SATURDAY,  AUGUST 15,  2009

RECESSION IS OVER, RECESSION IS OVER, PLEASE TELL CHICAGO - AT 9:27 P.M. ET:  Apparently, Obama's home city hasn't gotten the White House e-mail.  From CBS:

The City of Chicago will basically be closed for business on Aug. 17, a reduced-service day in which most city employees are off without pay, according to a release from the Office of Budget and Management. City Hall, public libraries, health clinics and most city offices will be closed.

Emergency service providers including police, firefighters and paramedics will be working at full strength, but most services not directly related to public safety, including street sweeping, will not be provided, the release said.

COMMENT:  I wonder:  Under Obamacare, will there be days off too?  I mean, will emergency rooms be closed on Thursdays to save money to put into some congressman's favorite road project?  Just asking.

If you have friends in Chicago, please call and tell them the economy is booming again, all because of the stimulus package.  Pass it on.

August 15, 2009   Permalink

ROGUE-STATE MISSILE FLOPS - AT 7:38 P.M. ET:  More big doings from the cultures we must strive to understand:

Twenty Syrians were killed and over 60 injured in a failed Scud missile test carried out by Syria, Iran and North Korea in May, Japan's Kyodo News reported on Friday.

One of two missiles had apparently strayed off its course due to a technical malfunction, landing in a civilian populated area in a town on the Syrian-Turkish border. The victims were all civilians.

The incident was part of a botched attempt to test a new short-range ballistic missile developed together by the three countries, the report said.

COMMENT:  Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see.  Just technical development by people responding to BUSH (!!).

Why, one conversation with Barack Obama and they'll beat those missiles into whatever the Koran says you beat missiles into.  Maybe armored burkas.

We are still not sufficiently alarmed about the technical progress being made by rogue states.  It's something that happens behind the headlines, but it's going on 24 hours a day, and we are the ultimate target.

August 15, 2009   Permalink

THE REAL ECONOMY - AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  With all the hype about the economy suddenly returning from the dead - tofu in every pot and two iPods in every pocket - some truths are starting to come out.  One of them involves the real employment picture, and it isn't pretty, as NRO Online reports: 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines the hires rate as the “number of hires during the month divided by the number of employees who worked during or received pay for the pay period that includes the 12th of the month.” And the latest hires rate — the worst in the history of this measure — confirms what BuzzCharts has been reporting for months (see “Obama’s Magical Misery Tour” and “The Jobless Recovery”): Entrepreneurs and business managers are frozen. They’ve stopped posting want ads and they’ve stopped adding staff. When I look at the chart above, I see a giant sign hanging in the window of America. It reads: “Help Not Wanted.”

And...

...Obama has made them scared. Everywhere I go I hear the same story. Business owners know the little details that academics and pundits don’t, and they know what not to do. They know, for example, that payroll taxes are not only scheduled to rise, but already have risen. And they know all too well that government-mandated unemployment compensation is funded by employers through an unemployment-compensation payroll tax. As a result, they know not to hire.

COMMENT:  Wait 'til they get the bill for Obamacare, a system that will include absolutely zero reform of the vastly corrupt malpractice system. 

We may be in a kind of economic recovery, but it's a jobless recovery.  Once again the people who run for office caring about "the people" have shown that they don't really care at all.

August 15, 2009   Permalink

BACKWARDS IN TIME - AT 11:27 A.M. ET:  Reader Joseph J. Gallick alerts us to something that should be a national scandal, but won't be because most of the media isn't interested.  The Wall Street Journal is:

Never has Ronald Reagan's dream of layered missile defenses—Star Wars, for short—been as politically out of favor as in the Age of Obama. Nor as close, at least technologically, to becoming realized.

The latest encouraging news came Thursday courtesy of the Misssile Defense Agency. The Airborne Laser prototype aircraft this week found, tracked, engaged and simulated an intercept with a missile seconds after liftoff. It was the first time the Agency used an "instrumented" missile to confirm the laser works as expected. Next up this fall will be the first live attempt to bring down a ballistic missile, but this test confirms how far along this innovative effort has come.

And the tragedy...

Yet the Obama Administration isn't buying it. Funding for missile defense was cut in the 2010 budget by some 15%—$1.2 billion to $1.6 billion, depending on how you calculate it...As the Administration keeps defense spending growth flat, while breaking the bank on its domestic priorities, Secretary Gates has to make hard choices. But he might try harder to convince his boss at the White House that Star Wars isn't a sci-fi fantasy. That's what critics used to say about stealth aircraft as well.

