FEDERAL RECEIPTS/OUTLAYS SINCE 1999

Things really began to turn bad after 2008.

 

And here is another article from Reason.com.  It is increased spending that is the source of the problem.

NEW INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY

Confusionism!  It is ignorance and stupidity that is behind international policy decisions.

. . . you've probably heard about the various "isms" in the field of international relations. There's realism, of course, but also liberalism, idealism, and social constructivism. And don't forget Marxism, even though hardly anybody claims to believe it anymore. These "isms" are essentially families of theory that share certain common assumptions. For example, realists see power and fear as the main drivers of world affairs, while liberals place more weight on human acquisitiveness and the power of institutions. 

But there's another major force in world affairs, and sometimes I think it deserves an "ism" all its own. With tongue in cheek and apologies to a famous Chinese sage, I'll call it "Confusionism." For Confusians, ignorance and stupidity are the real key to understanding state behavior, not fear, greed, ideals, class interests, or any of those other things that people think drive world affairs. When Confusians seek to explain why states act as they do, they start by assuming that leaders do not understand the problems they face, have only a vague sense of where they want to go, and no idea at all about how to get there. Instead of starting with the rational actor assumption beloved by economists, realists, and most liberals, Confusians hone in on all the reasons why humans typically get things wrong.

FISCAL CLIFF AND SEQUESTRATION

Hypocrisy.  The same media that praised the Republicans for signing on to sequestration in 2011 (Budget Control Act of 2011) is now criticizing them for having done this now that the fiscal cliff is near!  Even Obama and Harry Reid praised it--the votes of Democrats and Republicans were lopsided in its favor.  Poor Republicans cannot win.  This year the same deal is a disaster!

So my question to the media is this: Harry Reid celebrated this agreement, Tim Geithner likes it, Nancy Pelosi voted for it and The President signed it. Yet now this deal is responsible for a fiscal cliff that is apparently a disaster for all America.

And moreover, the MSM is laying the blame for said potential “disaster” squarely at the feet of the same GOP who the very same media urged to make the in 2011.

WEALTHY REPUBLICAN DONORS TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS

From Red State:  Proposes a way for Republicans to win races by using campaign donations more effectively.

EGYPT'S NEW PHARAOH

Michael Totten has an excellent summary of recent events.  He includes many of his conversations with Egyptians, including some disillusioned with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Mohammad Morsi is leading Egypt down the path of dictatorship and away from democracy under the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many in Washington spoke of the Muslim Brotherhood as democratic, but events are proving them wrong.  But sure, the Brothers threw the word “democracy” around when they were on their way up, especially when gullible foreign journalists were in town.

How the Muslim Brotherhood recruits is interesting and he quotes from an article by Eric Trager in the New Republic.

It begins when specially designated Brotherhood recruiters, who work at mosques and universities across Egypt, identify pious young men and begin engaging them in social activities to assess their suitability for the organization. The Brotherhood’s ideological brainwashing begins a few months later, as new recruits are incorporated into Brotherhood cells (known as “families”) and introduced to the organization’s curriculum, which emphasizes Qur’anic memorization and the writings of founder Hassan al-Banna, among others. Then, over a five-to-eight-year period, a team of three senior Muslim Brothers monitors each recruit as he advances through five different ranks of Brotherhood membership—muhib, muayyad, muntasib, muntazim, and finally ach amal, or “active brother.”  

Throughout this process, rising Muslim Brothers are continually vetted for their embrace of the Brotherhood’s ideology, commitment to its cause, and—most importantly—willingness to follow orders from the Brotherhood’s senior leadership. As a result, Muslim Brothers come to see themselves as foot soldiers in service of the organization’s theocratic credo: “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law; the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.” Meanwhile, those dissenting with the organization’s aims or tactics are eliminated at various stages during the five-to-eight-year vetting period.

JAMIE FOXX ON OBAMA

At the Soul Train Awards Jamie Foxx referred to Obama as "our Lord and Savior." 

Now there is a picture of Obama as a crucified Savior. 

 

SUSAN RICE NOMINATION

There have been criticisms of her in the past.

A CNN article from 2008 discusses her involvement in the decision not to capture Bin Laden in the 1990s or help with the Rwandan genocide.

Terrorism experts blame Rice for having played a key role in blocking efforts to neutralize Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. According to Mansoor Ijaz, a former trouble shooter for Clinton, the FBI had their efforts to capture bin Laden "overruled every single time by the State Department, by Susan Rice and her cronies, who were hell-bent on destroying the Sudan." In a Washington Post Op-Ed published in 2002, Mansoor Ijaz and Tim Carney, U.S. Ambassador to Sudan blamed Susan Rice for being a major obstacle to accepting offers of help from Sudan and to share their intelligence on bin Laden's terror network. Rice was also influential in the Clinton Administration's remaining uninvolved in the Rwandan genocide that took place in that nation in 1994.

And a 2001 article in the Atlantic by Samantha Powers is also critical of her decisions with regard to Rwanda. Evidently Rice has remorse for her involvement in failing to stop the genocide.  But the horrors were committed and in rereading the account, it is tragic that the Clinton administration was not held more accountable for its failure to act.  But today, I fear no one remembers the consequences of these decisions.

