Random Thoughts . . .

From Military.com:

Obama to Award Medal of Honor to 24 Army Vets

Associated Press | Feb 21, 2014

WASHINGTON - Seeking to correct potential acts of bias spanning three wars, President Barack Obama will award the Medal of Honor to 24 Army veterans following a congressionally mandated review to ensure that eligible recipients were not bypassed due to prejudice.

The Pentagon said the Army reviewed the cases of the 6,505 recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars and found an eligible pool of 600 soldiers who may have been Jewish or Hispanic. The Army also worked with the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, the Jewish War Veterans of the USA and the American GI Forum, the largest Hispanic-American veterans group, to pinpoint potential medal recipients.

I don’t claim to understand, forensically speaking, the demarcation between the DSC and the CMH.  But how many of those 5905 white Gentile DSC recipients might have turned out to qualify for the CMH under the Pentagon’s current standards had their cases received the same reconsideration as the Jewish and Hispanic candidates?  I’ll bet a lot more than 24.

Foreign-Made American Flags Banned by US Military

Fox News | Feb 21, 2014

Under a new law signed as part of the 2014 omnibus appropriations bill, any flag purchased by the Defense Department is required to be 100 percent made in America. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who wrote the legislation, said he did so for economic as well as symbolic reasons.

The legislation has been historically difficult to pass in part due to trade agreements, as well as the fact that flags made in China, the largest importer, cost significantly less than ones produced in the United States. An estimated $3.3 million worth of American flags are imported from Beijing each year.

Dale Coots, marketing manager for Annin Flagmakers, in Roseland, N.J., said the new legislation is a positive step, but says other issues regarding flag imports remain unresolved, including the Federal Trade Commission’s lack of enforcement on flag labeling.

"An American flag is considered a textile," she said. "And a lot of flags that sell online don't have any origin label, which is required under U.S. law."

Annin Flagmakers, which has produced American flags since the 1820s, will not benefit from the new law because the company employs more than 500 workers. The federal government only takes bids from small businesses in flag purchases, she said.

This is mostly meaningless in the big economic picture, but I’m curious whether or not the 500-worker cap on flag manufacturers has been applied to the Chinese companies with the same rigor it has been apparently applied to American companies.  But if the cost is a problem, wouldn’t lifting this cap be the way to go?

Obama Tells Pentagon to Plan for Afghan Pullout

Associated Press | Feb 25, 2014 | by Julie Pace

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has ordered the Pentagon to plan for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of this year should the Afghan government refuse to sign a security agreement with the U.S, the White House said Tuesday.

Better late than never.  Yes, cutting your losses is hard.  Do it anyway.

Defense Budget Would Cut Troop Pay and Benefits

Feb 24, 2014 | by Brendan McGarry

The U.S. Defense Department is proposing limiting troop pay raises, reducing housing allowances and cutting funding for commissary stores because of automatic budget cuts, officials said.

The proposals to curb personnel costs, which the officials said consume a rising share of defense spending, include limiting troop pay raises to 1 percent, reducing housing allowances by an average of 5 percent,

According to my final leave-and-earnings statement, my housing allowance was almost 20% of my salary, although in ranged to almost 25% depending on my rank and where I was living.

cutting some $1 billion in commissary subsidies -- which will likely mean higher prices for troops and retirees

Commissary shoppers pay cost plus 5%.  But that 5% surcharge, if I understand correctly, may not be used for operating expenses.  It only funds construction.  That may have something to do with why our commissary seems perpetually under construction, but only three of the twenty registers are open at a time.

-- and higher health care fees for some retirees.

"The savings will enable us to sustain a well-trained, ready, agile, motivated and technologically superior force," Hagel said during a briefing Monday afternoon at the Pentagon. "Although these recommendations do not cut anyone's pay, I realize they will be controversial."

I’m not sure “not cut anyone’s pay” means what Hagel thinks it means.

Democrat Gamesmanship

From the Washington Post:

As Budget Fight Looms, Obama Sees Defiance in His Own Party

Um . . . yeah, I’m thinking not.  As we read the article, we discover there is not a single substantive issue with which any Democrat disagrees with the President.  Rather, the Democrat criticisms are about “leadership”, strategy and tactics.  Gamesmanship, in other words.  Not policy.

