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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2010

OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK – AT 10:22 P.M. ET:  Remember something called "civics"?  They taught us how government worked.  I think the "progressives" in the schools phased that out in favor of "alternative cultural narratives."  Maybe we should teach civics again so we can avoid this mess.  From Fox:

It had to happen. Democrats are in disarray over what to do about the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, and there have been no votes on any legislation since Tuesday morning, with the majority meeting behind closed doors nearly daily for the past week trying to chart a path forward. Republicans have dug in and decided to filibuster anything that isn't related to tax cuts and a stopgap spending measure, called a continuing resolution (CR), to keep the government operating. And the frustrations boiled over onto the Senate floor in a display of political theater on Wednesday.

Senate Democrats were visibly furious when all 42 of their GOP colleagues sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., essentially promising to block any measure that comes before tax cuts and a CR. One after another, Democrats in the majority sought to bring up a number of other measures, including an extension of unemployment insurance benefits which expired Tuesday on two million Americans, an energy measure, and various tax-related provisions.

"What, are we going to take our football and go home, just because they say they don't want to play ball?" asked Sen Claire McCaskill, D-Mo, as she departed an hours-long Democratic meeting in which the letter was discussed, adding, "Quit giving us ultimatums."

Republicans stood firm against any attempt to call up legislation not related to the Bush tax cuts, and at one point, Sen. John Barrasso, frustrated, actually read the GOP letter word for word for his Democratic colleagues, as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-Ny, tried repeatedly to get the Wyoming Republican to object to an extension of tax rates for anyone making less than $1 million.

COMMENT:  It might be nice to remind our liberal friends that there was something called an election.  It's one of those quaint practices they do in democracies.  And elections have consequences.  And they're being felt now.

Wait 'til January, when the new troops arrive.  Our friends might require psychological intervention.

December 1, 2010      Permalink

WE WEEP, WE CRY OUT IN SYMPATHY – AT 8:14 P.M. ET:   Let's have some compassion for the Army guy who leaked all that classified information to WikiLeaks, and did all that damage.  From Media Research Center:

Instead of leading with how Army Private First Class Bradley Manning may have jeopardized national security with his document dump to WikiLeaks, NBC's chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, in his profile of Manning on Tuesday's Today show, told viewers he was the "most unlikely suspect, with a youthful smile" and portrayed him as an abused victim of the military. Miklaszewski used the New York Times' Ginger Thompson in his report to tell the tale of young man who apparently decided to avenge the abuse he had taken over the years, dating back to high school, by selling out his country.

COMMENT:  We do understand.  America is such a hard country to live in.  And I'll bet the atomic spies at Los Alamos didn't get the science prize in high school either. 

Another great day in journalism.

December 1, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:05 P.M. ET:

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama is considering at least a short delay to the start of his holiday vacation in Hawaii so he can try to work out a deal with congressional Republicans on the Bush tax cuts that expire December 31, CNN has learned.

This president?  Delaying a vacation?  There are these noble moments in history.  Cherish them.  We may not see another delay like this again.

December 1, 2010       Permalink

THE MARCH OF ACADEMIC STANDARDS – AT 9:44 A.M. ET:   Let us feel only sympathy for the backbreaking work that our college students do, challenged each day to expand their intellects. 

EVANSTON, Ill., Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Northwestern University in suburban Chicago said 16 students are learning about history through the lens of the AMC series "Mad Men."

Michael Allen, the history professor teaching the freshman seminar, said the students enrolled in "Consumerism and Social Change in Mad Men America, 1960-1963," are learning about topics including the beginnings of social reform movements by watching and analyzing the first season of the series about an advertising agency, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday.

"It shows the way the 1950s and 1960s blend together and how they related to each other," Allen said of the series.

COMMENTS:  $52,000 a year.

December 1, 2010       Permalink

ANOTHER DISSENTER SPEAKS OUT – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  One of the myths spread by the global warming industry (with retail outlets conveniently located around the world) is that anyone who opposes their "science" is a crackpot, mentally deranged, or a front man for the service-station conspiracy. 