A few years later, in a series in The New Yorker, Philip Gourevitch recounted in horrific detail the story of the genocide and the world's failure to stop it. President Bill Clinton, a famously avid reader, expressed shock. He sent copies of Gourevitch's articles to his second-term national-security adviser, Sandy Berger. The articles bore confused, angry, searching queries in the margins. "Is what he's saying true?" Clinton wrote with a thick black felt-tip pen beside heavily underlined paragraphs. "How did this happen?" he asked, adding, "I want to get to the bottom of this." The President's urgency and outrage were oddly timed. As the terror in Rwanda had unfolded, Clinton had shown virtually no interest in stopping the genocide, and his Administration had stood by as the death toll rose into the hundreds of thousands.

Others, including a few members of the Africa subcommittees and the Congressional Black Caucus, eventually appealed tamely for the United States to play a role in ending the violence—but again, they did not dare urge U.S. involvement on the ground, and they did not kick up a public fuss.

November 29, 2012:  Further questions about her candidacy by Anne Bayefsky and Michael B. Mukasey in the Wall Street Journal.  There are many other questions about decisions she made in her various positions.  

From Foreign Policy (Nov. 29, 2012).   The ghosts of Rwanda's genocide are in her past.

THE LEFT CRITICIZES OBAMA

From the Chronicle of Higher Education (November, 18, 2012). 

In an interview the week after Barack Obama’s re-election, Cornel West said he was glad Mitt Romney hadn’t won, but he also expressed his displeasure with the president, calling him a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface.”

As for Cornel West’s recent rant, he invoked the name of Richard Nixon when talking about Obama’s shortcomings, arguing that Nixon was to the left of Obama on a list of issues, including health care, guaranteed income, and foreign policy. Meanwhile, Dorrien, despite his disappointments, offered a different historical comparison: “Obama is well on his way to becoming the best president since Franklin Roosevelt.”

MEDIA COVERAGE OF BENGHAZI

From Peter Wehner at Commentary:  Yet with a few honorable exceptions—Fox News being the most conspicuous—the press has shown no real appetite for this story. It’s not that it hasn’t been covered; it’s that the coverage has lacked anything like the intensity and passion that you would have seen had this occurred during the presidency of, say, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.

The media needs to be equal opportunity investigators if it is to be the Fourth Estate protecting our freedoms.

Why was  General Carter Ham losing his job?  Is it because he wanted to help the personnel in Libya and disobeyed orders?

References to Watergate (by Democrats)! 

GENERAL PETRAEUS

A case is made for General Petraeus's leadership in the Middle East.

But three points need to be made here. First, Petraeus had no way of knowing this at the time; both in Mosul and later, in 2007, as U.S. commander in Iraq, he saw his goal as giving the factions “breathing space,” creating a “zone of security,” where they might reach a settlement in peace. It’s not his fault that the factions had no interest in reaching such a settlement. Second, for as long as he was in command, Petraeus succeeded at what he set out to do, if only tactically and in the short term. In retrospect, a case can be made that it may have been wiser to pull out after Saddam fell, to let the Iraqis find their own way. But those weren’t Petraeus’ orders; whatever else might be said of him, he accomplished a great deal with what he had. Finally, America’s big mistake in Iraq was invading it in the first place—and neither Petraeus nor any other general had anything to do with that decision.

Emily Yoffe wants Petraeus back!

I have a great idea whom Barack Obama should nominate as his next CIA director: Gen. David Petraeus. With that simple announcement, Obama could strike a blow for civil liberties and against the silly and destructive sexual Puritanism that has taken down so many public figures. Since Petraeus’ departure both Democrats and Republicans have been mourning the loss of a public servant of extraordinary ability. 

STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING ON ISRAEL & GAZA

This is an unusually sharp exchange between a journalist and a State Department spokesperson.  I haven't seen this kind of grilling of an administration spokesperson since the Bush administration.

 

OBAMA'S ASIA TRIP

It was marked by mistatements, which as the London Telegraph points out, would have been front page news if Bush had said them.

It is rather embarrassing, as well as sad, that the leader of the free world can’t even pronounce the name of the most famous human rights activist on the planet. Or that he is so quick to appease Burma’s authoritarian regime by calling it “Myanmar”. Barack Obama’s gaffes demonstrate not only a marked lack of attention to detail and a high degree of amateurishness on the part of the White House, but also a disturbing willingness to curry favour with unsavoury regimes. Hardly a good omen for Obama’s second term.

OBAMA & BENGHAZI

Obama knew on September 12th that it was a terrorist attack and not because of some film.  Even the New York Times, the paper of the left noted that in an article on September 12th.

Director Petraeus statement this morning is at complete odds with the Administration’s narrative. The CIA did its job on September 11 and reported the facts as they saw them.

Someone else was responsible for editing the report. But Ambassador Rice has a very difficult position. When she was trooped out to mouth the party line to the talk shows a few days after the assault, there was only one person who was authorized to approve her talking points; the President himself.

State reports to the President. The U.N. Ambassador reports to the President. The Director of National Intelligence reports to the President. The Director of the CIA reports to the President. The buck stops there.

The President has been caught in a web of his own lies. It is now up to us to hold him accountable.

November 28, 2012.  London Telegraph.  The lack of clarity from the White House on Benghazi is proving a disaster for the Obama administration, giving every impression that it is lacking in transparency, competence and accountability. During the second presidential election debate, Barack Obama promised to take responsibility for what happened. It is time for him to do so, and for his presidency to come clean over its handling of the intelligence relating to the Benghazi attack, and be held to account.

RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES IN POLITICS

Michael Gerson analyzes the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the 2012 election, but also discusses the evangelical Protestants.  Both have failed to reach out to the Hispanic voter.

Catholics have a historical advantage in understanding the imperative of inclusion in modern politics. They belong, after all, to an institution that has been multicultural since Peter first set foot in Rome. But white evangelicals are now getting their own education in coalition politics. They gave Mitt Romney a remarkable 79 percent of their vote — the same share that George W. Bush received in 2004 — while constituting a larger percentage of the electorate than they did in 2004. But their energy and loyalty were rendered irrelevant — washed away — by GOP failures among other groups. 

“Rather than a repudiation of cultural conservatism,” concludes Green, “this was an election in which cultural conservatives did everything they could, but the party fell short.”

In the long run, social conservatives will have serious trouble exerting influence unless they are allied with rising ethnic populations, which tend toward conservative social views. But social conservatives are now in a toxic alliance with political forces — the wall-builders and advocates of self-deportation — that are alienating rising ethnic populations.

THE GOP

Anne Applebaum argues that British conservatives could teach a thing or two to the GOP.  Among other issues she addressed she raised the failure of the GOP to reach out to Hispanics.  McCain gets a lot of criticism, but when the GOP rejected his reforms, it began to dig a hole for themselves in the 2012 election.

If Republican leaders really want to appeal to Hispanic voters, for example, they don't need clever Spanish-language marketing or better slogans. Nor do they need to steal political positions from across the aisle. Instead, they could resurrect the only sensible comprehensive immigration reform bill not passed into law—a bill largely written by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 was a grand compromise: It attempted to win support from immigrants' rights groups, which tend to be on the left of the political spectrum, and business leaders who employ immigrants, who tend to be on the right. It would have created not only a sensible path to citizenship for illegal immigrants but also a "guest worker" status for people who want to work for short periods, and it would have enhanced border security. The Bush White House supported the bill, which was defeated largely by congressional Republicans.

ADMIRAL PLOTTING

Recently Admiral Charles M. Gaouette was recalled from deployment with the Persian Gulf Fleet.  According to some reports from Iran and Israel, he was involved in a coup to overthrow Obama.  But a coup from the Persian Gulf?????

"The decision was made based on a conversation with the Secretary of Defense who, at the end of the talk, believed Gaouette was part of a group of military officers who have been under suspicion for planning a 'Seven Days in May' type overthrow of the US government if President Obama is re-elected," columnist Gordon Duff wrote.

"This is not conjecture," he insisted. "[D]ozens of key officers face firing, hundreds are under investigation, all with direct ties to extremist elements in the Republican Party and the Israeli lobby."

ABC News reports that there were questions of leadership judgment.

There is quite a list of officers being questioned for a variety of questionable behaviors. 

MORMON REPORTER ON THE ROMNEY BUS

From Buzzfeed.   It is sad to see liberals who are so disgusted by certain jokes or comments about some groups do not seem to have that sensitivity when it comes to religion.

GLOBAL WARMING

This article in the Daily Mail says it stopped 16 years ago.

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued  quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported. 

This stands in sharp contrast  to the release of the previous  figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year. 

Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.

SAUDIS & IRAN

The Middle East gets even more interesting. Saudis tell the UN that Iranian helicopters and boats are intruding in its air and sea space. 

THE WELFARE STATE

Robert Samuelson challenges the viability of the increasing costs to support America's welfare state.  And some programs like social security have "strayed from their original purpose."  The future will be interesting. There is a point where there will not be enough people paying taxes to support the welfare state.

If you doubt there’s an American welfare state, you should read the new study by demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, whose blizzard of numbers demonstrates otherwise. A welfare state transfers income from some people to other people to improve the recipients’ well-being. In 1935, these transfers were less than 3 percent of the economy; now they’re almost 20 percent. That’s $7,200 a year for every American, calculates Eberstadt. He says that nearly 40 percent of these transfers aim to relieve poverty (through Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance and the like), while most of the rest goes to the elderly (mainly through Social Security and Medicare).

RUSSIAN HISTORY

A crash course!

INVADING MALI?

Radical Islamists have taken over northern Mali and now there is talk of US and European intervention.  

The harshest form of Islamic law in the world is now being imposed at gunpoint. Ancient tombs and shrines are being bulldozed for the exact same reason the Buddha statues were destroyed in Afghanistan. And the place has turned into a rat’s nest of the who’s-who of terrorist organizations operating in North Africa. 

This time around, we aren’t waiting for a devastating attack against an American city to do something about it, and not only because Al Qaeda is already a clearly identified enemy of the United States. Northern Mali may already be the return address for an attack against the United States. Some of the leaders of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, which was presumably behind the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, are believed to be based there.

There are war plans that seem to involve the US.

2012 ELECTION: HOW VOTES ARE SHIFTING

An interesting graphic from the Washington Post.  The Republican Party is not necessarily dead--it just has to do a better job of taking advantage of changing voting patterns and interests.

From the New York Times.   The chart goes back to 1972 to show how votes have shifted in presidential elections.

THE MOST PERSECUTED RELIGION IN THE WORLD

It is Christianity according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  Her viewpoint is interesting because I don't see her as particularly devout.  But she evidently believes that German foreign policy should try to protect Christians around the world.  I wonder how the Obama administration  and State Department view Christian persecution?  Somehow I don't think Washington takes Christian persecution seriously.

