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JULY 15,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:52 P.M. ET:

ON SECOND THOUGHT – After days of near-hysteria over revelations that employees of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation hacked into the phones of potential news sources, some newspapers are starting to pull back.  Britain's left-wing Guardian apologized for running allegations that turned out not to be true.  And the Washington Post has raised serious questions about one charge, that Murdoch's people hacked into the phones of 9-11 victims' families.  It turns out that no evidence has been presented to back that up, but several high-ranking Democrats, and one Republican, have used the story to demand federal investigations.  There's no doubt that some ugly practices took place, and Murdoch's competitors are jumping on the scandal with glee.  But beware the wild charge, and writers seeking book contracts.

INEVITABLE – We have said here for some time that the race card will be played in the 2012 campaign, although it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.  It's a powerful, intimidating weapon, which even intimidated John McCain in the 2008 cycle.  We got a preview today when Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas charged on the floor of the House that the treatment of President Obama during the debt debate is based on his race.  Now, it is true that no one takes Lee seriously in Washington.  She's an imperious, publicity-seeking fool, but the charge she raised can have an effect on some voters.  And that charge will be made again and again, probably by some of Obama's pet journalists.  It is going to get ugly. 

RAHM THE REPUBLICAN? – Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's former chief of staff and now the mayor of Chicago, has apparently read the tea leaves.  He's getting tough with municipal unions, and threatening to lay off 625 workers this week unless the unions come up with an acceptable plan to avoid the action.  Emanuel, who clearly has higher ambitions, is sounding like a Republican.  In a way, this dovetails with New York's new governor, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, who's had a spectacular first six months by ruling like a Republican.  Two shrewd politicians, and maybe a signal that the moderate Democrat of old may be making a comeback.

July 15, 2011       Permalink

OH DEAR, OH DEAR – AT 9:19 A.M. ET:  A new economic report on New York State is grim.  It's important, because this state report has tended to predict national economic conditions a bit down the road.  From CNBC:

A gauge of manufacturing in New York State showed the sector unexpectedly contracted for the second month in a row as new orders worsened, while core inflation rose at its highest pace in three years.

The pace of manufacturing decline did moderate somewhat in July from the month before, with the New York Fed's "Empire State" general business conditions index rising to minus 3.76 from minus 7.79 in June. However, it was still weaker than expected, since economists polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 4.50.

The survey of manufacturing plants in the state is one of the earliest monthly guideposts to U.S. factory conditions.

COMMENT:  We're told that, technically, we're in a recovery.  Make sure to tell that to your unemployed neighbor, who can't send his kids to college.  I'm sure he'll have a nice day.

We are in trouble.  What is the Obama administration offering?  I haven't noticed anything.

July 15, 2011       Permalink

SYRIA ON FRIDAY – AT 9:04 A.M. ET:  We've been regularly following the situation in Syria, one of the most important and influential of Arab countries, Iran's strongest ally in the Arab world, and a country that effectively controls Lebanon. 

The revolution in Syria continues.  Demonstrations erupt on Fridays, after prayers.  Troops fire into crowds.  The death toll will soon approach 2,000.  And Syria gets only elegant wrist slaps.  As for "human rights" activists on the Western left, forget about it:

(Reuters) - Syrian security forces shot dead at least 12 protesters on Friday as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across the country in the biggest protests so far against President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad, facing the greatest challenge to 40 years of Baath Party rule, has sought to crush demonstrations. But although rights groups say some 1,400 civilians have been killed since March, the protests have continued unabated and swelled in size.

"These are the biggest demonstrations so far. It is a clear challenge to the authorities, especially when we see all these numbers coming out from Damascus for the first time," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Police fired live ammunition and teargas in the capital Damascus, killing five people, and in southern Syria near the Jordanian border, where four people were killed, witnesses sand activists said. Three protesters were shot dead in the northern city of Idlibm, they said.

"We are in Midan and they are firing tear gas on us, people are chanting," a witness said by telephone from the center of Damascus.

