tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83415629513755633242024-03-13T08:15:26.830-07:00Terriers of the RightFlagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-24223593938925419932020-05-31T18:17:00.000-07:002020-05-31T18:17:09.108-07:00The Press Has Failed<div class="_5pbx userContent _3576" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-testid="post_message" id="js_h">
If
nothing else had already done it, the killing of George Floyd in
Minneapolis gave The Press all the opportunity it needed to fall on its
face, and it did. If not for the video provided by a civilian, there
would be nothing about the reporting of the act that we could trust. And
when it comes to video online, you can't even trust that.<br />
<br />
We
have heard about police brutality, and Floyd's background, and the
result has been "protests" and rioting and looting around the country.
But we have heard very little about the destruction of businesses,
property, and lives, by the rioters.<br />
<br />
That there is a complete
disconnection between the death of Floyd and burning buildings around
the United States is a fact almost universally absent from broadcast
news reports and commentary. In fact, there are frequent attempts to
legitimize the violence as an understandable response that is to be
expected. But it's not.<br />
<br />
Protests are understandable. Riots and vandalism are not.<br />
<br />
This isn't the first police-caused death in Minneapolis. It isn't even
the second, but you wouldn't know that from most of the reporting. In
July of 2017, a white woman, Justine Damond, was killed by a black
Minneapolis police officer, Mohammed Noor, after she had called police for help outside her home. The unarmed woman was shot as she approached the driver's side of the police cruiser.<br />
<br />
It was nearly two years later
that Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter and
sentenced to 12.5 years in prison, the exact charges that are being
pressed in the current case. Her family also won a $20 million
settlement from the city. "The Somali-American Police Association issued
a statement after the verdict claiming that racial bias contributed to
Noor's conviction."(ABC News)<br />
<br />
Very little publicity accompanied
the trial, but some facts did come out, including three complaints
against Noor, a separate lawsuit against him for assault against a woman
while on duty, and according to the Star Tribune, "Two months before
the shooting, Noor pointed a gun at the head of a driver he had pulled
over for a minor traffic violation."<br />
<br />
Here is a description of the
aftermath of the shooting, from Wikipedia. There is no mention of
rioting or looting. In fact, the only death was Damond's, and the only
violation of property was when Minneapolis police obtained a
controversial search warrant for Damond's home, in what appears to be an
attempt to establish some culpability on her part for her own death:<br />
<br />
"The day after the killing, a vigil in Damond's honor was held at the
site of her death in the alleyway entrance located on the north side of
West 51st Street between Xerxes Avenue South and Washburn Avenue South
in Minneapolis. Several days after the killing, hundreds marched to
Beard's Plaisance Park in Minneapolis, in honor of Damond. A memorial
service for Damond was held on 11 August 2017, on the shore of Lake
Harriet in Minneapolis. The service was at the bandshell and there was a
silent walk around the lake afterwards. It was attended by Damond's
family and fiancé, and about 1000 mourners." (various sources)<br />
<br />
There were two further consequences of the event. The Chief of Police
lost her job within a week, and the Mayor lost her re-election bid the
following year. But no looting, and no rioting.<br />
<br />
But I said there
was another case. One month before the Damond shooting, a trial ended in
the acquittal of a St. Anthony, MN, police officer in the death of
Philando Castile. That shooting had occurred in July, 2016. Although the
officer was acquitted of manslaughter and two other firearms
violations, the statement by the prosecutor was damning. The families
involved received a $3.8 million settlement for wrongful death.<br />
<br />
Instead of providing any of this context, The Press has been giving us
pictures of burning buildings and of public officials making pious
statements, none of which mentions the lives and livelihoods destroyed
by those fires. There is plenty to be angry about today, and the fact
that cities across the country are unable to protect the lives and
property of their citizens from rioters is a close second to the outrage
of deaths of other citizens at the hands of police officers.<br />
<br />
Some commentators have asked if Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia would
have been killed if they had not been black. No one knows, but the
Damond case shows that it can happen to almost anybody, at least in
Minnesota. I don't meant to make light of that. Minnesota has a serious
problem that they have had ample opportunities to address. Three police officers charged in the shooting deaths of civilians in the span of four years.<br />
<br />
The questions
now become, Is it peculiar to Minnesota, and why does it seem
insoluble?<br />
<br />
O'Reilly has a suggestion.<br />
<br />
<a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.billoreilly.com%2Fb%2FIts-Not-Black-and-White%2F-675708398980295057.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3Ogk89DRLt2VxGTx30bJ1YU6zCX1CuoY-A_bKv2uUEEVnUupeInT5jrFA&h=AT3atOlbM_lpN4WbwOL7NOV-8tvnRn0s0jBVLLgnpgQOAxNSoWA1Doxz2IjZC8tnfAclzi__yxVzmayZEiz1ATUz04ZaKfFZlxJ7-odu8dZZuH--UHjgnGWBxCbkGrQ2Kcf4dGvM7W55PRumEpcuDlq2viOM-tp9qQ" href="https://www.billoreilly.com/b/Its-Not-Black-and-White/-675708398980295057.html?fbclid=IwAR3Ogk89DRLt2VxGTx30bJ1YU6zCX1CuoY-A_bKv2uUEEVnUupeInT5jrFA" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.billoreilly.com/b/Its-…/-675708398980295057.html</a><br />
<br />
Here's another one.<br />
<br />
<a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F05%2F30%2Fus%2Fderek-chauvin-george-floyd.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2Sij2BqjX_p_ApfgxlDIfkCu25Sn3y3H39WPbvNmqbvbQn5W8dJxe6Q5g&h=AT2psZNtR71-us8jl4o2jxhh3DQYcslgwBNVMEHghW2dwmhCPsYeqh0dPyyB9snoeimUpOgQPklV3fzzD1JdkFVyBE0j78_V5MAMJKq6jzAwB42Pw7y48Sui_lF6S3vyugMAtYw8h9OB_N4DeCEtiVmwqAHGuGNdSA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/derek-chauvin-george-floyd.html?fbclid=IwAR2Sij2BqjX_p_ApfgxlDIfkCu25Sn3y3H39WPbvNmqbvbQn5W8dJxe6Q5g" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/…/us/derek-chauvin-george-floyd.html</a></div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-54245344118874797572020-04-09T20:49:00.001-07:002020-04-09T20:53:00.677-07:00The Cure is Already Available<div style="text-align: center;">
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
"We can't let The Cure be worse than the disease."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">History</span><br />
<br />
On January 31, 2020, in an attempt to keep the Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 Virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, out of the United States, President Trump ordered most flights from China stopped, and eventually those from other parts of the world as well. With little else to go on, he took the first steps to try to keep the virus out of the country. At about the same time, the US Center for Disease Control issued guidelines for people to follow to slow down the spread of the virus. Essentially, they amounted to "Stay away from other people as much as possible (by at least six feet), and Keep your hands clean and away from your face." Also, "Stay out of gatherings of ten or more people." This was given the name, "Social Distancing." And, "Be especially careful around the elderly or those with conditions known to make them susceptible to the worst ravages of the disease."<br />
<br />
The outcome was a good part of society hunkered down in its homes, venturing out only to get food and medical treatment. Oh, and to carry out "essential" business, which some states eventually got around to defining. Many businesses (deemed unessential) stopped altogether, and others had to cut way back. The economy staggered to a crawl.<br />
<br />
The US government has passed legislation promising to spend money on anything they could think of in order to keep citizens afloat, because this part of The Cure we've taken (reasonably) as a stop-gap measure has created a huge hole in the economy. Not knowing much about the virus or the disease, it was the logical thing to do. That's where we are today. We took that "cure," and we're suffering from the economic side effects.<br />
<br />
The Cure I want to propose is aimed at more than the virus. It's aimed at getting us through and out of the pandemic of COVID-19 while avoiding the deep recession or depression that looks imminent if we continue to slam the brakes on the economy while pushing the gas pedal down on mitigation.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Prevention by separation</span><br />
<br />
Without a vaccine to prevent people from catching the virus and coming down with COVID, the only strategy available in January was to try to separate people from each other. That was especially true because with COVID-19, people are contagious before they start to exhibit any symptoms, and in fact it's possible to acquire the virus and NEVER show symptoms.<br />
<br />
The first separation action was to stop flights from China (or at least most people coming from China were stopped). If nobody carrying the virus were able to come in, we would be protected. Obviously, complete exclusion wasn't going to be possible, but the goal was really to reduce the number of carriers so the invasion would be smaller. The goal was always to keep it manageable. That was separation at the highest level, the national level.<br />
<br />
Next, the CDC guidelines came into play. Keep individuals or family units separated from others. Again, impossible to do for everybody, but it has proven to cut down on the spread of the disease. "Keep six feet away." That separation helps prevent person to person transmission via coughing, sneezing, touching, and even breathing.<br />
<br />
The same goes for "Keep gatherings small," but that also is an attempt to cut down on the NUMBER of people who might get infected if one of the group happens to be contagious. Instead of infecting one hundred people, he only infects nine. The 91 others have been separated out of that group.<br />
<br />
Even "Wash your hands and keep them away from your face" is an attempt at separation on the personal level. The virus can be picked up on your hands or clothing without a high probability of infecting you if that's where the germs stay, or if you wash them away. They can't really go through your skin, unless you have an open wound. But they can easily enter if you carry them to your eyes, nose, or mouth, so "Keep your hands and face separated."<br />
<br />
Even the use of masks is a form of physical separation. The mask prevents germs from spreading further away from the source and to some extent keeps the wearer from breathing them in if they're in the air. In effect, it extends your distance from the people around you.<br />
<br />
All those levels of separation seem to have helped to "flatten the curve," which means they've helped prevent excess demand for hospital beds, ICU beds, and even ventilators. But they don't help us to get back to work. All except the masks and personal hygiene instructions actually make it harder to do that.<br />
<br />
Notice that none of these actions do anything to the virus itself. They just attempt to keep it outside the body. They attempt to keep people from catching COVID-19, and they work very hard to succeed. The virus and the disease are their only targets.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Internal separation</span><br />
<br />
Vaccines work by keeping a virus separated from what it wants to do--make us sick. They prevent it from successfully attacking cells, whether they be organ cells or blood cells, by creating antibodies in the blood to fight the virus off once the virus has been "caught." Our problem is that we don't have a vaccine. This is a new, a "novel" virus, as they call it. But we do have a medicine that works almost as well as a vaccine, only not by creating antibodies. We need to pull out all the stops to make that medicine available and in use by almost everybody. It is already in general use for this purpose in Europe.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Hydroxychloroquine</span><br />
<br />
Hydroxychloroquine has been approved for daily use since 1955 for prevention of malaria, to treat rheumatoid arthritis, and for lupus. Patients take it twice daily for many years. Harmful side effects are practically non-existent. <a href="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/itempdf74155353254prod/11938173/COVID-19__Attacks_the_1-Beta_Chain_of_Hemoglobin_and_Captures_the_Porphyrin_to_Inhibit_Human_Heme_Metabolism_v5.pdf?fbclid=IwAR251GUvlQezVkS3lFfNEOlQiCNS5w5aXVfwQigcxy7erVXgcFpioH6nnXI" target="_blank">One study</a> shows that it fights the SARS-CoV-2 virus the same way it wards off malaria. A summary of the ideas in that study are <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200405061401/https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb" target="_blank">here</a>. If it's accurate (and there are other studies being conducted to determine if hydroxychloroquine actually works), it could be a practical, available, and inexpensive Cure for the entire problem. The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200405061401/https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb" target="_blank">summary</a> says about hydroxychloroquine,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.84); font-family: , "georgia" , "cambria" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: -0.08399999886751175px;">The same mechanism that stops malaria from getting its hands on hemoglobin and gobbling it up seems to do the same to COVID-19 (essentially little snippets of DNA in an envelope) from binding to it. On top of that, Hydroxychloroquine (an advanced descendant of regular old chloroquine) lowers the pH which can interfere with the replication of the virus. Again, while the full details are not known, the entire premise of this potentially ‘game changing’ treatment is to prevent hemoglobin from being interfered with, whether due to malaria or COVID-19.</span></blockquote>
<br />
If correct (and although the studies aren't all complete, observations are all positive; hydroxychloroquine indicates it can both prevent and reduce the effects of COVID-19), this means it could be the key to solving both parts of the puzzle problem: the pandemic and our attempts to mitigate it. Our targeted policy priority must very soon change from attacking the virus and the disease to restoring our economy to health.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The Cure that isn't worse than the disease</span><br />
<br />
The steps aren't exactly easy, but they're conceptually simple.<br />
<br />
First, modify standard hospital treatment.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Hydroxychloroquine, with or without additional medicines attached, should be administered to every hospitalized COVID patient. It has been shown to shorten their hospital stay and lessen the severity of their symptoms. Obviously, this will reduce the capacity pressure on hospitals.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Second, modify outpatient treatment.</div>
<ul>
<li>Hydroxychloroquine has already been approved for "compassionate use," which really means that any doctor can prescribe it for off-label use if he wants to. Doctors should be encouraged to prescribe it for anybody who asks for it, whether they have symptoms or not. This should result in fewer of them needing hospital care. </li>
<li>They should at the same time be tested for the disease or for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood. Both tests are relatively quick and easy, and they will, we are assured, help us greatly by increasing our knowledge of how the virus behaves. The first test is the Abbott Labs test for the virus. The second test for antibodies is already available. Both should be our top priority to manufacture enough to meet our needs.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Third, modify public health procedures.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Allow everyone who wants to go back to work to be tested for COVID and antibodies. For those who don't show antibody-driven immunity, give them prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine or one of its spinoffs. These tests and prescriptions should be made available by doctors or at city and county health departments, with tests available at pharmacies.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Those are all medical attacks on the virus, but a bigger problem we have now is the economic one which we created in trying to slow the spread of the disease. Still, the disease must be brought down to an as yet unknown "acceptable" level before it will be politically viable to turn to concentrate on the economy. Fortunately, the first modification can be accomplished by a top-down push and completed in a matter of days or weeks, not months. It can turn the numbers that we look at first (deaths and hospitalizations) to acceptable ones very quickly. Controlled tests of step one have already started in some New York hospitals.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Also fortunately, the second and third modifications help the process of putting people back to work, safely. They have the effect of a vaccine without being a vaccine, protecting the non-hospitalized worker. The major problem in accomplishing them is the logistics of getting the medicine and the tests distributed to doctors and health centers all around the country, quickly. But when they get under way, they prepare us to return to work.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Return to work</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Fourth, approve a return to work for all, even if it must come in stages.</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Allow those who have been tested and are not contagious to go back to work. Allow businesses that want to, to re-open without being designated as "essential," if they can comply with new procedures to minimize the possibility of viral spread, even without continuous six-foot separation of people. This could include temperatures being taken at the beginning and middle of the work day, wearing masks, having hand sanitizer readily available, regular disinfecting of shared work surfaces, and physical separation of workers when possible. Whatever procedures are adopted, it would be up to the business to determine how long to keep them in place and how to enforce them.</li>
<li>Some situations are special and will face special challenges. Elevators. Mass transit. But those are both still in use, so whatever was done to mitigate proliferation in these places may simply stay in place, with alterations to fit the increased usage resultant from return to work. Spectator sports may be the toughest to bring back.</li>
</ul>
Fifth, protect businesses that re-open from lawsuits related to the disease.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Pass national legislation to hold businesses harmless in relation to the virus, the disease, and workplace accommodations made to allow people to work while preventing viral spread. Protect them and their employees and customers from lawsuits resulting from employees or customers catching the virus.</li>
</ul>
<div>
The key to all of this is that hydroxychloroquine or an equivalent works as expected. Something like this series of actions MUST happen to start the return to normal, and it MUST start soon. I have to believe that such plans are already underway, waiting only for enough improvement in the outlook for COVID in the US, and for some kind of breakthrough in the acceptance of hydroxychloroquine by the President's medical advisors. Since it already exists, is inexpensive, is already proven to be safe under prescription, and continues to perform well in all the current trials, all the arguments that have been mounted against it fail to persuade. Still, our top-level medical advisors appear to be waiting for some kind of proof of efficacy that no other medicine is close to attaining.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The process has to start very soon. There is really no time to waste.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-83415345447507992652015-05-19T11:19:00.002-07:002015-05-19T11:38:10.769-07:00New England Patriots vs. NFL Wells Report. Compare and contrastThe biggest sports story of the 2014 and 2015 NFL seasons looks to be the accusation of the New England Patriots for cheating during the AFC Championship game (The Game), and its subsequent investigation, determination, and punishment meted out by the League and its agents. The conclusions of the investigators and the punishment are still under appeal, but the process is what we're interested in today.<br />
<br />
It's tempting to call the incident "Much Ado About Nothing" because it revolves around changes in football internal air pressure that seems to be insignificant, but it's really closer to the Ray Donovan corruption case of the 1980's, because it's really about integrity--of the game, of the NFL, and of Tom Brady. After he was acquitted, Donovan asked, "what office do I go to to get my reputation back?" Only, so far the Patriots and Brady have been convicted.<br />
<br />
<i>Breaking news:</i> The Patriots have decided not to appeal the team penalties; Brady has filed an appeal with the NFL Players' Association.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Dueling Reports</h4>
The NFL hired a law firm (Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP, a firm for whom the NFL is already an important and frequent client) to investigate the charges. Mr. Theodore (Ted) Wells, Jr., was the individual who conducted the investigation, reported on his findings, and made the determination that cheating had "more [probably] than not" occurred, perpetrated by two low-level employees of the Patriots (Jim McNally and John Jastremski, "ball handlers") and that it is "more probable than not" that Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady "<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots game balls.</span>" This is what is called the "<a href="https://wellsreportcontext.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/wells_report_full1.pdf" target="_blank">Wells Report</a>."<br />
<br />
The NFL Commissioner accepted those findings, and meted out significant penalties against the Patriots in the form of a $1 million fine and forfeited future draft picks, and against quarterback Tom Brady in the form of suspension without pay (resulting in loss of income of about $2.5 million) and a severe hit to his personal reputation.<br />
<br />
In response, the Patriots prepared a website with its own report, called "<a href="http://wellsreportcontext.com/" target="_blank">The Wells Report in Context</a>," attempting to debunk the assertions of the Wells Report. My own conclusion is that the Patriots' report is by far the more convincing of the two. Maybe that's because it's easier to write a rebuttal for the defense than to describe the investigation, lay out the indictment, and justify the conviction.<br />
<br />
I don't intend to list every point of contention beyond saying that the Wells investigation did uncover some curious text messages between the two ball handlers but not Brady. Those messages are not only ambiguous, they aren't nearly as damning as the League claims because of their timing.<br />
<br />
Instead, let's look at the logic of the situation.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The League's scenario (Skip this part if you already know the details)</h4>
The NFL says that we should believe that one of the two best quarterbacks in the League, a sure future Hall of Fame selection, intentionally risked his reputation in order to gain an <b>insignificant</b> advantage in the championship game. By implication, they also say he had the two ball handlers tamper with the balls for him for throughout the season.<br />
<br />
We are to believe this because of text messages between the ball handlers sent in May, October, and November of 2014, months before The Game played on January 18, 2015. To support this conspiracy theory, the Wells Report cites the texts and gifts of autographed footballs and the like, given by Brady to McNally, via Jastremski, and they cite an "implausible number of communications" as being proof of the conspiracy, but it's unclear whether they mean communications between the ball handlers or phone calls and text messages in the days <b>after The Game</b> between Jastremski and Brady.<br />
<br />
We are also told to believe that McNally was able to carry two large ball bags into the tunnel restroom (this isn't in dispute), and in less than 1 minute and 52 seconds (estimated downward by the League to 1:40) he was able to take 12 (or perhaps 13) footballs out one of the two bags, release an uncontrolled amount of air from each of them, put them back and re-zip the bag, then to compose himself after committing an offense for which he could be fired and walk calmly from the restroom out to the field, where he placed the ball bags exactly where they always went.<br />
<br />
From that point on, there is no claim that any more tampering was done.<br />
<br />
D'Qwell Jackson intercepted a pass, then gave it to a Colts official who noticed it felt "soft" and that led to the Colts themselves checking the football with their own pressure gauge to discover it was at 11 psi. This set in motion the attempts to check the pressure in the rest of the footballs at halftime.<br />
<br />
Tom Brady would not provide information from his personal cell phone to the investigators.<br />
<br />
<h4>
My take on the Patriots' rebuttal (Skip this part if you already know the details)</h4>
The League report offers no evidence at all to show the ball handlers tampered with football pressures earlier in the season (beyond some ambiguous text messages between the two), nor do they suggest <b>any way the two could have tampered with inflation pressures</b> in any prior game, but they imply that it was done. In fact, the testimony of officials supports the contrary position: no tampering at all occurred before the day of The Game. Yet the text messages they rely on to "prove" a deflation conspiracy were sent months before the only game they claim to have any actual evidence that deflation occurred, and those texts are ambiguous if you start with an assumption of innocence rather than of guilt.<br />
<br />
None of those pre-Championship text messages quoted by the Report are either from or to Tom Brady.<br />
<br />
By implication, the League asks us to believe that the deflation process either happened <b>several times</b> during the season; that is, the Wells Report cites evidence that deflation of footballs was going on as early as October, or as early as after the Jets game, or during the previous Patriots-Colts game, or even during spring practices, yet it cites contrary evidence that McNally was <b>never</b> known to use that tunnel restroom before other games (even though McNally said he <b>had</b> used it before). This is supposed to prove that something happened just before The Game, but it's not clear how it proves it. The story of the D'Qwell Jackson interception and its aftermath supports the idea that the Colts at least <i>thought</i> Patriot footballs were under-inflated at their previous meeting.<br />
