The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Daily Libya Update

Posted on | April 14, 2011 | 4 Comments

If it’s Thursday, it’s a hopeless stalemate:

Calls to arm Libya’s rebels and ramp up airstrikes have put the Obama administration on the defensive, after the U.S. dialed back its role in the military campaign last week.

Without the U.S., NATO is worthless:

President Barack Obama’s insistence that NATO, not the U.S., take the lead in attacking Moammar Gadhafi’s military is exposing a hard truth about an alliance that never before fought an air campaign with the U.S. in a back seat. Even against an enemy as weak as Libya, NATO needs the backbone of U.S. might to fight effectively.
It’s not a matter of NATO’s 27 non-U.S. member countries having too few combat aircraft, pilots or bombs. The problem instead is that while some, such as France and Britain, are willing to participate fully, others have limited their roles to noncombat action, and still others have decided not to participate militarily at all.

And there’s more:

NATO’s internal debate over Libya has now broken into public view, with Britain and France publicly blaming other members for the slow pace of the bombing campaign. The Brits and French are right, but the real problem here is a military intervention with half-hearted U.S. involvement and incompatible goals. Moammar Gadhafi must be smiling at his luck. . . .
If the U.S., France and Britain can’t topple a tinhorn despot like Gadhafi who is loathed by most of his own people, the damage to Western credibility will be severe and long-lasting.

There weren’t any reports last night of major ground actions on the Brega/Ajdabiya front. It appears that Qaddafi’s forces are licking their wounds and regrouping after the weekend battle at Ajdabiya. The fighting continues in Misrata, where rebels are besieged by Qaddafi’s army. And at a meeting in Qatar of allies supporting the Libya rebels, there was talk of loaning the rebels $2 billion.

Category: Libya

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.14.11

Posted on | April 14, 2011 | 5 Comments

TOP NEWS
Obama’s Tax Increase Proposal Hits The Wall

Tax increase dead on departure, never mind arrival


GOP leadership unanimously condemns tax increase proposals

Japan’s Nuclear Watchdog Says Other Options May Be Needed At Fukushima
Difficulty of removing radioactive water impeding cleanup

Rick Santorum Announces Exploratory Committee
Is Harold Stassen still dead?



POLITICS
Jersey Voters Don’t Want Christie Running For President Either

Governor Christie discusses his education propsals at the Brookings Institution

He said he doesn’t want to run, and two-thirds of NJ registered voters agree he shouldn’t

Top Corporate Leaders Urge Governors To Quit Poaching Businesses



Fast-Food Managers Accused Of Selling Stolen Identities

Obama Lays Out Plan For Cutting Medicaid, Medicare

Gates Orders DoD Review To Find $400 Billion In Cuts



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
JP Morgan Chase Posts Record First Quarter Earnings
US Foreclosure Settlement Muddies Waters For Mortgage Relief
Asian Stocks And Copper Drop On Concern Over Singapore Tightening
PC Shipments Drop In First Quarter; Tablets Not The Only Reason
US Retail Sales Up For Ninth Straight Month As Job Market Brightens
Mossberg: RIM’s Playbook Tablet Too Tied To Blackberry Phones
WinPhone 7 Mango Update Brings Multitasking & Speed



SPORTS
Bonds Guilty On Obstruction; Mistrial Declared On Perjury Charges

Bonds: "There's nothing to celebrate."

Jury fails to reach verdict on three perjury charges; Feds undecided on retrial

Kobe Bryant Fined $100K For Cussing Out Ref

Semin Steps Up In OT, Leads Caps Past Rangers 2-1

Red Wings Seize Momentum, Take First Game 4-2

Mathis’ Sac Fly In 12th Gives Angels Win Over Tribe, Snaps Indians’ Winning Streak

Marlins’ Johnson Takes No-Hitter Into 8th As Fish Beat Braves 5-1



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Catherine Zeta-Jones Being Treated For Bipolar Disorder

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Bipolar II aggravated by stress of husband Michael’s cancer fight

Scarlett Johansson Moves In With Sean Penn

Jennifer Lopez: “Being Beautiful Is Part Of My Job”

Lady Gaga: The Harper’s Bazaar Interview

Rihanna Not Joining “X Factor”

Product Placement Fail: Billboard For “The Walking Dead” On Side Of UK Funeral Parlour


Harry Potter Actors Engaged

Charlie Sheen Bailed Out By Pauly D In Boston?

Jenifer Aniston And Bradley Cooper Reconnecting?



