Israel's Memorial to September 11

At Berman Post, "Israeli 9/11 Memorial":

If the measure of a true friend is how sincerely they mourn for your loss, Israel once again showed how close of an ally they are to the United States.

RELATED: At Jerusalem Post, "PM on 9/11: We are still susceptible to terror attacks."

How the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Unfolded

Via Telegraph UK on YouTube:

Also at Telegraph, "9/11: Voices from the doomed planes."

Terrorist Threat Prompts Tighter Security on 9/11

See New York Post, "Cops flood NYC streets and transit hubs amid bomb threat."

And at Fox News, "New York, DC Beef Up Security in Face of ‘Credible’ Terror Threat":

The two cities that were at the heart of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are on high alert this weekend after the government received a “credible” tip that Al Qaeda plans to launch an attack on Washington or New York as the nation marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Extra security is clearly visible on subways in both cities as officials are taking seriously a joint FBI, Homeland Security Intelligence Bulletin, first obtained by Fox News that states the timing and method of the potential terror plot.

“Al Qaeda possibly planned to carry out attacks…including a possible car bomb attack,” the bulletin reads.

Al Qaeda may have sent American terrorists or men carrying U.S. travel documents to launch the attack, government officials say.

And at ABC News, "Alleged 9/11 Anniversary Plot: Possible Suspect May Be ID'd" (via Memeorandum).

'I Admire Your Passion'

My classes went really well last week. And recall on Tuesday I mentioned that I'd be covering Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address during lectures. Well, I stress how President Lincoln appealed to Thomas Jefferson in the first paragraph of the Address, where he wrote:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The Civil War was not initially fought for the emancipation of the slaves, but for the preservation of Union. After Gettysburg the correlation of forces was shifting, and when Lincoln was asked to present at the dedication for the Soldiers' National Cemetery, he put great effort into composing a dedication that would transcend divisions and unify the continued campaigns around an elevated set of war aims focusing on human freedom and the American experience. Should the country be forever divided, it was very well possible that the spark of liberty would forever "perish from the earth."



While presenting the discussion to my students, I pull up my photo of President Lincoln's statue at the Lincoln Memorial, and I ask if students have visited Washington, D.C. A lot of students have not been to the nation's capital, so I share how I felt when I've visited, and I stress how deeply affected I have been, and how especially moving is the Lincoln Memorial. My textbook features a photograph of the left-hand wall of the Memorial, where the Address is engraved, and I mention how there are always people sitting down beneath it, reading quietly in appreciation. And then I remind students that Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Memorial. And if you visit, make sure to look for the inscription at the top of the steps, where it says that MLK delivered his speech from that very spot, August 28th, 1963. And I recite for my students how Dr. King challenged the country to "live out the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal." And I draw the line of liberty back from Dr. King to Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Jefferson, and I remind folks that while this nation was indeed founded in crisis --- the crisis of slavery --- our greatness lies in our charter documents, pieces of parchment holding the political philosophy that pushes Americans to a higher moral standard, a template of universal goodness, one that still shines bright in the world. And we as citizens can't just stand on the sidelines hoping that the American democracy will continue, but that we have an obligation to ourselves and our fellow citizens to continue the work of our forefathers, to continue to ensure that democracy "shall not perish from the earth."



In any case, I do enjoy the discussions with students, and after my very last class on Tuesday, a young woman named Rebekah came up after I dismissed the class, and she said to me, "You know, Dr. Douglas, I admire your passion." I thanked her and I returned the compliment, because she's been very engaged in class, asking questions and volunteering to lead the discussions. Moments like that are what really make teaching meaningful. I hope I have a lot more of these over the course of the semester.



Also, related, I blogged Steven Givler's recent essay on the New York Times, where he mentioned we might benefit from the example of community college professors, and after I commented at the post, Steven wrote:

Hi Donald, I was actually thinking of you when I mentioned the community college.

