LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

LFTC - Index 5/8/09

4 posts: (1) CIA Waterboards Nancy--The Home Front; (2) Taliban's Human-Shield Sword--Us v. Them; (3) Bank Scorecards--The Home Front; (4) Federal Force & Fraud--The Home Front.

LFTC - CIA Waterboards Nancy

The CIA released documents late last night contradicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim she was not briefed on actual use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques.  Nancy was briefed, says the CIA, on September 4, 2002.  Here is the actual CIA memo on the Sept. 4 meeting.

The Washington Post's Capitol Briefing reports:

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

More:

The new memo shows that intelligence officials were willing to share the information about waterboarding with only a sharply closed group of people. Three years after the initial Pelosi-Goss briefing, Bush officials still limited interrogation technique briefings to just the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the so-called Gang of Four in the intelligence world.

In October 2005, CIA officials began briefing other congressional leaders with oversight of the intelligence community, including top appropriators who provided the agency its annual funding. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and an opponent of torture techniques, was also read into the program at that time even though he did not hold a special committee position overseeing the intelligence community.

The WP reports how the Speaker's office responded:

In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi's office said today that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal technique to use in interrogations.

"As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," said Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman.

Pelosi's statement did not address whether she was informed that other harsh techniques were already in use during the Zubaydah interrogations.

Read also Jed Babbin's mini-piece at Human Events.

Whom to believe?  The CIA is putting its head on the chopping block, literally, with this one.  Porter Goss, who as ranking GOP Member of the House Intelligence Committee was briefed at that same briefing (later Goss was CIA Director) has already said Pelosi was informed.  Nancy's office issued a "carefully worded statement."  It is hard to take Nancy seriously on her claim that she was not told.  Were that so, she would have flatly denied knowing about this stuff.  "Guilty with an explanation" is a better reading.

Bottom Line.  If, as appears likely, the Speaker of the House lied about what she knew and when she knew about harsh interrogation techniques, the least of Nancy Pelosi's sins is that she lied.  The politician who has never at least fudged the truth is a politician who has never gotten elected to anything--keeping diverse coalitions together requires fancy footwork.     A greater sin is that the Speaker roiled an already contentious domestic debate during wartime, in search of partisan political gain--further proof that Nancy has not a bipartisan bone in her body.

But the greatest sin of all is that Nancy, during wartime, gave aid and comfort to a deadly enemy--aid coming not from an obscure Member of Congress, but from the Speaker of the House, who is second in the line of succession to the Presidency.  The only thing that saves her from a charge of treason is that treason requires intent to aid the enemy.  Surely the Speaker did not intend to help our enemies attack the United States.  She intended to help the fortunes of her political party, in reckless disregard of their impact upon national security.  Fortunately for the Speaker, such a state of mind falls short of the level of intent required to support a charge of treason.

The House of Representatives can take action, however.  It should expel her or, at least, censure her.  A solidly Democratic House is not likely to do this.  The GOP can be forgiven if it makes use of this opportunity to restore its credibility on detainee treatment, and to pay back unconscionable opportunism in time of war.

LFTC - Taliban's Human-Shield Sword

Soldier-author Ralph Peters calls "the casualty con" the use of human shields by the Taliban and other Islamist groups.  Essentially, the effort is aimed at creating a political firestorm that undermines political support in the West for Predator drone strikes, and inflames the Islamic world.  RP writes:

This week, Taliban terrorists publicly beheaded three civilians in Afghanistan's Farah province, then herded women and children into compounds from which they fought government forces and US advisers.

With a vicious ground battle under way, the Talibs knew attack aircraft would appear. According to military sources, they set up the target. And, just in case, they slaughtered those women and children with grenades before any aircraft appeared. The entire massacre was a planned media event.

RP assails Hillary Clinton's response:

At the end of the day, the Taliban strategy works because our own government sides with the terrorists against our troops.

Instead of begging for forgiveness, Clinton needed to take a firm position. She should have said: "The deaths in Farah province were entirely the fault of the Taliban. To punish these terrorists and better protect Afghan civilians, we're loosening our rules of engagement. We will not tolerate this cynical use of women and children as unwilling weapons of war. These war criminals will be hunted down and killed."

Instead, Hillary blamed our military. Again.

This is war, Madame Secretary. Tragic mistakes happen, but the incident in Farah province wasn't an error -- it was a brutal, cynical set-up. And you stabbed our troops in the back. Again.

Bottom Line.  Western leaders and publics need to push back--hard--against terrorist propaganda, and jealously guard their options as essential in wartime.  Terrorists have three weapons against us, by which perhaps they can prevail: our technology, our media and our legal system.  Human shields are an ideal sword to wield against the West.

LFTC - Bank Scorecards

Bank Stress Tests.  Begin with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's NY Times op-ed explaining how & why the banks were stress-tested.  Here are the money paragraphs:

The effect of this capital assessment will be to help replace uncertainty with transparency. It will provide greater clarity about the resources major banks have to absorb future losses. It will also bring more private capital into the financial system, increasing the capacity for future lending; allow investors to differentiate more clearly among banks; and ultimately make it easier for banks to raise enough private capital to repay the money they have already received from the government.

The test results will indicate that some banks need to raise additional capital to provide a stronger foundation of resources over and above their current capital ratios. These banks have a range of options to raise capital over six months, including new common equity offerings and the conversion of other forms of capital into common equity. As part of this process, banks will continue to restructure, selling non-core businesses to raise capital. Indeed, we have already seen banks, spurred on by the stress test, take significant steps in the first quarter to raise capital, sell assets and strengthen their capital positions. Over time, our financial system should emerge stronger and less prone to excess.

Banks will also have the opportunity to request additional capital from the government through Treasury’s Capital Assistance Program. Treasury is providing this backstop so that markets can have confidence that we will maintain sufficient capital in the financial system. For institutions in which the federal government becomes a common shareholder, we will seek to maximize value for taxpayers and enable these companies to attract private capital, thereby reducing government ownership as quickly as possible.

Some banks will be able to begin returning capital to the government, provided they demonstrate that they can finance themselves without F.D.I.C. guarantees. In fact, we expect banks to repay more than the $25 billion initially estimated. This will free up resources to help support community banks, encourage small-business lending and help repair and restart the securities markets.

