Night Watch
China-Vietnam: Today Vietnamese press
reported that Beijing announced it was
towing a second drilling rig into the South
China Sea.
According to a statement posted on the
website of China's Maritime Safety
Administration, the rig will be towed between
18 and 20 June and is currently 104 nautical
miles northeast of Da Nang and 60 nautical
miles from China's Hainan Island.
Yesterday, China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi
arrived in Hanoi on Wednesday to engage in
talks with Vietnam's top leaders -- Party Chief
Nguyen Phu Trong, Prime Minister Nguyen
Tan Dung, and Deputy PM and Foreign
Minister Pham Binh Minh -- about the oil rig
issue.
Comment: It is unclear whether Chinese
actions and announcements are
uncoordinated or deliberately calculated to
provoke the Southeast Asian leaders. Either
way, the Chinese leaders do not seem to care.
They send diplomats, but they have no
authority to negotiate issues of sovereignty or
to commit China to any policy or practice
inconsistent with its claims of sovereignty.
Their task is to persuade the Southeast Asians
to accept the Chinese position and to warn
against violent escalation.
Iraq: The status of the Baiji refinery remains
unclear. Eyewitnesses told the press that they
saw black militant flags flying over the
refinery at Baiji. An Iraqi general said the
government force protecting the refinery was
still inside Thursday and that the force was in
regular contact with Baghdad. The refinery's
workers had been evacuated to nearby
villages, he said.
Helicopter gunships flew over the refinery to
stop any militant advance, the general said.
The ultra-extremists reportedly took over a
building just outside the refinery and were
using it to fire at the government forces.
Samarra. Fighting continues for control of
Samarra, which is the site of the Shiite shrine
to Imam Ali al-Hadi and to his son Imam al-
Askari. Police reported that Sunni militants
fired rocket or mortar rounds towards the
shrine complex, injuring 14 people. The
shrine is undamaged.
Comment: Control of Samarra has important
bearing on outside intervention by Iran and
Lebanese Hizballah because of the Shiite
shrine. Sunni militants damaged the mosque
in February 2006 and in June and July 2007.
That led to sectarian vengeance killings in
which thousands died.
Baghdad. Officials reported more instances of
sectarian murder.
Police and morgue officials said the bodies of
four men were discovered in the Shiite
Baghdad district of Abu Dashir on Thursday.
The bodies were handcuffed and had gunshot
wounds to the head and chest. The officials
presumed they were Sunnis.
A roadside bomb hit a police patrol on a
highway in the east of Baghdad, killing two
police officers and wounding two. A car bomb
also exploded inside a parking lot in
Baghdad's southeastern Shiite neighborhood
of New Baghdad, killing three people and
wounding seven.
Politics. Al-Maliki rejected a US request that
he step down because he was re-elected in
the April elections. His party is entitled to
form a government. He accused the US of
meddling in Iraqi internal affairs.
Comment: There are no reports of ISIL
movements into Baghdad.
Ripple Effects from Iraq
Syria: Tribal leaders in Aleppo said today that
they would ally with ISIL and obey the
group's orders, following a meeting with ISIL
leaders. At the meeting, ISIL's spokesmen
talked about their future plans, calling ISIL a
global association.
Other subjects included the increase in ISIL's
support among Iraqis and providing aid to
civilians. ISIL also called on the leaders of the
Elbu Hamis, Beni Said, el-Avan and el-Ganim
tribes to respect and apply Sharia law. In a
joint statement after the meeting, tribal
leaders said they would help ISIL fight to
establish a new Islamic state across Iraq and
Syria.
Comment: Since Syrian government forces
and Hizballah militiamen control much of
Aleppo, this statement looks mostly like a
propaganda ploy. Two points, however, are
worth noting. First is ISIL's claim that it now
is a global association. That calls to mind al
Qaida, as an association or company.
The second point is that pro-militant
propaganda increasingly focuses on erasing
the national boundaries set by the colonial
powers in 1916. That idea is becoming
popular among Arabs.
Lebanon: Hizballah will fight in Iraq. Hasan
Nasrallah, the secretary general of the
Lebanese Hizballah, threatened that his party
would not hesitate to take part in the ongoing
fighting in Iraq if a need arises there. Hasan
Nasrallah told the press that Hizballah is
willing to sacrifice five times as much as it
sacrificed in Syria in order to protect the
holy shrines in Iraq.
Comment: Lebanese Hizballah sent fighters to
Iraq in the mid-2000's to support Shiites
fighting against the Sunni rebels. Nasrallah's
threats are not idle.
ISIL shows no signs of moving against
Baghdad, much less the Karbala and Najaf
south of Baghdad. An ISIL attack at Samarra,
however, 78 miles north of Baghdad, might
test Nasrallah's commitment again.
Egypt: Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Supporters of
the Holy House) posted a statement on the
Web that it will attack Americans in Egypt if
the US attacks ISIL in Iraq.
Comment : Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is an
Egyptian terrorist group that is responsible
for many of the attacks against Egyptian
forces and interests in Sinai during the past
three years. Since the overthrow of the Mursi
regime, it has become more active and
bolder, attacking outside Sinai. It claimed
responsibility for a bombing attack In Cairo
in January. It is reported to have support
from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
An increased threat to American citizens
abroad is one of the predictable ripple effects
of US intervention in the Iraq crisis.
Ukraine: Politics. Today, Ukrainian President
Poroshenko said he would sign an association
agreement with the European Union (EU) on
27 June.
Petroshenko also spoke by telephone with
Russian President Putin today. The Ukrainian
presidential website claims Petroshenko was
firm in demanding and expected Russian
support for his peace plan.
Comment: The Russian version of the talk was
slightly different. Putin stressed that
Ukrainian security operations must stop
immediately. Neither side mentioned whether
they discussed the EU association agreement.
Differences over Ukraine's association with
the EU started the crisis and led to Crimean
secession. Russian leaders do not appear to
have softened their opposition to a pro-
Western Ukraine.
Security. Ukrainian forces continued
operations and claimed to have killed
hundreds of separatists in an armored attack.
No ceasefire exists. Separatists renewed their
plea for Russian assistance. NATO sources
reported another build-up of Russian forces
near the border of eastern Ukraine.
The militiamen of the Donetsk People's
Republic claimed they shot down a Ukrainian
Su-25 ground support aircraft during a battle
for the village of Yampil, north of Donetsk
Region.
Comment: If the aircraft shoot down claim is
confirmed, it would suggest the militiamen
are using more sophisticated air defense
missiles. They might become capable of
degrading Ukraine's air superiority.
21 Jun 2014
"REAL" AND "UNREAL" WAGES
Mark Shedlock
What follows is a guest post from Doug Short
at Advisor Perspectives . This post has its
roots in a discussion we had about
"real" (inflation-adjusted) wages.
Doug took our initial discussion and merged
it with the number of hours people work.
Here is the decidedly bleak result: Real
weekly earnings were $825 in 1973. Today
they are $690.
Doug Short Guest Post
As a follow-up on some collaboration with
Mike Shedlock in advance of his recent
commentary on wages over time, here's a
perspective on personal income for
production and nonsupervisory private
employees going back five decades.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been
collecting data on this workforce cohort since
1964. The government numbers provides
some excellent insights on the income history
of what we might think of as the private
middle class wage earner.
The first snapshot shows the growth of
average hourly earnings. The nominal data
exhibits a relatively smooth upward trend.
here are, however, two critical pieces of
information that dramatically alter the
nominal series: The average hours per week
and 2) inflation.
The average hours per week has trended in
quite a different direction, from around 39
hours per week in the mid-1960s to a low of
33 hours at the end of the last recession. The
post-recession recovery has seen a
disappointingly trivial 0.7 bounce (that's 42
minutes).
What about inflation? The next chart adjusts
hourly earnings to the purchasing power of
today's dollar. I've use the familiar Consumer
Price Index for Urban Consumers (usually
abbreviated as the CPI) for the adjustment.
Theoretically, the CPI is designed to reflect
the cost-of-living for metropolitan-area
households.
Now let's multiply the real average hourly
earnings by the average hours per week. We
thus get a hypothetical number for average
weekly wages of this middle-class cohort,
currently at $690 -- well below its $825 peak
back in the early 1970s.
Note that this is a gross income number that
doesn't include any tax withholding or other
deductions.
Latest Hypothetical Annual Earnings: $35,000
If we multiply the hypothetical weekly
earnings by 50, we get an annual figure of
$35,497. That's a 16.4% decline from the
similarly calculated real peak in October
1972. I've highlighted the presidencies during
this timeframe. My purpose is not necessarily
to suggest political responsibility, but rather
to offer some food for thought. I will point
out that the so-called supply-side economics
popularized during the Reagan
administration (aka "trickle-down"
economics), wasn't exactly very effective for
production and nonsupervisory employees.
Footnote for economist geeks: Here is a slightly
different look at the data. I've adjusted using
the less familiar Consumer Price Index for
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers,
which among other things, assigns a higher
weighting to gasoline (e.g., longer drives to
work and the grocery store). Also, this is the
series the government uses to calculate Social
Security Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs).
Here is the real hourly history with this
deflator.
Here is the real hourly data multiplied by the
average weekly hours. The latest data point is
14.1% below the 1972 peak.
For additional perspectives on earnings, see
my commentaries on household income.
Monthly Median Incomes Since 2000
By Quintile and Top Five Percent
Median Incomes by Age Bracket
Deflating the American Dream
End Doug Short
Real vs. Unreal Wages and Earnings
I asked Doug if we could factor in social
security, disability, and income taxes. Ideally,
we would also need to factor in property
taxes, sales taxes, and fees.
One might also want to factor in food stamps
and other transfer payments.
Unfortunately, there is no realistic way to
easily do all that. Instead, let's take a look at
Historical Payroll Taxes from the Social
Security Administration.
In 1973 the combined Social Security and
Medicare payment was 5.850%. Today it is
7.65%.
Given that workers making wages as shown
in the charts above would not have hit the
FICA limit, it would be reasonable to subtract
an additional 1.8% from today's weekly $690
weekly figure.
Each person would need to do sales taxes for
their own state. Today the Illinois minimum
sales tax rate is 6.25%. Depending on
localities, it can be as high as 9.75%.
I cannot find a historical table, probably on
purpose. No state would want to publish such
a thing, but I seem to recall something like
4%.
Whatever the rate, assuming most people
making these wages spend damn near
everything, it would be safe to subtract the
difference, whatever it is. Do the same for
income taxes, which Governor Quinn recently
raised from 3% to 5%.
Realistically, there is nothing "real" about
"real" earnings and wages. Thus we must look
at "unreal" wages (incorporating all of the
above ideas) to get the true picture.
It is very safe to say, the decline in "unreal"
weekly earnings from $825 in 1973 to $690
today, understates the decline by a huge
degree.
"Unreal" wages ignores transfer payments
that come out of some else's pocket.
Of course "unreal" is really "real" and "real"
is really "unreal", so it's easy to be confused.
Who to Blame?
I have outlined on many occasions who is to
blame for this sorry state of affairs. The
answer is the Fed, fractional reserve lending,
and government bureaucrats. Nixon closing
the gold window was icing on the cake.
The Fed is hell bent on achieving inflation.
Wages did not keep up because it was easier
to outsource.
In-sourcing is now the buzzword, but the Fed
has cost of money so low that it's easy for
corporations to borrow money and invest in
technology and software to replace workers.
That would be a lot harder to do if wages
were $2.50 an hour. And most people would
be a lot better off if prices were
correspondingly lower as well.
Those with first access to money
(governments, banks, the already wealthy)
are the only ones who gain from inflation.
Everyone else loses. The result is a shrinking
of the middle class.
Instead of pointing the finger at the real
problem, the Fed blames robots and
Democrats blame corporations and
Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans and
Democrats alike fund wars and other
activities via the printing press that the US
cannot possibly afford.
If routine price inflation did not benefit the
banks and the wealthy at the expense of
everyone else, we probably would not have it.
The word that best describes the process is
"theft".
What follows is a guest post from Doug Short
at Advisor Perspectives . This post has its
roots in a discussion we had about
"real" (inflation-adjusted) wages.
Doug took our initial discussion and merged
it with the number of hours people work.
Here is the decidedly bleak result: Real
weekly earnings were $825 in 1973. Today
they are $690.
Doug Short Guest Post
As a follow-up on some collaboration with
Mike Shedlock in advance of his recent
commentary on wages over time, here's a
perspective on personal income for
production and nonsupervisory private
employees going back five decades.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been
collecting data on this workforce cohort since
1964. The government numbers provides
some excellent insights on the income history
of what we might think of as the private
middle class wage earner.
The first snapshot shows the growth of
average hourly earnings. The nominal data
exhibits a relatively smooth upward trend.
here are, however, two critical pieces of
information that dramatically alter the
nominal series: The average hours per week
and 2) inflation.
The average hours per week has trended in
quite a different direction, from around 39
hours per week in the mid-1960s to a low of
33 hours at the end of the last recession. The
post-recession recovery has seen a
disappointingly trivial 0.7 bounce (that's 42
minutes).
What about inflation? The next chart adjusts
hourly earnings to the purchasing power of
today's dollar. I've use the familiar Consumer
Price Index for Urban Consumers (usually
abbreviated as the CPI) for the adjustment.
Theoretically, the CPI is designed to reflect
the cost-of-living for metropolitan-area
households.
Now let's multiply the real average hourly
earnings by the average hours per week. We
thus get a hypothetical number for average
weekly wages of this middle-class cohort,
currently at $690 -- well below its $825 peak
back in the early 1970s.
Note that this is a gross income number that
doesn't include any tax withholding or other
deductions.
Latest Hypothetical Annual Earnings: $35,000
If we multiply the hypothetical weekly
earnings by 50, we get an annual figure of
$35,497. That's a 16.4% decline from the
similarly calculated real peak in October
1972. I've highlighted the presidencies during
this timeframe. My purpose is not necessarily
to suggest political responsibility, but rather
to offer some food for thought. I will point
out that the so-called supply-side economics
popularized during the Reagan
administration (aka "trickle-down"
economics), wasn't exactly very effective for
production and nonsupervisory employees.
Footnote for economist geeks: Here is a slightly
different look at the data. I've adjusted using
the less familiar Consumer Price Index for
Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers,
which among other things, assigns a higher
weighting to gasoline (e.g., longer drives to
work and the grocery store). Also, this is the
series the government uses to calculate Social
Security Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs).
Here is the real hourly history with this
deflator.
Here is the real hourly data multiplied by the
average weekly hours. The latest data point is
14.1% below the 1972 peak.
For additional perspectives on earnings, see
my commentaries on household income.
Monthly Median Incomes Since 2000
By Quintile and Top Five Percent
Median Incomes by Age Bracket
Deflating the American Dream
End Doug Short
Real vs. Unreal Wages and Earnings
I asked Doug if we could factor in social
security, disability, and income taxes. Ideally,
we would also need to factor in property
taxes, sales taxes, and fees.
One might also want to factor in food stamps
and other transfer payments.
Unfortunately, there is no realistic way to
easily do all that. Instead, let's take a look at
Historical Payroll Taxes from the Social
Security Administration.
In 1973 the combined Social Security and
Medicare payment was 5.850%. Today it is
7.65%.
Given that workers making wages as shown
in the charts above would not have hit the
FICA limit, it would be reasonable to subtract
an additional 1.8% from today's weekly $690
weekly figure.
Each person would need to do sales taxes for
their own state. Today the Illinois minimum
sales tax rate is 6.25%. Depending on
localities, it can be as high as 9.75%.
I cannot find a historical table, probably on
purpose. No state would want to publish such
a thing, but I seem to recall something like
4%.
Whatever the rate, assuming most people
making these wages spend damn near
everything, it would be safe to subtract the
difference, whatever it is. Do the same for
income taxes, which Governor Quinn recently
raised from 3% to 5%.
Realistically, there is nothing "real" about
"real" earnings and wages. Thus we must look
at "unreal" wages (incorporating all of the
above ideas) to get the true picture.
It is very safe to say, the decline in "unreal"
weekly earnings from $825 in 1973 to $690
today, understates the decline by a huge
degree.
"Unreal" wages ignores transfer payments
that come out of some else's pocket.
Of course "unreal" is really "real" and "real"
is really "unreal", so it's easy to be confused.
Who to Blame?
I have outlined on many occasions who is to
blame for this sorry state of affairs. The
answer is the Fed, fractional reserve lending,
and government bureaucrats. Nixon closing
the gold window was icing on the cake.
The Fed is hell bent on achieving inflation.
Wages did not keep up because it was easier
to outsource.
In-sourcing is now the buzzword, but the Fed
has cost of money so low that it's easy for
corporations to borrow money and invest in
technology and software to replace workers.
That would be a lot harder to do if wages
were $2.50 an hour. And most people would
be a lot better off if prices were
correspondingly lower as well.
Those with first access to money
(governments, banks, the already wealthy)
are the only ones who gain from inflation.
Everyone else loses. The result is a shrinking
of the middle class.
Instead of pointing the finger at the real
problem, the Fed blames robots and
Democrats blame corporations and
Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans and
Democrats alike fund wars and other
activities via the printing press that the US
cannot possibly afford.
If routine price inflation did not benefit the
banks and the wealthy at the expense of
everyone else, we probably would not have it.
The word that best describes the process is
"theft".
SEX CHANGE REGRET
Michael Brown
While some might find the story laughable, I
personally find it tragic: Don Ennis, an
experienced TV news producer was fired
from his job, allegedly for performance-
related issues, after reappearing as Dawn
Stacey Ennis, marking his third gender
change since last year.
With little sympathy, one website reported,
“A television producer who has changed his
gender three times has now more time on his
hands to know who she or he is.”
Worse still, the New York Daily News,
apparently forgetting that Ennis had lived
almost all of his life as a male, announced,
“Dawn Ennis was canned weeks after her
latest transition from her male persona, Don
Ennis.”
What? It was not Don Ennis who was the
“male persona”; it was Dawn Ennis who was
the “female persona.” And Don is a he, not a
she. In fact, before his wife left him when he
became Dawn the first time around, they had
been married for 17 years and had three
kids.
It would appear that Ennis is quite troubled
and in need of serious help, but even to
suggest such a thing is to be branded
transphobic and hateful.
To all who pull the “transphobia” card, I urge
you to reconsider your rhetoric. Sometimes
compassion causes us to ask the hard
questions rather than simply to affirm
someone in their gender confusion.
Let’s not forget that in May, 2013, when Don
suddenly appeared at work in a black dress
as Dawn, he claimed to have “an unusual
hormone imbalance.”
And he wrote: “Please understand this is not
a game of dress-up, or make-believe, it is my
affirmation of who I now am and what I must
do to be happy, in response to a soul-
crushing secret that my wife and I have been
dealing with for more than seven years,
mostly in secret.”
