When All Else Fails Lower Your Standards!

America has not dumbed down enough so get ready for more government intrusion - this time in education?

One day we will look back and realize we were duped sheep being led to the slaughterhouse and then it will all to be too late. So goodbye to the America I once knew.

The radicals, who distrust freedom and believe government solutions are the answer, are in control! To argue otherwise borders on racism and is certainly politically incorrect.(See 1 below.)

Netanyahu will agree to road map conditions but insist on expansion of existing cities. Is Netanyahu willing to bet Palestinian demands will ultimately kill any concessions Israel/he is willing to make? Would not be surprised because, Palestinians always over reach and generally are unwilling to make any meaningful concessions, ie recognition of Israel and elimination of terror, teaching and calling of/for same in schools and media.

Peres never one to remain on the sidelines. (See 2 and 2a below.)

As I earlier predicted Obama wants to squeeze Israel all the way. Strike while the iron is hot.

What we will be witnessing over the ensuing months is increasing Western and American pressure on Israel to make concessions, at the risk of Israel's security, so the West and America can buy the appearance of better relations with Arab and Muslim nations. If it works great but the historical odds are against it because Arab and Muslims are more likely to remain unsatisfied regardless of what they extract and will continue to remain in the cat bird seat with respect to oil.

It is in the nature of their tribal trading mentality, different view of what a deal means, basic core antipathy towards Israel and their own distrust of each other. It all boils down to Arabs/Muslims interpreting any Israeli concessions, under pressure, as a sign of weakness. Therefore, Israeli concessions will not prevent wars against their nation but may well delay them.

The article by John Bolton clearly lays out Israel's few options. (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)

Liberals despise Karl Rove because he beat them but Rove is bright and an astute political tactician and strategist. Government control without competition leads to lower quality and higher cost. I challenge anyone to prove me an instance where that is not so.

When all else fails lower your standards is what drives government bureaucratic decision making because politicians are egalitarian, driven by populism and the desire to garner votes in order to remain in office. Their calculations and estimates are inherently flawed, their words are deceitful and that is why they are politicians. Once in a while a statesman appears on the scene but he is soon trashed as was the Gov. of S Carolina recently for refusing to buy Obama's siren song of money entrapment. (See 4, 4a, 4b and 4c below.)

As Woods described so aptly in "Meltdown" Capitalism is not flawed, automobiles do not kill, hammers do not hit thumbs etc. It is all in their use by humans. (See 5 below.)

Dick

1) Nationalizing Public Education Comes After Health Care
By Lee Cary

After Congress passes a national health care plan, nationalizing public education will be next.


John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends (1988), said something to the effect that Ronald Reagan wasn't leading the (conservative) parade; he was riding the horse that was leading the parade.


Barack Obama is leading the progressive parade, and his wagon is hitched to a team of horses that includes a compliant Democrat Congress, well-funded liberal think tanks, a shill media, and the collective mindset of a progressive movement active since the early 20th Century.


The Great Depression chaos gave FDR the opportunity to dramatically alter the nation's socio-political landscape. Likewise, the implosion of the credit market in 2008 gave the Obama administration the chaos needed to cram down its progressive initiatives with breathtaking speed.


The Republicans have neither the votes nor the collective will to turn back the tide of Obama-style change that represents a mix of socialist and fascist economic policies not new to the planet, but new in their current intensity in America. The Democrats are playing hardball; the Republicans are lobbing mush pounders.


Though not yet in great numbers, some who voted for Obama are now being heard to say that they didn't vote for what's happening. Those confessions illustrate their failure to do due diligence on the candidate of their choice. His intentions were clearly laid out in his campaign documents and in many of his non-primetime speeches.


When the nation was watching, he was all about hope and change, based on a delivery style that hid content vagaries. When more focused interest groups were addressed, his language foretold the sort of change he intended. Consequently, little of what's happened comes as any surprise to those who kept up with the full array of his messages. But few voters had time for that. And the old liberal media had no interest.


So we come to the point where the financial markets, the auto industry and eventually the health care industry will function under the aegis of the federal government. It's clear from his campaign rhetoric what will come next -- America's public education system.


Candidate Obama's language about reforming public education was more emphatic and detailed than his discussion of health care. And, making a case for nationalizing public education will attract broader support than the three previous venues (banking, autos, and health care).


President Obama will proclaim public education K-12 as too crucial to the future of the nation to be left in the hands of volunteer citizen committees, also known as School Boards and Independent School Districts. And, the distribution of school financing is, Obama will say, too dependent on the varying affluence levels among the states, and within their divergent communities. All of America's youth are entitled to an equal opportunity to receive a world class education. Anything less is unfair. Equal opportunity demands equal funding. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see this coming.


The pragmatic case for uniform public education will cite economy-of-scale advantages whereby the federal government will eliminate multiple duplications of effort in a currently over-staffed management equation where every school district constructs its own buildings, buys its own materials, hires its own staff, and manages its own curriculum to its own state's standards. Why not centralize all those processes and save time, effort and money? will be the argument. Works for Wal-Mart.