A WSJ economics editor explains the three things the tests will show.  They are: how much more money the government expects to lose; (2) which banks are strong & which are weak; (3) how banks will fill the capital holes.  He offers some key numbers:

The latest International Monetary Fund estimates put total losses at a stunning $4.1 trillion for all financial institutions worldwide, counting known losses and those not yet acknowledged. The stress-test tally is narrower: as-yet-unacknowledged losses the 19 U.S. banks face in the next two years under bad but not catastrophic conditions. Private estimates range from about $300 billion to $1 trillion; the comparable IMF figure is about $400 billion. The government tally likely will fall in the middle, probably toward the lower end of the private range.

That's the first headline number: total potential losses beyond those the banks already have taken. Subtract that sum from banks' existing capital, add profits they'll make this year and next, and you get the second headline number: the total capital the government wants banks to raise in the next six months. That sum, Mr. Bernanke assured Congress this week, will be manageable; that's reassuring, as long as the estimate is credible.

Here is a description of the new class of preferred stock the banks will issue.  (Preferred stock is a hybrid security, part equity & part debt: like common stock, it represents ownership equity; like bonds, a holder stand in line as a creditor, ahead of common shareholders in event of bankruptcy.)

Bank Numbers.  Now let's look at the numbers to date for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), launched last fall by the Bush administration and Congress: $750B available, $590B pledged to date, $393B actually spent, $160B not yet pledged.  Bank of America needs $35B added capital, per the stress test results.  BOA stock is now valued at $70B, with $45B of government funds already invested.  BOA must either raise capital outside, or turn to the government to convert more of its preferred shareholding to common stock, to meet the new requirement.  One private appraiser estimates that BOA needs $46.7B to reach the 4 percent capital reserve level.  Two analysts recommend at least $65B in capital to shore up big banks.  Here is an interactive graphic chart they prepared.  The government estimates $75B is needed, but Goldman Sachs & JP Morgan Chase are exempted, as are 7 other of the 19 largest banks.  The total potential losses, should the economy under-perform, could run $599B.

What to Do.  Two finance mavens argue that market discipline must be applied to insolvent banks.  Referring to Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter's dictum that capitalism could not survive social chaos and intellectual discontent, they write:

Once again, the question will be how the near-insolvent banks can be kept afloat, to avoid systemic risk. But the question we really should be asking is: why keep insolvent banks afloat? We believe there is no convincing answer; we should instead find ways to manage the systemic risk of bank failures.

Schumpeter’s biggest fear was that creative destruction would lead capitalism to collapse from within, because society would not be able to handle the chaos. He was right to be afraid. The response of governments worldwide to the financial crisis has been to give the structure of private profit-taking an ever-growing scaffolding of socialised risk. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at the system, just so that we can avoid the natural process of creative destruction that would take down these institutions’ creditors. Why shouldn’t the creditors bear the losses?

One possible reason is the “Lehman factor” – the bank runs that would occur as a result of a big failure. But we have learnt from the Lehman collapse and know not to leave the sector high and dry when a systemic institution fails. Just being transparent about which banks clearly passed the stress tests would alleviate many of the fears.

Another reason is counterparty risk, the fear of being on the other side of a transaction with a failed bank. But unlike with Lehman, the government can stand behind any counterparty transaction. This will become easier if a new insolvency regime for systemically important financial institutions is passed on a fast-track basis by Congress. Problem nearly solved.

That leaves the creditors – depositors, short- and long-term debt-holders and preferred shareholders. For the large complex banks, about half are depositors. To avoid runs on these deposits, the government has to provide a backstop. But it is not clear it needs to cover other creditors of a bank, as the failures of IndyMac and Washington Mutual attest.

Three economics mavens argue in a WSJ op-ed that the FDIC should take over insolvent banks.  The first $254B of TARP funds covered toxic assets worth but $78B--31 cents on the dollar.  They estimate that for Geithner II--the Public-Private Investment Plan (PPIP)--taxpayers will ante up $2 for every $1 the private side antes.  The authors recommend splitting troubled banks into "good" and bad" banks: the bad bank takes the toxic assets, long-term liabilities and a loan from its "good" twin; the "good" bank is then freed from the TARP program.

Fortune Magazine sees 8 signs of economic recovery--"green shoots."  Given recent long-term stock market cycles (1966 - 1982 bear, 1982-1999 bull, 2000 - present bear) it is hard to share Fortune's sunny side.  Banks had better pray that green shoots are indeed sprouting amidst massive global financial asset deleveraging.

AEI financial maven Peter Wallison says that increased federal regulation benefits Congress, but not the economy.  He notes that government lacks the competence to determine which firms pose systemic risk.

Judge Richard Posner, vastly schooled in economics, blames regulators above all for causing what he calls a "crisis of capitalism".  He also blames economists who pushed for cutting interest rates to boost the economy.  Posner sees two early lessons (my underlining) from the mess:

First, businessmen seek to maximize profits within a framework established by government. We want businessmen to discover what people want to buy and to supply that demand as cheaply as possible. This generates profits that signal competitors to enter the market until excess profit is eliminated and resources are allocated most efficiently. Financial products are an important class of products that we want provided competitively. But because risk and return are positively correlated in finance, competition in an unregulated financial market drives up risk, which, given the centrality of banking to a capitalist economy, can produce an economic calamity. Rational businessmen will accept a risk of bankruptcy if profits are high because then the expected cost of reducing that risk also is high. Given limited liability, bankruptcy is not the end of the world for shareholders or managers. But a wave of bank bankruptcies can bring down the economy. The risk of that happening is external to banks' decision-making and to control it we need government. Specifically we need our central bank, the Federal Reserve, to be on the lookout for bubbles, especially housing bubbles because of the deep entanglement of the banking industry with the housing industry. Our central bank failed us.

The second lesson is that we may need more regulation of banking to reduce its inherent riskiness. But now is not the time for that: There is no danger of a renewed housing or credit bubble in the immediate future. The essential task now is to recover from the depression. That requires, as John Maynard Keynes taught, a restoration of business confidence. Investment is inherently uncertain, and it is even more uncertain in a depression. Anything that amplifies this uncertainty slows recovery by making businessmen more likely to freeze and hoard rather than venture and spend. Reregulating banking, hauling bankers before congressional committees, passing laws tightening credit-card lending, and capping bonuses all impede recovery. All that is for later, once the economy is back on track. For now such measures are just distractions.

Moreover, it is unclear how banking should be regulated. Banking in the broad sense of financial intermediation (borrowing capital in order to lend or otherwise invest it) is immensely diverse. It is also international. If one nation reduces the riskiness of its banking industry, business will flow to other nations, just as a bank that decides to be cautious will lose investors to its competitors because of the positive correlation of risk and return. So international regulation of banking is needed in principle, but international regulation tends to be lowest-common-denominator regulation and so may be ineffectual.

