Thursday, July 9, 2009
Fire sale of America's nuclear defences in Moscow
[UK]
Well said, Nile Gardiner, for asking if Barack Obama is the most naïve president in American history. The answer is undoubtedly yes – unless he has a secret agenda to cut America down to size.
It was always in Russia that Obama threatened to do most damage and, as Nile Gardiner has rightly pointed out, these forebodings have been fulfilled. His supposed missile deal with Vladimir Putin is very satisfactory to Russian ambitions and realpolitik.
For America voluntarily to reduce its nuclear superiority is madness. Bien-pensant talk of a nuclear-free world displays total stupidity in a global situation where nuclear weaponry is proliferating, not receding. There is even a nuclear bomb in Pakistan, which is teetering on the brink of failed statehood at the hands of Islamist insurgents. Is this a time for America to disarm, to “sell the store” as one commentator has already described Obama’s posturing in Moscow?
For Obama, success is not the delivery of watertight nuclear security for America; it is a feel-good news conference and photo opportunity that will create huge approval ratings on liberal campuses where the delusions of 1968 and the anti-Vietnam war movement still linger on in these isolated Jurassic Parks...
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Former Bush Aides Warn Obama to Beware of Russia's Pledge in Iran Nuclear Issue
Former aides to President Bush and Vice President Cheney are warning their successors in the Obama administration to be wary of Russian pledges of cooperation in the multilateral campaign to rein in Iran's nuclear program.
The warnings came after FOX News reported on Thursday that top Obama aides believe Russia will be willing to sign on to "much more severe" sanctions against Iran if the Islamic republic refuses to halt its uranium enrichment activity by 2010.
"Every time in this period I landed in a European capital to discuss Iran, the first thing I got was: 'What is your end game here? Tell us where you are going with this before we tell you how much we will admit Iran is going down the path to a bomb in the U.N.'
When I failed to give them a guarantee that we will not strike Iran, they stalled on moving ahead with acknowledging or using the evidence in public which in private they accepted."
Russia, he added, "was like the E.U. on hormones in this regard"...
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Iran's Axis of Nuclear Evil
By JOHN BOLTON
While President Obama's unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn't really this week's big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector -- Iran's former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari -- disclosed Tehran's financing of Syria's nuclear weapons program. That program's centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.
That the Pyongyang-Damascus-Tehran nuclear axis went undetected and unacknowledged for so long is an intelligence failure of the highest magnitude. It represents a plain unwillingness to allow hard truths to overcome well-entrenched policy views disguised as intelligence findings.
At this point, it is impossible to ignore Iran's active efforts to expand, improve and conceal its nuclear weapons program in Syria while it pretends to "negotiate" with Britain, France and Germany (the "EU-3"). No amount of video messages will change this reality.
The question is whether this new information about Iran will sink in, or if Washington will continue to turn a blind eye toward Iran's nuclear deceptions...
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Obama Administration: Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights
At a Senate hearing Tuesday on the use of military commissions to prosecute terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay, some members of the Armed Services Committee took offense at the Obama administration’s view that the detainees have the same legal protections under the Constitution as U.S. citizens..
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Spread Freedom? Not So Much
The Obama Doctrine is finally coming into focus.
It's been hard to glean its form because for so long it seemed the president's most obvious guiding principle was "not Bush," particularly when it came to the Iraq war. Indeed, his anti-Bush stance has led him to stubbornly refuse to say the war has been won or to admit that he was wrong to oppose the surge.
Obama himself insists that he's guided by nothing other than a cool-headed pragmatism. Indeed, Obama has a grating habit of describing any position not his own as "ideological," as if his is the only sober, practical understanding of the problems we face.
Joshua Muravchik, a scholar at Johns Hopkins University and a leading advocate of democracy promotion around the globe, demonstrates in the current issue of Commentary magazine that Obama has a similar attitude toward those who say America should advance the cause of liberty and democracy worldwide.
Again and again, the administration has made it clear that spreading freedom is so much ideological foolishness. Indeed, it seems Obama has an ideological problem with democracy...
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Return of the Black Panther
Justice is stonewalling on voter intimidation
Rarely does the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights vote unanimously on anything.
A partisan divide has made the commission contentious in recent years. Yet the [Holden] Department of Justice's decision to forfeit its voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and three individual defendants drew a 6-0 vote with one abstention by the commission. What unified the commission was outrage at the Justice Department for letting the Black Panthers off the hook.
The Civil Rights Commission has sent two letters -- on June 16 and June 22 -- to Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, asking for an explanation, but it has not received a response. Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, sent a June 8 letter demanding an explanation, but the congressman told us he has yet to receive an answer from the department one month later... [snip]
The commission's letter quoted "Veteran of the civil rights movement, Bartle Bull" calling the defendants' actions
"the most blatant form of voter intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s."