COMMENT:  Although the administration has authorized a modest increase in ground forces, its overall commitment to national defense seems as weak as Bill Clinton's, who famously refused to have regular meetings with his CIA director.

This is a leftist administration, bolstered by the leftist base of the House Democrats.  Visionary defense systems just aren't their thing.  I hope we don't pay a terrible price for this down the road, but I fear we may.

August 15, 2009   Permalink 

WELL, WHAT DO YOU KNOW? - AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  This is one of those rare moments in journalism.  Savor it:

A senior editor of the New York Times apologized to The Washington Times for publishing a front-page story Friday that accused The Washington Times of being "decidedly opposed" to President Barack Obama.

Dean Baquet, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, telephoned Washington Times editors, offered an apology to the staff and said he would run a correction.

"I would never say your paper has been anything but absolutely fair and objective to Obama," Mr. Baquet told The Washington Times' Managing Editor-Print David Jones.

"We agree and accept the Times' apology," Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon wrote to his staff.

COMMENT:  We'd like to think this is the start of a trend, but we're not that naive.  It's one thing for The New York Times to apologize to fellow journalists.  Journalists have a kind of affection for each other.  It's quite another thing for The Times to do what is so clearly necessary - apologize for some of its absysmally slanted reporting in recent years, clear the air about its Vietnam coverage, and pledge to be a better, more objective newspaper.

Don't hold your breath.  Unhealthy.

August 15, 2009   Permalink

OH COME ON, GET REAL - AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  This is another one of those "if we engage them, they become just like us" stories that makes the blood boil.  From AP:

YANGON, Myanmar -- U.S. Sen. Jim Webb won the release Saturday of an American prisoner convicted in Myanmar and sentenced to seven years in prison for swimming secretly to the residence of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the senator's office said.

Yettaw, 53, is to be officially deported Sunday, when he will fly with Webb on a military aircraft to Bangkok, according to a statement from Webb's office.

COMMENT:  Senator Webb didn't win anything.  The government of Myanmar (Burma) is absolutely repressive, and the United States has taken a tough line toward it.  This "release" is simply a propaganda move by the Burmese thugs to show the value of ending our isolation of them.  Webb is being used, but he seems to enjoy it.  You'll recall that Webb is the former Reagan administration official who became a Democrat and is widely regarded as, to put it mildly, an eccentric.  He was elected to the Senate from Virginia in 2006 on a fluke, after then-Senator George Allen's campaign imploded.

The term "useful idiot" comes to mind.

August 15, 2009   Permalink

CAN'T BE BOTHERED - AT 10:04 A.M. ET:  One of the wonders of the last campaign was the organization put together by the Obama forces.  And where is it today, during the health-care debate, when Obama needs the troops?  Well, they just can't be bothered.  The New York Times reports:

As the health care debate intensifies, the president is turning to his grass-roots network — the 13 million members of Organizing for America — for support.

Mr. Obama engendered such passion last year that his allies believed they were on the verge of creating a movement that could be mobilized again. But if a week’s worth of events are any measure here in Iowa, it may not be so easy to reignite the machine that overwhelmed Republicans a year ago.

More than a dozen campaign volunteers, precinct captains and team leaders from all corners of Iowa, who dedicated a large share of their time in 2007 and 2008 to Mr. Obama, said in interviews this week that they supported the president completely but were taking a break from politics and were not active members of Organizing for America.

COMMENT:  Not at all unusual, especially in movements of the left.  They're fun and cozy during election campaigns, not so much fun when the real work of governing begins.

We saw this same phenomenon in the fifties with the "madly for Adlai" crowd, those who believed Adlai Stevenson was also some kind of messiah because he spoke well and sounded Ivy League.  They would ride through towns honking their horns during presidential campaigns, but were nowhere to be seen between elections.  Dahlings, we do not mix with the masses. 

Another factor is that governing often takes the bloom off the rose, as the starry-eyed realize that there's a real world out there - like other countries that may not fall in line just because The One makes a speech.

Campaigns are about cheering.  Governing is about doing.

August 15, 2009   Permalink

FRIDAY,  AUGUST 14,  2009

STILL MISSING, AFTER ALL THESE DAYS - AT 11:13 P.M. ET - Many readers are probably following, off and on, the mystery of the Russian-manned cargo ship that disappeared last month in the Atlantic, some time after reporting that it been attacked in Swedish waters by thugs who boarded, tied up the crew, then left.  It was all very strange since Swedish waters aren't exactly infested by pirates.

