From Claremont:

The Claremont Institute is proud to welcome George F. Will to our dinner in celebration of the Claremont Review of Books.  The dinner will be held on Monday evening, June 8, 2009, at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California.  Mr. Will will receive the prestigious Salvatori Prize in the American Founding, and will be our featured speaker for the evening.

Schedule: General Reception 6:00 PM, Dinner 7:00 PM
Location: The Fairmont Miramar Hotel, 101 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, CA  90401
Dress: Business Attire

For ticket information and registration, please click HERE. We will send you a receipt and acknowledgement upon registration.  If you have any questions, please contact Marcia Shackelford at (909) 621-6825 x125.

From K-State:News release prepared by: Lea Studer, 785-532-3432, lstuder@amisuccess.com

K-STATE’S ADVANCED MANUFACTURING INSTITUTE HELPS TWO ST. GEORGE ENTREPRENEURS DEVELOP NEW PRODUCT THAT’S NOW ON THE MARKET

MANHATTAN — Two Kansas entrepreneurs have developed a special new smoker and grill, and Kansas State University’s Advanced Manufacturing Institute helped make it possible.

The Xtreme Smoker & Grill, created by Delmar and Steve Toburen, St. George, is now on the market — just in time for the summer barbecue season. (more…)

Orlando Sentinal:

“Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer this afternoon challenged Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to a bet on the Magic-Lakers NBA finals.

Dyer prefaced his bet with an odd comparison to the battle between Superman and Lex Luthor. And he finished with an even stranger ante: naming rights to a Lake Eola swan and a year’s supply of Amway cleaning supplies, against a year’s supply of Staples’ office supplies and a visit from Dyan Cannon. (We warned you it was strange.)

The wacky folks at City Hall also produced a video of Dyer in magician’s hat and cape, waving his Magic wand (get it?) to banish the 76ers, Celtics, Cavs and, yes, the Lakers.

Here’s the letter sent to the Los Angeles mayor. No answer yet.

Benjamin Hodge at Race42012:

I’m scheduled to be on the Chris Stigall Show during the 6:30-7:00 a.m. (Central) period tomorrow morning, Friday, June 5.  I think it’ll be closer to 6:30 a.m.

Jack Cashill will be guest-hosting the program.

Click below to listen live on streaming radio (direct link; small box/radio opens)

(more…)

WSJ opinion.

Weekly Standard:

After two days of silence, President Obama issued a statement Wednesday on the shooting of two U.S. soldiers by a Muslim militant in Arkansas–but the White House didn’t even email the statement to its list of national reporters. Rather, the White House appears to have quietly released this statement to a local AP bureau in Arkansas (via Michelle Malkin):

“I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.” (emphasis mine)

In contrast, the White House blasted a statement to reporters via email about five hours after news broke that third-trimester abortionist George Tiller was murdered on Sunday:

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.(emphasis mine)

The contrast between Obama’s statements is striking: He’s “deeply saddened” by the murder of a U.S. soldier, but “shocked and outraged” by the murder of an abortionist? The murder of a U.S. soldier is a “senseless” act of violence but the murder of an abortionist is a “heinous” act of violence?

Obama musters up moral outrage to denounce the wicked deed committed in Kansas, but seems almost resigned to the tragedy or “man-caused disaster” that occurred in Arkansas.

Why the different treatment of the two acts of terrorism? As Michelle Malkin wrote earlier today:

When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of Kansas late-term abortionist George Tiller versus the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters.

Weekly Standard has the text.

That’s the headline from the Drudge Report on Wednesday.

Jim Geraghty asks “Huh?”:

Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, I’ll be asking Cam Edwards of NRANews whether we’ve entered Bizarro World.

RCP:

The poll was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (May 26 - 27, 400 LV, +/- 4.9%), which concluded “the three candidates are neck-and-neck-and-neck.” Moran leads with 29%, followed by Deeds with 27% and Terry McAuliffe with 26%.

The pollster also noted that McAuliffe receives the highest unfavorable rating — 41% have a favorable opinion of him and 24% negative. Both Deeds (45%/14%) and Moran (44%/12%) have higher favorable and lower negative ratings than McAuliffe.

