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APRIL 11,  2011

OH, REMEMBER IRAN? – AT 10:25 P.M. ET:  Do you?  Do you remember that thing about their nuclear program?  Kind of big news occasionally, and off the front burner recently.  Well, as the girl in that horror movie said, "They're baaack!"  From Reuters:

TEHRAN - Iran plans to build "four to five" nuclear research reactors and will continue to enrich uranium to provide their fuel, a nuclear official said on Monday despite Western pressure on Tehran to curb atomic work.

Yeah, we've seen the effects of that pressure.

The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoon Abbasi, said Tehran would build the reactors "in the next few years" to produce medical radioisotopes, according to the students news agency ISNA.

"To provide the fuel for these (new) reactors, we need to continue with the 20 percent enrichment of uranium," ISNA quoted him as saying.

Abbasi's remarks are likely to deepen Western fears that Iran's atomic work is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

Oh, those fears are really deepening.  The worries we see...along with the contracts with German firms.

Tehran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and has dismissed international sanctions that were tightened last year as illegal.

Talks with major powers aimed at resolving the nuclear impasse stalled in January, with Tehran insisting it would not accept any attempt to curtail its nuclear enrichment activities.

Experts have previously said Tehran has stockpiled low-enriched uranium (LEU) and has enough for at least two atomic bombs if it was refined to a much higher level.

COMMENT:  We have every reason to be deeply concerned, but Barack Obama is showing little interest.  Iran will either have the bomb, or will proceed to the point where it can build one double-quick if it has to.  Israel obviously is gravely concerned.  But we should be as well.  As for Western Europe, they're concerned unless the concern interferes with economic interests or the 1930s-style diplomacy that many in Europe still favor.

The nightmare is an Iranian nuclear device being sailed into an American port in the hidden hold of a cargo ship and set off by a suicide crew.  Or, the device can be smuggled in sections across our southern border, with the journey possibly originating in Venezuela.

There are people who say that this will never happen.  And remember that it's impossible for Japanese carriers to get within a couple of hundred miles of Hawaii.

April 11, 2011      Permalink

THE WARNING – AT 10:20 P.M. ET:  I was at an off-the-record briefing tonight on radical Islam, and am now back in White Plains, which is about 22 miles north of Manhattan.

The briefing was delivered by a British citizen of Middle East origin who was sucked into radical Islam and became an influential activist, before breaking with the movement and joining a campaign against it.  He told how he got in, and how he got out.

One member of the audience said, and I agree, that this gentleman's description of his journey reminded him of how people got involved in the Communist Party in the thirties and forties, and how some of them saw the light and left, or tried to leave.  Trying to get out, of course, is much harder than getting in because you're subjected to ridicule, shunning and threats...and so is your family.  Ronald Reagan used to relate stories about how, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he was visited by members asking for his help in getting them out of the Communist Party. It wasn't like resigning from the school board.

The most important point to come from this expert tonight was his seasoned view that homegrown radical Islam is becoming a major threat to the United States, that we are where Britain was 20 years ago.  He feels that the Obama administration projects weakness – something we've discussed here many times – and that weakness simply encourages the jihadists to organize.   He also feels that the Obamans, and many other Americans, have little idea how to deal with a fanatical ideology because they don't understand the concept of ideology at all.

I came away deeply impressed with the speaker's knowledge and history, and deeply depressed by his assessment of the age of Obama.  Britain has had a terrible time with homegrown radical Islam, a movement mightily helped by radical leftists in universities, who consider the Islamists simply "oppressed."  I'm afraid it's our turn, and we're not ready.

Sadly, there are too many "sophisticates" who don't want us to be.

April 11, 2011       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 10:38 A.M. ET: 

From the Chicago Tribune:  At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria. Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

Of course, bullets will be permitted.  Small calibre only.

April 11, 2011      Permalink

YIKES – AT 9:56 A.M. ET:  We've been following President Obama's recent decline in the polls.   Rasmussen this morning reports his lowest "strong approval" number yet:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 19% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-nine percent (39%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20.

Today’s numbers reflect the lowest level of Strong Approval yet recorded for this president. There has been a sharp decline in enthusiasm among liberal voters.