Large metropolitan school districts that are almost all dismal failures will gladly turn over their responsibility to the federal government. Most teachers and administrators will welcome the opportunity to become GS workers and enjoy the benefits of greater and more equitable pay, plus relocation opportunities without compensation penalties. Many will welcome the end of the politico-educational fiefdoms called school districts.


Compared to the complexity of redesigning the American health care system, rationalizing the nationalizing of public education K-12 will be a snap. Most citizens will see no inherent danger in bringing central planning to public education. After all, central equals public, public equals central. So the argument will go.


Obama will claim that taxpayers will pay less for nationalized education since the increase in their federal taxes will be less than what they're now paying in local school taxes, which will go away. Lower taxes - that'll sell.


What groups will oppose this? Besides home schoolers, that is. They'll be required to meet the same certification standards as national teachers, and jump through bureaucratic hoops that'll eventually dissuade many from being their child's teacher as well as their parent.


Here's one look behind the curtain pertaining to the political philosophy that'll drive the effort to nationalize public education.


John E. Roemer, Professor of Political Science/Economics, Yale University, wrote the following in an article entitled "Socialism vs. Social Democracy as Income-Equalizing Institutions."


"One must not confuse socialism with democracy. Democracy, as I see it, is a set of political institutions (competitive parties, contested elections, etc.), while socialism, defined here, is a property of an allocation. Thorough-going democracy may well reduce inequality, both through the redistribution of income, and through the educational investments in the population that it engenders. It is much less clear what the relationship between democracy and socialism is. My own view is that democracy tends to eliminate inequality of opportunity - this statement must be qualified - but there is little reason to believe it will eliminate (Marxian) exploitation - and, perhaps, even for those who consider themselves socialists, this should not much matter...


Granted that the socialist allocation, given the distribution of skills in the United States today, would bring with it a relatively high degree of income inequality, but under socialism, that distribution of skills would change. If socialism brings the culture and politics that its advocates claim, the skill distribution would become more equal, and so, if one views the problem dynamically, then socialism over time would probably be more income-egalitarian than capitalism with a 31 percent tax rate. Indeed, the high skewness of the distribution of skills in the US is in large part due to inequality of educational opportunity. I sympathize with this response; however, it is only an acceptable one if we broaden the definition of socialism to include a mechanism for the development of human capital in the population (presumably, some kind of equal-opportunity educational system)...


My rhetorical point is that socialism (distribution of output in proportion to the value of labor performed) is not enough. Equalizing opportunities for the realization of skills from natural talents - however that be further articulated - must be of central importance to inequality-averse socialists today...


To press the point even further: equality of opportunity may not be enough. Imagine that the distribution of innate talents is such that an equal-opportunity educational system would still engender a great deal of income inequality. Many would still advocate redistributive taxation, justifiable under the Rawlsian [John Rawls] construal that the distribution of talents is morally arbitrary.

2) Netanyahu's speech: Yes to road map, no to settlement freeze
By Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid




Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will announce in his foreign policy speech scheduled for Sunday the adoption of the road map and the "two-state solution" for settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, according to sources close to the prime minister. The sources said the speech will "revolve around the road map."

Netanyahu will present a few conditions for the implementation of the road map, above all a Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. He will also demand that the future Palestinian state be demilitarized.

The prime minister will propose the immediate renewal of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the basis of a formula that will allow for self-government as long as the Palestinians do not endanger Israel.


In the speech at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, Netanyahu will discuss at length the opportunity that has been created for cooperation between Israel and the Arab states in light of shared concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

Netanyahu will propose a regional process in which Arab states will initiate the normalization of ties with Israel, in parallel to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The final draft of the speech will only be completed over the weekend.

President Shimon Peres is to meet with Netanyahu today to persuade him to adopt more moderate views regarding the Palestinians. Netanyahu is also to submit a draft of the speech to Defense Minister Ehud Barak tomorrow.

In his speech Sunday, at a bastion of Israel's national-religious movement, Netanyahu will declare that the settlements in the West Bank are not an obstacle to peace.

In recent days Netanyahu has asked his aides to collect data on the settlements. Sources close to the prime minister said Netanyahu will not announce during his speech a freeze on construction in the settlements, as the United States has insisted Israel must do.

Channel 2 news reported Wednesday that Netanyahu has evaluated a number of ways of freezing settlement construction, including issuing a temporary (several months) hold on new construction starts in return for reciprocal measures on the part of the Palestinians and Arab states. Another option is declaring a freeze on construction in Jerusalem, or in the settlement blocs, but these are not expected to be mentioned in the speech.

Sources close to Netanyahu maintain that he will try to reach a tacit understanding with U.S. President Barack Obama on the suspension of construction for a specific period of time.

The differences in the positions of Israel and the U.S. on building in in the settlements narrowed in the wake of talks between U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell and Netanyahu Tuesday. The prime minister and his aides presented a proposal to break down the issue of natural growth in the settlements according to various types of construction, such as new building, the expansion of existing structures and the construction of public housing.

A Jerusalem source said the talks, which lasted about four hours, "resulted in a great deal of progress," as a result of the more flexible proposals put forth by Netanyahu on the settlements.

