I ask them over at Popular Mechanics.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
How Much Credibility Does The GOP Have On Taxes?
Not enough. And as he notes, the Democrats are completely hopeless.
“I Didn’t Create A Single Job”
At last, a presidential candidate who understand economics and the limits of government power:
“Don’t get me wrong,” Johnson said in a statement. “We are proud of this distinction. We had a 11.6 percent job growth that occurred during our two terms in office. But the headlines that accompanied that report – referring to governors, including me, as ‘job creators’ – were just wrong.”
“The fact is, I can unequivocally say that I did not create a single job while I was governor,” Johnson added. Instead, “we kept government in check, the budget balanced, and the path to growth clear of unnecessary regulatory obstacles.”
And the current gang in DC is doing exactly the opposite, so there’s no reason that continuing bad economic news should be “unexpected.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
The one stimulus that the government refuses to try:
It’s almost as if Washington envisions the economy not as a complex network of billions of voluntary, mutually beneficial relationships, but as a lawn mower which could be forced to run smoothly if only they’d yank hard enough on the starter cord.
Amid government’s rush to “do something,” we forget that, on a percentage basis, the nation’s most productive years, those in which the U.S. overtook Great Britain to become the world’s leading economic power, occurred prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. What many lawmakers and regulators are not considering here is the strong possibility that the stimulus and intervention have had a deleterious effect.
No, that couldn’t possibly be.
Et Tu, Jon Stewart?
He’s certainly not defending the BATF.
Meaningless Bipartisan Space Blather
An op-ed from Bill Nelson and Kay Bailey Hutchison:
The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 gave us the blueprint — a way to move forward with human spaceflight and to continue exploring the next frontier.
It extended the life of the International Space Station from 2015 to 2020 and eased NASA resources away from the end of the shuttle program and toward commercial spaceflight and NASA-led development of a heavy-lift rocket for deep-space exploration.
The blueprint we ushered through the Congress last fall also will help reduce the economic impact of the shuttle’s retirement. We made every effort to boost the aerospace industry and take advantage of an extremely skilled NASA work force. We also were able to avoid huge cuts at a time when Congress is slashing across the board.
While NASA and America’s space program are in a time of transition, one thing that most people can agree on is the need to press forward with human space exploration. Our country’s commitment to exploring space is a key in keeping the United States at the forefront globally of science and technology. Space exploration and a deeper understanding of how we can best utilize the great unknown is also vital to our national-security interests.
Translation: we don’t really know what “exploration” means, or how to do it, but we managed to keep the bacon flowing to our own states and those of our buddies. We’re also going to continue to claim that building a giant rocket for which there are no funded payloads is critical to national security, even though we have no idea in what way this might be true. And we’ll take credit for commercial spaceflight, even though we’ve been bad mouthing it for a year and a half, because we merely underfunded it, whereas the House wanted to zero it out altogether.
I hope and think that Nelson will lose his election next year, and Hutchison isn’t running again. I won’t miss either of them.
[Update a few minuts later]
Here’s a summary of a panel discussion in Orlando last week, on which Nelson sat. I have to say that he does sound like he’s come around on commercial space. But he’s still likely to lose, for reasons having nothing to do with space policy. I also think that Dale Ketcham overestimates the importance of space policy to the Florida electorate. They’ll be much more concerned about ObamaCare, Medicare and other issues.
Voting With Their Feet
Doctors and medical students are abandoning the American Medical Association.
Now, if we could just get lawyers to do the same with the ABA.
You Don’t Say
O. J. Simpson is going to confess to killing his wife?
I guess all that time he spent on the golf course looking for the real killer finally paid off.
The President Is No Churchill
In 1940, Churchill appeared before the House of Commons and described Britain’s goal in World War II: “I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory despite all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”
This hyperbolic rube was too unsophisticated to appreciate that the goal doesn’t apply to overseas contingency operations or kinetic military actions.
As I wrote last night, the president and the Democrats are like the French in The Simpsons, for whom “victory” isn’t in their vocabulary, unless it applies to their domestic enemies.
Michael Walsh wasn’t impressed, either.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Nor was John Tabin:
President Obama isn’t terribly concerned with winning wars.
In his speech last night, Obama talked about “our effort to wind down this war,” “responsibly end[ing] these wars,” and “tak[ing] comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.” He did not use the words “win” or “winning”; the word “victory” appeared only in a reference to the killing of Osama bin Laden.
To these people, wars are for “ending,” not “winning.” It was something that I and others noticed in the debates in 2008, but not enough others noticed. The funny thing is, I suspect that they even realize that we notice, but they just can’t bring themselves to use the word.
[Update a few minutes later]
Could the president’s political decision backfire on him?
It bears repeating that the deadline imposed by the president has nothing to do with military or strategic calculation. It has everything to do with an electoral calculation. President Obama wants those troops out two months before Americans go to the voting booth.
This may prove a disastrous political calculation, too, however. If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week. Everyone will know he did it against the advice of his commanders. Everyone will know he did it for political reasons. So if the war is going badly a year from now, whom do you think the American people will blame? There will still be 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan, but as part of a losing effort. Will Americans reward Obama at the polls under those circumstances?
It’s not like he’s been politically brilliant so far. The tragic thing is that he’s doing something militarily stupid to serve his political needs.
[Early afternoon update]
You don’t say. Afghan women fear Obama’s peace talks with the Taliban. I’m sure NOW is fine with it, though, because he supports abortion.
“We Don’t Estimate Speeches”
A brutal assessment by the CBO of the president’s (lack of) budget plan.
Elena Bonner
Jay Nordlinger remembers:
Last summer, Bonner reflected, “I can say that many of Chazov’s Western colleagues [in the anti-nuclear organization] were wonderful people and high professionals. But they, I think, understand nothing of the essence of socialism-totalitarianism, and were very easily deceived by the organization’s name.”
She continued, “Millions of people today are deceived just as easily, believing in the slogan of the Middle East ‘Quartet,’ ‘Two states for two peoples.’ And I’m afraid that they will realize their mistake only after it becomes impossible to save the State of Israel without a third world war. It will be like Munich. You remember what Chamberlain said: ‘I have brought you peace.’ And the Second World War began!”
In Bonner’s view, the Nobel peace prize had “been devalued.”
No kidding. And sadly for freedom, the world remains full of useful idiots.