<br />
We are also expected to believe that the ball handlers knew that Brady wanted the balls deflated to less than League specifications, even though there's no evidence that Brady ever said that was his preference to <b>anybody</b>, and that the ball handlers concocted a complicated plot to provide that for him without actually knowing he wanted it.<br />
<br />
<i>Exponent, </i>the external test company hired by Wells, conducted tests to show that 13 footballs could be easily deflated by about one-half to one psi in one minute and forty seconds. (The report from Exponent didn't suggest how long an inflation needle would have to be left in a football to do that, but if one assumes it was done, one could also assume that the miscreant practiced his moves.) Anyway, it isn't impossible.<br />
<br />
Brady had no obligation to provide information from his cell phone to the investigators, and doing so would set a precedent that the Players' Association urged him to avoid. All of his texts and calls to the ball handlers were already available from <i>their</i> phones.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Problems not noted by either side (This is the important part)</h4>
1. The first problem is that the entire issue grew out of the application of a <b>logical fallacy</b>, "<i>post hoc ergo propter hoc</i>," or at least a variation of it. The assumption that because the footballs were measured at halftime below the pressure they were measured at before the game, <b>somebody must have tampered with them, </b>was immediately accepted as true. Therefore, the investigation looked for <i>how</i> tampering had been accomplished, rather than <b>anything that might have caused the measurements to be lower at halftime than they were before the game</b>. Natural causes were prejudicially rejected. After conducting the investigation, the Wells team found one occasion that <b>could</b> have been used to slightly deflate the balls, so therefore <b>that</b> must have been what happened.<br />
<br />
2. Next problem: How likely is that scenario? It requires two relatively unsophisticated (based on their text messages) ball handlers to anticipate what Tom Brady wanted done, to figure out a way to do it without his direction, and to actually tamper with footballs in a way that if discovered would cause them to lose jobs they obviously considered highly valuable. It requires them to successfully deflate footballs during the season (remember, the Colts were "suspicious" of inflation pressures days or weeks before The Game, supposedly because they or another team had observed low-pressure footballs during the season), and then "cool as the other side of the pillow" to do it again before The Game.<br />
<br />
It requires Tom Brady, who seems to be intelligent, at least smart enough to frequently pick the best NFL defenses apart, to decide that he would encourage or at least condone cheating by two ball handlers, and the cheating would be of a kind that is essentially insignificant in game play. Although people do many things that don't make sense, <b>nothing in that scenario makes any sense at all</b>.<br />
<br />
Why do I say "insignificant?" Because even after the League was alerted, even after the game officials were alerted, no League prescribed procedure was put in place to guarantee the integrity of the balls used in The Game. The game official failed to keep track of the balls after they were tested, and one must assume it was because he didn't consider it to be a high priority. In other words, the pressure of game balls was considered to be "insignificant" <b>by the League</b>. This assumption is further supported by the fact that the game balls for the Patriots-Jets game were inflated by game officials to 16 psi, far over the upper limit allowed and far more over-inflated than balls from The Game were allegedly under-inflated.<br />
<br />
3. Which brings me to the biggest error in this whole sequence of events: Both the NFL and Anderson originally treated the situation as if it was not important, allowing what was either a minor incident or no incident at all to grow into a big deal. The League basically told the game officials, "Watch out for tampering with the balls," but no particular plan of action was specified. Just, "Watch the footballs."<br />
<br />
Still, <b>the game official, Walt Anderson, could have prevented the entire fiasco</b>. If he had kept track of the balls, either he would have known immediately that something had happened to the balls, or he would have known that nothing had happened to them because THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN UNDER HIS CONTROL FOR THE ENTIRE TIME FROM MEASUREMENT TO KICKOFF. Read that again. Had Walt Anderson done his job, there would be NO cloud over The Game, the Patriots, and Brady, because we'd know that properly inflated balls had gone into the game, OR he would have reported to the League that the balls HAD BEEN TAMPERED WITH by somebody before game time, and the alternate balls could have been used (or the balls in the bag could have been checked and inflated as necessary).<br />
<br />
Either way, the League would have saved both face and millions of dollars, and if tampering did occur the punishment would be accepted by everybody as being appropriate. As it was, it seems a conclusion had been reached that cheating took place in the tunnel restroom because they had pre-determined that <b>somebody</b> cheated somehow, and that restroom was the only possible place it could have happened; but that's not proof, it's only suspicion.<br />
<br />
If the closest thing to "guilty" Wells can say is, "We nevertheless <b>believe</b>, <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">based on the <b>totality of the evidence</b>, </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that it is more </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>probable</b> than not that Brady was <b>at least generally aware</b> of the inappropriate activities of </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">McNally and Jastremski involving the release of air from Patriots game balls," that is a very low-confidence type of conclusion. It contains no less than five equivocating words or phrases. When the investigators chose to give credence only to </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">incriminating</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> evidence and to disregard all exculpatory evidence, it becomes even weaker. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">4. Next problem: One of the teams is known to have had a needle that could deflate a football on the field during The Game. </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That team was the Colts.</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Nobody on the Patriots has been shown to have had a football inflation needle on them before or during the game. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">5. Next problem: The only people who handled the balls who thought they were "soft" were Colts personnel. The game officials, who handle the ball between every play noticed nothing. Even D'Qwell Jackson, who intercepted the Brady pass and started the sequence rolling said later that he noticed nothing odd about the ball, even though the original story fed to the sporting press claimed that he was the one who raised the red flag. This suggests that the Colts may have been involved as more than innocent bystanders. It also suggests that a small difference in inflation pressure really is insignificant, undetectable unless measured with a gauge.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">6. Next problem: The League leaked, or allowed the Colts to leak, much of the story before any investigation at all was done. Many of the leaks contained inaccurate information. The fact that was allowed indicates to a suspicious person that the Patriots may have been set up, or at least that the League intended to make sure they were labelled "guilty" about something. The leaks certainly turned public sentiment against the Patriots--verdict first, trial later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">7. Next problem: The Report references the NFL rule that requires the balls to be inflated between 12.5 psi and 13.5 psi before the game. It does not reference any rule as to what the footballs must be during the game. Perhaps a minor point, but in fact no footballs have EVER been checked for inflation pressure during a game before. It is certainly possible, even more probable than not, that some deflation occurs in every game. In fact, on cold days the Ideal Gas Law demands it, and if the ball starts out at 12.5 psi as the Patriots footballs did (the low end of acceptable), on a very cold day they might lose even more than 1 to 2 psi and register 11.5 or 10.5 psi by the end of the game.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This becomes important only because it's apparent that the Colts were very invested in having the Patriots' game balls checked during the game. An email from the Colts' General Manager Ryan Grigson and Colts' Equipment Manager Sean Sullivan to NFL officials is quoted on page 45 of the Wells Report:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As far as the gameballs are concerned it is well known around the league that<br />
after the Patriots gameballs are checked by the officials and brought out for game<br />
usage the ballboys for the patriots will let out some air with a ball needle because<br />
their quarterback likes a smaller football so he can grip it better,<b> it would be great<br />if someone would be able to check the air in the game balls as the game goes on</b><br />
so that they don<b>'</b>t get an illegal advantage</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Footnote 25 of the Wells Reports then reads:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Because Sullivan‟s email did not provide specific factual support for the Colts‟ concerns, <b>NFL officials</b></span></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">determined that it was not necessary to ask the game officials preemptively to check the air pressure in the</span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>Patriots game balls during the game</b>, as Sullivan had requested. They reported during interviews that, without</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"> additional specific information that might raise further concern, they believed that the referee‟s standard pregame</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">inspection of the game balls would be sufficient, and that a change in the standard inspection protocols</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">was not necessary. In particular, prior to the game, <b>there was no plan to check the air pressure of the balls at</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>halftime or any other time during the game.</b> Ther e was no “sting” operation, no plan for a “sting” operation and</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">no discussion of a “sting” operation.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Combine that with Problems 4 and 5 above, and it becomes plausible to think that the Colts were prepared and waiting for their first opportunity to handle a Patriot football, and that opportunity came when Jackson intercepted a pass. It would only be speculation to think that the Colts were ready to use their own needle and gauge to deflate that intercepted football to a point that the referee would be obligated to test the Patriot footballs ASAP, but it wouldn't be wild speculation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Why would they do that? Maybe just to embarrass the Patriots, or the make Brady mad enough to throw his game off, that is, psychological gamesmanship. We could even go a step further. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Andrew Luck was an engineering student at Stanford, graduating with a degree in Architectural Design. He undoubtedly understood the Ideal Gas Law, something that isn't an everyday topic of conversation among most NFL players. He could easily have concocted the idea of using the natural tendency of footballs to lose some pressure during a cold game to embarrass and/or distract the Patriots enough to throw them off their game plan. This conjecture is no less plausible than the complicated story of intrigue the NFL says is "more probable than not," and it's neither against the rules nor unethical, unless the Colts actually deflated that one football before handing it to the official staff. (Using a gauge to measure its air pressure apparently <i>was</i> a violation of the rules, though.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">8. Next problem: The fact that ball pressures were found to be lower became itself "proof" that there had been tampering, when it really only proved that the pressures were lower. Other causal factors were essentially ignored.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">totality</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of the evidence would</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> include the testimony of the "friend" of Jastremski, indicating that the incriminating text messages meant something entirely different than what the investigators claimed they meant. The Wells Report rejects this out of hand. It would recognize that text messages sent months before an event can be made to seem like they're related to an event when they may not be, and probably are not, related to it. It would recognize that cheap pressure gauges may not be accurate down to one-tenth psi.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It would include </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the scientific opinion, contrary to the League's expert, that atmospheric and game conditions </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">could</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> account for all of the pressure-reading "anomalies." Once that opinion is given credence, it is no longer "more probable than not" that human intervention reduced the air pressure in the footballs. It really is more probable that natural forces were at play than that Two Stooges and a quarterback carried out a season-long conspiracy to cheat on an insignificant detail which was very high risk and literally no reward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Summary (All you need to know)</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There is no direct evidence that anyone tampered with the footballs, ever. McNally was not observed tampering, and he wasn't searched for an inflation needle. None of the communications discussed circumventing League rules and deflating game footballs. Most of them were ambiguous at best. What evidence exists is very weak circumstantial evidence based on actions that would be considered completely normal and/or trivial had the game footballs not lost some pressure before halftime.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Credible scientific </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">opinion exists that temperature conditions alone could account for the change in football inflation pressure. The Wells Report disagrees, but to support the disagreement it has to make some odd assumptions. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The records that were kept of pressure readings after the game, combined with the referee's BEST recollections of his pre-game procedures confirm the temperature hypothesis as being reasonable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A change in temperature is the simplest explanation for the pressure change, which satisfies the Occam's Razor test: The simplest explanation is the "most probably correct" explanation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It is therefore more probable than not that <b>no tampering occurred</b>, no ethical violation was committed, and no punishment is warranted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h4>
Disclaimer</h4>
<div>
I am not a Patriots fan; I've rooted for the Chiefs since their first year in Kansas City. In the Brady vs. Peyton Manning debate, Manning has been my preference.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-63335562425846359102015-04-05T16:04:00.000-07:002015-04-05T16:04:02.371-07:00A Ted Cruz victory isn't all that far-fetched<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
George Will recently published an interesting <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cruz-is-aiming-at-the-wrong-republicans/2015/04/01/87899c0a-d893-11e4-b3f2-607bd612aeac_story.html?hpid=z2" target="_blank">critique</a> of Republican Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz. In it, he writes that Cruz can't win without going after what Cruz has called the "mushy middle" (based on a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/cruzs-strategy-destroy-the-mushy-middle-116326.html" target="_blank">piece</a> from Politico). Will says, </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.400001525878906px;">"The Republican nominee must crack the ice that has frozen the electoral map. Cruz cannot do that by getting more votes from traditional Republican constituencies."</span></blockquote>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
While I would say that the people quoted by Politico don't have things quite right, they could win in spite of themselves, depending on just what the "mushy middle" turns out to be. They say he will target tea party and evangelical voters, as if he intends to ignore everybody else. That would likely be a recipe for disaster. But could he really mean to do that? I don't think so.</div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two goals</span></h4>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
From Will,</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #111111;">"</span><a href="http://eppc.org/fellows-scholars/henry-olsen/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #2e6d9d; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.400001525878906px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;" title="eppc.org">Henry Olsen</a><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.400001525878906px;"> of the Ethics and Public Policy Center identifies “</span><a href="http://eppc.org/publications/four-faces-republican-party/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(212, 212, 212); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #2e6d9d; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.400001525878906px; text-decoration: none; zoom: 1;" title="eppc.org">four faces of the Republican Party</a><span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.400001525878906px;">” — <i>evangelical</i> Christians, <i>very conservative</i> but secular voters, <i>somewhat conservative</i> voters and <i>moderates</i>. He says the largest group, about 35 percent to 40 percent of the national party, are the somewhat conservatives. And in presidential years, moderates are the second-largest (25 percent to 30 percent). The somewhat conservatives “are found in similar proportions in every state” and “always back the winner.”" [emphasis added]</span></blockquote>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">There are two objectives of any campaign. (1) Convince people you are the best person for the job, and (2) get them to actually vote for you. The interview in Politico was primarily about the strategy to achieve the second goal, specifically among conservative voters who didn't vote for Romney in 2012. But it's possible to attack both goals at the same time. T</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">he common knowledge that he's too far right to win because he can't achieve the first objective can be challenged. </span></div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
First, he is already in position to bring back those conservatives who failed to support Romney. They are believed to be evangelicals and the very conservative "tea party faithful." And they are professed to be the primary target of goal number 2.</div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Second, somewhat conservative center-right and many moderate Republicans would not have a problem with his philosophy of government and principles, and they could accept his tactics, given that Republican senior tacticians have failed miserably for about 10 years. Most of them would be enthusiastic about it. He can succeed with both groups.</div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
It seems to me that Cruz is uniquely situated in the coming primary and Presidential campaigns. Compared to many other candidates, current and prior, he can run with the same messages in both of them. He doesn't need to run to the right in the primaries and to the center in the general. He can campaign "as is" to achieve the goal of convincing voters that he has the right ideas for the country. </div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Using Olsen's four categories, Cruz's advisors seem to believe he needs to get the evangelicals and very conservative secular voters to the polling place, rather than to convince them. Still, all four of those categories of Republican voters are the ones he needs to convince to nominate him. If Olsen is right, the somewhat conservatives must be addressed during the primaries, but they will support whomever is the eventual candidate.</span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the remaining moderates and left-centrists, whether Republicans or not, are the additional constituency he really needs to get on his side in both campaigns, and as Reagan showed, they CAN be got. But how?</span></h4>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Voters compare candidates. Give them <b>substance, style, and performance</b>, and you can convince them to choose you. They compared their experience with Carter to the promise of Reagan, and they chose Reagan on all three criteria. They effectively did the same with McCain and Obama, with substance almost being a non-factor. IMHO, Romney simply came up too short on campaign performance to outweigh Obama's style and incumbency, even though he was way ahead on substance.</div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
If I'm right, what is there about Cruz (or any Republican) to convince centrist Reagan Democrats and even other frequently left-of-center voters, to pick the Republican? These voters recognize that politicians from both sides pander to them, so phony promises and posing doesn't work. If we call our general target "uncommitted voters," what might they be looking for?</div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Style</span></h4>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Appearance counts, but not much can be done to spruce up an already presentable candidate. Cruz, Rubio, and Walker are all a bit ahead of the rest in this area, probably not least because they're younger. It's part of style, which of course includes demeanor, presence, speaking ability and apparent competence, and personal behavior during the campaign and during debates. Cruz holds up well in the style criterion. Edge: Cruz.</div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Performance</span></h4>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Performance means "performance during the campaign." We've seen Cruz can win competitive elections, which is more than his known likely Presidential competition can say. It definitely includes the instinct to recognize and attack Democrat weaknesses, which our last two candidates have been loath to do. Even his critics say Cruz does a fine job of laying out his ideas understandably and debating the shortcomings of opponents effectively. Edge: Cruz.</div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Substance</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"> brings us to substance, which is also where the Wills of the central-right punditry find him wanting. "Too extreme. He shut down the government. Too uncompromising. Poor tactician. Too smart for his own good."</span><br />
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
But what if many of the uncommitted voters are that way because they've been given nothing to commit to? Shifting positions, unclear positions, hidden agendas (once exposed), are what make commitment impossible. Voters will even opt for imaginary positions if they think they mean something. Hope and Change, anybody? </div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Cruz has been laying down a consistent record of upholding his professed conservative principles, even in the face of adverse publicity and resistance from establishment Republicans. Voters can appreciate courage and firmness, even if they differ with the direction. While this may or may not give Cruz an advantage over a given Democrat, his substance may be nowhere near the impediment Will and others presume.</div>
<div style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
It also seems that Reagan Democrats can agree with his principles and may prefer them to the failings of the current Progressive Democrat administration, as they did with Reagan v. Carter. There are more conservative-leaning voters than there are progressives, and they will appreciate <i>what</i> his positions are. Edge: That's the question, isn't it? Cruz.</div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Will it work?</span></h4>
<div style="color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-top: 6px;">
Reagan was elected in a different era, but there is evidence that American voters still honor, respect, and will vote for a candidate who can convince them he says what he means and means what he says, even if they disagree with him on some details. If so, Cruz doesn't have to target anybody. He just has to continue being himself.</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">If Will is right, and Cruz addresses only evangelicals and very conservative Republicans, his candidacy is probably doomed from the start. But if Cruz presents himself reasonably to the somewhat conservative and moderate voters (including Democrats), the list of five big competitive states that Will described (Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Virginia) can be made to grow, and what is considered by common knowledge to be his certain failure can be averted.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, 'lucida grande', sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">We've been exploring whether Cruz can attract enough somewhat conservative and moderate voters to win. A question that hasn't been covered:</span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, lucida grande, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"> Can any other Republican candidate win without bringing evangelicals and very conservative Republicans out to the polls? Can they win without having firm conservative positions on the major issues?</span></span></div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-58221599766699277872014-09-13T01:09:00.000-07:002014-09-14T12:35:36.193-07:00Beginning the Decline of the United States?<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.40000057220459px; line-height: 22.80000114440918px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