A senior Washington source confirmed that progress had been achieved, but stressed that "our position on the need to cease settlement construction has not been altered at all. The talks were good and we will continue in a few days."

The Prime Minister's Bureau refused to comment.

2a) Peres' offer: State with temporary borders
By Ronen Medzini

Three days before Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, president suggests his own creative solution for Israeli-Palestinian conflict in meeting with EU foreign policy chief. Solana clarifies Europe backs American pressure on Jewish state.


European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Thursday morning with Shimon Peres at the president's Jerusalem residence. Peres, who was expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later in the day, presented his own creative solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



Peres was perhaps attempting to soften the clash over the "two states for two people" principle, which is at the focus of the international pressure on Israel ahead of Netanyahu's upcoming diplomatic speech on Sunday.



"Basically, we can use the second stage of the Road Map – a Palestinian state with temporary borders, under the promise that this would not be the end of the negotiations and the temporary borders would be placed with permanent ones," the president said.



Solana clarified that the EU saw eye-to-eye with the United States in regards to the firm stance presented by President Barack Obama over the diplomatic demands from Israel. He said that the Europeans and the Americans discussed the issue on a daily basis, and expressed his hope that the Israeli government would contribute to the creation of a new reality in the region.



At the start of the meeting the two discussed recent developments in the Middle East, including the results of the Lebanese elections and Friday's presidential elections in Iran, which were defined by Peres as "a real window for a new stage".



Solana responded by saying that he hoped Prime Minister Netanyahu's address on Sunday would include the elements to create a window of possibilities in order to us the advantages discussed by Peres. He added that it was important to maintain continuity on the way to peace and stability in the region.



The EU official also said that the regional component for a solution could develop from the Arab peace initiative, which he said had a good mechanism for this goal.



'Ahmadinejad set off an alarm'
Addressing the upcoming elections in Iran, Peres said that "Ahmadinejad contributed quite a lot to a split in the Middle East, by demonstrating an unhealthy appetite to control. By doing this, he set off an alarm among Arab countries, which have suddenly developed a new approach and proportion, according to which Israel is not necessarily on the negative side, but rather on the positive one.



"Everyone understood that the real problem is on the part of Iran. Perhaps this will also help the Palestinian side by creating greater cooperation on the part of Arab countries."




As for the second point of disagreement between Israel and the international community, the issue of settlement, the president explained that "a population growth does not lead to an economic growth".



"A growth in economy does not depend on the size of lands, but is based on innovations in science and technology. Even is things reach the settlements, as I see it, the Israeli government has committed to not building new ones and has committed to dismantling 22 or 23 illegal outposts. The issue we have yet to agree on is the natural growth, and we must sit down and resolve the issue."





3) Mitchell: Israel also has to withdraw from Golan
By Herb


The regional agreement that the Obama administration is trying to push
forward is not only about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but
also peace between Israel and both Syria and Lebanon, US special Middle East
envoy George Mitchell said on Wednesday, on the eve of trips to both Beirut
and Damascus.

Mitchell's comments came at the outset of a meeting with opposition head
Tzipi Livni that concluded two days of meetings in Israel and the
Palestinian Authority.

After meeting with Livni, Mitchell flew to Cairo. From there he will go to
Lebanon on Thursday, and then continue on to Damascus Friday and Saturday
for his first meetings there since taking up his position in January.

One senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said Mitchell's trip to
Lebanon and Syria was indicative of his overall approach - to talk to
everyone and then "try to move the ball down the field one yard at a time."

While the State Department's Jeffrey Feltman and the US National Security
Council's Dan Shapiro have traveled to Syria twice since US President Barack
Obama was sworn into office in January, this will be Mitchell's first visit
to Damascus and - according to diplomatic sources - indicates an interest in
involving Syria in the new US-propelled process.

In addition, it is expected that while in Damascus Mitchell will try to
gauge the attitudes of Hamas - which is headquartered in the Syrian
capital - toward the recent regional developments. Diplomatic officials made
clear that any meeting between Mitchell and Hamas representatives in the
city was "out of the question."

In advance of Mitchell's visit, Syrian President Bashar Assad sent out
signals that he was interested in renewing negotiations with Israel through
the Turks. Likewise, Hamas head Khaled Mashaal sent out somewhat softer
signals, saying on Tuesday that Hamas would "be a positive force in helping
to find a fair solution to the Palestinian people and enabling them to
fulfill their rights."

Despite Mitchell's visit, the Syrian track is not expected to play a
prominent place in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's anxiously awaited
speech on Sunday at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan
University.

Sources in Jerusalem said Netanyahu was expected to endorse the road map and
give a nod toward a Palestinian state, while making clear that it would have
to be a demilitarized state without the ability to threaten Israel.

The sources said that on the two-state issue, Netanyahu's theme would be
"yes, but," and that he would use the speech at the BESA Center to add
elements to the overall narrative of the conflict that Jerusalem thought had
been missing from Obama's speech in Cairo.