Yeah.  In their mind Obama isn't liberal enough.  You can visit some of these liberals in their four-million-dollar apartments on the West Side of Manhattan, where they anguish over the needs of the little people.

Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove.

Obama's overall approval rating is drifting slowly downward.  One more serious blow and he can be hovering at the 40% mark.   And that would mean comparisons with BUSH (!!).  Oh dear, that can't be.

We always stress that polls are snapshots in time.  Mr. Obama has shown a remarkable ability, on occasion, to rally the troops and get his numbers up.  And remember that this poll does not measure the strength of potential candidates in the Republican Party.   It's a long way to November, 2012.  I hope the country makes it.

April 11, 2011      Permalink

THE OUTRAGE – AT 8:34 A.M. ET:  The cost of gas at the pump is skyrocketing, severely hurting our most vulnerable citizens.  And yet, we're sitting on a huge energy supply.  Incredibly, Obama gets away with this.  From the Washington Examiner:

President Obama is a polarizing politician, but his friends and critics seem to agree on one thing: He's a canny politician.

So if the president had the ability to bring down the nation's staggering gas prices, create new American jobs and decrease the country's reliance on foreign energy sources without spending a dime of taxpayer money, wouldn't you expect him to use it?

If you answered yes, chances are that you're not working in the Obama White House.

As Americans watch skyrocketing gasoline prices (up an average of nearly 80 cents a gallon from this time last year) frustrate their hopes for economic recovery, they should be outraged by a new report on America's energy resources from the Congressional Research Service.

The report shows that the United States is sitting on the largest batch of energy resources on the planet. In fact, these vital fuel sources add up to more than the resources of energy-rich Saudi Arabia, China and Canada combined.

At every turn, the report's pages reveal a plethora of untapped resources. We have enough oil to replace our imports from the Middle East for 50 years. We have enough domestic natural gas for about 100 years.

And we have enough recoverable coal to power the nation for at least two centuries. None of those statistics factor in the increased efficiencies that could allow future generations of Americans to do more with less of these copious fuel sources.

The problem, of course, is that the Obama administration and its allies throughout the Democratic Party and the alternative energy industry deride these existing resources as remnants of a crude industrial era.

Instead, they hasten us to a future powered by faddish innovations in technologies like solar and wind power. And they attempt to sweeten the pot by invoking the revolution in "green jobs" that will accompany this economic and environmental transformation.

Unfortunately, this revolution has not been forthcoming. Despite decades of government support and billions of dollars in wasted taxpayer money, alternative energy remains a boutique pipe dream.

COMMENT:  Every American should be outraged.  I would not be shocked to see five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline a year from now.  And we'll be told we must accept it because we have been bad people, driving cars that are too big, and we must reform our ways for the greater glory of Al Gore.

If alternative energy were immediately available, I might see some logic in this administration's kamikaze energy policy.  But it isn't. 

Oh, by the way, the president is expected to unveil some economic ideas this week, and will heroically demand that loopholes in the tax system be closed so the rich pay more.  Right on, The New York Times will say.  But soaring energy prices are a severe tax on the poor and middle class, much greater than any new tax that will be imposed on the affluent, and yet the left doesn't seem to care.  High energy prices are part of their punishment for America, for those peasants out there who don't understand. 

Last week, when confronting a citizen-questioner at a meeting who dared to complain about gasoline prices, Mr. Obama suggested that the gent trade in his car for something more efficient.  Even allies of the president were appalled at his arrogance.  Most Americans are not in a position to trade in a car.  The exchange strangely disappeared quickly from news reports, the better not to embarrass dear leader, who truly loves us and thinks about us all the time.

Sarah said it best:  "Drill baby, drill."  She was laughed at.  She'd be laughed at today if she said the same thing.  But she was right.

April 11, 2011      Permalink

FASHION NEWS FROM PARIS – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  A new law went into effect in France that is controversial, but makes a stand that, I think, is important in a democracy:

Paris - The French law banning Muslim women from wearing the burqa in public went into effect Monday, six months after France became the first Western country to institute such a ban.

