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MARCH 24,  2011

ARE YOU FEELING POORER?  JOIN THE CROWD – AT 8:58 P.M. ET:  A new report shows a dramatic drop in the net worth of the American family.  What a legacy to leave our children.  From Money:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009.

Titled "Surveying the Aftermath of the Storm," the report offers a broad look at how the financial crisis impacted individual households.

It is widely known that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in the vaporization of trillions of dollars in household wealth. But Federal Reserve officials said Thursday the new report offers a look at exactly how hard the recession hit families, and how they reacted.

The numbers paint a stark picture.

Families that owned stock saw their portfolios drop by more than a third to $12,000 from $18,500, on average. The value of primary real estate holdings decreased by an average of $18,700.

And families took on more debt, pushing median total debt levels to $75,600 from $70,300. They also made less money. Media household income dropped from to $49,800 from $50,100.

COMMENT:  We are not in good shape.  This not only affects families, it affects our national strength, and, ultimately, our national morale.   I don't see much thought coming from Washington about how we get out of this.  I don't think the solution will come from Washington anyway. 

March 24, 2011      Permalink

NO CONFUSION WITH REAGAN – AT 8:46 P.M. ET:  A poll out shows it's unlikely that Barack Obama will ever be confused with Ronald Reagan...or Douglas MacArthur:

(Reuters) - Only 17 percent of Americans see President Barack Obama as a strong and  decisive military leader, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the United States and its allies began bombing Libya.

I'd love to talk to a few of that 17 percent.  I want to understand their reasoning.  It may be important for the future of psychiatry.

Nearly half of those polled view Obama as a cautious and consultative commander-in-chief and more than a third see him as indecisive in military matters.

Obama was widely criticized in 2009 for his months-long consultations with senior aides and military chiefs on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Critics called it dithering, but he said such a big decision required careful deliberation. He eventually dispatched 30,000 more troops.

But Obama is facing mounting discontent among opposition Republicans and from within his own Democratic Party over the fuzzy aims of the U.S.-led mission in Libya and the lack of a clearly spelled-out exit strategy for U.S. forces.

COMMENT:  This is a classic case of an inexperienced president who believes that all problems can be approached academically.  He has no gut instinct for conflict, does not believe in the word "victory," and doesn't understand his own country.  Other than that, he's terrific.

March 24, 2011       Permalink

ONCE A GREAT CITY – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  When most of us were growing up, Detroit was associated with muscle – industrial muscle.  It was motor city, producing the vehicles of a teenager's dreams. 

Today, Detroit is a city in the shadows, a mess, place no one wants to be.  Michael Barone, who comes from Michigan, details the collapse of a once-great metropolis known around the world.   From the Washington Examiner:

The Census Bureau has released the county and major city population figures for my home state of Michigan, and the big news is the stunning loss of population in Detroit, as this Wall Street Journal article indicates.

The April 1, 2010 figure for Detroit was 713,777 -- down from 951,270 in 2000. That’s a population loss of 25% in a single decade, substantially greater than for any other city in this period except hurricane-devastated New Orleans, whose percentage population loss of 29% was not all that much greater.

Fully one-fifth of the housing units in Detroit are vacant, and of course many more have simply disappeared. I was in kindergarten in Detroit in April 1950, when the Census Bureau count for the city was 1,849,568. In the intervening 60 years the city’s population has declined by 1,135,791 people. The city’s population is down 61% in those years. When people ask me why I moved from being a liberal to being a conservative, my single-word answer is Detroit. The liberal policies which I hoped would make Detroit something like heaven have made it instead something more like hell.

And...

Some historic perspective: in the redistricting following the 1960 Census, four congressional districts were wholly or almost entirely within the city of Detroit. Now Detroit has just slightly more people than a single congressional district.

How pathetic.  And, of course, this all has been accompanied by the decline of the American automobile industry.  Can you imagine if GM, Ford and Chrysler had developed executives with the imagination of an Apple Computer? 

And, as Barone indicates, liberal policies destroyed Detroit.  That and high crime. 

Can Detroit come back?  I doubt it.  Where is the incentive?  Where is the vision?

There is no guarantee that cities survive.  New York City, which once was a vibrant, creative metropolis, is now so expensive that it's driving out its most productive young people.  New York State loses more people each year than any other state.

