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APRIL 15,  2011

THE INDISPENSABLE NATION – AT 9:57 P.M. ET:  When people refer to the United States as the indispensable nation, pseudo-sophisticates laugh.  They might consider ending the laughter.  From the Washington Post:

Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials.

The shortage of European munitions, along with the limited number of aircraft available, has raised doubts among some officials about whether the United States can continue to avoid returning to the air campaign if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi hangs onto power for several more months.

U.S. strike aircraft that participated in the early stage of the operation, before the United States relinquished command to NATO and assumed what President Obama called a “supporting” role, have remained in the theater “on 12-hour standby” with crews “constantly briefed on the current situation,” a NATO official said.

So far, the NATO commander has not requested their deployment. Several U.S. military officials said they anticipated being called back into the fight, although a senior administration official said he expected other countries to announce “in the next few days” that they would contribute aircraft equipped with the laser-guided munitions.

COMMENT:  NATO has always been primarily the United States, although we certainly acknowledge the contributions of other nations, especially Britain and Canada.  But NATO, as an alliance, may not survive in its current form very much longer.  Severe budget cuts in European defense ministries, the lack of a commonly recognized enemy, and a new generation of Europeans indifferent to defense, may combine to make NATO a paper tiger. 

The Libyan operation is only weeks old, and already the alliance is running short of equipment.  One could only imagine this alliance fighting a real army. 

America is the indispensable nation.  Somebody tell the president.

April 15, 2011       Permalink

VICTORY IN WISCONSIN – AT 9:32 P.M. ET:  Very few elections for state judges go national, but this one did.  In Wisconsin, an election for the State Supreme court became critical because a win by a liberal challenger could have tilted the court in such a way as to cancel the reforms recently enacted under Republican Governor Scott Walker.  But the challenger has apparently lost.  From Fox:

A conservative justice has weathered attempts to link him to Wisconsin's governor and a divisive union rights law and won re-election, according to county vote totals finalized Friday.

Tallies from each of the state's 72 counties show Justice David Prosser defeated challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg by 7,316 votes. State election officials said they will wait to declare an official winner until the deadline for Kloppenburg to seek a recount passes. She has until Wednesday to call for one.

A message left with Kloppenburg's campaign wasn't immediately returned.

Kloppenburg faced an uphill fight against Prosser, a 12-year court veteran and former Republican Assembly speaker. But she got a boost in the weeks leading up to the election as her supporters worked to turn anger against Gov. Scott Walker and the union rights law against Prosser.

The law, which Walker wrote, strips most public sector workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights. It also requires them to contribute more to their health care and pensions, changes that will result in an average 8 percent pay cut.

Walker, a Republican, has said the law is needed to help balance the state budget and give local governments the flexibility they need to absorb deep cuts in state aid. Democrats see it as an assault on unions, which are among the party's strongest campaign allies.

COMMENT:  It's doubtful that a recount could overturn such a large lead.  Walker's reforms seem secure for now.

April 15, 2011       Permalink

SYRIA – AT 10:34 A.M. ET:  We watch events in Syria carefully because it's one of the most important Arab countries, and Iran's closest ally in the Arab world.  Also, Syria essentially controls Lebanon through Hezbollah, another Iranian ally.  Despite the Syrian government's brutal crackdowns on protesters, the protests continue and grow.  Friday, after prayers, is the big protest time in the Arab world, and this is Friday...even in Syria:

(CNN) -- Thousands of demonstrators in Syrian cities hit the streets after Friday prayers in another week of anti-government rallies as a prominent humanitarian watchdog group issued a report detailing "torture and ill-treatment" of protesters over the last month.

Three eyewitnesses reported demonstrations in Daraa, Baniyas, Dair Elzour, Douma, Zabadani and the outskirts of Damascus against the Bashar al-Assad regime, urged by protesters to enact political, economic, and social changes.

One witness in Daraa told CNN that people packed into the restive city's main square and chanted, "The people demand the reform of the regime" and "United, United! The Syrian people are united." The witness, who is a doctor, said the demonstration was peaceful and there were no signs of police or soldiers.

Human Rights Watch on Friday issued a report entitled "Syria: Rampant Torture of Protesters," a document detailing arbitrary detention, as well as mistreatment in prison.