As I always say, conservatives are good people. And I'm strengthened by the periodic feedback I receive that I am indeed doing something that is good and decent, and those efforts are not entirely overlooked by both my students and those who have followed my writing. Those of us of good moral standing know that decency and right always prevail, but we can never let our efforts wane, for Satan's toilers stalk along the sidelines, looking for a chance to weaken us and pave the way for darkness to spread across the land. We have faced the danger in history and we have come near to it again of late. Thankfully, the Obama interregnum is now half past, and we can soon push to victory in 2012 and reclaim some of the liberty that the dark side has vanquished.



Be strong dear friends and readers. I'm still in the fight.

Mark Meckler Interview at Der Spiegel

See, "Interview with Tea Party Co-Founder Mark Meckler: 'We Have Compromised Our Way Into Disaster'":

SPIEGEL: The world is looking at Washington and sees gridlock and chaos. How much have the negotiations over the United States' debt ceiling hurt America's standing in the world?

Meckler: Saying that these debates have hurt our image is absurd. What you currently see in Washington is one of the most responsible debates ever about the size and scope of government. The world should look at what is going on in the United States as a model for what should happen in all countries.

SPIEGEL: We look at it and see a Congress held hostage by a small group of radical Tea Party members unwilling to agree to any budget compromise and risking a US default.

Meckler: What do you mean by "a small group?" Forty-one percent of voters in the last US election said they agreed with Tea Party values. And the primary values of the Tea Party are about fiscal responsibility.

SPIEGEL: But you are willing to accept a US default if your demands for massive budget cuts and no tax increases are not met. That seems rather irresponsible or even unpatriotic. Most leading economists forecast financial "Armageddon" in that case.

Meckler: Default is a false threat. We take in over $220 billion in revenues every month and our debt service is only roughly $20 billion. The only way we will default is if the President of the United States makes the irresponsible choice not to pay our debts. We Tea Party Patriots put principles first, and we have to understand what America is about. Our country was founded on an idea: liberty. But it requires fiscal responsibility for people to be free. We are becoming slaves to our own government. Every US family now owes $400,000 to $500,000 in national debt. We Tea Party Patriots fight for the future of the nation, and there can be nothing more patriotic than that.

Continue reading.

Boehner's Moment of Truth

From Kimberley Strassel, at WSJ:

It isn't easy to turn Washington around on a dime. If nothing else, give Republican House Speaker John Boehner marks for trying.

It wasn't a week ago that Mr. Boehner was plodding through White House deliberations, grasping for GOP support, facing the growing likelihood his party would be saddled with either a flawed debt bargain or blame for causing a default. By last night, Mr. Boehner was on the precipice of passing the only workable debt plan in town and shifting responsibility for further debt fallout across the aisle. Whatever the final result, Mr. Boehner's week-long struggle to pull his party behind him is worthy of some study ...

Continue reading.

Barbara Efraim with House Speaker John Boehner

Barbara Efraim, formerly of Long Beach City College, is doing an internship with the National Women's Committee of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington. She keeps me updated by Facebook. Here she's meeting with Speaker Boehner, who's in the news more than ever. A little blurry with the mobile phone, but cool:

Cathy McMorris Rodgers Was Robbed! — The Hill's '50 Most Beautiful People for 2011'

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference, and I just love her!

But she didn't make the cut at The Hill's annual roundup of 50 most beautiful people on Capitol Hill. That said, Freshman Rep. Kristi Noem makes the cut at #8, and who is Grace Johnson at #2? If I were single I'd be moving to D.C.!

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Gang of Six

At WSJ, "The Gang of Six Play: A conceptual breakthrough that has too few details."

Grand bipartisan budget deals are one of the great come-ons of Washington politics. They rarely work out, and when they do they usually benefit only the political class. The latest offer from the so-called Gang of Six Senators might be an exception, if—and this is a big if—its inviting generalities can be matched by useful details.

The budget outline—that's all it is so far—promises some $3.7 trillion in deficit reduction that includes rewriting the tax code, reforming entitlements, stabilizing the national debt, freezing domestic spending and rewriting federal budget rules—all in a handy seven pages of talking points. Senate committee chairmen would have wide latitude to write the new laws as they see fit. Anyone up for Max Baucus rewriting the tax code?

