Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Post-American Presidency
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Judging a new American President's national security policies after six months in office is a perilous enterprise, especially in the case of Barack Obama, where constant incantations of "change" and serial criticisms of his predecessor are the order of the day.
Nonetheless, during the 2008 primaries, Democratic candidates fiercely debated their respective abilities to handle the "3am call," and Joe Biden later warned that the inexperienced Illinois Senator would be "tested" early in his tenure. Now there is a partial record, and, more importantly, a worldview on which we can grade Obama's performance.
Obama is the first post-American President. Central to his worldview is rejecting American exceptionalism and the consequences that flow therefrom.
Since an overwhelming majority of the world's population would welcome the demise of American exceptionalism, they are delighted with Obama.
One student interviewed after an Obama town hall meeting during his first presidential trip to Europe said ecstatically,
"He sounds like a European."
Indeed he does... [snip]
Obama is daily acting out his worldview, and the prospect of more of the same should be deeply troubling to Americans and America's global allies.
Obama simply does not see America's strength as a particular asset, or its causes and interests as more than many other causes and interests competing in the world out there somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe.
Long after global Obamamania has worn off, the geostrategic consequences of this insouciance will be sorely felt...
[Long, Bolton, Highly Recommended > ]
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Thuggery 101
Pres. Barack Obama came into office apparently believing that his non-traditional background, charisma, and good intentions could placate dictators hostile to America and ease global tensions.
But so far the world’s thugs do not seem to appreciate that new goodwill.
Intelligence reports indicate that North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is planning to launch a ballistic test missile in the direction of Hawaii between July 4 and July 8...
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US will not use force to inspect NKorean ship
-- The United States will not use force to inspect a North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned goods, an American official was quoted as saying Friday."The U.N. resolution lays out a regime that has a very clear set of steps," ... "I want to be very clear ... This is not a resolution that sponsors, that authorizes use of force for interdiction."
[It wasn't long ago that the mere mention of US Navy involvement was sufficient to change behaviors. Now the world laughs as it's (mis)used - by the UN.
Another tangible consequence of the progressive campaign to castrate all aspects of this nation's character {word choice intentional}]
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The 'Rape' of Israel
The analogy is appropriate:
A stronger power forces his will upon a weaker victim regardless of what is fair, moral, and without any concern for the trauma he inflicts. The rapist (in this analogy) does what he thinks is good for himself. He wants what he wants.
President Obama and his Jewish (and some Israeli) facilitators may believe that what they are doing is for Israel's own good. That might be acceptable if they explained how it works.
Would a second Arab Palestinian state run by terrorists enhance Israel's security, promote peace with Israel and in the region, resolve the issues of Jerusalem, and millions of "Palestinian refugees"? Would the Palestinians and Arab states recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and acknowledge facts of Jewish and world history? Would the proposed state include Jews with full rights, as Israel includes Arabs with full rights?
Nowhere in Obama's agenda are these questions even asked to say nothing of answered. Nowhere is there a hint of how his plan will be carried out, nor concern for what might happen if things don't go according to his visions.
For those whose "wet dream" (as Landau described it to Rice) is the destruction of Jewish homes and communities "in order to advance 'the peace process,' " to reward Arab terrorists with a state of their own, the consummation of rape may satisfy them for a while; it's no consolation for those being violated.
Nor will it prevent the next savagery...
[Recommended > ]
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U.S., EU court Hamas in bid for truce with Israel
The American government and the European Union are making efforts to include Hamas in a broader diplomatic effort that would include a long-term cease-fire with Israel, reconciliation among Palestinian factions and support for renewed negotiations with Israel on the basis of the Arab peace initiative.
According to the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat reporting from Damascus, a U.S. official visiting Syria two weeks ago said that ''the Hamas leadership has recently made important and interesting statements.''
[Another overtly brutal terrorist organization rewarded.]
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Hamas threats to kidnap more Israeli soldiers
Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Hamas movement, threatened on Saturday to kidnap more Israeli soldiers to exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
[Israel's 'partner in peace']
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Will Germany's Army Ever Be Ready for Battle?
On June 15, the German army's General Wolfgang Schneiderhan found himself in front of an audience of politicians and senior officers defending military policy - on sleeping bags... [snip]
Schneiderhan's blunt comments do a good job of portraying the German army, or Bundeswehr, as a bunch of whining softies. But there's a serious side to his exasperation. The German army as it stands today is a relatively young creation, born after a period of demilitarization following the end of World War II. A defensive army, the Bundeswehr has become increasingly engaged in international missions and is coming under pressure to step up its involvement in out-and-out warfare [Translation: actually fight].
