Political Commentary, War Commentary

What George Bush Understood About The Middle East

14 Comments

…that Barack Obama does not. And probably never will.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Remaking the map in the Middle East:

So, with one fell swoop, Obama has redrawn the strategic map of the Middle East. Iran will have unfettered access from its own territory, across Iraq and Syria, all the way to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. The leaders in Iran could never have imagined such a comprehensive reversal.

The administration doesn’t seem to realize that we are war, or with whom. And you can’t “end” a war unless both sides want an end to it. But the other side wants to win.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Magnificently Right

15 Comments

Here’s why the Tea Party is:

Republican consultants report that in focus groups, TV commercials about out-of-control debt prompt strongly positive responses even from Democrats. Even Democrats have to live somewhere and a lot of them own homes. And there are a lot more Democratic taxpayers and homeowners than there are government workers. This is a wedge issue for Republicans that won’t quit.

Here’s one result that I found remarkable: It shows the aggregate property taxes paid to state and local governments, against aggregate mortgage payments (the outstanding volume of mortgage debt multiplied by the current mortgage rate). The result is somewhat exaggerated, because about a third of property tax collections are commercial rather than residential, but it’s still compelling: the property tax burden on homeowners is now roughly equivalent to the interest burden on their mortgages!

When one gets to that point, one is no longer a home owner, but simply renting their home from their local government. That’s the way it feels here in CA. Our mortgage is still more than taxes, but not by all that much.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Are Schoolteachers Underpaid?

8 Comments

No:

Most teachers have Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in education, and most people with education degrees are teachers. Decades of research has shown that education is a less rigorous course of study than other majors: Teachers enter college with below-average SAT scores but receive much higher GPAs than other students. It may be that a degree in education simply does not reflect the same underlying skills and knowledge as a degree in, say, history or chemistry. When we compare salaries based on objective measures of cognitive ability — such as SAT, GRE, or IQ scores — the teacher salary penalty disappears.

I’d always suspected that, but I had never actually seen the statistics. Colleges of Education should be abolished, or at least not eligible for federal funding of any kind, including student loan guarantees.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

How Honest Is The Obama Administration?

5 Comments

…not very:

Barack Obama wants to run for reelection posing as a crusader for clean government battling against the special interests. In 2008, I know that Obama convinced much of the press corps that he was running a “cleaner” campaign than his rivals.

Obama attracted some libertarian, moderate, and conservative support because he convinced people he would bring good government to the White House and curb the influence of special interests. Even if his is a liberal White House, the thinking went, at least it will be a HONEST liberal White House.

Team Obama has already indicated it plans to try to ride this wave again in 2012. David Axelrod pushed these lines on Sunday morning television. And now, liberal columnist Jonathan Alter, intimately dialed into the West Wing, is trumpeting this very argument. I quote Alter’s claims not to pick a fight with him, but because if Alter is saying it, you can bet this is the talk behind closed doors in Obama’s inner circle.

“He has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.”

But Obama frequently tells blatant falsehoods about important matters, and then in a Clintonian fashion explains how some interpretation of his words could be made to correspond to the truth.

For your consideration, I provide some counter-examples:

Lots of links there.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Occupy Wall Street Supporters

11 Comments

The comprehensive list:

Communist Party USA

The American Nazi Party

Revolutionary Communist Party

Black Panthers

Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan

CAIR

Some big names in the political world have also lent support to the cause:

President Barack Obama

Vice President Joe Biden

Nancy Pelosi

International Leaders and Governments:

Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei

Hugo Chavez

Revolutionary Guards of Iran

The Govt of North Korea

Communist Party of China

Hezbollah

They’re uniters, not dividers.

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