As soon as this happens retire.
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When last in Israel, we visited the Absorption Center, met with students and their parents learning to live in the 21st Century. Unbelievable experience and theirs more so.
This is not the Apartheid nation Carter and his disciples would have you believe. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pghLDeMtHvY
Israel's political system is imperfect, Israelis are prejudiced but it is the only, the only, Democracy in the Middle East and is an example for all the world with all its flaws.
I doubt anyone can say that about any nation where Muslims and Arabs predominate.
So let's see what happens after the election from the Obama Administration as the Israeli Palestinians talks break down as most always thought they would. (See 1 below.)
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Slavery still exists in this nation and takes many forms. Blind stupidity is one of them and there is no social justice.
Government's specious pursuit of 'fairness' has the appeal of honey and the sting of a deadly bee. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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The latest issue of The Naval War College Quarterly has several articles on U.S. fleet vulnerability to eventual Chinese missiles as well as aircraft fixed positions on Okinawa.
The Straits of Hormuz are narrow and our fleet could also be subject to risk from Iranian swift boats, torpedoes and missiles should a confrontation ensue. Not that I believe one will because Obama is more interested in backing down, as evidenced by his strategy and pronouncements vis a vis Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our current Commander in Chief seems happy to take a page from Viet Nam and Xerox it. (See 3 below.)
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Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles mount. (See 4 below.)
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Justice Thomas' wife, Ginny, called Anita Hill and asked her to 'fess up' but Ginny might as well go to Jerusalem and talk to The Wall.
I read Thomas' autobiography and urged everyone to do so. Very poignant and sweet story about a man's love for his grandfather.
I suspect if you read it, you will agree that Hill did not tell the truth because she was very angry at Thomas for the way she believes he did not recognize her 'talent' and support her in her eager quest for promotions. Hill proves, in my mind, that saying: "hell hath no fury as a woman scorned."
That said, I do not think is wise of Ginny to resurrect old wounds because her own political activism could already hurt Thomas' ability to be seen as rendering fair decisions.
I can understand Ginny's angst but Hill is not the kind of person who is likely to fess up to anything. (See 5 below.)
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Doping out what the Supreme Court may do with respect to Obamascare! (See 6 below.)
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Who determines the road to be taken by the Republican Party. I don't know a lot about Gov. Daniels but his record is quite commendable. (See 7 below.)
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Barny's staff member apparently learned his obnoxious behaviour from his boss. Boston has imposed Barney on the nation for 30 years. Isn't it about time they switched to an educated Marine? (See 8 below.)
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Blame them incorrectly wired chump change suckers! Will it work to blame those whose votes you need? Since our messiah president can do no wrong obviously it is you that does not get it!(See 9 below.)
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Dick
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1)Obama and the Coming Palestinian State
What if the president abstains from a Security Council vote establishing one?..
By JOHN BOLTON
Direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, for 21 months the centerpiece of Obama administration Middle East policy, are moving inevitably toward collapse. The talks may limp past our Nov. 2 election, but they are doomed to fail.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) fully understands that the talks—and the "two state solution"—will fail. It needs a plan B. Accordingly, several ideas are circulating to skip bothersome negotiations with Israel and move immediately to Palestinian "statehood."
Two different tactical approaches have emerged. In one, the PA would persuade the United States to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, within the pre-1967 cease-fire lines (often characterized, wrongly, as "borders"). The other option would have the United Nations Security Council call upon U.N. members to recognize "Palestine" within those lines. Critical to this second tactic is a U.S. commitment either to support such a Security Council resolution or, at a minimum, not to veto it.
In many respects, these and related gambits hearken back to the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) 1988 declaration of statehood, which was recognized by dozens of U.N. members, including many in Europe. The PLO then tried capitalizing on the declaration by seeking membership in U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization, which require members to be "states." In this way, the PLO sought to create "facts on the ground" in the international arena that it hadn't been able to establish through force.
Those efforts failed because of Washington's determined opposition within the U.N. system, and the overall effort faded away. The PLO gained no new legitimacy, although it did change its General Assembly nameplate from "Palestine Liberation Organization" to "Palestine," which passes for substance at the U.N.
This time is different. Once past Nov. 2 and faced with the impending and embarrassing collapse of direct talks, President Obama may well be moved to punish Israel or at least fashion a teachable moment out of his diplomatic failure.
The Obama administration has a jaundiced view of Israel, but actual U.S. recognition of "Palestine" seems a remote prospect in the near term. The domestic political firestorm for the president—already likely to be badly wounded in midterm elections and deeply concerned about his own prospects in two years—would simply be too much.
