The latest from our partner, the PoliGazette

At Time.com, Christopher Hayes suggests that blame for America’s recent economic decline should be principally directed at “the bright and industrious minds who occupy the commanding heights of our meritocratic order.” According to Hayes, the elites who are “supposed to make sure everything operates smoothly” have become increasingly corrupt and incompetent. Hayes makes a strong case, or at least Gallop does, that public trust in these elites continues to wane:  

For more than 35 years, Gallup has polled Americans about levels of trust in their institutions — Congress, banks, Big Business, public schools, etc. In 2008 nearly every single institution was at an all-time low. Banks were trusted by just 32% of the populace, down from more than 50% in 2004. Newspapers were down to 24%, from slightly below 40% at the start of the decade. And Congress was the least trusted institution of all, with only 12% of Americans expressing confidence in it.

Unfortunately, the second half of the essay goes downhill, as Hayes tries to prove that two of the primary causes of these institutional failures are concentration of power and the erosion of transparency and accountability.

His main example of why erosion of transparency and accountability are now lowering public trust in elites – the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church - actually works against his argument. The Catholic Church has been secretive and hierarchical for going on 10+ centuries now. If anything, the Catholic Church of the 1970s – when Gallop started tracking public confidence in elite institutions – was more secretive and hierarchical than today’s version. Also, in previous eras, the former victims of childhood abuse were more reticent to share their experiences, in part because they encountered stronger social pressures from family and church members to keep quiet. Of course, the rising levels of transparency and accountability within religious institutions/communities have been a good thing, but they don’t do much for Hayes’ argument.

In his next example, Hayes’ pivots to go after another favorite target of the left: CEO pay. For the sake of argument, I’m willing to concede that rising CEO pay levels might contribute to ”concentration of power.” However, in making this shift, Hayes conveniently drops the part about transparency and accountability, I suspect because he knows that the general public has access to more information about CEO salaries and other internal corporate business matters than they did 35 years ago.

Hayes then loses track of his argument altogether,  to go after yet another favorite target of the left:  

Take the problem of climate change. It’s beyond our ability to recognize the imperceptible upward creep of global temperatures, so we must rely on the authority of those who are doing the highly complicated measuring. But at a moment when we desperately need élites and experts to use their social capital to warn the populace of the dangers of catastrophic climate change, skepticism is rising. A comprehensive Pew poll released in October found that only 57% of respondents think there’s evidence of warming (down from 71% last year), and just 36% think it’s because of human activity (down from 47%). This is the danger of living in a society in which the landscape of authority has been leveled: it’s not there when you actually need it.

In other words, rather than carefully build a coherent and complete argument, Hayes tosses out two weak examples, and then immediately rushes the stage, grabs a microphone, and begins preaching his faith. I would argue that one cause of public distrust in elite institutions is the inability of many elites to understand their own limitations. As the Washington editor of The Nation, Hayes is a bit of a media grandee, himself. An excellent writer, he is able to partly disguise the logical weaknesses of his essay with smooth, rhythmic prose. After watching him make such a flimsy effort at proving his own points, though, I wonder if he just tosses out the same groupthink explanations for every political question he considers. And, if so, what does that say about our elite institutions?

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

So, I thought for sure that this had to be misinterpretation by liberals at best, or a downright lie at worst.  They lied about the removal of the writ of habeus corpus for detainees, after all, claiming that it applied to all Americans.  So, before even reading the bill, I knew that the reports of McCain writing a bill that would call for the indefinite detention of American citizens who are labeled unlawful enemy combatants were incorrect.  It was just the liberals hyperventilating yet again.  Right?

Well, now I’m not sure.  While it still may be nothing to blink at in the end, I find one provision in this bill – to paraphrase Chief Justice John Roberts – very troubling.

The passage in question from the bill (emph. mine):

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Uhh, a quick reading of the fifth and sixth amendments shows that the provision about holding Americans (civilians, anyway) in this manner is clearly unconstitutional.  I had a difficult time at first understanding why McCain would even write this.  The man may not be a young and charming constitutional law professor, but I would guess he knows the document well enough.  He knows this bill doesn’t have a chance of passing, at least not with the indefinite detention provision as written.  So I wondered, “why even waste time writing that part?”

Then I remembered that McCain is being challenged by former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth.  A Republican, Hayworth has used his campaign website to take McCain to task over his terrorism cred:

But John McCain wants Guantanamo Bay shut down and terrorists moved to the U.S. for trial.  J.D. Hayworth supports the mission at Guantanamo Bay and thinks it would be both a mistake and an abomination to award enemy combatants and other terrorists the rights enjoyed by American citizens.

John McCain also wants to tie the hands of our military interrogators by banning enhanced interrogation techniques.  J.D. Hayworth recognizes the importance of giving our professionals the tools they need to get the job done.  At least four major 9-11 style terror attacks were prevented thanks to information gathered using these techniques, and countless lives were saved.

McCain does indeed support the closure of Guantanamo and is against waterboaring.  So this is probably not so much a bill that McCain expects to see passed, but more of a “look at me, I’m strong on terrorism” bill.  Yet, I’m not sure that McCain needs to pander to the uber-hawks.  McCain has generally shown his support for anti-terrorism measures and missions.  The ones that are not completely insane, anyway, like waterboarding.  I also think that McCain has the intelligence to know that the “not-in-my-backyard” whining by his colleagues toward bringing terrorists to a prison on the mainland is mostly a non-issue.

McCain has spent his career being the America first guy, and most voters recognize that.  Certainly Arizona voters, do, or else he would have had more serious challengers over the years.  So why is McCain panicking now?

Well, it doesn’t help that there is a strong and vocal “keep them in Gitmo and use whatever measures are necessary to extract information” crowd out there.  Also, Hayworth will have plenty of material to use from 2008.  You know, the election where Barack Obama was more hawkish than McCain about combating terrorism in the Pakistan tribal region.  Let me repeat myself.  The Democrat was more hawkish than the Republican on a foreign policy issue.  Hayworth will only need to display a few clips from the debates showing McCain getting flustered about upsetting Pakistan if he wants to rally the uber-hawks at McCain’s cost.

So, while I think that McCain’s record speaks for itself most of the time, I can see why he would fear losing some voters, given some of his votes and statements in recent years.  That said, I think a provision that would allow the government to hold American citizens until “the end of hostilities” (whenever that is in a war planned around a concept) goes too far.  I think a “true conservative” like J.D. Hayworth would agree, given that he will most likely have the support of the Constitution citing tea party crowd.  Unfortunately for McCain, this is just something else that Hayworth will now be able to hold over his head.

Quite apart from it being an election year, I am saddened to see that the Senator would go this far to try and pander to the conservative base, most of whom I would guess (and hope) would themselves have a problem with the provision.  Since I’ve followed politics, I’ve liked John McCain more than many other politicians.  I may disagree with him on some issues, but ultimately I’ve thought of him as a man of principle.  As is highlighted by his opponent, he has been against torture being applied to detainees, even when it hasn’t been popular.  He has remained committed to seeing Gitmo closed, and that certainly isn’t popular.  Heck, even liberals will give him support at times.  Finally, he’s likable, which isn’t something a lot of politicians can say these days.

Amongst the Republican candidates, he was my top choice for the nomination, and I would have been happy to see him as President.  But I may have to review my support of him if he would write a provision like Sec. 5, whether or not it’s an attempt to pander to his party’s base.  A politician who actually respects the constitution would not even think about it.