Three months later, when he reverted back to
Don, “He said that he had amnesia, claiming
his wife dressed him in a wig and created a
fake ID card bearing the name ‘Dawn.’
“‘I am now totally, completely, unabashedly
male in my mind, despite my physical
attributes,’ he said in an email to colleagues.
“Ennis said that while his memories of the
past 14 years had returned, his female
identity did not.”
And now he has reverted to Dawn.
Is it transphobic to say that this man needs
help?
There was also the tragic story of sports
columnist Mike Penner, who became
Christine Daniels, only to revert back to Mike
Penner, before taking his own life.
You can be assured that any coworker who
did not welcome him as Christine would have
been lectured or even disciplined, and yet
questioning his new identity, with love and
sensitivity, might have been the most
compassionate thing to do.
Yet to do so would be to swim against the tide
of political correctness. And it would be a
dangerous swim at that. Just yesterday (June
18th), “the White House announced Obama
will sign an executive order that would
prohibit federal contractors from
discriminating on the basis of sexual
orientation or gender identity.”
Back in 2012, Brad (aka Ria) Cooper, was set
to be Britain’s youngest sex-change patient at
the tender age of 18. An October 28, 2012
headline in the Mirror read: “‘I was a boy..
then a girl.. now I want to be a boy again’:
Agony of teen who is Britain's youngest sex-
swap patient.”
The article, which still insisted on identifying
Brad as Ria, noted that, “Her decision, which
comes after two suicide attempts, calls into
question whether she was too young to be
allowed to swap sexes in the first place.”
Yet it appears that we have learned nothing
from stories like this, stories which I cite not
to demean or mock those who identify as
transgender, nor to suggest that these
experiences are the norm. Instead I cite them
to urge us to seriously reconsider the
direction in which we are heading as a
society.
In recent days, in Canada, a 12-year old girl
has received a new birth certificate
identifying her as a boy, based entirely on
her self-perceptions, while here in the States,
millions have watched a viral video in which
a family shares how they have embraced
their daughter’s identity as a boy, despite the
child being just 6 years old.
When Dr. Keith Ablow expressed a dissenting
view regarding this little one, he was roundly
condemned for his comments and labelled “a
serial misinformer on LGBT issues.”
Is there really no possibility that this girl
actually is a girl and that she could be helped
to embrace her female identity with proper
treatment? Is this really a transphobic
position?
Earlier this week, Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly
chair of the Johns Hopkins psychiatric
department and a longtime opponent of sex-
change surgery, penned an Op Ed piece for
the Wall Street Journal, arguing that “policy
makers and the media are doing no favors
either to the public or the transgendered” by
not treating transgender “confusions ... as a
mental disorder that deserves understanding,
treatment and prevention.”
He cited a 2011 study from Sweden that
followed the lives of 324 “sex-reassigned”
persons over a 30-year period (from
1973-2003), noting that “beginning about 10
years after having the surgery, the
transgendered began to experience
increasing mental difficulties. Most
shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost
20-fold above the comparable
nontransgender population.”
This confirmed a similar study McHugh had
commissioned decades earlier at Johns
Hopkins, and for opposing sex-change
surgery, he is vilified to this day.
Is it possible that something other than
transphobia is driving him?
Walt Heyer has lived through this himself,
undergoing years of hormone treatments and
then sex-change surgery to become a woman,
only to realize over a period of years that he
was, in fact, a man and that there were other
issues he needed to address in his life.
To help others, he has launched the
SexChangeRegret.com website, featuring
articles like, “The insanity of hormone
blockers for kids,” and “1,500 Sex Changers
Request Surgical Reversals” (this was in one
center in Belgrade alone), and “Regret Is Real
—and Transgenders Are Going Back.”
And he too is vilified for his courageous and
compassionate stance.
Is it too much to ask that we stop and
reconsider our ways before embracing such
radical societal change?
Is it only transphobia and ignorance that
drives such a request?
While some might find the story laughable, I
personally find it tragic: Don Ennis, an
experienced TV news producer was fired
from his job, allegedly for performance-
related issues, after reappearing as Dawn
Stacey Ennis, marking his third gender
change since last year.
With little sympathy, one website reported,
“A television producer who has changed his
gender three times has now more time on his
hands to know who she or he is.”
Worse still, the New York Daily News,
apparently forgetting that Ennis had lived
almost all of his life as a male, announced,
“Dawn Ennis was canned weeks after her
latest transition from her male persona, Don
Ennis.”
What? It was not Don Ennis who was the
“male persona”; it was Dawn Ennis who was
the “female persona.” And Don is a he, not a
she. In fact, before his wife left him when he
became Dawn the first time around, they had
been married for 17 years and had three
kids.
It would appear that Ennis is quite troubled
and in need of serious help, but even to
suggest such a thing is to be branded
transphobic and hateful.
To all who pull the “transphobia” card, I urge
you to reconsider your rhetoric. Sometimes
compassion causes us to ask the hard
questions rather than simply to affirm
someone in their gender confusion.
Let’s not forget that in May, 2013, when Don
suddenly appeared at work in a black dress
as Dawn, he claimed to have “an unusual
hormone imbalance.”
And he wrote: “Please understand this is not
a game of dress-up, or make-believe, it is my
affirmation of who I now am and what I must
do to be happy, in response to a soul-
crushing secret that my wife and I have been
dealing with for more than seven years,
mostly in secret.”
Three months later, when he reverted back to
Don, “He said that he had amnesia, claiming
his wife dressed him in a wig and created a
fake ID card bearing the name ‘Dawn.’
“‘I am now totally, completely, unabashedly
male in my mind, despite my physical
attributes,’ he said in an email to colleagues.
“Ennis said that while his memories of the
past 14 years had returned, his female
identity did not.”
And now he has reverted to Dawn.
Is it transphobic to say that this man needs
help?
There was also the tragic story of sports
columnist Mike Penner, who became
Christine Daniels, only to revert back to Mike
Penner, before taking his own life.
You can be assured that any coworker who
did not welcome him as Christine would have
been lectured or even disciplined, and yet
questioning his new identity, with love and
sensitivity, might have been the most
compassionate thing to do.
Yet to do so would be to swim against the tide
of political correctness. And it would be a
dangerous swim at that. Just yesterday (June
18th), “the White House announced Obama
will sign an executive order that would
prohibit federal contractors from
discriminating on the basis of sexual
orientation or gender identity.”
Back in 2012, Brad (aka Ria) Cooper, was set
to be Britain’s youngest sex-change patient at
the tender age of 18. An October 28, 2012
headline in the Mirror read: “‘I was a boy..
then a girl.. now I want to be a boy again’:
Agony of teen who is Britain's youngest sex-
swap patient.”
The article, which still insisted on identifying
Brad as Ria, noted that, “Her decision, which
comes after two suicide attempts, calls into
question whether she was too young to be
allowed to swap sexes in the first place.”
Yet it appears that we have learned nothing
from stories like this, stories which I cite not
to demean or mock those who identify as
transgender, nor to suggest that these
experiences are the norm. Instead I cite them
to urge us to seriously reconsider the
direction in which we are heading as a
society.
In recent days, in Canada, a 12-year old girl
has received a new birth certificate
identifying her as a boy, based entirely on
her self-perceptions, while here in the States,
millions have watched a viral video in which
a family shares how they have embraced
their daughter’s identity as a boy, despite the
child being just 6 years old.
When Dr. Keith Ablow expressed a dissenting
view regarding this little one, he was roundly
condemned for his comments and labelled “a
serial misinformer on LGBT issues.”
Is there really no possibility that this girl
actually is a girl and that she could be helped
to embrace her female identity with proper
treatment? Is this really a transphobic
position?
Earlier this week, Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly
chair of the Johns Hopkins psychiatric
department and a longtime opponent of sex-
change surgery, penned an Op Ed piece for
the Wall Street Journal, arguing that “policy
makers and the media are doing no favors
either to the public or the transgendered” by
not treating transgender “confusions ... as a
mental disorder that deserves understanding,
treatment and prevention.”
He cited a 2011 study from Sweden that
followed the lives of 324 “sex-reassigned”
persons over a 30-year period (from
1973-2003), noting that “beginning about 10
years after having the surgery, the
transgendered began to experience
increasing mental difficulties. Most
shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost
20-fold above the comparable
nontransgender population.”
This confirmed a similar study McHugh had
commissioned decades earlier at Johns
Hopkins, and for opposing sex-change
surgery, he is vilified to this day.
Is it possible that something other than
transphobia is driving him?
Walt Heyer has lived through this himself,
undergoing years of hormone treatments and
then sex-change surgery to become a woman,
only to realize over a period of years that he
was, in fact, a man and that there were other
issues he needed to address in his life.
To help others, he has launched the
SexChangeRegret.com website, featuring
articles like, “The insanity of hormone
blockers for kids,” and “1,500 Sex Changers
Request Surgical Reversals” (this was in one
center in Belgrade alone), and “Regret Is Real
—and Transgenders Are Going Back.”
And he too is vilified for his courageous and
compassionate stance.
Is it too much to ask that we stop and
reconsider our ways before embracing such
radical societal change?
Is it only transphobia and ignorance that
drives such a request?
THE MOST DANGEROUS INVESTMENT STRATEGY
Mark Skousen
“If we are in a transition period, the person
in the most danger is the one who has
recently done well, because he’s done well on
things that are about to change.”
-- Dean LeBaron (Batterymarch Financial
Management)
Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal had a
cover story, “Big Investors Lose Even as Market
Rises,” about hedge fund managers like Paul
Tudor Jones whose investments are down for
the year even as the stock market is ahead by
5%. Tudor and other big hedge fund
managers have taken losses on buying Nikkei
Japanese stocks and shorting Treasuries.
These big financial operators were betting
that last year’s winners would continue to
outperform.
But last year’s winners may be this year’s
losers, and vice versa. Treasuries have rallied
this year, surprising most investors. Japan
imposed a massive increase in its national
sales tax in its misguided attempt to reduce
its high debt level, rather than growing its
way out of debt. The Nikkei index, which was
up sharply last year, has suffered this year.
Meanwhile, ourForecasts &
Strategiesportfolio of high dividend-paying
stocks and funds have outperformed the stock
market this year, with 15 out of 18
recommendations profitable. We’ve made
several changes in our portfolio in 2014,
shifting into energy stocks and India, whose
stock market is booming now that it has voted
in a pro-business prime minister.
I asked Donald Smith, my favorite hedge fund
manager in New York, about the Wall Street
Journal story, and he was happy to report
that his portfolio is ahead 19.6% so far this
year before fees. He’s been bullish on airline
stocks, which have skyrocketed. Don has
managed money for more than 30 years with
incredible success -- he’s outperformed
Warren Buffett. He will be doing a breakout
session at FreedomFest on his “deep value”
investing strategy. I hope you can join us --
his session alone will be worth the price of
the ticket. To see what all of the excitement is
about, see below.
Yours for good investing, AEIOU,
Mark Skousen
Upcoming Appearances
FreedomFest, July 9-12, 2014 , Planet Hollywood,
Las Vegas : Here's what Rick Sampley , senior
vice president of Raymond James, wrote:
“During my entire career, I have never
before been to one venue that allowed me
access to and interaction with such a
concentration of great thinkers and financial
professionals. If one values capitalism and
practical approaches to navigating the daily
challenges of investing in these treacherous
times, then FreedomFest is a must. This is
truly a conference for great investment
thinkers and doers. A most impressive aspect
of FreedomFest was simply how the day to
day conference was managed: it ran like a
Swiss watch. Unlimited kudos to your
conference organizer. How did you manage
to get all these great people in one place at
one time and start and finish meetings right
on time… including all the wonderful
breakout sessions? During the conference I
met many people who have been coming to
FreedomFest for years… I will certainly be
one of them in the future." Why do Steve
Forbes, John Mackey, John Stossel , Alex Green,
Peter Schiff and dozens of other speakers
attend all three days? Find out by going to
www.freedomfest.com , or call Tami Holland,
1-866-266-5101 . Our room block at Planet
Hollywood is almost sold out, so hurry! The
big show is only three weeks away!
In case you missed it, I encourage you to read
my e-letter posted last week on Eagle Daily
Investor about whether the European Central
Bank’s interest rate cuts are good or bad .
You Blew It!
Thousands of Undocumented Children Flood the
United States
“Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants
who came to the United States as children will
be allowed to remain in the country without
fear of deportation.” -- President Barack
Obama (June 16, 2012)
When the Dream Act was not passed by
Congress a few years ago, President Obama
designed to take things into his own hands. In
2012, he signed executive action that allowed
800,000 young undocumented immigrants
under the age of 16 to stay in the United
States. “They are Americans in their heart, in
their minds, in every single way but one: on
paper,” he said.
Now we are paying the consequences.
Thousands of under-aged children are being
brought from Central America to the United
States and left there without their parents.
Word is spreading quickly that Homeland
Security won’t deport children if they are
from Canada or Mexico. As a result,
thousands of parentless children are crossing
the border. U.S. facilities in Texas are at or
near capacity for the immigrants because of a
"record increase in underage migrants,"
which led to the transfer of hundreds to
Arizona, a spokesman said. Talk about
expensive babysitting.
“If we are in a transition period, the person
in the most danger is the one who has
recently done well, because he’s done well on
things that are about to change.”
-- Dean LeBaron (Batterymarch Financial
Management)
Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal had a
cover story, “Big Investors Lose Even as Market
Rises,” about hedge fund managers like Paul
Tudor Jones whose investments are down for
the year even as the stock market is ahead by
5%. Tudor and other big hedge fund
managers have taken losses on buying Nikkei
Japanese stocks and shorting Treasuries.
These big financial operators were betting
that last year’s winners would continue to
outperform.
But last year’s winners may be this year’s
losers, and vice versa. Treasuries have rallied
this year, surprising most investors. Japan
imposed a massive increase in its national
sales tax in its misguided attempt to reduce
its high debt level, rather than growing its
way out of debt. The Nikkei index, which was
up sharply last year, has suffered this year.
Meanwhile, ourForecasts &
Strategiesportfolio of high dividend-paying
stocks and funds have outperformed the stock
market this year, with 15 out of 18
recommendations profitable. We’ve made
several changes in our portfolio in 2014,
shifting into energy stocks and India, whose
stock market is booming now that it has voted
in a pro-business prime minister.
I asked Donald Smith, my favorite hedge fund
manager in New York, about the Wall Street
Journal story, and he was happy to report
that his portfolio is ahead 19.6% so far this
year before fees. He’s been bullish on airline
stocks, which have skyrocketed. Don has
managed money for more than 30 years with
incredible success -- he’s outperformed
Warren Buffett. He will be doing a breakout
session at FreedomFest on his “deep value”
investing strategy. I hope you can join us --
his session alone will be worth the price of
the ticket. To see what all of the excitement is
about, see below.
Yours for good investing, AEIOU,
Mark Skousen
Upcoming Appearances
FreedomFest, July 9-12, 2014 , Planet Hollywood,
Las Vegas : Here's what Rick Sampley , senior
vice president of Raymond James, wrote:
“During my entire career, I have never
before been to one venue that allowed me
access to and interaction with such a
concentration of great thinkers and financial
professionals. If one values capitalism and
practical approaches to navigating the daily
challenges of investing in these treacherous
times, then FreedomFest is a must. This is
truly a conference for great investment
thinkers and doers. A most impressive aspect
of FreedomFest was simply how the day to
day conference was managed: it ran like a
Swiss watch. Unlimited kudos to your
conference organizer. How did you manage
to get all these great people in one place at
one time and start and finish meetings right
on time… including all the wonderful
breakout sessions? During the conference I
met many people who have been coming to
FreedomFest for years… I will certainly be
one of them in the future." Why do Steve
Forbes, John Mackey, John Stossel , Alex Green,
Peter Schiff and dozens of other speakers
attend all three days? Find out by going to
www.freedomfest.com , or call Tami Holland,
1-866-266-5101 . Our room block at Planet
Hollywood is almost sold out, so hurry! The
big show is only three weeks away!
In case you missed it, I encourage you to read
my e-letter posted last week on Eagle Daily
Investor about whether the European Central
Bank’s interest rate cuts are good or bad .
You Blew It!
Thousands of Undocumented Children Flood the
United States
“Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants
who came to the United States as children will
be allowed to remain in the country without
fear of deportation.” -- President Barack
Obama (June 16, 2012)
When the Dream Act was not passed by
Congress a few years ago, President Obama
designed to take things into his own hands. In
2012, he signed executive action that allowed
800,000 young undocumented immigrants
under the age of 16 to stay in the United
States. “They are Americans in their heart, in
their minds, in every single way but one: on
paper,” he said.
Now we are paying the consequences.
Thousands of under-aged children are being
brought from Central America to the United
States and left there without their parents.
Word is spreading quickly that Homeland
Security won’t deport children if they are
from Canada or Mexico. As a result,
thousands of parentless children are crossing
the border. U.S. facilities in Texas are at or
near capacity for the immigrants because of a
"record increase in underage migrants,"
which led to the transfer of hundreds to
Arizona, a spokesman said. Talk about
expensive babysitting.
OBAMA LOSERS
John Ransom
10) In six short years as president, Obama has
taken the Democratic Party from the One to
done. While it’s way too early to write off the
party even for 2014, the wounds created by
supporting this colossal bozo will be even
longer to heal than the wounds inflicted by
Jimmy Carter. Obama said way more then he
knows when he admitted that the problem is
that he’s president, not emperor.
9) Remember when the Fawning News Media
said that comedians would have a tough time
making fun of Obama because he was so
serious, so perfect, so black? Well the FNM
seems to get under that bar no matter how
low we set it, don’t they? Comedians aren’t
just making fun of the president now; they’re
making fun of the media as well. In a recent
poll, 82% of people that I asked randomly as I
met them on the street said about journalists
in general… well, I can’t repeat it.
8) Remember bullet number 9 above? About
the Fawning News Media? Well if you can’t
be funny at the expense of Obama these days,
you just can’t be funny. Look, the dude has a
stick permanently stuck up his rear end—I
said stick, ok? It would be tough to not be
funny about a guy who takes himself as
seriously as Obama does. Stopping the seas
from rising? Healing the earth? The guy can’t
even run a website with less monthly traffic
than your typical news organization.
Comedians have been placer mining that stake
for six years, more or less. When Obama’s
gone they’ll have to go back to hard rock
mining like the rest of us. Let’s hope they’ll
find the courage and resourcefulness to be
funny about Hillary too, even though she
doesn’t have a stick in her rear.
