AP - President Obama called America's troops the "steel in our ship of state." Many of those men and women of steel — and the parents who helped forge them — said they think the president is plotting the right course as he declares an end to combat in Iraq.

AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has arrived in Iraq to meet with U.S. troops as they formally close down their combat mission.

AP - House investigators have recommended that three lawmakers be further investigated to determine whether political contributions were improperly linked to votes on the huge financial overhaul bill.

The Obama administration is considering a range of new measures to boost economic growth, including tax cuts and a new nationwide infrastructure program, according to people familiar with the discussions.

...

On the list of possible actions: additional tax cuts for small businesses beyond those included in a $30 billion small-business lending bill before the Senate. It's not clear what those tax breaks would target or how much they might cost in lost revenue to the government.

Also in the mix: a possible payroll tax cut for businesses and individuals, as well as other business tax breaks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Currently, income taxes are scheduled to rise with the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts at the end of this year.

Predictably, the “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall last Saturday has evoked a lot of consternation.

#ad#Because the rally explicitly and studiously avoided trumpeting a political agenda, it freed up a lot of people to fill in the blanks themselves. For instance, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post insists it was all a con: “As high-minded as that may sound, the real point of stressing the rally’s apolitical goals was political.” By leaving the listener to infer an anti-Obama agenda from all of this talk of lost honor, host Glenn Beck was practicing “classic political demagoguery.”

So let me get this straight: If Beck had done the opposite, and invited hundreds of thousands of anti-Obama signs, and carved up Obama like a turkey dinner, folks like Sargent would think the rally was less demagogic? Hmmm.

Obviously, Sargent’s not entirely wrong about the rally’s political resonance. Of course it was a conservative-and-libertarian-tinged event. Of course it would have been impossible without the right-leaning tea-party movement. Of course the fact that Beck and Sarah Palin managed to attract so many people to the Mall is not a ringing endorsement of the Democrats.

But the partisan implications of the rally aren’t that interesting. Nor, really, is the argument that the relentless celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. at the National Mall amounted to some grave insult to his memory.

One striking feature of Saturday’s rally was how deeply religious and ecumenical it was. It seems like just yesterday that everyone was talking about how Christian evangelicals were too bigoted to vote for upright and uptight Mormon Mitt Romney. Yet Christian activists saw no problem cheering for -- and praying with -- the equally Mormon but far less uptight Beck, who asked citizens to go to “your churches, synagogues, and mosques!” 

The inclusiveness transcended mere religion. While the crowd was preponderantly white, the message was racially universalistic. That was evident not just on the stage, but in the crowd as well. When Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie asked a couple whether as “African-Americans” they felt comfortable in such a white audience, the woman responded emphatically but good-naturedly: “First of all, I’m not African, I am an American . . . a black American.” She went on to explain how “these people” -- i.e., the white folks cheering her on -- “are my family.”

Peter Viereck, a largely forgotten conservative intellectual, would have found this familiar. During the 1950s, he noted that anti-Communism -- whatever its other faults and excesses -- had the remarkable effect of lessoning inter-ethnic tensions among like-minded activists. Anti-Communist blacks were celebrated and welcomed by anti-Communist whites. Anti-Communist immigrants and Jews were welcomed to the supposedly nativist and anti-Semitic movement. Viereck, who disliked the phenomenon (he said it was akin to xenophobia practiced by a “xeno”), dubbed it “transtolerance.”

I’m more upbeat about the dynamic. Of late there’s been a lot of debate, largely in the context of the so-called Ground Zero mosque, about the evils of American identity. Will Wilkinson, an influential liberal-libertarian writer, sees opposition to the mosque as an entirely reprehensible expression of the “cult of American identity” and the “zaniness of right identity politics.” The upshot of Wilkinson’s argument is that it’s absolutely preposterous for the American people to see themselves as a people.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently argued that there are “two Americas.” The first America is wholly secular, “where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides. An America where the newest arrival to our shores is no less American than the ever-so-great granddaughter of the Pilgrims.” The other America is culturally defined: “This America speaks English, not Spanish or Chinese or Arabic. It looks back to a particular religious heritage: Protestantism originally, and then a Judeo-Christian consensus that accommodated Jews and Catholics as well.”

Douthat makes some good points, but he downplays the relationship between what are really the two faces of one America. It is America's conception of itself as a people that keeps it loyal to the Constitution. The Constitution, absent our cultural fidelity to it, might as well be the rules for a role-playing game.

I confess, if Beck weren’t a libertarian, I would find his populism worrisome. But his message, flaws and excesses notwithstanding, is that our constitutional heritage defines us as a people, regardless of race, religion, or creed. Is that so insulting to Martin Luther King Jr.’s memory?

— Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. © 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” -- not international law or global diktats.