British standing in world politics had already weakened by the end of WWII, but it had fallen out of "leading power" status by only twenty years later, partly by its own choices, and partly by circumstance. One of those choices was a change of leadership. Is the United States at an earlier point in our own decline, not just as a world power, but as a great nation?</div>
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Our current leader has made the word "feckless" part of everyday conversations. Our military has been (perhaps) stretched beyond the point at which we can do anything about the Russian invasion of Ukraine alone, and our erstwhile allies judge there is too much risk in joining us in any military action, even if thousands of lives (including theirs) may be at risk, and they are completely uninterested in preventive military measures, partly because they have good reason to mistrust our leader and our commitment to our word. Among our enemies, the previous accepted belief that we would defend ourselves and our allies if threatened has been replaced by the near certainty that will will do neither. A strident claim that we will "follow [our enemies] to the gates of Hell" is ratcheted back by statements of what we will NOT do, as if a war could be won by half measures. The threat to destroy them is modified into a promise to make <i>their</i> threat "manageable," which is like promising nothing at all.</div>
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Economically, we are fading away. We have only slightly more people employed today than we had at the depths of the recent recession; on average they are being paid less and working fewer hours, and there are millions more who have dropped out of the work force. Those people are dependent on an economy supported by (and taxes paid by) the remainder who are still at work. The <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-02/workforce-participation-at-36-year-low-even-as-more-jobs-beckon.html" target="_blank">Labor Participation Rate</a> is significantly <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/not-looking-for-work-why-labor-force-participation-has-fallen-during-the-recovery" target="_blank">lower than it was six years ago.</a> Regulatory excess exacerbates the problem, often handcuffing business innovation unnecessarily. Overreach by the EPA <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/217112-epa-waters-rule-threatens-the-golf-course-industry-says" target="_blank">has become legendary.</a></div>
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We have turned our health care system over to a Rube Goldberg set of often contradictory rules that on the face of it can't work, and which is based on the European health model that has already proven to be a failure in large, heterogeneous populations. It institutionalizes one of the very evils it was supposed to eliminate, "free riding."</div>
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We face real enemies with the money and ability to do real damage if they can get close enough to attack us, yet the government refuses to secure a 2000 mile long border through which millions of unknown aliens have already entered, and through which millions more will inevitably come. Ordinary citizens who recognize that the first order of immigration business should be to get that border under control are derided as xenophobes, while politicians argue about what level of amnesty should be granted to those people already in the US illegally.</div>
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Our tax system is designed to drive multi-national corporations offshore, to penalize thrift and investment, and to support non-producers. Tax revenues are spent on speculative ventures for dubious goals, which often further enrich the already rich at the county's expense. Solyndra comes to mind.</div>
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Our President has taken actions which either skirt or outright trample the Constitution, modifying laws without Congressional participation; and the government watchdog, the Constitutionally protected free press, has decided it's more comfortable being a government lap dog instead.</div>
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Court decisions boggle the mind. We are told to believe that the plain words of the Fifth Amendment, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation," include selling the property to another private entity as a meaning of "public use." And that we all<span style="font-size: 14.40000057220459px; line-height: 22.80000114440918px;"> can be Constitutionally forced by law to buy a commercial product because the penalty for failure to do so is a "tax," </span><i style="font-size: 14.40000057220459px; line-height: 22.80000114440918px;">and for no other reason</i><span style="font-size: 14.40000057220459px; line-height: 22.80000114440918px;">. That is, without the penalty, the mandate would be unconstitutional, but with it, it is. And that people can Constitutionally be forced against their will to work for other people.</span></div>
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We have a citizenry that knows exponentially more about pop culture figures--singers, actors, 'personalities'--than about the people they elect to represent them and to lead them. They don't notice that their freedoms are being taken away from them, and when it's pointed out they don't see any problem with it. They seem to accept the lies of political leaders as a fact of life, partly because of the complicity of the previously mentioned 'free press.' They have no clue that the same press is being used to minimize important issues and to distract them with shiny objects. Benghazi is blamed on a video, a transparently false claim. When questioned about it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exclaimed, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" as if the passage of time had turned official dishonesty into irrelevance. Presidential promises, lies, are passed off as simple inaccuracies, when they were clearly told to get legislation passed that would not pass if the truth were told.</div>
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And all too frequently, free expression of unpopular, contrary, or otherwise 'politically incorrect' speech is suppressed, even to the point a sports announcer was recently suspended by his employer for observing that a battered girlfriend who marries her batterer is not acting rationally. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is threatening to investigate a sports league (for what?) because of public outcry by pressure groups with an agenda, yet it can't bring itself to honestly investigate the IRS for illegal official behavior, because the offense was committed on behalf of Democrats against ordinary citizens who opposed them.</div>
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This is not an optimistic view of today's United States, but it is a realistic one. I don't claim that further and precipitous decline is inevitable, but it's already begun.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-2471243636547690232013-11-12T14:58:00.000-08:002013-11-12T14:58:46.618-08:00Brief and Direct: Public Program vs. Private Product<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 12.731481552124023px; line-height: 18.518518447875977px;">
<b>A thought experiment.</b></div>
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What would have happened a few weeks ago had Obamacare been a product offered for sale by a private company, rather than by the government? I don't mean 'who would be fired,' although we could ask that, too. I mean, what would the company have done in the face of an obviously disastrous rollout? And how does it differ from what the Obama administration has done?<br /><br />First difference: It would not have been rolled out with so many known problems. That's one reason companies don't announce big new product introductions or upgrades months in advance. They announce them officially as they roll them out. The Obama administration in contrast continued headlong over the cliff.<br /><br />Second, had major problems been discovered after rollout, the product would have been pulled back immediately, and the website access to it would have been closed for remodeling. Obama chose to keep it open and insist it just has a few "glitches."<br /><br />Third, the questions being asked would not have stopped with "Whose fault is it," but would have included "Why has so much gone wrong so fast? What do we have to CHANGE to fix the problems? Are the factors behind the problems incidental, or intrinsic to the product?" The Obama administration's response has been to assume they are incidental problems that can be solved by 'more of the same' and working harder and longer. No thought has been given to intrinsic problems with the underlying product. </div>
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Finally, there would be an all-out attempt to fix what went wrong, no matter what it was, and a decision would be made to make small changes, big changes, or to scrap the product. With Obamacare, the only object of attention has been the website and its developers and the Secretary of HHS. No attention has been directed at whether the program itself is ever going to be workable, or whether it even <i>can be</i> workable.<br /><br />Think back to the introduction of New Coke, and the Edsel, and bacon added to almost anything. The first two were launched with every expectation of success, yet they failed rather quickly and were cancelled because consumers weren't receptive. The third just sort of snuck up on us, and in the face of all the fear of fattening, 'bacon-y goodness' caught on and spread. Now there are even bacon-maple donuts and bacon-flavored ice cream, with their own fans.<br /><br />The point: Private enterprise can react quickly in the face of adverse customer reaction. Government enterprises are authorized by legislation and funded by more legislation. They are extremely slow to change. They are staffed by (sometimes) huge bureaucracies that have a vested interest in keeping the program alive, and a significant ability to affect the 'keep or kill' decision, if such a decision can even be considered.<br /><br />A private firm can react quickly. Governments can't. The private firm has one goal--to be financially successful. When a new product has trouble, the trouble isn't just blamed on the delivery method--the product itself is examined. The government has many conflicting goals. There is a strong incentive to find a simple, impersonal aspect of the product and blame everything wrong on that, and there is practically no incentive to examine the program itself. The result is slow and ineffective reaction to both adversity and success. The Obamacare website is still in the same state of disarray it was weeks ago, and now the promised November 30 fix deadline is expected to be adjusted backward. But the website is just the delivery vehicle; the real problem lies within the product that defines the size and shape of the box.<br /><br />Obamacare is a perfect example of why government enterprise is an oxymoron, and it's a perfect illustration of why most all parts of American life and business should be left in the private sector. The public sector, by it's very nature, can't avoid doing it worse.</div>
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/11/12/brief-and-direct-public-program-vs-private-product/">RedState</a></div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-88038478190515954432013-11-05T12:16:00.000-08:002013-11-05T12:16:49.068-08:00When a President Lies<b>How can we have confidence anything else he says is true?</b><br />
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At this point, although they are very bad spots on Obama's record, the IRS, Benghazi, NSA internal spying, interfering with local authorities and state authorities, Fast and Furious, Egypt, Libya, the Muslim Brotherhood, border control, green energy cronyism, Obamacare, incompetence in general, inability to develop a website for $600,000,000, and all the rest of it, are all beside the point.</div>
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We have a president who stood in front of us, looked us in the eye, and lied to us. The way he phrased the lie left no doubt that he intended to convince us that his law would be beneficial, by his very sincerity in taking care of our misgivings. We had no reason to fear his giant new law, because we would be protected from its possible side effects.</div>
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There is no reasonable doubt that he knew he was lying, unless one believes he was simply being directed by his staff to follow the script without knowing whether it was accurate or not. (If that is true, we have an even bigger problem than a lying President--we have a Robot-in-Chief.) He didn't just make a misstatement once while speaking extemporaneously, he lied from a prepared script, repeatedly.</div>
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Claims that it was just 'political spin' or 'accurate but not precise enough' are nonsense, in the strictest meaning of nonsense. It was a direct, clear, unambiguous statement, a <em>personal</em> promise from him to <em>each</em> of us, to <em><strong>You</strong></em>, individually, that you "could keep <strong><em>your</em></strong> insurance and <em><strong>your</strong></em> doctors. Period."</div>
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We have a president who lied to us. He lied multiple times. He lied with a purpose. He lied in order to pass a law that would not have passed without the lie.</div>
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President Nixon was drummed from office for the same transgression. Essentially, President Clinton was impeached for it. President George H. W. Bush didn't even need to lie; he was not re-elected simply because he changed his mind during his only term and didn't veto a tax increase. But they, too, are irrelevant.</div>
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Our current President lied to us, personally. The words amounted to, "<em>I</em> promise <em>You</em>." Multiple times. How many times does it take before we remember that it's not just a rhetorical tactic, it's a character flaw? It's part of a personality. It may be the most important thing we can know about anybody--is he honest? Can we trust his word? It <em>is</em> the most important thing we can know about a politician.</div>
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The MSM has done all it can to protect him, and it may work. But would you buy a used car from the man? He has already lied to us many times. Why should we believe anything he says or has said; future, present, or past? Why trust him about anything?</div>
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"Once a liar, always a liar." What more do we need to know?</div>
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/11/05/when-a-president-lies/">www.redstate.com/flagstaff</a></div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-21793783904755577582013-09-12T13:43:00.000-07:002013-09-12T13:43:48.100-07:009/11/2012 -- One Year Later, Still No Answers<span style="font-size: large;">September 11, 2013</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One year ago today, an organized mob of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/06/politics/benghazi-attack-timeline/index.html" target="_blank">terrorists attacked a US diplomatic post</a> in Benghazi, Libya, and four Americans were killed, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The Ambassador had previously <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/documents-back-up-claims-of-requests-for-greater-security-in-benghazi/" target="_blank">asked for increased security</a>, and it was denied. The attack lasted for about six hours. The Ambassador and Sean Smith were killed in the "safe room" soon after the attack began; security operatives Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed on the rooftop of one of the buildings in the compound by enemy mortar fire several hours later, near the end of the attack. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Almost immediately, the Obama Administration's <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/timeline-comments-attack-us-consulate" target="_blank">official position</a> was that the attack grew out of a demonstration against the existence of an <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203298/Victims-Benghazi-massacre-return-home-Obama-Clinton-pay-tribute.html">internet-based video</a> that appeared to demean the prophet Mohammed. The maker of the video was arrested and jailed in Los Angeles, ostensibly for a parole violation. <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/12/remarks-president-deaths-us-embassy-staff-libya">President Obama</a> and <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/timeline-comments-attack-us-consulate" target="_blank">Secretary of State Clinton</a> pointedly promised to bring the actual killers to justice. Some days or weeks later the Administration announced that the video was not to blame, but that <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/10/world/libya-attack-statements/index.html" target="_blank">a terrorist attack</a> was. More than <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/06/politics/benghazi-attack-timeline/index.html" target="_blank">thirty</a> other American State Department employees and American operatives were present during the attack, and they escaped with injuries of varying severity. The video maker was <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/youtube-video-maker-blamed-for-benghazi-attacks-breaks-silence-on-cnn/" target="_blank">recently released</a> from jail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">These are almost the only aspects of the incident that everyone agrees on, even though there have been several Congressional hearings attempting to learn more about what happened, and an <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57584512/benghazi-report-review-board-agrees-to-testify-before-house-committee/" target="_blank">Accountability Review Board investigation</a> was commissioned by the Administration to look into the matter as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Doesn't the fact that all these investigations can't fill in the rest of the picture tell us that something is very wrong?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The unanswered questions boil down to these: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-size: large;">Who refused to provide more security when the Ambassador insisted it was needed. Why was his request denied? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Who carried out the attack? What was the reason behind it? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Who was tracking the incident in the White House? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Who was making decisions and giving orders throughout the night, and who was carrying them out? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Why was there no significant attempt to make any kind of response to the attack when it began? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Where was the President during the attack? </span><span style="font-size: large;">What was he doing? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Why did he not think an attack on a diplomatic post required some of his personal attention?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Who decided to blame the attack on the video, when the evidence is that everybody involved knew that wasn't the case? And why?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Who ordered that the survivors be kept away from the Congressional investigators, even keeping their names secret, and why?</span></li>
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<span style="font-size: large;">These questions have all been asked by various people in various venues, some of them many times, but none of them have been answered credibly by those who know the answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And three questions unasked by the traditional media:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-size: large;">Why was the Ambassador put in that position in the first place? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">How can anyone look at this list of unanswered questions and not conclude that the Obama Administration is executing a cover-up of something by stonewall? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">What is being covered up?</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The primary question in every case starts with "Who?" Until that's answered, the rest remain speculation. "Who" can tell us "why," and nobody else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">President Obama has called this a "phony scandal." His surrogates appear on television regularly to repeat that claim, and if they want to engage at all on the subject, they fall back to the law-enforcement approach--"We are working every day to identify who the killers are and to bring them to justice," as if that were the only fact and action yet to be known and taken, as if the only reason to ask questions is to "make sure it never happens again." But in the greater scheme of things, the much more important questions all have to do with actions in Washington, not in Libya. And because of that, the next favorite statement from those surrogates is "Republicans are just on a witch hunt to get dirt on the President."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But wasn't that exactly the motivation behind the 1973 Watergate hearings? Certainly they weren't held just to make sure another hotel room break-in would never happen. Even if placing blame is the motive this time, the best response is to show the dirt is not to be found at the President's door.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The President has told us that he wants to get to the bottom of things, but today we still have most of the same questions we had a year ago. And supporting the suspicion of a stonewall cover-up is the fact that almost all of those questions could be answered easily with three short sentences from the President to his immediate subordinates--"Answer the committee's questions and tell the truth. If you don't know the answers, find them. If you can't do that, please find another line of work."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder why he hasn't spoken them.</span>Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-43732893941644794252013-09-08T15:59:00.000-07:002013-09-08T16:39:24.511-07:00What Will President Obama Do About Syria?<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Why does the Syrian situation seem so much more difficult than that of Libya, for instance, or than Egypt was? Why didn't Obama just handle it the same way, instead of making threats to attack Syria unilaterally? Syria comes with some built in problems that didn't apply to those two countries and their uprisings and revolutions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><b>The Practical Problems</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">We have problems with our intelligence. That is, the people whom we count on to give us accurate information don't seem to be in agreement about the situation in Syria. We don't know the makeup of the anti-Assad groups, for instance. We may not truly know whom to support against Bashar al-Assad, although they claim the</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">y do.<br /><br />Even with perfect intelligence, the future isn't just unknowable, its degree of uncertainty is extremely high and many-faceted. Among other things, we don't know how our action or inaction will affect the civil war, or how it will be perceived by either our adversaries or our friends. We don't know what the consequences will be, intended or unintended. We don't know who will end up controlling the ChemWeapons, nor how we can insure the threat level will be lower after an attack than it is now. How can it be better if they remain in the hands of ANY Syrians? How can we get them out of their hands without putting our soldiers into the action on the ground?<br /><br />We don't know how big our involvement will eventually become. Will it stop with the "shot across the bow," or will it by necessity of circumstance grow into a full invasion?<br /><br />What is our objective? Is it to deter future use of ChemW's on the part of Syria, or of other countries? Is it to affect the course of the war itself? Do we take different actions for one that we wouldn't take for the other? Some "experts" tell us that it will be unacceptable for Assad and his Hezbollah supporters to eventually prevail, creating a situation ripe for Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, at Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia's (and our) peril. That tight connection with a much stronger nation, Iran, was missing from the other revolutions, and it matters a lot. Yet that doesn't seem to be what the President is talking about.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">And we can't forget both the cost of the operation and the drain on our military resources. We have been stretching the limits of our capabilities for ten years, and the Obama Administration has been quietly cutting the Pentagon's budget for several years now. We have less capacity to engage in foreign wars now than we did in 2003. If we were to put the burden of a new campaign on our military, it might have a tremendously demoralizing effect in all the services, which would in turn further degrade our ability to fight, which is ironically one of the objectives President Obama has laid out for the attack--only he says his intention is to degrade Assad's capabilities, not ours. Consequently, any attack at all should be one that is absolutely necessary for our own national security.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">An operation with so many unknowns and such a high degree of uncertainty is simply begging to either go wrong (the Carter debacle in the desert) or more properly, be canceled.</span><br /><br /><b style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Political Problems</b><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We are told that we MUST react to the use of ChemW because we (President Obama) said we would, and/or because if we don't, we're inviting the next use of it.</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"> That our threat of force followed up by our use of force gives credibility to the policy of deterrence. If we don't follow up on our warnings, that policy will be nullified.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Our President is in an unenviable position. He has essentially made threats that he doesn't seem now to want to carry out. Does he need to do something just to maintain some measure of credibility?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Congress has been asked to pass judgment on the military option. If it says "No," should the President back off, and if so, should it be philosophically or acrimoniously? Or if he goes ahead with an air strike, what will that do to his relationship with Congress, and how will the people take it politically?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The people are overwhelmingly against attacking Syria. This is a political problem for some of those in Congress who believe a strike is necessary to maintain the credibility of the US in the world community of civilized nations. Simultaneously, the people don't have access to all the facts about the situation. Maybe we, the people, shouldn't have the last word. Or maybe we should be told more of the facts so that our last word is more likely to be right.