COMMENT:  The Arab spring indeed.  Hillary Clinton (remember her?) has said that Assad has lost legitimacy.  My, my, I'm bowled over by the toughness of that statement.  Pretty soon she'll be saying that he's gained weight. 

No one cares what Hillary says because she works for Obama, and the world has learned to ignore him.  Ask Mr. Gadaffi, who remains in power despite Obama's demand that he leave.  Ask Iran.  Ask North Korea.

Some people laugh at those who say that we're experiencing 1939 all over.  No more laughing.  History doesn't repeat itself, but the psychology of history repeats itself.  A lot of the delusions of the 1930s are erupting again.

July 15, 2011      Permalink

HEY, THIS IS GOOD ADVICE FROM A GENUINE RABBLE-ROUSER – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  Larry Elder is a terrific African-American conservative columnist, which means he always has to watch out who's behind him.  Here he offers ten reasons why even liberals should root for the GOP.  We were alerted to this by reader and gutsy democracy activist Susan Kohen, from Connecticut:   

1) Incredibly weak recovery

2) ObamaCare

3) Bogus Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

4) Texas justice vs. "Viva Mexico"

5) Libya

6) Left-wing judicial appointments

7) Boeing vs. the National Labor Relations Board

8) The Obama-Loving Media Protective League

9) Democrats' race cards

10) Anti-voucher for urban schools

Good list.  I think we could add some of our own favorites, like executive incompetence and endless apologies for America.  Elder spells out the details for each delightful entry.  Read the whole piece.

July 15, 2011      Permalink

STUFF YOU CAN'T MAKE UP – AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  As we contemplate the economic crisis before us, and we hear the whining of those whose comfortable fiefdoms are being disturbed, we turn our eyes toward, what else, the University of California, where budgets are being cut.  Well, some budgets.  What choices are being made in a time of austerity?  As they say, you can't make this stuff up.  From the great Heather Macdonald at City Journal: 

California’s budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claim its spokesmen. “Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already have cut to the bone,” the university system’s vice president for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month, in advance of this week’s meeting of the university’s regents. Well, not exactly to the bone. Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.

Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing. The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.” This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Women’s Center.

COMMENT:  Dearies, do you remember when students were just called students?  Maybe we just didn't understand.  But a lot of people are going to be doing a lot of understanding when they have to pay much more to attend UCal, while stuff like the above is being fully funded.

It doesn't take a committee or a special office to be fair to students.  It takes common sense, good will, and a set of standards that applies equally to all. 

Does this make me a racist?

July 15, 2011    Permalink

JULY 14,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE:

NO NAME BEATS OBAMA – This must be humiliating to a man presented to us as a demigod.  A new Gallup poll shows that a generic Republican candidate would defeat President Obama by 47-39%.  Preference had been pretty evenly divided in recent polls.  The gap, 44-34%, is even wider among independents.  Of course, the election is 16 months away, and a named Republican candidate may actually do worse than the generic guy, so polls like this are significant largely as signs of trends, or as entertainment. 

SAN FRAN NAN SPEAKS – Nancy Pelosi says that President Obama is displaying more patience than the Biblical figure, Job, in debt negotiations.  “I want to commend the president – I have never seen – Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience,” said Pelosi.  Pelosi knew Job personally.  Next week's claims:  Obama is wiser than Solomon and clocks more miles than Moses.

HOW SWEET IT MAY BE – Television news organizations, especially CNN and NBC, have been relishing the revelations that News Corporation, which owns the very hot Fox News, is in trouble because reporters working for one of its tabloids hacked into private telephones to get stories.  This is a scandal involving journalistic ethics.  Yet, strangely, I have yet to hear a single, traditionally required line in any network or cable newscast informing viewers that Fox News is a competitor, and that the network or cable system may have a financial interest in the story if Fox is weakened.  You'd think someone would have noticed, and corrected the lapse.  I guess ethics are for the other guy.

