Maggie's Farm

Below the covers:

Two competing programs are proposed to Congress from the left and from America�s manufacturers. One protects domestic unions while further burdening US manufacturers and consumers. The other grows US competitiveness.

The Nation, in its inimical leftward way, analyzes the problems with �free trade globalization.� Its National Affairs correspondent, William Greider, longtime journalist, describes �a huge hole in the world�a massive loss of demand. Think of the trade wars as the largest producers fighting over an abrupt shortage of buyers.

The situation, as Greider sees it: A Wall Street Journal poll found that 53 percent (including 61 percent of Tea Party adherents) think free-trade globalization has hurt the US economy. Only 17 percent think it has helped. But the trouble with Americans claiming injured innocence is that it blinds them to the complexities of the predicament. The fact is, the United States and China, motivated by different but mutually reinforcing reasons, collaborated to create the unbalanced trading system. American multinationals eagerly sought access to China's market. The Chinese wanted factories and the modern technologies needed to develop a first-class industrial base. American companies agreed to the basic trade-off: China would let them in to make and sell stuff, and they would share technology and teach Chinese partners how it's done. Not coincidentally, US corporations also gained enormous bargaining power over workers back home by threatening to go abroad for cheaper labor if unions didn't give wage concessions.

Greider points out, correctly, that multinational corporations, clever devils, have profited from US subsidies but, anyways, shipped production overseas for less costly labor and regulation.

Greider�s prescription is to impose more regulation and taxes upon multinationals that ship production elsewhere.  Greider does not even suggest that unions negotiate less costly labor contracts or that our government reduce its regulatory burdens upon domestic manufacturers.

Greider, finally, does admit that his recommendation �would raise prices for Americans.�  US manufacturing unions, however, would � though still likely to hemorrhage jobs � keep high wages and benefits for their remaining members, and dues flowing for contributions to Democrat political campaigns.  

By contrast, the National Association of Manufacturers just issued its Manufacturing Strategy for Jobs and a Competitive America. Some recommendations are clearly self-serving, like not taxing foreign earnings, but most make much more sense than Greider�s � get ready for this euphemism � �national loyalty program.�

Iraq and Afghanistan played little roles in the 2010 elections. However, President Obama will likely pay a price in 2012 for the withdrawal of US armed forces from Iraq. The Iraqis are already paying the price. The AP's Robert Burns reports:

The Obama administration could be overstating what U.S. diplomats can do to contain Iraq's ethnic and sectarian tensions without U.S. military forces, a State Department audit concluded Tuesday, raising fresh concerns about the planned pullout of American troops next year.

The auditors also questioned whether American diplomats who remain behind will be adequately protected against insurgent violence, and their report faulted Washington for its planning of the transition from a U.S. military-led mission in Iraq to one run by American civilians in 2011.

The audit's findings echo worries expressed by some U.S. defense analysts and former diplomats. They say hard-won security gains in Iraq could crumble if U.S. forces leave on schedule….

The report said the first six months of 2012 are likely to be "especially dangerous as extremists test U.S. resolve and Iraqi security forces' capabilities." It questioned whether the U.S. can meet President Barack Obama's goal of ensuring a safe work environment for remaining U.S. personnel in Iraq in 2012. "Security risks are expected to increase," the report said.

Brown over Whitman for governor and Boxer over Fiorina for US senator clearly mark the Democrat registration edge in California. To be charitable, it also marks the difficulty of a statewide Republican holding the base while appealing to other less conservative voters. To be less charitable, Whitman and Fiorina failed to connect emotionally with enough California voters, most often mouthing lackluster clichés that didn’t echo while allowing their opponents to paint them as self-serving corporate plutocrats.  Also, the legacy of disappointment left by the Quibbleator governor weighed upon many voters trust of more promises from Republicans Whitman and Fiorina.

Diogenes would find an honest man in Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor for The Examiner.  Rare in Washington, D.C., Tapscott has not been compromised by decades there, retaining clear conservative vision and fortitude, always reaching out to promote others rather than himself.

In his editorial, Tapscott writes of the coming major Republican gains and the widespread disillusionment with Democrats� statism, �the message for the GOP: Voters seem willing to give you one more chance to do what you've promised for decades -- cut federal spending, reform entitlements, and restore limited government. Don't blow it.�

As always, Tapscott demands much of our politicians, and of us.  He and we will likely have many disappointments.

President Obama will still have the veto, and shows little proclivity to be any less ideologic or self-centered. Even at the most optimistic gains next Tuesday, the Republicans � even if all stick together in legislative battles � will not have a veto-proof weight in Congress. Plus, the regulatory bodies, stocked with Obama allies, will continue to push the left�s agenda.

