Paul Ryan's Way Forward

To take the measure of this uncommonly interesting public man, begin with two related facts about him. Paul Ryan has at least 67 cousins in his Wisconsin hometown of Janesville, where there are six Ryan households within eight blocks of his home. And in his new book, “The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea,” he says something few politicians say, which is why so many are neither trusted nor respected. Ryan says he was wrong.

At a Wisconsin 4-H fair in 2012, Ryan encountered a Democrat who objected to what then was one of Ryan’s signature rhetorical tropes – his distinction between “makers” and “takers,” the latter being persons who receive more in government spending than they pay in taxes. He had been struck by a report that 60 percent of Americans were already – this was before Obamacare – “net receivers.” But his encounter at the fair reminded him that, for a while, he and many people he cared about had been takers, too.

The morning after a night “working the Quarter Pounder grill at McDonald’s,” Ryan, 16, found his father, who had been troubled by alcohol, dead in bed. Janesville’s strong sinews of community sustained Ryan and his mother; so did Social Security survivor benefits. When GM’s Janesville assembly plant closed, draining about $220 million of annual payroll from a town of 60,000, many relatives, friends and constituents needed the social safety net – unemployment compensation, job training, etc.

“At the fair that day, I realized I’d been careless with my language,” he writes. “The phrase gave insult where none was intended.” He has changed his language and his mind somewhat but thinks the fundamental things still apply.

“Society,” Ryan writes, “functions through institutions that operate in the space between the individual and the state,” and “government exists to protect the space where all of these great things occur.” Hence government has a “supporting role” as “the enabler of other institutions.” Progressive government, however, works, sometimes inadvertently but often deliberately, to subordinate or supplant those institutions. This depletion of social capital is comprehensively injurious to the culture. And “all the tax cuts in the world don’t matter much if you don’t get the culture right.”

Progressivism aims to place individuals in unmediated dependency on a government that can proclaim, as Barack Obama does: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Meaning, people depend on government for what they are and have.

Few of today’s progressives are acquainted with their doctrine’s intellectual pedigree or its consistent agenda. Progressivism’s founders, however, considered it essential that the nation make progress, as they understood this, beyond the Founders' natural rights philosophy, which limits government by saying (in the Declaration of Independence) that it is “instituted” to “secure” these rights.

Hence Woodrow Wilson, a progressive who understood his doctrine’s premises, urged Americans to “not repeat the [Declaration’s] preface.” Progressivism preaches that rights do not pre-exist government, that they are dispensed and respected by government as it sees fit and to fit its purposes. Those purposes grow unconstrained by the Constitution that progressives construe as a “living” – meaning infinitely elastic – document.

Since 1999, when he became its second-youngest member, Ryan has been an intellectual ornament to the House of Representatives – and a headache for risk-averse Republican Party operatives. They pay lip service to electing conservatives who will make the choices necessary to stabilize the architecture of the entitlement system and unleash the economic growth that must finance the system’s promises. But they want to let voters remain oblivious about the choices required by that architecture’s rickety condition.

Such Republicans are complicit with Obama, who demonstrated the self-destructive nature of his now-evaporating presidency by his contemptuous, and contemptible, treatment of Ryan on April 13, 2011. After he loftily aspired to teach Washington civility, the White House invited Ryan to sit in the front row at a speech in which Obama gave an implacably hostile and mendacious depiction of Ryan’s suggestions for entitlement reforms. Obama thereby repeated his tawdry performance in his 2010 State of the Union address, when, with Supreme Court justices in the front row of the House chamber, he castigated them for the Citizens United decision, which he misrepresented.

Both times, Obama’s behavior bespoke the insecurity of someone who, surrounded by sycophants, shuns disputations with people who can reply. Ryan, however, has replied with a book that demonstrates Obama’s wisdom in not arguing with a man who has a better mind and better manners.

SOURCE

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Eric Holder as a cry-baby & Obama as a perpetual adolescent

ATTORNEY GENERAL and all around scum-bucket Eric Holder felt it imperative to rush off to Ferguson, MO, to toss in his two cents worth of gas on a burning fire. He could have pointed out that the reason there is 50% unemployment among the black males in town, men who have nothing better to do than cause mischief for the benefit of the TV cameras, was because three-quarters of them never even finish high school. Instead, he took the opportunity to let them know he shared their grievances against the police because twice in his younger days, he, too, had been – oh, the humanity! -- stopped by traffic cops.

The odd thing is that I am a white man roughly 10 years older than Holder, and I was stopped by cops about a dozen times between the ages of 13 and 21. The first couple of times, I was stopped by Beverly Hills cops because we lived in an apartment just outside the city border, and, so, if I were spotted walking or riding my bike at dusk, on my way home from the playground or on my way to a book store, I would find myself being questioned by the guys in blue. Nobody, they would explain, exaggerating only slightly, walked or rode a bicycle in Beverly Hills after sunset.

Once I began driving, I was stopped on a regular basis even by L.A. cops because I looked too young to be driving legally. Finally, by the time I was going to UCLA, and work on the Daily Bruin would occasionally keep me on campus until late at night, I was often stopped and questioned by those same Beverly Hills cops on my way home. But now it was because, as they pointed out, nobody rode a motorcycle before or after dusk in Beverly Hills.

Whether or not Mr. Holder believes me, I never took it amiss. I did not think they were picking on me because I was young or short or Jewish. I believed they stopped me because I looked suspicious to them, and I figured they were just earning their salaries, and that if I had their job, I, too, would be stopping me and asking a few questions.

What Holder doesn’t mention is that, as a young man, he had been an Afro-haired college activist who had been part of a student uprising at Columbia University that took over and held an ROTC building for five days in 1970. Because even back then, college administrators were a gaggle of cowards, he wasn’t booted out on his butt, but allowed to hang around and get a law degree.

Only someone as race-fixated as Barack Obama would have appointed Holder in the first place or stood by while his attorney general refused to indict the Black Panthers for intimidating white voters in Philadelphia.

Speaking of Obama, the thing I have come to understand about him is that in addition to being a leftist with a scary agenda, a bigot and a narcissist, he is an adolescent. That’s why he’s so lazy. Sometimes, students are bored because they’re very bright and grasp a subject so quickly that they tend to doze off while waiting for their fellow classmates to catch up. Other times, students are bored because they are those other classmates and simply can’t grasp the lesson.

And sometimes, as I believe is the case with Obama, it’s because their minds are so lazy and self-absorbed that the only things they can manage to focus on for any length of time are those amusements such as golf and basketball or attending galas, that simply don’t call for mental discipline.

SOURCE

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NLRB goes rogue against small business

Labor Day provides the opportunity to evaluate those government agencies that impact the workplace, and gauge if they are helping or hurting the employment situation in America.

In the six Labor Days since President Obama took office, his appointees have gone to outrageous lengths to compel the 93 percent of the private-sector workforce who don't belong to an organized labor union to become dues-paying members.

While the Labor Department and the National Mediation Board have each pushed hard to create rules that overwhelmingly favor union organizers over those employees who oppose unionization, it is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which has taken the most outlandish actions in their attempt to tip the balance toward primary Democratic Party funders in Big Labor.

Few need to be reminded of the NLRB's general counsel's failed attempt to compel Boeing Corp. to remain in union-friendly Washington state, rather than relocating to South Carolina. After garnering national headlines and sending Congress into a frenzy, the NLRB backed down from their attempt to stop the aircraft manufacturer's move to the right-to-work state. But the audacity displayed by the agency — that they believed they could dictate company relocation or expansion decisions — made this obscure entity a national talking point of big government gone wrong.

The general counsel, at the same time, filed a lawsuit against two states whose voters had affirmed the right to secret ballots in union elections through their state constitutional amendment processes. The uproar in the states being sued was real, but this NLRB threat largely faded away as Big Labor's attempt to do away with secret elections through congressional action failed.

Now, the NLRB is going off the rails again. They have decided to destroy business franchise/franchisee agreements by allowing the corporations that spin out thousands of small businesses using their name, business model and products to be sued over the alleged actions of a few of the small, independent business.

This strikes at the heart of the independence of almost 1 million locally owned franchise businesses. If the actions of a few franchises can drag the corporate partner into legal action, then the cost of operating this small business model rapidly escalates, and the advantages of splitting profits with local, independent store operators rapidly disintegrate.

If the left wants to change the franchise laws, that is their prerogative. They need to go to Congress and seek to change the law, not go to the rogue, Big Labor-controlled NLRB to rewrite the law.

