Saturday, June 19, 2010

Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., June 19 & 20


Ahh... those good ol' days!
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7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37568

* PAT BUCHANAN. LIKE ME, HE'S USUALLY RIGHT... (*WINK*)

[H]ow optimistic can Americans be when, last month, in the ninth year of our longest war, the U.S. field commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said the Taliban have fought us to a draw?

Eight years ago, the Taliban seemed finished. Since then, we have poured in scores of thousands of troops, spent $300 billion, lost 1,000 soldiers and seen thousands more wounded. Yet, the Taliban have never been stronger or operated more broadly.

The battle for Marjah, said to be a dress rehearsal for June's decisive Battle of Kandahar, appears not to have been the triumph advertised. The Afghan government and police failed to follow up and take over the Marjah district. The Taliban continue to execute those working with the Americans.

From Harvard researcher Matt Waldman of the London School of Economics, reported in the London Telegraph, comes the explosive charge that Pakistani Intelligence is now fully collaborating with the Taliban. On June 16, The New York Times reported that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the Mumbai massacre, is operating in Afghanistan, attacking Indian aid workers. Like the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba received early support from Pakistani intelligence.

What is going on in Afghanistan?

For the United States and NATO...casualties are rising to the highest levels of the war. June is shaping up as the bloodiest month ever. While Barack Obama has promised a review of U.S. strategy and policy in December, at the present rate, hundreds more young Americans will by then have given up their lives.

For what?

It appears that Pakistan, by maintaining ties to the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, wants to ensure that if and when the Americans do depart, as Obama signaled we would begin to do next July, Afghanistan will move into Islamabad's orbit, not New Delhi's. [And certainly not Washington's!]

To succeed in creating in Afghanistan a country where the Taliban have been driven permanently from power and there is no chance of al-Qaida's returns, we need a government in Kabul and an Afghan army and police that can follow up U.S. military gains by taking control, protecting the population and providing social reforms.

We don't have that government.

It is simply not credible that the United States and its NATO allies, some of whom - like the Dutch - are pulling out, can prevail in this war in 12 months so America can begin coming home, as Obama has promised, unless Obama is willing to write Afghanistan off. If he is, he should tell us now and save those Americans lives. If he is not wiling to see Afghanistan fall, he should tell us what it will take, and how long, to avoid a defeat and win this war.

[S]aying the U.S. can succeed in the next 12 months in what we have failed to accomplish, at a rising cost in blood and money, for the last eight years, is not credible.

* NO IT'S NOT. THE BALL'S IN YOUR COURT, MR. PRESIDENT. (AND MS. PELOSI... AND MR. REID...)

June 19, 2010 at 9:56 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061803760.html

Torrents of uninteresting mail inundate members of Congress, but occasionally there are riveting communications, such as a recent e-mail from a noncommissioned officer (NCO) serving in Afghanistan. He explains why the rules of engagement for U.S. troops are "too prohibitive for coalition forces to achieve sustained tactical successes."

Receiving mortar fire during an overnight mission, his unit called for a 155mm howitzer illumination round to be fired to reveal the enemy's location. The request was rejected "on the grounds that it may cause collateral damage." The NCO says that the only thing that comes down from an illumination round is a canister, and the likelihood of it hitting someone or something was akin to that of being struck by lightning.

Returning from a mission, his unit took casualties from an improvised explosive device that the unit knew had been placed no more than an hour earlier. "There were villagers laughing at the U.S. casualties" and "two suspicious individuals were seen fleeing the scene and entering a home." U.S. forces "are no longer allowed to search homes without Afghan National Security Forces personnel present." But when his unit asked Afghan police to search the house, the police refused on the grounds that the people in the house "are good people."

On another mission, some Afghan adults ran off with their children immediately before the NCO's unit came under heavy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and the unit asked for artillery fire on the enemy position. The response was a question: Where is the nearest civilian structure? "Judging distances," the NCO writes dryly, "can be difficult when bullets and RPGs are flying over your head." When the artillery support was denied because of fear of collateral damage, the unit asked for a "smoke mission" - like an illumination round; only the canister falls to earth - "to conceal our movement as we planned to flank and destroy the enemy." This request was granted, but because of fear of collateral damage, the round was deliberately fired one kilometer off the requested site, making "the smoke mission useless and leaving us to fend for ourselves."

Ann Marlowe, a visiting fellow of the Hudson Institute who has been embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan six times, says there have been successes at the local and even provincial levels "but nothing that has lasted even a year."

