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MAY 28,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:08 P.M. ET:

A CHILL AT WEST POINT – From Mediaite:  "Obama’s 'philosophical' speech to the 2014 graduates of West Point about a new direction for America’s foreign policy was 'not a great' speech for that audience, said CNN anchor Jim Clancy on Wednesday. He said that the president did not sound like a 'commander-in-chief speaking to his troops' and got an 'icy reception' as a result.  Clancy did not criticize the substance of President Obama’s speech outlining a shift in tactics, specifically as it relates to America’s approach to fighting terrorist groups. However, he did think that the defining of a new foreign policy doctrine was not something the attendees wanted to hear."  I would imagine not, especially from a president who radiates weakness and indecision.

SETBACK – From CNN:  "(CNN) -- The four acoustic pings at the center of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes, a U.S. Navy official told CNN.  The acknowledgment came Wednesday as searchers wrapped up the first phase of their effort, having scanned 329 square miles of southern Indian Ocean floor without finding any wreckage from the Boeing 777-200.  Authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the onboard data or cockpit voice recorders, but instead came from some other man-made source unrelated to the jetliner that disappeared on March 8, according to Michael Dean, the Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering."  They are back to square one.  Apparently, modern technology isn't that precise at all.  Keep that in mind the next time Al Gore tells you that the science around "climate change" is "settled."

BETTER COOKIE JAR IS NEEDED – "The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report.  The $6 billion in unaccounted funds poses a 'significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,' according to the report.  The alert, originally sent on March 20 and just released this week, warns that the missing contracting funds 'could expose the department to substantial financial losses.'"  Do you think Obama will now make Hillary head of the Veterans Administration?

FASCINATING – From AP:  "SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Residents of California's largely rural, agrarian and politically conservative far northern counties long ago got used to feeling ignored in the state Capitol and out of sync with major urban areas.  The idea of forming their own state has been a topic among local secession dreamers for more than a century. Residents in two counties will have a chance to voice that sentiment next week.  Voters in Del Norte and Tehama, with a combined population of about 91,000, will decide June 3 on an advisory measure that asks each county's board of supervisors to join a wider effort to form a 51st state named Jefferson."  We'll be following this.  Obama once said we had 57 states, and maybe someday he'll be right. 

May 28, 2014       Permalink

THE VA SCANDAL GROWS – AT 10:26 A.M. ET:  It is sickening.  These are our veterans.  It appears they've been the victims of careerists with first-class seats on the gravy train.  This has been going on for years.  Indeed, it's not uncommon for soldiers and veterans to be victimized.  But this should have been stopped.  It's probably still going on.

We're promised investigations.  But the story will fade from page one.  After all, it's not as sexy as the removal of the editor of The New York Times.  But this scandal will plague the Obama administration until direct action is taken.  As Charles Krauthammer said, we don't need an investigation to provide immediate improvement in the treatment of veterans.  It may take additional money, but we can get those on waiting lists into civilian hospitals.  It's worth every cent.  From the Daily Beast:   

Last week, President Obama pledged to address allegations of corruption and dangerous inefficiencies in the veterans’ health-care system. But before the president could deliver on his pledge, the scandal has spread even further. New whistleblower testimony and internal documents implicate an award-winning VA hospital in Texas in widespread wrongdoing—and what appears to be systemic fraud.

Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay.

What’s worse, the documents show the wrongdoing going unpunished for years, even after it was repeatedly reported to local and national VA authorities. That indicates a new troubling angle to the VA scandal: that the much touted investigations may be incapable of finding violations that are hiding in plain sight.

“For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.”

“I see it in the executives’ eyes,” the whistleblower added. “They are worried.”

COMMENT:  One wonders what other scandals are waiting to be uncovered.  This is the time when a free press in critical to the nation...if the press does the job.  I have my doubts that it will.  Reporting the news has become secondary in too many news organizations to advancing popular political causes, and veterans, in the eyes of the journalistic elites, aren't all that popular.

