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Neal Boortz comments on our Honduras policy.

North Korea launches a missile and it takes Barack Obama and the UN five days to respond. Iran holds fraudulent elections, kills protesters and it takes weeks before Barack Obama can stand up and say that he is “concerned” about the situation.

Then the people of Honduras try to uphold their constitution and laws of the land from being trampled by a Chavez-wanna be … and it takes Barack Obama one day to proclaim that this was not a legal coup.

Why the sudden decisiveness? …

Peter Wehner writes in Commentary on the important milestone in Iraq.

… The ultimate wisdom in initiating the Iraq war is still to be validated by contingent events still to unfold. What is happening today is a transition, not a final triumph. And while Iraq is today a legitimate, representative, and responsible democracy, it remains fragile. Hard-earned progress can still be undone. The Iraqi military will have to prove it can provide security to its citizens. Relations between the Iraqi government and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in the north, particularly over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, are tense. None of us can foretell the future, and almost all of us have been wrong about some aspect of the war or another.

Still, it is worth pointing out that those who wrote off the war as unwinnable and a miserable failure, who made confident, sweeping arguments that have been overturned by events, and who had grown so weary of the conflict that they were willing to consign Iraqis to mass slaughters and America to a historically consequential defeat — they were thankfully, blessedly wrong. And the Land between the Rivers, which has known too much tyranny and too many tears, may yet bind up its wounds.

And Max Boot reminds us of the continuing challenges in Iraq.

Amid the hullabaloo regarding the handover of Iraqi cities to Iraqi security forces yesterday, it is easy to lose sight of the war still going on. Despite dramatic drops in violence in Iraq since 2006-2007 — and a corresponding increase in violence in Afghanistan — Iraq remains by several statistical measures the more violent of the two.

So far this year 101 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq versus 86 in Afghanistan. Figures for civilian casualties are less exact but they also indicate more deaths in Iraq — 893 in Iraq compared to 680 in Afghanistan. …

Michael Barone says the firefighter case shows us the more disgusting side of racial politics.

… Ricci is also something else: a riveting lesson in political sociology, thanks to the concurring opinion by Justice Samuel Alito. It shows how a combination of vote-hungry politicians and local political agitators — you might call them community organizers — worked with the approval of elite legal professionals like Judge Sotomayor to employ racial quotas and preferences in defiance of the words of the Civil Rights Act.

One of the chief actors was the Rev. Boise Kimber, a supporter of Mayor John DeStefano; the mayor testified for him as a character witness in a 1996 trial in which he was convicted of stealing prepaid funeral expenses from an elderly woman. DeStefano later appointed Kimber the head of the board of fire commissioners, but Kimber resigned after saying he wouldn’t hire certain recruits because “they just have too many vowels in their name.” After the results of the promotion test were announced, showing that 19 white and one Hispanic firefighter qualified for promotion, Kimber called the mayor’s chief administrative officer opposing certification of the test results.

The record shows that DeStefano and his appointees went to work, holding secret meetings and concealing their motives, to get the Civil Service Board to decertify the test results. Kimber appeared at a board meeting and made “a loud, minutes-long outburst” and had to be ruled out of order three times. …

Krauthammer’s take on events in Iraq.

… Nonetheless, it [Iraq] is a democracy, and that’s what makes it unique and distinctive, and an amazing achievement in a sea of autocracies and dictatorships—having an effect, by example, on Lebanon, on the Gulf states, and even on Iran, where Iranians look to their west and see a country which is also Shiite, Arab, (which the Persians consider culturally inferior), and yet it has a democracy, it has elections, it has an Ayatollah Sistani who says the clerics ought to stay out of politics, and the Iranians are living under a sixth-century dictatorship run by mullahs.

So it’s a remarkable achievement, and we ought to emphasize what we have achieved in terms of democracy.

And it’s a pity that the president ignores that because the democratic nature of Iraq will establish the basis for a strategic alliance between America and Iraq in the future. …

Contentions post tells us about the EPA report that was suppressed.

