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FEBRUARY 25,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:39 P.M. ET: 

BACKLASH – Internet reports show a growing backlash in Congress, and among concerned citizens, over the massive defense cutbacks announced by Chuck Hagel.  We're also informed that this may only be the beginning – that Obama will order even greater cutbacks in his last year in office.  It would not shock me.  Weakening the United States, and tying the hands of future presidents, are leftist dreams.

NOTHING TO THE RESCUE – It is announced that Jimmy Carter, carrying his own suitcase, wants to visit the leaders of Venezuela to try to end the budding civil conflict there.  This apparently is based on Carter's vast record of success in foreign policy.  From AP:  "Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is expressing concern about Venezuela's escalating political crisis and wants to meet with leaders on both sides in an upcoming trip.  Carter, a mediator of past political conflict in the deeply polarized South American nation, made the offer in private letters he sent this week to President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Henrique Capriles."  Yeah, the great mediator.  It was Carter who declared Hugo Chavez's election legitimate after spending an hour "observing" the procedure.  Turned out he was rushing to get home for his wife's birthday party.

A LITTLE SANITY – From WaPo:  "In an unusual move, the American Foreign Service Association, which represents more than 16,000 career diplomats, is expected to weigh next week whether to publicly oppose some of President Obama’s controversial recent ambassadorial nominations.  AFSA President Bob Silverman, at a news conference Tuesday to discuss the association’s new guidelines for selecting ambassadors, said he would ask the 28-member board whether it wanted to take a formal position on three Obama mega-bundler nominees: Colleen Bell (for Hungary), George Tsunis (Norway) and Noah Mamet (Argentina.)  Bell and Tsunis were approved by the committee this month, though Tsunis got through on a party-line, 12 to 6 vote."  I'd like to see the professionals recommend that these human ATM's be rejected.  They are unqualified.

CNN FADING – February's TV ratings contain more bad news for CNN.  From Deadline.com:  "Piers Morgan may be out at CNN, but what about the rest of the network’s primetime, which looked none too good for the month, all losing around half their audience compared to same month last year? CNN‘s Anderson Cooper at 8 PM dropped 47% February to February in overall audience to average 421,000 viewers, and 46% in the news demo to 127,000 viewers for the month, according to Nielsen. In his defense, Cooper’s lead-in, Erin Burnett Outfront, dropped 39% to post an average of 293,000 viewers in February – CNN’s smallest monthly haul in the timeslot in more than two decades — and slipped 32% in the news demo to 100,000 viewers.  Morgan’s getting scrubbed from 9 PM at CNN because, for instance, he logged 347,000 viewers for the month — down 46% – and 100,000 demo viewers — down 38%."  CNN has some fine people, and does some good reporting.  But the network has never understood that it is viewed as a liberal operation, and that label depresses both its credibility and its ratings.

February 25, 2014        Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  Related to the post below, this also deals with the drastic defense cuts announced by Chuck Hagel yesterday.  From Rich Lowry in the New York Post:

As soon as World War II ended, we embarked on a carelessly precipitous demobilization that junked one of the most fearsome Western armies ever assembled. Just having liberated Europe, we still managed to find ourselves unprepared for the onset of the Korean War.

Defenders of the current defense cuts say that we still spend more on our military than anyone else in the world. True, but we aren’t a mere regional power. Unless we want to outsource patrolling the global sea lanes to China and the security of Europe to Russia, we will always have to spend substantially more than anyone else does.

Our allies aren’t in any position to pick up the slack. When the French army wants to go anywhere, we have to fly it. The entire British navy is smaller than the fleet sent to take back the Falklands in the 1980s.

President Obama is a devoted believer in the efficacy of government spending as government spending — on everything but defense. In 2009, it was $800 billion for stimulus but not a cent for defense. In his wisdom, he is perfectly content to slash a function of government that is indisputably constitutional, that is the basis of our freedom, and that is, relative to domestic entitlements, a drop in the budgetary bucket.

We may not regret it this year or the next. But regret it we will.

COMMENT:  The piece is called, "Wishing the World Away," which is exactly what we've done before.  (Remember George McGovern's pathetic battle cry in 1972, "Come home America"?) 