Ordinarily, we wouldn't take anything said by Human Rights Watch too seriously.  The group has become something of a joke.  But this time, faced with overwhelming evidence, they may actually be getting it right.

Meanwhile, the United States issues pro forma denunciations of the Syrian crackdown, but there are no teeth in our statements.  Apparently, according to reports, White House advisers are divided over how far to take our protests.

Strange.  We cracked down hard on ally Mubarak, pressuring him out of office, and each day we get reports of worsening conditions for the Egyptian "revolution."  But we issue only wrist slaps to enemy Assad. 

I can't deny that making policy in these situations is difficult.  As with Libya, we really don't know much about the Syrian opposition.  Once again America's lack of human intelligence is dragging us down.  In Egypt it is now likely that any new government will have an anti-American flavor, and there is no guarantee that Egyptian "democracy" will last very long. 

The American media seems to be losing interest in these Mideast eruptions, which have been going on since they started in Tunisia in January.  But what is happening today will profoundly affect our future relations in the region, and, ultimately, our own security.

April 15, 2011      Permalink

THE PEOPLE WHO PAY THOSE TAXES AREN'T DOING SO WELL – AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  New economic reports are nothing for the White House to brag about.  Finally, those inflated gasoline prices are having their effect:

Real earnings fell for a fifth straight month as wages fail to keep up with soaring gasoline prices and other costs. Inflation-adjusted earnings for all private workers dropped 0.5% in March, the worst monthly drop since July 2008, according to Labor Department data. Nominal wages were flat while consumer prices climbed more than 0.5% for a second straight month.

Year over year, inflation-adjusted weekly pay sank 0.4%. That’s the first drop in a year and down from a 2.2% gain in October.

Since October, real weekly wages have dropped at a 3.8% annual rate — matching the decline set in July 2008, when oil prices peaked above $147 a barrel.

(Meanwhile, real hourly wages fell 0.6% vs. Feb. and 1% vs. a year earlier.)

The 2 percentage point temporary cut in payroll taxes has offset much of the recent decline in wages. But prices at the pump are taking their toll on consumers’ pocketbooks and psyche. Retail sales ex gasoline rose just 0.1% last month. The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index dived to a 33-month low in April, losing more than 20% in the last three months.

Overall consumer inflation was 2.7% in March, the highest since the end of 2009. Core inflation was 1.2%, the highest since the start of 2010 but still moderate. However, overall and core inflation should continue to trend higher for the next few months, if only because of easy year-earlier comparisons.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is betting that commodity prices will have only a temporary impact on U.S. inflation. We'll see.

It's not just inflation. Nominal weekly wages were flat in March. The yearly gain slowed from 3.4% in October to 2.3% in March.

COMMENT:  All right, what is the Republican program for dealing with this?  Obama has an abysmal economic record to run on.  He refuses to do a thing about high gasoline prices because that would upset the extreme environmentalists who are part of his base.  (He recently said in Brazil that we'd be happy to buy oil drilled there.  Oh great.) 

The old adage always applies, though.  You can't beat somebody with nobody.  People like Donald Trump are getting far too much publicity because there's a leadership vacuum at the Republican presidential level.  That vacuum will have to be filled in the coming months for Republicans to have enough time to make their case and come up with the best candidate for president.  My fear continues that the GOP will just nominate the next guy in line and leave it at that, allowing Obama to slip through to a second term. 

It's already April.  Primaries start in about eight or nine months.  Time to get going.

April 15, 2011       Permalink 

THAT DAY AGAIN – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  Oh, it's income tax day.  Please make sure you get the postmark on time. 

Now, we are a low-tax website, but we are not a no-tax or gimmicky-tax website.  Taxes must be paid, and the founders made provision for that in the Constitution.  If you want the services, you've got to pay the bill.  But no service should be immune to public examination.  Where are the funds going?  How much value are we getting?  It's pretty clear, especially at the state level, that there are many savings to be had.  And...we can't have everything we want from government.  This country got along quite well without many of the "services" available today.

