Pennsylvanian in exile

Stick to baseball, George

One of my least favorite pseudo-conservatives, George Will, shows how out of touch he is with the real conservatives.

WHICH is how discerning conservatives felt while waiting to see if, in Election Day's second-most important voting, Kentuckians would grant a fifth term to Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans.

They did, making him Washington's most important Republican and second-most-consequential elected official. This apotheosis has happened even though he is handicapped by, as National Review rather cruelly says, "an owlish, tight-lipped public demeanor reminiscent of George Will."

That disability is, however, a strength, because it precludes an occupational hazard of senators - presidential ambition. Besides, McConnell, 66, is completely a man of the Senate. At 22, he was an intern for Sen. John Sherman Cooper and went from law school to the staff of Sen. Marlow Cook. Because McConnell has been so thoroughly marinated in the institution's subtle mores and complex rules, he'll wring maximum leverage from probably 43 Republican votes.

Which is why Democrats spared no expense in trying to unhorse him, recruiting a rich opponent and supplementing his spending with $6 million from the national party.

Speaking last week by telephone from Kentucky, McConnell said Republicans should feel "disappointment, not despair." Although 23 percent of Barack Obama's voters were under 30, McConnell does not think the younger generation has acquired an indelible Democratic imprint.

Ninety percent of John McCain's vote was white, and the white percentage of the turnout has fallen from 90 percent in 1976 to 77 percent in 2004 and 74 percent in 2008. Hispanics, the nation's largest minority, gave Obama two-thirds of their votes, but McConnell believes that they are entrepreneurial and culturally conservative and therefore not beyond the reach of Republicans.

Legislatively, Republicans can begin clarifying their convictions by pressing to limit the scope and duration of what a Republican administration has unleashed - the increasingly indiscriminate intrusion of government into financing the private sector. McConnell believes the bailout legislation was "necessary but not necessarily precedential."

Democrats probably can peel off a few Republican senators to reach 60 votes for some of their agenda. But not for all of it. For example, McConnell's caucus probably can stop organized labor's top priority - abolition of workers' right to a secret ballot in unionization votes, which Obama has endorsed .

McConnell is Kentucky's most important politician since Henry Clay, "the Great Compromiser." McConnell, too, has the patience that politics repays and that the Republican recuperation might require.

But he also has a keen sense of how the nation "can change on a dime." Drawing upon this year's grim experience, he dryly says: "Governing is a hazardous business for presidential parties."

McConnell oversaw the loss of the Senate and an unconscienable expansion of the Federal government - No Child Left Behind, Medicare Prescription Benefit, Bank bailout, pork barrel spending, Bridges to Nowhere and other obscenities. While I am glad we did not lose any additional seats to the dems, the GOP needs a better leader than a career inside the Beltway man like McConnell.

Wall Street - No confidence vote for Obama

The Chosen one has been elected and the markets are not happy.

The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren't. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting similar skids. The Dow fell another 4.7% yesterday.

Much of this is due to hedge fund deleveraging, as well as dreadful corporate earnings reports and pessimism that the recession will be deeper than many had hoped. We also don't want to read too much into short-term market moves. But there's little doubt that uncertainty, and some fear, over Barack Obama's economic agenda is also contributing to the downdraft.
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The substance of what Mr. Obama has promised for the economy is bearish for stocks. The threat of higher tax rates, especially on capital gains and dividends, now may be getting priced into the market. Add that to investor doubts about Democratic policies on unions, health care and trade -- and no wonder stocks are falling. Lower stock prices in turn reduce household net worth, thus slamming consumer confidence and contributing to what appears to be a consumer spending strike.

If Mr. Obama wants to reassure markets, he could announce that he won't be raising taxes for the foreseeable future. Unlike hundreds of billions in new government spending or more taxpayer cash for Detroit auto companies, this no-tax-hike declaration is a "stimulus" that would cost the U.S. Treasury nothing. In the current market, there won't be many capital gains and few companies will have surplus earnings to pay out in dividends. A higher tax rate on zero gains yields zero revenue, so what's the point of raising rates?

What markets want to see from Mr. Obama is a sense that the seriousness of this downturn is causing him to rethink the worst of his antigrowth policies.

The Fix is in in Minnesota

The dems are just blatantly giving everyone the finger while they steal the Minnesota Senate election.

F Al Franken wins his Minnesota race, Democrats will get at least 58 US senators, giving them an effectively filibuster-proof majority.

When Franken woke up on the day after the election, his GOP opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, led by what seemed a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By that night, Coleman's lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday, it was 336. Friday, 239.

By late Sunday, the difference had gone to just 221. When counties finally certified the results on Monday, Coleman's lead had been cut to 206.

