May 25 (Bloomberg) — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell challenged former Vice President Dick Cheney and talk show host Rush Limbaugh over the future of the Republican Party, saying it must be more inclusive or “watch the world go by.”
“If we don’t reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base,” Powell said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”..
“On almost every demographic indicator the Republican Party is losing,” Powell said. “The Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and ask, ‘What kind of party are we?’”
The Republicans continue to struggle without a universally accepted leader of the Party. Whatever happened to G. Bush? On a positive note for the GOP, turnarounds usually start when the situation appears most hopeless.
Over the last week, the true nature of Obama’s political project has come into much clearer view. He is out to build a new and enduring political establishment, located slightly to the left of center but including everyone except the far right.
Extremists on each end of the spectrum should be excluded since they lack an appreciation for the virtues of compromise. Every day someone is explaining how the President has moved to the center or adopted policies of the last President - did Obama vote for Bush in the last election?
Threats To Judges, Prosecutors Soaring
Threats against the nation’s judges and prosecutors have sharply increased, prompting hundreds to get 24-hour protection from armed U.S. marshals.
The threats and other harassing communications against federal court personnel have more than doubled in the past six years, from 592 to 1,278, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The U.S. Marshals Service, which protects judges and prosecutors, says several hundred require 24-hour guard for days, weeks or months at a time each year, depending on the case.
State court officials are seeing the same trend, although no numbers are available.
Threats to judges and prosecutors strike at the very heart of our civil liberties which are protected by the judicial system. Does the unraveling of our economic system play a role in this story?
Thought Provoking Links
Obama - A Jump to the Left, A Step to the Right
In a front-page analysis, the NYT notes that Obama is taking “a nuanced set of positions that fall somewhere between George W. Bush and the American Civil Liberties Union.” But the truth is that the combination of harshly criticizing Bush-era policies, while also taking some on as his own, has “has generated confusion and disappointment across the political spectrum,” notes the NYT.
Some good insights on the agile President’s complex policy moves.
The repudiation of the California establishment in the series of initiative defeats could hardly have been more decisive.
This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.
Voters in our largest state spoke unambiguously, but politicians and lobbyists in Sacramento are ignoring or rejecting the voters’ will, just as they are in Albany and Trenton. The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people. They have become castles of corruption, favoritism and wastefulness. These state governments are run by lobbyists for the various unions through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left. Elections have become so rigged by big money and clever incumbents that the process of self-government is threatened.
Nothing new here but a good summary of the “mess” our democracy has become. One wonders what could have been done in the previous eight years to prevent the fiscal crises that are now engulfing all 50 of the Nation’s states. The Republicans were never shy about running up monstrous deficits either.
If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush.
Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech yesterday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.
Did Obama vote for Bush? Some policies will never change.
Obama Faces Pitfalls on Detainees
In the reductionist debate in Washington, either any sacrifice must be made to win a pitiless war against radicals, or terrorism does not justify any compromise with cherished American values.
“Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right,” Mr. Obama said. “The American people are not absolutist, and they don’t elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems.
Perhaps one side is more right than the other. In any event, neither side seems pleased with the middle ground approach.
And, a CNN poll showed that 39 percent approved of the job Pelosi was handling her speakership while 48 percent disapproved — well below the 46 percent approval rating that the Californian scored in a CNN survey in March 2007.
Republicans are looking for someone — anyone — on the Democratic side to whom some negatives will stick given their decided lack of success in doing so to Obama. Pelosi is in the crosshairs right now. How will she handle herself in the coming weeks and months?
Pelosi seems confused much of the time. Maybe they should take polls on what the public thinks her IQ is?
Obama Is Embraced at Annapolis
There was no such controversy to confront here in Annapolis, where cheering midshipmen, clad in their sparkling summer dress whites, greeted their new commander-in-chief with hoots, hollers and raucous applause. Mr. Obama returned the show of support by praising the graduates for the path they chose — a notable contrast, he said, to the pursuit of wealth that characterized those who helped create the current economic crisis.
A good start for the President on Memorial Day Weekend!
Can debt create prosperity?
A common question asked these days is, if too much debt caused the financial crisis, how can more debt solve the problem? Most American families know that their basic problem is too little income and too much debt. Common sense tells us that unless debt is balanced by inceasing income to service the payments, the end result is bankruptcy, and this rule applies equally to individuals and nations.
WASHINGTON — Just how much government debt does a president have to endorse before he’s labeled “irresponsible”? Well, apparently much more than the massive amounts envisioned by President Obama. The final version of his 2010 budget, released last week, is a case study in political expediency and economic gambling.
Let’s see. From 2010 to 2019, Obama projects annual deficits totaling $7.1 trillion; that’s atop the $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009.
