2016: Obama's America

"2016: Obama's America" proposes an explanatory and predictive framework--that is, a positive model--for ordering phenomena. I was asked afterwards if I thought the movie proved its thesis that President Obama embraced, and is driven by, his mommy and especially daddy's anti-colonialist beliefs. In terms of scientific proof, of course not. The movie proposes a hypothesis; it doesn't present the findings of a study.

Lent, After Pentecost

I  began this post on notes taken during a Lenten retreat but never completed it.  Browsing through unfinished work I saw it and thought it sufficient to stand on its own, even after Pentecost.  Thank you  Father John W., and all the profound, eloquent priests whose wisdom I have benefitted from over the years.

The Privilege is All Mine, Mrs. Terry

The grieving woman with AZ Governor Jan Brewer is Mrs. Josephine Terry.  Her son, border-patrol agent Brian Terry of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), a division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), was killed by Mexican drug thugs in December 2010 with weapons they'd obtained through a merdicious ATF program entitled Fast and Furious.

The idea of the program, we're told, was to allow straw purchasers in border states, e.g. Arizona, to walk guns across the Mexican border where they would be traced back to drug lords' nests.  To that end, resistant gun sellers were induced by ATF agents to make illegal sales of assault weapons, e.g., AK 47's.

Germany v. Greece

The Euro Cup has provided superb relief against the dramatic backdrop of a collapsing Euro and decaying social-welfare model--the kind we're rapidly emulating in the US.  This article from the NY Times--a decidedly Greek-friendly paper under these circumstances--concerns the recent match between Germany and Greece won by the Germans 4-2.

The Procrustean Constitution

Justice Anthony Kennedy has reminded me yet again of the Court's default setting in culture-war cases since the 1960's.  His legal reasoning can be summed up as heads-the-Left-wins, tails-the-Right-loses.

Phrenology for the Smug

Andrew Ferguson has authored a penetrating and very funny analysis entitled "The New Phrenology" regarding Democrats tendency to denigrate conservatives from behind the pretense of science--social psychology mainly though not exclusively.  That's a field absolutely stuffed with people on the margins with issues.

Chile's Cautionary Lesson for the US

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes about communist stirrings in prosperous Chile, the poster child for Chicago-style liberalism.  That's university-of-Chicago style, not Mayor-Daly-like-Chicago style.

Chile's Presdident, Sebastian Pinera (pictured above), is channeling his inner compassionate conservative much to his country's detriment.  He saps the nation's moral and material resources while failing to placate his insatiable critics.

Mambo Gallego

Pictured above are Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, and Desi Arnaz, Jr. from the 1992 film "The Mambo Kings."  I loved the movie for its music, scenes of the Palladium, fine acting, tortured love triangle and sheer stylishness, but had to fast forward through too many pointless skin scenes to recommend it.

It nevertheless features my favorite movie dance.  Set to Tito Puente's "Mambo Gallego" (Galician Mambo) it is sultry without being trashy, and dynamic without being flashy.

Impressions of Miami

Years ago, I thought I'd discovered paradise on earth in Locarno and Lugano, Switzerland, which enjoyed the benefits of Italian culture and Swiss efficiency.  Beautiful people rode trains that ran on time.

I experienced something similar last week in Miami, which is considered the capitol of Latin America.  Happily, it is in the United States where things mostly work correctly, and opportunity (traditionally) abounds.

In Praise of Statism

You'll never here it from me.  I fall on the liberty side of the private-public divide--the private side, which includes civil society to care for those who fall through the cracks through misfortune, injudicious use of liberty or any other reason.

The title is merely a pretext for sharing an amusing video that's gone viral.  It is a Reagan-Obama encounter that teaches a lesson delivered often, but evidently never enough.

Faust Visits the Insurance Lobby

Insurers are concerned that the Supreme Court will strike down ObamaCare's individual mandate, which provides them with a steady new supply of mandated and subsidized customers.  Without it, ObamaCare gives them less than they bargained for: new rules to comply with, profit caps and price controls with no corresponding advantage.

Those who place more trust in free markets than in government omniscience, and who despise crony capitalism for the self-serving hypocrisy it is, can be forgiven for thinking that it serves them right.

Obama's Campaign Will Take the Low Road

Karl Rove underscores one of President Obama's least attractive features, one which explains why he so roils the nation's anger, provokes its consternation and deepens its divides.  The multitudes who find his unprecedented push towards Statism and government hegemony objectionable, and moreover who don't want to pay taxes or interest on burgeoning debt to support it, oppose his aggressive overreaching because....  they intend evil.

Demolishing Paul Ryan

Daniel Henninger writes about the Left's warning to any who might challenge its ideological fortress, e.g., the Supreme Court, should it overturn ObamaCare.  Other shots are presently being fired across House GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's bow.

