King: Obama's 'Iron Curtain' [Robert Costa]
Rep. Peter King of New York, the leading Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, tells National Review Online that the Obama White House has built an “iron curtain” around national-security information in order to block Congress from investigating Northwest Airlines Flight 253. “This administration is not cooperating,” says King. “They have a stonewalling mentality.”
The Obama administration’s handling of the Christmas Day terror plot has been “schizophrenic” says King. “It’s reflective of their handling of other incidents. They still haven’t given us any information on Fort Hood. Even with the gate crashers, they’ve refused to give us on information on communications between the White House social secretary and the Secret Service. They’re giving us nothing and Democrats in Congress are very reluctant to have any meaningful investigations.” Politics, not national security, is driving these decisions, says King. “They’re holding back because they don’t want to share embarrassing material.”
Obama, says King, “can’t seem to find a balance” on national security. “He’s done a good job on Afghanistan and the Patriot Act yet on the other hand he’s wrong to close Guantanamo Bay, wrong to try 9/11 cases in civilian courts, and certainly wrong to send Gitmo detainees to Yemen.”
Political correctness, adds King, is at the root of the administration’s homeland-security problems. “Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was an Islamic terrorist, not an isolated extremist,” he says. “I could see how a mistake could be made with the Nigerian authorities, but Janet Napolitano still hasn’t said it was a mistake and that’s worrying. When a man turns in his own son, and all we do is put his name on a list with half-a-million others, there need to be major red flags. Why didn’t he at least get a pat down or put through a full-body scanner? Not acknowledging these mistakes is very revealing of Napolitano’s mindset. She sees this as a criminal matter, not as an act of terrorism.”
“Some people call it profiling, but I call it common-sense screening, and that’s what we need to do,” says King. “When the FBI went after the mafia, they investigated Italian groups. When they investigated the IRA, they went to Irish bars. If you’re looking for the Ku Klux Klan, you don’t go to Harlem. When you know that nearly 100 percent of the terrorists coming after us are Muslims, you need to put aside political correctness and focus on young males from Middle Eastern countries. Israel does it and it makes sense. Otherwise, we’re wasting time by grilling the Scandinavian grandmother. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are good people, but we have to be frank. The terrorists are Muslims. We need the president to come out and admit that we’re at war with Islamic terrorism.”
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Today in ObamaNation - Airplane Terror, Napolitano, Iran
The always eloquent Charles Krauthammer:
From last on the Fox News Network:
On President Obama’s speech in Hawaii on the averted terrorist attack:
It [Abdulmutallab's arrest] means we will learn absolutely nothing. The minute he gets a lawyer and his Miranda rights, it's over.
The question people have to ask themselves is: This guy, who tries to blow up an American airplane, who is a Nigerian, who is not an American, is captured — does he have the right to remain silent or do we have the right to interrogate him in order to find out who sent him, who equipped him, who armed him, and who trained him?
It is a question of whether we're serious about this as a war or whether it's a mere, as President Obama said, [case of an] isolated extremist. He is not an isolated extremist. Obviously he is connected to al-Qaeda. Obviously he was in Yemen. Obviously there is information he has.
And the question is: Are we going to treat him the way that we're treating Khalid Sheik Mohammed with a trial and in this case a right to tell us nothing, or [do] what FDR did when the German saboteurs were captured in the United States and he ordered a secret military trial and they were executed. They had no rights.
This confusion . . . starts at the top with the Obama administration. Remember, he [the president] declared at the beginning of his administration that there's no war on terror. They won't use the term.
Well, he may have called off the war on terror, but al-Qaeda has not.
On Janet Napolitano’s handling of "man-caused disasters":
And remember, her department issued a report early in the year in which she warned of the threat of returning American soldiers who might not fit back in society and who might join right-wing extremists engaged in terror or isolated lone-wolf incidents against the United States.
Is that the threat that America is facing?
On Obama’s comments on the events in Iran at the end of said speech:
Flaccid words, meaningless words. He talks about aspirations. He talks about rights. He talks about justice in the statement he made.
This isn't about justice. It isn't about a low minimum wage. This isn't about an absence of a public option in health care. This is about freedom. This is a revolution in the streets.
Revolutions happen quickly. There is a moment here in which if the thugs in the street who are shooting in the crowds stop shooting, it's over and the regime will fall. The courage of the demonstrators and their boldness isn't only a demonstration of courage, it is an indication of the shift in the balance of power. The regime is weakening.
This is a hinge of history. Everything in the region will change if the regime is changed. Obama ought to be strong out there in saying: It is an illegitimate government. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people in the street.
He talks about diplomacy. He should be urging our Western allies who have relations [with Iran] to cut them off, isolate the regime, to ostracize it. He ought to be going in the U.N. — at every forum — and denouncing it.
This is a moment in history, and he's missing it.
From last on the Fox News Network:
On President Obama’s speech in Hawaii on the averted terrorist attack:
It [Abdulmutallab's arrest] means we will learn absolutely nothing. The minute he gets a lawyer and his Miranda rights, it's over.
The question people have to ask themselves is: This guy, who tries to blow up an American airplane, who is a Nigerian, who is not an American, is captured — does he have the right to remain silent or do we have the right to interrogate him in order to find out who sent him, who equipped him, who armed him, and who trained him?
It is a question of whether we're serious about this as a war or whether it's a mere, as President Obama said, [case of an] isolated extremist. He is not an isolated extremist. Obviously he is connected to al-Qaeda. Obviously he was in Yemen. Obviously there is information he has.
And the question is: Are we going to treat him the way that we're treating Khalid Sheik Mohammed with a trial and in this case a right to tell us nothing, or [do] what FDR did when the German saboteurs were captured in the United States and he ordered a secret military trial and they were executed. They had no rights.
This confusion . . . starts at the top with the Obama administration. Remember, he [the president] declared at the beginning of his administration that there's no war on terror. They won't use the term.
Well, he may have called off the war on terror, but al-Qaeda has not.
On Janet Napolitano’s handling of "man-caused disasters":
And remember, her department issued a report early in the year in which she warned of the threat of returning American soldiers who might not fit back in society and who might join right-wing extremists engaged in terror or isolated lone-wolf incidents against the United States.
Is that the threat that America is facing?
On Obama’s comments on the events in Iran at the end of said speech:
Flaccid words, meaningless words. He talks about aspirations. He talks about rights. He talks about justice in the statement he made.
This isn't about justice. It isn't about a low minimum wage. This isn't about an absence of a public option in health care. This is about freedom. This is a revolution in the streets.
Revolutions happen quickly. There is a moment here in which if the thugs in the street who are shooting in the crowds stop shooting, it's over and the regime will fall. The courage of the demonstrators and their boldness isn't only a demonstration of courage, it is an indication of the shift in the balance of power. The regime is weakening.
This is a hinge of history. Everything in the region will change if the regime is changed. Obama ought to be strong out there in saying: It is an illegitimate government. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people in the street.
He talks about diplomacy. He should be urging our Western allies who have relations [with Iran] to cut them off, isolate the regime, to ostracize it. He ought to be going in the U.N. — at every forum — and denouncing it.
This is a moment in history, and he's missing it.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Obama surfaces from golf w/ weak statement on Terror incident
After 3 days, Obama interrupts golf, basketball and working out to offer brief, unemotional statement on airplane terror incident.
clusterstock
Obama Holds Three-Day Late News Conference On Terrorist Attack, Doesn't Wear A Tie http://bit.ly/57AwJ3
Ok, now back to vacation.
Hoekstra: With Napolitano, It's 299,999,999 Vs. One [Robert Costa]
Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, tells National Review Online that he’s “disappointed” with President Obama following the president’s remarks this afternoon on the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. “We almost lost 270 American lives on Christmas Day and the president has decided to review a watch list. This is about more than a watch list,” says Hoekstra. “It’s about leadership.”
Criticism of Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, for her handling of the incident, “should be directed to President Obama, since she’s taking her lead from him on this,” says Hoekstra. “I think she’s made some terrible mistakes. Like many in this administration, she’s reluctant to use the word ‘terrorism.’ Though she may prefer the term, this was not an example of an almost ‘man-made disaster.’”
“Out of 300 million Americans, she is the only one who thinks the system is working when a guy with a bomb gets on a plane,” he says. “The other 299,999,999 of us know it’s not.” Obama, he adds, “needs to articulate a clear, concise strategy” to address “the threat of radical jihadists.”
“After eleven months in office, the president is still sending contradictory messages on national security,” says Hoekstra. “He says he wants to address the threats yet look at how he has responded to this, how he responded to Fort Hood, how he’s open to prosecuting folks in the CIA, how he’s closing Guantanamo Bay, and how he’s bringing terror suspects to New York City.” Such moves, he says, “make no sense” if one is “trying to build a strong national security policy.”
“The president may express his concern but his decisions are the statements that people remember,” says Hoekstra. In coming days, the congressman tells us that he will continue to call for an investigation into Flight 253 and the government’s homeland-security operations.
Janet Napolitano’s Mentality [Daniel Pipes]
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab smuggled 80 grams of PETN in his underwear on a Northwest flight on Christmas Day from Amsterdam to Detroit and almost killed 288 passengers and crew.
How did the geniuses in the Obama administration respond? Janet (“ man-caused disasters”) Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, concluded that the system “worked really very, very smoothly.”
Need one really point out that, had the system worked, Abdulmutallab would not have been allowed on the aircraft, and certainly not with a bomb? When her statement was criticized, Napolitano reversed course and announced a day later that “Our system did not work in this instance.”
While it’s good to see that even Obama appointees can learn from their errors, Napolitano’s original gaffe reveals a state of mind among this country’s top decision makers that so long as hundreds of people do not perish, all is well.
Abdulmutallab’s near-success and Napolitano’s idiotic response tell Americans about the weakness of counterterrorist efforts so many years after 9/11. In brief, because law enforcement refuses to “threat profile” and focus on Muslims, the flying public is both inconvenienced and unsafe.— Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
Napolitano Changes Her Tune [Jonah Goldberg]
She now says that her repeated mantra of "the system worked" was taken out of context. Translation: Her hackish talking points were a flop, so she's pretending she didn't mean what she said and is blaming others for not understanding her.
I thought the head of the DHS was supposed to have the trust of the American people.
Again: This hack should be fired.
Re: Firing Napolitano [Peter Kirsanow]
The effect of firing DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano would be symbolic only.This isn't to say that ritual firings are without value, but replacing a Napolitano isn't likely to improve the security of American citizens. Napolitano's replacement will, after all, report to a boss who thinks it's a splendid idea to send Gitmo detainees to Yemen (or perhaps Illinois), try al-Qaeda's chief operating officer in a New York City civilian court, and credulously engage — almost to the point of supplication— the world's chief state sponsor of terrorism.
As long as the boss remains invincibly callow toward the threat of terrorism, his underlings are likely to reflect that mindset.
Fire Napolitano, Or at Least Grill Her [Daniel Foster]
Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I., Conn.) Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is the third Congressional body to announce that it will hold hearings on the Flight 253 attack:
The hearing will focus on the security measures the alleged bomber, 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, evaded in bringing explosives onboard the plane.
"We were very lucky this time, but we may not be so lucky next time, which is why our defenses must be strengthened," said committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in a statement. "I view Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a terrorist who evaded our homeland security defenses and who would have killed hundreds of people if the explosives he tried to detonate had worked."
Presumably, Secretary Napolitano will be in attendence. Let us hope that Lieberman and the Republicans on the committee give her ample opportunity to further . . . clarify her assertions that “the system worked.”
Ashcroft v. Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Some may not remember the anti-Ashcroft hysteria of yesteryear. Here's a pretty good summary-snapshot from a 2003 Wall Street Journal editorial:
Frenzy mounts uncontrolled over John Ashcroft, now considered—in those quarters touched by the delirium—enemy No. 1 of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and all that Americans hold dear. What is the cause of these fevers? Is there a doctor in the house?We may exclude Dr. Howard Dean, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has already offered his findings, to wit: "John Ashcroft is not a patriot. John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy." Sen. John Kerry, once properly—and eloquently—infuriated over the campaign of cretinous slanders mounted against John McCain in the last Republican presidential primary, has in turn offered his views on the attorney general. During the Democrats' debate in Baltimore, candidate Kerry said he saw before him "people of every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is indeed John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here." Richard Gephardt, eyes similarly on the prize, has let America know which of our great national concerns he considered most pressing—a good thing to know about a candidate. The national priority looming largest in his mind is, Mr. Gephardt has let it be known, to fire John Ashcroft in "my first five seconds as president."On the subject of the attorney general, no candidate has waxed more passionate than John Edwards, who warned, "we cannot allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedoms, and our liberties." And further: John Ashcroft and this administration can "spin their wheels all they want about the Patriot Act. . . . They have rolled over our rights for the past two years," says Mr. Edwards, one of the most uncompromisingly staunch Senate supporters of the Patriot Bill when it was passed after September 11—a fact the candidate seems to have found little or no occasion to mention in the course of his current crusade. Also among those voting for the bill were Rep. Gephardt, and Sens. Kerry, Lieberman and Graham.It's hardly necessary by now to list all the charges and the alarms being raised about Mr. Ashcroft, by those portraying the attorney general as the menace to civil liberties that should haunt the dreams of all Americans who want to preserve our way of life. This is no exaggeration; the fever has spread wide, fed largely by the American Civil Liberties Union and allied sentinels of freedom, its signs clear in the ads calling on citizens to "Save Our Constitution," in emergency rallies led by the ACLU, and such groups as "Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow" and "The New York Bill of Rights Defense Committee."