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A different type of political problem is faced by the President. His approval ratings have recently been at low tide so he doesn't want to take any political chances, yet he is already on record as favoring an action the electorate dislikes. He isn't up for re-election, but he needs his popularity to help him get more of his policies in place. Yet if he backs out of the strike, he looks weak on the world stage, which also hurts him politically at home.</span><br /><br /><b style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Presidential Problems</b><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The President isn't getting much traction for several reasons. He isn't really out there selling his program. He talks about it, but he doesn't say enough about why it's better than some other program, or even about why it's necessary. He can send out his emissaries to talk to us, and John Kerry could be effective at it, but the President undercut his Secretary of State last week, and that cost Kerry a lot of credibility on his own right.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The President's indecisiveness hurts him tremendously. He says he doesn't need Congress and he will strike quickly. Then he thinks it over, and decides to ask for the blessing of Congress. This in turn makes him seem to be too quick to threaten and too slow to act.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He can't convince our traditional good allies to help him with the job. Why?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He has no personal credibility with about half of the population, and about half of the rest are skeptical. He said he intended to make just a one-day air strike. Senator John McCain also assures us there will be no "boots on the ground." But the Pentagon has estimated it would take 150,000 boots on the ground (75,000 troops) to secure Assad's ChemW's. And he can't honestly rule out the possibility of the need for those soldiers, because he hasn't convinced anybody that he doesn't really want to remove Assad and secure the ChemW's.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He compounded his credibility problem by claiming that HE didn't draw any red lines, everybody else did, even though the video is right up there for everybody to see. That's inexplicable, because it's unnecessary.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He announced his battle strategy two weeks ago (firing a warning shot), which made it immediately ineffective and meaningless. His eagerness to tell us the good ideas he has leads him to tell everybody everything about them. This trait doesn't inspire confidence in his judgment.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">He has no experience as a leader of large operations, and he doesn't project the image of a man who can do it the first time he tries. He is looked upon as particularly unsuited for the task he is setting up for himself. In fact, there may be a majority of Americans who think he's incapable of pulling it off, and they don't want to have a military operation that is destined to fail from the start, costing us even more lives.</span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">And finally, among and beyond those who don't believe in the President's ability to successfully lead our military in battle, there are more than a few who don't trust the man, Obama. They don't trust his words, they don't trust his motives, and they don't trust his wisdom. They may not be a majority, but their numbers aren't small and they are vocal, and they are gaining adherents. It behooves this President to give them nothing to hang their suspicions on.<br /><br /><b>Putting it together</b><br /><br />We have a situation with a great number of unknowns and very few knowns. The situation <i>may be</i> critical, but it hasn't been convincingly explained as to why it's critical.<br /><br />Absent the explanation, there is little public support for the action.<br /><br />Absent a track record on the President's part, with a widespread lack of confidence in his military leadership abilities, and without a pressing need for immediate action, this operation seems unlikely to proceed.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">I believe it's much more likely that the President will change direction again before Tuesday, September 10, 2013, and that he will start a new initiative of some kind, perhaps diplomatic, perhaps through the U.N., and he will tone the belligerent rhetoric way, way down. The speech Tuesday night could kick that off.</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/09/08/what-will-president-obama-do-about-syria/">RedState</a>.</span>Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-80884222657171705852013-09-08T13:37:00.000-07:002013-09-08T13:37:32.701-07:00Brief and Direct: Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood<br />
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From the morning paper--Eugene Robinson of the <em>WaPo Writers Group</em>, regarding Egyptian turmoil:</div>
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<strong>The interior minister's claim</strong> that soldiers did not use live ammunition <strong>was the kind of bald-faced lie that only repressive governments think they can get away with</strong>; Western correspondents described seeing protesters cut down by sniper fire....</blockquote>
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I say a regime with the press in its pocket thinks the same way. If those correspondents didn't report it, they <em>would</em> get away with it. How about the following gems from somewhere closer than Egypt? Is the government that issued <em>these</em> bald-faced lies "repressive"? I think it's getting there:</div>
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Black Panthers with clubs outside polling places? Nothing to see there. No prosecution necessary.</div>
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We have to give millions of dollars to companies like Solyndra to "jump start" the Green industry.</div>
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The Keystone pipeline would only create 50 permanent jobs.</div>
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The border has never been as secure as it is today.</div>
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The shooting at Fort Hood is an example of "workplace violence."</div>
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It's Bush's fault.</div>
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The president was closely involved in the capture/killing of bin Laden.</div>
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We've created 9 million new jobs.</div>
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The attack at Benghazi was caused by an objectionable video posted on the Internet.</div>
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The decision to sidetrack Tea Party groups' legal applications for educational tax status was made by "rogue agents" in a regional office.</div>
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Liberal groups were targeted by the IRS just as Tea Party groups were.</div>
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The President can't comment on the attempts to deport a family who had been granted asylum from German religious persecution. This isn't the seventeenth century.</div>
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We <em>had</em> to tell the judge that James Rosen was suspected of being a conspirator to leak secrets. Otherwise, he wouldn't have granted the warrant to tap Rosen's phones and emails. But we "never intended to prosecute him for being a reporter."</div>
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We are storing pictures of every piece of mail sent in the US, and we retain copies of the metadata associated with every phone call made and every email sent, and we can access the contents of many or all of them, but we would never look at any of them without a properly executed and justified warrant.</div>
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Spending hundreds of millions of dollars for the President and his family to vacation in Europe, Africa, and Asia is completely justified by his position.</div>
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We have a deficit because too many people are not paying their fair share of taxes.</div>
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It's Bush's fault.</div>
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I have doubled the national debt because Congress wouldn't cooperate with me.</div>
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We think the actions of the perpetrators of (Benghazi, Ft. Hood, Fast and Furious, IRS malfeasance, GSA overspending, NSA privacy and procedure violations) are unconscionable and unacceptable.</div>
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We won't stop until we bring the perpetrators of (Benghazi, Ft. Hood, Fast and Furious, IRS malfeasance, GSA overspending, NSA privacy and procedure violations) to justice.</div>
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Benghazi, Ft. Hood, Fast and Furious, IRS malfeasance, GSA overspending, NSA privacy and procedure violations are phony scandals.</div>
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Republicans want to deny health care to the poor.</div>
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It's ok for the President to enforce only the parts of laws that he likes. That's what we call "faithfully executing" the law. He can delay the parts of Obamacare that are inconvenient politically, because he's the President.</div>
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Congress will be covered by Obamacare, just like everybody else.</div>
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Congress and its staff can't afford to participate in Obamacare unless the government picks up 75% of the tab.</div>
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We can cover the health needs of 30 million additional non-paying individuals, and it won't cost one thin dime more than it does now. (And the quantity and quality of care won't suffer, either.)</div>
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You'll be able to keep your present health insurance if you want to.</div>
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The government won't restrict access to health care for the elderly or anybody else.</div>
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Income tax information is completely secure. It is never disclosed to anyone without a court order.</div>
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The privacy and integrity of your health records will be safe with us.</div>
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It's <em>still</em> Bush's fault.</div>
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Heck, this regime can even get away with telling the painful <em>truth</em> without being called on it:</div>
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I'm in favor of wealth re-distribution.</div>
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When we pass this Cap and Trade legislation, it will cause energy prices to skyrocket.</div>
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What I want in the end is a single-payer health insurance program.</div>
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The elderly may have to accept pain killers instead of surgery.</div>
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I won.</div>
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<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Previously </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">published at </span><a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/08/16/brief-and-direct-mr-robinsons-neighborhood/">RedState.com</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.</span></i>Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-51979443679477252372013-09-08T13:11:00.000-07:002013-09-08T13:14:40.540-07:00Brief and Direct: How Can Our Favorites Fall from Grace So Fast?<br />
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From an answer to another RedState poster (with an edit at the end):</div>
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To answer you straight, a reason conservatives have a hair trigger when it comes to their elected favorites is that it matters so much. If you are a member of a sizable majority, the occasional defection for whatever reason can make no difference at all; it can be understood as a tactical move prior to an election, important to the defector but not to the final outcome.</div>
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The same is true if you are part of a hopeless minority. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins were acceptable for that reason, for a while. They usually voted the right way, seldom made any difference. The most important thing they did was fill Senate seats as Republicans, giving the 'Pubs two vote closer to a majority for CONTROL OF THE SENATE or to block Democrats as a significant minority.</div>
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When legislative things get close, then individual votes start to matter more. In those situations, Democrats seem to understand and they toe the line. Republicans don't, perhaps because they haven't had enough experience as a majority. Bart Stupak was the poster boy for being "persuadable." He and his constituents were anti-OCare-abortions, so he was promised there would be none, and his vote pushed OCare over the top (IIRC). It turned out that his constituents were simply anti-OCare. He declined to run for re-election in 2010, and in gratitude his constituents elected a Republican to replace him. So toeing the line can have its price, as can broken promises. And now we have an OCare that <em>includes</em> abortion funding in some cases.</div>
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But I digress. Mis-steps by Rubio and Rand Paul and anybody else are magnified in importance because of the size of their footprints. To use Rubio as an example, he was elected by a popular groundswell in reaction to obvious dissembling by Charlie Crist. He was, and IS, a solid conservative--about everything but the immigration issue. Therefore, I could forgive his position on it, even his participation in the Gang of 8, UP TO A POINT.</div>
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As long as he was steadfast in his demand for sensible sequencing, for border security before amnesty (let's just use the word instead of being nit-picky about whether it's the "right" word or not), as long as he was truthful, he got a pass from me because of his unique situation. Once he started backing off of security-first, claiming that a plan is as good as a deed, accommodating Chuck Schumer in back-room deals, he lost my support. As I have stated here more than once, he can regain it only by renouncing the Go8 deal and removing his name from it.</div>
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Face it. If Rubio's name were not on this abomination of an immigration disaster, it wouldn't have much of a chance of getting out of the Senate, let alone passing in the House. His support for it is crucial. And his opposition would be crucial as well.</div>
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So let that be an answer to your unasked question--Why are conservatives so quick to denounce their former favorites? Because they're so important, but only as long as they remain conservative on critical issues.</div>
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<i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Previously </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">published at </span><a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/06/16/brief-and-direct-how-can-our-favorites-fall-from-grace-so-fast/">RedState.com</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">.</span></i>Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-6937010642259138672013-09-08T13:01:00.000-07:002013-09-08T13:13:24.877-07:00Brief and Direct: How Can We Know the News Is True?<br />
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<b>There's only one way to decide.</b></div>
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Every bit of news must be weighed against common sense, not cynically, but clinically. Does what is being reported make good sense? Does it describe the way real people act? Remember that "real people" include dishonest people, uninformed people, good people, evil people, people with a different outlook on problems than you do, and people who may have MORE information than you have. Do the reports cover relevant issues, or do they emphasize sensationalism, speculation, and assign arcane motives to random actions that could well be meaningless?</div>
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<span style="color: #42474a; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Then ask, are the reports complete? Do they attempt to describe the entire event or issue, or is the report incomplete without explanation? Do they leave obvious questions unanswered or even unasked? Do they accept unlikely, illogical explanations from official sources without questioning them? Some of these questions can only be answered definitively by prior knowledge of the event or issue, or in retrospect; others answer themselves as you realize that you have questions the reporter hasn't tried to answer.</span></span></div>
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For example, we have been told that President Obama was briefed at 5 pm about the attack on Benghazi, he observed some of the attack in the White House situation room, he then told the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to "take care of it" or something like that, and then he went to bed and wasn't involved at all in any subsequent activity. There doesn't seem to be any dispute--that is what happened. It also seems indisputable that there are many unasked and unanswered questions in that timeline. Two simple ones are <b>Where</b> was the President during that time, and <b>What</b> was he doing?</div>
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And we must ask ourselves, <b>What</b> would cause a President to abdicate his authority to subordinates at a time when our country's sovereign soil (a consulate, we've been told), is under attack, (especially a President who was so visibly involved in the situation room during the Osama bin Laden capture and killing, all the way to the end)?</div>
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<i>We must ask</i>, <b>Why</b> was the Ambassador in that situation to begin with?</div>
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<i>We must ask</i>, <b>Why</b> wasn't an (official) attempt made to thwart the attacks?</div>
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<i>We must ask</i>, <b>Why</b> was an obviously false story about an offensive video put forth as a prime cause for the attack?</div>
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<i>We must ask</i>, <b>Why</b> have the survivors of the attack been essentially hidden away from Congressional investigators?</div>
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<i>We must ask</i>, <b>Why</b> do senior government officials believe they need both legal counsel and Congressional protection to tell their stories to the House committee investigating the attack?</div>
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Now that more information is coming to light, we must ask <b>Why</b> are only Republicans asking questions about the facts of what happened, and <b>why</b> are Democrats doing everything they can to prevent those questions from being answered and to marginalize the answers that emerge?</div>
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And no matter what eventually comes out, we must ask, <b>Why</b> did the MSM decide that it wasn't important to find out the answers to any of these questions before the national elections in November, 2012?</div>
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After all the questions like that are asked, it's up to us, ourselves, to answer them.</div>
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Those were examples, so I'll give one example of a possible answer we can figure out for ourselves. In answer to the question, Why would a President delegate his authority to his underlings (he is stuck with the responsibility, at least President Truman would have been)? My belief is that he wanted to be able to distance himself from whatever developed. He never seems to want his name on the line until the results are in. If it turned out well, he could claim to be instrumental in that success. If not, as was the case, it wasn't his fault. He wasn't even there. "He didn't build it."</div>
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You can figure out your own answers. Try it.</div>
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Edited and expanded from an article previously <span style="font-size: 14px;">published at </span><a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/05/08/brief-and-direct-how-can-we-know-the-news-is-true/" style="font-size: 14px;">RedState.com</a>.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-85993509320416319262013-09-08T12:28:00.000-07:002013-09-08T12:28:57.176-07:00Brief and Direct: The Benefits of Obamacare<br />
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<i>April 30, 2013--Washington, DC--<b>The White House</b></i></div>
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In a news conference this morning, President Obama was asked a question about the Affordable Health Care Act by reporter Chuck Todd: "Why does Senator [Max] Baucus... believe that this is going to be [a train wreck], and why do you believe he's wrong?" The President's answer is enlightening.</div>
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"...A huge chunk of it's already been implemented. And for the 85 to 90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, they're already experiencing most of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act even if they don't know it. Their insurance is more secure, insurance companies can't drop them, uh, for bad reasons, their kids are able to stay on their health insurance until they're 26 years old, ahh, they're getting free preventive care. ...this thing's already happened, and their only impact is that their insurance is stronger, better, more secure than it was before. Full stop. That's it. Now, they don't have to worry about anything else."</div>
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<b>That's all? He forgot these "benefits"</b>:</div>
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<li><span data-mce-style="line-height: 13px;" style="line-height: 13px;">Many workers are in danger of losing their existing insurance as it becomes too expensive for their employers to carry.</span></li>
<li>Premium costs for the self-insured are already much higher</li>
<li>The government is the 'decider' about what is a 'bad reason' for termination or a good enough one</li>
<li>We get to pay extra for those 25-year-old 'children'</li>
<li>The 'free' preventive care comes with strings, and surely <em>somebody</em> is paying for it</li>
<li>A real unmentioned impact is that the cost of all health insurance is already skyrocketing</li>
<li>People are being forced to carry insurance they don't want, or with more coverage than they want</li>
<li>Payments to health care providers are being drastically cut to help offset the higher cost of administration of the new bureaucracy</li>
<li>Taxes will go up to pay for the rest of the new bureaucracy and increased use of medical facilities</li>
<li>One result: Doctors are already leaving their practices (I received a letter from mine today informing me she is retiring) which will mean a <em>scarcity of care</em>, whether there is 'coverage' or not</li>
<li>Taxes will have to go up to pay premiums for all the newly covered indigent patients</li>
<li>The 85 to 90 percent figure is made up out of whole cloth; there is no basis for it in reality</li>
<li>Insurance premium costs are forecast to rise in future years to an unsustainable figure; the eventual result will be lower quality care, from less-qualified providers, less innovation in treatments, equipment, and medicine, and long waiting periods for much care</li>
<li>The Administration is already talking about withholding certain treatments for patients beyond certain cutoff ages</li>
<li>The AHCA is so onerous that businesses by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, are asking for exemptions to be excluded from it</li>
<li>Even unions, Obama supporters, who wanted it before it passed are calling it a disaster in the making, as does Senator Baucus--"a train wreck." They have the resources to study, understand, and reject it</li>
<li>Workers in some industries are having their hours cut back to keep businesses under the 50 full-time employee threshold</li>
<li>Perhaps worst of all, it does nothing it was promised to do--it doesn't reduce or hold down costs, it will not end up with more people able to receive care in the end, and the quality of the care they do receive will be compromised</li>
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They might be worrying about those issues. They're already experiencing that "benefit," too.</div>
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Does the President not know these facts, or does he simply think that <em>we</em> don't know them? And why does it have to be reported in a blog, rather than in the MSM?</div>
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Originally published at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/04/30/brief-and-direct-the-benefits-of-obamacare/">RedState.com</a></div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-87289170121606393322013-04-22T12:17:00.000-07:002013-04-22T12:42:49.722-07:00Senator Jeff Flake Sets Record for Drowning in the Potomac Waters<br />
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Sens. McCain, Graham, Rubio complicit, lured Flake in over his head</h2>
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I'll try to remain respectful toward the office, but it'll be hard. After all, the man is either lying to our faces or under the influence of Potomac Fever. He went from conservative Congressman to fellow-traveler in about three months. My statement is provoked by a column, supposedly written by Senator Jeff Flake, which appeared April 20 in the National Review Online, titled "<a data-mce-href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346166/conservative-case-immigration-reform" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346166/conservative-case-immigration-reform" id="font-size26">The Conservative Case for Immigration Reform</a>." In it, Flake attempts to explain his immigration bill and assuage our fears about it. I suppose it goes without saying that I think he fails miserably. In fact, it reads like the junior high team got trounced by the senior varsity players (Sens. Schumer and Durbin). The perhaps worse alternative is that Rubio and Flake actually believe they've come up with a good bill. I'll provide you point-and-counterpoint to the end.</div>
