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MARCH 13, 2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:17 A.M. ET:

AIRLINER LATEST:  From CNN, quoting an American official:  "'There is probably a significant likelihood' that the aircraft is now on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the official said, citing information Malaysia has shared with the United States."  That would be way, way of course, and would indicate that the plane was flying for hours after the incident that caused it to break radio contact with the ground.  Some experts interviewed tonight say the evidence is pointing toward an intentional act.  But this is informed speculation only

VERDICT ON OBAMA, PUTIN – From the Washington Examiner:  "Maybe it is the photos of him posing shirtless on horseback, or his military push into Ukraine, but Americans in a new poll believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is a much stronger leader than President Obama.  A YouGov/Economist survey of 1,000 adults interviewed March 8-10 found that 78 percent view Putin as somewhat to very strong leader. Just 45 percent see Obama the same way. Worse, more Americans, 55 percent, view Obama as a weak leader."  The Americans are correct.  And look what weakness has gotten us.

OUR JOBS CRISIS – From The Daily Caller:  "The number of native-born, working-age Americans who aren’t working has shot up by almost 9 million since 2007, and by almost 15 million since 2000, according to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration group."  Welcome to the recovery.

IF THIS HAD BEEN DAN QUAYLE... – From The Truth Revolt, on Obama's trip to The Gap to buy presents for his kids:  "Upon checking out, however, the problems began. Obama took out his credit card and began handing it to the cashier, who told him that he could swipe his credit card in the automated machine. 'Oh, wow,' Obama said, 'so you can sign the machine?' He then said he was kidding: 'They had these around the last time I shopped.'"  Remember when the press went hysterical because President Bush 41 appeared not to recognize a supermarket scanner?  Of course Barack would never be ridiculed over something like that because he is so wise and smart, as we've seen the last five years. 

March 13,  2014     Permalink

MADNESS – AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  The Obama administration has shown its expertise at making enemies out of friends and worse enemies out of existing enemies.  They are brilliant.  Consider this, from ace defense reporter Bill Gertz, in The Washington Free Beacon: 

The Obama administration has turned down an urgent appeal from Egypt’s government for the delivery of U.S. Apache attack helicopters needed for counterterrorism operations in the Sinai Peninsula.

U.S. officials and a Western diplomat said the 10 AH-64 attack helicopters had been blocked from delivery in October in response to the administration’s opposition to the military ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammad Morsi last year.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo within the past several weeks relayed the Egyptian government’s appeal to send the new Apaches in a cable to the State Department.

According to U.S. officials, the Egyptians said the attack helicopters were urgently needed for Cairo’s fight in the Sinai against a new al Qaeda-linked terrorist group called Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, or Ansar Jerusalem.

One official said the embassy cable reported that the Egyptians do not understand why the Obama administration, by blocking delivery of the Apaches, appears to be supporting the ousted Morsi regime.

Morsi is Muslim Brotherhood, and Obama, who never let anti-Americanism bother him, is sympathetic to that group.

The embassy stated that the Egyptians’ explained that their security needs should be met or the United States risks turning Cairo into an enemy, something the Egyptians do not favor.

“The Egyptians are fighting in the Sinai to protect their own interests, Jordanian interests, and Israeli interests,” the official said. “They’re in a tough fight and the administration is refusing to provide the Apaches, which is tantamount to supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.”

An Egyptian Embassy spokesman had no comment. However, a western diplomat familiar with the issue confirmed that the Apaches were requested recently and the response was that U.S. military aid remains on hold.

Asked about Egypt’s request for Apaches, a senior administration official told the Washington Free Beacon: “At this time we have no announcements to make regarding changes to our assistance to the government of Egypt.”

COMMENT:  They said of Harry Truman that he did the biggest things in the biggest ways and the littlest things in the littlest ways.  Obama does everything in the littlest ways.  His spitefulness toward the government of Egypt is horrendous.  We worked decades to get Egypt, the most important Arab country, on our side.  Now Obama, showing his love for the Brotherhood, is throwing it all away, and endangering both Jordan and Israel in the process. 

Obama would be a wonderful president, of a student government.  He'd make sure the students could keep their same dorm room, if they liked it.

March 13, 2014      Permalink

A SERIOUS WARNING – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  This chilling subject comes up regularly, and is regularly ignored.  We ignore the warning at our own peril.  From Fox: 

The U.S. could suffer a national blackout if attackers knocked out just nine of the country's electric-transmission substations on a hot summer day, according to a previously unreported study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The study concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the agency's research.