Romney may lose, but his ads have been far superior to those of past Republican candidates.  Love vs. Revenge.

 

 

OLIVER STONE'S REVISIONIST HISTORY

Two years ago, Oliver Stone announced that he was preparing to make a documentary about recent American history. It premieres on the CBS-owned cable network Showtime on November 12.

Titled Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, it is written by Stone and historian Peter Kuznick and narrated and directed by Stone. The series reflects the view Stone expressed in 2010 that the Soviet Union’s leader in the 1930s and ’40s, Joseph Stalin, has “been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” so what is needed is a program allowing viewers to walk in both his and Hitler’s shoes “to understand their point of view.”

This story caught my eye because it would appear Stone is promoting Stalin, the greatest genocidal killer in history, into a "good" person that America could have worked with.  The Cold War would never have happened, according to this argument, if President Truman had listened to the advice of American communists and their sympathizers.  Stone is just rehashing the history of a WW II era American communist to create his narrative which makes President Truman the bad guy.  I just don't think America would be a better place from listening to the advice of Soviet agents.

SAUDIS BULLDOZING MUSLIM HERITAGE

From the London Telegraph.  I am sure this won't get much coverage because of the power and influence of the Saud family.

In Mecca, the house of one of Mohammed’s wives has been demolished to make space for public lavatories. His birthplace may disappear, too, as part of King Abdullah’s scheme to complement the skyscrapers and shopping malls with a Grand Mosque fashioned from the same materials as a multi-storey car park in Wolverhampton.

As for Islam’s second holiest place, the city of Medina, a recent article by Jerome Taylor in the Independent revealed a megalomaniac plan to pull down three 7th-century mosques. Taylor added: “Ten years ago, a mosque which belonged to the Prophet’s grandson was dynamited. Pictures of the demolition that were secretly taken and smuggled out of the kingdom showed the religious police celebrating.”

And there is more happening.

But what sticks in the craw is the hypocrisy of Muslims who throw a fit if Israeli archaeologists carry out non-intrusive work underneath the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, “Islam’s third holiest place”, as we’re constantly reminded. Such anger would be more convincing if the first and second holy sites weren’t being ploughed up by a police state. Likewise, are cartoons of Mohammed really more offensive than reducing the remains of his life to rubble?

BILL MAHER WARNS WHITE PEOPLE

Bill Maher on Real Time (HBO):  "If you're thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you."

CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN OBAMACARE

The health-care bureaucrats are rushing to create the structure for Obamacare by the 2014 deadline.  There is the issue that some of the private contractors may not be vetted appropriately.  And the Security Exchange Commission has not been informed as it should have been.  So is there some under-handed wheeling and dealing taking place?

MEDIA COVERAGE OF OBAMA & ROMNEY

A Pew survey: "MSNBC’s coverage of Romney more negative than Fox’s of Obama."

Politico's view.

RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT HATES OBAMA

Alla Axelrod is not too happy with Obama!  But I don't think losing the Russian immigrant vote will really matter much in the end.

DECLINE AND FALL OF WESTERN CULTURE

One picture shows it all!

JEWISH SUPPORT OF OBAMA

Prominent Jews like New York City Mayor Ed Koch and Harvard law professor Allen Dershowitz have been very critical of Obama yet now they are supporting his reelection.  Why?

There’s a place for voters for whom strong support of Israel is the key issue—and that’s the Republican Party. But Israel’s security has long depended on backing from both parties. Without it, the Jewish state will rapidly become a partisan issue, and Israel will invariably pay the price. At a moment when Israel needs strong U.S. support, Koch, Dershowitz, and Saban are looking to postpone that day of reckoning.

We will see if this pragmatism pays off if Obama is reelected.  But the bottom line is that even Obama's Jewish supporters realize that the Democrat Party is going to dump them some day.

MORE ON BENGHAZI

From RealClearPolitics.  "The cover-up is worse than a third string burglary."  The scandal is compared to Watergate when Nixon tried to hide that scandal--this is a pretty stiff charge.

This cover-up, like that in Watergate, goes right to the top. What's being covered up is much worse than a "third rate burglary." Why was security so lax? Why were the ambassador's pleas for more turned down? Why did the president lie? Americans have a right to know. Few in the media have tried to find out.

Appeals to their integrity are unlikely to get "mainstream" journalists to do their jobs, since they have so little of it. Self preservation may. The leaked emails expose journalists who touted the administration's story as gullible chumps, corrupt shills, or both.

Spooks and diplomats are angry at the attempt to make them scapegoats; furious that the president didn't lift a finger to help their comrades in the consulate during the seven-hour siege. More leaks may be on the way. If they fail to follow up, journalists could lose more credibility than the president. They haven't much credibility left to lose.

More on a coverup.  Obama refused to give permission to help the Benghazi diplomats even when Hillary requested it--an interview with author Ed Klein.  

Background on what Ambassador Stevens was doing.  The Libya to Syria weapons pipeline was involved.

From WAPO.  What was the NSC doing? The President had some kind of briefing on 9/10?

DEMOCRAT CAMPAIGN AD

From MoveOn.org.  Find it here.

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION AROUND THE WORLD

From the London Telegraph. Don't see this issue covered much in the secular media.