Case in point: Last week, Obama’s State Department handed in America’s first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the “Universal Periodic Review.” In short, the 29-page document is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration’s far-left domestic and foreign-policy initiatives for the world’s approval.

#ad#The report boasts of racial and gender bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers’ union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through “expanding community health centers” (which have yet to be built, not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize–winning president’s age of post-achievement).

The report also includes a section on “values and immigration,” which essentially singles out Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law as a human-rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”

In response, Arizona governor Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to “internationalism run amok.” Brewer pointed out in a letter to Clinton, “Human rights as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions are expressly protected in S.B. 1070 and defended vigorously by my Administration. In fact, the Department of Justice has correctly not included these so-called ‘human rights’ issues in the current litigation against the State of Arizona.” Somehow, that inconvenient detail escaped the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats’ notice.

No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and China. No one should be surprised that Obama’s globalist panderers couldn’t simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you’ll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country’s human-rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans -- and all Americans -- who support states’ rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 “a troubling trend in our society” in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.

The inclusion of Arizona in a politically correct catalogue of human rights and wrongs is more than “downright offensive,” as Brewer put it. It’s a national travesty. In the very same Obama administration document, the State Department praises the administration for its “robust protections for freedom of expression.” The report notes sanctimoniously: “As a general matter, the government does not punish or penalize those who peacefully express their views in the public sphere, even when those views are critical of the government. Indeed, dissent is a valuable and valued part of our politics.”

Yeah? Tell that to the Democratic members of Congress leading the punitive economic boycott and political demonization of Arizona. Or to Attorney General Eric Holder, who rushed to attack S.B. 1070 before he had even read it. Fresh off this U.N. mess, Holder’s Social Justice Department has launched yet another vendetta against Arizona. On Monday, the DOJ filed suit against Phoenix-area community colleges because they imposed strict citizenship screening of potential employees.

As Obama throws America under the bus for the cause of open borders, the shady U.N. human-rights police must be laughing their jackboots off.

— Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies (Regnery, 2010). © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Jennifer Rubin, Commentary

I advise a group of dynamic progressive physicians in Doctors for America. In a tough political climate, I am heartened by the energy, skill, and commitment of DFA members. Many are--or soon will be--key leaders in reforming national health policy, and in improving the quality of care delivered within their own practices, hospitals, and other care settings.

DFA's has a nifty blogsite, which includes a nice column by Dr. Ram Krishnamoorthi. He tackles Senator Mitch McConnell's factual misstatements about health reform. An internist in Chicago, Krishnamoorthi demonstrates that McConnell is not to be trusted on the factual merits, especially regarding Medicare.

There is irony in Republicans' emergence as supposed defenders of Medicare. This fits uneasily with their history of opposing the program at its birth, with repeated Republican efforts (some reasonable, some not) to reduce Medicare spending growth, and especially with current Republican proposals to alter Medicare by turning it into a voucher-like program.

Unfortunately these efforts are gaining political traction in these sour economic times. Last October, The New Republic's Jon Chait summarized Republican criticism of the Affordable Care Act as an odd hybrid of two positions. First, the government should not subsidize health insurance for people who can't afford it; we should not spend money to cover almost 50 million people who go uninsured. And then second, not one dollar of Medicare's exploding projected budget should be diverted to serve other social needs.

As a matter of political philosophy or simple logic, these positions don't mix. Yet as Chait notes, this pincer attack from opposing ideological extremes offers "maximum demagogic potential" in rallying millions of ambivalent seniors who were at once professed conservatives and recipients of our most costly entitlement program. (Republicans are pursuing much the same strategy with medical professionals--seeking to identify ACA with every unfavorable health system feature or trend before new law's main features even come into effect.)

The same rhetoric offers a potent rallying cry for the 2010 midterms, whose voting electorate will be markedly older, whiter, and more conservative than the full voting-age population. Republicans have added other politically potent logical inconsistencies, too: attacking health reform for not doing more to cut the deficit and to cut entitlement spending while opposing every specific effort to raise revenue or to restrain cost growth, accusing health reform of "micromanaging" American health care and then attacking it for across-the-board measures to control costs.

Some partisan disputes are ideological. ACA includes modest tax increases on the affluent, such as the 0.9 percent Medicare tax increase on wealthy people. I believe that these modest tax increases on individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000 are quite reasonable, especially in light of the unfunded and excessive Bush tax cuts.

Many partisan disputes reflect ACA provisions that command wide support among policy wonks in both parties, but that provide a political opportunity because they bother organized constituencies on both the supply and demand sides of the medical economy.