Jim Geraghty reports:

Lonegan, in his concession speech: “I congratulated Chris Christie on his astounding effort in his victory… We have built a movement.” After citing some victories by political allies in races for lower office, he said, “This is just the beginning, folks. America is an ongoing revolution.”

“We have to be united in one cause: We have to beat Jon Corzine… We must come together as one. It’s up to us to join together and take this state in the right direction. It’s up to us. We can still do it. Yes, we will.”

NRO:

We didn’t actually meet in person until a few weeks ago, at the same Council on National Policy meeting in D.C. where Rich (L.) saw him. Rich (N.) came up to me after a panel I was on - and yes, I did wonder who let the Trotsky-looking dude in - and was so kind, so engaging, and seemed so determined to make a positive contribution to our nation. Which he did.

Many Corner readers may only know the name Rich Nadler because of the recent immigration debates he started, or reignited, with his magazine piece. The passion he displayed in those debates typified Rich Nadler. And not just on one issue. He knew he had some influence over some things. And whatever opening he had, he went for, because he loved his country and was here for a reason.

I think Rich’s efforts made the immigration debate better. I think he made people around him better. He engaged. And his was a life well lived.

Times:

Republicans plan to use the government takeover of General Motors Corp. as ammunition in their bid to defeat congressional Democrats next year, saying its a glaring example of big government intrusion into the marketplace that will rankle average voters.

They said the bankruptcy arrangement, which President Obama announced at the White House on Monday, is doomed to entangle politicians in business decisions that are outside their expertise.

NY Times:

This development bears watching, as the left wing of the Democratic Party keeps going after top lawmakers within its own realm. This time, it’s the health care issue on which advocates for President Obama’s agenda (and well beyond that) have begun eating their own. (more…)

Rasmussen:

Thirty-one percent (31%) of U.S. voters believe the economic stimulus package passed earlier this year has helped the economy. That’s down from 34% who thought it would help in late February and 38% who held that view when it first passed earlier in the month. (more…)

Union Leader:

Gov. John Lynch signed the bills just after 5:20 p.m. before dozens of enthusiastic supporters of same-sex marriage.

New Hampshire’s law takes effect Jan. 1.

HB 73, compromise legislation demanded by the governor, was passed by a vote of 14-10 in the Senate and 198-176 in the House today. HB 73 (text), was an add-on to the gay marriage bill itself, HB 436 (text), and to HB 310 (text), which made technical changes to the main bill. (more…)

Source:

The government has no reason to regret its murderous crackdown during “the political storm at the end of the 1980s,” a foreign-ministry spokesman in Beijing told reporters last month. “China has scored remarkable success in its social and economic development. Facts have proven that the socialist road with Chinese characteristics that we pursue is in the fundamental interests of our people.” (more…)

Politics Nation:

“John McHugh has served his constituents, the Congress, and the men and women of our Armed Forces with integrity for the past 16 years. While I’m disappointed we’ll be losing him as a member of our Conference, I congratulate him on his nomination to be Secretary of the Army. His work on the Armed Services Committee has made him one of our nation’s foremost military experts and advocates, and his experience will be invaluable as Secretary of the Army, particularly as our nation continues to fight terrorism and other global threats to our security. I thank John for his years of service and wish him all the best during the confirmation process and in his new position.”

RCP has details.

Rasmussen:

Forty-eight percent (48%) of all voters have a favorable opinion of Sotomayor, virtually unchanged from 49% a week ago. However, the number with an unfavorable opinion has grown from 36% a week ago to 44% today.

Twenty-one percent (21%) now have a Very Favorable opinion, up a point from last week.

Twenty-three percent (23%) hold a Very Unfavorable view, up six from a week ago.

Forty-eight percent (48%) hold their views less firmly. Among this group, Democrats are more likely to say they Somewhat Approve while Republicans Somewhat Disapprove.

Forty-six percent (46%) believe that Sotomayor is politically liberal while 37% view her as a moderate. A week ago, those figures were 43% and 32% respectively.

TV Week:

New “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien got off to a rousing ratings start Monday, crushing CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” and generating strong sampling.

O’Brien’s debut notched a 7.1 rating/17 share in Nielsen’s 56 overnight metered markets, the best Monday metered markets for the “Tonight” franchise in four years. “Tonight” outdrew “Late Show” (2.8/7) by a wide margin, and beat the combined average of the CBS broadcast and a repeat of ABC’s “Nightline” (2.7/6)/ “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (1.2/4) by 154 percent, NBC said.