Never mind that many of Ashcroft's worst alleged sins are now pretty much Obama-Pelosi policies. But the Napolitano-Ashcroft comparison is telling.
Ashcroft was demonized for suggesting that Americans be on the lookout for terrorists. One of Napolitano's main talking points these days is the need for vigilance from the public. Heck, she claimed the "system worked" because a flying Dutchman took out the "alleged" terrorist.
Ashcroft was demonized because he allegedly was turning America into a police state where political enemies were targeted (remember that's why Naomi Wolfe had a years-long mental breakdown). Janet Napolitano oversaw a report that singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorists because of their political views.
Ashcroft was mocked as a provincial hick who didn't know much. Napolitano — who runs our immigration service and was governor of a border state — thinks it's not a crime to illegally cross the border and insists that the 9/11 hijackers came from Canada.
John Ashcroft was a dangerous ideologue because he believed the war on terror is real. But
Janet Napolitano isn't a dangerous ideologue for believing the war on terror isn't real?
What sounds more ideologically blinkered after 9/11?
Ashcroft's view: Organized Islamic terrorists want to kill Americans in a holy war.
Napolitano's view: Islamic terrorist attacks are merely "man caused disasters" by disturbed individuals — who should be assumed to be acting alone as criminals, not terrorists, despite credible evidence — while peaceful "right-wing extremists" should be given extra scrutiny on the assumption they could well be terrorists.
Bad Year Coming? [James Jay Carafano]
Since 2001, there have been 28 failed terrorist attacks against the United States. That averages out to about three foiled attempts per year. That was until this year. This year there were six failed attempts that make 2009 a banner year — the most in one year.
The fact that six attacks were foiled is cold comfort. In stopping #28, America just got lucky. Despite the warning signs, authorities did nothing to impede Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's travel. The plan of attack on the Detroit-bound plane didn't work and the passengers and crew stopped the assailant.
Additionally, in 2009, not every terrorist attack was stopped. In November, Nidal Malik Hasan gunned down a dozen of his fellow soldiers and shot up a score more — despite the fact that there were red flags galore that he was some one to worry about. Others were recruited here to attack over there, including five young men from northern Virginia who shipped-off to Pakistan; youth from Minneapolis enticed to fight Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate; and David Coleman Headley, who allegedly helped plan the Mumbai attacks and other potential strikes.
In short, the system has failed a number of times in 2009. To make matters worse, Washington hasn't shown that it cares very much. It doesn't like to call the war a war. It doesn't seem to care that some Patriot Act authorities will expire in 60 days. It would rather the Department of Homeland Security push for a mass amnesty bill than fight terrorists and try control the border.
— James Jay Carafano is senior research fellow for national security and homeland security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
clusterstock
Obama Holds Three-Day Late News Conference On Terrorist Attack, Doesn't Wear A Tie http://bit.ly/57AwJ3
Ok, now back to vacation.
Hoekstra: With Napolitano, It's 299,999,999 Vs. One [Robert Costa]
Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, tells National Review Online that he’s “disappointed” with President Obama following the president’s remarks this afternoon on the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. “We almost lost 270 American lives on Christmas Day and the president has decided to review a watch list. This is about more than a watch list,” says Hoekstra. “It’s about leadership.”
Criticism of Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, for her handling of the incident, “should be directed to President Obama, since she’s taking her lead from him on this,” says Hoekstra. “I think she’s made some terrible mistakes. Like many in this administration, she’s reluctant to use the word ‘terrorism.’ Though she may prefer the term, this was not an example of an almost ‘man-made disaster.’”
“Out of 300 million Americans, she is the only one who thinks the system is working when a guy with a bomb gets on a plane,” he says. “The other 299,999,999 of us know it’s not.” Obama, he adds, “needs to articulate a clear, concise strategy” to address “the threat of radical jihadists.”
“After eleven months in office, the president is still sending contradictory messages on national security,” says Hoekstra. “He says he wants to address the threats yet look at how he has responded to this, how he responded to Fort Hood, how he’s open to prosecuting folks in the CIA, how he’s closing Guantanamo Bay, and how he’s bringing terror suspects to New York City.” Such moves, he says, “make no sense” if one is “trying to build a strong national security policy.”
“The president may express his concern but his decisions are the statements that people remember,” says Hoekstra. In coming days, the congressman tells us that he will continue to call for an investigation into Flight 253 and the government’s homeland-security operations.
Janet Napolitano’s Mentality [Daniel Pipes]
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab smuggled 80 grams of PETN in his underwear on a Northwest flight on Christmas Day from Amsterdam to Detroit and almost killed 288 passengers and crew.
How did the geniuses in the Obama administration respond? Janet (“ man-caused disasters”) Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, concluded that the system “worked really very, very smoothly.”
Need one really point out that, had the system worked, Abdulmutallab would not have been allowed on the aircraft, and certainly not with a bomb? When her statement was criticized, Napolitano reversed course and announced a day later that “Our system did not work in this instance.”
While it’s good to see that even Obama appointees can learn from their errors, Napolitano’s original gaffe reveals a state of mind among this country’s top decision makers that so long as hundreds of people do not perish, all is well.
Abdulmutallab’s near-success and Napolitano’s idiotic response tell Americans about the weakness of counterterrorist efforts so many years after 9/11. In brief, because law enforcement refuses to “threat profile” and focus on Muslims, the flying public is both inconvenienced and unsafe.— Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
Napolitano Changes Her Tune [Jonah Goldberg]
She now says that her repeated mantra of "the system worked" was taken out of context. Translation: Her hackish talking points were a flop, so she's pretending she didn't mean what she said and is blaming others for not understanding her.
I thought the head of the DHS was supposed to have the trust of the American people.
Again: This hack should be fired.
Re: Firing Napolitano [Peter Kirsanow]
The effect of firing DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano would be symbolic only.This isn't to say that ritual firings are without value, but replacing a Napolitano isn't likely to improve the security of American citizens. Napolitano's replacement will, after all, report to a boss who thinks it's a splendid idea to send Gitmo detainees to Yemen (or perhaps Illinois), try al-Qaeda's chief operating officer in a New York City civilian court, and credulously engage — almost to the point of supplication— the world's chief state sponsor of terrorism.
As long as the boss remains invincibly callow toward the threat of terrorism, his underlings are likely to reflect that mindset.
Fire Napolitano, Or at Least Grill Her [Daniel Foster]
Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I., Conn.) Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is the third Congressional body to announce that it will hold hearings on the Flight 253 attack:
The hearing will focus on the security measures the alleged bomber, 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, evaded in bringing explosives onboard the plane.
"We were very lucky this time, but we may not be so lucky next time, which is why our defenses must be strengthened," said committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in a statement. "I view Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a terrorist who evaded our homeland security defenses and who would have killed hundreds of people if the explosives he tried to detonate had worked."
Presumably, Secretary Napolitano will be in attendence. Let us hope that Lieberman and the Republicans on the committee give her ample opportunity to further . . . clarify her assertions that “the system worked.”
Ashcroft v. Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Some may not remember the anti-Ashcroft hysteria of yesteryear. Here's a pretty good summary-snapshot from a 2003 Wall Street Journal editorial:
Frenzy mounts uncontrolled over John Ashcroft, now considered—in those quarters touched by the delirium—enemy No. 1 of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and all that Americans hold dear. What is the cause of these fevers? Is there a doctor in the house?We may exclude Dr. Howard Dean, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has already offered his findings, to wit: "John Ashcroft is not a patriot. John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy." Sen. John Kerry, once properly—and eloquently—infuriated over the campaign of cretinous slanders mounted against John McCain in the last Republican presidential primary, has in turn offered his views on the attorney general. During the Democrats' debate in Baltimore, candidate Kerry said he saw before him "people of every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is indeed John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here." Richard Gephardt, eyes similarly on the prize, has let America know which of our great national concerns he considered most pressing—a good thing to know about a candidate. The national priority looming largest in his mind is, Mr. Gephardt has let it be known, to fire John Ashcroft in "my first five seconds as president."On the subject of the attorney general, no candidate has waxed more passionate than John Edwards, who warned, "we cannot allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedoms, and our liberties." And further: John Ashcroft and this administration can "spin their wheels all they want about the Patriot Act. . . . They have rolled over our rights for the past two years," says Mr. Edwards, one of the most uncompromisingly staunch Senate supporters of the Patriot Bill when it was passed after September 11—a fact the candidate seems to have found little or no occasion to mention in the course of his current crusade. Also among those voting for the bill were Rep. Gephardt, and Sens. Kerry, Lieberman and Graham.It's hardly necessary by now to list all the charges and the alarms being raised about Mr. Ashcroft, by those portraying the attorney general as the menace to civil liberties that should haunt the dreams of all Americans who want to preserve our way of life. This is no exaggeration; the fever has spread wide, fed largely by the American Civil Liberties Union and allied sentinels of freedom, its signs clear in the ads calling on citizens to "Save Our Constitution," in emergency rallies led by the ACLU, and such groups as "Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow" and "The New York Bill of Rights Defense Committee."
Never mind that many of Ashcroft's worst alleged sins are now pretty much Obama-Pelosi policies. But the Napolitano-Ashcroft comparison is telling.
Ashcroft was demonized for suggesting that Americans be on the lookout for terrorists. One of Napolitano's main talking points these days is the need for vigilance from the public. Heck, she claimed the "system worked" because a flying Dutchman took out the "alleged" terrorist.
Ashcroft was demonized because he allegedly was turning America into a police state where political enemies were targeted (remember that's why Naomi Wolfe had a years-long mental breakdown). Janet Napolitano oversaw a report that singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorists because of their political views.
Ashcroft was mocked as a provincial hick who didn't know much. Napolitano — who runs our immigration service and was governor of a border state — thinks it's not a crime to illegally cross the border and insists that the 9/11 hijackers came from Canada.
John Ashcroft was a dangerous ideologue because he believed the war on terror is real. But
Janet Napolitano isn't a dangerous ideologue for believing the war on terror isn't real?
What sounds more ideologically blinkered after 9/11?
Ashcroft's view: Organized Islamic terrorists want to kill Americans in a holy war.
Napolitano's view: Islamic terrorist attacks are merely "man caused disasters" by disturbed individuals — who should be assumed to be acting alone as criminals, not terrorists, despite credible evidence — while peaceful "right-wing extremists" should be given extra scrutiny on the assumption they could well be terrorists.
Bad Year Coming? [James Jay Carafano]
Since 2001, there have been 28 failed terrorist attacks against the United States. That averages out to about three foiled attempts per year. That was until this year. This year there were six failed attempts that make 2009 a banner year — the most in one year.
The fact that six attacks were foiled is cold comfort. In stopping #28, America just got lucky. Despite the warning signs, authorities did nothing to impede Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's travel. The plan of attack on the Detroit-bound plane didn't work and the passengers and crew stopped the assailant.
Additionally, in 2009, not every terrorist attack was stopped. In November, Nidal Malik Hasan gunned down a dozen of his fellow soldiers and shot up a score more — despite the fact that there were red flags galore that he was some one to worry about. Others were recruited here to attack over there, including five young men from northern Virginia who shipped-off to Pakistan; youth from Minneapolis enticed to fight Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate; and David Coleman Headley, who allegedly helped plan the Mumbai attacks and other potential strikes.
In short, the system has failed a number of times in 2009. To make matters worse, Washington hasn't shown that it cares very much. It doesn't like to call the war a war. It doesn't seem to care that some Patriot Act authorities will expire in 60 days. It would rather the Department of Homeland Security push for a mass amnesty bill than fight terrorists and try control the border.
— James Jay Carafano is senior research fellow for national security and homeland security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Terrorist Plane Bombing Fails ... no thanks to DHS / govt
Or was that a "man caused disaster" averted ?
Thank goodness for:
a) Cheers for Jasper Schuringa, the brave passenger who subdued the terrorist bomber; and
b) Plane dumb luck that his bomb didn't work quite as planned.