One source said Israel was surprised that Obama, delivering his speech in
Cairo, had not mentioned the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, and that
Netanyahu's selection of the BESA Center to deliver his own address was
designed to underline that peace agreement, which took on an irreversible
momentum after Anwar Sadat flew to Israel and addressed the Knesset in 1977.

Following Netanyahu's speech on Sunday, Israel is expected to embark on a
diplomatic full-court press to push forward his diplomatic program. Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman is scheduled to go to Brussels next week for the
annual meting of the Israel-EU Association meeting, where he is expected to
face difficult questioning from the EU foreign ministers, and also to try to
promote the diplomatic program Netanyahu is expected to articulate on Sunday
night.

From Brussels, Lieberman will go to Washington for his first visit there as
foreign minister. The following week Netanyahu will make his first trip to
Europe since he became prime minister, where he will attend three days of
meetings in Italy and France.

3a) Beware the True Believers
By Mitch Albom


How many members are in your family, your close family, the family that comes to birthday parties or lifecycle celebrations? Ten? Twenty? I bet it's fewer than 40.


How about your friends — your close friends, the ones who call when you're sick, the ones who share vacations? How many? I bet it's fewer than 40.


How about your church, your synagogue, your mosque — people you know there, you shake hands with, you well-wish? Twenty? Thirty? Again, fewer than 40, right?


So imagine, all your family, all your friends or all your religious community. Now imagine if, in one fatal moment, they were all gone.


On Friday, in northwest Pakistan, a suicide bombing killed around 40 people in a mosque. This was during prayer hours. The carnage was so bad, according to news reports, that people saw body parts strewn in amid the rubble.


Everyone in your family. All your friends. That's how many 40 people represents. All wiped out with a single detonation.


Did you even hear about it?


Chances are you didn't. It made the cable news, but didn't lead it. It made some newspapers, but probably not many front pages. Forty people. Dead. Perhaps to someone, it was everyone he knew or loved.


But it was just another event in the bloody quilt of Islamic extremism.


I bring this up, because it happened, in Pakistan, less than a day after President Barack Obama made his ballyhooed speech to the Arab world. In that speech he called for understanding between Muslims and the West. He insisted the United States was not and had never been at war with Islam. He even began the talk with the Arabic greeting "salaam aleikum," which means "peace be upon you."


I wonder who he was talking to. There was no peace Friday in Pakistan. The bombing was reportedly the result of tension between Pakistani authorities and forces sympathetic to the Taliban. In other words, this was Muslim against Muslim murder. In a mosque. During prayer.


If something like that happened in America — 40 people in a church, killed by a suicide bomber — we'd be talking about it for a year. Politicians would decry it. Religious leaders would demand action. You wouldn't go anywhere without the name of the place on peoples' lips, in their conversations, in their tears.


Yet it happens in Pakistan, and I don't see Muslim leaders around the world screaming for this to stop. I don't see Arab world presidents or prime ministers or princes lamenting the bloodshed in speeches that call for an end to the violence.


In fact, there's not a whole lot beyond a few condemnations and the head-shaking acceptance that this is the way it is, the way it has been for centuries and the way it will be for the years to come. Eyes for eyes. Teeth for teeth. Murder in the name of G-d.


With that kind of blind hate and utter disregard for one another, what chance does Obama have of getting similar forces to play nice with us?

NOT ON THE SAME PAGE
Before his trip, Obama spoke about not imposing American ideals on foreign countries. He suggested it didn't work, and I tend to agree with him.


But if you can't impose it, you can't expect it to be accepted by mere suggestion, either. While Obama was talking about peace, love and understanding, Osama bin Laden released an audiotape blaming — who else? — America for the problems in Pakistan.


And then somebody blew up a mosque.


Remember, Taliban sympathizers claim they are aligned with the purest and most stringent form of their religion. These aren't atheists bombing mosques. These are people who consider themselves true believers.


So true, they would kill for it.


It is important for America to have good relations with the Arab world and the Muslim world (not the same thing). But I have always believed that, when it comes to the extreme end of things, we are speaking two different languages. We talk of compromise; they don't know the meaning. We cherish democratic values; they see them as our vices. We talk of peace in this world; they talk about death here, glory later.


In that way, Obama's speech can be analyzed from now until forever. We know at least one person wasn't listening.

3b)What If Israel Strikes Iran:? The mullahs would retaliate. But things would be much worse if they had the bomb
By JOHN R. BOLTON

Whatever the outcome of Iran's presidential election tomorrow, negotiations will not soon -- if ever -- put an end to its nuclear threat. And given Iran's determination to achieve deliverable nuclear weapons, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear program will not only persist but grow.

So what would such an attack look like? Obviously, Israel would need to consider many factors -- such as its timing and scope, Iran's increasing air defenses, the dispersion and hardening of its nuclear facilities, the potential international political costs, and Iran's "unpredictability." While not as menacingly irrational as North Korea, Iran's politico-military logic hardly compares to our NATO allies. Central to any Israeli decision is Iran's possible response.


Israel's alternative is that Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs reach fruition, leaving its very existence at the whim of its staunchest adversary. Israel has not previously accepted such risks. It destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 and a Syrian reactor being built by North Koreans in 2007. One major new element in Israel's calculus is the Obama administration's growing distance (especially in contrast to its predecessor).

