Michael Rulle
President Barack Obama on Thursday called on his fractious Afghanistan team to unite following his decision to replace General Stanley McChrystal as commander of the war effort.
President Obama, having just narrowly averted a military coup by firing General McChrystal, will need to get ready for more “we are losing the war in Afghanistan” stories. Remember Bora Bora? As John Kerry mindlessly noted—again—as late as December 2009, we never would have had to increase our troop strength in Afghanistan but for Bush having “failed to capture Bin Laden in Bora Bora” in December 2001. That was proof that Bush was losing the war in Afghanistan, caused by his sideshow war in Iraq. During Kerry and Obama’s presidential campaigns, they were in love with the notion of Afghanistan as the “smart” and good war, but there are no signs of the imminent capture of Bin Laden on the horizon. Talks of a “good war” have also long disappeared from the Democrats’ vocabulary. Afghanistan has morphed into a strategic muddle. The hopes we had about Karzai forming a strong central government were dashed a long time ago. read more…
For the first time since 9/11, we finally have universal “bipartisan” support for something—-the firing of General Stanley McChrystal. Every politician and pundit seems to agree. The Right calls it a personal tragedy for McChrystal. The Left sees it as an opportunity to change Obama’s Afghanistan war policy. But all agree his firing is of paramount importance to protect the principle of civilian authority over the military.
Maybe. But what shines through in this affair is the unctuous weakness of some in our political class. This includes President Obama and Senators McCain, Lieberman and Graham. Instead of defending the General, they used the Rolling Stone article to project their own agendas. The media’s virtual unanimous agreement is intellectually lazy. The Left has been utterly disinterested toward the Afghanistan war since “Bush-Cheney” were no longer in charge. Sure, lets fire a General. The Right appears stuck in a misdirected Truman-MacArthur time warp. I admit ignorance of the proper protocol between the military and the media. But given the amount of “embedding” that the Pentagon permitted in the Iraq war, I can only assume they are supportive of its key personnel explaining its perspective to the press. read more…
President Obama delivered a truly bizarre commencement speech at the traditionally all-black Hampton University on Mother’s Day. The overall speech was standard graduation day fare with a perfectly fine upbeat message. Go forth and contribute! However, the president somehow managed to insert two disturbing paragraphs, which effectively negated the speech’s positive message. They clanged jarringly in direct opposition to the main theme of the speech, revealing the paranoid thought processes of him and his inner circle. The first of these two paragraphs basically warned of the dangers of computers and the Internet. The second warned of the dangers of cable television and talk radio. He seems to believe a highly open and competitive marketplace of ideas is a new danger that, from his perspective, is an unfortunate distraction that must be overcome. These are distinctly undemocratic ideas and instincts. read more…
Who cooked up this absurd advertising campaign crowing about General Motor’s lies that it paid back its taxpayer-funded loans “in full and ahead of schedule”? When I first saw the GM Ed Whitacre ad, I instantly knew this had to be some kind of trick. (GM Repaid Government Loan Ahead of Schedule). He strides toward the camera with a phony cheery optimism thanking the American public for giving them a “second chance”. I don’t recall choosing to give GM a “second chance”, do you? What I remember is Henry Paulson, George Bush and Timothy Geithner allocating funds from the bank TARP fund to “bailout” GM. New “private” equity chief, Barack Obama, was quite happy to keep the program going and assigned oversight to new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. read more…
The Goldman Sachs’ affair is filling up the news cycle. Compared to the year long health care battle, it seems trivial by comparison. But as a symbol for the absurdity of our times, it is informative. It most reminds me of the AIG compensation dust up about a year ago. Let’s take the least important issue among a list of enormous issues and make that the centerpiece of a political campaign.
There is plenty of crony capitalism to discuss and critique, but the Democrats, Carl Levin in particular, seem most shocked to have discovered that for every buyer there is a seller. The Republican Party doesn’t know quite what to make of this either. On the one hand, they don’t want to appear to be attacking free markets, whatever is left of them in our financial sector. But on the other, who wants to stand in support of a third string erstwhile “master of the universe” such as is 31 year old Fabrice Tourre? Republicans often have had the unfortunate habit of becoming strong free market supporters primarily in response to Democratic actions. But the AIG bail out and the TARP bill, sponsored by the Bush administration, were classic anti-free market policies. read more…
It took 30 years to put limits on what welfare recipients can receive. The entitlement state mentality sometimes seems built into the DNA of advanced economies. Repealing the Orwellian sounding “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is a pipe dream. They won. The earliest this can even be addressed is the Spring of 2013. A Constitutional challenge is a desperation ploy and won’t work. I hope the States go for it, of course, but it seems implausible. Change the word “fine” to “tax” and they solve half the constitutional problem.
Ten days ago Judd Gregg also waved the specter of effectively shutting down the Senate through a never ending process of amendments during the reconciliation process. But that tactic lost its sting when Obama fake promised an executive order limiting abortions to buy Bart Stupak’s vote. Judd’s threat was all swagger and no mojo. read more…
The pretend “Demon Pass” vote in the House looks like it will pass Sunday. All the ifs, ands, buts and maybes seem to be breaking the Democrats’ way. It is fitting that AMC’s award winning Breaking Bad series has its season opener Sunday night. The show’s protagonist, average and ordinary high school chemistry teacher Walter White, has lung cancer. I always thought public school teachers had the best possible health insurance. Apparently there was some kind of glitch in his. Or New Mexico’s education board assumed he had a pre-existing condition.