But the recent resignation of top physicist Harold Lewis from the American Physical Society, rendered in protest of the society's acceptance of global warming "science," and the protests of other respected scientists, have demolished that myth, at least among those who read.

Now a ranking Australian scientist warns us against the artificial panic.  From London's Express:

TRYING to halt global warming is a waste of time – we should simply adapt to it, a leading climate expert claimed yesterday.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is an “illusory goal”, said Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University, Australia.

He said that CO2 – emitted by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas – is a “minor” greenhouse gas. And he argued that the past decade has seen a “lack of warming” and that no significant warming has occurred since 1958...

...He told Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation: “Despite an estimated spend of more than £64billion since 1990 looking for a human global temperature signal, assessed against geological reality, no compelling empirical evidence yet exists for a measurable, let alone worrisome, human impact on global average temperature.

COMMENT:  I wonder what will happen to this guy's career.   Will they send him for reeducation?  Psychological testing? 

If our president was astute - a question mark there - he would appoint a blue-ribbon commission, similar to the panel that investigated the Challenger disaster, to get to the bottom of the global warming controversy.  Oh, actually we're supposed to use the term "climate change" if we want to be invited to a proper Georgetown party.

With increasing Republican power in Washington, I suspect that we'll have a more deliberate approach to warming than we've seen in the ultra-trendy Obama administration.  The science is rickety.

December 1, 2010       Permalink

SOME TAKE IT SERIOUSLY – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  While most our mainstream media seems indifferent to plugging the leak that led to this week's massive damage to our diplomatic security, London's Telegraph reports on the furious reactions of some of our defense experts:

Leading US political figures have called for the death penalty to be imposed on the person who leaked sensitive documents to whistle-blower website WikiLeaks as anger intensified against those responsible for the international relations crisis.

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and ex-Pentagon official KT McFarland were among those claiming the guilty party should face execution for putting national security at risk by leaking the inflammatory information.

Mr Huckabee, who is believed to be ready to renew his candidacy for the next presidential election, said responsible for the leak should be sentenced to death.

He said: “They’ve put American lives at risk ... They put relationships that will take decades to rebuild at risk. They knew full well that they were handling sensitive documents, they were entrusted.

"Any lives they endangered, they’re personally responsible for and the blood is on their hands.”

KT McFarland, who held national security posts under the Nixon, Ford and Reagan governments, backed the calls, saying Private Bradley Manning – the chief suspect of leaking the files – should face treason charges and possible execution...

I was with KT last night at the Churchill party, and she is livid over this.

...Writing on the Fox News website, Ms McFarland said: "It's time to up the charges. Let's charge him and try him for treason. If he's found guilty, he should be executed."

She also called for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face terror charges, claiming: "He’s waging cyberwar on the United States and the global world order. Mr. Assange and his fellow hackers are terrorists and should be prosecuted as such."

COMMENT:  And it's time for a major congressional investigation into this whole matter.  We depend on our security services to protect us.  It would be nice if they could protect our national secrets. 

As for the American soldier suspected of being the source, he is a PFC (private first class).  How did a man with such a modest rank get hold of this stuff?  Clearly, there was some electronic breach.  If Manning can do it, foreign enemies can do it.

December 1, 2010       Permalink

THE OTHER ONE WHO THOUGHT HE WAS GOD SPEAKS – AT 8:12 A.M. ET:  Jimmah Carter has advice for President Obama.  Of course, Jimmah has advice for everyone. But his advice to Obama seems like an opening class in how to be a kamikaze.  From The Politico:

Jimmy Carter wants to see President Barack Obama drop his efforts at bipartisanship during the next two years, and he thinks Obama will heed his call.

“In the next two years, President Obama will be much more independent in fighting hard to prevail and not trying to reach out,” the former president said in an interview with CBS News. “I think he’ll be a much more tough proponent of what he stands for in the future, giving up on Republicans’ support and taking his case to the American public.”

Wait.  Didn't he try that already?  Is Carter reading the same papers?

Meanwhile, Carter will meet with Obama next Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed.

Carter had planned to meet with White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon when Obama asked Carter to stop by for a meeting, Gibbs told reporters on Tuesday.

I guess Carter got the upgrade because he had enough points on his American Express card. 