Compared to what “Tonight” had been averaging in the most recent quarter, O’Brien boosted ratings by 82 percent. He also improved on his final edition of “Late Night” (2.6/8) by 173 percent.

RCP:

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading a couple of pieces from dramatically different viewpoints on George Tiller that appeared on the RCP front page today:  Melissa Harris-Lacewell and George Jonas. Once you’ve read those, then read this and tell me who has the better argument.

Redstate:

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, aka Carlos Bledsoe, told police that he shot two U.S. Army privates with the intent to kill them Monday because he was a practicing Muslim, and he was angered by what the American military had done to Muslims in the past. He also told officers that if more soldiers been on the parking lot with the victims, he would have shot them too. (more…)

Jim Geraghty:

“American voters say 55 - 36 percent that affirmative action should be abolished, and disagree 71 - 19 percent with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer’s ruling in the New Haven firefighters’ case, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. More than 70 percent of voters say diversity is not a good enough reason to give minorities preferential treatment in competition for government or private sector jobs, the independent Quinnipiac University survey of more than 3,000 voters finds.”

RCP:

A survey released this morning by PPP finds Deeds leading with 27%, followed by Terry McAuliffe with 24% and Brian Moran 22%. With a quarter of voters still undecided and turnout expected to be extremely low, the race has to be considered even between the three candidates — but with the amount of money McAuliffe has raised and Moran’s years of public service in populous Northern Virginia, that in itself is a feat.

Poll:

The number of Democrats in the nation increased by more than half a percentage point to 39.4% in May. The number of Republicans remained unchanged from a month ago at 32.6%. The number not affiliated with either major party fell to 28.0%.

Since last August, the number of Democrats nationwide has ranged from 38.7% to 41.6%. The number of Republicans has stayed in a narrower range from 32.6% to 33.8% (see history from January 2004 to present).

NRO:

For those who lament the state of American journalism as having become increasingly unserious, tendentious, and willing to blur important lines, this will become one more data point for them to cite. It is the journalist equivalent of the publicity stunt by St. Louis Browns’s owner Bill Veeck, who made Eddie Gaedel, who popped out of a cake between a double-header, the first midget to participate in a Major League Baseball game.

Turning to Stephen Colbert to be Newsweek’s guest editor is a very unwise decision, and one, I suspect, both Meacham and Newsweek will come to regret.

Video at RCP.

Pro Sports Daily:

Doctors expect no further treatment to be needed and that James will make a complete recovery. He is recuperating at the Cleveland Clinic and is expected to be released soon.

James enjoyed arguably his best season in a Cavaliers uniform, winning the league’s most valuable player award and led the team to the Eastern Conference Finals before the team lost 4-2 to the Orlando Magic.”

Rasmussen on Monday:

Conan O’Brien officially replaces Jay Leno as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” today, but Johnny Carson is still the king of late-night comedy.

While Leno is stepping down after 22 years as host of “The Tonight Show,” 42% of Americans declare Carson, whom he succeeded, to be the best late night talk show host. Leno and CBS’ “Late Night” host David Letterman tie with 19% support each, while Carson’s predecessor Jack Paar receives just two percent (2%).

Twenty-eight percent (28%) of adults say they are at least somewhat likely to watch “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.” Among those who watch talk shows every night or nearly every night, 27% are likely watch, but 28% are not at all likely to see the show.

Adults who are 40-49 are more likely to watch the show than any other age group.

LA Times:

Mexican truckers are seeking $6 billion in compensation from the U.S., alleging that its northern neighbor isn’t complying with a cross-border trucking plan under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

About 4,500 trucking companies represented by the National Freight Transportation Chamber, known by its Spanish acronym, Canacar, are taking part in the lawsuit, the chamber said. The companies say the U.S. hasn’t complied with a 2001 ruling by a panel of judges that the U.S. was violating NAFTA.