Bottom Line.  Clearly the toxic asset problem continues to bedevil regulators.  To be fair it is a devilish problem, and understanding is called for.  Identifying healthy and unhealthy banks should have been done last fall, and delaying same only amplified the destructive uncertainty and asset value opacity that has proved so crippling.  Massive federal infusions ultimately will have a beneficial effect.  But problems for the future are being laid in the government's serial improvisations.

LFTC - Federal Force & Fraud

A Wednesday Washington Post front-pager details two instances in which the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) pressured Freddie Mac--whose acting CFO, David Kellerman, recently committed suicide--to withhold information from the securities and Exchange Commission, in order to minimize financial liability for the federal government.

First, the WP reports:

In March, Freddie Mac executives, including Kellermann, had tussled with FHFA over whether to disclose to investors that government management was undermining profitability and may cost the company about $30 billion, sources familiar with the dispute said. The regulator had urged Freddie not to do so, three sources said. The company threatened to appeal to the SEC and ultimately disclosed the possible cost. An FHFA official has said that it did not try to prevent the disclosure.

This potential expense was related to the Obama administration's housing recovery program, for which Freddie Mac playing a part in modifying the mortgages of homeowners facing foreclosure. Many of these loans had been bundled into securities. So to modify the mortgages, Freddie Mac has to pluck them out of the securities, which entails reassessing the value of the loans and marking them down to their current market price. The company might then have to record a charge to reflect these decreased values.

Based on Dec. 31 figures, Freddie Mac said it might have to incur "an initial pre-tax charge" of $30 billion. That loss would be covered by taxpayer dollars.

The WP notes a second instance:

Kellermann prepared a memo to the SEC known as a "pre-filing," sources recounted. In this document, Freddie Mac would discuss its interpretation of accounting regulations, explain why the firm wouldn't need to take the charge and review other possible accounting interpretations.

FHFA, which reviews the firm's contacts with the SEC, became concerned, source said. That's because one of the alternate accounting methods that Freddie Mac planned to review was the one currently used at Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac was preparing to argue it could not use this accounting method.

According to sources, officials at FHFA and Fannie Mae worried that such a claim could lead the SEC to question whether Fannie Mae was doing its accounting properly. Fannie Mae was also involved in carrying out the administration's housing efforts and, using separate reasoning, had also concluded it would not have to take a charge. If Fannie Mae after all did have to report the loss, the tab to the taxpayers would run into the billions of dollars.

FHFA asked Freddie Mac to submit a "pre-filing" to the SEC that did not discuss other alternate accounting methods, but only its own, sources said. Kellermann and Freddie Mac's accounting team refused, afraid that sending such a memo could open up the company and its employees to allegations of impropriety.

The WP reports that the SEC told Freddie Mac on April 21 that neither Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac need take a charge.  Kellerman committed suicide on April 22.  A Wednesday WSJ front-pager adds more detail to this appalling story.

BOA Chairman Ken Lewis's testimony to NY State Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo now rings true, in light of this latest example of bully-boy tactics.  Lewis apparently was pressured to defraud his own shareholders by inflating BOA's estimate of the value of Merrill Lynch assets in order to induce BOA shareholders to vote for the BOA acquisition of Merrill.  (In legal parlance, fraud is "tort"; in English, this translates as an act that is a civil wrong.)

Now we see FHFA regulators pressuring Freddie Mac's CEO to lie to another federal agency--a felony violation under any circumstances.  Michael Barone calls this (aptly) "Gangster Government":

But my sadness turned to anger later when I heard what bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria said on a WJR talk show that morning. “One of my clients,” Lauria told host Frank Beckmann, “was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.”

Lauria represented one of the bondholder firms, Perella Weinberg, which initially rejected the Obama deal that would give the bondholders about 33 cents on the dollar for their secured debts while giving the United Auto Workers retirees about 50 cents on the dollar for their unsecured debts.

This of course is a violation of one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law, which is that secured creditors — those who lended money only on the contractual promise that if the debt was unpaid they’d get specific property back — get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything. Perella Weinberg withdrew its objection to the settlement, but other bondholders did not, which triggered the bankruptcy filing.

After that came a denunciation of the objecting bondholders as “speculators” by Barack Obama in his news conference last Thursday. And then death threats to bondholders from parties unknown.

The White House denied that it strong-armed Perella Weinberg. The firm issued a statement saying it decided to accept the settlement, but it pointedly did not deny that it had been threatened by the White House. Which is to say, the threat worked.

Bottom Line.  There is no excuse for thuggery practiced by regulators to coerce private parties towards desired political ends.  Forcing commission of a private tortious act is bad enough; forcing commission of a criminal act is even worse.  this is neither socialism (public ownership of private property) nor is is simple corporatism (public-private partnerships).  It is neo-Mussolini jackboot thuggery.

LFTC - Index 5/7/09

3 posts: (1) Scare Force One Chapter Two: Scare (Photo) Farce Two--The Home Front; (2) Obama, Israel and the Mideast--Wobble Watch; (3) Obama's Convenient Churchill--The Home Front.

LFTC - Scare Force One Chapter Two: Air (Photo) Farce Two

The White House has now committed to release the photos taken at a cost of $328,835 recently, taken during the Scare Force One low-level unannounced April 27 flyby of Lady Liberty/Manhattan.  The same White House authorized release of more interrogation photos.  It was an odd juxtaposition of decisions, these, and thus the initial decision to classify the flyby photos, taken by some idiot, was bound to be reversed as outrage mounted.  Alas, the WH still will release the interrogation photos (unless a plea from two senators to appeal an adverse court ruling to the Supreme Court prevails).  Releasing the latter will recruit jihadi.

LFTC - Obama, Israel and the Mideast

The Washington Times reports that Team Obama is prepared to undermine a 40-year nuclear accord with Israel.  Washington Institute for Near East Policy scholar David Schenker writes that Egypt is stepping up to the plate in fighting the Islamists within its borders.  Shimon Peres refused to rule out "other options" should American diplomacy fail to arrest Iran's nuclear quest.

