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Obama- Willfully Ignorant

Posted by Bill Crawford on Thursday, April 30, 2009 2:10:14 PM
I sat through Obama's press conference last night. It never ceases to amaze me that the networks allow him to make them dump an hour of primetime every month.
 
But I digress. My first revelation was that there was fresh news this week that the economy had contracted over 6% in the first quarter, and nobody asked him about this. Then again, Obama is a bit of a control freak, and I'm betting he had a good idea of what questions were coming from the people he chose.
 
Here is where my radar went wild: he was more than happy to clearly define behaviors approved by his predecessor as "torture", and went on into a five minute homily on how Churchill did not do that to his German detainees during the London blitz.
 
History buff to President: the British did not need any intelligence to know what was coming during the blitz. They knew the best warning they were going to get was a half hour from their primitive radars and the scout sightings from the French resistance. Then all they could do was to fire up their Spitfires and get them in the air. The detainees possessed no knowledge that could improve this picture, and both sides knew it.
 
On top of that, using the Brits as a harbinger of civility belies the experience of the IRA over the years. They learned even by 1940 to have a healthy respect for what became the SAS. The workings of the IRA- their terror style bombings and assasinations wre eminently qualified to be worthy of using harsh methodologies to try and get extra reaction time out of any information the prisoners might give up. And, being that they were as flagless and uniform free as Al Queda, they were beyond the Geneva protocols, too.
 
Obama professes to be a well read man, and I see no reason to doubt this. Culling through history and finding an example like this to use as rationale shows a willingness to cherry pick that is defined as ignorance, but of a willful nature.
 
It's a shame that nobody in the White House Press Corps calls him on this. Than again, under the terms he sets for these events, he wouldn't allow it.
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Obama- Amateur Hour

Posted by Bill Crawford on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 9:58:40 PM
Why is the head of Homeland Security out front on the swine flu outbreak? Because the summer is almost here and only today are they confirming the Health and Human Services Secretary. Maybe he'll have a complete cabinet before the next budget has to roll out.
 
This is after, in the name of national security, the outgoing President cooperated completely with Obama's transition team to have an administration up and running as soon as possible. Whoever is doing the background checks on these people need to be run out of town. They'll probably end up at Treasury, where the true Obama professionals are still trying to figure out how things work.
 
Then we have an Air Force One plane buzzing the south end of Manhattan at 1000 feet- for a photo opportunity. And tthey didn't tell anyone! People ran out of buildings like lemmings. Hell, I would have, too.
 
So who is in charge here? Is it possible that the warnings that were given about electing a man whose only executive experience was running his own campaign had some heft to them?
 
This guy is a fargin' amateur. The only thing keeping the cane from coming out side stage is his teleprompter crew.
 
They wanted "change", and they got it.
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Specter Does The Dive Thing

Posted by Bill Crawford on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 9:48:29 PM
And who's to complain? We certainly weren't complaining when Shelby led a wave of Democrats defecting to the GOP in 1995. Were they any less opportunistic? All's fair in love and politics.
 
Being that he gave them their 60th vote, the Democrats will have to let him be himself. He is doing this in large part because he knows he wouldn't win a primary fight for his own seat next year. He will vote as he needs to to maintain his centrist position, and he will try to pose himself as a McCain maverick. Even with this, he won't be Harry Reid's biggest party nightmare- that would be Joe Leiberman.
 
This year will be more of a holding pattern anyway. They don't have the votes for carbon cap & trade or health care reform, and will not try to run the table when they don't have the numbers.
 
Next year will be the pressure year. The polls are already showing the Republican Party solidifying again, if only in opposition. I don't see anything close to a 1994 in the offing, but Rahm Emmanuel is smart enough to guess that they have to act as if their Congressional coalitions are at a high water mark, and they will have to play 2010 as if it is their last chance.
 
If they still don't have the votes then for this stuff, we'll see if Obama wants to continue to play it cool (which will kill him) or turns into LBJ and puts some big league pressure on people to deliver votes they normally wouldn't. LBJ used to get people drunk and not let them leave the room until they caved, or would threaten kneecaps, and nobody plays that game in the internet era. 
 