WILL THEY TAKE AWAY OBAMA'S CREDIT CARD? – Moody's said it yesterday, now Standard & Poor's is warning that the country's credit rating may be lowered if it doesn't put its fiscal house in order and make sure its debt obligations are met.  Did you ever think you'd see the United States in this position?  I guess the president won't get any more of those "you're pre-approved" letters from Bank of America.  No way to live.

July 14, 2011       Permalink

AT IT AGAIN – AT 10:37 P.M. ET:  Reader Joseph J. Gallick alerts us to this story reporting that Osama bin Laden, late of Abottabad, Pakistan, was plotting a new attack against America when he was biologically inconvenienced by Navy SEALS.  From The Wall Street Journal:

Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 hijackings, according to communications that Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring.

Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound.

The plans were only in the discussion phase, American officials said. They have not seen any signs that the nascent plot ever went beyond the early planning, the officials said.

Still, earlier this month in his first meeting with senior staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, acting Director Michael Morell told his staff that one of their top priorities would be to make sure neither that plan nor any others were carried out.

Plans for an anniversary attack were one of the few specific potential threats to emerge from the trove of documents and other materials taken from bin Laden's residence in Abottabad, Pakistan, in the May 2 raid.

Much of the other threat information in the trove of materials was general in nature and well known, such as al Qaeda's interest in attacking trains.

COMMENT:  This simply demonstrates that the war on terror is a long war, and that we're bound, eventually, to suffer some setbacks in the form of successful operations carried out against us.  There is an attempt by some in Washington to argue that bin Laden's death means we can hasten our withdrawal from Afghanistan.  It means nothing of the kind because Al Qaeda lives on, just as the Japanese military lived on, even after the assassination, by American pilots, of its leading admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto, in 1943.  Al Qaeda is based on an ideology.

I'm sure all American intelligence assets will be on special alert during the September 11th memorial period.

Reader Gallick also alert us to the indictment of one Emerson Winfield Begolly, of New Bethelehem, Pennsylvania, for "allegedly soliciting Islamic extremists to engage in acts of terrorism within the United States and posting bomb-making instruction materials online."  Another nice, cuddly guy.  The FBI press release is here. 

Eternal vigilance, friends.  Eternal vigilance.

July 14, 2011      Permalink

WOULD SOMEONE GIVE OBAMA A MEMO ON THIS? – AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  Exciting and inspiring, this is an example of your government at work.  From the Washington Post:

The Department of Homeland Security plans to spend more than $300 million over the next four years on radiation-detection equipment that has not been fully tested and may not work, according to a budget request and an unreleased report by the Government Accountability Office.

The department’s plan is the latest in a series of efforts involving the troubled Advanced Spectroscopic Portal machine, which was touted by the George W. Bush administration as an advanced way to prevent the importation of radioactive materials that could be used in a nuclear or dirty bomb.

In January, the National Academy of Sciences released a report that found there was no way to know whether the machines, known as ASPs, worked as promised. An academy panel found that in promoting the machines to Congress, the department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office had presented its findings “in ways that are incorrect and potentially misleading.”

That report followed the department’s decision to abandon plans to use ASPs for primary screening at ports and borders because of such questions.

Now, the nuclear detection office said it intends to buy up to 400 ASPs by 2016, according the office’s budget request, even though the department has not fulfilled internal requirements to conduct an independent review of the results of ASP testing before buying the equipment, according to the new GAO report.

COMMENT:  Hmm, one wonders which lobbyists were involved, which members of Congress, and which campaign contributors.  But of course I'm being cynical.  Not.

I hope the article made you feel safer.  As for me, on my next trip I'm going by horse and buggy.

July 14, 2011      Permalink

AMERICANS THUMBS DOWN ON THE FUTURE – A new survey shows a remarkable level of pessimism among the American people.  It reminds us of American attitudes in the late 70s, during the presidency of that great visionary and spiritual leader, Jimmy Carter (choke). 