Senator McCain, an explanation, if you would.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

In February, Michelle Obama kicked off her Let’s Move initiative to combat childhood obesity in the United States. In many respects, the campaign is commendable and similar in spirit to past public health causes championed by Rosalyn Carter (mental health advocacy), Nancy Reagan (Just Say No), and other first ladies. When Michelle Obama appeared on The Today Show to talk about why it is important for children to eat healthy foods and stay active, or when she solicited the support of state governors to establish better guidelines for school lunches, she was performing a valuable public service without exceeding her proper role as first lady (by that, I mean her limited executive role, not anything to do with gender roles). Moreover, the Let’s Move campaign appears to promote a variety of public health initiatives that predated Michelle Obama’s childhood obesity campaign. For example, the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge might tilt a wee bit communitarian for my tastes, but its roots can be traced back to the Johnson administration.        

The Let’s Move website lists the campaign’s four main goals, which at first glance appear quite innocuous: supporting healthy choices, creating healthier schools, encouraging physical activity, and making healthy foods more accessible and affordable. Many people perusing the website will think that Let’s Move is reminiscent of a 1950s-era PTA drive. The campaign’s strategic “pillars” sound like were inspired by June Cleaver: “more nutrition information, increased physical activity, easier access to healthy foods and, ultimately, personal responsibility.” But when Americans are no longer distracted by the sweet aroma of Quinoa cupcakes cooling on the front counter, they might notice that there is something else cooking in the kitchen—and it is a recipe that usually debilitates rather than strengthens personal (and familial) responsibility, which will always be the most useful antidote to childhood obesity.   

In her fight against childhood obesity, Michelle Obama will not rely on rhetorical persuasion and public information alone. On February 10, she “rolled out her national initiative . . . with a show of force that included medical, business and government leaders, grassroots activists, celebrity public service announcements, cartoon characters as nutrition experts, as well as those most directly affected — the kids themselves.” This symbolic mustering of public health conscripts was consistent with Michelle Obama’s stated intention to utilize “government programs” and “public-private partnerships” as part of a “comprehensive approach” to ending childhood obesity within a generation. In other words, the war on childhood obesity sounds like a scaled-down version of the War on Poverty.

When the federal government declares war on social problems, it almost invariably engages in social engineering, the dangers of which are fourfold:

I. It is not the proper role of the government to use regulatory mechanisms in an effort to engage in social engineering. Often, when the government declares war on social problems such as poverty, homelessness, or childhood obesity, it must circumvent and/or expand the Constitution in new ways. For example, the Let’s Move campaign might contribute to the federal government taking an even more active role in local and state educational matters. It is perplexing that childhood obesity would be an administration priority in the midst of a major recession, especially if state governors are arm-twisted into playing along with the campaign’s more intrusive and fiscally ambitious features.

II. Insomuch as the “war” is spearheaded by government, the social engineering project will inevitably fail to achieve its goals, unless the goals are coincidentally reached by other “natural means,” i.e., as a result of economic and cultural forces largely beyond the control of social engineers. Actually, if high schools really want to prepare kids to become responsible adults, they should think about creating a course that explains why it is 100 times more realistic for the federal government to send a man to Mars within the next 30 years than it is for them to end childhood obesity in a generation. What social engineers fail to grasp, and young adults should understand, is that physical, discrete engineering problems—no matter how complex the “rocket science” might seem to us poor poets and politicians—involves far fewer variables than the best-intentioned social engineering project.

III. The government’s social engineering project will cause more harm than good. Take the following example from the Let’s Move website:

As part of the President’s proposed FY 2011 budget, the Administration announced a new program – the Healthy Food Financing Initiative — a partnership between the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Agriculture and Health and Human Services which will invest $400 million a year to provide innovative financing to bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help places such as convenience stores and bodegas carry healthier food options.  Grants will also help bring farmers markets and fresh foods into underserved communities, boosting both family health and local economies.  Through these initiatives and private sector engagement, the Administration will work to eliminate food deserts across the country within seven years.”

In other words, the federal government is going to subsidize the development and operation of grocery stores at locations across the country where the market cannot support them. Perhaps Mrs. Obama is unaware that, in the not too distant past, predominantly lower-income urban areas in the United States used to support relatively high numbers of mom & pop grocery stores and bodegas, which gradually went of business because neighborhood customers preferred to drive the extra miles to supermarkets that offered higher quality goods and services at lower prices. To get food stores and restaurants that emphasize healthy foods to locate in predominantly lower-income areas will require heavy, ongoing subsidies, which is bad economics, and invites corruption. If Michelle Obama wants to look at something that actually incentivizes the consumption of starchy and unhealthy foods by lower-income communities, she might look at the welfare system, food stamps, farm subsidies, etc. Instead, she proposes to create more “progressive” public/private rent-seeking programs, which have been on the rise in recent decades but are no longer sustainable, and which lead to less freedom and prosperity in the long run for the persons and causes they are alleged to help.

Besides, the idea that the administration could eliminate all “food deserts” in the next seven years is absurd. Of course, program advocates will respond, “aim for the sun to hit the moon.” Unfortunately, the government’s social engineering projects aim for the sun, but end up hurtling back to earth like a comet, forming a crater that wasn’t there before the government decided to fix things.     

IV. Like other social engineering projects, the war on childhood obesity will tend to contribute to an erosion of individual liberties and personal responsibility. Michelle Obama is calling on parents to be more aware of their responsibilities in raising healthy children and yet 80 percent of her campaign is sending the signal, “don’t worry, mom, Uncle Sam will take it from here.” When Michelle Obama kicked off Let’s Move, she announced:

It’s an issue [childhood obesity] that I care deeply about — not just because I’m a First Lady but because I’m a mother. And I’ve said this ever since I came into office — I approach this job first as a mother. And I’m thinking about all of you all as a mother, not as a First Lady.

To what extent will Michelle Obama’s “comprehensive” campaign overlap with the “progressive” campaign to define childhood obesity as a public health epidemic? The State of Michigan and San Diego County recently decided to employ their existing electronic immunization registries as a means of tracking the obesity rates of children, while some school districts are using Body Mass Index electronic surveillance models to alert parents when their children are defined as overweight. Parents are upset that they (and their children) are being “shamed” by school officials, saying that their kids are big boned, etc. (the BMI is a notoriously imprecise instrument). Meanwhile, fat groups and self-esteem advocates are concerned that shaming of obese kids might actually contribute to unhealthier habits, including bulimia/anorexia and other unintended consequences.

What we should really be concerned about, though, are the dangers inherent in defining social/individual behavioral problems as an “epidemic” that must be cured with AmeriCorps-style callisthenic revivals and the active assistance of the government. Before I conclude, let me be clear: I would never suggest that the doctors, school officials, public health advocates, politicians, and others who are demanding that childhood obesity be treated as a public health epidemic for which children must be immunized, are in any way, shape, or form really Nazis per se, or have any such sympathies. I hate it when political opponents play the Reductio ad Hitlerum card as much, if not more, than the average blogger. I am sure that the vast majority of the childhood obesity crusaders are completely unaware that parts of their campaign sound like they came out of the 1937 Nazi playbook (see: Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism). They just don’t know any better, but that does not mean that other people have to be as clueless about the dangers as they are.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

First watch this -

And now the reality.

