Girl Must Eat Every 15 Minutes: Lizzie Velasquez Stays Skeletal Despite … – CBS News

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New York Daily News
Girl Must Eat Every 15 Minutes: Lizzie Velasquez Stays Skeletal Despite ...
CBS News
... faces with a beak-shaped nose, prominent veins and sparse scalp hair, according to the website of University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. ...
Lizzie Velasquez, 21-year-old with undiagnosed genetic disorder, must eat 60 ...New York Daily News
Thin Lizzie's 60 meals a daySydney Morning Herald
Lizzie Velasquez: Austin, Texas Girl Must Eat Every 15 Minutes (Video)Blue Star Chronicles (blog)
allvoices
all 80 news articles »

Transcript: Leahy’s Statement At Kagan Hearing – NPR

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Globe and Mail
Transcript: Leahy's Statement At Kagan Hearing
NPR
The genius of our Founders was to establish a Constitution firm enough to enshrine freedom and the rule of law as guiding principles, yet flexible enough to ...
Reject KaganHuman Events (blog)
Kagan an eager, tough-talking political playerCNN
First thoughts: Byrd passes awaymsnbc.com
Media Matters for America
all 4,988 news articles »

Afghanistan: G-8 announces 5-year commitent, the right course?

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by Clifford F. Thies

Sometimes you have to put 1 and 1 together to get 2. One day, the President names General Petraeus, hero of the surge in Iraq, to be commander of allied forces in Afghanistan. A few days later, the G-8 releases a joint statement that includes a commitment to five more years of international military assistance to that country.

When he announced his surge in Afghanistan, President Obama also announced a timetable for withdrawal. Beginning in 2011, U.S. troops were to begin withdrawing from the country. The pre-commitment to a timetable for withdrawal aligned with candidate Obama’s criticism of President Bush for making withdrawal from Iraq based on "conditions on the ground,” a standard that appeared to commit the U.S. to have a military presence in Iraq indefinitely.

The timetable for withdrawal may have made sense to President Obama at the time it was drawn up, based on various assumptions of what could be accomplished with the resources available; but, right off the bat, problems developed. First, there were problems assembling the resources assumed in the plan. Our own troop level was only increased gradually due to a variety of problems, and none of our allies committed to additional troops or agreed to relax restrictions on the deployment of their troops already in the country, and a number of our allies announced withdrawals of their troops.

Second, the Taliban didn’t cooperate with the plan. They zigged when the plan assumed they were going to zag, increasingly operating across the borders of Afghanistan with Iran and Pakistan, and being augmented by international jihadists. Instead of encountering only scattered resistance, our forces find themselves engaged with a fierce and resourceful enemy. This has not been the “walk in the park” that the Obama Administration had assumed.

Thus, as things failed to go according to plan, President Karzai of Afghanistan said the allied forces will not defeat the Taliban, meaning not according to President Obama’s timetable. Local Afghanis started to accommodate themselves to their soon-to-be evil masters. The now dumped commander of the allied forces, General McChrystal, agitated for more troops and became increasingly frustrated with the civilian leadership.

Following his appointment of General Petraeus President Obama seemed to fudge his policy of a timetable for withdrawal with a policy of conditioning withdrawal on conditions on the ground. He said that his timetable was not “race for the exits,” but a “conditions-based,” open-ended transition.” My, my, why didn’t President Bush think of saying that? And now comes a five-year commitment by way of a G-8 announcement.

Independent of the tacit admission that Bush was right about basing withdrawal on conditions on the ground, there is the geopolitical question as to what is the mission in Afghanistan and is it worth the cost of another five years of war? The original mission in that country was merely to overthrow the Taliban and to secure Kabul for the so-called central government of the country. For some reason, this changed into securing the entire country for that so-called government. Neither President Bush nor President Obama has bothered to tell us, the American people, why this is in our national interest.

Idaho Republican Party shifts hard to the Libertarian-Right

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From Eric Dondero:

It's being dubbed a "Red Meat" state convention. Idaho Republican delegates met in convention in Idaho Falls over the weekend and adopted a hardline platform. From the Deseret News:

Take the party's new platform, updated Saturday to include a loyalty test for candidates, a provision recommending Idaho withhold taxes from the federal government, further efforts to limit marriage to "naturally born" men and women — even a GOP-sanctioned admonishment for residents to stock up on gold and silver to gird against the ravages of U.S. dollar inflation, should it come to that.

a recommendation to revise the Idaho Constitution to give Idaho the right to take over federally managed U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management territory.

(Bold emphasis added.)

Also, two Tea Party stalwarts were elected to the GOP Executive Committee - Secretary and Treasurer positions. The Party is already Chaired by a hardline conservative Norm Samanko who won reelection.

Schwarzenegger moves quick – immediate end to Casino Welfare Queens (and Kings)

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LR FOLLOW-UP

From Eric Dondero:

We reported last week on local newspaper stories out of California, uncovering EBT machines in California Casinos. Welfare recipients could access easy cash for the blackjack tables, slot machines, and poker.