(Reuters) - Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future as economic concerns rise and White House talks on raising the U.S. debt limit sputter, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

The number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track rose to 63 percent this month, up from 60 percent in June, with stubbornly high unemployment and prolonged gridlock in Washington dashing hopes of a swift economic recovery.

But voters do not appear to be holding President Barack Obama responsible for the problems so far. Obama's approval rating held relatively steady at 49 percent, down 1 percentage point from June. His approval rating among independents -- a group Obama needs to win re-election -- fell to 39 percent from 44 percent.

That 49% overall approval rating, as opposed to Obama's 39% approval among independents, reflects the president's almost fanatically loyal base, whose support for Obama is cultural.

Obama's standing could deteriorate quickly if the economy does not begin to generate jobs and if Washington cannot show it is capable of solving problems, Ipsos pollster Julie Clark said.

COMMENT:  One of Ronald Reagan's greatest accomplishments, not mentioned enough, is that he restored the national morale.  Maintaining faith was also one of FDR's great gifts.  (FDR was actually Reagan's role model.)  Both men were incurable optimists, which may tell us something about the kind of person the GOP must nominate next year.  Americans admire what I like to call the honest optimist – someone who tells them bluntly what conditions actually are, but also tells them that it's always morning in America, that we can do whatever we are challenged to do. 

July 14, 2011       Permalink

JOBS FIGURES STILL GRIM – AT 9:11 A.M. ET:  Despite the AP's attempt to put a positive spin on it in its lead, jobs figures just released are still grim:

WASHINGTON -- Fewer people sought unemployment benefits last week, an encouraging sign the job market may be slowly improving.

Weekly applications dropped 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 405,000, the Labor Department said, the lowest level in almost three months.

The government said the total was increased by 11,500 state workers from Minnesota, who have filed applications because of that state's government shutdown.

Even with last week's decline, applications have now topped 400,000 for 14 weeks, evidence that the job market has weakened since earlier this year.

Took four paragraphs to get to that point.  Any number over 400,000 is considered very bad.

The economy added only 18,000 net jobs in June, the second straight month of dismal hiring. The unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent, the highest this year. That's far below the average job gains of 215,000 per month in the February-April period.

COMMENT:  And yet, Obama's approval numbers are still hovering in the mid-forties, not good, but not terrible.  He has a built-in constituency.  The economy will probably determine the results of next year's election, but expect the Dems to run an ugly campaign to whip up the base and take attention away from the Obama record, to the degree that there is one. 

July 14, 2011       Permalink

WRONG WAY TO SAVE – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  The Defense Department should not be immune to funding cuts, where appropriate, but cutting into the bone is foolish and irresponsible.   The Hill reports that the Navy may have to do just that:

The Navy could be forced to slash its annual budget by $10 billion as the Pentagon pares its spending, defense insiders tell The Hill.

White House officials have ordered the Pentagon to begin slashing its budget starting in 2013 to meet President Obama’s goal of $400 billion in national security cuts.

Amazing how efficient the White House is in pushing for defense cuts.

With the service facing a possible cut approaching $12 billion, weapons program cuts are on the table.

“One option under active consideration for most of the year has been to delay construction of the second aircraft carrier in the Ford class from 2013 to 2015,” Thompson said.

House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) said the Navy also is considering removing another aircraft carrier from its long-term shipbuilding plan.

Real smart, at a time when the Chinese navy is being built up and our own fleet is aging.  Many of the ships built during the Reagan buildup of the 1980s will be approaching the end of their useful life sometime in this decade.  Cutting shipbuilding is exactly the wrong way to go.

The carrier moves, if enacted, would “severely impact” defense firms that build the big warships and their many subcontractors and parts suppliers...

Not a brilliant move for the economy either.  Defense procurement, when done wisely, is a great benefit to the economy and to job creation.  It gets American assembly lines going.  Obama was advised, when he came to office, to turn to defense spending as an economic stimulus.  The military needed, and still needs, a great deal of equipment to replace that lost or worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Obama, probably for ideological reasons, ignored the advice.

July 14, 2011     Permalink