A more indirect but still effective course is to let statehood emerge through a Security Council resolution. Prior U.S. administrations would unquestionably have voted "no," thus vetoing such a proposal, but Mr. Obama's penchant for publicly pressuring Israel is a foreshadow that Washington may decide not to play its traditional role. While even Mr. Obama is unlikely to instruct a "yes" vote on a Security Council resolution affirming a Palestinian state and subsequent U.N. membership, one could readily envision the administration abstaining. That would allow a near-certain majority, perhaps 14-0, to adopt the resolution.
Israel would then confront a dramatic change in its international posture, facing a political equivalency with the new state of Palestine. What's more, customary international law's definition of "statehood" requires that a putative state have clear boundaries. This is why the potential Security Council resolution would refer to Palestine as a state within the "1967 borders," or some such language.
Border delineation is a zero-sum game. Right now, as in 1988-89, "Palestine" has no real borders, other than those around the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Moreover, Israel has long contended that it would never return to its pre-1967 configuration, and would instead insist on secure and defensible borders. Its extensive West Bank settlements and fortifications are concrete proof of its determination.
A Security Council resolution fixing the 1967 lines as borders would call into question even Israel's legitimacy, dramatically undercutting prospects for security and defensibility. By defining "Palestine" to include territory Israel considers its own, such a resolution would delegitimize both Israel's authority and settlements beyond the 1967 lines, and its goal of an undivided Jerusalem as its capital.
Mr. Obama has unmistakably left open the possibility of defaulting to the 1967 borders. In his September 2009 speech at the U.N., for example, he supported a Palestinian state "with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967."
No one should underestimate the gravity of this threat to Israel's position, although Mr. Obama could eliminate it at a stroke if he chooses to speak out. We will soon see how hostile to Israel he is prepared to be.
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).
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2)The Liberal Elite and Black Intellectual Serfdom
By Chidike Okeem
Recently, while campaigning for the upcoming midterm elections, President Obama engaged in classic liberal race-baiting by demagogically asserting that Republicans are counting on blacks not turning up to the polls. However, despite Obama's agenda in making that assertion, unfortunately, the underlying premise of his comment is accurate: the majority of blacks unthinkingly vote for Democrats in droves.
It is my contention that black people who diligently vote for Democrats are intellectual slaves to the liberal agenda, inasmuch as they, for the most part, are ignorant of the history of the Democratic Party and vote for policies that harm their communities. It is only a black intellectual slave who can observe the impact of liberal policies on the black community without having a scintilla of unease about pulling the lever for Democrats -- election after election.
Black liberals have been cleverly coaxed into believing that Democrats have their best interests at heart because these Democrats no longer don white pointed hoods, lynch people, and burn crosses. With more sophistication than the mass-murdering tactics they employed in the days of yore, Democrats continue to actively perpetuate insidious policies that keep blacks on the lowest rung of the socioeconomic totem pole.
The most prominent method that Democrats currently use to advance their atrocious policies in the black community is the use of black liberal elites as decoys.
Capitalism for the Goose, Socialism for the Gander
Unsurprisingly, the actions -- as opposed to the rhetoric -- of people who promote the "magnificence" of socialism show that they believe socialism is good only for others, whereas capitalism is fit for their lives.
Career race-baiters, like Al Sharpton, would not be doing what they do if there were little to no financial incentive. Fanning the flames of racial division across the country and incessantly calling for socialist handouts for blacks, frankly, would get rather boring without a lucrative $1,000,000 paycheck at the end of the year.
Likewise, Barack Obama has earned millions of dollars in royalties from his two soporific, self-important books, and he plans to continue his book-flogging bonanza by inking another deal for close to $2,000,000 for a children's book series.
Quick question: Why aren't these black men expectantly waiting with their hands out for food stamps from the government?
Sharpton can happily advocate socialist health care and all other sorts of government freebies that sound good on paper but are sub-par in reality because he is a multimillionaire. When he gets sick, he can afford to be treated at the finest hospitals with the best doctors in the world. Champagne socialists would never deign to subscribe to the policies they hypocritically foist on the masses, but the capitalist perks of promoting the "benefits" of socialism to black intellectual serfs is too profitable for a decadent hypocrite like Sharpton to pass up.
Socialism is nothing more than a deceitful left-wing farce that inherently creates a super-exclusive oligarchy under the laughable guise of egalitarianism.
If the Republican message to blacks of "stand up on your own two feet, stop relying on government handouts and benefits, get a stellar education, hone your native skills and talents, and work incredibly hard to make a massive success of your life" is something so extraordinarily depraved, why is it that the elite black left invariably follow the Republican roadmap to success in their private lives while advocating failed socialist tripe for the liberal black intellectual serfs?
From rappers to athletes to academics, every single black person who has made it out of unfortunate circumstances, climbed, and sustained his or her place at the top has done so through hard work and taking advantage of the capitalistic meritocracy in America.