While reconciliation has been abused to pass S-CHIP and the new drug entitlement and those indeed were abuses of this rule, she leaves them out for some reason. Reconciliation is only to be used for budget issues because the Constitution says that Congress has to pass a budget so it may not be filibustered. Even Senator Byrd says that passing health care sweeping regulations under reconciliation is illegal. The Democrats had a cow when the Republicans threatened to use reconciliation to stop their illegal filibuster of nominations (you see, confirmation votes on nominees is a Constitutional requirement too which is why filibustering a nominee is illegal); apparently what is good for thee is not good for we.

UPDATE - Video: Obama says health reform should not pass with a 50 plus 1 vote - LINK.

Almost every one of those acts she listed are budget bills. Tax legislation is a part of budget issues and using reconciliation for that is perfectly appropriate. By the way, government revenue skyrocketed after the tax cuts. When? Maddow says tax cuts caused deficits she is lying and below is a small sample of the evidence of the increased revenue [I have more here].

You see, when your revenue shoots up and you still go in the red, that indicates a spending problem not a revenue one. Like I said before, correcting Maddow could fast become a full time job.

Reducing the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 15% increased capital gains tax receipts by 79% from 2000 to 2004. Cutting the dividend tax rate by more than half–from 39.6% to 15%–increased dividend tax receipts by 35% from 2002 to 2004. And corporate tax receipts have nearly tripled since 2003, reaching $250 billion for the past nine months, 26% higher than the same period last year. (WSJ July 25, 2006)

WASHINGTON — The federal deficit in the budget year that just ended fell to a four-year low of $247.7 billion _ a figure President Bush touted Wednesday as “proof that pro-growth policies work.” The deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was 22.3 percent lower than the $318.7 billion imbalance for 2005, handing Bush a welcome economic talking point as Republicans battle to hold onto control of Congress in the midterm elections. (AP Oct. 11, 2006)

One place it has come from are corporations, whose tax collections have climbed by 76% over the past two years thanks to greater profitability. Personal income tax payments are up by 30.3% since 2004 too, despite the fact that the highest tax rate is down to 35% from 39.6%. The IRS tax-return data just released last month indicates that a near-record 37% of those income tax payments are received from the top 1% of earners — “the rich,” who are derided regularly in Washington for not paying their “fair share.” (WSJ Oct. 6 2006) – The rich are paying more in real dollars since the tax cuts.

US Treasury Sets New 1-Day Tax Receipt Record Of $85.8 Billion
Tuesday September 19th, 2006 / 0h04

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. government recorded record-high overall and corporate tax receipts on Sept. 15, which was a quarterly deadline for tax payments, the Treasury said Monday.

Total tax receipts were $85.8 billion on Friday, compared with the previous one-day record of $71 billion on Sept. 15 of last year, the Treasury said.
Within the overall figure, corporate tax receipts Friday were $71.8 billion, up from $63 billion in September of last year.

Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Randal Quarles said Friday’s numbers provided a “continuing demonstration of the strength of the U.S. economy.”

“In fact, Friday’s gross receipts were the largest in a single day in the nation’s history – 20% higher than receipts on the same quarterly tax payment date last year,” Quarles said in a statement.

October 27, 2006 at 10:30 pm e
Laffer’s Victory – July 10, 2006 – The New York Sun
July 10, 2006 Edition
Laffer’s Victory
New York Sun Staff Editorial
July 10, 2006

It’s official — Arthur Laffer wins. New data show federal revenues surged in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year. Corporate tax receipts are up more than 26% over the same period last year, ringing in at $250 billion. Individual income tax collections, at $791 billion, are up 14% over the first nine months of fiscal 2005. The Congressional Budget Office projects corporate tax receipts will total $330 billion by the end of the fiscal year. As a result, the deficit for the year is expected to be about $300 billion, down from $318 billion last year and $412 billion the year before.

What, you ask, has led to this miraculous event? A tax cut, it turns out. Or rather, an array of tax cuts, on corporate income, personal income, and capital gains. These tax cuts, passed in 2001 and 2003, appear to be having the desired effect of spurring economic growth by creating addition incentives for work and entrepreneurship. The latest numbers, moreover, offer some hard data to challenge some of the charges leveled against President Bush and congressional Republicans in respect of tax cuts. These tax cuts haven’t exactly benefited “the rich.” A third of those higher income-tax revenues came from the highest-earning 1% of households, according to the New York Times.

Budget Deficit Drops $296B Under Estimate
Jul 11, 11:01 AM (ET)
By ANDREW TAYLOR
My Way
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush touted new deficit figures Tuesday showing considerable improvement upon earlier administration predictions, saying it shows the wisdom of his tax cuts.

Bush himself announced the figures – a task that for the most part has been left to lower-ranking administration officials in the past. The new figures show the deficit for the budget year ending Sept. 30 will be $296 billion – much better than the $423 billion that Bush predicted in February and a slight improvement over 2005.

October 27, 2006 at 10:33 pm e
Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit
Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit – New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: July 9, 2006

WASHINGTON, July 8 — An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.

Graphic: Mixed Signals On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year’s levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year.

Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year.

A flood of income tax payments pushed up government receipts to the second-highest level in history in April, giving the country a sizable surplus for the month. In its monthly accounting of the government’s books, the Treasury Department said Wednesday that revenue for the month totaled $315.1 billion as Americans filed their tax returns by the April deadline. The gusher of tax revenue pushed total receipts up by 13.4 percent from April 2005. (AP May 10, 2006)

WASHINGTON, July 8 — An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief. (NYT July 9, 2006)

Here is a Video of JFK talking about how tax cuts can increase revenue.
YouTube – Income Tax Cut. JFK Hopes To Spur Economy 1962/08/13 (1962)

Click here to view the embedded video.

SOURCE: CBO, White House Office of Management and Budget | The Washington Post – March 21, 2009

Mona Charen, who is one of the finest thinkers alive, has the best column explaining this:

Let’s imagine that President Obama decides to go help out in Fargo, N.D., where they are experiencing floods. Mr. Obama enters the home of a flooded family. The water is already six inches high in the living room. The president produces a fire hose and begins to douse the room with even more water. “What are you doing?” cry the anguished homeowners. The president fixes them with one of his impatient looks, and explains “May I remind you that I inherited this flood?”

President Obama has reminded us countless times that he inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. Even if he were about to propose the most responsible, prudent, visionary budget imaginable, that complaint would still be petulant and unseemly. But considering what Obama’s own spending will do to the deficit, it’s jaw-droppingly galling. He now proposes to increase that deficit to $7 trillion in ten years. And that $7 trillion is probably a low estimate (the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will be $2.3 trillion higher). When the new spending for programs like Pell grants, education for handicapped children, and so forth comes up for renewal in a few years, Congress is not going to let it lapse. So, to review, it was terrible for President Bush and the Democratic Congress (the president neglects to mention the latter) to saddle him with all this debt. His answer is to triple it. That’s showing ‘em!

Cross posted at IUSB Vision.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

I have to hand it to the Republicans.  They are doing their job well.  Currently, Republicans are telling Americans that reconciliation is some sort of evil Senate rule being used by the Democrats.  That’s my inference, anyway, as the talking point remains that the Senate bill will create a government run health care system.  I’m not entirely clear on the details of what this government run health care system contains – given that the public option is dead – only that it will be a government run health care system.  And that the Democrats will ram it through Congress.  But they tell us no specifics on how exactly they will do that.  With a battering ram, perhaps?

