Things must be improving in Iraq when the Main Stream Media starts publishing stories like this.

Article follows:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Spc. Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shiite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he’s missing the real war — in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban.

Military officials say violence in Iraq is at its lowest point in the past four years.Military officials say violence in Iraq is at its lowest point in the past four years.

With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart’s view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle.

“I’ve heard it a lot since I got here,” said 2nd Lt. Karl Kuechenmeister, a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who arrived in Iraq about a week ago.

Soldiers who have experienced combat stress note that it is usually young soldiers on their first tour who most want to get on the battlefield. They say it is hard to communicate the horrors of war to those who have not actually experienced it.

“These kids are just being young,” said Sgt. Christopher Janis, who is only 23 but is on his third tour in Iraq. “They say they want to get into battle until they do, and then they won’t want it anymore.”That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it’s the lowest in four years, thanks to the U.S. troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shiite militias.

At least 29 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq last month, and there were 19 deaths in May — the lowest monthly toll for American troops since the war began in March 2003. By comparison, in Afghanistan, 28 Americans died in June and 17 in May, but there are four times as many U.S. troops in Iraq.

American military deaths in Iraq are also down sharply this month, in a trend that could take center stage during Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s planned visit to Baghdad and the debate over whether America’s main battle is shifting back to Afghanistan.

Click here to read entire article: Quiet Iraq streets leave soldiers yearning for Afghanistan - CNN.com

Tags: iraq, war on terror, u.s. army, afghanistan, baghdad, soldier, military, alqiada, barack obama

Hat Tip: OpFor

Hat Tip: Brain-Terminal.com

From the Wall Street Journal comes explanation of how Barack Obama plans to pay for new entitlements promised during his Presidential campaign. Using government power to redistribute wealth from those who earn it to those who don’t is not only bad economics that hurt everyone but it is immoral and Unconstitutional. The Founding Fathers created the U.S. Constitution to LIMIT the Federal Government and would be appalled at how the Federal Government is involved in taking from the wealthiest and giving to entitlement recipients.

Article follows:

Reviving Redistributionism

New data from the IRS will be out in a few weeks on who pays how much in taxes. My contacts at the Treasury Department tell me that for the first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

But Barack Obama has decided the rich still don’t pay enough. He would redistribute the tax burden even more heavily on small business owners and the entrepreneurial class (two-thirds of the tax filers in the highest income tax bracket are small-business owners.) The nonpartisan Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodge has just crunched the numbers on the Obama plan and concludes that “more than $131 billion would be redistributed from the top 1 percent of taxpayers to all other taxpayers.

“Sounds fair, no? Only 1.13 million taxpayers, out of some 128 million, would end up paying higher taxes, according to the Obama camp.

But in the real world, who ends up paying a tax is not just the person on whose tax return it falls. History has demonstrated time and again that raising tax rates on the wealthy in the name of “redistribution” leads to so much income shifting, reduced work and investment, and redeployment of money into tax shelters, that the rich usually pay less, not more taxes, at higher rates. The burden of paying for government shifts to others, including some who may not file an income tax return at all – because they no longer have jobs or no longer earn enough to pay income tax.

Economist Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University has shown that in 1970, when the highest tax rate was 70%, the top 1% shouldered 16.7% of the income tax burden. Today the top tax rate is 35% and the same class of taxpayers pays a whopping 39% of the burden. The worst way to “soak the rich,” Mr. Hubbard finds, is to raise tax rates.

Somebody needs to give the Obama campaign a refresher on all this. The Tax Foundation’s Mr. Hodge wonders: “Can a tax system so focused on redistribution be compatible with economic growth?” Probably not but the Obama brain trust wants to give it a try anyway.– Stephen Moore

Political Diary - WSJ.com

Tags: barackobama, redistribution of wealth, redistributionism, politics, presidential campaign, election 2008, wall street journal, wsj

Culberson talks about shining a light in every corner of Congress because a thief can’t steal from you in the light. Seems that Pelosi wants to keep Congress dark enough so The People don’t notice their pockets being picked.

What is it?

The PlurkCAST at Plurkable Contest is a contest for all Plurkers. You’ll be able to win prizes such as t-shirts, games, movie tickets, online guides, advertising and more!

When?

The contest will take place live on the air during the weekly PlurkCAST at 2:00 PM Pacific, 5:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday, June 9, 2008. Winners will be randomly chosen (Click here to see rules explained)

Prizes from the PlurkCast at Plurkable - Plurkiverse

Tags: plurk, plurkcast, prizes, talkshoe, podcast, plurkable, plurkiverse

The U.S. Army Rangers deserve much more praise and attention than they get from American society and media. Rangers are the Army’s primary raiders. Raids are one of the most dangerous missions there is. Rangers Lead the Way!