A big boo for the Feds, DHS, Janet Napolitano, the State Dept., and the airlines who all botched this. Those people on the plane are thankfully lucky to be alive today !
Some commentary:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/27/clown-alert-janet-napolitano-says-the-system-worked/
Let's Roll 2 [Mark Steyn]
On September 11th 2001, the government's (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.
On December 25th 2009, the government's (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals:
"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.
"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, ‘Fire! Fire!’"
Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn’t hesitate. I just jumped," he said.
Schuringa dove over four passengers to reach Abdul Mutallab’s seat. The suspect had a blanket on his lap. "It was smoking and there were flames coming from beneath his legs."
"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."
The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object — which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle — off Abdul Mutallab’s left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.
Schuringa yelled for water, and members of the flight crew soon appeared with fire extinguishers. Then, he said, he hauled the suspect out of the seat.
If the facts remain broadly as outlined, this incident has serious implications for airline travel: A man is on the no-fly list but is allowed to board the plane. Everyone flying on an inbound long-haul flight to the United States is forced to hand over excessively large amounts of liquids and gels and put the small amounts permitted into separate plastic bags, yet the no-fly guy's material for bomb-making sails through undetected.
This time the last line of defense worked. Next time, the paradise-seeking jihadist might get lucky and find himself sitting next to, say, Charlie Sheen, too immersed in a lengthy treatise on how 9/11 was an inside job to notice the smoldering socks in the next seat; or to the same kind of nothing-to-see-here crowd who thought Major Hasan's e-mails were "consistent with his research interests".
As for the perpetrator:
The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the bank’s board...
The family home of the Mutallabs in Central London, is currently being searched by men of the Metropolitan Police. THISDAY checks reveal that the suspect, Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab who is an engineering student at the University College, London had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs". The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
Laps in Security [Mark Steyn]
Well, the authorities have reacted to the Pantybomber in the usual way:
Passengers getting off both U.S. domestic flights and those arriving from overseas reported being told that they couldn’t get out of their seat for the last hour of their flight. Air Canada also said that during the last hour passengers won’t be allowed access to carry-on baggage or to have any items on their laps.
That's great news, isn't it?
This was a failed terror plot. But with failures like this who needs victories? If that Air Canada rule becomes generally applicable, that last hour will be a big time-waster for some of us. But no doubt some enterprising jihadist will attempt to self-detonate in mid-flight or shortly after take-off, and pretty soon we'll have to sit in isolation for the full seven or eight hours. Another couple of attempted takedowns and they might as well ship us freight.
A couple of years back in NR, in a column I wrote in flight (though not on Air Canada), I related my ill-fated attempt to bring home a souvenir snow globe from Auckland, New Zealand for my daughter:
The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, "Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?" I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that... the twinkly fluid inside the snow globe had been deemed to count as a liquid. In theory, I could smash the incredibly thick glass, replace the sparkly stuff with something more incendiary, re-glaze it in the airport men's room with help from co-conspirators among the shadowy networks of antipodean jihadist glaziers, and board the plane to explosive effect...
The jihad may never achieve global domination but it has already achieved snow global domination... Next time round, they'll foil some entirely different scheme - explosive suppositories, dirty-nuke hip replacements - and another avalanche of pitiful constraints will fall upon the hapless traveller.
And so it's proved. If only we had a National Snow Globe Association to point out that snow globes don't kill people, people kill people. What will they do after, say, a burka-clad woman boards the flight with breast impants packed with plastic explosives? Playing the game this way lets the terrorists set the rules and forces us to react defensively to every innovation. What difference does it make whether the plot succeeds? After all, long after Richard Reid has died of old age in prison, we'll still be removing our footwear in eternal homage to the thwarted shoebomber.
The arithmetic is very simple: Can we regulate for all faster than they can adapt for some? And remember, whatever new rules they pass about not using the bathroom in the last three hours of the flight, when you're sitting in seat 7B and the guy in 7C starts doing something goofy, the Federal Government won't be up there with you.
Re: re: Laps in security [Andy McCarthy]
Apropos Mark's observations (here and here), I couldn't help but be struck by this ambiguous passage in the Washington Post's report this morning: "The incident marks the latest apparent attempt by terrorists to bring down a U.S. aircraft through the use of an improvised weapon, and set in motion urgent security measures that disrupted global air travel during the frenetic holiday weekend." No doubt the Post means that "the incident" has "set in motion urgent security measures," but it was just as clearly "an attempt by terrorists" — and a successful attempt, at that — to "set in motion urgent security measures." It sounds trite but it's worth repeating: The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and obviously the mission has been accomplished even if the plane was not brought down.
In Willful Blindness, I recount the debacle of repeated entries into the United States by, among others, the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman) and al Qaeda operative Ali Mohammed — the former permitted free entrance, egress and, finally, a green card (as a special religious worker) even though he was one of the world's most famous jihadists and was on the terror watch lists for having authorized the murder of Anwar Sadat; the latter permitted to immigrate from Egypt and join the U.S. army despite having been caught trying to infiltrate the CIA. Now, nearly 20 years later — after 9/11, the 9/11 Commission, etc. — we have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: He was in the terrorist "database" because we were warned by his own influential father of his radical ties and proclivities, and he was evidently notorious among associates in Africa and Europe for his jihadist leanings; yet, he was issued a multiple-entry visa. And he claims to have been trained in Yemen — the al Qaeda hub to which the administration has just sent a half-dozen trained jihadists previously detained in Gitmo, and where it hopes to send many more.
I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president.
Hadn't Abdulmutallab heard that we are closing Gitmo? Hadn't he heard that we're phasing out military-commissions so we can show the world that we give even the worst mass-murderers civilian trials with all the rights of American citizens? Hadn't he heard that President Obama has banned torture (yes, yes, I know, actually Congress banned it 15 years ago — details, details ...)? Hadn't he heard that the president has called for "a new beginning" in America's relationship with the Muslim world? Hadn't he heard that this is our new, smarter strategy to safeguard the nation from man-caused disasters?
I suspect he's heard all those things.
Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Understandbly, the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn't helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the "system worked" because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was "foiled" by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is "working" when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them). Probably even fewer think it's fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn't go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have "worked" since it has done everything right.
Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with "man-caused-disasters" afer they occur. It appears she really believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.
Here she is her own words, over at RealClearPolitics.
Re: Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah,Right on re. Napolitano. She's given herself a job description under which there's no such thing as failure. Must be nice.
The Couch: "Sounds a bit like being 'editor-at-large.'"
Update: From a reader:
Jonah: By the way, under the heading of stereotypes that need rethinking, who would have predicted that the hero of the incident would be:—not a TSA guy at the gate catching the device;—not an air marshal (it looks as if there was none);—not a US military guy on leave;—but a Dutch video producer jumping across four seated passengers to grab the terrorist, grab his burning explosive device with bare hands, and frog march him up to the front of the plane.
Fire Napolitano Cont'd [Jonah Goldberg]
More reax, from a reader:
Jonah,I had the same reaction. I also have noticed Gibbs and others claim that his name was on a watch list data base of 550,000 names. They make it sound like this is a monumental task to query a match. When I make a purchase using a credit card, I swipe my card and within seconds that information is accessed from a data base of millions and my purchase is approved. Now that the US government is in the banking business, what's their excuse?
And, from another reader:
Jonah,I most wholeheartedly agree with your calls for Napolitano to be fired. I have had repeated correspondence with my Congressman (Burgess - TX 26th) in the past on that subject, and Congressman Burgess has repeatedly called for her to step down, so far with no avail. I did write Congressman Burgess and both my Senators again with a renewed call for her to resign.I do think Gibbs' use of the term "War on Terror" represents a concession on the part of the Obama Administration that it realizes this war is far from over, and maybe they are starting to understand that these people hate all Americans, and not just George Bush.Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.Nonetheless, it's becoming abundantly clear to everyone that this administration must seriously change its amateurish ways or there will soon be a lot of Americans who have to pay with their lives.Keep up the good work!
Missing the Point [Andy McCarthy]
Though I share their outrage, I think outraged readers are missing the point. The people now in charge of our government believe Clinton-era counterterrorism was a successful model. They start from the premise that terrorism is a crime problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Overdone "war on drugs" rhetoric aside, we don't try to "win" against (as in "defeat") law-enforcement challenges. We expect them to happen from time to time and to contain, but never completely prevent, the damage.
Here, no thanks to the government, the plane was not destoyed, and we won't get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there's no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this "case" tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success ... just like the Clinton folks did after the '93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.
It is a dangerously absurd viewpoint, but it was clear during the campaign that it was Obama's viewpoint. The American people — only seven years after 9/11 — elected him anyway. As we learn more painfully everyday, elections matter.
Thank goodness for:
a) Cheers for Jasper Schuringa, the brave passenger who subdued the terrorist bomber; and
b) Plane dumb luck that his bomb didn't work quite as planned.
A big boo for the Feds, DHS, Janet Napolitano, the State Dept., and the airlines who all botched this. Those people on the plane are thankfully lucky to be alive today !
Some commentary:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/27/clown-alert-janet-napolitano-says-the-system-worked/
Let's Roll 2 [Mark Steyn]
On September 11th 2001, the government's (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.
On December 25th 2009, the government's (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals:
"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.
"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, ‘Fire! Fire!’"
Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn’t hesitate. I just jumped," he said.
Schuringa dove over four passengers to reach Abdul Mutallab’s seat. The suspect had a blanket on his lap. "It was smoking and there were flames coming from beneath his legs."
"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."
The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object — which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle — off Abdul Mutallab’s left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.
Schuringa yelled for water, and members of the flight crew soon appeared with fire extinguishers. Then, he said, he hauled the suspect out of the seat.
If the facts remain broadly as outlined, this incident has serious implications for airline travel: A man is on the no-fly list but is allowed to board the plane. Everyone flying on an inbound long-haul flight to the United States is forced to hand over excessively large amounts of liquids and gels and put the small amounts permitted into separate plastic bags, yet the no-fly guy's material for bomb-making sails through undetected.
This time the last line of defense worked. Next time, the paradise-seeking jihadist might get lucky and find himself sitting next to, say, Charlie Sheen, too immersed in a lengthy treatise on how 9/11 was an inside job to notice the smoldering socks in the next seat; or to the same kind of nothing-to-see-here crowd who thought Major Hasan's e-mails were "consistent with his research interests".
As for the perpetrator:
The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the bank’s board...
The family home of the Mutallabs in Central London, is currently being searched by men of the Metropolitan Police. THISDAY checks reveal that the suspect, Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab who is an engineering student at the University College, London had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs". The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
Laps in Security [Mark Steyn]
Well, the authorities have reacted to the Pantybomber in the usual way:
Passengers getting off both U.S. domestic flights and those arriving from overseas reported being told that they couldn’t get out of their seat for the last hour of their flight. Air Canada also said that during the last hour passengers won’t be allowed access to carry-on baggage or to have any items on their laps.
That's great news, isn't it?
This was a failed terror plot. But with failures like this who needs victories? If that Air Canada rule becomes generally applicable, that last hour will be a big time-waster for some of us. But no doubt some enterprising jihadist will attempt to self-detonate in mid-flight or shortly after take-off, and pretty soon we'll have to sit in isolation for the full seven or eight hours. Another couple of attempted takedowns and they might as well ship us freight.
A couple of years back in NR, in a column I wrote in flight (though not on Air Canada), I related my ill-fated attempt to bring home a souvenir snow globe from Auckland, New Zealand for my daughter:
The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, "Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?" I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that... the twinkly fluid inside the snow globe had been deemed to count as a liquid. In theory, I could smash the incredibly thick glass, replace the sparkly stuff with something more incendiary, re-glaze it in the airport men's room with help from co-conspirators among the shadowy networks of antipodean jihadist glaziers, and board the plane to explosive effect...
The jihad may never achieve global domination but it has already achieved snow global domination... Next time round, they'll foil some entirely different scheme - explosive suppositories, dirty-nuke hip replacements - and another avalanche of pitiful constraints will fall upon the hapless traveller.
And so it's proved. If only we had a National Snow Globe Association to point out that snow globes don't kill people, people kill people. What will they do after, say, a burka-clad woman boards the flight with breast impants packed with plastic explosives? Playing the game this way lets the terrorists set the rules and forces us to react defensively to every innovation. What difference does it make whether the plot succeeds? After all, long after Richard Reid has died of old age in prison, we'll still be removing our footwear in eternal homage to the thwarted shoebomber.
The arithmetic is very simple: Can we regulate for all faster than they can adapt for some? And remember, whatever new rules they pass about not using the bathroom in the last three hours of the flight, when you're sitting in seat 7B and the guy in 7C starts doing something goofy, the Federal Government won't be up there with you.