Consider the most-often mentioned Iranian responses to a possible Israeli strike:

1) Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. Often cited as Tehran's knee-jerk answer -- along with projections of astronomic oil-price spikes because of the disruption of supplies from Persian Gulf producers -- this option is neither feasible nor advisable for Iran. The U.S. would quickly overwhelm any effort to close the Strait, and Iran would be risking U.S. attacks on its land-based military. Direct military conflict with Washington would turn a bad situation for Iran -- disruption of its nuclear program -- into a potential catastrophe for the regime. Prudent hedging by oil traders and consuming countries (though not their strong suit, historically) would minimize any price spike.

2) Iran cuts its o wn oil exports to raise world prices. An Iranian embargo of its own oil exports would complete the ruin of Iran's domestic economy by depriving the country of hard currency. This is roughly equivalent to Thomas Jefferson's 1807 embargo on American exports to protect U.S. shipping from British and French interference. That harmed the U.S. far more than the Europeans. Even Iran's mullahs can see that. Another gambit with no legs.

3) Iran attacks U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some Tehran hard-liners might advocate this approach, or even attacks on U.S. bases or Arab targets in the Gulf -- but doing so would risk direct U.S. retaliation against Iran, as many U.S. commanders in Iraq earlier recommended. Increased violence in Iraq or Afghanistan might actually prolong the U.S. military presence in Iraq, despite President Barack Obama's current plans for withdrawal. Moreover, taking on the U.S. military, even in an initially limited way, carries enormous risks for Iran. Tehran may believe the Obama administration's generally apologetic international posture will protect it from U.S. escalation, but it would be highly dangerous for Iran to gamble on more weakness in the face of increased U.S. casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan.

4) Iran increases support for global terrorism. This Iranian option, especially stepping up world-wide attacks against U.S. targets, is always open. Assuming, however, that Mr. Obama does not further degrade our intelligence capabilities and that our watchfulness remains high, the terrorism option outside of the Middle East is extremely risky for Iran. If Washington uncovered evidence of direct or indirect Iranian terrorist activities in America, for example, even the Obama administration would have to consider direct retaliation inside Iran. While Iran enjoys rhetorical conflict with the U.S., operationally it prefers picking on targets its own size or smaller.

5) Iran launches missile attacks on Israel. Because all the foregoing options risk more direct U.S. involvement, Tehran will most likely decide to retaliate against the actual attacker, Israel. Using its missile and perhaps air force capabilities, Iran could do substantial damage in Israel, especially to civilian targets. Of course, one can only imagine what Iran might do once it has nuclear weapons, and this is part of the cost-benefit analysis Israel must make before launching attacks in the first place. Direct Iranian military action against Israel, however, would provoke an even broader Israeli counterstrike, which at some point might well involve Israel's own nuclear capability. Accordingly, Iran's Revolutionary Guards would have to think long and hard before unleashing its own capabilities against Israel.

6) Iran unleashes Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel. By process of elimination, but also because of strategic logic, Iran's most likely option is retaliating through Hamas and Hezbollah. Increased terrorist attacks inside Israel, military incursions by Hezbollah across the Blue Line, and, most significantly, salvoes of missiles from both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are all possibilities. In plain violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, Iran has not only completely re-equipped Hezbollah since the 2006 war with Israel, but the longer reach of Hezbollah's rockets now endangers Israel's entire civilian population. Moreover, Hamas's rocket capabilities could easily be substantially enhanced to provide greater range and payload to strike throughout Israel, creating a two-front challenge.

Risks to its civilian population will weigh heavily in any Israeli decision to use force, and might well argue for simultaneous, pre-emptive attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas in conjunction with a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Obviously, Israel will have to measure the current risks to its safety and survival against the longer-term threat to its very existence once Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

This brief survey demonstrates why Israel's military option against Iran's nuclear program is so unattractive, but also why failing to act is even worse. All these scenarios become infinitely more dangerous once Iran has deliverable nuclear weapons. So does daily life in Israel, elsewhere in the region and globally.

Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs' regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran's diverse population against an oppressive regime. Most of the Arab world's leaders would welcome Israel solving the Iran nuclear problem, although they certainly won't say so publicly and will rhetorically embrace Iran if Israel strikes. But rhetoric from its Arab neighbors is the only quantum of solace Iran will get.

On the other hand, the Obama administration's increased pressure on Israel concerning the "two-state solution" and West Bank settlements demonstrates Israel's growing distance from Washington. Although there is no profit now in complaining that Israel should have struck during the Bush years, the missed opportunity is palpable. For the remainder of Mr. Obama's term, uncertainty about his administration's support for Israel will continue to dog Israeli governments and complicate their calculations. Iran will see that as well, and play it for all it's worth. This is yet another reason why Israel's risks and dilemmas, difficult as they are, only increase with time.

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

4)How to Stop Socialized Health Care: Five arguments Republicans must make
By KARL ROVE


It was a sobering breakfast with one of the smartest Republicans on Capitol Hill. We can fix a lot of bad stuff President Barack Obama might do, he told me. But if Mr. Obama signs into law a "public option," government-run insurance program as part of health-care reform we won't be able to undo the damage.

