Time to Support General McChrystal

There's something here I don't understand:

The Obama Administration says it can't really respond to General Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops until it decides what its policy should be for the war in Afghanistan. I don't understand that, because that's what the Administration did early this year. It started right after the Inauguration, reviewing and reworking our national policy in this area, deciding what the strategy and tactics should be. President Obama then appointed Gen McChrystal to carry out the new policy and strategy, and promised him the resources he needed to do that. McChrystal identified the additional resources needed to do his assigned job. His request letter was held up by the Pentagon, reportedly at the request of the White House which didn't want to deal with the request at that time. (There have also been reports that he was directed to reduce his request from what he originally wanted.) And now the Administration "needs" to do a new Afghanistan policy review, its second in less than a year, before deciding whether to give Gen McChrystal the support he was promised.

Actually, it's worse than that. In an interview released in September, Gen McChrystal acknowledged that, since he had taken command in Afghanistan, he had only had one short telephone conversation with President Obama. Shortly after that, at a Pentagon-approved event in London, McChrystal was asked if he supported a shift to a strategy supported by Vice President Biden that relies more on drones and less on foot soldiers. "The short answer is: No." was his response. He said "Chaos-istan" would be the result of that strategy. That apparently shocked and angered presidential advisors. And so, as a result,

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

It would be better if there were more promises kept, and less dithering by the White House.

Zero Tolerance Is Zero Intelligence

... suitable only for those with no capacity for judgment.

Time for a Lawsuit

It appears our lawmakers are now routinely derelict in their duties, and violating their oaths of office. Some of it is not their fault. They are not being given the chance to consider the provisions and consequences of bills they are being asked to vote on. Essentially, the Congressional leadership is putting them in an untenable position.

We need a class action lawsuit. It should assert, at a minimum, that any vote to report a bill out of a committee or to pass a bill from either the House or the Senate is invalid if the legislators have not had the opportunity to read and evaluate the actual legislative language of the bill at issue before voting on it.

“Conceptual languate” doesn't cut it. The actual legislative language often violates the conceptual language it supposedly implements. And the budgetary effect of actual legislative language is often radically different from that of its “conceptual language”.

Here's the bottom line: If the legislators have not had the opportunity to read and analyze the actual legislative language of the bill, no vote by the legislators can be legitimate.

Yes, I'd like to be able to push the idea that legislative bodies should be required to post the actual language of bills for public comment before a vote can be taken, but I don't think that can be done this way. That would require some actual legitimacy of the legislative leadership. Without that legitimacy, the most we can ask the courts to enforce is that our legislators have the opportunity to evaluate bills they are asked to vote on.

We may not be able to enforce their reading and evaluating bills' language, but we should be able to enforce their not being prevented from performing their Constitutional duties. No matter what, simply trusting the legislative leadership is not enough.

Polka Dotted Sky

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta opened yesterday, bringing hot air balloons to New Mexico from all over the world. The famed Albuquerque Box, which may be unique in the world, was in effect.

This picture from a past Balloon Fiesta shows what yesterday looked like.

The Balloon Fiesta began in 1972. But my favorite question about it is timeless:

Do you have to be Catholic to attend the Mass Ascension?

The Axelrod Assertion

Presidential advisor David Axelrod was interviewed a few minutes after the conclusion of President Obama's health care speech last Wednesday. That interview has produced some coverage, mostly of his shot "I don't know what medical school Dick Morris went to." (My thought was, it was evidently a better one than Axelrod's.)

UPDATE: Dick Morris' response was better. He said something close to "That's not the issue. The issue is elementary school. It's really that simple." END UPDATE

I heard that interview when it occurred. And I heard David Axelrod make an incredibly important statement in that interview. But, even now, I have seen no coverage of that statement.

Axelrod was asked about Dick Morris' warning that Obama's plan would lead to rationing of health care by dumping millions more people into the system without doing anything to add to the numbers of doctors and nurses. Axelrod answered, saying that was a phony issue. He said those people are already getting care — they're just getting it now in emergency rooms instead of medical offices.

Stop and think about what Axelrod said there — two huge things in one single statement. (1) He said plainly that the lack of health insurance does not translate into a lack of health care. (2) He also said everyone is getting medical care now, so there is no "crisis" to be dealt with.

