Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum

APRIL 25,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:48 P.M. ET:

NEWT OUT – Newt Gingrich is officially dropping out of the presidential race and will endorse Mitt Romney, according to a number of news sources.  The endorsement should come next week.  The only person still officially campaigning against Romney is Ron Paul, who may suspend his efforts when the spaceship comes to pick him up.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS? – The Pentagon is suspending a course for military officers given in Norfolk, Virginia, because it allegedly contains inflammatory material about Islam.  We have no specifics, but the report is troubling.  We know that since Obama came to office, federal agencies have literally purged material on Islam, often at the behest of some Islamic organizations with worrying histories.  Training manuals are being revised throughout the security services.  Are the complaints about this Norfolk course legitimate, or is valuable information being kept out to satisfy political correctness?

ROMNEY, OBAMA TIED – A new Fox News poll has both President Obama and Mitt Romney at 46%.  The poll also shows Obama with an approval rating of 45%.  This is shaping up to be a tight, bitter election, with Republicans having a good chance to unseat a sitting president.  Even Obama conceded in an interview that the election could be very close unless the economy improves.  Romney seems to be gaining numerical strength as he is increasingly perceived as the inevitable nominee of his party.

LOOK WHO'S TRAINING LAWYERS – A top Justice Department official who misled Congress during the "Operation Fast and Furious" investigation is leaving to become dean of the University of Baltimore Law School.  Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, signed a letter to Congress stating that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives never allowed guns to be sold to drug cartel members, which turned out to be erroneous.  Strange move for an educational institution. 

April 25, 2012       Permalink

HORROR IN SYRIA – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  There's supposed to be a ceasefire in Syria, but there really isn't.  The murders continue, day by day.  There are UN "observers" in the country, but too few to make a difference.  Besides, the government's pattern is to kill, then stop killing of an observer comes through, then resume the slaughter. 

The world is doing nothing.  Estimates of the dead thus far in the Syrian revolt range from 9,000 to 11,000. 

The great Fouad Ajami, one of the most clear-headed scholars on things Muslim and Middle Eastern, writes in the Wall Street Journal about our own country's abdication in its Syria policy: 

Little more than a year into their terrible ordeal, the Syrians are a people unillusioned. "We have been forsaken by the world," a noted figure of the opposition recently told me in Istanbul.

Days later, in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Antakya, in a tent city a stone's throw from their tormented homeland, ordinary Syrians reiterate the same message. The ongoing Kofi Annan diplomacy and United Nations-brokered "cease-fire" are seen for what they are—an alibi for the abdication of Western powers, and a lifeline for the regime.

And...

In the Syria deliberations, deliverance is always around the corner. American diplomacy is always on the verge of making Russia see its way to the proper path. In these tortured discussions, there is no end to finesse and to the parsing of things.

And...

In one of its alibis for passivity, the Obama administration falls back on the threat posed by Islamists within the ranks of the opposition. This is but a recycling of the Assad regime's own assertions that its tyranny is a secular shield for the minorities and a barrier to the rise of the Islamists. Yet the surest way the Islamists and the jihadists can come to greater power in Syria is a drawn-out war that further degrades and radicalizes the country.

And...

But behind the scenes there was a darker play: American officials have resisted and discouraged other players from providing crucial aid to the rebellion. The newly emancipated Libyans had crates of weapons and were keen to dispatch them to the Syrian rebels. But according to the Syrian opposition leader I spoke to in Istanbul, they were discouraged from doing so by American officials. Arab diplomats from the Gulf states confirm the same pattern of American obstructionism.

And...

Everyone is waiting on Washington's green light and its leadership. Turkey would act, but only under the banner of NATO, and in partnership with the U.S. Importantly, none of the proposals for Syria's rescue call for American boots on the ground...

...It is a waste of time—and of precious lives—to buy into a wishful diplomacy that maintains that a few hundred U.N. observers will ward off the evils of a merciless sectarian tyranny.