… Dr. Carlin’s paper is substantial and deserves to be read in its entirety. But his takeaway is clear: the best explanations for global temperature fluctuations are changes in the amount of energy emitted by the sun, and, especially, oscillations in the temperatures of the oceans. The explanatory power of CO2 levels is much weaker, and, over the past decade, almost non-existent.

So why, when the House has just passed a “global warming” bill, is this report only available via a leak from CEI? Because, as Dr. Carlin puts it, “I’ve been involved in public policy since 1966 or 1967…. There’s never been anything exactly like this. I am now under a gag order.” The internal EPA e-mails between Dr. Carlin and his superiors that were leaked along with the report back up this claim. …

Daily Mail, UK reports the continuing evidence of the value of statins.

Statins cut the risk of heart attacks by 30 per cent even in healthy people, researchers say. The cholesterol-busting drugs also reduce the chances of death from all causes by 12 per cent. The findings, from a review of studies involving people without heart disease, will renew the heated debate over whether everyone over the age of 50 should be prescribed the powerful drugs.

At present they are given only to those at significant risk of a heart attack or stroke. Many experts say wider access to the cheap drug could save hundreds of thousands of lives while also saving the NHS billions every year. But others warn of the dangers of ‘mass medicalisation’ of the population. …

Slate tells us how McDonald’s conquered France.

… And the company was very adept at catering to French proclivities, a point brought home to me on a visit to a McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées in June 2007. I was part of a group of journalists being given a guided tour by Jean-Pierre Petit, who had succeeded Hennequin as the chief executive of McDonald’s France. We had come to this particular McDonald’s because Petit wanted to show us the newest addition to the company’s product line in France: McCafé, a stand-alone espresso bar offering lattes, macchiatos, and the like, along with fruit tarts, macarons, and other classic French sweets. The company was planning to open McCafés all over France, and the Champs-Élysées location was home to one of the first. Some of the other journalists eagerly ordered espresso drinks and pastries, but I wouldn’t be so easily gulled—this was still McDonald’s. Petit began making the rounds with a plate of macarons and insisted I try one. I took a pistachio. Not bad, I thought, but no Ladurée. As if reading my mind, Petit immediately chimed in, “We get the macarons from Holder, the company that owns Ladurée.” Touché.

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Spengler writes on the power vacumn created by this feckless administration.

There’s a joke about a man who tells a psychiatrist, “Everybody hates me,” to which the psychiatrist responds, “That’s ridiculous – everyone doesn’t know you, yet.” Which brings me to Barack Obama: one of the best-informed people in the American security establishment told me the other day that the president is a “Manchurian Candidate”.

That can’t be true – Manchuria isn’t in the business of brainwashing prospective presidential candidates any more. There’s no one left to betray America to. Obama is creating a strategic void in which no major power will dominate, and every minor power must fend for itself. The outcome is incalculably hard to analyze and terrifying to consider.

Obama doesn’t want to betray the United States; he only wants to empower America’s enemies. Forcing Israel to abandon its strategic buffer (the so-called settlements) was supposed to placate Iran, so that Iran would help America stabilize Iraq, where its influence looms large over the Shi’ite majority.

America also sought Iran’s help in suppressing the Taliban in Afghanistan. In Obama’s imagination, a Sunni Arab coalition – empowered by Washington’s turn against Israel – would encircle Iran and dissuade it from acquiring nuclear weapons, while an entirely separate Shi’ite coalition with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would suppress the radical Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This was the worst-designed scheme concocted by a Western strategist since Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery attacked the bridges at Arnhem in 1944, and it has blown up in Obama’s face.

Iran already has made clear that casting America’s enemies in the leading role of an American operation has a defect, namely that America’s enemies rather would lose on their own terms than win on America’s terms. Iran’s verbal war with the American president over the violent suppression of election-fraud protests leaves Washington with no policy at all. …

… Obama’s policy reduces to empowering America’s enemies in the hope that they will conform to American interests out of gratitude. Just the opposite result is likely to ensure: Iran, Pakistan and other regional powers are likely to take radical measures. Iran is threatened with a collapse of its Shi’ite program from Lebanon to Afghanistan, and Pakistan is threatened with a breakup into three or more states.