Democrats, meanwhile, are stressing that health care reform must be passed now, lest our problems with the current system get even worse.  They tell Americans that reconciliation will save the day. Their talking point is that it is necessary at this point, due to their loss of the 60th vote (which wasn’t really helping them previously).  That, if they don’t do this now, big insurance will continue to rule the day, denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, and presumably keep telling people to “die quickly.”  They appeal to us to trust the future of American health care to reconciliation.  But do they tell us how exactly they will use it to pass reform?

Don’t be silly.  That’s for Congresspersons and Senators, not for little constituents like us.

Lets face it, people.  I don’t think most Americans actually know what reconciliation means.  Admittedly, I was not entirely clear on the process myself until today.  After doing a simple search, I learned more about it.

Update 2/3/09: To clarify my position on how both parties are approaching the issue of reconciliation.

Reconciliation: A legislative action that limits debate and amendments and allows a bill to pass by a simple majority vote.  Created as a budgetary procedure, it has been used successfully in the past by both parties.  Most recently, it was used to pass tax cuts during the last administration of George W. Bush.

The problem this time is not so much reconciliation in itself.  Whatever rhetoric the Republicans are using now, they obviously agree that it has some legitimate uses, or else they wouldn’t have supported it in the past.  No, the problem is how it will be used.

This has also been a bit muddied, given the plethora of ideas that have been passed around since Scott Brown won his election last month.  The best I can tell, at least for today, is that the House will pass the Senate bill.  And so the plan seems a bit clearer to me now, and it ties in with a prediction made in January by The New Republic writer Jeff Davis.  The House will pass the Senate bill, which is actually relatively uncontroversial.  It doesn’t include the public option, and most of its provisions are extensions of already existing programs.  The sticking point, of course, is the enforced mandate.  Whether that stops Republicans from voting for it remains to be seen.  The Democrats seem to be confident that they will, but I’m not so sure.  And not only because of the mandate.  More on that in a bit.

After the Senate bill is passed, a new bill will be written that will undoubtedly include some controversial changes to the Senate health care reform bill.  This will be the bill passed by reconciliation.  However, what matters most is how the bills are signed the President.  Davis:

No matter whether the House votes on reconciliation or the Senate bill first, the Speaker can ensure that the health care bill is signed into law before reconciliation. (The dirty little secret of Congress is that even if the House votes to pass the Senate health care bill tomorrow, the Speaker has unilateral power to hold that bill at her desk until January 3 of next year before sending it to the President and starting the 10-day Constitutional veto clock.)

So Pelosi could keep the reconciliation-passed bill at her desk until after Obama signs the Senate bill.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how reconciliation works, and how it will be used in the case of health care reform.  Or, at least, to the best of my understanding.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

The Huffington Post reports that House Democrats want to phase out armed military contractors in our theaters of war:

On Tuesday, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) introduced the Stop Outsourcing Security Act, which would make it the military’s responsibility to use its own personnel to train troops and police, guard convoys, repair weapons, run military prisons and do military intelligence activity.

Great.  And replace them with…?  Last year the military met and exceeded their recruitment goals for the first time since ending the draft in 1973.  I wouldn’t expect that trend to last as the economy improves.

More:

There are strategic reasons to move away from a reliance on contractors, says Schakowsky, a senior member of the intelligence committee. They damage the U.S. reputation with reckless behavior, are overly costly and hurt the morale of troops, who see private guards earning much more money than they do.

Ah, I see.  It’s about morale and keeping up the image of the United States.  Both good things, both good things.  Not sure I agree that having private contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq hurts morale, but I can respect the argument.  And yes, Blackwater is a pretty nasty name out in the military world right now, so much so that they changed their name.

But wait, there’s more:

“That is just so unthinkable,” she says. “I really believe that were they an individual — and nowadays you can call corporations individuals; they have the same rights, right? — they’d get a dishonorable discharge for what they’ve done. How many people do they have to kill? How many missions do they have to screw up before we say, ‘No, we’re not going to do that’?”

Now we get to the real reason Schakowsky has introduced this legislation.  This bill isn’t so much about boosting morale or improving the standing of the United States around the world, or any other real reason.  No, it’s just another attempt by a liberal in her vendetta against private business, and her long-running anti-war campaign.  And I don’t think I’m too off on my assessment.  After all, Govtrack places her as the most liberal member of Congress (in the 110th Congress), even more so than Bernie Sanders, who has no qualms about calling himself a socialist.

The facts are that contractors, love ‘em or hate ‘em, do provide a necessary role, so that the actual troops can do the job of rooting out terrorists and stabilizing the countries.  It simply cannot be any other way in a nation that does not draft its armed forces.  With recruitment traditionally low, you simply would not have enough people to do every job if you replied on the regular army, national guard, or reserves.

So unless Schakowsky has a better idea of what we should replace contractors with, she should admit to herself that they are here to stay, and drop this unnecessary bill.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Photo: Bill Eli

When Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow a plane out of the sky shortly outside Denver, Colorado on Christmas Day, there was media coverage everywhere, and on every format.  Newspapers, TV, Internet news sites, blogs.  You name the place, people were talking about it.  In fact, they’re still talking about it.

When Joe Stack flew a plane into an Austin, Texas IRS building last Thursday, the silence was almost deafening.  Sure, there was some coverage from all the mediums when it initially happened, but it seems like once it was established that an American had committed a terrorist act, people forgot about it and went about their lives.

Lets not mince words here; it was a terrorist attack, whatever Robert Gibbs wants to say.  Anyone who’s read Stack’s letter knows that his goal was to make a political statement (though for which side remains ambiguous).  And guess what, unlike Abdulmutallab, he succeeded!  Stack actually managed to kill and injure people.  Yet, it seems that his non-affiliation with Al Qaeda, or other extremist elements in the Muslim world, makes his attack ineligible for much discussion.  Instead, people mostly went back to watching coverage of the Olympics, or of this weekend’s CPAC events.

My argument is that this attack was just as bad an any by a Muslim extremist, so why is there a double standard on the coverage, and why is there a relative amount of indifference to this attack as compared to one by a jihadist?

I would also note the difference in coverage, discussion, and analysis between Stack’s attack and that of another born and bred American, Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army major who killed 13 people last November.  Nobody disputes that his attack was terrorism, or they don’t anymore, and his actions received weeks of media coverage.

So why the difference on Stack?  Is it because some people may have thought this was justified?  In case you think I’m crazy, there’s at least one other person who has brought up this line of reasoning: Wesley Snipes.  Speaking to the CS Monitor, Snipes says:

“I think [tax revolt] was an issue even for the early colonists and the British, so what’s new?”

I know that conservatives typically make it an exercise to not listen to Hollywood celebrities (except when they do; looking at you, Fred Thompson), but he is right.  Taxes, imposed without representation, was a reason (among others) for the Revolutionary War.  And the debate continues today over how much to tax, or whether it’s morally correct to have some taxes (like the income tax).

Before I get slammed for accusing fellow Americans of supporting Stack’s actions, I would say that they do not.

Rather, I think the reason we see the difference in the amount and tone of discussion of the two attacks is because people see them differently.  To be frank, an attack from a Muslim, even an American citizen like Hasan, is easy to cover and criticize.  It’s not racism, per say, but the Muslim attacker is the foreigner.  They are from “over there,” in some other part of the world.  Even Hasan developed his anti-American sentiments by learning from cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is not an American (he was born here, but spent most of his formative years in Yemen).  The fact that Hasan decided to switch his allegiance to his religion rather than his country makes it even easier to frame him as the enemy.