The future of America, I suspect, lies outside the traditional centers.  Much will depend on how well cities and states are run, an enormous opportunity for sane governors like Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Chris Christie in New Jersey.  The question is whether sanity will prevail, or old-style liberalism, where productive people write the checks, and unproductive people cash them.

March 24, 2011       Permalink

ANOTHER OUTRAGE – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  If any further proof were needed that Eric Holder's Justice Department has been reduced to a political operation favoring only certain groups, it's here.  The department has entered a religious-discrimination case...on the wrong side.  PC trumped common sense.  From the Washington Post:

BERKELEY, Ill. — Safoorah Khan had taught middle school math for only nine months in this tiny Chicago suburb when she made an unusual request. She wanted three weeks off for a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The school district, faced with losing its only math lab instructor during the critical end-of-semester marking period, said no. Khan, a devout Muslim, resigned and made the trip anyway.

Justice Department lawyers examined the same set of facts and reached a different conclusion: that the school district’s decision amounted to outright discrimination against Khan. They filed an unusual lawsuit, accusing the district of violating her civil rights by forcing her to choose between her job and her faith.

As the case moves forward in federal court in Chicago, it has triggered debate over whether the Justice Department was following a purely legal path or whether suing on Khan’s behalf was part of a broader Obama administration campaign to reach out to Muslims.

I think it goes well beyond even outreach.  It is an action based on the belief of the hard left that some groups are a bit more equal than others.   Clearly, we want to protect freedom of religion, for Muslims as well as anyone else, and employers are asked to make reasonable accommodations toward that end.  But this woman's demands go far beyond reasonable.

The lawsuit, filed in December, may well test the boundaries of how far employers must go to accommodate workers’ religious practices — a key issue as the nation grows more multicultural and the Muslim population increases. But it is also raising legal questions. Experts say the government might have difficulty prevailing because the 19-day leave Khan requested goes beyond what courts have considered.

“It sounds like a very dubious judgment and a real legal reach,” said Michael B. Mukasey, who was attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. “The upper reaches of the Justice Department should be calling people to account for this.”

The plot thickens:

“This was a profoundly personal request by a person of faith,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who compared the case to protecting “the religious liberty that our forefathers came to this country for.”

Nice words from a man who doesn't mean them.  Tom Perez is well known as one of the most left-leaning major officials in the history of the United States Government.  He's way out there. 

This case is a disgrace. 

March 24, 2011       Permalink

LIBYA ON THURSDAY – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  While the coalition air attacks have degraded some of the Libyan government's capability, they are far from destroying it.  In the meantime, there are increasing demands, including many issuing from the U.S. Congress, for some clarity, some vision of the objective...and some explanation of who will be running things:

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Coalition forces hit Libya for a sixth day early Thursday amid questions over the future of the international involvement in the effort to halt civilian attacks by the nation's forces.

So far, the coalition has crippled the Libyan air force and established a no-fly zone along the nation's coastline, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gerard Hueber said.

Allied forces gave no indication that ruler Moammar Gadhafi was complying with a United Nations mandate to stop attacks against civilians.

But a U.S. official said though the rebels are in a better position, the ruler's forces still have the upper edge.
They remain capable of carrying out attacks on the opposition, are relatively well-organized and continue to fight effectively, the official said.

And from The New York Times:

TRIPOLI, Libya — Despite ferocious allied airstrikes on Libyan ground forces, tanks and artillery, France, one of the principle western partners in the campaign against forces loyal to Muammar el-Qaddafi, said on Thursday that the effort could still take “days or weeks.”

Wait, wait.  Didn't Obama say we're handing over leadership of the effort within a few days?  Who's in charge?  After weeks of dithering, you'd think the president would have had the time to figure out a coherent war plan, with command-and-control firmly in place.

Of course, we hope we win this and that Qaddafi departs, one way or another.   But the whole effort seems like a blurred lens.

March 24, 2011     Permalink

LOOK AT THIS WITH TWO EYES – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  A new Pew Research poll appears to have some limited good news for President Obama, but note the details.  From The Politico:

A challenger might have room to unseat President Barack Obama’s reelection bid, but no dominant Republican candidate has emerged so far, a new poll suggests.

Reinforcing what other state-by-state and national surveys have found, a Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday has Obama polling strongly but not overwhelmingly well, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they’d like to see him reelected to a second term. Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed said they’d prefer to see a Republican candidate win in 2012, while 16 percent said they were undecided.