Around 2,000 women are estimated to be affected by the law, which bans people from covering their faces in public but is particularly aimed at the burqa, a full-body covering, and niqab, a veil covering the face with just a slit for the eyes.

Practically, it means that women are barred from appearing in public in such garments, whether they do so of their own accord or under pressure from relatives. The ban includes public parks, restaurants, cinemas and beaches. It does not include private homes, places of worship or cars.

COMMENT:  We in America show special sensitivity toward religion expression.  It's part of our tradition, and we go out of our way to accommodate the faithful.

And yet, the French law is on solid ground.  Masking, for whatever purpose, has a special place in history, and it's not a positive place.  Masking in America brings back images of ugly groups and criminal elements.  We insist that people show their faces, in part so they can be identified if they commit a forbidden act.  It is part of our ethic as a society, and we have a right to insist on it.

Religious accommodation has its limits.  I believe masking exceeds those limits.  In my view, Muslim women applying for, say, a driver's license, should be photographed as would be any other applicant.  Muslim religious leaders should give religious dispensation for those women.

France is the first country to take a stand against religious garb that amounts to masking.  The usual suspects will come out of the woodwork to cry foul, but I hope the French law stands. 

April 11, 2011     Permalink

BUT IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN, REMEMBER THAT – AT 7:50 A.M. ET:  The standard line about education is that we must spend more.  It is also a myth.  We probably spend too much on education in America, but we get too little for it.  The notion of facing that painful fact is anathema to politicians, who love to present a new school to constituents to show that we are helping "the children."

When I was a student at the University of Chicago, we liked to say that the university could have been based in a grocery store, and it still would have been a great university.  Sadly, that kind of thinking – grounded in results and quality – doesn't carry much weight today.  And...here we go again:

By most measures, America's education system ranks among the best. Our classrooms, computer labs, athletic fields and 'enrichment programs' for under-achieving and special education students are the envy of the world.

In fact, the U.S. spends more on education than defense. On a per pupil basis, we rank only behind Switzerland and Norway.

And that's not likely to change under President Obama. His 2012 budget increases federal education spending by 21 percent to $77 billion dollars.

Yet critics say that's a mistake, since there is no link between spending and student performance.

"There really is no correlation between spending per pupil and achievement per pupil," argues Neal McClusky with the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom. "Both parties have done this for many decades - they talk about spending money on schools as if that is synonymous with actually educating people but it isn't. What we've seen that money go to is just bigger and bigger staff, better paid teachers or other employees but nothing in terms of outcomes."

Since 1985, federal education spending tripled, yet studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress show reading, math and science scores remained flat. Internationally, our 8th graders rank 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. Almost 30 percent of our teenagers don't finish high school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and half who enter college drop out, even though per pupil spending nationally averages more than $10,000 a year. America has fallen to 9th in the proportion of young people with a college degree.

Despite those numbers, most educators say American schools are under-funded.

"American students right now are getting less, not more, at a time when President Obama has said we have this race to the future -- that we need to invest more in public education," says John Rogers with the UCLA Graduate School of Education. "I think we need to invest in public education in ways that are wise. President Obama talked about the importance of teachers and he talked about the need to bring new teachers into science and technology, engineering and math."

COMMENT:  The education industry always demands more, yet serious questions about how the money is spent are met with cries of "anti-intellectualism" or "violations of academic freedom."  And, of course, there's the greatest cry of all:  "You're hurting the children."

Good schools are built by good families.  They are built by communities that, culturally, value education.  Imagine if all the students in an American college were Asian-Americans.  I'll bet you could cut the budget in half and still have a great college.

One of the most powerful experiments in American education was the great City College of New York (known as "City" to all New Yorkers).  Between the 1930s and 1960s, when it was wrecked by radicalism, City existed to serve students who couldn't afford the Ivy League, or who couldn't get in because of ethnic quotas.  City became a magnet for top students who demanded the best.  It graduated some of America's most accomplished leaders and scientists, and it did so on minimal budgets.

But we will throw more billions away today, and get few results, confident that we're doing it for "the children."  As the longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote, all causes become businesses, and then they become rackets.

