LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

OBAMA'S BUDGET MADNESS

Bob Woodward calls President Obama out....

Today Watergate legend Bob Woodward called "a kind of madness" (0:51) President Obama's threat that if sequester goes through on Friday he will be unable to protect the country.  Woodward noted that Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush & Bill Clinton would not have let a piece of paper stand between them & their duty to protect the country as commander-in-chief.

Today the Senate is expected to vote down two sequester substitute bills: a Republican alternative giving the president more flexibility to make cuts & Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Democratic proposal to replace the sequester with fewer cuts plus new tax increases.  The GOP bill would, while ruling out tax hikes, allow only defense budget increases.  By reserving a congressional right of disapproval, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “The goal isn’t to hand over congressional authority.  It’s to make sure these cuts actually happen.”

At Commentary Blog ex-Bush WH staffer Peter Wehner labels O's threats as "a concoction of willful deceptions, hyperbole, demagoguery, mismanagement, and deliberate harm .... doing [incalculable harm] to our political culture."

The WaPo reports this incredible admission (h/t Peter Wehner] from an anti-sequester lobbyist:

MASS MURDER: PREVENTABLE?

As Congress returns to gun bills....

And the president speaks gospel truth in Chicago....

The sad truth may well be: rarely....

The horrific murder rampage of a renegade LA cop--wily, coldly determined, trained to commit mayhem & evade capture--is perhaps an extreme example.  But others less well-trained can be just as determined, and do great damage.  Such killers will not have trouble circumventing even the strictest gun laws--which grow increasingly problematic due to the emerging application of 3D printing technology.  And they may be able to evade early detection too.

Megan McArdle's absorbing interview with mass-killing expert James Alan Fox punctures many common misconceptions.

James Alan Fox: Mass murderers are extraordinarily ordinary.

Most mass killers kill people they know, with a clear-cut motive. They typically plan their crimes in advance, often weeks or months in advance. They are calm, deliberate and determined to get justice for what they perceive to be unfair treatment.

The idea that they suddenly snap actually makes little sense. They snap and just so happen to have 2 AK-47's and 2000 rounds of ammunition around for just such an occasion? Hardly.

Megan: We can see the evidence of planning, but how do we know their motive? Do they typically leave behind an explanation?

James Alan Fox: Yes, they often do leave behind an explanation, or articulate it if they survive. Or they make it clear while they are doing their shooting.

As for preventive remedies, the picture is bleak:

THE "OBAMOSCARS"

Tinseltown tarnishes the White House....

Oscar Night gave us a new cultural milestone: the First Lady announcing the Best Picture winner, and saying of Hollywood, as reported by the Washington Times:

Wearing a silvery art-deco-inspired metallic gown, Mrs. Obama showered affection on the Hollywood stars, writers and production teams and said they are setting a good example for the nation’s children because all the nominees demonstrated that “we can overcome any obstacle.”

That message is “especially important for our young people,” she said, thanking Hollywood for encouraging children “to open their imaginations.”

Roger Simon sees the Academy Awards and the leftist culture it promotes as quasi-officially representing one half (left of center) of the country.  Mona Charen sees "bread and circuses" in Barack & Michelle as celebrities-in-chief.

Worse, Jonathan Tobin writes that the Obamas have matched the Kennedys' "Camelot" hagiography:

GUNFIGHT AT "B.O." CORRAL II

The truth behind the budget numbers....

Defense Budget Realities.  Byron York inters the defense hawks' assertion that the sequester will devastate our military.  Projected defense numbers are:

For 2014, the figure is $593 billion.  For 2015, it is $597 billion.  For 2016, $611 billion.  For 2017, $619 billion.  For 2018, $628 billion.  For 2019, $648 billion.  For 2020, $663 billion.  For 2021, $679 billion.  For 2022, $702 billion.  And for 2023, $714 billion.

Now, factor in declining war spending, which distorts CBO figures:

GUNFIGHT AT "B.O." CORRAL I

Barack plays "budget sequester chicken"....

