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AUGUST 5,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

OBAMA SINKS AGAIN – From The Hill:  "President Obama's job approval hit a new low of 40 percent in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday, as the public expressed widespread disappointment in the state of the country.  Fifty-four percent disapprove of his performance, with 6 percent unsure.  Obama received poor marks for both foreign policy and on the economy, a troubling sign for the president and Democrats with only three months before the midterm elections.  Respondents rated Obama's handling of foreign policy even lower, with 36 percent approving, also an all-time low for the president. The figure is 2 points lower than his previous low in April."  Obama probably sees this as a further sign that he is being persecuted.  He is not.  He is being found out.

MAJOR POLITICAL NEWS – From AP:  "DORSET, Minn. (AP) — A 5-year-old boy's run as mayor is over in a tiny tourist town in northern Minnesota.  Robert 'Bobby' Tufts lost his bid for a third consecutive term as mayor of Dorset on Sunday. Eric Mueller, a 16-year-old from Mendota Heights, Minnesota, won when his name was drawn from the ballot box during the annual Taste of Dorset festival.  Bobby was only 3 when he was first elected mayor in 2013. Dorset, about 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis, has no formal city government and a population ranging from nine to 28.   'It was fun, but it's time to pass on the vote,' Bobby told The Associated Press by telephone Monday. Then he suggested his little brother get a shot at some point: 'I'm gonna let James do it. He's two.'"  Typical.  This nepotism is ruining the country.  This is the worst case since Jack Kennedy made his brother attorney-general.

DEEP HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE – From Fox:  "Democratic lawmaker Julia Brownley sent a political mailer to her constituents in late July featuring a woman wearing fake military attire and a German Luftwaffe insignia — apparently unaware that the costume was not an official uniform worn by U.S. personnel.  On Monday Jeff Gorell, Brownley’s Republican opponent in California’s 2th Congressional District, sent out a press release highlighting the congresswoman’s taxpayer-funded faux pas.  The candidate claims that 'concerned local veterans' brought to his attention a photograph featured along the top of the flyer — which also contains pictures of a young family, a child going to school, a vibrant classroom and other common campaign themes.  That photograph shows a young woman in a white, open-collared military uniform, wearing a white cap displaying a gold insignia and blue-and-gold trim.  Although it bears a fleeting resemblance to official attire worn by the U.S. Navy, no branch of the United States military wears a uniform like the one in the mailer. And the insignia on the cap is the symbol of the Bundeswehr Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force."  It's multiculturalism, that's all.  We must understand and appreciate the Luftwaffe.

NEW MAJOR FIND – From TIME:  "An archaeology museum in Philadelphia said Tuesday it found a 6,500-year-old human skeleton in its own basement.  Yes. Its own basement.  Researchers at the Penn Museum, which is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, said they found documentation for the human skeleton while digitizing old records. The remains are extremely rare and date to 4,500 BCE. They were unearthed by archaeologists around 1930 during an excavation of the ancient city of Ur in modern day Iraq beneath the city’s cemetery, itself dating back to 2,500 BCE, Reuters reports.  The skeleton, which scientists have named Noah, is roughly 2,000 years older than any other remains found at the excavation site. The find could give scholars a new depth of understanding into everyday life during the little-understood time period."  I understand the guy has already been registered to vote in Philadelphia.

August 5,  2014     Permalink

MORE ON OBAMACARE – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  Okay, get your wallets out.  From National Journal: 

If you like your Obamacare plan, you can keep it—but you might end up paying a whole lot more.

People who decide to stick with the coverage they've already gotten through Obamacare, rather than switching plans, are at risk for some of the biggest premium spikes anywhere in the system. And some people won't even know their costs went up until they get a bill from the IRS.

Insurance plans generally raise their premiums every year, but those costs are just the tip of the iceberg for millions of Obamacare enrollees. A series of other, largely invisible factors will also push up many consumers' premiums.

In some cases, even if an insurance company doesn't raise its rates at all, its customers could still end up owing thousands of dollars more for their premiums. It's all a byproduct of complicated technical changes triggered, ironically enough, by the law's success at bolstering competition among insurers.