I'd go the Republican member of Congress one further: If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five arguments Republicans must make.


The first is it's unnecessary. Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That's competition enough. The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this. When it was approved, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $74 billion a year by 2008. Nearly 100 providers deliver the drug benefit, competing on better benefits, more choices, and lower prices. So the actual cost was $44 billion in 2008 -- nearly 41% less than predicted. No government plan was needed to guarantee competition's benefits.

Second, a public option will undercut private insurers and pass the tab to taxpayers and health providers just as it does in existing government-run programs. For example, Medicare pays hospitals 71% and doctors 81% of what private insurers pay.

Who covers the rest? Government passes the bill for the outstanding balance to providers and families not covered by government programs. This cost-shifting amounts to a forced subsidy. Families pay about $1,800 more a year for someone else's health care as a result, according to a recent study by Milliman Inc. It's also why many doctors limit how many Medicare patients they take: They can afford only so much charity care.

Fixing prices at less than market rates will continue under any public option. Sen. Edward Kennedy's proposal, for example, has Washington paying providers what Medicare does plus
10%. That will lead to health providers offering less care.

Third, government-run health insurance would crater the private insurance market, forcing most Americans onto the government plan. The Lewin Group estimates 70% of people with private insurance -- 120 million Americans -- will quickly lose what they now get from private companies and be forced onto the government-run rolls as businesses decide it is more cost-effective for them to drop coverage. They'd be happy to shift some of the expense -- and all of the administration headaches -- to Washington. And once the private insurance market has been dismantled it will be gone.

Fourth, the public option is far too expensive. The cost of Medicare -- the purest form of a government-run "public choice" for seniors -- will start exceeding its payroll-tax "trust fund" in 2017. The Obama administration estimates its health reforms will cost as much as $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. It is no coincidence the Obama budget nearly triples the national debt over that same period.

Medicare and Medicaid cost much more than estimated when they were adopted. One reason is there's no competition for these government-run insurance programs. In the same way, Americans can expect a public option to cost far more than the Obama administration's rosy estimates.

Fifth, the public option puts government firmly in the middle of the relationship between patients and their doctors. If you think insurance companies are bad, imagine what happens when government is the insurance carrier, with little or no competition and no concern you'll change to another company.

In other words, the public option is just phony. It's a bait-and-switch tactic meant to reassure people that the president's goals are less radical than they are. Mr. Obama's real aim, as some candid Democrats admit, is a single-payer, government-run health-care system.

Health care desperately needs far-reaching reforms that put patients and their doctors in charge, bring the benefits of competition and market forces to bear, and ensure access to affordable and portable health care for every American. Republicans have plans to achieve this, and they must make their case for reform in every available forum.

Defeating the public option should be a top priority for the GOP this year. Otherwise, our nation will be changed in damaging ways almost impossible to reverse.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

4a)Growth's Rapidly Diminishing Prospects
By George Will

WASHINGTON -- Noting that people "criticize me for harping on the obvious," Calvin Coolidge justified that practice by saying, "If all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves." Consider what individual Americans know they ought to do, and what their government should know not to do.

The nation could subtract from its health care bill a significant portion of the costs caused by violence, vehicular accidents, AIDS, coronary artery disease, lung cancer and Type II diabetes resulting from obesity. All six problems are significantly related to known risky behavior, which can change.

Visa, the credit card company, recently reported a behavioral change that went remarkably unremarked: In the fourth quarter of 2008, for the first time ever, the dollar volume of purchases made with its debit cards -- they deduct funds immediately from checking accounts, rather than allowing card users to carry debt -- exceeded the dollar volume of its credit card transactions.

Suppose Americans begin living within their means. Will this marvel complicate the nation's biggest domestic challenge, the task of achieving and sustaining the rapid economic growth necessary for generating revenues to fund pension and medical entitlements for an aging population?

The nation now is 17 months into the demographic deluge that began in January 2008 when the leading edge of the wave of 78 million baby boomers began exercising the preposterous entitlement to collect Social Security at age 62, as most Social Security recipients do. In 1935, when Social Security was enacted, no one envisioned it supporting most retirees for a third of their adult lives. So, should Americans shop until the boomers drop?

During recent periods of strong growth, 70 percent of economic activity has been personal consumption. If Americans' new sobriety -- more saving, less spending -- survives the first tantalizing green shoots of recovery, can the recovery continue? It will not be killed by moderate thrift, because money saved does not disappear under mattresses; much of it goes into institutions that put it to work. The personal savings rate rose to 5.7 percent in April, the highest since 1995. It was 9 percent during the 1980s boom.

The world economy's condition is so weak that this year global consumption of electricity will decline for the first time since 1945. Using a defibrillator as large as the sum of money being thrown at the U.S. economy will somewhat quicken its pulse. But a patient cannot become healthy attached to a defibrillator. If the economy relapses, three causes might be: protectionism, refusal to allow creative destruction, and rising long-term interest rates.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 ignited reciprocal protectionism that suffocated global trade and deepened the Depression. The cap-and-trade legislation passed recently by a House committee is Smoot-Hawley in drag: It contains provisions for tariffs on imports designated "carbon-intensive" -- goods manufactured under less carbon-restrictive rules than those of the proposed U.S. cap-and-trade regime. Eco-protectionism is a recipe for reciprocity.