On one hand, this is understandable.  Everyone wants to be on a winning team.  This includes Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself).  So, since they don’t believe their team to be winning, and since there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with the policy product their peddling, then it must be a failure of marketing.  And that must be Obama’s fault.

That’s never the framing of Republican woes.  In that case, the Republican policies are always about to alienate some vital constituency – single mothers, racial minorities, illegal immigrants, etc. -- that they must appeal to right away if they ever hope to gain or hold power.

Honor in Norway

The NYT reports on the recent third-place election finish of the Norwegian Progress Party:

LONDON — A little more than two years after a far-right, anti-immigrant militant killed 77 people . . .

Anders Breivik, remember?  Of course, Breivik quit Progress in disgust with democracy in general.  But like the Oklahoma City bombing is the fault of Rush Limbaugh, Matthew Shepard was the fault of Focus on the Family, Gabrielle Giffords was the fault of Sarah Palin, and the FRC shooter was the fault of . . . OOPS, scratch that, Floyd Lee Corkins II was just a random gunman proving we need more gun control and had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the $PLC defamation, never mind the testimony of Corkins himself.  The NYT rule is:  the killers of favored classes are always products of un-favored classes, never the other way around.

Continuing . . .

The campaign had been centered largely on economic issues, like extending already generous welfare payments (Labor) versus cutting taxes and privatizing hospitals (Conservatives). But the massacre on the island of Utoya, where Anders Behring Breivik attacked youth members of the Labor Party on July 22, 2011, was never far from the surface.

In support of which assertion, the NYT musters exactly zero evidence.

Contrast this with this Financial Times article (warning:  free subscription required), which quotes multiple Labor Party members disavowing any connection between Breivik and Progress.  Apparently, the Norwegians haven’t read the NYT playbook, and prefer, you know, honesty.

Which is somewhat ironic.  I can’t speak for Progress, which in any case is run by timid incrementalists.  But amid all the bogus connections asserted by the NYT, Breivik is the one monster who more-or-less reflects my view of the world.

Don’t misunderstand me:  Breivik is evil.  Indeed, pound for pound, he might be as evil as his intended victims, the would-be murderers of the Norwegian nation.  And for the $PLC stooges looking to expand their blacklist:  no, I won’t be following in his footsteps.  I’m too old.  And too married, too Christian, too comfortable in my little bourgeois life.  But I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand the appeal of hoisting the Jolly Roger.

In summary, I guess I’d put Breivik in the same moral category with lesbians:  wrong.  But I kind of get it.

Panetta: “Please, Brer Fox, Please Don’t Throw Me In That Briar Patch!”

A memo from SECDEF Leon Panetta with the subject line, “Implications of Ongoing Fiscal Cliff Negotiations,” is circulating among DOD agencies.  The memo is reasonably informative on a point of particular interest to me:  no immediate change to operations are planned in the event we go over the “fiscal cliff'”, i.e., execute the budget cuts planned last year as part of the negotiations over the debt ceiling; however, civilian furloughs may become necessary later in the year.

But this line left a bad taste in my mouth:

Our civilian employees should keep in mind that the Administration remains focused on working with Congress to reach agreement on a balanced deficit reduction plan that avoids such cuts.

The way I see it, the office of the Secretary of Defense is dual-hatted, and Panetta is called to fill two distinct roles.  The first role is political:  he represents the administration to the public on matters military.  The second is role is leadership:  he runs the DoD and manages the soldiers and civilians of the Armed Services.

In the political role, it is entirely appropriate to begin his sentences with a phrase like, “The Administration is committed . . .”  That’s what politicians do.  I may kinda suck when it’s the administration of the other party, but there it is, and it would be naïve of us to think he’s somehow not going to do Obama’s bidding.

But the memo in question is being passed down the chain of command.  We’re not reading it in the press; we’re reading it in official emails passed along by our commanders.  In that context, it’s inappropriate to engage in what is essentially political propaganda, trying to convince us that Obama is somehow on our side, and I can’t recall any previous SECDEF pulling this stunt in my 21 years of government service.