And get this:

The poll surveyed 1,525 adults, including 1,251 registered voters, March 8-14. For registered voters, the error margin for the poll is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

COMMENT:  I have no idea why they surveyed adults, only a percentage of whom are registered voters.  In fact, I have no idea why they did this poll at all, as it demonstrates nothing.

Polls of "adults" or "registered voters" tend to favor Democrats.  When the poll is limited to "likely voters," the only people who actually count in an election, Republican numbers go up. 

I'd imagine – this is informed speculation – that you could lop five points or so off Obama's rating if the poll had been taken among "likely voters," and add about the same number to Republicans, making the result about even.  And that would be lesser news for the president.

But all polls I've seen thus far reinforce the main point we've been making here:  The Republicans need a strong, attractive candidate, not just the next guy in line.  They may have to go to their young bench.  The "big names" don't look that big.

March 24, 2011     Permalink

MARCH 23,  2011

WHY NOT THE WORST? – AT 9:38 P.M. ET:  When he ran for president, Jimmy Carter published a book about himself called "Why Not the Best?"  It was an omen of the ego to come.  If every wife or husband could be loved to the degree that Jimmy Carter loves himself, there'd be no divorce courts. 

Now we find that Carter is back in action again, inserting himself into the prickly relationship between the U.S. and North Korea.  As usual, it's hard to know which side has Carter's sympathy:

WASHINGTON, March 23 (Yonhap) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will likely visit North Korea next month to broker rapprochement in U.S. relations with the reclusive communist state, which have chilled over the North's nuclear and missile programs and other provocations, a diplomatic source here said Wednesday.

"It is highly likely that ex-President Carter will travel to North Korea in about a month as the North Korean mission in New York has been arranging for the visit," said the source, who requested anonymity.

Carter is expected to be accompanied by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other prominent figures who are ready to be middlemen in U.S. relations with the impoverished but nuclear-armed state.

Carter visited Pyongyang in August and brought back Aijalon Gomes of Boston, who had been sentenced to eight years in a labor camp and fined about US$700,000 for illegally entering North Korea months earlier.

Carter was expected to play a role in mending U.S. relations with the North at the time, but he could not meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who had traveled to China for a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Kim made the trip in an apparent attempt to seek Chinese support for the unprecedented third-generation power transition to his youngest son.

There is nothing in Carter's record to recommend him.  We are still paying for his administration's role in bringing down the shah of Iran and replacing him with hate-filled cleric. 

Carter's presence as even an unofficial representative of the United States is an embarrassment, especially as our current president seems to work hard to place himself in the Carter tradition.

March 23, 2011      Permalink

TOO MUCH TO HANDLE – AT 8:59 P.M. ET:   We feel President Obama's pain at having to cut a few hours of sightseeing from his Latin American schedule to travel to another country on his visitors' tour, the United States.  Some suggest he may have a role to play here.

With eyes focused on Libya because of our military action there, we may be ignoring an equally important eruption, the rebellion in Yemen.  Yemen is critical because it is home to some of the most active Al Qaeda groups.  We have an ambassador there, but no policy, as Fox points out:

The Obama administration, after helping to orchestrate a U.N.-backed military intervention in Libya, is facing pressure to do more to prepare for the potential collapse of the government in another Mideast country, Yemen -- but U.S. officials admit they are doing little more than watching at this point.

Though Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has already offered to step down by the end of the year, anti-government demonstrators still swell the streets of the capital Sana'a as the government declares a state of emergency.

Yemen's parliament is now giving Saleh, who has led the country since 1978, even broader powers to arrest opponents and censor media coverage as he faces growing opposition to step down immediately.

Yemen is a central ally of the U.S. government against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The group, along with its operational planner, the American Anwar al-Awlaki, the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, are now considered a greater threat than Usama bin Laden's network in Pakistan.   And one U.S. lawmaker suggests that chaos in Yemen could result in a worse terrorist breeding ground than Afghanistan.

COMMENT:  There are times in history when we had a real president, not someone from the Make Believe Ballroom.  Yemen can turn out to be more critical to our safety than Libya, yet the U.S. is just "watching." 

And regarding Libya, there are now so many cracks in the "coalition" participating in military action against the country that we wonder what actually will be done, and how effective it can be.  President Obama proudly says that we will turn over "leadership" of the coalition by Saturday...but we still don't have a command structure in place.  In other words, there's no one there who can play the leadership role.