A pickup of 519 votes over 5 days - pretty impressive when you consider this was just from the correction of

typos. A recount won't even start until Nov. 19.

Yet, the particular changes are unlikely to have occurred by accident.

Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate race. The Senate gains for Franken were 2.2 times the gain from corrections for Barack Obama, 2.7 times the gain Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races and 5.6 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.

In total, the 519 net pro-Franken corrections were greater than the total changes for all precincts in the state for the presidential race, all congressional races and all state House races combined.

But it isn't only the size of the corrections that make these changes so surprising. The majority of Franken's new votes came from just three out of 4,130 precincts. Almost half the gain (248 votes) occurred in one precinct: Two Harbors, a small town north of Duluth along Lake Superior, a heavily Democratic precinct where Obama got 64 percent of the vote.

No other race had any changes in its vote total in that precinct. That single precinct's corrections produced a much larger net swing in votes than occurred for all the precincts in the state for the presidential, congressional or state House races.

Also troubling is that new ballots that weren't included in the original count are being discovered. While not yet a large number, 32 absentee ballots were discovered in Democratic Minneapolis under the control of a single Democratic election judge after all the votes had been counted. When those votes are added, they'll likely cut Coleman's lead further.

The recount starting next week presents an even bigger opportunity for fraud. There's often a lot of pressure to assume that people meant to vote even if they didn't, and it is hard for politics not to enter into these decisions. Yet, relatively few voters failed to record votes this election. Only 0.4 percent of Minnesotans who voted didn't want to vote for president.

Many problems become more obvious in such close races. From ACORN registering thousands of phantom voters to the lack of verifiable voter IDs, Minnesota has many problems with voting that need to be fixed.

But it is the sequence of extremely unlikely events that's giving Minnesotans real concerns. The state's one tight race just happens to be the one with by far the most "corrected" votes, and those corrected votes are occurring in the most Democratic areas - and, no surpirse, favoring the Demcratic candidate.

But the real travesty will be to start letting election officials divine voters' intent. If you want to discourage people from voting, election fraud is one sure way of doing it.

Kudos to this priest

A priest from South Carolina tells his flock how it is: Repent for voting for Obama.

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.

But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.

"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."

Bishops grow a spine, cut ties to ACORN

This piece of news makes my contribution grow larger.

A community grantmaking arm of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops has cut off all funding for a group embroiled in controversy over claims of voter registration fraud and embezzlement, church leaders said Tuesday.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which supports anti-poverty and social justice programs nationwide, will no longer make grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morin of New Orleans.

The decision was made following claims that nearly $1 million had been embezzled from ACORN by the brother of its founder.

Morin, who helps oversee the Catholic program, said forensic accountants hired by the church found that "our funds were not involved with those that had been embezzled."

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which has an annual budget of about $10 million, had planned to grant about $1 million to local groups across the country through ACORN this fiscal year, Morin said. None of that money will be distributed.

"There will be no funding relationships with ACORN groups in the future," Morin said, during the fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Steve Kekst, ACORN executive director, said Tuesday night that he had just learned of the decision and declined to comment until he could speak with church leaders.

ACORN founder Wade Rathke has defended allowing his brother to make restitution privately, saying that getting law enforcement involved could have risked ACORN's financial ruin.

New Orleans-based ACORN, which has chapters in 110 cities and 40 states, completed a massive registration drive in poor and working-class neighborhoods — which tend to vote Democratic — across 21 states, signing up more than 1 million new voters.

ACORN, which advocates for the underprivileged, has said the registration problems were isolated and that its own workers noticed the problems and alerted local election officials in every state that is now investigating.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development gets most of its funds from parish collections the weekend before Thanksgiving, according to its annual report.

The collection this year is set for Nov. 22-23.

The damage has been done with the massive ACORN voter fraud, but at least they will not get any money from me through the Church.

It's the dollar, stupid

Hopefully McCain can realize what Bush doesn't: it's the dollar, stupid!

When John McCain speaks to the Republican convention tonight, one of his priorities will be explaining his economic plans to a restive American middle class. He'll help his campaign, and the country, if his program includes separating himself from the Bush Administration's malign neglect of the dollar.

In debates over the Bush economic record, the dollar's decline and its companion rise in prices are the great missing links. Democrats don't mention it because they'd rather indict the Bush tax cuts as a way to justify a huge new tax increase. Wall Street and big business don't talk about it because they've been complicit in urging devaluation. And the media mostly ignore it because so few of them even think about monetary policy. The mystery is why more Republicans don't regret it because the political consequences have cost them dearly.