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Senator Flake, this is really for your benefit, so I address my comments to you.</div>
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First paragraph:</div>
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<strong>"What I never expected was that Senator Rubio and I would be working on immigration-reform legislation with liberals like Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Dick Durbin (D., Ill.)."</strong></div>
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Neither did we, Senator, neither did we. It's not what we elected you to do.</div>
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Second:</div>
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<strong>"While conservatives are justified in their skepticism of any legislation that Senators Schumer and Durbin sign off on, I hope we don’t let their association with the bill that is now before the Senate overshadow the conservative elements that Republicans have included."</strong></div>
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Gee, do you think so? Do you realize you just said our skepticism is justified? That may be the most completely honest statement in the column. Maybe <em>you</em> should be a little more skeptical. And it doesn't really matter that there may be some "conservative elements" in the bill, because it is loaded with <a data-mce-href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/16/hey-charlie-brown-are-you-ready-for-some-immigration-football/" href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/16/hey-charlie-brown-are-you-ready-for-some-immigration-football/"><em>anti</em>-conservative elements</a>.</div>
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<strong>"It requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop a “Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy” and appropriates $3 billion to implement the plan.... DHS is also required to develop the “Southern Border Fencing Strategy,” with $1.5 billion.... if they do not achieve a 90 percent effectiveness rate within five years (meaning that 9 of every 10 illegal border crossers is apprehended), another $2 billion will be spent to implement recommendations from a commission of border stakeholders, who, for the first time, will have meaningful authority to increase border security."</strong></div>
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So, now we know it requires that a lot of money be spent ($4.5B), and if it doesn't work at "a 90 percent effectiveness rate <strong>within five years</strong>," even more will be spent ($2B) to ask somebody called "border stakeholders" what <em>they</em> think should be done. Here's a suggestion. Why don't you ask them <em>first</em>, and save five years? And shouldn't the DHS already<em> have</em> a comprehensive strategy to protect our southern border? Isn't that <em>already</em> the law? Isn't that part of their <em>job</em>?</div>
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And just how do we determine that we are catching 9 out of 10 illegal border crossers? Do they check out of Mexico as they leave, so that we have a count of the total number and can thereby tell when we've caught 90% of them? Seems to me that otherwise, by definition, if we don't catch them, <em>we don't know how many we didn't catch,</em> which would mean we can't calculate the percentage caught. (I have a degree in physics, so I know how math and percentages work. You need both a numerator <strong>and</strong> a denominator.)<br />
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Or do we just use the same people who tell us that the census is x% undercounted in urban Hispanics and y% undercounted in rural Chechnyans, and therefore another Democrat Congressman was cheated out of his seat? Is that the "border security" you have so sincerely promised we would have before there is "no" amnesty? And I thought Barack Obama was the expert on smoke and mirrors.</div>
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Whew. Almost halfway through. Let's continue.</div>
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<strong>"This bill ensures that no illegal immigrant will be given amnesty or rewarded for illegal behavior. In fact, no illegal immigrant will be “given” anything.</strong></div>
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<strong>Before any illegal immigrant can adjust to a non-citizenship provisional status, DHS must have submitted the border-security and border-fencing strategies."</strong></div>
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Did you actually <em>write</em> that? After the <em>strategies</em> have been submitted, then the change in status (called Registered Provisional Immigrant, or RPI) can occur? Not after the border is <strong>secure</strong>, but only after DHS has <em>submitted a <strong>"strategy,"</strong></em> which probably won't even work? And they are definitely "given" the right to stay here legally, <em>which is exactly what they crossed the border illegally to get in the first place</em> (did I get that right, Associated Press?). Can it be any clearer that this is a complete renunciation of your promise of Border Security First, <em>then</em> legalization? (These issues have been covered in more detail by Daniel Horowitz <a data-mce-href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/17/gang-plan-perennial-de-facto-amnesty/" href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/17/gang-plan-perennial-de-facto-amnesty/">here</a> and <a data-mce-href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/18/legal-waivers-will-defang-enforcement-in-gang-bill/" href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/18/legal-waivers-will-defang-enforcement-in-gang-bill/">here</a> and <a data-mce-href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/18/the-obmamacare-style-waiver-authority-of-immigration-bill-nullifies-talking-points/" href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/04/18/the-obmamacare-style-waiver-authority-of-immigration-bill-nullifies-talking-points/">here</a>.)</div>
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<strong>"Only then will these immigrants be able to legally work in the country — but they will <em>not</em> be eligible for government assistance (unemployment, welfare, Obamacare, etc.)."</strong></div>
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Just one sentence here to point out that this prohibition will last just long enough for the first RPI status immigrant's ACLU lawyer to get his briefs to the right federal courthouse, where a sympathetic judge will declare that it mandates "unequal treatment under the law" and is therefore a no-no to be ignored. To continue--</div>
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<strong>"Moreover, to be eligible for this non-citizenship provisional status, illegal immigrants must pay a $500 fine, pass a background check, and pay fees."</strong></div>
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As almost anybody might say, Big Whoop. In fact, total fines under the bill are only $2000. Considering that some of the RPI's will have been here perhaps twenty years, that isn't much. And about the background check--we are told that we don't have the resources to deport any of these people, yet we do have the resources to carry out background checks on all of them? Are they going to work for the FBI? Give me a break! This is unworkable on its face, especially given that there will be millions more streaming over the border with false documents to "prove" they were already here in 2011.</div>
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Furthermore, we are told (when it's convenient) that "half of the illegally overstaying foreigners came in on student visas." Will they get to apply for RPI status, too? Why? What do you plan to do with those of any stripe who don't apply for RPI status at all?</div>
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<strong>"Only after ten years can these provisional-status immigrants apply for a green card (which is still short of U.S. citizenship). In order to earn a green card, they will have to pay all back taxes, maintain employment in the U.S., learn English and civics, and wait until everyone who applied for a green card before them has been processed. It will likely be close to 13 years before current illegal immigrants begin to become eligible for citizenship."</strong></div>
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It sounds draconian, until you realize that all these poor, unfortunate RPI's will have spent those years waiting and <em>working</em> <strong>here</strong> in the US of A, which, I repeat,<em> is exactly what they crossed the border illegally to do in the first place</em>. And they get to do it legally, neither of which the <em>prospective</em> immigrants who followed the law could do, because they are still where they started, <em>not here</em>.</div>
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<strong>"Conservatives worried that President Obama or Secretary Napolitano will be able to expedite the legalization sections of the bill while dragging their feet on border security should consider that the border-security measures come first, while the status-adjustment portions of the bill will take many years. It’s also worth noting that it’s likely that this process will occur under both Democratic and Republican administrations."</strong></div>
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But we have just shown that the only border security measures the bill demands before legalization are <em>strategies</em>, not real security-creating <em>actions</em>. And there is absolutely nothing that will make a President Obama enforce the parts of the law he doesn't like (he isn't enforcing those parts <em>now</em>), nor is there anything that would keep a future Democrat President and Congress from changing the law, either. Of course that is true of any law, but if the physical border security infrastructure is already installed before amnesty, it will be harder for them to say, "We just don't have the resources to secure the borders now, but we <em>can</em> do the status adjustments," because the physical barriers will already be in place. Unfortunately, technological fences can be dismantled with an order or a flip of a switch.</div>
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<strong>"I think we can all agree that the status quo is unacceptable, and I’m convinced that this legislation moves us in a positive direction."</strong></div>
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Again, Senator, no. The only thing wrong with the status quo is that the Democrats beat you like a drum with it, because like a drum, you are flat on your backs. That, and the fact that the border is too sieve-like to protect us from any serious foreign threat carrying a small nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon. And it doesn't keep out drug cartels or illegally-crossing foreigners, either. So fix that part, then come back to ask what you should do about "status adjustments." That's why those of us who are serious about solving the problem, not placating a pressure group, have insisted from the first that we shouldn't even <em>talk</em> about anything else until the border is truly secure. This bill is NOT an improvement.</div>
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ps. I'm insulted that you think we are stupid enough to think this is good law. Today, your credibility level stands at zero. IF you and Senator Rubio were to renounce this bill today and remove your names from it, admitting you were turned every which way but loose by the other six Senators in your gang, and pledge to fight its passage, you MIGHT have a SLIM chance to redeem yourselves. Forget about the top of the ticket, but you MIGHT get re-elected to the Senate. If the bill passes, no chance at all. That may turn out to be wrong, but it's honest advice.</div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeecc; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Cross-posted at </span><a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/04/22/senator-jeff-flake-sets-record-for-drowning-in-the-potomac-waters/" target="_blank">RedState</a><span style="background-color: #eeeecc; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">.</span></div>
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Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-52285171101584955162013-03-31T22:59:00.000-07:002013-04-01T08:28:21.944-07:00Brief and Direct: Is Marriage a Right or a Rite?<br />
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How can a right require the continuing agreement and support of another person?</h3>
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<em>Another in a sporadic series of short commentaries on current events</em><br />
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<strong>Marriage Equality?</strong></div>
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"Marriage Equality" is a recently-coined euphemism for "gay marriage," which is itself a euphemism as well. Our tender psyches apparently don't respond well to euphemisms that get too close to saying what they mean, especially in advocacy advertising. Still, it's a great phrase that conveys exactly what its proponents want to convey--that everybody has a <em>right</em> to marry the spouse of his or her choice, gay or straight: <em>marriage equality!</em> The advertisements are superbly crafted.</div>
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I won't go into the arguments that support that position; you've heard them all before. But all those arguments apply equally well to numbers greater than <em>two</em>. And if you believe that there is a Constitutionally protected "right" to marry whomever you choose, you must also agree that the same right applies to marriages between <em>more than two</em> people. Logically, the connection is undeniable. If the right exists, to restrict it to two people we would have to find specific language in the Constitution that does so, and there is no such language.</div>
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<strong>So is it a right?</strong></div>
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An argument can be made that marriage is NOT a right because it imposes a burden on someone else to fulfill it, not just one time but on a continuing basis; that is, the other partner has to be willing to marry also. If we had a <em>right</em> to marry, we could just pick out a spouse and say, "Tag, you're it," and it certainly wouldn't require approval from a government to do so. A right either exists or it doesn't; it can't depend on the continuing agreement and support of another person to exist, as does a "right to marry." I believe that argument is a compelling one, but a court might disagree.</div>
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I believe what we really have is <strong><em>a right</em> <em>to remain single</em></strong>, and a process exists to enter into marriage if we can find a qualifying and willing spouse. That the government has butted into the process is just a complication, but it's a big one, because it has granted many special privileges, and some penalties, to people who are married.</div>
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<strong>What does "marriage" mean?</strong></div>
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Or perhaps, <em>why</em> does marriage mean what it means, and who gets to change the definition? Or more specifically, who gets to decide who qualifies as a spouse? Is it a court? A statewide initiative? A legislature? A church?</div>
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Those questions have been all tangled up by our over-reaching government which has created onerous laws and wants to mitigate their effects on married couples, and those laws use the terms "husband," "wife," "spouse," and "marriage" in legal definitions, mostly in tax law, but in contract and business law as well, and in the most obvious case--in insurance and employment benefit plans. Thus, calls to "get the government out of the marriage business," are way too simplistic to provide a real resolution to our current debate. The legal changes required are probably even greater than those that would be needed to overturn ObamaCare. But it's hard to argue that anybody <em>but</em> the government gets to define what a <em>legal</em> marriage is, and that includes setting rules as to what minimally constitutes a qualified spouse. Setting a minimum age for marital consent is one example that varies among states.</div>
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The societal changes might require even more effort, <em>if decreed by the government</em>, because marriage is more than a legal state, it's a social institution, a moral convention, a state of being. People who are married are expected both by society and by the law to behave in certain minimal ways. Sometimes people are treated, even legally, as if they had been formally married simply because they behave that way. And there is probably plenty of societal support for the legal concept of civil unions, because they attempt to bring some order and fairness to the chaos created by governmental marriage privileges. But the <em>social</em> definition of marriage is defined primarily by societal norms and common usage. Its history is thousands of years old, so naturally there is resistance to change, even resistance to changing a <em>legal</em> definition. And there isn't a requirement that it have the same definition as the legal one.</div>
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<strong>Conclusion?</strong></div>
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If marriage is determined by the Supreme Court to be a "right" rather than a "rite," many unwanted consequences will logically follow. Courts will have more and more decisions they won't want to make, and it will never be resolved. But if it bypasses that trap and allows the decision to remain in state hands (overturning the 9th Circuit and lower federal courts at the same time), without creating a <em>right to marry</em>, it eliminates it as a federal <em>judicial</em> problem. Still a federal legislative and executive problem, perhaps, but it will be clear that there is <em>no Constitutional requirement</em> to federally define or even deal with marriage at all.</div>
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This doesn't solve the Defense of Marriage Act quandary (that's a separate issue, and it's either Constitutional or not), but it would allow states to define a marriage as they see fit, as could the US Congress, to apply to laws where it is necessary. But the definition could be <em>anything that makes sense,</em> for the state or for the US.</div>
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Naturally, this won't satisfy many people. The demand for "Marriage Equality" isn't a logical one, it's a legal and emotional one. But civil unions could and should be readily available in all states, legal constructs that <em>should</em> confer the same legal rights on the participants that marriages do, <em>for more reasons than those put forth by gay-marriage proponents</em>. What is the demand that they be called "marriages" about, anyway? An emotional, subjective, and extra-Constitutional plea for "fairness." Without a justifiable civil right to marry, we are left with only a demand that society change its opinion, and that can't be decreed by a court.</div>
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What a court decision affirming California's Proposition 8 will do is allow the voice of the people to count, and for other voices to be heard either directly or through their representatives, and it will mean the final decision is a popular one rather than one decreed by a court of nine judges. If "marriage" is not a "right," there will be far fewer reasons for federal courts to intervene in state business. Better for the Court, and better for the unruly civil union called The United States of America.<br />
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A shorter version of this argument is posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/04/01/brief-and-direct-is-marriage-a-right-or-a-rite/" target="_blank">RedState</a>.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-3622605181757985072013-02-25T17:22:00.000-08:002013-02-25T17:35:51.798-08:00Brief and Direct: Why are Firemen Always the First To Be Laid Off?<br />
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After garbage workers, that is.</h4>
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<em style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px;">Another in an unscheduled series of short commentaries on current events</em></h4>
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Maybe because we'll miss them the most.</div>
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Because the President has forgotten he's already been elected and he's been campaigning across the country to defeat his own idea, there are too many sources to quote regarding the dire consequences President Obama sees if the sequester, or Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), isn't averted. So <a data-mce-href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/20/the-sequester-absolutely-everything-you-could-possibly-need-to-know-in-one-faq/" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/20/the-sequester-absolutely-everything-you-could-possibly-need-to-know-in-one-faq/" target="_blank">without individual attribution</a> here are some of the services we will lose.</div>
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Local first responders--fire, police, EMS.</div>
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Teachers.</div>
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Military "readiness" and "preparedness."</div>
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Airport security and TSA.</div>
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Homeland Security. Border Patrol.</div>
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FEMA, FDA, NASA.</div>
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(Wait a minute, wasn't NASA killed last year? Here's one that's for sure going to save money: the National Drug Intelligence Center, still slated for a $2 million cut to a $20 million dollar budget. But it was closed on 6/15/2012. Why does it need a budget?)</div>
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FBI, NRC, the federal prison system, SEC.</div>
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Sounds awful, until we notice that these "cuts" come out of a budget that's already scheduled to increase <em>more</em> than the cuts amount to. And that Republicans have offered to give the President emergency authority to allocate these cuts in ways that are "least harmful."</div>
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The basic insincerity of the President is clear if you just cast a skeptical eye on these threats. The threats always target services that the federal government has at least some legitimate reason to be involved in, never mentioning pork barrel programs whose elimination would hardly be noticed by anybody who doesn't lose a job as the result. And why should anybody elsewhere lose a job, at least because of the sequester? There will <em>still</em> be more money available than there was last year. At worst, we're talking about simply holding the line against expansion of government.</div>
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This is the most transparent administration, ever, at least in this case. It's transparently obvious that the President's aim is to scare the gullible. You don't scare them by threatening to cut off funding to a study of the hare-brained snail darter, you scare them by saying they won't have police or fire service.</div>
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This has been standard operating procedure for years. The lists at city and state level usually include no more garbage pickups, no road repairs (and maybe the President mentioned those services, too). I wouldn't even be surprised to see them threaten to cut out Saturday mail delivery.</div>
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/02/25/brief-and-direct-why-are-firemen-always-the-first-to-be-laid-off/" target="_blank">RedState</a>.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-77502346096717712962013-02-24T21:25:00.000-08:002013-02-24T21:52:43.998-08:00Brief and Direct: Dr. Carson's Inspiring Idea<br />
<h3>
What Republicans can learn from Dr. Benjamin Carson</h3>
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<em style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Another in an unscheduled series of short commentaries on current events</em><br />
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<strong>Setting the stage</strong><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Dr. Benjamin Carson ruffled some feathers with </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyyHegP255g" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> a couple of weeks ago. You can't blame the Left for being ruffled--the speech was a High Right Fastball under the chin. They didn't like anything he said, and they didn't like the way he said it. They didn't like it that President Obama had to sit through it, and they really didn't like the fact that it was delivered by a black man who had studied and worked and achieved his way up from the worst kind of poverty to become the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.</span><br />
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Some on the Right ignored both the message and the messenger and concentrated on the event, choosing to be offended by the fact that Dr. Carson delivered a 'political' message at the prayer breakfast. To mention just one example, Cal Thomas, <a data-mce-href="http://www.kansas.com/2013/02/13/2673778/cal-thomas-prayer-breakfast-not.html" href="http://www.kansas.com/2013/02/13/2673778/cal-thomas-prayer-breakfast-not.html" target="_blank">writing in syndication</a> and online, sniffed that Dr. Carson's criticisms of the President's policies had been "inappropriate for the occasion."</div>
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"If Carson wanted to voice his opinion about the president’s policies, he could have done so backstage. Even better, he might have asked for a private meeting with the man."</blockquote>
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He was joined in his opinion by several other Conservatives of repute. Technically, they were right, but that's the kind of technicality that has been relegating Republicans to 'back row, right,' in pictures of important political and news events since Ronald Reagan left the White House.</div>
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<strong>Inspiration</strong></h4>
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<strong></strong>The inspiring idea I want to point out has nothing to do with the content of Carson's remarks, accomplishments, or his life, inspiring as they were and are. His inspiration was to do just what Thomas and the entire Left say he shouldn't have done--<em>use an 'inappropriate' venue to deliver a conservative message</em>.</div>
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I've beaten this dead horse into glue before: If nobody hears our message, we might as well not have one. <strong>We must make our statements in ways and places that can't be ignored or marginalized.</strong> Had Dr. Carson followed Cal Thomas' advice, nobody would have known about it. More important, <em>nobody else would have heard his conservative ideas</em>.<br />
