I saw United 93 on Saturday night. It was the single most powerful film I’ve seen in my life. The film lacks any element of fiction. I didn’t feel as though I was being told a story, so much as I felt that I was a ghost given permission to observe events at the FAA, NORAD, and onboard United 93.

What I observed was the incredible vulnerability of human systems confronted by something new, the tenuousness of authority in the face of relentless second-guessing by media and legal professionals, and the willingness of people to keep working in the most impossible situations.

The recreation of events on the flight are super-realistic. We only get one side of phone calls. We see the rapid formation of a plan by men who know only that they have to do something and that failure will be no worse than a death sentence 95% already delivered. By the time the passengers move against the attackers you are so keyed up and identify so fully with their plight, you move with them. I could almost smell the recycled air of the cabin.

The closest I can come to explaining the experience is to invoke the holodeck of Star Trek fame. I felt as though I had walked into a holodeck taking me through September 11 and United Flight 93. I couldn’t help, but I could feel the emotions and take in the atmosphere.

When the passengers finally move against their captors, I felt a dam break inside me and all the tension, fear, and anger racked my body as tears literally jumped out of my eyes. I knew no one in the theatre would notice because the other people were going through the same thing. When the credits came up, no one moved.

After a few moments, we recovered from our shock and walked from the theatre in a procession just as orderly as a funeral.

If a lot of people see this film (and I pray they will), there will no longer be much debate about Iraq or Iran. Wide recognition will dawn upon Americans that we are in uncharted territory and that something is exponentially better than nothing when facing an implacable foe. We need to churn up as many difficulties as possible so that our experience will be wide and we will never again display the innocence we did just a few Septembers ago.

No matter how much we wish it were not so and pretend it is not true when previous memories fail, we are violently reminded that there is evil in the world and that its practitioners are convinced of their rectitude.

From City Journal….

….U.S. counterterrorism officials have known for several years that al-Qaida views the U.S. prison population as a fertile source for recruiting homegrown terrorists—the kind that slip through security measures designed to catch foreign jihadi. Would-be “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, for instance, was a former Chicago gangbanger who converted to radical Islam in prison and traveled to Afghanistan for jihad training. Many observers believe Islam to be the fastest-growing religion behind bars, particularly among black convicts; Muslim prison gangs are proliferating. On some estimates, as much as 20 percent of the New York state prison population may be Muslim. ….

Oh, goody. Just what we need. After reading the complete article, you’ll wonder….can this stuff be going on in my local slammer?

First of all, my apologies to the writers for the absence/not pulling my weight.  I wrote a letter to Steve, but the short version is my computer’s hard drive became unreadable two short weeks before my end of first year exams, losing all my notes and outlines.  Quick PSA: If you haven’t recently, back everything up NOW – five minutes now saves 2 weeks of torturous catch-up.  As I’m in exams and still a bit behind the curve, my blogging will probably be light for another week or so.

That said, the recent coverage of Darfur (another petition here) made me think of a question relevant both to the victims there and those still detained in Guantanamo even though we have decided they are not enemy combatants.  Why aren’t they (or lawyers on their behalf) applying for refugee/asylum status?  While granting of the status is discretionary, a cursory examination of the law suggests that both groups certainly meet the requirements.  This is especially in the GTMO detainees case, where we have already granted non-refoulement status because of admitted fears of torture on repatriation.  Is there a downside to making this argument that I am missing? 

Check out the Opinion Journal interview with George Shultz. I think he makes some good points. Pretty impressive guy at 85. Here’s part of it…

……George Shultz is an intellectual, an MIT economist who in his career held two other cabinet posts, labor and Treasury, under Richard Nixon. And clearly he is awed by Ronald Reagan, the “actor” President, and the years he spent serving as Reagan’s minister to the world. But I had come to San Francisco because I wanted to talk about the here and now. So did he. Above all, the Revolt of the Generals and the leaks out of the CIA. He’s upset.

“I always had a good experience dealing with the career people in government,” Mr. Shultz said. “But I have to say it’s almost as if there is an insurrection taking place. Particularly what is going on in the military is astonishing and fundamentally intolerable. There has to be a sense of discipline. This is something new, and for everybody’s good it has to be dealt with.”

