Dreams Into Lightning 2

9/11 Memorial to Pols: STFU

CNN:

Politicians will be barred from speaking at this year's commemoration ceremony on the anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks, according to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

According to Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, the foundation "is focused on honoring the victims and their families in a way free of politics, and this ensures that continues." ...

If we could only get them to shut up the rest of the time.

Morning Report: 2012-07-04

USA: Americans celebrate Independence Day.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Read the whole thing here. Listen here. Scott Johnson at Power Line on the eternal meaning of Independence Day:

On July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience when Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas invited Lincoln to come join him on the balcony to watch the speech. In his speech Douglas rang the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and fall for Douglas’s Senate seat.

Douglas paid tribute to Lincoln as a “kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable opponent,” but took issue with Lincoln’s June 16 speech to the Illinois Republican convention that had named him its candidate for Douglas’s seat. In that speech Lincoln had famously asserted that the nation could not exist “half slave and half free.” According to Douglas, Lincoln’s assertion was inconsistent with the “diversity” in domestic institutions that was “the great safeguard of our liberties.” ...

Go to the post to read Lincoln's response.

Israel: Entebbe remembered. On the day of America's bicentennial, Israeli commandos executed one of the most daring hostage rescues in history.

It took Israeli commandos minutes to conduct one of the greatest and most daring rescue missions in modern history, in Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976.

During those brief fateful moments, good triumphed over evil; the innocent were saved and the terrorists who threatened them were routed.

It was 11:30 pm Saturday night, June 27, 1976. The seventh night that over 100 Israelis, non-Israeli Jews, and the twelve-member Air France crew were held in the Entebbe airport since PFLP (Popular Front Liberation Palestine) terrorists and two West German supporters, hijacked the jet, Air France flight 139, while on the ground during a stopover in Athens as it was bound from Tel Aviv to Paris. The Ugandan regime under Idi Amin Dada supported the terrorists and gave them cover. ...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost his brother on that day:
The rescue operation, was renamed Operation Yonatan in honor of its commander, Yonatan Netanyahu, 30, who was cut down by a Ugandan sentry.Netanyahu believed from the outset that the plan could be accomplished and his confidence influenced government leaders and his fellow commandos. On that day, one of Israel’s greatest soldiers had fallen.

China: Uighur hijackers killed by their hostages. More recently, 'Two men who allegedly tried to hijack a plane in far west China by battering the cockpit door with a crutch and trying to set off explosives have died, state media said Monday.' Atlas covers it. Rantburg provides commentary.

Turkey: Bodies of two airmen recovered. 'The bodies of the crew members of a Turkish jet shot down by Syria last month have been found. Turkey's TRT television said the two airmen were found on the Eastern Mediterranean seabed by a US deep-sea exploration vessel, according to AP. The F-4 Phantom jet was shot down on 22 June, after Syrian authorities claimed it had violated their airspace, a claim disputed by Turkey. ...'

Morning Report: 2012-06-19

Nigeria: Multiple blasts hit Damaturu. Stratfor: 'At least two explosions and multiple gunshots hit parts of the Sabon Pegi area of the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu in Yobe state June 18, in renewed attacks carried out by Boko Haram ...'

Lebanese authorities begin releasing islamist detainees. NOW Lebanon: 'Lebanese authorities released on Tuesday seven of the over 100 Islamist detainees held in Roumieh Prison, the National News Agency reported. ...'

Happy Juneteenth. 'Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth,[1] and is recognized as a state holiday or state holiday observance in 41 states of the United States.'

Rodney King Is Dead

Rodney King, whose police brutality case in 1991 led to deadly riots in Los Angeles, was found dead in a swimming pool on Sunday in Rialto, California, police told CNN. ...

Five Days in a DEA Cell

Remember, they're doing this to protect us.

An engineering student stepped forward with his lawyer Tuesday to say he was left alone in a federal holding cell for five days with no food or water, apparently forgotten by the federal drug agents who detained him.

Daniel Chong, 24, a UC San Diego senior, said he was swept up in a Drug Enforcement Administration raid near campus and was taken to the Kearny Mesa facility. After questioning, he was told he would be released.