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I may be wrong, but I'd bet that Dr. Carson has given the same speech to local groups before, yet nobody knows it. If you Google search for 'dr benjamin carson,' you get about 12 million hits. Of those, about 5.5 million are references to his speech at the breakfast. Draw your own conclusions, but I believe there are a lot of people who now know not only who he is, but what he said that morning and that there is more to the story than simply what the President and all his men tell us.</div>
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Further, millions more heard him and heard about him on television and radio, and had a chance to hear his message without a media filter. Perhaps even more important, millions of people heard or saw a non-political, highly educated, brilliant and talented professional black civilian deliver a speech promoting conservative values in a reasonable and thoughtful manner, and he didn't grow horns or fangs, and after it was all over the MSM didn't even try to rebut his words or reasoning, only his location. <strong>None of that would have happened had he chosen an 'appropriate' venue for his presentation</strong>.</div>
<h4>
<strong>The end justifies the means</strong></h4>
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Most conservatives don't like that phrase and we tend to oppose the idea, but it really depends on how distasteful the means are and how vital the end is. Dr. Carson balanced the two and delivered a speech that may have broken some rules but which was covered by most of the popular press, and the only spin they could generate was that it was "inappropriate for the occasion."</div>
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I don't suggest that Dr. Carson had any of these strategies in mind. There's no reason to believe he did anything other than deliver a speech that he thought was completely apropos, and <a data-mce-href="http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/23805-we-re-going-from-a-can-do-nation-to-a-what-can-you-do-for-me-nation" href="http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/23805-we-re-going-from-a-can-do-nation-to-a-what-can-you-do-for-me-nation" target="_blank">he says so</a>. </div>
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Whether he intended to make two kinds of statements that morning or not, he gave us an example that should be inspiring to Republicans, conservative or not. Get your message ready and when you deliver it, make it count by forcing the the MSM to both report it and report it accurately. The truth is always appropriate, but if it's spoken in a manner, time, and place that the MSM is forced to report it, it's even better.</div>
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Needed next: Ways to make this happen every week.</div>
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For another take on the Cal Thomas column, check out <a data-mce-href="http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/23822-cal-thomas-thinks-that-dr-ben-carson-is-a-big-ol-meanie-that-should-apologize-already" href="http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/23822-cal-thomas-thinks-that-dr-ben-carson-is-a-big-ol-meanie-that-should-apologize-already" target="_blank">Chicks On The Right</a>.</div>
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/02/25/brief-and-direct-dr-carsons-inspiring-idea/" target="_blank">RedState</a>.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-53043572825158860912013-02-22T22:27:00.000-08:002013-02-22T22:27:49.877-08:00Brief and Direct: Sequestration Needs to Happen<h3>
Nobody can agree on the small things, but EVERYTHING needs to be cut</h3>
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<a data-mce-href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3635" href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3635" target="_blank">Sequestration is to arrive soon</a>, allegedly to the surprise of the President, the Democrats, and the popular press. According to at least one source in that popular press, if sequestration is allowed to take effect there will be <a data-mce-href="http://www.14news.com/story/21286247/s?fb_comment_id=fbc_138117339690982_211145_138155846353798#f3e52abcf8" href="http://www.14news.com/story/21286247/s?fb_comment_id=fbc_138117339690982_211145_138155846353798#f3e52abcf8" target="_blank">numerous programs and services</a> to the public curtailed. Other sources, such as <a data-mce-href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/21/just-how-draconian-is-the-sequester-in-4-infographics/?tid=pm_politics_pop" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/21/just-how-draconian-is-the-sequester-in-4-infographics/?tid=pm_politics_pop" target="_blank">Chris Cillizza of WaPo</a>, provide a less pessimistic view.</div>
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A good President would seize this opportunity to shrink the deficit a little bit by cutting spending in areas that he normally wouldn't get a chance to touch, and to build some bridges to the other party. A poor one will use it as a campaign talking point.</div>
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You have probably heard him say that Republicans don't care about all the problems the sequester will bring on, they just don't want taxes raised on their rich friends--even though they <em>already</em> allowed taxes to go up on those friends in January, but never mind about that. The fact is, some of us <em>do</em> think they should let it happen, but not for that reason.</div>
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First, I don't see sequestration as causing a big problem for the country, although depending on how President Obama decides to implement it there <em>can</em> be significant hardships for certain groups of people. But that's already been happening for four years. This will mostly just be a different group of people, but the relatively small size of the sequester should allow a good administrator to work around it with minimal disruption of operations, or even none, <em>if he wants to</em>.</div>
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Second, Sequestration has been called using a meat ax to do what should be done with a scalpel. Here's what's wrong with that characterization: Our overspending problem <strong><em>needs</em></strong> an ax taken to it, whether meat or lumberjack's. Scalpels have been tried in the past, as have butcher and even Bowie knives, but it never works because opposing sides can never agree upon enough of what to pare. In the end, the hearings to decide what to cut cost more than what is saved IF anything ends up being cut at all.<br />
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Third, the attractive thing about sequestration is that the decisions have already been made. EVERYTHING will be cut. Well, almost half of everything, anyway. But sacred cows will bleed, even if it will only be flesh wounds, and even though they won't be deep enough to do any real fiscal good in the end. The good will come from the post-mortem that will follow the fact. The world will not end, and if the Republicans can hold their nerve they will have won a real victory from which to launch the next assault on overspending.<br />
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A. B. Stoddard of <a data-mce-href="http://thehill.com" href="http://thehill.com/" target="_blank">The Hill</a> suggested Wednesday on Fox <a data-mce-href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/index.html" href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/index.html" target="_blank">Special Report</a> that Republicans should take "a third bite of the apple" with the Democrats and compromise on sequestration, going along with the President and cutting spending down the road. I guess the first bite would have been the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling the last time with a promise of a 'grand bargain' that was scuttled by President Obama at the last moment in favor of his sequester plan, and the second was the tax rate increase passed last month in return for spending cuts (which are unspecified and will not happen). Not being a conservative, A. B. believes that this time the football will NOT be pulled away, and spending cuts will pass later.<br />
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No. This is a chance to actually <em>do</em> something rather than merely talk about what we <em>intend to </em>do. This situation is analogous to our illegal immigration situation. This is why conservatives demand that the border be <strong>secured first</strong> before we even talk about next steps. If decisions are made that satisfy liberal demands first, they will never support border security.<br />
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Democrats always insist that <em>we</em> do what <em>they</em> want first, then at some point in the future they'll reward us with what we want. Only it never happens. Although Republicans seem never to learn, if they hold firm here, there may be some hope left. <strong>They need to earn respect by standing by their own principles, allowing sequestration, and facing the consequences of "reduced" spending like responsible legislators.</strong><br />
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/02/23/brief-and-direct-sequestration-needs-to-happen/" target="_blank">RedState</a>.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-22241201599717400122013-02-15T22:11:00.000-08:002013-02-15T22:11:00.190-08:00Maybe It's the Undisciplined Messaging and Messages<br />
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<i>In response to Ben Howe's </i></div>
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<a href="http://www.redstate.com/2013/02/06/its-the-messaging-stupid-its-the-stupid-messaging/" target="_blank">It’s the Messaging, Stupid. It’s the Stupid Messaging.</a></h1>
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<b>[D]umb, ill-prepared and gaffe-tastic candidates will always be a part of American politics. You don’t win by making a strategy that consists of preventing people you think are too dumb en masse from picking a candidate. You win by effectively selling your ideas.</b></blockquote>
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Yes. To every pundit who has appeared on TV to say we can't continue to nominate candidates who say dumb things, I say that Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin were both seasoned politicians who had been elected to office many times previously. Did anybody out there know in advance they'd each make one public statement that bordered on the insane, at least AS SPUN BY THE MSM? They were indeed dumb statements to make, but were they predictable? More predictable was our Republican response, to abandon them to the open sea, rather than to defend them as merely victims of their own tongues who really meant, [insert whatever NEEDED to be said, even if it had to be precisely the opposite of what actually WAS said. Democrats do this all the time.] But the fact that they <em>did</em> say them illustrates a different problem with the GOP--they had no help in learning how to handle the press and its gotcha questions.</div>
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<b>We, as the low-tax & personal responsibility party cannot waltz into a low income housing area, look around, shake our heads and say “Hey, when are you guys going to stop being idiots and voting for people that think you’re stupid — also, you don’t pay enough taxes."</b><br />
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<b>Whether or not we view that as what happened, the people we’re talking to certainly did.</b></blockquote>
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Actually, that isn't even close to what was said. But it's metaphorically what was reported and repeated in the media WITHOUT REFUTATION. I know it's lame to say, "But he didn't say THAT," but it's even lamer to say "We agree with you and we're denouncing the scoundrel." There ARE other things to say and do.</div>
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<b>Of course, it’s not <em>only</em> messaging. There’s the issue of policy perscritpions[sic] that run counter to our alleged shared beliefs. As <a data-mce-href="http://michellemalkin.com/2013/02/04/kneel-before-zod-gop-control-freak-karl-rove-launches-new-effort-to-snuff-out-tea-party/" href="http://michellemalkin.com/2013/02/04/kneel-before-zod-gop-control-freak-karl-rove-launches-new-effort-to-snuff-out-tea-party/">Michelle Malkin pointed out</a>, Rove played a major role in “disastrous Medicare prescription drug entitlement expansion that created an unfunded liability of $9.4 trillion over the next 75 years, No Child Left Behind federal education expansion, steel tariffs, ag subsidies, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.”</b></blockquote>
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Right, again. Had Rove and W. not done some of those things, we might still have a 2-term Obama, and he might even have had more support. But we Republicans would have been spared the countless claims that we had added to the debt as much as all previous administrations combined, and we would have had some credibility as we tried to take on the mantle of the <em>Small(er) Government, Fiscal Responsibility Party</em> in 2012. Maybe a few more Tea Partiers would have voted for us instead of Ron Paul or Gomer Pyle on TVLand. We might have even gotten some Democrat votes.</div>
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<b>As the headline says, “It’s the messaging, stupid. It’s the stupid messaging.”</b></blockquote>
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<b>...You have to do more than <em>be</em> right. You have to <em>convince</em> people you are right.</b><br />
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<b>...Somehow we’re failing to convince people that keeping more of their paycheck and affording them less government interference in their lives is a good thing. “Don’t blame the messenger” just doesn’t apply here. The messenger is without a doubt the problem.</b></blockquote>
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That's the right track, but there is more to it. There is also a problem with the <em>listener</em>. If he is predisposed to reject the messenger, the message, no matter who delivers it, <em>will not have any effect, because it won't be heard</em>. The exception is if the speaker can capture the voter's interest and hold on to it long enough to break down that barrier.</div>
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Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute makes a strong case that we have a huge cultural hurdle to overcome--<a data-mce-href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/02/12/brief-and-direct-an-answer-from-the-ayn-rand-institute/" href="http://www.redstate.com/flagstaff/2013/02/12/brief-and-direct-an-answer-from-the-ayn-rand-institute/" target="_blank">Republicans are looked upon as selfish</a> (and Democrats are considered to be generous, or selfless) by too many people, and they don't want to listen to a "selfish" message from a "selfish" Republican, which is exactly what a message of self-reliance and independence sounds like if you only hear a little bit of it.</div>
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That's a big reason why they "like" Obama better than they "like" us in the polls, even though they tend mostly to agree with our ideas rather than with Democrat ideas, when they hear them from a pollster. And as Rush Limbaugh has been pointing out this week, the Democrat <em>ideas</em> simply don't stick to Obama.</div>
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They're predisposed to dismiss us and our ideas before they even hear us, so they <em>don't</em> hear us.</div>
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Obviously, this won't change in one election cycle, but it's a key problem that needs to be considered as our great speakers deliver our not-really-selfish message to the people we need to convince to listen to us and then believe us. So I guess I agree in the end--it's the <strike>stupid,</strike> no, undisciplined, unfocused and inadequate messaging and messages (not the principled message itself) that we have to modify to enable the ideas and solutions to be heard, no matter who the messenger is.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-49828959832935703062013-02-12T13:43:00.001-08:002013-02-12T13:44:37.543-08:00Brief and Direct: An Answer from the Ayn Rand Institute<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><b>How is it possible that we lose to Democrats?</b></span><br />
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Perhaps you have been asking yourself that question. After all, we win the debate on all the big issues, as verified by polls as recently as today, with questions in the form of "Do you agree with President Obama on...?" The majority of respondents don't agree with him on anything except defense in general, while they disagree with his specific policies, including those regarding defense.</div>
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The Flagstaff Tea Party was host last week to Yaron Brook, <a data-mce-href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=staff_board" href="http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=staff_board" target="_blank">Executive Director and President</a> of the Ayn Rand Institute. He spent over an hour answering the question, "Why are we losing?" not just the most recent election, but the war for public opinion for the last fifty years or so. The answer is intuitively obvious once revealed, but it doesn't easily convert to a sound bite, so we don't hear it in the popular media (nor would it be helpful if we did). And it involves cultural psychology.</div>
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<b style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;">Self-interest vs. selflessness</b></div>
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Our culture teaches us to revere those who give of themselves (<em>the selfless ones</em>), and to scorn those who make a lot of money (the <em>self-interested</em> ones), at least until they start to give it away. Although we suspend those prejudices when we go to work ourselves, we still hold them and apply them to public figures, including political candidates, so when one party convinces "us" that it's the party that gives to the needy, and ours is the party that says we can't afford to keep doing it that way, guess who wins. The subconscious prejudice frequently overwhelms logic, especially when we don't point out that our principles will make it easier to help the truly needy than theirs will, that self-interest promotes the public good far more than altruism does..</div>
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I note the parallel question, "How can President Obama's <a data-mce-href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/30/president-obamas-popularity-surges-to-three-year-high/" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/30/president-obamas-popularity-surges-to-three-year-high/" target="_blank">personal approval ratings</a> be so high when his policies are all unpopular?" This wasn't addressed by Brook, but it has the same answer. Why is President Obama looked upon as "likable," while Mitt Romney has been called "unlikable," to say the least? It isn't all because of the advertising hatchet-job Obama's campaign ran against Romney.</div>
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A brief comparison of the two men: Barack Obama has had a career in politics, preceded by a stint as a lecturer at the university level and a job as community organizer. He had no experience that relates to making hard decisions or even of doing the hard <em>work</em> of being President. He was never highly compensated until he was elected to political office. He was Constitutionally qualified to become President. He is a Democrat.</div>
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Mitt Romney is almost precisely the opposite. He has worked in profit-making concerns since he was young (excepting his Mormon mission time), even while starting his family and going to college. He ran his own company and was compensated well enough to be considered rich, to become Governor of Massachusetts, and to run for President. He was prepared by experience to be President. He is a Republican.</div>
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Each epitomizes his party as it is connoted in the public mind, and that is the key to Brook's answer--we are losing because the Republican Party is perceived to be the party of <em>self-interest</em>, frequently morphed into <em>selfishness</em>. The Democrat Party is perceived as the party of <em>self<strong>less</strong>ness</em><em>.</em> Selfish Republican Romney loses to selfless Democrat Obama in the hearts of enough voters to make the difference.</div>
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To close out my presidential metaphor, we couldn't have had two more stereotypical candidates running for office last time if we had tried, and our society is predisposed to prefer both the image <em>and the facts</em> of Obama over those of Romney, even though both the image and the facts are misleading. The attributes <i>we</i> liked in candidate Romney were much less highly regarded by the general population, and the baggage they carried with them hurt him.</div>
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<b>What can we do about it?</b></div>
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Brook admitted it will take time to change a cultural norm, but a start would be for our side to start standing up publicly for our own principles. For those principles that would make it hard for a politician to explain during a race, let our <em>non-politicians</em> talk about them.</div>
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The left has been using this tactic against us for years; we should be following their example of success.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-32813804599383467682013-02-02T11:58:00.000-08:002013-02-08T07:35:59.310-08:00Brief and Direct: Beware the Shiny Objects<br />
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<i style="font-weight: normal;">Another in an unscheduled series of short commentaries on current events</i></h2>
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In <a href="http://www.terriersoftheright.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-state-of-union-message-that-will.html" target="_blank">a recent diary</a>, I made a case that we are too often distracted by “shiny objects” put into play by the Democrats and kept in the public eye by their minions in the press. Examples I used included gun control, but the shiny new issue of Immigration Reform has been rolled out since then, with the help of our two Arizona Senators, Marco Rubio, and I suppose Lindsey Graham. Shiny objects take our eyes off the ball, distracting us from the issues that we should be paying attention to. Shiny objects are probably <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">not</em> unimportant, but they definitely <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">are</em> distractions.</div>
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Both gun control and immigration reform are classic examples of shiny objects. They are <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">attractive</em>. <span style="background-color: white;">They capture our</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><b>attention</b><span style="background-color: white;">. </span><span style="background-color: white;">They are </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">important</span><span style="background-color: white;">, but they don’t really require </span><i style="background-color: white;">immediate</i><span style="background-color: white;"> attention at all. Both can and should be handled through normal channels and nothing will be lost, because nothing can really be achieved by addressing them in the mode of the Crisis of the Month. It’s simply not possible to do anything effective about either issue in crisis mode; all we’ll get will be style, no substance, and real solutions if there are any are more likely to be worked out away from public view.</span></div>
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So, Republicans, what are they distracting us from? A bloated government, no budget from the Senate (resulting in Continuing Resolutions that expand the deficit and balloon the National Debt), out-of-control spending, serious unemployment, and the question of how to deal with the Debt Ceiling. These are real problems that the government is Constitutionally charged with addressing (unemployment’s included because it is government policy that’s made that problem worse).</div>
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What to do? Let the Democrats pontificate about the shiny objects. Let THEM propose unpalatable “solutions” to non-critical “problems.” Meanwhile, John Boehner has the right take now, if I understand him. Engage the Democrats on these shiny objects in “regular order.” Committee hearings. Deliberations. In other words, think before you act.</div>
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Do the same for the big issue of federal spending, but use your airtime to talk about it and explain why WE have the right answers (smaller government and less spending) instead of tilting at the gun and immigration windmills. If you simply HAVE to say something about immigration, just point out that border security has been promised (and paid for), and it hasn’t happened no matter what this week’s Big Lie is, and until security is achieved we have to keep working on it in regular order. In fact, <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/senate_democrats_pledge_regular_order_for_immigration_overhaul-222062-1.html" style="border: 0px; color: #b82026; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the Democrats have already agreed to it</a>.</div>
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Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-37060689408220799292013-01-28T13:56:00.000-08:002013-01-28T13:56:47.844-08:00Brief and Direct: Immigration Policy<i>First in an unscheduled series of short commentaries on current events</i><br />
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Talk of "comprehensive immigration reform" bubbled to the surface last week. We've seen this coming <a data-mce-href="http://www.terriersoftheright.blogspot.com/2012/08/security-first-vs-comprehensive-reform.html" href="http://www.terriersoftheright.blogspot.com/2012/08/security-first-vs-comprehensive-reform.html">for some time</a>. Since long before the last election. In fact, as long ago as <a data-mce-href="http://archive.redstate.com/story/2006/7/14/214858/838" href="http://archive.redstate.com/story/2006/7/14/214858/838">July, 2006</a>. Then, today,</div>
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<a href="http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/01/28/rubio-pitching-bipartisan-comprehensive-immigration-reform/">CBS Miami, 1/28/2013</a>:</div>
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Rubio Pitching Bipartisan Comprehensive Immigration Reform</h3>
"A bipartisan group or [sic] Senators including Senator Marco Rubio are set to unveil a new comprehensive immigration reform package at a Monday afternoon press conference in Washington.</blockquote>
