BEHEADING IN SAUDI ARABIA

A Sri Lankan woman guest-worker was beheaded in Saudi Arabia.  There seem to be questions about the legal process leading to the beheading.

Rizana Nafeek arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2005 and spent her first few weeks in Saudi Arabia working as a housemaid to earn money to support her relatives back home who had been displaced by the massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean the year before.

She then spent the next seven years in Saudi jails as she was accused, charged, convicted and sentenced to death in the killing of her employers' 4-month-old son. Authorities executed her Wednesday in Dawadmi, about 200 kilometers west of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

MILLIONAIRES IN CONGRESS

BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY IN BAHRAIN

From the Atlantic.  The Obama administration is ignoring the use of torture and other injustices in Bahrain.

Since Bahrainis first took to the streets on February 14, 2011 to demand revision of the constitution and a transition to democracy, the United States has faced an acute and painful instance of the classic tension between security interests and moral concerns.

Geopolitics trumps human rights.

OBAMA FOREIGN POLICY

An analysis of Obama foreign policy decision-making from Henry Nau, "Obama Puts the World at Risk."

The major differences in foreign policy between Obama and the loyal opposition boil down to one word—leadership. Leadership offers vision, connects means and ends, and rises above politics. Obama has demonstrated no capacity to do any of those things, either in Congress or in the world community. The optimistic view is that he will do so now because he no longer faces reelection. But that seems unlikely. If you have won two elections as a state senator, one as a U.S. senator, and two as president, and you still have no significant accomplishments to show for it, it’s doubtful that your leadership skills will suddenly emerge in what is presumably your last four years in office.

"THE INTERNATIONAL ELITE BUBBLE"

I think Michael Totten is the greatest reporter of my life time with regard to getting the facts and reporting what is really happening in the Middle East.  He just doesn't fly for a few days stay to get the "facts" and he doesn't hang around bars talking to other westerners and the "elites" of a country.

Totten's essay is responding to a comment made by Robert D. Kaplan in the WSJ.

Western elites believe that universal values are trumping the forces of reaction. They wax eloquent about the triumph of human rights, women's liberation, social media, financial markets, international and regional organizations and all the other forces that are breaking down boundaries separating humanity.

Tragically, they are really observing a self-referential world of global cosmopolitans like themselves. In country after country, the Westerners identify like-minded, educated elites and mistake them for the population at large. They prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces—such as nationalism and sectarianism—that are mightily reshaping the future.

HURRICANE SANDY vs. HURRICANE KATRINA RESPONSE

From Mona Charen at the National Review.  It was clear that the press reacted differently to the problems of FEMA's response in the two different disasters. FEMA's response was slower in several instances when it responded to the Sandy disaster, but this never became a major issue on the nightly news. It seemed as if they didn't learn from Katrina.

Six days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, President Bush’s presidency had been declared a failure and a disgrace. It was all FEMA’s fault, we were given to understand, and, by extension, Bush’s fault. It wasn’t the incompetence of local and state officials, or the levee collapse (a failure, by the way, that impartial observers lay at the feet of another government agency going back years, the Army Corps of Engineers). No, within a few days of the storm’s impact, Bush was an enemy of the people.

Six days after Sandy hit the East Coast, most of the press had utterly lost interest in the human toll, though thousands of people went without food, water, gasoline, or electricity for the better part of two weeks. The Washington Times reported two weeks after Sandy, “Bodies are still being recovered in Staten Island. Chaos reigns in the streets of the outer boroughs. Residents have taken up arms — baseball bats, machetes, shotguns — as crime and looting soar.”

"LIMOUSINE LIBERALS"

An article by Victor Davis Hanson on the left as a special interest group that is living at a much higher standard than the rest of us.  They are using government (and the votes of the uninformed) to enjoy the good life.  They are skipping taxes and using government perks to feather their own nests.  It is ironic that the likes of Warren Buffett and Al Gore took advantage of 2012 tax laws to complete deals so they could avoid taxes that would hit them in 2013. 

Former Obama OMB director and liberal Peter Orszag went on to a multimillion-dollar gig at Citigroup. He now writes warnings about the uncontrollable debt that he helped accumulate; would that he would sermonize about the incestuous revolving door that Obama pledged to end. Did he learn anything from Franklin Raines, James Johnson, and Jamie Gorelick, who occupied top spots at Fannie Mae in the Carter and Clinton administrations and who all walked away with millions while the federal mortgage-insurance corporation went insolvent? The problem is not just that none of the three did anything to ensure Fannie Mae’s viability, or at least to justify the millions that they took out, but also that none of them had a reputable record of banking expertise to justify their being hired in the first place.

Here is a case of a media figure, David Gregory, getting a break that other people might not get.

What’s important is that the connection reinforces public perception, as Emily Miller put it, of one law for “the rich and powerful and one for everyone else.”

LEFT ADVOCATES USE OF VIOLENCE IN RHETORIC

What is interesting in the anti-gun controversy of recent weeks is how often the left is using eliminationist rhetoric to "destroy" their opponents with the same kind of violence they are supposedly fighting against. 