Medicare Advantage provides one obvious example here. This private-insurer-led program was originally touted as a more disciplined and innovative alternative to traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Sadly, MA turned out to be less efficient than the program it was intended to supplant. As these higher costs became apparent, participating HMOs were granted average annual overpayments of about $1,000 for each of the 11 million Medicare Advantage recipients. That's serious money, particularly within a Medicare program facing long-term cost challenges.

Before President Obama took office, congressional experts and Medicare actuaries expressed dismay over these added costs. Yet of course, some of these overpayments are passed on to consumers through added services. Although the entire Medicare population helps to finance these arrangements, your favorite conservative economist could explain why the 23 percent of recipients who sign up for MA aren't complaining. You don't need an economist to guess the perspective of the participating HMOs.

ACA reduces these overpayments, with predictable political results. Thus, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso writes to the New York Times:

President Obama's new health care law takes more than $500 billion from Medicare and spends it all to start a new entitlement program for the nonelderly. The most severe cuts affect Medicare Advantage....

Seniors aren't fooled. These cuts will have a direct impact on their health care. Costs will go up, and quality and availability will go down.

In Friday's Washington Post, former HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt made very similar points, reflecting Republicans' enviable message discipline. He lambasted the Obama administration for cutting Medicare Advantage, and went on to say:

The problem begins with double counting. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the health law will reduce Medicare spending by about $450 billion over 10 years. But all of those savings, plus massive tax increases, are used in the new law to pay for an expansion of Medicaid and a new entitlement program to subsidize insurance premiums for low-income households.

This double-counting charge is a bit vague. ACA reduces the deficit, and it reduces future Medicare spending. Is it double-counting to take credit for both things, when some of this reduction in future spending will be used outside of Medicare, for example to help finance insurance coverage for all Americans?

One might dismiss this question as reflecting a sudden double-standard. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities rightly points out that the Obama Administration presents budget numbers in precisely the same manner that elected officials from both parties always have. There is nothing dishonest or unusual here.

At another level, though, Leavitt's comments deserve a serious answer. Numbers don't speak for themselves. Every budget figure has a politics behind it, and politicians on all sides accidentally or intentionally misrepresent what the numbers mean.

Health reform sought to address three distinct but overlapping fiscal challenges.

First, it sought to reduce our structural deficit, which is strongly driven by health care costs. The Congressional Budget Office provides the best answer to this question. CBO estimates that ACA will result in "$143 billion in net budgetary savings over the 2010-2019 period," with larger impacts on the deficit in later years. This is the most important metric through which to judge ACA's overall budgetary impact.

Second, as a matter of accounting, ACA seeks to shore up the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. In some ways, this fund is an accounting artifice. Still, its ebbs and flows provide a valuable gauge of Medicare's long-term fiscal balance, specific outlays and revenues. Here's what Medicare trustees report about the program's balance sheet:

...the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now expected to remain solvent until 2029, 12 years longer than was projected last year, and the 75-year HI financial shortfall has been reduced to 0.66 percent of taxable payroll from 3.88 percent in last year's report. Nearly all of this improvement in HI finances is due to the ACA.

It would indeed be double-counting to add CBO's $143 billion figure to the Medicare cost reductions reported by CBO. I don't see people doing that.

It's true that CBO and the Medicare trustees lay down an implicit political marker. Congress and presidential administrations need to actually carry out the cost-cutting presumed in these analyses.

This brings us to our third challenge: our long-term ability to control Medicare and other health spending, and to strike a better balance between health care expenditures and expenditures to meet other social needs.

If politicians treat future Medicare cost controls with the same lack of seriousness they have treated provisions such as Medicare's perennial "doctor fix," we won't control costs. This has nothing to do with health care reform. Congress would face exactly the same challenge had ACA failed to pass. Fortunately, our cost control record is better than cynical observers might think. To many medical providers' regret, Congress has enacted, and has held to, painful measures such as the Balanced Budget Act.

ACA created a platform to make progress. Some political heavy lifting remains to be done.

Republicans such as Leavitt and Barrasso offer conspicuously little to meet this third challenge. Their rhetoric establishes an implicit standard that every dollar saved in Medicare must be ploughed back into the program. Although this provides a patina of fiscal conservatism, it implicitly locks in place our unbalanced fiscal priorities, whereby rapid Medicare cost growth is crowding-out efforts to meet other critical social needs.

Leavitt lambastes ACA for every specific measure that constrains cost growth, while at the same time he attacks ACA for its failure to cut more. Thus, he complains that hospitals will be squeezed; then, a few paragraphs later, he complains that the Independent Payment Advisory Board won't touch hospitals until 2020. He makes no mention of politically difficult measures such as the tax on high-cost health insurance plans. Especially when one considers that ACA passed with zero Republican support, its cost-control elements would have been politically impossible, except as a part of a broader package to address the problems of the uninsured.