Only mass intellectual serfdom in the black community can present an adequate explanation as to why the myth of "Benevolent Big Government" continues to prevail -- and why the black vote is almost monolithically given to the Democrats.
Uncle Sam: The Black Intellectual Serf's Worst Relative
A basic rule of economics is that if you want more of an activity, you subsidize it, and if you want less of an activity, you heavily tax it. Sadly, what Democrats have been doing for decades is subsidizing every bad action of impoverished blacks.
The most deplorable example of this is the exponential rise in the illegitimacy rate that came as a result of its liberal subsidization.
As was argued by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- a rare sensible liberal -- the subsidization of illegitimacy poses all sorts of problems for the black community, including stymied economic progress, low IQs in children, high dropout rates, crime, and the dismantling of the black family.
Today, as a result of the Democrats' "well-intentioned" welfare policies, we now have a 70% illegitimacy rate in the black community, which will likely increase if the largesse of Big Government is not stopped.
Democrats have successfully addicted black liberals to the crack cocaine of government aid, so like any addict, black liberals keep coming back to the voting booth and pulling the lever for everything with a (D) after its name so they can get that next fix of Uncle Sam's free money.
Meanwhile, Sharpton and his profiteering ilk are raking in millions of dollars while countless blacks are suffering in intellectual slavery -- and are blinded to the fact that they've been robbed of all entrepreneurial vision and power that would allow them to create wealth and lift themselves out of a cycle of poverty.
The Democrat Emperor Has No Clothes
It's been nearly fifty years of failed Democrat policies, and all black intellectual slaves have to show for their decades of cultish allegiance to liberals is worsened poverty, a broken family structure, failing schools, massive black genocide via abortion, run-down communities, perennial joblessness, and almost every other social malady that can be imagined. Yet with recent approval ratings for President Obama remaining steady at 91% among blacks, there is no sign of black devotion to their Democrat oppressors changing anytime soon. Black liberals are suffering from political Stockholm syndrome. These blacks are the Uncle Toms they accuse us freedom-loving black conservatives of being.
The need for Democrat cross-burning in order to keep blacks in the underclass is over. Democrats have succeeded in creating black intellectual serfs who are so swayed by the blandishments of Big Government and the empty anti-capitalist rhetoric of the left that they don't even realize they've been hoodwinked by some of the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism!
Unless black liberals realize they've been the victims of a decades-long election-buying rip-off perpetrated by the Democrats -- and advanced using the cat's-paws of the black faces in the leftist elite -- the black community will remain in the quagmire of despair it has been in since the Democrats started handing black people their scraps to live off.
The black community's allegiance to Democrats is among the most shameful political facts in American history -- and it can be ended only by the articulation of a true conservative message from passionate, intrepid, and ethnically diverse messengers.
2a)Social Justice and Fair Taxes
By Bruce Walker
There is no justice in social justice. The Duke Lacrosse Team was convicted in the court of social justice even though they were innocent and their black female accuser was guilty. Nazis worshiped social justice. In the name of social justice, Nazis persecuted "capitalist" Jews. The Ku Klux Klan wanted "social justice." Although blacks were the Klan's most conspicuous victims, bankers, Republicans, Catholics, and -- again -- Jews were high on the list, too, and the Klan was founded to protect the weak and defenseless...all in the name of social justice. Father Coughlin, the notorious anti-Semite and a victim of Klan violence himself, warned about the wickedness of the rich in his book, A Series of Lectures on Social Justice.
Fairness is the mystic mantra of the left, and so when President Obama responds to extending the Bush tax cuts, he conjures the spirit of fairness. It is hard to argue against the vague, sweet whisper of fairness. Leftists, in tax policy, read fairness only one way: those who earn more pay more. That certainly redistributes wealth from the more productive to the least productive members of society, but is it fair? Fairness, like justice, must transcend democratic majorities, but the fairness proclaimed by the left with its progressive income tax rates is like the social justice.
The snarling face of social justice lies behind the mask of fair taxes. Why should those who earn more pay higher taxes than the rest of us? Do we have some moral claim upon the wealth they create? It is just the opposite: they who produce more have a claim on the rest of us, who consume more than we produce. The titans of industry a century ago -- Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, and the rest -- turned out cheap and high-quality products which were a principal reason for our rise as a great nation. Their personal wealth represented a miniscule part of the national wealth they created.
Men like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, and others lived more to create scientific and technological breakthroughs than to earn money. Indeed, for many of these men, money was simply a tool to allow them to do more good. The same is true today. Microsoft, FedEx, and Wal-Mart created wealth that we consume. These creators, in the equations of economic advantage, owe us nothing at all. We, instead, owe them much. The left's love of social justice does not rest even on the hoary, dull tomes of Marxism. Producers, not consumers, are the exploited in Marxist mythology, and huge chunks of American consumers -- the ones crying for fair taxes -- produce almost nothing.