***
That said, the outline from the three Republicans (including Oklahoma conservative Tom Coburn) and three Democrats is different from most other such offers because it combines spending cuts with reform that would lower tax rates. Most Beltway budget deals combine immediate tax increases with the promise of future spending cuts that somehow never occur. They enhance Washington's claim on the nation's private resources. This deal has promise because it would reduce that claim.

Continue reading.

Also at NYT, "How ‘Gang of Six’ Revived Idea of Grand Debt Deal." And, "Bipartisan Plan for Budget Deal Buoys President."

And then, from James Capretta, at National Review, "The Gang of Six Disaster: The Worst Plan So Far,"In short, the Gang of Six has essentially offered a plan in which Republicans would hand over control of the budget process to Democratic senators and hope for the best. Enough said." And from Keith Hennessey, "Why I oppose the Gang of Six plan." (via Memeorandum).

'We are taking steps to permanently armor our major public spaces'

Says Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Hawthorne, who reviews architectural proposals for the National Mall, commissioned by the National Capital Planning Commission, "Critic's Notebook: A design that's bold, restrained and secure."

... it's tough not to feel ambivalent about what the design competition represents in a larger sense for American urbanism as we approach the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. In cities all around the country — not just in New York and Washington — the temporary jersey barriers and other makeshift or ad hoc responses to the threat of terrorism are being replaced by subtler and better-looking but fixed design solutions. The new realities of terror protection are working themselves into the fabric of the American cityscape ...

RTWT.

Adam Kokesh Body Slammed!

Awesome.

Too bad Medea Benjamin wasn't slammed as well.

See, "Jefferson Memorial Dance Arrests Poorly Handled":

Poorly handled by the demonstrators, that is ...

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton: 'If these Republicans insist ... then we have got to make them pay the price'

That's right after she said "It’s time that the District of Columbia told the Congress to go straight to hell."

That's belligerent and threatening, more of the new tone progressives keep talking about, or something.

At Fox News, "D.C. Delegate Tells Congress to Go 'Straight to Hell' Over Budget Battle." And MyFox DC, "Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Upset Over Treatment of DC During Shutdown Resolution Talks":

GOP Threatens Shutdown Over Planned Parenthood

And I'm glad.

The New York Times is spinning the debate as a "non-budget" issue, but $75 million or $75 billion, it's public funding and more power to the Republicans calling out Dems on government-sponsored death to the unborn. And quoted there is former welfare recipient Patty Murray:

“I am really stunned, and I am angry as a woman,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, “that we have come to this after weeks of negotiating on numbers, where we have in principle an agreement on numbers, that there are those in the Republican Party in the House who are willing to shut down the government, take people’s paychecks away from them, because they want to deny women access to health care in this country.”

"Health care."

That's a nice rhetorical trick. Planned Parenthood is a death mill. Ground zero for the enormity of progressive pro-abortion evil. And leftists are manning (or womanning) the barricades on this one, since they know that abortion is to social policy as unions are to economics: Lose there and the Democrat-socialist-anti-life-coalition takes a knockout blow, with repercussions all the way up the electoral ladder (think President Barack "Infanticide" Obama).

Also, at Wall Street Journal, "Abortion Returns to Center Stage."

ANSWER Coalition's Brian Becker: 'Violence Sometimes Is Necessary’

It's not that this stuff is surprising, but that the media is so ridiculously biased when it comes to reporting violent rhetoric.

