Morning News Roundup

It's baaack...I got an irate interrogation from a friend (my only loyal reader?) last night, demanding to know why I hadn't updated today. Sorry folks, I was on the Hill. Here we go:

• Kos is reporting that the Schwarzenegger campaign is using material from the viscious Democrat primary against nominee Phil Angelides. I love it, and my Democrat friends wonder why they can't win races?
• A federal judge has ruled that the FBI search of Representative William ("Dollar Bill") Jefferson's (D-LA02) office was constitutional. Jefferson as in caught with $90,000 in bribe money in the freezer Jefferson. Needless to say that's got a lot of people on the Hill, including several I spoke to yesterday, a little worried about the precedent set. In any case, I'm not sure how necessary it was considering we've got him on videotape taking the money.
• This came out over the weekend, but I think it bears repeating and dissecting: tax receipts are predicted to be up by $250 billion and the deficit down by $100 billion this year. Now that's admittedly, relatively speaking, a drop in the bucket. But what's interesting is that most of these receipt increases in corporate taxes, which have "nearly tripled since 2003." Meanwhile, a jump was also seen in taxes on individual stock sales. What does all of this really mean? In short, Democratic opposition to Bush's tax cuts on dividends and claims that tax cuts for corporations were bad for America, have been heartily disproven. Of course, as the Times points out, and I cannot help but repeat, in just two years the Baby Boomers will start retiring, drawing on Medicare and Social Security, both of which are horrifically in shambles. Thankfully Bush has said that reform of at least the latter entitlement program will be on Congress' agenda for the fall, though unless Democrats suddenly wake up and realize that they've been wrongheaded in their opposition to some sort of reform (and please don't give me those tired "individual retirement accounts are handouts to Wall Street" lines - they make the Left sound pathetic), or if we don't drastically increase our majority (don't count on it), we're not likely to see much progress.
• In news that needs to get more circulation, the Army beat its June recruitment goal. Of course it's only by 2%, and given the Army's revised recruitment standards (the upper limit for enlistment is 42), it's not exactly a huge leap - but it's noteworthy nonetheless. The Left has been whining incessantly about the aging of our miltary through the raising of the maximum enlistment age, but I'm not all that worried. I don't expect these older recruits to be combat soldiers, rather I expect them to be rear-area soldiers in things like IT or mechanical maintenance, potentially with valuable skills from the outside world. Can anyone tell me, with a straight face, that that's a bad thing?
• General Peter Pace gave emotional testimony to a Senate hearing on immigration and the military, noting the number of immigrants who have fought for their adopted country, some despite this country's refusal to accept them. Pace related his own experience as the son of Italian immigrants, and the immigrants who fought alongside him in Vietnam. More recently, he noted that 200 non-citizens have been given awards or medals for their service in the War on Terror, while a hundred have given their lives in that struggle, many knowing, perhaps more than some members of Congress, what freedom is and how valuable it really is, so much so that they've given the last full measure in its name and for the flag of an adopted land. I personally think any immigration bill should have language making the military a path to citizenship for non-citizens and their families - if they're willing to put their life on the line, their valour should be both recognized and rewarded. (On a more personal note, an ancestor of mine was booted from Ireland by the British, came to America, and promptly joined the American Revolution then in progress...so I guess I sort of know how Pace feels, in a more distant sort of way)
• Everyone needs to read this profile on the first domestic victim of Al Qaeda. NOW.
  
• There's chatter about another North Korean missile launch, causing UN discussions as well as potential negotiations to be put on hold. While China negotiates with Kim Jong-Il's Stalinist regime, they refuse to really turn up the pressure on the bizarre-looking despot; perhaps that's why Japan has announced that they're trying to decide whether or not a pre-emptive strike would be legal under their constitution. If that doesn't get the Chinese to get the lead out, I'm not sure what will.
  
• Russia reports that they finally "got" their country's own Bin-Laden, Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev, a man with considerable blood on his hands, including both the Moscow theater hostage-taking and the massacre in Beslan.
• Iraqi insurgents have released a video of two US soldiers killed and mutilated in what the group describes as a retaliation for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family by US soldiers. If the allegations are true, and five soldiers have been charged, the soldiers deserve to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, something more needs to be devised for these insurgents. Drawing on history, neither the Romans nor the British brooked such opposition from insurgents in their time; the Romans would massacre entire communities suspected of harming Roman citizens while the British were only slightly less drastic. Not that I'm endorsing such a course, merely that perhaps we should reiterate to the Iraqi people that it's about time they start taking responsibility for the terrorists among them: they can kill them themselves, they can report them to us and let us kill them, or they can sit back, but if we discover their complicity there should be ramifications.
• AMLO continues to whine in Mexico. Listen buddy, our Democrats still haven't gotten over the 2000 election here, but that doesn't change history. Be a man, and get on with life - your country will be the better for it. Mexico was shaken by street protests over the weekend disputing the election result, with protestors said to number one hundred thousand.
  
• That's all for now, except for the fact that if you're an Iowa resident, you might not be able to avoid tripping over a White House Wannabe this weekend - they're out in strength.