7) Electricity has gone from the rainbow-
powered, “free” energy source made possible
by windmills and magic rays of sunshine, to
a dirty, pollution emitting source of danger
that hunts us down while we sleep. The
culprit? Cheap, reliable sources of Domestic
Coal that power electric all over the USA. So
Obama says, “no more coal power plants,”
even as his energy policy—if it can be really
called that—depends on generating more
electricity for the growing number of bumper
cars, known ironically as “Smart cars”. The
result is that coal prices will come down, and
we’ll ship cheap, reliable domestic coal to
China at much cheaper prices thus allowing
Chinese consumers to get the low, low prices
that Americans can’t enjoy. Oh, and we’ve
lost 50,000 coal jobs so far, with another
17,000 power plant jobs expected to go. Add
in an additional 80,000 coal jobs waiting for
the axe to fall, multiply by the numbers of
jobs that support coal workers and you get
about 600,000 jobs lost.
6) Get ready to die. Really. We all gotta go
sometime, and with this president it’s more
and more likely that patients will die
unattended when their oxygen tube gets
pinched and they suffocate in a VA style
healthcare environment. In the meantime,
they’ll have the privilege of paying higher
premiums for someone else’s right to die
from what used to be known as “medical
malpractice” but now gets the distinction of
being called natural causes…of Obamacare.
5) Someone you may not have met yet will
likely curse you in a future too predictable to
deny. That’s right: They’re called grandkids .
Today our debt is $155,000 per US taxpayer.
And if you raised their parents the right way,
the grandkids, who are taxpayers in a future
too predictable to deny, will get the honor of
paying down that balance, interest and
principal. Just tell them that food and shelter
are overrated. After all, if they get the
benefits that we enjoyed, the president says
the world will boil over. Why can’t grandkids
just be grateful for our sacrifice?
4) I feel sorry for the next African-American
candidate for president of the United States.
There will be an enormous amount of
scrutiny on the next candidate because there
was so little on Obama. While we have all
suffered under Obama, no population has
suffered more than the black community.
Poverty rates are up, along with
unemployment for blacks. It’s an amazing
fact that while Obama has literally pledged
trillions to backstop Wall Street, he has spent
nothing to stop the violence in the
neighborhoods surrounding his Hyde Park
mansion. Black people need their own Tea
Party.
3) Hillary Clinton’s wounds are mostly self-
inflicted, but the world’s first woman
president of the United States has gone from
a certainty to a casualty under Obama. If
Obama doesn’t hate the Clintons, he does a
reasonable facsimile of it, as expressed by his
inattention to foreign policy under Hillary.
She was foolish to even take a place in his
cabinet. The proper stance for the power
hungry Hillary would have been to remain
aloof. I know: You’re shocked too that a
Clinton didn’t do the right thing.
2) The intelligence community (IC) is an
anonymous group of people who quietly go
through their day, keeping America’s secrets
—even from their own family. They live
amongst us-- and we are unaware of it-- and
they truly have been at war since 9/11. If you
think they aren’t suffering under this
president, then you aren’t paying attention.
From the Snowden disclosures, to the sacking
of General Petraeus, to the Gitmo fiasco, to
the drone strikes, to Benghazi, the IC knows
the truth but never has a voice. It kills them.
Literally. So if you see a field agent of any
one of the dozen intel agencies from the
Defense Intelligence Agency, to the CIA to the
National Security Agency, give them a hug.
They need it. Of course you won’t see them,
yet alone hear from them. That’s why you
need to speak up for them.
1) Speaking of war, people are dying in
Afghanistan right now in a war that Obama’s
former Secretary of Defense says that Obama
doesn’t believe in. That’s right: American
military forces are taking casualties because
Obama lacks the political courage to pull our
troops out of Afghanistan. In almost a
textbook repeat of Vietnam, the president has
asked the troops to do a job that he doesn’t
believe in. According to Col. Allen West “we
lost 630 U.S. soldiers [in Afghanistan under
Bush]. In early 2009, the Obama
administration authorized the
implementation of the COIN (Counter-
Insurgent) strategy, more focused on
‘winning hearts and minds’ than winning a
war, and over the next five years, the U.S.
death toll nearly tripled.” There were 4,800
coalition casualties in Iraq and 3,400 in
Afghanistan. As I have noted previously, over
70 percent of US casualties in Afghanistan
happened under Obama. That’s a really steep
price to pay for something Obama doesn’t
want: namely victory. That’s the biggest
betrayal by Obama’s presidency, yet gets the
least ink of anything he’s done.
For that I apologize to our troops, since
Obama never will. We should never again
elect a commander-in-chief who will let our
troops down like that. It's one thing to fight a
war poorly. Lincoln did that without losing
his integrity. It's another thing to ask men
and women to die because the polls tell you
to.
10) In six short years as president, Obama has
taken the Democratic Party from the One to
done. While it’s way too early to write off the
party even for 2014, the wounds created by
supporting this colossal bozo will be even
longer to heal than the wounds inflicted by
Jimmy Carter. Obama said way more then he
knows when he admitted that the problem is
that he’s president, not emperor.
9) Remember when the Fawning News Media
said that comedians would have a tough time
making fun of Obama because he was so
serious, so perfect, so black? Well the FNM
seems to get under that bar no matter how
low we set it, don’t they? Comedians aren’t
just making fun of the president now; they’re
making fun of the media as well. In a recent
poll, 82% of people that I asked randomly as I
met them on the street said about journalists
in general… well, I can’t repeat it.
8) Remember bullet number 9 above? About
the Fawning News Media? Well if you can’t
be funny at the expense of Obama these days,
you just can’t be funny. Look, the dude has a
stick permanently stuck up his rear end—I
said stick, ok? It would be tough to not be
funny about a guy who takes himself as
seriously as Obama does. Stopping the seas
from rising? Healing the earth? The guy can’t
even run a website with less monthly traffic
than your typical news organization.
Comedians have been placer mining that stake
for six years, more or less. When Obama’s
gone they’ll have to go back to hard rock
mining like the rest of us. Let’s hope they’ll
find the courage and resourcefulness to be
funny about Hillary too, even though she
doesn’t have a stick in her rear.
7) Electricity has gone from the rainbow-
powered, “free” energy source made possible
by windmills and magic rays of sunshine, to
a dirty, pollution emitting source of danger
that hunts us down while we sleep. The
culprit? Cheap, reliable sources of Domestic
Coal that power electric all over the USA. So
Obama says, “no more coal power plants,”
even as his energy policy—if it can be really
called that—depends on generating more
electricity for the growing number of bumper
cars, known ironically as “Smart cars”. The
result is that coal prices will come down, and
we’ll ship cheap, reliable domestic coal to
China at much cheaper prices thus allowing
Chinese consumers to get the low, low prices
that Americans can’t enjoy. Oh, and we’ve
lost 50,000 coal jobs so far, with another
17,000 power plant jobs expected to go. Add
in an additional 80,000 coal jobs waiting for
the axe to fall, multiply by the numbers of
jobs that support coal workers and you get
about 600,000 jobs lost.
6) Get ready to die. Really. We all gotta go
sometime, and with this president it’s more
and more likely that patients will die
unattended when their oxygen tube gets
pinched and they suffocate in a VA style
healthcare environment. In the meantime,
they’ll have the privilege of paying higher
premiums for someone else’s right to die
from what used to be known as “medical
malpractice” but now gets the distinction of
being called natural causes…of Obamacare.
5) Someone you may not have met yet will
likely curse you in a future too predictable to
deny. That’s right: They’re called grandkids .
Today our debt is $155,000 per US taxpayer.
And if you raised their parents the right way,
the grandkids, who are taxpayers in a future
too predictable to deny, will get the honor of
paying down that balance, interest and
principal. Just tell them that food and shelter
are overrated. After all, if they get the
benefits that we enjoyed, the president says
the world will boil over. Why can’t grandkids
just be grateful for our sacrifice?
4) I feel sorry for the next African-American
candidate for president of the United States.
There will be an enormous amount of
scrutiny on the next candidate because there
was so little on Obama. While we have all
suffered under Obama, no population has
suffered more than the black community.
Poverty rates are up, along with
unemployment for blacks. It’s an amazing
fact that while Obama has literally pledged
trillions to backstop Wall Street, he has spent
nothing to stop the violence in the
neighborhoods surrounding his Hyde Park
mansion. Black people need their own Tea
Party.
3) Hillary Clinton’s wounds are mostly self-
inflicted, but the world’s first woman
president of the United States has gone from
a certainty to a casualty under Obama. If
Obama doesn’t hate the Clintons, he does a
reasonable facsimile of it, as expressed by his
inattention to foreign policy under Hillary.
She was foolish to even take a place in his
cabinet. The proper stance for the power
hungry Hillary would have been to remain
aloof. I know: You’re shocked too that a
Clinton didn’t do the right thing.
2) The intelligence community (IC) is an
anonymous group of people who quietly go
through their day, keeping America’s secrets
—even from their own family. They live
amongst us-- and we are unaware of it-- and
they truly have been at war since 9/11. If you
think they aren’t suffering under this
president, then you aren’t paying attention.
From the Snowden disclosures, to the sacking
of General Petraeus, to the Gitmo fiasco, to
the drone strikes, to Benghazi, the IC knows
the truth but never has a voice. It kills them.
Literally. So if you see a field agent of any
one of the dozen intel agencies from the
Defense Intelligence Agency, to the CIA to the
National Security Agency, give them a hug.
They need it. Of course you won’t see them,
yet alone hear from them. That’s why you
need to speak up for them.
1) Speaking of war, people are dying in
Afghanistan right now in a war that Obama’s
former Secretary of Defense says that Obama
doesn’t believe in. That’s right: American
military forces are taking casualties because
Obama lacks the political courage to pull our
troops out of Afghanistan. In almost a
textbook repeat of Vietnam, the president has
asked the troops to do a job that he doesn’t
believe in. According to Col. Allen West “we
lost 630 U.S. soldiers [in Afghanistan under
Bush]. In early 2009, the Obama
administration authorized the
implementation of the COIN (Counter-
Insurgent) strategy, more focused on
‘winning hearts and minds’ than winning a
war, and over the next five years, the U.S.
death toll nearly tripled.” There were 4,800
coalition casualties in Iraq and 3,400 in
Afghanistan. As I have noted previously, over
70 percent of US casualties in Afghanistan
happened under Obama. That’s a really steep
price to pay for something Obama doesn’t
want: namely victory. That’s the biggest
betrayal by Obama’s presidency, yet gets the
least ink of anything he’s done.
For that I apologize to our troops, since
Obama never will. We should never again
elect a commander-in-chief who will let our
troops down like that. It's one thing to fight a
war poorly. Lincoln did that without losing
his integrity. It's another thing to ask men
and women to die because the polls tell you
to.
20 Jun 2014
BILL AND HILLARY HYPOCRISY ALERT
Daniel J. Mitchell
I actually have a perverse fondness for Bill
Clinton.
This is both because we got better policy
while he was President (whether he deserves
credit is a separate question) and because he
single-handedly generated a lot of quality
political humor.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a typical
politician. And the same is true for his wife.
Indeed, they are strong candidates for the
Hypocrisy-in-Government Award.
That’s because they want to subject other
people to the death tax , but they’re taking
aggressive steps to make sure
they aren’t subject to this punitive and
immoral form of double taxation.
Here’s some of what Bloomberg is
reportingon the issue.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have long
supported an estate tax… That doesn’t
mean they want to pay it. To reduce the
tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial
planning strategies befitting the top 1
percent of U.S. households in wealth.
These moves, common among
multimillionaires, will help shield some of
their estate from the tax that now tops out
at 40 percent of assets upon death. The
Clintons created residence trusts in 2010
and shifted ownership of their New York
house into them in 2011, according to
federal financial disclosures and local
property records.
But you have to give the Clintons credit for
chutzpah.
They have tens of millions of dollars in assets,
but Hillary said they were “dead broke.”
The Clintons’ finances are receiving
attention as Hillary Clinton tours the
country promoting her book, “Hard
Choices.” She said in an interview on ABC
television that the couple was “dead
broke” and in debt when they left the
White House in early 2001. …The Clintons’
finances are receiving attention as Hillary
Clinton tours the country promoting her
book, “Hard Choices.” She said in an
interview on ABC television that the
couple was “dead broke” and in debt when
they left the White House in early 2001. …
Since she left the government last year,
Hillary Clinton, 66, has been giving
speeches for hundreds of thousands of
dollars each. Bill Clinton, 67, also makes
paid speeches and appearances, receiving
$200,000 each in October 2012 from
Vanguard Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank
AG, according to Hillary Clinton’s
disclosures.
Geesh, I wish I was “dead broke” the same
way.
Political cartoonists certainly aren’t
impressed. Here’s Gary Varvel’s take on the
topic.
Michael Ramirez, winner of my cartoon
contest, also is unimpressed.
By the way, Hillary was quoted in the
Bloomberg story as being in favor of a
meritocracy.
Which makes you wonder whether she
opposed the special sweetheart dealthat her
daughter received to work at NBC News.
Chelsea Clinton earned an annual salary of
$600,000 at NBC News before switching to
a month-to-month contract earlier this
year, sources with knowledge of the
agreement told POLITICO. …As special
correspondent, Clinton worked on service-
related feature assignments for NBC’s
“Rock Center with Brian Williams” until
the show’s cancellation in June 2013.
Clinton has since worked on packages for
NBC Nightly News. …When Clinton joined
NBC, many media critics chafed at the
network’s decision to employ a former
first daughter with no experience in
journalism. The New York Post referred to
Clinton as “just another spoiled, aimless
child of rich, successful parents
chauffeured through adulthood by Mommy
and Daddy’s connections.”
I have nothing against parents helping their
kids and using their connections. I surely
would help my kids if I had any influence in
a hiring or pay decision.
But this smells of cronyism. Let’s not forget
that NBC is owned by General Electric, and
GE is infamous for getting in bad with
politicians in exchange for handouts and
subsidies.
In other words, it’s quite likely that Chelsea
was given an extremely lucrative contract
precisely because the company figured it was
a good way of earning some chits with the
then-Secretary of State and possible future
President.
I’m not aware of any smoking gun to confirm
my suspicion, but it would take heroic naiveté
to assume that Chelsea’s parents had nothing
to do with NBC’s decisions.
So, for their hypocrisy on both the death tax
and meritocracy, the Clinton’s could win the
Hypocrisy Award.
But there are plenty of other worthy
candidates.
Such as the Paris-based Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development,
which advocates higher tax for everyone else
while providing gold-plated tax-free salaries
and benefits to its own employees.
Such as the leftist political types who say tax
havens are bad and immoral while
simultaneously utilizing these low-tax
jurisdictions to protect and grow their own
wealth.
Such as the politicians and congressional
staffers who decided to coerce others into
Obamacare while seeking special exemptions
for themselves.
Such as the rich leftists who advocate higher
taxes for other people even though they
refuse to send more of their own money to
Washington.
Such as Prince Charles of the United
Kingdom, who preaches coerced sacrifice for
ordinary people even though his “carbon
footprint” would be in the top 1 percent.
Such as the statists who fight against school
choice for poor families while sending their
own kids to pricey private schools for the
elite.
Such as the Canadian politician who supports
government-run healthcare for his
constituents but comes to America for private
treatment when he’s sick.
As you can see, the Clintons face some very
tough competition.
I actually have a perverse fondness for Bill
Clinton.
This is both because we got better policy
while he was President (whether he deserves
credit is a separate question) and because he
single-handedly generated a lot of quality
political humor.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a typical
politician. And the same is true for his wife.
Indeed, they are strong candidates for the
Hypocrisy-in-Government Award.
That’s because they want to subject other
people to the death tax , but they’re taking
aggressive steps to make sure
they aren’t subject to this punitive and
immoral form of double taxation.
Here’s some of what Bloomberg is
reportingon the issue.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have long
supported an estate tax… That doesn’t
mean they want to pay it. To reduce the
tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial
planning strategies befitting the top 1
percent of U.S. households in wealth.
These moves, common among
multimillionaires, will help shield some of
their estate from the tax that now tops out
at 40 percent of assets upon death. The
Clintons created residence trusts in 2010
and shifted ownership of their New York
house into them in 2011, according to
federal financial disclosures and local
property records.
But you have to give the Clintons credit for
chutzpah.
They have tens of millions of dollars in assets,
but Hillary said they were “dead broke.”
The Clintons’ finances are receiving
attention as Hillary Clinton tours the
country promoting her book, “Hard
Choices.” She said in an interview on ABC
television that the couple was “dead
broke” and in debt when they left the
White House in early 2001. …The Clintons’
finances are receiving attention as Hillary
Clinton tours the country promoting her
book, “Hard Choices.” She said in an
interview on ABC television that the
couple was “dead broke” and in debt when
they left the White House in early 2001. …
Since she left the government last year,
Hillary Clinton, 66, has been giving
speeches for hundreds of thousands of
dollars each. Bill Clinton, 67, also makes
paid speeches and appearances, receiving
$200,000 each in October 2012 from
Vanguard Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank
AG, according to Hillary Clinton’s
disclosures.
Geesh, I wish I was “dead broke” the same
way.
Political cartoonists certainly aren’t
impressed. Here’s Gary Varvel’s take on the
topic.
Michael Ramirez, winner of my cartoon
contest, also is unimpressed.
By the way, Hillary was quoted in the
Bloomberg story as being in favor of a
meritocracy.
Which makes you wonder whether she
opposed the special sweetheart dealthat her
daughter received to work at NBC News.
Chelsea Clinton earned an annual salary of
$600,000 at NBC News before switching to
a month-to-month contract earlier this
year, sources with knowledge of the
agreement told POLITICO. …As special
correspondent, Clinton worked on service-
related feature assignments for NBC’s
“Rock Center with Brian Williams” until
the show’s cancellation in June 2013.
Clinton has since worked on packages for
NBC Nightly News. …When Clinton joined
NBC, many media critics chafed at the
network’s decision to employ a former
first daughter with no experience in
journalism. The New York Post referred to
Clinton as “just another spoiled, aimless
child of rich, successful parents
chauffeured through adulthood by Mommy
and Daddy’s connections.”
I have nothing against parents helping their
kids and using their connections. I surely
would help my kids if I had any influence in
a hiring or pay decision.
But this smells of cronyism. Let’s not forget
that NBC is owned by General Electric, and
GE is infamous for getting in bad with
politicians in exchange for handouts and
subsidies.
In other words, it’s quite likely that Chelsea
was given an extremely lucrative contract
precisely because the company figured it was
a good way of earning some chits with the
then-Secretary of State and possible future
President.
I’m not aware of any smoking gun to confirm
my suspicion, but it would take heroic naiveté
to assume that Chelsea’s parents had nothing
to do with NBC’s decisions.
So, for their hypocrisy on both the death tax
and meritocracy, the Clinton’s could win the
Hypocrisy Award.
But there are plenty of other worthy
candidates.
Such as the Paris-based Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development,
which advocates higher tax for everyone else
while providing gold-plated tax-free salaries
and benefits to its own employees.
Such as the leftist political types who say tax
havens are bad and immoral while
simultaneously utilizing these low-tax
jurisdictions to protect and grow their own
wealth.