Consider the nearby chart, which chronicles the rise and fall of what the late economist Arthur Okun called the "misery index" in the late 1970s. By adding the national unemployment rate to the annual rate of inflation, the misery index offers a simple but revealing look at American economic well-being. As you can see from the chart, it's also a useful political indicator. Jimmy Carter was run out of office as the index soared above 20 in 1980, while Republicans benefited as it fell throughout the following decade. George H.W. Bush suffered as it spiked in the early 1990s, while Bill Clinton prospered through the 1990s as it fell again.

As for the political challenge that Mr. McCain faces, look no further than the "misery" spike of 2008. At 5.7% in July, the U.S. jobless rate isn't much worse than it was (5.4%) when Mr. Clinton ran for re-election in 1996. The difference is the rolling 12-month inflation rate, which at 5.6% puts the misery mark at 11.3 -- back to heights not seen since the early 1990s.

The opinion polls support what the misery index and common sense tell us. According to a Pew Research poll in July, no less than 45% of the public cited rising prices as the top economic problem. That was nearly double the 24% who cited prices in February. "Nearly two-thirds (64%) now say their incomes are not keeping up with the rising cost of living," according to Pew. By marked contrast, only 5% mentioned unemployment as the main issue.

This misery spike is the direct result of the dollar plunge and soaring commodity prices that began last August. That's when the Federal Reserve responded to the credit crunch by sprinting to cut interest rates to their current level of well below the anticipated level of future inflation. In other words, much as we also experienced for most if not all of 2003-2005, the U.S. again has negative real interest rates. The price of the first episode was the credit mania and housing boom and bust. Understandably, investors responded to this second round by shorting the dollar and fleeing to other stores of value, such as oil and commodities.

Chairman Ben Bernanke insists the Fed has had no other choice to stave off recession, and that in any case "core inflation" (which excludes food and energy) is contained. We've tangled with those arguments many times and won't do so again today. But there's no denying that the result of the Fed's reckless easing has been a spike in consumer prices, especially in food and energy, and thus a decline in real middle-class purchasing power. American consumers -- aka voters -- are justifiably angry about this because they don't buy Cheerios and gasoline with "core" dollars.

As a political matter, President Bush appointed Mr. Bernanke and thus shares responsibility for this policy outcome. He also appointed Fed Governors Donald Kohn and Frederic Mishkin, the other intellectual architects of the Fed's dollar neglect. More broadly, the Bush Administration has tolerated -- even encouraged -- a policy of dollar decline throughout its tenure.

All three of its Treasury Secretaries have lectured us that a falling dollar is useful to help exports to reduce the trade deficit. In any case, they like to add, the dollar's price is set by a "free market" -- and don't we favor free markets? They seem not to understand that a currency is not like bananas or wheat; its supply is set by a monopoly known as the central bank.

As for exports, they are the excuse used for centuries by politicians who believe nations can devalue their way to prosperity. Exports have provided an economic lift over the last two quarters or so, though that may end as the rest of the world economy slows. But the export boom has been more than offset by the harm that the commodity price spike has done to the U.S. middle-class consumer, as well as to the auto, airline and many other industries. Rising exports are best used politically as an argument for freer trade. As a justification for dollar devaluation, they are a siren song.

The good news is that the dollar has rallied in recent weeks, while commodity prices have fallen from their peaks. Markets had overshot on the upside as they often do and have since had to cover themselves. Slower growth outside the U.S. may also play a role. The widely advertised dissents from further easing inside the Fed have helped, as perhaps did Barack Obama's recent remarks that he favors a stronger dollar. When the liberal candidate for President comes out in favor of sound money, the world notices.
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Which brings us back to Mr. McCain and his challenge -- and opportunity. The Arizonan needs to separate himself from the Bush economic record, and he is doing so with credibility on spending. But he can also do so by describing how this Administration has lost its way on the dollar and inflation. This would allow him to address middle-class anxiety without violating his free-market principles.

The Bush economy has been better than Democrats claim, especially given the bubble it inherited from Mr. Clinton. But its Achilles' heel has been that Republicans forgot that Reaganomics was about more than keeping taxes low. Central to its success was also sound money and low inflation. Mr. McCain can begin to help the GOP reclaim that lost half of the Reagan legacy.

Sara Barracuda

Jack Kelly writes of how the media assault on Sara Palin has backfired spectacularly.

"You arrogant ass! You've killed us!" So said the executive officer of a Soviet submarine to his captain in Tom Clancy's novel "The Hunt for Red October" after the captain had recklessly fired a torpedo that homed in on his own sub.

NBC's David Gregory must have had similar thoughts as he noted, ruefully, that the news media's assault on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin boosted substantially the television audience for her acceptance speech Wednesday night.