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The sweeping overhaul of immigration laws would reportedly include a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. The bipartisan deal also includes border security, non-citizen or “guest” workers and employer verification of immigration status....<br />
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According to the framework of the plan it will contain four basic legislative “pillars:” [starting with]</blockquote>
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Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required...."</blockquote>
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Without going into how much of the entire agenda is strictly political, I'll only point out that very little of it addresses what many of us agree is the problem: <a data-mce-href="http://www.terriersoftheright.blogspot.com/2012/08/when-your-boat-is-taking-on-water-fast.html" href="http://www.terriersoftheright.blogspot.com/2012/08/when-your-boat-is-taking-on-water-fast.html"><em>our porous border</em></a>.</div>
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Although the first pillar depends upon "securing our borders," none of the remainder do, and even the first one describes a "fair path to <strong>citizenship</strong>," rather than a means to achieve <strong>legal</strong> <strong>residency</strong>. And now that the door has been opened to comprehensive immigration law reform, it's clear to me that the idea of "security first, legislation reform to follow," has been pretty much abandoned by our leadership, including Marco Rubio, for whom I otherwise have tremendous respect. This is a direct result of President Obama's re-election, and our failure to elect more conservatives to Congress.</div>
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I promised to be brief and direct, so I will. Whatever plan they come up with under the guise of "reform," the result will be the same as every other plan we've tried in the past--and border security isn't really on their list of necessities. If the border is left unsecured, the day will eventually come when conditions in Mexico will be so unattractive to its citizens that sneaking into the United States will again (if it has ever stopped) look like the least bad of their alternatives, and the tide of illegal immigration will resume. Ignore the nonsense being mouthed today by people like John McCain. Whatever bill is proposed, its primary beneficiaries will be politicians, not the American people.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-70903607274658281762013-01-01T00:54:00.000-08:002013-01-04T20:19:18.216-08:00The State of the Union message that will NOT be presented in January<b>Here are some answers to questions you may not have asked.</b><br />
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Mike DeVine recently commented on Redstate (about the gun-control debate) that "The real issue is whether the DC police charge [David] Gregory with the crime he committed on national TV [displaying a rifle magazine]. If not, its just another nail in in the coffin of what used to be the Rule of Law in America." I couldn't agree more. The Rule of Law has become Rule by the President.</div>
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<b>Conduct a thought experiment. </b></div>
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Compare life today to that of 1000 or so years ago. In some ways, it isn't so different. We Americans have managed to cede back to our King many of those guarantees of freedom that were fought for, hard and at great cost, by our ancestors. The "Rule of Law in America" is rapidly being observed only when convenient for the "Ruling Class." King Barack tries to rule by decree, and in some cases he is successful. His nobles, now called "Democrats," do his bidding, and he does what's necessary to keep them mollified and often happy. The opposition Republicans remain loyal, perhaps because they aren't mistreated as badly as they might be if they came right out against the King, and perhaps because it's been so long since they really had to fight against anything that they've forgotten how to do it.</div>
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Meanwhile, we peasants, aka "the country class," are distracted by shiny objects offered to us by the Nobility of the Alphabet Press--CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC--with News Corporation presumed to be different, but not by much. They do so by parceling out titillating tidbits of trivia to give us "something" to get excited about, while still not giving us enough solid information to really understand the big picture. "Something" happened at Benghazi, but three months later we still aren't sure what, although we <em>know</em> it's bad or it's innocuous, depending on the channel. Same for "Fast and Furious." The same even for the Fiscal Cliff, Fiscal Crisis, whatever we want to call it. Yes, it's important, but there isn't any substantive discussion about it--what it is, why it is, what it means for the future--anywhere in the news beyond Fox, partly because it really is complex and therefore requires a lot of detail to treat properly, but mostly because it's so much easier to treat it as a shiny object, the issue of the year-end, and devote time to what he-said and she-said about it.</div>
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Same for mass murders committed with guns, while serial murders committed by repeat offenders are ignored, apparently because continuous murders committed one-at-a-time just aren't as interesting to report as those where we can be shown dozens of grieving mourners for dozens of young and not-so-young victims, all gathered together in candlelight vigils attended by the pompous priests of the Ruling Class, who intone self-righteously about the sins of the killer (almost always already dead) and his obvious insanity, about the sins of society (almost always the ultimate villain) and how obsessed we are with our "gun culture," and who promise fatuously to "do something about this tragedy to make sure it doesn't happen again." The King tells us that we must put politics aside and get something done (restrictions on Second Amendment rights), even though politics is the method we rightly use to come to reasoned agreement when issues are contentious. His words sound like code for "Just do it my way and nobody will get hurt." The press prattles on about the need for a conversation to come up with a solution to the threat of mass murder, but the only words they will abide by concern gun ownership restrictions and nothing else. They don't want a conversation, they want a monologue, delivered by them.</div>
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Then it happens again, and when suggestions are made that might actually have positive results, if they don't include further restrictions on gun ownership and individual rights, those ideas are called "stupid," "foolish," and dozens of similar epithets, even when those same ideas had previously been promulgated by the King's nobles in moments of lucidity. But I digress. See how easy it is to get sidetracked by the shiny objects?</div>
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<strong>The King likes to deal in facts. Well, here are the facts:</strong></div>
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The King and his government have too much power, and that fact is <em>prima facie</em> truth. That truth is proven by the fact that so many otherwise powerful people who know better are willing to kowtow to the King, because they KNOW he can destroy their good life if he puts his mind to do so. For example, why else would gun manufacturers donate money to Dianne Feinstein's Senate campaign, or Ford Motor Company executives donate to the re-election of President Obama? The downside of being on the wrong side terrifies them. And they know he can also tilt the playing field to HELP them if he wants to. That all testifies to a too-powerful government.</div>
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It's proven by the willing acceptance of bad policy at all levels of government by people who are receiving what they think are benefits from that government, willing acceptance that will eventually result in either the enslavement or impoverishment, or both, of their offspring by their indebtedness to the government or others, or by the destruction of the value of their currency by inflation, or by their slide into ignorance as a result of a sub-par education, particularly in history, delivered by that government through an "education" bureaucracy that's dedicated to serving itself and its work force rather than to actually educating our people. Acceptance because it's too big to fight.</div>
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Our public education system has become a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, completely ill-suited for its stated goal of public education, but perfectly suited for indoctrination of masses of children into ways of "right-thinking." In fact, they are indirectly being taught magical thinking, that the government can fulfill all their needs with little help from themselves, and worse, that such an idea is good and desirable.</div>
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It's proven by the fact that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EW5IdwltaAc">there is no reasonable way that the promises of this government can be met with the resources it has available</a>. Too much of the wealth of the country is being consumed by the government itself. To hide that fact, we are constantly distracted by the shiny object of "the 1% who don't pay their fair share." In fact, nobody knows what a "fair share" is, but by golly it doesn't apply to me, although it does to thee. These are symptoms of a government that's not only too powerful, but just plain too BIG. It's very bigness makes it unaffordable.</div>
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<b>Less than half the population cannot support more than half the population in the style they would like to live,</b> especially if those supporting the others are told they must do so with half their resources tied behind their backs and that the rest must eventually be given to the government. It WAS possible at one time, but that was because the demands of the many were constrained by a palpable reality, and not hidden by a governmental veil across our eyes.</div>
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Especially the way the two halves are divided today. Consider that in earlier, more prosperous years, less than half DID support more than half. The supporting half was working fathers; less frequently it was working mothers. An intact family made it possible for those fathers and mothers to support themselves, their spouses, and their children. They also often provided partial support for their own parents, and sometimes they helped out extended family members and friends as well. There was a close relationship to those supported, and this enhanced the effectiveness of this unofficial "redistribution of wealth." The incentive for the giving ones was to be as generous as possible because they were helping loved ones; the incentive for those receiving was to ask for the least possible, because they were imposing on loved ones.</div>
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Today, wealth is being redistributed via an official, governmental bureaucracy. To a much greater degree than before, both the father and the mother (when both are present, which is much less frequent nowadays) work to support themselves and their family, which tends to be smaller, and they're still as generous as they can be. But more and more of their income is being demanded by the government in taxes, reducing their ability to help people and causes they know, and the reason is given that their prosperity needs to be shared with others. It was already being shared, but now it also is to be shared with strangers, chosen by the government to receive support from people they neither know nor care about. The fewer are still supporting the more numerous, but they no longer know them personally. Breadwinners are still supporting their own families and helping friends and neighbors as much as they can, but now they're also essentially facing demands for support from strangers across town and across the country, and those demands come first, as tax bills.<br />
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Incentives have been turned on their heads. Taxpayers have every incentive to pay as little in taxes as possible, but welfare recipients have every incentive to take as much from government as possible. And as the votes of the takers seem to be more powerful than the votes of the providers, the situation is one of being behind the power curve. The forces within the system aren't in equilibrium, and they are pushing it in a worse direction rather than a better one.</div>
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Nothing can be done to fix this state of affairs. Nothing. At least, not until the majority of the voting public understands it, and that won't happen until the working press decides to step up to its Constitutional responsibility to report, fully and accurately, on the reality of life in the United States. That may not mean ignoring the shiny objects, but it would certainly mean reporting that they ARE shiny objects, distractions of a sort, and not often the most important things going on today. And it would also mean they would be reporting WHY those shiny objects are being shown to us--what they are hiding behind them, and what their full import is.</div>
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Our Constitutional protections are already almost gone, insofar as protections FROM the government are concerned, and those are the primary reasons the Constitution was written in the first place. Much is made at times of the importance of the Magna Carta, and it was important, of course, although it's nowhere near as important to our freedom as is the Constitution, but they share an important concept--the only way to control the power of a government is to place MORE power somewhere else. The Constitution places the power in a diverse group, the PEOPLE, with the expectation they'd be farsighted enough to keep the government at heel. That expectation seems lost, even though King Barack is displeased that the Constitution is one that consists primarily of "negative rights." He rightly sees that the power of the government is restrained by restrictions the Constitution imposes. He also knows that he can ignore those restrictions until something stops him. That would normally have been the last election, but we apparently chose to re-elect him, leaving us with only the two "co-equal" branches of government to stop him, or failing that, the states.</div>
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Seen that way, the House has a duty to prevent as much Kingly mischief as it possibly can. The Supreme Court can't be counted on to read and interpret the English language without bias. The Senate is composed of vassals of the King, so the option of impeachment is not available. Beyond that, our House of Lords has given no indication it wants to do anything other than serve the King, rather than the people. If our House of Commons fails us, we have nowhere else to turn, and no one to blame but slightly over 50% of the voting population and those who chose to sit the last election out, and the so-called unbiased media for shirking its duty when called upon. That's part of our Constitutional crisis, because the press is the only private institution expressly protected by the Constitution from government interference.</div>
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<strong>King Barack is a different kind of President.</strong></div>
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Whatever one wants to call King Barack, he is NOT a Democrat and he's certainly not a Republican. As Mark Belling noted the other day, President William J. Clinton may not have been a good man in some ways, but he did have one thing in common with the rest of us--his idea of a successful Presidency for himself was to leave a prosperous country behind when he exited the White House. He is proud that the budget was in surplus when he left office. He was happy to take full credit for entitlement changes made in conjunction with the Republican House, such as welfare reform.</div>
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Barack Obama seems oblivious to proven rules of economics that could be used to repair the country's finances and put us back on the road to prosperity. While calling for cooperation and compromise to address national problems, he can't bring himself to say "yes" to a Republican idea, even if it was first put forward by one of his Democrat colleagues. When he comes close to an agreement, he suddenly remembers additional demands that kill the impending deal. He's done so time and again (apparently including on 12/31/12). Furthermore, everything he says is intended to advance his personal agenda. He gives no credit to Republicans for good intentions and personal behavior. If he can cut down a Republican, he figures that elevates Democrats, and in the world of public relations, he's right.</div>
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It's clear that he has no interest in avoiding the "fiscal cliff" if it means giving up ANY of his demands. Although he claims that his top priority is to make sure that middle-class Americans don't receive a large tax hike because of it, his true top priority is obviously to make sure that at least the top two percent of American taxpayers DO receive one. In fact, it's clear from his ebullient demeanor in some appearances that things are progressing exactly as he wants them to. His return from vacation in Hawaii was 100% for show. He came back to speak, to pontificate, to posture, to preen. He didn't come back with any plan to show to John Boehner and say, "See, John, we CAN solve this problem without adding $6 trillion more to the national debt in the next four years, and here is how we'll do it." A President who was interested in finding a solution would have been working on this well-known problem for months, laying out his own blueprint for success, and consulting with Congress. Instead, he's done nothing and he came back purely for publicity reasons and to make sure nothing substantial was accomplished before year-end.</div>
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It's also clear that HIS criteria for a successful Presidency does not include consideration of the prosperity or stability of the country, nor of its people. His primary goal is indeed, as he said, to "fundamentally transform the United States of America." Whether he means well in that goal is almost irrelevant. The ways in which he is transforming America are antithetical to the principles of a country thought to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people," as they change it to a country controlled by the bureaucracy, paid for by the working people, and operated for the benefit of the governmental ruling class. In this goal, we should all be wishing he would fail.</div>
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This dichotomy of objectives explains as well just why he has been such a mystery to some of the chattering sub-class of workers called the press. If one doesn't understand that he has a fundamentally different set of goals and criteria for success than any of his predecessors, one is of course confused by his actions. Accept that his goals are different, and they become easy to understand. Why they're different isn't particularly important, except that "why" also explains how he has advanced so quickly from community organizer to President without actually possessing or accruing any of the skills necessary to be a truly good President.</div>
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<b>There you have the facts.</b> </div>
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Call them opinions if you will, but there is evidence to support all of them. And the above also contains a plan for the salvation of our Republic. First, to remain a credible alternative to the Democrats, the House Republicans have to figure out a way to remain true to our values without allowing King Barack to drag the country into fiscal insanity. He's an expert at presenting them with dilemmas. "Raise taxes or go over the 'fiscal cliff,' because I'm not going to agree to anything less." Both choices are bad, but they have to choose one. When they do, they need to explain their choice, clearly and believably.</div>
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Second, Republicans and conservatives have to figure out a way to get their case to the public, a way that the public can understand and accept. We were right on all the issues during the last election, but the public wasn't convinced, partly because we didn't try to convince them, and partly because when we did try, they couldn't hear us. Public announcements on the steps of the Capitol won't cut it any more. They must figure out a way to get the so-called unbiased media to report it fairly, or at least completely. This seldom happens now. That message must also be consistent. No digressions; no personal stories; no opportunities for an innocent comment to be turned into a "war on women."<br />
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One tactical adjustment worth considering would require a change of priorities and/or more money: new, topical political advertising needs to be rolled out all the time, not just before elections. The Republican Party should this very day be broadcasting public statements explaining just what the heck they're doing about the "fiscal cliff," and why. They must start countering the Democrats' misleading accusations that everything bad is the fault of Republicans while everything good comes from the Democrats. They can't count on cable news interviews or the free press to get the job done.</div>
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Third, nominate articulate, competent, committed, passionate conservatives to run for office. They can make the conservative case a lot better than any old-line politician can, and better than Mitt Romney did, simply because they know it in their hearts AND they know the importance of making their case to people who are open to understanding it. Whenever possible, they should explain not only their position, but WHY their position is the right one, a much more convincing way to make a convert.</div>
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Fourth, Republicans must figure out some way to counteract the union manpower juggernaut, particularly the SEIU. The playing field is NOT level, and they have to make it level.</div>
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Fifth, and, at a more fundamental level, conservatives must acquire control of more of the so-called unbiased media. A first step in that direction is to quit supporting the liberal media in any way. That means cancel your subscriptions to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, etc., and quit donating to liberal causes like PBS and NPR. Subscribe to conservative magazines and newspapers. For publications and outlets that fall in between, let them know you pay attention to what they say and expect them to report the news COMPLETELY--that will take care of the "fair and balanced" part without anybody actually having to decide what is "fair" or what is "balanced."</div>
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A second step will be for the more affluent conservatives to become more involved in the media aspect of politics. Koch brothers--BUY MEDIA OUTLETS! Mega-million dollar contributions aren't the most effective use of your donations. In doing so, make sure your new toy is itself reporting the news COMPLETELY. A policy statement approved by a source considered unbiased by the public is far more likely to be accepted than one approved by what's considered a partisan source. Why do you think the left puts so much effort into demonizing, ridiculing, and marginalizing Fox News? They know that if they can convince the public that Fox is conservatively partisan, the public will discount what they see and hear there, even if a lot of the public DOES see and hear it.</div>
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Sixth, recognize that the game has changed. King Barack doesn't consider us his opponents who might win next time, he considers us enemies to be defeated permanently. We need the same outlook. Recognize that this has become an existential battle for the Republic. If the next President is Hillary Clinton or Chris Van Holland, our children will face a bleak future, at least bleak compared to a future living in a free enterprise driven economy. Otherwise, fascism is the precise term for where we're heading.</div>
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<strong>Finally, a suggestion to conservative writers of all kinds:</strong></div>
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We need fewer books but more pamphlets. We need fewer essays but more interviews in the so-called unbiased media of all kinds. And (note to self), we need shorter essays rather than longer ones. The people we're trying to reach don't believe they have time to read our books and find our blogs, but they do find time to watch the alphabet news and perhaps read a short pamphlet or internet page that covers just a single issue in the war against fascism. We have to figure out a way to get our arguments into their minds, and shorter arguments make that easier.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-57854356254492051052012-12-31T23:52:00.001-08:002012-12-31T23:52:41.441-08:00OK, Democrats, You Got What You Wished For<b>What are you going to do with it?</b><br />
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Your man won. You even increased your lead in the Senate, although it seems we may have increased our own majority in the House. But that doesn't matter, because the fact is House Republicans can't get anything they really want past the Senate's majority or the President's veto. The best they can do is to come to some kind of agreement with your Senate Democrats as to what we can do about the looming "fiscal cliff" and some other minor inconveniences that lie ahead. How can that agreement be reached?</div>
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In his losing campaign, Mitt Romney promised he would "repeal Obamacare," among other reasons because it took $700 billion in physician reimbursement funds out of Medicare to make Obamacare appear less expensive than it actually is. He said he would <strong>reduce</strong> tax <strong><em>rates</em></strong> across the board for everyone, in conjunction with reductions in deductions and exemptions, primarily for business, all in an effort to boost the economy without adding more debt. He also promised to bring the deficit under control, primarily through growth in the economy and reductions in Federal spending. One way to do that, he said, was to hold any spending request brought to him to this standard: Is the project so necessary that it's worthy of borrowing money to pay for it? That sounded good to me, but it got lost in the kerfuffle about his example--Big Bird. Finally, he promised to attack the twin problems of Social Security and Medicare--both are underfunded and will run out of financial support under current law within a few years, several years fewer now than when George W. Bush requested they be reformed in 2005. And more, of course, but let's stop there.</div>