One reason Obama is so popular is that he has promised almost everyone lower taxes and higher spending. Beyond the undeserving who make more than $250,000, 95 percent of “working families” receive a tax cut.
Consider the extra debt as a proxy for political evasion. The president doesn’t want to confront Americans with choices between lower spending and higher taxes — or, given the existing deficits, perhaps less spending and more taxes.
At best, the rising cost of the debt would intensify pressures to increase taxes, cut spending — or create bigger, unsustainable deficits.
At worst, the burgeoning debt could trigger a future financial crisis. The danger is that “we won’t be able to sell it (Treasury debt) at reasonable interest rates,” says economist Rudy Penner, head of the CBO from 1983 to 1987. In today’s anxious climate, this hasn’t happened. American and foreign investors have favored “safe” U.S. Treasuries. But a glut of bonds, fears of inflation — or something else — might one day shatter confidence. Bond prices might fall sharply; interest rates would rise. The consequences could be worldwide because foreigners own half of U.S. Treasury debt.
The Obama budgets flirt with deferred distress, though we can’t know what form it might take or when it might occur. Present gain comes with the risk of future pain. As the present economic crisis shows, imprudent policies ultimately backfire, even if the reversal’s timing and nature are unpredictable.
Thought Provoking Links
Socialism Coming Back To Haunt U.S.
America is more than a country; it is the ideal of liberty. In economic terms, liberty translates into the entrepreneurial spirit of hard work, risk taking and self-reliance. And this spirit has made America rich beyond compare.
Unfortunately, over the past four decades, much has been undone. Under the guise of a new, “social” justice, political leaders have turned our native ethics upside down. Profit-taking is now seen as gouging; success is greed; businessmen are predators. This creeping socialist transformation of our culture has finally broken the back of the American economy.
What happens when half a century of socialism catches up with the “shining city on a hill”? Start with America losing its Triple-A credit rating, then the dollar free-falling, then interest rates rising into double-digits as a last-ditch effort to restore faith, which may lead to civil unrest — and certainly widespread misery.
Some thoughts on the risks to American liberty based on economic decline and why Asia will become the dominant economic power.
Xanax Nation Beats A Panicked Nation Any Day
May 15 (Bloomberg) — Economic historians like to put some distance between themselves and the events they’re writing about. The Founding Fathers come up for a scholarly re-look a few times each century. The Civil War and the economics of slavery provide endless fodder. The Great Depression is still hotly debated 80 years after the fact.
With any luck, by 2088 we should have a good handle on the Panic of 2008: the causes, cures and curiosities surrounding the subprime collapse that was heard, and felt, ‘round the world.
What will the current crisis look like when viewed through history’s telescopic lens? We can only imagine.
Some good insights into the financial crisis and why government always winds up fighting the last war. The risks of emotional decision making under panic conditions is examined.
As President, Obama Is Unafraid To Disappoint His Allies
Through much of last year’s campaign, Barack Obama enjoyed the acclaim of a politician who seemed adept at making himself all things to almost all people. Liberals, moderates, even some conservatives, Democrats, independents and even some Republicans all found in Obama change they could believe in.
That was the mark of a skillful candidate who leaves enough unsaid to attract the maximum support possible. But it isn’t possible to maintain that posture once presidential decision making begins and choices have to be made.
Typecasting Obama has also proved difficult. His ambitious domestic policies lean decidedly left (unless he turns out to be the deficit hawk he says he wants to be).
The decisions underscored an important facet of Obama’s decision making, which is his capacity to rethink positions and to change his mind as he learns more or conditions change. And he tends whenever possible to seek consensus. Those on the left and right often overlook this aspect of his governing style, though it was one of the factors that drew many people during the campaign.
The other reality that last week’s decisions highlighted is Obama’s willingness to disappoint his allies, which suggests that he feels he owes no group or groups unduly for his victory.
A President cannot rule successfully from the extreme right or left. The capacity to rethink positions based on changing circumstances is better leadership than reacting to events based on some inflexible ideology.
Why Pelosi’s Hypocrisy Matters
WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, I wrote a column outlining two exceptions to the no-torture rule: the ticking time bomb scenario and its less extreme variant in which a high-value terrorist refuses to divulge crucial information that could save innocent lives. The column elicited protest and opposition that were, shall we say, spirited.
Even John McCain says that in ticking time bomb scenarios you “do what you have to do.” The no-torture principle is not inviolable. One therefore has to think about what kind of transgressive interrogation might be permissible in the less pristine circumstance of the high-value terrorist who knows about less imminent attacks.
My column also pointed out the contemptible hypocrisy of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is feigning outrage now about techniques that she knew about and did nothing to stop at the time.
My critics say: So what if Pelosi is a hypocrite? Her behavior doesn’t change the truth about torture.