May 28, 2014       Permalink

IT'S ABOUT TIME – AT 9:56 A.M. ET:  You've all heard the term, "crony capitalism."  It's used more by conservatives than liberals.  It refers to the corruption of the free enterprise system when crony capitalists milk the system entirely for their own benefit, without too much regard for a company's employees or shareholders, especially the smaller shareholders.  It also refers to the casual dealmaking that allows boards of "directors" to vote vast compensation to executives, the better to increase their own arguments for higher pay at their own companies.  And it also refers to these "capitalists" rushing to Washington for their share of corporate welfare.

I'm happy to say that people on our side have often been quick to point out these corruptions, but they go on.  Average CEO compensation has just topped ten million dollars a year.  Some shrug that this is just the market at work.  No, it's a distortion of the market, and of common decency.  It's the same distortion that occurs when a baseball player is paid the equivalent of a teacher's salary for a year every time he comes to bat.  There are limits to our cheering.

Now, there appears to be a backlash building among shareholder groups.  It's long overdue.  (We hope the next backlash will be directed against our corrupt, inefficient, and fat universities.)  From the conservative Washington Times: 

The combined salaries of Chipotle’s co-CEOs could pay for an order of 7.5 million burritos.
The almost $50 million executive pay package proved to be something shareholders couldn’t swallow. Nearly 77 percent of shareholders at Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.’s annual meeting voted against the compensation package.

While President Obama and congressional Democrats hope to make an issue of the minimum wage this midterm election season, the hottest topic at this spring’s slew of corporate annual meetings has been rising unhappiness with the maximum wages for many of America’s best-known executives.
Challenges, some successful and some not, were raised to pay packages for top executives at companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., McDonald’s Corp., Target Corp. and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Coca-Cola Co.’s board of directors, including investor Warren Buffett, faced heat from some of the company’s biggest shareholders for approving a compensation package that will award stock to senior managers over the next four years. During the shareholders meeting for McDonald’s, union activists wanting the company to raise the pay of entry-level workers protested at its headquarters chanting, “No Big Macs, no fries, make our wage supersize.”

Chipotle officials say they will take “seriously” such a strong expression of shareholder unhappiness with the pay at the Denver-based chain, even though the vote was only advisory. Among those criticizing the company’s compensation structure were the California State Teachers Retirement System, CalPERS, the New York City Pension Funds and the Florida State Board of Administration.

COMMENT:  There is a great deal of agitation on the left about "income inequality."   Very frankly, the agitation is justified.  The ratio between the highest- and lowest-paid employees of American corporations has reached obscene levels, matched nowhere else in the civilized world.  This is no longer free enterprise.  This is a racket, although legal. 

The problem with the "income inequality" people is that, while their complaint is just, their solutions are usually reckless.  It's time for thoughtful proponents of free enterprise to clean their houses.  Otherwise, they risk the kind of "peasant's revolt" we saw in Europe last week.  And they risk the rise of socialism. 

There was a time when executive compensation was far more reasonable than it is today.  Companies did just fine.  The warnings are out there.  But the question is whether the corporate pigs will listen.

May 28, 2014        Permalink

BIZARRE – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:   There is something terminally weird about an administration that constantly tells America's enemies exactly what it is going to do.  Nations form huge intelligence networks to learn that information.  The Obamans give it away.  The political left applauds their kindness and generosity.  From Newsmax: 

President Barack Obama made a "big mistake" in announcing a timeline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, says Rep. Peter King.

Obama said Tuesday that the United States will leave 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after this year, and withdraw most of them by 2016.

"That just gives the enemy the opportunity to plan their strategy," King a Republican from New York, said Tuesday on CNN's "Out Front with Erin Burnett."

King was one of many Republicans who slammed Obama's announcement. Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire jointly called the decision irresponsible and a "triumph of politics over strategy."