People will differ on whether Axelrod's assertion in this interview is accurate. But here's the thing: If it's not, the warning is right and rationing is a serious danger. If it is, it substantially undercuts the rationale for the current health care initiative.

Barack Obama's New Health Care Plan

I missed some of President Barack Obama's health care speech last Wednesday. (I didn't hear Congressman Joe Wilson's intra-speech response until later, on the news.) But I did see much of the speech, though, and some interviews and commentaries afterward.

One part of the speech really stood out to me. Obama said quite clearly that he is open to considering all serious proposals for inclusion in his health care program. He said, for example,

Now, this is the plan I'm proposing. It's a plan that incorporates ideas from many of the people in this room tonight -- Democrats and Republicans. And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.

That makes it sound like this speech was prepared for the introduction of a new issue — with or without an initial proposal. It's right for a time when the proposal outlines are being defined, not when the bill has already passed one House.

There's something else, too: A number of the statements Obama made about his proposal, even just in the part of the speech I heard, are at odds with what's in the one bill that's available to be read (HR3200). This strongly suggests the Obama White House is about to drop the current House bill and start over, or embrace a highly modified Senate bill, especially when coupled with Obama's stated openness to any "serious set of proposals". Otherwise he spent nearly an hour Wednesday evening being dishonest with us all.

9/11 — Never Forget!

It started out as an ordinary day. It didn't stay that way for long. I had just finished my shower in the Mountain time zone, and was getting dressed, when I heard the news that an airplane had hit a building in New York. I thought it had to be an accident.

I was having a glass of milk before driving to work when news came of the second plane hitting the other tower of the World Trade Center. It was now obvious we were under attack.

The best thing I could do is go to my workplace. It's closer than my home to the base areas where I could assist if needed. So I went. I was still on my way when the Pentagon was hit. News of the collapse of the World Trade Center South Tower broke as I pulled into a workplace parking spot.

News of the collapse of the World Trade Center North Tower and of the crash in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, reached me at my workplace by radio and internet — the latter seeming terribly slow. By the time my employer told everyone to go home, it had become clear no part of the attack was in our area. Whether we were ever a part of the enemy's plans, or whether whether some part of their plan had been thwarted, was not clear.

I didn't try to leave immediately; I knew there would be a traffic problem. But after a while, I walked out. I came within sight of the parking lot, and saw a traffic jam that made me think of the one that occurred when a snowstorm closed the city as Operation Desert Storm began. I went back to my office to follow the news developments.

The traffic jam was gone by the time I came back out an hour and a half later. The drive home was spooky. My route took me through the roads closest to the city's airport. The activity there was normally a constant, but now there was nothing moving. At all. I drove by, got home, and spent the rest of the day following the news.

Even today, eight years later, the strong impressions of that day remain with me. I suspect they always will.

9-11 -- We Remember

Welcome Back, Congressman

The Congressmen (and Senators) have every reason to be in a black mood. First, they managed to mess things up pretty royally before leaving for their recess. Then they discovered that, in their policy pandering to their Dear Leader, they managed to incur the wrath of most of their constituents. (That's why so many tried to avoid meeting with consittuents.) No wonder they feel the way they do!

I doubt they learned anything, though. So they're just down and frustrated. And likely to remain so.

Economic Incompetence or Malice?

President Obama said we had to pass the "stimulus package" quickly — so much so we couldn't afford the time for the Senators and Congressmen to actually read the bill they were being asked to pass. We were assured this bill was necessary to get the economy moving again and keep our workers employed, and that it really would accomplish both those things.

Now the latest monthly unemployment numbers are out. Here they are, graphed with the Administration's analysis of what the results would be with and without their "recovery plan", a.k.a. the "stimulus package".

I find this performance extremely disturbing, no matter which way I look at it. I would like to think the Administration has/had enough economic competence (or access to enough economic competence) to be able to project the likely course of the recession and its primary features. But if that is so, then the "stimulus package" clearly wasn't a stimulus. Maybe that was because Obama "farmed out" its preparation to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her friends, who loaded it up with pork and payoffs for their political cronies. Maybe it was at least partly because the Administration decided, despite their campaign claims, to take their economic advice from people like Van Jones and Barney Frank instead of from folks like Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett — and created, as a result, an anti-stimulus bill (with pork and payoffs) for their "stimulus package". Or just maybe, even if they could project the recession's unmodified course, they really had no clue what to do to change it.