It's three strikes and you're out for the NLRB's ability to play investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner when it comes to our nation's labor laws. Legislation by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) that would rein in the NLRB's outrageous, one-sided behavior by stripping away the NLRB's adjudicatory authority, returning it to the federal justice system where it belongs.

It is time to rip the power over our nation's labor laws from this rogue body's grip and give it back to Congress and the federal court system. It is time for the House of Representatives to pass Austin Scott's Protecting American Jobs Act.

SOURCE

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Price transparency lowers healthcare costs

A study recently published in Health Affairs describes how price transparency drove down the cost of MRIs by almost twenty percent from 2010 to 2012. Compared to patients who did not have the advantage of transparent pricing, patients who knew what their MRI procedure would cost saw a cost reduction of $220 per procedure. Further, price transparency was associated with a significant shift from hospitals to outpatient facilities.

This result is just the beginning. It was not a result of true consumer-driven health policy, but an intervention by an insurer. When a physician referred a patient for an MRI, the insurer required prior authorization before paying for it. When the patient called for prior authorization, the customer-service rep was able to give the patient the choice of a lower-cost provider in the same area. Importantly, the insurer’s rep was able to tell the patient how much he or she would save by using the lower-cost provider.

This is something that healthcare providers resist mightily—for obvious reasons. As a consequence, more expensive providers, especially hospitals, dropped their fees significantly. This resulted in a 30 percent compression of prices.

It is a step in the right direction. The Health Affairs article notes that government dictating price transparency has no effect—as discussed previously at this blog. Nevertheless, there is a lot further to go. For example, one-third of the patients had zero co-pay or deductible, and so were completely insensitive to price. Also, it still requires too much bureaucratic intervention. Why should a patient have to call the insurer to figure out the best price for the service?

For reducing costs, imaging is probably low-hanging fruit. Nevertheless, this experience teaches valuable lessons. Prior authorization alone (when an insurer simply makes a yes or no decision on whether it will pay for a procedure) is a cause of irresolvable conflict between payers and providers. Because the patient remains insensitive to price, if the physician decides to do the paperwork for prior authorization, it does not reduce costs. This was confirmed for Medicare in a Congressional Budget Office estimate in 2013.
However, introducing price sensitivity to prior authorization “softens up” the decision for both patient and insurer: The patient understands that the insurer is trying to get the best bang for the buck, not just prevent access to diagnosis.

What are the next steps?

    Private insurers can make prices of credentialed providers even more transparent, by posting fees on their websites and clearly informing patients about how much money they will save by going to low-cost providers.

    Private insurers can design ways to financially reward patients who have no co-pays or deductibles to make price-conscious decisions also.

    Medicare can also design ways to reward beneficiaries for making cost-saving imaging decisions (likely through Medigap plans, which often cover beneficiaries’ co-pays).

This is still a long way from consumer-driven health care. However, like reference pricing for surgery, this experience should motivate insurers to continue experimenting with letting patients know, understand and respond to the prices of medical care.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The self-loathing of the British Left is now a problem for us all

A British perspective on Leftist hate.  The reference to Rotherham concerns child abuse  of white girls by Muslims-- abuse that was long covered up by political correctness

It’s often been observed that a certain type of British Lefty hates Britain – and that they reserve particularly hatred for Englishness. Back in 1941 George Orwell made this acute remark:

    "England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution"

So what’s new? The difference today is that this shame and self-hatred now dominates Left-wing thought, whereas it was once balanced by the decent Left: who were proud to inherit the noble traditions of radical English patriotism.

Evidence for this disease is all around us, but shows up particularly in two red-button issues-of-the-day: the independence referendum, and the appalling revelations from Rotherham.

First, Scotland. The latest polls show that the United Kingdom is close to breaking up. This is a remarkable state of affairs when you consider that, a year ago, polls were two to one against partition. How has this occurred? Because we have allowed the British Labour party to lead the No debate.

This was a disastrous decision, given that, as Orwell noted, Labourites and Lefties revile and deride so many of the things perceived as quintessentially British. Take your pick from the monarchy, the flag, the Army, the history of rampant conquest, the biggest empire in the world, the supremacy of the English language, anyone who lives in the countryside, the national anthem, the City of London, the Royal Navy, a nuclear deterrent, the lion and the unicorn, duffing up the French, eating loads of beef – all this, for Lefties, is a source of shame.

The result, north of the Border, is plain to see. Whenever the passionate and patriotic SNP asks the No campaign for a positive vision of the UK (instead of dry economic facts, and negative fear-mongering) all we hear is silence, or maybe a quiet murmur about “the NHS”. Yes, the NHS. For many Lefties, the NHS – an average European health system with several notable flaws – is the only good thing about Britain. It’s like saying we should keep the United Kingdom because of PAYE. Thus we tiptoe towards the dissolution of the nation.

There is a deep irony here. If Scotland secedes it will hurt the Labour Party more than anyone, electorally. But such is the subconscious hatred of Britain and Britishness in Lefty hearts, I believe many of them think that’s a price worth paying: just to kick the “Tory Unionists” in the nuts, just to deliver the final death-blow to British “delusions of grandeur”.

It is a tragic state of affairs. And yet there is worse. Rotherham.

We don’t need to rehearse the facts. We’ve all read them, and reeled away in horror. The interesting question is how and why would any country allow the racialised gang-rape of its own daughters?

Why? Because too many in that country, especially on the Left, most especially in the Labour Party, despise their own ordinary people: the white working classes.

Take this comment by Jack Straw, Labour MP for Blackburn, and Home Secretary from 1997-2001, when the Rotherham atrocities were beginning. “The English are potentially very aggressive, very violent.” It is almost unimaginable that any senior politician would say this of his own people in America, Russia or France. Yet here it comes straight out of the mouth of a very senior politician indeed – along with many other expressions of Guardianista sneering: at the white working classes with their “chav culture”, “BNP values”, “Gillian Duffy bigotry” and so forth.

What kind of message does Straw’s statement send to everyone else? It says that the English are dislikeable, that they are to be feared, and contained, to be treated with contempt. It says that the ordinary English are a nasty race who need to be diluted by mass immigration; it says, in particular, that poor white English people are especially worthless.

And thus, Rotherham.

Yes, it’s infinitely depressing. But we cannot give in to despair. Instead we could listen again to George Orwell, who once said that, however silly or sentimental, English patriotism is “a comelier thing than the shallow self-righteousness of the left-wing intelligentsia”. Orwell wrote those words seventy years ago. It is time we paid attention, and turned the tide.

SOURCE

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My Journey from Tyranny to Liberty

BY LILY WILLIAMS

I am an Chinese immigrant who come to America to seek freedom from the Communist China. I was born right before China’s Cultural Revolution and grew up in Chengdu, Capitol of Sichuan province, China. As you know, in China there is only one party that is truly in power: The Communist Party. The government, which is the Communist Party, controls everything: Factories, schools, the press, hospitals, land, and universities. Growing up there, I never heard of such a thing as a “private company." There were no choices of any sort. We were all poor. We had no gas or stove, no TV, no phones, no refrigerators, and no washing machines. In the cities, electricity was rationed. In the countryside, there was no electricity.

Our family of five had to live on the very low wages my parents earned. The local government issued coupons for people to buy everything from pork to rice, sugar, and flour and there was never enough. We got to buy only 2.2 pounds of pork per month for our family of five. We lived in a two room 'apartment', without heat in the winter and no indoor plumbing. I got impetigo every winter from the cold damp winter weather, which was common for kids to get. Eight families lived in our complex, and we had to share bathrooms (holes in the ground outside), one for all males, and one for all females. When the lights were out, no one would replace the bulb for a while so it would be totally dark to go to the bathroom. It became a quite scary adventure at night for us to go there. We had only government run hospitals which were filthy. I was afraid of going to a hospital because I might get diseases. The last two years before I left for college, we moved into a three-room apartment provided by my dad's work-unit. It had concrete walls and a concrete floor, a water faucet and sink, but no heat. It had a shared public restroom without a shower or bathtub - but, it was infinitely better than what we had before.

I was eager to go to school when I turned 6 years old. My parents did not let me to go to school because they needed me to babysit my younger brother who was one year old. They could not afford his child care. I cried for a long time that night. My parents felt so guilty so they bought me a movie ticket next day. Finally, I went to school at age of 7. I was so happy and motivated to be a top student. As a child, we were brainwashed in public school every day. We were taught that two-thirds of the world population were suffering and living in hunger and our socialist country was the best. We didn't think that maybe China should be counted as part of the two thirds of suffering humanity! We believed whatever the government told us because we did not know anything else. I thought the other countries must be hellish if they were worse than we were. Anyway, we chanted daily: “Long Live Chairman Mao, Long Live the Communist Party. I love Chairman Mao." I was so brainwashed as a small child that I could see Chairman Mao in the clouds or the cooking fire. He was like a god to me. We were required to read all of Mao’s Red books, wear Mao’s buttons, write journals, and confess any bad thoughts to Mao.