I don't normally quote Marxists, but occasionally one of them gets it right.  Leon Trotsky once said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."  Right on, man.

But be sure to blame Bush.

February 25, 2014       Permalink

CATASTROPHE – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  Field Marshal Admiral General-in-Chief Chuck Hagel, aka the secretary of defense, announced steep cuts to the defense budget yesterday.  The response was immediate and devastating.  Even leading members of the president's own party, like former General Wesley Clark, were dismayed.  The most effective spokesman for the opposition was former Vice President Dick Cheney, who also served as secretary of defense.  From Fox:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s proposed drastic cuts to the U.S. Army are “absolutely dangerous" and would cause long-term damage to the military.

Cheney told Fox News’ Sean Hannity the proposed cuts, which would shrink the Army to its smallest size since just before the U.S. entered World War II, would have a devastating impact on the ability of future presidents to deal with future crises.

“This is really over the top,” Cheney said. “It does enormous long-term damage to our military.”

The Army had already been preparing to shrink to 490,000 active-duty members from a wartime peak of 570,000. Hagel is proposing to cut it further to between 440,000 and 450,000.

"We are repositioning to focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities that will define our future: new technologies, new centers of power, and a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States," Hagel said at a press conference at the Pentagon.

He defended the proposed reductions in troop strength, as a trade-off for building up "technological superiority" and priorities like Special Operations Forces and "cyber resources."

And...

Cheney said he believes the cuts are a reflection of President Obama’s beliefs, and that the president has always wanted to cut the military.

“He said when he went to Cairo in that famous apology tour back in ’09 he believed, apologized for our overreaction to the events of 9/11,” he said, “and today he is fixing it in a way, in a fact where it will be almost impossible for future presidents to deal with that kind of situation.”

COMMENT:  That is correct.  Obama is not a liberal, but a leftist, brought up with a leftist, not a liberal, ideology.  He want to tie the hands of future presidents.  And he does it most effectively by denying those presidents the tools to react immediately to a national-security threat. 

We have tried these drawdowns before.  They have always ended catastrophically, and with more dead Americans.  They tempt enemies.  Problem is, Obama believes the enemy is us. 

I suspect Congress will restore some of the cuts, but the handwriting, probably in Arabic, is on the wall.  We are returning to the mentality of the Carter era, but there is no Ronald Reagan to set things right. (Remember when Carter told America that we had an inordinate fear of Communism?  Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  Carter responded heroically by boycotting the Moscow Olympics.) 

I'm sure Vladimir Putin favors the cuts. 

February 25, 2014        Permalink 

VENEZUELA ON THE BRINK? – AT 8:55 A.M. ET:   When the opposition in an unstable country cancels talks with the government it opposes, it often means that the opposition feels strong enough to go it alone.   Venezuela has seen escalating street demonstrations against its incompetent, oppressive government (much to the dismay of some fashionable leftists in the American media).  From Bloomberg:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called for a “peace conference” tomorrow after opposition Governor Henrique Capriles rejected talks with him in the capital and the death toll from protests rose to 13.

Opposition party Voluntad Popular said it would lead a march at 10 a.m. local (9:30 a.m. EST) to the Cuban Embassy, which protesters accuse of “interfering” in Venezuela. Maduro called for a national gathering tomorrow after Capriles skipped a meeting of regional governors in Caracas yesterday. Capriles originally said he would attend while demanding the government free opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who was imprisoned last week on charges of inciting violence.

“How do I go amid the repression, amid the violation of human rights,” Capriles, a two-time presidential hopeful and current governor of Miranda state, told reporters in Caracas yesterday. “The presidential palace is not the place for dialog in the country.”

Demonstrators protesting shortages of basic goods, the world’s fastest inflation and rising crime have confronted armed street groups and National Guard troops nightly in Venezuelan cities since Feb. 12. Maduro has charged opposition leaders with seeking a coup d’etat while Capriles and Lopez say the government has backed the armed gangs.

“If the opposition wants to march everyday across the country, do it,” Maduro said yesterday. “I guarantee you the liberty to do it. But if you’re going to go out and burn and destroy, I won’t permit that.”

