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AUGUST 6,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:37 P.M. ET:

ANOTHER SNOWDEN, ANOTHER SHOW – From London's Telegraph:  "The US government fears that the US intelligence agencies have a second mole who is feeding top secret information to journalists, it has been reported.  The existence of a second high-level leaker - separate from the former defence contractor Edward Snowden - has been mooted in intelligence and journalistic circles for some weeks, but was confirmed by US officials, according to a report by CNN.  The latest concerns came after The Intercept, a news site run by the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald that has access to documents from known leaker Edward Snowden, published new revelations about the scope of the US terrorism watch-list."  Our security system is broken.  Yet, there is no sense of urgency.

HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK – From Fox:  "Labor Secretary-turned-college professor Robert Reich’s latest lectures on income inequality don't square with his $240,000 salary for teaching just one class, economists tell FoxNews.com.  Reich, who served in the Clinton White House and is now a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, took on the topic of 'Work and Worth' in an Aug. 2 post on his blog. In it, he lamented that there is 'little or no relationship' between what someone is paid and their actual worth to society, and he wrapped up his post by calling for student loans to be forgiven for graduates in fields like social work, nursing and teaching.  'The moral crisis of our age has nothing to do with gay marriage or abortion; it’s insider trading, obscene CEO pay, wage theft from ordinary workers, Wall Street’s continued gambling addiction, corporate payoffs to friendly politicians, and the billionaire takeover of our democracy,' Reich wrote in a separate Facebook post."  Reich, an obvious hypocrite, may actually be raising some good points.  But the phrase "worth to society" is a red flag.  Who decides that?

CNN PATCHES IT UP – Watching CNN today was like watching a kid repaint a school locker that he had defaced.  The network has been under criticism for unbalanced reporting of the Gaza war, emphasizing only the Hamas side.  Today CNN went out of its way to show the latest proof that Hamas fired rockets from positions near schools and mosques.  Truth is, though, the images came from French and Indian TV, not American TV.   CNN is taking some corrective action, but the damage is done.  They didn't give us the full story when it counted the most – during the fighting.

ROBERTS WINS – From the Washington Times:  "Sen. Pat Roberts beat back tea party challenger Milton Wolf in Tuesday’s Kansas Senate primary — keeping intact the perfect record of sitting Republican senators and clearing the way for the veteran lawmaker to secure a fourth term in the November election.  The contest was seen as the second-to-last chance for the insurgent wing of the GOP to send a sitting senator packing in the 2014 primary season, with only Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee left to face a serious challenge in this off-year election cycle."  Now the party must unite and win the Senate in November.  No factionalism allowed.

August 6, 2014       Permalink

THE DATE – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  We always note August 6th, the date, in 1945, when the United States used the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. 

For a number of years we took a public-relations beating from the usual suspects on the left, determined to advance their new god of Marxism by demeaning the United States.  We were told the bomb wasn't necessary, that Americans are barbarians, that Japan would have surrendered anyway.

In recent years the hubbub has died down, in part because the evidence became overwhelming that Japan would not have surrendered, that millions of Japanese would have died had the war continued, and that President Truman made a difficult decision that brought World War II to a quick close.  His decision also meant that millions of American fighting men, preparing for the invasion of Japan, would not be sent into a bloodbath.

Paul Fussell, a young officer in the Pacific, and later a distinguished military historian, summed up the feelings of our troops:  "When the atom bombs were dropped . . . when we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live. We were going to grow to adulthood after all."

Soldiers are human beings.  They have feelings, families, children, wives, husbands, mothers and fathers.  Sometimes, the way the news is presented these days, you'd think they're expendable objects.  That's especially true if the soldiers described are Americans, Israelis, or allies.  (If they're enemies they're often described as militants, fighters, or, in the case of the Viet Cong in Vietnam, nationalists.)  Saving the lives of American soldiers was President Truman's goal, and he achieved it.

The atom bomb is a ghastly thing.  Truman's decision did not come easily.  Contrary to the image portrayed by the America haters, he anguished openly about the children who would be killed.  But, in the bloody arithmetic of war, the president made the right decision.  The war came to an end, and we were victorious.

August 6, 2014       Permalink

WORSE AND WORSE – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  Americans shed blood and treasure in Iraq, and now all our gains are being erased.  The news, day by day, is stunning.  From the Washington Times: 

Sunni radicals with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claim to have taken control of Iraq’s largest hydroelectric dam.

The Mosul Dam, which sits on the Tigris River, could cause damage as far as 280 miles away if ISIL decides to use it as a weapon, experts say.

“It’s a horrendous prospect,” Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum, told CNN. “If you control the Mosul Dam, you can threaten just about everybody.”

Another fear is that the dam could break simply due to ISIL’s ignorance of the structure. Business Insider reported Tuesday that the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers believes the dam is “inherently unstable,” increasing the likelihood that the terrorist group may inadvertently bring about a catastrophic flood.