Many consumers will need to switch plans in order to keep their costs steady, but health care experts question how many people will do that. Switching plans can entail changing your doctor and adjusting to new out-of-pocket costs, never mind the fresh trek through HealthCare.gov. The White House has already set up an auto-renewal process, making it easier to stick with the status quo.

And with so many behind-the-scenes factors at play, most people might not even know that they need to go back through HealthCare.gov just to keep the deal they already have.

COMMENT:  So beautifully designed.  Why, don't you just admire the Obama administration at work?

August 5, 2014       Permalink

U.S. GENERAL MURDERED – AT 10:40 A.M. ET:   We are getting out of Afghanistan.  We are leaving a mess, with no real plan for making things better.  This just in, from The New York Times: 

KABUL, Afghanistan — A United States Army major general was killed on Tuesday by an Afghan soldier, shot at close range at a military training academy on the outskirts of Kabul, an official of the American-led coalition and Afghan media reported Tuesday. The officer was the highest-ranking member of the American military to die in hostilities in the Afghanistan war.

The coalition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity and would not release the name of the major general, said an unspecified number of other service members of the American-led coalition and Afghan soldiers, including a senior Afghan commander were also shot. Their conditions were not known.

Other details of the shooting were sketchy, and the coalition official would only confirm that “an incident” had taken place at the Afghan National Army Officer Academy.

Tensions at the camp ran high in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, which took place around noon, and foreign troops appeared to be on edge, fearful of another attack.

Massoud Hossaini, a photographer for The Associated Press, said that he arrived at the camp’s gate ahead of other journalists, and just as coalition armored vehicles were pulling out of the compound. A coalition soldier manning the roof-mounted gun on one of the vehicles shouted for Mr. Hossaini to “get away,” and then fired an apparent warning shot.

COMMENT:  Look for the enemy to become more and more bold, as we leave.  He will assert his strength and his turf.  Obama will assert his wonderfulness.

August 5,  2014     Permalink

OBAMACARE AND ITS DISCONTENTS – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  Obamacare is upon us.  Even those of us who aren't involved in it have already started to see its effects – with medical practices closing and doctors forced into corporate medicine.  Many docs are avoiding Obamacare completely.  From the Daily Caller: 

Obamacare plans have shrunk payments to physicians so much that some doctors say they won’t be able to afford to accept Obamacare coverage, NPR reports.

Many of the eight million sign-ups in Obamacare exchanges nationwide already face more limited choices for physicians and hospitals than those in the private insurance market. But with low physician reimbursement rates, the problem could get even worse.

For a typical quick patient visit, Dr. Doug Gerard, a Connecticut internist, told NPR a private insurer would pay $100 while Medicare would pay around $80. But Obamacare plans are more likely to pay closer to $80, which Gerard says is unsustainable for his practice.

“I cannot accept a plan [in which] potentially commercial-type reimbursement rates were now going to be reimbursed at Medicare rates,” Dr. Gerard told NPR. ”You have to maintain a certain mix in private practice between the low reimbursers and the high reimbursers to be able to keep the lights on.”

Narrow networks have become a hallmark of many Obamacare exchange plans, as one of few options left to insurance companies that allows them to save money by lowering reimbursement rates and covering fewer providers. In the health-care law’s first year, 70 percent of all Obamacare plan networks were either narrow or ultra-narrow, according to an analysis from consulting firm McKinsey.

But doctors are feeling even more financial pressure due to the changes and many believe there’s a risk that Obamacare insurance will go the way of Medicaid, where patients still struggle to find a doctor after low reimbursement rates led many physicians to stop accepting it.

COMMENT:  Yes, I've spoken to doctors who approve of Obamacare, usually for ideological reasons.  But the economics aren't working out.

Those in favor of Obamacare could do themselves a favor by helping physicians with issues like tort reform, which would lower the cost of malpractice insurance, and by modernizing student loan programs so physicians, especially those serving low-income areas, can get some help. 

I'd imagine that Obamacare will go through many revisions, especially if the GOP takes power.  It will never be inexpensive because modern medicine is so costly.  But we can do much better than the current rollout.