On the other hand, it may be that the blue lines on the graph were just made up, too. That would suggest an Administration with great competence in running a political campaign, but with no economic knowledge or competence beyond the Keynesian knee-jerk response of "throw money at it."

Gee — it appears all the explanations for the comparison between projection and performance include one or both of economic incompetence and malice on the part of this Administration. It's very likely they never understood what this recession was doing, and why. But even putting the best possible face on it, at the very least, they have no one who knows what to do about our current condition.

Meanwhile, as reported on today's ABC radio news, the Obama Administration says the stimulus is clearly working. I suppose the veracity of that statement depends on what the "stimulus" is really intended to do.

FBI Foreign Intelligence Tasking

President Barack Obama has approved creation of a new, special terrorism-era interrogation unit to be supervised by the White House, a top aide said Monday [August 24], further distancing his administration from President George W. Bush's detainee policies.

. . .

The unit would be led by an FBI official, with a deputy director from somewhere in the government's vast intelligence apparatus, and members from across agencies. It will be directly supervised by the White House, but the senior administration officials insisted the unit's agency bosses will make operational decisions, not the White House. [emphasis added]

— Obama spokesman announces interrogation unit, August 24, 2009

Three primary thoughts come to me about this:

1. First, the statement that "the unit's agency bosses will make operational decisions, not the White House" is simply not believable. Or, more accurately, one could say it will be true as long as the unit's bosses make their decisions the way the White House people tell them to.
2. Second, this effectively takes the CIA out of foreign intelligence collection, their primary charter since 1947. Charles Krauthammer is right:

   And lastly, and most importantly, the interrogation of high-level enemy terrorists has been removed from the CIA. It's now in the hands of the FBI and White House.

   Now, what's left? Signal intelligence is not CIA, it's NSA. Human intelligence — any important intelligence — is not CIA anymore. It's in the FBI and the White House.

   So it is Central Intelligence, but it doesn't gather intelligence. All that's left is analyzing intelligence. Well, you don't need $30 billion a year for analysis. You can hire the RAND corporation who will do it at 1/100th of the cost and save billions of dollars that you could waste on the Cash for Clunkers and purchase every secondhand car in America.

   This is a real institutional problem...The Obama administration has relegated the CIA to the role it had pre-9/11. And we know what that resulted in.

3. Third, and to my mind most important, this move ignores (and probably violates) the law. Statutes give responsibility and authority for foreign intelligence operations to the CIA, and give responsibility and authority for domestic intelligence operations to the FBI. By law the CIA is allowed no domestic role, and the FBI is allowed no foreign role in intelligence.

Stepping back and taking a broader look, it appears to me that Barack Obama and his associates are permanently mired in the late-1960's radicalism they were raised in. They automatically and unthinkingly consider the CIA and all its operations to be inherently evil. That is why they are ignoring the prior investigation of CIA interrogations, and the determination of the Department of Justice that no laws were broken; they are determined to prosecute this "obvious evil", and thereby persecute those who saved hundreds - or, more probably, thousands - of American lives. Indeed, such are their ideological blinders that I will be very surprised if they don't go the rest of the way and do what they are convinced the Church Committee should have done — completely disband the CIA.

Meanwhile, consider President Obama's choice to run the CIA, Leon Panetta. He is consistently being countermanded, denigrated, ignored, and now cut out of the process by which the decisions affecting his agency are being made. Worse yet, in the view of Obama's inner circle, he has dared to stand up to them and defend his agency — including, reportedly, in an angry shouting match in the White House. And for that impertinence, apparently, he has had his primary mission involuntarily amputated.

To his credit, Panetta has not backed down. Instead, he finalized a decision on Thursday, August 27, that the CIA will pay the legal costs of employees caught up in the investigations announced August 24 by Attorney General Eric Holder. (One factor in that decision may be that Holder apparently intends a broader investigation than he has yet admitted. That same news article notes that "Unnamed Federal officials also said that they expect the inquiry, which will be conducted by veteran Federal prosecutor John H. Durham, to involve many more individuals than the small group of intelligence officers and contractors implicated in the CIA Inspector General report that prompted Holder to order the inquiry." [emphasis added])

To summarize: The transfer of foreign intelligence responsibility and authority to the FBI is improper and probably illegal. And the reasons behind this action appear to be unrelated to the excuse being used.