Stack, on the other hand, was not really anti-American.  Anti-tax, or anti-too much taxation, yes, but he kept his diatribes for the American government and big business.  Stack stated that he once believed in the American dream, but over time found it difficult to realize, due to tax law.  Most conservatives could respond in agreement to that statement.  After all, it’s the very basis of the tea party movement.  At the same time, Stack feared the ability of big business to monopolize out small business owners like himself, and spoke out against what he perceived as their greediness.  Liberals would respond well those concerns, though even some conservatives have a streak of anti-big business populism these days.

So the difference between an attack on the U.S. fueled by anti-American, radical Islamist sentiment and that of anti-tax, but otherwise reasonable American, is that most Americans can actually understand where Stack was coming from.  They may not agree with how he acted on his criticism, but because they can understand his struggle, that makes it much more difficult to demonize him in comparison to the Muslim attacker.

That said, I think people need to get a reality check, and start treating this as seriously as any other terrorist attack.  Stack was able to take a small plane and fly it into a building.  We all spent weeks brainstorming how to make security better into the United States when the terrorist comes aboard a jetliner, but what are we going do about smaller craft?  Is there anything we can do?  Maybe not, but it is something to think about before one of those terrorists we can easily demonize and cover in the media gets an idea.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

At CPAC, Ryan Sorba’s denunciation of GOProud, a group of gay conservatives.

Then later, he got into a debate with Alex Knepper, an openly gay conservative, which culminated in the above statement.  My reaction upon seeing that: “Woooow!”  I want to say that I don’t agree with Knepper characterization of Sorba’s speech as “evil” at the beginning of their conversation, but neither was Sorba any more correct in his own statement that gays are intrinsically evil.

That, by the way, must make all of us non-gay supporters of rights for them the right hand of intrinsic evil, so excuse me while I go and have some tea with the devil.

(H/T Andrew Sullivan)

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Yesterday, Ed Morrissey wrote an article over at Hot Air criticizing the Obama administration’s plans to create an indefinite detention system for untriable terrorists:

There are two main problems with pursuing an indefinite-detention law.  First, any exception carved out of those Constitutional rights will only serve as a precedent for further exceptions.  This is truly a slippery slope.  Right now, the lawmakers say that the exception will only apply to al-Qaeda terrorists, but what about child molesters?  There has been an ongoing debate for many years over the lack of rehabilitation of serial molesters.  When they have served their prison time, they get released — but some communities have petitioned for indefinite detention of molesters beyond their sentence. And after child molesters, how about rapists?  What about gang members, and Mafia racketeers?

I wrote my own article last year criticizing the proposal.  Ed is right, of course.  I don’t think the fear of this system sliding the slope down into types of crimes with organizations with setups very similar to those of terrorists can be discounted.  After all, both gang members and Mafia men might be very likely to go back into those lives after their sentences.

Ed continues:

If the terrorists have signed up for a perpetual war, that’s their problem and not ours.  We can choose to release them or not depending on our own goals and decisions.

I, also wrote an article last year criticizing Ed for his “hold them until the end of hostilities” argument.  Looking back, I didn’t do a great job of explaining my position, so I’ll try to clarify it better now.

My problem with Ed’s argument is that he’s essentially saying “lets hold them indefinitely, anyway,” but he is just using a different rationale to make the case.  While Obama suggests that legal complications would make it difficult to prosecute these people, Ed applies the very ill-defined term “war on terrorism” as reason to keep them locked up.  Of course, by its very nature, terrorism is something that always exists.  If Osama bin Laden surrendered himself and all his followers tomorrow, would that be enough to end the war on terrorism?  No, because someone would take their place.  Since 9/11, Al-Qaeda has been transformed from a self-contained terrorist group to the name of a worldwide network of quasi-federated cells.

Even if “Al-Qaeda,” defined as the group led by OBL was defeated tomorrow, someone else would take their place.  There’s a chance a terrorist we’re holding might take the opportunity to join that group instead upon release.  Should we still hold them then?  Ed’s argument would probably be yes, since the terrorists remain in a state of perpetual war.  So we are free to continue holding them until the war ends, whenever that is.

This remains a case of not only an international treaty that is very outdated but a war that is ill defined.  The Geneva Conventions were written in a time when nations fought each other, not guerrilla groups.  The provisions allowing combatant nations to hold Prisoners of War until hostilities ends allows for cases like this where the goals of said war are so broad and ambiguous that there is not a chance they will ever truly be achieved.  This has been the problem since day 1 of the “War on Terror,” and I think the Obama administration has ample opportunity to actually define what tasks we’re supposed to complete in our mission.

More over, the Geneva Conventions needs some additions, so as to specify what nations must do in situations where we’re not fighting against a state-level actor.

To end, I think Ed is right that the terrorists sort of asked for it by committing themselves to terrorism.  On the other hand, I think a catch-22 situation has been created by rules of war that don’t jive with modern times and a war with objectives that remain very fuzzy.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Back in the days of silent films, the weekly thrill a minute serial kept audiences on the edge of their seats,ending each week with the heroine or the hero facing looming disaster. For the past three decades, there has been a steady claim that the earth was facing disaster unless the world’s leading economies made substantial changes in how their populations live. A year and a half ago, few people doubted the nature of the problems facing the planet. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body, claimed to have all the data to support the theory that man-made climate change was occurring. Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth” was acclaimed to be a masterpiece of science and call to action. A few folks publicly questioned the science the film was based on, but the torrents of praise seemed to rival the Amazon in volume. Who were these critics, anyway?

A year and a half later, and the critics are making points that should have been obvious. The science is NOT settled, no matter what Mr. Gore wants to say to the contrary. In fact, that remark should have had serious scientists reaching for their calculators and checking the figures. According to the media, the few who did question the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings were kooks, and not real scientists at all. But the movie’s been changed. It isn’t quite weekly yet, but the thriller started with the release of documents from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in November of 2009. It seemed the science behind man-made global warming wasn’t quite so scientific after all. In fact, it looked more like something from one of those B flicks like “Plan Nine From Outer Space.” The lab had not functioned as most people understand science to be done. It appeared to have cooked the books and rigged peer review processes to support the man-made global warming theory, even when substantial evidence suggested this might not be the case.

Since the first release, more and more information came to light. The lack of compliance with Freedom of Information Requests made to the CRU. Evidence that the data that the IPCC study was based on was tainted or not available for examination increased the questions.

Now it is becoming obvious that the real scandal is that climate scientists at the IPCC and environmentalists have behaved like everyday politicians. In other words, they have rigged the results to protect their revenue sources.

The best thing the citizens of the United States can do is demand that the Marky-Waxman cap and trade bill be killed. We should demand that the US refuse to sign on to anything like the Copenhagen protocols. We should demand a proper investigation of the funding of the scientists affiliated with IPCC, and demand to see the data, and allow other, genuinely impartial scientists to see it and evaluate it.

Meanwhile, new releases of the current thriller keep coming to a computer near you. Even some of the British press have discovered what’s going on. The American media are still ignoring the corruption and incompetence at IPCC. Will the Washington Post wake up in time? Will NBC report on Phil Jones, former CRU head, admitting that they were wrong about the Medieval Warming Period? Stay tuned for the next episode!