No friend of Barack Obama -- and the last week has demonstrated he has no better, nor more unscrupulous, friends than those in the news media -- can be happy about that.

Journalists last week cast aside the mask of objectivity to reveal they are so deeply in the tank for Mr. Obama most have grown gills. For six days, Sarah Palin and her family were subjected to a relentless barrage of innuendo. Journalists were trying to "define" her before she had an opportunity to introduce herself to the people in the lower 48. She was portrayed as an ignorant redneck from a hick town who should be home caring for her children instead of running for high public office.

Then Sarah Palin got her opportunity to speak, and her enemies learned firsthand why her nickname is "Sarah Barracuda."

Dismiss if you will the rapturous response to Ms. Palin's speech by the delegates in the convention hall and the posters on conservative blogs. The best testament to its power was the lame response of the Obama campaign. They noted she had the help of a speechwriter (the very talented Matt Scully) in preparing her remarks. Well, duh. Every major political figure has speechwriters. Sarah Palin works fine without a script. It's Barack Obama who ums and ahs without a teleprompter.

In my lifetime, I've only heard three or four speeches (all by Ronald Reagan) that I thought were as good or better than Sarah Palin's. She's as much a natural in politics as Michael Jordan was in basketball.

"Several moderate Democrat friends of mine have been e-mailing -- few if any would ever vote for McCain -- but all agree Palin was very strong," Michael Crowley wrote on The New Republic's blog. "The more liberal among them are a little panicked."

With good reason. With a smile on her face, Ms. Palin sliced and diced Barack Obama with the skill she dresses a moose she just shot. There were a host of good lines which I'm sure we'll see in McCain commercials in the near future. But ultimately the most effective may be this one: "In small towns, we don't know quite what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."

What gives this line its power is that Sarah Palin is definitely part of the "we" -- the small town, blue-collar Americans who will decide this election.

Only once in modern times has a vice presidential candidate swung an election. Lyndon Johnson brought Texas and Alabama to John F. Kennedy in 1960, states that otherwise would have been suspicious of a Catholic liberal from New England. I think Sarah Palin will be the second. She has changed the nature of this race in ways ominous for Mr. Obama.

First, this race is no longer between a candidate who advocates change and the status quo, as Democrats would like to frame it. It's between two different visions of change, and between a ticket that's actually delivered reform, and a ticket that just talks about it. The argument that John McCain represents a third term for George W. Bush was strained to start with. It's ludicrous now.

Second, the Republican base is more fired up, and the party more united than it's been since Ronald Reagan ran for his second term. Conservatives see in Sarah Palin Ronald Reagan in a dress, the brains and backbone of Margaret Thatcher in a younger, prettier package. The Grand Old Party has a bright new face.

Mr. Obama owes much of his new troubles to his friends in the news media. Republicans -- and independent and Democratic women appalled by their sexism -- were enraged by the vicious assaults on Sarah Palin and her family.

After he learned his fleet had attacked Pearl Harbor before a formal declaration of war, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto is reputed to have said: "I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

The vice presidential debate is Oct. 2. If I were Joe Biden, I would be very, very afraid.

Pelosi gets called to the principal's office

The Archbishop of San Francisco decides he had better say something to Pelosi.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is being invited by her hometown archbishop to discuss her erroneous views on the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion.

In a statement released today, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco joined the list of bishops who have responded to Pelosi's misrepresentation of Church teaching, which she expressed during an interview Aug. 24 on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press."

Catholic San Francisco, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, published Archbishop Niederauer's text.Pelosi, when asked to comment on when life begins, said that as a Catholic, she had studied the issue for "a long time" and that "the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition."

Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William Lori, chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, responded the next day stating that her answer "misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion."

The prelates noted that since the first century the Church has "affirmed the moral evil of every abortion." A series of statements were released by other bishops across the United States, including Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Charles Chaput and Auxiliary Bishop James Conley of Denver, Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota.

Not polling

Archbishop Niederauer's statement said, "It is my responsibility as archbishop of San Francisco to teach clearly what Christ in his Church teaches about faith and morals, and to oppose erroneous, misleading and confusing positions when they are advanced."

After citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church and reaffirming the teaching of the Church that life begins at conception and that abortion has always been considered wrong, he added, "We believe that we are called to trust the Spirit to guide the Church, so we do not pick and choose among her teachings."

Pelosi's office issued a statement Aug. 29 that said: "While Catholic teaching is clear that life begins at conception, many Catholics do not ascribe [sic] to that view." "That statement," responded Archbishop Niederauer, "suggests that morality can be decided by poll, by numbers. If 90% of Catholics subscribe to the view that human life begins at conception, does that makes Church teaching truer than if only 70% or 50% agree?Authentic moral teaching is based on objective truth, not polling."