I see no reason why the government should fund NPR.  I see no reason why the government, except for limited programs, should fund the arts, even though I love the arts.  We speak of our golden age of film, our golden age of television, our golden age of American music.  Isn't it interesting – all those "golden" ages took place before the federal government started heavy subsidies for the arts.  (There were some during the Depression.)  It was artists and visionaries who created golden ages, not government grants. 

We must also take care that our taxes aren't going simply to prop up higher prices for our citizens, especially in education.  Be wary of "tuition grants," which are usually followed by the raising of tuition, essentially negating the grant.  It's an old racket.  Be wary of "arts grants" to organizations or sectors that pay vastly inflated salaries. 

So, pay your taxes.  But, throughout the year, be vigilant.  Be vigilant about how money is spent.  Also be vigilant about tax gimmicks, including those from conservatives, that can't provide the necessary revenue for the things we do want and, as a nation, do need. 

Margaret Thatcher once said that socialism doesn't work because, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.  She was right.  Eternal vigilance, my friend.

April 15, 2011      Permalink

OBAMA ON THE STUMP – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  A lot of kids are taught by their parents always to have something to fall back on, some skill, some advantage.  If you're Barack Obama, you fall back on campaign speeches.  The president is best when campaigning, worst when president, so he's back on the stump:

CHICAGO (AFP) – US President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a "Third World" country as he rallied support for his reelection campaign.

The attack came a day after Obama savaged Republican budget plans and unveiled his $4-trillion deficit reduction drive that aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to preserve key social services.
The debate over fiscal policy will prove critical to the 2012 campaign and Obama sought to frame it as a "stark choice" between investing in the future or watching the country fall apart.

"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.

COMMENT:  Absolutely cynical.  Should we invest in the future?  Of course.  Is our infrastructure falling apart?  Yes.  You should drive some of the roads in New York State.  Broadband?  Of course.

But to invest you have to have the funds.  Spending most of your discretionary income on paying off huge deficits does not indicate good planning.  And to invest you have to get the economy moving, so the investment funds, tax revenues, come in without overburdening the taxpayer.

And to have good investments you have to get rid of bad investments, like a vast over-expenditure in "education," where no education results.

I don't envy the president's position, and I do not claim that he, or his party, are the only ones responsible for our current mess.  The mind-dulling leadership of some American corporations, and corporate sectors, have played their role.  General Motors anybody? 

But Obama is the national leader, and all he has done is piled on more government spending, with little result to show for it.  We need a more creative leadership in both parties, less beholden to interest groups.  The president can make all the reasonable points about the future that we wishes.  Without the cash, there is no future.

April 15, 2011     Permalink

APRIL 14,  2011

YOU MEAN, SOMEONE ACTUALLY RESIGNED? – AT 11:52 P.M. ET:  The late Steve Landesberg, a nice guy and a terrific comedian, once did a routine satirizing a British cabinet minister resigning and heaping abuse on himself.  ("I'm despicable, and you must get rid of me.")  And yet, resignation after a blunder or embarrassing mishap is one of the more honorable traditions in Britain.

Not so here, as Landesberg liked to point out.  Here you can blame a kid in a baby carriage and get away with it, no matter what you've done.  And in those rare cases where someone does resign after a major boo-boo, he might be rewarded with a TV talk show.

So it's refreshing to see an actual, genuine resignation by a man who takes responsibility for things that happened on his watch.  Now, to be sure, he could have been asked to resign, to walk the plank, but he did in fact submit a resignation:

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Organization resigned today, the day after another air traffic controller was caught napping while planes were trying to land.

"Hank Krakowski has submitted his resignation and I have accepted," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement. "Hank is a dedicated aviation professional and I thank him for his service."

Krakowski had held the position since 2007 and prior to joining the FAA had worked for United Air Lines for nearly 30 years, says his FAA bio.

Krakowski's resignation comes as the FAA investigates five incidents in recent weeks of air controllers possibly sleeping on the job.

Following the most recent incident on Wednesday in Reno, Nev., the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation announced that additional air traffic controllers would be immediately added on the midnight shift at 27 control towers that currently have only one person working overnights.

COMMENT:  This is pretty scary stuff, and requires a congressional investigation.  If controllers are dozing off, we must ask how many are too tired to work effectively, where human lives are involved.   The most famous recent doze-off came at Reagan Airport in Washington, not exactly a place lacking in traffic. 