The U.S. mission in Afghanistan involves trying to extend the power, over many people who fear it, of a corrupt government produced by a corrupted election. This gives rise to surreal strategies. Those Americans who say that Afghanistan is a test of America's "staying power" are saying that we must stay there because we are there. This is steady work, but it treats perseverance as a virtue regardless of context or consequences and makes futility into a reason for persevering.

June 19, 2010 at 10:14 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://weeklystandard.com/articles/dereliction-duty

The 1974 Budget and Impoundment Act requires Congress to pass a budget resolution by May 15 of each year. Congress hasn’t done so yet in 2010.

* LAWS MEAN NOTHING TO OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. (WHICH REMINDS ME... SO FAR ETHERIDGE IS STILL "AT LARGE.") SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... OUR SYSTEM IS BROKEN.

Congressional Democrats aren’t simply delaying, they’re deliberately refusing to offer a budget until after the November elections. They’re simply choosing to ignore the law.

* AND HOW MANY TIMES A DAY DO YOU HEAR OR READ THIS BEING REPORTED BY THE MSM...??? (*SMIRK*) (YEP. THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT.)

The politics aren't complicated. Democratic leaders do not want to send members home to face their constituents after voting for a budget that would take the deficit to record levels. But the spending trajectory established by Barack Obama - and rapidly growing entitlements - leaves them little choice. The administration’s own proposal, offered in February, runs a deficit of 7%-10% of the U.S. gross domestic product for the next nine-year budget window. That’s unsustainable...

(*SIGH*)

So rather than vote for such a grotesquely distended budget, Democrats reason, better to simply skip the vote and shrug off whatever criticism comes.

* THING IS... (*PAUSE*)... WITH THE MSM LARGELY PROVIDING COVER... (*SHRUG*)... IT'S HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GET OUTRAGED ABOUT SOMETHING THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT... (*SIGH*)

This isn’t speculation. Representative Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Northern Virginia with a competitive race this fall, confirmed the strategy in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I’m not going to vote for anything with that magnitude [of deficit],” he said. He’s betting his constituents won’t care. “Name one person who won or lost an election because they didn’t get a budget resolution passed. It’s totally inside baseball.”

* NO MATTER HOW BAD THE RINOs WERE WHEN THEY RAN CONGRESS - AND THEY WERE BAD! - THE NAKED TRUTH IS THAT WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW IS BEYOND ANY LEVEL OF IRRESPONSIBILITY THAT HAS EVER OCCURRED IN THE PAST.

* To be continued...

June 19, 2010 at 10:43 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

In the short term, failing to pass a budget resolution almost guarantees even more irresponsible spending. A budget resolution sets spending targets for congressional committees and makes it procedurally more difficult for members of Congress (in either house) to increase spending. (In the Senate, for instance, adding new spending requires 60 votes after a budget resolution and only 51 before.)

Keith Hennessey, who served as senior White House economic adviser under George W. Bush, describes the short-term effects this way: "Without an annual budget resolution . . . discipline does not exist. Committee chairmen spend and tax as they see fit, because there is no overarching structure to rein them in. It can become budgetary chaos."

And budgetary chaos means more spending.

* WHICH IS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS WANT... (*SIGH*). MORE SPENDING... HIGHER DEFICITS... MORE DEBT...

It’s win-win for congressional Democrats: Moderates get to avoid a tough vote and liberals get to spend more.

* A LOSE-LOSE FOR THE NATION HOWEVER...

Long-term problems are worse. If Congress does not pass a budget resolution before the election, Democrats will push one through during the lame-duck session before a new Congress is sworn in. Democrats will be able to ratchet up discretionary spending, and these increased levels of spending will be the fallback levels in the event that future spending disputes require Congress to revert to continuing budget resolutions.

* DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE READING HERE...?!?! RE-READ THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH. AGAIN... THIS IS BEYOND - FAR BEYOND - "POLITICS AS USUAL." THIS IS LIKE SOMETHING THE MAFIA - OR GOLDMAN SACHS - WOULD COME UP WITH!

[T]he Obama administration has shown no interest in cutting spending.