Most great givers ask almost nothing in return. Mozart and Beethoven received microscopic monetary returns compared to the vast cultural wealth their compositions created. Twain and Orwell gave us incomparably more than the meager royalties from their writings. What is real injustice? Alexander Fleming received little for his quiet work -- the discovery of penicillin. Upper-level bureaucrats or education administrators earn, on the taxpayers' backs, more in a year than Fleming acquired in his lifetime for the life-saving antibiotic.
The fair taxes demanded by the left also ignore the uncomfortable truth that the rich receive less from government than most of us. When the rich send children to private schools, public schools need less money from taxpayers. Wealthy Americans who live in gated communities need less police protection than other Americans. The rich do not need Medicaid, public housing, or welfare. Those who produce little or nothing and who pay almost no taxes gobble up huge amounts of taxpayer-funded services. Our noble instinct for charity governs part of this help for the poor, and charity is a modest, real virtue. But coerced government transfers of wealth are not charity at all. When the serpent slithers into the picture, then the gratitude toward charity felt by the poor morphs into the venomous predator of social justice. Gentle requests for help, so easily touching the hearts of most Americans, become jack-booted demands for "my fair share" when the exploitation of the few by the many becomes a system of prerogative and not of pity.
We should throw a huge caveat on all this dithering about economic fairness: money, like politics, ought to be a small part of our lives. Conservatives know that. It is the leftist misinterpretation of life which paints us all as economic creatures and which considers all things in life, essentially, political. The lust for money, like the lust for political power, ought to be restrained by vastly greater values like truth, love, art, family, and faith.
The jihad for fairness can be seen in its hideousness when we consider that fairness of the sort envisioned by the nightmare of social justice would require that the beautiful young woman be scarred or her beauty loaned in rapine to unappealing (and so "disadvantaged" men). Iron fairness demands that gifted students and gifted athletes be given fewer opportunities than the duller brains or slower bodies of the less blessed of us. Indeed, "fair taxes," like every other evil incarnation of social justice, require brutal war against the creator of our differences, our Creator. Our private, selfish notions of "justice" thrive only in the Hell which we create by banishing God.
Bruce Walker is the author of a new book: Poor Lenin's Almanac: Perverse Leftists Proverbs for Modern Life.
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3)US deploys second air carrier in Persian Gulf with 60 warplanes
United States has posted a second aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Persian Gulf and northern Arabian Sea. The announcement came from the Pentagon Tuesday, Oct. 19, two days after the vessel put into port at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. Sources note this is the first time in two years Washington had deployed two aircraft carriers at the same time - not just one - in waters opposite Iran and Afghanistan.
Facing Iran at the moment therefore is the USS Harry S. Truman which has four squadrons of Hornet and Super Hornet fighter-bombers plus Squadron 116 of early warning, surveillance and command craft, Squadron 131 of electronic warfare craft, two more squadrons of helicopters and one of transports.
The Abraham Lincoln's arrival has raised the number of US fighter-bombers in Iran's neighborhood to 120.
The carrier was accompanied by the guided missile cruiser USS Cape St. George.
The Pentagon announcement was careful to avoid mentioning Iran: US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approved the presence of a second carrier… to provide surge support for coalition forces in Afghanistan "and to support existing maritime security operations."
But the significance of two massive American naval-aerial strike forces opposite Iranian shores was not lost on Tehran. Wednesday, Oct. 20, Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami, Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, came out with this statement: "The enemies of Iran should know the Islamic establishment's red lines and not trespass them."
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4)Iran says higher-enriched uranium stockpile rising
Senior official says Islamic Republic has increased its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, showing it is pursuing sensitive process even as major powers are trying to coax it back to nuclear talks
Iran has increased its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, a senior official said on Wednesday, showing it is pursuing the sensitive process even as major powers are trying to coax it back to nuclear talks.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton suggested last week that talks between six powers and Iran, stalled for a year, could resume at a three-day session in Vienna in mid-November.
Iran welcomed the overture in principle but said it would want to know the exact nature of talks before they can start.
Iran's atomic energy chief said it had not been officially informed of any detailed EU proposal and said enrichment, the key worry for countries which suspect Iran of trying to develop the means to make nuclear weapons – was continuing apace.
"So far almost 30 kg of 20% fuel has been produced," Ali Akbar Salehi, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the student news agency ISNA. "They have not informed us of an official date (for talks). It has just been a media announcement."
Iran, which says it is refining uranium only for an eventual network of civilian nuclear power plants, announced it was refining uranium to 20% fissile purity in February, up from 3.5% previously.