The terrorist group’s claims were confirmed by a commander of Peshmerga Kurdish soldiers who had been defending the structure roughly 30 miles south of Baghdad, CNN reported.

COMMENT:  I'm sure Field Marshal Obama is studying the matter.  And he will study the matter tomorrow as well.

I've heard commentators say that Obama can't do much because the American people are against any further involvement in Iraq.  Well, that may be true, but foreign policy is the area that is always most in need of presidential leadership.  Citizens don't feel its effects each day, as they would with, say, tax policy or the economy.  They need leadership.  If Obama would provide it, he could move public opinion.

Wait a minute.  Maybe we don't want him to provide it.  He'd move public opinion in the wrong direction.

August 6, 2014       Permalink

FINALLY – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  We are finally getting videotape out of Gaza that was strangely absent during the fighting.  But none of it is coming from American news organizations.  People are asking why we never saw any Hamas fights, why we never saw any Hamas rocket firing, why we never saw any pictures of Hamas casualties, only pictures of casualties among women and children.

Gee, you don't think there's a journalistic problem, do you?

Now a brave journalist from India comes out with documentation that Hamas fires its rockets right near civilian facilities.  From the Jerusalem Post, with a video: 

India’s NDTV filmed what The New York Times said it could not: footage of Hamas fighters in Gaza assembling and then launching a rocket aimed at Israel, from a residential area.

The launch took place in a dense, urban environment in Gaza with plenty of civilians around — and one intrepid Indian reporter.

The report on India’s NDTV by Sreenivasan Jain shows a Palestinian rocket crew using a tent as cover to set up a rocket launch, then launching the rocket. The footage was recorded on Monday.

Sreenivasan notes that the Hamas rocket launch takes places “meters away from our hotel” and “bang in the middle of what is a residential area full of hotels and apartment buildings.”

He then heads to the spot from where the rocket was fired but is “asked by people not to go to the location, so we’re just pulling back…”

The French TV station, France 24, also showed a rocket launching pad, located about 100 yards from a United Nations building flying the blue UN flag. A hotel housing journalists covering the Gaza conflict was located about 50 yards from the launching pad, according to correspondent Gallagher Fenwick, reporting from Gaza City.

The French video was released Tuesday.

“This type of setup is at the heart of the debate,” Gallagher reported. “The Israeli army has repeatedly accused the Palestinian militants of shooting from within densely populated civilian areas and that is precisely the type of setup we have here.”

Fenwick and members of his crew were forced to take cover when reporting from the site last week when a rocket was unexpectedly launched.

COMMENT:  Our networks have some 'splainin'  to do.  And they'd better do it fast.  If they were restricted in their reporting by Hamas intimidation, viewers have to be told.

Look, the problem is difficult, and journalists are familiar with it.  When I was on The Times, Abe Rosenthal used to say that the goal of a foreign correspondent was to get the news out and not get thrown out.  So our networks might be doing a delicate balancing act in Gaza.

On the other hand, I'm afraid we're also used to pure left-wing bias.  We saw it in Vietnam.  We certainly saw it in Iraq, when a minor scandal at an American prison was turned into the greatest atrocity in the history of the world (even though no prisoner was killed or hurt, only humiliated).  Organizations like CNN are losing their credibility, and have lost their ratings, in part because they have a biased image. 

August 6, 2014       Permalink

KEEP THIS FROM AL GORE, PLEASE! – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  We have a spirit of kindness here, and believe that Al Gore is distressed enough by recent reports of record cold in parts of the United States.  We fear this would push him over the edge.  From the Washington Times: 

NASA truly has the 100,000 feet viewpoint on this one,

The nation’s space agency has noticed an inconvenient cooling on the planet lately. On Tuesday, NASA’s Langley Research Center atmospheric scientist Norman Loeb presented a talk titled “The recent pause in global warming: A temporary blip or something more permanent?”

The lecture explores how “global warming may be on vacation,” NASA helpfully explains.

Uh-oh. Paging Al Gore. There’s even a new term for the phenomenon.

Mr. Loeb’s presentation offered the most recent research related to a slowdown in surface warming referred to as the “global warming hiatus,” the federal agency says. Over the last 15-years, the global mean surface temperature of Earth has increased at a rate that is roughly one-third of that over the past 60 years, NASA notes.

COMMENT:  "Global warming hiatus" may turn out to be another term for "we screwed up."  Remember:  the global warming "community" is asking that nations spend trillions of dollars on things to combat "global warming."  But the predictions about global warming are falling apart.  So why spend the money? 

I get a sense of incipient panic among the Gorists.  Things aren't working out, and checkbooks aren't being whipped out.  Stay tuned for more.

August 6,  2014     Permalink

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