COMMENT:  The Assad regime in Syria is backed by Iran.  If Assad survives, it is a major Iranian victory.  Despite this, and the ghastly casualties, we do nothing except go to the UN, asking for some guys with old binoculars to run to Syria and report what they really aren't allowed to see. 

There is no real American policy on Syria.  And North Korea is reportedly set to test another nuclear bomb, a direct slap in our face.

When you project weakness, as this president does, this is what you get.  And our children will pay the price.

April 25, 2012       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – FROM MARCO RUBIO – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  Obviously, we can't read Mitt Romney's mind, but it certainly appears that Marco Rubio is on his short list for vice president.

Rubio will today make what his own office describes as a "major foreign policy speech," an unusual announcement for a U.S. senator.  Very highfalutin stuff.   He will speak, ironically, at the liberal Brookings Institution at noon, and will be introduced by Joe Lieberman (hmm).  Here is a quote from the advance text:

“I disagree with the way in which the current administration has chosen to engage. For while there are few global problems we can solve by ourselves, there are virtually no global problems that can be solved without us. In confronting the challenges of our time, there are more nations than ever capable of contributing, but there is still only one that is capable of leading. And I disagree with voices in my own party who argue we should not engage at all. Who warn we should heed the words of John Quincy Adams not to go ‘abroad, in search of monsters to destroy’ …

“I disagree because all around us we see the human face of America’s influence in the world. It actually begins with not just our government, but our people. Millions of people have been the catalyst of democratic change in their own countries. But they never would have been able to connect with each other if an American had not invented Twitter. The atrocities of Joseph Kony would still be largely unknown. But in fact, millions now know because an American filmmaker made a short film about it and then distributed it on another American invention, YouTube.

“Even in our military engagements, the lasting impact of our influence on the world is hard to ignore. Millions of people have emerged from poverty around the world in part because our Navy protects the freedom of the seas allowing the ever increasing flow of goods between nations.”

COMMENT:  Eloquent and thoughtful.  Rubio, though young, and marginal in experience, presents an excellent and compelling picture.

There are, of course, negatives to Rubio, and one is coming out in a new biography written by a Washington Post writer.  It turns out that Rubio, as a child, was converted from Catholicism to Mormonism, which is the religion of Mitt Romney.  Later, Rubio converted back to Catholicism.  It's hard to gauge how that information will play, but Romney might well reason that he won't want someone on the ticket who raises religious questions, especially as we've never had a Mormon president.  This is just starting to be discussed, and we'll look carefully at public reaction.

April 25, 2012       Permalink

MR. EDWARDS, ESQ., GOES TO COURT – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  As our readers know, the John Edwards trial has begun.  Edwards is on trial, not for being a sleazebag – as there is no statute against that – but for misuse of campaign funds. 

The Edwards case represents one of the most catastrophic press failures I've seen in my lifetime.  John Edwards was an important U.S. senator, the Dem candidate for vice president in 2004, on the John Kerry ticket, and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

The Kerry ticket almost won, which would have placed Edwards one heartbeat away...

In 2008, we can reasonably argue, John Edwards helped put Barack Obama in the White House.  His candidacy, for as long as it lasted, siphoned votes away from Hillary Clinton in the primaries.  If Edwards's sordid lifestyle had been exposed by an energetic press, Clinton might well have won her party's nomination.

But the press wasn't interested in going into the background of the populist Edwards.  It was too busy trashing George Bush and practicing for the destruction of Sarah Palin.  Yes, there were some early tidbits, like this in the New York Post on August 28, 2007:

WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he’ll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture.

That was about Edwards, but the media never followed up.  It took a supermarket tabloid, the National Enquirer, to finally bring Edwards down.  He may do hard time if convicted. 

Why wouldn't the press follow leads that were clearly there?  I do believe that pure bias was involved.  Edwards made the kind of speeches the liberal media loves to hear, and they left him alone.