We were required to conform, not stand out as an individual. I was held back to join the Young Pioneers because I was not humble enough (I told my classmates I should be in the first batch to join due to my 100% grade on every subject and they reported on me). The big powerful state from top to bottom was always watching us very closely: from Beijing’s central government to our neighborhood block committees and police stations. We had no rights, even though our constitution said we did. It was very scary that local police could stop by our home to pound on the doors at night for any reason. The government told us how to dress (Mao’s suit), what to buy and eat (coupons), where to live (household registration system) and what to read (government newspapers). The land belonged to the people (the government actually) and citizens were not allowed to have any weapons or off to prison they would go. Things have changed a lot in China since the open door policy of Deng Xiaoping really got going in the early 1980s; people have more freedom than ever before to start businesses, get jobs in another city, travel overseas, etc, but the political system is still fundamentally the same one party rule.

My favorite teacher in high school told me that he was sent to a Re-education Labor Camp because the Communist Party punished those who criticized the party even though the party was asking for feedback. His health was ruined during those years. He said “China is not a country of laws." I was determined to study law in college. After three whole days, eight hours of testing each day, I scored very high and was admitted by Fudan University (one of the top five universities) in Shanghai law school. I became the first one in my entire extended family ever to go to college. When there I was depressed to find out that what we learned in school and what was reality were totally different things. The society was not ruled by law but ruled by men. After I became a law school faculty member at Fudan University in Shanghai, I had to be careful about what to say in the classroom or during the party political study and self-criticism meetings. My leaders in law school even intruded into my private life telling me, for example, that I received too many letters (I was too social), or I should not go to my boyfriend’s parents’ house for dinner and spend a night. I was a law school faculty member and yet I was still being treated as a child!

I realized I could not really have the personal freedom I dreamed to have if I stayed in China, so I decided to re-enter school in the USA. It was a long and stressful process for me to step down from my position and leave China. I went to the local security office to apply for my passport seven times and was treated as a deserter with papers literally thrown at my face. My law school made me sign a paper saying that I must return to my job in Shanghai after two years of graduate study, or they will eliminate my position and send my personnel file (everyone has one in China which follows you from birth to death) to my hometown in Chengdu, which would be a death sentence for my law teaching career. However, I was determined to leave and did not care about what I had to sign.

I arrived in America in 1988 with $100 in my pocket. The first ten years when I was in the U.S, I still had nightmares about being trapped in China by the government and having to dig a big hole in the ground, into the blue Pacific Ocean, so I could escape, jump into the Ocean, and swim to the United States. Even when I went back to China later to visit with my American husband in 1991, my fears would return. For example, staying at a friend’s apartment in Beijing, one night the police came to pound on the door and wanted to check our papers. Someone must have reported to them that that there was a foreigner in the neighborhood. I was pregnant with our first son at that time, and we were in deep sleep after midnight when the police’s door-pounding scared the heck out of me and brought all the childhood bad memories back. Fortunately, they only wanted to check our papers, or maybe just let us know who was in charge. Another time I was in China during June 4th (Tian An Men crackdown) anniversary for a business trip, I was in a business-friend’s car, when we were randomly pulled over by the local police to check out our IDs and search our car. They did not have to show any search warrant. I used to also travel often to Guangdong Province for business when I worked in Hong Kong. I remember the taxi drivers called the local police “mafia” because of their brutality and corruption.

I did not hesitate to become an American citizen in 1995. Here I could speak freely and have my rights protected. I do not take my new freedom for granted. I vote in every election. As a U.S. citizen, I have worked for private companies in Hong Kong and Denver. Later, I started my own business and worked hard to grow my business. For the past 15 years, my husband and I have raised three children in Parker, Colorado, enjoying a middle class life: kids, a house, a dog, and 2 cars. From the $100 I brought over from China to having my own businesses and properties, I know I am living the American Dream. All the immigrants I know who come to this country do so because they believe America is a land of opportunity and freedom. We know that if you are smart, work very hard, and save your money, you will be successful and make a nice living here. I love this country. I want my children to continue to enjoy the freedom that brought me here. I want my children to have the same opportunity I had to succeed.

By telling my own story, I wanted to share my message with you: big governments do not work; big governments are very dangerous because they eventually use force. Big government attracts people who love power and control. Big government seems to want to distract you and direct your choices to unimportant social conventions yet limit your choices on really important things like speech, self-defense, and property rights. The freedom we have in this country is precious. The governments in the US are essentially pretty good. However, we are losing more and more liberty every day. The two major parties of this country have always expanded the government (federal or state), even when they say they are shrinking them. Whoever is in power always wants to 'do' something, to 'solve' some problem. It never really works because government must use force to solve whatever problem of the day arises. Now the federal government is $17 trillion in debt from all the problems it has 'solved'; we are losing our freedom to choose in many aspects of our life: health care, education, speech, privacy, what we want to buy to protect our families, how much money we want to keep after our hard work, etc., and even in New York drink sizes! Big government is like a cancer; it will grow and spread and keep growing if we don’t stop it. Do not believe things will always get better. I know that people are born the same everywhere, yet their cultures and systems of government can be vastly different. Our culture, our people, and our increasing reliance on more government are, I think, a very dangerous trend.

The country has been on the wrong path for too long, all our governments have been growing bigger for too long. What kind of country is this if we have to work over a half of the year to pay all the taxes and fees: federal, state, city, county; including payroll, phone, gas, car license, eating out, hotel stays, air travel, licenses, tariffs, etc. We are taxed to death for many things we don't want and the country is broke. This is astounding to me. What kind of country is this if the government uses force to take your money and spend the way they see fit and still tell you it is good for you? Are you its servant or master? Do you own yourself or not? What kind of country is this if the government takes away your choice of marrying anyone who makes you happy? Are you a consenting adult or not? What kind of country is this if the government can put you into a prison for what you are consuming? What kind of country is this if we become like a China Socialist Iron Rice Bowl, where people are treated the same everywhere; where it does not matter whether you work hard or not, that you are told "If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." and where you must redistribute what you produce. What kind of country is this where the government monitors our private email and phone calls? What kind of country is this if the IRS can target you based on your political affiliation? Why have we Americans become so unsure of ourselves that we want to be like other countries and to think like them instead of wanting them to be like us? When did this change happen? Where is the America I dreamed of - full of strong men and women without fear of acting on their own behalf?

Big government people have always been attracted to power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Big government people are perpetually alarmed busybodies who fearfully want to insert themselves into everybody's business here and abroad, telling them what to do or not do. That is why I felt I had to become an advocate for liberty. Let us stop these people now. Wake up and stand up. Remember how this country was founded and what our constitution really protects - Individual Liberty! Vote for liberty, vote for small, effective, and limited government

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Some amusing medical news

One of the enduring myths among health freaks is the magical power of fish oil.  There has however always been a lot of doubts about that among medical researchers so there have been many studies looking into the matter.  The latest review of the medical literature knocks the whole thing on its head.  The article concerned is hidden behind a fierce paywall but I think it is too amusing to stay only there.  So I am reproducing the abstract below.  Reproducing abstracts is not generally considered a breach of copyright.  The abstract was in fact sent to me by JAMA so I infer that they want the findings to be known in professional circles

Fish Oil Supplements

Long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are present in cold-water fish such as herring or salmon and are commercially available in capsules (over the counter and by prescription), can decrease fasting triglyceride concentrations 20-50% by reducing hepatic triglyceride production and increasing triglyceride clearance. 1 With long-term intake, they may increase HDL-C.

Efficacy

The results of recent studies do not offer any convincing evidence that fish oil supplements either prevent cardiovascular disease or improve outcomes in patients who already have it. 2 3

Lovaza (formerly Omacor), a combination of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), was the first omega-3 PUFA product to be approved by the FDA for treatment of severe hypertriglyceridemia (Table). Daily doses of 3-12 g can lower triglycerides by 20-50%, but have not been shown to prevent pancreatitis, which is a major concern in patients with very high triglycerides. Vascepa, the second FDA-approved omega-3 PUFA product for treatment of severe hypertriglyceridemia, is the ethyl ester of EPA. In controlled trials, it has reduced triglyceride levels by 22-33% compared to placebo. 4

Adverse Effects

DHA can increase LDL-C levels, but EPA apparently does not. Fish oil supplements are generally well tolerated. Adverse effects have included eructation, dyspepsia, and an unpleasant aftertaste. Worsening glycemic control has been reported in diabetic patients taking large doses. Fish oil in large doses can also inhibit platelet aggregation and increase bleeding time; whether it could cause clinically significant bleeding has not been established.