Imagine the unspeakable fury that would erupt across the Islamic world if a Christian-led government in Khartoum had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese Muslims over the past 30 years. Or if Christian gunmen were firebombing mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers. Or if Muslim girls in Indonesia had been abducted and beheaded on their way to school, because of their faith. 

Such horrors are barely thinkable, of course. But they have all occurred in reverse, with Christians falling victim to Islamist aggression. Only two days ago, a suicide bomber crashed a jeep laden with explosives into a packed Catholic church in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 100. The tragedy bore the imprint of numerous similar attacks by Boko Haram (which roughly translates as “Western education is sinful”), an exceptionally bloodthirsty militant group. 

Abu Hamza, the 7/7 ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan and other totemic figures were allowed to practise their religion openly in Britain, yet there is scarcely a single country from Morocco to Pakistan in which Christians are fully free to worship without restriction. Muslims who convert to Christianity or other faiths in most of these societies face harsh penalties. There is now a high risk that the Churches will all but vanish from their biblical heartlands in the Middle East.

OLIVER STONE'S DISENCHANTED VIEW OF OBAMA

Oliver Stone, a liberal, tears into Obama in his new book.  Stone attacks Obama on his lack of Wall Street reform; health care; Afghanistan; civil liberties; imperialism; and defense spending.

DRONE STRIKES

Slate has an interactive map showing the drone strikes in Pakistan from the Bush years into the Obama presidency.  It shows how Obama stepped up the attacks significantly.

THE OLD AMERICAN CHARACTER HAS DISAPPEARED

George Will's recent column "Mugging Our Descendants" is quite sobering.  What are the consequences of piling up the public debt?  His column is baased on the work of Nicholoas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute.  Some of the statistics he gives are:
 
1.  Between 1960 and 2010, entitlements exploded from 28 percent to 66 percent of federal spending. By 2010, more than 34 percent of households were receiving means-tested benefits.
 
2.  “he growth of entitlement spending over the past half-century has been distinctly greater under Republican administrations than Democratic ones.
 
3.  Today, 27 percent of adult men do not consider themselves part of the workforce: “A large part of the jobs problem for American men today is not wanting one.” Which is why “labor force participation ratios for men in the prime of life are lower in America than in Europe.”
 
4.  In 1960, an average of 455,000 workers were receiving disability payments; in 2011, 8.6 million. Nearly half of the 8.6 million were “disabled” because of “mood disorders” or ailments of the “musculoskeletal system and the connective tissue.” It is, says Eberstadt, essentially impossible to disprove a person’s claim to be suffering from sad feelings or back pain.
 
5.  “In 1960,” Eberstadt says, “roughly 134 Americans were engaged in gainful employment for every officially disabled worker; by December 2010 there were just over 16.”
 
6.  For every 100 industrial workers in December 2010, there were 73 “workers” receiving disability payments.

CONTRACEPTION CONTROVERSY

From National Review.  “The Obama administration has mandated that religious employers must pay for abortion-inducing drugs,” is the simple and direct message that Conscience Cause is trying to get across in Senate races across the country, via voter guides released this week. In the below interview with National Review Online, Christen Varley, executive director of the effort explains what they’re up to.

OBAMA SUPPORTERS INTERVIEWED

The drone issue is a serious one.  Here is Andrew McCarthy at National Review analyzing the issue of "Drones and Liberals."

CIA NEWS RELEASE ON BENGHAZI SANDBAGGING WHITE HOUSE?

"Petraeus Throws Obama Uncer the Bus."   No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.  Who else is Obama going to blame for this?

Is there a paper trail on any Obama order to help them?  A former defense official says there should be so all Obama or someone needs to do is produce it.

Headline: "US Security Forces Would Not Have Been Painting Targets on Ground Unless There Was Air Support Overhead – But White House Called It Off."  Don't know if this is right-wing sensationalism or not.  If this is true, it is very serious. Someone in the White House may have prevented US fonces from returning

ADMINISTRATIVE BLOAT IN EDUCATION

My problem with politicians on the education issue is that they are always saying we need more money for teachers.  However, money never seems to improve public education.  A big reason is that it is not spent on teachers, but on administration.

Between 1950 and 2009, the number of K-12 public school students increased by 96 percent. During that same period, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew by 386 percent. Of those personnel, the number of teachers increased by 252 percent, while the ranks of administrators and other staff grew by 702 percent—more than 7 times the increase in students.  From the Thomas Fordham Institute study.

PAGLIA ATTACKS OBAMA

Camilla Paglia, a noted feminist and liberal, explains why she won't be voting for Obama a second time.  She calls Obamacare a "Stalinist intrusion"  and Obama "one of the most racially divisive and polarizing figures ever. I think it's going to take years to undo the damage to relationships between the races." And she goes on to attack the role of the IRS and the "culture of surveillance."

SCIENCE PLAYING GOD

What are the implications of geoengineering?  And should scientists be held responsible for their failures?

How serious is the threat of global warming? One way to figure out is to take your cues from some leading climate scientists: They have moved on. That doesn't mean they've abandoned the issue, but they are looking beyond what all agree is the most obvious solution -- decreasing the amount of carbon we spew into the atmosphere in the first place.