Some would argue that Edwards's private life – having an affair and a child with his mistress, and covering it up – was a private matter.  They cite press silence on the dalliances of John F. Kennedy.  But the Kennedy years were half a century ago, and times have changed.  Private behavior, if extreme, is now very much a subject of discussion, as it was with Bill Clinton.  This is especially true of private behavior that can subject a public official, including a president, to blackmail.

April 25, 2012       Permalink

ARE WE NEXT? – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Britain is now in another recession.  It isn't even being seriously denied, and we have to ask whether we're next. 

(Reuters) - Britain's economy has fallen into its second recession since the financial crisis after a shock contraction at the start of 2012, heaping pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron's government as it reels from a series of political missteps.

Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has seen its support crumble after weeks of criticism over unpopular tax measures in last month's budget, and is under further pressure from revelations about its close links with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

With local elections taking place on May 3, there could hardly be worse timing for Wednesday's news from the Office for National Statistics that Britain's gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 on top of a 0.3 percent decline at the end of 2011.

Most economists had expected Britain's economy to eke out modest growth in early 2012, but these forecasts were upset by the biggest fall in construction output in three years, coupled with a slump in financial services and oil and gas extraction.

Cameron said the figures were "very, very disappointing".

He told parliament: "I don't seek to excuse them. I don't see to try to explain them away. There is no complacency at all in this government in dealing with what is a very tough situation that frankly has just got tougher."

The government desperately needs growth to achieve its overriding goal of eliminating Britain's large budget deficit over the next five years. But this will be a challenge as many of Britain's European trading partners are already in recession.

COMMENT:  And that's the point.  Europe is a mess.  It may be more of a mess if, as expected, France elects a socialist government in the second round of voting on May 6th.  Numbers in our own economy are weakening again.  How much longer can we hold off a "douple dip" recession?

Dems point to "jobs growth," but it is so anemic that we've gained back only half the jobs lost during the height of our 2008-9 deep recession. 

House Speaker John Boehner is warning that we may never recover our full economy if the policies put in place by the Obama administration are continued.

The economy is Romney's strong suit...if he knows how to exploit the subject and stay on message.  The news from Europe and Britain cannot be happy for the Obama White House.

April 25,  2012     Permalink

APRIL 24,  2012

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:32 P.M. ET:

NEW YORK – Following on our primary update, Mitt Romney has now won New York State, giving him a sweep of all five primaries held today.  The GOP presidential contest is effectively over.

THE NEW EGYPT? – Yeah, let's hear it for the Arab spring.  An Egyptian court sentenced one of the most famous comedians in the Arab world to three months in prison for offending Islam in some of his most popular films.  The sentence for Adel Imam has raised fears among Egyptian moderates and liberals that this is a sign of things to come, as rigid Islamists gain power in the "new" Egypt.  Egypt has a vibrant film industry, and there are also fears that this trend can severely damage it.

NEWT – Newt Gingrich, who thought (wrongly) that he might win Delaware today, now says, "I think we need to take a deep look at what we are doing."  He promises a week of reflection, of reassessment, which of course could lead to his ending his quest for the Republican nomination.  He says he wants to consider what role he can best play in the drive to unseat Barack Obama.

STRANGE TIMING – Federal prosecutors brought the first criminal charges today in regard to the Gulf oil spill.  The timing seems odd, right at the start of a political campaign in which energy policy will play a significant role.  A former BP engineer has been charged with obstruction of justice.   The charge comes two years and four days after the explosion on an offshore rig started the spill. 

April 24, 2012       Permalink

PRIMARY UPDATE – AT 9:14 P.M. ET:  Mitt Romney has won the Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut and Pennsylvania primaries.   Polls in New York have just closed, but Romney is expected to win New York easily.  He will be the Republican candidate for president.