If the Republicans are wise, there will be many, many opportunities, however, to stall the Obama administration�s leftward march and to expose its waywardness. That will well-serve Republicans and Americans as we consider the 2012 choices.

But, rollbacks, especially major ones, are unlikely, for now.

Just consider, post-1994, how the liberal Congressional minority and its allies in the media even successfully resisted cuts in the federal funding for PBS. And, consider how President Clinton cooperated with Republicans for major welfare reform, compared to the partisan rigidity in all things exhibited by President Obama.

Many will, thus, feel the wind slackening from our sails during the next two years, unless we keep to our oars toward the shore of 2012, to replace President Obama and to send even more courageous Republican conservatives to Congress.

Mark Tapscott and I once reminisced together about how we both started out, lonely in overwhelming Democrat locales in 1964, to see through perseverance following that the growth of a new, vibrant conservatism onto the national stage and mind.  I am as optimistic as ever, and so should you be, if we persevere.

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Mark Tapscott, also, points us to this Halloween video:

Swamp Thang Thriller from RightChange on Vimeo.

I had just finished watching this trailer for the film "Alice Dancing Under The Gallows" when my phone rang. My cousin told me that my Aunt Reva passed away this afternoon from a sudden heart attack at 92. Reva, like my Aunt Muriel, who passed last year at 92, both came up through the hard times of the Depression, were always optimistic, cheerful, helpful, looking for and finding opportunities, silver linings and the good in others, indeed bringing out others' best. Both lived independently and active till their last.

The rest of us are too often lacking by comparison, and lacking by their passing.

This afternoon, the boys and I carved and painted pretty scary vampire pumpkins.

While looking online for images to inspire our work, we came across the most horrifying one, too much to expose to the kids on Maggie's front porch.

So, brace yourself, and go below the curtain.

Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strips have been featured on newspapers� funnies pages for four-decades. Some newspapers have moved the strip to their editorial pages, since their theme is often � aside from unfunny � starkly and one-sidedly political.

In a Slate interview, Garry Trudeau unknowingly satirizes himself.

Slate: How does the current political era stack up against eras past? Is it more or less funny? Is there more or less material?

 

Trudeau: I no longer compare them. Each era is the best of times, worst of times. Besides, I'm a pointillist, just working my tiny little piece of the canvas. I'm not so good at perspective.

 

Having said that, I can tell you that there have been some periods when cartoonists were definitely in clover. Watergate was the perfect subject, because every day brought fresh outrages. Everyone was on his game, and we felt unconstrained, because Nixon's wounds were self-inflicted. Monica was good for cartooning, but it was only one running joke. Bush's misrule�accidental war, torture, Katrina, etc.�provoked great cartoons, but there was so much associated tragedy, there wasn't much fun in it.

 

Then,

Slate: Who's the hardest politician to satirize, and why?

 

Trudeau: Believe it or not, Obama's very tough for business. The contradictory characterizations of him as fascist or socialist only serve to confirm the truth�he's a raging moderate. And satirists don't do well with moderates, especially thoughtful ones. In addition, Obama rarely makes gaffes and has no salient physical or temperamental features. And sinking popularity isn't a critique. Even SNL's main rap on him is his unflappability, hardly a vice in a world leader.

 

Trudeau says in the interview that �Any obvious satirical target I pass up is usually spared because of a failure of imagination.�

That dramatic � even inflammatory -- title, �Is �Palestinian-killer� the new �Christ-killer�?�, is the first question that occurred to me as I read news reports that a meeting of Catholic Bishops from the Middle East condemned Israel, called for withdrawal to 1967 borders, and that Jews have no Biblical right to Israel.

I just read the actual statement of the gathering. The initial impression I had was wrong, largely due to the poor news reporting and due to the press conference  by the archbishop president of the gathering that went beyond the meeting�s report and beyond Catholic Church doctrine. Further, the report itself is not the official position of the Catholic Church. The Pope will consider it before issuing his final statement.

That impression given the world, that the Jews of Israel are, in effect, �Palestinian-killers�, consonant with the catechism of the Left in trying to delegitimize Israel�s very existence, was conveyed by the president of the gathering at a Vatican press conference:

�The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands,� Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts, and president of the �Commission for the Message,� said at Saturday�s Vatican press conference.

 

�We Christians cannot speak of the �promised land� as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people. This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people � all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.

 

�Even if the head of the Israeli state is Jewish, the future is based on democracy.

 

The Palestinian refugees will eventually come back and this problem will have to be solved,� the Lebanese-born Bustros said.

 

 

 

 

 

The Israeli reply was sharp:

Read this review before watching this trailer for the film "2081"

"The film is only twenty-five minutes long, but it packs a punch as terrible as Michael Radford’s gritty, nearly two-hour long Nineteen Eighty-Four. The production values are as good as any $20 million budget blockbuster’s. As a parable on the price of silence and the fate of those who prefer security and passivity over independence and freedom, it is one of the best films I have ever seen."

San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Gretel Kovach has been reporting for the past six-weeks on her embed with the US Marines in Afghanistan.

Today, she writes her summary of what she has observed and learned, 'Time. It will take some time'. It is straight-forward reporting, and as good a comprehensive insight as you'll find in major media.  Very well-worth reading.

Last night, Professor Barry Rubin, Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center in Israel, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, author of over 50 books, was the guest of the San Diego Israel Coalition (SDIC).

The SDIC, with about 600 Jewish and Christian members, near packed the large auditorium in La Jolla, and heard good news from Israel. This may have come as a surprise to many, accustomed to the gloomier commentary in the US from supporters and adversaries of Israel.

According to Barry Rubin’s view from Israel, Israel is in the strongest situation in decades.  It is the West and Arab states that are in the weakest.

Brooklyn College English professor Moustafa Bayoumi’s books continue to be at the center of whether fact or fiction will prevail at Brooklyn College. This might even be viewed as indicative of the wider struggle within US academia over the influence of the Left and many of its adherents’ support of Islamist views.

Last month, as an alumnus, I posted  my disinheriting the college in protest against one of Prof. Bayoumi’s books being the required sole Common Reading for incoming students. Unexpectedly, this touched a wider nerve which led to all three major NYC newspapers and many prominent blogs (here and here are follow-ups) reporting on the issue and one of the major newspapers blasting the college’s selection in an editorial.

The two books are Prof. Bayoumi’s required reading for entering students, the sole one, that Arab-Americans are excessively the brunt of discrimination, and his current book attacking the Israeli actions regarding the Mavi Marmara blockade-running attempt to deliver supplies to Gaza.

We have one of the college’s most Distinguished professors, Broeklundian Professor Robert Cherry of the Economics department, self-professed man of the Left, expert in discrimination against minorities in labor markets, revealing the false statistics at the core of Prof. Bayoumi’s continual arguments that Arab-Americans are disproportionately discriminated against.

We have the administration of the college continuing to act without transparency as to how Prof. Bayoumi’s book came to be selected for all incoming students to read, in the absence of other books or views, and failing to publicly address how that process may be improved in the future. Perhaps, Prof. Cherry’s talk next Tuesday at the college’s Hillel, of which I have the draft text (below the fold), will spur more procedural openness and caution against ideological recklessness.

Meanwhile, we have the Managing Editor of the campus newspaper, who in 2005 blessed (“Amen”) 9/11 Trutherism, writing a paean to Prof. Bayoumi’s collection of essays criticizing what the book titles the Israel “attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla” ship Mavi Marmara. Perhaps, students or faculty at the college may be spurred to pay attention to the news coverage, including from sources usually critical of Israel, to the contrary.

Both perhaps are to be hoped for, but not to be counted upon unless there is more pressure from within the campus and its alumni.

Today’s federal district court decision on a challenge to ObamaCare’s mandated purchase of medical insurance seeks to so expand federal powers as to override all personal decisions about almost anything.

The Commerce Clause in the US Constitution has been expansively interpreted to allow the federal government to classify almost anything as an “economic activity” affecting interstate commerce. There are some guideposts laid out by the Supreme Court, basically that the regulation of economic activity be necessary to implement the regulatory purpose and that it be proper, not invading constitutional state sovereignty.

A federal district judge in Michigan today decided to further expand the federal government’s regulatory authority to “economic decisions.” In the case at hand, the judge says that the ObamaCare mandate to buy insurance is legit as the decision to not buy insurance may affect others who do by possibly shifting costs to the latter. So, even if aspirin will do the job, instead of a visit to the doctor, you are shifting costs to an insurance buyer.

At law blog Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett points out:

By inventing a new “economic decisions” doctrine, Judge Steeh has gone beyond the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clause doctrines established by the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court is authorized to expand its own interpretation of the scope of Congressional power….

 

If the Supreme Court ever accepts the government’s “economic decision” theory, then there is nothing it cannot mandate in the future in the name of regulating “commerce . . . among the several states.” Congress will then have the general police power that both the Constitution and the Supreme Court has always denied it.

 

Ilya Somin adds:

The Michigan court’s decision doesn’t bind the Virginia and Florida district courts currently considering the two biggest challenges to mandate (those brought by 21 states and the National Federation of Independent Business). Moreover, Judge Steeh’s conclusion that this case is fairly easily covered by existing Commerce Clause precedent is at odds with the Virginia judge’s earlier ruling concluding that no previous precedent covers this case. It therefore seems to me unlikely that the latter will follow the Michigan reasoning in his own eventual decision (though he could of course uphold the mandate on other grounds). And of course both this ruling and those that will be eventually issued by the other district courts are subject to review by the US courts of appeals, and ultimately the Supreme Court.

Sometimes we're lucky to have friends with whom we can have civil conversations, even when we disagree. Fewer times, we're even more fortunate to have a friend whose learning and temperance wakens new thinking in ourself. Such a friend earns the right to be listened to carefully, always.

The Rabbi at my synagogue is such a friend.  He is deeply liberal in all the best senses of that term, courageous in stating his views, and in altering them as new information is found. Several years ago, at his High Holiday sermon, the most heard of the year, he called for more openness in our listening to criticisms of Israel, not to pull it down but to get closer to our ideals.

In the meantime, others have gathered force to pull Israel down. So, this year, the Rabbi's sermon confronted those who cross the line from legitimate criticism to delegitimization. "When it comes to Israel’s many faults, there is a bold line between criticism and delegitimization, and that line is being crossed by those whose real agenda is the elimination of the Jewish State."

It is a beautiful and informative discussion. As usual, the Rabbi speaks clearly and covers the pros and cons, resulting in a reasoned conclusion. "To teach our children, to educate our neighbors, and to raise our hands against the slaughtering knife of delegitimization of the Zionist Project."

Read it all for yourself.  

No serious person takes analogies as accurate. Politicians and journalists are often not serious people, seeking self-serving soundbites and sensationalism over careful knowledge of the facts.

This lure is attractive for those who trot out the US experience in Vietnam, particularly the 1968 Tet Offensive, to advocate hopelessness for our and target countries’ battles against insurgents. US misreporting of the wholesale defeat of communist forces – losing 45,000 of the 84,000 attackers – and feckless US policymakers failing to carry-through, serves as the template current foes rely upon.

Among many examples provided by Robbins:

Osama bin Laden wrote to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, “It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in fact, its share may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for battles.”

So author James Robbins, in This Time We Win: Revisiting The Tet Offensive,  takes 301 pages plus copious footnotes to “unlink the power of analogy from the terrorist arsenal,” by detailing every aspect of Tet ’68 and its aftermath.

This ground has been well-plowed before.

It’s not new news that the US media was grossly biased and inept in its reporting of Tet ’68.

For those who have seen the stories in the major media that fail to delve about California Republican governor nominee Meg Whitman's illegal alien housekeeper, California politics watcher  Eric Hogue asks the questions the media ignores in this orchestrated smear.

The Stolen Valor Act, which some judges say abridges free speech, will end up before the Supreme Court. Here's the latest case of "free speech". The Denver Post reporter who previously, in her words, "was duped" by the false claims, reports:

Kevin Grimsinger came forward this summer as a special forces veteran who had lost parts of his legs in Operation Enduring Freedom. I wrote about him in July when he led the movement in Colorado to qualify veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder for medical marijuana.

As it turns out, the double-amputee didn't serve in Afghanistan and wasn't injured by a land mine, as he claimed. Records show his military service ended a decade before he said he was hurt fighting in Kandahar in 2001.

He was, in fact, paralyzed as a civilian in a crash on a mountain road in Southern California where, as he now tells it, he was trying to kill himself....

For his aunt in Northglenn — the first to speak out about his history — it's a classic case of stolen valor.

"It's not right that he's living his life pretending to be some kind of war hero," said Linda DeBruyn, whose husband and son are war veterans....

Slingers, as the 42-year-old likes to call himself, moved to Denver some time around 2003. He since has misrepresented himself to the Denver Mayor's office, which appointed him to a special commission. He pulled one over on state lawmakers when testifying earlier this year. And he hoodwinked medical-marijuana advocates who were all too eager to wheel him forward as a valorous poster guy.

He has misled about 200 people participating in a veterans outreach program he runs at Budding Health, a pot dispensary in Denver. Most folks there and at VFW Post 1 — where Grimsinger was a quartermaster — know him as the guy whose legs were blown off in Afghanistan.

"Holy crap. Holy crap," VFW commander Izzy Abbass said when learning Grimsinger's history. "This just detracts from what everybody else endured and suffered."

Are all Americans entitled to equal protections under the law? Of course, except if relying upon the current leadership of US Department of Justice. Reluctantly, only after misrepresentations were made to Congress by officials of the US Department of Justice, the chief of the DOJ’s Voting Rights Section – with over three decades service in the DOJ -- claimed whistleblower protections to spill the beans to Congress the US Commission on Civil Rights.

In his testimony, Christopher Coates, recounting his direct experiences, summed up “the hostility in the Civil Right Division (CRD) and Voting Section toward the equal enforcement of some of the federal voting laws.”:

What I am pointing out is that I believe that some minorities are just as likely to resort to lawlessness in the voting area as are some whites….In our increasingly multiethnic society, that [ignoring minorities’ breaking of electoral laws] is a clear recipe to undermine the public’s confidence in the legitimacy of our electoral process….We do not have the discretion to decide not to enforce the law based upon the race of the perpetrators or the race of the victims of the wrongdoing. Those discretionary decisions cannot constitutionally be based upon race.

Another Voting Rights Section attorney who resigned to blow the same whistle comments, “My profession has not seen a hero like Coates since the giants of the civil rights movement convinced the courts to eradicate legal racial discrimination. Coates has dedicated a lifetime to following in their footsteps, to ensuring free access to the ballot.”

I just checked Google news. No MSM coverage yet. I just checked another major aggregator of news wires. No coverage yet. Surely there will be, some. That is not enough.

It is up to the voters in November to see that there’s a Congress which conducts proper oversight of the Obama Justice Department, to ensure equal justice for all.

As the anti-Democrat tide gets stronger, many Democrat office holders have been clinging to their offices ashore by resorting to the race-card - that those who differ from them must be racists.

In mid-August, when no one else was paying attention to this contest, I wrote about the congressional race in California's 47th district in Orange County. A seemingly entrenched Democrat, Loretta Sanchez, has the advantage of a preponderant Hispanic and Democrat constituency. Her challenger, Van Tran, has waged an uphill battle to within striking distance, Sanchez 45/Tran 43 in one poll. The consensus of experienced poll-watchers has moved the race from solidly Democrat to weak Democrat, and the tide keeps turning.

I wrote in mid-August that "The race has not, yet, overtly become an ethnic battle – and shouldn’t" but in desperation Loretta Sanchez has now pulled the race card.

Loretta Sanchez went on Spanish-language Univision TV to tell Latinos "Those Vietnamese and GOP are trying to take away our seat from us."

No, Loretta, the seat does not belong to any ethnic group or race. The seat belongs to Americans who want representation in their and the country's interests.

Van Tran's campaign emphasizes those interests:

1. Stop the wasteful spending.
2. Cut taxes so that small businesses can create jobs.
3. Reduce excessive regulations on small business.
4. Stand up to the special interests in Washington.

Here's Van Tran's website.  Please contribute, send a message against the race-card, and send Loretta Sanchez out with the tide. Van Tran is proud to be an immigrant who treasures America.

H/T Breitbart TV

In the run-up to the 2006 elections, I posted a widely followed debate among some prominent bloggers about – in light of discouragement or disagreement with President Bush’s second term immigration, Supreme Court choice, profligate budget policies -- whether to sit out the 2006 election, or start a third-party, or – in my opinion – to bite the bullet and get active against current and coming Democrat excesses. I called the first two positions "conservative battle fatigue." At other forums, like National Review, others joined in.

I’m not from Delaware, moreso from Missouri (“show me”), so looking back over the past four years I’d say we were all correct and all wrong.

Divisiveness and dispiritness among Republicans, coupled with energy and major media hawking among Democrats, led to the 2006 Congressional majority and 2008 Presidency for Democrats. We’ve all paid the prices. The establishment Republicans for the most part continued in their path of feebleness, until the Tea Parties released the energy and eagerness for reform among rank-and-file Republicans and Independents. Then, the Republican establishment was bestirred, kicked in the butt, to jump on board.

The 2010 elections and primaries demonstrated the synthesis of the three views from 2006:  Don’t sit out an election but, instead, change their course by active participation, including overthrowing the more feckless members of the Republican establishment when able.

Now, we have a new debate which essentially pits those either clinging to the Republican establishment, or at best arguing for possibly greater electability in some left-leaning states of a weaker principled Party, against those who are more determined to stem and reverse the Democrat excesses of the past four years and launch a political party rebirth.

Some among the Republican Party establishment, however, go beyond the debate to defection. Florida’s Crist is the prime example, to his rue after being given a hearty attaboy by liberals and his liberal reposturing being rejected in the polls.