I asked about the place of dissent in government. “Look,” the former secretary said, “in our system some people get elected and what you get out of that is the right to call the shots, and the full-time career people are entitled to have their views listened to. But it is very important to see that what is going on now is a problem that goes beyond whether someone likes Don Rumsfeld or not.”……

A sense of discipline indeed. I’ve not seen much of that in government. As we continue our evolution into a Mad Max tribal culture, I don’t expect to see it get any better. We may be on the way to becoming our own worse enemy.

as this story details.  The leader of the Panther’s stated:

We are conducting an independent investigation, and we intend to enter the campus and interview lacrosse players.

which I saw last night.   Many have questioned whether it is too soon to have a movie on these events.  Before seeing the movie, I also wondered if it was too soon.  However, during the movie and since, that thought never crossed my mind.  The only impact of the currency of the movie, for me, was that I remember the events more clearly than if it had been twenty years ago.  Although on second thought, I doubt those memories will ever fade.

A few things that struck me about the movie though:

1)  I did not like how the movie followed the terrorists preparations for the day.  Granted it was not extensive, but I was shocked and disgusted to feel a non-negative emotional connection with the terrorists, in the way that Hitchcock got the audience to connect with Norman Bates such that when Bates tried to dispose of the body in the car the audience almost rooted for the car to sink.  The movie should have followed the day-to-day activities of the innocent vicitms.  We only learn sparce details from conversations and that failed to create the appropriate emotional connection.

2)  The movie made me see 9/11 through new eyes.   I had lived it with fear from my safe mid-western home, and had pondered the emotions of the victims, as well as those who lost family and friends, or who were in the New York and D.C. areas and while not direct victims suffered the reality much more than I had.  However, this movie made me realize the utter fear and helplessness the air traffic controllers, NORAD and military personel encountered that day.  I thought that an important insight.

3)  The movie also made me realize how impossible it is to keep us safe, and reminded me of all the ways in which we are suspectible.

4)  I found disturbing the way the movie showed both the terrorists and the victims sincerely praying as the end approached.  Watching terrorists pray for such evil evoked the same stomach-churning emotion as hearing of a story of the desecration of the Holy Eucharist.

5)   Finally, I wondered early on how the “politically correct” society would view the movie’s portrayal of Muslims.   You cannot present United 93 without showing the religious views of the terrorists, but I wondered if the movie would be condemned as hostile to Muslims.  I did not see it that way, but a friend of mine said that there were two young men in the bathroom who made comments along the lines of “I hate Muslims” after the movie.  I was shocked to tears to hear this.

Day after day, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me how important derailing George Allen’s nomination for president has become to the left. The buzz around Lizza’s “hit-piece” on Allen, that I made mention of a couple of days ago, is beginning to swell on both sides of the political aisle – the Left coming to condemn and the Right coming to defend.

A few excerpts from a couple of RCP-linked items:

(RCP)

The fact that the mudslinging has begun so early – while Allen is busy running for re-election to the Senate – confirms how seriously opponents take his presidential candidacy.

Allen, indeed, is a favorite among Republican Party players. He’s also the one Democrats worry about most, according to an insider who told me: “The one Hillary’s worried about is George Allen.”

Allen-the-racist is not a new story, but it just got brand-new wheels with a profile in The New Republic by Ryan Lizza titled: “George Allen’s Race Problem,” wherein we learn that Allen once had Confederate flag stickers on his red Mustang and wore a Confederate flag lapel pin.

…Channeling Dr. Watson, what all this means is that Allen is considered a serious contender, and that there’s no real dirt with which to bring him down. If you can’t find a dead girl or a live boy in the man’s bed, by all means find a Confederate flag in his closet.

Lizza otherwise does a fine job of painting a lively portrait of a man so naturally colorful, a writer doesn’t need adjectives. He’s a tall, friendly former football player who loves country music, chewing tobacco and cowboy boots. He also loves being a Virginian, even if he grew up elsewhere, and loves being Southern, even if he’s not quite.

(American Spectator)

When a reporter botches the facts in his very first sentence, is he sloppy or dishonest? I respect Ryan Lizza’s work, and the meticulous research invested in his profile on Sen. George Allen. Yet from the first sentence, the perspective through which Lizza is reading Allen is clear: Allen’s a Southern racist hick, and a fake at that.
…On top of that, Lizza depicts it all as an act. Allen “resembles a froufrou version of Toby Keith.” (What is that supposed to mean?) His opinions “about red-state cultural aesthetics” are “finely honed.” His “s[--]t-kickin’ image may be the subject of certain Republican consultant fantasies.” It’s a “shtick” similar to President Bush’s, but “that folksy act looks a little spent.”