Watch Kelly Ayotte carefully.  She's a rising star in Republican ranks, who might be a presidential choice one day.  She has taken the place of Joe Lieberman in the trio of McCain, Graham and Lieberman, on foreign and defense policy. 

"The president came into office wanting to end the wars he inherited. But wars do not end just because politicians say so," the three senators said. "The president appears to have learned nothing from the damage done by his previous withdrawal announcements in Afghanistan and his disastrous decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq.

They said that Obama's announcement "will embolden our enemies and discourage our partners in Afghanistan and the region. His decision on Afghanistan will fuel the growing perception worldwide that America is unreliable, distracted, and unwilling to lead."

The more responsible move was a "limited-assistance mission" to aid the security forces, they said. The move would "preserve momentum on the battlefield and create conditions for a negotiated end to the conflict.King said he doubts that the number of troops being left in Afghanistan is sufficient for the United States to carry out intelligence operations outside of Bagram and Kabul.

Obama said in Tuesday's White House remarks that Americans have learned it is easier to get into a war than out of one. King called that statement "condescending … as if we were in Afghanistan as some sort of lark."

The United States went to war with al-Qaida in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

COMMENT:  King and the other Republicans get it right.  And King is certainly right in referring to Obama as condescending.  That is his standard mask.  He really believes himself to be better than his country.  It is the basis of his mediocrity and downfall.

May 28, 2014       Permalink

OH, THE ANTICIPATION – AT 8:46 A.M. ET:  The president speaks at West Point today, whether they want him or not.  He will deliver what is billed as a major foreign-policy address, apparently a catch-up responding to months of criticism that his foreign policy is a mess.

And indeed it is.  The world seems to be descending into a remarkable level of chaos as the president contemplates the nature of man.  The latest descent is the rise of the far right in Europe, as evidenced by last week's elections for the European parliament. 

Apparently, Obama will announce some changes in Syria policy.  From Fox: 

President Obama, as part of an address at the U.S. Military Academy outlining a broad shift in U.S. foreign policy, is expected to indicate Wednesday that he will expand assistance to Syrian rebels.

Administration officials told The Associated Press that Obama and his team are weighing sending a limited number of U.S. troops to Jordan as part of a mission to train and equip certain moderate members of the Free Syrian Army. The president is expected to reference the Syria plans, without making any specific announcement, in his address at West Point in New York.

I love it, I love it.  The Obamans are "weighing."  And "without making any specific announcement..."  How long has this conflict been going on?  How many years?  We're finally getting a policy? 

The address is part of an overall effort to recast U.S. foreign policy, as an endeavor aimed at building international consensus and avoiding unilateral overreach. The speech comes one day after Obama announced his plan for gradually drawing down the U.S. force in Afghanistan after the war formally ends later this year.

If Obama signs off on the Syria program, it would mark a significant boost in U.S. support to the rebels, who have repeatedly asked the U.S. for military help in their four-year-long war against the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Administration officials said there is still internal discussion at the White House about the merits and potential risks of the program, which would involved instructing carefully vetted members of the Free Syrian Army on tactics, including counterterrorism operations.

COMMENT:  Douglas MacArthur once warned that all military disasters begin with two words:  too late.  It's already too late in Syria.  It was too late last year.  All Obama is doing is trying to protect his political flank from criticisms, including criticisms from Democrats, that he's a weak, vacillating president.  This won't help.