What is Leavitt's implicit reference point? He says:

What's needed is a new vision for Medicare. Instead of micromanaging prices, the federal government should provide oversight of a marketplace in which cost-conscious seniors choose among competing insurance and delivery system options. That's how the new drug benefit works, and costs have come in much lower than expected because genuine price competition drives down costs much more than any payment regulation can.

Let's start with the new drug benefit, Medicare Part D. The program's estimated long-term unfunded liabilities exceed $7 trillion. Amazingly, this is estimated to exceed the unfunded liabilities of the entire Social Security system. Part D included (until health reform) sloppy features such as the donut hole. It forbad strong government bargaining over drug prices. In just about every way, Part D is less fiscally responsible and less carefully crafted than this year's health reform.

Then there is Leavitt's vision of consumer empowerment.

There is definitely a group of healthy, relatively affluent people who could assume these responsibilities and risks. I'm intrigued to see how these consumers would behave differently--say towards knee replacements and CAT scans when their own money is on the line.

Still, it's far-fetched to believe that consumer empowerment can markedly lower Medicare costs. Even if this vision were politically feasible--which it is not--I see little evidence that it could effectively control costs. After all, this is the animating vision behind Medicare Advantage.

Medicare Advantage participants are also relatively healthy. Ten percent of Medicare recipients account for about sixty percent of program expenditures. These are sick, elderly people who face life-threatening, life-altering, or disabling illnesses such as cancer, stroke, heart disease, and dementia. Can we really ask these women and men to be "cost-conscious seniors" choosing "among competing insurance and delivery system options?" Is there any evidence that seniors (or their families) want to assume these burdens and risks? Are they well-equipped to perform these tasks well?

Ironically, the one proven way to reduce Medicare costs is precisely the approach Leavitt rejects: Using Medicare's bargaining power to restrain prices. Such market leverage--though sometimes clumsily or foolishly applied--will be increasingly essential. This is not "micromanagement." In many cases, it is a long-overdue response to the reality that Medicare frequently pays more than it should for drugs, medical equipment and supplies, and many other things. Such overpayments do not improve patient outcomes. They drive up costs for seniors and for everyone else.

Leavitt is correct that uniform reductions in market prices are less valuable and more harmful than more discriminating approaches. Medicare pays providers for improved patient outcomes rather than for a greater volume of poking, cutting, and prodding. Of course this requires some of the very "micromanagement" Leavitt doesn't like. That's why ACA provides new money for demonstration projects and for comparative effectiveness research.

Medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical firms, and some surgical specialties don't like health reform, and they especially dislike these latter ventures. I take this as a positive sign.

Postscript: I added an explanation in the title. With so much material for irony these days, it seemed important to specify.

CQPolitics.com - Sen. John McCain's victory in the Aug. 24 Arizona Republican primary was fueled partly by transfers of $7.5 million from his 2008 presidential campaign compliance fund -- an account GOP Congressional strategists are now eyeing as they look to finance a growing list of competitive midterm races.

CQPolitics.com - LOCUST, N.C. -- Between meeting donors in the back room at a fancy downtown Charlotte restaurant and greeting spectators at the front gate of a local high school football game, it's clear where Harold Johnson -- the Republican challenging Democratic Rep. Larry Kissell -- feels more comfortable.

CQPolitics.com - Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) conceded to her primary opponent, Fairbanks lawyer Joe Miller, on Tuesday night -- one week after voters in Alaska went to the polls and shocked the state and national political establishment.

Richard Epstein, Forbes
In our current unfortunate state of affairs, the regulation of the economy has become too important to entrust to economists--or more precisely to macroeconomists who pride themselves on seeing the big picture. Laura Tyson, now a member of the Obama Economic Recovery Advisory Board, pronounces the first stimulus program a success. Accordingly, she urges that we continue with a second stimulus program until the private sector revitalizes itself after inexplicably falling into a demand torpor. The ubiquitous Paul Krugman pushes the same theme. The deficit be damned: More stimulus equals more...

Richard Epstein, Forbes
In our current unfortunate state of affairs, the regulation of the economy has become too important to entrust to economists--or more precisely to macroeconomists who pride themselves on seeing the big picture. Laura Tyson, now a member of the Obama Economic Recovery Advisory Board, pronounces the first stimulus program a success. Accordingly, she urges that we continue with a second stimulus program until the private sector revitalizes itself after inexplicably falling into a demand torpor. The ubiquitous Paul Krugman pushes the same theme. The deficit be damned: More stimulus equals more...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski was booted from office in the Republican primary Tuesday by a little-known conservative lawyer in arguably the biggest political upset of the year.

Joe Miller, backed by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, became the latest newcomer to the national political stage to take down an incumbent in 2010 amid deep dissatisfaction with the Washington establishment.

