Articles of Interest 11-6-07
366 Days until Election Day
MONRNING UPDATE:
Granholm and the Democrats keep blaming “everything” that’s wrong with Michigan on John Engler…he’s gone, but lets remember that unemployment was below the national average-not the highest in the nation, we had a balanced budget-not threats of shutdowns, and we had plenty in the rainy day fund-versus a bankrupt emergency savings account.
I make the following promise: if things are still as bad as they are under Granholm, in 2016 – after 6 years of a Republican Governor – I promise we will NOT still be blaming her.
The legislature is looking for “consensus” on the sales tax on services…ONLY the Democrats can’t see it…there is a “consensus” to Ax the Tax…repeal it…and reform.
Congressman Walberg opposes to states issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Livonia’s Jack Kirksey for Mayor campaign was in full swing yesterday. I dropped by the campaign headquarter early last evening and found folks working the phones, getting out last minute signs and organizing GOTV efforts for today.
Livonia residents….Jack Kirksey needs your vote….TODAY!!!
House Republican Caucus held an all day policy retreat yesterday. I attended much of the session and came away very encouraged that the House Republicans were prepared to work for common sense solutions and real reforms and to stop any further Democratic tax hikes.
As we debate tax options, one option for Michigan worth considering that would have “most” people in Michigan pay less than 7.5% sales tax after rebate would be the MI Fair Tax. A family of four with an income less than $28,000 is at the 0% rate! Here is a quick powerpoint presentation on line that give a good summary:
http://www.mifairtax.org/resrcs/MI%20Presentation.pps
See the Michigan Fair Tax main homepage…they have some good information:
http://www.mifairtax.org/index.html
See the latest budget numbers, see how the budget has grown, and check out the number of state employees:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/budget-numbersg.html
Taxes will never catch up with politician’s propensity to spend! Politics as usual is a luxury we can no longer afford.
The cause of Freedom and our cause for conservative values is a marathon…we need to get up every morning and do our part…whatever it is! Freedom was the original idea and Freedom isn’t free.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Brooks Patterson and his family. Brook’s twin brother Steve passed away yesterday after a long fight with cancer. Please keep him your prayers.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
U.S. Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI) today announced he is an original co-sponsor of a resolution expressing the sense of the House of Representatives in opposition to states issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
“While we all agree there is a major need for immigration reform in the United States, this reform needs to ensure the security and economy of our nation is protected, not threatened. A driver’s license allows access to all kinds of legal documents and activities in our country and granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants rewards those who have broken our laws. I have consistently stated that any and all attempts to enact immigration reform must not include amnesty for illegal immigrants, and this amounts to backdoor amnesty.”
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23223
All Eyes Look to Michigan:
By Saul Anuzis
Posted: 11/06/2007
Michigan is “Hard America.” From our Upper Peninsula mines and forests, our farms and small towns, and Detroit -- known as “Hockey Town U.S.A” or the “Arsenal of Democracy,” springs a determined work ethic, self-reliance tempered with a sense of community, and what Michigan native Russell Kirk referred to as traditional patriotism. No wonder our Macomb County was epicenter, the home of, the “Reagan Democrat.” Michigan is also the only state with a shrinking economy. We are struggling to transition from a big unit economy dominated by big government, big labor and big business. It is home to high tech corridors, research universities, pockets of affluent suburbia and emergent health science centers in Grand Rapids.