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We now know none of that is going to happen, at least not that way.</div>
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I don't believe President Obama promised to do any of those things, but perhaps that was simply because he thought it so obvious that it wasn't worth mentioning. We knew that he intends to <strong>raise</strong> income tax <em><strong>rates</strong></em> on the richest of us, sometimes meaning those with incomes over $200,000 annually and sometimes meaning something else, but always with the threat attached that <em>if</em> Republicans don't go along with whatever he decides, he will allow income tax rates on <em><strong>everybody</strong></em> to increase back to pre-Bush tax rates by vetoing any tax bill that does not raise tax rates on the "rich." According to <em>USA Today</em>, (11/14/12), that veto would take $214 billion out of the economy while "reducing the deficit" very little if at all. According to the paper, the total result of going over the cliff will be a 3.6% decline in GDP, amounting to a $560 billion smaller economy, which means the rate increases will NOT generate the tax <strong><em>revenue</em></strong> that is advertised, but less. And today he added a new note--he wants to approximately double the tax rate increase he had been proposing, which if passed would take an additional $40 billion from the economy. But that has been his general plan all along, and we all knew it.</div>
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Beyond that, he only said he wouldn't be a deceptive and "sketchy" conservative like Romney.</div>
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<strong>The ball is in your court</strong></div>
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That is, the Democrats' court. The Legislative and Executive Branch situations haven't changed all that much, numerically. Republicans can still filibuster in the Senate, although Democrats control the agenda there. Republicans control the agenda in the House, but can't get anything passed without buy-in from Democrats in the Senate, which seems impossible to achieve on major legislation. (I just heard Congressman Luiz Gutierrez {D. IL}, expounding on immigration reform. He couldn't even bring himself to say that Republicans who disagree with him but would work towards compromise legislation are anything better than desperate politicians "doing it for political purposes so that [their] party can have a future," as opposed to Gutierrez and others [Democrats] who simply want to make "America a better, more decent place to live...." This after he criticized Republicans for "beginning the conversation" in a way that closes the minds of Hispanic listeners. Not promising as a sign of future agreement and civility.) And the President can still veto anything that he doesn't like.</div>
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What <em>has</em> changed is that we've had an election, and regarding legislative cans that have been kicked down the road, we can say the chickens have come home to roost. The fiscal cliff will either be dealt with or we face a the second dip of a recession. The debt ceiling must be raised or spending cut to the bone (which do you think will happen?)</div>
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The election has given President Obama a mandate, but not one he relishes. It's a mandate to <strong><em>lead</em></strong>. He must take the lead on all these issues, no matter how much he wants to simply continue to blame George W. Bush and the House Republicans while he does nothing. If he doesn't lead, even our compliant mainstream press won't be able to cover for him in the history books, although it might fool a lot of people about his performance for a while. His<strong><em> leadership</em></strong> is necessary to reach agreement between the two Houses of Congress.</div>
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He can't just turn things over to Reid, Pelosi, McConnell, and Boehner and expect to come in at the end and take credit for their progress, or demand changes to what they hammered out before him. That resulted last time in what is referred to as the fiscal cliff or "Taxmageddon" that awaits us in January.</div>
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<strong>So, what is he going to do? </strong></div>
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Here are some of the issues that need to be addressed:</div>
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National debt--Growing past $17 trillion at the rate of $1.5 trillion per year.</div>
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Annual deficit--$1.5 trillion each year for the past 5 years and next year. Where will the loans come from? There isn't enough money in the economy to reduce the deficit significantly by increased taxation.</div>
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Federal budget--We haven't had one passed by the Senate since the first year of the Obama Administration. Until we get one, continuing resolutions guarantee continuing deficits (see above).</div>
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Spending--What can be reduced or eliminated? What absolutely has to be increased?</div>
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Stock market--Has been falling steadily since election day, just as it did in 2008. Will there be a crash like the one that bottomed in March, 2009?</div>
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Federal regulations--Are they too heavy for business to thrive?</div>
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Military readiness--The military budget is scheduled to see huge cuts under Taxmageddon, cuts that the Secretary of Defense say will be devastating.</div>
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Social Security--Outgo exceeds income. Cannot survive without reform.</div>
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Medicare--see Social Security, only worse.</div>
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Obamacare--Contains many new taxes, pushes the economic envelope away from developing more medical doctors, facilities, procedures, and medicine, and many other problems you Democrats don't care about--yet.</div>
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Obamacare-- How will we pay for 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce it?</div>
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Obamacare--Businesses are already starting to cut back work hours and lay off workers, primarily to avoid situations that will be very expensive for them.</div>
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Obamacare--Is it OK to force the Catholic Church to pay for abortifacients and birth control measures in its employee health plans against its religious convictions? If it doesn't have to pay, why should anybody else have to?</div>
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Republican War on Women--Will the Senate hold hearings to find out what that means?</div>
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Fast and Furious--What, Who, When, and Why?</div>
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Benghazi--What, Who, When, and Why?</div>
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Illegal immigration--Border security is essential, immigration reform is needed.</div>
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Iran--What will he do to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons?</div>
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Muslim Brotherhood--How do we relate to them? In Egypt, are they our ally? In Libya, are they an insurgency?</div>
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Syria--Do we allow Assad to continue killing his people?</div>
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Afghanistan--Friend or foe?</div>
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Pakistan--Friend or foe?</div>
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Al Qaida--Is it really "on the run"?</div>
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Energy independence--The last Obama Administration closed oil fields, closed offshore rigs, gave money to Brazil to develop offshore oil to sell to us, rejected the Keystone pipeline, and wasted money on Obama contributors' "green" companies. What will this one do? They've already cut back on energy leases in Colorado.</div>
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Israel--Will we treat them as friend or foe?</div>
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China--Do we continue to feed jobs to them? Will they loan to us again? Will the yuan become the world's reserve currency under Obama's watch?</div>
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Taxes--Will the President really veto any tax bill that doesn't raise taxes on the "rich"? He says he will.</div>
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Taxes--He has said he wants to raise capital gains taxes for "fairness," even if it means <strong>less</strong> tax <strong><em>revenue</em></strong>. Does he know many non-rich retirees depend on the sale of securities to sustain their lives? Raising their taxes leaves them less to live on, reduces the life of their nest eggs.</div>
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Taxes--Every dollar of additional tax taken out of the economy is a dollar that can't be used to buy something in it. Even if it is sent back to somebody else, some of it is skimmed off to pay the bureaucracy.</div>
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CIA--What???</div>
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California--Will the federal government support California if it asks us to pay its bills?</div>
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Federal government payrolls--Every dollar must be paid by <em>non</em>-government workers or be borrowed.</div>
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Government transparency--Where is it?</div>
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Guantanamo Bay Prison--When will it close? What will happen to the inmates?</div>
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Russia--What will Obama do with his new-found flexibility?</div>
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Hurricane Sandy/New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia/FEMA--Will Federal assistance ever arrive?</div>
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Queen Elizabeth--What to give her on her birthday....</div>
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<strong>What do <em>you</em> want him to do?</strong></div>
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Seriously, most conservatives could tell you what they would have wanted Mitt Romney to do had he been elected. That's why we were Romney voters. What do you want <em><strong>your</strong></em> President to do about these issues and others? Or have you even thought about it? Comments are open for business.</div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341562951375563324.post-72020934773772450192012-10-20T08:40:00.000-07:002012-10-21T10:53:39.377-07:00President Obama Has No Foreign Policy<br />
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<b>How can he defend a nonexistent foreign policy?</b></div>
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President Obama has already been exposed as not even an empty suit, but an empty chair. It's time to expose his foreign policy attempts for what they are--empty words.</div>
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Almost any set of policies can have enough cohesion to generate a "three-legged stool" analogy. For the Reagan Administration the legs might have been (1) Strength through a military strong enough to be feared, (2) Diplomacy carried out by a State Department that understood where our priorities lay and what they needed to say to please our friends and discomfort our enemies, and (3) Outreach to the world in the form of sensible policies regarding human rights that were beneficent enough to allow the occasional Grenada invasion to go essentially without comment. Not that the Reagan administration would have put it that way, but that's just an example to show how it can be made up out of anything.</div>
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<strong>Obama's three-legged stool for foreign policy starts with an apology tour</strong></div>
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If the Obama administration has a three-legged stool, its legs seem to be <strong>(1) Appeasement, and self-condemnation of America while projecting national weakness</strong>, (2) <strong>Inaction in the face of crisis</strong>, and (3) <strong>Refusal to face reality in a real world</strong>. I don't have to expand much on the first one--we've all seen the bowing to foreign potentates and heard the speeches accepting American blame for all the ills of the world, with shows of strength saved for overmatched attacks on individuals. Not just the killing of bin Laden, but the taking of the pirated ship. Two small victories in the face of a sea of defeats. We are losing our gains in Iraq. We have lost too many men to "green on blue" murder in Afghanistan. We invade Pakistan to get bin Laden, but we won't do anything about the terrorist cells there. We rely on our allies to clean up in Libya, and we do nothing in either Egypt or Syria. Not that we <em>should</em> do something, but Obama can't describe <em>why</em> we shouldn't, and it's clear that Obama doesn't <em>want</em> to lead anything, and that projects weakness.</div>
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<strong>Obama's Inaction</strong></div>
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Obama's Inaction would be laughable if it weren't pathetic. Inaction is the only word to describe our reaction to the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and earlier in Iran. Did his aide actually think he was coining a compliment when he said, "Obama leads from behind"? I have described this inaction as a policy of "Don't do anything and see what happens. Something always does. Then spin it to our political advantage." It's obvious that he follows that path, because he does the same thing in domestic policy, with his lack of leadership after the Deepwater Horizon disaster a prime example. That betrays two flaws in Obama's character: First, it shows a leader unwilling to take any chances at all, always opting to take the "safe" course of doing nothing. This may be a result of his lack of any leadership experience before sitting down in the Oval Office. Any CEO, heck, even any business school graduate, knows that you never have ALL the information you'd like to have and that doing nothing is in fact choosing a path that depends not on your own skill and resources, but on the winds of fate, putting you at the mercy of events. The second flaw revealed is that he is more interested in political advantage than he is in serving the country.</div>
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<strong>Refusal to face reality</strong></div>
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The most serious of the three (if they can be graded--they are all exactly the wrong actions in foreign policy) is his inability (or refusal) to face reality. He has a belief that by changing the words we use we can change the reality they describe. No more "War on Terror;" it's now an "Overseas Contingency Operation." A soldier kills thirteen people on his post and it's called "workplace violence" rather than "treason" and "terrorism." Kill bin Laden and declare that al Qaeda is dead, and <em>voila</em>, it is! An attack on a consulate therefore can't be terrorism, it must be the result of righteously angered Muslims who have heard that somebody else has seen a video on the internet that slanders Mohammed and whose demonstration just gets out of hand and kills four Americans. Further ignoring reality, he thinks he can convince other people of the same story. Compounding the error, he spreads the story of the "video-caused attack" around the world, alerting other outraged Muslims to its existence and that the President of the United States, despite protestations to the contrary, seems to think it a reasonable excuse for demonstrations, if not for murder. He seemingly didn't realize that his words could be used against us.</div>
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The Arab Spring is an example of all three legs being exposed. It's in the interest of the United States to have stability in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East and even in those that don't produce much oil. We depend on that supply, no matter how many windmills the government subsidizes, so even if Mubarak treated many of his people badly, even if Khaddafi did the same and sheltered terrorists and was our enemy, even if Assad was willing to kill thousands of his own people, it was to our interests to either maintain stability in the area and to make sure the new regime was as "friendly" to us as the old one had been. But the policy of "do nothing and see what happens" doesn't provide for that consideration. The enemy of our "enemy" is not always our friend.</div>
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Our President substituted nice words for reality. He declared that the winds of democracy were sweeping across the Middle East, blowing away the old dictators and replacing them with the will of the people, only that isn't what happened. The old dictators were removed in Egypt and Libya, only to be replaced by new dictators called the Muslim Brotherhood, and these dictators have no interest in stability for the sake of stable relationships and trade; they'd just as soon ALL their own people starved as to help the West in any way. <em>Calling</em> them "democratic popular uprisings" didn't actually <em>make</em> it true. These were no more democratic uprisings than was the rise of the National Socialist Party in pre-war Germany, and it is to ignore reality to claim otherwise.</div>
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Ignoring reality, he thinks that he can talk sternly to Mahmoud Achmadinijad and that such talk will convince a hell-bent-for-anihilation Iran to cease its nuclear arms program, the program for which they've been sacrificing their own comfort for years. First, the phrase is "talk softly and carry a big stick," not "talk sternly and hope nobody notices you're unarmed." Second, even if we had the capacity to be an existential threat to Iran, they still would oppose us because they DO oppose us. As it is, they KNOW President Obama would never use military power on the scale it would need to be applied against Iran, so Obama's words are meaningless. The <em>will to use</em> strength has to be credible for even <em>available</em> strength to be effective.</div>
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We can see the same effect on Bashar Assad in Syria--none, and our weakness has led our old enemies of Russia and China to take the sides of Iran and Syria, because they have no fear of us either.</div>
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Taking all of this in, the picture emerges that the United States under Barack Obama <strong>doesn't have a viable foreign policy</strong>.</div>
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<strong>What's coming?</strong></div>
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History teaches that a power vacuum will be filled. By weakening the United States, President Obama has begun to create a power vacuum. It was happening demographically anyway, simply because of the huge population advantage China has over us and its decision to abandon much of Communism, but just as the United Kingdom slipped behind us yet remained prosperous without becoming our enemy after our great 19th and 20th century expansion, there ARE ways to maintain our wealth, dignity, and standard of living without helping the process along by becoming weak intentionally. If we fail to develop our own energy resources, we will be at the mercy of our Middle Eastern trade "partners," and of Canada and Mexico. A reality-based foreign policy is a necessary "leg" for us to stand on. Energy policy is an important support for a successful foreign policy, and our energy policy is far from realistic.</div>
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<strong>Rules for Presidents</strong></div>
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But now another character trait may be Obama's undoing, right before the final debate, which is fortuitously centered on foreign policy. That is his obeisance to Saul Alinsky. Nowhere in <em>Rules for Radicals </em>is there a rule that says, "Tell the truth." In his attempt to spin the recent Benghazi disaster to his advantage, either he or his handlers decided to push that "video-caused attack" story, and now reality is setting in. Facts regarding what was known by whom and when are coming to light that can't be explained by anything other than "We were lying to hide the truth of our incompetence" or "We weren't really lying because we didn't know the truth but we wanted to be able to tell you a story anyway."</div>
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<strong>The coming debate</strong></div>
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I'd like to hear Governor Romney question President Obama pointedly and directly about the logical contradictions in the stories of the last month.</div>
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"You should have known the facts by the next day--your underlings did. Did you not know, or did you know but choose to not state the facts on purpose? If you didn't know, why didn't you? Were the facts withheld from you? Why? To this day, you haven't used the words, 'Benghazi was a terrorist attack.' </blockquote>
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This disaster, and it WAS a foreign policy disaster, leaves us with a lot of questions. Why were the requests for more security denied? Who denied them? Did you not believe the danger was present? Why were we still <em>in</em> Benghazi? Even the British had left. Why did you continue to push that "video" story for two full weeks, long after you must have known the truth, long after you must have known there was NO demonstration outside the consulate before the attack? Or did you? Vice President Biden has claimed that your "intelligence was faulty," but Congressional testimony indicates that both "intelligence" and the State Department had it right from the beginning. The identification and capture of the perpetrators is important, but not as important as the answers to questions you have the knowledge to answer today."</blockquote>
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Of course, he must be "respectful" to the President, who will attempt to blame the Republican budget. And that will give Romney an opening to mention the fact that there <em>IS</em> NO BUDGET.</div>
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I'd also like to hear Romney say, "As soon as I name an Attorney General, I'll direct him to look into the mysterious process whereby the State of California decided to arrest a legal resident because he produced a movie expressing his political beliefs. I don't believe that it was a coincidence that his parole was revoked so conveniently in the middle of the night with full network news coverage. This seems to be a clear violation of the first amendment."</div>
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I'd like to hear him say, "My AG will be directed to find out the real reason that charges were dropped by the DOJ on a voter intimidation case in Pennsylvania after a guilty plea had already been entered."</div>
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I'd like to hear him say, "I will sign an executive order stating that those killed and injured at Fort Hood were victims of a terrorist attack. There is no reason that those wounded and surviving service members should not receive the same support that those wounded and killed on the battlefield receive. As a member of the military, the perpetrator may be open to charges beyond murder."</div>
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I'd like to hear him say, "I will issue a new Presidential Medal of Valor, equivalent to the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor awarded to New York Port Authority heroes, to each of the passengers and crew killed in that Pennsylvania crash on 9/11/2001. Their heroism was equally valiant, and was performed as a gift to our country. Rather than sit back and accept fate, they boldly took charge, and averted further sure disaster in our nation's capital, giving their lives in the process."</div>
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And I'd like to hear him say, "In my administration, laws will be applied impartially. Speech will actually be free, and political correctness will not hold sway."</div>
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<strong>Update:</strong><br />
Although I sometimes think I can't go wrong by disagreeing with Bill Kristol, I thought he made a reasonable point this morning on <em>Fox News Sunday</em>: Romney should "...be Presidential. He has to be less the challenger of the President, the prosecutor of the President's agenda, he has to be the next President of the United States.... Voters... want to see him as someone who is up to being President, with the judgement, the maturity, knowledge, a toughness but sort of soundness to be President. ...not a kind of guy who's arguing with the current President and challenging him and fact-checking him, ...if Romney can be Presidential tomorrow night, I think he's in pretty good shape...."<br />
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Chris Wallace: "How do you think he should play Libya?"<br />
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Kristol: "...he should stipulate that a terrible thing has happened which has been a real setback for us... the Obama administration hasn't handled it well ...more about what he would do over the next four years and less picking on every flaw of the Obama administration.... the key for tomorrow night is to be less of a prosecutor and more the next President."<br />
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I find myself agreeing with him, especially from the standpoint of avoiding driving up Obama's likability ratings and Romney's down. Romney does need a counter to Obama's foreign policy, even if Obama's is a void. Somehow, the Democrats are spreading a meme that Romney is a "warmonger," and Kristol suggested going back to Reagan vs. Carter: "Peace through strength.... Here is why my policies are less risky than the current Democratic President's." A statement like that would require a followup statement of what is different and why would it be less risky.<br />
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If Obama tries to claim that he is the man with foreign policy experience, Romney can point out our negotiating failures under Obama, or that his Secretary of State has done all the negotiating. He could even do it in French.<br />
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<i>Cross-posted at RedState</i></div>
Flagstaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472298627878812387noreply@blogger.com0