It’s especially inappropriate in this case since the statement is a bald faced lie, and Panetta almost certainly knows it.  Obama is quite happy to go “over the cliff”; it’s almost exactly the mix of tax hikes and defense spending cuts he wants anyway.

And while I am loathe to admit it, they’re pretty much what we need.  Yes, they will be painful.  But the pain is coming anyway:  we are all of us living beyond our means and have been doing so for the last 12 years if not longer.  Plenty of politicians, many of whom voted to set up this “cliff” in the first place, whinge on about how across-the-board cuts aren’t “smart”.  Perhaps not, but they’re honest cuts, not “budget agreements” with vague promises of cuts nine to ten years away.

Panetta should spend his memo time explaining how he is prioritizing DOD missions, not peddling Obama’s bull.  He should be ashamed of himself.

Further Post-election Ruminations

The elementary school here in Φ's lily-white little burg held a straw poll amongst its 1st thru 6th graders. Romney won . . . by two votes. Pedro got a vote, as did "Undecided".

Steve has a lengthy post analyzing election data, including the changing splits for various constituencies between 2008 and 2012 . Some things that jumped out:

• The two voting groups with the largest changes in voting split between 2008 and 2012 were Jews and Asians. Neoconservatives have been making a fair amount of noise for a while about how insufficiently pro-Israel Obama is. Whatever you might think about it, this seems as plausible an explanation as any for Romney’s 9% pickup. But to what do we attribute Romney’s 9% loss (from 30% to 21% IIRC) of Asians? Yes, the American electorate has been slowly dividing itself between the White Party and the Non-white Party, and I expect these trends to continue. But I can’t point to any one thing (e.g. the Wen Ho Lee case that precipitated the Asian slide towards the Democrats in 2000) that would provoke so much movement in one cycle. However, I will say this: Romney’s promise to staple green cards to STEM degrees was obvious code for throwing America’s doors open to the Asian hoard. Were it generally true, as the mainstream narrative constantly assures us, that the key to non-white votes is increasing the number of their immigrant co-ethnics, then Romney should have done better among Asians. Obviously, the mainstream narrative is wrong yet again. But I’m still flummoxed by the shift.
  
  

• Why the falling turnout? I mean, I can give account for why I abandoned the Republicans at the top of the ticket (although I did vote Republican locally), and I understand (though do not agree with) the uninspired voters unwilling to stand in line for an hour to tap the screen for no-hopers like Goode or Johnson. But it beggars the imagination that McCain was more inspiring to Republican voters than Romney! It might be true generally that Palin was more inspiring than Ryan (my 2008 opinion) but, again, I don’t actually know the answer.
  
  

• I mis-called this election. Notwithstanding my non-support, I expected a Romney win. I was, I think, overly influenced by his late swell in support from highly visible elites. In retrospect, this was largely a function of his increased support among Jews.
  
  

  That this president, with this record, could win reelection tells me the usual rules don’t apply anymore. Paul Kersey is right: America is going the way of Detroit, a city that continued to return the same black Democrats to power as the city slid into oblivion. Romney offered the country abundant personal magnanimity – if not charisma – and a lengthy track record of executive accomplishment against an affirmative action depressive. His adherence to long-standing Republican Party principles – what few remain of them – appeared to be genuine, more than could be said in 1988. And he ran a disciplined, agile, and well-funded campaign.
  

  Unfortunately, it appears that fewer and fewer votes in America are cast in sensitivity to these kinds of factors, and more and more of them are cast out of reflexive tribal loyalty in hatred of founding-stock Americans.

I, Patriot

Mrs. Φ took a call from a pollster last week.  The call came from an Orlando number, 407-250-2251, an seemed to her vaguely pro-Republican, but it would cost me $.99 to find out who the number belongs to, and I don’t actually care that much.

The pollster asked for which of the two major party candidates we intended to vote for president.  Mrs. Φ replied, roughly, “Well, if we must choose between Romney and Obama, then I guess we’d support Romney.”