Service-tax rift splits business community
By Amy Lane
November 5, 2007
LANSING — Michigan businesses may be united in their desire to kill the new service tax, but they're divided on how to get the job done. A push by the Michigan Manufacturers Association and others to raise replacement revenue through the Michigan Business Tax is being met with resistance from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and is getting little support from others who favor state budget cuts to pay for the service-tax repeal. And as repeal momentum escalates throughout Michigan and in the Legislature, the differing opinions over a service-tax fix add yet another complication to the work at hand.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/NEWS06/711060315/1008
Sessions target services tax
Legislature expresses more second thoughts
November 6, 2007
BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF
FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF
LANSING -- The new sales tax on services, set to take effect Dec. 1, will get something this week it didn't have when it was thrown together by lawmakers. Public hearings. The tax -- hastily approved by the Legislature on Oct. 1 to head off a government shutdown -- has caused such public scorn that lawmakers are considering repealing it. They even may forgo part of their traditional November recess, during deer hunting season, to work on the tax issue. Repeal appears increasingly likely, based on statements last week by key legislators and the determination of some influential business lobbies. But how -- or whether -- to replace all of the $750 million a year the services tax would generate is a central question and one with potential impact on the new state budget Gov. Jennifer Granholm has signed into law.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/POLITICS/711060331/1022
Lansing's hunting break hardly that
With tax issues unresolved, Legislature takes 18 days off to bag deer but only a few will actually hunt.
Charlie Cain and Mark Hornbeck / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
LANSING -- Nobody really expects all or even a majority of Michigan's 148 state lawmakers to shoulder firearms, don hunter orange and hike into the woods for deer season. But that's the justification they're giving for an 18-day break that starts after Thursday's session. Those who do plan to hunt will beat the up north traffic, and the season's Nov. 15 start, by a full week. And while lawmakers are gone from the capital -- whether it's for hunting, a vacation down South or some quiet time at home -- there'll be no resolution to a pending tax increase that businesses say is a job-killer.
http://www.mlive.com/news/statewide/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1194160890193940.xml&coll=6
Legislators strive to look good, lack results
Sunday, November 04, 2007
By Peter Luke
When the Democratic-controlled House voted to adopt a new use tax on consumer and business services on Sept. 30, the vote was a near party-line 56-53. When the chamber last Tuesday voted on a new school aid budget that spends more than $200 million of that new use tax, the vote was 104-5. Now you would think all those lawmakers who voted against the use tax, all but two of them Republicans, would, on principle, reject the school budget as well since it relies on a tax hike. Nope.
http://blog.mlive.com/kzgazette/2007/11/graholm_says_wind_can_move_mic.html
Graholm says wind can move Michigan's economy
Posted by Al Jones
Kalamazoo Gazette
November 05, 2007 12:51PM
KALAMAZOO -- Saying her administration's job is to replace the 300,000 manufacturing jobs that Michigan has lost in the last few years, Gov. Jennifer Granholm began a push Monday for the state to become a leader in the production and use of alternative energy products. "Our goal is to replace manufacturing jobs with, obviously, more diverse-economy jobs and the thing that we have focused on is alternative energy," Granholm said during a conversation Monday morning with Gazette executives and editors. The stop was part of a tour the governor is planning throughout the state in November.
http://www.petoskeynews.com/articles/2007/11/05/opinion/opinion02.txt
‘One size fits all’ not applicable to sex offenders
By Kendall P. Stanley News-Review editor
Story updated: Monday, November 5, 2007 11:01 AM EST
We Americans are used to having the right to live wherever we want. If you can afford to live in a community or neighborhood, welcome to the block. That is unless you’re a sex offender. And with a proliferation of laws, whole cities are becoming off limits to offenders on sex offender lists. Most of the laws specify that registered offenders not live within a set distance from a school or a park where children congregate. In the case of California, it’s 2,000 feet. California law also specifies that when paroled, you have to live in the county of your last legal residence.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/NEWS06/711060397/1008
Would voters loosen term limits?
Legislature may ask, but hurdles loom
November 6, 2007
BY DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Michigan voters were in a surly mood in 1992 when they voted overwhelmingly to limit the terms of the state's elected officials. The thinking went something like: If we can't get them to behave, let's make them leave. Fifteen years later voters appear surly again, in part because many people blamed the recent budget crisis on the chaotic performance of an inexperienced governor and legislators. Consider that the top three leaders in the House today have less than 13 years of legislative experience among them, compared to 40 years for the same three positions in 1992. Still, would voters change the law?