August 5,  2014     Permalink

MIDEAST TRUCE – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  A 72-hour ceasefire has gone into effect between Israel and Hamas.  Israel has announced it will join talks in Cairo for an extended truce if the ceasefire holds. 

I've been monitoring news coverage – the reason we're starting a bit late this morning.  There are now serious questions being asked by thoughtful people about the accuracy of much of it.  Many people, especially on the pro-Israel side, want to know 1) why we never see any Hamas fighters, although we see Israeli soldiers all the time; 2) why we never see any of the Hamas rocket launchers, as if the rockets are coming from nowhere; 3) why we never see any of the Israeli children living in bomb shelters; 4) why reporters never explain where casualty figures come from, figures that the press cannot independently verify; 5) why the relevant sections of the Hamas charter, which specifically calls for the extermination of Israel, are never read on the air.

I have an additional question.  I'm a bit of an Anglophile, and love many things British.  But why does CNN, an American television network, find it necessary to hire so many British reporters?  Is there a shortage of American reporters?   I always worry about the training reporters have, with special concern about foreign reporters.  There are some foreign press organizations with very bad, or at least questionable, histories.  The French newspaper Le Monde, was formed as an anti-American paper.   The BBC was formed and shaped by a man who turned out to be pro-Hitler.  Two days after our 9-11 attacks the BBC aired a viciously anti-American program, a program so bad that the American ambassador to Britain, who was a guest, burst into tears. 

The Washington Post has done a reasonably good story on press coverage of the Gaza war.  Different news organizations clearly have different standards, some good, some laughable.  When I see an editor say he'll publish Gaza casualties when three sources agree on them – and the three sources are all pro-Arab – what can one think?  The WaPo story is here.

August 5,  2014     Permalink

AUGUST 4,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:22 P.M. ET: 

WHOOPS – Don't tell Al Gore.  From WaPo:  "Death Valley, Calif., which is known for being the world’s hottest location, maxed out at a relatively chilly 89 degrees on Sunday. This temperature – nearly 30 degrees below average – was its coolest high temperature on record for the date by a whopping 15 degrees. The previous record of 104 was set in 1945.  This was only the eighth time that a high in the 80s has occurred in Death Valley in July or August, and there hasn’t been a high less than 90 since 1984. Weather records in Death Valley go back to 1911."  See, global warming causes cool temperatures also, and it makes the tooth fairy sleepy.

ABSURD – From Britain's left-wing Guardian:  "Some of the world’s top PR companies have for the first time publicly ruled out working with climate change deniers, marking a fundamental shift in the multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around the issue of global warming.  Public relations firms have played a critical role over the years in framing the debate on climate change and its solutions – as well as the extensive disinformation campaigns launched to block those initiatives.  Now a number of the top 25 global PR firms have told the Guardian they will not represent clients who deny man-made climate change, or take campaigns seeking to block regulations limiting carbon pollution. Companies include WPP, Waggener Edstrom (WE) Worldwide, Weber Shandwick, Text100, and Finn Partners."  This is disgraceful.  It is the kind of mentality George Orwell warned against.

FACING REALITY – From The Hill:  "Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) is pulling support from two controversial initiatives meant for Colorado's November ballot that sought to restrict fracking for natural gas in the state.  Polis played a leading role in bankrolling the two measures and planned to submit more than 200,000 signatures Monday, the deadline for them to make it onto the ballot this fall. The green group behind the initiatives said it would officially pull them once the natural gas industry removes ballot motions of its own.  The anti-fracking measures created a rift among Colorado Democrats in recent months and threatened to hurt Sen. Mark Udall and Gov. John Hickenlooper in their reelection bids."  Fracking is creating an energy revolution for the United States.  Of course it has to be done carefully, but it can be.  It is a major factor in making this country energy independent.