The administration's deepening involvement in designing and marketing automobiles through two crippled companies ignores this truth: Capitalism is a profit and loss system, and the creative destruction it produces is supposed to clear away failures like Chrysler, freeing up capital for more productive uses.

Recently, Standard and Poor's noted that Britain's ballooning need to borrow might cost the country its AAA credit rating, which would raise its cost of borrowing. Britain's deficit this year is expected to be at least 12.4 percent of GDP. America's is scheduled to be more than 13 percent. Years of such government borrowing might crowd private sector borrowers out of credit markets and raise long-term interest rates.

Trillions of dollars of capital are being allocated sub-optimally, by politically tainted government calculations rather than by the economic rationality of markets. Hence the nation's prospects for long-term robust growth -- and for funding its teetering architecture of entitlements -- are rapidly diminishing.

The president's astonishing risk-taking satisfies the yearning of a presidency-fixated nation for a great man to solve its problems. But as Coolidge said, "It is a great advantage to a president, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man." What the country needs today in order to shrink its problems is not presidential greatness. Rather, it needs individuals to do what they know they ought to do, and government to stop doing what it should know causes or prolongs problems.

4b) Government 'Fixes' vs. Personal Responsibility
By Cal Thomas

A statue of Ronald Reagan was unveiled last week in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda at a time when many Republicans, and even some conservatives, think Reagan's ideas are passé. Before moving on, Republicans, and those conservatives who don't want to ''live in the past,'' should be asked what better ideas they have to offer.

As the Obama administration and congressional Democrats move quickly with their new power to grab even more power and to build larger, more intrusive and costlier government, they -- and we -- should consider Reagan's thoughts on the ''power of the individual, rather than government power, and peace through strength to keep us free.'' And, ''man is not free unless government is limited.'' And, "concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.''

As government acquires the auto industry and seeks to own healthcare; as it plans to take more money from the productive in order to subsidize the unproductive or less productive; as government evolves from nanny to a cruel and abusive guardian that will rob the individual of incentive and punish those who manage to succeed with crippling regulations and higher taxes, where are the champions of liberty and personal responsibility?

Instead of stories many of us heard as children about people who grew up in difficult circumstances -- alcoholic mother, abusive father, racial discrimination, physical handicaps -- and rose to self-sufficiency, we get messages that say you can't do it on your own and you will never amount to anything unless you place your faith in government.

''You can do it,'' parents tell their children as they urge them to higher levels of achievement. This sentiment used to be found in popular culture, including feel-good films that inspired people to achieve their ideals. Now we punish the successful and make the pursuit of success more difficult because of strangulating government.

Why must government ''fix'' healthcare? Since government does few things well, why aren't better minds than politicians leading the way?

We know what works. It isn't collectivism and government bureaucrats telling us what type of healthcare they will allow us to have; it is individuals employing innovation that will bring transformation. Individuals like the late statistician W. Edwards Deming, who developed his System of Profound Knowledge and his 14 Points for Management guidelines using principles known as ''systems thinking.'' He used them as a consultant to Japanese industry to help several Japanese manufacturers create more efficient workplaces, higher profits and increased productivity.

Why aren't people raising the profile of these solutions, which have cut costs and improved patient care at hospitals that have implemented them?

Some years ago, CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl reported on a jobs program run out of a Harlem housing project in New York City. These were the hardcore unemployed who either had never had a job, or couldn't hold onto one. All were minorities. The leader asked, ''How many think racism is a problem in America?'' Every hand went up. He then said, "So what? Your problem isn't racism; your problem is attitude and that's what we're going to change.''

He taught them how to dress, how to shake hands and look prospective employers in the eye. Cameras followed one woman to an interview. She got the job and began to cry. She had discovered her value and the power of the individual. Government didn't give her that job; she got it on her own. In fact, government had been sending her checks, which caused her to be more dependent on government.

''There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect,'' said Reagan. "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not ruin their lives.''

As politicians prepare to do things for which government has little experience and even less ability, where are the leaders who will again embrace the power behind Reagan's thoughts? It was Reagan who said, ''Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.'' He warned, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.''

4c) America’s Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making
By David Leonhardt

The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II. This debt will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

How can that be? Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, don’t cost the government any money. Others would be partly offset by proposed tax increases on the affluent and spending cuts. Congressional and White House aides agree that no large new programs, like an expansion of health insurance, are likely to pass unless they are paid for.

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: “Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he’s not fixing it.”

“And,” he added, “not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse.”

When challenged about the deficit, Mr. Obama and his advisers generally start talking about health care. “There is no way you can put the nation on a sound fiscal course without wringing inefficiencies out of health care,” Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, told me.

Outside economists agree. The Medicare budget really is the linchpin of deficit reduction. But there are two problems with leaving the discussion there.