April 11, 2011     Permalink

APRIL 10,  2011

WE FEEL HIS PAIN – AT 10:58 P.M. ET:  So much so that we're willing to do something about it.  President Obama is complaining about the loss of anonymity that comes with the presidency.  Apparently, no one told him about this, and it isn't in the federal job description.  Herewith:

The president said he loves his life in the White House but doesn't enjoy some of the ways of Washington, such as the "kabuki dance" among political partisans before serious policy discussions begin. He also regrets his loss of personal privacy.

"I just miss - I miss being anonymous," he said at the meeting in the White House. "I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks. I can't take a walk."

COMMENT:  I say, sympathize with him, and let's work to make him anonymous once more.  Let it never be said that we aren't concerned here about personal feelings.

I want this man to sqeeze fruit again.  Is that so much to ask?

April 10, 2011     Permalink

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – AT 9:52 P.M. ET:   An African delegation announces that the supreme high exalted divine leader of Libya has accepted an African solution to the fighting in the country.  From the way I read it, this has all the impact of a bill of sale found in a Cracker Jack box:

TRIPOLI, Libya – A delegation of African leaders said Sunday that their Libyan counterpart Moammar Qaddafi accepted their "road map" for a cease-fire with rebels, whom they will meet with Monday. They met hours after NATO airstrikes battered Qaddafi's tanks, helping Libyan rebels push back government troops that had been advancing quickly toward the opposition's eastern stronghold.

The terms of the African Union's road map were unclear -- such as whether it would require Qaddafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.

Some road map.  I think they need GPS.

"We have completed our mission with the brother leader, and the brother leader's delegation has accepted the road map as presented by us," said South African President Jacob Zuma. He traveled to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Qaddafi, whose more than 40-year rule has been threatened by the uprising that began nearly two months ago.

Would you listen to that lingo.  Would you just listen to it.  "The brother leader."  How about that?  As far as the head man in South Africa is concerned, he might mind his own country.  South Africa is a train wreck, with crime rates among the highest in the world, and government leaders with a strange affinity for dictators.  Of course, we don't hear much about it from the mainstream media, as criticism of post-apartheid South Africa is considered racist.   

"We will be proceeding tomorrow to meet the other party to talk to everybody and present a political solution," Zuma said. He called on NATO to end airstrikes to "give the cease-fire a chance."

Right.  Have NATO end its airstrikes.  Any requests for the Libyan government?  Apparently not.  And get this:

Qaddafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya's oil wealth. So it is not clear whether rebels would accept the AU as a fair broker.

I love it.  Here's the heart of the "third world," that hypocritical bunch of petty kingdoms, and they're supporting one of the world's greatest thugs.  What a choice thing to watch.

I don't get the feeling there's anything much here.

April 10, 2011       Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 12:31 P.M. ET:

A 15-month-old boy was rushed to a hospital after he was accidentally served alcohol in a kids' meal at a Michigan Applebee’s, MyFoxDetroit.com reports...The boy was taken to the hospital, where he was examined by doctors. The family later learned the boy’s alcohol level was .10 – over the legal limit for an adult driver.

Boy, that was close.  Had he driven, the cops could've taken away his license.  You know how they are about drunk 15-month-olds.  Get 'em off the road.

April 10, 2011      Permalink

RYAN'S CHALLENGE – AT 11:43 A.M. ET:  A good story from Congressman Paul Ryan's home district indicates the challenge he faces in putting forward dramatic cost-cutting measures.  People are concerned about Medicare, and the Dems will do everything they can to increase those concerns by demagoguing Ryan's ideas:

JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) -- Brian Krutsch has been long one of many automatic votes here for Rep. Paul Ryan. The unemployed warehouse manager, along with a solid majority of other Janesville voters, has helped elect Ryan seven times and watched with pride as he became one of Congress' leading authorities on the federal budget. But this week, admiration has been tinged with apprehension as one of Ryan's signature ideas - ending Medicare's status as a full, guaranteed benefit for senior citizens - suddenly took a step toward reality.

