The partial FAA shutdown was about as effective as an Obama Administration budget negotiation. Desperate times, lads. My recommendation: up the ante. Load-shed the entire Transportation Safety Administration. That’ll get some attention. We all sort of know it was about as useful as a punctured prophylactic, anyway.
No offense to the sincere people who were doing what they felt paid to do. It’s just time to admit that the TSA dog didn’t hunt.
Gerard noted this great typo, figures that the phrase ‘Hope and Change‘ may have engendered a reassignment of meaning as a result of the debt limit negotiations:
“I’ve been left at the alter now a couple of times,” Obama said of the talks with Boehner.
I don’t know the age of that typo, but it’s still in place as I write this, a day later. Bwahaha. Back to the Atlantic:
The president spoke at an unannounced appearance in the White House briefing room shortly after Boehner informed his Republicans colleagues that he was pulling out of negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling in an agreement to cut spending, overhaul the tax code and avert a government default.
“It is hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this kind of deal,” Obama said. “Can they say yes to anything?”
With the clock ticking down toward a potential national default, both sides quickly blamed the other.
“I want them here at 11 a.m. tomorrow,” Obama said sternly. “We have run out of time and they are going to have to explain to me how we’re going to avoid a default.”
Sure, Mr. President: want in one hand; your administration in the other. See which is more fragrant next Autumn, sir.
One simply does not see how this ends well for BHO. The Left has to figure out Real Soon Now whether the WamperDyne Extreme 2008 Propaganda Crapflooder that BHO rode to electoral triumph has enough mileage remaining for a repeat performance. As noted elsewhere, I think the answer is not only a firm negative, but the rest of the shenanigans of this administration are of such a stench that something like a medical retirement, or a high drama exit over the debt limit, replete with accusatory finger-waving at the GOP, seems increasingly likely.
How much dread can we have of a Biden Administration, however brief? Seriously. The state of U.S. foreign policy, like that of domestic, could best be summarized as: shambles. Biden at least affords occasional comic relief.
To paraphrase Monty Python: “Bring out your Joe! Bring out your Joe-oh!”
Other reactions: Adrienne’s Corner compares BHO to Captain Queeg, inviting the question: why do you hate Bogart?
The Norwegian police on Saturday charged a 32-year-old man, whom they identified as a Christian fundamentalist with right-wing connections, over the bombing of a government center here and a shooting attack on a nearby island that together left at least 91 people dead.
The police said they did not know if the man, identified by the Norwegian media as Anders Behring Breivik, was part of a larger conspiracy. . . .
“We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andresen, said at a televised news conference, adding: “What we know is that he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist.” So far Mr. Breivik has not been linked to any anti-jihadist groups, he said. . . .
“Compared to other countries I wouldn’t say we have a big problem with right-wing extremists in Norway,” Mr. Stoltenberg told reporters at a news conference. “But we have had some groups, we have followed them before, and our police is aware that there are some right-wing groups.”
A GUNMAN boasted “I’ll kill you all” as he hunted teenagers on an idyllic island, shooting 84 of them dead – just two hours after he detonated at least one bomb killing seven office workers. The home-grown terrorist showed no mercy as he used at least two guns, including a machinegun and a pistol, to massacre the teens who were enjoying a summer camp on a Norwegian island. Posing as a policeman, Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik beckoned people towards him on the Utoya Island and without warning pulled weapons from a bag and opened fire. . . .
The killer continued his carnage for up to two hours, hunting down teens and adults on the island and chasing them into the icy waters as he fired on them, killing at least 84. Some pretended to be dead, but Breivik returned to some victims to shoot them again with a second weapon. . . .
Breivik, 32, was described as a “madman” and was thought to have acted alone, targeting Norway’s ruling Labour Party. The party’s youth wing had organised the summer camp.
UPDATE II: Video news report from Britain’s SkyNews:
A distraught young woman called U.S. Rep. David Wu’s Portland office this spring, accusing him of an unwanted sexual encounter, according to multiple sources.