You may have heard of his cruelty and black heart.  He's the one that Democrats and the President accuse (this week) of social Darwinism, Trojan-horse deception and historical anachronism.

Mr. Ryan justifies the GOP's proposed budget--which increases this year's federal outlays of $3.6 trillion (yes, you read that correctly) to a mere $4.9 trillion in 2022 rather than the President's proposed $5.8 trillion (yes, you read that correctly, too)--on rather different grounds than the President alleges: Catholic Social Doctrine.

Mother of Five Boys Has Never Worked A Day In Her Life!

“Guess what, (Romney’s) wife has actually never worked a day in her life," said Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Hilary Rosen.  Thankfully, she has experienced fierce blowback from all quarters including President Obama, and has since apologized.

As the clip below illustrates, Rosen was in the middle of deprecating Ann Romney's bona fides as a woman in touch with the economic concerns of less wealthy women. What she revealed is that Democratic Party apparatchiks don't consider child-raising and home-making real work.

The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin

Shelby Steele wades into the Trayvon Martin quagmire to opine that agitators for justice--vigilante, if not kangaroo--are appealing to poetic truth, a deviation from actual truth.

Rather than correspond to reality, poetic truth is crafted to preserve an effect.  The poetic truth at stake is that white America is ferociously bigoted.

So, Where Have You Been?

Taking care of business, thank you for asking.  It just so happens that business took me to New York City briefly, which is always ... different.

There's a lot I could say about the city, or nothing at all.  Suffice it to say that NYC is sui generis.

I'll restrict myself to commenting on a few of my favorite things, and one of my least.

Raquel Welch Meets Lysistrata

I don't know what to make of the coincidence.  Neither am I certain there's any connection between (1) Raquel Welch's recent lamentations about society's sexual addiction, especially men's to digital sex, and (2) Liberal Ladies' Who Lunch declaration of a sex strike (April 28-May 5) over supposed threats to their reproductive choices.

The two stories nevertheless strike me as being related via men's libidos.  First, the Liberal Ladies:

Santorum's Southern Double

What began as a seemingly Quixotic run for the Republican nomination is not looking so hopelessly romantic tonight.  Rick Santorum has taken both the Alabama and Mississippi primaries.

In doing so, he prevailed over Mitt Romney's money in Newt Gingrich's backyard.  This, after capturing 51% of the vote in Kansas last weekend, is startling.

The man may not have money and organization, but he has traction.  Can he really win the nomination, however, over the howls of angst from Dorothy Rabinowitz (whose man is Newt Gingrich) and the Upper East Side Republican set?

What Public Employee Unions are Doing to Our Country

William McGurn's speech to the 2012 Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar is published in the March issue of Imprimis, Hillsdale's monthly contribution to public discourse.  If you don't receive it yet, it's worth reading, and you can subscribe for free by following the links at the appended issue.

McGurn's topic is public employees unions, specifically those at the state and local level.  His thesis is that "public sector unions have successfully redefined key relationships in our economic and civic life."

Bishop Dolan and Our Phony Contraception Debate

The Wall Street Journal's editorial section is doing its best to keep the public focused on the Obama administration's usurpation of constitutional liberties despite the rest of the mainstream media's following the administration's lead and burying the matter of Kathleen Sibelius's ObamaCare mandate in the MoveOn.org file.

In an editorial entitled "Bishop Dolan's Liberty Letter" they bring his studiously ignored correspondence to light.

The 'Jewish' President

Brett Stephens is not reassured by President Obama's assurances that he "has Israel's back."

Here is a president who fought tooth-and-nail against the very sanctions on Iran for which he now seeks to reap political credit. He inherited from the Bush administration the security assistance to Israel he now advertises as proof of his "unprecedented" commitment to the Jewish state. His defense secretary has repeatedly cast doubt on the efficacy of a U.S. military option against Iran even as the president insists it remains "on the table." His top national security advisers keep warning Israel not to attack Iran even as he claims not to "presume to tell [Israeli leaders] what is best for them."

I was surprised when I heard the audio clip of his proclamation of support (from the rear) should Israel decide to lead where America fails to.   It wasn't that he would claim it, but rather that he would do so in such a common, colloquial, and idiomatic way.

Reagan Was A Sure Loser Too

William McGurn is his usual magnificent self today.

Not since Herbert Hoover has a party out of power had such an opportunity to run against everything that troubles the American family—prices, interest rates, unemployment, taxes, or the fear for the future of their old age or the future of their children—than is now presented to the Republican Party. 

The Republicans, however, haven't figured this out. This is their basic problem. They have no strategy for defeating an Obama administration that is highly vulnerable on both domestic and foreign policy.