http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18990202&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6
Republicans to hear Butler, mystery guest
By Stuart Frohm
11/05/2007
The Rev. Keith Butler of Southfield, possible future member of the Republican National Committee, is among the scheduled guest speakers at the Midland County Republican Party's Nov. 12 breakfast. In addition to Butler and a mystery speaker -- a statewide candidate party chairperson Diane Bristol said she couldn't announce -- other scheduled speakers are state Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis; Midlanders U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, state Sen. Tony Stamas, and state Rep. John Moolenaar; and state Rep. Bill Caul of Mount Pleasant. The breakfast will be from 7:30-9 a.m. at Valley Plaza. Tickets are available by calling the Midland GOP office at 832-2633. Cost is $45 for the breakfast buffet.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/POLITICS/711060357/1022/POLITICS
Democrats weigh primary, caucus
At huddle in Lansing, state party looks at options as clock ticks on presidential contest.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
When 80 or so Michigan Democratic leaders meet Wednesday night in Lansing, the rest of the political world will be watching for one of the last pieces of the 2008 campaign calendar to drop into place. But those Democrats will have a second job: Trying to solve some of the tensions and divisions that have emerged in the debate over whether the party should remain a part of Michigan's Jan. 15 presidential primary. With Democratic presidential candidates boycotting the state and the national party threatening to bar Michigan from next year's national convention, the state party's executive committee meets Wednesday.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/OPINION01/711060346/1007/OPINION
Funding is available for sensible Cobo expansion
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Oakland County officials have proposed another potential funding source for an expansion of Cobo Center, and it deserves careful examination. When combined with a scaled-back plan that removes nonessential upgrades, the savings are significant for taxpayers. The plan, which Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson broadly unveiled in February, and whose details came to light recently, would initially shift about $9 million a year that Wayne County is collecting from a statewide 4-cent-per-pack cigarette tax to pay for Cobo upgrades.
http://www.mlive.com/news/flintjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1194151808255910.xml&coll=5
Mayor, challenger lay out priorities
THE FLINT JOURNAL
Sunday, November 04, 2007
By Marjory Raymer
FLINT - So, when the dust settles, what will the next Flint mayor actually do for the next four years? Mayor Don Williamson makes a case for continuing on the path he's started. Challenger Dayne Walling argues for change. Voters decide Tuesday whom to put in charge. Atop Walling's to-do list is opening all the city's community centers and keeping them open until 9 p.m., naming a permanent police chief and replacing City Hall appointments with "professional" staff. To address crime, Walling said he would reorganize the Flint Police Department on community policing principles, which would get officers in neighborhoods more, sometimes on foot or bicycles.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/04/AR2007110401111.html
Republican Nomination Most Open in Decades
By Jon Cohen and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 5, 2007; Page A01
For the first time in nearly 30 years, there is no breakaway front-runner for the Republican nomination as the first votes of Campaign 2008 loom, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll underscores how open the GOP race remains. Former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani maintains a double-digit lead over his main rivals, but most of his supporters back his candidacy only "somewhat," and he has yet to gain momentum among key primary voting groups or to distinguish himself as the best candidate for the party. Adding to the murkiness of the picture is that Republicans continue to be less satisfied with their candidate options than Democrats are with theirs.
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071105/NATION/111050057/1001
Giuliani may boost GOP in Northeast races
By S.A. Miller
November 5, 2007
House Republicans see a 2008 ticket topped by former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani making congressional races in Democratic strongholds of the Northeast more competitive, improving the party's odds for picking up the 16 seats to win back the majority. The popularity of the former mayor — polls in the region show Mr. Giuliani neck and neck with Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York — promises to put in play congressional races in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania — districts that typically vote Democrat.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzIzNGM5ZGU0M2QwZDlhNWQ1NzYzYTQ1MmU4MDBlNzA=
Rudy Knows Cancer
American facts.