Such as the politicians and congressional
staffers who decided to coerce others into
Obamacare while seeking special exemptions
for themselves.
Such as the rich leftists who advocate higher
taxes for other people even though they
refuse to send more of their own money to
Washington.
Such as Prince Charles of the United
Kingdom, who preaches coerced sacrifice for
ordinary people even though his “carbon
footprint” would be in the top 1 percent.
Such as the statists who fight against school
choice for poor families while sending their
own kids to pricey private schools for the
elite.
Such as the Canadian politician who supports
government-run healthcare for his
constituents but comes to America for private
treatment when he’s sick.
As you can see, the Clintons face some very
tough competition.
FANNING THE WRONG FLAMES
Charles Payne
A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet
that are swift in running to evil.
Proverbs 6:18
Robert Reich and the political left continue to
devise wicked imaginations and promote
policies based on punishment of those that
have excelled. Such policies have and always
will hurt those at the bottom more than those
at the top. Reich fanned the flames of outrage
while citing record sales of Lamborghinis and
Ferraris, sales of $100 million condos, plus
sales at Tiffany. He then went on to ask: At
what point does conspicuous consumption by
the ultra-wealthy invite a revolution?
Envy is a human emotion that for many is
unavoidable. It's admirable when that
emotion is channeled into aspiration and
despicable when politicians use it to fan the
flames of anger and hatred. In this case Reich
isn't warning of revolution, instead he's
pleading for revolution. In the process he's
also saying capitalism does not work, America
has reached its peak and regular people do
not have what it takes to pull themselves up
by the bootstraps.
Yet, the people Reich rails against earned
their wealth in a capitalist system, pushed
America to new peaks and got there with that
pivotal first step of pulling themselves up by
the bootstraps.
If this way of thinking catches on even more
with the public than it already has, then
America could suffer irreversible harm. This
massive push into a country that has no faith
in God, themselves or their laws is a major
reason a dark cloud remains overhead. The
answer is not a collective run by the super
elite. The answer isn't pushing all wealth in a
giant pot to be administrated the right way
by an otherwise detached administration.
"When the taste for physical gratifications
among them has grown more rapidly than
their education . . . the time will come when
men are carried away and lose all self-
restraint . . . It is not necessary to do violence
to such a people in order to strip them of the
rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly
loosen their hold. . . They neglect their chief
business which is to remain their own
masters."
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Volume 2
In the end, it has to be about engendering
aspirational urges that motivate people to
pursue and capture their dreams.
The Fed
Janet Yellen's yawner yesterday was good
enough for the market to breathe a sigh of
relief. Her measured words made me feel like
I was watching the great migration crossing
of three million animals through crocodile-
infested waters of the Serengeti. So, the Fed is
on the backburner for the moment, but the
market needs a spark and it has to come from
better US economic data.
Jobless Claims
Regarding the initial jobless claims figure that
came out this morning, the outlook for the
June unemployment number should definitely
show some improvement. Today's initial
jobless claims showed a 6,000 dip last week to
312,000. The 4-week average, at 311,750, is
now down 11,000 from the middle of May.
We note that the mid-month readings tend to
compare well with the government's monthly
employment report.
Improvement is also evident in the
continuing claims which are lagged by one
week. Continuing claims for the week of June
7th fell by 54,000 to a new recovery low of
2.561 million. The best part is that there are
no seasonal or holiday factors influencing the
data this week, so the improvement is far
more believable.
A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet
that are swift in running to evil.
Proverbs 6:18
Robert Reich and the political left continue to
devise wicked imaginations and promote
policies based on punishment of those that
have excelled. Such policies have and always
will hurt those at the bottom more than those
at the top. Reich fanned the flames of outrage
while citing record sales of Lamborghinis and
Ferraris, sales of $100 million condos, plus
sales at Tiffany. He then went on to ask: At
what point does conspicuous consumption by
the ultra-wealthy invite a revolution?
Envy is a human emotion that for many is
unavoidable. It's admirable when that
emotion is channeled into aspiration and
despicable when politicians use it to fan the
flames of anger and hatred. In this case Reich
isn't warning of revolution, instead he's
pleading for revolution. In the process he's
also saying capitalism does not work, America
has reached its peak and regular people do
not have what it takes to pull themselves up
by the bootstraps.
Yet, the people Reich rails against earned
their wealth in a capitalist system, pushed
America to new peaks and got there with that
pivotal first step of pulling themselves up by
the bootstraps.
If this way of thinking catches on even more
with the public than it already has, then
America could suffer irreversible harm. This
massive push into a country that has no faith
in God, themselves or their laws is a major
reason a dark cloud remains overhead. The
answer is not a collective run by the super
elite. The answer isn't pushing all wealth in a
giant pot to be administrated the right way
by an otherwise detached administration.
"When the taste for physical gratifications
among them has grown more rapidly than
their education . . . the time will come when
men are carried away and lose all self-
restraint . . . It is not necessary to do violence
to such a people in order to strip them of the
rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly
loosen their hold. . . They neglect their chief
business which is to remain their own
masters."
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Volume 2
In the end, it has to be about engendering
aspirational urges that motivate people to
pursue and capture their dreams.
The Fed
Janet Yellen's yawner yesterday was good
enough for the market to breathe a sigh of
relief. Her measured words made me feel like
I was watching the great migration crossing
of three million animals through crocodile-
infested waters of the Serengeti. So, the Fed is
on the backburner for the moment, but the
market needs a spark and it has to come from
better US economic data.
Jobless Claims
Regarding the initial jobless claims figure that
came out this morning, the outlook for the
June unemployment number should definitely
show some improvement. Today's initial
jobless claims showed a 6,000 dip last week to
312,000. The 4-week average, at 311,750, is
now down 11,000 from the middle of May.
We note that the mid-month readings tend to
compare well with the government's monthly
employment report.
Improvement is also evident in the
continuing claims which are lagged by one
week. Continuing claims for the week of June
7th fell by 54,000 to a new recovery low of
2.561 million. The best part is that there are
no seasonal or holiday factors influencing the
data this week, so the improvement is far
more believable.
BOMBING WON'T SAVE IRAQ
Pat Buchanan
The panic that engulfed this capital after the
fall of Mosul, when it appeared that the
Islamist fanatics of ISIS would overrun
Baghdad, has passed.
And the second thoughts have begun.
"U.S. Sees Risk in Iraqi Airstrikes," ran the
June 19 headline in the Washington Post,
"Military Warns of Dangerous
Complications."
This is welcome news. For if it is an
unwritten rule of republics not to commit to
war unless the nation is united, America has
never been less prepared for a Mideast war.
Our commander in chief is a reluctant
warrior who wants his legacy to be ending
our two longest wars. And just as Obama does
not want to go back into Iraq, neither does
the U.S. military.
The American people want no new war, and
Congress does not want to be forced to vote
on such a war.
Our foreign policy elites are split half a dozen
ways -- on whether to bomb or not to bomb,
on who our real enemies are in Syria and
Iraq, on whose support we should and should
not accept, on what our strategic goals are,
and what are the prospects for success.
Consider the bombing option.
Undoubtedly, U.S. air power could blunt an
attack on Baghdad. But air power cannot
retake Mosul or the Sunni Triangle that
Baghdad has lost, or Kirkuk or Kurdistan.
That will take boots on the ground and
casualties.
And nobody thinks these should be American
boots or American casualties. And why should
we fight to hold Iraq together? Is that a vital
interest to which we should commit American
lives in perpetuity?
When did it become so?
No. Bombing cannot put Iraq together again,
but it may tear Iraq further apart.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has
succeeded in northern Iraq because it has
allied with the same militias, Baathists and
tribal leaders who worked with Gen. David
Petraeus in the Anbar Awakening.
And if we use air power in Sunni provinces
that have seceded from Baghdad, we will be
killing people who were our partners and are
not our enemies. Photos of dead Sunnis, from
U.S. air, drone, and missile strikes, could
inflame the Sunni world.
Upon one thing Americans do agree: ISIS and
al-Qaida are our enemies. But are bombing
ISIS and killing Sunnis the way to destroy
ISIS? Or does bombing martyrize and heroize
ISIS for the Sunni young?
And if destroying ISIS is a strategic
imperative, why have we not demanded that
the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia cease
funneling arms and aid to ISIS in Syria? Why
have we not told the Turks to stop permitting
jihadists to cross their border into Syria?
Why are we aiding and arming the Free
Syrian Army to bring down Bashar Assad,
when Assad's army is the only fighting force
standing between ISIS and the conquest of
Syria?
If ISIS is our mortal enemy, why have we not
persuaded the Turks to seal their border and
send their NATO-equipped army into Syria to
annihilate ISIS?
Turkey's Kemal Ataturk ended the old
caliphate and put the caliph on the Orient
Express to Europe. Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan could be the man who
strangled the new caliphate in its crib.
U.S. policy in Syria and Iraq today add up to
incoherence.
Iran is consistent. She wants to see the Shia
regimes survive in Damascus and Syria, and
has put blood and treasure on the line.
The Saudis and Gulf Arabs are consistent,
while playing a dangerous game. Seeing the
Shia regimes in Damascus and Baghdad as
alien and hostile, they are helping extremists
to overthrow them.
Only the Americans seem conflicted and
confused.
In Iraq we are on the side of the Shia regime
fighting ISIS. In Syria we are de facto allies of
ISIS fighting to overthrow the Shia regime.
"Take away this pudding," said Churchill, "it
has no theme."
Washington believes that the fall of Baghdad
would be a strategic defeat and disaster.
Have we considered what the fall of
Damascus would mean? Who rises if Bashar
Assad falls?
Who goes to the wall if the al-Nusra Front
and ISIS prevail in Syria? Would Americans
be welcome in that new Syria?
If we help bring down Assad's regime and a
radical Sunni regime takes its place, like the
terrorist-welcoming Taliban of yesterday,
would we then have to go in on the ground to
oust it?
This is not an academic question. The use of
U.S. air power in Iraq could cause ISIS to
turn back to its primary target -- Damascus.
And there are reports that part of that
stockpile of U.S. arms and munitions ISIS
captured in Mosul is already being moved
across the border into Syria for a fight to the
finish there, rather than in Iraq.
This new civil-sectarian-secessionist war in
Syria and Iraq looks to last for years. How
have we suffered by staying out of it?
The panic that engulfed this capital after the
fall of Mosul, when it appeared that the
Islamist fanatics of ISIS would overrun
Baghdad, has passed.
And the second thoughts have begun.
"U.S. Sees Risk in Iraqi Airstrikes," ran the
June 19 headline in the Washington Post,
"Military Warns of Dangerous
Complications."
This is welcome news. For if it is an
unwritten rule of republics not to commit to
war unless the nation is united, America has
never been less prepared for a Mideast war.
Our commander in chief is a reluctant
warrior who wants his legacy to be ending
our two longest wars. And just as Obama does
not want to go back into Iraq, neither does
the U.S. military.
The American people want no new war, and
Congress does not want to be forced to vote
on such a war.
Our foreign policy elites are split half a dozen
ways -- on whether to bomb or not to bomb,
on who our real enemies are in Syria and
Iraq, on whose support we should and should
not accept, on what our strategic goals are,
and what are the prospects for success.
Consider the bombing option.
Undoubtedly, U.S. air power could blunt an
attack on Baghdad. But air power cannot
retake Mosul or the Sunni Triangle that
Baghdad has lost, or Kirkuk or Kurdistan.
That will take boots on the ground and
casualties.
And nobody thinks these should be American
boots or American casualties. And why should
we fight to hold Iraq together? Is that a vital
interest to which we should commit American
lives in perpetuity?
When did it become so?
No. Bombing cannot put Iraq together again,
but it may tear Iraq further apart.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has
succeeded in northern Iraq because it has
allied with the same militias, Baathists and
tribal leaders who worked with Gen. David
Petraeus in the Anbar Awakening.
And if we use air power in Sunni provinces
that have seceded from Baghdad, we will be
killing people who were our partners and are
not our enemies. Photos of dead Sunnis, from
U.S. air, drone, and missile strikes, could
inflame the Sunni world.
Upon one thing Americans do agree: ISIS and
al-Qaida are our enemies. But are bombing
ISIS and killing Sunnis the way to destroy
ISIS? Or does bombing martyrize and heroize
ISIS for the Sunni young?
And if destroying ISIS is a strategic
imperative, why have we not demanded that
the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia cease
funneling arms and aid to ISIS in Syria? Why
have we not told the Turks to stop permitting
jihadists to cross their border into Syria?
Why are we aiding and arming the Free
Syrian Army to bring down Bashar Assad,
when Assad's army is the only fighting force
standing between ISIS and the conquest of
Syria?
If ISIS is our mortal enemy, why have we not
persuaded the Turks to seal their border and
send their NATO-equipped army into Syria to
annihilate ISIS?
Turkey's Kemal Ataturk ended the old
caliphate and put the caliph on the Orient
Express to Europe. Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan could be the man who
strangled the new caliphate in its crib.
U.S. policy in Syria and Iraq today add up to
incoherence.
Iran is consistent. She wants to see the Shia
regimes survive in Damascus and Syria, and
has put blood and treasure on the line.
The Saudis and Gulf Arabs are consistent,
while playing a dangerous game. Seeing the
Shia regimes in Damascus and Baghdad as
alien and hostile, they are helping extremists
to overthrow them.
Only the Americans seem conflicted and
confused.
In Iraq we are on the side of the Shia regime
fighting ISIS. In Syria we are de facto allies of
ISIS fighting to overthrow the Shia regime.
"Take away this pudding," said Churchill, "it
has no theme."
Washington believes that the fall of Baghdad
would be a strategic defeat and disaster.
Have we considered what the fall of
Damascus would mean? Who rises if Bashar
Assad falls?
Who goes to the wall if the al-Nusra Front
and ISIS prevail in Syria? Would Americans
be welcome in that new Syria?
If we help bring down Assad's regime and a
radical Sunni regime takes its place, like the
terrorist-welcoming Taliban of yesterday,
would we then have to go in on the ground to
oust it?
This is not an academic question. The use of
U.S. air power in Iraq could cause ISIS to
turn back to its primary target -- Damascus.
And there are reports that part of that
stockpile of U.S. arms and munitions ISIS
captured in Mosul is already being moved
across the border into Syria for a fight to the
finish there, rather than in Iraq.
This new civil-sectarian-secessionist war in
Syria and Iraq looks to last for years. How
have we suffered by staying out of it?
HILLARY'S JUGGER-NOT?
Ken Blackwell
“I’m ready for Hillary,” read the bumper
stickers in fashionable Georgetown, the
swankiest part of Washington, D.C. These
messages are juxtaposed with many a tattered
“2012” bumper sticker with the fading Obama
logo. Are these plugged-in liberals telling us
their dream has faded, too? The never-quite-
retiring Barbara Walters spoke to their
disillusion when she wistfully sighed: “We
thought he was going to be the new Messiah.”
So, buoyed by public opinion polls showing
her the most popular politician in America,
Hillary Clinton launched her latest “listening
tour” with a new book. It was supposed to be
a non-campaign rollout. But it turned out not
so promisingly.
Liberal journalists have panned her
performance on the stage . Her first stumble
was in announcing to Diane Sawyer that she
and Bill had left the White House in 2001
“dead broke.” She tried to gain sympathy and
show empathy through poor-mouthing. Not
since Mitt Romney announced he “likes firing
people” in the midst of 10% unemployment
has a supposedly serious politician so badly
gauged the popular mood. Hillary was hit
with unfavorable stories recalling the fact
that she left the Executive Mansion with a
paltry $8 million book advance. And Poor
Boy Bill would soon snag another $15 million
for his book. Then, of course, there were the
speeches, lots of speeches, at $200,000 a pop.
Determined not to let her role in the
Benghazi affair dominate her “rollout,” the
former Secretary of State went to what she
presumed would be friendly interviewers.
But she had to “walk back” her poor little rich
girl comments to Diane Sawyer. That’s never
a good thing when you are supposed to show
mastery and competence. That stumble
prompted a spate of stories about how rusty
she was on the hustings.
Then, rather unexpectedly, she ran into a
buzz saw on NPR, of all places. Terry Gross of
“Fresh Air” put Hillary on the spot. First, she
pressed her on her vote as a U.S. Senator in
2003 to authorize President Bush’s use of
force in Iraq. In time, she said, she became
disillusioned by Bush’s actions in Iraq. She
explained:
I did not believe that it was in the best interest
of our country, and it was not something that
I any longer wanted to be associated with.
How does that work? You are one of a
hundred Senators tasked with deciding
whether the United States goes to war or not.
You vote to go to war. And when the war does
not go well, you no longer want to be
associated with it? Isn’t that the definition of
irresponsibility? Isn’t it the adult thing to take
responsibility for your actions, especially
actions that were debated seriously and
heavily documented before, during, and after
the decision was made?
Then, Hillary was hit by a question out of left
field: “You made LGBT rights a priority,”
reporter Gross began. You included
“transgendered people in your advocacy.”
“LGBT includes the T,” Clinton answered.
Many foreign leaders, she said, did not want
to include these people in their human rights
laws.
“You made it easier for Americans to change
their sex on their passports,” reporter Gross
asked, “but you did it quietly.”
“It was not a big secret,” Clinton answered. “I
had responsibility for the 70,000 employees
of the [State Department] around the world.”
“I did not support gay marriage when I was
in the Senate and when I ran for president in
2008, as you know,” Hillary Clinton added.
But when Terry Gross ventured to suggest
that she failed to support marriage for
homosexual couples out of political
calculation, Hillary pushed back. “I think you
are reading it wrong,” she rejoined.
“The [Defense of Marriage Act] was signed by
your husband,” Terry Gross probed. “My
husband was first to say [he was wrong about
DOMA], she answered.
“The vast majority of Americans were just
waking up to this [marriage] issue. It has
been an extraordinarily fast legal and social
transformation,” Hillary exulted. “Marriage
equality is solidly established, except for
Texas.”
“Your opinion changed,” Terry Gross tried to
get Hillary to say. “You changed your mind.”
Hillary: You are playing with my words. I
repudiate it. It is not true that I privately
supported marriage but publicly opposed it.
Then, from her public record of opposition to
couples of the same sex marrying, and her
“repudiation” of Terry Gross’ question that
she may have privately favored it, we can
only conclude that as recently as 2008, Hillary
Clinton was against this proposition.
So she now vigorously maintains she was
wrong on Iraq and wrong on marriage. And
this is a qualification?
Would-be challengers to “Hillary the
Inevitable” can only be inspired by her
troubled launch of her book tour. Long-time
observers already recall the stumbling debut
of Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1979. Every poll that
year showed Kennedy would blow away the
beleaguered Jimmy Carter.
Every poll, that is, except the poll of primary
voters of 1980. Kennedy’s inability to answer
the simplest questions from friendly
interviewers had him tripping over his own
tongue at the starting gate. He never fully
recovered.
