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Mark Steyn Writes about Ted Kennedy

Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne
Only a Kennedy could get away with it.

By Mark Steyn

We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead. But, when an entire nation — or, at any rate, its “mainstream” media culture — declines to speak the truth about the dead, we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists. In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s passing, America’s TV networks are creepily reminiscent of those plays Sam Shepard used to write about some dysfunctional inbred hardscrabble Appalachian household where there’s a baby buried in the backyard but everyone agreed years ago never to mention it.

In this case, the unmentionable corpse is Mary Jo Kopechne, 1940
1969. If you have to bring up the, ah, circumstances of that year of decease, keep it general, keep it vague. As Kennedy flack Ted Sorensen put it in Time magazine: “Both a plane crash in Massachusetts in 1964 and the ugly automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 almost cost him his life.”

That’s the way to do it! An “accident,” “ugly” in some unspecified way, just happened to happen — and only to him, nobody else. Ted’s the star, and there’s no room to namecheck the bit players. What befell him was . . . a thing, a place. As Joan Vennochi wrote in the Boston Globe: “Like all figures in history — and like those in the Bible, for that matter — Kennedy came with flaws. Moses had a temper. Peter betrayed Jesus. Kennedy had Chappaquiddick, a moment of tremendous moral collapse.” humorous

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjZlNjA1MTRmYWViNjMwMDUyNjc1ZTg0NDQwZjk2ODc=
Tags: Kennedy  
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August 29th in American History

August 29, 1862

Battle of Second Bull Run

Confederate General Robert E. Lee deals a stinging defeat to Union General John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run—a battle that arose out of the failure of Union General George McClellan's Peninsular campaign earlier in the summer. Frustrated with McClellan, who was still camped on the James Peninsula southeast of Richmond, President Lincoln and General-in-Chief Henry Halleck decided to pull a substantial part of McClellan's Army of the Potomac and send it to General John Pope's newly formed Army of Virginia.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2299


1945 - U.S. General Douglas MacArthur left for Japan to officially accept the surrender of the Japanese.


1957 - Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a filibuster record in the U.S. when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

August 29, 1968

Humphrey nominated in Chicago

In Chicago, the Democratic National Convention nominates Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency, bringing to a close the most violent political convention in U.S. history.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5300

1973 - U.S. President Nixon was ordered by Judge John Sirica to turn over the Watergate tapes. Nixon refused and appealed the order.
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Court Rejects Using the Geithner TurboTax Defense

Tax Court Rejects Taxpayer's Attempt to Use Geithner's TurboTax Defense

The Tax Court yesterday rejected a taxpayer's attempt to use the TurboTax defense successfully employed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.  Hopson v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2009-130 (Aug. 25, 2009) (citations omitted):

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/08/tax-court-rejects.html

Tags: tax   Geithner  
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Pelosi Needs Some Cash to Fight Against Those Un-American Protesters Carrying Swastikas

Pelosi aims for $100,000 to counter 'smears'
Posted: 08/27/09 01:10 PM [ET]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is raising money for Democratic campaigns with an appeal to counter Republicans’ “outrageous smears” on healthcare.


http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi-aims-for-100000-to-counter-gop-smears-2009-08-27.html
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FCC Diversity Chief will Try to Silence Conservatives

FCC Diversity Chief Asked Liberals to Copy FDR, Take on Limbaugh, Murdoch, Supreme Court
Thursday, August 27, 2009
By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – Federal Communications Commission Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd called on fellow liberals to follow the model of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and challenge conservative media moguls and station owners, particularly figures such as Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, and “a pro-big business Supreme Court aligned” with them.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=53136
Tags: Media   FCC  
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Great News

Qaddafi Cancels Plans to Stay in New Jersey

Published: August 28, 2009
Amid pressure from New Jersey political leaders, the Libyan government has canceled plans for its nation’s president, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, to stay in New Jersey during his visit to the United States next month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/nyregion/29libya.html?_r=2
Tags: NJ   Terrorism  
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North Korea Shipping Weapons to Iran, I am Shocked

UAE Seizes North Korean Weapons Shipment to Iran (Update2)

By Bill Varner

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship carrying North Korean-manufactured munitions, detonators, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades bound for Iran in violation of United Nations sanctions, diplomats said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ap9U2VfbfCBs


Tags: n korea   Iran  
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Another Democrat Uses Race to Defend Obama

"They are spreading fear and they're trying to see that the first president who looks like me -- fails."

"People look at the United States as a country that has changed it's way and elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I'll put it like that."
BR> KABC’s Michael Linder was the only broadcast reporter at Thursday night’s town hall health care debate at Wade AME Church when Rep. Diane Watson [D] made some astonishing comments including claims that those opposed to health care reform are attempting to destroy a president “who looks like me.”

http://www.breitbart.tv/la-rep-obamacare-opponents-want-to-destroy-first-president-who-looks-like-me/

Here is the audio:


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If There's an Emergency, Let's Let the Messiah Deal with It

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html
Tags: obama  
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ObamaCare Does Nothing to Prevent Illegal Immigrants from Being Covered

Obamacare won't cover illegal immigrants? Yes it will, says Congressional Research Service

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
08/26/09 10:58 AM EDT

Among the many claims being made durng the August recess by Democrats from President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, to the lowliest back-bencher is that Obamacare absolutely, positively, cannot possibly ever in a million, zillion years provide coverage to illegal immigrants.