Conclusion

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids can lower high plasma triglycerides, but they have not been shown to decrease the risk of pancreatitis. The results of recent studies do not offer any convincing evidence that fish oil supplements prevent cardiovascular disease.

From The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics

JAMA. 2014;312(8):839-840. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.9758.  Adapted from "Drugs for Lipids." Treat. Guide Med. Lett. 2014;12(137):1-6.

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The Stage Is Set for Executive Amnesty

Just a few weeks ago, it appeared immigration would dominate the news headlines leading up to the November election. But war in the Middle East and Ukraine and riots in Ferguson have pushed the situation at the border down to a few sidebar stories.

Yet the political stakes are high, and the red line of Barack Obama’s promise to take steps on immigration reform by the end of summer – with or without Congress – means there could be an executive action on his part in the next few weeks. “[H]ave no doubt, um, in the absence of congressional action, uh, I’m going to do what I can to make sure the system works better,” he said Thursday. The president has nothing to lose and everything to gain politically.

Most likely his action will be an expansion of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) order, which essentially served as a permission slip for more than 1.5 million illegal aliens who came as children with their parents. Administration insiders believe five or six million more illegals will benefit from any new Obama move. Proponents argue it’s a necessary step to take because resources are limited and Congress didn’t act. Meanwhile, Democrats believe the Republican reaction would be beneficial to their side. They’re just daring Republicans to say the “i-word” should Obama go through with this DACA-expansion amnesty.

But Obama himself made the case against executive action not all that long ago. In 2012, he argued he couldn’t go any further than deferring deportations for children: “If we start broadening that, then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that’s not an option.”

Much of this could have been avoided, claims “Gang of Eight” member Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). “I’ve been warning that [Obama] would do something unilaterally on immigration at some point, despite his denials of any intention to do that,” said Rubio. “My fundamental warning was that if [Republicans] didn’t like the legalization provisions in the bill, it was quite possible, if we didn’t act, that we would get the Gang of Eight-style legalization but without any of the bill’s enforcement mechanisms,” he added, defending his participation.

While Rubio was in favor of the Gang of Eight approach at the time, he now believes it was a mistake. If done again, he would secure the border first, then install broader E-verify requirements and reform the tracking of visa entries and exits. Of course, enforcement is all up to the will of the Executive Branch. And House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), for one, is of the opinion that Obama is “threatening to rewrite our immigration laws unilaterally” rather than provide enforcement.

Nor is enforcement on the mind of governors like California’s Jerry Brown, who introduced Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto by saying all immigrants were welcome in his state, legal or not.

In his speech, the Mexican president called the United States “the other Mexico” and gushed that California had “evolved” compared to other states which “skimp on recognition of … the rights of immigrants.” It’s estimated that 11.4 million immigrants who were born in Mexico reside in the United States, a sizable chunk of the roughly 120 million who populate Mexico. A recent Pew survey found just over one-third of Mexicans would move to the United States if they had the chance, and one-sixth would even do so illegally. That’s about 20 million more for the permanent underclass of likely Democrat voters.

Clearly, much of this immigration furor is political posturing for both the November midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race. But with either result, Obama has the chance to emerge victorious – either he gets a Democrat-controlled Senate to keep House Republicans at bay, or he gets a completely Republican-controlled Congress that will incentivize him to use his pen, if not his phone. Amnesty is just one place where he can whet his appetite for dictatorial power, with climate change being another.

The irony, of course, is that mass amnesty will hurt Obama’s own low-income constituents most by depressing wages and making it hard to find jobs. All net job gains since 2000 went to immigrants.

Thus, despite polls which for years have shown Americans would prefer no greater number of immigrants – if not a decrease in the rate – it’s likely that executive policy will take us in the other direction while ignoring the vital function of border security. The system isn’t actually broken, but the laws aren’t being enforced.

SOURCE

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The Democratic Shift to the Left

The Democratic Party is torn between a liberal establishment that wants more government, and an even more liberal wing that wants the same thing squared

It would take a heart of stone, as the fellow said, not to laugh out loud at President Barack Obama's recent comparison between the two major political parties.

"Ideological extremism," he told The New York Times, "is much more prominent right now in the Republican Party than the Democrats. Democrats have problems, but overall if you look at the Democratic consensus, it's a pretty commonsense, mainstream consensus. It's not a lot of wacky ideological nonsense, the way it is generally fact-based and reason-based."

Spoken like a true partisan: My Side is calm and reasonable, and Your Side is full of raving lunatics.

The tea party movement has indeed created a rift on the right between a somewhat conservative establishment and a viscerally conservative insurgency. The struggle between those two factions has provided the grist for roughly 2.3 gajillion news stories over the past few years.

But as Commentary magazine's Seth Mandel put it so nicely a few months ago, "complaints over the last few years about the GOP being pulled to the right by conservatives were not about liberals' desire to meet in the middle and compromise, no matter how much they might decry the supposed extremist drift of the right. What they wanted was their very own Tea Party."

The judgment is, as the president would say, fact-based. You can see that in the fawning adulation that greeted the Occupy protests, which amounted to one long primal scream against capitalism. Whatever the protests lacked in coherence (which was a lot), they made up for in passion. And for a while, the most dangerous place to stand in America was between a microphone and the cadre of Democratic politicians racing to express their proud solidarity with that inspiring movement of starry-eyed young dreamers.

You can see the desire for a Democratic tea party in the cheers that greet Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Tribune of the Proletariat, whose angry tirades against the moneyed interests draw standing ovations and chants of "Run, Liz, run!"

And you can see it in the polls: Two decades ago, 35 percent of active Democrats said their views were mostly or always liberal. Now 70 percent say so. The Democratic Party's mainstream consensus, as the president calls it, has moved decidedly to the left. (Granted, Democrats do not all think alike, any more than Republicans do; generalizations are vexing. But if the president employs them, so can we.)

Just as the Republican Party now has many big-government conservatives—those who think Washington should export democracy abroad and impose virtue here at home—the Democratic Party once had what might be called small-government liberals: those who thought government could make some things better, yet still leave other things alone.

Where is the small-government liberal today? He or she is not to be found in the economic realm, where the mainstream Democratic consensus supports a higher minimum wage, more regulation of business, systemic government control of certain sectors (e.g., education and health care) and massive government intervention in the rest.

Likewise, there is scant dispute on the left regarding the welfare state.

The biggest fight over social programs in the past few years dealt with health care, and it concerned whether to settle for Obamacare or push for single-payer. Liberals who argue that the country might have too many social-welfare programs and spend too much on them are mostly unheard from. To paraphrase conservative author William Voegeli: Democrats do not want the social-welfare state to grow indefinitely—they just want it to be bigger than it is right now.

One might think the small-government liberal shows up in the realm of personal choice. And it is true that on one very narrow band of issues—sex and abortion—liberals agree government should butt out. Yet this is where the butting-out largely ends.

For while liberals largely support, say, the legalization of marijuana, that is not owing to any broader sense that people own their bodies and should be free to do as they like with them—such as ride a motorcycle without a helmet, or engage in sex for profit, or drink a 64-ounce sugary soft drink, or forgo health insurance.

Rather, the contemporary mainstream liberal view of such things holds that individual choices affect the collective good. And since government's job is to safeguard the collective good, government should therefore regulate individual choices. If it allows people to smoke marijuana, that is because it has decided a little reefer now and then causes less collective harm than the harm caused by prohibition.

In other words, the mainstream Democratic view asks how much personal freedom smart public policy should permit. It has little room for the notion that some personal freedom should lie beyond the reach of public policy in the first place.

Does that seem too strong? Then consider the campaign to eviscerate the First Amendment. Democratic leaders such as John Kerry, Sen. Patrick Leahy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and many others—including countless grass-roots activists—want to amend the Constitution to nullify the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, so the government can once again dictate what people can and cannot say about politicians in the weeks leading up to an election. Tellingly, the proposals include provisions stipulating that the press would still be allowed to speak freely about political candidates.

This is a tacit concession that everyone else would not. In that event, rights are no longer trumps; they are simply one more consideration to be balanced against all the rest. Which means they are not really rights at all.