It says the process is needed to power a medical research reactor. Western critics say Iran lacks the means to convert the 20% material into reactor fuel rods and is more likely advancing toward 90% enrichment suitable for bombs.
Iran seeks supply of fuel
An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report last month said Iran had produced 22 kg of 20% uranium.
Talks between Iran and the "P5+1" powers – UN Security Council permanent members Russia, the United States, China, France and Britain, plus Germany – seemed to make headway a year ago on the topic of a nuclear fuel swap but then stalled, leading to harsher international sanctions against Iran.
Abolfazl Zohrevan, deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Monday that talks could resume "as soon as tomorrow" if the subject of the negotiations is made clear.
Iran has said it is willing to suspend its high-level enrichment if it is guaranteed a supply of fuel for its medical reactor, but it insists it has a sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology including an enrichment program.
Washington, Iran's foe since the 1979 Islamic revolution, has led a global push for tougher sanctions on Iran which have been tightened since June, in an effort to force Tehran to curb its enrichment activities.
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5)When will justice come for the Justice?
By Rabbi Dov Fischer
Ginny Thomas and Anita Hill's teachable moment
Justice Thomas's wife, Ginny, calls Prof. Anita Hill at her Brandeis University office and leaves a voice mail that apparently says, according to ABC News:
"Good morning, Anita Hill. It's Ginny Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought, and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day."
The call apparently is left on the phone machine at Hill's office at 7:30 a.m.
Hill reacts by contacting the Campus Department of Public Safety, which in turn passes along the message to the FBI.
Our synagogue congregation just recently emerged from the High Holy Day season, a season of forgiveness. During the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we studied — directly in the text of the Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Teshuvah (Laws of Repentance) — the laws of seeking forgiveness. We considered times when circumstances point to seeking directly from G-d (as when we have transgressed in terms of ritual observance), and situations (as when we have wronged another person) when they point instead, first, to asking forgiveness from the person wronged. There were, through many of the classes and sermons, intelligent questions: "What if we don't ask forgiveness — will G-d forgive us anyway?" "What if we are asked to forgive, but the wrong perpetrated against us makes it too painful to forgive?" There were some really piercing and intelligent questions and some deep discussions. We discussed parameters of forgiveness, even the very tricky and awkward question of how, or even whether, to ask forgiveness if the wronged person does not even know what we did hurtfully behind his back. Sometimes, perhaps in the context of unawareness, it may be best to let sleeping dogs lie.
Here, we see so much of that teaching and those questions playing out in a non-Torah context between two ostensibly accomplished and intelligent women. For our pedagogic purposes, let us assume that the New York Times report is correct — even though we know, from experience, that the New York Times can report incorrectly, too. But let us assume accuracy here.
Is Ginny Thomas forging a bond, seeking to move forward from the past? Is she "reaching out" to Hill, as she has told the newsmedia she is doing? Well, yes, she is reaching out — but . . . in friendship? Or with unresolved anger? Has Ms. Thomas let go of the anger, the resentment of twenty years ago? What is she hoping to accomplish with her phone call? On the one hand, we can say that she essentially meant well, hoping finally to bury the hatchet, or would not have left such a message on a voice machine. On the other hand, Mel Gibson andAlec Baldwin also have left relatively recent messages on voice machines. If they were looking to bury the hatchet, they still — as Garth Brooks once put it - were leaving the handle sticking out.
And what of Hill? If you had received such a message, from a person whose identity you clearly know, someone you know will not conceivably represent a harm to you — even if you never liked her and still cannot stand her — would you respond to it, particularly if the call were once in a decade (rather than part of a campaign of harassing midnight phone calls)? Would you, if you found such a message inappropriate, merely delete it? Or would you call 9-1-1 and wait for the police, and initiate a process reaching an FBI that, we would hope, is otherwise busy monitoring voice messages from Al Qaeda and from local crime mobs?
The story is sad but profoundly instructive. It is imperative for each of us, little by little, to "let go" of the hurt. We Jews believe, in one of our core 13 beliefs gathered by Maimonides as the essence of Jewish faith, that G-d punishes those who have perpetrated wrongfully, and He rewards those who have acted justly. There is no guarantee that He strikes immediately. Rather, He acts in His own good time, whether dropping a surprise cash award on someone's door, or miraculously healing someone ill . . . or otherwise acting. Sometimes he acts a year later, sometimes two, sometimes ten or twenty years later. But He balances all, consonant with the teaching of Rabbi Hillel recorded in Pirkei Avos, who said when seeing a skull floating on the water: "Because you drowned others, you were drowned — and those who drowned you will themselves ultimately be drowned."