Then the DEA left him locked inside a five-by-10-foot windowless cell. ...

“Sen. McCain chose not to fight.”

Via J. C. Adams at PJ:

There is an interesting story about the 2008 election coming out of Wikileaks. Memos from Stratfor released by Wikileaks say that widespread voter fraud occurred in Ohio and that “black Dems were caught stuffing the ballot boxes in Philly.” The McCain campaign knew about the fraud but feared taking action because of the “possibility of domestic violence” if they challenged the results in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The memos say campaign staff urged candidate John McCain to act in court:

“Staff felt they could get a federal injunction to stop the process.”

One of the Wikileaked memos says: “Sen. McCain chose not to fight.” The reason?

The memo states:

“McCain felt the crowds assembled in support of Obama and such would be detrimental to our country and it would do our nation no good for this to drag out like last go around, coupled with the possibility of domestic violence.” ...

Here's the original piece at Business Insider:

John McCain's 2008 campaign staff allegedly had evidence that Democrats stuffed ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio on election night, but McCain chose not to pursue voter fraud, according to internal Stratfor emails published by WikiLeaks.

In an email sent on November 7, 2008, and titled " Insight - The Dems & Dirty Tricks ** Internal Use Only - Pls Do Not Forward **," Stratfor vice president of intelligence Fred Burton wrote:

1) The black Dems were caught stuffing the ballot boxes in Philly and Ohio as reported the night of the election and Sen. McCain chose not to fight. The matter is not dead inside the party. It now becomes a matter of sequence now as to how and when to "out". ...

Mistakes ...

... were made. And somehow got past all those layers and layers of fact-checkers.

"Remarkable Reversal"

Excellent piece by The Economist's 'Democracy In America' on the Paul Ryan budget:

Moreover, Mr Ryan's conservatism largely eschews the odious cultural politics of social conservatives and focuses instead on a pragmatic, fiscally conservative market-oriented meliorism, the appeal of which is by no means limited to the hard right. He's an attractive politician offering an attractive comprehensive alternative to the administration's approach. And that's why it is a matter of urgent political necessity for Mr Obama to try to smear Mr Ryan's budget as a recipe for brutal, devil-take-the-hindmost injustice.

Indeed, the Ryan/Obama dialectic seems to me to represent a remarkable reversal of the usual pattern of American politics: Democrats offer serious, substantive policy proposal; Republicans respond with unhinged culture-war politics. This is not so surprising if one grasps that the Democrats are profoundly conservative about the New Deal/Great Society social-insurance state, upon which Obamacare is a sort of capstone. The New Deal is the modern Democratic Party's founding event, and the persistence of its institutions in their traditional mode is a matter of identity and meaning on the left as much as it is a matter of practical policy. I think that's why Democrats seem to relish linking Mr Romney fate to Mr Ryan's. It offers Mr Obama and his supporters the chance to fight a culture war on their hallowed home ground. But should they be so sure they'll win? ...

Read it all.

Living Under Terrorism

Hamden Rice on the legacy of Martin Luther King.

"The roads are getting safer, not more dangerous."

Mona Charen at the Washington Examiner:

The number of car accident fatalities has been dropping steadily for decades. In 1990, 44,599 people lost their lives in crashes.

In 2010, 32,885 were killed -- a decrease that is even more significant considering the rise in the total number of licensed drivers and cars on the road. According to the NHTSA, there were 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven in 1994, but only 1.14 in 2009, the lowest level in 60 years.

Alcohol related fatalities are also down. In 1999, 22,587 people died in crashes in which alcohol was a factor. By 2004, again, despite the increase in cars and drivers, the number was 16,694.

But here's an arresting statistic: In both years, men were almost three times as likely as women to be drunk drivers. Shall we ban men behind the wheel?

The NHTSA is panicking about cell phones. Yet another report from the NHTSA (there are so many) issued earlier this month found that only five percent of drivers have been observed holding cell phones to their ears while driving, and only .9 percent were seen to be "manipulating" a hand-held device. ...

Read it all at the link.