Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

OUR DAILY SNIPPETS ARE HERE.

I was again privileged to appear on Silvio Canto Jr.'s excellent internet radio show.  For those interested, it's here.

SATURDAY,  JUNE 26,  2010

OUTRAGEOUS, DISGRACEFUL, REQUIRES AN APOLOGY – AT 8:29 P.M. ET:  As readers know, we follow the sins of the media here, but rarely have I seen a piece of journalism, from a major source, as distorted and irresponsible as this.  It's from The Politico, which usually does much better:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Friday encouraged her supporters to read an article comparing the BP escrow fund to Nazism.

“This is about the rule of law vs. an unconstitutional power grab,” Palin tweeted, urging her followers to “Read Thomas Sowell’s article.”

The article Palin points to was published on Monday and likens President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler, saying the U.S. president is stripping away the freedom of his citizens without mass protest.

That is a complete outrage.  The whole premise of this piece, by Andy Barr, is an outrage.  Thomas Sowell, one of the most careful writers of our time, was merely indicating, from history, how freedom is lost.  He was certainly not comparing Obama to Hitler. 

“When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics,” Sowell wrote.

“In our times, American democracy is being dismantled piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.”

Sowell then wrote that Obama is exceeding his legal authority by creating the $20 billion fund, designed to pay claims for damages resulting from the ongoing oil spill off the Gulf Coast.

“Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere,” the conservative columnist wrote.

“And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Sowell also compares the American public under Obama to the “useful idiots” who followed Lenin's creation of the Soviet Union.

You can read Tom Sowell's excellent piece here.  He also cites Franklin D. Roosevelt as someone who improperly expanded executive power.  So I guess that means Roosevelt and Hitler were the same.

And the "useful idiots" reference?  Here it is, from Sowell:

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

Gee, you have to be informed.  That's really dangerous stuff.  Why that's, that's, that's McCARTHYISM. Oh my God.

Oh yes, Tom Sowell uses "useful idiots" once more in his piece:

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?

COMMENT:  This attempt to accuse Professor Sowell of linking Obama with Hitler and Lenin, and then to accuse Sarah Palin of endorsing such a comparison, is gutter-level journalism.  This should never have gotten by an editor.  Shame.

June 26, 2010     Permalink

CIVILIZATION ADVANCES – AT 8:22 P.M. ET:  As Western economies collapse, and Iran moves closer to a nuclear bomb, leave it to the European Union to maintain the greatness of our civilization with new, innovative practices.  From London's Daily Mail:

British shoppers are to be banned from buying eggs by the dozen under new regulations approved by the European Parliament.

For the first time, eggs and other products such as oranges and bread rolls will be sold by weight instead of by the number contained in a packet.

Until now, Britain has been exempt from EU regulations that forbid the selling of goods by number. But last week MEPs voted to end Britain’s deal despite objections from UK members.

The new rules will mean that instead of packaging telling shoppers a box contains six eggs, it will show the weight in grams of the eggs inside, for example 372g.

COMMENT:  Well, any concerns about the collapse of the West should now be eased.  This is the kind of change that guarantees our values for the next thousand years.

Okay, stop choking.  If the Obama crowd gets its way, we'll have this kind of federal regulation within the next few years.

June 26, 2010      Permalink

DEAR LEADER AT WORK, FOCUSED ON THE GREAT ISSUES – AT 11:43 A.M. ET:   The president is in Huntsville, Ontario, with the G-20, discussing global economic and military issues.  His mind is keen.  His mind focuses like a laser:

When U.S. President Barack Obama stepped off his helicopter in Huntsville on Friday, the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a lot of golf courses here, don’t you?” Industry Minister Tony Clement told the National Post in an exclusive interview.

“I told him, ‘We would really recommend and love it if you could come back here with Michelle and the kids at some point — we think you’d really love it here,’” Minister Clement said on the sidewalk of Huntsville’s Main Street, in his home riding. “I think I’ve planted a seed in the President’s mind.”

COMMENT:  I think we all sleep better knowing that this man is watching over us.  But, just to be sure, keep a shotgun next to your bed.

June 26, 2010      Permalink

FROM THE WORLD OF AMATEURISM – AT 10:49 A.M. ET:  There are many lessons to be learned in dealing with the press, but one of the first is that there is no such thing as "off the record."

Oh yes, the term is used, has a generally accepted meaning, and most journalists play by the rules.  But some don't, or find a way around those rules. 

Today there are some in the military who are suggesting that General McChrystal and his staff were betrayed by the Rolling Stone reporter who revealed the comments that got McChrystal fired.  From The Politico:

And from the department of a day late and a dollar short, a “senior military official” has told the Post that maybe all that locker room talk Michael Hastings scribbled in his notebook wasn’t on the record after all.