Miller's win was a major victory for the tea party movement and marked the first time it had defeated a sitting senator in a primary. Tea partiers had knocked off Utah Sen. Bob Bennett at a state convention in May. Embolden tea partiers have now set their sights on Delaware where they are backing Christine O'Donnell against the more moderate Rep. Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary. Murkowski is the third senator to lose this year, along with Bennett and Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

Murkowski trailed Miller, a Fairbanks attorney, by 1,668 votes after the Aug. 24 primary. Election officials began counting absentee and outstanding ballots Tuesday, and Murkowski made slight gains. But after more than 15,000 ballots were counted, she remained 1,630 votes behind.

"We all know that this has been a long week, a terribly long week," she said at campaign headquarters while conceding. She said that while there were still outstanding votes, "I don't see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor, and that is a reality that is before me at this point in time."

"And for that reason, and for the good of the state of Alaska ... I am now conceding the race for the Republican nomination."

The stunning result was a huge validation of the political power of Palin as the former Alaska governor has been playing kingmaker in midterm elections ahead of a potential 2012 White House run.

Miller, 43, is an Ivy League-educated lawyer, West Point graduate and decorated Gulf War veteran who cast Murkowski as too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control Washington. It is a campaign strategy that has helped oust other incumbents this year and that Republicans will employ again in November as they look to take back Congress.

He didn't immediately return messages to The Associated Press.

Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto said there wasn't any "big celebration or anything like that" planned Tuesday night. He said the Miller camp had no idea what to expect Tuesday.

Late in the day, he said he got a call from Murkowski campaign staff, asking how to get in touch with Miller, who was in his hometown of Fairbanks, away from his own campaign core in Anchorage. As of about 7 p.m., DeSoto said he himself hadn't had a chance to talk with Miller about the decision yet.

"In the end, we're, of course, just happy to hear she conceded, that it would not end up in a long recount or that sort of thing," DeSoto said. He acknowledged, though, this is only one phase of the fight.

Murkowski has proudly touted her seniority after eight years in office, and said her roles on the appropriations and energy committees put her in a strong position to ensure Alaskans' voices are heard. Alaska has long been heavily reliant on federal money to run – a legacy largely carved out by former Sen. Ted Stevens before his death in an August plane crash.

After keeping a low profile for much of the race, Palin recorded a robocall for Miller in the campaign's final days and touted him as a "man of the people" on her Facebook page. She also repeated a claim that Murkowski had waffled on her position on repealing the federal health care overhaul – claims the senator has called false.

Palin has been on a losing streak as of late with her candidates faltering, and many were expecting similar results in Alaska with Murkowski holding such a name-recognition and fundraising advantage. Palin also still remains a highly divisive figure in her home state.

"Do you believe in miracles?!" Sarah Palin tweeted Tuesday night. "Congratulations, (at)JoeWMiller! Thank you for your service, Sen. Murkowski. On to November!"

But as the results began coming in on election night, it became increasingly clear that Miller connected with the voters and tapped into anti-incumbent anger among Republicans.

Aside from a failed legislative bid in 2004, the Kansas-raised Miller had no experience running in political races before jumping into the race to take on Murkowski. He is friends with Sarah and Todd Palin, and they both endorsed him.

Miller also had the blessing from within the tea party crowd. The California-based Tea Party Express said it spent nearly $600,000 to help Miller – most of that in the race's final weeks, when Miller's camp said it sensed momentum was on its side and that Miller would win.

The Tea Party Express' PAC, Our Country Deserves Better, tweeted Tuesday night: "Murkowski concedes!!! Thanks to all who helped make this possible. A great moment for the movement."

Palin and the Murkowski family have a complicated history.

Palin trounced Murkowski's father, Frank, in the 2006 gubernatorial primary – the race that would launch her national political career. Last year, she said she'd raise money for Lisa Murkowski, and even contributed to her campaign, quieting widespread speculation that Palin would challenge Murkowski for the seat. But the women have clashed on issues like health care, though they've denied any bad blood between them.

Murkowski has fought back against Miller and Palin's claims. A radio ad on the election's eve called Miller out as twisting the truth about Murkowski's position on the federal health care overhaul. Miller has stood by his statements.

"Alaskans deserve to know the honest truth," she said, "and they haven't gotten it from Miller."

The race was disrupted when Stevens died in a plane crash, with both candidates briefly suspending campaigning.

Murkowski was appointed to the Senate at the end of 2002 by her father and won her first term in 2004.

She said she was proud of the campaign she ran, which she called "honest" and "upright." She said it stayed focused on the issues and the "high road."

Previously, she had criticized Miller for running an unfair fight.

"This was not a race about Lisa Murkowski," she said during her concession speech. "This was a race about Alaska."