The commission summed up the case in its June 16 letter:
"Though it had basically won the case ... the [Department of Justice's Civil Rights] Division took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges .... In its notice of dismissal, the Division cites as its rationale only the fact that defendants failed to appear and respond ... the Division's public rationale would send the wrong message entirely - that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated and will not be vigorously prosecuted so long as the groups or individuals who engage in them fail to respond to the charges leveled against them"
There's good reason for today's unanimity. The Justice Department needs to explain why it is not pursuing charges against these thugs.
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The Employment Report: AP Misses Noting Worst June Since Before WWII
At the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web, Jim Taranto noted that it took the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa until the 15th paragraph of her expanded dispatch on the Employment Situation Report to find something mildly positive to write.
Aversa, who has been one of the wire service's chief silver lining make-up artists during the Obama presidency's disastrous economic stewardship offered up this contention:
"Even with higher pace of job cuts in June, the report indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed."
The charts from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics that follow show that the evidence for her claim is scant to non-existent.
The red box on the left in the NOT seasonally adjusted data shows that the situation got decidedly worse in June. From February through May, the differences in year-over-year monthly job gains and losses on the ground before seasonal adjustment narrowed in by about 60% from -680,000 to -264,000. But June's -371,000 difference went the wrong way, causing the seasonally adjusted number (the result of smoothing results to account for seasonal variations) to move sharply upward.
How bad was June? On the ground (not seasonally adjusted), the monthly job loss of 110,000 is the worst June performance listed in 71 years of monthly data BLS has available on the web (1939-2009).
How this "indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed," as Aversa claims, is beyond me.READ MORE
Federal Government Was Culprit in Housing and Economic Crisis, Says Congressional Report
[This one's for 'CHUCK' {CL}...]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the chief culprits in the housing crisis because they encouraged people who could not afford payments to borrow money, according to a congressional report released Tuesday.
The claims in the report have long been advanced by conservatives, who argue that the Community Reinvestment Act and other federal programs fed the housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to the economic downfall in 2008.
But the report explains in detail how Fannie and Freddie -- government sponsored enterprises (GSE) that were not subject to the same oversight as other publicly traded firms -- “privatized their profits but socialized their risks.” [after being empowered to do so by the {government's} CRA]
“This government intervention's ultimate effect was to create a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and economy,” ... “While government intervention was not the sole cause of the financial crisis, its role was significant and has received too little attention.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, said Tuesday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation;
“That is the perfect smoking gun that tells how Barney Frank [D-Mass.], the Clinton administration and others would do it in those days,” ... “The seeds of the meltdown began with the well-intentioned goal that everyone have a home even if they can’t afford it,” ... “It led to one of the biggest ponzi schemes ever.”
The report comes after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) – who fought against regulation of the two quasi-public mortgage giants -- and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter in June to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac calling on the GSEs to lower lending standards.The report also cites Frank’s accusations that to blame Fannie and Freddie is to blame only the lender and not the borrower...
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FLASHBACKs >
- Yes, It Was Government Regulation That Caused Our Currrent Crisis
- GOVERNMENT POLICIES LED TO WALL STREET'S RISKY BUSINESS
- What is the cause for the current recession?
- The True Origins of This Financial Crisis
- How A Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
- Congressional Problem Creation
- NYT obscures blame for financial crisis
[ok, so that last one isn't news... ]
Relying on deception again
First, there are 46 million uninsured people in the United States. This isn't just misleading, it's an outright lie, as anyone in this country can get health care by checking into an emergency room.
In terms of sincere debate on this topic, the only legitimate concerns for society are categories 4 and 5, (4) people with severe pre-existing conditions who are turned away by insurance companies; and (5) people who are too poor to purchase insurance - and they number a small fraction of 46 million - so why not be honest and report the number in those categories, instead of exaggerating?
Another deception is the claim that there will be no rationing of health care. We already have rationing of health care, accomplished by family budgets, doctors and insurance companies. Government run health care will transfer such decisions to bureaucrats. So, why not be honest and simply state that rationing will continue and will be done by a different entity?
Another deception is that citizens can keep their existing health care plans. Is anyone going to continue to pay $500 per month for a private health policy when a policy, subsidized by the U.S. taxpayers, is available for $300 per month? Folks will choose the cheaper plan, resulting in single payer health care. How much would it hurt to simply tell the truth?
Another misleading claim is that the majority of people in Canada or the U.K. are happy with their government run systems. Of course the majority of Canadians are happy. Most Canadians are not ill. The people who are unhappy are those with a serious illness, or those with an illness that requires immediate treatment. Wouldn't it be more truthful to focus on what those who have experienced such systems think of them than those that haven't?