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Now that the National Tea Party Convention is over, where should the tea party movement go from here?  I could be completely wrong, but from what I’ve gleaned from the little actual news of the convention’s happenings I can find, it seemed like it was mostly about organizing, wack-a-doos, and red meat.  And while the first and third (and not so much the second) are good for rallying the support of your ideological base and attempting to get your favored politicians elected, those things do little to to get an agenda passed.

The trouble with many protest movements – and I’d consider the tea party movement, at least until the convention, to be one – is that they’re great for expressing what they don’t like.  Take the anti-war protesters of the Bush years.  They were against the War in Iraq (and some were against Afghanistan), but when it came time to discuss what to do about terrorism, they had few answers.  This is perhaps why protesting is a political activity that Americans tend to look down upon: they are seen as whiners.  In a nation of doers, we don’t like whiners.  We like people who get stuff done, and for the most part, those groups have not been protesters.

Now, I understand that tea partiers are not necessarily politicians, but they are certainly political actors, and supposedly have an idea of what kind of agenda they’d like to see for America, beyond “limited government” and “no universal health care.”  After all, I’ve seen the competing plans for health care written by the conservative think tanks.  It seems to me that the tea party movement is well situated to make their voice heard about these ideas.  By using their numbers to put a bug in the ear of their legislators the tea party movement has the opportunity to create the change they’d like to see.

It will take organizing.  Yes, the tea partiers must work together.  I understand the whole point behind the movement is a bottom-up approach, but that does not mean the citizens cannot band together to get things done.  It will be necessary because politics simply cannot be done effectively in any other way.  Interest groups, 527s, and other political organizations do it all the time.  Anyway, strength in numbers, right?

The next convention will happen in July.  This first one had breakout sessions, and I think that is exactly the kind of setting that would be perfect for debating where to go on policy.  I would urge the convention organizers to coordinate with people on the ground to create sessions that will allow attendees to find their common interests, and perhaps even start to get an agenda in order.  Then the attendees can go back home and bug their Congresspersons and Senators, state legislators, and local councilpeople to get those things passed.  If they don’t, those sessions about getting people registered to vote will provide the next step.

The tea party movement is quickly coming out of its infancy, and in order to move forward the activists will have to work together to actually get a conservative agenda passed in local, state, and federal legislatures. The tea party’s future will depend on whether its supporters can be doers rather than just whiners.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

In the first year of his administration, Barrack Obama’s promise to elevate the civic culture of Washington, DC was about 95 percent vapid rhetoric, 5 percent reaching across the aisle with a limp handshake. Meanwhile, for the Democratic Party on the whole, it was business as usual. If the last two weeks are any indication, Phase-II of Obama-era postpartisanship might be even more cynical than was Phase-I.       

For many Democrats, Phase-I of Obama-era postpartisanship was mainly concerned with further weakening a damaged Republican brand. During the first months of the Obama presidency, Democrats/progressives were high on Tanenhaus ecstasy, convinced that they had won a sweeping mandate that was really a mirage. A few weeks after Obama was inaugurated, several of my Democratic friends explained to me, with devious smiles, how the Democratic Party was set to deliver the coup de grace to Republicans/conservatives. While Obama projected an image of exalted postpartisanship, his Democratic colleagues in Congress would ram through major initiatives, like the Stimulus, card check, cap & trade, and health care reform, completely locking out Republicans from the deliberations and, more importantly, the spoils. My Democratic friends predicted that, because Obama was so popular at that time, the Democrats would easily peel off a handful of moderate Republicans to support their agenda, while the remaining Republicans would try, unsuccessfully, to obstruct the program. When the economy started to rebound in fall 2009, the Democrats could take full credit, claiming that the New New Deal had pulled America back from the abyss – no thanks to those wily Republicans, who only care about party politics. Game, set, match.  

Phase-I of Obama-style postpartisanship backfired when the Democrats were unable to peel away more than a couple of moderate Republicans on major legislation (and later started losing stray Blue Dogs), while the economy and the deficit grew progressively worse. The Democrats’ pseudo-postpartisan maneuverings during year 1 of the Obama administration was partly motivated by the tendency of progressives to disregard political opposition and condescend toward non-elite Americans. When political and media elites began making haughty, crass jokes about town hall protestors and “tea baggers,” the malevolent side of ”progressive” culture was on ugly display, which undercut President Obama’s “hope and change” rhetoric. Recently, the activist left has been hammering Obama for allegedly being too nice to the real enemy (Republicans/conservatives), seemingly oblivious to the possibility that their gratuitous, drive-by attacks might have damaged their own movement. Of course, Obama damaged himself as well, like when he lets his mask slip, revealing just what he means by postpartisanship.              

At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama ostensibly offered a few conciliatory, postpartisan remarks to Republicans/conservatives, yet his idea of postpartisanship always has to be on progressive terms:  

But there is a sense that something is different now; that something is broken; that those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should.  At times, it seems like we’re unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate.  And this erosion of civility in the public square sows division and distrust among our citizens.  It poisons the well of public opinion.  It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other.  It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on truth.  And then we lose sight of the children without food and the men without shelter and the families without health care.

To paraphrase what Obama is saying: The great majority of Republicans, and a small minority of Democrats, are “poisoning the well of public opinion,” which is getting in the way of the great progressive project to feed all the hungry children, house all the homeless men, and provide healthcare to all the uninsured. Nevermind those seven decades of “progressive” policies have generated net negative results in terms of reducing poverty and lowering the costs of housing and health care. Obama’s postpartisanhip reminds me of a backhanded apology. “I’m sorry that you were offended by my actions, but you can’t help yourself.”

Obama’s remarks at the prayer breakfast also sound to me like Phase-II of Democratic postpartisanship in the wake of Scott Brown’s victory. The new “postpartisan” narrative (myth/lie) is that, in the first half of 2009, Republicans were invited, with open arms, by the Democratic congressional leadership to participate in legislative discussions, but decided to sit in the corner and throw a tantrum. Now that the Republicans have a 41 vote stranglehold in the Senate, they need to step up to the big kids table and take responsibility for governing “ungovernable” America  (because no political party has ever been able to get anything done in the Senate with a razor thin 59 vote majority). Of course, that means that Republicans will be expected to help the Democrats ”save the children,” and vote for items many Republicans/conservatives would be diametrically opposed to, which are cynically attached to bills that have nothing to do with those items, or else the Republicans will have reverted once again to being partisan, child hating cretins.

Just like Phase-I, the political effectiveness of Phase-II of Obama-era Democratic postpartisanship will be determined in part by macro-forces, like the economy, deficits, etc. Unfortunately, though, the PR machinations will come into play. Hopefully, the “progressive” left will not be able to resist sabatoging Phase-II, like they sabotaged Phase-I.

Right on cue, Jacob Weisberg of Slate magazine whined today that the “ungovernable” American public is becoming more ”childish, ignorant, and incoherent.” My first reaction was: Is this piece an example of the “reality based community’s” tremendous adherence to making claims based on empirical evidence? Maybe Weisburg is privy to some peer reviewed research supporting his blanket claims? Perhaps the childishness index has jumped since January 2009? Undoubtedly, the childishness index was quite low during the golden age of the post-WWII liberal consensus . . .  

I was the going to dissect the rest of Weisberg’s rant, but Bruce McQuain so completely destroyed Weisberg’s arguments that there is not much left to tear apart.

