests come after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said Syria is running out of time to reform and will face more organized resistance if it does not.

Speaking at a news conference in Lithuania, she also said she was disheartened by the Syrian government's decision to allow one opposition meeting in Damascus was not sufficient.

Asked about the apparent contradiction between permitting the meeting while pursuing a tank offensive in the north, Clinton said: "It doesn't appear that there's a coherent and consistent message coming from Syria.."

COMMENT:  The fact is, there's no sign that the regime is even thinking of ending its crackdown.  Reportedly, more than 1,400 people have been killed thus far.

Hmm.  That number, 1,400, is about the same as the Gaza death toll in the Israeli defensive operation against Hamas several years ago, an attempt to silence the rocket launchers that had sent 11,000 rockets into Israel.  Remember the uproar against democratic Israel by the international Marxist left?  Notice the silence of that same left in regard to the Syrian dictatorship. 

Instead, a gang of Western leftists is next week sending a "relief" convoy to Gaza, where two luxury hotels are being built, where loads of large-screen TV's are being imported, and where two major shopping malls just opened. 

When will some medical school diagnose the mental illness that is the international left?

July 1, 2011       Permalink

HOLIDAY ALERT! – AT 8:40 A.M. ET:  As you begin your holiday weekend, we present this as a public service so that you don't feed the beastly, fascistic, mindless right-wing propaganda machine, hovering over us to snatch your children, soul mates and even your orthodontists.  Read this and LEARN what's being done to you.  The villains have names like WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON, and the heinous BEN FRANKLIN:

Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

I knew it!  The whole thing is a conspiracy.  The Declaration of Independence was written by...by...Karl Rove.

"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard.

"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam.

Their findings also suggest that Democrats gain nothing from July 4th parades, likely a shocking result for all the Democratic politicians who march in them.

"There is no evidence of an increased likelihood of identifying as a Democrat, indicating that Fourth of July shifts preferences to the right rather than increasing political polarization," the two wrote.

COMMENT:  Well, there goes the White House's celebration of the 4th of July, not that they were too enthusiastic about the idea in the first place.

I wonder who paid for that "research."

July 1,  2011     Permalink

JUNE 30,  2011

THIS IS JUST INCREDIBLE – AT 11:17 P.M. ET:  The headlines screamed at us.  It was the classic case of a major figure, the head of the International Monetary Fund, brought down by the accusations of one of the "little people."  The media loved it.  The audience loved it.  And now we find it may not be true.  From The New York Times:

The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Although forensic tests found unambiguous evidence of a sexual encounter between Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a French politician, and the woman, prosecutors do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself.

Since her initial allegation on May 14, the accuser has repeatedly lied, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Senior prosecutors met with lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn on Thursday and provided details about their findings, and the parties are discussing whether to dismiss the felony charges. Among the discoveries, one of the officials said, are issues involving the asylum application of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who is Guinean, and possible links to criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering.

And...

According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

The investigators also learned that she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends.

In addition, one of the officials said, she told investigators that her application for asylum included mention of a previous rape, but there was no such account in the application. She also told them that she had been subjected to genital mutilation, but her account to the investigators differed from what was contained in the asylum application.

COMMENT:  Mr. Strauss-Kahn, meet Duke University.  There is a chilling resemblance between this case and the Duke case, in which false allegations of rape were hurled at three lacrosse players, who were immediately declared guilty by politically correct Duke, and thrown out of school.  They were later completely exonerated, and the politically ambitious district attorney who'd intended to prosecute them was disbarred.

We should hasten to point out that the great majority of sexual assault charges presented by women turn out to be true, and there are more and more quality prosecutions of those charges.  But there have also been disturbing false cases, resulting in the destruction of the lives of innocent men.  Strauss-Kahn has already lost his job as head of the IMF because of the charges, and his political career in France, where he had been considered the leading contender to become the country's next president, is essentially over.

If Strauss-Kahn is cleared of wrongdoing, there should be an immediate, massive investigation of the district attorney's office's initial work, although that office eventually, and commendably, discovered the discrpancies in the case.  And news organizations should have the common decency – highly unlikely – to finance an outside investigation of their own behavior. 

The image of American justice is not very good here.  There is work to do.

June 30, 2011     Permalink 

THIS WEEK'S JOBLESS REPORT – NO GOOD – AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  The jobless picture in America is just not improving.  While we have almost a year and a half before the election, Obama had better get this economy restarted, or he'll be calling the moving boys from Mayflower.   From Bloomberg: 

More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, indicating little progress in the labor market.

Jobless claims fell by 1,000 to 428,000 in the week ended June 25, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg News survey called for a drop to 420,000. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls and those getting extended payments declined.

Weaker demand in recent months has prompted some companies to trim their workforces, adding to concern a cooling labor market will further restrain consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve officials last week retained record monetary stimulus to help the economy withstand a “temporary” slowdown in growth.

“The labor market is not making any material improvement,” said John Herrmann, senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC in Boston, who projected 429,000 claims in the latest week. “Consumer spending will be more constrained.”

COMMENT:  There are also surveys showing that an increasing number of Americans believe that this will be a permanent condition.  Psychology is basic to the direction of any economy, and the American psyche is going in the wrong direction.