These scientists are beginning to look for a Plan B. There are two distinct approaches under consideration -- sucking carbon out of the atmosphere, or creating an artificial sun shield for the planet. The former, which involves reversing some of the very processes that are leading to the climate problem, is expensive. The latter just sounds scary. David Keith, a leading thinker on geoengineering, calls it "chemotherapy" for the planet. "You are repulsed?" he says. "Good. No one should like it. It's a terrible option." 

SENATOR MCGOVERN'S DEATH

What caught my eye in this column was the following:  When he learned as a Connecticut innkeeper how government regulators conspire to thwart a businessman’s thrift and industry, he ruefully conceded in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that if he had known first-hand about the difficulties the government imposes, “that knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender.”

BOEING CREATES NEW MISSILE

An EMP Missile.  This missile will change warfare.  Scientists at U.S. military giant Boeing have successfully developed a missile that takes out the electrical workings of multiple targets, without causing any collateral damage.

GREECE DISINTEGRATES

Fascists may be taking over in Greece--blog post by Alan Johnson.

Quotes Paul Mason at the BBC:  Last month, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, warned Europe that his country was on the edge of a Weimar Germany-style social collapse. What I have seen on the streets of Athens convinces me this is not rhetoric. There is a violent far-right party, its MPs committing and inciting violence with impunity; a police force that cannot or will not prevent Golden Dawn from projecting uniformed force on the streets. And a middle class that feels increasingly powerless to turn the situation round.

In addition:  The neo-fascist party Golden Dawn won 6 to 7 percent of the vote in the Greek elections of May and June 2012 and is polling at twice that today, as anger rises against the economic austerity measures of the coalition government of Conservatives, Socialists and the Democratic Left.

Increasing lawlessness may be on the horizon.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

A disgruntled aide has written a "tell-all" book.  "Egomaniacal autocrat" -- wow!  Obama and Biden "financially illiterate."

FETHULLAH GULEN

Controversial Muslim preacher, feared Turkish intriguer—and “inspirer” of the largest charter school network in America.  Is Islamic proselytizing subtely taking place?  And they are flying politicians to Turkey.  And reporters are raising other questions about what exactly is going on with this group.

OBAMA & PUTIN ADS

Losing your virginity is like voting for Obama.  Maybe there is a reason Putin has endorsed Obama!  Obama has copied a Putin campaign ad!

A Romney take-off on this Obama ad has come out.  But evidently it was first used in an Australian political campaign.

WAR ON WOMEN

Condi Rice criticizes the Obama campaign slogan accusing Romney of a "war on women."

CAMPAIGN CONTRASTS

Pictures don't appear on front pages by chance.  I don't know if this heralds a change in media coverage of how the candidates are presented, but it is not flattering to Obama.

CNN RETRACTS STORY ON WOMEN

Interesting.  The story was about how hormones influence women voters.  Maybe it made them sound too much like Todd Akin???  Or it didn't fit the Democrat spin on why women in polls seem to have favored Obama????

THE MEDIA AND BENGHAZI

A critique of media coverage in the The Telegraph.  Delingpole calls the media an "amen corner" for the Obama administration to describe how they evaluated and reported the events that took place.

DID OBAMA LISTEN TO THE BAD ADVICE OF ECONOMISTS?

From RealClearMarkets.  Does fault lie with the economists who gave Obama advice or with Obama for listening to them? And Paul Krugman faulted Obama for not spending even more to bring the economy back.

If President Obama loses the election in November, economists may well end up taking a share of the blame - for good reason. Their models misled him into applying ambitious stimulus therapies to jump start the economy and boost employment that haven't worked, vastly undermining his re-election prospects.

Back in January 2009, a now infamous study coauthored by Christina Romer, the future chair of the President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, and Jared Bernstein, the future chief economist for the Vice President, predicted that an $800 billion economic stimulus targeted toward boosting consumer demand would stave off a severe recession and hold unemployment below 8 percent by the end of 2009.

What was so compelling about their study was the illusion of precision. The Obama administration used their statistical analysis to aggressively promote specific policy proposals, including the package of tax cuts and discretionary federal spending embodied in the so-called stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

But little of what they predicted has panned out.

Read the whole article.

HIGHER EDUCATION MOVES FURTHER TO THE LEFT

Academics have always leaned to the left, but now the tilt is even more that way according to a UCLA survey.

Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as "far left" or liberal has increased notably in the last three years, while the percentage identifying in three other political categories has declined.

In looking at the new data, there is notable variation by sector. Private research universities are the most left-leaning, with 16.2 percent of faculty members identifying as far left, and 0.1 percent as far right. (If one combines far left and liberal, however, private, four-year, non-religious colleges top private universities, 68.6 percent to 67.7 percent.) The largest conservative contingent can be found at religious, non-Roman Catholic four-year colleges, where 23.0 percent identify as conservative and another 0.6 percent say that they are far right.

MALI: THE NEW SYRIA?

France is sending in drones to battle radical Islamists. 

Mali was first destabilized thanks to NATO’s intervention in Libya, which sent weapons and fighters streaming into the northern deserts, where they found little opposition from the government. Other Islamist fighters from the Middle East soon came flocking in to this sandy patch of ungoverned territory. Their ranks are reportedly bolstered by thousands of local child soldiers.

So NATO's intervention in Libya may have led to this terrible situation for Mali. And in addition, the Obama administration has waived sanctions on the international agreement intended to stop the use of child soldiers.  But for the third year in a row, Obama has waived almost all U.S. sanctions that would punish certain countries that use child soldiers, upsetting many in the human rights community

BENGAZHI ATTACK

From Reuters.  It looks like the information was available within two hours that the attack was a terrorist attack. . .so why was the White House and State Department blaming a film maker for making a video uncomplimentary to Islam for almost two weeks?

