The US Navy is sending three warships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea in a show of strength during a period of tensions with Syria and political uncertainty in Lebanon.
It’s hard to believe that Syria really wants another war, given how easily Israel penetrated their supposedly impenetrable Russian defenses last fall. I think that the message is that if Hezbollah wants to take on Israel again, they’d better do it alone.
Frank J. has the man himself to explain.
In his previous submission to the people seven years earlier, Saddam got 99.89 per cent of the vote. And, given that the 0.11 per cent foolish enough to write in Ralph Nader were no doubt subsequently shoved into the industrial shredder, it seemed a safe bet that the old butcher would do even better this time round. Nonetheless, throughout the day, CNN kept up the Election Special excitement to the point where you half-expected a Gallup exit poll showing Saddam plummeting to 99.82 per cent, or Frank Luntz live with a focus group of Tikrit soccer moms who want more spending on health care and less on anthrax. Saddam “sought” re-election and happily found it, and, after the removal of his regime, survived in his spider-hole long enough to enjoy an increasing number of approving pieces in the Western press bemoaning the way the blundering neo-cons and their incompetent stooges among Iraq’s democratic parties had destroyed a smoothly functioning dictatorship. From the London Spectator: “Things Were Better Under Saddam.” Once Cuba begins the inevitably messy birth pangs of democracy, expect similar Castro nostalgia to the nth degree: Havana not as quaint as it used to be, full of ghastly American banks and fast-food outlets.
Rich Karlgaard thinks that’s what’s going on, and the cure for it is supply-side tax-rate cuts. He doesn’t call them that, though–he makes the mistake of calling them “tax cuts,” even though it’s clear that he knows that’s not what they necessarily are:
Conservatives generally avoid the class warfare talk, but they do fall into two other traps about supply side tax cuts. One trap is that tax cuts add to the federal deficit. There is no evidence of this. The evidence is either neutral or points the other way. Government tax receipts after supply side cuts have been enacted go up, not down.
I’ve kvetched about this before.
By definition, if revenues went up, it’s not a tax “cut.” It’s a tax increase, achieved through lower rates but faster economic growth and an increase in GDP. Sloppy language like this is one of the things that makes it hard to sell the concept.
One can only shake one’s head at the mindset of copy editors at the AP.
In what fantasyland does Obama think that this is a winning campaign plank during a war?
I see another 1972 coming up for the Dems.
In what fantasyland does Obama think that this is a winning campaign plank during a war?
I see another 1972 coming up for the Dems.
In what fantasyland does Obama think that this is a winning campaign plank during a war?
I see another 1972 coming up for the Dems.
Or, rather, crazier. Jonah’s Book
The racial (and sexual) internecine warfare within the Democrat Party continues.
It’s going to get a lot uglier than this before it’s over. And it’s well deserved, by both sides of the identity-politics gang.