Re: re: Laps in security [Andy McCarthy]
Apropos Mark's observations (here and here), I couldn't help but be struck by this ambiguous passage in the Washington Post's report this morning: "The incident marks the latest apparent attempt by terrorists to bring down a U.S. aircraft through the use of an improvised weapon, and set in motion urgent security measures that disrupted global air travel during the frenetic holiday weekend." No doubt the Post means that "the incident" has "set in motion urgent security measures," but it was just as clearly "an attempt by terrorists" — and a successful attempt, at that — to "set in motion urgent security measures." It sounds trite but it's worth repeating: The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and obviously the mission has been accomplished even if the plane was not brought down.
In Willful Blindness, I recount the debacle of repeated entries into the United States by, among others, the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman) and al Qaeda operative Ali Mohammed — the former permitted free entrance, egress and, finally, a green card (as a special religious worker) even though he was one of the world's most famous jihadists and was on the terror watch lists for having authorized the murder of Anwar Sadat; the latter permitted to immigrate from Egypt and join the U.S. army despite having been caught trying to infiltrate the CIA. Now, nearly 20 years later — after 9/11, the 9/11 Commission, etc. — we have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: He was in the terrorist "database" because we were warned by his own influential father of his radical ties and proclivities, and he was evidently notorious among associates in Africa and Europe for his jihadist leanings; yet, he was issued a multiple-entry visa. And he claims to have been trained in Yemen — the al Qaeda hub to which the administration has just sent a half-dozen trained jihadists previously detained in Gitmo, and where it hopes to send many more.
I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president.
Hadn't Abdulmutallab heard that we are closing Gitmo? Hadn't he heard that we're phasing out military-commissions so we can show the world that we give even the worst mass-murderers civilian trials with all the rights of American citizens? Hadn't he heard that President Obama has banned torture (yes, yes, I know, actually Congress banned it 15 years ago — details, details ...)? Hadn't he heard that the president has called for "a new beginning" in America's relationship with the Muslim world? Hadn't he heard that this is our new, smarter strategy to safeguard the nation from man-caused disasters?
I suspect he's heard all those things.
Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Understandbly, the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn't helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the "system worked" because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was "foiled" by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is "working" when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them). Probably even fewer think it's fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn't go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have "worked" since it has done everything right.
Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with "man-caused-disasters" afer they occur. It appears she really believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.
Here she is her own words, over at RealClearPolitics.
Re: Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah,Right on re. Napolitano. She's given herself a job description under which there's no such thing as failure. Must be nice.
The Couch: "Sounds a bit like being 'editor-at-large.'"
Update: From a reader:
Jonah: By the way, under the heading of stereotypes that need rethinking, who would have predicted that the hero of the incident would be:—not a TSA guy at the gate catching the device;—not an air marshal (it looks as if there was none);—not a US military guy on leave;—but a Dutch video producer jumping across four seated passengers to grab the terrorist, grab his burning explosive device with bare hands, and frog march him up to the front of the plane.
Fire Napolitano Cont'd [Jonah Goldberg]
More reax, from a reader:
Jonah,I had the same reaction. I also have noticed Gibbs and others claim that his name was on a watch list data base of 550,000 names. They make it sound like this is a monumental task to query a match. When I make a purchase using a credit card, I swipe my card and within seconds that information is accessed from a data base of millions and my purchase is approved. Now that the US government is in the banking business, what's their excuse?
And, from another reader:
Jonah,I most wholeheartedly agree with your calls for Napolitano to be fired. I have had repeated correspondence with my Congressman (Burgess - TX 26th) in the past on that subject, and Congressman Burgess has repeatedly called for her to step down, so far with no avail. I did write Congressman Burgess and both my Senators again with a renewed call for her to resign.I do think Gibbs' use of the term "War on Terror" represents a concession on the part of the Obama Administration that it realizes this war is far from over, and maybe they are starting to understand that these people hate all Americans, and not just George Bush.Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.Nonetheless, it's becoming abundantly clear to everyone that this administration must seriously change its amateurish ways or there will soon be a lot of Americans who have to pay with their lives.Keep up the good work!
Missing the Point [Andy McCarthy]
Though I share their outrage, I think outraged readers are missing the point. The people now in charge of our government believe Clinton-era counterterrorism was a successful model. They start from the premise that terrorism is a crime problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Overdone "war on drugs" rhetoric aside, we don't try to "win" against (as in "defeat") law-enforcement challenges. We expect them to happen from time to time and to contain, but never completely prevent, the damage.
Here, no thanks to the government, the plane was not destoyed, and we won't get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there's no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this "case" tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success ... just like the Clinton folks did after the '93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.
It is a dangerously absurd viewpoint, but it was clear during the campaign that it was Obama's viewpoint. The American people — only seven years after 9/11 — elected him anyway. As we learn more painfully everyday, elections matter.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
ObamaCare - Is the Reid Bill Unconstitutional ?
Richard Epstein: The Reid Bill Is Blatantly Unconstitutional [Andy McCarthy]
At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate. He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional. The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling. [Thanks to Roger Kimball and Glenn Reynolds.]
Most of the constitutional analyses I've read, such as this superb one by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, have focused on the limitations on Congress's power — to wit, that the Commerce Clause does not vest Congress with the authority to coerce Americans to purchase health insurance as a condition of living in our country. Prof. Epstein's focus is very different, and a heartening reminder for capitalists in the age of Obama. Drawing on the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law, and on the Supreme Court's rate-regulation jurisprudence, Epstein concludes that the Constitution assures that "any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment." (Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch (1988)).
Applying these principles, Epstein concludes:
The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.
While the insurance companies have been utterly demonized by Democrats in this debate, the fact is that there is a competitive market for healthcare insurance. As Epstein explains, "to justify rate regulation" — which is titanic in the Senate bill — "there needs to be some evidence of the existence of monopoly." As there is and can be no such evidence, there is no rationale for the bill's pervasive rate regulation (and for the stifling price-controls that Epstein shows must inevitably result in delayed, reduced, and rationed services). If this bill were really about controlling costs — rather than controlling lives — Epstein observes that it would be a simple matter to repeal the federal law (the McCarran-Ferguson Act) that "authorizes state barriers to out-of-state competition. That one legislative fix should reduce prices and expand access, but not cost the federal government a dime."
For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.
Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.
What you have a right to is no unreasonable government interference with your ability to purchase healthcare in a competitive market — i.e., a fair market in which government polices against fraud and does skew the playing field by interfering unreasonably with providers and insurers. That's a valuable right, and it has delivered the greatest healthcare system in human history. We are crazy to damage it more than we already have — and even crazier to allow it to be done on the pretexts the Obama Democrats are offering.
At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate. He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional. The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling. [Thanks to Roger Kimball and Glenn Reynolds.]
Most of the constitutional analyses I've read, such as this superb one by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, have focused on the limitations on Congress's power — to wit, that the Commerce Clause does not vest Congress with the authority to coerce Americans to purchase health insurance as a condition of living in our country. Prof. Epstein's focus is very different, and a heartening reminder for capitalists in the age of Obama. Drawing on the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law, and on the Supreme Court's rate-regulation jurisprudence, Epstein concludes that the Constitution assures that "any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment." (Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch (1988)).
Applying these principles, Epstein concludes:
The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.
While the insurance companies have been utterly demonized by Democrats in this debate, the fact is that there is a competitive market for healthcare insurance. As Epstein explains, "to justify rate regulation" — which is titanic in the Senate bill — "there needs to be some evidence of the existence of monopoly." As there is and can be no such evidence, there is no rationale for the bill's pervasive rate regulation (and for the stifling price-controls that Epstein shows must inevitably result in delayed, reduced, and rationed services). If this bill were really about controlling costs — rather than controlling lives — Epstein observes that it would be a simple matter to repeal the federal law (the McCarran-Ferguson Act) that "authorizes state barriers to out-of-state competition. That one legislative fix should reduce prices and expand access, but not cost the federal government a dime."
For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.
Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.
What you have a right to is no unreasonable government interference with your ability to purchase healthcare in a competitive market — i.e., a fair market in which government polices against fraud and does skew the playing field by interfering unreasonably with providers and insurers. That's a valuable right, and it has delivered the greatest healthcare system in human history. We are crazy to damage it more than we already have — and even crazier to allow it to be done on the pretexts the Obama Democrats are offering.
Obama places Interpol above American Law ... disturbing
What is up w/ this ????
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? [Andy McCarthy]
You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.
Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Steve Schippert has more at ThreatsWatch, here.
ThreatsWatch.Org: PrincipalAnalysis
Wither Sovereignty
Executive Order Amended to Immunize INTERPOL In America - Is The ICC Next?
By Steve Schippert, Clyde Middleton
Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945. By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
For Immediate Release December 17, 2009Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425
EXECUTIVE ORDER- - - - - - -AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2©, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,December 16, 2009.
After initial review and discussions between the writers of this analysis, the context was spelled out plainly.
Through EO 12425, President Reagan extended to INTERPOL recognition as an "International Organization." In short, the privileges and immunities afforded foreign diplomats was extended to INTERPOL. Two sets of important privileges and immunities were withheld: Section 2© and the remaining sections cited (all of which deal with differing taxes).
And then comes December 17, 2009, and President Obama. The exemptions in EO 12425 were removed.
Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.
Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)
Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery ("unless such immunity be expressly waived.")
Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets - Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.
Context: International Criminal Court
The importance of this last crucial point cannot be understated, because this immunity and protection - and elevation above the US Constitution - afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.
We direct the American public to paragraph 28 of the ICC's Proposed Programme Budget for 2010 (PDF).
29. Additionally, the Court will continue to seek the cooperation of States not party to the Rome Statute and to develop its relationships with regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League (AL), the African Union (AU), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and CARICOM. We will also continue to engage with subregional and thematic organizations, such as SADC and ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth Secretariat and the OIF. This will be done through high level visits, briefings and, as appropriate, relationship agreements. Work will also be carried out with sectoral organizations such as IDLO and INTERPOL, to increase efficiency.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute - the UN treaty that established the International Criminal Court. (See: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
President George W. Bush rejected subjecting the United States to the jurisdiction of the ICC and removed the United States as a signatory. President Bill Clinton had previously signed the Rome Statute during his presidency. Two critical matters are at play. One is an overall matter of sovereignty and the concept of the primacy of American law above those of the rest of the world. But more recently a more over-riding concern principally has been the potential - if not likely - specter of subjecting our Armed Forces to a hostile international body seeking war crimes prosecutions during the execution of an unpopular war.
President Bush in fact went so far as to gain agreement from nations that they would expressly not detain or hand over to the ICC members of the United States armed forces. The fear of a symbolic ICC circus trial as a form of international political protest to American military actions in Iraq and elsewhere was real and palpable.
President Obama's words have been carefully chosen when directly regarding the ICC. While President Bush outright rejected subjugating American armed forces to any international court as a matter of policy, President Obama said in his 2008 presidential campaign that it is merely "premature to commit" to signing America on.
However, in a Foreign Policy in Focus round-table in 2008, the host group cited his former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power. She essentially laid down what can be viewed as now-President Obama's roadmap to America rejoining the ICC. His principal objections are not explained as those of sovereignty, but rather of image and perception.
Obama's former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, said in an early March (2008) interview with The Irish Times that many things need to happen before Obama could think about signing the Rome Treaty.
"Until we've closed Guantánamo, gotten out of Iraq responsibly, renounced torture and rendition, shown a different face for America, American membership of the ICC is going to make countries around the world think the ICC is a tool of American hegemony.
The detention center at Guantánamo Bay is nearing its closure and an alternate continental American site for terrorist detention has been selected in Illinois. The time line for Iraq withdrawal has been set. And President Obama has given an abundance of international speeches intended to "show a different face for America." He has in fact been roundly criticized domestically for the routinely apologetic and critical nature of these speeches.
President Obama has not rejected the concept of ICC jurisdiction over US citizens and service members. He has avoided any direct reference to this while offering praise for the ICC for conducting its trials so far "in America's interests." The door thus remains wide open to the skeptical observer.
CONCLUSIONS
In light of what we know and can observe, it is our logical conclusion that President Obama's Executive Order amending President Ronald Reagans' 1983 EO 12425 and placing INTERPOL above the United States Constitution and beyond the legal reach of our own top law enforcement is a precursor to more damaging moves.
The pre-requisite conditions regarding the Iraq withdrawal and the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility closure will continue their course. meanwhile, the next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.
When the paths on the road map converge - Iraq withdrawal, Guantánamo closure, perceived American image improved internationally, and an empowered INTERPOL in the United States - it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body who's INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement.
For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds.
This is the disturbing context for President Obama's quiet release of an amended Executive Order 12425. American sovereignty hangs in the balance if these actions are not prevented through public outcry and political pressure. Some Americans are paying attention, as can be seen from some of the earliest recognitions of this troubling development here, here and here. But the discussion must extend well beyond the Internet and social media.