First, even if a health overhaul does pass, it may not include the tough measures needed to bring down spending. Ultimately, the only way to do so is to take money from doctors, drug makers and insurers, and it isn’t clear whether Mr. Obama and Congress have the stomach for that fight. So far, they have focused on ideas like preventive care that would do little to cut costs.

Second, even serious health care reform won’t be enough. Obama advisers acknowledge as much. They say that changes to the system would probably have a big effect on health spending starting in five or 10 years. The national debt, however, will grow dangerously large much sooner.

Mr. Orszag says the president is committed to a deficit equal to no more than 3 percent of gross domestic product within five to 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of at least 4 percent for most of the next decade. Even that may turn out to be optimistic, since the government usually ends up spending more than it says it will. So Mr. Obama isn’t on course to meet his target.

But Congressional Republicans aren’t, either. Judd Gregg recently held up a chart on the Senate floor showing that Mr. Obama would increase the deficit — but failed to mention that much of the increase stemmed from extending Bush policies. In fact, unlike Mr. Obama, Republicans favor extending all the Bush tax cuts, which will send the deficit higher.

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, announced a plan last week to cut spending by $75billion a year. But they made specific suggestions adding up to meager $5 billion. The remaining $70 billion was left vague. “The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending,” the conservative Cato Institute concluded.

What, then, will happen?

“Things will get worse gradually,” Mr. Auerbach predicts, “unless they get worse quickly.” Either a solution will be put off, or foreign lenders, spooked by the rising debt, will send interest rates higher and create a crisis.

The solution, though, is no mystery. It will involve some combination of tax increases and spending cuts. And it won’t be limited to pay-as-you-go rules, tax increases on somebody else, or a crackdown on waste, fraud and abuse. Your taxes will probably go up, and some government programs you favor will become less generous.

That is the legacy of our trillion-dollar deficits. Erasing them will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade.

5) Is capitalism fatally flawed:? No. But conservatives should embrace smart regulations, or risk fulfilling Marx's vision.
By Paul McDonnold

Recessions, like hurricanes, leave wreckage behind – bankrupt businesses, high unemployment, and sometimes even tattered philosophies.

The philosophy of economic conservatism has long been one of unquestioned deregulation. Conservatives have considered it as a way of unhooking government leashes that the economy strains against, setting it free to run at full speed and lead us to wealth.

But this philosophy seemed to collapse in the moral and financial wreckage of today's recession. Like many conservatives, I was left facing uncomfortable questions, chiefly: Is capitalism itself fatally flawed? I decided to consult a few past thinkers.

In "The Communist Manifesto" (1848), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels propose that capitalism has inherent weaknesses. Marx said these would lead capitalist economies to collapse and become government-run socialist economies, and eventually utopian systems that he called communist. Today his words sound eerily current, like answers on a Sunday morning political show:

Interviewer: "Mr. Marx, not that long ago, lovers of capitalism pronounced your ideas dead. Now, according to at least one source, we are all socialists. What changed?"

Marx: "It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society."

Interviewer: "Nowadays we call these 'crises' recessions. You predicted that over time, capitalism would become dominated by larger and larger firms."

Marx: "[T]he concentration of capital and land in a few hands."

Interviewer: "And how does this concentration bring on socialism?"

Marx: "By paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented."

Interviewer: "So the bigger firms become, the harder they fall. In the US economy, some firms have become 'too big too fail,' and the government has moved in. As this plays out, what will happen to capitalism?"

Marx: "Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable."

Marx's disturbing words seemed even more prescient to me when I thought about what has happened in the US banking industry.

As recently as 1980, the US was a nation of mostly small- and medium-sized banks. Employees knew, often on a personal basis, both the depositors and the borrowers. Deposits that were not loaned out had to be kept in low-risk investments such as government bonds.

People who claimed the mantle of conservatism dismantled the regulations behind this system. This shook the industry. Through mergers and acquisitions, resources were centralized. The number of banks declined. Huge conglomerates arose and created the complex world of global finance that later collapsed. This is capitalism's dark side of impersonal corporations, recessions, and class conflict.

Another famous thinker, Adam Smith, saw a different side of capitalism. Seven decades before the "Manifesto," he wrote "The Wealth of Nations," about the capitalism of his day. It was one of small, decentralized firms – butchers and bakers. The driving force was not blind greed but a healthy interest in improving one's own lot by helping others. It was a capitalism that looked a lot like the banking sector before deregulation.

Marx and Smith each saw a piece of the truth – two different sides of the coin of capitalism. Capitalism itself is not fatally flawed. But a hyperconservative approach to it is. Regulations that promote decentralized competition on a human scale are regulations that conserve Smith's side of capitalism. These regulations should not be the enemy of conservatives; they should be our aim.

Many conservatives will want to stick to the dogmatic ideological line of deregulation. But the capitalism produced by blind support of deregulation is one of bureaucratic corporations, greed-fueled booms, and fear-riddled busts. If conservatives do not embrace regulations that preserve Smith's capitalism, we might just wake up one day to see it gone and socialism in its place, just as Marx predicted.

Paul McDonnold is a freelance writer. He has taught economics courses at several universities.