Welcome Back, Mr. President

The Smart Car

I like the Smart Car. It's cute. I liked seeing it in Europe a few years ago. I liked the fact that it's engineered by Daimler-Benz. I might have bought one if they'd been imported into the U.S. at the time I was needing to replace my old car (a Dodge Intrepid with 157,000+ miles on it).

Now I'm glad I didn't. No matter now well-engineered something is, it's going to lose when it goes up against the "big dogs".

Yes, it's hard to see. Look just in front of the red truck and the ambulance.

I Remember Pete Stark

I lived in Oakland, California, some years ago. Fortney "Pete" Stark was the Congressman from my district. He was an extreme left-wing liberal wacko then. He hasn't learned anything since.

Attorney General Holder Does Another Political Favor

Attorney General Eric Holder has done another big political favor for another Friend Of Barack. He, and his department, have killed the "pay for play" investigation of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and his associates. That investigation was responsible for Richardson's withdrawal from nomination to President Barack Obama's cabinet as Commerce Secretary.

The AP story says "The decision not to pursue indictments was made by top Justice Department officials," and quotes "a person familiar with the investigation" as saying "It's over. There's nothing. It was killed in Washington." Other reports indicated the decision was made by the Attorney General himself.

These decisions are normally made by the U.S. Attorney in whose district the corresponding grand jury operates. This practice is intended to insure against most interference of Washington politics in prosecutorial decisions. The fact that this decision was made in Washington suggests knowledge that indictments were warranted, and were coming — otherwise no Washington interference would be needed. Its timing suggests either that the indictments were very close to being issued, or that the Obama Administration wants to appoint Richardson to some post soon and needed to make this investigation go away.

Most of the coverage of this news has been rather cursory, providing no more information than in the AP story cited above. The one exception I have seen has been the story in our local paper, the Albuquerque Journal (subscription required). Here's part of that report:

A letter to defense lawyers from U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt sent late Thursday said the United States "will not seek to bring charges against your clients" arising out of the New Mexico Finance Authority's award of financial work to California-based CDR Financial Products.

Fouratt went on to say, however, that the investigation revealed that CDR and its officers made substantial contributions to Richardson's political organizations while the company was seeking the work and that "pressure from the governor's office resulted in corruption of the procurement process so that CDR would be awarded such work."

The three-paragraph letter — obtained by the Journal from private attorneys in the case — said the notification "shall not preclude the United States or the grand jury from reinstituting such an investigation without notification if ... circumstances warrant ..."

. . .

The letter said, "It is not to be interpreted as an exoneration of any party's conduct."

Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos responded late Thursday, saying, "The prosecutor's letter is wrong on the facts and appears to be nothing more than sour grapes."

My reaction when I read this story was two-fold:

1. The statement by Richardson's spokesman was wrong — and self-serving. I read the letter excerpt as a clear statement that wrongdoing has been found, even if indictments have not been issued. It also strongly suggests the U.S. Attorney's disagreement with Washington's interference in this case.
2. That the decision not to pursue indictments "is not to be interpreted as an exoneration of any party's conduct" and "shall not preclude the United States or the grand jury from reinstituting such an investigation without notification if ... circumstances warrant ..." seems to be warning the Richardson group not to get too cocky, that the investigation/indictments can easily be reactivated once there is an attorney general more interested in the rule of law than political favortism. In effect, it says "This isn't over." That aspect of the U.S. Attorney's letter may be the reason for the Richardson spokesman's "sour grapes" response.
   (There is another reason for thinking this issue is not finished. As has been noted elsewhere, for example here, the Securities and Exchange Commission is also probing pay-for-play cases in several states. It is not known whether these probes include one in New Mexico.)

All this still doesn't answer the questions about why this action was taken, and why now. But Bill Richardson is a former U.N. Ambassador who was reported last year as being under consideration for appointment as Secretary of State. And he has been in the news, for quite uncommon things, a couple of times lately. One was just weeks ago when a group of North Korean officials came to meet with him in Santa Fe. And at the time of this news from the Justice Department, he was leading a trade delegation in Cuba. Supposedly, neither action was taken on behalf of the White House, but Richardson is reporting to Obama next week on his Cuban trip.

It has also been suggested the investigation was killed because this scandal goes much deeper than we have known, potentially involving "significant portions of the Democrat Party." If that is so, expect more pressure to close the SEC (and other) pay-for-play investigations in the near future.