The ship was officially carrying timber, but now there are all kinds of rumors, none verified, that there may be some issue of drugs, or even a commercial dispute.  The ship's official destination was Algeria.

The mystery is fascinating in itself, but it also teaches a lesson:  Ships are vulnerable, and, in the vast oceans, even with all kinds of electronic surveillance and communications, ships can disappear or be hijacked.  How difficult would it be for a fanatical, suicidal rogue group to capture a ship and slip a nuclear weapon on board, then sail it into an American port?  It would be a challenge, but it could probably be done, and we know that al Qaeda is seeking weapons of mass destruction.

The disappearance of this ship, the Arctic Sea, should wake us up, but we wonder whether some elements in Washington are capable of being woken up.

August 14, 2009   Permalink

SARAH - AT 7:37 P.M. ET:  We've had our criticisms of Sarah Palin here, and the level of preparation she brought to the last presidential campaign.  But in the debate over health care, using her Facebook page, she's had some of the most thoughtful commentary I've seen.  Consider this comment on the "end-of-life counseling" provision, now apparently dropped from the Senate version of the "reform" bill:

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones.... If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?”

COMMENT:  Very well argued, and more substantive than any other comment I've seen on the issue.

Now, a caveat:  I cannot guarantee that Sarah Palin actually wrote that.  She may be using a ghostwriter.  If she did write it, though, then she has taken to heart the advice given to her by political pros - to study the issues in detail and then comment on them.

It won't be difficult to find out if she's real or ghosted.  When she starts doing interviews it will be Sarah on camera alone.  No ghosts.  Also, if her website starts showing different writing styles, we'll know the ghosts are getting their checks.

It's intriguing, and we root for her.

August 14, 2009   Permalink

SANITY ERUPTS - AT 5:24 P.M. ET:  Reader Chris Corbett alerts us to this ray of sanity, something rare in Washington:

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate should abandon efforts to pass legislation curbing greenhouse-gas emissions this year and concentrate on a narrower bill to require use of renewable energy, four Democratic lawmakers say.

“The problem of doing both of them together is that it becomes too big of a lift,” Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas said in an interview last week. “I see the cap-and-trade being a real problem.”

COMMENT:  There may some light at the end of this global-warming tunnel.  Giving legislators time to consider legislation, hear from constituents and experts, and consider alternatives, can, as we've seen in the last 60 days, have a very positive effect.

Much of the climate-change legislation before Congress is based on trendy "science" that often turns out to not be very scientific.  A more incremental approach, with some common sense thrown in, is called for.  We all want renewable energy and energy independence, but there's a right way and a way that's popular with the chattering classes, and they aren't often the same.

August 14, 2009   Permalink

WARNING ON IRAN - AT 10:23 A.M. ET:  Consumed by our health-care debate, we're forgetting the ticking time bomb in Tehran.  British terrorism expert Con Coughlin warns that we're slipping into an extraordinarily dangerous situation, while Mr. Obama plans his summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard:

The West has given up on its attempts to prevent Iran acquiring an atom bomb – and the result will be a nuclear arms race that threatens not only the future of the Middle East, but the entire world.

This, at least, is the apocalyptic view that now appears to be taking root among some of the world’s leading Iran experts, as we approach the make-or-break moment next month when Tehran’s newly re-elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, decides whether he is prepared to enter into a constructive dialogue over his country’s illicit pursuit of nuclear technology.

And the blame?

Much of the blame for the failure to coax Tehran to the negotiating table, or so it was argued this week, lies with Mr Obama and his unwillingness to take a hard line with the ayatollahs. At the height of the pro-reform demonstrations in June, when the regime’s guardians launched a brutal assault to suppress the protests, he refused to be drawn into an open condemnation of their tactics.

Appeasement always has its price.

...what Mr Obama and his Iran team fail to appreciate is that this policy of appeasement is seen by the mullahs in Tehran – rightly – as a sign of weakness. If the Americans are prepared to sit idly by while the regime brutally suppresses the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, why should Iran’s leaders be unduly concerned by threats of possible retaliation over their nuclear programme?

That's one of the great lessons of the 20th century, entirely ignored by the new "sophisticates" in Washington.

Moreover, a mood of defeatism appears to have settled over the White House. As one senior Obama adviser recently remarked: “It wouldn’t be easy to live with an Iran that’s a virtual nuclear power, but at the end of the day, it’s not a complete disaster.”