…AND WHATEVER LIZZA AND the New Republic find automatically offensive about the Confederate flag, Allen need not answer to liberal speech enforcers for it. This is an old story and an old culture clash. It means different things (many quite odious and wrong) to different people. Again, displaying it may be politically dumb. But that doesn’t make it racist.

I asked John Reid, Allen’s communications director, about the graffiti stunt yesterday. “It’s not like he’s walking around telling everybody that he was a saint when he was 17 years old,” he said. “He admits that he was rebellious, and he wishes he’d never been involved in that school prank.” No amount of apologizing, “civil rights pilgrimages” throughout the South, sponsoring anti-lynching apologies in the Senate, or helping minorities is enough atonement to Lizza.

THE ONLY ACT THAT LOOKS SPENT is the postmodern portrait writer following the Southern Republican politician and finding a closet racist.

Me: I’m of the opinion that Allen is going to walk away from this racist shtick completely unscathed. (yes, I really believe that.) Furthermore, because the hubbub is coming so early in his potential bid for the presidency, I think it actually all plays into his hands down the road. I’m thinking something to the tune of, “Uhm yeah, the whole racist thing. We dealt with that about 4 years ago…and 2 years ago. Mr. Gregory, where were you? That’s actually such a dumb issue that I don’t think I’ll dignify that…again. Next question…”

Florida death row inmate Clarence Hill, a convicted cop killer, received a stay of execution in January while on the gurney awaiting his lethal injection.  Challenging the method of execution, his lawyers contend that the inmate could suffer pain at the stage in the process when the lethal dose is injected.  Although this is a similar challenge that led to the retirement of Old Sparky, the Supremes have not had a case (until now) where they considered the prospect of the painless execution.  Curious….how humane does the method have to be? What is humane? 

Only in our current American culture has such Constitutional silliness become possible. At times, the oral argument sounded silly.   Not to be macabre, but don’t you think lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, even Old Sparky are reasonable methods for dispatching condemned prisoners? Burning at the stake, drawing and quartering…I’d say that’s unduly painful and in the cruel and unusual category.  Should the condemned have the option of choosing his poison?  I think not.  The choice is the state’s and it’s simple….(to shamelessly borrow from Eddie Izzard)…cake or death?  Oh, I’m soooo sorry. We’re all out of cake.

Publius has an interesting post up over at Legal Fiction on how, in his opinion, the Crusades still shape Muslim consciousness.  He also makes the point that American “obliviousness to the past crosses over into dangerous naivete.”   For example:

Without understanding the past, Americans can’t accurately predict the consequences of their actions, nor can they understand how their actions will be perceived by the people affected. See, e.g., Iraq.

You might not agree with him on all points, but this is one of the more thoughful posts I have seen on foreign affairs in some time.  And it deals with much more than  Iraq.  Enjoy. 

That’s what Janet Orlando claims.  I’d give her a dollar, maybe, in nominal damges. 

The Mexican presidential election, that is. And surprise surprise, the leading candidiates all favor the U.S. weakening immigration controls even more.  Alan Wall over at VDARE has this report.  The platform of the frontrunner’s party calls for 

“…the termination of all threats, arrests, apprehensions, raids and other abuses of the American immigration authorities against the undocumented workers.”

What I would give for an American presidential candidate in the Mexican mold.  That’s right.  A candidate who puts the interest of his country and countrymen above that of another.  Right now, Dubya and the Senate are in accord with the Mexican wish that our laws go unenforced and I haven’t seen too many hopefuls in the GOP offer a serious solution to this issue.

From the Corner a little earlier today:

ALLEN NEWS [Jonah Goldberg]

This Ryan Lizza piece on George Allen is racing around the liberal blogosphere. I haven’t read it yet, but from descriptions it sounds like it will hound Allen for a good long while.

Me: It’s obvious to me that Jonah indeed had not read the piece at the time of posting. Those around the liberal blogosphere are surely attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill here, in hopes of preemptively knocking Allen out of any shot at beating their brains out in the next presidential election.