Romney has just given a major campaign speech in New Hampshire, turning his attention to the general election.  It was covered by Fox and CNN.  He was upbeat, positive and unifying, clearly attempting to distinguish himself from the negative tone of the Obama campaign.

The constant question on cable TV news:  Who will Romney pick for the second spot?

April 24, 2012        Permalink 

MR. PEANUT IS BACK – AT 10:10 A.M. ET:  We mentioned Jimmy Carter in the post just below.  Well, he's back.  This time the most incompetent president we've had in our lifetime, before the current incumbent, is in Chicago for a meeting of winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.  The prize itself has become as much of a joke as Carter has.  It is given in Oslo by a bunch of left-wing Norwegian parliamentarians, who have awarded it to such profound peacemakers as Yasir Arafat, Al Gore, and Barack Obama.  But many people confuse it with the real Nobel prizes, given in Stockholm for actual accomplishment in the sciences.

Carter, in Chicago, gives us a taste of his ego and blindness:

Carter said that, as the last global superpower, the US has a responsibility to be a leader in peace efforts and set an example to the rest of the world. Instead, he said, the US is “too inclined to go to war” and is contemplating going to war again, “perhaps in Iran.”

What a dork.  The late British economist, Barbara Ward, once wrote, after traveling through our country, that she felt America was almost a pacifist country, and remarked on how hard it was to get Americans to go to war. 

Indeed, history shows that Americans are incredibly reluctant to commit men to battle.  In 1940, with World War II already underway in Europe, and Japan threatening in the Pacific, the extension of the draft act passed the House by only one vote.

The US has been at war almost constantly in the last 60 years, said the former president. Most of those wars failed to meet the criteria for a just war and “some of them were completely unnecessary,” he said.

Utterly outrageous.  First of all, the U.S. has not been at war almost constantly for the last 60 years.  It was not at war from 1953 to 1965.  It was not at war from 1973 to 1991.  The Gulf War in 1991 was extremely brief.  It was not at war from 1991 to 2001, except for the NATO air campaign in the Balkans. 

Of course there were brief incidents, but they don't count as wars.  Carter doesn't even know basic history, but probably doesn't care.  And the criteria for "just war"?  Who sets those criteria?  Jimmy Carter? 

And I'd love to know which wars were "completely unnecessary."  Perhaps Carter can discuss that with the widows of those wars.

“Humankind has got to say that war comes last” and negotiation comes first, Carter said during a panel discussion with Gorbachev, Walesa and former South African president F.W. de Klerk.

All said that more young people need to adopt the ideals of peace — including human rights, justice and environmental issues — whether it’s in the rest of the world or their own communities.

COMMENT:  What is pathetic is that Carter is a Naval Academy graduate, who seems to have forgotten everything he learned. 

The 20th century taught us that peace is a process, achievable first through strength, never through weakness.  We won the Cold War without fighting a third world war because we recognized that.  Ronald Reagan, who barely served in the military, understood the strategy of peace far better than Carter. 

As for the "ideals of peace," those ideals begin with a realistic, mature understanding of how peace is achieved.  They don't begin with adolescent sloganeering.

What an embarrassment Carter is. 

April 24, 2012       Permalink

ANOTHER U.S. FOREIGN-POLICY VICTORY – AT 9:45 A.M. ET:   North Korea continues to laugh at us, signing agreements one day, breaking them the next.  They recently ran a missile test – unsuccessful, fortunately – that flew in the face of their international commitments.  Now a new nuclear test is clearly planned, and there's not a thing we're doing about it.  This is critical, not only because the North Koreans have the bomb, but because they export deadly technology:

(Reuters) - North Korea has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters, which will draw further international condemnation following a failed rocket launch if it goes ahead.

The isolated and impoverished state sacrificed the chance of closer ties with the United States when it launched the long-range rocket on April 13 and was censured by the U.N. Security Council, including the North's sole major ally, China.