The FAA has long been a troubled agency, hobbled by the dual and sometimes contradictory mission of promoting air safety and and the economic health of the airline industry.

April 14, 2011       Permalink 

OBLIVION – AT 11:29 P.M. ET:  The name  you hear less and less of these days is Nancy Pelosi.  Remember Nancy?  Not many months ago she was the speaker of the House, with a really neat office.  Lots of free plane trips.  And she got to be called "Madam Speaker."  That was then.  This is now, as The Politico notes:

During the past election season, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could have starred in a remake of the Hollywood cult classic “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.” In an endless string of campaign ads, Republicans caricatured her — even put her image on billboards — as a political monster.

But now, the former House speaker more closely resembles “The Incredible Shrinking Woman.”

Her diminished stature has affected the way she is perceived in Washington’s power game and the way she handles her duties as head of the House Democratic minority. It all adds up to this: At times, the once-omnipresent Pelosi seems practically invisible in the Capitol.

When President Barack Obama, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hammered out a deal last week to avert a shutdown and fund the government for the rest of the year, Pelosi was delivering a speech at Tufts University near Boston.

But her hands would have been idle if she had stayed in Washington: The White House didn’t want her involved in the talks.

In fact, Democratic and Republican sources tell POLITICO, none of the power brokers wanted her in the room. They feared that her presence and her defense of liberal values would have made it impossible for Obama to cut a deal with Boehner. The sources say Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky also was excluded so the White House could justify keeping Pelosi out.

Boehner, more or less, had McConnell’s proxy in negotiating with Senate Democrats and the White House.

COMMENT:  Obama doesn't need Nancy any longer, so under the bus she goes, joining a star-studded host of former friends and allies. 

Nancy isn't helped, of course, by the fact that her ultra-liberal, San Francisco-based leadership of the House was a key factor in the Republican victory last November.  She not only lost, she lost big time, throwing away a comfortable majority.

She retains her leadership of House Democrats, although they, too, are greatly diminished, both in number and in spirit.  They've become so easy to ignore.

I would imagine that Nancy may well have a real fight on her hands to stay minority leader.  She will probably win it, but why?

April 14, 2011     Permalink

THE ONGOING TRAGEDY – AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  The Duke lacrosse case, and its legacy, keep making headlines.  The case taught America how a college can throw its own falsely accused students under the bus, as long as political correctness is involved.  Now the legacy takes a tragic turn:

DURHAM, N.C. — A man who police say was stabbed by a woman who falsely accused Duke lacrosse players of rape has died, and the woman could face murder charges in the death.

Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez Jr. told The Herald-Sun of Durham Wednesday that 46-year-old Reginald Daye was dead.

According to WRAL-TV and the newspaper, Daye had been taken to Duke University Hospital after being stabbed with a kitchen knife on April 3.

Crystal Mangum was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and has been jailed since the stabbing.

"More than likely, we will be upgrading the charge to murder," Lopez told the Herald-Sun.

COMMENT:  Crystal Mangum, working at that time as an exotic dancer, falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape, setting off a scandal that went national.  Mangum is African-American, the players were affluent whites.  The local D.A. was running for election in a heavily African-American district.  He pounced on the case and came close to ruining the players' lives, despite no real evidence against them.  Duke turned on them, with 80 faculty members calling, in effect, for a legal lynching.

The D.A. was eventually disbarred for prosecutorial misconduct.  The accuser was convicted of abusing her own child.  And now this.

The boys were exonerated, but every time someone Googles their name, the case will come up, and the accusations against them listed.

Duke University never apologized for the hysteria whipped up against these players.  You may be sure that it won't comment on the legacy of the accuser, who was made an instant campus heroine, back in the day.

April 14, 2011       Permalink

OH, A SWELL TIME FOR THIS – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  Mr. Obama seems determined to make us just another country.  Just folks, you know, no better, no worse, than anyone else.  There is an international price to be paid for his failure to keep America in the forefront as a leader.  It is being paid.  From Reuters:

DOHA/TRIPOLI – Britain pressured other NATO members to increase ground attacks in Libya on Wednesday, but cracks appeared in the alliance, as foreign ministers met in Qatar to try to break the deadlock in the civil war.