When confronted, the Oregon Democrat acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual, the sources said.
The woman is the daughter of a longtime friend and campaign donor. She apparently did not contact police at the time.
One person who heard the voice mail described the woman as upset, breathing heavily and “distraught.”
In the voice mail, the young woman accused Wu of aggressive and unwanted sexual behavior, according to sources with direct knowledge of the message and its contents.
Reporters could not verify the young woman’s age. Notes on Facebook over the past 18 months indicate she graduated from high school in 2010. . . .
Read the whole thing at the Portland Oregonian. Wu’s 1st District is heavily Democrat. He won re-election last year with nearly 55% of the vote, even after his campaign practically shut down in the week before Election Day. However, re-districting this year has slightly reduced the partisan tilt of the district — from a D+8 to D+5 according to the Cook Report — and if Wu was brought down by a sex scandal, Republicans might have a shot at winning a special election.
When last I wrote about the bizarre behavior of Democrat Rep. David Wu of Oregon, it was February of this year.
I said he needed a Democrat leadership intervention after he freaked out his staff . . . and engaged in other inexplicable antics. As I noted, Wu’s behavior has caused Capitol Hill concern dating back to 2003. But none of the swamp-draining Democrat leaders bothered to do anything about it. And Wu went on a national media tour asserting he can continue to hold office.
We can blame this on the failure of national media to regard Wu’s mental illness — he is both liberal and insane, if you’ll pardon the redundancy — as a serious issue. Every “gaffe” by Michele Bachmann or Allen West instantly becomes Big News, thanks to what Andrew Breitbart calls the “Democrat-Media Complex,” while here we have a Democratic congressman having a quite public nervous breakdown and the media have almost completely ignored it for months, if not indeed for years.
Don Surber links and calls me “the relentlessly interesting Robert Stacy McCain,” although I hasten to add that I’m not “interesting” in a Wu-like way.
Crazy, yes, but not that kind of crazy.
Well, OK, there was that unfortunate psilocybin-induced freakout incident when I was a sophomore in college. but (a) it was the ’70s, man, and (b) I was a Democrat then.
It’s great to see the issues summarized so succinctly and cleanly. My opinion is that the UN is slightly better than no UN. How, precisely, we articulate a consistent position between Team America, World Police on the one hand and Isolationism on the other extreme is the priceless question.
More subtle than that is the question of how we get along nicely with other cultures whose notion of liberty means submission to an ideology. These paradoxes just don’t generally resolve, alas.
Turned the TV on this afternoon to try to get some news about the Oslo terrorism attacks and instead, I get a hectoring and angry President Obama.
It appears that House Speaker John Boehner has found his spine and isn’t going to be bullied into raising taxes, and this has driven the president into paroxyms of inchoate rage.
To quote Don Surber: “Washington has more Drama Queens than a Barney Frank luau on Fire Island.” And Obama’s the biggest queen of them all.
No more interrupting the actual news with your selfish hissy fits, Mr. President. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires Congress to ask “how high” when you say “jump.”
Get off my TV!
UPDATE:Linked by That Mr. G Guy — thanks! — and at The American Spectator, Quin Hillyer summarizes it in six words:
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, every time I start working on a response, a big story breaks and I have to drop my meta-blogging essay to go update the breaking news.
You can see from the SiteMeter monthly numbers that our traffic trend has been up, up, up in the past year, and with a little luck — and a few more ‘Lanches — it’s entirely possible we’ll finish July with more than 300,000 visits. Not Drudge-like numbers, but nothing to sneeze at, and the upward trend here rather countervails the notion that the blogospheric future is doom and gloom.
My recent cri de coueur was motivated not by any problems traffic-wise, but rather (a) evidence of failures in terms of getting the job done, and (b) the damnable and eternal problem of monetization.