LFTC - Obama's Convenient Churchill

Historian Arthur Herman, in a superb column, eviscerates President 44's dubious citation of Churchill as having opposed torture, noting that 44 apparently relied upon a blogger, rather than the history book UK PM Gordon Brown gave him.  AH deals with the torture issue:

"There is no place for compromise in war," Churchill wrote. In choosing between civilized restraint and the British people's survival, he never hesitated. He contemplated using mustard gas if the Nazis invaded England. He authorized the fire bombing of German cities, the so-called terror bombings, in order to cripple the German war effort and morale. He was prepared to let Mahatma Gandhi die during his hunger strike in 1943 rather than be blackmailed into abandoning India, the last bastion against Japanese domination of Asia.

As for German POWs and spies, Churchill left matters in the hands of his interrogation master, Col. Robin Stephens, nicknamed "Tin Eye" because of his monocle and martinet manner. It's true that Stephens told his interrogators that "violence is taboo" -- the source of Sullivan's claim that Churchill didn't allow torture. Stephens, however, felt perfectly free to use every degree of psychological pressure on his detainees, including sleep deprivation and hooding prisoners in solitary confinement for long stretches. He'd have tried women's bras and caterpillars, like our own interrogators, if he'd thought of it.

But there's another, more powerful reason why the British didn't torture their captured German spies. They didn't have to. Thanks to the Ultra code-breaking program, British MI5 had access to nearly every major German High Command decision. Had Ultra not existed, the attitude toward captured German spies would've been a lot less casual. (Sixteen were in fact executed for espionage before war's end.)

Likewise, if America hadn't had the Clinton-era intelligence "wall of separation" that prevented the CIA and FBI from sharing information before 9/11, a place like Gitmo might never have been necessary.

Yet those who today denounce Gitmo as an American gulag -- including our president -- are the ones who complained most bitterly about warrantless wiretaps. They refuse to see that the need for the one resulted from the lack of the other.

"Moral force," Churchill once said, "is no substitute for armed force, but it is a very great reinforcement."

Bottom Line.  President Obama would profit greatly by learning more about what Winston Churchill really thought about fighting atavistic enemies in a war of survival.  Better he learn it the easy way, by reading Churchill, than the hard way, by what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1978 (referring to the Soviet Union) called "the pitiless crowbar of events."  The event came 18 months later, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Jimmy Carter--shocked that Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev had lied to him--said that he had learned more from the invasion about the Soviets than anything else before had taught him.  Watching presidents go to foreign policy school in public can make us witnesses to a painful spectacle.

LFTC - Index 5/6/09

5 posts: (1) Pakistan on the Brink--Wobble Watch; (2) Waterboarding: Texas, Reagan & Torture--The Home Front; (3) Is California America's (Grim) Future?--The Home Front; (4) Another Housing Implosion?--The Home Front; (5) Debt, GDP & Growth: Disturbing Numbers--The Home Front.

LFTC - Pakistan on the Brink

Robert Maginniss writes that no less than David Petraeus has warned Pakistan could fall to the Taliban in a fortnight.  A WSJ editorial urges Team Obama to act fast.  Tony Blankley sees more funding for defense necessary to meet challenges such as that in Pakistan.  Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid writes in the Washington Post that Congress must not tie aid to Pakistan to anything re Iraq & Afghanistan.  All pieces merit a close read.

It is increasingly clear that Pakistan's elected government is not up to the task of stopping the Taliban, who desire to steal a victory before the US can help Pakistan stand up.  Loss of Pakistan to militant Islamists would replicate, 30 years later, the catastrophic loss of Iran in 1979 to the Ayatollah Khomeini.  Imagine had Khomeini possession of nuclear weapons.  We need to lever any help we can get from India, too.

Bottom Line.  Above all, we must prevent Pakistan's estimated 60 - 100 nukes from falling to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.  Democracy promotion--per Bush 43's phrase from his Second Inaugural--is "the concentrated work of generations."  Team Obama must reboot democracy promotion to liberal democracy promotion, when & where feasible (it is not, now, in Pakistan).  Our best hope probably is a military government that takes power as the weak elected one is totally discredited, but does so without any sign of Uncle Sam's footprints.

LFTC - Waterboarding: Texas, Reagan & Torture

Opponents of waterboarding have dug up a 1983 precedent involving prosecution by the Reagan administration of a Texas sheriff + deputies who waterboarded several criminal suspects.  The critics thus allege that Bush 43 lawyers ignored a valid legal precedent.  Critics either do not grasp or do not care that harsh interrogation techniques clearly banned by constitutional safeguards from being used on criminal suspects may not apply to interrogation of detainees suspected of waging war as unlawful combatants.

Which brings us to the bottom line about critics of Bush 43: They desire both all the criminal safeguards extended suspects under our Constitution, PLUS the entire Geneva Convention set of detainee treatment safeguards conditionally extended to lawful combatants whose countries reciprocate comparably, ALL to be extended unconditionally to unlawful combatants who reciprocate nothing.

Meanwhile, ace diplomat John Bolton writes in today's Washington Post that Team Obama is punting on a Spanish judge's intent to prosecute 6 Bush 43 lawyers, prelude to aiming at senior Bush 43 officials up to and including the former President.  And GOP Senators Lindsey Graham (SC) & John McCain (AZ) suggest how to proceed at Gitmo: military commission trials plus preventive detention, not criminal law treatment.  And no more looking back, either.

LFTC - Is California America's (Grim) Future?

George Will paints a depressing portrait of the slow-motion train wreck that is California's economy, caused by what Will calls a "third way" charted between extreme liberalism and hyper-liberalism.

LFTC - Another Housing Implosion?

A WSJ editorial warns that FHA mortgages are the next housing bubble ready to burst.  Just what did Congress do, after the August 2007 Fannie & Freddie subprime implosion?  It tossed out $180B in 2008 alone--nearly 1/3 of the FHA's $562B assets--in subprime-style NINJA (No Income, No Job or Assets) loans galore.  Congress doubled the house price ceiling from $362,500 to $719,000 in upscale markets, raising the down-payment minimum from 3 percent to all of 3-1/2 percent.  Fiscal prudence, Beltway style....

LFTC - Debt, GDP & Growth: Disturbing Numbers

A private newsletter forwarded to me an analysis that contained domestic economic numbers to ponder as we go forward.  From 1982 to 2007: total debt per dollar of GDP rose from $1.60 to $3.53; household debt per GDP dollar rose from 44 cents to 98 cents.  Interest rates were near 20 percent in 1982 and fell to near zero by 2007.  Savings were 8 percent of income in 1992, but zero by 2007; with consumer spending at 70 cents of each GDP dollar, each point rise in the savings rate lowers GDP by 0.7 percent.  Most ominously, in 1966 each dollar of debt boosted GDP by 93 cents; by 2007 each debt dollar added less than 20 cents to GDP.