NATO divisions surfaced at the international “contact group” meeting – not only over arming the rebels and increasing air strikes, but also on creating a fund from frozen Libyan assets – to help the opposition attempting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underlined the humanitarian disaster caused by the war, telling the meeting that up to 3.6 million people – or more than half the population – could need assistance.

Paris and London are increasingly frustrated that air strikes have neither tipped the balance of the war in favor of rebels trying to end Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year rule, nor ended devastating shelling of the besieged city of Misrata.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe criticized NATO on Tuesday for not doing enough to stop the bombardment of the rebel-held port town, where hundreds of civilians are said to have died in more than six weeks of siege.

COMMENT:  History shows us that it's tough enough to win even a small war with an air campaign alone.  It is tougher when some of the countries you depend on in NATO just won't do much, if anything.  President Obama has said Gaddafi must go, yet Gaddafi stays, and digs in, and we wear our weakness on our sleeve.  Don't lead, cut defense budget.  The left must be thrilled.  The rest of us remember better days for our country.

April 14, 2011       Permalink

ABOUT THAT RECOVERY – AT 8:55 A.M. ET:  The economy took an unexpected blow this morning, reminding us that presidential speeches and sound economic policy are two very different things.  From CNBC:

New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level, while core producer prices clumbed faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 412,000, the Labor Department said.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 380,000.

The prior weeks figure was revised up to 385,000 from the previously reported 382,000.

The four-week moving average of unemployment claims—a better measure of underlying trends—climbed 5,500 to 395,750.

COMMENT:  And inflation is up, something any of us can plainly see every time we want, as Jack Benny used to say, to try a gallon.  Gasoline prices in our area are now over four dollars for regular, heading for five, according to many observers.  It is hard even for Obama to blame this on BUSH (!!), or even CHENEY (!!!!!). 

The president's intent to cut defense spending will be another blow to the economy, as defense procurement translates into jobs. 

It is hard to see what Mr. Obama can point to as we now enter a vigorous election cycle, with Republican candidates making their intentions known.  But the president still can count on his campaign skills, and the fact that his base, although possibly smaller than in 2008, retains a certain charming fanaticism, reminiscent of the kamikaze.

April 14, 2011       Permalink

HE JUST CAN'T HELP IT – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  This president is a continuing campaign.  More comfortable as candidate than as elected official, Barack Obama is at his most normal when in campaign mode, like yesterday.  Even the liberal-tilting Politico has noticed:

President Barack Obama extended a fiscal olive branch to Republicans on Wednesday. Then he beat them up with it.

Obama’s long-anticipated speech on the deficit at George Washington University was one of the oddest rhetorical hybrids of his presidency – a serious stab at reforming entitlements cloaked in a 2012 campaign speech that was one of the most overtly partisan broadsides he’s ever delivered from a podium with a presidential seal.

The centerpiece was a battle cry to his base, a call for $1 trillion in new taxes on the rich – on top of billions saved by allowing Bush-era tax cuts to lapse — in lieu of the deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and now identified with the GOP.

Liberals, for the most part, were assuaged. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said Obama’s call for $4 trillion in cuts over 12 years was “much better than many of us feared.” His conclusion:“I can live with this.”

But the combative tenor of Obama’s remarks, which included a swipe at his potential GOP challengers in 2012, may have scuttled the stated purpose of the entire enterprise - starting negotiations with Republicans on a workable bipartisan approach to attacking the deficit...

...“This was not a speech designed for America to win the future, this was a speech designed for the president to attempt to win re-election,” snarled Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the No. 4 in House Republican leadership.

As president, Mr. Obama is a consummate amateur.  He even swiped the "king of amateurs" award from Jimmy Carter, who now must be resentful.  The late Democratic House speaker Tip O'Neill famously said, "Only amateurs stay mad." 
The president's intense partisanship yesterday, at a time when the public was demanding that he and the GOP work together, was the mark of an amateur. 

Look, maybe he needs more practice.  He's only been president a little over two years.  Give the man the full four years to sharpen up.  Then that second term will be fabulous!

Oh dear.

April 14,  2011     Permalink