The president is wasting his time.  The country wasted its time.  Carter is a zero.

December 1, 2010     Permalink

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30,  2010

BACK FROM THE PARTY – AT 11:51 P.M. ET:  Well, we had a grand party for Winston Churchill tonight at the Union League Club, founded to support the Union cause in the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression, whichever you wish.

Andrew Roberts, the distinguished British historian spoke about things Churchillian, Hitlerian and Obaman.  He lit into Obama for returning to Britain the bust of Churchill that had rested in the Oval Office, a gesture Roberts described as entirely gratuitous, but which sent a message to Britain that the special relationship between our two nations was a thing of the past.  It isn't, and won't be, when a real president comes to office again, replacing Mr. Make Believe.

Roberts noted that some people attributed Obama's ungrand gesture to the president's presumed belief that his Kenyan father or grandfather had been roughed up by the British during the colonial era.  Roberts says that there is absolutely nothing that supports the claim.

Ah, it was good to hear a Brit who spoke in the tradition of Winston.  A recording of Winston's "finest hour" speech was played, and some in the audience spontaneously rose to toast him and sing "God Save the Queen."  Of course, those were the British guys.

Nice to be among friends.  Then I left and realized I was in the middle of a city that, not many years ago, rejected a Navy proposal to make New York an official home port because the idea offended local leftists. 

The celebrations are much more inspiring than the reality.

November 30, 2010      Permalink

AREN'T YOU EXCITED BY THIS? – AT 4:20 P.M. ET:  It's so heartening to see these dramatic moves toward peace and eternal harmony.  From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran agreed to renew talks with world powers on its nuclear program, a European Union spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday.

Iranian negotiator Said Jalili will reportedly meet with EU chief diplomat Catherine Ashton, who will lead the "5+1" group of nations negotiating with Iran, on December 6-7. The talks will be the first between Iran and the six world powers since October 2009.

"We've now received a response from the Iranian authorities in which they have said that Dr. Jalili has accepted Catherine Ashton's proposal to meet in Geneva," the EU spokesman told AFP. "Talks between Catherine Ashton and Dr. Jalili will now take place on Monday and Tuesday next week in Geneva."

COMMENT:  As they say, endlessly, in Hollywood, "I'm very excited about it."

Another round of talks.  They've been talking for years.  Nothing has come of it.  We've been talking with North Korea for years.  Nothing has come of that either.

And nothing will come of these new talks...unless the Iranians are firmly convinced that they will suffer staggering consequences if there is no resolution to their nuclear program.  But what do they see?  They see a weak American president whose government can't even keep its secrets, and they see Catherine Ashton, a throwback to 1930s European diplomacy.

Expect nothing.  But of course Obama will endorse the talks.  That's all he's got.

November 30, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA STILL HURTING, BADLY, AMONG INDEPENDENTS – AT 9:36 A.M. ET:  We always stress that tracking polls must be studied over time, but we are struck, in today's Rasmussen report, by President Obama's stunningly poor performance among independents:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17 (see trends).

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 73% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 20% Strongly Approve and 45% Strongly Disapprove.

COMMENT:  These numbers show just how valuable the 2012 nomination for president is.  While there's no guarantee at all that a Republican will defeat Obama, a good Republican candidate has more than a fighting chance.

Indeed, not only are Obama's numbers among independents abysmal, but his numbers in his own party are slipping.  Only 51 percent of Democrats strongly approve of him. 

The biggest question in American politics today has to be, "Who will the Republicans choose?"  I don't know.  But the GOP has a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  The choice of presidential candidate for 2012 will be one of the most important decisions in the party's history, possibly as important as the choice of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.  And remember:  There will be no prize, in the presidential election, for second place.  We don't give out silver medals. 

November 30, 2010       Permalink

SPEAKING WISELY – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  Former President George W. Bush has spoken out on the WikiLeaks scandal, with a dose of Bushian common sense.  From CNN:

(CNN) -- Former President George W. Bush joined a chorus of U.S. officials calling any leaks of sensitive government information "very damaging," telling a forum at Facebook headquarters that Wikileaks' recent release of 250,000 documents may significantly hurt Washington's image abroad.