The plot line for the first 32 episodes has centered on White’s desperate attempt to get money. He needs to pay for his treatments and leave some money for his family in the event of his death. What can he possibly do? He has a sudden insight. He will become a crystal meth dealer. But not just any crystal meth dealer; White uses his chemistry background to produce the finest and purest methamphetamine the DEA (who is led by White’s brother in law) has ever seen in the Southwest. Ultimately, White bungles his way toward a million dollar score. The fact that he needed to permit the choking death of his drug-addled partner’s girlfriend, (which in turn lead to a catastrophic airplane crash in the last season’s final episode) did lead to some misgivings. But not much. read more…
The most important fiscal bill in our country’s history is on the verge of being passed or defeated. It dominates all news as it should. It is opposed by a double digit majority of the people and strongly opposed by a 2-1 margin over those who strongly support it. There are not enough votes to pass the bill. Each House of Congress has put forth unprecedented procedural proposals to pass what other wise would not pass. This is in addition to the various bribes that we have publicly seen and are likely being proposed currently. Each day this week the president has chosen to lie to the public (by double counting Medicare cuts, comparing 5 years of spending with 10 years of taxing, etc., etc.) to promote a monstrosity. The bill is bad enough. But the damage to our way of governing is even worse. President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are corrupt to the core.
But this is not the only area where the Obama administration has established and supported corrupt and dangerous practices. Debra Burlingame and Thomas Jocelyn wrote an opinion piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal on some of the defense practices on behalf of the “Gitmo” prisoners by the Law Firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison. read more…
The health care “debate” is made most irritating by the obvious things ignored. As we have grown accustomed to hearing ad nauseam, health care represents 17% of our economy. I have no idea if that number is accurate. Perhaps one day I will look into it. Whatever the number, we know it is big. Yet health care consumers have no idea what anything related to health care actually costs. For all practical purposes it may as well be free. Consequently, we consume too much of it and will continue to do so unless some simple changes are made.
We pay an upfront cost for insurance (or are given a tax free benefit from an employer or the government) and in exchange we get a plastic card with an insurance company’s name on it. When we go to the doctor, the hospital, or the pharmacy we simply hand them the card upon entering. Whether we fill a prescription for fish oil or get brain surgery we simply hand in the same card. Some administrator fills out forms and that’s that. We don’t even have to sign a form in recognition of the cost of the procedure. How is it remotely possible that such a system can function efficiently? There is no other part of our economy that operates this way. Milton Friedman has written about this topic. Thomas Sowell has written about this (Alice in Health Care) as has John Stossel. Even I have written about this What Next: “Universal Food Insurance”?. read more…
“Preacher was talking, there’s a sermon he gave
He said every man’s conscience is vile and depraved
You cannot depend on it to be your guide
When it’s you who must keep it satisfied.”
(Bob Dylan—The Man in the Long Black Coat)
I like Joan Osborne’s cover of this Bob Dylan song. What has me thinking of “vileness” and “depravity” this crisp and sunny March day? Last week’s all day health care gabfest. I had neither the time nor the inclination to watch the “Blair House Health Care Summit”. But I did get to watch countless video clips of “Prime Minister” Obama at the meeting. I also read and watched assorted commentaries and opinions about which side scored the most political points.
Why did Obama insist on putting us through this nonsense? This was promoted as a good faith effort to reach “common ground” on how the federal government should control 300 million American’s health care. The results of the summit, of course, showed us just the opposite. Each side’s position hardened in the course of the meeting, as all sentient beings knew would happen—and in fact should have happened. Many so-called good government types think this is a travesty for some reason. While the current health care system is clearly suboptimal, Prime Minister Obama’s proposal would make it much worse. Sometimes the two political parties really do fundamentally disagree. read more…
Part 1 of my Ron Paul essay received more attention than I expected. His supporters are intense, to say the least.
As stated in that article, there are many things about Paul to like. But his monetary policies and his political rigidity are not among them. I do not dismiss the importance of sound monetary policies. Nor have I been pleased with the actions of the Fed over the last 2 years. But promoting a gold standard and competing domestic currencies are not solutions to our nation’s economic problems. I reiterate my main point: What is required are sound fiscal policies. With sound fiscal policies, sound money is likely to follow. We primarily have a fiscal policy problem and I prefer our politicians keep their eye on that ball. read more…
Ron Paul’s straw poll “victory” at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference was surprising. It leads one to believe conservatives retain the ability to snap defeat from the jaws of victory this coming Fall. Ann Coulter reflects the opinion of many conservatives when she claims agreement with Ron Paul on almost all issues except for foreign policy goals. Paul, who has Pat Buchanan isolationist tendencies, claims to be an economic libertarian and has many credentials, which support that claim. He is a member, for example, of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. Von Mises and, later, F.H. Hayek, contributed greatly to the intellectual debate demonstrating the inherent weakness of national central planning as an economic organizing principle. Paul supports smaller government, balanced budgets, less entitlements, and lower taxes. He wants the private sector to drive economic growth. As far as his economic policies are concerned, what’s not to like? read more…