“Well, if you vote for any other candidate, then your vote doesn’t count,” the pollster argued.

[!?!]

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Φ replied, her voice rising slightly.  “Our votes always count.  That’s the great thing about America.”

[click]  The pollster had hung up on her.

My newsreader subscribes to roughly 30 different active blogs.  Contained in the posts therein, I read quite a bit of frustration with the actual policy choices on offer from the Remocrats/Depublicans.  But while I have seen occasional discussion of Gary Johnson’s Libertarian candidacy, if the search engine and my own memory are working properly, not one of you has even mentioned the only true conservative candidate actually on the ballot in a majority of states.  (His name periodically pops up in the comments, however.)

Granted, the Constitution Party platform isn’t perfect.  It would have been nice had they advocated repeal of specific bits of odious legislation, starting with the “Civil Rights” act.  But this can be reasonably inferred from other planks supporting limited government.  What they do advocate is:  an immigration moratorium and a return to tariffs; an end to foreign adventurism; and a balanced budget now instead of the by-and-by.  That’s enough for me.

So . . .

Goode-Clymer 2012!

Back-scratching, Texas-style

This lengthy Joe Hagan piece in Texas Monthly (HT:  Kathy Shaidle) is a gripping read, not for what it says about Bush’s National Guard service (about which I cared little in 2004 and care nothing today), but for what it reveals about our bi-factional political elites’ penchant for treating public moneys and institutions as private play-things.  Is government in the public interest too much to ask of our republic?  Japan, Switzerland, Iceland . . . these countries seem to govern themselves pretty competently.  Why can’t we?

Obamacare and Bankruptcy

As disappointing as last Thursday’s SCOTUS ruling was, I have always recognized that if there is any Constitutional limit on Congress’s ability to use the tax code to incentivize some personal decisions and discourage others, the case law hadn’t gotten around to finding it yet.

The legal problem is that the legislation John Roberts ruled on isn’t the legislation Congress actually passed.  Substantively, however, I am less concerned with the Individual Mandate than the implications for national solvency.

Case in point:

On June 7, 2012, the House passed the Healthcare Cost Reduction Act (HR 436), a bill I [Congressman Mike Turner] cosponsored to repeal the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices enacted as part of President Obama's healthcare law. This legislation, which passed the House with strong bipartisan support, is similar to a bill I introduced last year (HR 1310) to repeal the tax on medical devices used by first responders.

Beginning in 2013, a 2.3 percent excise tax will be imposed on the sale of life-saving, life-enhancing medical devices by manufacturers, providers, and importers. We have all heard of a cradle-to-grave government—well, this is a cradle-to-grave tax! Every item used to provide care, from the incubators used to care for prematurely born children to the rollers which move caskets, would be subject to this tax.

More anti-tax boilerplate follows.

I don’t have an opinion one way or another on excise taxes, except to say that PPACA is chock-a-block with little revenue boosters like this that are predictably – in fact, ceaselessly predicted by Megan McArdle and others – falling by the wayside.  Last I looked in on it, the cost of Obamacare had nearly doubled from its original projections.  And the march towards national bankruptcy continues unabated . . . .

Whither the Arabists?

Pat Buchanan quotes Bill Kristol:

“The big story in the Republican Party over the last 30 years, and I’m very happy about this,” said Kristol, is the “eclipsing” of the George H.W. Bush-James Baker-Brent Scowcroft realists, “an Arabist old-fashioned Republican Party ... very concerned about relations with Arab states that were not friendly with Israel ... .”

That Bush crowd is yesterday, said Kristol. And not only had the “Arabists” like President Bush been shoved aside by the neocons, the “Pat Buchanan/Ron Paul type” of Republican has been purged.

I can’t speak to 30 years ago, but 20 years ago I distinctly remember despising the Baker-Scowcroft vision of “realism” myself.  I was thoroughly under the influence of NR at the time (although a different NR, perhaps), so I remain ready to be persuaded otherwise, but . . . remind me what were the wonderful victories for American values and interests achieved by the Arabists?