During a speech in which her voice wavered at times, she said confidently that once she completes her term, "I'm coming back home."

"I'm looking forward to coming back home with my family and looking forward to building this great future, a great future that will not only be with my family but helping to fulfill Alaska's promise, because there's still so much work that remains to be done."

"You are WHO I AM," she told Alaskans.

Miller will face Democrat Scott McAdams, a small-town mayor, in the November general election.

___

Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau and Rachel D'Oro and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage contributed to this report.

Roger Simon, Politico
It was shocking how little awe there was.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Tuesday asked a federal judge to lift a restraining order that it says could undercut federally funded embryonic stem cell research.

The Justice Department filed its request with U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth only days after he blocked government funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Medical researchers value stem cells because they are master cells that can turn into any tissue of the body, and they expect the research to eventually lead to cures for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments.

Stopping the research could cause "irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit" from continuing human embryonic stem cell research, the department said in court papers, "as well as to the defendants, the scientific community and the taxpayers who have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such research through public funding of projects which will now be forced to shut down and, in many cases, scrapped altogether."

It was not immediately known when Lamberth would make a decision on the government's petition. Federal officials also indicated that they plan to appeal Lamberth's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit.

White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said advancing embryonic stem cell research is a top priority for the administration.

"We're going to do everything possible to prevent the potentially catastrophic consequences of this injunction," he said.

Lamberth signed the restraining order after ruling that the argument in a pending lawsuit – that the research violates the intent of a 1996 law prohibiting use of taxpayer dollars in work that destroys a human embryo – was likely to succeed.

That law, called the Dickey-Wicker amendment, was written several years before scientists began growing batches, or lines, of stem cells culled from embryos, and Obama and the two previous administrations had made a distinction between them and stem cell research.

The Justice Department said Congress has made that same distinction. In fact, Justice officials said, lawmakers have expressly endorsed the view that HESC research is not barred by the Dickey-Wicker amendment through its funding for the National Institutes of Health.

"In light of the endorsement by Congress of that rational, long-standing interpretation – an endorsement that was magnified by Congress's approval of the interpretation in the recent passage of the 2010 appropriations for NIH – defendants respectfully assert that their interpretation is consistent with the language of the statute and congressional intent," Justice officials said.

Opponents of the research hailed Lamberth's ruling, saying such federally supported studies are prohibited by law because human embryos are destroyed in order to extract the stem cells.

Culling embryonic stem cells does kill a days-old embryo, so doing that must be funded with private money. But once the cells are culled, they can reproduce in lab dishes indefinitely. Hence, government policies said using taxpayer dollars to work with the already created batches of cells are allowed.

The Justice Department pointed out in court papers that not only will Lamberth's order affect research authorized by President Barack Obama, but also that authorized by his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

Bush allowed taxpayer-funded research on 21 stem cell lines. Obama expanded – up to 75 so far – the number that could be used if the woman or couple who donated an embryo did so voluntarily and were told of other options, such as donating that embryo to another infertile woman.

Lamberth's order covers "research that has been ongoing for years, including under the policies of the prior administration," officials said.

The lawsuit was filed by two scientists who argued that Obama's expansion jeopardized their ability to win government funding for research using adult stem cells – ones that have already matured to create specific types of tissues – because it will mean extra competition.

"It is highly doubtful that plaintiffs' economic or professional interests will be affected in any way if the injunction is stayed," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in a statement Tuesday. "Applications for research they conduct are not in direct competition with human embryonic stem cells research."

Thomas Friedman, NY Times
President Obama is embarking on something I’ve never seen before — taking on two Missions Impossible at the same time. That is, a simultaneous effort to heal the two most bitter divides in the Middle East: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Shiite-Sunni conflict centered in Iraq. Give him his due. The guy’s got audacity. I’ll provide the hope. But kids, don’t try this at home. Thomas L. Friedman Yet, if by some miracles the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that open in Washington on Thursday do eventually...

In a startling turnabout of political fortune, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the odds-on favorite to win another term, has conceded defeat to her Aug. 24 primary rival, Tea Party-backed Joe Miller.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

AFP - The Obama administration geared up for a bold bid to relaunch direct Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and clinch a peace deal within a year as Middle East leaders gathered in Washington.

Politico - Alaska sen. trails Joe Miller by 1,630 votes.

President Obama lets people break laws that he doesn't like. The latest example is his backdoor amnesty for thousands of illegal immigrants, as a still-fuzzy but insidious picture is emerging.

Obama shows a pattern of refusing to enforce laws (or refusing to permit states like Arizona to enforce them). When he dislikes our laws, Obama forces change by dictate rather than seeking legal change through the political process. Congress gets bypassed.

Those benefiting can claim a new category of legal immunity: FBO's -- Favored By Obama.