COMMENT:  As we've noted before, the key question in Venezuela is whether the army will stay loyal to the government.  If it turns, the revolution will succeed, although there's no guarantee a democracy will replace the current Hugo Chavez-constructed order.  If the army stays loyal, the opposition will have its day, but may well be defeated in the long run.

This is a critically important story, for what happens in Venezuela will impact all of Latin America, which is watching to see if the Castro example set by Cuba is really spreading, or will be stopped in the streets of Caracas.

February 25, 2014        Permalink

THE OBAMACARE TRAIN WRECK – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  Every day we learn more about how genuinely bad Obamacare is.   From Breitbart: 

President Obama’s remark that “We’ve got close to seven million Americans who have access to health care for the first time because of Medicaid expansion” achieved the dubious assessment of Four Pinocchios from "The Fact Checker" (a.k.a. "The Truth Behind the Rhetoric" by Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post).

Four Pinocchios designates the highest form of prevarication one can commit on The Fact Checker scale. Simply put, Obama told a “Whopper.” The seven million figure, according to Kessler, most likely comes from the 6.3 million people that were deemed eligible for Medicaid from October 1 to December 31, 2013. The tally includes the “normal churn” representing all of those that were eligible under the existing laws prior to Obamacare.

It appears that Obama overstated the number of people entitled to healthcare access as a result of his Medicaid expansion by up to 5.9 million.

Avalere, a health consulting firm, did an analysis that raised serious questions about the 6.3 million Medicaid figure, estimating that only 1.1 million to 1.8 million of the claimed enrollees could have their enrollments attributed to the Affordable Care Act. A full report in The Washington Post asserted that “many of the people who have joined the program since the initiative’s rollout in October would have done so absent the law.”

Charles Gaba, who tracks enrollment figures at ACASignups.net, has disputed some of Avalere’s reasoning and attributes up to 2.6 million new enrollments as a result of the ACA laws. Nevertheless, these still remain far less than the seven million Obama contends.

The Fact Checker states, “In any case, no matter how you slice it, it does not add up to seven million. It is dismaying that given all of the attention to this issue, the president apparently does not realize that the administration’s data are woefully inadequate for boastful assertions of this type.”

COMMENT:  Welcome to the administration that brought hope, change, and transparency to sinful Washington.  I know we all feel uplifted.

February 25,  2014     Permalink

FEBRUARY 24,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:39 P.M. ET: 

THREATENING WORDS – Now that the Olympics are over, the boys in Moscow can stop smiling and get back to their usual tactics.  They have eyes on the Ukraine.  From Reuters:  "Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday said Russia had grave doubts about the legitimacy of those in power in Ukraine following President Viktor Yanukovich's ouster, saying their recognition by some states was an 'aberration.' 'We do not understand what is going on there. There is a real threat to our interests and to the lives of our citizens,' Medvedev was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.  'There are big doubts about the legitimacy of a whole series of organs of power that are now functioning there.'  Chilling words, the kind you hear before an intervention.

I'M NOT THRILLED – I've reported to readers several times that I'm not thrilled by the results of recent polls that show our side ahead, but by margins that should be greater.  The Texas governorship race is an example:  From the Texas Tribune:  "After what are shaping up to be easy primary wins in March for the leading gubernatorial candidates, Republican Greg Abbott starts the general election race for governor with an 11-point lead over Democrat Wendy Davis, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll."  Look, Wendy Davis has almost self-destructed, and all the GOP can muster at this point in the red state of Texas is an 11-point lead?  Come on.  It should be at least 15 points or more.  Some constructive worry is in order.  Every race should be run as if we're 20 points behind.  Overconfidence kills.

DEVAL WHO? – From the Politico:  "Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signaled Sunday that he would be open to a White House bid at some point, though the governor has previously ruled out seeking the presidency in 2016.  Asked in an interview whether he could see himself as a national candidate — not necessarily in 2016 — the second-term Democrat responded: 'Maybe. Maybe.'"  I'm so glad.  Everywhere I go I hear a yearning for Deval Patrick.  Don't you?  Listen carefully.  The support is building.  One vote.  Two votes.  Do I hear three?