What leadership.  What determination.  The new standard for health-care reform is that "we're not gonna kill your grandmother," and the new standard in foreign policy is, "It's not a complete disaster."  Change we can believe in.

...the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, which could be relied upon during the Cold War to prevent a nuclear holocaust, cannot be applied to a region in which national pride and personal honour often take precedence over the more basic human instinct for self-preservation.

We're constantly told by our intellectual "betters" that we must "understand other cultures."  But these same people seem incapable of comprehending Coughlin's last point, that the cultures of the Middle East do not think as we do.  We forget that at our peril.

August 14, 2009   Permalink

GEE, WHAT A SURPRISE - AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  John Edwards, who wins some kind of award for being the slimiest candidate to run in recent presidential elections, apparently has something to tell us:

RALEIGH, N.C. — Sources have told WRAL News that they expect former U.S. Sen. John Edwards to admit that he is the father of his former mistress' 18-month-old daughter.

Edwards, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, confessed last August to having an affair with Rielle Hunter, who served as a videographer on Edwards' 2008 campaign. He has denied fathering her daughter, saying his relationship with Hunter ended before the child was conceived.

The name of the girl's father isn't disclosed on her birth certificate.

COMMENT:  Not good enough.  I want Edwards finally to admit that he became famous, and enormously wealthy, by using junk science to win medical malpractice cases, thus jacking up the cost of the medical system for all of us.  It could be, as the Obamans say, a teachable moment.

Edwards has no shame, and look at the number of people who really believed he was the voice of the average citizen. 

August 14, 2009   Permalink

OH YES, THEY HAVE A DREAM TODAY - AT 8:13 A.M. ET:  Republicans are actually talking about the possibility of victory in next year's congressional elections.  A tough fight yes, but one that's winnable.  Byron York explains, in the Washington Examiner:

It's a possibility many Republicans speak of only in whispers and Democrats are just now beginning to face. After passionate and contentious fights over health care, the environment, and taxes, could Democrats lose big -- really big -- in next year's elections?

Ah, just the thought...

"I think what's going to happen is Obama's going to be fine, and the Democrats in Congress are going to get their asses kicked in 2010," says one Democratic strategist who prefers not to be named. "This is following a curve like the Clinton years: take on really controversial things early, fail, or succeed partially, ask Democrats to take really tough votes, and then lose. A lot of guys are going to get beat, but the president has time to recover."

That's a key point.  The presidency, as Jack Kennedy said, is the center of action.  A president can maneuver a recovery far better than can a member of Congress, who must establish a long, vulnerable voting record.

And even if Republicans don't get the 40 they need in 2010, they could dramatically narrow the gap between the parties, giving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership less room to operate.

My heart breaks for Nancy.

In recent weeks, poll after poll has shown Republicans neck-and-neck, or even ahead, of Democrats. Even a National Public Radio survey found Republicans in the lead. "There's no question that you're seeing a shift across virtually all the polling," says one GOP strategist, "with Democrats losing ground."

What is so impressive is that the trend is entirely in one direction.  The aura of Democratic invincibility has been broken.

Not long ago, some Republicans were worried about becoming a permanent minority party. Although they may not win in 2010, they feel like they're back in the game.

They should thank Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and honor them with a dinner.  Organic, of course.

August 14, 2009   Permalink

LATEST FROM A PEOPLE'S PARADISE - AT 8:01 A.M. ET:  Let's see if the Obama administration has any problem with this:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez gave final approval on Friday to legislation that has raised fears among government opponents of impending socialist indoctrination in schools.

The law orders schools to base curricula on what it calls ''the Bolivarian Doctrine'' -- a reference to ideals espoused by 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar, such as national self-determination and Latin American unity.

Critics are quick to note that Chavez uses the term ''Bolivarian'' to describe his political movement, and some believe his socialist government intends to win over hearts and minds through classroom indoctrination.

You think?  Classroom indoctrination?  Yeah, that sounds about right for Chavez.  But the same people in Washington who call people at town meetings "a mob," or accuse opponents of the president's health plan of using "Nazi" tactics, will probably take a pass on this one.  After all, who are we to criticize another culture?

Education Minister Hector Navarro accused Chavez opponents and the news media of orchestrating ''a smear campaign'' to deceive Venezuelans.

Boy, does that ever sound familiar.

August 14, 2009   Permalink