So it is incumbent on us to let go of the hurt. It may take time. No one, but no one, has the moral right to tell someone else in the heat of her hurt exactly when to let go of it, but it must be let go. Certainly, the hurt and evil may be remembered. Sometimes, it must never be forgotten. Thus, it even may be taught to others, as we recount every Yom Kippur what the Romans did to our rabbinic martyrs, and as a new generation builds Holocaust Museum to teach what happened in the 1940s. We may hold the memory, refuse to forget, and teach it to others with a determination that, maybe it will happen again, but never again with such abject Jewish silence the world over . . . and, maybe just maybe, if we resist the tendency towards apathy and silence, then maybe it will not happen again so easily either.
But, even then, we must let go. We mourn the sorrow of a parent's death for a year because, sometimes, maybe the pain is so intense that takes a year to let go. But then we move on. We ultimately have to let go.
If we fail to let go, we emerge with an embarrassing dogfight or catfight between people who have attained prominent positions of achievement in our society. If we fail to let go, we cannot reach the zenith of our potential. We cannot perfect our souls to their apex. Warm and loving people around us shy away, while we attract bitter and vengeful friends who listen patiently to our bitterness in exchange for enjoying our audience to hear them rant about theirs. No one enjoys the stereotypically curmudgeonly man or bitter woman.
By contrast, as we let go — yes, remembering and knowing what was done to us and who did it; but moving on with love, warmth, and humor — we attract the kinds of people we most would cherish as friends: people who victories and joys we celebrate, even as they rejoice in our achievements and great moments. And we leave it to G-d Almighty to reckon accounts with a Perfect Justice that only He can mete.
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6)Would the Supreme Court Dare Undo the Mandate?
By Megan McArdle
In the course of an interesting musing about the constitutionality of the mandate, Ezra Klein makes what seems to me to be a slightly odd prediction:
Now the individual mandate is traveling through the courts. A judge appointed by Bill Clinton has ruled it constitutional. A judge appointed by Ronald Reagan has signaled that he might do the opposite. Last week, Bill Dailey asked whether I truly believed the Supreme Court part of this cynical dance. And the answer is yes, I do.
That doesn't mean I think the Supreme Court will rule the mandate unconstitutional. Coming on the heels of Citizens United, that would spark a tremendous confrontation between the Democratic Party, the Democratic president, and the Supreme Court of the United States. There are good reasons for them to prefer avoiding that outcome. They may try to split the difference, offering a limited ruling requiring slight tweaks to the mandate.
But the evidence on past Supreme Court decisions, the heavily political process through which Supreme Court justices are now chosen, and our intuition -- the Supreme Court is full of human beings, and human beings have biases -- should make us very skeptical of claims that the Supreme Court is somehow removed from politics, or that the same partisan forces that turned the individual mandate from a conservative idea into a conservative bete noire are not behind the arguments now playing out in the courts.
To put it slightly differently, I have no concerns about the abstract constitutionality of the individual mandate. Insofar as I have any concerns, they're about the partisan leanings of the Supreme Court's current occupants.
I assume that the Supreme Court will be extremely reluctant to strike down the individual mandate, for a whole host of reasons. But I do not think that political worries will be among them, because the mandate is extremely unpopular. Nor do I believe that the Supreme Court justices will be checked by the fear of "a tremendous confrontation between the Democratic Party, the Democratic president, and the Supreme Court of the United States." Ezra seems to be envisioning something along the lines of FDR's court-packing showdown, which culminated in "the switch in time". This seems unlikely in the extreme, for several reasons:
1.FDR's court-packing scheme failed, blocked by his own party. At the time, one might kinda-sorta plausibly argue that the size of the court had been changed before, and could legitimately be again. But the failure of the court-packing scheme has basically enshrined the nine-member court in public sentiment. Obama has no power to take on the court; all he can do is replace liberal justices who retire with other liberal justices. He may get lucky if a conservative dies on him, but otherwise, he's pretty limited.
2.Beyond that, Democrats are almost certainly going to lose the House, and they may lose the Senate; at best they will only have a very thin Senate majority. This is not enough political power to start a "confrontation" with the Supreme Court, especially since
3.FDR was working with a legislative system that allowed much more centralized control; he essentially needed to get the support of a few powerful figures in each chamber. Moreover,
4.The mandate was the most unpopular part of an unpopular bill. If Obama and the Democrats went to war over this, the confrontation would be extremely politically costly for them, not for the Supreme Court.
5.By the time this actually gets to the Supreme Court, the Democrats may not hold the presidency, either.
The Supreme Court is worried about the legitimacy of its own institution, but I see no evidence that a ruling invalidating the mandate would jeopardize that legitimacy. Yes, it would piss off a lot of Democrats, but I doubt the majority of the court really cares all that much.
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7)Who Decides What’s ‘Beyond the Pale’ of the Republican Party?