June 30, 2011       Permalink

PRAISE THE POST – AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  Yes, yes, the Washington Post is a liberal paper,  but it's done some very good things recently, like running a responsible and thoughtful editorial page.  And now the Post is doing what The New York Times does only to conservatives.  It is holding President Obama to a high standard of accuracy.  We give credit where it's due at Urgent Agenda, and the Post deserves credit for this examination of Obama's press conference yesterday:

In a bit of class jujutsu, the president six times mentioned eliminating a tax loophole for corporate jets, frequently pitting it against student loans or food safety. It’s a potent image, but in the context of a $4-trillion goal, it is essentially meaningless. The item is so small the White House could not even provide an estimate of the revenue that would be raised, but other estimates suggest it would amount to $3 billion over 10 years.

Meanwhile, student financial assistance, just for 2011, is about $42 billion. So the corporate jet loophole — which involves the fact that such assets can be depreciated over five years, rather than the seven for commercial jets — just is not going to raise a lot of money. It certainly wouldn’t save many student loans.

Going after hedge fund managers might raise about $15 billion over 10 years, but in a different life The Fact Checker covered Wall Street and is pretty certain those financial wizards would figure out a way to avoid this tax shift. John Carney of CNBC actually outlined how that would work.

And this from the president:

“Moammar Gaddafi, who prior to Osama bin Laden was responsible for more American deaths than just about anybody on the planet, was threatening to massacre his people. . . . As a consequence, a guy who was a state sponsor of terrorist operations against the United States of America is pinned down, and the noose is tightening around him.”

Yes, Gaddafi is a bad guy, but Obama conveniently ignores the fact that until the uprising, the administration was rushing to do business with him. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with one of Gadhafi’s sons, Mutassim Gadhafi, in 2009, declaring, “I’m very much looking forward to building on this relationship.”

We need more of this.  Had a Republican president engaged in the artistry that Obama engaged in yesterday, New York Times Washington writers would have gone into cardiac arrest simply rushing to their computers to give us the news of the deceptions.

Read the whole piece.  Fascinating stuff.

June 30, 2011       Permalink

DISTURBING NEWS FOR SARAH – AT 8:52 A.M. ET: Sarah Palin may be testing the waters in Iowa this week, but the political news from home is bound to create a major embarrassment for her, and raise doubts about her political viability. From the Anchorage Daily News:

A new Hays Research poll shows Barack Obama would beat Sarah Palin among Alaskans if the presidential election was today.

The poll found 42 percent of Alaskan voters would pick or are learning toward Obama in a head to head race against Palin for the presidency, while 36 percent of the voters would choose or are leaning toward Palin over him.

Conservative Anchorage radio host Mike Porcaro paid for Hays Research to ask the question.

“Sarah Palin showcases her Alaska roots at every opportunity, but the surprising reality is she has become highly unpopular in her home state,” Porcaro said in an emailed statement.

“Whether it is the fact she left office after serving barely two years or that some Alaskans believe her tax policies have punished our vital oil and gas industry or the ‘rock star’ nature of her media coverage, these results show Sarah Palin would lose to Obama in Alaska, where voters overwhelmingly support conservative candidates,” Porcaro said.

As the article points out, Alaska hasn't voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. 

COMMENT:  Sarah Palin, whom I admire in many ways, is paying the price for some unwise decisions, especially her decision to resign as governor to become a highly paid media celebrity.  She may well have a future in politics, but I hope she sits out the 2012 election, regroups, and gets a better sense of direction. 

June 30, 2011       Permalink

ANOTHER BLUNDER – AT 8:31 A.M. ET: Once again the Obama administration has made an international concession without demanding a thing in return.   Anything to be the nice fella on the block, especially when the block is populated by Islamists.   From Reuters:

WASHINGTON - The United States has decided to resume formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a senior US official said on Wednesday, in a step that reflects the Islamist group's growing political weight but that is almost certain to upset Israel and its US backers.

It may also upset a number of true democracy fighters in Egypt, who have been trying to limit the Brotherhood's influence.  Once again, we've undercut the very people sticking their necks out for freedom.  Obama must get a great kick out of this.

"The political landscape in Egypt has changed, and is changing," said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It is in our interests to engage with all of the parties that are competing for parliament or the presidency."

The official sought to portray the shift as a subtle evolution rather than a dramatic change in Washington's stance toward the Brotherhood, a group founded in 1928 that seeks to promote its conservative vision of Islam in society.

I love the polite description.  The Brotherhood has a profoundly fascist history, was an ally of Adolf Hitler, and today, despite a public smile, is considered by most observers to be an extremist Muslim organization.  To recognize this group without getting public commitments in advance is appeasement in the extreme.  We must be uneasy about Obama's constant groveling in the Muslim world.

Under the previous policy, US diplomats were allowed to deal with Brotherhood members of parliament who had won seats as independents -- a diplomatic fiction that allowed them to keep lines of communication open.

Where US diplomats previously dealt only with group members in their role as parliamentarians, a policy the official said had been in place since 2006, they will now deal directly with low-level Brotherhood party officials.

There is no US legal prohibition against dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, which long ago renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt and which is not regarded by Washington as a foreign terrorist organization.

But other sympathetic groups, such as Hamas, which identifies the Brotherhood as its spiritual guide, have not disavowed violence against the state of Israel.

And the Brotherhood has never distanced itself from that violent policy.  They're shrewd operators, and we should have nothing to do with them until they make very definite commitments, and do so before TV cameras.  The Israelis, in particular, will take this as a sign from Obama that they're very much alone.  True seekers of democracy in the Arab world will take it as a sign that it's business as usual for Washington's "realistic" diplomats.  Yuch.

June 30, 2011     Permalink