Ultimately, a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil.
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? [Andy McCarthy]
You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.
Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Steve Schippert has more at ThreatsWatch, here.
ThreatsWatch.Org: PrincipalAnalysis
Wither Sovereignty
Executive Order Amended to Immunize INTERPOL In America - Is The ICC Next?
By Steve Schippert, Clyde Middleton
Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945. By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
For Immediate Release December 17, 2009Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425
EXECUTIVE ORDER- - - - - - -AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2©, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,December 16, 2009.
After initial review and discussions between the writers of this analysis, the context was spelled out plainly.
Through EO 12425, President Reagan extended to INTERPOL recognition as an "International Organization." In short, the privileges and immunities afforded foreign diplomats was extended to INTERPOL. Two sets of important privileges and immunities were withheld: Section 2© and the remaining sections cited (all of which deal with differing taxes).
And then comes December 17, 2009, and President Obama. The exemptions in EO 12425 were removed.
Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.
Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)
Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery ("unless such immunity be expressly waived.")
Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets - Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.
Context: International Criminal Court
The importance of this last crucial point cannot be understated, because this immunity and protection - and elevation above the US Constitution - afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.
We direct the American public to paragraph 28 of the ICC's Proposed Programme Budget for 2010 (PDF).
29. Additionally, the Court will continue to seek the cooperation of States not party to the Rome Statute and to develop its relationships with regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League (AL), the African Union (AU), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and CARICOM. We will also continue to engage with subregional and thematic organizations, such as SADC and ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth Secretariat and the OIF. This will be done through high level visits, briefings and, as appropriate, relationship agreements. Work will also be carried out with sectoral organizations such as IDLO and INTERPOL, to increase efficiency.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute - the UN treaty that established the International Criminal Court. (See: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
President George W. Bush rejected subjecting the United States to the jurisdiction of the ICC and removed the United States as a signatory. President Bill Clinton had previously signed the Rome Statute during his presidency. Two critical matters are at play. One is an overall matter of sovereignty and the concept of the primacy of American law above those of the rest of the world. But more recently a more over-riding concern principally has been the potential - if not likely - specter of subjecting our Armed Forces to a hostile international body seeking war crimes prosecutions during the execution of an unpopular war.
President Bush in fact went so far as to gain agreement from nations that they would expressly not detain or hand over to the ICC members of the United States armed forces. The fear of a symbolic ICC circus trial as a form of international political protest to American military actions in Iraq and elsewhere was real and palpable.
President Obama's words have been carefully chosen when directly regarding the ICC. While President Bush outright rejected subjugating American armed forces to any international court as a matter of policy, President Obama said in his 2008 presidential campaign that it is merely "premature to commit" to signing America on.
However, in a Foreign Policy in Focus round-table in 2008, the host group cited his former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power. She essentially laid down what can be viewed as now-President Obama's roadmap to America rejoining the ICC. His principal objections are not explained as those of sovereignty, but rather of image and perception.
Obama's former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, said in an early March (2008) interview with The Irish Times that many things need to happen before Obama could think about signing the Rome Treaty.
"Until we've closed Guantánamo, gotten out of Iraq responsibly, renounced torture and rendition, shown a different face for America, American membership of the ICC is going to make countries around the world think the ICC is a tool of American hegemony.
The detention center at Guantánamo Bay is nearing its closure and an alternate continental American site for terrorist detention has been selected in Illinois. The time line for Iraq withdrawal has been set. And President Obama has given an abundance of international speeches intended to "show a different face for America." He has in fact been roundly criticized domestically for the routinely apologetic and critical nature of these speeches.
President Obama has not rejected the concept of ICC jurisdiction over US citizens and service members. He has avoided any direct reference to this while offering praise for the ICC for conducting its trials so far "in America's interests." The door thus remains wide open to the skeptical observer.
CONCLUSIONS
In light of what we know and can observe, it is our logical conclusion that President Obama's Executive Order amending President Ronald Reagans' 1983 EO 12425 and placing INTERPOL above the United States Constitution and beyond the legal reach of our own top law enforcement is a precursor to more damaging moves.
The pre-requisite conditions regarding the Iraq withdrawal and the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility closure will continue their course. meanwhile, the next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.
When the paths on the road map converge - Iraq withdrawal, Guantánamo closure, perceived American image improved internationally, and an empowered INTERPOL in the United States - it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body who's INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement.
For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds.
This is the disturbing context for President Obama's quiet release of an amended Executive Order 12425. American sovereignty hangs in the balance if these actions are not prevented through public outcry and political pressure. Some Americans are paying attention, as can be seen from some of the earliest recognitions of this troubling development here, here and here. But the discussion must extend well beyond the Internet and social media.
Ultimately, a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
BBC Blood Libels
[this item has nothing to do w/ Obama]
BBC Feeding Anti-Semitic Lies to Iranians [Tom Gross]
On Sunday, I noted that the British media’s slandering of Israel has gone further than ever and is no longer limited to leftist papers, like the Independent and the Guardian, but is now common in more conservative ones, such as the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times.
(This sensationalistic photo, of unknown origin, is highlighted on the BBC Persian website.)
In the last two days, the British print media have gone further, digging up a story from 15 years ago about an Israeli doctor who transplanted minor organs, like corneas and skin tissue, from dead Israelis — mainly Jewish Israelis, but also a few Arab ones — to suggest to readers that Israel is now, as a matter of policy, harvesting the organs of live Palestinians.
Some countries — notably China, but not Israel — do remove live organs for transplant. There is scarcely a word about this in the British media. The Iran-backed Lebanese terror militia Hizbullah has been accused of harvesting the organs of Lebanese Christians, with hardly any investigation of this charge by the so-called human-rights groups of America and Europe.
This morning, the Guardian, unlike other British newspapers, apologized, writing:
We should not have put the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.
Yet as of Tuesday evening (Iran time), for a second day, the taxpayer-funded BBC Persian language service is continuing to highlight the outrageous anti-Semitic lie that Israel is harvesting the organs of Palestinians — on its home page here and in a story here.You do not see such garbage on Radio Farda, which is the U.S. government’s equivalent of BBC Persian.
BBC Persian is under the direct supervision of the British foreign office. Why British politicians and commentators (including those from the Conservative party) put up with it, is beyond me.Isn’t the Iranian regime serving up enough anti-Semitic hate on its own without the BBC joining in?
(Incidentally, many governments have considered using organs more than Israel does. For example, Britain, but the BBC hasn’t made a conspiracy theory out of that.)
BBC Feeding Anti-Semitic Lies to Iranians [Tom Gross]
On Sunday, I noted that the British media’s slandering of Israel has gone further than ever and is no longer limited to leftist papers, like the Independent and the Guardian, but is now common in more conservative ones, such as the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times.
(This sensationalistic photo, of unknown origin, is highlighted on the BBC Persian website.)
In the last two days, the British print media have gone further, digging up a story from 15 years ago about an Israeli doctor who transplanted minor organs, like corneas and skin tissue, from dead Israelis — mainly Jewish Israelis, but also a few Arab ones — to suggest to readers that Israel is now, as a matter of policy, harvesting the organs of live Palestinians.
Some countries — notably China, but not Israel — do remove live organs for transplant. There is scarcely a word about this in the British media. The Iran-backed Lebanese terror militia Hizbullah has been accused of harvesting the organs of Lebanese Christians, with hardly any investigation of this charge by the so-called human-rights groups of America and Europe.
This morning, the Guardian, unlike other British newspapers, apologized, writing:
We should not have put the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.
Yet as of Tuesday evening (Iran time), for a second day, the taxpayer-funded BBC Persian language service is continuing to highlight the outrageous anti-Semitic lie that Israel is harvesting the organs of Palestinians — on its home page here and in a story here.You do not see such garbage on Radio Farda, which is the U.S. government’s equivalent of BBC Persian.
BBC Persian is under the direct supervision of the British foreign office. Why British politicians and commentators (including those from the Conservative party) put up with it, is beyond me.Isn’t the Iranian regime serving up enough anti-Semitic hate on its own without the BBC joining in?
(Incidentally, many governments have considered using organs more than Israel does. For example, Britain, but the BBC hasn’t made a conspiracy theory out of that.)
ObamaCare:- Why the CBO score is misleading
Charles Krauthammer On the CBO score of the Senate health-care bill:
That CBO estimate is completely wrong, and when Obama cites it, he is being completely cynical.
Number one, the only reason it ends up with a surplus is because it strips out — well, it assumes that there will be cuts in reimbursements for doctors of 21 percent next year with no increase over a decade. It's 100 percent certain that is not going to happen, but it's in the bill because [there will be] will be a separate provision that will strip it out. So once you calculate that in, you're already in the red.
Secondly, and this is the most important, it supposedly costs $850 billion over ten years. But 98 percent of the costs of the bill are in the last six years. So it's a trick. If you actually look at real charges, you start in 2014 when the benefits kick in and you go out ten years, then the cost is not slightly under $1 trillion. It is $1.8 trillion or $2.5 trillion, which means it will blow an enormous hole in the deficit.
And everybody knows this. We heard Michael Steele say earlier, he's the head of the RNC, that these numbers are cooked because the head of the CBO was brought into the White House — I wish he hadn't said that, because that's not the reason. You don't have to corrupt the CBO. It's not. It's very honest.
You cook the books by presenting the assumption that the CBO is required to assume will happen — but what everybody understands is not going to happen. That's why the ostensible CBO number looks good. The real number is devastatingly in deficit. …
And: On the dealmaking with Sen. Ben Nelson to get the 60 votes:
That's what is so ironic about this. Remember the whole impetus of the bill was the moral imperative of insuring the uninsured, an act of compassion.
What Harry Reid is saying after he gets this monstrosity through the Senate is that if your senator[s] [were] uncorrupt in achieving it, they are going to suffer [politically] and they were naïve. . . .
I find it interesting how Lieberman was excoriated and Nelson was celebrated by the left, especially, and the Democrats. Look, if you want to hold out on a matter of principle or policy, as Lieberman did on the matter of the public option (saying it would be unaffordable), and you get it [the policy change) by holding up the process, that's called a deal. And that is a concession over a policy issue that applies to everybody in the country.
But what Nelson got — this unbelievable deal in which all the other states get three years of the federal government assuming the cost of extra Medicaid enrollees, but after that, all the other states have to chip in except Nebraska. It is the Nebraska exception. Now, that is simple corruption.
And yet what he does is countenanced as okay. In fact, Reid hails it as real good legislating, and what Lieberman did is excoriated as a betrayal. It shows you how the values of all this, which started out as a high-minded crusade on behalf of the unfortunate, [have] been twisted in a fairly radical way.
Obama's reckless release of GIMO Terrorists -- appalling
We Interrupt this Socialization of Medicine to Bring You an Abdication of Our National Defense . . . [Andy McCarthy]
Quite intentionally, the Obama administration is making so many radical moves on so many different fronts simultaneously that it's difficult to stay on top of them all, much less give them the attention they deserve. But while we argue health care and Iran policy and a civilian trial for KSM and the decision to transfer enemy combatants to a U.S. prison, it's important to notice how dangerously irresponsible the administration's obsession to close Gitmo has become, and how tawdry the Justice Department is allowing itself to appear.
Not content with the Friday bad-news dump, the administration announced on the Sunday before Christmas that it had transferred a dozen detainees out of Gitmo. On its face, this is alarming enough. The Bush administration, it is freely conceded, released many enemy combatants, including many who obviously should have been continued in detention and who have gone on to rejoin the jihad and commit horrific acts of terrorism. That's how we got from about 800 detainees down to about 200. But there's a big difference.
The original 800 included some marginal figures (to hear the Left tell it, all the detainees were shepherds indiscriminately swept up by the Northern Alliance to win bribe money from the CIA). But now we are down to a much smaller core group — detainees whose cases we've had years to study and whom we've held despite enormous pressure to release them. These are the worst of the worst. We have an absolute right under the laws of war to hold them, and when one of them gets sprung it's cause for grave concern.
But the release announced this past weekend is just appalling. The twelve detainees have been transferred to: Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed whose government makes common cause with jihadists (and has a history of allowing them to escape — or of releasing them outright); Afghanistan, which is so ungovernable and rife with jihadism that we're surging thousands of troops there (troops the jihadists are targeting); and Somaliland, which is not even a country, and which offers an easy entree into Somalia, a failed state and al-Qaeda safe-haven. At least one of the released terrorists, a Somali named Abdullahi Sudi Arale (aka Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad), was released notwithstanding the military's designation of him as a "high-value detainee" (a label that has been applied only to top-tier terrorist prisoners — and one that fits in this case given Arale's status as a point of contact between al-Qaeda's satellites in East Africa and Pakistan).