I can’t think of any, except that the damage done by their entanglements (Lebanon, Gulf War I) was smaller than that done by the entanglements of their successors.  But “We Suck Less!” is hardly inspiring.

Hindsight being 20/20, I can’t think of any involvement with the Middle East in the last 40 years that hasn’t come to a bad end.  And I will admit that we should have heeded the warnings of Paul and Buchanan.  But let’s face it:  Buchanan was a leading light of the Republican Party in the early 90s, and yet he had zero impact on our Middle East policy.  So really, what difference did purging him actually make?

Why Φ Doesn’t Support Ron Paul (and Other Tales)

Mangan looks up the top contributors to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Mitt Romney
Goldman Sachs	$367,200
Credit Suisse Group	$203,750
Morgan Stanley	$199,800
HIG Capital	$186,500
Barclays	$157,750
Kirkland & Ellis	$132,100
Bank of America	$126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers	$118,250
EMC Corp	$117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$112,250

Ron Paul
US Army	$24,503
US Air Force	$23,335
US Navy	$17,432
Mason Capital Management	$14,000
Microsoft Corp	$13,398
Boeing Co	$10,620
Google Inc	$10,390
Overland Sheepskin	$10,350
IBM Corp	$8,294
US Government	$7,756

 

Goldman gave a cool $1M to The One in 2008, along with $400K to Hillary! and $240 to the McCainiac.  It will be interesting to watch what happens to Goldman’s contributions once Romney has the nomination.  These numbers from Mangan’s post are from mid-January.  I note that Ron Paul’s contributions from the armed service have trebled in the last 3 weeks, Romney’s have only increased by 50% from his big donors.

Like Mangan, I believe that Paul’s donor base speaks better of him than Romney’s speaks of Romney.

But I don’t support him.

. . . .

Newt Gingrich, objectively, is a moral dirtbag. The exact contours of his dirtbagginess have of course been the subject of debate, but even contruing the facts as we know them in the most favorable possible light, the essence of the man's character remains firmly in dirtbag territory. Yet I understand the frustration of South Carolina voters who, having listened to the mainstream media spend the '90s insisting that Clinton's sexcapades were irrelevant, and knowing now that it actively covered up John Edwards' misbehavior, watch Gingrich's private life picked apart as a matter of national importance. Understand, that is, but do not concur with them that the appropriate response to that frustration is giving him the Republican nomination.

. . . .

Paul has done some annoying things this campaign.  I’m not bothered by his infamous newsletters so much as by the implausible denials.  And I’m not happy about his attacks on Michelle Bachmann in Iowa.  But I might be able to overlook these things if I thought his presidency would be a net benefit to us.

. . . .

In light of Mitt Romney's "gaffe" in organizing his policy priorities on behalf of the middle class rather the underclass, conservative pundits have been lining up to intone about how the "primary victims of welfare are the recipients" and, more specifically, how the benefit structure disincentivizes economic mobility. This last is almost certainly true: most of the poverty programs all start to phase out at the same income level, leaving the poor with a marginal tax rate of often greater that 100% through a fairly wide bracket. But it's time we were honest with ourselves and stated the truth plainly: the evidence for a significant segment of aspirational poor ready to join the "ownership society" but for welfare-as-we-know-it is vanishingly small. The reality of the underclass is that there is no policy mix short of natural selection capable of brining them to middle class norms and outcomes. Romney is right to ignore them; his only gaffe was to be honest about it.

. . . .

What would a President Ron Paul accomplish? I don't mean what he wants to accomplish; Paul has been most forthright on that. I mean, assuming he was elected president, but given the Congress and SCOTUS that he would actually deal with given the actual and prospective office holders, what policies would he be able to enact.

It's pretty easy to list the ones that he would not enact:

• He would not abolish the federal reserve and return to the gold standard (a proposal about which I am in any case deeply apprehensive). These were created and maintained by Congress, and Congress would never dissolve them.

• He would not abolish affirmative action or the civil rights laws. These are held in place by the federal judiciary. Paul might be able to make the EEOC a little less overtly anti-white, but the laws would remain as they are.