I guess I really don’t see what the brouhaha is all about. Lizza said nothing about Allen that hasn’t already been beaten into the ground by liberal talking heads. You know: he’s a racist, he’s a cowboy, he dips Copenhagen…if Lizza would have mentioned Allen’s dipping habits one more time in that article I might’ve fainted from boredom.

Is this the best stuff Allen’s detractors have in the playbook? Confederate flags and Copenhagen? Sounds more like a cheap attempt to discredit Allen’s personal life than a serious questioning of his policies and career. But, alas, this is where political life has gone.

That article aside, I still believe Allen will be the strongest presidential contender in ’08. The way I see it, the next Rep. nominee is going to have to be more conservative than Bush, not less, in order to motivate and energize the base. Allen, clearly, is the most conservative out of the serious contenders right now. As I’ve argued before, there are probably those with better conservative credentials out there, but they are simply too far back in the shadows to have a credible chance at winning in ’08.

in this pastoral response to Father Jenkins “closing statement.”  Hat Tip:  Shrine of the Holy Whappings.  Here’s a teaser, but read the whole the thing:

Father Jenkins noted that he even took time to visit with the young women who had acted in this unfortunate play at the heart of the present controversy. Knowing Father Jenkins, I am sure that this was a pastoral visit and showed his desire to assist them spiritually. But, it seems appropriate to ask, if Father Jenkins gave access to these young women and allowed himself to be influenced by them, as he claims, is it too much to expect that he also would have given access to the understanding of academic freedom in a Catholic university put forward by Pope John Paul II? The papacy, after all, is a teaching office. Would it have been too much to expect that, after his gracious visit to the Holy See, (memorialized in the pictures sent out to alumni and to all U.S. bishops in the recent edition of Notre Dame Magazine) the teaching of Pope John Paul II on academic freedom might have at least been part of the conversation, which went on at Notre Dame for 10 weeks?

Robert Novak complains about what he sees as a de facto religious test regarding Evangelicals’ worries about Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.  He suggests that he’s talked to evangelical leaders who are adamant in saying that they (and their followers) *will not* vote for Romney because he’s a Mormon.  I have no doubt that there are folks out there who have said this and I have no doubt that being a Mormon will cost Romney some votes, both in the primaries and (if he were to win the nomination) the general election.  (It’s just a guess, but I’d be willing to maybe, just maybe, bet a little bit of money that Romney could carry Utah, though.  Just a guess).  But who are these evangelical leaders?  Who has told Novak that they’re adamantly opposed to Romney, on the basis of his Mormonism (as opposed to his squishiness on abortion or stem-cell research or somesuch)?  I can’t recall anyone significant coming out and talking about that, so count me skeptical regarding Novak’s claims.

(And I should note for the record that I’m undecided regarding who I think would make the best Republican nominee and though I do think the Mormon faith is deeply, deeply wrong – and not a part of the Church even broadly understood – I think it’s a very bad mistake to hold Romney’s Mormonism against him. )

If you missed Tuesday’s WSJ editorial, you missed a lot. A sample:

Few things are less becoming in a political party than desperation, as Republicans are now demonstrating as they panic over rising oil and gas prices. If blaming private industry for Congress’s own energy mistakes is the best the GOP can do, no wonder its voters may sit out the November election.

. . .

There’s been unconscionable behavior all right, most of it on Capitol Hill. A decent portion of the latest run-up in gas prices–and the entire cause of recent spot shortages–is the direct result of the energy bill Congress passed last summer. That self-serving legislation handed Congress’s friends in the ethanol lobby a mandate that forces drivers to use 7.5 billion gallons annually of that oxygenate by 2012.

At the same time, Congress refused to provide liability protection to the makers of MTBE, a rival oxygenate getting hit with lawsuits. So MTBE makers are leaving the market in a rush, while overstretched ethanol producers (despite their promises) are in no way equipped to compensate for the loss of MTBE in the fuel supply. Ethanol is also difficult to ship and store outside of the Midwest, which is causing supply headaches and spot gas shortages along the East Coast and Texas.

These columns warned Republicans this would happen. As recently as last year, ethanol was selling for $1.45 a gallon. By December it had reached $2 and is now going for $2.77. So refiners are now having to buy both oil and ethanol at sky-high prices. In short, the only market manipulation has been by politicians.