And then there is the appearance of impropriety. As Tom Joscelyn explains, the Justice Department has taken the lead role in making release determinations — the military command at Gitmo has "zero input" and "zero influence," in its own words. DOJ is rife with attorneys who represented and advocated for the detainees, and, in particular, Attorney General Holder's firm, represented numerous Yemeni enemy combatants. Does Justice not appreciate not only how perilous but how unseemly it appears under the circumstances for it to be leading the charge to release the Yemeni detainees? And could anyone really believe that the supposedly noxious symbolism of Gitmo is more dangerous to Americans than is deporting terrorists to the places where terrorism thrives?
Sunday, December 20, 2009
ObamaCare - update
Obamacare Marches On [Yuval Levin]
The story of the day is certainly Senator Ben Nelson’s shameless perfidy—giving up his pro-life principles in return for swindling taxpayers in the other 49 states into paying all of Nebraska’s future new Medicaid costs. The deal he struck would undermine both the logic underlying the Hyde Amendment and the logic underlying the Medicaid system. There is no conceivable policy argument for the way the new bill treats Nebraska, it’s simply a case of a senator’s vote being purchased with taxpayer dollars.
But the bigger and more significant story is what Nelson’s decision now enables—that is, the larger Reid health care bill, which now looks far more likely to pass the Senate (though it still faces a tough road after that). It’s easy to get caught up in the daily tactics and forget what we’re getting ourselves into here. The Reid bill is the embodiment of the Democrats’ attitude that they just have to pass something, whatever it is. About the only thing that can be said in favor of this bill is that it is something. Otherwise, everything that can be said about it redounds in its disfavor.
The CBO assessment of the bill tells the appalling story. We are going to raise taxes by half a trillion dollars over the next ten years, increase spending by more than a trillion dollars, cut Medicare by $470 billion but use that money to fund a new entitlement rather than to fix Medicare itself, bend the health care cost curve up rather than down, insert layers of bureaucracy between doctors and patients, and compel and subsidize universal participation in a failed system of health insurance rather than reform or improve it. Indeed, this bill will make it exceedingly difficult to fix our health insurance financing system in the future, since it sucks dry the potential means of such reform but leaves the fundamental cost problem essentially untouched (and in some respects worsened.) After all the back and forth, pulling and tugging, it is hard to see what is left in this bill that any member of Congress, liberal or conservative, would want to support.
The public seems to see that, and is increasingly opposed to the bill, but for now Democrats in congress still persist. It’s no wonder Obama, Reid, and Pelosi want to rush this process through before their rank and file members can grasp what they’re doing. But it’s a bit of a wonder that those rank and file members so far seem to be playing along. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and a few others have been bought with taxpayer-funded favors for their states. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
Cantor: A Look Ahead [Robert Costa]
If the Senate passes its health-care bill this week, it’ll head to the House of Representatives. Once there, will Republicans have any chance of stopping it? NRO asked Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the House minority whip, for answers.
“Once in the House, it will be about what Nancy Pelosi wants to see happen,” says Cantor. “If it goes to conference, the public will have a better chance to understand what this bill means and to open up some discussion. We need to do that on a wide variety of issues, from life to the real costs inside this bill. The conference process would allow for a lot more deliberation. If not — if Speaker Pelosi tries to ram this though — that would be a real game-changer. That would be an extraordinary letdown for the American people.”
Cantor predicts that abortion would be the key issue in the House’s debate of the Senate’s bill. Pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) “has outlined very clear language” on abortion and “has made it clear that if it’s not included then he will vote against the bill,” he says. “There is a lot of reticence among many moderate Democrats. It’s unfathomable to think that pro-life Democrats would go for the Senate version. They know that the Senate’s bill is a 30-year record-breaking move to allow taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. I can’t imagine any of them supporting it.”
Cantor also notes that he’s kept a close eye on the Senate during its health-care debate. “What disappoints me is all of their deal cutting and horse trading,” he says. “They’re allocating taxpayer dollars as if those dollars belonged to the senators. It borders on immoral. Just look at the way Senator Landrieu put her vote up for sale. Senator Nelson did the same.”
Public opinion from both sides of the aisle, he adds, will be crucial going forward. “The Left knows that this bill does nothing but expand the existing system for insurance companies. The Right knows that it has nothing in terms of liability reform. In terms of a consumer health-care model, it’s an anathema to free-market conservatives. And, because it keeps insurance companies in the game, it’s also an anathema to progressives.”
For now, Cantor says he’ll be watching the 1 a.m. cloture vote at home in Richmond and rooting for his Republican colleagues in the Senate. “Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, and the rest of their team have put up deliberative, constant efforts to thwart this bill. They’re still at it.”
For more on the health-care battle, visit NRO’s “Doctor! Doctor!” blog.
The story of the day is certainly Senator Ben Nelson’s shameless perfidy—giving up his pro-life principles in return for swindling taxpayers in the other 49 states into paying all of Nebraska’s future new Medicaid costs. The deal he struck would undermine both the logic underlying the Hyde Amendment and the logic underlying the Medicaid system. There is no conceivable policy argument for the way the new bill treats Nebraska, it’s simply a case of a senator’s vote being purchased with taxpayer dollars.
But the bigger and more significant story is what Nelson’s decision now enables—that is, the larger Reid health care bill, which now looks far more likely to pass the Senate (though it still faces a tough road after that). It’s easy to get caught up in the daily tactics and forget what we’re getting ourselves into here. The Reid bill is the embodiment of the Democrats’ attitude that they just have to pass something, whatever it is. About the only thing that can be said in favor of this bill is that it is something. Otherwise, everything that can be said about it redounds in its disfavor.
The CBO assessment of the bill tells the appalling story. We are going to raise taxes by half a trillion dollars over the next ten years, increase spending by more than a trillion dollars, cut Medicare by $470 billion but use that money to fund a new entitlement rather than to fix Medicare itself, bend the health care cost curve up rather than down, insert layers of bureaucracy between doctors and patients, and compel and subsidize universal participation in a failed system of health insurance rather than reform or improve it. Indeed, this bill will make it exceedingly difficult to fix our health insurance financing system in the future, since it sucks dry the potential means of such reform but leaves the fundamental cost problem essentially untouched (and in some respects worsened.) After all the back and forth, pulling and tugging, it is hard to see what is left in this bill that any member of Congress, liberal or conservative, would want to support.
The public seems to see that, and is increasingly opposed to the bill, but for now Democrats in congress still persist. It’s no wonder Obama, Reid, and Pelosi want to rush this process through before their rank and file members can grasp what they’re doing. But it’s a bit of a wonder that those rank and file members so far seem to be playing along. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and a few others have been bought with taxpayer-funded favors for their states. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
Cantor: A Look Ahead [Robert Costa]
If the Senate passes its health-care bill this week, it’ll head to the House of Representatives. Once there, will Republicans have any chance of stopping it? NRO asked Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the House minority whip, for answers.
“Once in the House, it will be about what Nancy Pelosi wants to see happen,” says Cantor. “If it goes to conference, the public will have a better chance to understand what this bill means and to open up some discussion. We need to do that on a wide variety of issues, from life to the real costs inside this bill. The conference process would allow for a lot more deliberation. If not — if Speaker Pelosi tries to ram this though — that would be a real game-changer. That would be an extraordinary letdown for the American people.”
Cantor predicts that abortion would be the key issue in the House’s debate of the Senate’s bill. Pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) “has outlined very clear language” on abortion and “has made it clear that if it’s not included then he will vote against the bill,” he says. “There is a lot of reticence among many moderate Democrats. It’s unfathomable to think that pro-life Democrats would go for the Senate version. They know that the Senate’s bill is a 30-year record-breaking move to allow taxpayer dollars to fund abortion. I can’t imagine any of them supporting it.”
Cantor also notes that he’s kept a close eye on the Senate during its health-care debate. “What disappoints me is all of their deal cutting and horse trading,” he says. “They’re allocating taxpayer dollars as if those dollars belonged to the senators. It borders on immoral. Just look at the way Senator Landrieu put her vote up for sale. Senator Nelson did the same.”
Public opinion from both sides of the aisle, he adds, will be crucial going forward. “The Left knows that this bill does nothing but expand the existing system for insurance companies. The Right knows that it has nothing in terms of liability reform. In terms of a consumer health-care model, it’s an anathema to free-market conservatives. And, because it keeps insurance companies in the game, it’s also an anathema to progressives.”
For now, Cantor says he’ll be watching the 1 a.m. cloture vote at home in Richmond and rooting for his Republican colleagues in the Senate. “Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, and the rest of their team have put up deliberative, constant efforts to thwart this bill. They’re still at it.”
For more on the health-care battle, visit NRO’s “Doctor! Doctor!” blog.
What is Hopey Change ?
I absolutely love this little ditty, from Answers.com:
Hopey Change (from a 2008 puff slogan, 'hope and change') is the fantasy paradise that President Barack Hussein Obama expects to descend upon America, a place in which neither debts nor bills ever have to be paid, in which reason and good intentions will woo terrorists into happy allies, in which sun and wind will power everything for free... and so on, ad saccharin.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_hopey_change
Hopey Change (from a 2008 puff slogan, 'hope and change') is the fantasy paradise that President Barack Hussein Obama expects to descend upon America, a place in which neither debts nor bills ever have to be paid, in which reason and good intentions will woo terrorists into happy allies, in which sun and wind will power everything for free... and so on, ad saccharin.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_hopey_change
Saturday, December 19, 2009
How Obama Misleads (er, lies)
Lemme guess, his lips are moving ?
Truly a great article; spot on: His favorite phrases for fudging facts:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_says_he_about_to_mislead_NYozaAzCWoW2GSy25dnghL
Let me just be clear .... read the whole thing !
Reminiscent of another great article 3 months ago by Krauthammer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703329.html
Truly a great article; spot on: His favorite phrases for fudging facts:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_says_he_about_to_mislead_NYozaAzCWoW2GSy25dnghL
Let me just be clear .... read the whole thing !
Reminiscent of another great article 3 months ago by Krauthammer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703329.html
Obama: 0 for Copenhagen - A Complete Embarrassment
O's 2nd trip to Copenhagen ended up just like the 1st one (olympics) - a complete failure.
How many US Presidents can make a high profile international trip and get dissed by Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, Greenpeace, and the Chinese in the process ? And that's before breakfast !
The more we see of Obama, the more it is clear that this guy is not only grounded in radical beliefs, but his "leadership" skills, especially in international relationships, are non-existent.
How much embarrassment must we endure from this man ?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/obama_does_it_again_xcbUOFFaHFxWRx2QITjBwJ
Today's NY Post editorial writes:
Copenhagen : what the hell was the point?
One would think that Obama had taken a lesson from his last trip to Copenhagen -- when he thought his presence alone would win the 2016 Olympic games for Chicago.
That is, that he would have learned that it is a mistake to publicly commit presidential prestige to an outcome that isn't locked up in advance.
Obviously, not.
So much for two years of work and a supposedly broad international consensus that was to make the Copenhagen conference little more than a formality.
Clearly, yesterday was about squabbling over how much money we'll borrow from the Chinese so that we can give it right back to Beijing and other Third World countries in exchange for their promise to . . . well, that was never clear.
And twice yesterday, Obama was kept waiting in public by China's premier.
This is scary stuff.
Obviously, the rest of the world has taken measure of Barack Obama -- and decided he's a pushover.
On the merits, not unfairly.
--------------------------------
Before I post more links to some great articles, watch Neil Cavuto ... interview w/ man in Polar Bear suit looking for Phil Jones and confronting Al Gore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cfxxt5TwQg
I mean, Hugo Chavez gives a speech to this socialist statist gathering in Copenhagen condemning capitalism and praising socialism ... and gets a STANDING OVATION.
This is where Obama had to drop everything to go ? (of course he did, b/c he is simpatico w/ them).
Yet, even Chavez dissed Obama in Copenhagen (he said he "smelled sulfur" after Obama's speech -- reminiscent of when he called Bush el Diablo at the UN). And so did Greenpeace !
PRICELESS ARTICLE FROM JONAH GOLDBERG: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/wackos_pollute_the_eco_debate_bfMN07qTS6UVqTQUapwnoM
snippets:
As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to a close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention.
But Copenhagen does have its uses.
For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas. Bolivian President Evo Morales was interviewed by al-Jazeera television while in Copenhagen. "The principal obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism," he explained.
"Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity."
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe proclaimed in a speech: "When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it's we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere, who gasp and sink and eventually die."
Right. That is, unless Mugabe kills them first.
The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman.
In a typical stemwinder, he belched: "Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species."