After what Schneiderhan said last week, however, many are wondering whether it's up to the task...
[When next you hear some simple lefty point to Europe's social welfare and claim that it seems to 'work' by virtue of their not having completely bankrupted themselves (yet), remember: their quasi solvency has been achieved by mortgaging something critical - their defense. There now remains only a hand full of EU member states that could arguably repel a serious invasion, and none that can project any serious power (consider: the British Royal Navy is now comprised of 42 capital ships - 42). They've relied on the US to handle all their serious defense needs for several generations now.]
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Barack Obama vs international law
Obama has called settlements "illegitimate." And he has said that Israel "has obligations under the road map," while referring disparagingly to "settlements that, in past agreements, have been categorized as illegal."
The problem with the Obama administration's characterization of a ban on Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as an Israeli legal obligation is that Israel has never taken upon itself a legal obligation to prohibit such building activities. Israel has never signed an agreement that has characterized any Jewish communities as "illegal."
It makes good political sense for the Obama administration to make its case against Israel in this fashion. According to a survey of US public opinion published in early 2006 by the Boston Review, whereas only 7 percent of Democrats support going to war to spread democracy - versus 53% of Republicans; 71% of Democrats - versus 36% of Republicans - support going to war to help the United Nations "uphold international law."
What this poll shows is that for Obama supporters, the idea that Israel should be treated poorly because it is in breach of international law resonates deeply... [And liberating suppressed states doesn't - snip]
Obama, the former law professor, never tires of invoking international law. And yet, when one considers his policies toward Israel on the one hand, and his policies toward illegal terrorist organizations on the other, it is clear that Obama's respect for international law is mere rhetoric.
True champions of law in both Israel and the US should demand an end to his administration's contempt for the US's actual - rather than imaginary - legal obligations.
[Think you know how our government is now spending its 'international aid'? MUST READ > ]
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Communists turn to Stalin to fight crisis
MOSCOW-Russian communists have put up giant billboards of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a southern city, promoting his tough methods as the best remedy for the world economic crisis.
Stalin killed millions of people during his 30 year rule until his death in 1953, but many in recession-hit Russia have grown nostalgic for his strong leadership, and he was voted the third most popular historical figure in a nationwide poll [of the survivors]...
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Price buster Putin makes his markdown
Moscow - The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has paid a surprise visit to a Moscow supermarket, instructing startled managers to lower their prices.
The visit appeared to be the latest in a series of media stunts by Russia's strongman to show the public that the Government is in control of a financial crisis that shows no sign of easing...
[So, this sound like a 'new' Russia?]
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America's Socialist Past
There seems to be a need in American society to have to relearn the same hard lessons over and over again, regardless of whether the results were seen on the other side of the planet or suffered through by our own people.
The lesson we, and the rest of the world, seems to fail to learn is how socially and economically destructive this sort of system is. The problem is, these lessons don't have to be learned from studying the histories of far off lands, for we have numerous examples of collectivist/socialist experiments here at home... [snip]
The date is January 1, 1816, and a man named Robert Owen proposed a new type of model society. In his plans, each of these communities of 2,500 individuals would "be self-governing and hold its property in the common."[vii] So popular was Owen that when he reached America from Britain, President John Quincy Adams displayed one of Owen's architectural models for this ideal community. He established his community in Indiana, christening it New Haven in 1825. In New Haven, "not only work, but also recreation and meditation were communal and regimented."[viii] Everything was collectivized, including "cooking, child care, and other domestic work."[ix]
The community lasted two years.
The term "socialism" was actually coined by Owen's followers around the time New Haven failed. [snip]
These few examples, and there are more out there, show how American culture even before the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on your location) tried communal living and centrally planned economic models. Despite the good intentions of the people involved, they always fail because of the inherent flaws in Socialism. Unfortunately, given the reach of the federal government and current make-up of the executive and legislative branches, we are set to learn this lesson the hard way.
Again.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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The Fed: Our economy's protector?
There has been a curiously subdued muddle of finger pointing to the cause of the financial crisis. Apparently, after the Administration and Congress finish legislating appropriate remedies, at some point they will convene a blue-ribbon commission or some such to determine what actually caused the problem.