• He would not abolish welfare. Congess again.

• He would not meaningfully advance the cause of states' rights. Again, Congress and the Judiciary would thwart him at every turn.

• He would not remake the judiciary. If anything, his nominees would enjoy less presumption of confirmation given his stated view.

What would President Paul accomplish?

• He might redeploy our troops and ease the burdens of the security state. These are primary executive branch functions, and Paul would enjoy broad latitude here. But there are some important caveats. First, our liberties would not actually be restored; President Paul would merely exercise more restraint than his predecessors. The laws would remain on the books. Second, even these are not guaranteed: Obama, after all, swept into office planning to do these same things, but lacked the fortitude to bend the bureaucracy to his will rather than the other way around. We should not assume that Paul would behave any differently.

• Did I miss anything?

Oh, yeah, that's right: immigration. The problem is that Paul's positions on immigration line up perfectly with the Democrats, and are measurably worse than Romney's positions. And unlike his other agenda items, here he would come into office with a Congress eager to do business.

Let me pause to state the obvious: long-term, white America is boned, and none of the candidates presently running is able or willing to stop it. This is about the least bad alternatives. The good that Paul would actually accomplish I don't especially care about. And the bad would be worse than Romney is offering us.

Credit Give and Take

George W. Bush speech after capture of Saddam Hussein:

The success of yesterday's mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq.  The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.

Barack Hussein Obama speech, Sunday, May 1, 2011:

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as I continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan . And finally, last week, I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad , Pakistan .

Hollywood: “Bin Laden’s death is tragic and all, but at least it will help Obama fight the real enemy.”

Or words to that effect.

• Adam Levine:  "I dont know how I feel about 'celebrating' death. But im just glad this happened during a good man's presidency."
• Kim Kardashian:  "Osama Bin Laden is dead!!! I can't wait to hear President Obama's announcement!!!"
• Pete Wetz: "Wow obama 1, 2 punch: lion king video than osama dead. seriously i wanna see who runs in 2012..."
• Jimmy Fallon:  "Got Bin Laden AND interuppted Celebrity Apprentice? Win for Obama all around."

I remarked a few years ago that the MSM covered the war, not from a strategic perspective on American power and security, but solely in terms of its impact on domestic politics.  I see nothing has changed.

This comment is just stoopid  on a couple of levels:

• Lady Gaga:   "an historical moment in the fight against hatred."

Bad spelling notwithstanding, this was the smartest comment:

• Snoop Dogg:  "Rip to everybody who was taken on 911. Let the troops bac home n lower gas prices let's live happily ever after.  Bring the soilders bac home asap! They r missed! We love how they fight for us now let's fight for them!!"

Reflections on bin Laden’s Death

 

 

 

Today, I am proud to have been here.  Not yesterday.  Probably not tomorrow.  But today, I am .

A few thoughts:

• President Obama deserves some credit here.  He brushed aside diplomatic concerns and gave his support to aggressive operations inside Pakistan, with or without Pakistani cooperation.  This was always a high-risk strategy (and may yet generate blowback), but it seems to have yielded fruit.  Yet weirdly, judging from his speech a few hours ago, Obama seems more interested in leveraging his success for support of his domestic agenda rather than a specific set of goals with respect to terrorism.
• Operationally, bin Laden’s death does little to diminish the near-term threat of terrorism.  Al Qaeda – and Islamism in general – has always been a highly distributed movement, with very little in the way of command and control from the top.  bin Laden himself is something of a figurehead at this point.
• Which is not to say that figureheads are strategically valueless.  Long term, whether Osama’s death discourages would-be jihadists or provokes them to renewed efforts remains to be seen; certainly our military is predicting the second in the near term, given our worldwide elevation of alert levels and force protection measures.
• Back to the blowback:  this is probably not good for the government of Pakistan.  Either they helped us – and collaborated with the enemies of Islam – or they didn’t – and were powerless to stop a military operation in their capital city.  Either way (and let’s face it; nothing will stop Pakistanis from believing both simultaneously), the credibility of Pakistan’s government just took a nosedive.
• Obama ought to get a short-term bump in the polls because of this.  But more people may start to question our continued presence in Afghanistan, given that we now have what we came for.  These questions will be most urgent if, as we are expecting locally, the Afghanis riot in protest.  Since Obama is unlikely to withdraw from Afghanistan, unlikely to see his nation-building efforts result in sustainable progress, and unlikely to undertake meaningful steps to promote American security like controlling our borders, I predict Obama will find it difficult to translate this event into 2012 electoral victories.