"I think that's one of the things they should probably leave alone - you know - unless it's absolutely necessary," Krutsch said as he took a break from reviewing job openings at the Rock County Job Center. "Old people need help with medical bills. There's too many people under-insured right now - especially people like myself right now who don't have insurance."

Changing Medicare has become a hot topic around town, and the qualms underscore why many officeholders are wary of talking about it.

No one in Janesville can be surprised by Ryan's ideas for reining in government spending. The cerebral, soft-spoken congressman has been explaining and diagramming his proposals at community meetings for years. But this week House Republicans gave Ryan's plan a high-profile show of support in a televised press conference, ensuring that it will be a key issue in the 2012 election even if the measure goes no further in Congress this year.

COMMENT:  And what will the Democrats say?  You know what they'll say.  They'll say that Paul Ryan wants to take Medicare away from you, while favoring tax cuts for the rich.  They will say it over and over, and they'll make it stick with many frightened voters.

It's not a new line.  When Nixon ran against Kennedy in 1960, the Dems – and I was one of them at the time – spread the message that Republicans wanted to take away Social Security.  It was false, of course, and former Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey went on TV to assure Americans that the GOP had no such plans.  But some voters were swayed.

As we said earlier today, a Paul Ryan moment is approaching, and the press will not be on Ryan's side.  If he triumphs, there is no end to his political possibilities.  If he's destroyed, he will join a long list who tried to take on the scare merchants.

April 10, 2011       Permalink

WHERE OBAMA STANDS – AT 10:54 A.M. ET:  The latest Rasmussen tracker indicates that the president didn't exactly win over converts during the recent budget crisis.  His numbers have been slipping, and there isn't much on the horizon to make them better, except political maneuvering by the White House.  And Libya may turn out to be a disaster.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 21% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-nine percent (39%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.

And...

Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.

Other polls also show Obama's approval rating hovering in the mid-40s.  That isn't terrible, but it does flash "vulnerability."

And this is significant:

Twenty-five percent (25%) believe the economy is getting better while 53% say it is getting worse. Democrats are evenly divided on the question. Republicans, by a 70% to 12% margin, say the economy is getting worse. Most voters not affiliated with either major party (54%) think the economy is getting worse.

COMMENT:  That view of the economy, this far into Obama's presidency, will not result in a happiness party at the White House.  And remember, gasoline prices are soaring.  That will result in higher food and transportation costs all around.  Unemployment, while easing a bit, is still much too high. 

A tumultuous political year ahead.

April 10, 2011      Permalink

DEAR LEADER TO SPEAK TO US, SAVE US – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  I have exciting news.  Barack Obama has graciously agreed to speak to his subjects this week on...debt reduction.  Before you do anything else today, please send a note of thanks to the Oval Office.  You know, dear leader doesn't have to take time off from hoops and hip-hop concerts at the White House to do this.  He does it because he loves us.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top White House political and economic adviser says President Obama will lay out new plans this week to reduce the federal deficit.

Obama adviser David Plouffe, speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," says Obama plans to offer ideas for what Plouffe calls "long-term deficit reduction" as Congress begins to debate raising the nation's debt ceiling.

Plouffe is giving few specifics on what Obama will announce, but he says that the president believes taxes should go up on higher-income Americans. He also says that the Republican budget plan offered this week by congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin may pass the House but won't become law.

Ryan's plan would repeal Obama's signature health care reform and make significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid.

COMMENT:  Bottom line, the only reason this speech is being given is politics.  The president didn't get such hot reviews on his role in last week's government-funding crisis.  He seemed out of touch, out of ideas, out of interest.  There's an election next year, and this White House is absolutely devoted to Mr. Obama's political survival.

You can tell by the story that the demagoguing will officially begin with Obama's "ideas."  Raise taxes.  Paint Paul Ryan's excellent plan as "extreme." 

You can be sure Ryan will be ready to answer.  He always is.  But be sure of something else:  Destroying Paul Ryan is now a White House priority.  This is a president whose campaign had no problem using the race card against Hillary Clinton in 2008.   Imagine what they'll do to a rising Republican star who's red hot, and can get hotter.

This week's Obama speech may well set up a Paul Ryan moment, and it can become a moment in history.

April 10, 2011     Permalink