In the meantime, we cannot remind ourselves too frequently of the real cause of the asset price bubble and especially of the fact that the bubble itself was the cause of the current economic crisis. The bubble was the problem -- not the failure to sustain the bubble by either adding more monetary air to it or by omnisciently regulating business...
It is, thus, an amazing irony that the Obama Administration touts the Federal Reserve System as the logical choice to become a new "systemic regulator." Having recently financed the asset bubble that undermined the financial system, the Fed is the only institution that has the power to cause similar catastrophes in the future.
This will be our economy's protector?
[We must never forget that, contrary to the mantra emanating from Washington, it was the government regulatory interference in home lending rules which was the genesis (followed by other contributing components) that set the stage for our current condition. The solution isn't more regulation but less to assure market forces constantly and accurately balance risk and reward.]
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FLASHBACKs >
GOVERNMENT POLICIES LED TO WALL STREET'S RISKY BUSINESS
Many observers blame the current financial crisis on a breakdown of private markets. A more careful look shows that government policy, step by step, led to the current crisis...
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Gerstner Says Short-Term Gains Should Be Taxed at 80%
(Bloomberg) -- Louis Gerstner, the former International Business Machines Corp. chief executive officer, said that short-term investment gains should be taxed at 80 percent as a way to counter the culture of greed on Wall Street.
“If you buy something -- a stock or a bond -- in the morning, and you sell in the afternoon, the tax probably ought to be 80 percent,”
said Gerstner, also a former chairman of Carlyle Group, the world’s second-largest private equity firm.“If you hold it for six months, maybe it ought to be 60 percent,”
Gerstner told Bloomberg Television.
Selling an investment after five years should carry a zero rate“to try to get the incentives for investment to go back to being a true investor and not a trader”
[Here here.]
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Administration Is Near a Financial Overhaul Plan
The Obama administration will soon propose a comprehensive plan to expand the authority of the government to seize large troubled companies, create a new regulator for companies that pose risks to the financial system and possibly establish an agency to oversee consumer debt like mortgages and credit cards...
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Electric Cars Will Not Decrease Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Says Federal Study
The stimulus law enacted in February promoted the purchase of plug-in electric cars by the federal government and the broader market, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this month says that the use of plug-in electric vehicles will not by itself decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
To do that, the report argues, the United States would have to switch from coal-burning plants to lower-emission sources to generate electricity such as nuclear power...
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How green is my Prius?
The short answer is: nowhere near as green as Leonardo diCaprio and the eco-glitterati were led to believe when they bought it. Powered by two engines - a standard 76hp, 1.5-litre petrol engine and a battery engine (an immediate extra cost) the Toyota Synergy System sounds like the answer to an eco-dream. Well it was under the pre-2008 EPA regime of standard tests (including running the car at 8 mph) that allowed makers to make unrealistic claims for its mileage. When the EPA introduced a more realistic standard of testing in 2008 the average mileage dropped to 45 mpg, around the same as a normal [sub-compact] car .
But building a hybrid like the Prius causes far more environmental damage than producing a normal car.
All of this was put into perspective by a 2006 report ‘Dust to Dust' Automotive Energy Cost Study from CNW research. As the report points out, the Prius requires almost 50 percent more energy to build and drive than even the SUV Hummer and other non-hybrids. The battery contains nickel, one of the worst polluting metals when smelted. The batteries are shipped to Europe, then to Asia and Japan, then back to America before finally being fitted in the car. Are you getting the truer picture on the raft of hidden economic and environmental costs that make this one of the most expensive of specialist cars which mostly only eco-zealots can afford?
[More, Recommended > ]
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Disability, Inc.
This is not a joke. Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision that required an Oregon public school district to pay a $5,200 monthly tuition (plus fees) for a private boarding school for a high-school senior whose psychologist had diagnosed him with ADHD, depression, math disorder and cannabis abuse.
Also not a joke: The Obama administration had urged the big bench to so rule. Thus the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandates that all "children with disabilities" have the right to a "free appropriate public education," is turning into a cash cow for disability lawyers... [snip]
It's one of those nice people things. The government has expanded the notion of disability to the point of absurdity. But nice people refuse to look at the impending drain on public school budgets, or how one child's boarding school tuition can mean that much less funding for all the other students' educational needs...
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DOLLARS DON'T SPELL LEARNING
Many, including the courts, have blindly accepted the assumption that more money will improve student performance at our nation's public schools. However, almost no one has seriously examined the empirical evidence to determine its validity, say authors Eric A. Hanushek and Alfred A. Lindseth.