LITERARY NEWS – From the Washington Free Beacon:  "Hamas has been disseminating to its followers in the Gaza Strip a detailed terrorism training manual that teaches would-be bombers how to make explosives and conceal them in household items such as televisions, according to documents seized by the Israeli military during recent raids.  Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers discovered the handbook on the ground in the Gaza Strip as they conducted raids of homes and other facilities used by Hamas to plan its terror activities.  Hamas’ terrorism manuals instruct readers on how to build homemade explosive devices and how to set them to explode in unlikely places.  Hamas has even strapped explosives to donkeys and attempted to send them after Israeli soldiers."  A must for every home library.  Soon to be a minor motion picture.

August 4, 2014       Permalink

IMPEACHMENT? – AT 11:30 A.M. ET:  The word is on many lips, but forget it.  It ain't gonna happen, and shouldn't.  Americans, even though they are turning against Obama in droves, still don't want him impeached.  They see impeachment as far too extreme. 

They are right.  Stability is one of the marvels of the American political system, and part of that stability is the fact that it is extremely hard to remove an elected president.  But John Fund has an alternative strategy – censure.  Consider it.  From NRO: 

Impeachment is akin to detonating a nuclear weapon on the field of politics. The American people shy away from impeachment. In a new CNN poll, fully 79 percent believe it should be reserved only for “serious crimes.” “Not only is its explicit purpose to legislatively overturn the sovereign judgment of the people at the ballot box, its impact on the work of the government, and on our domestic tranquility, is deeply corrosive,” notes Charles Cooper, who was head of the Office of Legal Counsel in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department. The OLC is tasked with acting as counsel for the president and attorney general on the constitutionality of laws and executive actions.

Cooper does believe President Obama has crossed a line that merits a serious impeachment inquiry. He notes that President Clinton’s lawyers, relying on a seminal House Judiciary Committee report on the Nixon impeachment, argued in 1998 that impeachment is to be “predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with . . . the proper performance of constitutional duties of the president office.” Among those are “conduct undermining the integrity of office, disregard of constitutional duties and oath of office, arrogation of power, [and] abuse of the governmental process.” In Cooper’s view, such actions have become just part of another day at the office for President Obama. In the new CNN poll, only 33 percent of Americans favor impeaching Obama, but a full 45 percent believe he has abused his powers as president.

There is another option, short of impeachment, for sanctioning the President’s unconstitutional conduct in office. The House of Representatives can and should in coming months prepare and debate a unicameral resolution identifying and condemning President Obama’s usurpations of legislative power and his repeated refusal to faithfully execute the laws.

The Congressional Research Service has identified a number of historical precedents in which the Senate or the House has adopted a resolution of censure or disapproval of a president or other executive or judicial officers. Indeed, in 1998, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and 37 co-sponsors introduced a joint resolution in the Senate that enumerated President Clinton’s various misdeeds, and “condemn[ed] his wrongful conduct in the strongest terms.” Likewise, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members of the House proposed similar resolutions, declaring that President Clinton’s actions “fully deserve the censure and condemnation of the American people and the Congress.”

COMMENT:  Good idea.  I hope it's done. 

August 4,  2014     Permalink

THE ROAD TO HELL – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  The constant refrain we're hearing these days is Obama's retreat from the world, a retreat bathed in weakness.  Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post gives a very useful review of how the president of the United States lost his clout, a loss for which Americans will pay a heavy price:

How did Obama lose his clout? His supporters portray him as the mostly innocent victim of mistakes by his predecessor and a disorderly period in global affairs. But many foreign diplomats and officials I’ve spoken to see it differently. They point to a series of steps by Obama that accelerated the collapse of U.S. influence. First among them is the imprudent military withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, tied by Obama to arbitrary (or political) timetables rather than conditions on the ground.

Next comes Obama’s decision not to go forward with air strikes against Syria after its use of chemical weapons last year. It’s true that the president managed to leverage his stand down into a mostly successful operation to eliminate Damascus’s declared chemical weapons stockpile. Yet many senior foreign officials, especially in Asia, see in the administration’s Syria decision an augur of likely unwillingness to follow through on other red lines — whether in the South China Sea or on Iran’s nuclear program.