By Michael Tanner
November 5, 2007
Former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is being attacked for a radio ad in which he claims that his chances of surviving prostate cancer are much better under the U.S. health-care system than under socialized systems such as that of Great Britain. Rudy himself is a prostate-cancer survivor, and while one can quibble about the details, his key point is correct. According to Giuliani, 18 percent of American men diagnosed with prostate cancer will die from the disease, while 56 percent of British men will. And Rudy blames that on the rationing inherent in the British model of health care. Those numbers are accurate.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/11/romney_rudy_and_the_electabili.html
Romney, Rudy and the Electability Question
Chris Cillizza
November 5, 2007
To listen to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on the stump, it would be easy to think that he is already running against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D). Giuliani invokes Clinton at every turn -- criticizing her policies and insisting that he alone can keep her out of the White House in 2008. The reason is simple: Giuliani knows he isn't the first choice of many within his own party who see him as insufficiently conservative, especially on social issues. But, he also knows that those same voters fear another Clinton administration far more than they mistrust him. So, by turning the Republican primary into a choice of which candidate is best able to keep Clinton out of the White House, Giuliani has largely avoided significant scrutiny of his own record.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/romney-lands-big-endorsement/
Romney Lands Big Endorsement
By Michael Luo
November 5, 2007, 2:52 pm
Mitt Romney has landed a much-coveted endorsement from the social conservative world: Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and one of the founders back in the day of the Moral Majority. Mr. Weyrich, who has been described as the father of the religious right and also founded the Heritage Foundation, had been critical of talk that broke out earlier this year among Christian conservatives about bolting the Republican Party if Rudolph W. Giuliani, a supporter of abortion rights, is the nominee and backing a third-party candidate. So now it appears he is backing up that criticism with action, lining up behind Mr. Romney, despite questions many Christian conservatives continue to harbor about his relatively recent conversation from supporter of abortion rights to opponent and his Mormon faith.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/mccain_is_still_standing.html
McCain Is Still Standing
By E. J. Dionne
November 06, 2007
GOFFSTOWN, N. H. -- The strangest thing about John McCain's campaign for president is that it's supposed to be dead, but it isn't. This is a real nuisance for his competitors. The comeback is not showy or dramatic. And it's true that while McCain is better off than he was in July when his campaign imploded in a dazzling display of financial mismanagement and staff recriminations, he still faces a more difficult route to nomination than his well-financed rivals, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. McCain himself, the overwhelming favorite a year ago, is cheerfully humble in characterizing his standing. "We've got a long way to go, but we are in the mix," he said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." In the mix is a big improvement over being out.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1107/Ron_Pauls_Money_Bomb.html
Ron Paul's 'money bomb'
Jonathan Martin
November 05, 2007
Proving again his ability to raise significant cash online, Ron Paul has raised nearly $2 million since midnight via his website. In what is being called a "money bomb," Paul's fervent backers spread the word that today they'd blast their candidate with Internet contributions, setting up a website, "This November 5th," to push the plan. An aide said they had nothing to do with the effort. "Supporters have spontaneously organized what I can only refer to as a one-day attack of donations," said Paul spokeswoman Kate Rick. "We started at midnight with $2.77 million raised for the quarter, and have, as of 9:36 am, climbed up to over $4.1." As of 12:27, Paul had raised $4.73 million total.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/11/05/post_179.html
Ron Paul's Record Online Haul
Jose Antonio Vargas
Posted at 4:31 PM ET on Nov 5, 2007
Sen. Barack Obama has Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Hillary Clinton has Magic Johnson and Rep. Ron Paul, the online star of the primary race, has Sean Morley, aka Val Venis, the popular WWE pro wrestler who pretends to be an adult film star. And like many of the Paulites, the Texas congressman's loyal, Web-savvy supporters, Morley is blogging about Paul on his own site. "I can't really say what my support means. But, you know, I first heard about him two years ago, and I've studied his voting record and I'm convinced that more than any candidate, Republican or Democrat, he's the most principled candidate out there," Morley, a libertarian, told The Trail this afternoon.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/11/could-hillary-w.html?loc=interstitialskip
Could Hillary win the religious vote?
By Paul Kengor
November 5, 2007
Despite her genuine Methodist upbringing and honest-to-God faith credentials, the skepticism toward her among believers is deep and enduring. Her best hope among values voters: That they stay home on Election Day.