The authors look at four states -- Wyoming, Kentucky, New Jersey and Massachusetts -- where courts ordered the legislatures to appropriate more money for public schools on the presumption that increased spending would improve performance.
Their conclusion: Court-ordered funding does not necessarily improve test scores, and blacks, despite the increased spending, are even worse off.
In Wyoming:
- Despite unprecedented court ordered increases in school funding, the achievement of Wyoming's students has failed to keep up with the nation or even with its much lower-funded, although demographically similar, neighboring states.
- The 1989 Rose decision resulted in a court order for certain structural changes and increased funding; the structural changes were implemented, but they produced no improvements in learning levels.
- Despit a court-ordered $1.5 billion in additional education spending (per-pupil spending in New Jersey exceeded $20,000 last year), there is little evidence that the state's students have progressed much, if at all, relative to students nationwide.
[If more money did result in better education, don't you think we'd be drowned in studies showing such paid for by the public teachers' unions? So what does it mean that we aren't?]
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Census to castrate American Caucasians
President Barack Obama’s 2010 Census Form asks if you go to work by ferryboat or trolleycar, if you are mentally challenged, if you are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. It asks if you use coal, gas, oil, electricity, or solar energy to heat your home or apartment. and if you speak a language other than English at home. It asks your income, your educational level, and the time you leave your home in the morning.
But infinitely more telling is what the new census form doesn’t ask.
It doesn’t ask if you are a citizen of the U.S.A.
Naturally, the questions are in English and Spanish, lest anyone think that America is an Anglo nation... [snip]
But there are problems with the Obama census beyond the intrusive nature of the comprehensive survey. To assist in the hiring of census takers, the Obama Administration has opted to partner with the following special interest groups (not one of which represents the despised race of whites who settled this country):
- ACORN
- 100 Black Men of America
- African American Women’s House of Imagene (sic) Shelter
- American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
- Arab American Institute
- Asian American Federation
- Asian American Justice Center
- Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS
- Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage
- Boat People SOS
- Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute
- Hispanic Federation
- Fundacion Azteca
- Latino Justice PDLDEF
- Mas New Mexico
- Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
- Minority Access
- National Alliance for Hispanic Health
- National Alliance of Black School Educators
- National American Indian Housing Council
- NAACP National Voter Fund
- NAACP (National Association of Colored People)
- National Association for Black Social Workers
- National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs
- National association of Hispanic Federal Executives
- National Association of Hispanic Publications
- National Association of Latino Elected Officials
- National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs
- National Black Chamber of Commerce
- National Black Child Development Institute
- National Black Justice Coalition
- National Black Leadership Forum
- National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
- National Congress of Black Women
- National Federation of Filipino American Associations
- National Hispanic Leadership Institute
- National Hispanic Business Information Clearinghouse
- National Latino Research Center
- National Minority AIDS Council
- National Puerto Rican Coalition
- National Puerto Rican Day Parade
- Rainbow Push Coalition
- U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
- Voto Latino
Get the picture? Notice a racial bias?
This racial bias inherent in the coming census has raised the concern that the results will be rigged - - a concern that has been intensified by Mr. Obama’s selection of Robert M. Groves, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan, to head the program.
Republican legislators have expressed alarm because Mr. Groves’s specialty is statistical sampling — roughly speaking, the process of extrapolating from the numbers of people actually counted to arrive at estimates of those uncounted and, presumably, arriving at a realistic total.
If minorities, immigrants, the poor and the homeless are those most likely to be missed in an actual head count, as Mr. Grove presumably believes, and if political stereotypes hold true, then the statistical sampling of the 2010 census will produce a windfall for the Democrat Party.
This result is certain since the census results as gathered by the above groups coupled with Mr. Grove’s calculation of the missed head count will determine which states gains seats in Congress and which ones lose them, as well as the allocation of federal dollars to states and cities based on population...
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This Boomer Isn't Going to Apologize
Last weekend I attended my niece's high-school graduation from an upscale prep school in Washington, D.C. These are supposed to be events filled with joy, optimism and anticipation of great achievements. But nearly all the kids who stepped to the podium dutifully moaned about how terrified they are of America's future -- yes, even though Barack Obama, whom they all worship and adore, has brought "change they can believe in."