Might Hillary’s “inevitability” prove similarly
jinxed? Might her irresistible JUGGERNAUT
become a JUGGER-NOT?
“I’m ready for Hillary,” read the bumper
stickers in fashionable Georgetown, the
swankiest part of Washington, D.C. These
messages are juxtaposed with many a tattered
“2012” bumper sticker with the fading Obama
logo. Are these plugged-in liberals telling us
their dream has faded, too? The never-quite-
retiring Barbara Walters spoke to their
disillusion when she wistfully sighed: “We
thought he was going to be the new Messiah.”
So, buoyed by public opinion polls showing
her the most popular politician in America,
Hillary Clinton launched her latest “listening
tour” with a new book. It was supposed to be
a non-campaign rollout. But it turned out not
so promisingly.
Liberal journalists have panned her
performance on the stage . Her first stumble
was in announcing to Diane Sawyer that she
and Bill had left the White House in 2001
“dead broke.” She tried to gain sympathy and
show empathy through poor-mouthing. Not
since Mitt Romney announced he “likes firing
people” in the midst of 10% unemployment
has a supposedly serious politician so badly
gauged the popular mood. Hillary was hit
with unfavorable stories recalling the fact
that she left the Executive Mansion with a
paltry $8 million book advance. And Poor
Boy Bill would soon snag another $15 million
for his book. Then, of course, there were the
speeches, lots of speeches, at $200,000 a pop.
Determined not to let her role in the
Benghazi affair dominate her “rollout,” the
former Secretary of State went to what she
presumed would be friendly interviewers.
But she had to “walk back” her poor little rich
girl comments to Diane Sawyer. That’s never
a good thing when you are supposed to show
mastery and competence. That stumble
prompted a spate of stories about how rusty
she was on the hustings.
Then, rather unexpectedly, she ran into a
buzz saw on NPR, of all places. Terry Gross of
“Fresh Air” put Hillary on the spot. First, she
pressed her on her vote as a U.S. Senator in
2003 to authorize President Bush’s use of
force in Iraq. In time, she said, she became
disillusioned by Bush’s actions in Iraq. She
explained:
I did not believe that it was in the best interest
of our country, and it was not something that
I any longer wanted to be associated with.
How does that work? You are one of a
hundred Senators tasked with deciding
whether the United States goes to war or not.
You vote to go to war. And when the war does
not go well, you no longer want to be
associated with it? Isn’t that the definition of
irresponsibility? Isn’t it the adult thing to take
responsibility for your actions, especially
actions that were debated seriously and
heavily documented before, during, and after
the decision was made?
Then, Hillary was hit by a question out of left
field: “You made LGBT rights a priority,”
reporter Gross began. You included
“transgendered people in your advocacy.”
“LGBT includes the T,” Clinton answered.
Many foreign leaders, she said, did not want
to include these people in their human rights
laws.
“You made it easier for Americans to change
their sex on their passports,” reporter Gross
asked, “but you did it quietly.”
“It was not a big secret,” Clinton answered. “I
had responsibility for the 70,000 employees
of the [State Department] around the world.”
“I did not support gay marriage when I was
in the Senate and when I ran for president in
2008, as you know,” Hillary Clinton added.
But when Terry Gross ventured to suggest
that she failed to support marriage for
homosexual couples out of political
calculation, Hillary pushed back. “I think you
are reading it wrong,” she rejoined.
“The [Defense of Marriage Act] was signed by
your husband,” Terry Gross probed. “My
husband was first to say [he was wrong about
DOMA], she answered.
“The vast majority of Americans were just
waking up to this [marriage] issue. It has
been an extraordinarily fast legal and social
transformation,” Hillary exulted. “Marriage
equality is solidly established, except for
Texas.”
“Your opinion changed,” Terry Gross tried to
get Hillary to say. “You changed your mind.”
Hillary: You are playing with my words. I
repudiate it. It is not true that I privately
supported marriage but publicly opposed it.
Then, from her public record of opposition to
couples of the same sex marrying, and her
“repudiation” of Terry Gross’ question that
she may have privately favored it, we can
only conclude that as recently as 2008, Hillary
Clinton was against this proposition.
So she now vigorously maintains she was
wrong on Iraq and wrong on marriage. And
this is a qualification?
Would-be challengers to “Hillary the
Inevitable” can only be inspired by her
troubled launch of her book tour. Long-time
observers already recall the stumbling debut
of Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1979. Every poll that
year showed Kennedy would blow away the
beleaguered Jimmy Carter.
Every poll, that is, except the poll of primary
voters of 1980. Kennedy’s inability to answer
the simplest questions from friendly
interviewers had him tripping over his own
tongue at the starting gate. He never fully
recovered.
Might Hillary’s “inevitability” prove similarly
jinxed? Might her irresistible JUGGERNAUT
become a JUGGER-NOT?
QUESTIONS FOR OBAMA
Mona Charen
A few questions for President Barack Obama.
At your press conference, you said, "It is in
our national security interest not to see an
all-out civil war in Iraq." If that is the case,
why did you withdraw all U.S. forces from
Iraq in 2011? Were you motivated by
something other than U.S. national interests?
Did no one advise you that the current
disaster was possible when you proclaimed in
December 2011: "We're leaving behind a
sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a
representative government that was elected
by its people. We're building a new
partnership between our nations. And we are
ending a war, not with a final battle, but with
a final march toward home. This is an
extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years
in the making."
If it is in the U.S. national security interest to
keep Iraq from disintegrating, why are you
deploying at most 300 special forces -- just 50
more than you sent to find and destroy
Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army in
Uganda? Does Kony represent a comparable
threat to the United States in your judgment?
You said two things that seem contradictory --
that "U.S. troops are not going to be fighting
in Iraq again" and that you would consider
"targeted and precise" military action. Which
is true?
You said that you were sending Secretary of
State John Kerry to consult with countries in
the region, because all of Iraq's neighbors
have a "vital interest" in ensuring that Iraq
does not "descend into civil war or become a
safe haven for terrorists." Who were you
referring to? Saudi Arabia has been arming
the opposition to Bashar Assad, and doubtless
some of those arms have fallen into the hands
of the terrorist group ISIL, which operates in
both Syria and Iraq.
Do you think the Saudis will be swayed by
anything Kerry has to say after they've
flamboyantly expressed their disgust with
your leadership?
Did you mean Jordan, which is currently
struggling with more than 600,000 Syrian
refugees? Jordan certainly wants a stable
Iraq, but Jordan is among the weakest states
in the region. If Jordan did everything in its
power to stabilize Iraq, it would make little
difference.
Were you thinking of Iran? Where to begin?
Iran pulls Assad's strings, and it is Assad who
released the leadership of ISIL from his jails
precisely to radicalize the opposition to his
rule. He wagered that you would find it
difficult to help the rebels if they were
associated with extremists.
ISIL is, in a sense, Iran's achievement, not
Iran's problem. Iran is also the chief sponsor
of Nouri al-Maliki, the failed Iraqi leader
whose disastrous leadership has helped
propel Iraq to this crisis. Do you believe that
Iran has a vital interest in ensuring that Iraq
is not a haven for terrorists? Really? Iran has
devoted itself tirelessly since 1979 to creating
and supporting terrorists around the globe.
Iran created Hezbollah. Iran created the Al-
Quds force that killed countless Americans in
the Iraq War, assisted terror attacks in India
and South America, and plotted to blow up
the Saudi ambassador at a Washington, D.C.,
restaurant.
You said, "Above all, Iraqi leaders must rise
above their political differences and come
together around a political plan for Iraq's
future." Does this "must" have the same force
as your earlier call for Bashar Assad to step
down? What about your statement that "the
future of Ukraine must be decided by the
people of Ukraine" just a couple of weeks
before Russia annexed Crimea?
Do you think it is easier for factions within
Iraq, wracked by tribal rivalries, ethnic
divisions, religious differences, a history of
tyranny, and amid a crisis featuring armies
marching and beheadings by the hundreds to
"rise above their political differences" when
you cannot bring yourself to negotiate
sincerely with Republicans about the national
debt or spending?
You scolded President George W. Bush -- by
implication -- during your remarks when you
said that the present crisis should remind us
of "the need to ask hard questions before we
take action abroad, particularly military
action." Did you ask hard questions before
making the decision to withdraw all forces
from Iraq, or were you more interested
bragging rights about "ending wars"? Do you
see now that the enemy gets a vote?
A few questions for President Barack Obama.
At your press conference, you said, "It is in
our national security interest not to see an
all-out civil war in Iraq." If that is the case,
why did you withdraw all U.S. forces from
Iraq in 2011? Were you motivated by
something other than U.S. national interests?
Did no one advise you that the current
disaster was possible when you proclaimed in
December 2011: "We're leaving behind a
sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a
representative government that was elected
by its people. We're building a new
partnership between our nations. And we are
ending a war, not with a final battle, but with
a final march toward home. This is an
extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years
in the making."
If it is in the U.S. national security interest to
keep Iraq from disintegrating, why are you
deploying at most 300 special forces -- just 50
more than you sent to find and destroy
Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army in
Uganda? Does Kony represent a comparable
threat to the United States in your judgment?
You said two things that seem contradictory --
that "U.S. troops are not going to be fighting
in Iraq again" and that you would consider
"targeted and precise" military action. Which
is true?
You said that you were sending Secretary of
State John Kerry to consult with countries in
the region, because all of Iraq's neighbors
have a "vital interest" in ensuring that Iraq
does not "descend into civil war or become a
safe haven for terrorists." Who were you
referring to? Saudi Arabia has been arming
the opposition to Bashar Assad, and doubtless
some of those arms have fallen into the hands
of the terrorist group ISIL, which operates in
both Syria and Iraq.
Do you think the Saudis will be swayed by
anything Kerry has to say after they've
flamboyantly expressed their disgust with
your leadership?
Did you mean Jordan, which is currently
struggling with more than 600,000 Syrian
refugees? Jordan certainly wants a stable
Iraq, but Jordan is among the weakest states
in the region. If Jordan did everything in its
power to stabilize Iraq, it would make little
difference.
Were you thinking of Iran? Where to begin?
Iran pulls Assad's strings, and it is Assad who
released the leadership of ISIL from his jails
precisely to radicalize the opposition to his
rule. He wagered that you would find it
difficult to help the rebels if they were
associated with extremists.
ISIL is, in a sense, Iran's achievement, not
Iran's problem. Iran is also the chief sponsor
of Nouri al-Maliki, the failed Iraqi leader
whose disastrous leadership has helped
propel Iraq to this crisis. Do you believe that
Iran has a vital interest in ensuring that Iraq
is not a haven for terrorists? Really? Iran has
devoted itself tirelessly since 1979 to creating
and supporting terrorists around the globe.
Iran created Hezbollah. Iran created the Al-
Quds force that killed countless Americans in
the Iraq War, assisted terror attacks in India
and South America, and plotted to blow up
the Saudi ambassador at a Washington, D.C.,
restaurant.
You said, "Above all, Iraqi leaders must rise
above their political differences and come
together around a political plan for Iraq's
future." Does this "must" have the same force
as your earlier call for Bashar Assad to step
down? What about your statement that "the
future of Ukraine must be decided by the
people of Ukraine" just a couple of weeks
before Russia annexed Crimea?
Do you think it is easier for factions within
Iraq, wracked by tribal rivalries, ethnic
divisions, religious differences, a history of
tyranny, and amid a crisis featuring armies
marching and beheadings by the hundreds to
"rise above their political differences" when
you cannot bring yourself to negotiate
sincerely with Republicans about the national
debt or spending?
You scolded President George W. Bush -- by
implication -- during your remarks when you
said that the present crisis should remind us
of "the need to ask hard questions before we
take action abroad, particularly military
action." Did you ask hard questions before
making the decision to withdraw all forces
from Iraq, or were you more interested
bragging rights about "ending wars"? Do you
see now that the enemy gets a vote?
THE NAKED SELF-INTEREST OF THE BUREAUCRATIC CLASS
Jonah Goldberg
For understandable reasons, the IRS scandal
has largely focused on the political question
of whether the White House deliberately
targeted opponents. To date there's no
evidence that it did. That's good for the
president, but it may not be good for the
country, because if the administration didn't
target opponents, that would mean the IRS
has become corrupt all on its own.
In 1939, Bruno Rizzi, a largely forgotten
communist intellectual, wrote a hugely
controversial book, "The Bureaucratization of
the World." Rizzi argued that the Soviet
Union wasn't communist. Rather, it
represented a new kind of system, what Rizzi
called "bureaucratic collectivism." What the
Soviets had done was get rid of the capitalist
and aristocratic ruling classes and replace
them with a new, equally self-interested
ruling class: bureaucrats.
The book wasn't widely read, but it did reach
Bolshevik theoretician Leon Trotsky, who
attacked it passionately. Trotsky's response,
in turn, inspired James Burnham, who used
many of Rizzi's ideas in his own 1941 book,
"The Managerial Revolution," in which
Burnham argued that something similar was
happening in the West. A new class of
bureaucrats, educators, technicians,
regulators, social workers and corporate
directors who worked in tandem with
government were re-engineering society for
their own benefit. "The Managerial
Revolution" was a major influence on George
Orwell's "1984."
Now I don't believe we are becoming
anything like 1930s Russia, never mind a
real-life "1984." But this idea that bureaucrats
-- very broadly defined -- can become their
own class bent on protecting their interests at
the expense of the public seems not only
plausible but obviously true.
The evidence is everywhere. Every day it
seems there's another story about teachers
unions using their stranglehold on public
schools to reward themselves at the expense
of children. School choice programs and even
public charter schools are under vicious
attack, not because they are bad at educating
children but because they're good at it.
Specifically, they are good at it because they
don't have to abide by rules aimed at
protecting government workers at the
expense of students.
The Veterans Affairs scandal can be boiled
down to the fact that VA employees are the
agency's most important constituency. The
Phoenix VA health-care system created secret
waiting lists where patients languished and
even died, while the administrator paid out
almost $10 million in bonuses to VA
employees over the last three years.
Working for the federal government simply
isn't like working for the private sector.
Government employees are essentially un-
fireable. In the private sector people lose
their jobs for incompetence, redundancy or
obsolescence all the time. In government,
these concepts are virtually meaningless.
From a 2011 USA Today article: "Death --
rather than poor performance, misconduct or
layoffs -- is the primary threat to job security
at the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Small Business Administration, the
Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Office of Management and
Budget and a dozen other federal
operations."
In 2010, the 168,000 federal workers in
Washington, D.C. -- who are quite well-
compensated -- had a job-security rate of
99.74 percent. A HUD spokesman told USA
Today that "his department's low dismissal
rate -- providing a 99.85 percent job security
rate for employees -- shows a skilled and
committed workforce."
Uh huh.
Obviously, economic self-interest isn't the
only motivation. Bureaucrats no doubt
sincerely believe that government is a
wonderful thing and that it should be
empowered to do ever more wonderful
things. No doubt that is why the EPA has
taken it upon itself to rewrite American
energy policy without so much as a "by your
leave" from Congress.
The Democratic Party today is, quite simply,
the party of government and the natural
home of the managerial class. It is no
accident, as the Marxists say, that the
National Treasury Employees Union, which
represents the IRS, gave 94 percent of its
political donations during the 2012 election
cycle to Democratic candidates openly at war
with the tea party -- the same group singled
out by Lois Lerner. The American Federation
of Government Employees, which represents
the VA, gave 97 percent of its donations to
Democrats at the national level and 100
percent to Democrats at the state level.
We constantly hear how the evil Koch
brothers are motivated by a toxic mix of
ideology and economic self-interest. Is it so
impossible to imagine that a class of workers
might be seduced by the same sorts of
impulses? It's true that the already super-rich
Kochs would benefit from a freer country. It's
also true that the managerial class would
benefit from the bureaucratization of
America.
For understandable reasons, the IRS scandal
has largely focused on the political question
of whether the White House deliberately
targeted opponents. To date there's no
evidence that it did. That's good for the
president, but it may not be good for the
country, because if the administration didn't
target opponents, that would mean the IRS
has become corrupt all on its own.
In 1939, Bruno Rizzi, a largely forgotten
communist intellectual, wrote a hugely
controversial book, "The Bureaucratization of
the World." Rizzi argued that the Soviet
Union wasn't communist. Rather, it
represented a new kind of system, what Rizzi
called "bureaucratic collectivism." What the
Soviets had done was get rid of the capitalist
and aristocratic ruling classes and replace
them with a new, equally self-interested
ruling class: bureaucrats.
The book wasn't widely read, but it did reach
Bolshevik theoretician Leon Trotsky, who
attacked it passionately. Trotsky's response,
in turn, inspired James Burnham, who used
many of Rizzi's ideas in his own 1941 book,
"The Managerial Revolution," in which
Burnham argued that something similar was
happening in the West. A new class of
bureaucrats, educators, technicians,
regulators, social workers and corporate
directors who worked in tandem with
government were re-engineering society for
their own benefit. "The Managerial
Revolution" was a major influence on George
Orwell's "1984."
Now I don't believe we are becoming
anything like 1930s Russia, never mind a
real-life "1984." But this idea that bureaucrats
-- very broadly defined -- can become their
own class bent on protecting their interests at
the expense of the public seems not only
plausible but obviously true.
The evidence is everywhere. Every day it
seems there's another story about teachers
unions using their stranglehold on public
schools to reward themselves at the expense
of children. School choice programs and even
public charter schools are under vicious
attack, not because they are bad at educating
children but because they're good at it.
Specifically, they are good at it because they
don't have to abide by rules aimed at
protecting government workers at the
expense of students.
The Veterans Affairs scandal can be boiled
down to the fact that VA employees are the
agency's most important constituency. The
Phoenix VA health-care system created secret
waiting lists where patients languished and
even died, while the administrator paid out
almost $10 million in bonuses to VA
employees over the last three years.
Working for the federal government simply
isn't like working for the private sector.
Government employees are essentially un-
fireable. In the private sector people lose
their jobs for incompetence, redundancy or
obsolescence all the time. In government,
these concepts are virtually meaningless.
From a 2011 USA Today article: "Death --
rather than poor performance, misconduct or
layoffs -- is the primary threat to job security
at the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Small Business Administration, the
Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Office of Management and
Budget and a dozen other federal
operations."
In 2010, the 168,000 federal workers in
Washington, D.C. -- who are quite well-
compensated -- had a job-security rate of
99.74 percent. A HUD spokesman told USA
Today that "his department's low dismissal
rate -- providing a 99.85 percent job security
rate for employees -- shows a skilled and
committed workforce."
Uh huh.
Obviously, economic self-interest isn't the
only motivation. Bureaucrats no doubt
sincerely believe that government is a
wonderful thing and that it should be
empowered to do ever more wonderful
things. No doubt that is why the EPA has
taken it upon itself to rewrite American
energy policy without so much as a "by your
leave" from Congress.