One way or another, next year will be a crazy year. Crazier than 2008.
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Absolute Bunk

Posted by Bill Crawford on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:19:14 AM
Of all the things that have come out recently that set off my bulls**t triggers, two stand out in bold relief.
 
First, we tried the Japanese military after WWII for war crimes for the act of waterboarding. Uh, no- we tried them in large part because they used torture for simple punishment and they were in the rather casual habit of executing their torture victims at the end of the process. There is nothing conceiveable in the Al Queda prison experience that comes even close to the Bataan death march. Or what the Phillipinos and Austrailians suffered. Or the Chinese. Give me a break.
 
The second one is worse, because the President is smart enough to know better on this, but repeats the crap tag line anyway: 90% of the weapons seized from the Mexican drug cartels are traced to America. Uh, no again- 90% of the seized weapons that are traceable come from the United States. The untraceable ones come from all over the world, and comprise the great majority of the seized weapons.
 
It's no surprise to me that the internet as a news source can pass bad information from both ends of the spectrum- it's the nature of the beast. The gruesome new world of journalism is that too much of the established media is consciously chasing after the same standard, going from news to propaganda.
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Mexico Needs A Berlin Wall

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, April 27, 2009 9:58:17 PM
I am not a "stop the immigration" guy. In the great Republican civil war on this, I was on the side of Bush and his work program. Illegal immigration is a serious problem, but there are too many hard working legal Hispanics here who do well for us- and by 2004, many of them were getting into the habit of voting Republican, thanks in large part to George W. Bush.
 
Now look at what we have here. You vacation in Cancun and you put your life in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. Drug convoys cross the border, often guarded by mercenaries who are off duty Mexican military. Kidnapping in Phoenix is becoming a cottage industry. And now they are being overrun by swine flu.
 
Enough already. I've seen the light. Build a wall, and shut the border down. I'm not talking about a casual wall, either. I mean a full ought, shoot them on sight wall. This is insanity, and it has to stop.
 
When the Mexican government shows me it has the wherwithal to stop this craziness, with our help or without, then open it up again. I'm all for free trade, but not when residents of American cities are afraid to walk the streets.
 
 
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A Tax Rebate Is Not A Tax Cut

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, April 27, 2009 9:46:45 PM
I was alive and conscious during the Presidential campaign last year. Obama was adamant about his tax plan: 95% of American taxpayers would get a "tax cut" under his plan. He sent out a classic, age-old urban 'soak the rich' populist plan, and there was no defining him on the issue in any way other than his words.
 
So, where is it? I'll tell you where you can find it. Look a the withholding in your paychecks. Most people will pick up about $13 extra a week, until the $400 per taxpayer he promised is reached.
 
That's all, folks. Four hundred dollars. Then the government is tapped out. This is the cow that we are all supposed to milk to start the aggregate demand recovery that his Keynesian economic theory holds as our salvation.
 
This is two or three levels of hubris above Clinton formulating his deficit reduction program in 1993 and announcing (after three weeks in office) that "I tried everything I could, but couldn't find a way to do this and give a middle class tax cut", which was a campaign staple for HIM, too.
 
Those of you in the urban areas of this great country, New York and California in particular: when the Bush tax cuts are allowed to die next year (and they most assuredly will), add up your taxes. Fed income, State income, sales tax, property tax and fees of all kinds. When you realize you are well north of 50% of your income, ask yourself: are you happy with this?
 
We live in a country where taxes have crept up to this level, and we have to hire accountants to beat it down to something more affordable on April 15th. We get the money pulled away from us before we get paid and we have to do a ton of paperwork to prove that we deserve some of it back. How nuts is that?
 
Here is the unholy surprise of it all: most of the people who are well off enough to have to deal with the ungodly AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) VOTED for Obama! Why? He was going to give you some relief from this?
 
So all you Obama voters, when you get your extra $13 next week, and Obama tells you he needs a $650 Billion down payment for health care, are you going to give it back, or just allow him to run up the debt?
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Prosecute For Torture? Go For It.