Article follows:

By Mike Manhatton

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - We very rarely hear about United States Army Rangers. But our nation and our world, would be a very different, and likely a much more dangerous place without them.

The 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment is based at Hunter Army Airfield and just recently changed commanders. We offer a WTOC Military Salute to the man who’s lead them through years of the war on terror, Col. Lee Rudacille.

The very public ceremony, in the middle of Forsyth Park, is a rare chance to see some 800 of our finest soldiers marching to honor one of their own, and a time-tested military tradition. The change of command, symbolized by Col. Lee Rudacille handing the colors over to incoming commander, Lt. Col. Brian Mennes.

A time to remember and honor Col. Rudacille’s leadership. Col. Richard Clarke knows all about leading Rangers. He’s the current commander of the entire Ranger Regiment. He’s also served in the unit based at Hunter.

Col. Clarke reminded the gathering of the hard work Col. Rudacille and his Rangers have taken in the global war on terror. “For the past two years, enduring three combat deployments, Lee has ably lead this battalion through some of the toughest parts of the fight,” said Col. Clarke.

Tough isn’t a strong enough word for it. Col. Rudacille obviously can’t talk about the details, but did sum up the missions for his Rangers. “Over the course of 1,000 raids, they captured or killed over 3,000 insurgents,” said Col. Rudacille. “You have forever changed the fight against extremism.

“Col. Clarke pointed out just how challenging that can be. “While deployed all night, every night, they went on literally thousands of raids, by helicopter, by vehicle, by foot and in some cases on boat assault,” said Col. Clarke. “Yes, Rangers were doing boat assault, against the world’s most valuable, dangerous and elusive targets, in the worst areas, under the most threatening and demanding operational conditions.

“Col. Rudacille bid farewell with honors for his soldiers. “The credit for this battalions achievements belongs to the Rangers in the field, who not only entered the arena time and time again, and emerged victorious,” said Col. Rudacille. “May God bless, continue to bless, this great battalion, our Army, and our nation. Rangers lead the way!”

WTOC, Savannah, Georgia, news, weather and sports | Military Salute: Col. Lee Rudacille

Tags: rangers, u.s. army, col clarke, col rudacille, honor, change of command, hunter army airfield, military, war on terror, raid

This is another Harry Reid moment of “open mouth, insert foot.” When Harry Reid says that “coal makes us sick”, he is not tuned into reality. Electrical power from coal and transportation from oil based products have improved the lives of Americans and the world enormously.

Also, without ample amounts of electricity and gasoline driven engines, Las Vegas would still be about the same size as Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada. Maybe that is how Senator Reid prefers it.

Article follows:

Hat Tip: Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey

When the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal calls Harry Reid a “YouTube sensation”, they don’t mean it as a compliment. Given that the city runs on a tremendous amount of coal-based electricity and depends on oil-based transportation to bring gamblers and tourists to the desert oasis, they find Reid’s latest comments sickening in their own right. Far from making the world sick, the industrialization spurred by fossil fuels has made the world and its residents healthier than ever:

By Thursday afternoon, the video clip had close to 400,000 hits on YouTube. Like an “American Idol” reject who has no idea he can’t sing, Sen. Reid serves up speechification that crashes and burns in spectacular fashion.

Doesn’t the Democratic Party have its own Simon Cowell, someone with enough common sense to cut off the Slipup from Searchlight before he finds all new ways to embarrass his home state?

Funny thing about coal and oil. Before they began transforming Americans’ everyday lives by providing electricity and transport that didn’t require a horse, average citizens trudged though life with mouths half-full of teeth, fortunate to live past age 40. Far from making us sick, they’ve powered advances that have extended the country’s collective life expectancy to about 80, helped eliminate hard-core poverty and made us the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet.

Today, coal still provides half the country’s electricity — power that allows Las Vegas air conditioners to run 24 hours per day during the soul-searing heat of July, power that lets partygoers enjoy the city’s luxuries at all times. And how did they — and the foodstuffs they ate for breakfast — get to this otherwise uninhabitable tourist outpost? They drove or flew here on a tank of fossil fuel.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Las Vegas Review-Journal: Been to Vegas lately, Harry?

Tags: harryreid, searchlight nevada, las vegas, nevada, senator reid, energy, coal, gasoline, oil, electricity, solar power, slip up

I told someone about a year ago that ethanol and biofuels were going to wreak havoc on food prices. I remember saying something like, “when you start burning your food in your gas tank you are not making a good decision.” The person I said that too kind of scoffed with an eyeroll. I may have been more correct than I wanted to be.

Again, government mandates in the marketplace prove to be harmful. If there was a real non-government enforced market for biofuels people and companies would buy into them. When are the Stateists ever going to learn?