So the money’s short, and it sometimes seems as if my work isn’t having the kind of impact I would desire. I’m not sure how that fits with what you are trying to say, but I don’t have time to discuss it now, because I’ve got to get back to updating the Oslo bombing story. “Aggregating like a mofo,” you see.
As to what to do about the problems of the “independent conservative blogosphere,” I don’t know.
Several outlets including UK newspaper The Daily Mail and Norweigan broadcaster TV 2 have reported that 32 year old Norweignan Andres Behring Breivik has been arrested in connection with the attacks in the country today: the bombing in Oslo and the shooting on the island of Utoya.
Breivik, a native of Oslo, is described as as 6 feet tall and blond, which matches earlier reports from eyewitnesses on Utoya of a man dressed as a police officer who called teenagers over before shooting them with an automatic weapon.
The latest confirmed death count between the two attacks is 17.
Tore Bjorgo, a professor at Norwegian Police University College — which state broadcaster NRK reported is working with police on the investigation — said the fact that the second attack was directed at a political youth organization suggested the involvement of local or European right-wing extremists.
NRK reports:
“I have consistently kept the possibility open that this might be the extreme right,” Bjorgo said.
And speaking of MSNBC, how long until Chris Matthews blames this on Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh?
According to TV2?s sources, the arrested belong to the right-extremist groups in eastern Norway, and the man must have registered two weapons on their name – an automatic weapon and a pistol of the type of Glock.
32-year-old created in 2009, a company that would engage in the cultivation of vegetables, melons, roots and tubers, which means that he may have had access to fertilizer – a well known ingredient in the manufacture of a bomb.
According to sources such as TV 2 has talked with the bomb that exploded in the government building a fertilizer bomb.
Breivik will be conservative, Christian, and may have a connection to the extreme right environment.
The man owns a farming business in eastern Norway, and the man’s Facebook page says it listed that he has studied in Oslo Handel.
His interests, according to Facebook profile, both involving hunting and bodybuilding.
The dude looks very clean-cut and preppy. If indeed he is the terrorist responsible for this, I’m sure the story of his descent into evil madness will be quite a fascinating tale. You can see the quotes now: “He seemed like such a nice, quiet kid. A devout Lutheran . . .”
UPDATE 6:31 p.m. ET: The possibility of a “lone wolf” attack must be considered, because it appears that the man who committed the Utoya shootings may have also committed the Oslo bombing — and planned to explode other bombs:
Undetonated explosives were found on Utoya Island, where a gunman opened fire earlier in the day on a Labour Party Youth Camp, Oslo, Norway, acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim said late Friday night. Authorities believe the man traveled to the island from Oslo, where at least seven were killed in a bombing in the city center. The suspect, a 32-year-old Norwegian, was taken into custody after he killed or wounded an unknown number of people, Sponheim said.
UPDATE 7:20 p.m. ET: The confirmed death toll, so far as we know at this hour, is 17:
At least seven people were killed in the bombing, which inflicted huge damage on government buildings in Oslo.
At least 10 more died at the camp, on an island outside Oslo, police say. One witness said he had seen 20 bodies.
A man police arrested after a deadly bombing in Norway’s capital Oslo and a series of shootings on an island just outside the capital is a Norwegian, Justice Minister Knut Storberget says.
“A person has been arrested… I have been informed that he is a Norwegian,” Storberget told a press conference.
“It would not be fair of me to go into more detail about this,” he added.
No word about motive, although it has been reported that the suspect is talking to police. We might speculate or theorize, but it’s best to wait and see what is reported. Considering that the targets were the Labour Party prime minister and a youth camp run by his party, a domestic political motive is certainly possible.
UPDATE 6:14 p.m. ET: Headline at The New York Times:
At least 16 — or so it’s reported at this hour. The reports are conflicting and confused. BTW, apologies for the scrambled chronology of the updates below.
Oslo police say they suspect the man arrested after a shooting at a youth camp is also linked to a bombing in Oslo. . . .
Andre Scheie told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he saw “very many dead by the shore” of the camp on Utoya island, where the youth wing of the Labor Party was holding a summer camp for hundreds of youths. He said some victims were shot in the water after trying desperately to swim away. “There are about 20 to 25 dead,” he said.
Police did not immediately confirm the account. but Inspector Bjoern Erik Sem-Jacobsen said a suspect in the shooting has been arrested. He said the gunman, who was dressed as a police officer, pulled out a gun and started firing into the crowd of youths.
Acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim told broadcaster NRK that investigators suspect the two attacks are linked.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg says police believe the death toll from the youth camp mass shooting is expected to exceed 10. Police have said nine or 10 died.
The suspect [arrested in the shootings at the Utoya island youth camp] is not affiliated with any terrorist organization, the Aftenposten newspaper in Oslo reports. Police “know the arrested man’s identity but will not provide more details about the arrest” . . .
Police are not saying more about the suspect or his background.
A massive bomb rocked downtown Oslo on Friday and a gunman opened fire on a youth camp run by a political party in twin attacks that killed at least 16 people. . . . Reports still were sketchy, but police said nine or 10 people appeared to have died at the youth camp, which was run by Stoltenberg’s Labor Party.
Mattias Carlsson, a reporter for the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, who took a boat around the island, said in a telephone interview that he could see more than a dozen bodies lying on shore or floating in the water, many of them young women.
“There are four people and they are lying together as if they are hugging,” Carlsson said of one group of bodies.
Other news reports quoted a witness as saying he had seen between 20 and 25 dead.
The number of deaths from the Oslo bombing has been reported at seven, and so a mininum of nine killed at the Utoya youth camp would bring the total to 16, at least. But as the man said, it’s still “sketchy.”
Praise be to Allah from his slaves, united and humiliating the people of shirk [worship of others besides Allah] and companions of kufr [unbelief]. Prayers and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, his family and companions and descendents. . . .
Today Norway has been targeted in order to be a lesson, and a lesson to the rest of Europe. We have warned since the Stockholm raid of more operations and we have demanded that European countries of Europe withdraw their armies from the land of Afghanistan and end their war on Islam and Muslims. We repeat our warning again to the countries of Europe and tell them that the demands of the mujahideen must be carried out. What you see is only the beginning. There will be more.
There were many reasons for the targeting of Norway. The most important is their participation in the occupation of Afghanistan and the abuse of our prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Praise Allah who has enabled his slaves to be united…and pray to Allah to save our brothers and our fighters everywhere.
So, yeah: Clearly the work of Lutheran extremists.
UPDATE 3:08 p.m. ET: Putting this update at the top — lots more news below — so you can see this raw video shot by an amateur (obtained via British Channel 4 News) showing what downtown Oslo looked like immediately after the bombing:
A giant explosion rocked government buildings in Oslo, Norway, on Friday, state TV broadcaster NRK said, with at least one person confirmed dead.
Windows in several buildings had been blown out, and people were in the street bleeding, NRK said on its website. The cause of the blast remains unknown.
One explosion happened near a government building housing the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, said Linda Reinholdsen, a reporter for Norwegian state broadcaster NRK. Another hit near the Norwegian parliament, she told CNN.
Several buildings in Oslo were on fire, she said, and smoke was pouring from them.
Walter Gibbs, a journalist with Reuters, said he saw eight injured people, including two or three with serious wounds and one who looked dead. . . .
The blast also severely damaged the Oil Ministry and left it in flames, he said.
Early reports on these kinds of events are always confusing. We await more details to clarify the story. But this is almost certainly the result of terrorism because — as Drew notes at AOSHQ — Oslo doesn’t have a natural gas system, which would be the only other obvious explanation for such an explosion.
UPDATE 11:30 a.m. ET: Scrambling to catch up now. It is being reported that the explosion or explosions were definitely the result of a bomb, and that authorities have found other bombs that failed to detonate.
UPDATE 11:35 a.m. ET: Video from Britain’s SkyNews:
UPDATE 11:41 a.m. ET: Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg was unhurt by the attack, BBC reports more details:
Oistein Mjarum, head of communications for the Norwegian Red Cross, said his offices were close to the site of the explosion.
“There was a massive explosion which could be heard over the capital Oslo,” he told the BBC. . . .
Mr Mjarum said there were fires burning in the prime minister’s 17-storey building.
“This is a very busy area on Friday afternoon and there was a lot of people in the streets, and many people working in these buildings that are now burning,” he said. . . .
Mr Mjarum said people were in shock in Oslo and across Norway.
“We have never had a terrorist attack like this in Norway – if that’s what it is – but of course this has been a great fear for all Norwegians when they have seen what has been happening around the world.”
UPDATE 11:48 a.m. ET: Da Tech Guy says, “I’m sure this terror attack in Oslo Norway has nothing to do with Islam.”
At least one of two explosions that rocked a Norwegian government building in Oslo today was result of a massive vehicle bomb, according to U.S. government sources on the scene.
Law enforcement officials told ABC News there were two blasts at the Norwegian capital . . .
No group has publicly taken responsibility for the blast and a U.S. counter-terrorism official told ABC News there is no indication yet of motive or suspects.
Yeah. And you know what it means when U.S. officials have “no indication”? Lutherans.
Shortly after the apparent bomb attack [in Oslo], a man dressed as a police officer opened fire on a youth political meeting on the island of Utoya in the Oslo fjord, about 25 miles from the city, the police said.
UPDATE 1:42 p.m. ET: A video news report from India’s News X:
Amazing thing about the Internet, that you get to see how this story is being reported in Bombay or Calcutta.
BTW, thanks to readers who are contributing background on Norway or links to other coverage in the comments.
UPDATE 1:55 p.m. ET: If the youth-camp shooting is connected to the Oslo bombing — and we are not yet sure that this is the case — then the death toll is now seven, according to Reuters:
A man dressed as a policeman shot and injured at least five people at a meeting of the youth wing of the party of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Friday after a blast in the capital, Norwegian public broadcaster NRK said. Former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland had been due to attend the meeting on Friday.
UPDATE 2:33 p.m. ET: In an online jihadi forum, a group called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami (Helpers of the Global Jihad) had apparently claimed “credit” for the Oslo attack, according to Will McCants, but the person (Abu Sulayman al-Nasir) subsequently clarified to retract.
So the Lutheran extremists are still prime suspects.
BTW, on Twitter I offered a $10 bet that at least one of the people involved in this Norwegian attack is named “Mohammed.” No liberals offered to take that wager, although one did accuse me of “fostering prejudice.”
Right. That’s our real problem: Prejudice against people who are trying to kill us all.
Police are saying they believe the person(s) responsible for the bomb to be foreign, according to the BBC.
But the attacker in Utoya, now arrested, looked Norwegian, NRK reports …
“Witnesses who have managed to escape from the island, says to NRK reporters on the spot that the perpetrator had a Norwegian look. He should be between 185 to 190 cm tall and have blond hair.”
Which is to say, as I warned at the outset, there is always confusion in the early reports on a story like this. We must be patient and wait for facts, rather than speculating on which Lutheran terrorist organization is responsible.
(I just had a twinge of guilty horror, envisioning someone in a non-English-speaking country who stumbled across this blog via Google, is reading it through an online translator, and doesn’t get the “Lutheran extremist” jokes.)
There is speculation that, if the explosion is a bombing, it could have been the work of militant jihadists anger about the looming deportation of Iraqi-born cleric Mullah Krekar. Krekar is the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, and has been living in Norwary controversially since the early 1990s.
Michelle Malkin pointed out that possible connection very early, but I didn’t mention it because (a) I figure you visit her site anyway, so you already knew, and also (b) since when do “militant jihadists” need a specific grievance to kill innocent people?