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, April 24, 2009 2:51:15 AM
I dare Obama to follow up on this. You want to prosecute Bush officials for torturing Al Quaeda?
 
Bring it on. Let it all go. What could it harm at this point? Release ALL the documents, and show what we got out of them.
 
Then, do the necessary follow up. You want to try these people? Fine. Let's do it right. Make sure that ALL the right people are in the dock. That includes all the Democrats who were in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in 2002 who signed off on this stuff, and all the senior Democrats who were included- including Nancy Pelosi, who was not only briefed on waterboarding, but given a tour of facilities to get a first hand look at how it would be done.
 
The cajones it takes to be this blatantly hypocritical is astounding. Let 'em all lawyer up.
 
C'mon, let's play. I'm ready. Are they? Be careful what you wish for.
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What Is Up With Janet Napolitano?

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, April 24, 2009 2:42:06 AM
We all saw this coming- a Homeland Security head whose experience had nothing to do with security. Her credentials consisted of being a border state Governor, and not much else.
 
After all the redefinitions of terms- "International Contingency Operation" and all that, she puts forth a report on all the potential McVie terrorists in our house. We have seen the problem, and it is our own right wing nuts. On top of that, she implicated the large number of military veterans here, something she had to quickly back track on.
 
Now she says that the 9/11 hijackers came through the Canadian border. This has long been passed off as theory and disproved. Even if it was true, what is the point? What is the reasoning behind getting Canada angry with us at this juncture?
 
We are in the process of apologizing to Mexico for us causing it's problems when the Mexican border is a horror show. Hell, there is a cross-border kidnapping industry going on right now in the Phoenix area that is scaring the wits out of the people there, and we coddle Mexico and talk down Canada?
 
She has to go. Now. This is intolerable.
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We Have Found The Problem, And It Is Us.

Posted by Bill Crawford on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 12:53:26 AM
We not only recant and apologize to the world for torturing Al Queda's best, but we are leaving open the option of prosecuting Bush officials for authorizing it.
 
I won't even get into how the Geneva Convention doesn't cover these people, for so many reasons it is ludicrous to list. The simple fact is that we are at war with these people, and they will not let up. Ask Daniel Pearl how they treated him.
 
Fairy tale one: if we follow the Army Field Manual, they will treat our people better. This didn't happen with the Japanese, the Koreans, the Viet Cong or the Iraqis in the first Gulf War. It certainly hasn't been the case with Al Queda.
 
Fairy tale two: these techniques don't work- the victims will say anything to make it stop. This is absolute, unmitigated bunk. The twentieth century was a dirty world with this stuff, and the KGB, CIA, M6 and Mossad did not work these things out without getting any verifiable results. I have been told that many of the still classified reports about the early Al Queda interrogations provided a bounty of verifiable information.
 
Fairy tale three: if we turn our guns first on the political opposition here, the jihadists will see that we have truly reformed and drop their aggression towards us. Their jihad is not based on any of this, and will not be ameliorated by Obama going on Al Jezzera and making nice. They want us off the planet because we are heathens who live decadent lifestyles. Killing us is their ticket to heaven. Are we all clear on that?
 
When we captured them after 9/11, and went past the FBI investigators and actually made them feel like they were in danger, it set them off balance. If they lose that fear of us, we have a problem.
 
I am a libertarian at heart, and I fully understand the Constitution and it's implications in this. But the Constitution is NOT a suicide pact, and these people need to be hit- hard. If I suspect that some of them are holding information about an impending American attack, I will be happy to personally provide the car battery, some cables and a nice bucket of wet sponges. If what we do does not result in some serious pupil dilation on their part, we may as well let them loose.
 
Which, come to think of it, is exactly what this White House is talking about doing. It's possible they just don't think we are at war. Worse, they may well know we are, and think this is the way to win it.
 
With that, who the hell should be prosecuting who around here?
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I must Have Been On A Different Planet...

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, April 17, 2009 1:29:16 PM
I attended a Tax Day Rally in New York last Wednesday. There were a few hundred there, many of them coming from work. They had children there, home made signs, no visible means of support. They weren't getting stipends from MoveOn or ACORN to show up. They were all dressed well, and they left no litter.