WHAA..? – If the UN secretary-general doesn't know what's going on in the UN's own home city, maybe we shoudn't trust the UN on anything.  From the Weekly Standard:  "Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at United Nations headquarters for Bloomberg's new role as United Nations special envoy for cities and climate change. At the photo op, the secretary general was effusive in his praise of Bloomberg, even crediting him for transforming New York City into a 'carbon-free city':  Mayor Bloomberg is much better known for his strong stewardship on environment and climate change. He has made this great city of New York a carbon-free city. It has been his hallmark, and as President of the C40 Mayors Group for Climate Change, he has been making a great contribution to a global effort, together with the United Nations, to make this Planet Earth and our world environmentally sustainable. And I really appreciate it.'"  When did Mike Bloomberg make New York carbon-free?  Did I miss it?  Was I out of town?  Will someone please tell me.

February 24, 2014       Permalink

ATTACK ON THE BEST – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:   There is probably no better columnist writing today than Charles Krauthammer.   He and Fouad Ajami are my two favorite commentators.  In addition to his other credits, Krauthammer is a Harvard-trained physician, a scientist by education. 

And so it is laughable that the parishioners in the Church of the Global Warming are actually launching a campaign to silence Krauthammer.  Howard Kurtz speaks out at Fox: 

Charles Krauthammer says it right up front in his Washington Post column: “I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier.”

He does, however, challenge the notion that the science on climate change is settled and says those who insist otherwise are engaged in “a crude attempt to silence critics and delegitimize debate.”

How ironic, then, that some environmental activists launched a petition urging the Post not to publish Krauthammer’s column on Friday.

Their response to opinions they disagree with is to suppress the speech.

Brad Johnson (@ClimateBrad), the editor of HillHeat.com and a former Think Progress staffer, boasted on Twitter that 110,000 people had urged the newspaper “to stop publishing climate lies” like the Krauthammer piece.

I understand that many people are passionate about global warming and consider skeptics to be flat-earthers. Those who don’t like the arguments by Krauthammer, a Fox News contributor, should by all means criticize, dispute, denounce and otherwise go at him. That’s how debate takes place in a country with a vibrant media culture.

Instead, these folks believe that censorship is preferable. Why engage Krauthammer when they might just be able to employ pressure tactics to silence him? And what’s the difference between this and shouting down a speaker at a town hall?

Krauthammer told me the petition-signers “showed up just in time to make precisely the point I made in the column.”

When it comes to free speech, he says, “they don’t even hide it anymore. Now they proudly want certain arguments banished from discourse. The next step is book burning. So the question of the day is: Can you light a Kindle?"

COMMENT:  Well stated.  The flat Earthers are the fanatical global warmers, not the skeptics, who often raise intelligent, well-reasoned questions. 

Expect more attempts at suppression.  A Harvard student wrote an editorial in the Crimson last week suggesting that Harvard ban conservative speech.  You'd be surprised how many "educated" people think this way.  It's the sophisticated way to go, dahlings.

February 24, 2014        Permalink

AMERICANS CATCH ON – AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  The American people appear to be catching on to the extent of the foreign-policy disaster brought by this president.   From The Politico:

For the first time, a majority of Americans think President Barack Obama is not respected among world leaders, according to a new poll that found opinion has plunged “dramatically” in the past year.

Fifty-three percent now say Obama is not respected on the international stage, up from 43 percent a year ago, the Gallup poll on Monday shows. And the number who say they believe the president is respected has dropped to 41 percent from 51 percent over the same time, the poll found.

The pollster attributes the decline to the spate of difficult international issues the president has dealt with over the past year, including tensions with Russia and Israel, the situation in Syria and the tapping of phones calls of foreign leaders.

Obama’s shift in his foreign approval comes largely from both Democrats and independents. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats say he is respected by other world leaders, down from 80 percent in 2013. Similarly, only 34 percent of independents say he is respected, down from 49 percent in 2013. Remaining consistent are Republicans. Nineteen percent say the president is not respected by other leaders, down 2 points from 2013.

COMMENT:  Ah, Mr. Hope and Change, where have you gone?  Do you recall when Obama, during his egomaniacal 2008 campaign, actually went to Berlin to deliver a speech to the people of the world?  (That alone should have gotten him defeated.  The arrogance of the man.)  All the kids cheered, and the intellectual classes went delirious.