May 28,  2014     Permalink

MAY 27,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:50 P.M. ET: 

GOOD FOR THESE GUYS – From CBS:  "Film director Judd Apatow and actor Seth Rogen both blasted Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday’s op-ed in which she suggests that Elliot Rodger’s mass killing in Isla Vista, Calif., is tied to white men in Hollywood promoting 'escapist fantasies' that 'revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment.'  Hornaday argued throughout the Sunday op-ed that the California killer’s rampage and YouTube videos expressing his 'loneliness' and 'rejection' resemble movies made in a Hollywood culture that inflates misogynistic delusions – as channeled through 'male studio executives.'"  How did a shallow adolescent like Ann Hornaday get a job at a major paper?  She should certainly know that Hollywood today is filled with female executives.  I'm no defender of Hollywood in its current form, but I wish people would wait for facts before blaming any industry for a mass killing, including the gun industry.  I note that news people keep referring to the killer as a "gunman," even though he killed half his victims with a knife. I guess it's habit, soaked in political correctness.

DISGRACE – The Council on Islamic-American Relations is a pretty disgraceful organization to begin with, a kind of excuse machine for terrorism.  But some of their leaders outdid themselves this weekend by raising questions as to whether American soldiers deserved any honor on Memorial Day.  CAIR believes Muslims are victims of American "occupation" and "colonialism."  The insult is covered here by Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit.

LIBYA DESCENDING – From Fox:  "The State Department Tuesday urged all U.S. citizens to immediately leave Libya due to security concerns.  The evacuation warning came shortly after the USS Bataan, with about 1,000 Marines aboard, sailed into the Mediterranean Sea to assist Americans in leaving if necessary, according to U.S. military officials. The officials made clear the ship has received no formal orders to conduct a new mission."  There's a place in Libya called Benghazi, which gave us a preview of what is happening to the country.  The place is falling apart.

OH DEAR – Some people never stop being embarrassing.  From The Politico:  "Wendy Davis’s forthcoming memoir is one step closer to its debut: 'Forgetting to Be Afraid' will be released Sept. 2, about two months before Davis faces the Lone Star State’s voters in the gubernatorial race, the publisher said Tuesday.
The book will likely draw intense attention from supporters and critics of Davis, who frequently talks on the trail about her rise from single motherhood to Harvard Law to the Texas legislature and has come under fire for disputed details in the story. Blue Rider Press described the book as 'deeply personal' in a post on its website."  I can't wait.  Aside from fudging facts on her personal history, Davis has proved a weak campaigner who has little idea of how a state like Texas is managed.  Most of her support is coming from the fashionistas of politics in the coastal states.  She will lose.

May 27, 2014       Permalink

THE REVOLVING DOOR – AT 10:58 A.M. ET:  We have noted many times the amount of money involved in the "climate change" business.  Here's a particularly disturbing example.  From ace defense reporter Rowan Scarborough at The Washington Times: 

Retired military officers deeply involved in the climate change movement — and some in companies positioned to profit from it — spearheaded an alarmist global warming report this month that calls on the Defense Department to ramp up spending on what it calls a man-made problem.

The report, which the Obama administration immediately hailed as a call to action, was issued not by a private advocacy group but by a Pentagon-financed think tank that trumpets “absolute objectivity.” The research was funded by a climate change group that is also one of the think tank’s main customers.

The May 13 report came from the military advisory board within CNA Corp., a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes the Center for Naval Analyses, a Navy-financed group that also gets contracts from other Pentagon units. CNA also operates the Institute for Public Research.

CNA’s webpage states that it is not an advocacy group. It says it maintains “absolute objectivity. In our investigations, analyses and findings we test hypotheses, carefully guard against personal biases and preconceptions, challenge our own findings and are uninfluenced by what a client would like to hear.”

The Center for Naval Analyses’ motto is “high quality, impartial information.”

One of the CNA panel’s vice chairmen, retired Navy Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, is president of a private think tank, the American Security Project, whose prime issue is warning about climate change.

The other vice chairman, retired Army Brig. Gen. Gerald E. Galloway Jr., is a prominent adviser to the Center for Climate and Security, a climate change group.

In all, four CNA board members sit on the panel of advisers to the Center for Climate and Security, whose statements on climate change are similar to those found in the CNA report.

COMMENT:  There's more to the piece.  Read it all.  The term "conflict of interest" might come to mind.  The whole area of "climate change" has been politicized, and money is right behind the politics.