Not happy numbers, these--they are grim auguries indeed.

LFTC - Index 5/5/09

7 posts: (1) Supremes: Sonia Sotomayor Self-Destructs?--The Home Front; (2) Bailouts: Another Government Mugging; More Bank Infusions--The Home Front; (3) Pakistan: Drones; Schools; Pacts; Nukes--Wobble Watch; (4) Federal Reserve: Inflating Deflation or Deflating Inflation?--The Home Front; (5) CIA: Pelosi Anxious; Condi Sandbagged--The Home Front; (6) Once More With Feeling: "Drill Baby Drill!"--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (7) Jack Kemp: More--The Home Front.

LFTC - Supremes: Sonia Sotomayor Self-Destructs?

A YouTube video (0:34) shows Sonia Sotomayor, the Hispanic woman thought to be at the top of President 44's list, saying that judges "make policy" even if, she intimates, they fake otherwise.  Could prove a problem.

LFTC - Bailouts: Another Government Mugging; More Bank Infusions?

ABC reporter Jake Tapper, rightly highly regarded, reports on another threat allegedly made by the government in connection with bailouts: an attorney with white-shoes law firm White & Case said he was threatened with destruction of his client firm's reputation, by the White House & WH press corps, if his firm did not sign on to the Chrysler deal:

A leading bankruptcy attorney representing hedge funds and money managers told ABC News Saturday that Steve Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's Auto Industry Task Force, threatened one of the firms, an investment bank, that if it continued to oppose the administration's Chrysler bankruptcy plan, the White House would use the White House press corps to destroy its reputation.

Tapper adds more detail: (1) the lawyer, a Miami attorney, was a Hillary contributor--hardly the nasty GOP "reptile" (as Julia Roberts would say); (2) the client firm, a hedge fund, denies the allegation; (3) the client funds wanted, as secured creditors, 50 cents on the dollar from the Chrysler bankruptcy, still less than what the UAW got, but more than the 30 cents they were given.  The UAW, junior in credit status, is senior in political power.

Economist Irwin Stelzer sees contract abrogation in the Chrysler deal secured debtors rejected.  One hedge fund manager noted his fiduciary duty--a solemn legal pledge--runs to getting the best deal for his investor-creditors.  Secured credit agreement interest rates will, IS notes, rise if lenders see the government get away with shafting secured creditors over Chrysler.

Meanwhile, back at the (bank) ranch, two finance mavens write that the government cannot prop up the banks forever.  It needs to foster price discovery of toxic assets, clean up balance sheets, establish a process by which large institutions can fail and go through insolvency and bankruptcy, and stop the hemorrhaging of bank capital via dividends.  In 2007 & 2008 banks paid out $400B in dividends--as bailout funds came in the front door they were sent out the back door, with taxpayers funding dividends for shareholders.  That $400B, it should be noted, (a) relieved shareholders of part of their investment risk; and (b) if retained via dividend cuts would have enabled extension, at 10:1 leverage, of $4TR in credit!!

Bottom Line.  Uncle Sucker as a bailout dance partner is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla--you dance on the gorilla's terms.  Expect to get your toes stubbed and to receive unwelcome hugs at inopportune moments.  Dancers close by will get belted periodically as well.  Best to get the gorilla off the dance floor ASAP--which Team Obama has no intention of doing.

LFTC - Pakistan: Drones; Schools; Pacts; Nukes

I will let readers rank the stories that follow in order of how depressing they are.

LA Times pundit Doyle McManus warns that Predator drone strikes are killing too many Pakistani civilians, and thus are counterproductive.  (The same point was made on MSNBC "Morning Joe: by Zbigniew Brzezinski last week.)  He cites Aussie counter-insurgency expert & ex-adviser to Gen. Petraeus, David Kilcullen:

Kilcullen's objection to the U.S. strategy isn't moral (he doesn't mind killing "bad guys") or legal (most legal scholars consider "targeted killing" acceptable under the law of war because Al Qaeda and the Taliban are at war with the United States). Kilcullen's objection is practical. He says the strikes are creating more enemies than they eliminate.

"I realize that they do damage to the Al Qaeda leadership," he told the House Armed Services Committee. But that, he said, was not enough to justify the program. "Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they've given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. ... The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population."

Another problem, Kilcullen says, is that "using robots from the air ... looks both cowardly and weak."

In the Pashtun tribal culture of honor and revenge, face-to-face combat is seen as brave; shooting people with missiles from 20,000 feet is not. And besides, Kilcullen says, "There are other ways to do it."

Kilcullen didn't elaborate on those "other ways," but intelligence experts say they could include deploying covert teams of hit men on the ground (risky) and training Pakistani special operations units to do the job (time-consuming).

If the numbers above--14 leaders killed but 700 collateral casualties, a 50:1 ratio--are accurate, the policy of Predator strikes is clearly backfiring.  I wonder how accurate such a count can be.  As to Pakistanis scorning us for striking from afar, this reflects the classic difference between a modern ethos that places the highest premium on protecting its soldiers, and a pre-modern ethos that does not.  No modern society will put its soldiers in harm's way solely to prove our willingness to match tribal passions.

A New York Times front-pager says Pakistani Islamic schools are "filling a void", but with Koran memorization and militancy, not a liberal education.  Our President calls for more schools, among other things, for Pakistan.  Presumably he has liberal schools in mind.  It brings to mind Senator Patty Murray (Dumbbell-WA), who in late 2002 said that the popularity of Osama bin Laden stemmed from, among other things, building schools.  That whatever schools OBL may have funded were not teaching Shakespeare either did not occur to America's dumbest senator, or she did not care what they taught--"schools" are a good, not matter what they teach, in this view.  All that said, how are we to build schools in Pakistan, when we cannot even give all American kids a real education?

Then there are, the NY Times reports, these pesky Pakistani nukes, whose security situation increasingly worries US officials.  Here is an India-Pakistan nuclear database website with more detail.

Southwest Asia expert Michael Rubin of AEI sees Team Obama failing to grasp the import of the Swat Valley Agreement between the Pakistani government and the Taliban: it is, MR writes, not about social or economic grievances, but about Taliban militant ideology.  Put simply, the Taliban seek not accommodation, but victory.

Soldier-author Ralph Peter says lose Pakistan.  But for 60 - 100 nukes & 12,000 radical Islamist madrassas I would agree.

Bottom Line.  Alas, with Pakistan, it seems happy tales are as rare as flying elephants.