They were all over the map with their messages, but came into focus when a speaker centered them on the notion that a democratic majority had no right to spend their children's money to have the government become partners in large parts of the economy.

When I checked out videos of other rallies on YouTube and Fox News, nothing I saw changed this picture. Then I switched to CNN, and I was transported to another world. There was an emphasis on the country music in the background. The attendees sported mullets and pony tails, and few of them could manage a coherent thought on camera.

In short, the Tax Day crowds were a bunch of ignorant rubes, who didn't seem to know why they were even there. 

And to top it off, my YouTube searches culminated in the summary of Janeane Garafolo on Keith Olbermann's Countdown, who filled in all the blanks for those who weren't yet clued in. The Tax Day participants were against health care, against government, against democracy and, last but not least, against a Black man in the White House. It never takes long for that one to come out again, does it?

This is where you go when you put the Left in charge. They cry about free speech when anybody publicly disagrees with them, then they do their best to shut down anybody who masses against them. They insult, they demonize and they censor. They shout and they throw cream pies if they have to. And it is all justified because theirs is a good cause and they know they are right.


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The Piracy Failed- Now What?

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, April 13, 2009 10:54:26 PM
Kudos to this President for going past the international lawyers and sanctioning force to end this stupid incident. Absent any other action, the piracy will continue, but they will let American flag ships pass unscathed.

What is the next step? The rules of international law have handcuffed frigates of all countries. They may be able to carry weaponry on board at sea, but the rules of every port forbid them to dock anywhere with them. Long gone are the days when ships at sea would carry a few deck mounted cannons to deal with this.

There is no impetus as yet for Obama to take the lead on this. Other countries seem to have resigned themselves to paying the ransom as a price of trade around the Horn, and there are quite a few European hostages in Somalia proper. This will be allowed to fester until the traffic interruptions going toward the Strait of Hormuz cost more dearly than a few million $ for the Somalis.

This is yet another case for the utter fecklessness of the U.N., as if the response to North Korea wasn't enough. The United States is the only nation left that has any answer for this crap. 

There was a time when a man was safe anywhere they travelled, if they announced upon confrontation that they were a citizen of Rome. The Romans had a deserved reputation for chasing after anybody who gave them s**t and running over them with whatever they could muster. The world has come to that with us. 

Obama wanted to "reboot" our relations with the world, and present a "diplomatic surge" to grow past the "Bush unilateralism". Look what he got at the G-20 meeting. He asked for help with economic stimulus in Europe. He asked for help with North Korea and Afghanistan. He asked for help with trade relations and his cap & trade proposals. He got bupkus.

That's the dirty secret. Bush didn't polarize, loose talk or force his way out of getting any help from these people. They weren't going to help anyway! The European continent is filled with ingrates. There is some understanding coming from here because they have their own problems, but they make no effort at all. 

They just pretend the problem isn't there. You took our ship, and all you want is ten mil? Chump change. Now go away, and we'll pray you pick on somebody else tomorrow. 

Is it any wonder the U.N. has become as useless as it is?
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The Barbary Coast Comes Alive Again

Posted by Bill Crawford on Thursday, April 09, 2009 12:55:20 PM
The Somalians have been at this stuff for a while now. And, because of the feckless nature of most of the governments on this planet, they have been making a good living at it.
 
But their luck probably ran out when they went after an American flagship. Like Edward Horton's character said in American History X, "you've picked on the wrong young buck".
 
They hit on the only country left on the planet that still uses the military in the way it is taught in the textbook. To protect, not to torment or annoy. Or, in the case of NATO and Europe, to stand around and do nothing while their leaders pose anger and threaten to go to the U.N. Which, come to think of it, is what they are trying to do here.
 
Now they will be dealing with a few warships that are far beyond their capability. Soon a flock of planes will be buzzing them like hornets, up to the edge of their international airspace. And if this President has the stones for it, there may even be some strikes in Somalia proper.
 
If that happens, the rest of the world will condemn us- publicly. Privately, they will breathe a sigh of releif that the traffic going through the Stait of Hormuz will start flowing unimpeded again.
 