The Democratic Party today is, quite simply,
the party of government and the natural
home of the managerial class. It is no
accident, as the Marxists say, that the
National Treasury Employees Union, which
represents the IRS, gave 94 percent of its
political donations during the 2012 election
cycle to Democratic candidates openly at war
with the tea party -- the same group singled
out by Lois Lerner. The American Federation
of Government Employees, which represents
the VA, gave 97 percent of its donations to
Democrats at the national level and 100
percent to Democrats at the state level.
We constantly hear how the evil Koch
brothers are motivated by a toxic mix of
ideology and economic self-interest. Is it so
impossible to imagine that a class of workers
might be seduced by the same sorts of
impulses? It's true that the already super-rich
Kochs would benefit from a freer country. It's
also true that the managerial class would
benefit from the bureaucratization of
America.
BANGLADESH -MYANMAR BORDER SKIRMISHES: WHO, WHAT AND WHY
Dibya Shikha
Research Intern, IReS, IPCS
In the recently concluded Director General-level
conference between Bangladesh and Myanmar in
Naypyidaw, although both countries resolved to
maintain peace and tranquility on the border – after
exchanging gunfire along the border – many questions
still remain to be addressed.
Why did these clashes begin, and what aggravated them
further? Were they just isolated border tiffs or a
calculated risk by Myanmar? What are the potential
larger implications of the recent scuffle for the bilateral?
What prompted the border clash?
Both the governments have provided differing accounts
of the reasons for the clashes. Dhaka claimed that the
Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) killed one soldier of
the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in an ambush on 28
May. Dhaka also claims that later, the BGP once again
began a ‘unprovoked attack’ when negotiations
regarding returning of the body of the slain trooper was
underway – triggering fresh gunfight along the border.
Conversely, Myanmar accused that clashes along the
border were started by Bangladesh when armed
members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO)
– founded in 1980 for protecting the rights of the
Rohingya people in Myanmar – allegedly operating from
Bangladeshi territory, tried to enter Myanmar.
Naypyidaw explained that the BGP fired on two men
because they were wearing yellow camouflage unlike the
Guards’ official uniform. These clashes occurred at a
time when there already were tensions along the border
following the May 17 incident where members of the
BGP were allegedly attacked by members of the RSO.
Myanmar stated that it would not tolerate any violation
of its sovereignty and would make every attempt to
prevent illegal border crossing from Bangladesh.
Recent violence on the border is indicative of growing
lawlessness in the region. The Bangladesh-Myanmar
border is known for criminal activities, including human
trafficking, arms and drugs smuggling, and robbery.
Additionally, the existence of improvised explosive
devices in the border areas also created a trust deficit
between the two neighbours. Border guards from both
sides have been accused of being deeply entrenched in
corrupt activities and exploitation of people living in the
bordering areas, which frequently results in minor border
tiffs; but sometimes taking form of a larger standoff.
Isolated Incident or a Calculated Risk?
The Bangladesh-Myanmar border has been volatile,
porous and problematic since the British colonial era.
Waves of ethnic violence two years ago in the Rakhine
region have left this area segregated on religious lines
which further aggravates the border tension. Myanmar
created this border crisis with Bangladesh to gain
leverage in the power struggle and divert international
community’s attention from its domestic political
developments.
It cannot be a sheer coincidence that the border crisis
started the same day when the draft of four religious
conversion bills were published in Myanmar’s
newspapers – that require getting permission from local
authorities before converting to other religions – and
resumption of Myanmar’s parliamentary session. These
proposed bills were severely criticised by civil society
organisations as undemocratic and discriminatory.
Hence, border skirmishes were an attempt by the
Myanmar government to galvanise people’s support for
the proposed legislation by dividing them on religious
lines.
The border crisis was not a random incident. Prior to
every election, tensions along the 270-kilometer border
with Bangladesh have been escalated by the
Myanmarese government. In 2009, a similar situation
was created along the border by Myanmar via fencing
and reinforcement of the border in the run up to the
2010 elections. Now, the border issue has come up
again in the name of harbouring of the RSO by
Bangladesh, for putting the BGP in a positive light to
gain brownie points in the 2015 elections in Myanmar.
Moreover, after the latest census in Myanmar, where the
Rohingya people were stripped off their identity and
recognised as ’Bengalis’ illegally migrated from
Bangladesh, the initiation of the border gunfight was
another effort by Myanmar to negate its responsibility
towards the Rohingyas and put the ball in Bangladesh’s
court for finding a solution to illegal migration.
Larger Implications on the Bilateral
Dhaka and Naypyidaw asserted that the recent clashes
are not indications of larger trends but are just isolated
incidents due to misunderstandings on the border. Both
countries officially stated that border incidents would
not damage diplomatic relations. Myanmar has
displayed a friendly gesture for improving ties with
Bangladesh by returning 30 Bangladeshis arrested for
illegally crossing the border.
Both sides agreed to set up a border liaison office for
curbing cross-border crimes and to educate people
residing in border areas about the demarcation. Both
countries also declared that they will start a security
dialogue to discuss and resolve the problems of the
border areas. Thus, Dhaka and Naypyidaw governments
are in no mood to further stretch the hostility on their
shared frontier.
Besides, the neighbouring countries’ bone of contention
is problem of insurgent groups such as the RSO that
allegedly operate from border areas in Bangladesh.
Though Dhaka bluntly rejected the existence of the RSO
or any rebellious groups in Bangladesh, Myanmar’s
question that if not the RSO then who is ambushing and
attacking the BGP from BangladeshI territory? Hence,
both countries have to engage in constructive dialogue
for reaching a solution for this issue.
Research Intern, IReS, IPCS
In the recently concluded Director General-level
conference between Bangladesh and Myanmar in
Naypyidaw, although both countries resolved to
maintain peace and tranquility on the border – after
exchanging gunfire along the border – many questions
still remain to be addressed.
Why did these clashes begin, and what aggravated them
further? Were they just isolated border tiffs or a
calculated risk by Myanmar? What are the potential
larger implications of the recent scuffle for the bilateral?
What prompted the border clash?
Both the governments have provided differing accounts
of the reasons for the clashes. Dhaka claimed that the
Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) killed one soldier of
the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in an ambush on 28
May. Dhaka also claims that later, the BGP once again
began a ‘unprovoked attack’ when negotiations
regarding returning of the body of the slain trooper was
underway – triggering fresh gunfight along the border.
Conversely, Myanmar accused that clashes along the
border were started by Bangladesh when armed
members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO)
– founded in 1980 for protecting the rights of the
Rohingya people in Myanmar – allegedly operating from
Bangladeshi territory, tried to enter Myanmar.
Naypyidaw explained that the BGP fired on two men
because they were wearing yellow camouflage unlike the
Guards’ official uniform. These clashes occurred at a
time when there already were tensions along the border
following the May 17 incident where members of the
BGP were allegedly attacked by members of the RSO.
Myanmar stated that it would not tolerate any violation
of its sovereignty and would make every attempt to
prevent illegal border crossing from Bangladesh.
Recent violence on the border is indicative of growing
lawlessness in the region. The Bangladesh-Myanmar
border is known for criminal activities, including human
trafficking, arms and drugs smuggling, and robbery.
Additionally, the existence of improvised explosive
devices in the border areas also created a trust deficit
between the two neighbours. Border guards from both
sides have been accused of being deeply entrenched in
corrupt activities and exploitation of people living in the
bordering areas, which frequently results in minor border
tiffs; but sometimes taking form of a larger standoff.
Isolated Incident or a Calculated Risk?
The Bangladesh-Myanmar border has been volatile,
porous and problematic since the British colonial era.
Waves of ethnic violence two years ago in the Rakhine
region have left this area segregated on religious lines
which further aggravates the border tension. Myanmar
created this border crisis with Bangladesh to gain
leverage in the power struggle and divert international
community’s attention from its domestic political
developments.
It cannot be a sheer coincidence that the border crisis
started the same day when the draft of four religious
conversion bills were published in Myanmar’s
newspapers – that require getting permission from local
authorities before converting to other religions – and
resumption of Myanmar’s parliamentary session. These
proposed bills were severely criticised by civil society
organisations as undemocratic and discriminatory.
Hence, border skirmishes were an attempt by the
Myanmar government to galvanise people’s support for
the proposed legislation by dividing them on religious
lines.
The border crisis was not a random incident. Prior to
every election, tensions along the 270-kilometer border
with Bangladesh have been escalated by the
Myanmarese government. In 2009, a similar situation
was created along the border by Myanmar via fencing
and reinforcement of the border in the run up to the
2010 elections. Now, the border issue has come up
again in the name of harbouring of the RSO by
Bangladesh, for putting the BGP in a positive light to
gain brownie points in the 2015 elections in Myanmar.
Moreover, after the latest census in Myanmar, where the
Rohingya people were stripped off their identity and
recognised as ’Bengalis’ illegally migrated from
Bangladesh, the initiation of the border gunfight was
another effort by Myanmar to negate its responsibility
towards the Rohingyas and put the ball in Bangladesh’s
court for finding a solution to illegal migration.
Larger Implications on the Bilateral
Dhaka and Naypyidaw asserted that the recent clashes
are not indications of larger trends but are just isolated
incidents due to misunderstandings on the border. Both
countries officially stated that border incidents would
not damage diplomatic relations. Myanmar has
displayed a friendly gesture for improving ties with
Bangladesh by returning 30 Bangladeshis arrested for
illegally crossing the border.
Both sides agreed to set up a border liaison office for
curbing cross-border crimes and to educate people
residing in border areas about the demarcation. Both
countries also declared that they will start a security
dialogue to discuss and resolve the problems of the
border areas. Thus, Dhaka and Naypyidaw governments
are in no mood to further stretch the hostility on their
shared frontier.
Besides, the neighbouring countries’ bone of contention
is problem of insurgent groups such as the RSO that
allegedly operate from border areas in Bangladesh.
Though Dhaka bluntly rejected the existence of the RSO
or any rebellious groups in Bangladesh, Myanmar’s
question that if not the RSO then who is ambushing and
attacking the BGP from BangladeshI territory? Hence,
both countries have to engage in constructive dialogue
for reaching a solution for this issue.
19 Jun 2014
YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
Cliff May
The largest and most expensive embassy in
the world is in Baghdad. President George W.
Bush built it in the hope, perhaps the
expectation, that before long, it would house
envoys to the first democratic American ally
in the Arab world. It hasn’t quite worked out
that way. With terrorists on the march
throughout an expanding swath of Iraq , the
State Department last weekend began to
evacuate “substantial” numbers of diplomats.
Meanwhile, dozens of Marines are being sent
in.
Many blame Mr. Bush for this failure: In the
aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
they say, he should have kept his eye on the
ball — the ball being al Qaeda , and perhaps
the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Iran.
Instead, he toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein.
Others argue that after the “surge” — which
dealt devastating defeats to both al Qaeda in
Iraq and Iranian-backed Shia militias — Mr.
Bush left behind a relatively stable and
increasingly democratic land. Further
progress required that President Obama
maintain at least a residual U.S. military
presence in Iraq — just as American
presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike,
have maintained a military presence in South
Korea, Japan and Germany long after wars in
those countries ended.
This debate will continue, not without
acrimony, for years to come. More urgent
right now: identifying, preferably on a
bipartisan basis, policies that stand the best
chance of mitigating a growing, evolving
threat.
It’s useful to name that threat, and it was
encouraging that Mr. Obama did so last week:
“We do have a stake in making sure these
jihadists do not gain a permanent foothold in
either Iraq or Syria ,” he said.
The jihadists to which he refers, of course,
belong to ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and
al-Sham, which rose from the ashes of al
Qaeda in Iraq . “Al Sham” implies the Levant:
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel, the
West Bank and Gaza. As the name also
suggests, ISIS aims to create a state that will
join others — al Qaeda -affiliated forces are
currently fighting in no fewer than nine
countries — to form a new caliphate, an
Islamic empire that does not plan to
peacefully coexist with “infidel” and Muslim
“apostate” states.
Like most other jihadist groups, ISIS acts
locally but thinks globally. Its leader, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, has promised America
“direct confrontation. The sons of Islam have
prepared for such a day.” He has added:
“Soon we will face you, and we are waiting
for this day.”
Some elite analysts and American officials
have concluded that the U.S. should make
common cause with Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against ISIS. Can they
really believe that Iran, for years ranked by
the U.S. government as the world’s primary
state sponsor of terrorism, would be a
reliable ally in a war against terrorists?
Would you stock a river with crocodiles to
solve a piranha problem?
A better approach: Design a strategy to
weaken and, over time, defeat all the various
jihadist forces threatening us and competing
among themselves for dominance over the
barbaric new world they envision — a world
of beheadings, amputations, crucifixions,
summary executions and mass murders; a
world in which women are chattel; a world in
which religious, ethnic and sexual minorities
are brutally persecuted if not “cleansed.”
Such a strategy would integrate multiple
components — more than I can detail in a
brief column. But economic diplomacy and,
in some instances, economic warfare would
certainly be among them. For example, The
Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin reports that for years
ISIS was funded by wealthy donors in Kuwait,
Qatar and Saudi Arabia.” Our intelligence
community should be able to identify such
individuals and, one way or another, stem the
flow. (At this point, it’s worth noting that ISIS
may have become strong enough to fund itself
the old-fashioned way: by taking booty. Last
week, its fighters reportedly looted $430
million from a bank in Mosul.)
Energy policies that bolster national security
— rather than ship trillions of dollars to
people who despise us — are long overdue. It
would be in our interest to support proxies
willing and able to fight common enemies —
as we did during the Cold War. For three
years, Syrian nationalists have been asking
for the means to fight both Mr. Assad’s forces
and the Sunni jihadists. Refusing to support
them was not strategic.
Finally, the lesson we learn from recent
military interventions cannot be to never
again use force — which also would prevent
us from credibly threatening to use force. Our
enemies need to be convinced that so long as
they will not make peace with us, they will
not be safe from us; not while they are
fighting, not while they are resting,
recuperating and plotting. Among other
things, this implies that Congress must keep in
place, and perhaps expand, the Authorization
to Use Military Force.
Years of living dangerously lie ahead. The
carnage in Iraq should be a wake-up call for
those who haven’t grasped that. We can run
— as some on both the left and right are
advocating — but we really can’t hide from
those who believe it is their religious duty to
destroy us.
If we develop a smart strategy and
implement it aggressively we still won’t win
every battle. That’s an important point, too:
In Iraq , as in Syria and Afghanistan, what we
have been losing are battles. If we learn from
our mistakes — Mr. Bush ’s mistakes, Mr.
Obama’s mistakes, others’ mistakes — this
war is, without question, winnable.
The largest and most expensive embassy in
the world is in Baghdad. President George W.
Bush built it in the hope, perhaps the
expectation, that before long, it would house
envoys to the first democratic American ally
in the Arab world. It hasn’t quite worked out
that way. With terrorists on the march
throughout an expanding swath of Iraq , the
State Department last weekend began to
evacuate “substantial” numbers of diplomats.
Meanwhile, dozens of Marines are being sent
in.
Many blame Mr. Bush for this failure: In the
aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
they say, he should have kept his eye on the
ball — the ball being al Qaeda , and perhaps
the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Iran.
Instead, he toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein.
Others argue that after the “surge” — which
dealt devastating defeats to both al Qaeda in
Iraq and Iranian-backed Shia militias — Mr.
Bush left behind a relatively stable and
increasingly democratic land. Further
progress required that President Obama
maintain at least a residual U.S. military
presence in Iraq — just as American
presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike,
have maintained a military presence in South
Korea, Japan and Germany long after wars in
those countries ended.
This debate will continue, not without
acrimony, for years to come. More urgent
right now: identifying, preferably on a
bipartisan basis, policies that stand the best
chance of mitigating a growing, evolving
threat.
It’s useful to name that threat, and it was
encouraging that Mr. Obama did so last week:
“We do have a stake in making sure these
jihadists do not gain a permanent foothold in
either Iraq or Syria ,” he said.
The jihadists to which he refers, of course,
belong to ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and
al-Sham, which rose from the ashes of al
Qaeda in Iraq . “Al Sham” implies the Levant:
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel, the
West Bank and Gaza. As the name also
suggests, ISIS aims to create a state that will
join others — al Qaeda -affiliated forces are
currently fighting in no fewer than nine
countries — to form a new caliphate, an
Islamic empire that does not plan to
peacefully coexist with “infidel” and Muslim
“apostate” states.
Like most other jihadist groups, ISIS acts
locally but thinks globally. Its leader, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, has promised America
“direct confrontation. The sons of Islam have
prepared for such a day.” He has added:
“Soon we will face you, and we are waiting
for this day.”
Some elite analysts and American officials
have concluded that the U.S. should make
common cause with Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against ISIS. Can they
really believe that Iran, for years ranked by
the U.S. government as the world’s primary
state sponsor of terrorism, would be a
reliable ally in a war against terrorists?
Would you stock a river with crocodiles to
solve a piranha problem?
A better approach: Design a strategy to
weaken and, over time, defeat all the various
jihadist forces threatening us and competing
among themselves for dominance over the
barbaric new world they envision — a world
of beheadings, amputations, crucifixions,
summary executions and mass murders; a
world in which women are chattel; a world in
which religious, ethnic and sexual minorities
are brutally persecuted if not “cleansed.”
Such a strategy would integrate multiple
components — more than I can detail in a
brief column. But economic diplomacy and,
in some instances, economic warfare would
certainly be among them. For example, The
Daily Beast’s Josh Rogin reports that for years
ISIS was funded by wealthy donors in Kuwait,
Qatar and Saudi Arabia.” Our intelligence
community should be able to identify such
individuals and, one way or another, stem the
flow. (At this point, it’s worth noting that ISIS
may have become strong enough to fund itself
the old-fashioned way: by taking booty. Last
week, its fighters reportedly looted $430
million from a bank in Mosul.)
Energy policies that bolster national security
— rather than ship trillions of dollars to
people who despise us — are long overdue. It
would be in our interest to support proxies
willing and able to fight common enemies —
as we did during the Cold War. For three
years, Syrian nationalists have been asking
for the means to fight both Mr. Assad’s forces
and the Sunni jihadists. Refusing to support
them was not strategic.
Finally, the lesson we learn from recent
military interventions cannot be to never
again use force — which also would prevent
us from credibly threatening to use force. Our
enemies need to be convinced that so long as
they will not make peace with us, they will
not be safe from us; not while they are
fighting, not while they are resting,
recuperating and plotting. Among other
things, this implies that Congress must keep in
place, and perhaps expand, the Authorization
to Use Military Force.
Years of living dangerously lie ahead. The
carnage in Iraq should be a wake-up call for
those who haven’t grasped that. We can run
— as some on both the left and right are
advocating — but we really can’t hide from
those who believe it is their religious duty to
destroy us.