By Peter Wehner
In a speech to the Hudson Institute last week, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, in accepting the Herman Kahn Award, spoke admiringly of Kahn. Daniels quoted from Kahn’s 1982 book, The Coming Boom (it can be found near the 27-minute mark): “It would be most useful to redesign the tax system to discourage consumption and encourage savings and investment. One obvious possibility is a value added tax and a flat income tax, with the only exception being a lower standard deduction.” Daniels went on to add: “That might suit our current situation pretty well. It might also fit Bill Simon’s line in the late 70s that the nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose.”
Governor Daniels’s statement was too much for Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, who said:
This is outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought, and it is only the zone of extremely left-wing Democrats who publicly talk about those things because all Democrats pretending to be moderates wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot poll. Absent some explanation, such as large quantities of crystal meth, this is disqualifying. This is beyond the pale.
Grover has given himself quite a task: defining for the rest of us what is “outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought.” What Daniels said is not simply wrong; it is “disqualifying.”
Norquist has been an influential figure in the conservative movement for a generation, but his response to Governor Daniels is almost laughably self-important. He acts as if he were speaking ex cathedra. There is an imperiousness and intolerance to Norquist’s words, an effort to shut down debate rather than to engage it. This approach shouldn’t be used in any case — but to employ it against arguably the nation’s most successful governor is very unwise.
As this article in Human Events (!) points out, Daniels’s record as governor is extremely impressive and quite conservative, from job growth to championing free-market reforms to limiting the size of government to cutting taxes. (Daniels did raise taxes, but overall, Human Events points out, “the tax cuts far outweighed the increases.”)
I’d add that one of Daniels’s more attractive qualities is that he’s an idea-oriented politician. He’s clearly at home in the realm of ideas, can speak knowledgeable and easily about them, and likes to provoke discussion and different ways of thinking. It may well be that what Herman Kahn recommended in the early 1980s is a flawed proposal, but what Daniels said hardly qualifies as heresy. For Norquist, however, Daniels is an apostate (apparently for the second time). He needs to be read out of the movement. Perhaps the same standard would have applied to Ronald Reagan, who in 1982 signed what at the time was the largest tax increase in American history (the TEFRA tax).
Norquist’s words reveal a cast of mind that conservatism would be better to avoid. It is the kind of attitude that has come to define many modern universities, which are among the most illiberal and intellectually rigid and stifling institutions in America. A healthy, self-confident conservative movement doesn’t declare what Daniels said to be “outside the bounds of acceptable modern Republican thought”; rather, it allows for and even encourages genuine debate and creative thinking, the probing of ideas and holding them up to scrutiny, self-examination, and self-reflection. Let’s leave it to others to employ the tactics found in a George Orwell novel.
Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Vaclav Havel wrote a powerful essay about Eastern Europe. He spoke about a system committed to “eliminating all expressions of nonconformity” and that had become “ossified.” He went on to speak about the greengrocer who has to put a slogan in his window in order to contribute “to the panorama that everyone is very aware of.” This panorama, Havel went on to write, had a subliminal message: “it reminds people where they are living and what is expected of them. It tells them what everyone else is doing, and indicates to them what they must do as well, if they don’t want to be excluded, to fall into isolation.”
Conservatism found such a system repugnant then. We shouldn’t begin to borrow from it now.
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8)Dude, show some respect
By Brian McGrory
Frank belittles members of Congress. He berates Capitol Hill staffers. It’s not that he doesn’t suffer fools; he doesn’t really suffer anyone.
Now that he’s in his first competitive reelection campaign in 28 years, fending off justifiable questions over his role in the collapse of the housing market and a candidate good at asking them, Frank has toned down his act. But as Barney 2.0 learns to say “Please’’ and “Thank you,’’ his longtime partner apparently hasn’t read the updated script.
Let’s go right to the tape, because a sharp-eyed Herald reporter captured it on video. Frank and his Republican foe, Sean Bielat, just ended a debate at WGBH-TV last week, and Bielat was about to talk to reporters.
That’s when Jim Ready, Frank’s partner, approached the group and began snapping pictures. Bielat smiled and lightheartedly said, “You know, we can send you some.’’
“Get used to it, dude,’’ Ready said. “If you want to be a congressman, this is nothing.’’
Bielat said shyly, “Yeah, but you’re with Barney, right?’’
“So?’’
“That’s cool,’’ Bielat responded, turning back to the reporters.
But apparently not with Ready. His face concealed by the camera, he said, “It’s a free country, isn’t it?’’
Bielat, his smile becoming forced, said, “Sure is, if we can get the Congress back.’’ He again turned back to reporters.
Ready gave a taunting laugh and said, “Quit the jokes, dude. You’re not that funny.’’