This isn't exactly change we can believe in.  I would love to be a fly on the wall of a foreign ministry of friend or foe, as diplomats discuss this man Obama, and his abysmal failure to develop coherent policies, or to lead.  The Chicago City Council would have been a nice spot for him.

March 23,  2011     Permalink

STILL IN THE DUMPS – AT 11:37 A.M. ET:   New housing statistics show that we are still very much in the housing dumps, yet Washington talks about a brilliant recovery.  Where's the recovery?  From Bloomberg:

Purchases of new U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in February to the slowest pace on record and prices dropped to the lowest level since December 2003, adding to evidence the industry is floundering.

Sales decreased 16.9 percent to a 250,000 annual pace, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a gain to a 290,000 rate, according to the median estimate. The median price fell 8.9 percent from the same month in 2010.

Builders are struggling to compete with existing homes as foreclosures add to the overhang of unsold properties and drive down values. The figures underscore the Federal Reserve’s view that the housing market “continues to be depressed” even as the rest of the economy improves.

COMMENT:  The reality here is that a home is usually the largest expenditure in the history of most famlies, and people often have their life savings tied up in where they live.  But more and more Americans are getting into a situation where the house owns them, rather than the other way around.  Add to this the drumbeat of rising property taxes, the better to pay the vast benefits demanded by public-service employees, and we have a bad fix.

I get the sense, from the materials we review here, that our economic doldrums will last years, and that any "recovery" will be tentative and delicate.  We still don't know the impact of the Japanese earthquake on that country's economy, which will surely impact the United States.  Nor do we know the impact of the Mideast mess.

Not exactly good news for the unemployed.

March 23, 2011      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 10:22 A.M. ET: 

From Fox:  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thinks capitalism may be responsible for the lack of life on the planet Mars.  "I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in a speech on Tuesday. 

Aren't you, like me, sick of spending so much on scientific research, when answers are so readily available from Hugo Chavez?  Let's suck it up and cancel any further exploration on Mars.  We have all the answers we need.

March 23, 2011      Permalink

BOMB ATTACK IN JERUSALEM – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  There has been a bombing in Jerusalem, leading to immediate fears that the simmering conflict between Israelis and Palestinians will escalate again:

JERUSALEM (AP) — A bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop Wednesday in central Jerusalem, wounding at least 25 people in what appeared to be the first militant attack in the city in several years.

The blast could be heard throughout Jerusalem and blew out the windows of two crowded buses.

Rescuers were seen removing bloodied people from the area on stretchers.

Israel's national rescue service said 25 people were wounded, including 15 seriously. No deaths were reported.

Meir Hagid, one of the bus drivers, said he heard a loud explosion as he drove by the site, located near the main entrance to Jerusalem and its central bus station.

"I heard the explosion in the bus stop," he said. He halted his vehicle and people got off. He said nobody in his bus was hurt.

COMMENT:  In recent days there's been an escalation of violence between Hamas, which runs Gaza, and Israel.  This incident will not help.

One thing to always be concerned about in attacks like this is the possibility of a copycat bombing...anywhere in the world, including here.  Those who attempted to blow up an airliner over Detroit, or to set off a car bomb in Times Square, got their inspiration from others.  Many terror experts have expressed amazement that we haven't had a Jerusalem-style bombing here.  We hope our luck continues, but we can never count on luck.

March 23, 2011      Permalink 

BULLETIN – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  Elizabeth Taylor has died at 79.  Think of her what you will, but she was one of the last of the true stars of the golden age of Hollywood.  She was also a fine actress, although her personal life often overshadowed her talent.

Elizabeth Taylor symbolized the glamour of the golden age.  Her death does not, however, end that era.  Olivia de Havilland, a star of "Gone With The Wind," survives, and is in her mid-90s.  So does Mickey Rooney, who, it's hard to believe, was considered a major star in the late 1930s and early 40s.  CNN notes:

Though a two-time Oscar winner -- for "Butterfield 8" (1960) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1966) -- Taylor was more celebrated for simply being Elizabeth Taylor: sexy, glamorous, tempestuous, fragile, always trailing courtiers, media and fans. She wasn't above playing to that image -- she had a fragrance called "White Diamonds" -- or mocking it.

"I am a very committed wife," she once said. "And I should be committed too -- for being married so many times." 

Let us remember the talent, and the extraordinary beauty that went with it. 

March 23, 2011     Permalink

LIBYA MESS – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  It is being noticed that 1) we apparently have no clear objective in Libya, 2) the Europeans are divided, and 3) the head man in Libya keeps attacking civilians.  Great way to go to war.