LFTC - Federal Reserve: Inflating Deflation or Deflating Inflation?

Economist and Fed expert Allan Meltzer fears hyperinflation more than deflation.  He writes of deflation:

Some of my fellow economists, including many at the Fed, say that the big monetary goal is to avoid deflation. They point to the less than 1 percent decline in the consumer price index for the year ending in March as evidence that deflation is a threat. But this statistic is misleading: unstable food and energy prices may lower the price index for a few months, but deflation (or inflation) refers to the sustained rate of change of prices, not the price level. We should look instead at a less volatile price index, the gross domestic product deflator. In this year’s first quarter, it rose 2.9 percent — a sure sign of inflation.

Besides, no country facing enormous budget deficits, rapid growth in the money supply and the prospect of a sustained currency devaluation as we are has ever experienced deflation. These factors are harbingers of inflation.

When will it come? Surely not right away. But sooner or later, we will see the Fed, under pressure from Congress, the administration and business, try to prevent interest rates from increasing. The proponents of lower rates will point to the unemployment numbers and the slow recovery. That’s why the Fed must start to demonstrate the kind of courage and independence it has not recently shown.

Meltzer also worries about the Fed's independence, and sees it dangerously compromised by the Treasury using the Fed its its bank:

I do not doubt their knowledge or technical ability. What I doubt is the commitment of the administration and the autonomy of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Volcker was a very independent chairman. But under Mr. Bernanke, the Fed has sacrificed its independence and become the monetary arm of the Treasury: bailing out A.I.G., taking on illiquid securities from Bear Stearns and promising to provide as much as $700 billion of reserves to buy mortgages.

Independent central banks don’t do what this Fed has done. They leave such fiscal action to the legislative branch. By that same token, Mr. Volcker’s Fed had to avoid financing the large (for that time) Reagan budget deficits to be able to bring down inflation. The central bank was made independent expressly so that it could refuse to finance deficits. But is there a political consensus that the much larger Obama deficits will not pressure the Fed to expand reserves to buy Treasury bonds?

Read Meltzer's superb op-ed in full.

LFTC - CIA: Pelosi Anxious; Condi Sandbagged

Human Events publisher Jed Babbin details how Democrats recently held closed-door meetings to ascertain how much damage their public posturing has inflicted on the CIA (lots) and what they can do to limit it (not much).  Especially culpable has been Nancy Pelosi, who is willing to damage the agency so long as she does not get blamed if disaster strikes.  Ex-Green Beret Jack Kelly warns Team Obama that making the CIA bureaucracy an enemy can led to disaster for 44 as it did for 43.

The Washington Post reports on a truly appalling story: how teachers at a DC school put fourth-graders up to ask Condi specific questions, when she visited the school:

Rice, in her first appearance in Washington since leaving government, was at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital before giving an evening lecture at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. She held forth amiably before a few dozen students about her love of Israel, travel abroad and the importance of learning languages, then opened the floor to their questions.

The questions had been developed beforehand by students with their teachers and had not been screened by Rice. At first, they were innocuous: What was it like growing up in segregated Birmingham, Ala.? What skill did she want to be best known for?

Then Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?

The WP article goes on to quote the boy's mom as saying her son intended to ask an even tougher torture question.  Maybe so, but I wonder.  Parental brainwashing is little better than that done in school.  Nine-year-olds should have other matters on their minds, and enjoy their young years.

Bottom Line.  Expect Pelosi to be in constant CYA mode on national security harm she does.  Expect the CIA bureaucrats to "take names" among Team Obama.  And expect public school union educrats--our domestic Taliban--to continue slanting the "education" they bestow upon their captive charges.

LFTC - Once More With Feeling: "Drill Baby Drill!"

Robert Samuelson presents reserve numbers showing lots of oil & gas within the reach of domestic drilling.  Last Thursday a WSJ front-pager reported on a huge natural gas find in Louisiana.  If President Obama does not want to drill, he won't.  But the GOP can use his recalcitrance as a political issue--especially if, as appears likely, 44's alternative energy program falls flat.

LFTC - Jack Kemp: More

I identified Jack Kemp as having been a HUD Secretary under Ronald Reagan.  I was wrong.  An NRO eulogy to JFK pinpointed the Bush 41 years (1989 - 1993) as Kemp's HUD years.  While correcting that error I will add a little more on how stellar Kemp's football career was: Wiki's Kemp entry gives astonishing details of Kemp's football years (ignore the footnote numbers; italics not used, to aid reading):

Wiki on Kemp Pro Football Years

Kemp led Buffalo to three straight Eastern Division titles and two straight AFL Championships.[8] He led the league in career passes attempted, completions, and yards gained passing.[29] He played in five of the AFL's 10 Championship Games, and holds the same career records (passing attempts, completions, and yardage) for championships. He is second in many other championship game categories, including career and single-game passer rating.[29] A Sporting News All-League selection at quarterback in 1960 and 1965, he was the only AFL quarterback to be listed as a starter all 10 years of the league's existence and one of only 20 players to serve all 10 of those years. His number 15 was retired by the Bills in 1984.[63]

However, despite his success and important AFL records, he is most prominently listed in the NFL record book for less flattering accomplishments, including his place as a former record holder for most quarterback sacks in a game.[64][65] Despite Kemp's many records, Joe Namath and Len Dawson were selected as the quarterbacks for the All-time AFL team.[29] Kemp is a member of the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame and the Buffalo Bills' Wall of Fame.

Kemp co-founded the AFL Players Association with Tom Addison of the Boston Patriots, and was elected its president five times.[66] His founding of and involvement in the players' union contributed to his frequent siding with the Democrats on labor issues later in his career.[2]

LFTC - Index 5/4/09

5 posts: (1) Premature Pandemic Pronouncement; Future Flu Fears--Katrina Etc.; (2) Israel: More People & Arab, Fewer US Allies--Wobble Watch; (3) Health Care: Senate Stealth; A Doctor's Alarm--"It's the Earth Stupid!; (4) Jack Kemp's Last Touchdown Pass--The Home Front; (5) Jumbo the Elephantine Piano--Class & Crass.

On Friday. May 1 the American Spectator posted my review of One Second After, by William D.Fortschen.  With a foreword by Newt Gingrich, the book covers a worst-case scenario in the aftermath of an EMP strike against the United States.  Such a strike, carried out by detonating at high-altitude over the continental United States, one or more atom bombs, would generate serial intense electromagnetic energy pulses that would wipe out the nation's electric grid and plunge the nation into 1875 in an instant.  Millions would die in the months, perhaps more than one year, that it would take to bring supplies in to prevent disease and starvation.  My review is entitled "One Second Too Late: America's Fate?".