May 27, 2014       Permalink

HILLARY'S TROUBLES – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  We continue our discussion about the erupting political problems facing Hillary Clinton.  Suddenly, while still well ahead in all polls, her nomination does not seem quite as inevitable as it once did.   Because the Dems went through this once before with Hillary, some are becoming wary.  Others just don't like her because she's not left-wing enough.  From The Politico: 

Everyone knows about the “Ready for Hillary” Democrats — the rapidly proliferating parade of elected officials and activists getting behind Hillary Clinton’s increasingly likely 2016 presidential campaign.

But there’s also a smaller but increasingly vocal group making its presence felt lately — call these Democrats the “Wary of Hillary” Democrats. They’re not outwardly opposing a Clinton candidacy. But they are anxious about the spectacle of a Clinton juggernaut, after seeing what happened when she ran a campaign of inevitability last time.

Some feel a competitive primary, regardless of the outcome, is good for the party. Others say Clinton, who’s been out of electoral politics for five years, needs to be tested. And some Democrats are merely concerned that the party won’t have an open airing of views on economic policy.

The reservations, expressed mostly in private company, have been given voice in recent days by some of the party’s most prominent governors.

“She is an enormously capable candidate and leader, but I do worry about the inevitability, because I think it’s off-putting to the average voter,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a longtime Obama ally, told CNN earlier this month. “And I think that was an element of her campaign the last time. As an enthusiastic Democrat, I just hope that the people around her pay attention to that this time around.”

It is inconceivable that Patrick would have made that comment without Obama's approval, or at least Obama's wink.  It may also be a bid for Patrick to be put on any Hillary ticket, to satisfy the African-American community, without which no Democrat can win a national election.

The public commentary about the risks of Clinton as fait accompli seems less a harbinger of a messy primary fight than an effort to nudge Clinton to the left. There’s no apparent candidate with President Barack Obama’s political skill to catch Clinton by surprise this time. But the Democratic base doesn’t want Clinton to get a free pass, lest she give short shrift to the progressive agenda and tack to the center before the primary campaign is even fully underway.

COMMENT:  The left can destroy Hillary.  Their darling is Elizabeth Warren, who is more ideologically pure. 

As I've noted before, our side should be cautious about wishing Hillary ill during this period.  We might get someone far worse, and that someone could, in the presence of another inept Republican presidential campaign, get elected.  The left wing of the Democratic Party has done enormous harm.  I don't want to see it strengthened further.

May 27, 2014       Permalink

ANOTHER CRITICAL VOTE – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  This is a year of critical elections.  One, a multi-day election in Egypt, is one of the most critical.  It looks like the military will win.  Obama will be horrified, but it's probably good news for America.  Traditionally, the Egyptian military has been pro-American, if a bit rough around the edges.   From AFP: 

Cairo, Egypt (AFP) — The ex-army chief who ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected leader and crushed his Islamist movement was set for a landslide presidential election win on Tuesday, the final day of voting

The two-day election is the first since the frontrunner Abdel Fattah el-Sissi deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July, a move that unleashed the bloodiest violence in Egypt’s recent history.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood is boycotting the vote, as are revolutionary youths who fear Sissi is an autocrat in the making.

But the 59-year-old retired field marshall is expected to trounce his sole rival, leftist Hamdeen Sabbahi, amid widespread calls for stability.

Sissi himself voted minutes after polling opened Monday amid a throng of jostling reporters and supporters. About 53 million people are eligible to vote.

“The entire world is watching us, how Egyptians are writing history and their future today and tomorrow,” Sissi said.

“Egyptians must be reassured that tomorrow will be very beautiful and great,” he said, as supporters shook his hand and kissed his cheeks.