As Roll Call reports that Senate negotiators "are bracing for the Obama administration to ratchet up the pressure by front-loading the effects of the sequester during the month of March" WaPo superstar Bob Woodward unmasks the lies told by the president & his top aides, as to who proposed the sequester:

First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans. (The Republicans are by no means blameless and have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management.)

Second, [former WH chief of staff, now Treasury Secretary-designate] Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester. Reinforcing Lew’s point, a senior White House official said Friday, “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”

In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.

So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.

The WSJ editors explain how President Obama is using the "Washington Monument ploy" to pressure the GOP to give in to higher taxes and impose far fewer spending cuts:

NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT PERIL

President Obama doubles a bad bet....

Yesterday Human Events posted my article: Obama Doubles Down on Nuclear Disarmament.

I assess why Obama's nuclear policies towards Iran, North Korea, China and Russia are failing.  Put simply, utopian nuclear-zero fantasies are driving the president's policies, and thus are making more likely a nuclear war or a nuclear terrorism catastrophe.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Nuclear Proliferation, WMD, Terrorism, Homeland Security, National Security, Foreign Policy

PAKISTAN HATES AMERICA

Will a new Gallup Paki-poll sober up US leaders?....

An October 2012 Gallup poll of Pakistanis shows a record 92 percent disapproval of America.  Data culled from several Gallup polls taken there, starting in September 2005, should be a wake-up call for US leaders who regard Pakistan an ally.

High(low)lights:

(1) Pakistani disapprove/approve numbers ranged from 70/21 in 9/05, to a best figure of 47/39 in May 2009 and then to an all-time low of 92/4 in 10/12.

(2) Gallup's May 2011 poll, taken shortly after the sovereignty-violating raid that killed Osama bin Laden, showed a 49/27 disapprove/approve number.

(3) Pakistani attitudes towards Islam's interaction with the West, 35/27 threat/benefit in 2010, was 39/31 threat/benefit in 2011, then sunk to an abysmal 55/13 threat/benefit in 2012.  Pakistan's 15-29 cohort, 49 percent of the country's population, was slightly more negative towards interaction with the West.

(4) While favorability of the country's military rose lightly, from 84 percent in 2005 to 88 percent in 2012, favorability of the civilian government plummeted from 58 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2012.

These numbers yield several conclusions:

First: Pakistan is not an ally at all, but rather a nuclear-armed rogue state whose increasingly Islamist population seethes with hatred & resentment towards the US & the West.  Along with the Arab Spring, this puts paid to the utterly fatuous notion that President Obama, given his childhood association with Islam, would fundamentally transform for the better America's relations with diverse Islamic communities around the globe.

Second: Current US policy does not reflect these realities.  One wonders if notice was taken of the latest Pakistani test of a sophisticated short-range nuclear-missile carrying a maneuverable warhead, a weapon capability few countries possess.

Third: America's 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan gives the US an opportunity to adopt a more realistic policy towards Pakistan.

Fourth: The best way to change the geopolitical dynamic in the Asian Subcontinent region is to tilt more towards India, an increasingly major geopolitical & economic player, mortal adversary of Pakistan.

Bottom Line.  Once again, Team Obama is caught dangerously off base in a crucial arena for American foreign & national security policy.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National security, Foreign Policy, WMD, Nuclear Proliferation, Homeland Security, Conservative Politics

MIDEAST II: US, EGYPT, ISRAEL

Update on US, Egypt & Israel, mostly bad....

Egypt.  Team Obama stands idly by--worse, sends more F-16s--as Egypt engages thugs from Hamas to help suppress domestic opposition to Mohammed Morsi's Islamist tyranny.  Freed from Mubarak's Gaza blockade--leaky but moderately effective--Hamas now turns to undermining the Palestine Authority on the West Bank.  Recently, an Egyptian judge banned YouTube for one month, citing an "anti-Islam" video posted at the site.  (As of 2010, an estimated 18 percent of Egyptians were Internet users.)  Weekly Standard Mideast maven Lee Smith sees an Egypt on the edge of chaos.....