Well, this is interesting on CNN.  Anti-gun advocates want to “pop” an NRA advocate with a semi-automatic

Here is a quote from the leader of the Chicago teacher’sunion—sounds like shades of the Bolshevik revolution:  “We are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very reminiscent of the robber baron ages,” she said. “The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just ready. They were like, ‘off with their heads.’ They were seriously talking about that.”

FACT-CHECKERS NOT NECESSARILY UNBIASED

Fact-checkers are used to presumably make sure candidates are telling the truth, but what if fact-checkers are really not looking at the issues through unbiased eyes? This article examines the accuracy of what the fact-checkers were reporting.

The article concludes: 

At the end of November, Politico published an article about how progressive journalists, now that Obama was safely elected, were beginning to consider criticizing the president a bit more. “He was the champion of our side, he vanquished the foe,” New Yorker political columnist Hendrik Hertzberg said. “[But] now liberals don’t have to worry about hurting his chances for re-election, so they can be tougher in urging him to do what he should be doing.”

It was a remarkable admission of what many have long suspected: Portions of the press are in the tank for Democrats. Now that’s a fact worth checking.

H.J.RESOLUTION 15

A congressman has introduced a bill to repeal the 22nd Amendment limiting a president to two terms.  I don't see any co-sponsors at this point.  Even if it is an attempt to allow Obama to run again in 2016, it normally takes more than 3 years to get an amendment passed through enough state legislatures (and with no co-sponsors I am not sure it will even get out of the House).

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD SERVING IN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

From the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The article has a link to the Egyptian source.  

An Egyptian magazine claims that six American Islamist activists who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy.

The Dec. 22 story published in Egypt's Rose El-Youssef magazine (read an IPT translation here) suggests the six turned the White House "from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood."

TODAY'S COLLEGE STUDENTS

Recent studies do not print a pretty picture of the values of today's college students--9 million students have taken the survey over the last 47 years so it must reflect a "reasonably" accurate assessment.  Students see themselves as above average, but this isn't reflected in test scores and writing ability compared to past decades.

However, one in four recent students responded to a questionnaire called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory with results pointing towards narcissistic self-assessments.  Narcissism is defined as excessive self-love or vanity; self-admiration, or being self-centered.

Twenge said that's a trait that is often negative and destructive, and blames its boom on several trends - including parenting styles, celebrity culture, social media, and easy credit - for allowing people to seem more successful than they really are.

"BUILDING BRUSSELS ON THE POTAMAC"

From the Economist.  Both European and American leaders have failed.

1. All politicians are doing is to "patch" things up and not really move toward solutions.
2. Narrow interest groups are preventing solutions.
3. Politicians have failed to be honest with voters.

The saddest thing about this week’s deal is how unaware Messrs Obama and Boehner seem to be of the wider damage their petty partisanship is doing to their country. National security is not just about the number of tanks or rockets you have. As it has failed to deal with the single currency, Europe’s standing has crumbled in the world. Why should developing countries trust American leadership, when it seems incapable of solving anything at home? And while the West’s foremost democracy stays paralysed, China is making decisions and forging ahead.

LACK OF HONESTY IN FISCAL CLIFF COMPROMISE

From the Wall Street Journal.  The debate on tax rates is above most people's level of financial expertise. 

The revival of two dormant provisions of the tax code means the much ballyhooed $450,000 income threshold for the highest tax rate is largely fake.

After a discussion of the statistics, here is the writer's conclusion:

Mr. Obama purports this is merely "a return to the Clinton-era tax rates." But capital-gains rates will be about three to five percentage points higher than in the 1990s, the Medicare tax is higher, and his stealth tax will raise personal rates higher than advertised. Forget the golden Clinton memories. Mr. Obama is pushing the U.S. back to the Carter era.

A CALL FOR OBAMA TO ACT: IGNORE THE CONSTITUTION

Eric Posner calls on the President to act in the debt crisis without involving Congress and tries to build a legal case for Obama to do this. 

So in the face of contradictory orders from Congress, President Obama should do what he believes is in the public interest. And if the House refuses to raise the debt ceiling, this surely means some combination of cutting spending, borrowing beyond the debt limit, and perhaps even searching out new sources of revenue.

Will this move us to an imperial presidency and the end of the balance of powers established by the Constitution?

Our Obsolete Constitution!  From the Hoover Institution. 

Our modern constitutional system seems to be weighed down by non-stop political crises, from entitlement reform to labor relations. With each new crisis comes a short-term fix. Over time, these fixes will only exacerbate the nation’s long-term problem of living beyond its means—for now, short-term interest rates remain low enough to fund the nation’s tidal wave of debt. 

 The Hoover essay is responding to liberal Louis Michael Seidman in the NYT who writes "Let's Give Up on the Constitution."  

Seidman writes:  This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.  But who will determine what parts we follow and what ones we don't?--a benevolent dictator?

SPENGLER IS BACK!