Communion

Regarding calls for the archbishop to make a decision to exclude Pelosi from receiving Communion, the archbishop warned that the Church "should be cautious when making judgments about whether or not someone else should receive Holy Communion."

He cited the 2006 document of the U.S. episcopal conference "Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper" that states: "If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately repudiate her definitive teachings on moral issues, however, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church.

"Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain." The archbishop added, "In his or her conscience, properly formed, a Catholic should recognize that making legal an evil action, such as abortion, is itself wrong."

"I regret the necessity of addressing these issues in so public a forum, but the widespread consternation among Catholics made it unavoidable," the prelate continued. "Speaker Pelosi has often said how highly she values her Catholic faith, and how much it is a source of joy for her.

"Accordingly, as her pastor, I am writing to invite her into a conversation with me about these matters. It is my obligation to teach forthrightly and to shepherd caringly, and that is my intent."

Today, tomorrow

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, also contributed a statement this week. He said that public policy issues are often misrepresented in the midst of political campaigns."While everyone could be expected to know the Church's position on the immorality of abortion and the role of law in protecting unborn children, it seems some profess not to know it and others, even in the Church, dispute it," he said.

The cardinal went on to clarify: "The Catholic Church, from its first days, condemned the aborting of unborn children as gravely sinful. [...] The teaching of the Church was clear in a Roman Empire that permitted abortion. This same teaching has been constantly reiterated in every place and time up to Vatican II, which condemned abortion as a 'heinous crime.'"This is true today and will be so tomorrow. Any other comments, by politicians, professors, pundits or the occasional priest, are erroneous and cannot be proposed in good faith."

The Fed's Emperor has no clothes

Economic Illiteracy is probably a reason why the weak dollar isn't being blamed for sky-high gas and oil prices, but it should be, and Ben Bernanke bears much of the blame.

Surveying yesterday's depressing rout in the markets – the Dow industrials went off 358 points – we wondered whether years ago the young Ben Bernanke was read the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes." All recall how the emperor's world falls apart when a boy shouts, "But he has nothing on!"

Earlier this month the emperor of interest rates announced to much fanfare that the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee would "strongly resist" inflation expectations and supported a "stable" dollar. In the days since, the Fed has shown it is unwilling to back up that talk with any monetary tightening. The stock market has headed down, and commodity prices have gone up. Index losses yesterday across the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 were all nearly 3%. Crude oil was up $5. Gold rose an amazing $35.

Amid sudden climactic shifts, mankind looks for answers. Among those adduced yesterday for the market fall were analyst downgrades for Citigroup and General Motors, OPEC president Chakib Khelil's remark that "OPEC has already done what OPEC can do," and more grim outlooks for autos and airlines. From the political world comes the suggestion that markets are translating Barack Obama's 12-point lead in the polls as ensuring massive tax increases next year.

Our own view is that the market is issuing a challenge to the credibility of the interest-rate emperor. Mr. Bernanke told the world that he'd resist inflation. That statement has been followed by the rise, and now the surge, of most inflation indicators, whether May's 7.2% increase in producer prices or the spike in commodities. If the market concludes that the Bernanke Fed "has nothing on," yesterday's shocks will settle across the land as stagflation, or worse. It won't be the world of fairy tales.

Sure, just let them all out

What kind of people are housed at Guantanamo? These kinds of people.

Two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted suicide attacks were featured at the end of the video. Abu Omar al Kuwaiti, also known as Badr Mishel Gama’an al Harbi, and Abu Juheiman al Kuwaiti, also known as Abdullah Salih al Ajmi, are both shown on the video, along with their attacks in Mosul, said Kazimi.

Harbi, who claimed to be a "veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan," conducted a suicide car bomb attack on a police station in Mosul on April 26, 2008.

Ajmi was released from Guantanamo Bay and was searching for "a way to reconnect with the jihad." He claimed he was tortured while at Guantanamo Bay.

Ajmi "is seemingly responsible for an earlier truck bombing at the Iraqi Army HQ in the Harmat neighborhood of Mosul on March 23, 2008," said Kazimi. The attack occurred at Combat Outpost Inman, an Iraqi Army base that served as the headquarters for the 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Iraqi Army Division.

Thirteen Iraqi soldiers were killed and 42 were wounded after Ajmi drove an armored truck packed an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of explosives through the gate of the outpost and detonated in a spot between the three main buildings of the compound. The blast destroyed the facades of the three buildings, including the building housing the battalion headquarters.