The commission concluded that the three electrical systems that serve the entire nation could go dark if as few as nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations were knocked out in the East, the West and in Texas, according to the report.

"This would be an event of unprecedented proportions," Ross Baldick, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, told the newspaper.

According to Wall Street Journal, study's results have been known for months by the White House, Congress and officials at federal agencies, who were briefed by then-FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff and others at the commission.

COMMENT:  The power grid is very vulnerable, but utilities have been reluctant to spend the money to harden it.  In addition, there are warnings about a potential EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attack on the United States – in which a nuclear weapon would be exploded high above the nation, and the electronic radiation would melt much of our power and computer infrastructure, paralyzing much of the country, possibly for years.

These warnings come and go, but people are just not that interested.  It's hard to stay interested when the tragedy is not happening right before your eyes.

March 13, 2014       Permalink

THE AIRLINER II – AT 9:19 A.M. ET:  Part of Andy Pasztor's excellently reported story in The Wall Street Journal (see post just below) dealt with informed speculation as to what happened to the Malaysian airliner.  Networks are now reporting the same informed speculation.  From the Journal:

But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it apparently continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities. Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.

At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted "with the intention of using it later for another purpose."

As of Wednesday it remained unclear whether the plane reached an alternate destination or if it ultimately crashed, potentially hundreds of miles from where an international search effort has been focused.

In those scenarios, neither mechanical problems, pilot mistakes nor some other type of catastrophic incident caused the 250-ton plane to mysteriously vanish from radar.

COMMENT:  That would be a spectacular terrorist operation.  And, if it occurred, one could think of a number of wild scenarios – including the holding of the passengers as hostages, possibly to be released in exchange for the release of prisoners elsewhere.  Please recall that an Air France aircraft was hijacked in 1976 by a radical Palestinian group and flown to Entebbe in Idi Amin's Uganda, where the hijackers were welcomed as heroes.  They demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in exchange for the passengers they were holding.  The incident ended in a spectacular Israeli raid led by the brother of the current prime minister of Israel.  That brother was killed in the raid, but the passengers were freed.

All speculation, of course.  But it's intelligent speculation.  Remember that there are governments involved here, especially the Muslim government of Malaysia, which is very sensitive on issues of terrorism. 

More to come.

March 13, 2014       Permalink

(We're getting started a bit late this morning because I wanted to monitor some late developments involving the Malaysian airliner.  It's getting curioser and curioser.)

THE AIRLINER – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  There are contradictory reports flying all over the place about the missing Malaysian airliner.  I say "missing" because one theory, now being floated by serious people, is that the plane may have been diverted, to be used for some future operation.  That is speculation.

Here is what is going on:  The Malaysian authorities say they have searched the area where a Chinese satellite detected possible airliner wreckage and have found nothing. 

The major story of the morning comes from the The Wall Street Journal's Andy Pasztor, one of the most respected aviation journalists in the business.   Malaysia flatly denies this story, but Pasztor's reputation, and sources, argue in the other direction:

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

That raises a host of new questions and possibilities about what happened aboard the widebody jet carrying 239 people, which vanished from civilian air-traffic control radar over the weekend, about one hour into a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

COMMENT:  The key words in that story are "according to two people familiar with the details."  When you have a reporter with Pasztor's expertise, those words are his certification that the sources are valid.  The fact that there are two sources further validate his story.

Obviously, I don't have inside information.  But the Malaysian authorities have thus far proved inept, and have not been particularly accurate in the information they've released.  I'll go with Pasztor. 

We'll keep you informed, to the degree that anyone is actually informed about this growing mystery.

March 13, 2014     Permalink

MARCH 12,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST (LAUGH) – An organized group at Princeton University is demanding that the Ivy League school stop asking about the possible criminal background of applicants.  Look, I'm not making this up.  From Inside Higher Ed:  "Not only is asking the question unfair, the group argues, but it may limit an important kind of diversity on Princeton's campus.  'Individuals with past involvement with the justice system would bring distinct perspectives to Princeton,' the group says. 'Approximately one-quarter of U.S. adults have a criminal record. A lack of interaction with this stigmatized population fosters deep misunderstandings about the nature of the criminal justice system and those affected by it. We believe that by eliminating questions related to past involvement with the justice system, Princeton can open the door to increased diversity of experience and perspective among the student body without compromising its academic quality or moral character.'"  So they're charging $60,000 a year, and these kids want to dorm with convicted murderers to celebrate diversity.  Maybe we should raise the voting age to 30.