But the command has concluded from its own review of events that McChrystal was betrayed when the journalist quoted banter among the general and his staff, much of which they thought was off the record. They contend that the magazine inaccurately depicted the attribution ground rules for the interviews.

"Many of the sessions were off-the-record and intended to give [reporter Michael Hastings] a sense" of how McChrystal's team operated, according to a senior military official. The command's own review of events, the official said, gleaned "no evidence to suggest" that any of the "salacious political quotes" in the article were made during a series of on-the-record and background interviews Hastings conducted with McChrystal and others.

But why wait until two days after the general is fired to say it? And then not even go on the record yourself?

Too late, too late.  You don't make damaging comments with reporters around, even if you think you're off the record.  Government leaks like the Titanic after it met the iceberg. 

And trust a reporter from a traditionally anti-military publication like Rolling Stone?  What were these boys thinking?

Journalist embeds are usually embedded with the troops, at a level far lower than the area command.  The McChrystal experience is going to make senior officers shy about giving a reporter this kind of access to the top again.

June 26, 2010      Permalink

A WARNING ABOUT TERROR – AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  You'd think the Obamans would have gotten the message by now:  Important government positions must be filled, and offices must be up and running, especially when the safety of the population is involved. 

Apparently, the memo got misfiled, as Fox reports:

Vacancies in the United States' intelligence leadership, including the director of national intelligence and his chief deputies, are raising alarms over a potential "train wreck" of vulnerability, intelligence sources and others on Capitol Hill tell Fox News.

The goal of the national director is to maximize assets across the intelligence community. But the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee says that is not happening because the position, the nation’s top intelligence official, is now subordinate to the White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan.

“The other DNIs have always been very, very professional. They've never been political. Under this administration, John Brennan has politicized intelligence. That's the danger here,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan said, adding that Brennan is not subject to congressional oversight as a presidential appointee.

The job opened up when previous Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair was forced out last month after a series of apparent intelligence failures raised questions about the country's preparedness for detecting and stopping new terror plots.

The president's choice to replace Blair is James Clapper, a retired Air Force general and currently the top intelligence official within the defense department, but he still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.

COMMENT:  It is only a matter of time before there's another attempted terror attack on the United States.  An election year would be a good time for terror groups to try to shake things up and embarrass the president, if this president can be embarrassed.

There are other reports that government agencies, almost nine years after 9-11, are still not prepared to handle a mass attack.  Well, I can't confirm that, but please note the federal response to the oil spill.  Fill you with confidence?

June 26, 2010      Permalink

THE HEAT IS ON – AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  One of the most distressing foreign policy developments has been the drift of Turkey, a member of NATO, away from the West and toward the Islamic countries of the Mideast.  The State Department has noticed:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is warning Turkey that it is alienating U.S. supporters and needs to demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West.

The remarks by Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's top diplomat on European affairs, were a rare admonishment of a crucial NATO ally.

''We think Turkey remains committed to NATO, Europe and the United States, but that needs to be demonstrated,'' Gordon told The Associated Press in an interview this week. ''There are people asking questions about it in a way that is new, and that in itself is a bad thing that makes it harder for the United States to support some of the things that Turkey would like to see us support.''

The "people" Gordon is referring to are congressional leaders, traditionally supportive of "our Turkish ally" who have issued warnings about Turkey's recent Islamic drift.

Gordon cited Turkey's vote against a U.S.-backed United Nations Security Council resolution on new sanctions against Iran and noted Turkish rhetoric after Israel's deadly assault on a Gaza-bound flotilla last month. The Security Council vote came shortly after Turkey and Brazil, to Washington's annoyance, had brokered a nuclear fuel-swap deal with Iran as an effort to delay or avoid new sanctions.

COMMENT:  The statement is good, but will have to be followed by some vigorous private diplomacy.  Turkey has access to NATO's classified information and, as a member, can veto some NATO decisions.  The Turkey government that's been in power for about eight years has moved the country, step by step, toward the Mideast and away from Europe. 

There may well have to come a point where Turkey risks expulsion from NATO if it continues on its current course, hostile to the West and to the United States.

At least State shows signs of concern.

June 26, 2010     Permalink

FRIDAY,  JUNE 25,  2010

RIGHTIES RISING – AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  Conservatism seems to be rising in the United States, according to the latest report of the Gallup Poll:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Conservatives have maintained their leading position among U.S. ideological groups in the first half of 2010. Gallup finds 42% of Americans describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative. This is up slightly from the 40% seen for all of 2009 and contrasts with the 20% calling themselves liberal or very liberal.