In short, the Democratic Party is torn between a liberal establishment that wants more government, and an even more liberal wing that wants the same thing squared. At bottom, both wings believe the formula for perfection is simple: Put the government in charge of everything, and put the right people in charge of the government. Then just sit back and wait for Shangri-La.

History has falsified that premise time after time. But to the president, it's just plain common sense. Now who's peddling wacky ideological nonsense?

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc -- This week with pictures!

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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In town halls, US lawmakers hear voter anger over migrants

When Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling sat down with olleagues and constituents at a recent Chamber of Commerce lunch in Dallas, the first question he faced was whether Congress planned to address immigration policy and a burgeoning border crisis.

"I'm supposed to do this in 30 seconds?" he joked, noting the issue's complexity. While he was optimistic about long-term prospects for dealing with border security and immigration, he said, "between now and the end of this Congress, I'm a little less sanguine about it."

It has been a question heard repeatedly by lawmakers this month in "town hall" district meetings punctuated - and sometimes dominated - by concerns and angry outbursts over immigration policy and the crisis caused by a flood of child migrants at the southwestern border in recent months.

Those summer town halls have provided lawmakers a first-hand glimpse of growing discontent among Americans over U.S. immigration policy. Seventy percent of Americans - including 86 percent of Republicans - believe undocumented immigrants threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in mid-July.

Those fears have been exacerbated by the recent wave of illegal child migrants from Central America. An issue that had been simmering is now hotting up as voters prepare to go to the polls in congressional elections due in November.

The anger and frustration expressed in the town halls suggests there will be a fierce debate when U.S. lawmakers return to Washington on Sept. 8 and take up proposals to address a flood of child migrants crossing the southwestern U.S. border.

While conservative anger has not approached the levels seen during the healthcare debate in August 2009, when town halls across the country were frequently disrupted, members of both parties have been confronted on the issue.

From border states like Texas to less likely hot spots like Oregon, Colorado, and New York, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have heard a steady stream of questions and complaints from voters - most pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration and some worried about what they see as Washington's inaction.

"I hear it everywhere I go," said Oregon Republican Greg Walden, who travels the country in his role as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"The anger is palpable," Hensarling, a six-term conservative congressman who is often identified by colleagues as a possible next Speaker of the House, told Reuters.

Local media reported police were called to a meeting in Hollister, California hosted by Democratic Rep. Sam Farr after an audience member shouted at Farr and the crowd about the dangers posed by the child migrants.

A town hall hosted by Democrat Jared Polis of Colorado featured constituents shouting at Polis and each other, and applauding those who contradicted him, on a range of issues, most prominently immigration, a local newspaper said

"We've had seven town halls, and immigration is the number one issue that comes up," Polis told Reuters.

Opinion polls show concerns about immigration extend to every region of the country, although they are most acutely felt in the southwestern states near the Mexican border.

SOURCE

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Protecting us from umbrellas and cameramen

A hysterical California gun phobe called the police reporting a man with a rifle strolling on the University of San Marcos campus.

The trained, enthusiastic, protectors of the peace responded with a SWAT team and campus lockdown.

They should have sent A Peace Officer to investigate. You DO remember when we hired peace officers instead of ENFORCERS, don’t you?

No reports of shots fired. Only ONE of the thousand cell phones on campus indicated threatening behavior.

Just one caller who saw a man carrying what might be a rifle… or a stick … or a broom … or … an umbrella on a day when it just might rain.

So one loony can call out an entire swat team with no corroborating evidence, no investigation, no scouting party. That is much like the community fire departments sending out every truck and team in the county to find it is just a back yard barbeque happily, innocently grilling burgers.

At least when the firemen arrived, they wouldn’t hose down the neighborhood.

Muzzle sweeping the dormitories.

Full-auto M-16 aimed at the cameraman, and at they guy who dropped his assault umbrella, hands up, with three goons surrounding him … Yeah, he needs to be looking down the barrel of an M-16 too.

Rather obviously, that is what it takes to make these sissies feel whole. Every once in a while they get to gear up and feel like a man. Trust me, little boys, that is not the same feeling.

Corrections officer training stresses rifles or shotguns at “ready” safely pointed at a 45 degree angle to the ground UNLESS you are going to fire. Military and Peace Officer training did as well.

When did this become okay?  Aiming at unarmed bystanders is outrageous.

Probably about the same time government shooters began using what they strategically named “No Hesitation Targets” like the one on the left for practice. Click on the link to see that article and more of those we are the enemy targets they began using a couple years ago.

Of course we sympathize – they do risk their lives every day to protect us, don’t they?

Uh, not exactly. In fact cops don’t even rank in the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the country... The reality is, at 16th, police fall just below below taxi drivers …

And of the police deaths, 56% are from traffic accidents not related to high-speed chases. If they walked their beats, they probably wouldn’t make the top 40. Better still, if they carried no more firepower than a revolver and did no SWAT training, it would be safer than running a day care.

The ACLU reported recently that SWAT teams in the United States conduct around 45,000 raids each year, only 7 percent of which have anything whatsoever to do with the hostage situations with which those teams were assembled to contend. Paramilitary operations, the ACLU concluded, are “happening in about 124 homes every day — or more likely every night” — and four in five of those are performed in order that authorities might “search homes, usually for drugs.” Such raids routinely involve “armored personnel carriers,” “military equipment like battering rams,” and “flashbang grenades.” Were the military being used in such a manner, we would be rightly outraged.

The Baltimore Sun did an analysis of SWAT deployment in Maryland and found the militarized team was sent out nearly five times each day. Only 6% of SWAT-involved incidents were for extreme emergency situations (bank robberies, barricades, hostage holding) – most were for search warrants or apprehending suspects involved in trivial matters like misdemeanors.

This shift toward a heavy reliance on SWAT teams does not fulfill the mission of “protecting and serving.” If anything, the violent tactics put everyone – including bystanders – in more danger. Let’s not understate the psychology of the situation either – when you dress police in war gear, they’re going to feel like soldiers out for a kill, not officers of peace.

In the last decade alone the number of people murdered by police has reached 5,000. The number of soldiers killed since the inception of the Iraq war, 4489.

So as it turns out, everybody BUT the police should be armed…

Oh yeah, and that California caller who can’t tell an umbrella from a rifle.

SOURCE

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Who’d a-thunk it? Employers respond predictably to a hike in the minimum wage

San Jose, CA, recently raised a tax that it imposes on the use of low-skilled workers its minimum wage.  One result is that an employer reduced the size of the annual bonuses that she pays to her employees.  (NPR has the story; this particular part starts at around the 3 minute, 25 second mark in the audio version of the report.  [What is called at this NPR link the "Transcript" is not a complete transcript of what you'll hear if you click "Listen to the Story".])

Note that these particular workers are among the lucky ones.  While the higher minimum wage didn’t help them, it didn’t hurt them – or at least not very much.*  When bonuses are factored in, these employees were, in fact, already being paid more than even the now-higher minimum wage.  So their employer merely had to rearrange the method by which she paid her employees: more in hourly wages and less in the form of bonuses.

But what if the workers in question were not so productive as to justify total hourly compensation as high as the new legislated minimum wage?  The employer would then have had to resort to less pleasant and more substantive means of adjusting to the higher minimum wage, means that likely would have included employing fewer such workers....

* I say “or at least not very much” because the particular method of compensation used – hourly wages in combination with bonuses – presumably serves some useful purpose for both the employer and the employees.  (My guess is that it is a means of rewarding – and, hence, of encouraging – greater employee productivity.)  By reducing the employer’s and employees’ flexibility in choosing the particular forms in which compensation is paid, the higher minimum wage reduces the ability of payment options to elicit optimal efficiency.

SOURCE

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Forget economic patriotism — it’s time for economic freedom

Political rhetoric in the United States, particularly on the right, has a strong tendency to focus on the incomparable economic freedom of Americans and American businesses. They portray the rest of the world as more socialistic and the American system as the closest thing to a free market economy operating in the world. Yet that is far from the truth. In fact, America is swiftly being supplanted as a preferred place of business by many other countries in the rich world.

The reason for America’s declining business attractiveness is a matter of simple economics: The US corporate tax rate is ruinously high, and the tax compliance system is mind-bogglingly byzantine. While the average corporate income tax in the OECD, a club of rich countries, is 25 percent, the US federal corporate tax rate is 35 percent. Add state corporate taxes on top of that and the average corporate tax rate in the United States comes out to a whopping 39.1 percent. Even the socialist playground of France has a tax rate of 34.4 percent. America’s bizarrely high corporate tax rates are largely the product of standing still in the face of changes in the global marketplace. European countries have long been skeptical of the free market, yet they have slowly adopted many market precepts over the past few decades. In order to maintain and expand high qualities of living, these countries had no choice but to embrace the market and make doing business easier. Their relatively small economies could not survive with high barriers to doing business in the face of growing emerging market competition.