I assume that most people acquainted with the work of Oswald Spengler are historians.  Maybe this article is a sign of the times we are in and that perhaps his ideas may be revived as talking points.  Spengler was a German historian writing after World War I who believed the West was in decline. 

A question haunts America: Is it in decline on the world scene? Foreign-policy discourse is filled with commentary declaring that it is. Some—Parag Khanna’s work comes to mind—suggests the decline is the product of forces beyond America’s control. Others—Yale’s Paul Kennedy included—contend that America has fostered, at least partially, its own decline through “imperial overstretch” and other actions born of global ambition. Still others—Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution and Stratfor’s George Friedman, for example—dispute that America is in decline at all. But the question is front and center and inescapable.

The purpose of this article is to hold up the Spengler thesis as a prism through which we might view the state of the world in AD 2013 and probe the question of American and Western decline. I do so without endorsement but with a conviction that elements of that thesis might enlighten efforts to understand our time. Spengler’s work might be viewed as somewhat akin to a potent medicine that can be beneficial in appropriate doses but dangerous when ingested whole, given its metaphysical, dogmatic and extreme qualities cited by Hughes. Besides, Spengler’s thesis is unyieldingly deterministic, which makes it philosophically suspect as well as psychologically unacceptable, given the human aversion to the amoral essence of determinism and its assault on the concept of salvation, whether divine or temporal.

And the author ends with the question that more people are thinking about. . .

And so we come to the truly haunting question that confronts America in these times of growing global instability—whether, as the last nation of the West, America is destined to fulfill Spengler’s vision of hegemonic zeal mixed with a push toward dictatorship.

CORPORATE PORK IN FISCAL CLIFF BILL!

And it was put in by the Democrats!  I hate to be cynical but. . .it must only be Republican big business and fat cats that must be evil.

The "fiscal cliff" legislation passed this week included $76 billion in special-interest tax credits for the likes of General Electric, Hollywood and even Captain Morgan. But these subsidies weren't the fruit of eleventh-hour lobbying conducted on the cliff's edge -- they were crafted back in August in a Senate committee, and they sat dormant until the White House reportedly insisted on them this week.

A Republican Senate aide familiar with the cliff negotiations tells me the White House wanted permanent extensions of a whole slew of corporate tax credits.

And the wealthy may now be giving less to philanthropic causes which is making some non-profits nervous.

FISCAL CLIFF & OBAMA'S WEAKNESS

Most commentators seem to be applauding Obama for the resolution of the fiscal cliff issues, but Ross Douthat believes it actually showed his (and liberals as well) weakness. 

. . .it includes a real Democratic concession, which substitutes a top income rate threshold of $400,000 for the $250,000 threshold that President Obama had long insisted on. But at the same time, for liberals seeking progressivity and fairness, that should be the easiest possible concession to make. The $400,000 threshold still puts the top bracket close to where it was under Bill Clinton when you adjust for inflation, and that Clintonian definition of “rich” wasn’t an implausible one: While the whining of the upper upper middle class (or, if you prefer, the not-that-rich rich) can be unseemly, there really is a big difference between a taxpayer making six figures annually and a taxpayer making seven or eight, and setting the top rate in the mid rather than low six figures is a way of acknowledging that the near-rich and super-rich do not occupy the same financial universe.

And here I think liberals have a real reason to be discouraged by the White House’s willingness — and, more importantly, many Senate Democrats’ apparent eagerness — to compromise on tax increases for the near-rich. Liberal pundits seem most worried about what this concession signals for the next round of negotiations, over the sequester and the debt ceiling. But if I were them I’d be more worried about the longer term, and what it signals about their party’s willingness and ability to raise tax rates for anyone who isn’t super-rich 

Politico comments on this issue:   

Obama didn’t get the deal he was hoping for either, but in his mind, now has fulfilled a signature campaign promise and gotten the momentum and template to do more big things in his second term, all while breaking the GOP “fever” that stopped them from raising taxes.

Senate Republicans believed they got a pretty good deal, given the circumstances, senators said. They got a permanent agreements on the Alternative Minimum Tax — a significant priority — and tax rates, which removes the threat of the Bush rates expiring from the next round of negotiations. 

Still, Obama’s decision to raise the income threshold from $250,000 – the line he drew for the last four years – to $450,000 didn’t sit well with the progressive base. The Senate hadn’t even voted before AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin had blasted it. 

WHAT IS COMING IN 2013

Victor Davis Hanson is not optimistic, but after all he is a historian!  While he does point out some the strengths of America, he sees a number of problems.  Among them:

1. Poverty has been redefined to include the "old middle class."
2. Central state planning will increase under the "hubris" of the left and Obama.
3. Liberals & journalists are ready to ignore the Constitution to move their agenda forward.
4. Redistribution of income is just beginning.
5. "The law is what we say it is."

END OF LIFE IN GREAT BRITAIN

Patients and caregivers are not being told when medical treatment is being withheld from patients nearing the end of their lives. 

Up to 60,000 patients die on the Liverpool Care Pathway each year without giving their consent, shocking figures revealed yesterday.

A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones.
Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a ‘fantastic step forward’.