A federal judge gave the commencement address and proceeded to denounce the sorry state of the nation that will be handed off to them. The enemy, he said, is the collective narcissism of their parents' generation -- my generation. The judge said that we baby boomers have bequeathed to the "echo boomers," "millennials," or whatever they are to be called, a legacy of "greed, global warming, and growing income inequality."
And everyone of all age groups seemed to nod in agreement. One affluent 40-something woman with lots of jewelry told me she can barely look her teenagers in the eyes, so overcome is she with shame over the miseries we have bestowed upon our children.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that graduation ceremonies have become collective airings of guilt and grief. It's now chic for boomers to apologize for their generation's crimes. It's the only thing conservatives and liberals seem to agree on. Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, told Butler University grads that our generation is "just plain selfish." At Grinnell College in Iowa, author Thomas Friedman compared boomers to "hungry locusts . . . eating through just about everything." Film maker Ken Burns told this year's Boston College grads that those born between 1946 and 1960 have "squandered the legacy handed to them by the generation from World War II."
I could go on, but you get the point. We partied like it was 1999, paid for it with Ponzi schemes and left the mess for our kids and grandkids to clean up. We're sorry -- so sorry.
Well, I'm not.
I have two teenagers and an 8-year-old, and I can say firsthand that if boomer parents have anything for which to be sorry it's for rearing a generation of pampered kids who've been chauffeured around to soccer leagues since they were 6.
This is a generation that has come to regard rising affluence as a basic human right, because that is all it has ever known -- until now. Today's high-school and college students think of iPods, designer cellphones and $599 lap tops as entitlements. They think their future should be as mapped out as unambiguously as the GPS system in their cars.
CBS News reported recently that echo boomers spend $170 billion a year -- more than most nations' GDPs -- and nearly every penny of that comes from the wallets of the very parents they now resent. My parents' generation lived in fear of getting polio; many boomers lived in fear of getting sent to the Vietnam War; this generation's notion of hardship is TiVo breaking down.
How bad can the legacy of the baby boomers really be? Let's see: We're the generation that spawned Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, ATMs and Gatorade. We defeated the evils of communism and delivered the world from the brink of global thermonuclear war. Now youngsters are telling pollsters that they think socialism may be better than capitalism after all. Do they expect us to apologize for winning the Cold War next?
College students gripe about the price of tuition, and it does cost way too much. But who do these 22-year-old scholars think has been footing the bill for their courses in transgender studies and Che Guevara? The echo boomers complain, rightly, that we have left them holding the federal government's $8 trillion national IOU. But try to cut government aid to colleges or raise tuitions and they act as if they have been forced to actually work for a living.
Yes, the members of this generation will inherit a lot of debts, but a much bigger storehouse of wealth will be theirs in the coming years. When I graduated from college in 1982, the net worth of America -- all our nation's assets minus all our liabilities -- was $16 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Today, even after the meltdown in housing and stocks, the net worth of the country is $45 trillion -- a doubling after inflation. The boomers' children and their children will inherit more wealth and assets than any other in the history of the planet -- that is, unless Mr. Obama taxes it all away. So how about a little gratitude from these trust-fund babies for our multitrillion-dollar going-away gifts?
My generation is accused of being environmental criminals -- of having polluted the water and air and ruined the climate. But no generation in history has done more to clean the environment than mine. Since 1970 pollutants in the air and water have fallen sharply. Since 1960, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh have cut in half the number of days with unsafe levels of smog. The number of Americans who get sick or die from contaminants in our drinking water has plunged for 50 years straight.
Whenever kids ask me why we didn't do more to combat global warming, I explain that when I was young the "scientific consensus" warned of global cooling. Today's teenagers drive around in cars more than any previous generation. My kids have never once handed back the car keys because of some moral problem with their carbon footprint -- and I think they are fairly typical.
The most absurd complaint of all is that the health-care system has been ruined by our generation. Oh, really? Thanks to massive medical progress in the past 30 years, the chances of dying from heart disease and many types of cancer have been cut in half. We found effective treatments for AIDS within a decade. Life expectancy has risen and infant mortality fallen. That doesn't sound so "selfish" to me.
Yes, we are in a deep economic crisis today -- but it's no worse than what we boomers faced in the late 1970s after years of hyperinflation, sky-high tax rates and runaway government spending. We cursed our parents, too. But then we grew up and produced the largest leap forward in health, wealth and scientific progress the world has ever seen.
Let's see what this next generation of over-educated ingrates can do.
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