Oh, and the idea of a “windfall tax” on oil companies . . . I’m sure that wouldn’t be passed on to consumers.

In Jones v. Flowers, SCOTUS held that when mailed notice of a tax sale is returned unclaimed, a State must take additional reasonable steps to attempt to provide notice to the property owner before selling his property, if it is practicable to do so.  Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion and was joined by Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter.

Good commentary on the decision can be found:

QuizLaw

Tax and Business Law Commentary

SCOTUS Blog

Orin Kerr

SCAL

as this and this article explain.  Here is a little more about the sentencing judge.

Fox News is merely a tool of the Bushitler White House. 

“This is a straightforward measure that will bring immediate relief to Americans facing $3-per-gallon gasoline prices,” said U.S. Congressman John Shadegg, who today introduced the Ethanol Tax Relief Act. “With the gasoline additive MBTE being phased out, almost every gallon of gasoline sold in the United States is going to require ethanol. But right now our domestic ethanol supply is inadequate to meet this increased demand. As the cost of ethanol rises, so do gasoline prices. The answer is to temporarily suspend the tariff on imported ethanol.”

Me: K-Lo posted this at the Corner yesterday afternoon and I’m just now getting a chance to bring it to light here. As of now, I’m having a hard time finding further commentary or resources on the legislation but if and when I do, I will make it available here on SA. That being said, at first blush, this seems to be a workable (and dare I say brilliant?) plan put forth by Shadegg. If anyone has some more details, I would love to read a bit more…just place anything you find in the comments box.

My friend Tom Van Dyke over at Reform Club has a wonderful post on Bush, Iraq, and Tony Snow.  He sees Snow as a man on a rescue mission to help an administration that has sometimes been as inarticulate as its head man.

So Joseph Bottum is tired of the culture war and seems to think it’s time to, uh, move on…

I think I might agree with him in at least one respect – conservatives need to do more than just kvetch about how horrid liberals are and how their proposals are sure paths to cultural self-destruction.  We need to say a good bit more about the world we see as an alternative – for all of its problems, Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Con book at least has this virtue.

As most of you are aware by now, Tony Snow has been tapped to be the White House Press Secretary. For no other reason than to throw in my two cents, I’ve been hoping for days that Tony would take the job. Tony, in my opnion, has long been an extremely talented and bright journalist and his latest project as a talk-radio host has for months provided a lift to my morning commute. The overwhelming majority of his analysis has been thoughtful, fair, and again, in my opinion, dead-on.

I think this is one of the best moves Bolten has made (and will make) in the current restructuring of Bush’s team and I certainly look forward to hearing him engage his former colleagues from day to day.

Back in his internet entrepeneur days, George Gilder wrote convincingly about narrowcasting rather than broadcasting and people tuning in to get the news they wanted from the source they wanted with the viewpoint they wanted.

Wow, was he right. We’ve seen a step in that direction with Fox News. More steps with all the political news sites and blogs on both sides of the aisle.

But I think Michelle Malkin has kicked the process further yet down the field. Check out her new internet television-style commentary site. It looks like television with television style graphics. Really quite impressive just from the standpoint of aesthetics.

One wonders whether she can keep this up on a regular basis (a question the boys at Powerline asked), but it is easy to imagine that small consortiums of the more successful bloggers could easily do something like this and get lots of eyeballs every day. If the blogworld ever develops the resources to do serious reporting, the broadcast medium will be absolutely dead.

On a day when President Bush followed the leading Congressional members of his party in pandering to gas pump hysteria and know-nothingism, Southern Appeal readers might need a little cheering up on the subject.  I recommend Mac Johnson’s columm, “The O’Reilly Fiction.”  (Audio version available.)  An excerpt:

Of course, these newfangled “futures” contracts that Mr. O’Reilly has uncovered aren’t just bets made by “Vegas-style” people removed from reality. They are binding contracts and the buyers of these contracts agree to buy oil at the high prices that we bemoan. They lose their butts if they just bid up the paper price for no reason. I would encourage Mr. O’Reilly to enter the futures market and bet against these crazy Vegas-type speculators with his amazing insights into cabals and paper and so-called markets.

Johnson’s website is worth a look, too.

(Cross-posted on Division of Labour.)