"I'm sorry, I know it sounds judgmental, but I just can't believe she's a Christian, and I think all her talk of faith is pure politics." That was talk-radio host Robert Mangino from Youngstown, Ohio, and his response was a common one among conservatives who recently interviewed me about the faith of Hillary Clinton. I responded: "Well, she has gone to church regularly since childhood, and surely wasn't playing politics when she was baptized as an infant and going to Vacation Bible School."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-clinton4nov04,0,612985.story?coll=la-politics-campaign
Feminist says Hillary Clinton plays the 'victim'
Kate Michelman, advisor to the Edwards campaign, says the sole woman Democrat hopeful raises 'white flag' when pressed.
By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 4, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A prominent feminist, allied with the presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards, accused Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday of "disingenuously playing the victim card" by infusing her campaign with messages about gender. "When unchallenged, in a comfortable, controlled situation, Sen. Clinton embraces her political elevation into the 'boys club,' " Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wrote in a posting on a blog of the liberal group Open Left.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDZjZWVkZjQ3NjdjODNjMmU1NDVjYzUyNDljZjAyZGE=
Hillary’s CommieNazi Constituency
Senator Clinton’s interesting allies.
By Mark Hemingway
November 5, 2007
Hillary Clinton had a rough go of it last week. First, she gave a mixed performance at the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday. After dominating early on, she got hammered hard by her opponents, and gave a series of bafflingly contradictory answers. Then on Thursday, Bush gave a speech defending his national-security record and attacking the Democratic congressional leadership. All Senator Clinton had to do was find an opening and take it, assert her opposition to Bush, and grab a few headlines at the expense of an angry Democratic base that’s almost Pavlovian in its dislike of the president. That would have been enough to remind everyone that she’s still the frontrunner. How’d she do? Well, judging by her reaction to the president’s speech, it was a swing and a miss:
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/OPINION03/711060348/1007/OPINION
The pants vs. the pantsuit
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Kathleen Parker
When you're leading the Democratic presidential race, as Hillary Clinton is, you might expect other candidates to focus their sharpest criticism your way. Yet the spin coming out of the Clinton campaign is that the men were ganging up on Hillary. Sorry, but when girls insist on playing hardball with the boys, they don't get to cry foul -- or change the game to dodge ball -- when they get bruised. Not that Hillary Clinton did any whining herself following last Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. She's too smart for that. But somehow the idea magically surfaced that the men were piling on.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071105/D8SNQ28G1.html
Edwards Faults Clinton on Foreign Policy
Nov 5, 6:00 PM (ET)
By AMY LORENTZEN
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Monday accused rival Hillary Rodham Clinton of a two-faced foreign policy and argued that she is failing to do enough to stop what he called President Bush's march to war with Iran. "Senator Clinton is voting like a hawk in Washington, and talking like a dove in Iowa and New Hampshire," Edwards told hundreds of people gathered at the University of Iowa, where he offered his ideas on dealing with Iran. The 2004 vice presidential nominee stepped up criticism of Clinton's vote in Congress to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which Edwards said is a mistake.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119422407666382012.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Frustration Builds for Democrats
Reversal of Fortune for Mukasey, Highlights Struggles on Security Issues
By EVAN PEREZ and JACKIE CALMES
November 5, 2007; Page A6
WASHINGTON -- The way in which Senate Democrats wavered and then consented to the confirmation of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general reflects the party's broader struggle to make headway on its national-security agenda, despite President Bush's unpopularity. On questions such as Mr. Mukasey's stance on waterboarding, warrantless wiretapping and the war in Iraq, Democrats have been stymied by Republicans in Congress and the White House. That has sparked frustration among supporters, especially those on the left, who anticipated that last year's congressional takeover would force some policy changes.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/88cb8a8a-8b41-11dc-95f7-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Democrats wake up to being the party of the rich
By Michael Franc
Published: November 5 2007 02:00
A legislative proposal that was once on the fast track is suddenly dead. The Senate will not consider a plan to extract billions in extra taxes from megamillionaire hedge fund managers. The decision by Senate majority leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, surprised many Washington insiders, who saw the plan as appealing to the spirit of class warfare that infuses the Democratic party. Liberal disappointment in Mr Reid was palpable at media outlets such as USA Today, where an editorial chastised: "The Democrats, who control Congress and claim to represent the middle and lower classes, ought to be embarrassed."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/a_watershed_moment_on_immigrat.html
A Watershed Moment on Immigration
By Michael Barone
November 05, 2007
October 2007 may turn out to be the month that immigration became a key issue in presidential politics. It hasn't been, at least in my lifetime. The Immigration Act of 1965, which turned out to open up America to mass immigration after four decades of restrictive laws, wasn't one of the Great Society issues Lyndon Johnson emphasized in 1964. The Immigration Act of 1986, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants but whose border and workplace provisions have never been effectively enforced, was a bipartisan measure unmentioned in the debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.