Those words were written by Scotty Reston in the New York Times on February 29, 1980 about President Jimmy Carter's good fortune, rather than President Obama's, to be facing such a pack of stumblebums.  We all know how Reston's prognostications turned out.

Nothing has changed.  To listen to the media, the Republicans are always stupid and confused, bumbling and inept, obtuse and alarming, extreme and unelectable.

The Parable of the Kosher Deli

Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport CT testified before the House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform on the ObamaCare mandate forcing Catholic institutions to materially cooperate with evil.  His testimony illustrated various ways in which the Obama Administration is full of baloney.

For my testimony today, I would like to tell a story. Let’s call it, “The Parable of the Kosher Deli.” 

Once upon a time, a new law is proposed, so that any business that serves food must serve pork. There is a narrow exception for kosher catering halls attached to synagogues, since they serve mostly members of that synagogue, but kosher delicatessens are still subject to the mandate.

Yes You Will!

We know that the President is a formidable fundraiser, the best ever.  "President Obama says a campaign is like an investment." 

Solyndra honcho and Obama bundler, George Kaiser certainly wouldn't dispute that.  Neither could Warren Buffet, George Soros or Jeff Immelt.

[H]aving raked in $750 million in 2008 and potentially on track to surpass that amount in 2012. His campaign and the Democratic Party raised $224 million in 2011 alone, more than the Republican field combined.

In a flagging economy, it may be hard to fathom not only where that money is coming from but also what it could buy if it were diverted elsewhere.

Who says that the Republicans are the party of the big wigs, the 1%?  Somebody not in the know, evidently.

I've got a guess as to where all that unfathomable "money is coming from": beneficiaries of 2009's near-trillion dollar stimulus, and four-year recipients of big government largesse.

As I say, it's just a guess.  Given the general lack of media interest in the identities and interconnectedness of Democratic donors, not having gotten any of the loot myself, and having been saddled with higher debt and taxes to pay for the giveaways, I'm in no position to know. 

It occurred to me that if the President wanted to be both frugal and green friendly, he could recycle his 2008 campaign posters and use them again with slight modifications.  Let me suggest a modest change in slogans from "Yes We Can" to "Yes You Will!"

That would nicely fit his second term platform, which is to hang onto the legislative and regulatory impositions he foisted onto a howling and resistant public in his first two years in office.  It would be much more convenient to keep ramrodding away from a power position than it would be to fight a rear guard action with only the judicial branch of government and the media--the traditional Democratic Party bulwarks--to fend off the savages.

Insourcing at GE

Buried on page B7 of today's Wall Street Journal (but highlighted by different editors in the front page "What's News" section, is an item entitled "GE's Work Force Rose in 2011 First Time in Years."  The real story is that all of GE's employment growth was overseas.

That might be embarrassing for a company whose CEO serves as President Obama's cheerleader to the Fortune 500, and business-bona-fides fig leaf to the public.  The President hopes to draw attention to GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's outsourcing to save dying companies at Bain Capital.  

You may recall the President's recent jab at Romney--his announcement of an "insourcing" initiative to bring jobs home.  Perhaps Immelt wasn't in on the strategy loop, or is switching his allegiance to bird-of-a-capitalist-feather Romney.

The overall uptick marks the first job growth for GE in four years. The number of GE workers has been on the wane since 2007, when the Fairfield, Conn., company employed 327,000 people world-wide. At the time, GE employed 155,000 people in the U.S.

GE's U.S. work force is something of a sensitive issue for Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, who serves as chairman of President Barack Obama's jobs and competitiveness council and has urged business leaders to do more to spur domestic job growth. 

The company employed 131,000 people in the U.S. at the end of last year, down 1.5% from 133,000 at the end of 2010.

GE's overseas employment--outsourced jobs that aren't in the US because they are in other, less-costly, non-union countries--grew by 10%, or 17,000 jobs, to 170,000 employees.

The company explained that US employment shrunk due to GE's sale of NBC, which reduced its US workforce by 12,000 people.  It didn't comment on why it is beefing up operations in foreign countries rather than in the US.

Back on the political front:

Mr. Obama has tried to brand himself as a crusader for the middle class and touched on that theme Wednesday as he praised companies for bringing jobs back from abroad. 

He’s not spending much to advance the goal. Mr. Obama said his fiscal 2013 budget will include a request for $12 million in new resources to increase a federal program that promotes business investment in the U.S.

Twelve million here; twelve million there; pretty soon you're talking about real money.

On the public relations front, GE also announced that it is hiring 5,000 military veterans over the next five years.  Given that it will likely be angering domestic job watchers by hiring many more people in foreign countries, one might view GE's gesture as a novel use of the military to extend an olive branch.