LFTC - Premature Pandemic Pronouncement; Future Flu Fears

In calling the swine flu a pandemic last week I relied on a TV report.  Bad idea.  It is not yet officially designated a pandemic.  A verbal pandemic was launched, however, by Vice-President Biden (4:13), who advised everyone to stay off public transit.  I also neglected to praise the President, who for once, instead of bashing his predecessor, bestowed praise upon him for stockpiling vaccines and putting in place the beginnings of a serious organizational infrastructure to deal with lethal pathogens.

Those slips duly noted, as Pat Buchanan writes on the risk the President is taking in declining to close the US-Mexican border, the President is putting himself into the universal health insurance business: If swine flu mutates into a lethal pathogen that kills 100,000 Americans, all the charm 44 can muster will not save him from a Katrina Moment.  Beyond that risk, there is a second potential mess facing Team Obama (also noted by PB): the toll taken by swine flu in Mexico could collapse its economy, giving the US a national security crisis of immense magnitude, right on its doorstep.

LFTC - Israel: More People & Arab (But Not US) Allies

A snapshot of Israel today reveals 7.4M population, of which 5.5M (75%) are Jews, 1.5M (20%) are Arab.  Sabras (native-born) are now 70 percent, compared to 35 percent of Israel's 806,000 in 1948.  Ever astute columnist Caroline Glick offers an odd Mideast strategic juxtaposition: (a) Arab regimes back Israel against Iran, despite the Palestinian struggle against Israel; against (b) SecState Hillary Clinton's pressing Israel to make peace with the Palestinians--impossible under current conditions and demoralizing to an Israel under siege that grasps Palestinian intransigence--as an essential step in garnering Arab support for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  CG details at length how the actual diplomacy practiced by Arab regimes flatly contradict's Hillary's notional view.  Norman Podhoretz examines how Team Obama may actively interfere with Israel in the Jewish state's last-ditch effort to stop Iran's nuclear program.  Israel is one country whose leaders and people will miss Bush 43.

LFTC - Health Care: Senate Stealth; A Doctor's Alarm

Last week the Senate voted to cut off debate after 35 hours on massive health care reform that affects 1/6th of the American economy and everyone's medical care.  Democrats will now be able to pass their version of health care "reform" (read: creeping socialization) by simple majority.  Senator Arlen Specter's switch may have made this move unnecessary.  But read the doctor letter posted below to see some of what awaits under ObamaCare.

Herewith a letter from Doctor Gerald Dorros, Hudson Institute Trustee (so am I).  His missive, which I eagerly endorse, is his (for readability, no italics; it will print at about 2 pages):

Power is Adequate Compensation

This discussion of conflicts of interest within medicine is well worth reading, and, especially, the attention given by Dr. Stein to bias and “transparency”, disclosure has been called “an empty ritual designed to ease the consciences of academics unable to wean themselves from the industry payroll”. However, the report fails to address, as did Dr. Stein, “That (the real) problem … is not secrecy – it is power. Our patients have the least power in this drama. Industry has the most.” The power that arises of industry over physicians is wealth, not money, and, today, physicians lack wealth. Wealthy individuals and companies can pay the money to the physicians, and, most physicians are not in a position to fail to accept the meager compensation.

Society views the service of medicine as an inalienable right and physicians as its servants, who have an unalterable obligation to provide these services. Physicians, after years of study, are enabled to practice medicine under the applicable licensing laws, and enter practice with the anticipation of a positive professional environment and financial rewards commensurate with their level of professional achievement. Unexpectedly, they encounter a hostile environment for which they are ill-prepared; and, physicians substantially abrogate their thoughts, feelings, needs, and voices to the utterances of government officials, lawyers, business people, medical industrialists, hospital administrators, and the media, as well as well-intentioned physicians who lead medical organizations. Physicians naively assumed that abrogation to these groups would result in fair treatment for their professional efforts.

The United States federal government has egregiously, overtly and covertly, regulated the salaries of physicians, as well as created a regulatory nightmare to obtain compensation for services rendered. Pediatricians, internists, and family practice physicians approximate peak annual salaries are less than $150,000, which is inadequate when considering the time, effort, personal debt, self-denial, and awesome responsibilities incurred by them. Businesspeople, lawyers, legislators, or lobbyists would not accept regulated compensation, but these same groups inflict this upon physicians, a policy not perpetrated against any other profession. However, physicians are docile, compliant and obedient targets, who continue to care for the sick, despite minimization, discounting, or elimination of recompense. Ironically, the physician’s altruism, sense of obligation and refusal to abandon the ill, is the vulnerability. The bureaucratic limitation of physician remuneration is absurd, since healthy people are better able to work, care for the family, contribute to society, and cost society less.    

In order to contrast governmental policies directing the flow of public funds in the United States, consider the following. In the New York Sun, on 1.16.08, Furchgott-Roth wrote, “Operators of asphalt spreaders in New York City are required to be paid hourly rates of $49.52, plus $24.80 in benefits, 10 paid federal holidays … [and] Election Day. In contrast, in Manhattan a 25-minute check-up will garner a Medicare payment of $73.87, going down to $66.07 in July [2008].” Something is wrong. U.S. Labor Department statistics, based solely upon a 50-hour week concept, details that Family and General Practitioners earn $72/hour based on a $150,000 salary; Pediatricians, $66/hour, on a $141,000 salary; and, Surgeons, $89/hour, on a $184,000 salary. But, the majority of physicians work every third weekend and every third week on call and their hourly work-week often approximates 80 hours, as such, their hourly wage plummets to less than $34 for a pediatrician and $45 for a surgeon. The same holds true for the cardiologist, cardiothoracic surgeon, and the neurosurgeon. Just think about the difference between wealth and money. Thus, wealthy is not the physicians’ issue, and, as such, other revenue streams will become attractive, as well as potentially divert the physicians focus upon patient care.

