Michael van der Galien
Michael van der Galien was born in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden in 1984. For as long as he can remember, he has been obsessed with the United States. When he was 17 years old, he started blogging - of course about America. His articles have been published at Big Hollywood, Pajamas Media, Hot Air (the GreenRoom) and Right Across The Atlantic. He's also an editor for the Dutch conservative blog, De Dagelijkse Standaard.
I think that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has a point when he says that conservatives need “a truce on social issues” to concentrate on resolving America’s financial crisis. As he explained in a conversation with The Weekly Standard:
I don’t know if the CO2 zealots are right. But I don’t care, because we can’t afford to do what they want to do. Unless you want to go broke, in which case the world isn’t going to be any greener. Poor nations are never green. read more…
Bach, “Air on G String.”
“America has too many bureaucrats and they are dramatically overpaid,” the CATO Institute’s Dan Mitchell argues in his latest must watch YouTube video. This “mini-documentary uses government data to show how federal, state, and local governments are in fiscal trouble in part because of excessive pay for a bloated civil service.”
There are way too many government workers and they get paid way too much. They make twice as much on average as the taxpayers who pay their salaries. As Mitchell says in the video, “some of the numbers are absolutely shocking.” Take, for instance, the fact that 20% of federal bureaucrats earn more than $100.000 a year. Or that the amount of such bureaucrats making more than $150.000 a year has doubled in the last two years.
Watch it: read more…
by MB Snow
If a policy reform is going to come out of British Petroleum’s catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, we predict it will emerge in the outlines of Sarah Palin’s post Wednesday on her Facebook page. That is where she sends what she calls a “message to exreme ‘environmentalists’ who hypocritically protest domestic energy production offshore and onshore.” Writes she: “Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country’s energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It’s catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.”
The former governor’s statement is being met with much ridicule among those who are agitating for, say, President Obama to show more emotion. The line against her is that her mantra of “Drill, Baby, Drill” was meant to refer to just such deep water drilling as British Petroleum was doing at a depth of a mile in the Gulf of Mexico. But her famous chant was in fact a call for tapping our own oil petroleum reserves, particularly in Alaska, though not only there. She favors drilling both offshore and on-. Her policy is centered in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the her state’s other great oil and gas fields, such as the National Petroleum Reserve on the North Slope of Alaska.
by Herb Keinon
Talk to our envoys in Europe, and they will say that the flotilla disaster is just one of a string of recent Israeli missteps responsible for the harshest censure of Israel seen and heard on the Continent in years.
It is not just the Mavi Marmara incident, but also the decision to build 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo when US Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel in March, and the alleged passport forgery used in the hit in Dubai in January against Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, that has led to an accumulated sense in Europe that something is badly off kilter in Israel.
by Jake Sherman
An independent commission investigating the causes of the financial crisis has subpoenaed Goldman Sachs, bringing even more scrutiny to a banking giant already under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, established by Congress to investigate the causes of the market meltdown, said Goldman has failed “to comply with a request for documents and interviews in a timely manner,” which is why the commission decided to force the issue with a subpoena.
After the International Monetary Fund and the European Union bailed out Greece, the mainstream media quickly moved on to other, less important, subjects. The crisis, they said, was resolved. The billions of Euros sent in by the EU and the IMF would help Greece overcome its troubles. If other European states would follow in Greece’s footsteps, they too would simply receive help, and that would be the end of it. read more…
It seems that the scandal revolving around former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich isn’t the only corruption scandal that could spell trouble for leading progressives, most noteworthy President Obama himself. Writing for the Examiner, Robert Moon reports that that the president is also implicated in the Romanoff-scandal.
Former Colorado House of Representatives Speaker Andrew Romanoff recently released a a copy of an email confirming his earlier accusations that the White House offered him a job to let Senator Michael Bennet’s reelection bid go unchallenged. Although it is certainly not uncommon for politicians to offer “someone a paid position in order to influence an election outcome,” as Moon explains, it most certainly is illegal.
Additionally, Moon adds, you have to wonder why it is that the mainstream media aren’t as upset about this scandal as they were when President Bush’s Attorney General Roberto Gonzalez “fired political appointees for political reasons,” which is, after all, quite a “common, non-controversial practice.” read more…
I’m expecting a lot from disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich‘s federal corruption trial, for which the jury selection started today. As the Chicago Tribune reports, this trial will ‘feature prosecutors feeding voters a steady reminder of the worst elements of Illinois’ political culture — allegations that money, insider influence and personal interest drive public policy in this state.’
Charges range from ‘trying to shake down a children’s hospital for campaign cash to trying to peddle President Barack Obama‘s vacant Senate seat for profit.’ Although most believe that Blagojevich is guilty as charged – and of more – few expect him to go down without putting up a fight. It’s likely he’s got quite some dirt on other Chicago politicians and that he’s willing to throw it at them. Let’s hope so, at least.
Of course this is exactly what many Illinois politicians – and especially Democrats – fear. Blagojevich isn’t exactly known for being prudent. He’ll do anything he’ll consider necessary to defend himself, even disgracing his fellow brothers in arms. read more…
This could very well be the best, and most important, video of the Freedom Flotilla farce. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the “peace activists” of the IHH, not the IDF were the cause of the violence.
As the IDF explain on their YouTube channel, in the “footage captured on the Mavi Marmara, activists are seen attacking the soldiers with a stun grenade, a box of plates, and water hoses as the soldiers attempt to board the ship. the activists are also waiving around metal rods and chains later used to attack the soldiers with. The IDF soldiers were armed with paint ball guns (used for riot dispersal) and pistols which they were ordered to use only as a last resort.
“In the early hours of the 31st of May 2010, IDF soldiers boarded the ships of the “Free Gaza” Flotilla, after the ships refused to redirect their course. Aboard the Mavi Marmara the soldiers encountered serious violence when, in a preplanned attack, the activists on board lynched the soldiers with knives, metal rods and stole two of their guns. As a result 7 soldiers were injured and 9 activists were killed.” read more…
Good news! Even though George W. Bush was succeeded as president by Barack Obama 1.5 years ago, our beloved left-wing mainstream media are somehow still able to blame him for just about every ill in the world. No kidding, they’re even holding him responsible for the announced divorce between former vice-president turned global warming warrior Al Gore and his wife Tipper. I know what you’re thinking, “that doesn’t make sense! How in the world can Bush, who has nothing whatsoever to do with the Gores, be responsible? Did he seduce Tipper, or something?”
Why, no:
On Tuesday’s CBS Evening News, with the help of the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, Sharyl Attkisson managed to blame news, that Al and Tipper Gore are separating, on how they never got over being denied the presidency despite winning the popular vote in 2000. If only Bush hadn’t taken it from them. read more…