IMAGES – What has become clear in the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner is that a lot of bad information has been given out.  Malaysia should have called in first-class technical assistance from other countries in the first hours.  Now we learn that a Chinese satellite has picked up images of debris that may have come from the airliner.  We'll wait on more information.  But please also note how the possibility of terrorism is being played down even before we know a single fact about the disappearance.  Remember that Malaysia is a Muslim country, and terrorism is a sensitive issue.  Wouldn't want to get the brothers upset.

THE WISDOM OF WASHINGTON – Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas is not known as the sharpest knife in the drawer.  In fact, she doesn't even make it into the drawer.  And she must have been absent the day that the Constitution was covered in high school.  From the Washington Free Beacon:  "Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas) declared the U.S. Constitution to be 400 years old Wednesday on the House floor, which would mean it was signed in 1614.  'Maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority, the Republicans, my chairman and others, for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not,' she said."
Hey, that's not so bad.  The guy in the White House got a job as a constitutional law instructor in a prestigious law school, having never argued a case in constitutional law.

I'M SHOCKED, SHOCKED – And I had to read it in London's Daily Mail:   "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told House Ways and Means Committee members on Wednesday that she expects health insurance rates to increase as the Affordable Care Act takes full effect.  'I think premiums are likely to go up,' she conceded under questioning, 'but go up at a slower pace' than they have already under Obamacare.  President Obama famously promised in 2008 and 2009 that his health insurance overhaul plan would lower the cost of health care for an average family by $2,500 per year."  And you can keep your bankruptcy plan if you like it.

March 12, 2014       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  I believe that Charles Krauthammer and Fouad Ajami are the best commentators writing today.   I could also add Andrew Malcolm and Walter Russell Mead.  This, from Krauthammer, on Obama's foreign policy, from Breitbart:

On “The O’Reilly Factor” on Tuesday night, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer criticized President Barack Obama for his foreign policy but downplayed the effects of Obama’s interview with Zach Galifianakis in a Funny or Die video on Russian President Vladimir Putin of Obama.

“I think it’s a kind of arrogance,” Krauthammer said. “He thinks he has a good foreign policy. I think he is semi-delusional about the results of these five years. There is not a spot in the world you -- can go from Syria to Libya to Iran to China, to Russia to Ukraine where the United States is not worse off, less regarded, considered weak than it was five years ago. This is a completely failed foreign policy. And he seems radically unaware of that.”

COMMENT:  That nails it.  Even the liberal Washington Post, in a much-talked-about editorial, declared that Obama was delusional.  Krauthammer is a Harvard-trained board-certified psychiatrist.  He knows from delusional.

And yet, others would present an even darker argument, holding that this is what Obama intended – a weaker America, an America more in line with "progressive" thinking.

Whichever interpretation you prefer, we're in pretty bad shape, and we have three years more with a student-government president in the White House.

March 12, 2014        Permalink

RUSSIA AND IRAN, TOGETHER AGAIN – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:   The reset button that Obama and Hillary Clinton pushed with Russia is popping out again...every day.  And Iran is Russia's best buddy in the Mideast.  From Reuters: 

Iran and Russia have signed an agreement to build two more nuclear power plants in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr, Iranian Press TV reported on Wednesday.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran officials and Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation negotiated and came to an agreement about the plants, said the spokesman for the AEOI.

Russia built the first reactor at Bushehr, Iran's sole nuclear power plant. The new facilities will be built next to the existing plant.

The agreement also includes the construction of two desalination plants.

In February, the Iranian ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei said that Russia could build a second reactor at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant in exchange for Iranian oil.

Reuters reported Iran and Russia were negotiating to swap up to 500,000 barrels of oil per day for goods in the deal that would undermine Western efforts to maintain economic pressure on Tehran while global powers seek to curb its nuclear program.

COMMENT:  That last point is key.  The Iranians are out-negotiating us, with Russian help.  And yet the president does not seem to understand what is happening, or maybe just doesn't care. 

These events make it even more imperative that our side take control of the Senate in November.  The president conducts foreign policy, but the Senate has more influence over that policy than does the House.  And it also decides on treaties.