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Loud explosions and heavy anti-aircraft gunfire rang out early Wednesday in the Libyan capital, hours after the nation's defiant leader vowed to win his battle with coalition forces.

The sources of the blasts and gunfire in western Tripoli were unclear, but there is a large military base in the area.

U.S. officials said while coalition forces conducted airstrikes Tuesday night, they did not "specifically target anything" in the capital.

Four days of military strikes by French, Britain and the United States' forces have rendered Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's long-range air defenses and his air force largely ineffective, military officials have said.

Here is the key:

But on the ground, forces loyal to the ruler continued their assault on towns with a rebel presence.

"Tanks and snipers are in the center of the city," a witness said early Wednesday, about the western port city of Misrata. "The people are living in a state of fear. Electricity has been cut off, water has been cut off."
The witness said hospitals are overflowing.

"Injured people are sleeping on the floor," he said. "Misrata needs help."

What if Gadhafi realizes he can win without air power?  After all, he didn't have much to start with.  What if the coalition really starts to fracture after a week?  Obama proudly announced that we are giving up leadership of the military effort, a disgraceful stand.  When you're the leader, you call the shots.  How will Americans react when they find out that American pilots are being ordered into action by Europeans?  Or even by Arab members of the coalition?  (There are reports that some Arab nations are about to join active action against Libya, but that hasn't happened yet.)

This column supported the initial attempt to establish a no-fly zone over Libya, but there apparently is no phase two, and not much thinking about it.  The president has been busy in Latin America.  The secretary of state seems adrift.  And, on the ground, Gadhafi continues attacking.

Some British officials are hinting that Britain may have to employ ground troops in Libya.  Obama has ruled out American ground forces.  In this he's correct, as Americans will not accept it.  But there is no coherent strategy because the man in the White House only knows how to organize a community.  The world is a different matter.

March 23, 2011      Permalink

THIS IS PATHETIC – AT 8:37 A.M. ET:  When Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights laws of 1964, he predicted that they would cost his Democratic Party the South for a generation, but that it was the right thing to do.  He was right on both counts...except that the South has become increasingly Republican – for other reasons – in recent decades.

The Dems pride themselves on protection of "minority rights."  Sometimes, though, that protection has taken on the form of groveling and vote-grabbing, having almost nothing to do with actual rights.

And the Dems are at it again.  Eric Holder's Justice Department makes it clear that it favors only certain groups.  And get this latest gem:

Just weeks after House Republicans held a hearing looking at the dangers of radical Muslims in the U.S., Senate Democrats are countering with a hearing of their own, scheduled for after Congress returns from a 10-day vacation, to examine Muslims' civil rights.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, announced the subcommittee hearing Tuesday, saying there has been a spike in anti-Muslim bigotry in the last year that demands closer attention.

“Our Constitution protects the free exercise of religion for all Americans,” Mr. Durbin said. “During the course of our history, many religions have faced intolerance. It is important for our generation to renew our founding charter’s commitment to religious diversity and to protect the liberties guaranteed by our Bill of Rights.”

Durbin is a fierce partisan, but has always struck me as a fundamentally decent guy, not at all a crackpot.  But this is really over the top.  Do you see a groundswell of anti-Muslim resentment around you?  We do resent jihadists who try to murder our citizens, and I hope Durbin understands that.  We have an administration that won't even identify the ideology of terrorist attackers, for fear of "offending" the Muslim world.  Boy, we're really coming down hard on Islam.

The fact is that Americans respect the difference between loyal Muslims and radical jihadists.  But Americans also insist that the radicals be labeled for what they are, and that we have the right to find out who's teaching and guiding them.  Apparently, Mr. Durbin doesn't agree.

And note this:

In 2009, the latest FBi statistics available, anti-Islamic hate crimes accounted for 9.3 percent of the 1,376 religiously motivated hate crimes recorded. That's far less than the 70.1 percent that were anti-Jewish.

Please observe that the Jews don't get any hearings.  Not politically correct on the left.  And the fiercely hostile attitudes we see toward traditional Christians, especially evangelicals, are ignored by the Democratic investigators. 

I have no problem with Durbin holding his hearings, although I can't see what revelations will come up.  I do hope, though, that those other groups make their voices heard in their own defense, and take a big bite out of the political correctness that has all but destroyed the once-great Democratic Party of Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy.

March 23,  2011     Permalink