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.

And it would also appear that this information was not passed on to Congress in the briefings that followed.

More.  "5 Lessons of Benghazi" 

Were, and are, American arms being used to support radical Islamists? The evidence suggests that the Obama administration has not simply been engaging, legitimating, enriching and emboldening Islamists who have taken over or are ascendant in much of the Middle East. Starting in March 2011, when American diplomat J. Christopher Stevens was designated the liaison to the “opposition” in Libya, the Obama administration has been arming them, including jihadists like Abdelhakim Belhadj, leader of the al Qaeda franchise known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

THE OBAMA PLAN FOR HIS SECOND TERM

Links to Obama's platform for the next 4 years.  It is published 2 weeks before the election.

2012 PRESIDENTIAL FOREIGN POLICY DEBATE

Jennifer Rubin's 10 point analysis.  Neither candidate shone, but Obama seems to have made more mistatements.

Point 10:  After all the talk in the primaries of Romney gaffes and misstatements (which continued into this August), Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) went through four debates, six hours total, with no noteworthy gaffe or mistake. (The closest was the missed opportunity on Libya in the second debate.) After each of the debates, the Obama team had more “cleanup” to do than the Romney camp.

CHRIS CHRISTIE

Chris Christie may be accused of ranting, but he is a great speaker and knows how to reach an audience.

EUTHANASIA IN THE NETHERLANDS

A story of a woman who took her life because she was suffering from an incurable disease.

Joel Kotkin:  Interesting thesis.  Obama and Democrats are appealing to singles, including single mothers.  Eventually this Democrat power base will collapse because they are not having children. 

And even as the president has slipped in the polls, the fast-growing Single Nation has stayed behind him. Unmarried women prefer Obama by nearly 20 points (56 to 39 percent), according to Gallup, while those who are married prefer Romney by a similarly large margin.
 

Unmarried women (along with ethnic minorities, the poor and the workers in the public bureaucracy) are rapidly becoming a core constituency of the Democratic party, in a sense replacing the ethnic white working class.

But the Single Nation’s grip on power may not be sustainable for more than a generation. After all they, by definition, will have no heirs. This, notes author Eric Kauffman, hands the long-term advantage to generally more conservative family-oriented households, who often have two or more offspring. Birth rates among such conservative populations such as Mormons and evangelical Christians tend to be twice as high than those of the nonreligious.
 

As a result, Kauffman predicts that inevitably “the religious will inherit the earth” and ensure that conservative, more familial-oriented values inevitably prevail. Even among generally liberal groups like Jews, the orthodox and affiliated are vastly out-birthing their secular counterparts; by some estimates roughly two in five New York Jews is orthodox, including three quarters of the city’s Jewish children. If these trends continue, politics even in the progressive nirvana of Gotham may be pulled somewhat to the right.

EGYPT WANTS NUKES

An Egyptian poll show people want government to turn to Iran to get a nuclear weapons. Obviously this puts Israel into an increasingly dangerous situation. 

A poll of Egyptians conducted last month shows that they have increasingly positive views of Iran, believe that both Iran and Egypt should obtain nuclear weapons, and still trust their own military more than any other institution in Egypt.

Iran's deputy defense minister said recently that the Iranian regime is seeking more military cooperation with Egypt. "We are ready to help Egypt to build nuclear reactors and satellites," he said on the occasion or Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy's meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month. Morsy's office has said the two didn't discuss military cooperation.

NAZI PERSECUTION OF DISABLED IN AUSTRIA

Graves have been exhumed showing evidence of the physical and mentally disabled being tormented in final days or months of their lives.

Historians, anthropologists, physicians and archaeologists say the Hall project represents the first time that investigators can match hospital records with remains, allowing them to identify, for example, cases in which patients had broken ribs, noses and collarbones that were not listed in their medical histories, suggesting that the patients had been beaten by those responsible for their care.

MIDEAST POLICY A MESS

Rosa Brooks, who served in both the Departments of State and defense during the Obama administration, is quite critical of Obama administration policies and uses the word "dysfunctional" to describe it.

Despite some successes large and small, Obama's foreign policy has disappointed many who initially supported him. The Middle East initiatives heralded in his 2009 Cairo speech fizzled or never got started at all, and the Middle East today is more volatile than ever. The administration's response to the escalating violence in Syria has consisted mostly of anxious thumb-twiddling. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both furious at us. In Afghanistan, Obama lost faith in his own strategy: he never fought to fully resource it, and now we're searching for a way to leave without condemning the Afghans to endless civil war. In Pakistan, years of throwing money in the military's direction have bought little cooperation and less love.

Here is what she suggests:

1. Get a strategy.
2. Get some decent managers.
3. Get people who actually know something.
4. Get out of the bubble.
5. Get a backbone

OBAMA'S SECOND TERM AGENDA

After watching 2 debates I have been wondering what would Obama do?  Romney, for better or worse, has some specific proposals out there.  Maybe Obama was burned by his failed promises of 2008.  Time's Mark Halperin also weighed on this issue.

After doing an internet search, I have found a number of other commentators and writers who are also wondering what he would do.  For example:

Kimberley A. Strassel 

The National Journal 

Politico has some speculation on what he might do.