If we develop a smart strategy and
implement it aggressively we still won’t win
every battle. That’s an important point, too:
In Iraq , as in Syria and Afghanistan, what we
have been losing are battles. If we learn from
our mistakes — Mr. Bush ’s mistakes, Mr.
Obama’s mistakes, others’ mistakes — this
war is, without question, winnable.
KICKED FROM BEHIND
Emmett Tyrrell
WASHINGTON -- Aha, Mr. Obama, how do you
now like "leading from behind"?
When you first enunciated this hocus-pocus
in 2011, Charles Krauthammer called it
neither a theory nor a doctrine. He called it
"dithering," a style devoid of ideas. Instead of
the implementation of a doctrine, we have
seen indecision, hesitancy, delay. In the
aftermath of that delay, it is too late to
prevent the carnage, a carnage that did not
have to take place. Iraq was stable and
relatively peaceful before we led from
behind. Now the country is quite possibly
lost. Cartographers will be presenting the
world with a new map of the area once it has
been carved up.
One would think that President Barack
Obama has been sweating profusely of late.
Possibly he is in his meetings with the
National Security Council, assuming he meets
with the group. We know he is flying off to
Indian reservations to focus Americans on
the plight of Native Americans. He did this on
Friday, and he is attending fundraisers.
Perhaps he will attempt to focus our attention
on the plight of American gypsies next. How
about a fundraiser for American gypsies?
There he could present his sleek and cool
image. No sweat, all is well. Yet back in
Baghdad, American diplomats are looking
skyward for the helicopters. It might be
Saigon circa 1975 all over again.
Why when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
pounced last week, were there no American
troops in Iraq? In 2011, we were supposedly
hammering out a status of forces agreement
to keep a residual force of 23,000 troops
there. We have done this after World War II,
the Korean War and other conflicts.
Unfortunately, the hammering out of the
agreement ended in bickering and foot
stomping. For one thing, the stupendously
disagreeable Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-
Maliki, insisted on having criminal
jurisdiction over American forces in Iraq.
Rather than negotiate, Obama did what he
had already promised to do. He called
American forces home. Now we see the
outcome. After a decade of American
involvement in Iraq and 4,500 Americans
dead, a handful of terrorists -- ISIS numbers
only in the thousands -- are acting like a
conquering army and taking whole
provinces. The Iraqi army is stripping off its
uniforms to reveal casual dress and trying to
blend in with the local citizenry. Not
surprisingly, those who are captured in their
casual dress are being slaughtered.
Two men are responsible for this disaster,
President Obama and Prime Minister Maliki.
Standing together in the White House in a
December 2011 ceremony, the president
made good on his promise. We were leaving
Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki was triumphal.
He had no worries. Iraq was a happy
sovereign state under his leadership. Of
course, in the months ahead he reneged on all
his promises to share power with the Sunnis
and the Kurds. The result of these two foolish
men's dithering, and in Maliki's case, evading
his responsibilities to the Kurds and the
Sunnis, we are seeing today.
Retired General John M. Keane explained
brilliantly to the Washington Times on
Monday what has allowed a small force of
well-equipped terrorists to invest Iraq this
week: Up until late in 2011, "We had all our
intelligence capability there. We knew where
the enemy was. We were flying drones.
We're tracking them. We have signals
intelligence pouring in, eavesdropping on
phone conversations and the rest of it. We're
using our counter-terrorism forces to bang
against these guys. We're passing that
information to the Iraqis so their commandos
can do the same." Keane expounded, "On a
given day ... that screen went blank."
President Obama led from behind.
Tuesday, in the Wall Street Journal, General
Keane spoke out again. It is not too late to
stop ISIS from becoming a conquering army.
He counsels bringing in "intelligence
architecture" to turn on the intelligence
screens that, of a sudden, went blank in Iraq
in 2011. Send in "planners and advisors" who
will advise "down to division level where
units are still viable." Strike with "counter-
terrorism" because "Special operations forces
should be employed clandestinely to attack
high value ISIS targets," ISIS leaders. Finally
General Keane advises using "air power,"
which "alone cannot win a war" but can
make it nigh unto impossible for ISIS
members to stick their heads out of the sand.
General Keane is my kind of general. He is
full of fight and has a strategic plan. Our
problem is the guy in the White House.
WASHINGTON -- Aha, Mr. Obama, how do you
now like "leading from behind"?
When you first enunciated this hocus-pocus
in 2011, Charles Krauthammer called it
neither a theory nor a doctrine. He called it
"dithering," a style devoid of ideas. Instead of
the implementation of a doctrine, we have
seen indecision, hesitancy, delay. In the
aftermath of that delay, it is too late to
prevent the carnage, a carnage that did not
have to take place. Iraq was stable and
relatively peaceful before we led from
behind. Now the country is quite possibly
lost. Cartographers will be presenting the
world with a new map of the area once it has
been carved up.
One would think that President Barack
Obama has been sweating profusely of late.
Possibly he is in his meetings with the
National Security Council, assuming he meets
with the group. We know he is flying off to
Indian reservations to focus Americans on
the plight of Native Americans. He did this on
Friday, and he is attending fundraisers.
Perhaps he will attempt to focus our attention
on the plight of American gypsies next. How
about a fundraiser for American gypsies?
There he could present his sleek and cool
image. No sweat, all is well. Yet back in
Baghdad, American diplomats are looking
skyward for the helicopters. It might be
Saigon circa 1975 all over again.
Why when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
pounced last week, were there no American
troops in Iraq? In 2011, we were supposedly
hammering out a status of forces agreement
to keep a residual force of 23,000 troops
there. We have done this after World War II,
the Korean War and other conflicts.
Unfortunately, the hammering out of the
agreement ended in bickering and foot
stomping. For one thing, the stupendously
disagreeable Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-
Maliki, insisted on having criminal
jurisdiction over American forces in Iraq.
Rather than negotiate, Obama did what he
had already promised to do. He called
American forces home. Now we see the
outcome. After a decade of American
involvement in Iraq and 4,500 Americans
dead, a handful of terrorists -- ISIS numbers
only in the thousands -- are acting like a
conquering army and taking whole
provinces. The Iraqi army is stripping off its
uniforms to reveal casual dress and trying to
blend in with the local citizenry. Not
surprisingly, those who are captured in their
casual dress are being slaughtered.
Two men are responsible for this disaster,
President Obama and Prime Minister Maliki.
Standing together in the White House in a
December 2011 ceremony, the president
made good on his promise. We were leaving
Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki was triumphal.
He had no worries. Iraq was a happy
sovereign state under his leadership. Of
course, in the months ahead he reneged on all
his promises to share power with the Sunnis
and the Kurds. The result of these two foolish
men's dithering, and in Maliki's case, evading
his responsibilities to the Kurds and the
Sunnis, we are seeing today.
Retired General John M. Keane explained
brilliantly to the Washington Times on
Monday what has allowed a small force of
well-equipped terrorists to invest Iraq this
week: Up until late in 2011, "We had all our
intelligence capability there. We knew where
the enemy was. We were flying drones.
We're tracking them. We have signals
intelligence pouring in, eavesdropping on
phone conversations and the rest of it. We're
using our counter-terrorism forces to bang
against these guys. We're passing that
information to the Iraqis so their commandos
can do the same." Keane expounded, "On a
given day ... that screen went blank."
President Obama led from behind.
Tuesday, in the Wall Street Journal, General
Keane spoke out again. It is not too late to
stop ISIS from becoming a conquering army.
He counsels bringing in "intelligence
architecture" to turn on the intelligence
screens that, of a sudden, went blank in Iraq
in 2011. Send in "planners and advisors" who
will advise "down to division level where
units are still viable." Strike with "counter-
terrorism" because "Special operations forces
should be employed clandestinely to attack
high value ISIS targets," ISIS leaders. Finally
General Keane advises using "air power,"
which "alone cannot win a war" but can
make it nigh unto impossible for ISIS
members to stick their heads out of the sand.
General Keane is my kind of general. He is
full of fight and has a strategic plan. Our
problem is the guy in the White House.
MARRIAGE AND ITS DISCONTENTS.
Paul Greenberg
There are good people on both sides of the
current debate over letting homosexual
couples get married -- and good people in
between who aren't sure just where they
stand. And may never be. Lots of them are all
in favor of according homosexuals all the
financial benefits that go with marriage, and
the social and legal standing, too. From
pension and inheritance rights to hospital
visitation privileges. It's only right -- and
about time. And they want to do the decent
thing.
Yet many of these same people, fair-minded
as they are, balk at granting homosexual
couples a marriage license. They may not be
able to say exactly why they draw the line at
the word marriage. Which is why so many of
them have embraced civil unions as a fair
compromise; they envision it as marriage
with all the benefits, just not the name.
Why won't they cross that last line, go that
last step? They may say something about
custom and tradition, or even mention
religious scruples, but it's all very vague. You
get the feeling they're still struggling with the
question, that their opinion on this matter
hasn't matured. They must sound uncertain
and unconvincing even to themselves. They
want to do the right thing by their fellow man
-- and woman -- whatever the sexual
proclivities involved, but they can't bring
themselves to extend marriage to homosexual
unions.
Why is that? Maybe because they realize
somewhere in the back of their minds that a
word is more than just a word, that it can
carry all kinds of connotations and values
with it, a whole history. Certainly a word like
marriage does. Because it's not just a word.
Marriage is an institution hallowed not only
by the church but by time and custom and the
whole culture we're part of and rely on,
whether we realize it or not.
In the words of the old Book of Common
Prayer, marriage is an honorable estate "and
therefore is not by any to be entered into
unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently,
discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear
of God."
Yes, we can change the formal definition of
marriage, and wave it over any personal
arrangement we prefer, whether homosexual
marriage or polygamy or you name it, but
that doesn't mean our new definition will
retain its old meaning and significance.
Those who think we can arbitrarily change
the definition of marriage are making the
same mistake the French revolutionaries did
when they instituted a whole new calendar,
with the months and festivals renamed and
secularized to replace the old ones they saw
as relics of a backward, superstitious age. Just
as the Bolsheviks, in the first flush of their
bloody victory, thought they could change not
just the government and economy but the
whole culture, and create The New Man at
last. It's an old mistake: Change the name of
something and the thing itself will be
changed.
The new revolutionary names didn't last, any
more than the revolutionaries' reign by
terror did. Because the new, artificial
designations did not reflect the wisdom
slowly, arduously developed over time and
experience, for which there are no
substitutes. So it is with deciding that
marriage, too, is just a label we can affix at
will. And the whole culture will fall in line.
Only a culture is more cunning, more subtle,
more resilient, more enduring than that.
The advocates of homosexual marriage in
their innocence wonder why we stubborn
types hold on to its more traditional
definition and limits. What's the big
problem? Let the state be the state and the
church the church. The state is the one that
issues marriage licenses, isn't it? Why the
fuss? Let the state define marriage any way it
wants and the church can do whatever its
conscience or tradition demands. Problem
solved. See how simple that was?
It takes only a moment, or should, to see that
the workings of society, especially American
society, aren't quite as simple as all that. It's
hard enough to keep church and state
separate in this country -- see all those split
Supreme Court decisions -- but to separate
American society from its religious values is
pretty nigh impossible, the two are so closely
intertwined. As even a cursory review of
American history demonstrates -- from the
Puritans to every reform movement since,
from those that were successful (like the
abolition of slavery and the rise of the civil
rights movement) and those that weren't, like
Prohibition. Not to mention the nation's
founding documents like the Declaration of
Independence. ("We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all Men are created equal
and endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights....")
Why are officials of the state from high to low
required to take an oath of office? Presidents
since Washington have been sworn in on the
Bible, and so many have added the words "So
help me God!" that it has become almost part
of the inaugural oath. And what about
chaplains in the armed forces? Who is their
Commanding Officer?
The fabric of American life and government
is not so easily rent into two clearly separated
remnants. When a minister marries a couple,
is he acting only as an official of the state, or
of the church, too? Both, of course. Because
civil and religious values are inextricably
interwoven in our law, culture and lives.
Even the most secular-minded of couples may
want a clergyman present at their wedding if
only as a witness. And not just to please the
old folks, but to satisfy something within
themselves, their -- dare I say it? -- their very
being, their souls. They want to make their
marriage vows more than a civil procedure,
to make their union if not sacred then at least
not mundane. They want it to be more than
just another civil contract, like a mortgage or
housing permit or domestic partnership. They
want to look into each other's eyes and
promise each to the other: "You will be sacred
unto me." Not just a contracting party.
I noted the other day that even one of the
leading advocates of homosexual marriage
here in Arkansas, a local judge and pastor in
Little Rock, wore his religious vestments
when he married a homosexual couple.
All of culture, indeed all of civilization,
strives to maintain that connection between
the holy and the mundane. When it doesn't,
as in the French and Russian revolutions, it
doesn't endure.
At the turn of another century, a British
author who already was being dismissed as
an old fuddy-duddy, Rudyard Kipling, had a
word for these attempts to separate civil and
religious values in a society. "Decivilization,"
he called it.
One literary critic, Evelyn Waugh, understood
what Kipling meant because he shared the old
man's fears. Kipling, he wrote, "was a
conservative in the sense that he believed
civilization to be something laboriously
achieved which was only precariously
defended. He wanted to see the defenses fully
manned and he hated the liberals because he
thought them gullible and feeble, believing in
the easy perfectibility of man and ready to
abandon the work of centuries for
sentimental qualms."
Kipling would live to see Hitler come to
power, Stalin consolidating his terror, and his
worst fears confirmed. All the subtle
interworkings of man and God in a
civilization's culture, the traditions and
constraints that modern, "liberated" man may
see no use for, would be tossed to the winds.
With all too predictable results.
Civilizations do not collapse all at once with a
peal of thunder and some sudden, dramatic
fall. They don't so much fall as crumble, layer
by layer, at first almost imperceptibly and
then eventually their pillars give way and
leave only ruins for tourists to gaze at. In the
case of the decline and fall of the Roman
Empire, the process took centuries. Rot grows
slow.
So, no, despite what all the great simplifiers
say, it isn't all that simple, the separation of
the secular and religious in a civilization, the
maintenance and transmission of a culture
that involves both the temporal and the
eternal. A culture is the work of centuries,
and it would behoove those who would
casually lay hands on it to beware. There is
something holy there.
There are good people on both sides of the
current debate over letting homosexual
couples get married -- and good people in
between who aren't sure just where they
stand. And may never be. Lots of them are all
in favor of according homosexuals all the
financial benefits that go with marriage, and
the social and legal standing, too. From
pension and inheritance rights to hospital
visitation privileges. It's only right -- and
about time. And they want to do the decent
thing.
Yet many of these same people, fair-minded
as they are, balk at granting homosexual
couples a marriage license. They may not be
able to say exactly why they draw the line at
the word marriage. Which is why so many of
them have embraced civil unions as a fair
compromise; they envision it as marriage
with all the benefits, just not the name.
Why won't they cross that last line, go that
last step? They may say something about
custom and tradition, or even mention
religious scruples, but it's all very vague. You
get the feeling they're still struggling with the
question, that their opinion on this matter
hasn't matured. They must sound uncertain
and unconvincing even to themselves. They
want to do the right thing by their fellow man
-- and woman -- whatever the sexual
proclivities involved, but they can't bring
themselves to extend marriage to homosexual
unions.
Why is that? Maybe because they realize
somewhere in the back of their minds that a
word is more than just a word, that it can
carry all kinds of connotations and values
with it, a whole history. Certainly a word like
marriage does. Because it's not just a word.
Marriage is an institution hallowed not only
by the church but by time and custom and the
whole culture we're part of and rely on,
whether we realize it or not.
In the words of the old Book of Common
Prayer, marriage is an honorable estate "and
therefore is not by any to be entered into
unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently,
discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear
of God."
Yes, we can change the formal definition of
marriage, and wave it over any personal
arrangement we prefer, whether homosexual
marriage or polygamy or you name it, but
that doesn't mean our new definition will
retain its old meaning and significance.
Those who think we can arbitrarily change
the definition of marriage are making the
same mistake the French revolutionaries did
when they instituted a whole new calendar,
with the months and festivals renamed and
secularized to replace the old ones they saw
as relics of a backward, superstitious age. Just
as the Bolsheviks, in the first flush of their
bloody victory, thought they could change not
just the government and economy but the
whole culture, and create The New Man at
last. It's an old mistake: Change the name of
something and the thing itself will be
changed.
The new revolutionary names didn't last, any
more than the revolutionaries' reign by
terror did. Because the new, artificial
designations did not reflect the wisdom
slowly, arduously developed over time and
experience, for which there are no
substitutes. So it is with deciding that
marriage, too, is just a label we can affix at
will. And the whole culture will fall in line.
Only a culture is more cunning, more subtle,
more resilient, more enduring than that.
The advocates of homosexual marriage in
their innocence wonder why we stubborn
types hold on to its more traditional
definition and limits. What's the big
problem? Let the state be the state and the
church the church. The state is the one that
issues marriage licenses, isn't it? Why the
fuss? Let the state define marriage any way it
wants and the church can do whatever its
conscience or tradition demands. Problem
solved. See how simple that was?
It takes only a moment, or should, to see that
the workings of society, especially American
society, aren't quite as simple as all that. It's
hard enough to keep church and state
separate in this country -- see all those split
Supreme Court decisions -- but to separate
American society from its religious values is
pretty nigh impossible, the two are so closely
intertwined. As even a cursory review of
American history demonstrates -- from the
Puritans to every reform movement since,
from those that were successful (like the
abolition of slavery and the rise of the civil
rights movement) and those that weren't, like
Prohibition. Not to mention the nation's
founding documents like the Declaration of
Independence. ("We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all Men are created equal
and endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights....")
Why are officials of the state from high to low
required to take an oath of office? Presidents
since Washington have been sworn in on the
Bible, and so many have added the words "So
help me God!" that it has become almost part
of the inaugural oath. And what about
chaplains in the armed forces? Who is their
Commanding Officer?
The fabric of American life and government
is not so easily rent into two clearly separated
remnants. When a minister marries a couple,
is he acting only as an official of the state, or
of the church, too? Both, of course. Because
civil and religious values are inextricably
interwoven in our law, culture and lives.
Even the most secular-minded of couples may
want a clergyman present at their wedding if
only as a witness. And not just to please the
old folks, but to satisfy something within
themselves, their -- dare I say it? -- their very
being, their souls. They want to make their
marriage vows more than a civil procedure,
to make their union if not sacred then at least
not mundane. They want it to be more than
just another civil contract, like a mortgage or
housing permit or domestic partnership. They
want to look into each other's eyes and
promise each to the other: "You will be sacred
unto me." Not just a contracting party.
I noted the other day that even one of the
leading advocates of homosexual marriage
here in Arkansas, a local judge and pastor in
Little Rock, wore his religious vestments
when he married a homosexual couple.