FOREIGNERS
NATO Allies Split Over Scope Of Air Attacks In Libya
BRICS Leaders See Commodity Price Volatility As Threat To Growth
With Gbagbo Gone, Ivory Coast Is Reviving
Economic Issues Key In Nigerian Presidential Vote
Rival Military Factions Clash In Yemen



BLOGS & STUFF
Riehl World View: Who Put The Tea In NRO’s Kool-aid?
Clive Crook: Obama’s Speech Was A Waste Of Breath
Cubachi: Ryan Says President’s Speech “Hopelessly Inadequate”
Moe Lane: Raise Your Own Damned Taxes
Power Line: The Mask Slips, Falls to The Ground, Explodes
Zilla Of The Resistance: A Little Note About Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Word of the Day: Sharing!

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 11 Comments

Just as I predicted, Obama’s Big Deficit Speech was big on sharing:

As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally borne a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. . . .
To meet this challenge [i.e., ballooning deficits], our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation’s deficit. They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress. All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future. . . .
The America I know is generous and compassionate; a land of opportunity and optimism. We take responsibility for ourselves and each other; for the country we want and the future we share. . . .
We have to think about our fellow citizens with whom we share a community.

We might point out that the “historic agreements” hailed by Obama were, in fact, just kicking the can down the road so far as the explosion of federal entitlement programs is concerned. Or we could talk about how it might be easier to care for these “fellow citizens with whom we share a community,” if Democrats did not insist on giving federal benefits to illegal aliens. But what really brought me up short was this sentence from the president’s speech:

There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. 

Tax cuts are not “spending.”

Whoever wrote that sentence is looking at other people’s money as if a certain proportion of that money belonged to the government. Only from such a perspective is it “spending” to let people keep their own money.

Also, whoever wrote that sentence failed to take into account the Laffer Curve — whereby lowering tax rates can actually increase overall tax revenue — nor did the writer of that sentence demonstrate any cognizance of global competition for investment. The United States currently has corporate tax rates that are higher than rates in several of our international competitors. Why should global corporations create or expand U.S. operations, if such investments will cause them to pay higher taxes than if they invested in other countries?

Obama’s speechwriters don’t seem to think about such things. His speech was long on high-flown rhetoric about “sharing,” but short on specific details. It was a political speech, rather than a policy speech, and the whole point of it was to position Obama for his 2012 re-election campaign. Insofar as the president actually proposed any policy, the speech could be summed up with Ed Morrissey’s headline:

Obama’s solution to deficit:
spending, ObamaCare, and tax hikes

And as Ed says: “If it was possible to fail to meet the already-low expectations set for this speech beforehand, Obama managed to do it. . . . It’s almost impossible to present a substantive criticism of the proposal because it contains nothing substantive, an impression that more and more people have of this White House.”

Nice Deb calls it Obama’s “tax the rich” speech, but isn’t that true of every Obama speech? The Lonely Conservative summarizes it: “Blame Bush, Lie, Avoid Responsibility, Scare People and Vilify Republicans and Rich Folks.” Again, isn’t that pretty much every Obama speech?

As a president, Obama is a damn good candidate. But governing is not campaigning, and his constant attempts to substitute campaign rhetoric for actual policy proposals is at the core of his failure as president.

And it’s become so predictable as to be boring, which might explain why Joe Biden nodded off during the speech:

UPDATE: Herman Cain calls Obama’s speech “all talk, no leadership.”


Category: Barack Obama, Budget, Economics, Joe Biden, Taxes

One Of The Cooler Things In Afghanistan

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Lovely day in the Hindu Kush. I’m working around CJITF-435, commanded by VADM Harward, who is one of those guys who is such a Bad Mike Foxtrot that he simply doesn’t have to prove anything, emitting quiet, calm competence instead. In front of the head shed, he has a deck cool enough to merit a blog post.



And then I collared a Chief to take one with me in it:

Category: Aghanistan

A: Since Most Are Neither Productive, Nor Reproductive, Nor Paying Taxes

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

“Since when is going to work and
paying your taxes and raising your kids
the alternate lifestyle in this country?”

The blame for which, of course, must be laid at the feet of . . . wait for it . . . Boooooowsh.

Ahhhh. Hadn’t had a Blame Bush moment in so long. The Left is giving me withdrawal symptoms.

From the Department of What’s This Nonsense? A ‘White Privilege Conference‘? Really? (h/t Maggie’s Farm)

Seriously, I thought this was a meritocracy. The conference name alone is dodgy. Expect Charles Johnson to achieve low-earth orbit on that one. The idea of putting on an entire conference as a false flag seems a trifle expensive. Who are these people?