But it does. The fact that Pelosi (and her intelligence aide) and then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss and dozens of other members of Congress knew about the enhanced interrogation and said nothing, and did nothing to cut off the funding, tells us something very important.
Our jurisprudence has the “reasonable man” standard. A jury is asked to consider what a reasonable person would do under certain urgent circumstances.
On the morality of waterboarding and other “torture,” Pelosi and other senior and expert members of Congress represented their colleagues, and indeed the entire American people, in rendering the reasonable person verdict. What did they do? They gave tacit approval. In fact, according to Goss, they offered encouragement. Given the existing circumstances, they clearly deemed the interrogations warranted.
So what happened? The reason Pelosi raised no objection to waterboarding at the time, the reason the American people (who by 2004 knew what was going on) strongly re-elected the man who ordered these interrogations, is not because she and the rest of the American people suffered a years-long moral psychosis from which they have just now awoken. It is because at that time they were aware of the existing conditions — our blindness to al-Qaeda’s plans, the urgency of the threat, the magnitude of the suffering that might be caused by a second 9/11, the likelihood that the interrogation would extract intelligence that President Obama’s own director of national intelligence now tells us was indeed “high-value information” — and concluded that on balance it was a reasonable response to a terrible threat.
Pelosi is not thinking clearly about what she is saying. High minded moral discussions are fine when imminent threats are not present. One of the government’s primary functions is to provide for the common defense. Defending a nation sometimes involves tactics that are we may not normally condone. If Pelosi cannot do what must be done in a crisis to avoid the needless death of Americans by our enemies, she is not fit to hold elected office.
Thought Provoking Links
Even some loyal Democrats are feeling queasy about what will happen if, as seems likely, Al Franken wins the endless dispute over that Senate seat from Minnesota. With Arlen Specter’s recent conversion, that would give the Democrats 60 seats, or three-fifths of the Senate, which is a filibuster-proof majority.
We have endured gridlocked government for so long that the idea of a president and a Congress from the same party enacting the legislation that they promised to enact while they were running for office seems almost unnatural.
The president and his party in Congress face the terrifying prospect of being able to fulfill their campaign promises. They will have no excuse if there is no health-care reform or energy reform, or if there are and they are disasters.
Now, when the voters demand change, they may well get it. We’ll see how they like it.
America is on the great quest for “change”. Although a great campaign slogan, when faced with the reality of real change, most people are terrified. With what can only be described as near dictatorial power compared to previous Presidents, the Obama administration is likely to bring the status quo to an abrupt halt. The power to act decisively could be a huge positive for the country - time will tell.
Speaker’s Comments Raise Detainee Debate To New Level
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques dramatically raised the stakes in the growing debate over the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies even as it raised some questions about the speaker’s credibility.
Pelosi’s performance in the Capitol was either a calculated escalation of a long-running feud with the Bush administration or a reckless act by a politician whose word had been called into question. Perhaps it was both.Washington is now engaged in a battle royal of finger pointing..
Conservatives say that, if Pelosi was so opposed to torture, she should have spoken out forcefully when she learned that these techniques were being employed.
The president wants the focus kept on the future…
Each side seems to have something to prove. Meanwhile, real issues we face today and in the future are being sidetracked. No one is better than a politician at pointing fingers and blaming others. It’s time to move on to more important issues.
TWO TRILLION dollars in health-care savings, as hailed by President Obama in the White House yesterday, would be nothing to sneeze at.
The White House has emphasized repeatedly that health-care reform is entitlement reform — that is, an answer to the nation’s long-term fiscal challenge. Yet, so far, it is backing a plan to expand coverage that would cost taxpayers between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years, while it has proposed health-care savings of only $309 billion. There is a danger that the administration and Congress alike will be tempted to “pay for” actual government expenditures with presumed but unspecified savings, like those promised yesterday. In fact, even as they promise cost control, a number of the groups that met with the president yesterday also have argued that health-care reform should not be held to Congress’s pay-as-you-go rules.
The White House has stated clearly that any reform bill should be fully paid for. To ease suspicions that the associations he met with yesterday are only talking a good game on cost control to ensure a seat at the bargaining table of health-care reform, the president will have to reaffirm his commitment to pay fully for health care and get to that goal without gimmicks.
In 2007 the U.S. bill for health care amounted to 17% of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 11% in Switzerland and Germany and 10% in Canada and France. There is no evidence in terms of over all health or longevity that suggests the U.S. is getting any benefit for spending almost twice as much on health care as other industrialized nations. Savings on health care are, of course, theoretically doable but getting there will be the hard part. One person’s “savings” usually means a cost or pay cut to someone else - and that “someone else” is likely to resist.
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