Many view the vote as a referendum on stability versus the freedoms promised by the Arab Spring-inspired popular uprising that ousted veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

COMMENT:  Okay, I doubt if Egypt is voting itself a model democracy.  But the last time Egypt voted, it elected the Muslim Brotherhood, which was a disaster.  I suspect the military government will be an improvement.  If el-Sissi is smart, which he seems to be, he'll loosen up on some of the controls and grant some freedoms, if only to show that he can do it.

A key, immediate goal for Egypt, is to bring back the tourist trade, which is the foundation of the country's economy, and which has essentially died out because of all the internal violence and upheaval.  Another goal will be to strengthen ties with the U.S.  I'd recommend that the Egyptians get to know key members of Congress, especially as the Obama era fades away.

May 27, 2014       Permalink

A NEW EUROPE? – AT 8:43 A.M. ET:  As usual, the political pundits, who routinely are years behind the time, are shocked, shocked, by the showing of right-wing parties in Europe in the last week's elections for the European parliament.  I stress "right wing."  These are not conservatives.   In Europe the term "right wing" has a special connotation.  Some of the parties that made great gains are neo-fascist, and some use Nazi symbolism. 

What is also striking is that some of the leading "right wing" personalities of Europe have developed an affection for Vladimir Putin and his false "family values" narratives.  (So, by the way, has Pat Buchanan, proving his true views once again.)

This is an electoral jolt, and, while we can be amused at the shock to the leftist European establishment, we must be on guard.  We're not talking about the Reagan Revolution here. 

The solidly conservative Bret Stephens, in The Wall Street Journal, comments, and he is in a grim mood:

On the view that there's a silver lining to most things, consider the European election results. Yes, fascism is back, officially, ugly as ever. But at least Americans might be spared lectures from the bien-pensant about the crudeness of U.S. politics vis-à-vis Europe's.

Now, whenever I hear about the National Front, I'll reach for my Second Amendment...

...One in four French voters cast their ballots for the National Front, edging out the center-right UMP and trouncing the governing Socialists. On election night Sunday, Mr. Le Pen's daughter and current party leader, Marine Le Pen, declared: "Our people demand just one politics. The politics of the French, for the French." What's French for Ein Volk ?

Ms. Le Pen is supposed to be softer and smoother face of her father's party, but the evidence of that is hard to see. Last month she paid a visit to Moscow, lambasted the European Union for declaring a "Cold War" on Russia and embraced separatism in Ukraine. As for Vladimir Putin, she praised him in a recent interview as a "patriot" who "upholds the sovereignty of his people" and defends "the values of European civilization."

And...

Values, presumably, such as invading and intimidating neighbors, stuffing ballot boxes, jailing dissidents and attempting to restore the reputation of the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin has also made overtures to Hungary's Jobbik party, which took nearly 15% of the vote in last week's election, as well as to Greece's Golden Dawn, which got 9.4%. These parties aren't neo-fascist, in the early Benito Mussolini mold. They're neo-Nazi, in the late Ernst Röhm mold. Golden Dawn marches under a swastika-like banner.

Finally...

A decade ago it was conventional wisdom to observe that Europe had become a zone of perpetual peace, an agent of soft power and international law, Venus to America's Mars. But history is coming back to Europe, and not just at the far margin in places like Donetsk. The European Parliament may be mostly toothless as a political institution. But now there's no blinking at the fact that fascism is no longer just a piece of Europe's past but also a realistic possibility for its future.

There will be a temptation to bury the implications of this vote for another five years. But if youth unemployment remains at 25% in France and 57% in Spain, these elections will only be the beginning of another ugly chapter in European civilization. Mr. Putin can sense that the ghosts hovering over the continent work in his favor.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  I would also wonder out loud whether this mess would have been created if American leadership were still strong.  That's speculative history, but I marvel at the number of things going wrong with Obama in the White House.

The president will make a "major" foreign-policy speech at West Point on Wednesday.  There's something not quite harmonious about Barack Obama and West Point, but that's another discussion. 

May 27,  2014     Permalink