Selective enforcement is being taken to new extremes. Furor would follow any straightforward official announcement that Obama is forgiving thousands from deportation, so the new amnesty policy is coming to light gradually, memo by memo and place by place.

One new memo from Obama's Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) declares ICE's unwillingness to act on local arrests of illegals unless they are accused of serious offenses like felonies or DUIs; a second memo announces that thousands of pending deportations will be dismissed because the defendants don't face serious charges -- if of course you don't count immigration violations.

From Houston comes word that immigration lawyers have been "stunned" when they arrive in court only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases, part of a systematic review of thousands of pending deportation cases.

From Miami it's reported that tens of thousands of cases are involved. From Dallas we hear that even some with criminal records will have cases dismissed, that "defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or a sex crime."

Excusing an additional misdemeanor, in addition to violations of immigration law, makes a mockery of the legal process.

The Washington Post reports that unionized ICE employees are angry and voted "no confidence" in ICE Director John Morton, adding, "Immigration officers say the new measures limit their enforcement efforts . . . Current and former ICE attorneys in New York, Houston and other offices say they are angry that they have been instructed to drop efforts to deport some immigrants."

Obama's team praises and excuses itself by claiming to deport more people in its first year than ever before. But numbers can be gamed. The period they brag about actually is a fiscal year that includes George W. Bush's final months.

The Center for Investigative Reporting says this year's deportation numbers are down by about 20 percent as Obama's first full fiscal year nears its end. However, they stress that they are focusing resources on removing illegals who committed additional offenses. The system indeed is backlogged, but why resort to large-scale dismissal of cases rather than allocating more resources?

The respectable course would be an effort to change laws rather than a refusal to enforce them. But Obama's Justice Department, like ICE, has chosen paths of non-enforcement.

The infamous dismissal of voter intimidation charges against Black Panthers led to testimony that claimed the decree came down from an Obama Justice Department appointee, directing that no voting rights cases would be filed against black defendants accused of violating the rights of whites.

Then there was Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that federal law against marijuana would not be fully enforced in states with so-called (and loophole-ridden) medical marijuana laws. He ignored the Supreme Court ruling (Gonzales v. Raich, 2005) that those state laws were overridden by the federal prohibition.

Whether the issue is immigration, voting rights, drug laws, or anything else, there's an even greater threat involved in the administration's approach. Our very rule of law is threatened by the Obama edicts of not enforcing laws. The proper course is to seek change of disliked laws through the political process -- and to abide by the results of that process.

Backdoor amnesty is wrong. And so is slamming the door on our system of laws.

This column first appeared at www.foundry.org.

As an American Muslim and a mother about to send my child to a high school located just blocks from Ground Zero, I am taken aback by protests around the country about the building of mosques -- the sacred and solemn spaces that I and my family seek out to find peace and prayer. This past Sunday, as I escorted my son to the first meeting of his new football team, I witnessed a heated protest against a planned Muslim cultural center close to his school. As strong sentiments against a Muslim presence and place of worship in parts of New York continue to build, I add to the list of a mom's first day of school worries: how safe will my son be as he navigates the journey from home to Lower Manhattan? Will he have to board a public bus that juxtaposes the crescent of Islam with images of the Twin Towers on fire? What lessons are my child and other Muslim students learning about freedom of speech when politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have turned our religion into a political football, erroneously associating Islam with terror and fascism? Can I really trust the Anti-Defamation League as a sound educator on racial and ethnic stereotyping, not just for my child but also for other students around the country?

Interestingly, I chose to send my son to Muslim school as early as Pre-K. He completed eighth grade in this same school, his Muslim identity sheltered. Yet, as someone who has been engaged in interfaith work for more than a decade, I was aware that he was missing out on a chance to be enriched by the diversity of beliefs that make up New York. I therefore made a concerted effort to connect him to diverse people, by encouraging his participation in neighborhood soccer and football, and bringing him to gatherings where he has met Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists. When he gained admission into one of the most selective public schools in this City, I was excited that he would have a chance to study with children from many backgrounds. His admission offered another opportunity to actualize a teaching of the Qur'an: "God created nations and tribes so that that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other)." But lately, I have started to wonder if I did the right thing. Should I have kept my son in a more homogenous environment, far away from Lower Manhattan?

Critics of mosques are anxious that this place of worship is a hotbed of terrorism, where people congregate for the nefarious purpose of taking over America. Their fear is that young and old men, perhaps women and girls too, will go into these places of worship and emerge armed against America. I try to empathize with this sensitivity to Islam and Muslims, borne of a grief of having lost loved ones and having our country attacked. As a Muslim, I, too, deeply grieve the lives lost on 9/11. Yet I cannot accept a conclusion that my religion caused this violence, as much as I would not accept a claim that Christianity is responsible for the Holocaust, that Judaism is responsible for the crucifixion of Christ and the oppression of Palestinians, or that Hinduism caused the massacre of Muslims in Gujurat, India. It is not Islam or any religion that is a problem -- it is extremists within each faith that distort religious teachings to serve a political cause.

