McChrystal had to go

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Thomas Sowell
A Sad Day

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Cal Thomas
Loose Lips Sink Generals - And Wars

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Rich Lowry
The BP Racket

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Larry Elder
US, Mexico Agree To Act on Illegal Immigration --- By Suing Arizona

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Brent Bozell
So Much for 'Core Conservative Values'

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Jonah Goldberg
The Latest Thievery: Best Friends

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Mark Steyn
Gulf War Three

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John Stossel
This Week's Show: Guns Save Lives

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Walter Williams
Government Aggravated Tragedy

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Michael Barone
President Obama took command

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John Fund
J.D. Huckster

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I have been blessed in my 37 years to befriend a great many people from many different walks of life. Some have gone by the wayside, as people are wont to do, other have remained steadfast no matter the distances between us. A member of the latter group is one Mrs. Jessica Cudaback.

I met Jessica (when her last name was still Duncan) several years ago while working at a part time job at a craft store in Raleigh, NC; me, the rabidly conservative 30-something; she, the teenage NC State student with a bumper sticker on her car touting Bush’s last day in office. Needless to say, we got along famously.

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President Obama dismissed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal on Wednesday after concluding that his military chief in Afghanistan had badly damaged the chain of command and could no longer work effectively with the civilian leadership at a crucial moment in the war.
White House officials said Obama's decision, made over a tense 40 hours, pitted his desire to retain a talented general who designed the Afghan strategy against the importance of preserving the authority of the commander in chief. Ultimately, his decision to turn over the Afghan command to Gen. David H. Petraeus allowed the president to keep his war strategy intact, given the general's key role in formulating it last year, and changed the calculus of a choice that once seemed to have no political upside.
Obama's dismissal of McChrystal, 55, calmed fears within his own party that he might look weak if he refused to confront the general. Meanwhile, Petraeus's appointment, expected to sail through the Senate confirmation process, drew praise from congressional Republicans, who provide crucial support for a war that a majority of Americans routinely say is no longer worth fighting.

Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation's economy and environment.
Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking supporters for contributions to help prevent the "subpoenas and investigations" that would result from a GOP majority.
In a fundraising letter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Pelosi says if Republicans take back the House, they'll initiate "endless investigations against President Obama" and "bring back the days of Ken Starr and the politics of personal destruction."

Texas Democrat Kesha Rogers campaigned for for Congress with Obama-Hitler signs.
The signs even have the tag- “Paid For By Kesha Rogers for Congress” – on the bottom.
But, the state-run media won’t run this photo.

One of Rep. Alan Grayson’s pollsters is running for the state House in Florida as a Tea Party candidate, fueling Republican suspicions that the Democrat Congressman is using a newly formed third party to boost his own re-election bid.
On Friday, Victoria Torres, 44, of Orlando qualified to run as a Tea Party candidate in state House district 51 in the last hours of the qualifying period.
A call to Torres was returned by Nick Egoroff, communications director for the Florida Tea Party, who described Torres as a “quasi-paralegal assistant who works in a law office.” But apparently, Torres is also a pollster.

The law's stated intention is unambiguous: It seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and to discourage them from coming here.
There is no official data tracking how many are leaving because of the new law. "It's something that's really tough to get a handle on numerically," said Bill Schooling, Arizona's state demographer. "It's not just the immigration bill. It's also employer sanctions and the economy. How do you separate out the motivating factors?"

Economist John Taylor has a short summary of the finding:
    "The paper is quite technical, but the bottom line summary is that a one percent increase in government purchases (as a share of GDP) increases GDP by a maximum of 0.7 percent and then fades out rapidly. This means that government spending crowds out other components of GDP (investment, consumption, net exports) immediately and by a large amount."

Is this how YOU would choose to spend your tax  dollars?
The National Institutes of Health has spent over $2 million on a study that, among other things, seeks to incease condom use among intravenous drug users in Kazakhstan.
Dr. Nabila El-Bassel, a Columbia University professor in the School of Social Work,
(WAIT. I NEED TO STOP MY HEAD FROM EXPLODING. "COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL WORK"? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR COUNTRY??? UGH.)

Bush was blamed for local failures after Katrina. Obama got a free ride for weeks as federal failures mounted during the Gulf spill.

The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama's closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."

Chancellor Angela Merkel championed German export strength as “the right thing” for her country, spurning President Barack Obama’s call to boost private spending as both leaders prepare for Group of 20 talks.
Merkel, addressing a business audience in Berlin today, said she told Obama in a phone call that cutting government debt is “absolutely important for us,” exposing a second point of contention ahead of the June 26-27 G20 summit in Canada.

Nearly 1,300 prison inmates wrongly received more than $9 million in tax credits for homebuyers despite being locked up when they claimed they bought a home, a government  investigator reported Wednesday.
The investigator said 241 of the inmates were serving life sentences.

You know, it took people 3 years to figure out that Jimmy Carter was a horrible President. Obama did it in 18 months. I wonder if that's listed under "accomplishments"?
Sales of new homes dropped a record 32.7 percent in May to the lowest level in at least four decades as the boost from a popular tax credit faded, adding to worries of a slowing economic "recovery".

The federal government is shutting down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico.
The berms are meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has concerns about where the dredging is being done.

In a victory for drilling proponents, a federal judge struck down President Obama's six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the administration rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too.
The White House promised an immediate appeal. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."

Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman, handily won the Republican nomination for governor and Tim Scott, a black lawmaker, grabbed the GOP nod for a House seat in South Carolina primary runoffs Tuesday, a fresh sign of racial progress in the Deep South and the GOP.
Six-term Republican Rep. Bob Inglis fell to prosecutor Trey Gowdy, making him the 5th incumbent House or Senate lawmaker to lose this year.