All of culture, indeed all of civilization,
strives to maintain that connection between
the holy and the mundane. When it doesn't,
as in the French and Russian revolutions, it
doesn't endure.
At the turn of another century, a British
author who already was being dismissed as
an old fuddy-duddy, Rudyard Kipling, had a
word for these attempts to separate civil and
religious values in a society. "Decivilization,"
he called it.
One literary critic, Evelyn Waugh, understood
what Kipling meant because he shared the old
man's fears. Kipling, he wrote, "was a
conservative in the sense that he believed
civilization to be something laboriously
achieved which was only precariously
defended. He wanted to see the defenses fully
manned and he hated the liberals because he
thought them gullible and feeble, believing in
the easy perfectibility of man and ready to
abandon the work of centuries for
sentimental qualms."
Kipling would live to see Hitler come to
power, Stalin consolidating his terror, and his
worst fears confirmed. All the subtle
interworkings of man and God in a
civilization's culture, the traditions and
constraints that modern, "liberated" man may
see no use for, would be tossed to the winds.
With all too predictable results.
Civilizations do not collapse all at once with a
peal of thunder and some sudden, dramatic
fall. They don't so much fall as crumble, layer
by layer, at first almost imperceptibly and
then eventually their pillars give way and
leave only ruins for tourists to gaze at. In the
case of the decline and fall of the Roman
Empire, the process took centuries. Rot grows
slow.
So, no, despite what all the great simplifiers
say, it isn't all that simple, the separation of
the secular and religious in a civilization, the
maintenance and transmission of a culture
that involves both the temporal and the
eternal. A culture is the work of centuries,
and it would behoove those who would
casually lay hands on it to beware. There is
something holy there.
SLAUGHTER IN IRAQ --BUSH FAULT?
Larry Elder
President Barack Obama, on Dec. 12, 2011,
called Iraq "self-reliant and democratic." He
praised that country, calling it a "new Iraq
that's determining its own destiny -- a
country in which people from different
religious sects and ethnicities can resolve
their differences peacefully through the
democratic process." Obama said, "I have no
doubt that Iraq can succeed."
He campaigned to end the war in Iraq. He
did -- at least he ended America's military
involvement in the war. He pulled out all the
troops, without leaving a residual force
behind as we did, for example, in South
Korea, where we have stationed troops for
over 50 years.
Iraq fell off the front pages. By 2008, even
Sen. Obama, a harsh critic of the war and of
the "surge" that turned it around, said: "I
think that, I did not anticipate, and I think
that this is a fair characterization, the
convergence of not only the surge but the
Sunni awakening in which a whole host of
Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had
had enough with al-Qaida, in the Shia
community the militias standing down to
some degrees. So what you had is a
combination of political factors inside of Iraq
that then came right at the same time as
terrific work by our troops. Had those
political factors not occurred, I think that my
assessment would have been correct."
The lack of media interest reflected, in part,
their contempt for the war -- why we fought
it, why we were there. But another factor is
this: Iraq, as of 2011, was surprisingly calm --
the opposite of what the George W. Bush-
hating media predicted. Even those who
opposed the Iraq War were surprised at the
level of relative peace and security, after a
decade of expending blood and treasure. The
relative calm in Iraq in 2010 and 2011
explains why Obama and Vice President Joe
Biden decided to snatch some credit, with
Biden calling Iraq "one of the great
achievements of this administration."
Today YouTube shows videos of "infidel"
Iraqis being beheaded and mowed down with
automatic weapons. What went so horribly
wrong?
Into 2007, then-President Bush talked about
the importance of negotiating a long-term
status of forces agreement that would allow
U.S. troops to remain in Iraq to help with
security. He warned that if the U.S. didn't
stay the course in Iraq, the country could
become a terror state or a recruiting ground
for terrorists.
How much importance did candidate Obama
place on obtaining a status of forces
agreement? After his election, the "Office of
the President-Elect" website said: "Obama
and Biden believe it is vital that a Status of
Forces Agreement (SOFA) be reached so our
troops have the legal protections and
immunities they need. Any SOFA should be
subject to Congressional review to ensure it
has bipartisan support here at home." In the
weeks following Obama's election, the Iraqis
passed, and Bush signed, a SOFA agreement
that would have American troops out of Iraq
by December 2011.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
blamed the Iraqis for refusing to negotiate a
new, acceptable status of forces agreement
that would have allowed U.S. forces to stay in
Iraq past 2011. Former U.N. ambassador John
Bolton, however, says the Obama
administration wanted to walk away from
Iraq -- but didn't want it to look obvious. So
they blamed it on supposedly "failed" SOFA
negotiations.
Remember, Obama saw no national security
interest in Iraq, even though Saddam Hussein
was presumed to have stockpiles of weapons
of mass destruction; was shooting at the
British and American plane patrolling the
southern and northern "no-fly" zones; was
sending $25,000 to homicide bomber families
in Israel; was stealing from the oil-for-food
program; had used chemical weapons on his
own neighbors and his own people; and had
attempted to assassinate President George
H.W. Bush. Still, Obama saw no national
security interest in Iraq. Why would he now?
Obama now says he is "looking at all the
options ... I don't rule out anything" -- short
of combat. If, short of combat, we could have
achieved our objectives in Iraq, we would not
have sent in combat troops in the first place.
The Obama administration was caught flat-
footed at the brutality and lethality of ISIS,
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a group of
Islamic Sunni "extremists" said to be well-
trained, well-equipped, well-financed and
even more brutal than al-Qaida. And now the
administration is thinking of working with
Iran to help the mostly Shiite Iraqi
government survive? This is, of course, the
same Iran that helped kill and maim
Americans soldiers with roadside bombs in
Iraq? This is, of course, the same Iran that
our intelligence community says is marching
toward building a nuclear weapon?
Critics assailed Obama's recent West Point
speech, pre-billed as a legacy-defining
foreign policy doctrine. Some call the speech
unclear, lacking in focus or conviction. But,
no, there is , in fact, an Obama doctrine. It
can be explained this way: "The 'war on
terror' is over because I said so -- now go tell
the enemy."
President Barack Obama, on Dec. 12, 2011,
called Iraq "self-reliant and democratic." He
praised that country, calling it a "new Iraq
that's determining its own destiny -- a
country in which people from different
religious sects and ethnicities can resolve
their differences peacefully through the
democratic process." Obama said, "I have no
doubt that Iraq can succeed."
He campaigned to end the war in Iraq. He
did -- at least he ended America's military
involvement in the war. He pulled out all the
troops, without leaving a residual force
behind as we did, for example, in South
Korea, where we have stationed troops for
over 50 years.
Iraq fell off the front pages. By 2008, even
Sen. Obama, a harsh critic of the war and of
the "surge" that turned it around, said: "I
think that, I did not anticipate, and I think
that this is a fair characterization, the
convergence of not only the surge but the
Sunni awakening in which a whole host of
Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had
had enough with al-Qaida, in the Shia
community the militias standing down to
some degrees. So what you had is a
combination of political factors inside of Iraq
that then came right at the same time as
terrific work by our troops. Had those
political factors not occurred, I think that my
assessment would have been correct."
The lack of media interest reflected, in part,
their contempt for the war -- why we fought
it, why we were there. But another factor is
this: Iraq, as of 2011, was surprisingly calm --
the opposite of what the George W. Bush-
hating media predicted. Even those who
opposed the Iraq War were surprised at the
level of relative peace and security, after a
decade of expending blood and treasure. The
relative calm in Iraq in 2010 and 2011
explains why Obama and Vice President Joe
Biden decided to snatch some credit, with
Biden calling Iraq "one of the great
achievements of this administration."
Today YouTube shows videos of "infidel"
Iraqis being beheaded and mowed down with
automatic weapons. What went so horribly
wrong?
Into 2007, then-President Bush talked about
the importance of negotiating a long-term
status of forces agreement that would allow
U.S. troops to remain in Iraq to help with
security. He warned that if the U.S. didn't
stay the course in Iraq, the country could
become a terror state or a recruiting ground
for terrorists.
How much importance did candidate Obama
place on obtaining a status of forces
agreement? After his election, the "Office of
the President-Elect" website said: "Obama
and Biden believe it is vital that a Status of
Forces Agreement (SOFA) be reached so our
troops have the legal protections and
immunities they need. Any SOFA should be
subject to Congressional review to ensure it
has bipartisan support here at home." In the
weeks following Obama's election, the Iraqis
passed, and Bush signed, a SOFA agreement
that would have American troops out of Iraq
by December 2011.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
blamed the Iraqis for refusing to negotiate a
new, acceptable status of forces agreement
that would have allowed U.S. forces to stay in
Iraq past 2011. Former U.N. ambassador John
Bolton, however, says the Obama
administration wanted to walk away from
Iraq -- but didn't want it to look obvious. So
they blamed it on supposedly "failed" SOFA
negotiations.
Remember, Obama saw no national security
interest in Iraq, even though Saddam Hussein
was presumed to have stockpiles of weapons
of mass destruction; was shooting at the
British and American plane patrolling the
southern and northern "no-fly" zones; was
sending $25,000 to homicide bomber families
in Israel; was stealing from the oil-for-food
program; had used chemical weapons on his
own neighbors and his own people; and had
attempted to assassinate President George
H.W. Bush. Still, Obama saw no national
security interest in Iraq. Why would he now?
Obama now says he is "looking at all the
options ... I don't rule out anything" -- short
of combat. If, short of combat, we could have
achieved our objectives in Iraq, we would not
have sent in combat troops in the first place.
The Obama administration was caught flat-
footed at the brutality and lethality of ISIS,
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a group of
Islamic Sunni "extremists" said to be well-
trained, well-equipped, well-financed and
even more brutal than al-Qaida. And now the
administration is thinking of working with
Iran to help the mostly Shiite Iraqi
government survive? This is, of course, the
same Iran that helped kill and maim
Americans soldiers with roadside bombs in
Iraq? This is, of course, the same Iran that
our intelligence community says is marching
toward building a nuclear weapon?
Critics assailed Obama's recent West Point
speech, pre-billed as a legacy-defining
foreign policy doctrine. Some call the speech
unclear, lacking in focus or conviction. But,
no, there is , in fact, an Obama doctrine. It
can be explained this way: "The 'war on
terror' is over because I said so -- now go tell
the enemy."
LOSING OUR SOVEREIGNTY
Derek Hunter
Look, murders happen. We can’t stop them,
and we spend a lot of resources trying to
prevent them and punish those who commit
them. This money would be better spent on
other things, such as education, than trying to
stop what is going to happen anyway. Think
of the children who can be educated, or fed,
by the money we’re wasting trying to stop
what we can’t stop.
In addition to an inability to stop future
murders, we have to remove the stigma
unfairly attached to those who’ve done what
we’ve failed to stop in the past. The term
“murderer” is a term of shame and of
judgment. Who are we to judge those who
were simply seeking a better world for
themselves and their families?
To call someone a “murderer” dehumanizes
them and makes it easier to treat them
differently, to deny them their freedom and
the right to vote. They aren’t “murderers,”
they’re un-non-killing-Americans.
Were it not for the luck of the circumstances
of our births, our upbringings and the choices
we made, any one of us could be murderers,
too. And, when you think of the history of the
United States, we’re a nation of murderers, so
really, who are we to judge?
Prison gates should be opened, and un-non-
killing-Americans who pay a fine and
promise not to kill again ought to be
welcomed into society. Think of the money
we’d save on housing and health care alone.
Plus, un-non-killing-Americans would add to
the economy, come out from the prisons and
pay taxes – benefitting everyone.
It’s win-win, and the Chamber of Commerce
supports it, so there you go…
That is pretty much the argument for no
longer using the accurate “illegal alien” term
for the “undocumented” tripe – as if this all
was a matter of some form not being filled
out properly. This, and tales of families being
reunited and whatnot are pretty much the
extent of arguments put forth by amnesty
activists on both sides of the aisle. All of these
arguments are emotional, and none of them
should matter.
The Obama administration, which just a few
years ago took Arizona to court to stop it
from committing the sin of actually trying to
enforce the nation’s immigration laws, claims
to be powerless to stop an unfettered influx
of illegals flooding across the Mexican
border. Of course, the administration saying
it can’t stop the flood is like someone who’s
never tried asparagus refusing to eat it –
they’ve never tried it and never had any
intention of trying it, but their mind is made
up anyway.
The president has flung open the southern
border to the point that, for all intents and
purposes, it does not exist. Tens of thousands,
soon to be hundreds of thousands, of illegal
aliens are streaming over the border like the
zombies in World War Z poured over walls of
Jerusalem.
Democrats, and many Republicans, welcome
this horde with open arms, food, shelter,
health care, lawyers, and, eventually, the
hope of citizenship. American sovereignty is
an afterthought, if thought of at all.
So brazen have amnesty advocates become
that the White House welcomed 10 illegal
aliens to be honored as “ Champions of
Change” this week. But the White House is
not foolish. The recipients weren’t chosen at
random, they were chosen carefully.
All of the presidential honorees have attended
or are attending college and are working in
professional settings. This is to give the false
impression that the people streaming across
the border are just a few credits shy of a
Ph.D. or have backpacks full of venture
capital ready to start businesses. That’s not
the case.
The reality is the people currently stretching
shelters and military bases to capacity are
uneducated, non-English speaking children
and adults who add nothing but headcount to
the economy. Many are sick, and none bring
anything of value to the country, at least
now.
This nation has 10 million unemployed
citizens; it’s really our only growth industry
in the Obama economy. Adding 11 million to
30 million more, either as guest workers or
citizens, won’t magically create enough jobs
for them all. So why tear down the border?
Votes, obviously.
Uneducated, non-English-speaking masses
will be overwhelmingly dependent on
government, so they’ll vote for Democrats.
That large of an influx of low-skilled workers
will keep wages artificially low, which is what
the Chamber of Commerce wants and is why
so many Republicans support it. They know
it’s not good for the country. But it’s good for
them, so to hell with the country.
We’re told they can’t all be deported because
there are too many of them. But the people
telling us this are the same people who sit on
their hands as thousands more pour into the
country every day. They promise to secure
the border after we grant amnesty to those
here already, which is like a junkie promising
to enter rehab after just one more fix. To hell
with them.
We can’t afford to be the world’s life raft,
especially while our economy is leaking air.
Call me heartless, call me mean, I don’t give a
damn – we need to seal the border and
enforce current law, which includes
deporting illegal aliens who come into contact
with law enforcement. Prove to me you’re
willing to enforce current law and we can
talk about new laws. Don’t, and may you all
suffer the same fate as Eric Cantor.
Look, murders happen. We can’t stop them,
and we spend a lot of resources trying to
prevent them and punish those who commit
them. This money would be better spent on
other things, such as education, than trying to
stop what is going to happen anyway. Think
of the children who can be educated, or fed,
by the money we’re wasting trying to stop
what we can’t stop.
In addition to an inability to stop future
murders, we have to remove the stigma
unfairly attached to those who’ve done what
we’ve failed to stop in the past. The term
“murderer” is a term of shame and of
judgment. Who are we to judge those who
were simply seeking a better world for
themselves and their families?
To call someone a “murderer” dehumanizes
them and makes it easier to treat them
differently, to deny them their freedom and
the right to vote. They aren’t “murderers,”
they’re un-non-killing-Americans.
Were it not for the luck of the circumstances
of our births, our upbringings and the choices
we made, any one of us could be murderers,
too. And, when you think of the history of the
United States, we’re a nation of murderers, so
really, who are we to judge?
Prison gates should be opened, and un-non-
killing-Americans who pay a fine and
promise not to kill again ought to be
welcomed into society. Think of the money
we’d save on housing and health care alone.
Plus, un-non-killing-Americans would add to
the economy, come out from the prisons and
pay taxes – benefitting everyone.
It’s win-win, and the Chamber of Commerce
supports it, so there you go…
That is pretty much the argument for no
longer using the accurate “illegal alien” term
for the “undocumented” tripe – as if this all
was a matter of some form not being filled
out properly. This, and tales of families being
reunited and whatnot are pretty much the
extent of arguments put forth by amnesty
activists on both sides of the aisle. All of these
arguments are emotional, and none of them
should matter.
The Obama administration, which just a few
years ago took Arizona to court to stop it
from committing the sin of actually trying to
enforce the nation’s immigration laws, claims
to be powerless to stop an unfettered influx
of illegals flooding across the Mexican
border. Of course, the administration saying
it can’t stop the flood is like someone who’s
never tried asparagus refusing to eat it –
they’ve never tried it and never had any
intention of trying it, but their mind is made
up anyway.
The president has flung open the southern
border to the point that, for all intents and
purposes, it does not exist. Tens of thousands,
soon to be hundreds of thousands, of illegal
aliens are streaming over the border like the
zombies in World War Z poured over walls of
Jerusalem.
Democrats, and many Republicans, welcome
this horde with open arms, food, shelter,
health care, lawyers, and, eventually, the
hope of citizenship. American sovereignty is
an afterthought, if thought of at all.
So brazen have amnesty advocates become
that the White House welcomed 10 illegal
aliens to be honored as “ Champions of
Change” this week. But the White House is
not foolish. The recipients weren’t chosen at
random, they were chosen carefully.
All of the presidential honorees have attended
or are attending college and are working in
professional settings. This is to give the false
impression that the people streaming across
the border are just a few credits shy of a
Ph.D. or have backpacks full of venture
capital ready to start businesses. That’s not
the case.
The reality is the people currently stretching
shelters and military bases to capacity are
uneducated, non-English speaking children
and adults who add nothing but headcount to
the economy. Many are sick, and none bring
anything of value to the country, at least
now.
This nation has 10 million unemployed
citizens; it’s really our only growth industry
in the Obama economy. Adding 11 million to
30 million more, either as guest workers or
citizens, won’t magically create enough jobs
for them all. So why tear down the border?
Votes, obviously.
Uneducated, non-English-speaking masses
will be overwhelmingly dependent on
government, so they’ll vote for Democrats.
That large of an influx of low-skilled workers
will keep wages artificially low, which is what
the Chamber of Commerce wants and is why
so many Republicans support it. They know
it’s not good for the country. But it’s good for
them, so to hell with the country.
We’re told they can’t all be deported because
there are too many of them. But the people
telling us this are the same people who sit on
their hands as thousands more pour into the
country every day. They promise to secure
the border after we grant amnesty to those
here already, which is like a junkie promising
to enter rehab after just one more fix. To hell
with them.
We can’t afford to be the world’s life raft,
especially while our economy is leaking air.
Call me heartless, call me mean, I don’t give a
damn – we need to seal the border and
enforce current law, which includes
deporting illegal aliens who come into contact
with law enforcement. Prove to me you’re
willing to enforce current law and we can
talk about new laws. Don’t, and may you all
suffer the same fate as Eric Cantor.
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