In the end, Bielat kept his cool far better than, say, Frank might have done. What Bielat could have said, maybe should have said, is that no self-respecting person over the age of 30 should ever use the word “dude.’’
His proper title is “Lieutenant,’’ which is what he was when he retired from the US Marine Corps.
When I called Frank yesterday to ask if he condones his partner goading and mocking an opponent, he told me that “Jimmy’’ is a talented amateur photographer putting together a photo essay of the campaign.
When I asked if Frank planned to apologize for Ready’s behavior, Frank said: “Jim should have broken it off and not responded. But Bielat shouldn’t have initiated the conversation. I don’t see what was inappropriate about taking his picture.’’
I’ll mark that down as a no.
A few moments later, my phone rang again. It was Frank, adding, “Jim’s new to political campaigning. He takes it more personally than someone who’s used to it.’’
After we hung up, Frank called again, saying, “You know, he calls me dude. I didn’t realize that was troubling people. He calls all sorts of people dude.’’
There’s a larger point to all of this. For the last three decades, the political establishments in Boston and Washington have excused Frank’s consistently obnoxious behavior as Barney being Barney. Maybe they’ve done it because he was unique as an openly gay congressman. Maybe it was out of deference for the way he unapologetically and effectively carried the flag for the most liberal of causes. Maybe it was out of fear that he’d train his quick wit and substantial intellect against anyone who happened in his path.
But now voters are looking to D.C. and wondering what has gone wrong in a city and a system that is having such a hard time getting things right. The same character flaws that were forgiven in good times might wear thin when times are tough.
Bielat, an even-keeled Democrat-turned Republican with a Harvard degree, made Ready look foolish this week. The question looms: Will he do the same to Frank next month.
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9)Democrats: It's not Me, It's You
By David Paul Kuhn
It was nearly fourteen years ago. The presidential election was less than two weeks off. Bob Dole was desperate. "I wonder sometimes what people are thinking about, if people are thinking at all," Dole said at a Florida rally. "Something's wrong in America."
Clinton's White House press secretary, Mike McCurry, responded: "In my time in politics, I think it's best not to accuse the American people of not thinking when you're trying to earn their support and trust."
It never helps to blame the voter. It's like a business criticizing consumers for not buying its product. The consumer is always right in politics, like business.
Yet here is President Obama, last weekend, at a Democratic fundraiser: "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared."
You see, amid the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression, voters were rational and informed when they voted Democrats into office. Two years later, as the public prepares to vote Democrats out of office, they're irrational and ignorant.
Democrats have a problem with liberals as well. In late September, the White House sought to rally the base by scolding it. Obama told Rolling Stone magazine that progressive apathy was "inexcusable" and "irresponsible." Vice President Joe Biden said progressives should "stop whining."
In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has tried to make sense of voter disgust. Think of the recession like Christmas presents. Sometimes boys want more presents.
"I was a very selfish little boy, and I was upset that my mother had to go through all this. Whose fault is this? And that's what people are going through. I didn't know who to blame but I wanted to blame somebody," Reid told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
And, of course, cue John Kerry. Democrats' 2004 nominee told reporters in late September: "We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what's happening."
This is politics' self-defeating vice. It's condescending. And from Obama, it upholds the worst stereotypes of the prof-in-chief. It reminds folks of Obama's notorious gaffe in 2008. That small town America "cling[s] to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" because they are "bitter" over their economic state.
Blaming the voter signals weakness. Recall Jimmy Carter's malaise speech. "The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America," Carter said. But the crisis of confidence was also in Carter.
Three decades later, there is a crisis of confidence in Democrats. They are staring down a landslide. And they are digging in, in all the wrong ways.
Democrats are failing to say the "buck stops here." They're passing the buck. And not often, but still too often, Democrats are now asking voters to take some of the blame. Presidents are expected to lead people out of the wilderness, not blame the public for being lost in the woods. Americans don't want to be lectured on how they got lost. They want a way out.
Democrats want a way out as well. But it's not coming. The wave was visible late last year. The tide never turned. Eleventh hour panic has set in. And in their desperation, Democrats have become Dole.
"You inspire by getting people to be excited about something they see happening, not telling them analytically about the condition they are currently in," Mike McCurry told me Tuesday. "When you engage in that kind of psycho analysis of the electorate you are bound to produce an unhappy outcome."
In effect, Democrats are insinuating: It's not me; it's you.
Americans are responding: No, it's you.
Politics is like courtship. A guy asks a girl out. She says no. The guy tells the girl she's irrational, not thinking clearly. What happens? She walks away, more certain in her thinking.
The public is sick of its suitor. They want to try the new guy. And Democrats will not win Americans back by demeaning why they walked away.
David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics and the author of The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma.
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