America, on the other hand, has not faced those same pressures. Thanks to its size and centrality in the global economic system, the United States was able, throughout the Cold War and the two decades after its conclusion, to maintain a particular cachet that attracted businesses to its shores in spite of the erosion, and ultimate inversion, of its tax advantages. Business leaders were (and many still are) willing to pay the tax premium for being incorporated in America where they would be protected by its size, and would be able to trade principally in the dollar, which is still the world’s reserve currency (though for how much longer remains an open question). That willingness to put up with America’s tax regime is beginning to dissipate.

The American business climate is confronted with two market forces that threaten to tear it apart. On the one hand, the marketplace has become ever more choked with regulations which has made doing business harder every year. For example, American-based businesses could balance the relatively high taxes against a more fluid labor force. That advantage has been clogged up by red tape. On the other hand, the perks of being based in the United States have diminished in comparison to the rest of the world. As other countries have slashed corporate tax rates and made their labor forces more adaptable, America has marched resolutely in the opposite direction, toward greater state control of the economy.

America is finally starting to pay the price for its broken corporate tax regime. The recent increase in so-called tax inversions, in which American corporations seek lower tax rates via mergers with companies based in foreign countries. Tax inversions result in American firms effectively becoming foreign businesses, something many politicians on the left have come to fear and despise. At least 47 American tax inversions have occurred in the last decade, but it was not until this month that they started making serious headlines. When the American pharmaceutical firm Abbvie announced it would be taking over the Ireland-based Shire corporation in a $57 billion deal, major figures in the Obama administration and in Congress began to lash out at such corporate maneuvers. Jack Lew, the Secretary of the Treasury, wrote a letter to Congress arguing for “a new sense of economic patriotism, where we all rise and fall together.” Lew’s comments hold frightful echoes of the statists Ayn Rand describes in Atlas Shrugged, officials and bureaucrats who would shackle the productive power of individuals to what they perceive to be the “public good.”

Even Warren Buffett, erstwhile champion of Obama’s higher tax agenda, has gotten in on the inversion action. He is helping Burger King take over Canada’s Tim Horton’s, which will move the headquarters north of the border.

The answer to America’s problems is not more restrictions on businesses, or denying them the ability to leave the country. The answer is to transform the business environment so that companies want to come and stay in the United States. That is the only way to end the flight of firms from America’s shores. America is in dire need of economic freedom, not economic patriotism.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Your strategy was wrong, Mr. President

by Jeff Jacoby

In a TV interview this week, John McCain offered President Obama some sound, if difficult, advice.

"Mr. President," the Arizona senator said, "don't be ashamed of re-evaluating your view of the role of the United States in the world."

President Obama discussed the situation in Iraq at the White House on Aug. 9 before leaving for Martha's Vineyard.

No one likes to admit having been wrong on a fundamental issue. For an American president, few things can be more difficult. When you are invested with tremendous power and prestige because you persuaded tens of millions of citizens to raise you to the highest office in the land, acknowledging that you blundered doesn't come easy. All the more so when the blunder goes to the very core of your strategy for leadership.

Obama's foreign policy is in a shambles. Nearly six years into a presidency whose approach to the world has been grounded in American retrenchment, "leading from behind," deference to multinational organizations, and rejection of military solutions, the world has become a much more dangerous place. Exhibit A, of course, is Iraq, where Obama was not only adamant that all US troops must be withdrawn, but boasted — over and over and over — that he had kept his promise.

It is clear now that America's disengagement from Iraq, coupled with Obama's unwillingness to aid moderates in the Syrian civil war, created a vacuum that the vicious jihadists of ISIS readily filled. Their self-proclaimed caliphate now rules an estimated 35,000 square miles in Iraq and northern Syria. This month Obama reluctantly ordered targeted airstrikes near Irbil, and the Pentagon is considering potential bombing targets inside Syria. But the president still cannot bring himself to concede what more and more Americans grasp: The US retreat from global leadership was profoundly unwise.

Yet acknowledging error would be a mark of character. Other presidents have done it.

George W. Bush initially supported the view, advanced by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that the US troop presence in Iraq would inflame the violent post-Saddam insurgency, and that the only strategy to reduce the bloodshed was to shrink the American military footprint. But in 2006, Bush reversed course. "It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq," he told the nation in a televised address, announcing the deployment of 20,000 additional troops. The surge was deeply unpopular — Bush calls it "the toughest decision" of his presidency. But it defeated the insurgency and won the war.

When Yugoslavia erupted in the 1990s and Bosnians were being brutally attacked by the Serbs, Bill Clinton offered little more than lip service to the victims. Not only was he was unwilling to act directly to stop the Serbs' genocidal attacks, he wouldn't even end the arms embargo that was leaving Bosnians defenseless. An increase in military action, the administration said, would bring peace "not an inch closer."

But that attitude changed after the Serbian massacre of more than 7,000 Bosnian men and boys in the supposed "safe haven" of Srebrenica, and, later, a deadly attack on a marketplace in Sarajevo. After long resisting a military intervention, Clinton reversed course. The United States led a NATO bombing campaign that brought peace not just an inch closer, but ended the Bosnian War. Today, for all his flaws, Clinton is widely esteemed a hero to Bosnians.

Perhaps no modern president has been as forthright as Jimmy Carter in admitting that his approach to foreign policy was egregiously misguided.

Carter had come to office willing to believe the best of the Soviet Union and lecturing Americans on how they should get over their "inordinate fear of communism." The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 woke him up. Moscow's aggression "has made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the Soviets' ultimate goals are," Carter confessed, than anything he had previously observed. Soon after, he announced the Carter Doctrine, declaring that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. He also ordered a military buildup, setting the stage for Ronald Reagan's further increases.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had no faith in Gen. Ulysses Grant's strategy for capturing the stronghold of Vicksburg, Miss. When Vicksburg fell, Lincoln wrote Grant a letter owning up to his misjudgment: "I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment," it ended, "that you were right and I was wrong."

The 44th president, who cites the 16th as a role model, could do with some of that candor. Obama's foreign policy didn't lead where he expected it to, and there is no shame in admitting it.

SOURCE

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Sanctions Rebound To Hit Europeans

The article below is obviously isolationist -- but that was the stance of most Americans for a very long time (including founding fathers such as George Washington) and probably still is

The Financial Times commented on August 10 that in reaction to the chaos in Ukraine, “Western policy has become a mere knee-jerk escalation of sanctions”, and for once the FT has got it right about foreign affairs. The US and its disciples in Europe and Australia have imposed sanctions on Russia for its alleged interference in Ukraine, which has got nothing whatever to do with the US or anyone else. And Russia, understandably, is answering back.

In spite of there being no proof whatever produced by the West’s intercept spooks and other sleuths there is no doubt that Russia has been involved in Ukraine, finding out about and even trying to influence its policies – just as the US is spying on and trying to influence domestic policies in almost every country on this blighted globe and has recently given Ukraine its special attention.

The difference between the activities of the US and Russia is that Ukraine is right next door to Russia, and many of its eastern-located citizens are of Russian origin and speak Russian and think Russian and feel that their cultural roots are Russian and want to belong to Russia, just as their entire country did until 23 years ago.

On the other hand, Washington considers it has the God-given right to listen to everyone’s private deliberations and tell every nation in the world how to run its affairs and if necessary to enforce this by military intervention. The fact that such military fiddling proved utterly catastrophic in Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Libya is neither here nor there. The next frontier is Ukraine.

And poor decrepit leaderless old Britain, socially confused and morally collapsing, tries to combat what it sees as world chaos by following the example of its erratic mentor in applying sanctions on Russia, a country whose amity it would be well-advised to seek.

There is no border between the US or the UK and Ukraine. There is no military treaty binding them together. Ukraine is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It doesn’t belong to the European Union. It has no cultural connection with that Union, and its trade with the entire EU is tiny. It is, however, dependent on Russia for a great deal. And so is the EU, which has no intention whatever of letting Ukraine join it.

Russo-Ukrainian relations are a bilateral matter between Russia and Ukraine. But ever eager to indulge in provocative nose-poking, the US and Britain headed the Charge of the Spite Brigade and decided that an attractive means of trying to foul up the lives of large numbers of perfectly innocent people was imposition of sanctions, proven in history to be totally ineffective in making governments bow to the commands of the sanctioneers.