* WE'VE DEMONSTRATED TIME AND AGAIN HOW OBAMA'S PROPOSED "PARTIAL SPENDING FREEZE" IS SIMPLY SMOKE AND MIRRORS AND UNLESS YOU'RE TOTALLY IGNORANT YOU'RE WELL AWARE THAT PAYGO IS VIOLATED VIA "EMERGENCY" SPENDING FAR MORE OFTEN THAN IT'S ABIDED BY. (*SIGH*) NOT PARTISANSHIP HERE, FOLKS... JUST THE FACTS.

President Obama wrote to European leaders ahead of the upcoming G-20 summit in Toronto and warned that their austerity measures - including spending cuts - could slow our recovery. In that same letter, Obama raised the possibility of still greater U.S. government spending. “In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish,” he wrote, “we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to avoid a slowdown in economic activity.”

* "FULL SPEED AHEAD!" ORDERS CAPTAIN AHAB... er... PRESIDENT OBAMA.

* FOLKS. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. THE DEMOCRATS SEEM TO BE DELIBERATELY TRYING TO CREATE A CRISIS SO THAT EVEN IF THEY LOSE CONGRESS IN NOVEMBER THE ECONOMY WILL CRASH FURTHER IN 2011 AND 2012 AND SO I'M GUESSING THE THINKING IS THAT THEY FEEL THEY CAN BLAME REPUBLICANS WHILE ALSO ACCRUING MORE "EMERGENCY" POWERS INTO THE HANDS OF OBAMA.

Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, thinks that the administration is taking the country to the brink in order to create a political environment where significant tax hikes are salable: “I don’t think they’re totally uncomfortable with a debt crisis because in a crisis they can do a VAT (value-added tax).”

Democrats, says Ryan, now want to “stuff the beast.” “When debt and deficits get so out of control, they’ll need to come up with a way to address the problem.”

The Democratic strategy: Create a crisis so that they have to create a solution.

June 19, 2010 at 10:43 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/06/19/bp_the_white_house_and_congress_are_all_dirty_106023.html

Amidst all the political jockeying over the BP catastrophe, the main players are missing what is really uppermost on America's mind:

It's the spill rate, stupid.
It's jobs, stupid.
It's the economy, stupid.

All eyes in Washington, Wall Street and Main Street were turned this week to the congressional show trial featuring beleaguered BP CEO Tony Hayward.

Hayward was a disaster.
He played dumb.
He stonewalled.
And he never got honest about the colossal failure of human judgment at BP that caused this catastrophe.

But folks, seriously, what did you expect? ... Hayward was lawyered to the gills, which doesn't make anyone happy, including me. And that's precisely why these congressional show trials leave me bored, tired and depressed. Before this thing is said and done, Hayward and others at BP may very well be criminally indicted by the Justice Department. Hayward could eventually do hard time, for all I know. So, of course he stonewalled.

[But...] what's the role of Congress in this catastrophe?

What exactly is it doing besides presiding over these show trials?

Doesn't it have oversight authority when it comes to the Minerals Management Service, which utterly failed to regulate the safety of BP's deep-water drilling operations? Why aren't more people talking about this?

* RHETORICAL QUESTION. THE ANSWER IS CLEARLY THAT SUCH QUESTIONS DON'T FIT THE MSM TEMPLATE BECAUSE THEY'RE CERTAINLY NOT QUESTIONS THE DEMOCRATS WANT FOCUSED UPON.

[W]hy in the world hasn't Congress suspended the Jones Act, thereby allowing foreign-flag tankers into the Gulf of Mexico area? What is it waiting for? We're basically two months into this never-ending disaster. The gulf cleanup could have been greatly aided by at least 15 foreign countries that were instead spurned after offering their tankers and other equipment. Why aren't we accepting these offers of help?

* YES, FOLKS... IT'S NOT JUST OBAMA REFUSING TO ACT; IT'S PELOSI, REID, AND THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS WHO REFUSE TO ACT!

And where...is the president in all this? Speaking to the nation from the Oval Office earlier in the week, he failed to declare a Jones Act waiver, and he made no call for a task force of hands-on oilmen from the likes of ExxonMobil and other big oil sisters who actually know what they are doing.

[I]f BP is dirty, and if BP is incompetent, then so is Congress. And so is the White House...

June 19, 2010 at 10:58 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/436630/keeping-up-with-the-jones-act/deroy-murdock

As a self-proclaimed “citizen of the world,” Pres. Barack Obama should have welcomed rather than spurned international assistance to prevent BP’s underwater oil geyser from wrecking the Gulf Coast.

But spurn he did.

Obama’s failure to waive the Jones Act still maintains a sea wall that blocks potentially helpful foreign ships from this tear-inducing mess.

Had Obama instead waived the Jones Act via executive order - as did Pres. George W. Bush three days after Hurricane Katrina - that S.O.S. would have summoned a global armada of mercy. Who knows how many fishing, shrimping, and seafood-processing jobs this would have saved? Instead, thousands of Gulf Coast workers will endure a long march from dormant docks to bustling unemployment lines.

* RECALL THE TIMELINE:

On April 20, the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killed eleven oil-rig workers, and began gushing perhaps 60,000 barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico daily.
Three days later, the Dutch offered to sail to the rescue on ships bedecked with oil-skimming booms. They also had a plan for erecting protective sand barricades. “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” Dutch consul general Geert Visser told the Houston Chronicle’s Loren Steffy. Had those Dutch ships departed for the Gulf nearly two months ago, who knows how much oil they already would have absorbed and how many pelicans now would soar rather than soak in soapy water while wildlife experts clean their wings.

[BTW...] Obama did not speak directly with BP CEO Tony Hayward until June 16.

(*SMIRK*)

After initially refusing to name them, the State Department on May 5 declared that Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.N. had offered skimmer boats and other assets and experts to prevent the oil from destroying dolphins, crabs, oysters, and this disaster’s other defenseless victims.

Alas, they were turned away.

“While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet,” stated a State Department statement, “the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future.”

* BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA AND HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON... (*SIGH*)... THE INCOMPETENT DUO.

Even now, Obama could invite the world to send boats to clean the waters off Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and (potentially) the Carolinas and points north, if this mass of oil (so far, roughly equal to 13 Exxon Valdez oil spills) seeps into the Loop Current, swerves around Key West, slips into the Gulf Stream, and slides up the Eastern Seaboard.

“If there is the need for any type of waiver, that would obviously be granted,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised on June 10. “But, we’ve not had that problem thus far in the Gulf.”

Problem? What problem?

(*SNORT*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*)

And the crude oil keeps on flowing.

June 20, 2010 at 11:44 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://article.nationalreview.com/436643/a-mind-changing-page/thomas-sowell

Those who think that the stock-market crash in October 1929 is what caused the huge unemployment rates of the 1930s will have a hard time reconciling that belief with the data in that table.

* SEE: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814787924/ref=nosim/nationalreviewon

Although the big stock-market crash occurred in October 1929, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the 12 months after that crash. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent, two months after the stock market crashed - and then began drifting generally downward over the next six months, falling to 6.3% by June 1930.

This was what happened in the market, before the federal government decided to “do something.”

What the government decided to do in June 1930 - against the advice of literally a thousand economists, who took out newspaper ads warning against it - was impose higher tariffs, in order to save American jobs by reducing imported goods.

This was the first massive federal intervention to rescue the economy, under Pres. Herbert Hoover, who took pride in being the first president of the United States to intervene to try to get the economy out of an economic downturn.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*) FRIGG'N MORON...!

Within six months after this government intervention, unemployment shot up into double digits - and stayed in double digits in every month throughout the entire remainder of the 1930s, as the Roosevelt administration expanded federal intervention far beyond what Hoover had started.

If more government regulation of business is the magic answer that so many seem to think it is, the whole history of the 1930s should have been different. An economic study in 2004 concluded that New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression. But the same story can be found on one page in [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814787924/ref=nosim/nationalreviewon]

While the market produced a peak unemployment rate of 9% - briefly - after the stock-market crash of 1929, unemployment shot up after massive federal interventions in the economy. It rose above 20% in 1932 and stayed above 20% for 23 consecutive months, beginning in the Hoover administration and continuing during the Roosevelt administration.

(As Casey Stengel used to say, “You could look it up.” It is all there on that one page.)

Those who are convinced that the government has to “do something” when the economy has a problem almost never bother to find out what actually happens when the government intervenes.

The very fact that we still remember the stock market crash of 1929 is remarkable, since there was a similar stock-market crash in 1987 that most people have long since forgotten.

What was the difference between these two stock-market crashes? The 1929 stock-market crash was followed by the most catastrophic depression in American history, with as many as one-fourth of all American workers being unemployed. The 1987 stock-market crash was followed by two decades of economic growth with low unemployment.

But that was only one difference. The other big difference was that the Reagan administration did not intervene in the economy after the 1987 stock-market crash - despite many outcries in the media that the government should “do something.”

June 20, 2010 at 11:59 AM

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