Category: Troglopundit

Israel, Islam and Endogamy

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 16 Comments

Is heredity destiny? At least one rabbi says so:

‘Gentile sperm leads to barbaric offspring’
Rabbi Dov Lior, a senior authority on Jewish law in the Religious Zionism movement, asserted recently that a Jewish woman should never get pregnant using sperm donated by a non-Jewish man –- even if it is the last option available.
According to Lior, a baby born through such an insemination will have the “negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews.” . . .
Lior addressed the issue during a women’s health conference held recently at the Puah Institute, a fertility clinic. His conservative stance negated a ruling widely accepted by rabbis, which states that sperm donated by a non-Jew is preferable to that of an anonymous Jew, who might pose a genealogical risk.
“Sefer HaChinuch (a book of Jewish law) states that the character traits of the father pass on to the son,” he said in the lecture. “If the father in not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel.”
Lior added identified Jews as merciful, shy and charitable – qualities that he claimed could be inherited. “A person born to Jewish parents, even if they weren’t raised on the Torah – there are things that are passed on (to him) in the blood, it’s genetic,” he explained. “If the father is a gentile, then the child is deprived of these things.
“I even read in books that sometimes the crime, the difficult traits, the bitterness – a child that comes from these traits, it’s no surprise that he won’t have the qualities that characterize the people of Israel,” he added.

You can go read the whole thing and feel free to argue with Rabbi Lior if you wish. However, to quote Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof: “Tradition!” Read more

Category: Culture, Family, Islam, Israel, Marriage

Why It Is Crucial To Own The Definitions

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 11 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Lucianne)

After former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979, the consumer price index surged into the double digits, causing the now revered Fed Chief to double the benchmark interest rate in order to break the back of inflation. Using the methodology in place at that time puts the CPI back near those levels.

Inflation, using the reporting methodologies in place before 1980, hit an annual rate of 9.6 percent in February, according to the Shadow Government Statistics newsletter.

Since 1980, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has changed the way it calculates the CPI in order to account for the substitution of products, improvements in quality (i.e. iPad 2 costing the same as original iPad) and other things. Backing out more methods implemented in 1990 by the BLS still puts inflation at a 5.5 percent rate and getting worse, according to the calculations by the newsletter’s web site, Shadowstats.com.

Sure, we can refine methods as we know more. Unfortunately, we can’t seem to trust the government anymore. Every single number coming out of DC can reliably be anticipated to flatter the administration as much as possible at first blush, and then get walked back as the prevarication gets harder to hide.
Going back and checking the nonsense across decades helps gauge just how much sunshine has been blown up the public backside.
Insty was a trifle more caustic in his assessment.

Category: Weimar America

It’s Only Disaster If Anyone Pays Attention

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 6 Comments

by Smitty

Pat in Shreveport links the WSJ story about an independent Trump candidacy if His Donaldness doesn’t score the GOP nomination.
Well, we can just pack it in right now, as far as I can tell. Clearly 1992 will repeat itself.

  1. There will be an equestrian GOP candidate who can be relied upon to give good concession speech.
  2. There will be Trump, a Perot with ridiculous hair instead of ears.
  3. There will be a Democrat riding to victory.

The destiny is sealed, the bumper-stickers sold, and the jokes are writing themselves.
No, the preceding snark isn’t a prophecy, and mainly due to the Internet. While the electorate may not be fully awake, it’s certainly not asleep. Trump is stroking the public pleasure centers like a master. But Trump is merely the next step in the movement from statesmen of old, through BHO, in the direction of the Executive as celebrity media mogul. Expect President P. Diddy-POTUS before the decade is out, if Trump is elected.

P. Diddy POTUS?


I don’t think it a fair comparison to lump Tim Pawlenty in with the apparatchiks who would be nominated just for an eloquent concession speech. Just because he hasn’t laid Stacy McCain out with a cross-check means that Stacy doesn’t respect him. (Aside to Pawlenty campaign: Stacy just craves a little abuse, that’s all. I blame Charlie Sheen for the sensory overload that has made Stacy unable to appreciate Pawlenty.) Hoever, if you read Pawlenty’s Book, he’s actually about as good as mortal candidates get. Yeah, he blew it on Cap’N’Trade. Allow him to repent.
Donald Trump is nothing more than a spacer between now and the end of the year. I can’t believe he’d be so myopic as to divide the conservative house in any real way when the stakes are too damn high.

The ultimate dark horse, remains of course The Paco-tacular One:

Fedoras for all my friends!

Category: Election 2012
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin