#1
Horowitz is brilliant, and spot on in his description of what the America-hating criminals on the left want to do. They can't stand the fact that one of their own, born and bred, rejected their ideology and is now exposing it as a former insider. People like Horowitz are their worst nightmare.
David Frum neatly dissects the political arguments like those we've indulged in here...in the New York Times (!). Via Lucianne.com, so you may or may not have to register. I think it's worth it, if only so that the Grey Lady's advertisers know what actually attracts intelligent readers. A taste:
WHY is the Republicans three-legged stool wobbling? Why arent economic, social and political conservatives pulling together during this primary season the way they have in the past? To understand, lets imagine that we had three conservatives in the room with us and that they said exactly what was on their minds.
The Economic Conservative:
Its not my fault that were in such trouble.
You foreign policy conservatives got us into this endless war in the Mideast. Youve driven up oil prices and busted the budget. And you social conservatives: Your obsession with same-sex marriage makes us look as if were from the Middle Ages.
The Social Conservative:
Youre blaming us? Its our votes that pass your tax cuts and what do we get in return?
Of course you cant understand why we care about the marriage issue. Youre rich and secure and highly educated. The divorce rates for people like you have plunged since 1979. With your big new salaries up there, mothers can quit their jobs and stay home with the children while your illegal-immigrant housekeepers make the beds. Down here, though, its still the 1970s. Our wages are stagnant. Both parents need to work.
The Foreign-Policy Conservative:
Have you people gone crazy? Have you forgotten theres a war on? And that were in real danger of losing? Dont you have any sense of priorities?
#1
Oh, it's just the little thing like a document that begins "We the People of the United States...", not 'We the People of North America', or 'We the People of the United Nations'. Seems a number of those 'Republicans' forgot they took an oath to that piece of paper.
Bill Clinton, with his trembly, red faced rage, makes John McCain look young. His divisive and destructive daily comportmentthis is a former president of the United Statesis a civic embarrassment. It is also an education, and there is something heartening in this.
There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."
That, again, is from one of the premier liberal journals in the United States. It is exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade. This may mark a certain coming together of the thoughtful on both sides. The Clintons, uniters at last.
#1
The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area.
Hillary, skip the high-minded image, and smarmimous go right for the groin after cutting them off at the knees. We'll show these people who they are dealing with. It is our party--we own it.
#3
And once again the left demonstrates it's never been about principle or morality, it's always been about POWER. They were certainly willing to sell their souls to the Clintons if it meant access to power. It's little more than hypocritical to seek a refund now.
#4
Waited too long to register as a Democrat, I fear FL is going HRC. That's bad, huge PR victory and eventually the delegates will be seated.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
01/25/2008 15:43 Comments ||
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#5
They are just now grasping what kind of character the Clintons have.
Oh, they knew that from the start. But it was okay then because the Clintons (and thus the Democrats by proxy) had won the White House and always seemed to be driving the GOP nuts.
Then there was always the possibility of getting someone more acceptable to the Left into office. But that didn't happen - twice.
Now the pair are like the house-guests who won't leave. And the "serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats" aren't happy.
Hillary Clinton's quest for economic justice by Jacob Sullum
During this week's Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said putting together the right kind of stimulus package is "a part of economic justice." The remark reflected a major campaign theme for the New York senator, who has declared she would pursue "a new vision of economic fairness" as president.
That slogan should set off alarm bells for anyone who recognizes that economic outcomes result from myriad individual choices. To impose her vision of economic fairness, Clinton would have to override those choices, compromising freedom in the name of equality.
Clinton's aim is economic equality, not legal equality, and you really can't have both. As the economist and political philosopher F.A. Hayek observed, equal treatment of people with unequal abilities leads to unequal outcomes. In this sense social justice is, if not a "mirage," as Hayek argued, at least in conflict with procedural justice.
So it's not surprising that many of the policies Clinton believes promote economic fairness strike others as decidedly unfair. In 2006, for example, she endorsed a successful Commerce Department petition by Syracuse candle makers to impose a tariff of more than 100 percent on candles imported from China.
"Our manufacturers deserve a level playing field," Clinton explained, "and we owe it to them to make sure that others do not unfairly circumvent our fair trade practices." In Clinton's view, then, fairness demands that all Americans pay more for candles to subsidize manufacturers in her state.
More generally, Clinton advocates "smart" trade rather than free trade, insisting on "strong protections for workers and the environment" that reduce the competitive advantages of foreign producers. She wants "jobs that cannot be shipped overseas," which can be achieved only by interfering with companies' profit-maximizing (and consumer-benefiting) decisions. For her, globalization is not what happens naturally when people are free to exchange goods and services on mutually agreeable terms; it's a process that needs to be "managed properly."
Clinton wants to "curb the excesses of the marketplace," which in her view include not just foreign competition but high salaries for corporate CEOs, risk-based insurance premiums, and foreclosures on the homes of people who fail to make mortgage payments. Intent on implementing her "new economic blueprint," she overlooks the possibility that such practices developed for sound reasons and that arbitrarily limiting or abolishing them might have unintended consequences.
When it comes to fiscal policy, Clinton seems to see herself as a kindergarten teacher "fairly" doling out cupcakes, giving no thought to who baked them in the first place. In a recent New York Times interview she worried that "inequality is growing" and waxed nostalgic for the "confiscatory" tax rates of the post-World War II decades.
Clinton would use higher taxes to pay for universal preschool, universal college, universal health care, and universal high-speed Internet access, among other taxpayer-funded goodies. These she calls "the investments we make in each other," and they are just like investments, except that there is no reliable test of whether they make sense, since the people paying for them have no choice in the matter and are not the ones who stand to benefit.
There's a similar problem with Clinton's proposal to "create millions of new jobs by investing in clean energy" through a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund. When a politician talks about the jobs government spending will create, it's usually a signal that the spending cannot be defended on its own merits. A Strategic Thumb Twiddling Fund could create millions of new jobs too.
In the Times interview Clinton suggested that as president she would be prepared to ram through her economic program on straight party-line votes. "If you really believe you have to manage the economy," she said, "you have to stake a lot of your presidency on it."
The history of central planners and their failures suggests a different lesson: If you really believe you have to manage the economy, you shouldn't be president.
#2
While I despise the woman and firmly believe that she's at least a socialist if not an outright communist, and has only her own best interests in mind rather than America's or Americans, I'm not so certain we have all that much to worry about.
President's have a great deal of power, yes, but they can only propose law, not make law. Despite what Hillary might think Congress makes law and she can only suggest,cajole, blackmail, and coerce Congress critters to do her bidding.
However, every 2 years we, the American voter (as opposed to the American "people" who don't vote), get a chance to tell Congress that they failed to rein in a President who exercises to much power or has done to much damage.
And every 4 years we, the American voter, get a chance to toss a President out on his or her ear.
I don;t know if many people have noticed this, and it never fails to raise the ire of those on the left, but if Hillary is elected for even 1 term, we will have had a Bush or Clinton in office for 24 years straight (assuming Hillary survives her first 4 years and does not get elected again, otherwise it'll be 28 years (4 for Bush 1, 8 for Clinton I, 8 for Bush 2, 4-8 for Clinton II)). That's longer than FDR served. Those are not Presidency's, those are Dynasty's.
This country does not need Dynasty's. We fought a Revolution to throw off the yoke of a dynasty. Nobody, no matter what they might think or who they might be, deserves to be President of the United States of Anerica. Such "visions" are neurotic and possibly psychotic or sociopathic at least. Such delusions are typical of such people as Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Castro. It's a psychosis seen in hereditary and dynastic rulers of the past. I'll never vote for another Bush or Clinton as long as I live because, while I like our current President very much, we do not need dynastic government in this country.
"We must not turn the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson
In his State of the Union address next week, it is imperative that President Bush push for the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Setting aside foolish partisan politics and ad hominem arguments, FISA is necessary for the national security of America and the safety of Americans.
FISA is the law that governs gathering foreign intelligence information. Last year, when the CIA and intelligence community announced there were gaping holes in our ability to track overseas terrorists, Congress acceded to the president's call for immediate action to fix and update the law.
Over 90% of global Internet traffic, and countless phone calls from one foreign country, say, Iran, to another foreign country, say, Afghanistan, pass through America. The question becomes whether our government can monitor such calls that involve suspected terrorists without first filling out the paperwork for a warrant. The fix did that.
But Congress only gave the fix a shelf life of several months, so it would have more time to debate the issue and revisit it later. That statutory fix is about to expire, and Congress must do something about it. The president should call for FISA reauthorization in his State of the Union, and demand that Congress swiftly comply with it.
The bill accounts for new technologies such as cell phones and the Internet that were not around in 1978. Technology changes rapidly, and this law permits our Intelligence Community to respond rapidly when our agents are trying to track movements and communications of suspected terrorists.
The fundamental divide here is war versus law enforcement. Some refuse to acknowledge there is a divide, while others understand that they are two different government functions.
Some look at the idea of a war against a global network of terrorists as merely law enforcement. This view consists of catching the "bad guys" after they do something bad, giving them a court trial with due process, and an American lawyer paid with taxpayer dollars, and American prison care when convicted.
Others understand that a war is a conflict between two powers with different beliefs and ideologies, and that lives are lost and sometimes nations are destroyed by not devoting the necessary resources to defeating a wartime enemy.
This distinction is critical because law enforcement is unavoidably backward-looking. Courts are designed to punish people only after they do something wrong. Wartime national security is about preventing terrible things like devastating attacks that kill thousands of people from happening in the first place.
We are at war. Destroying two skyscrapers and part of our military headquarters are not just criminal acts. Killing 2,973 people in a planned attack is not just a criminal act. These are acts of war. While law enforcement is to maintain harmony within our culture, war is to protect our culture from being eradicated.
Those who don't want our government to have such powers think rights bestowed to U.S. citizens by their Constitution and civil laws also should be extended to enemy combatants. The irony that these combatants want to destroy us because of our Constitution and civil laws is given no weight.
Those who favor the government having this power believe that America is something special, and that our Bill of Rights is designed to protect Americans' rights in a special way. Thus, those who seek to destroy our form of government through military action must be deterred with military action.
Americans must treat all human beings with respect. Our traditions and our laws recognize the dignity of the human person and the universality of basic human rights. But as a general matter, our civil and political rights apply differently in a foreign context. Some of those rights are conferred as a matter of policy and of statute, not because of a command of the Constitution.
Government power over us is limited because "We the People" are sovereign over our government. But that is not true for every person on the planet. The Constitution is written by "We the People of the United States," not the people of the whole world.
Therefore the Constitution secures various rights to our citizens as a check over our own government so that we can live free and safe in America. Some of those rights are applied differently to foreigners overseas.
The foremost job of the president of America is to protect Americans. His most important responsibility is as commander-in-chief, vested with executive authority to use our military and other resources to defend the American homeland, protect our national security interests, and safeguard the lives of all Americans.
Justice Jackson once famously said years ago that the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact. Denying our government the wartime power needed to track our terrorist enemies because of the Fourth Amendment would make it just that. America deserves better.
Mr. Blackwell, a fellow at the American Civil Rights Union and the Family Research Council, is a contributing editor of Townhall.com and a member of the NRA Public Affairs Committee.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2008 00:13 ||
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#1
The biggest problem we have with intelligence agencies continually demanding more authority and power is not just that they cannot resist abusing their power, it is that there is no reasonable end to the power that they demand.
No amount of surveillance is enough to dispel fear, or more appropriately, paranoia. Combine that with a voyeuristic sense, and the end result is the collection of vast amounts of useless data, a tidal wave of useless trivia, in which there is an ounce of important information, indistinguishable from the rest.
If you insist on capturing the tidal wave, you will invariably miss the ounce. "But we *have* to collect the tidal wave", misses the point. No, they don't.
Before 911, the NSA unashamedly demanded the right to keys for all computer encryption. The reason was economic, that billions of dollars could be covertly transferred between nations for nefarious purposes, out of sight of government.
It most certainly was a national security issue, and one in which they had a legitimate, if futile, need to break codes. Paradoxically, it was so impractical a demand, and yet, they hoped that a law would be passed in their favor.
But how do you demand the keys to everyone's computer? The NSA had to have the support of the public for such an invasive control. So instead of telling the truth, they made a rare, public announcement. They needed access to all code keys to "prevent child pr0n". Something that has nothing to do with national security.
The final result was that they did not get their immense power. But, in the final analysis, they didn't need it. Simply monitoring the ordinary flow of business money was quite enough to prevent what they were afraid of.
Perhaps it is the same with FISA. For all their hue and cry that obtaining warrants for searches is a terrible burden, in truth, it isn't. For the most part, international terrorists are fairly easy to track, as are their communications. And efforts at domestic terrorism are much the same.
The tools they had were sufficient, they didn't really need any more. And more tools just meant a lot more useless data to have to slosh through, to find that same ounce of important data.
#2
The tools they had were sufficient, they didn't really need any more.
The tools they had were a hammer and a chisel. What they needed was a powermeter and a soldering iron.
You overlook the degree to which they could be held legally responsible for using tools other than a hammer and chisel under laws developed before electricity came into regular use.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not cease to amaze even the most cynical of his critics. Mr Singh's decision to reward the families of jihadis killed by security forces in Jammu & Kashmir is the latest manifestation of his 'Muslims first' policy of appeasing fanatics while debasing the Indian state.
During a visit to Jammu & Kashmir last year, he had admonished jawans and officers, who have been keeping separatists at bay by paying a terrible price in terms of loss to life and limb, and sternly told them that he would not tolerate "human rights abuses".
Such touching concern for 'human rights', of course, has never been expressed by Mr Singh when innocent men, women and children are butchered by those for whom his heart bleeds so profusely. jihadis are ruthless and rabid; they owe allegiance to groups that promote mass murder in the name of Islam; they are often trained and armed by Pakistan's ISI; they are inspired by the fetid ideology preached by madmen like Osama bin Laden and his psychopathic admirers, among them Maulana Masood Azhar; they have nothing but contempt for secular, democratic India; and, they repudiate everything that this nation stands for.
Death is their just desserts. To reward their families, therefore, makes no sense, unless the Prime Minister wants to send out the message that it pays to wage jihad against India. This may fetch him popularity among jihadis -- now there is added incentive for them to indulge in their cruelty apart from the promised pleasures of heaven -- but it can only repulse those who do not subscribe to their warped faith and see no merit, religious or otherwise, in the slaughter of innocent people.
Contrary to what the Prime Minister has claimed, this largesse for the families of jihadis is not about creating a "new future in Jammu & Kashmir". It is about pandering to those elements in Kashmiri society who shamelessly flaunt their support for Pakistan and rejoice every time our security forces suffer loss of lives or Hindus are killed.
Since the promised reward comes in an election year, it is also an attempt to garner Muslim votes, although, as this newspaper has stressed more than once, appeasing jihadis and fanatics in the guise of 'Muslim welfare' is grossly unfair to India's Muslims because an overwhelming majority of them have nothing to do with those who rob the Prime Minister of his sleep.
What makes Mr Singh's decision particularly loathsome is the official neglect and apathy that have reduced lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits, forced to flee their homes in Kashmir Valley by those whom he now wishes to reward, to penury and worse in their own country. Last year the Prime Minister decided, against the advice of the Army, to pull out troops from their billets and camps in Kashmir Valley just because the separatists wanted it so. As if that were not bad enough, he now wants to 'compensate' the deaths of those waging war against India.
What's next on Mr Singh's agenda? To reward criminals who die in police encounters? That would be a logical extension of his appalling 'new future' doctrine.
This decision has to be rescinded; the Government of India cannot be held hostage to the remarkable proclivities of someone who has clearly lost sight of what is good for the nation. The public exchequer is not meant for underwriting an accidental Prime Minister's outrageous policies. Much as Mr Singh may find this difficult to believe, India is not Tughlaq raj.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/25/2008 15:41 ||
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This is a long, well researched, troubling look at the man who seeming is responsible for the firing of Islamist extremist expert, Stephen Coughlin at the Pentagon
By Claudia Rosett
In the sorry tradition of shooting the messenger, the Pentagon is cashiering its top expert on Islamist doctrine, Stephen Coughlin. Some members of Congress are now contemplating hearings to ask why. Along with drawing attention to Coughlins research, now circulating on the Internet, the growing controversy has thrown a spotlight on Coughlins alleged nemesis at the Pentagon, a top aide named Hesham Islam whose tale deserves closer attention. Not least, as a reporter for the Armed Forces Press Service observed last year, it would make a great Hollywood blockbuster.
Certainly there are subplots here that seem made for the movies, including tales of Islam, in his youth, living through an air raid in Egypt, a ship sinking in the Arabian Sea, and now, years later, this scuffle under the Pentagon rug over how to deal with the chief threat to America today Islamic extremism.
Hesham Islam is a native Arabic speaker, a Muslim, born in 1959 in Cairo and schooled in Saddam Husseins Iraq. In 1980 he immigrated to the U.S. From 1985-2005 he served in the U.S. Navy, rising to the mid-level officer rank of commander. At some point after former defense-industry executive Gordon England joined the Bush administration as secretary of the Navy, in 2001, Islam went to work on his staff. In 2005, when England, after a stint in Homeland Security took over from Paul Wolfowitz in the Defense Departments number two slot of deputy secretary, Islam came with him.
In Englands office, Islams official title is special assistant for international affairs. In that capacity he pops up as a man-about-town in Washington, making the rounds of embassies. But Islam also works as Englands point man for Pentagon outreach programs to Muslim groups. These include organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, with whom Islam and England have forged ties attending ISNA conventions, and hosting ISNA delegations at Pentagon events, and in Englands office.
Thats alarming to some, such as terrorism expert Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, who, for more than a decade, has been tracking Islamic extremist networks in the U.S. In a recent appearance on Fox News, Emerson described Hesham Islam as, in his view, an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators.
Emerson was apparently referring to ISNA, named last summer by the Department of Justice as a member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity indicted in 2005 in Dallas federal court for allegedly providing millions of dollars to the terrorist group Hamas (itself an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood). ISNA, in a press statement, says it remains unjustly branded by the government as an unindicted co-conspirator. (The Holy Land Foundation case resulted in a mistrial last fall, and is expected to be re-tried).
But whatever Emersons worries, Islams boss, Gordon England, apparently cant praise Hesham Islam and his work enough. In public statements over the past year, England has described Islam as my personal close confidante, my interlocutor, a man who represents me to the international community, and assists me in my own outreach efforts. Photos taken on the Washingtons diplomatic reception circuit show England and Islam side-by-side, chatting up contacts. Last October, England described Islam to a Pentagon in-house reporter as a man with wonderful friendships and relationships which allow Islam to give me extraordinarily good advice in dealing with countries and people. England added, I take his advice, and I listen to him all the time.
As for the Pentagons soon-to-be-evicted Stephen Coughlin, who sits well below Islam on the Defense totem pole he is a lawyer by training, and a major in the U.S. Army Reserve. On contract with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Coughlin made it his mission to set aside the feel-good assumptions about Islam which have been guiding U.S. strategy, and take an unblinkered look at facts.
. . . (warning: spoilers ahead). As many have noted, its sort of The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla. A bunch of vacuous twenty-something hipster doofuses are at a party in Lower Manhattan when a critter that looks like a cross between Godzilla and a praying mantis attacks the city. The whole movie is shot from the vantage point of the most doofussy of the doofuses, who carries around a very bouncy camera and films everything thats going on. My movie theater actually posted a sign warning that the visual effects may induce nausea or vertigo.
The film mostly succeeds in making you feel like youre watching all of the crunching and munching unfold in front of you (the video is supposed to have been found by the military at some point in the future). The technique is less plausible than in The Blair Witch Project but believable enough for you to want to shout, Turn off the dang camera and run!
The response from many critics, particularly Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, has been dismissive. Its Godzilla for the MySpace generation and nothing more. Rightly noting the superficial insubstantiality of the hipsters, Dargis quips, Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm.
The problem with the its-just-a-Godzilla-movie line is that Godzilla wasnt just a Godzilla movie either. The original 1954 Gojira renamed Godzilla for American audiences was a deeply significant film. It came out less than a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a mere two years after the formal end to American occupation, and amidst an enormous controversy over a Japanese fishing boat damaged during American nuclear testing in the Bikini Atoll. The film conjured the imagery of WWII air raids, and it evoked the feeling of powerlessness that came with the defeat and occupation at American hands. Audiences were traumatized by the film. Theres a reason why Godzilla is the most enduring Japanese pop-culture symbol in the world, particularly in Japan. Obviously, later Godzilla movies were silly affairs, and if theres a Cloverfield 7: Bug-Lizard Meets Frankenstein, that will be silly too.
But this movie is not. Self-consciously evocative of 9/11 its set near ground zero Cloverfield portrays self-absorbed young people who are suddenly yanked out of their comfortable lives. In the first scene where the monster is revealed, the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty comes screaming out of the sky. Thats hardly subtle symbolism for the end of America, or at least the end of America as we know it. The military is portrayed as caring, competent, and brave as it battles a monster who is, in the words of one harried soldier, winning.
The handheld-camera gimmick allows for a before-and-after effect in that the horror is being recorded over an old tape of the protagonist and his girlfriend on a carefree day capped by a trip to Coney Island. After the depressing denouement is captured on the tape, it reverts back for one last scene from the Age of Innocence. The young lovers are figuratively on top of the world in a Ferris wheel, talking about what a great day theyve had.
The message of the film is that such youthful feelings of permanent bliss can be rendered an illusion in an instant. In the wake of 9/11 and with the very real possibility that the first city to be nuked after Nagasaki and Hiroshima may well be New York, that strikes me a message worth pondering, even from a Godzilla movie.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/25/2008 08:14 ||
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#1
Another interesting thing about Godzilla was that as Japan turned to nuclear power Godzilla became more and more of a good guy. Possibly a coincidence because they were dumbing them down for kids by then but fascinating none-the-less.
#3
Great, Jonah. Now tell us the meaning of Gamera, Prince of Space, and Invasion of the Neptune Men. Oh, and what's the deal with Mothra? C'mon, really: a giant moth?
The handheld-camera gimmick allows for a before-and-after effect in that the horror is being recorded over an old tape of the protagonist and his girlfriend on a carefree day capped by a trip to Coney Island.
#4
Good catch Angie.
Why I won't see it (that is even before I heard about the camera work) is that scene in the commercial where the head of the Statue of Liberty flies through the air and hits the corner of the building, and there is a big explosion - what exploded, the stone? the copper?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