Megan Mcardle.  I suspect that Obama's advisors knew all this months ago, and just figured it was too difficult to come up with a second term agenda that was both plausible and novel.  Of course, it'll be even harder now.  So Obama had better nail it in tonight's town hall

OBAMACARE'S IMPACT ON MEDICARE

The Heritage Foundation documents how Obamacare raids Medicare to pay for other new programs.  There is a problem waiting to happen.  Stay healthy if you are over 65.

The money is cut from hospital services, Medicare Advantage, skilled nursing services, hospice services, and other Medicare services. To be clear, the cuts do not target individual institutions or medical organizations suspected of waste, fraud, or abuse.

Further, seniors will face greater barriers when attempting to access care. The Medicare actuary projects that over the next 10 years, Medicare Part A providers (i.e., hospitals and nursing homes) may stop accepting Medicare patients or 15 percent of them will become unprofitable due to the severe Obamacare cuts. If Obamacare remains on the books, the number of providers becoming unprofitable will reach 40 percent by 2050. A doubling of Medicare patients with a major reduction in the number of providers will guarantee access problems for senior citizens.

SOURCES USED BY THE MEDIA

The Hill discusses the issue of how the media selects professors who are Obama supporters to get quotes and information for their election news coverage.

At least a half-dozen professors who gave political donations to President Obama have been quoted in news articles opining about his administration and the 2012 race for the White House.

The findings of The Hill’s months-long investigation come as Republicans have been crying foul, alleging a media bias for Obama and against Mitt Romney.

SYRIA: OBAMA DEBACLE

Jackson Diehl feels Obama's decisions on Syria are far worse than what happened in Libya.

The result is not a painful but isolated setback, but an emerging strategic disaster: a war in the heart of the Middle East that is steadily spilling over to vital U.S. allies, such as Turkey and Jordan, and to volatile neighbors, such as Iraq and Lebanon. Al-Qaeda is far more active in Syria than it is in Libya — while more liberal and secular forces are turning against the United States because of its failure to help them. More than 30,000 people — most of them civilians — have been killed, and the toll mounts by the hundreds every day.

Of course, Obama is not solely responsible for this mess. But his serial miscalculations have had the consistent if unintended effect of enabling Syria’s Bashar al-Assad — first to avoid international isolation, then to go on slaughtering his own population with impunity.

Obama’s Syria policy began in 2009 with the misguided idea of reaching out to the dictator. Within a month of his inauguration, Obama reversed the Bush administration’s approach of isolating Assad. He later reopened the U.S. Embassy and dispatched senior envoys, such as George Mitchell.

The problem with this policy was not just the distasteful courting of a rogue regime but the willful disregard of the lessons absorbed by George W. Bush, who also tried reaching out to Assad, only to learn the hard way that he was an irredeemable thug. Yet Obama insisted on reversing Bush’s policy of distancing the United States from strongmen like Assad and Hosni Mubarak — a monumental miscalculation.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT SCAM?

A column questioning AP courses for high school students.

Interestingly, the evidence providing the clearest positive argument for AP participation is that high performance in AP courses correlates with better college grades and higher graduation rates, especially in science courses. But that's faint praise. It's the same as saying that students who do best in high school will do better in college and are more likely to graduate. 

My beef with AP courses isn't novel. The program has a bountiful supply of critics, many of them in the popular press (see here and here), and many increasingly coming from academia as well (see here). The criticisms comport, in every particular, with my own experience of having taught an AP American Government and Politics course for ten years.

RUSSIA'S GROWING INTEREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The news that Iraq was planning to buy Czech planes for its air force caught my eye.  Iraq will spend $1  billion helping the Czech economy.  But what caught my eye was the  note that Iraq is now looking to forge military ties with other allies and nations, including Russia.

Iraq is also interested in purchasing Russian military equipment.  Now Iraq, in addition to Syria and Iran, is interested in dealing with the Russians. 

REDISTRIBUTION RECESSION

A recent book by Casey B. Mulligan (University of Chicago, Department of Economics)  which argues that in helping people incentives to work have been undermined.  There are no longer the same incentives to work.

The social safety net became more generous under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and as a result massively altered employment patterns in the labor market.

The New York Times has a bio of the author.

OBAMA'S WEDDING RING

Not sure anything is settled on what is inscribed on Obama's wedding ring, but the different views are intriguing.

NUKES & THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Some recent documents on how near Cuba came to getting nuclear weapons has surfaced.

Cuba would have become the first nuclear power in Latin America 50 years ago, if not for the dynamics captured in this remarkable verbatim transcript -- published here for the first time -- of Fidel Castro's excruciating meeting with Soviet deputy prime minister Anastas Mikoyan, on November 22, 1962. The document comes from the personal archive of his son, the late Sergo Mikoyan, which was donated to the National Security Archive and which appears for the first time in English this month in the new book, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis.

OBAMA'S CHILDHOOD

A summary of a Frontline story which interviewed a high school of President Obama.

This week, PBS’s “Frontline” published the transcript from a June 27, 2012 interview with Kristen Caldwell, a woman who grew up with President Barack Obama and attended the Punahou School with him in Honolulu, Hawaii. Among other claims, she told PBS that, as a young child, Obama told his classmates that he was Kenyan royalty or an Indonesian prince — fascinating claims that she discussed in great detail.