The West’s malevolent sanctions on Russia were not imposed because Russia had in any way affected the well-being, economic circumstances, territorial integrity or social structure of the United States or of any nation that jumped on the US sanctions’ bandwagon. There was no question of enforcing sanctions because Russia’s actions anywhere in the world had impacted adversely on one single citizen of any Western nation. But they were imposed, anyway, just to try to make things difficult for Moscow and to try to ratchet up tension between Russia and the West.

The sanctions have been an irritant to Moscow, but sanctions are usually more than that, and in the past have proved useless in persuading governments to act contrary to what they perceive as national interests – but they’ve been effective in destroying the lives of ordinary people who have done no harm to anyone.

The US and Britain, for example, imposed sanctions on Iraq for a decade before they invaded it in their lunatic foray which led to the current catastrophe in the region. Their vindictive restrictions inflicted hideous misery on ordinary citizens. But there were some principled people who protested about the appalling human crisis inflicted on Iraq by the US and its misguided ally.

Dennis Halliday, head of the United Nations’ humanitarian program in Iraq, resigned in protest against the criminal carnival, as did his successor, Hans von Sponeck. They made it clear that “the death of some 5-6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US and UK governments’ delayed clearance of equipment and materials is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad.”

Halliday and von Sponeck were honorable men, but of course they were reviled by those who knew perfectly well what effect sanctions were having – because the sanctions had been planned that way. The British and American governments were told plainly that their prohibition on movement of lifesaving material was killing children. And the only action they took was to enforce sanctions even more energetically.

But we know that children don’t matter to war planners and their supporters. After all, when Madeleine Albright, the then US ambassador to the UN, was asked on television whether she considered the deaths of half a million Iraqi children a reasonable result of US sanctions, she replied with the pitiless, utterly heartless statement that “this is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it”.

If any people in official positions in America or Britain disagreed with her judgment that the deaths of half a million children were justified and acceptable, they kept very quiet about it. And such policy continues.

But there’s one enormous problem for the countries of the European Union in joining the US in imposing sanctions on Russia: rebounding retaliation by Moscow.

This is already affecting European economies, and especially the incomes of small producers of foodstuffs, the ordinary folk who always suffer in one way or another from the effects of lordly sanctions, none of which will inconvenience for one instant the high mucky-mucks of the US and other countries who decided to go down the sanctions route. They’ll be perfectly comfortable, and not one of them will suffer in the slightest from Russia’s riposte. But for their citizens it will be quite another matter, because many of them they will experience grave financial loss and considerable distress.

Russia decided to hit back against US and EU sanctions by barring some US and EU imports. And why shouldn’t it, after such gross provocation? But there’s a definite downside for innocent people. For example, Russia is the biggest market for French apples and pears, of which 1.5 million tonnes were expected to be exported this year. Now, thanks to Russia’s reply to the US/UK-sponsored embargo there are hundreds of small farmers in France who are going to have a miserable Christmas. The Scottish and Norwegian fishing industries are suffering appallingly because their exports to Russia were enormous. Now – nothing.

And there is now a curious lack of reporting about all this in the Western media. It’s a major story, but after the first couple of days of media interest in it suddenly became back page stuff in the print media, and blank-out on radio and television.

They’re not interested in Polish, Spanish, Dutch and Greek fruit-growers going bankrupt. Poland, for example, exports over a billion dollars-worth of food to Russia every year, and is suffering accordingly, and a Greek spokesman said that “Russia absorbed more than 60% of our peach exports and almost 90% of our strawberries,” as over 3,500 tonnes of peaches lay rotting in stores and trucks. Ten per cent of the EU’s annual agricultural exports went to Russia. Now – thanks to Moscow’s riposte to US-led imposition of sanctions, there won’t be any.

You might say that this is Russia’s fault. But why should Russia sit meekly and take punishment by the US and the EU that has been imposed by reason of spite?

The European agriculture commissioner, Romanian Dacian Ciolos – yearly salary 250,000 euros (US$333,000), untaxed and not including expenses – declared that Europe’s farmers will “reorient rapidly toward new markets and opportunities”. But just how this miracle is going to take place is not explained.

Mr. Ciolos, like President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron and all the other rich, scheming fatheads who began and are prolonging this vicious economic war, will not himself be affected in the tiniest way by any of their nonsense. It’s only the little people who suffer.

One particularly out-of-touch British politician, the Secretary of State for the Environment, said that Russia’s action “is totally unjustified and I share the concerns of Scotland’s fishing industry about the possible impact on their business”. She declared, presumably seriously, that the UK would “call on the European Commission to consider the merits of any potential World Trade Organization case to ensure the rules of international trade are upheld”, which ignores the fact that it was the European Commission that followed Washington in ensuring that the principles of international trade were shattered by their sanctions on Russia.

The US/EU sanctions of the new Cold War have dropped from pages and screens. But this doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away. Russia’s position is that “We have repeatedly said that Russia is not an advocate of the sanctions rhetoric and did not initiate it. But in the event that our partners [sic] continue their unconstructive and even destructive practices, additional measures are being worked out” in order to make it clear that imposition of sanctions on Russia by the West will continue to be entirely counterproductive.

No doubt the complacent position of Washington, London and Brussels will be that “We think the price is worth it.”

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Hollywood heavyweights come out in support of Israel

Is there hope for Hollywood yet?

Scores of celebrities and power-brokers from the Hollywood establishment have come out in support of Israel and a peaceful resolution to its conflict with Hamas, with stars as diverse as Sarah Silverman, Seth Rogen and Arnold Schwarzenegger signing a joint statement released Saturday.

The statement of support was initially to be published in magazines Billboard, Variety and Hollywood Reporter on Sunday, and later be featured in influential newspapers in the US.

The statement comes after weeks in which a number of celebrities, including Penelope Cruz and husband Javier Bardem, have condemned Israel for its handing of conflict, with Cruz and Bardem even accusing Israel of genocide. But with the notable exceptions of comedian Joan Rivers and actors Roseanne Barr and Mayim Bialik, few have expressed support for Israel.

While many of those are famous names to the general public, such as Schwarzenegger and Rogen, as well as Sylvester Stallone, Kelsey Grammer and Joel and Benji Madden, more than a few are entertainment industry heavy-hitters, including director Ivan Reitman, writer Aaron Sorkin, producers Michael Rotenberg and Avi Lerner, chairman and CEO of PMK•BNC Michael Nyman, talent manager Danny Sussman and mogul Haim Saban. Barr and Bialik, who have been outspoken in their support for Israel, are also signatories.
The statement decries Hamas attacks on Israel and its operation within civilian population centers, and condemns the organization for its charter that calls for the killing of Jews.

SOURCE

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Eric Holder, Racial Profiler

Why has a federal civil-rights murder investigation arisen out of the tumult in a St. Louis exurb? There is only one plausible reason: Eric Holder is guilty of racial profiling.

To be clear, we are not talking here about whether there was justification for the shooting of a young black man, 18-year-old Michael Brown, by a young white police officer, 28-year-old Darren Wilson. Was the shooting a legitimate exercise in self-defense by an officer under attack? Was it an overreaction for which Officer Wilson should suffer serious civil and criminal consequences? Such questions can only be answered by a thorough and fair investigation, the kind of due process owed to both the victim and the subject of the investigation - the kind that, as National Review's editors point out, will be tough to mete out with political thumbs pressing on the scales.

Whatever the outcome, though, murder - including homicide caused by a policeman's application of excessive force - is generally not a federal crime. It is a concern of state law. Only a few categories of murder are within the jurisdiction of federal investigators. In the main, they are far afield from Ferguson: the assassination of a U.S. government official, for instance, or a killing incidental to offenses that have interstate or international repercussions - racketeering, drug-trafficking, and terrorism.

Federal civil-rights laws may be invoked, but only in exceedingly rare circumstances: murders carried out because of the victim's race, ethnicity or religion (see Section 249 of the federal penal code); or murders carried out by police (or other persons acting "under color of law") with the specific intent to deprive a person of some federal right or privilege - usually, but not necessarily, motivated by some animus toward race or analogous personal characteristics (see Section 242).

To constitute a civil-rights crime, it is not nearly enough for a violent act to have the "racial overtones" assorted agitators and commentators choosing to frame the case in racial terms contend it does. To justify a federal investigation, the Justice Department must have a rational basis to believe it could prove these invidious and evil purposes beyond a reasonable doubt. That requires compelling evidence, not a farfetched social-justice narrative.