"It's going to be very hard to keep the trust of foreign leaders," the nation's 43rd president said of the documents on issues ranging from Iran to Honduras to Turkey. "If you have a conversation with a foreign leader and it ends up in a newspaper, you don't like it. I didn't like it."

He is right, of course.  You may be sure that foreign leaders, right now, are reconfiguring their approach to this country, and watching their private comments.  What a disaster for us.

A relaxed Bush was joined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on stage in Palo Alto, California, with hundreds watching from the audience and up to 6,500 following the interview live online.

The hourlong discussion centered on Bush's memoir, "Decision Points." Released just over two weeks ago, the book ranks atop the New York Times' hardcover nonfiction best-seller list, topping works by the likes of rapper Jay-Z, rocker Keith Richards and the late Mark Twain.

Well, Twain won't be hot again until his next book.  Jay-Z and Keith Richards have limited appeal in the literary world.

COMMENT:  Bush's public-opinion stock has been rising.  In fact, his political resurrection is occurring much faster than anyone had predicted.  He was hardly a perfect president, but one can't help but be impressed by his decisiveness and his clarity of thought. 

The greatest resurrection, of course, was the post-presidency rise of Harry S. Truman, who left office with an approval rating in the 20s, and who is now regarded as a great or near-great president.  The fringe left, naturally, does not join in that appraisal, since it was Truman who formulated the policies that allowed us successfully to confront the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  But the fringe left can take its 12 votes and go cast them somewhere, preferably San Francisco. 

November 30, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA THE CENTRIST? – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  Does Obama's announcement of a pay freeze for federal workers signal a Clintonesque move to the center?  From The Politico:

President Barack Obama’s embrace of the politically symbolic two-year freeze on federal government salaries aligns him with House Republican leaders and against unions, public workers and some leaders in his own party.

A winner of incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's YouCut online spending-cut poll in May, the proposal would require the House and Senate, at the last minute, to include the freeze in any long-term federal spending bill dealing with the slate of unfinished fiscal 2011 appropriations laws.

The president's adoption of a GOP proposal that goes straight to the ideological divide between the parties — the size, scope and value of government — could be an early sign of White House efforts to move toward the political center in advance of the 2012 election.

It infuriated union leaders, some rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers and even a handful of Republicans — few of whom saw it coming — and thus put the president squarely to the political right of liberals and other labor allies. The word "triangulation" — a reference to President Bill Clinton's practice of calibrating positions to distance him from both the political and left and the political right — floated through the corridors of Congress on Monday.

COMMENT:  I think it will take a lot more than this to convince the electorate that Mr. Obama is traveling back from the left, where he has resided his entire adult life, and maybe before that.

He was simply responding to the outrage felt by Americans when they learned that federal workers now earn more than their civilian counterparts, and have protections the civilian worker can only dream of.  Pensions for government workers have been a main ingredient in the economic woes dragging down both California and New York.

We'll be watching to see if the president makes any other encouraging moves. 

November 30, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA TRIUMPHS IN "RESET" WITH RUSSIANS - NOT – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  Another famous victory in the foreign policy adventures of Barack Obama.  Let the military bands play.  From Fox:

The U.S. believes Russia has moved short-range tactical nuclear warheads to facilities near North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies as recently as this spring, U.S. officials say, adding to questions in Congress about Russian compliance with long-standing pledges ahead of a possible vote on a new arms-control treaty.

U.S. officials say the movement of warheads to facilities bordering NATO allies appeared to run counter to pledges made by Moscow starting in 1991 to pull tactical nuclear weapons back from frontier posts and to reduce their numbers. The U.S. has long voiced concerns about Russia's lack of transparency when it comes to its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, believed to be many times the number possessed by the U.S.

COMMENT:  I'm shocked that anyone would think our Russian friends would cheat.  Another example of the kind of American 1) triumphalism, 2) militarism, 3) imperialism, and 4) exceptionalism that the godlike Barack was elected to eliminate.  As our most respected president, Jimmah Carter, used to say, so wisely, we have an inordinate fear of Communism.  Can't we just get along?

Please ignore that last paragraph.  I had a nostalgia attack.

November 30, 2010     Permalink