The Governor was caught by surprise. But to his credit he has put an immediate stop to the practice.

From Mydesert.com:

Spurred by a newspaper's report that California's welfare debit cards can be used to withdraw cash in more than half the casinos in the state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday issued an immediate ban on state-provided cash assistance at ATMs in gambling establishments.

The Los Angeles Times disclosed that Electronic Benefit Transfer cards work in automated teller machines at 32 of 58 tribal casinos and 47 of 90 state-licensed poker rooms. The report also found the state Department of Social Services published a list of useable ATMs where the EBT cards that work like debit cards could be cashed.

“I will use every available power I have to protect taxpayers from waste, fraud and abuse in government,'' Schwarzenegger said.

Arizona Libertarian for Governor Bruce Olson challenges Gov. Brewer to be Tougher on Border Security

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From Eric Dondero:

Libertarian candidate for Governor of Arizona Bruce Olson admires Republican Governor Jan Brewer in general, but wants her to be even tougher on border security.

Yesterday he issued an open letter to his opponent. Olson sent a copy along to Libertarian Republican.

Governor Brewer:

This morning I read your article in the paper. Here’s a idea. Take an hour out of your campaigning day, and do what your charged to do. Be the Commander in Chief of the Great State of Arizona. Forget obama, hes not coming, he has no paperwork. Put out a call for volunteers to develop and deploy the state militia we are ready. Instruct the Border Patrol to return to the border fence and no more than one mile inside the border. Send the Armed State Guard to the border to back up the Border Patrol . Locate two General Aviation aircraft equipped with RC-9 or -10 cameras with gps link, deploy them to the border and mountain ridges, identify the location of repeaters with freq finding technology. Send in the Huey’s with gunners and take them out. Use the militia to mop up. You are at war , and the longer you fool around using this issue as a campaign tool, the more people are going to get killed or worse. We need a Commander in Chief in Arizona, its for certain we dont have one in the District of Columbia. You want to be a sovereign state,prove it.

Bruce Olsen

Note - Olsen refers to himself as a "Wayne Root Libertarian," and a strict Constitutionalist. To challenge Brewer in the Fall, he must first win the Libertarian Party nomination. His opponent for the nomination is leftwing Libertarian and perennial candidate Barry Hess. The Libertarian primary is in August.

BruceOlsen4Gov.com

Dave Weigel – Honest to Goodness "Leftwing Libertarian"

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by Eric Dondero

By now many of you, especially those of you who are rightwing blogosphere junkies are aware that Dave Weigel as resigned as the "Conservative" Blogger for the Washington Post.

I cry no tears for Dave's departure. I will say he's always been friendly in his dealings with me and with this political website. Well, at least recently. But no less, I'm not sorry to see him go. Mainly because he was not in any way a Conservative.

Rather, Weigel is the perfect Leftwing Libertarian.

And ironically, because of this hub-bub, the term Leftwing Libertarian or variations of, have been spread all over the blogs.

We here at Libertarian Republican take credit for pushing these terms "Leftwing Libertarian," and "Right Libertarian," or "Rightwing Libertarian." We most certainly are the main political website representing the Right Libertarian movement.

The difference? Mainly foreign policy. Right Libertarians are Pro-Defense, and generally less skeptical and even downright supportive of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We Right Libertarians are also more tolerant of Pro-Life Libertarians, Christian Libertarians, and Libertarians personally opposed to Gay Marriage for example. We Right Libertarians tend to be more Pro-Death Penalty, and tough on Crime. And most certainly, we are much tougher on Immigration than your typical Libertarian.

Weigel represents the complete opposite view. He's stridently non-interventionist. He was an open Obama supporter in 2008 when he worked for Reason. He's been disdainful of Sarah Palin.

Thankfully, this is getting picked up. From HuffPo:

But within the Washington Post, Weigel's politics (he is a libertarian with clear progressive leanings) appeared to surprise management, some of whom assumed he was a conservative.

From VodkaPundit at PJ Media:

I’d read Weigel starting with his stint at Reason about three years back. He was always caustic, often funny, and typically cranky — an angry left-libertarian. Now, left-libertarian isn’t the most tenable position... From the moment Weigel started at the Post, it became pretty obvious that he wasn’t a libertarian of any sort, left or otherwise. And if you followed his Twitter feed, his “progressive” tilt, and open hostility towards most anyone to the right of, say, Dave Weigel, weren’t even debatable.

From E.D. Kain at the Washington Examiner:

It appears the Post either didn’t realize Weigel was not a conservative (but rather a left-leaning libertarian)

There's much, much more. Dave Weigel and "Left Libertarian," is all over the blogs right now.

Leftwing Libertarian and Right Libertarians are relatively new terms. The more they get bandied about the better for those of us on the Rightside of libertarianism. For, we are at the very apex of the Libertarian-Conservative movement.

So, in a way I guess we do owe Dave Weigel some gratitude after all.