NRO:

the President might want to have a look at Liberty & Tyranny - somebody should be able to get it for him since it is, yet again, number one on the NYT bestseller list.  As I outline in a description of the relevant chapter in a review for The New Criterion, Mark

is especially trenchant on the animating role of faith in the American founding, and, consequently, its place atop the statist hit-list. The Framers understood “that liberty and religious liberty are inseparable.” But Christianity, unapologetically, was and is America’s dominant religion and it is undeniable that Judeo-Christian values heavily influenced our founding law. The point of religious liberty was to forefend the establishment of a theocracy of the type Tocqueville discerned in the Islamic world, where the Qur’an imposed not merely religious tenets but control over every aspect of life. The Supreme Court’s fabrication of a “wall of separation” in its 1947 Everson decision (authored by one-time Klansman Hugo Black, the first justice appointed by FDR), installing official hostility to religion, was “a wretched betrayal of America’s founding.” As a result, “American courts sit today as supreme secular councils, which, like Islam’s supreme religious councils, dictate all manner of approved behavior respecting religion.”

CNN:

When cell phone users hold the phone to their ears, they stretch a nerve that extends underneath the funny bone and controls the smallest fingers. When talkers chat for a long time in that position, it “chokes the blood supply to the nerves. It makes the nerves short-circuit. The next thing you know, there’s tingling in the ring and small finger,” said Dr. Peter J. Evans, the director of the Hand and Upper Extremity Center at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

When that happens, the advice is simple: Switch hands — before it gets worse.

Reuters:

During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the “curse” of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.

“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.

During a decade in government, Chavez has nationalized most of Venezuela’s key economic sectors, including multibillion dollar oil projects, often via joint ventures with the private sector that give the state a 60 percent controlling stake.

Source:

“It looks like baseball commissioner Bud Selig won’t have to worry about how to handle Manny Ramirez’s presence at the All-Star Game after all.

The Dodger outfielder, suspended for 50 games for violating baseball’s drug policy, dropped to fifth place among outfielders in the secondof fan balloting for the National League’s starting lineup.

Ramirez trails Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun, Philadelphia’s Raul Ibanez, the Chicago Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano and the New York Mets’ Carlos Beltran in the voting. Ramirez is nearly 135,000 votes behind Soriano in the race for the third spot.

Politico:

How worried were Chinese officials about Nancy Pelosi’s trip to their country last week?

Chinese officials in Washington quietly pressured the speaker’s office to curtail visits with dissidents, according to people familiar with the situation, to avoid a repeat of her 1991 trip, when Pelosi humiliated China’s leaders by brandishing a pro-democracy banner in Tiananmen Square.

Pelosi politely rebuffed them, book-ending her weeklong tour of China by meeting human rights leaders in Shanghai and Hong Kong - while keeping some itinerary details close to the vest to avoid interference.

Yet if China’s leaders were expecting Pelosi to embark on a human rights pilgrimage to commemorate this week’s 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, they underestimated her evolution and their own increasing leverage with top U.S. officials.

NRO:

Think about it - we’ve spent $28 billion in stimulus funds, obligated $126 billion so far, and the stimulus hasn’t even kept the number of construction jobs level from month to month.

Overall, ADP calculated nonfarm private employment decreased 532,000 from April to May 2009. And this whole “the rate of job loss has started to slow” defense is getting tiresome, as the stimulus would never have passed if its supporters had promised “if we pass this, we’ll only be losing a bit more than a half million jobs per month.”

Source:

Corzine managed to get 77 percent in the Democratic primary, up against “three challengers with no money, no base, no organization, and no name identification” and “the least total number of votes cast for the winner of a Democratic statewide primary over the last decade.”

WSJ:

WASHINGTON — A government office accidentally made public a report that gives detailed information about the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, but the disclosure didn’t jeopardize national security, the Obama administration said late Tuesday. (more…)

Source:

“Flozell Adams is now the longest-tenured Cowboy.

The Cowboys made it official Tuesday, releasing linebacker Greg Ellis, the team’s first-round draft pick in 1998. Adams was a second-round pick that year.

A week ago, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones signaled the end of Ellis’ time in Dallas when he said the linebacker was free to seek a trade. Because of Ellis’ $4.15 million base salary and $1.5 million completion bonus, as well as the belief that he would be cut soon, a trade was not likely.

Ellis’ agent, James D. Williams, said he heard from three teams Tuesday but would not divulge the names. Ellis will turn 34 in August.