Article follows:

Fri Jul 4, 3:34 AM ET LONDON (AFP) - Biofuels have caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent, according to the findings of an unpublished World Bank report published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday.

The daily said the report was finished in April but was not published to avoid embarrassing the US government, which has claimed plant-derived fuels have pushed up prices by only three percent.

Biofuels, which supporters claim are a “greener” alternative to using fossil fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions, and rising food prices will be on the agenda when G8 leaders meet in Japan next week for their annual summit.

The report’s author, a senior World Bank economist, assessed that contrary to claims by US President George W. Bush, increased demand from India and China has not been the cause of rising food prices.

“Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases,” the report said.

Droughts in Australia have also not had a significant impact, it added. Instead, European and US drives for greater use of biofuels has had the biggest effect.

The European Union has mooted using biofuels for up to 10 percent of all transport fuels by 2020 as part of an increase in use of renewable energy.

All petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include a biofuels component of at least 2.5 percent since April this year.

“Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate,” the report said.

It added that the drive for biofuels has distorted food markets by diverting grain away from food for fuel, encouraging farmers to set aside land for its production, and sparked financial speculation on grains.

But Brazil’s transformation of sugar cane into fuel has not had such a dramatic impact, the report said.

“The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140 percent between 2002 and this February,” The Guardian said.

“The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15 percent, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75 percent jump over that period.”

Biofuels behind food price hikes: leaked World Bank report - Yahoo! News

Tags: biofuels, stateism, statism, collectivism, capitalism, market forces, global, maize, wheat, prices, distorted food markets, green,

I think so many Americans have become dependent on government largess that they forget the meaning of Independence Day.

The 4th of July is celebrated because after the American Colonies had petitioned the King of England for redress without favorable consideration for many years, the Colonial leaders made the decision that unjust rule was sufficient reason for a People to rule themselves.

Everyone should read the Declaration of Independence at least once a year and this is a great day to do it!

Don’t just read the resounding opening lines– read the whole thing.

Read the damning point-by-point indictment of King George’s gross misrule and petty tyrannies.

(Realize that those were fighting words that could have put the signers of the Declaration to death.)

So definitely enjoy the blessings of liberty! Enjoy the cook-outs, the fireworks, the beer, and the guns too. Remember to shoot the guns before drinking the beer!

Raise a glass or two to the health of our Armed Forces, to the glory of the United States, and damnation to our enemies.

Tags: independenceday, 4th of july, liberty, armed forces, declaration of independence, king george, tyrannies, cook-outs, fireworks, beer, guns, shoot

A wholehearted thank you goes out to all the service members that make so many sacrifices to protect all Americans. I will raise glasses in salute to our Armed Forces for their health and wellness.

Article follows:

BAGHDAD – How are you spending your 4th of July holiday?

While most Americans probably slept, 1,215 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines raised their right hands and committed to a combined 5,500 years of additional service during the largest reenlistment ceremony in the history of the American military.

Beneath a large American flag which dwarfed even the enormous chandelier that Saddam Hussein had built for the Al Faw Palace, members of all services, representing all 50 states took the oath administered by Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq.

Petraeus, reiterating earlier remarks made by Command Sergeant Major Hill, said that the unprecedented ceremony sends a “message to friend and foe alike.” He told those assembled that it is “impossible to calculate the value of what you are giving to our country . . . For no bonus, no matter the size, can adequately compensate you for the contribution each of you makes as a custodian of our nation’s defenses.”

Last year Gen. Petraeus, along with Senator John McCain, presided over a similar Independence Day ceremony. Then only 588 servicemen reenlisted. This year’s event, more than twice as large, saw the equivalent of two battalions extend their service in America’s military. Nearly the entire rotunda was filled with reenlisting servicemen, their voices drowning out all other noise. For two days the military members, flown in for the occasion from all across Iraq, have toured the elaborate palace where Saddam’s sons were said to have entertained friends lavishly and tortured enemies mercilessly in the basement dungeon.

Following the ceremony, they were treated to Chicago deep dish pizza donated by Lou Malnati’s Restaurant and flown fresh by DHL for the occasion.

Among those in attendance were service members from the more than two dozen Allies serving with MNF-I. Along with their American counterparts, each appeared in awe of the sacrifice of these incredible men and women. Each of the reenlistees knows full well the costs of war, and yet, they chose to stand with their units, their mission, and each other. It was as humbling an experience as I have ever witnessed.

On this 4th of July, while you celebrate around grills and coolers all across America, keep in mind the 1,215 who allow us that privilege.

BobKrumm.com » How did you spend Independence Day?

Tags: armedforces, reenlistment, 1215, iraq, gen. david petraeus, palace, saddam hussein, sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines, 4th of July