UK'S BAD MEDICINE
By DAVID GRATZER
November 5, 2007 –
Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign released a radio ad last week in which the candidate praised American health care for curing him of prostate cancer and wondered what might have happened to him under the socialized medicine practiced in the United Kingdom, where survival rates for that condition are far lower. In the ad, now running in New Hampshire, Giuliani says: "I had prostate cancer five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer - and thank God I was cured of it - in the United States: 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44 percent under socialized medicine." He drew those statistics from an article I wrote for the summer 2007 issue of City Journal.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article3130386.ece
Al-Qa'ida 'grooming children for UK terror attacks'
Published: 05 November 2007
Al-Qa'ida is deliberately "grooming" children and young people to carry out terror attacks in Britain, the head of MI5 warned today. In his first public speech since becoming director-general in April, Jonathan Evans said the security service was facing "the most immediate and acute peacetime threat" in its 98-year history. Addressing a Society of Editors Conference in Manchester, he said the number of individuals in Britain identified by MI5 as having links with terrorism had risen from 1,600 last year to at least 2,000. And he said they suspected there could be a similar number again who they did not know about. Mr Evans warned they were part of a "deliberate campaign" being waged against Britain by al-Qa'ida - which was extending its tentacles across the Middle East and Africa.
http://www.slate.com/id/2177482/
Isolationism Isn't the Answer
Jihadists aren't in Afghanistan—or Iraq—because we are there.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, at 1:11 PM ET
I call your attention to the front-page report in the Oct. 30 New York Times in which David Rohde, writing from the Afghan town of Gardez, tells of a new influx of especially vicious foreign fighters. Describing it as the largest such infiltration since 2001, Rohde goes on to say, "The foreign fighters are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies." They also, it seems, favor those Taliban elements who are more explicitly allied with al-Qaida, and bring with them cash and resources with which to sabotage, for example, the opening of schools in the southern provinces around Kandahar.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071105215945.tnrwa9g3&show_article=1
Saudi King Abdullah arrives for historic meeting with pope
AFP
Nov 5 05:59 PM US/Eastern
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia arrived Monday in Rome for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, the first between a Saudi monarch and a leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal came to Rome in September to pave the way for the visit, the third leg of a European tour that has taken the 84-year-old monarch to London and Geneva. The meeting with the pope is set for 12:30 pm (1130 GMT) on Tuesday. The Holy See and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic ties, but King Abdullah met Benedict's predecessor John Paul II in 1999 when he was crown prince to his half brother King Fahd.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTgwYjE2ODhlNTBlNjkyYWZkNjBiNjY3MGIzMjY5NzE=
D.C. in a Sarko Second
A New York minute is an eternity to the fast-action man from France.
By Denis Boyles
November 5, 2007
In the amount of time it took you to wash the car and watch the game this weekend, Nicolas Sarkozy, the suddenly single Hungarian now in charge of all France, jetted off to troubled Chad and came back home again with a trio of French journalists and a quartet of flight attendants. Then he went to dinner. The seven had been nabbed by authorities in N’djamena after a French NGO — Zoe’s Ark, a for-the-children scam described in Le Monde by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, no stranger to humanitarian causes, as a “rogue” charity engaged in a “sad adventure” — scooped up more than 100 children and tried to fly them out of the country.