The 42% identifying as conservative represents a continuation of the slight but statistically significant edge conservatives achieved over moderates in 2009. Should that figure hold for all of 2010, it would represent the highest annual percentage identifying as conservative in Gallup's history of measuring ideology with this wording, dating to 1992.

COMMENT:  That's gratifying, but the figures should be read carefully.  Conservative doesn't mean Republican.  Republicans cannot turn in a sleepy performance and expect to benefit seriously from the conservative trend.

I came from liberalism, and the very forces that drove me away are ascendant in liberal movements, including a rejection of the central theme of national defense.  It's really too bad, because there are some very decent, practical liberals who can contribute much to the national conversation.  But they have been drowned out by the wingnuts who think the Garden of Eden was in Manhattan, and survived until replaced by the set of "West Side Story."

June 25, 2010     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 7:46 P.M. ET:  From Rachel Abrams at the Weekly Standard on the "human rights" policy of the Obama administration:

It’s been a rough seventeen months for Americans whose calling is to fight for the rights of people who’ve been stripped of them by force—young men and women beaten to death in full view of the world by the agents of their oppressors for daring to demand that their votes be counted; others hacked to death with the complicity of the autocrats in power over them for having been born the wrong color or to the wrong tribe; girls subjected to the lash, or, worse, murdered by their own mothers, fathers, or brothers for appearing in public in the wrong company; believers imprisoned for professing faith in the wrong god or the wrong political system; non-believers sentenced to death for “wronging” a wrathful, vengeful religion. And it’s been a dreadful period for the victims themselves, left as they have been to ask themselves in silent desperation what has become of their champion.

At the despot-happy opening act of his presidency the current occupant of the Oval Office announced that these people weren’t going to be his business, and though his secretary of state might have seen to them—it being actually within her reach to become the voice of the world’s voiceless, with a whole Human Rights Bureau designated for that very job just down the hall—she never has managed to get really full-throated about it.

COMMENT:  Well stated.  Isn't it remarkable that the Democratic Party's left wing, which used to wear "human rights" as its mantra, isn't terribly interested any longer.  In fact, it treats democracy as simply another political system, or, as one liberal writer calls it, a lifestyle choice. 

Barack Obama has turned his back on human rights or the expansion of democracy.  It wasn't something we expected from the first African-American president.  His supporters call him a pragmatist, which he definitely is not.  A pragmatist emphasizes the practical, the doable, and this administration hasn't been very practical and hasn't shown much that's gotten done.  In all probability, Obama's human rights policy reflects the cold attitudes of his socialist upbringing and radical associations.  It's the theory that counts, never the people.  Thus, this crowd could spout racial justice for decades, and watch thousands of black people murdered each year, without batting an eyelash.

It would have been nice had the media warned us.

June 25, 2010     Permalink 

OH REALLY? – AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  As reader Beth Harrison recently asked, "Can't they do anything right?"  A day after Obama correctly names David Petraeus to save his bacon in Afghanistan, we learn of another appointment made by the Chicago geniuses who are running the joint.  From Fox:

The Obama administration has tapped an outspoken critic of immigration enforcement on the local level to oversee and promote partnerships between federal and local officials on the issue.

Harold Hurtt, a former police chief in Houston and Phoenix, has been hired as the director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of State and Local Coordination. Starting July 6, Hurtt will supervise outreach and communication between ICE, local law enforcement agencies, tribal leaders and representatives from non-governmental organizations.

"Chief Hurtt is a respected member of the law enforcement community and understands the concerns of local law enforcement leaders," said John Morton, the Homeland Security assistant secretary for ICE. "His experience and skills will be an invaluable asset to the ICEs outreach and coordination efforts."

But as a police chief, Hurtt was a supporter of "sanctuary city" policies, by which illegal immigrants who don't commit crimes can live without fear of exposure or detainment because police don't check for immigration papers.

He also, during his tenure as Houston police chief, criticized ICE's key program that draws on local law enforcement's support.

"There's no way you can head up an office if you don't believe in what the office is supposed to do," Curtis Collier of U.S. Border Watch, told the Houston Chronicle. "Immigration and Customs Enforcement's primary mission is to protect the American people. If this guy believes any of these programs should not be enforced, he's certainly going to be a very weak advocate for them."

And...

Critics say his pro-immigration policies enabled illegal immigrants to kill two police officers and seriously injure another in Phoenix before he left in 2005 and to kill an officer in Houston before he retired in 2009.

The widow of one of the officers, Rodney Johnson, who was fatally shot by an illegal immigrant with a long criminal record, is suing Hurtt for enacting policies that she says led to his death.

COMMENT:  Nice, huh?  Was this the best they could do?