Critics say the rocket launch was aimed at honing the North's ability to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States, a move that would dramatically increase its military and diplomatic heft.

Now the North appears to be about to carry out a third nuclear test after two in 2006 and 2009.

"Soon. Preparations are almost complete," the source said when asked whether North Korea was planning to conduct a nuclear test.

This is the first time a senior official has confirmed the planned test and the source has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the 2006 test days before it happened.

The rocket launch and nuclear test come as Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to rule North Korea, seeks to cement his grip on power.

COMMENT:  The failures of our North Korea policy were set in concrete during the Clinton administration.  The Clinton crowd actually believed it could reason with the most rogue of the rogue states.  The person in charge of negotiating agreements with North Korea, is now in charge of negotiations with Iran.  They never learn, do they?

And of course another actor played a role...Jimmy Carter, who never met a dictatorship he didn't like.  Jimmy made trips to North Korea and came back smiling.  The people of North Korea never smile.  They're too busy starving.

April 24,  2012     Permalink

SCARE OF THE DAY – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  Can Republicans lose the House this fall?  It may just be a tactic to get the GOP working harder, but Speaker John Boehner believes his party has a one in three chance of losing the body it now holds.  From Fox:

John Boehner is setting expectations high -- but apparently not too high -- for this year's congressional elections, telling Fox News that the Democrats have a chance of retaking the House.

The House speaker, in an interview with Fox News to air Tuesday morning, gave his Republican Party a "two-in-three chance" of holding on to control of the House after taking power in the 2010 elections.

"But there's a one-in-three chance we could lose," Boehner said. "I'm being myself -- frank. We've got a big challenge, and we've got work to do."

Democrats face an uphill battle in their efforts to take back the House, where Republicans hold a 242-190 seat advantage.

And control of the Senate could be up for grabs this year, too, with Democrats clinging to a fragile six-vote majority. The oddsmakers who track congressional races with obsessive dedication project a handful of pickups for Republicans in the Senate -- but not necessarily enough to get to 51.

In the House, a flurry of redistricting decisions appears to be working as of late in the Democrats' favor, though the chaotic process has stung both parties repeatedly.

The Democrats would need 25 seats in the House to regain the majority -- a very steep climb in a year when neither party is particularly popular. However, Democrats are thought to have far more safe seats than Republicans going into November. Earlier this year, the Rothenberg Political Report projected a Democratic pick-up of between five and 12 seats.

COMMENT:  I sense that many Republicans are asleep in terms of House contests.  The party could be in for a shock.  Many Republicans elected in 2010 are from swing districts.

In the Senate, the withdrawal of moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine has been a big blow to GOP chances of taking control.  Also, the retirement of great Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, now an independent, will probably mean a Dem pickup.  And Scott Brown is far from safe in Massachusetts.

Real work is required, and ideological arguments must be put aside for the general election.

April 24, 2012       Permalink

THE BEAT GOES ON – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Romney has essentially captured the Republican nomination, but the race is, technically, still on.  Today is a kind of junior Super Tuesday.  Five states vote:  Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.  Romney could really nail it down today.  From Fox: 

Already the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney could effectively shut out his remaining Republican presidential rivals in the next round of primaries Tuesday and emerge the clear rival to President Obama in November.

The five-state set of primaries Tuesday became decidedly less interesting after Rick Santorum, Romney's top primary opponent, suspended his campaign earlier this month. But the low-key race could set the field for the general election...

...On the Republican side, Romney has the opportunity Tuesday to sideline both Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

While Romney will not be able to clinch the nomination outright -- he needs 1,144 delegates to do that, and will not reach that threshold Tuesday -- he could make it mathematically impossible in most scenarios for either of his two remaining opponents to reach that number.

COMMENT:  Romney is the nominee.  Virtually all political buzz is turning to his vice presidential choice, and the extraordinary visibility of Marco Rubio.

April 24,  2012     Permalink