Let me just say one thing: It is by no means irrational (or ignorant) for people to want the government to provide premium goods/services to them at a low cost while insisting that the government be fiscally prudent as regards everyone else. Similarly, if you are a land owner, the best case scenario for maximizing the value of your property is that you (or future owners of your property) would be allowed to do whatever you wanted on your property, but the neighboring land owners would be very strictly regulated (and limited in terms of use).

Our Founding Fathers understood the above problem all to well. The so-called progressive movement has been one of the more destructive forces in eroding our constitutional protections. Now that the ”hope and change” express is losing steam, and no longer having a specific symbol at which to direct their fury (GW Bush), the progressives are actually lecturing the American people about being spoiled brats? That’s rich.

Update II

Right on cue, part deux: as part of the Phase-II rollout of Obama-era postpartisanship, which is now back to being called good old fashioned bipartisanship (and not by accident), the president is now calling for a half-day bipartisan summit on health care. To help Plouffe, err . . . Obama ensure that this latest bipartisan gesture is not perceived by opponents of Obamacare as another cynical trap – heaven forbid!, Hugh Hewitt has offered several excellent suggestions for facilitating an open, rigorous, balanced, participatory discussion. You know, those aspects of the democratic process that academic-types are always claiming are in too short supply. Surely, the postpartisan Professor Obama (h/t Jay_C) would not object to ”equal time”?

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

A few days ago Sarah Palin called for White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel step down for calling some liberals “retarded” in their to health care legislation last August.  Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh ranted about it (emph. TP’s):

LIMBAUGH: Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

A bunch of people were wondering about what Palin would have to say about this, especially since she just slammed Emanuel.  Would she go up against the big R?

Yes:

I asked Palin spokesperson Meghan Stapleton for comment on Rush’s rant, and she emailed me this:

“Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name calling at the expense of others is disrespectful.”

Actually, I think Rush has a point (never thought the day would come).  Aren’t conservatives usually against political correctness?  I don’t know…maybe Palin is trying to retake the word “retarded” the way the PC brigade has been trying to retake “gay,” also a once favored way to call someone stupid (usually by youths).  In any case, this won’t be the first time I’ve thought Palin is less conservative than she makes herself out to be.

More on that after I finish Going Rogue. (H/T Andrew Sullivan)

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

While NASA mourns the loss of the Constellation program and the planned return to the moon, the space organization today announced five companies that will be awarded contracts to build commercial vehicles and the systems that will support them.  Frankly, I think this announcement couldn’t have come soon enough.

Lets face it, not much has happened in the way of space in the last…oh…38 years or so.  Sure, there’s the International Space Station, but that project is unfortunately doomed to failure.  It should have been completed years ago, but the Columbia tragedy prevented that.  After that, nobody really wanted to use a transportation system that was already old when the ISS was in its infancy.  Now the life of the station is being extended, so that it can all be torn down at about the time the last piece is put in place.  If the ISS is all we have to show in progress, than I argue that America has not gone very far since the last time we put a man on the moon (1972).

The Cold War is over, so there is nothing to influence American competitiveness for space anymore, at least not one that matters to the government.  The said, why not invite companies to do the R&D needed to get humans back to the moon, or beyond?

Companies compete everyday.  They must, or else they do not last long.  They don’t need a global conflict to ensure their innovation.  And that innovation is already happening, with companies like Bigelow Airspace, Scaled Composites, and SpaceX well on their well to making commercial space travel a reality.  Bigelow has already launched two habitation prototypes based on the Transhab project that was canceled by Congress in 2000.  Scaled Composites is known for their SpaceShipOne prototype, and SpaceShipTwo sub-orbital ship that billionaire Richard Branson is looking to someday buy for his planned Virgin Galactic fleet.  And SpaceX was one of the companies selected two years ago, along with Orbital Sciences Corporation, to create unmanned ships for work on the ISS.

With Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Blue Origin, and Paragon Space Development joining the companies listed above, the industry is now chock full of players either teamed up with NASA for ISS and astronaut-type missions, and/or looking to get into the space tourism field.  A NASA researched, designed, and built project just seems redundant in this case, doesn’t it?

I know that one reaction will be the inevitable “BUT, THEY ONLY WANT TO PROFIT!!!”  Sure they do, and why shouldn’t they?  It will, in fact, be that motivation for profit that ensures companies come out with not only the best designed and functioning product for this generation of space vehicles, but the next.  That’s how it works, folks.  Every company wants to be known as the creator of the latest and greatest in their field, so that they can capture the most profit.  That goal of being the leader will eventually lead Americans (and more broadly, humanity) to low-earth orbit and beyond.

That last sentence may seem idealistic of me, but I’m not so sure.  If you told someone in the late 1960s about the current state of computing, when they were by and large developed by government and academia, they probably wouldn’t have believed you.  But here we are in 2010, and it’s all thanks to the competitive nature of the companies that took the time to develop the best technology.

Now extend this to space travel.  I don’t pretend that we’ll be visiting Mars tomorrow, or even in 10 years, but I could easily see something like that happening within 20 years if space travel companies are allowed to take the reigns developing the next generation of space vehicles and associated technology.  It will happen because the companies involved in researching how to do it will have a profit motivation to make it happen as quickly as possible, or else get left in the dust by the guys who did it first.

I believe that the development of space exploration technologies will be part of the solution to restore the economy.  The growth of this new industry will help us recover from the shrinking of others, like the car industry, that have been victims of the recession.  I don’t know the specifics of what it takes to manufacturer a space vehicle, but I’ll venture that at least some of the same skills needed to build a car are required to build a line of ships for the likes of Virgin Galactic.  There will be some retraining necessary, of course, but that was inevitable.

More than that, there is still a real need for America to show its leadership in space exploration, and its status has been challenged of late due to lack of motivation.  A bustling space exploration industry is the answer to keeping America the leader in the final frontier.  So Obama’s decision to cancel the moon program and defer development of exploration technologies to the private sector could not have come at a better time.  I, for one, applaud him for the decision, and look forward to seeing what develops in the coming years and decades.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Although I understand and appreciate Orson’s take on Zinn’s death, I have to say that my own view on this ‘historian’ is less kind. Read this post by David Horowitz to get an idea of what I think of Zinn and his legacy.

What bothers me most about him, though, is that A People’s History of the United States is required reading material at most universities in America and in Europe. This even though it’s nothing more than a crappy piece of propaganda by a neo-communist apologist for totalitarians such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Zinn was a polemicist masquerading as a historian. Let’s keep that in mind whenever we talk about the guy.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Radical historian Howard Zinn has died. My sympathies go to his family. I will offer some thoughts about his work as a historian at a later time. This is not the time for a critical analysis of his work as a scholar. It is worth reporting that Mr. Zinn was a World War II veteran of the US Army Air Corps. Like Senator George McGovern, another World War II veteran Mr. Zinn went to college on the GI Bill, and majored in history. He made a career out of teaching, while McGovern did not teach history, but made a career out of politics. Both Senator McGovern and Professor Zinn reached the conclusion that the United States was wrong to become involved in Viet Nam.

While it is important to honor and respect Mr. Zinn’s service to his country in the Air Corps, it is worth noting that his negative view of the U.S. use of military power was distinctly a minority view compared to that of most of his World War II comrades in arms.

UPDATE: PoliSnark has a characteristically off-beat take on this story.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is None Darwish, the co-founder of FormerMuslimsUnited.com and the author of Cruel and Usual Punishment.