I don't know how to say "chutzpah" in Spanish, but you've got to hand it to the leader of the world's No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
And then there is Obama, who got repeatedly dissed by Chinese leader Wen Jiabao.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/obama_praises_NuPTfoiIjqtEu92UmDiwaP
The headline to this is "Copenhagen talks end w/ dud of a deal; Obama delusional"
Obama may become known as "the man who killed Copenhagen," said Greenpeace US head Phil Radford, one of many activists to rap the president for the flimsy agreement with India, South Africa, Brazil and China, which thwarted the president throughout the conference.
[Copenhagen] was roundly blasted as a farce from all quarters.
"The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming," said Bill McKibbon of the progressive group 350.org. "It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it's at the expense of everything progressives have held dear."
Friends of the Earth tore into the pact as well. "Climate negotiations in Copenhagen have yielded a sham agreement with no real requirements for any countries," the group said in a statement. "This is not a strong deal or a just one -- it isn't even a real one.
Obama and his team were prepared to give up hope for a broad deal after hearing that leaders of India, Brazil and other key nations -- along with much of the entire Chinese delegation -- had already left for the airport.
But that wasn't the case.
Instead, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao insultingly skipped a high-level meeting in the morning, leaving Obama and other world leaders negotiating with a lower-level government official.
Wen later attend a meeting with President Lula de Silva of Brazil as well as the leaders of India and South Africa. Obama decided he wanted to go, and was forced to barge into the meeting.
"Mr. Premier, are you ready to see me? Are you ready?" the exasperated Obama inquired loudly from the conference-room door, in front of the press and other world leaders who had already gathered.
"We can't get into the room to look at it," explained one of the advance officials. "They're all having a meeting."
There wasn't even a seat for Obama.
"The president walks in and by the time I finally push through I hear the president say, 'There aren't any seats,' " explained one of the officials. "And the president says, 'No, no, don't worry, I'm going to go sit by my friend Lula,' and says, 'Hey, Lula,' " the advance official said.
Obama walked over, moved a chair beside the Brazilian leader and took a seat.
He later tried to put a positive spin on the meeting, saying a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" had been reached
How many US Presidents can make a high profile international trip and get dissed by Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, Greenpeace, and the Chinese in the process ? And that's before breakfast !
The more we see of Obama, the more it is clear that this guy is not only grounded in radical beliefs, but his "leadership" skills, especially in international relationships, are non-existent.
How much embarrassment must we endure from this man ?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/obama_does_it_again_xcbUOFFaHFxWRx2QITjBwJ
Today's NY Post editorial writes:
Copenhagen : what the hell was the point?
One would think that Obama had taken a lesson from his last trip to Copenhagen -- when he thought his presence alone would win the 2016 Olympic games for Chicago.
That is, that he would have learned that it is a mistake to publicly commit presidential prestige to an outcome that isn't locked up in advance.
Obviously, not.
So much for two years of work and a supposedly broad international consensus that was to make the Copenhagen conference little more than a formality.
Clearly, yesterday was about squabbling over how much money we'll borrow from the Chinese so that we can give it right back to Beijing and other Third World countries in exchange for their promise to . . . well, that was never clear.
And twice yesterday, Obama was kept waiting in public by China's premier.
This is scary stuff.
Obviously, the rest of the world has taken measure of Barack Obama -- and decided he's a pushover.
On the merits, not unfairly.
--------------------------------
Before I post more links to some great articles, watch Neil Cavuto ... interview w/ man in Polar Bear suit looking for Phil Jones and confronting Al Gore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cfxxt5TwQg
I mean, Hugo Chavez gives a speech to this socialist statist gathering in Copenhagen condemning capitalism and praising socialism ... and gets a STANDING OVATION.
This is where Obama had to drop everything to go ? (of course he did, b/c he is simpatico w/ them).
Yet, even Chavez dissed Obama in Copenhagen (he said he "smelled sulfur" after Obama's speech -- reminiscent of when he called Bush el Diablo at the UN). And so did Greenpeace !
PRICELESS ARTICLE FROM JONAH GOLDBERG: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/wackos_pollute_the_eco_debate_bfMN07qTS6UVqTQUapwnoM
snippets:
As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to a close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention.
But Copenhagen does have its uses.
For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas. Bolivian President Evo Morales was interviewed by al-Jazeera television while in Copenhagen. "The principal obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism," he explained.
"Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity."
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe proclaimed in a speech: "When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it's we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere, who gasp and sink and eventually die."
Right. That is, unless Mugabe kills them first.
The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman.
In a typical stemwinder, he belched: "Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species."
I don't know how to say "chutzpah" in Spanish, but you've got to hand it to the leader of the world's No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
And then there is Obama, who got repeatedly dissed by Chinese leader Wen Jiabao.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/obama_praises_NuPTfoiIjqtEu92UmDiwaP
The headline to this is "Copenhagen talks end w/ dud of a deal; Obama delusional"
Obama may become known as "the man who killed Copenhagen," said Greenpeace US head Phil Radford, one of many activists to rap the president for the flimsy agreement with India, South Africa, Brazil and China, which thwarted the president throughout the conference.
[Copenhagen] was roundly blasted as a farce from all quarters.
"The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming," said Bill McKibbon of the progressive group 350.org. "It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it's at the expense of everything progressives have held dear."
Friends of the Earth tore into the pact as well. "Climate negotiations in Copenhagen have yielded a sham agreement with no real requirements for any countries," the group said in a statement. "This is not a strong deal or a just one -- it isn't even a real one.
Obama and his team were prepared to give up hope for a broad deal after hearing that leaders of India, Brazil and other key nations -- along with much of the entire Chinese delegation -- had already left for the airport.
But that wasn't the case.
Instead, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao insultingly skipped a high-level meeting in the morning, leaving Obama and other world leaders negotiating with a lower-level government official.
Wen later attend a meeting with President Lula de Silva of Brazil as well as the leaders of India and South Africa. Obama decided he wanted to go, and was forced to barge into the meeting.
"Mr. Premier, are you ready to see me? Are you ready?" the exasperated Obama inquired loudly from the conference-room door, in front of the press and other world leaders who had already gathered.
"We can't get into the room to look at it," explained one of the advance officials. "They're all having a meeting."
There wasn't even a seat for Obama.
"The president walks in and by the time I finally push through I hear the president say, 'There aren't any seats,' " explained one of the officials. "And the president says, 'No, no, don't worry, I'm going to go sit by my friend Lula,' and says, 'Hey, Lula,' " the advance official said.
Obama walked over, moved a chair beside the Brazilian leader and took a seat.
He later tried to put a positive spin on the meeting, saying a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" had been reached
The ObamaCare Train Wreck Keeps A Rollin ... Reid thinks he has 60 votes
Thank you Ben Nelson D-Neb (you stupid a-hole). In Congress, accepting bribes are perfectly legal.
Obama, Pelosi and Reid are hell bent on this government controlled freak show that will wreck the economy; wreck health care and wreak havoc on us already over-taxed folks.
Nelson Caved for This? [Douglas Holtz-Eakin]
I’m sitting here digesting the news of Ben Nelson’s caving to the pressure and the Dems passing the Reid bill. I don’t get it. Honestly. I realize that passing a health care bill has become a political imperative. But I don’t understand why this bill meets the need.
To begin, it is extremely unpopular. Sixty four percent of Americans don’t think it meets their priorities for reform. And it will be even more unpopular in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 — years in which the harsh medicine of higher taxes and regulatory takeover will produce sharp premium increases and less satisfactory care. Only in 2014 does the massive redistribution start, and Dems might get some relief from their purchased constituencies.
On top of that, the schedule is now such that they will have to go back to the House in early 2010 and deal with a likely revolt against the absence of a “public plan” and the tax on “Cadillac” plans. So, just at the time when Obama is going to need Dems to close ranks and support him on Afghanistan, the ranks will be splitting. Why pass a bill that will create more problems for the divided party?
Finally, it is now clear that the pressure is rising over the massive spending and deficits. Obama will clearly want to devote substantial rhetorical effort on this front in the State of the Union speech, and put out a budget that has at least cosmetic fiscal courage. To do this at the same time he might be signing a budget-busting $2.5 trillion health-spending bill will make a mockery of the effort.
So, count me disappointed that we didn’t get real reform. But count me baffled as to why we got this.
'reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
More Kristol:
CBO is explaining that the legislation's claim to fiscal responsibility requires cutting in half the rate of growth of per capita Medicare spending. And, according to CBO, absent magical greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care, accomplishing those fiscal goals might well require reducing access to health care and/or diminishing the quality of health care. So less access and lower quality is a very real possible consequence of this legislation. This is a point critics of the bill cannot allow to be lost in all the hubbub.
I'll Have A Blue Dog Christmas Without You [Mark Steyn]
Kathryn, re your Facebook friend who asks, "Can we officially retire the phrases 'blue dog' democrats and 'pro life' democrats? Because there is no such thing:"
As I wrote back in the summer, "Put not your trust in Blue Dog Democrats." It was folly to bet the Republic on the likes of Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and other "moderates" who are, by definition, trimmers and accommodationists.
By contrast, Barney Frank and the more ambitious Dems are thinking long-term. And, if it's a choice between getting government health care or keeping Ben Nelson, it's no contest.
Not to keep quoting myself ad nauseam, but as I said to Hugh Hewitt a couple of months back:
I think the administration is willing to take the hit. In other words, to get health care, they would be willing to reduce their majority, and perhaps even lose their majority in the House and the Senate, because they know it’s a game changer. Now to sell that to individual Senators and Congressmen, you’ve got to have something up your sleeve for them... There are strange elements in play here. But they’ve factored into the whole business a potential, I think, a potential significant loss in the year 2010, in next year’s elections.
I've been saying for a year now, in NR and NRO, that the object for savvy Dems is to get this thing passed in whatever form because, once you do, there's no going back.
Kim Strassel in yesterday's Journal gets it:
So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? Think big. The liberal wing of the party—the Barney Franks, the David Obeys—are focused beyond November 2010, to the long-term political prize. They want a health-care program that inevitably leads to a value-added tax and a permanent welfare state. Big government then becomes fact, and another Ronald Reagan becomes impossible. See Continental Europe.
Just so. And that's worth whatever hit they have to take in 2010. Every time I make the point, someone says, oh, Jim Webb this or Byron Dorgan that, or have you see Harry Reid's numbers in Nevada? Oh, please. We've just seen what happens when you make Ben Nelson your Maginot Line. The Dems are thinking strategically; the Republicans are all tactics.
In a Representative Democracy, You Don't Give Up [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
You fight. Just in the last minute, Tom Price's office said that to me.
And Bill Kristol wrote it, reminding that:
Pyrrhus's victory became Pyrrhic because the victorious party lost many of its supporters—but also because the opposition didn't abate in courage, was able to gain new recruits, and had the force and resolution to go on.
It's understandable to be disappointed and dismayed, but really, they've had the numbers, this should have happened long ago. But people are not happy about what's happening, and they should have something to say about what's transpiring as they try to live their lives.
Buying the Left, Too [Stephen Spruiell]
Earlier this week, Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders expressed his disappointment with the Senate bill, particularly its lack of a government-run insurance plan, and went so far as to say, "As of this point I am not voting for the bill." Now Sanders appears to be back in the fold.
If you're wondering how Reid secured his vote (I was), here's how:
$10 Billion More for Community Health Centers will Revolutionize Care WASHINGTON, December 19 – A $10 billion investment in community health centers, expected to go to $14 billion when Congress completes work on health care reform legislation, was included in a final series of changes to the Senate bill unveiled today.
The provision, which would provide primary care for 25 million more Americans, was requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
It's enough for Sanders, but will it be enough for the 60-plus House progressives who promised not to vote for a health-care bill that lacked a public option?
Budget Buster [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jim Capretta on Reid's "compromise."
NRLC [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
has an even longer takedown of what Nelson signed onto.And this, from Boehner's office:
Fixed it is not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest health care “manager’s amendment” would STILL levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans under the Democrats’ health care plan. Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) and the last version of Senator Reid’s 2,074-page bill, this latest 383-page amendment levies an abortion premium and does not fix the problem of government funds being used to subsidize elective abortions. ... the Reid bill continues to defy the will of the American people and contradict longstanding federal policy by providing federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions. The new language does include a “state opt-out” provision if a state passes a law to prohibit insurance coverage of abortion, but it’s a sham because it does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states.
Obama, Pelosi and Reid are hell bent on this government controlled freak show that will wreck the economy; wreck health care and wreak havoc on us already over-taxed folks.
Nelson Caved for This? [Douglas Holtz-Eakin]
I’m sitting here digesting the news of Ben Nelson’s caving to the pressure and the Dems passing the Reid bill. I don’t get it. Honestly. I realize that passing a health care bill has become a political imperative. But I don’t understand why this bill meets the need.