I just stumbled across an interesting post at SCOTUSblog that I thought I’d share (yes, it’s exam time and I can always find a distraction rather than study).

Lyle’s post on Alabama v. Adams, in which the state of Alabama urges the Court to reconsider its 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, has touched off a lively debate in the comments. One interesting aspect of the cert. petition itself is that the state is represented at the Court by Alabama Attorney General Troy King and Chief Deputy Attorney General Keith Miller (who serves as counsel of record). Alabama Solicitor General Kevin Newsom, who has argued at the Court and appears frequently on briefs filed there, does not appear on the petition.

Any readers interested in passing along to me, merely to satisfy my curiosity, as to why Newsom isn’t on brief, or am I reading too much into this?

While I’ll avoid discussing specifics, I thought this post from “Washington Wire” was worth noting, apropos the recent discussion of immigration reform.  Essentially, those opposed to the pending immigration legislation are now raising concerns about the cost of the overhaul.  The senators are opposed because the legislation will, in practical effect, allow all illegal immigrants to get on track for citizenship, regardless of how long they’ve been here.

There is an outstanding article in The Atlantic about the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran during the Carter years.  As bad as this was, I am nonetheless astonished at the talent and bravery found in our U.S. Armed Forces.  If this kind of stuff floats your boat you may also enjoy Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces.

“Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it’s just not going to work,” Bush said. “You know, you can hear people out there hollering it’s going to work. It’s not going to work.”

Dubya, how do you know?  During your six years as chief executive have you made even a modest effort to curb illegal immigration.  No.  Whie you are correct that 11 million illegal immigrants is a large number, the problem gets no easier when your lack of border enforcement and refusal to deport law breakers encourages  more illegals to come here.  You’ll spend billions on a war in Iraq and a pipe dream of democracy in the Middle East, yet you won’t urge Congress to approriate money to deal with the immigration problem. 

According to the AP,

As for Bush’s comment on deportation, a Time magazine poll in January found 50 percent of the country favored deporting all illegal immigrants.

It seems that Dubya is ignoring the people on this one and at the same time is ignoring the threat to our culture and security.  If ever a politician was in the pocket of corporate business interests its this one.  Corporate America’s demand for cheap labor appears to trump enforcing our immigration laws and securing our borders. 

Even today and with immigration–its those darn Rockefeller Republicans versus the conservatives/populists.  Craig Shirley has a good op-ed on this topic in today’s Washington Post. Here is a sample:

The two camps are deeply divided. The business elites are interested in a large supply of cheap labor and support unfettered immigration and open borders. The populist base supports legal immigration but is concerned about lawlessness on our border, national sovereignty and the real security threat posed by porous borders.

There is nothing new about this division. It is a 40-year-old fight that has its roots in the cultural, economic, regional and ideological differences between the two camps. Still, most conservatives felt that after the victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution of 1994 their point was made and the country-clubbers would know their place. They were wrong. The Rockefeller wing is now attempting to reassert its control over the party and is openly hostile toward the Reagan populists who created the Republican majority in the first place.

As for the Bill Kristols and other neocons who attack those favoring enforcement of immigration laws and additional steps to protect our borders, Shirley has this to say:

Major Republicans have taken to attacking others within their own party as unsophisticated nativists. In a recent Wall Street Journal column, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie warned populists to cease and desist from promoting “border enforcement first” legislation. “Anti-immigration rhetoric is a political siren song, and Republicans must resist its lure,” he said. And in a recent editorial, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol attacked populist Republicans for not recognizing the danger of “turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party.”

Conservatives see this kind of rhetoric as inflammatory, anti-intellectual and offensive. Far from being driven by xenophobia and intolerance, conservative populists are motivated by a profound respect for the rule of law and by a patriotic regard for America’s sovereignty and national security. Upholding the rule of law and protecting our country’s borders is important to conservative populists and to most Americans.

Once again, it is not the Democrats that pose the greatest threat to conservative principles and engage in name-calling.  The danger, as Shirley argues, comes from within.  The question is whether this divide over immigration–perhaps the most important issue of our time–and the neoconservative control of the GOP will cause a permanent split of the Republican Party.

 ”If America chooses the military option a humiliating defeat worse than their failure in the Tabas desert will await them.” –Iran Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar  (article)