Obama has not betrayed the interests of the United States to any foreign power, but he has done the next worst thing, namely to create a void in the region by withdrawing American power. The result is likely to be a species of pandemonium that will prompt the leading players in the region to learn to live without the United States.

In his heart of hearts, Obama sees America as a force for evil in the world, apologizing for past American actions that did more good than harm. An example is America’s sponsorship of the 1953 coup in Iran that overthrew the left-leaning government of Mohammed Mossadegh. …

… Obama’s continuing obsession with America’s supposed misdeeds – deplorable but necessary actions in time of war – is consistent with his determination to erode America’s influence in the most troubled parts of the world. By removing America as a referee, he will provoke more violence than the United States ever did. We are entering a very, very dangerous period as a result.

Abby Thernstrom writes on the Ricci/New Haven decision.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano is very good news. The court said clearly and decisively that employment law only rarely permits quotas to remedy racial imbalance.

Most racial preferences — for example, in college admissions — are shrouded in secrecy and dishonesty. Not here. In 2003, after 58 whites, 23 blacks and 19 Hispanics took tests to determine who would qualify as captains and lieutenants, no blacks and two Hispanics ended up eligible for promotion. The city’s civil service board refused to certify the results, denying promotions to all who had earned them. As the chairman of the New Haven Board of Fire Commissioners had earlier told the firefighters, many of whom were Italian, some men would not be hired because “they just have too many vowels in their name[s].”

Seventeen white candidates and one Hispanic sued, claiming a violation of their legal and constitutional rights. They struck out in the district court and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. …

Another of our favorites, Jennifer Rubin, liked Abby’s piece.

… It is tempting for the Senate not to dwell on Ricci or on the upcoming Sotomayor confirmation hearing. After all, there is the economy, healthcare reform, and many less controversial topics. But nothing can be more important.

We forget how critical these nominations and confirmation hearings can be. After all, without the nomination and confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, Frank Ricci could well have been stuck with his terse dismissal from the Second Circuit. The very fiber of our society may be altered by one or more of the appointments Obama is likely to make to the Court during his presidency. Are we to look the other way when the victimization mongers raise a fuss? Or do we as a society tell employers to stand up to intimidation and resist the urge to discriminate against those without a civil rights lobby behind them?

It behooves the Senate to take seriously its responsibilities, to question Sotomayor and to consider why it is that she could not discern the issues, articulate her reasoning, and reach a defensible result in Ricci. Future Frank Riccis who may come before the Court in the years to follow deserve nothing less.

Thomas Sowell on health care.

… Politicians may talk about “bringing down the cost of medical care,” but they seldom even attempt to bring down the costs. What they bring down is the price — which is to say, they refuse to pay the costs.

Anybody can refuse to pay any cost. But don’t be surprised if you get less when you pay less. None of this is rocket science. But it does require us to stop and think before jumping on a bandwagon.

The great haste with which the latest government expansion into medical care is being rushed through Congress suggests that the politicians don’t want us to stop and think. That makes sense, from their point of view, but not from ours.

They may be anecdotal, but Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg have some government-run health care stories.

David Harsanyi comments on cap and trade.

Facts. Costs. Consequences. Who cares?

We’re in the middle of pretending to save the planet, baby.

If it’s about helping the environment, suspend reason and salvation is yours. I’m sure you’ve also had a lot of smart and compassionate folks tell you lately: Doing something — anything! — is better than doing nothing.

So the House did something. It passed a “cap-and-trade” bill that would ration energy, destroy productive jobs, levy the largest tax increase in U.S. history and, for kicks, penalize foreign trade partners who failed to engage in comparable economic suicide.

Now, assuming there are no speed- reading clairvoyants in Congress, no one who voted for the 1,200-page bill — plus the 300-page amendment dropped the morning of the vote — could possibly have read it. …

Scrappleface says Sotomayor may sue Supremes over their Ricci ruling.