The clip below is from The Blaze, "Dark Rhetoric: Nonviolence Is Not Always the Answer; American Socialist Leader Calling for Revolution Says ‘We Are Not Pacifists, Violence Sometimes Is Necessary’":

And check out this piece at New York Review, "We Don’t Know the Language We Don’t Know." It's a report on the March 19th White House protest against the wars. All the usual suspects were on hand, including Code Pink Obama money-bundler Jodi Evans. The "language" reference is to Daniel Ellsburg, who argues that Americans don't know Pashto, so we'll lose in Afghanistan. It's more complicated, but we'll hold off on that for another time. Anyway, ANSWER's Brian Becker was there, talking up a revolution right here at home:

Then Brian Becker of the Answer Coalition, a socialist group that sponsored some of the biggest peace demonstrations before the Iraq war, tore into the Libyan intervention, which had begun with the launch of a hundred cruise missiles that morning. “We have to learn the lessons that are so crystal clear, as Obama and the Pentagon and France and Britain prepare in the next few hours to start dropping bombs on the people of Libya in the name of democracy,” Becker said. “Let’s know this: Libya is the largest oil producer in Africa, and there’s no possible way that if the US goes into Libya that it’s ever going to come out.” Libya must be the masters of their own destiny, he continued. “We ourselves reject the idea, fed to us once again, that US imperialism, with all of its guns and bombs and missiles, is going to help an oppressed people. The only help we can give to the people of Libya and Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen is to make our own revolution right here!” (Whooping and cheering.)

Union Thug Strikes Tabitha Hale of Freedom Works

The guy's from the Communications Workers of America. This clip shows just how vicious these goons are, especially at the slow-mo replay:

Freedom Works sponsored the Blog Bash CPAC on February 11, and Tabitha Hale organized bloggers' row at the convention. This is more personal than the routine union beatings we've seen these last few years. See Michelle's post for all the details, "Video: CWA union thug strikes young female FreedomWorks activist" (via Memeorandum).

More at The Other McCain, "Thugs for Social Justice: Union Goon Gets Rough With Tabitha Hale on Video."

Presidents Day

I mentioned on Lincoln's birthday that the Washington Mall was "my favorite place to be in the whole United States." And I was excited to walk the mall and visit Lincoln's Memorial on the eve of his birthday. Tomorrow is Washington's birthday, and while today is the federal holiday, technically the country today celebrates our first president, and not all 44 of them. Popular culture conflated the day to include both Washington and Lincoln and political correctness rejected presidential greatness all together for historical relativism. See, Jennifer Braceras, at Boston Herald, "Presidents Day Watered Down: Not All Deserving of Such a High Honor":

In our universities, deconstructionists have taught two generations of students to reject American exceptionalism in favor of a view of America as oppressor. Rather than teach our country’s story as one of progress, these academics teach our history as a series of unfortunate events. In their view, people act only out of self-interest; heroism is a myth.



Over time, these pernicious ideas have infected the American consciousness:



Today, our leaders apologize to dictators for America’s alleged sins (see, for example, President Obama’s speech in Cairo in 2009); our historians study the past with a prurient interest in private scandal rather than public work; and our elementary schools refuse to teach students about our Founding Fathers.



Indeed, although some Massachusetts school children learn about colonial life and society, very few study Massachusetts patriots John Adams or Paul Revere or attempt to understand how these men changed the course of history.



Even fewer learn to honor Washington or Lincoln. Sadly, students today are more likely to lament that Washington owned slaves than to admire him for his humility in rejecting monarchy or a lifetime presidency. Likewise, they are more likely to describe Lincoln as a racist manic-depressive than as the “Great Emancipator” who saved our country from disintegration.

Readers will recall that I walked the Mall from Congress to the Lincoln Memorial. I stopped at the Washington Monument to reflect. This next photo is extra special. My son and I sat on this side of the monument in 2007. One can see the White House when backed up to the wall. Congress is to the east in the distance. I love it up there:

One more photo before heading back over to catch a cab back to the hotel:

Lincoln's Birthday

President Abraham Lincoln was born today, 202 years ago, February 12, 1809.



I imagine it's fitting, then, that I walked the Washington Mall yesterday morning, from Capitol Hill to Lincoln's Memorial. I think that's my favorite place to be in the whole United States. Perhaps I'd tire of it should I be living in D.C., but being here fills me with pride and historical grandeur. I'll have more sightseeing pictures later. I spent just a few minutes at the memorial, but it is indeed a temple:

I'll have more from the Mall after I'm home in the O.C.