Then there's the old faithful life expectancy canard, that the U.S. has a lower life expectancy than some other developed nations. "Texas A&M health economist Robert Ohsfeldt and health economics consultant John Schneider calculated that when accidental deaths and homicides are removed from such calculations {neither having anything to do with health care}, life expectancy in America ranks at the top of all developed countries."
So why don't proponents of the "public health option" just come clean and admit that the U.S. has, far and away, the best health care system on the planet?
You know the answer.
[And if you don't: It has nothing to do with health care. Consider: poll after poll show that more than 70% of Americans are happy or very happy with their health care. That leaves room for improvement, but how does that fact support the incessant claim that our system is 'broken'? It's about more money and power for the government.]
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Purge of Inspectors General Raises Concerns
The government's top watchdogs are quickly becoming all bark and no bite, say critics who call the recent "purge" of inspectors general a warning about limited transparency in the Obama administration.
Inspectors general serve as the primary investigator and auditor at federal agencies. They have statutory powers to investigate internal fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement as well as conduct oversight of the recipients of funds and contractors who work with the individual agencies.
"The mounting evidence that there might be political interference with the IGs is disturbing," "The IGs are being emasculated."
said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union.
"When inspectors general across the administration have roadblocks placed in their way, American taxpayers should worry. A threat to one's independence is a threat to them all."
Jake Wiens, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group in Washington, D.C., warned against seeing "patterns" in the dismissals.
"The IG office was always sacrosanct" ... "the Obama administration is not setting the right tone, especially after pledging during his campaign to reform government and make it more transparent"
The story may stay below the mainstream media's radar, but if you've spent years watching how scandal stories unfold in Washington, IG-Gate looks like one that will keep making headlines for months...
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Battle lines drawn in AmeriCorps IG scandal
Key Republicans in both the House and the Senate are accusing the White House of giving “incomplete and misleading” information to investigators probing the president’s abrupt firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.
In return, the White House is hinting that documents concerning its actions in the Walpin affair may be protected by executive privilege.
Both developments are part of an escalating conflict between GOP lawmakers and the Obama administration...
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FLASHBACKs >
Inspector General Fired by Obama Wants Congressional Hearing on His Case
The ousted inspector general who reported that his office found misuse of AmeriCorps funds granted to a charity run by a political ally of President Barack Obama sees an assault on the institution of government watchdogs, noting that besides himself, the inspectors general in both the Treasury Department and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have faced reported hurdles in doing their jobs...
A witness to Walpin-gate
The fact remains that an inspector general does not serve at the president's pleasure and can be removed only for a specified just cause.
Walloping Walpin
But Obama then fired Walpin immediately saying only that he no longer enjoyed his 'full confidence', despite a law that he cosponsored requiring that Congress be given a 30-day notice of his intent and a detailed justification for the removal...
Key Obama Ally Says President Obama Did Not Follow the Law in IG Firing
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General...
Gangster government's grip on the AmeriCorps
The key issue now is whether Congress will permit this latest illustration of what The Examiner’s Michael Barone calls Obama’s “gangster government”...
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Newsweek Shocker: 'Obama Closes Doors On Openness'
In today's "You're Not Going to Believe This" segment, Barack Obama has gone back on his promise of creating an open and transparent administration, and the good folks at Newsweek not only noticed it, but actually reported it.
Yes, the magazine that seems to have Obama on its cover every week actually exposed the object of their affection for not only going back on a campaign promise, but also for contradicting his own highly-publicized decree made the first full day he was in office.
Maybe even better, the author, Michael Isikoff, was the same reporter who was about to break the Monica Lewinsky story in January 1998, but was stopped by Newsweek higher-ups.
Readers are advised to tighten their seatbelts and prepare themselves for an alternate media reality...
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We Have To 'Legally Stop' Glenn Beck
Noted free-speech champion Keith Olbermann has declared that we have to "legally stop" Glenn Beck. The Fox News host's crime? Not reacting strongly enough for Olbermann's taste when a guest made an over-the-top remark.
On the June 30 editon of Beck's show, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer said: "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to detonate a major weapon in the United States." Apparently Scheuer thinks that's what it would take to shock the country and its leaders back to their senses.
Olbermann was infuriated that Beck didn't "scream at him" or otherwise jump down Scheuer's throat, choosing instead to nod gravely while suggesting that would be the last thing OBL would do.
In Olbermann's eyes, nodding in the third degree is a crime warranting legal action to "stop" Beck.
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Voters' ire fails to fire up process
CALIFORNIA
If the May 19 special election scared Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers into action, they aren't showing it. Fifty days after voters rejected a Capitol driven ballot package in a rebuke of Sacramento politics, California lacks a budget-balancing agreement and is paying bills with IOUs for the second time since the Great Depression...
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Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired power
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.
Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the "fight against climate change"...
[You can't make this stuff up - it's like a bad sit-com {only you can't turn it off, and you're paying for it}. Expect no change until we replace our current crop of 'representatives'.]
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