Just this past weekend during his regular Saturday address - devoted to addressing what he called "false claims about reform" -  Obama said he wants "an honest debate" on health care reform, "not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions."

In what he called the "first myth" being spread by critics of his proposal for a government-run health care system, Obama said they are wrong in claiming illegal immigrants will be covered: "That is not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has not even been on the table." Obama said.

Well, Mr. President, that idea must have been tucked under a stack of background briefing papers over there in the corner of the table because the Congressional Research Service (CRS) says this about H.R. 3200, the Obamacare bill approved just before the recess by the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamacare-wont-cover-illegal-immigrants--55021087.html

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Crist Names Replacement for Martinez

Charlie Crist names George LeMieux to Senate


Updated: 8/28/09 12:53 PM EDT

Florida GOP Gov. Charlie Crist on Friday named former aide George LeMieux to fill the seat of outgoing GOP Sen. Mel Martinez.

LeMieux, a longtime Republican insider in the state, has served as chairman of the Broward County Republican Party, deputy state attorney general and campaign manager for Crist’s 2006 run for governor. He ran unsuccessfully for the state House in 1998.

LeMieux was among nine other candidates who made Crist’s short list, which included several former congressmen, former Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney and former state attorney general and secretary of state Jim Smith.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26540.html



Tags: FL   senate   Crist  
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Chappaquiddick was Funny to Ted Kennedy

A former friend of Ted Kennedy who happens to be also the former editor of Newsweek and New York Times Magazine Ed Klein, revealed this on a radio show:

I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?” That is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.

Here is the audio:

Tags: Kennedy  
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"We're Not the Soviets in Afghanistan"

I think this is a great analysis by Fred Kagan explaining why we are not the Soviets in Afghanistan and our added presence does not mean our defeat like it did for the Soviets back in the 80's:

We're Not the Soviets in Afghanistan
And 2009 isn't 1979.
by Frederick W. Kagan
08/21/2009 2:58:00 PM

Comparisons between our current efforts in Afghanistan and the Soviet intervention that led to the collapse of the USSR are natural and can be helpful, but only with great care. Below are a number of key points to keep in mind when thinking about the Soviet operations, especially when considering the size of the U.S. or international military footprint.

War did not begin in 1979 when the Soviets invaded. It started in 1978 following the Saur Revolution in which Nur M. Taraki seized power from Mohammad Daoud. Taraki declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and set about bringing real socialism to the country.

Soviet advisors recommended that Taraki proceed slowly with social and economic reforms. They recognized that the socialist party (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan or PDPA) had the support of a tiny minority. They feared that Taraki's plans for aggressive "modernization" would generate an awful backlash. They were right.

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/854qadbb.asp?pg=1



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August 28th in American History

August 28, 1955

The death of Emmett Till

While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants--the white woman's husband and her brother--made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5297

August 28, 1963

King speaks to March on Washington

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstrators--black and white, poor and rich--came together in the nation's capital to demand voting rights and equal opportunity for African Americans and to appeal for an end to racial segregation and discrimination.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=7003

August 28, 1968

Protests at Democratic National Convention in Chicago

On this day in 1968, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. Over the course of 24 hours, the predominant American line of thought on the Cold War with the Soviet Union was shattered.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=52776

1981 - John Hinckley, Jr. pled innocent to the charge of attempting to kill U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Hinckley was later acquitted by reason of insanity.

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It Has All Got to Do with Transnationalism

Eric Holder’s Hidden Agenda
The investigation isn’t about torture, but about transnationalism.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

‘This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law. And to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately created court, we would obviously respond to it.”

It was springtime in Berlin and Eric Holder, a well-known “rule of law” devotee, was speaking to the German press. He’d been asked if his Justice Department would cooperate with efforts by foreign or international tribunals to prosecute U.S. government officials who carried out the Bush administration’s post-9/11 counterterrorism policies. The attorney general assured listeners that he was certainly open to being helpful. “Obviously,” he said, “we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it.”

As the Associated Press reported at the time, Holder was “pressed on whether that meant the United States would cooperate with a foreign court prosecuting Bush administration officials.” He skirted the question in a way Americans ought to find alarming. The attorney general indicated that he was speaking only about “evidentiary requests.” Translation: The Obama administration will not make arrests and hand current or former American government officials over for foreign trials, but if the Europeans or U.N. functionaries (at the nudging of, say, the Organization of the Islamic Conference) want Justice’s help gathering evidence in order to build triable cases — count us in.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGMyYTQ1ZTM5YTQ5NjJjNzJmNGUxZDIyOTFjYzIyM2Y=
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