To begin, it is extremely unpopular. Sixty four percent of Americans don’t think it meets their priorities for reform. And it will be even more unpopular in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 — years in which the harsh medicine of higher taxes and regulatory takeover will produce sharp premium increases and less satisfactory care. Only in 2014 does the massive redistribution start, and Dems might get some relief from their purchased constituencies.
On top of that, the schedule is now such that they will have to go back to the House in early 2010 and deal with a likely revolt against the absence of a “public plan” and the tax on “Cadillac” plans. So, just at the time when Obama is going to need Dems to close ranks and support him on Afghanistan, the ranks will be splitting. Why pass a bill that will create more problems for the divided party?
Finally, it is now clear that the pressure is rising over the massive spending and deficits. Obama will clearly want to devote substantial rhetorical effort on this front in the State of the Union speech, and put out a budget that has at least cosmetic fiscal courage. To do this at the same time he might be signing a budget-busting $2.5 trillion health-spending bill will make a mockery of the effort.
So, count me disappointed that we didn’t get real reform. But count me baffled as to why we got this.
'reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
More Kristol:
CBO is explaining that the legislation's claim to fiscal responsibility requires cutting in half the rate of growth of per capita Medicare spending. And, according to CBO, absent magical greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care, accomplishing those fiscal goals might well require reducing access to health care and/or diminishing the quality of health care. So less access and lower quality is a very real possible consequence of this legislation. This is a point critics of the bill cannot allow to be lost in all the hubbub.
I'll Have A Blue Dog Christmas Without You [Mark Steyn]
Kathryn, re your Facebook friend who asks, "Can we officially retire the phrases 'blue dog' democrats and 'pro life' democrats? Because there is no such thing:"
As I wrote back in the summer, "Put not your trust in Blue Dog Democrats." It was folly to bet the Republic on the likes of Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and other "moderates" who are, by definition, trimmers and accommodationists.
By contrast, Barney Frank and the more ambitious Dems are thinking long-term. And, if it's a choice between getting government health care or keeping Ben Nelson, it's no contest.
Not to keep quoting myself ad nauseam, but as I said to Hugh Hewitt a couple of months back:
I think the administration is willing to take the hit. In other words, to get health care, they would be willing to reduce their majority, and perhaps even lose their majority in the House and the Senate, because they know it’s a game changer. Now to sell that to individual Senators and Congressmen, you’ve got to have something up your sleeve for them... There are strange elements in play here. But they’ve factored into the whole business a potential, I think, a potential significant loss in the year 2010, in next year’s elections.
I've been saying for a year now, in NR and NRO, that the object for savvy Dems is to get this thing passed in whatever form because, once you do, there's no going back.
Kim Strassel in yesterday's Journal gets it:
So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? Think big. The liberal wing of the party—the Barney Franks, the David Obeys—are focused beyond November 2010, to the long-term political prize. They want a health-care program that inevitably leads to a value-added tax and a permanent welfare state. Big government then becomes fact, and another Ronald Reagan becomes impossible. See Continental Europe.
Just so. And that's worth whatever hit they have to take in 2010. Every time I make the point, someone says, oh, Jim Webb this or Byron Dorgan that, or have you see Harry Reid's numbers in Nevada? Oh, please. We've just seen what happens when you make Ben Nelson your Maginot Line. The Dems are thinking strategically; the Republicans are all tactics.
In a Representative Democracy, You Don't Give Up [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
You fight. Just in the last minute, Tom Price's office said that to me.
And Bill Kristol wrote it, reminding that:
Pyrrhus's victory became Pyrrhic because the victorious party lost many of its supporters—but also because the opposition didn't abate in courage, was able to gain new recruits, and had the force and resolution to go on.
It's understandable to be disappointed and dismayed, but really, they've had the numbers, this should have happened long ago. But people are not happy about what's happening, and they should have something to say about what's transpiring as they try to live their lives.
Buying the Left, Too [Stephen Spruiell]
Earlier this week, Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders expressed his disappointment with the Senate bill, particularly its lack of a government-run insurance plan, and went so far as to say, "As of this point I am not voting for the bill." Now Sanders appears to be back in the fold.
If you're wondering how Reid secured his vote (I was), here's how:
$10 Billion More for Community Health Centers will Revolutionize Care WASHINGTON, December 19 – A $10 billion investment in community health centers, expected to go to $14 billion when Congress completes work on health care reform legislation, was included in a final series of changes to the Senate bill unveiled today.
The provision, which would provide primary care for 25 million more Americans, was requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
It's enough for Sanders, but will it be enough for the 60-plus House progressives who promised not to vote for a health-care bill that lacked a public option?
Budget Buster [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jim Capretta on Reid's "compromise."
NRLC [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
has an even longer takedown of what Nelson signed onto.And this, from Boehner's office:
Fixed it is not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest health care “manager’s amendment” would STILL levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans under the Democrats’ health care plan. Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) and the last version of Senator Reid’s 2,074-page bill, this latest 383-page amendment levies an abortion premium and does not fix the problem of government funds being used to subsidize elective abortions. ... the Reid bill continues to defy the will of the American people and contradict longstanding federal policy by providing federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions. The new language does include a “state opt-out” provision if a state passes a law to prohibit insurance coverage of abortion, but it’s a sham because it does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Obama goes to Copenhagen - he must like the vibe
The President Has Arrived in Copenhagen [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Perhaps while there he can sharpen his killing-capitalism skills. The Australian reports on the Hugo Chavez summit speech:
President Chavez brought the house down.When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.
A standing ovation. Just thought you'd like to know. After all, this isn't just some activist with nutty ideas at a specialized, quirky side rally. It's the president of Venezuela at a global summit our president is now attending.
Following the Script [Iain Murray]
What a surprise...an agreement has been reached at Hopenchangen at the 11th hour and, guess what? It's historic!!!
Andy Revkin has the administration's description:
Today, following a multilateral meeting between President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma a meaningful agreement was reached. Its not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change but its an important first step.
We entered this negotiation at a time when there were significant differences between countries. Developed and developing countries have now agreed to listing their national actions and commitments, a finance mechanism, to set a mitigation target of two degrees celsius and to provide information on the implementation of their actions through national communicatios, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines.
No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.
We thank the emerging economies for their voluntary actions and especially appreciate the work and leadership of the europeans in this effort.
Emphases added. The future of climate change summits is assured.
BTW, here's what I said would happen on Dec. 30, 2008.
Churchillian on the Climate [Rich Lowry]
What happened to Obama's famous nuance? His subtlety? His Burkean grace notes? His Niebuhrian distrust of glib certitudes? None were on display today in Copenhagen, where he gave a stirring call to arms to fight climate change—on the seas and oceans and on the beaches, and in the fields and in the streets, as it were. Obama wanted "bold and decisive" action, to fight a "grave and growing" danger. He was impatient with mere talk—he wanted action. He used the word "must" several times and in contrast to his warnings to our enemies, actually seemed to mean it. So where did all of Obama's famous complexity go? He saves that mostly for things he's ambivalent or doesn't care much about (usually in the area of national security) or for occasions when he needs to obfuscate (the Philadelphia race speech). When it's something that truly moves him—like massive new spending programs, or a sprawling, government-heavy revamp of health care, or new government intrusion into every aspect of the economy in the name of fighting climate change—then he's positively Churchillian.
Krauthammer's Take From last night's Fox News All-Stars.
On the results of the Copenhagen climate-change summit:
I think Copenhagen will go the way of Kyoto, and that means nothing of importance will come out for a simple reason, the American people aren't stupid — as they said in 1999, by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate to the Clinton administration, they are saying to the Obama administration, and it's listening.
The American people will not accept an agreement where we have serious cuts in carbon emissions imposed on the United States, which will mean a serious constriction of the U.S. economy, a lowering of our standard of living, if the Chinese (who are the largest CO2 polluters on the planet) and the Indians ... do not accept limits, as they will not, because the result of that is (a) there is no effect on warming — whatever coal plant America shuts down, the Chinese and Indians are going to open [another] and so there will be no effect on the climate – and (b) it will, in effect, be a huge transfer of wealth and jobs out of the West, out of the American economy, into China and India.
Adding on to that is the Clinton proposal of a fund of $100 billion a year of which America will ultimately contribute probably a third — it always does in these international agreements — from our treasury, our money from taxpayers, directly into the treasuries of the poorer countries, the majority of whom are kleptocracies, and some of whom like China and India are lenders.
It makes absolutely no sense, and Americans are simply not going to accept that, which is why nothing of importance will we sign out there. . . .
It's the same story that happened in the late '90s. If the Chinese and Indians and the others who are developing will not match our cuts, it makes no sense economically or even scientifically — [it] will have no effect on the climate, even if you accept all of the climate science and global warming as a reality.
So it has no [climactic] effect and it is [just] a transfer of wealth. It will never be accepted.
And the Chinese were clear today — they are not interested in arresting their own development on which the legitimacy of the regime depends. It is a dictatorship. It depends on a prosperous nation to stay in power. It is not going to jeopardize that in the name of the speculative warming claims, and if it doesn't, nothing is going to happen.
Perhaps while there he can sharpen his killing-capitalism skills. The Australian reports on the Hugo Chavez summit speech:
President Chavez brought the house down.When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.
A standing ovation. Just thought you'd like to know. After all, this isn't just some activist with nutty ideas at a specialized, quirky side rally. It's the president of Venezuela at a global summit our president is now attending.
Following the Script [Iain Murray]
What a surprise...an agreement has been reached at Hopenchangen at the 11th hour and, guess what? It's historic!!!
Andy Revkin has the administration's description:
Today, following a multilateral meeting between President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma a meaningful agreement was reached. Its not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change but its an important first step.
We entered this negotiation at a time when there were significant differences between countries. Developed and developing countries have now agreed to listing their national actions and commitments, a finance mechanism, to set a mitigation target of two degrees celsius and to provide information on the implementation of their actions through national communicatios, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines.
No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.
We thank the emerging economies for their voluntary actions and especially appreciate the work and leadership of the europeans in this effort.
Emphases added. The future of climate change summits is assured.
BTW, here's what I said would happen on Dec. 30, 2008.
Churchillian on the Climate [Rich Lowry]
What happened to Obama's famous nuance? His subtlety? His Burkean grace notes? His Niebuhrian distrust of glib certitudes? None were on display today in Copenhagen, where he gave a stirring call to arms to fight climate change—on the seas and oceans and on the beaches, and in the fields and in the streets, as it were. Obama wanted "bold and decisive" action, to fight a "grave and growing" danger. He was impatient with mere talk—he wanted action. He used the word "must" several times and in contrast to his warnings to our enemies, actually seemed to mean it. So where did all of Obama's famous complexity go? He saves that mostly for things he's ambivalent or doesn't care much about (usually in the area of national security) or for occasions when he needs to obfuscate (the Philadelphia race speech). When it's something that truly moves him—like massive new spending programs, or a sprawling, government-heavy revamp of health care, or new government intrusion into every aspect of the economy in the name of fighting climate change—then he's positively Churchillian.
Krauthammer's Take From last night's Fox News All-Stars.
On the results of the Copenhagen climate-change summit:
I think Copenhagen will go the way of Kyoto, and that means nothing of importance will come out for a simple reason, the American people aren't stupid — as they said in 1999, by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate to the Clinton administration, they are saying to the Obama administration, and it's listening.
The American people will not accept an agreement where we have serious cuts in carbon emissions imposed on the United States, which will mean a serious constriction of the U.S. economy, a lowering of our standard of living, if the Chinese (who are the largest CO2 polluters on the planet) and the Indians ... do not accept limits, as they will not, because the result of that is (a) there is no effect on warming — whatever coal plant America shuts down, the Chinese and Indians are going to open [another] and so there will be no effect on the climate – and (b) it will, in effect, be a huge transfer of wealth and jobs out of the West, out of the American economy, into China and India.
Adding on to that is the Clinton proposal of a fund of $100 billion a year of which America will ultimately contribute probably a third — it always does in these international agreements — from our treasury, our money from taxpayers, directly into the treasuries of the poorer countries, the majority of whom are kleptocracies, and some of whom like China and India are lenders.
It makes absolutely no sense, and Americans are simply not going to accept that, which is why nothing of importance will we sign out there. . . .
It's the same story that happened in the late '90s. If the Chinese and Indians and the others who are developing will not match our cuts, it makes no sense economically or even scientifically — [it] will have no effect on the climate, even if you accept all of the climate science and global warming as a reality.
So it has no [climactic] effect and it is [just] a transfer of wealth. It will never be accepted.
And the Chinese were clear today — they are not interested in arresting their own development on which the legitimacy of the regime depends. It is a dictatorship. It depends on a prosperous nation to stay in power. It is not going to jeopardize that in the name of the speculative warming claims, and if it doesn't, nothing is going to happen.
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