Then there were Obama’s speeches. At the United Nations last fall, he announced that U.S. human rights concerns would be subordinated with governments “who work with us on our core interests,” which he defined as including the free flow of oil but not the promotion of democracy or prevention of genocide. That was taken to heart by the rulers of Egypt and Bahrain, who abandoned their previous efforts to satisfy U.S. concerns about political prisoners and tolerance of opposition. At West Point in May, Obama gave a speech that, I’m reliably told, dismayed Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi; it hailed the “political reforms opening a once-closed society” without mentioning the generals’ broken promises, thereby encouraging more backsliding.

Perhaps the most gratuitous administration failing has been its reluctance to respond to the slights inflicted on it even by minor powers. Bahrain’s extraordinary expulsion of State’s human rights envoy prompted only a routine statement of “concern;” so did the criminal charges against Saakashvili. The administration could easily punish and deter such governments; ambassadors could be recalled, military aid withheld, exercises and official visits canceled. Instead, the message goes out that the Obama administration can be defied with impunity — and the bank run continues.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  However, Americans must be made more aware of our perceived weakness, which is muffled by the obliging Obama press.  Our side must contrast Obama's approach with the successful "peace through strength" policy of most American presidents since World War II. 

I'm concerned about a growing isolationist wing in the Republican Party.  Not only is it wrong on the merits, but it can blur our message and neutralize our policies.  We must not go there.

August 4,  2014     Permalink

JOBS – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  President Obama has been goin' around recently boasting about the latest jobs figures.  In fact, the jobs figures are really nothing to write home about.

Obama has been noting that this year we have created more than 200,000 jobs each month.  What he doesn't note is that we have to create 150,000 each month just to keep up with population growth.  So our net gain is much smaller than it appears.  Andrew Malcolm, at IBD, has a devastating picture of the real jobs record of this administration:

Here's the pathetic truth about jobs under these guys:

According to the latest figures from their own Department of Labor, since Jan. 20, 2009, that chilly first inauguration day, 11,472,000 Americans have left the workforce.

That's as if every living human being in the state of Ohio was working and then wasn't. Or the entire population of four Chicago's. Or 14 San Francisco's. Or almost 18 Washington, D.C.'s went jobless.

Put another way, ever since Aretha Franklin's huge hat sang-in Obama's era of "Hope & Change," 5,682 Americans were out of a job every single day of every single week -- even the weeks Obama was vacationing. As he will be again later this week for half the month. After again promising to do everything he can to boost the economy.

COMMENT:  So, when Americans say they really don't see any improvement, they're seeing the picture accurately.  And many of the jobs that actually are being created are part-time or low-level jobs, replacing full-time and quality jobs.

Welcome to the recovery.

August 4,  2014     Permalink

NOTHING TO SEE, NOTHING TO SEE – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  The war on terror is over, isn't it?  Isn't that what Field Marshal Obama has told us?  Yeah, right.  From The Times of Israel, this morning: 

A tractor driven by a Palestinian man rammed into a bus in central Jerusalem early Monday afternoon, close to the “seam” between the western and eastern parts of the city

A male pedestrian approximately 30 years old was run over by the tractor as it headed toward the bus and was killed. The tractor driver, identified as East Jerusalem resident Muhammed Naif El-Ja’abis, turned the bus over onto its side during the attack, making several efforts to do so before he succeeded. The bus driver as well as five others were lightly hurt.

Police said the attack, which took place at the end of Shmuel Hanavi Street, near the Olive Tree Hotel, was nationalistically motivated.

A police officer and Prisons Service official who realized what was happening ran up to the tractor and fired a volley of shots at the terrorist as he sat in the cab and killed him, Jerusalem police chief Yossi Pariente said.

The tractor driver was identified by Palestinians on social media as Muhammed Naif El-Ja’abis from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.

Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said the terrorist was known to the authorities from a previous incident, and that his family was being questioned.

COMMENT:  We have had incidents like this around the world, quickly suppressed by the "let's move on" elements of the media.   In 2007 two Islamists plowed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane canisters into the main terminal at Glasgow International Airport.  In the United States there was an attempt to run down students at a southern university, but the incident was barely reported. 

Terrorism is growing, not diminishing.  Most attempts will fail, but some perpetrators will get through.

August 4,  2014     Permalink