It's six years later.  No more cheering.  The delirium has been treated with the tranquilizer of experience.  The glorified town councilman in the White House has cut himself down to size.

February 24, 2014       Permalink

MORE MADNESS – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:   The Obamans seem to be going out of their way to aid our enemies and frustrate our friends.   We learn this morning that the new Egyptian government has resigned, plunging that sorry nation into greater despair and doubt. 

Of course, we've done nothing to help that government despite the fact that it is run by nominally pro-American military men.  The last government Obama supported in Egypt was run by the Muslim Brotherhood. 

And it gets worse.  From the Jerusalem Post: 

The sudden rapprochement between Egypt and Russia should concern the West and Israel. In a yet unexplained twist, the United States appears unaware of the fact that by pressuring the new regime in Cairo to demonstrate its commitment to democracy it is driving it straight into the willing embrace of one of the least democratic countries in Europe.

An unprecedented arm deal is about to be concluded, according to a number of reliable sources. Moscow will supply Cairo with $3 billion worth of such sophisticated weapons as MiG-29 warplanes, anti-aircraft systems, Kornet anti-tank guided missiles and combat helicopters. It follows that Russian experts will be sent to Egypt to train and advise in the use of these weapons, as well as help with maintenance.

This new cooperation will probably not be all-pervasive the way it was in the ’60s and ’70s, but it will bring the two countries much closer together.

Russian experts will replace the many American experts keeping a low profile but at work helping the Egyptian Army with American weapons and equipment bought with the $1.2b. in annual military aid granted to Cairo by the US since the peace treaty with Israel.

Egyptian officers and technicians will be sent to Russia to learn the technology and the methods of a regime which is not too preoccupied with democracy.

COMMENT:  We worked for decades to reduce Soviet, then Russian influence in the Mideast.  That influence is now returning bigtime, but Obama just doesn't care.  He must punish the Egyptians for driving out the "freely elected" Muslim Brotherhood government.  Never mind the fact that, as soon as the Brothers took power, they started dismantling all the elements of a democratic society.

Have you noticed?  The only two forces that have gained under Obama are Communism, with the dramatic  resurgence of Russia and the rise of China, and Islamism.  Gee, I wonder why.

February 24, 2014       Permalink

WE'RE SPEECHLESS – AT 8:26 A.M. ET:  What does one say to madness?  From Fox:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will reportedly propose a Pentagon budget that will shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest number since 1940 and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets.

The New York Times reported late Sunday that Hagel's proposal, which will be released to lawmakers and the public on Monday, will call for a reduction in size of the military that will leave it capable of waging war, but unable to carry out protracted occupations of foreign territory, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Under Hagel's plan, the number of troops in the Army will drop to between 440,000 and 450,000, a reduction of at least 120,000 soldiers from its post-Sept.11 peak.

Officials told the Times that Hagel's plan has been endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and protects funding for Special Operations forces and cyberwarfare. It also calls for the Navy to maintain all eleven of its aircraft carriers currently in operation. However, the budget proposal mandates the elimination of the entire fleet of Air Force A-10 attack aircraft, as well as the retiring of the U-2 spy plane, a stalwart of Cold War operations.

The budget plan does keep money for the F-35 warplane, a project which has been beset by delays and criticism over design flaws.

Other characteristics of the budget will likely draw further ire from veterans groups and members of Congress. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Hagel would recommend a limit on military pay raises, higher fees for health-care benefits, less generous housing allowances, and a one-year freeze on raises for top military brass.

COMMENT:  Look at this from the viewpoint of foreign adversaries like Russia, Iran and North Korea.  The sound you hear is the breaking out of caviar. 

We have tried these major drawdowns before, and every one of them has ended in disaster.

There is a reason Obama – who is a leftist, not a liberal – picked Kerry and Hagel.  Their mission is to reduce America as a world power, for Obama believes that it is the United States that is the source of many of the world' s problems.  He can't say it, but he's acting it.

I'd love to know where the "savings" from these cutbacks will go.  I think we all know.  Look for an increase in "programs" that will benefit the leaders of major Democratic constituency groups, but not necessarily benefit the followers.

February 24,  2014     Permalink