Remember the similarly tragic Trayvon Martin shooting, when Mr. Holder colluded with the notorious Al Sharpton in raising the specter of a federal civil-rights prosecution, pressuring state officials in Florida to file a specious murder indictment. After a jury swiftly acquitted George Zimmerman, Holder was forced to retreat. As he had to have known all along, the evidence of intent to deprive Mr. Martin of his civil rights was non-existent - even weaker than the state's flimsy murder case.

Well, here he goes again.

Based on what is known about the unblemished six-year record of Officer Darren Wilson and the facts surrounding his shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, there is no reason to suspect racism, much less that any thought was given to Mr. Brown's federal rights during the sudden, violent exchange. There is no way this is a civil-rights case . . . unless you are a backward-thinking dolt who spots racism based on nothing more than the fact that the police officer is white and the victim is black.

It is a violation of federal law to subject a person to criminal investigation solely on the basis of his race. To prevent such government abuse, to root out institutional racism, is the objective of the civil-rights laws, which hold that a person may not be deprived of his rights and privileges - including due process and equal protection under the law - based on his race.

If the Justice Department would not open a civil-rights investigation based on a black police officer's shooting of a civilian, whatever the victim's race, then a white officer is just as entitled to that presumption of innocence. It is no more legitimate for the Justice Department to target a white cop for being white than for a white cop to target a black man for being black. Both would be examples of what the civil-rights laws call "deprivation of rights under color of law."

The U.S. Attorney's Manual, which guides Justice Department prosecutors, is clear on this point (USAM, Sec. 9-27.260):

    In determining whether to commence or recommend prosecution or take other action against a person, the attorney for the government should not be influenced by. . . . the person's race, religion, sex, national origin, or political association, activities or beliefs.

The manual elaborates that prosecutors must, of course, take note of personal characteristics when they are pertinent to the offense. Investigations of immigration violations, for example, necessarily involve a person's national origin. And the fact that a victim and offender are of different races can be considered in building the case for a civil-rights investigation. But this simply means the government need not drop a case that is based on solid evidence of racial animus just because racial difference is part of its proof. It does not mean the mere racial difference can ever substitute for solid evidence of racial animus.

Simply stated, it is impermissible for federal investigations to be commenced in the absence of colorable suspicion based on solid evidence. Yet, despite the absence of any suggestion that Darren Wilson is a racist, we know he has been made the subject of a civil-rights investigation. Obama-administration officials may not yet suspect that Nidal Hasan's 2009 jihadist mass murder of 13 American soldiers was a terrorist attack, or that the Muslim Brotherhood is anything but a "largely secular" organization. They may have given the benefit of the doubt to Assad (the "reformer"), Iran (our good faith negotiating partner), Al Sharpton (Holder's civil-rights adviser), and the IRS (not a "smidgeon" of corruption). But not to Darren Wilson. No sooner had the looting followed the shooting than Holder ceremoniously announced a Justice Department civil-rights murder probe.

Based solely on Wilson's race.

It is ironic at first blush. Holder, after all, is the self-proclaimed scourge of racial profiling. Over the years, he has been a prominent Lawyer Left voice for the idea that institutional racism explains the lopsided representation of black men in the population of American convicts (with strangely less concern for the lopsided representation of black communities among crime victims). The CAIR-driven Muslim grievance sector also has the attorney general's ear: It has become verboten to make the commonsense observation that Islamic doctrine just might have something to do with terrorism plotted against the United States throughout the past quarter-century by Muslims - that all those "smite their necks" verses just might shed some light on the decapitation of American journalists.

So how could Holder be what he purports to abhor, a racial profiler? It is because his selectively zealous anti-racism is the necessary flipside of his race obsession.

This obsession holds that racism is America's original, indelible sin. Crusading for "racial justice" - understood as desired outcome, not due process - becomes the highest cause. And the crusade can never end, no matter how objectively just society has become, because that would put the crusaders out of business . . . and out of power.

SOURCE

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IRS Lied, Currently Hiding Lois Lerner’s Emails!

By now, we all know the story of how the IRS illegally targeted Conservative non-profit groups.

Lois Lerner, the IRS bureaucrat at the heart of the scandal, is on record deliberately targeting these groups. The emails that are available prove that she was collaborating with the FEC and DOJ to go after the President’s opponents.

The vast majority of the evidence proving Lois Lerner’s guilt, however, was destroyed in an alleged “computer crash.”

Well, that was the story that the IRS originally told. Then, they changed their tune and said that the hard-drive was crashed and the data was unrecoverable. Then that turned out to be a lie as IRS technicians testified that they could have recovered the emails, but the IRS chose to incinerate the hard-drive instead. Technicians recounted that the hard-drive has deep gashes in concentric circles, something that was likely handmade and definitely recoverable.

But despite all the evidence, the IRS has always asserted that the emails and data on the hard-drives were lost forever. They claimed that there was absolutely nothing they could do to recover the evidence that Lois Lerner broke the law.

In new bombshell testimony, the IRS’ story has now been debunked and proven to be a COMPLETE LIE!  A Department of Justice attorney told Judicial Watch, a watchdog organization, late last week that Lois Lerner’s emails still exist.

Every keystroke on every government computer is recorded. This is done in case of some catastrophic catastrophe so that government can survive, even when the physical computer systems are destroyed.

This central backup system, which is highly confidential, apparently records EVERYTHING. The only problem is that the data isn’t categorized. It is just archived by its date stamp. This means that there is no easy way to go through the backups and find a specific document.

So when the IRS said that it couldn’t recover Lois Lerner’s emails, that was a complete lie. The IRS has the power to recover everything Lois Lerner ever wrote on her computer… but the tax agency believes it will take too long so it isn’t going to even bother!

That’s right… the IRS has the power and ability to recover all of Lois Lerner’s emails and documents, but has lied in testimony before Congress and a Federal Judge, claiming that recovery was physically impossible.

This is an agency that is supposed to be neutral. Instead, we have entire departments within the IRS that made it their goal to disqualify as many Conservative, opposition non-profit groups as possible. They did this during an election year, which meant that these groups weren’t able to participate fully in the 2012 election!

And now, after more than a year of the IRS stonewalling Congress and claiming the emails were unrecoverable, everything that the Obama administration has told Congress had been proven to be a lie!

The IRS didn’t just lie once… they have lied CONTINUOUSLY to the American people.  If the emails are accessible, the only reason to lie to Congress is if the IRS has something to hide.

SOURCE

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HOW THE WEST WAS LOST

Comment from Australia

Why would the US threaten to place even more sanctions on Russia simply because it attempted to supply humanitarian aid to Russian speaking Ukrainians who are being systematically ethnically cleansed by Ukraine’s war criminal, Petro Poroshenko?

Why would Obama give comfort to Poroshenko and further alienate Vladimir Putin when he has never needed Putin more than he needs him now?

Blame for the rampaging Islamic State and its atrocities rests entirely with Obama. He armed them via the CIA in the hope they would overthrow Syria’s Bashar Assad. They failed. The US has interfered similarly in Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Each is an unholy mess as a result of that interference.

Now Obama is courting the assistance of Assad, the very same bloke he has been trying to kill, to help overthrow the Islamic State. And guess who has been militarily assisting Assad toward the same goal? Yep, Vladimir Putin!

Bloody hell, is this some sort of madness? China, which has a sensible hands-off policy in the Middle East and deals ruthlessly with Islamic terrorists, can’t believe its luck! The US is self-imploding and taking the Middle East and Europe with it.

Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan along with north Africa’s Egypt, Libya and half of central Africa is on fire, ignited by an Arab spring the US promoted. Gaza and the West Bank have erupted because of Obama's unwillingness to support Israel, and now the US wants out? Too late, the Islamic hornet’s nest has been poked.

The Islamic State must be destroyed and quickly but now Obama needs Assad’s and Putin’s assistance. Yet Obama is busily isolating Russia with the assistance of Ukraine, NATO and a bankrupt Europe!

Can Putin really be expected to go sulk silently in a corner somewhere? Has there ever been better ingredients for a World war?
Obama has lit the Islamic fuse yet he still refuses to use the words “Islam” and “terrorism” in the same sentence.

Islam has infiltrated and infested the West to the extent that liberal/left governments are electorally unable to combat it

ASIO’s chief, David Irvine is on the guest speaker circuit for Christ’s sake, he is speaking at the National Press Club this week! The ASIO chief should be neither seen nor heard, he heads Australia’s primary security agency.

A Rudd [Leftist] appointment, Irvine claims publically that there is, "no link between terrorism and Islam". WTF?

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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