1. Off to the races with the horses we have

2. Mitch Daniels as Mario Cuomo

3. The Perils of the Pre-1967 Proposal

4. Israel, Palestine, and Obama: Is the President Already Walking Back his Demands on Israel?

5. Nation’s First Unionized Pot Farm Goes Bust, Oakland Loses Bid to Be Cannabis Capital

6. The AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka Pledges a Constant Campaign of Class Warfare

1. Off to the races with the horses we have

On Saturday, several thousand people showed up in the humid heat of Atlanta to hear Herman Cain announce his bid for the Presidency.Today, in Iowa, Tim Pawlenty will announce his bid. If you have not seen it already, go watch Pawlenty’s preview. I am actually floored it is so well done.Newt Gingrich is already in.Mitt Romney will make a big splash soon and for all intents and purposes is fully and already in.Then were are Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and a few others with Sarah Palin as a late entrant possibility.I hope like heck that this is it. I hear rumblings of a few wild cards, but let’s take the field as officially announced: Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Tim Pawlenty. Add Mitt Romney in there because it is abundantly obvious he has been in this since at lease December of 2008 and you actually have a solid, relatively conservative field to pick from.Republican angst over a bad slate mirrors the Democrat angst in 1991. But in 1991, the slate that was there went on in 1992 to pick the next President of the United States.We have our nominee in this field. I can live with the field and I hope you can too.Republicans, not just conservatives, are at risk of a self-fulfilling, self-defeating prophecy that the field sucks and cannot beat Obama. It’s the economy, stupid. It always has been. It always will be. And America can do better than Barack Obama with any of the candidates we now have.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Mitch Daniels as Mario Cuomo

The parallels to 1991 continue unabated.In 1991, Democrats and the media waited with ever increasing intensity for Mario Cuomo to get into the Presidential race. Eventually, Cuomo decided he was more comfortable being Governor of New York than facing an incumbent Republican President with a 90% approval rating.Democrats and the media lamented the lack of a stellar, high profile Democratic candidate.The Democrats went on to win without Mario Cuomo. The Republicans still have a strong shot without Mitch Daniels.So who does this help now? Well, obviously it helps Mitt Romney. There will now be only one high profile gubernatorial wonk in the race. It also helps Newt Gingrich for the same reason, for people looking for someone perceived to be to the right of Romney.But I think the guy it helps the most is Tim Pawlenty. He now has a clear shot at being the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. The Perils of the Pre-1967 Proposal

There seems to be some confusion over why the Israelis should be so hostile to President Obama’s suggestion that the two-state solution be achieved by returning the Jewish state to its 1967 borders. The President’s supporters argue that since these borders were previously acceptable to Israel, they should be acceptable now. After all, pre-1967 Israel fought to defend those borders and they were on the table in the 2000 peace talks. Can 45 years make that much of a difference?It is true that 45 years is not so very long in terms of the territorial integrity of the United States. We might even prefer to return to the 1967 context in which our borders were much less challenging than they are today. But what Mr. Obama seems to fail to understand is that 45 years is a very long time for Israel. While the history of the Israeli people stretches back millennia, lsrael itself has only existed for 63 years. What the President is asking is that more than 70% of that history be erased, beginning with the reasons it was deemed necessary to annex the territories in 1967, and continuing on through the failed diplomatic initiatives, UN humiliations and relentless, deadly terrorist attacks of the past decades (including the last one, as Jeff Emanuel discussed yesterday). While some have considered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s terse response to this proposal disrespectful of the President, Mr. Netanyahu might have some very real concerns that once three-quarters of Israel’s past has been eradicated, would it be all that outlandish to go all the way to pre-1948? Especially under the leadership of an American president who is asking the Israelis to make this concession on the dubious grounds that hope will overcome hate?Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Israel, Palestine, and Obama: Is the President Already Walking Back his Demands on Israel?

As may have been expected, President Obama’s decision yesterday to become the first American president to directly and overtly declare that Israel must withdraw to its 1949 borders was met with negative reactions both at home and abroad – particularly within the state of Israel, over 300,000 of whose residents currently live in the territories Obama demanded that the Jewish state cede to a future “state of Palestine.”The problem here, as I noted yesterday, is greater than the “simple” issue of creating 300,000 refugees in a new state that will not take kindly to their presence (to say the very least); it is one of Israel’s overall security and ability to protect its people and defend itself against future attacks, which are currently mitigated by the presence of buffer zones and IDF personnel outside the lines within which Obama has declared Israel must recede.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Nation’s First Unionized Pot Farm Goes Bust, Oakland Loses Bid to Be Cannabis Capital

Last year, prior to the defeat of California’s Proposition 19, it appeared as though unions had a budding new industry in which they could grow their memberships.First, the United Food & Commercial Workers jumped onto the cannabis bandwagon. Then, the Teamsters waded into the weed growing business when Jimmy Hoffa’s union unionized 40 pot growers in Oakland, California.Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. The AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka Pledges a Constant Campaign of Class Warfare

The Leninist leader of today’s labor movement, the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka, is not happy with the progress of progressivism that the hundreds of millions of dollars his union members have forked over to buy the Democratic Party should have produced. So, he says, unions’ aren’t going to be in the business of party building anymore.Please click here for the rest of the post.