The American military, even when set on missions by the naive or held up by the even more naive here, is the most feared power in the world. There is nothing in history to match it. It is the glue that is holding the remainder of Western civilization together. Europe should bow down and kiss our buttinsky daily.
 
Instead, they deride us, and pose us as some sort of new imperialism. We should try bringing everybody with dog tags home for the Summer and see how they like what happens. Our folks in uniform deserve the R&R, and the world needs a serious lesson in reality.
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We Trudge To The U.N. Once More...

Posted by Bill Crawford on Monday, April 06, 2009 7:45:02 PM
...To do what? This is another exercise in one handed clapping, motion without any results.
 
North Korea launches a "communications satellite" that falls a couple of atmospheric layers short of orbit, but manages to cross over Japan. Do we go back to the six party talks, the only thing that North Korea even pretended to respond to over the last decade? No, Obama and Hillary roundly condemn the action, and promise to go to the United Nations.
 
To which China, in their Security Council catbird seat, has already objcted to the use of the rather benign word, "concern" over the missile launch.
 
And then Obama comes out the next day to announce defense cutbacks, with specific ones in missile defense. Isn't that sort of like sending invitations to a bar bash out to a neighbor whose parents died in a DWI crash the previous weekend?
 
That is not just assinine, it s downright dangerous. I do not use that word casually. I look around at the dangers we face as a nation, and I'm having trouble keeping this President off the list.
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It's Not Your Money We Want

Posted by Bill Crawford on Sunday, April 05, 2009 9:29:50 PM
So it seems that when Henry Paulson dredged up all the top bankers in the country and told them that the Treasury Department was going to become their partners, some of them balked. They were told summarily that they didn't have a choice. They were threatened with all sorts of audit things.
 
The reasoning behind this was that Treasury didn't want the public to know which ones of them were really in serious trouble last September, and this may have had more than a little sense behind it- then.
 
Even though the banks haven't been really open about showing their use of the bailout money, the market has a transparency of it's own. It doesn't take much effort to pick them now. All you have to do is follow the trail of pieces being sold off, or follow the share values. There is a reason why it won't be long before it costs more in broker commissions to buy stock in CitiGroup than it does to actually buy the stock.
 
Here's the real horror story now: the banks that didn't want to take the money don't want to have their boards chosen by Rahm Emmanuel, and they are asking to give it back.
 
AND THE WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO LET THEM. Are we clear on that? Time has passed, and everybody knows which banks are the nut cases. Obama WANTS to be partners. He wants to direct traffic.
 
How nuts is this? The government created this crisis by herking and jerking banks to lend mortgage money to people who never should have gotten any, and now the government wants to take over the industry so they can save us- from themselves, I guess.
 
I don't know what kind of medication you have to mix before that makes any sense. I really don't. Can anybody out there show me what I am missing out on?
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The Real Schism

Posted by Bill Crawford on Friday, April 03, 2009 3:00:53 PM
The great divide in this country is not about Democrat vs. Republican, or conservative vs. liberal (although that one is closer). It is about culture versus counter culture.
 
In Gertrude Himmelfarb's mighty tome on the subject, she showed how the advocates of culture were reduced to an opposing voice today. She called this "dissonant culture". This is because the core of the counter culture, the older Baby Boomers, owned the mainstream media and had the biggest mouths.
 
The great divide here is about personal values. It is a public and political projection about a series of personal decisions about issues like abortion, the environment, child rearing, gay issues, the use of military force, etc.
 
These issues comprise a host of unbridgeable gaps between Americans. Obama, like Clinton, campaigned on being able to connect the Hatfields and the McCoys, but they both proved to be too far on one side to even start.
 
Many are tired of the eternal bickering, but once you get a handle on what is causing all of it, you get an idea on how it will not end until one side wins.
 
In 1865, the abolitionists won, and wrote the history. In 1945, the internationalist New Dealers did the same.
 
Who will win the great culture war? The answer lies in the fantastic anomaly: counter culturists are very likely to raise their children in many of the same ways culturists do. I ask you, what are the implications of that?
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