March 12, 2014       Permalink

FLORIDA 13TH – AT 8:59 A.M.ET:  An expansion of our "short take" from last night, reporting on the much-anticipated special election in a bellwether district of Florida.  Both parties poured tremendous effort and resources into this contest, and the GOP came out on top.  From Fox: 

Republican David Jolly narrowly defeated Democrat Alex Sink on Tuesday in a Tampa-area House race largely seen as a critical test for ObamaCare.

With nearly 100 percent of the vote counted, Jolly had 48.5 percent of the vote to Sink's 46.7 percent. Libertarian Lucas Overby had 4.8 percent.

The race to replace the late Rep. Bill Young was considered a tossup, and was cast as a political bellwether, and a testing ground for each party's messaging strategy -- which revolves in part around the Affordable Care Act.

Jolly's election night headquarters in Clearwater Beach erupted into loud cheers as it became clear he was the winner. In his victory speech, Jolly simultaneously struck a conciliatory tone and expressed gratitude for his mentor, Young, and Young's family. Jolly was introduced by former "Price is Right" game show host Bob Barker, via video. Young's two adult sons were also onstage with Jolly, and he embraced them at the end of his speech.

Jolly didn't mention the issue that dominated much of the campaign — the president's health care package — and instead said that Pinellas County must work together.

"This race is not about defending a broken agenda in Washington or advancing a broken agenda in Washington. This race is about serving the people in our own community," he said. "Let's dispense with the rancor and vitriol of the last five months."

Jolly thanked Sink and Overby and said it was "OK" that tens of thousands of others voted for his opponents.

"While this campaign at times seemed to be partisan, your next congressman is not partisan," he said.

COMMENT:  Some smart statements by Jolly, who will of course be ridiculed because of his name.  You can already see the headlines:  JOLLY NOT JOLLY OVER NEW BUDGET. 

I'm happy with the result, but I ask you to look at the numbers.  Jolly won by less than two points.  Why?  Because there was a third candidate, a so-called "libertarian" who had no chance of winning, but who siphoned off almost five percent of the vote.  I have to believe that almost all of those votes would have gone to the Republican, Jolly.  Even if that's an exaggeration, the absence of a third candidate would have meant a greater GOP victory.

We have to understand the potential for homewrecking that exists this year, with egotistical third-party candidates taking votes from our side.  Bill Clinton became president in 1992 in part because third-party guy Ross Perot siphoned votes from Bush 41. 

I do hope that the libertarians, and the "true" conservatives, will understand that you can't have everything, and that it's better to have a congressperson or senator who's with you 75% of the time, rather than one who's with you 10% of the time.  I don't want to see elections handed to liberals.

March 12, 2014       Permalink

YIKES! – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  President Obama is suffering in the polls, just as we enter a midterm election campaign.  From The Wall Street Journal: 

President Barack Obama is struggling to overcome widespread pessimism about the economy and deep frustration with Washington, notching the lowest job-approval ratings of his presidency in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The results suggest Mr. Obama could weigh on fellow Democrats in midterm elections this fall, particularly in the conservative states that will play a large role in deciding whether his party retains its Senate majority.

Mr. Obama's job approval ticked down to 41% in March from 43% in January, marking a new low. Some 54% disapproved of the job he is doing, matching a previous high from December, when the botched rollout of his signature health law played prominently in the news. The latest survey also showed the lowest-ever approval in Journal/NBC polling for Mr. Obama's handling of foreign policy.

The findings come amid dissatisfaction with all elected leaders in Washington and low regard for the Republican Party. Roughly a quarter of those polled view the GOP positively, with 45% harboring negative views, weaker numbers than for the Democratic Party.

Still, the GOP leads slightly when the public is asked which party should control Congress.

While fortunes could change in the months before November, Mr. Obama's power to help his party's candidates appear limited, said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who directs the Journal/NBC poll with Democrat Fred Yang.

COMMENT:  We note the president's low standing in foreign policy.  Some commentators, and I believe they're correct, attribute this to one word:  Russia.  Other foreign policy issues deal with small states or unpopular ones, like Syria.  But Russia/Ukraine is a very big deal.  Russia is re-emerging as a world power, and we have a bitter history with Moscow.  The Ukraine confrontation is often described as the most serious foreign-policy crisis since the end of the Cold War, excluding the military crisis prompted by the 9-11 attacks.

With a wobbling economy, I don't see much upside for the president before the elections, but the Dems generally may be helped, as they've been helped before, by Republican blunders.  The Republican National Committee is working hard to do things better this time.  At least they recognize the problem.

March 12,  2014    Permalink