FP: Nonie Darwish, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today a bit about the Muslim voices for change that are increasing through the Islamic world. There is an unprecedented defiance taking place behind the Islamic Curtain.

Can you tell us what is transpiring?

Darwish: As you know, Jamie, I lived for 30 years in the cocoon of the Muslim world and I can see a huge change going on inside the Muslim world. More and more people are challenging the status quo.

After 9/11 and with constant recurring explosive Islamic terrorism, it has become harder for the Muslim establishment to keep the lid on Muslims questioning their system, religion and holy wars. Criticism of Islam is coming at them from every direction, putting Muslim clerics in a quagmire unable to honestly answer questions. Muslim scholars were never trained to answer questions critical of Islam or engage in hostile debate. But now, suddenly, they are challenged to the core like never before, not by Western critics, but by brave hosts of Arabic language shows from unidentified locations in the West and hosted by former Muslims and/or Egyptian Christian Copts.

Read the whole interview at FrontPage Magazine.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Discussion about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has once again come about after President Obama’s vow to end it during the State of the Union tonight, and the report by ABC that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of State Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen will testify about what steps they will take before Congress and Obama move to end the law. (H/T Hot Air).

Combing through the Hot Air comments, I’ve noticed one recurring theme amongst those against repealing the policy: That they will be forced to shower with the now openly gay servicemen (it is unclear whether or not this is also a fear among  socially conservative women as well).  Apparently these commenters are unaware of the fact that straight and gay servicemen are already showering together.

Whatever the case may be, the fear seems to be that, no longer closeted by DADT, gays will now be open to jump their fellow servicemen.  When countered with the fact that gays have the ability to restrain their sexual urges in the presence of other men, they say, “Haha, I can certainly restrain my sexuality, too, so maybe showers should be co-ed!”

Besides this only being an attempt to change the subject, this shows is that the problem is not so much with the gay servicemen and women as it is with some people’s discomfort with the idea of gay people being around them.  Rather than admit their problem, they try to invent worst-case scenarios that won’t actually happen to help them justify their support for DADT.  Meanwhile, more and more Arabic translators are getting kicked out of the military at a time we need them, just because of who they are.

These social conservatives just need to live up to the fact that a non-DADT military doesn’t mean gay people are going to sexually assault their fellow servicemembers.  And if a gay person suggests they have feelings for one of their fellows, so what?  The latter can just tell the former what straights have been telling each other for centuries: “You’re not my type.”

Update: Commenter Interested asked why President Obama can’t just rescind the Executive Order issued by former President Clinton early in his presidency.  Because the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy isn’t just an Executive Order.  It actually is law; specifically Title IV, Sec. 524; Subtitle G of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994.  So Congress must get involved in order for this policy to be repealed.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been trying to get my mind wrapped around the arrest of journalist James O’Keefe – best known for his exposé this past July of several ACORN offices offering advice on prostitution-related crimes – for allegedly attempting to interfere with the phone system of Louisiana Senator Mary Mary Landrieu’s office.  Note that earlier reports that said they were trying to bug the system should not be followed, as this has not been said to be the case.  Yet, I’ve been racking my brains, trying to figure how else these guys could have tampered with the system.  After seeing this MSNBC article, I’m coming up with only one other explanation.  Otherwise, I don’t know anything else they could do to “tamper” with it, short of ripping it apart.

Meanwhile, Democrats and other liberals are besides themselves with glee, with Media Matters taking it upon themselves to start a smear attack on Andrew Breitbart of Big Government and Big Hollywood fame.  Of course, this was not the reaction of most liberals when the ACORN videos were released.  Mostly, they tried to sweep it under the rug, assuring us that it only happened in a few isolated circumstances, rather than admit that ACORN had a real problem on its hands.  Now they are happy the O’Keefe has been arrested, because he is a conservative, and for them, he was already a bad, bad guy.

On the other side of the issue, Republicans and conservatives have generally been more realistic in their response, or at least they were until today.  Yesterday, when the news was that O’Keefe, Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan had attempted to bug the Senator’s office, they rightly admonished the four.  Today, however, with the release of the affidavit, their response has suddenly become a lot different.

Allahpundit is probably the most realistic in his posting:

I assume the defense is going to be something like, “We never intended to tap the phone, we simply wanted to show how easy it would be if someone wanted to do it,” but even so: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh boy. Ten years.

Patterico, on the other hand, is banking on this being “a big nothing.”  He, no doubt, will point to this MSNBC report as proof that it is nothing (update: he did):

Instead, the official says, the men, led by conservative videomaker James O’Keefe, wanted to see how her local office staff would respond if the phones were inoperative.

Why, then, go up to the tenth floor and proceed to further their plan?  Why not, having recorded the conversation with the staffer, not just left the building?  Well, MSN doesn’t spell it out, but I expect the expanded explanation will include a plan to disable Landrieu’s phones, while O’Keefe records the re-actions of the staffers, who are presumably supposed to freak out in this situation.  Perhaps O’Keefe would ask a few questions to the staffers to find out if they were concerned by the outage, and then post their response, hoping that they would not register any concern that callers could not come through.

Even then, the four would still have committed the crime of tampering with the phone system.  This would, perhaps, turn it more into the category of a “prank” rather than an attempt to listen in on a Senator’s private conversations, though I suppose in these more secure times they could have winded up with a tele-terrorism charge on their record.

So I do believe that O’Keefe and his co-conspirators were planning to do something to Landrieu’s phones, even if it wasn’t to tap it to gain incriminating information, and I think conservatives are in a lot of denial about that right now.  While I’m with them in that the four men should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, I just don’t think the situation looks much better for them than it did yesterday.

In the end, we will need to wait to hear O’Keefe and company’s version of events before we pass judgment on his actions.  Anything else is just wild theorizing, including my wild theorizing.

P.S. Patterico is supporting a theory by Jawa Report’s Good Lt. that they were looking for evidence of a previous disconnection or re-routing.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Megan McArdle sums up the dilemma progressives face in trying to force through health care reform using single-party dominance. Quite simply, the “power to the people” pose of post-modern progressivism is increasingly exposed as a sham, and the progressive agenda revealed as fundamentally elitist — they know better than you what is good for you. Thus, the more you oppose it, the more strident many progressives become in trying to force the issue through.

The belief that the public is simply too stupid or evil to understand its own best interests is a serious barrier to progressive success. It causes them to actively reject the idea or compromise out of the belief that compromise constitutes a betrayal of a higher principle. And the belief that disagreement is can only be explained as either ignorance or actual maliciousness facilitates the move towards demonization — compromise is betrayal, dissent is heresy, and no quarter is given.

It is, however, precisely that arrogance that exacerbates the political problems progressives face in trying to force through a health care reform program. Because they have proactively rejected the mere suggestion of compromise and have moved further to characterize those who disagree as not only in error, but actually bad people, it becomes hard to spin that message. The ranks of those who actually disagree are inevitably swelled when those who merely have questions or doubts encounter the whirlwind of hatred that so many progressive activists put out. That is the reason that every time the debate over health care happens, it tends to result in a steady increase in opposition.

It is not, as many conservatives say, that America is by nature an inherently “center-right” country at all. Rather, the seemingly inevitable increase in opposition to health care reform is an inevitable result of the bad communicative choices that progressives have made. They have, it far too many cases, destroyed their own cause.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.