Democrat Budgeting: The Thelma & Louise Plan

On Paul Ryan’s proposed plan to reduce the deficit, Megan writes:

The wildly disproportionate fury and outrage which greeted both Bowles-Simpson and the Ryan plan from the left indicate that progressives have so far failed to come to grips with the fact that they are going to have to compromise . . . .  [T]hey're going to have to ultimately accede to some spending cuts, because this is one policy area where doing nothing is literally not an option.

Well, the left has to compromise to save the country.  But they don’t have to compromise in an absolute sense, any more than Thelma & Louise have to stop their car at the edge of the cliff.  Bankruptcy and suicide is always an option.  Just ask the Greeks.

Megan continues:

[W]hile some of the gap is going to be closed by tax increases, some of it is going to be closed by spending cuts.  And not just defense cuts, or seemingly trivial changes to physician reimbursement rates that we hope will snowball over time, but actual cuts in services that people currently want and expect to get from government--but do not want or expect to pay for.

I fear Megan understates the problem.  My own assessment is that these very people – the ones who want government services without government revenue – presently hold the balance of power in our country.  In theory, the left and right could reach a compromise on taxes and spending (although even here I may be assuming too much).  In practice, however, the center is determined to prevent exactly that compromise.

It’s not like we have any problems . . .

1st Annual [Steve] Southerland for Congress Golf Invitational

Please join us Friday April, 29, 2011

9am Shot Gun Start

120 Coyote Pass

Panama City Beach, Fl 32407

$125 per person ----- $500 Per Team-------$1,000 per PAC

___________________________________________

$5,000 Hole Sponsor = 4 Golfers, Autographed Picture with Congressman Southerland and your team

sit at head table during awards event.

___________________________________________

Also looking for sponsors for Food, Prizes, & Raffles

Please Email me and let me know if you are interested in being part of this event

jennifer@southerlandforcongress.com

Honestly, I wasn’t much bothered by all the stories about how Obama golfed his way through, say, the Libyan crisis, seeing as how I wouldn’t approve of anything he could do that he was likely to do.*  But . . . considering all the things that his district elected him to do, like cut spending and immigration, or even answer his constituents’ mail, I think throwing a fundraiser 19 months before his next election and before any of these tasks are completed is kinda tawdry.

Say what you want about Allen Boyd, but at least he returned emails.

* UPDATE: Obviously, this post was written before Obama confirmed my expectation that I wouldn't like how he handled it. OTOH, this update is being written before we have concluded our involvement.

Joel Demos for Congress

Gave me a giggle:

 

H.T.:  Ace.

The Dismissal of Enoch Powell

Occidental Observer links to a surprisingly even-handed BBC account of the late British MP Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" (sic) speech. Below is part 1:

The depressing thing about this story is how easy it was for Britain's ruling class to completely subvert the mass public support for Powell in the wake of this speech. I'd like to think that we here in America may yet fare better: our political system is more open, and the media are now more decentralized. But at best it will be a close run thing.

Happy Geert Wilders Day!

Randall Parker (H.T.:  H.S.):

Geert Wilders is on trial this week in the Netherlands for using his basic right to free speech (said right not recognized in the Netherlands) to advocate against the Islamization of the Netherlands. It occurs to me we should choose a day when all bloggers who support a basic right to free speech ought to write posts protesting the prosecution for Geert Wilders.

Since Wilders is on trial this week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I propose Thursday October 7 as the day to write posts excoriating the Dutch government for this unjustified and unfair prosecution of Geert Wilders.

Isn't it great how we could defeat the purpose of having democratic elections by criminalizing the publication the other party’s platform? Your party's platform, I mean, not my party's platform.