My own real worry is that without mosques, young men like my son, and all of us, will miss out on an opportunity to stop for prayer, and grow in inner calmness. For that is what houses of worship, whether a mosque or a synagogue, offer to our otherwise rushed lives -- a restorative healing that helps us build connection to self, family, friends and community. It is a place where we can be reminded of the power of all faiths to help us rebuild what is lost.

It is up to us to stop and notice, especially for the sake of the next generation of Americans, that what is being constructed, in addition to mosques and a cultural center like Park 51, is the architecture of a shared psychic space. Words are the building blocks of this shared space -- we can choose to lay down, brick by brick, the foundation of a polarized rhetoric, fear and stereotyping. Or we can choose words and images carefully, so they build an informed discourse, safety, hope, and reconciliation. We can choose words that educate the next generation of Americans about what it takes to create a public square of civility, respect, and tolerance for difference, where all our children -- no matter what their religion -- value the shared heritage they have as Americans. For it is our work today, and our words today, that will help make -- or break -- the next generation of peace wagers. That is my dream for my son -- I hope we can share this dream.

President Barack Obama addressed the nation Tuesday evening to officially announce that combat operations in Iraq have come to an end, and that the drawdown of 90,000 U.S. troops is underway. When completed, a military presence of 50,000 troops will remain to assist the Iraqi government in keeping the peace. But the real question about Obama's speech will be, did anyone watch it?

Americans have simply grown bored, tired and indifferent to the Iraq War. Truth be told, it never felt like the nation was at war, except to the soldiers fighting it or to their families. On any given day, in any given city or town these past seven years, one would be hard-pressed to find the sort of collective awareness, unity and patriotism of World War II, or even the turbulence, outrage and protest of Vietnam. Americans simply went about their business, with no personal sacrifice. Housing prices skyrocketed, stock prices soared, personal wealth grew and then the bottom eventually fell out. And now, as Obama proudly goes before the cameras to boast of delivering on his promise to bring the troops home, does anyone really care? They're more worried about their homes, their savings and their jobs. Once again, it's the economy, stupid! Sorry, prez, but America tuned out of Iraq years ago.

For the record, I care very much about Iraq and the toll it's taken on our country, as do many other Democrats who opposed the war from the start. In seven years, over 4,400 troops were killed, almost 40,000 injured or maimed, and we've spent close to $1-trillion. But those are just the obvious, and very unfortunate, stats. The war has had tremendous impact on so many other aspects of American life as well.

Ever since former President George W. Bush invaded Iraq under what as much as half the population believes was false and/or manufactured pretenses, the war has served to divide the country like no other event in history. It has driven a sharp political wedge straight down both Pennsylvania Avenue and Main Street. America has never been as polarized as it is now. Washington has never been as partisan. The vitriolic relationship between Red and Blue America no doubt has the war as its genesis. Bush, the self-anointed uniter, just may go down in history as the greatest divider we've ever had.

The war has also ravaged the U.S. economy. The $1-trillion cost, coupled with Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy which cost $2.5-trillion, have done more to balloon our deficit than health care reform, the economic stimulus package or any other of Obama's spending initiatives.

Another cost of the Iraq war is the distraction it's been from our mission in Afghanistan, where we took our eye off the real enemy, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, who experts believe were able to cross into Pakistan and base themselves there as a result. The Afghanistan war is now nine years old, with no clear mission or end in sight, and with the country mired by increasing violence and political corruption. Fourteen U.S. soldiers have been killed there in just the last several days alone. It's an undisputed mess.

As for Iraq itself, Obama did not use the term "mission accomplished" in his speech for a reason. That's because the mission is not accomplished, and won't be until Iraq can demonstrate in a lasting way that it can protect its citizens and sustain its fragile democracy using its own police and military forces. To be sure, as David Brooks and Paul Wolfowitz wrote in their Tuesday NY Times op-eds, there has been much political, social, economic and national security progress made in Iraq, which is definitely a reason to celebrate. But it will take a couple of years at least before we can truly celebrate the success of this war. The fact is, Iraq is stuck in a six-month post-election stalemate, and, insurgent violence persists, as the recent coordinated multi-city terror attacks which killed 60 demonstrates. Lastly, there is still the great risk of civil war amongst the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions which all have a great stake in Iraq's delicate balance of power.

AFP - Battered by a savage economic recession, many Americans -- not just supporters of President Barack Obama -- hope his decision to end combat operations in Iraq will also end the vast economic cost of the war.