Physicians created procedures, such as angioplasty, have minimized procedural trauma, reduced complication rates, improved outcomes, and shortened hospital stays (permitting increased patient throughput, which allowed easier amortization of fixed costs, and increased hospital profitability). Shorter recuperative periods allowed earlier return to work, a better lifestyle, improved job performance, minimized worker replacement costs, and lowered disability payment expenditures. Nevertheless, discounting or delaying of physician compensation has continued. The payers pronounce that these worthwhile technological advances were too expensive, and, not often FDA approved (which is another specious issue1), which, in reality, allowed them to use their money elsewhere, rather than pay for rendered services. Since quantifying, the saving of health care dollars created by such procedures, devices, or medicines is very difficult, societal leaders would rather prevaricate, and manipulate the available inaccurate statistics to pronounce that such health care is too expensive. Thus, they appear to be cognizant of their constituents’ welfare and their fiduciary responsibility as a guardian of their constituents’ tax dollars.  However, peer reviewed published information of the real health care savings and costs, using acceptable methodology, would underscore the brilliance of medical ingenuity.

Power is the ability to dole out money. The Federal government does it very well. The on-line Senior Journal (11.2.07) reported, “Medicare estimates that it will pay approximately $59 billion to … [633,000] physicians and [267,000] other health care professionals…”, which is about 13.5% of the health care budget. Medicare, which serves 44 million seniors, cost the government $437 billion in 2007, with physician compensation accounting for about 10%. In sharp contrast to the physician payment cuts, The Economist (11.3-9.07), are the $165 billion in 1995-2005 farm payments, with 73% going to 10% of recipients and 50% to 8 of 50 states. “In 2005 a quarter of subsidiaries came in the form of “direct payments”, which go to landowners regardless of what they farm, how much they farm, or if they farm at all. Just think about this, about 30% of the Medicare budget is given as a federal subsidy, and if you anger your constituency, you just do not get re-elected, and continue to get public salary funding. The Council on Graduate Medical Education … [predicted] a shortage of 96,000 physicians by the year 2020. If only 20% of physicians in the 50-65-age bracket opt for retirement or non-clinical roles in the next three years, nearly 60,000 physicians would be removed from the clinical workforce…why are physicians so disgruntled? Reimbursement issues were cited by 33% of doctors as their greatest single source of professional frustration…

Today, Man can significantly affect not only the ravages of disease, but also the very process of life and death. The intertwining of historical ethical, and moral perspectives, and religious precepts enabled society to define physician responsibilities, obligations, and behavior. Society authorized and guaranteed an unwritten truth with physicians, which acknowledged society’s comprehension that danger was extant in every medical procedure and treatment, and, that a therapy, which healed or cured one patient, could kill or maim another. This alignment of societal needs and physician objectives precluded familial revenge as long as the physician’s best efforts were employed despite an untoward result, as well as adequate compensation. As a result of this relationship, physicians directly confronted and became accountable for a myriad of intricate, multifaceted, complex ethical issues: animal experimentation, sexuality and procreation (abortion, contraception, or sexual preferences), death and the dying (euthanasia, mercy killing, withholding treatment, heroic measures, and discontinuation of life-support systems), hazardous therapy (transplantation, radiation), and human experimentation. (Rosner F, Modern Medicine and Jewish Ethics, Yeshiva University Press New York. C 1986). But, society’s conferral of this special status upon physicians resulted in stringent physician obligations; while the warrant provided protection, in return, physicians had to surrender significant personal freedom so as to be completely dedicated and attentive to their task, which, in the end, was always unsuccessful. Thus, how are physicians to react to the remarks of Presidential aspirant, John McCain (3.2008), “physicians should be paid based on patient outcomes, not fee-for-service, which "pays based on volume alone?” Who would care for the very sick, if outcomes determined recompense?  Thus, for physicians to be able to turn away from these financial inducements, they must be adequately compensated for their work.

NB: Editors: I am an interventional cardiologist, who has really not practiced clinical medicine since 1997, sees patients on a Pro Bono basis as a consultant occasionally, and has been involved in the medical device business for two decades. I live in Wilson, Wyoming.

LFTC - Jack Kemp's Last Touchdown Pass

The GOP's JFK--Jack French Kemp--succumbed to cancer Saturday.  Like his Democratic philosophical and initials forebear Kemp literally radiated ebullience and optimism.  (Ronald Reagan equaled the two JFKs in optimism, but substituted reserve for ebullience.)  Kemp sold JFK's "rising tide lifts all boats" catchphrase to sell tax cuts to Ronald Reagan and then to the public.  Kemp was also widely noted as well for reaching out to minorities, presumably due to his pro football career during which, it was said by some wags, Kemp had showered with more blacks than many of his fellow GOP comrades had talked to.  Like many quips, it was not literally true, but seemed, at least as to Republicans of a certain age, to contain a grain of truth (and was certainly true of Dixiecrat Democrats of that earlier time).

Kemp's achievements were all the more remarkable for two reasons.  First, as a Congressman from Buffalo, his path to influence was hardly inevitable.  Second, he was a jock (as an AFL player, less well known than NFL star QBs) who turned serious as a political figure, promoting ideas and serving with distinction in the Congress.  With ex-actor Reagan Kemp made a formidable political team during the 1980s.  He served as one of Reagan's Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, bringing energy to a department that has generally proved a bureaucratic backwater for most of its 42 years existence.   Perhaps his time was already past when he ran as VP on Bob Dole's 1996 ticket, but VPs rarely are able to add to what their running mates bring in terms of electoral votes; rather, they are supposed to not lose any electoral votes, and Kemp did not.

Some influential political figures make their main contributions behind the scenes--writing key provisions of the tax code.  Few people knew of hugely influential backstage tax writers such as Wilbur Mills and Russell Long.  But Jack Kemp rewrote the tax code in public, and made it less onerous in the process.  For a generation, the supply-side ideas Kemp championed guided public debate on taxes--as JFK's never did.  His time is now past and his ideas in eclipse, with a charismatic leader in the White House who holds ideas diametrically opposite to those held by Kemp.  But for a generation, Jack Kemp made a real positive difference.

I will not be alone in missing him, not only for the ideas he promoted but for his graciousness and sunny disposition.  Let the old star QB have the final say, in the form of excerpts from op-eds he penned during his stellar post-football career.

LFTC - Jumbo the Elephantine Piano

Jumbo was a legendary circus elephant of the late 19th century, said to be 4 meters high (13 feet) at his death.  Here, in the early 21st, Adrian Mann, a teenager in New Zealand has completed an astonishing feat: he built the world's largest piano.  At 5.7 meters length from notes to back rim (18'7") it is nearly ten feet longer than the "D" Model Orchestral Grand Steinway and a full 9 feet longer than the Imperial 9'6" Bosendorfer 97-note grand.  An online video clip (4:35) gives only a flavor, without giving the full sound, but it is worth a look.  Then you will discover the other amazing device this one young man has already built.