Evil.  But I respect the skills.

Southerland’s Immigration Advocacy: the (Cheap) Labor Day Edition

A few weeks ago, Steve Southerland won the GOP primary in Florida’s 2nd Congressional District and will face incumbent Democrat Allen Boyd this November in a race targeted by 40Seats.

I’ve followed the Steve Southerland campaign since the middle of last March, and since that time I’ve raised numerous issues with its handling of immigration:  it’s delay in addressing the issue on its website; the double-speak of its eventual statement; the endorsements it has received from illegal alien employers and open-borders advocates; its inability to understand the context of the 9/11 Victory Mosque.  During this time, (back when it was still talking to me), I’ve received private assurances from the campaign that . . . well, now that I think of it, the private assurances have come down squarely on all sides of the immigration issue.  I found I could read whatever I wanted into them.

But that’s been typical for this campaign.  Read or listen to Mr. Southerland’s statements on anything and ask yourself:  at the end of 2011, by what yardstick will I measure whether he has kept his campaign promises or not?  For instance, he says he’s in favor of “lower spending”, but offers no concrete examples of spending he will cut.  He says he’s in favor of lower regulation, but offers no examples of regulations he would repeal.  In fact, his campaign is built entirely on gauzy generalities about “Freedom” and “The Constitution”, infused with ecumenical religiosity.

Notwithstanding all this, I was prepared to be flexible.  I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope against hope that, once he was in office, he would vote as the conservative he insists he is.  But no more.

Here is the text of the email I received from the campaign on Labor Day:

The American spirit was defined over 200 years ago by the eagerness of those who traveled to this great land of opportunity to earn their own way.  Leaving distant shores and everything they'd ever known, they came to America to plow and harvest, invent and produce, scrimp and save, invest and earn their way to a new life.

Unfortunately, on this Labor Day, the sad reality is that 81% of Americans know someone who is unemployed and looking for work.

President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have advanced policies that demean and enslave both our hardworking labor force and our businesses, large and small.  Sadly, our Congressman, Allen Boyd, has embraced and enabled these policies every step of the way.

Excessive taxation, unbridled and wasteful spending and the government takeover of health care and private industry are ruining our economy.  Americans, who have worked hard, investing in their future and in the future of America, now find themselves on the road to serfdom. 

The good news is that the people across Florida's 2nd Congressional District and across our great nation have had enough.  We are ready to turn the page and recommit ourselves to the values and principles that made America the greatest country on the face of the earth.

Do I even need to say it?

First, my understanding of American history is that our founding stock came here primarily for self government:  a chance to live under laws reflecting their own values and passed by their own people.  And while I will grant him “plow and harvest” as a motivation, I would be surprised to learn that the “scrimp, save, and invent” were much on their mental radar. And of course, none of this has to do with Labor Day, which I understand to be a celebration of the power of labor unions.

But you can see the meta-message here.  This isn’t really about the founding stock.  The meta-message -- the message that Southerland chooses to celebrate in a context of his own creation -- is about late 19th century immigration.  And while those immigrants may have indeed wanted to improve their lives, this observation says nothing about how today’s immigrants improve the lives of people already here.

Sadly, Southerland flunks more recent history as well.  Yes, our economy is in trouble, but not for the reasons he thinks.  Obama has not, in fact, raised personal income taxes; the “unbridled and wasteful spending” has been financed by Chinese loans.  These  imply a crippling fiscal crisis followed by massive tax hikes, but these threats remain in the future.  No, the reason we are in a recession is because of a housing bubble inflated with the dissolution of mortgage lending standards in the name of helping minorities – most of them Mexican immigrants – buy homes they couldn’t afford.  And George Bush bears every bit the blame for this as the Democrats do.

Ultimately, true conservatives in FL-02 must ask themselves:  does having another “R” vote in the House outweigh the damage to the Conservative brand of electing a candidate as bad as this one?  In a close election, maybe.  But with the House takeover already a near certainty, I for one am prepared to say, “better the devil you know.”

“Obama at the Bat”

Meh.