All of which is interesting, but provides no answers. And what we are left with is just another action by the politicized Obama/Holder Justice Department — Chicago politics being played out in Washington, DC, and across the country.

Holder Should Be Careful

Attorney General Eric Holder should be very careful. Yes, he needs to pander to Barack Obama's extreme leftist base. But if he establishes this precedent, he is likely to be among the targets when the opposition applies the same precedent to the politicized Holder Justice Department.

UPDATE: Let me repeat, with emphasis: he needs to pander to Barack Obama's extreme leftist base. That's why Barack Obama is letting his flunky Eric Holder pursue this "issue".

Government Demonstrates Its Efficiency

To get the auto dealerships to front the money for the Cash for Clunkers program, the government guaranteed them they would have their reimbursements within ten days. But CBS television outlet KRKE in Albuquerque reports that, for the state of New Mexico,

Dealers across the state are owed more than $3.6 million, according to a dealers' group which says that so far Uncle Sam has only written three checks totaling about $14,000. (emphasis added)

The dealers in other states are in the same fix. That's why a lot of them dumped the Cash for Clunkers program early — they just couldn't afford to make more large interest-free loans to Uncle Sam. Because of government delays, it appears, some dealers are having cash flow problems big enough they're having trouble making their payroll.

There it is, yet another example of the kind of efficiency we have come to expect from the federal government. Everyone else in the country is expected to pay their obligations in a timely manner. Why not the government? I guess the government feels it's above the laws that apply to everyone else.

Instapundit comments:

They can't handle this, but they'll handle healthcare? . . .
They promised FedEx, but they're delivering the Post Office. . . .

Government Demonstrates Its Effectiveness

... and Trever hits a home run in showing the results

Trever's cartoons can be seen in the Albuquerque Journal

... And the Referees, Too

How would you feel if you took your team to a tournament and found that the tournament's referees belonged to one of the other teams? Not to their league, not to their area, but to the team itself. How would you feel about the likelihood of the games being refereed fairly? And how would you feel when you learned those referees had the power to change the rules of the game — and didn't have to apply those rules equally to your team and theirs?

I suspect you'd figure the other team wasn't competing fairly, that it would be getting improper assistance from the referees. And you would be right. That's why this kind of situation is not allowed in any legitimate competition.

But that's exactly the situation the Congress wants to create in healthcare insurance. They (the federal government) already have the referees (regulators), and they're working at creating a team (the "public option") to compete against the insurance companies. And they're doing it all in the name of "increasing competition" and "keeping the insurance companies honest". (As if someone dishonest can keep someone else honest.) That's why the so-called "public option" must be defeated.

The "health care co-ops" would probably be no better. It's theoretically possible for them to be set up like shopping centers, as places where the various companies have their stores and compete against each other, without the government owning or operating — or having anything to do with — the shopping center. But they're being sold under the banner of "managed competition" — an oxymoron which really means destroying it so there's no competition at all.

Remember, the government is incapable of competing fairly. (And it's not just me saying so: "The government is a predator, not a competitor.") That's why doing nothing may not be good, but it's better than any of the healthcare bills currently being considered by Congress.

The Wrong Target

"Obamacare Death Panels" have been in the news. A number of folks have talked about them, but it seems it was Sarah Palin (in a Facebook entry) who tagged them with that title. That entry caused a lot of discussion, some of it rather heated. Within a few days, Senators announced that the provisions for end of life counseling sessions were being removed from the Senate bill.

There's a problem with this: The counseling sessions aren't the problem (at least as long as there are protections so they don't become coercive). The problem is that the real death panels are the ones that will decide how health care will be rationed. They will decide what kind of patient will be allowed the medical care they need, and what kind of patient will be denied that care. They may not be deciding on individual patients, but they will be no less pernicious and immoral for that distinction. That small distinction will just let the panel members commit deliberate negligent homicide while convincing themselves they can pretend their hands are still clean.

These panels are still in the bills. And as Rich Lowry has noted,

the debate over the last two weeks has been unhelpful in one respect — it has focused attention on the end-of-life counseling when the deeper problem is the bill itself. The "death panels" may be dead, but the real threat remains.

What the Senate has identified as the "death panels" have been removed, but that's really just misdirection. The real death panels remain in the bills.