Oh, and I have another question:  How come all these worthies who oppose "local" involvement in immigration issues have no problem with the "sanctuary cities" idea?  That basically allows cities to protect illegal immigrants.  If that isn't local involvement in immigration policy, what is?

June 25, 2010      Permalink

WELCOME TO THE RECOVERY – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  Y'see, the problem is that the calculator the government used last month had bad batteries.  That's what it was.  No problem.  But the guys went to Radio Shack, got new batts, and so there's a new report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government lowered its estimate of how much the economy grew in the first quarter of the year, noting that consumers spent less than it previously thought.

Gross domestic product rose by 2.7 percent in the January-to-March period, the Commerce Department said Friday. That was less than the 3 percent estimate for the quarter that the government released last month. It was also much slower than the 5.6 percent pace in the previous quarter.

The department's report is the third of three estimates it makes for each quarter's GDP, the broadest measure of the nation's economic output. The first quarter's growth rate declined from earlier reports because consumers spent less than previously estimated, while the nation imported more goods from overseas.

COMMENT:  We don't seem to be getting out of the recession.  But the country's ability to handle a new one, or even a flatlining economy, is far less than in 2008, before the federal debt was spun out of control by the commissar of hope 'n change.

The economy will remain the key issue in the election.  If it continues at this pace, Mr. Obama's party may well face an electoral catastrophe.

Add to the problem the fact that many states are near bankruptcy.  It is hard for them to cut spending without alientating powerful constituencies, and raising taxes with major unemployment out there may not be the swiftest idea.

The oil spill won't help.

I get the sense that many Americans have gotten used to a weak economy, the way Europeans often get accustomed to shortages or unsuccessful economic plans.  Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it "defining deviancy down," where a society simply learns to accept a lower standard.  I can't believe that is the America we'll live in, or the America we want, but it seems in certain areas to be happening.  What do you think?

June 25, 2010     Permalink

OBAMA'S DILEMMA – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  The president is in serious political trouble, as the polls indicate.  Byron York examines one element in a recent poll that has received far too little attention.  It involves the emotional relationship of president to people, something hard to measure, but often decisive in elections.  From The Washington Examiner:

Obama has also taken a fall when it comes to the sometimes hard-to-describe attributes that shape public opinions about leaders. The Journal asked whether people "strongly relate to [Obama] as your president," or whether they related to him somewhat, only a little, or not really at all. The number of people who say they strongly relate to Obama as president has gone from 50 percent on Inauguration Day to 29 percent today, while the number of people who say they don't really relate to him has gone from 8 percent then to 30 percent now. There's clearly a growing alienation with the once enormously popular president.

The people eventually find out the basic truth, even if the media doesn't do much of a job of exposing it.  People can see what's going on around them.

The Republican opportunity this year is golden.  But York makes the same observation that we've made repeatedly in this space, that nothing can be taken for granted:

As strong as the numbers look, smart Republicans are constantly telling each other to calm down and keep working. While the public has soured on Obama and the Democratic leadership, Republicans can't just bash the opposition.

Any number of things can happen between now and November to improve the Democrats' chances, including a military confrontation that the president actually handles well, hard as that is to believe.

Republicans must have a smart, attractive program to go with smart, attractive candidates.  We await the program.

June 25, 2010      Permalink

SIXTY YEARS AGO - AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  We note that the Korean War began 60 years ago today, with the Soviet-sponsored North Korean invasion of South Korea.  And the North Koreans still haven't learned.

President Truman's vigorous response to the invasion was a critical element in setting the tone for the Cold War – that we would in fact resist aggression.  Ah, those were the days, when the Democratic Party was a national-defense party. 

Historian Arthur Herman has an excellent retrospective on Korea here.  He observes:

...above all Korea had shown that America would stand by its commitments, even through a seething maze of obstacles and setbacks. Korea was the worst possible place for a war, one Truman advisor, Averell Harriman, observed; but "no weakness of purpose here." It's a powerful lesson for another worst possible place for a war, Afghanistan, 60 years later.

The Berlin Wall is gone, but the DMZ on the 38th parallel remains, the dividing line between totalitarianism and freedom, between the Stalinist darkness of North Korea and prosperous and open society of South Korea. Thirty-six thousand Americans gave their lives to establish it, and 28,000 Americans are holding it there still.

COMMENT:  The war was brought to a close in 1953 by the new president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who threatened to use nuclear weapons if the North Koreans, and, by extension, their Soviet sponsors, did not agree to a reasonable armistice.  They did agree.

We have a very different Democratic Party today, weighed down by its irrational, adolescent left wing.  Harry Truman wouldn't recognize this party, but he'd have a few choice words to say about it.

June 25,  2010     Permalink