MIDEAST I: US, IRAN, SYRIA

Iran, Syria, US update, mostly bad....

Iran. Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Guide, has contemptuously rebuffed Team Obama's plea for more diplomatic negotiations, and warned his subjects as well:

I’m not a diplomat; I’m a revolutionary, and speak frankly and directly.  If anyone wants the return of U.S. dominance here, people will grab his throat.

Khamenei is sole custodian of Iran's nuclear program.  The WSJ editors offer historical narrative to document repeated Iranian refusals to bargain over its nuclear ambitions.  Iran shopped in China for "ring magnets"--critical for operating high-speed uranium enrichment centrifuges.  Iran's leaders played "good cop/bad cop" again this weekend, promising to go civilian if only its "rights" are protected.  Another deception: Iran recently unveiled a "stealth jet"--in reality, a mock-up model with a possible drone version flight; Iran even Photoshopped the "plane" ostensibly flying above snow-capped mountains.

Recently SecState John Kerry warned Iran that “prepared to do whatever is necessary” to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.  But why should the Iranians believe this, given a president who has moved "red lines" as Iran progresses?...

PRESIDENTS' DAY PRESIDENT

No, NOT Barack Obama....

So who is the presidential model we need to restore a human-scale presidency?

Calvin Coolidge.

Start with what is wrong about The One....

Obama. Coincident with the holiday weekend, President Obama let out a true "Freudian slip" as to what he wishes he were:

This is something I’ve struggled with throughout my presidency. The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.

Add in the self-referential grandiosity of Obama's public persona, on display at its worst in his state of the union addresses.  George Will, at his acerbic best, eviscerates the pseudo-sacred custom of annual televised state of the union addresses:

N.K. TEST 3: URANIUM BOMB?

Did Pyongyang test its first uranium bomb?....

Early reports were that North Korea had tested a plutonium device, as noted in LFTC's Tuesday edition.  But in a recent New York Times op-ed, top nuclear proliferation maven Graham Allison states that US officials now believe it was a uranium bomb.  If true this is significant.

Allison notes that this gives Pyongyang not only a second route to making fuel for a nuclear weapon; it also likely means that the North built a clandestine uranium enrichment site not previously known to outside observers.  Uranium, GA notes, is also harder to detect (hence easier to smuggle), and can be made into a gun-trigger bomb that need not be tested--as was the case with the Hiroshima bomb.  (The Nagasaki bomb used plutonium, and hence had to employ a complex "implosion" trigger--a technique that must be tested to ensure that it will work.)

Allison notes that in intelligence circles Pyongyang is known as "Missiles 'R' Us"--a reference to its proclivity for selling WMD technology to rogue-state buyers.  GA proposes that the US issue a credible, stern warning that any use of a nuclear bomb against the US or its allies that is traced to material supplied by the North would result in nuclear retaliation by the US.

But an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says that the plutonium or uranium question remains up in the air.  So do other key questions, pending testing of atmospheric samples leaking from underground:

"SEAL-ED" WITH A KISS-OFF

How does our gov't treat our true heroes?....

Not very well, if one believes (I do) "The Shooter": a superb 40-page profile in Esquire of the man who killed Osama bin Laden.  We learn details of the raid, and what "Zero Dark Thirty" got right (most) & got wrong (details, but not the essential story); of the immense familial & physical sacrifices exacted from our finest warriors; and of the appalling failure of the government that sent them into harm's way to provide properly for them & their families upon their return.

Bottom Line.  Celebrate the astonishing achievements of our finest, and lament the lack of support we give them upon their return.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National Security, Homeland Security, Foreign Policy, Conservative Politics

RUNAWAY BOOMER TRAIN!

The entitlement train wreck careens off the tracks....

The president's State of the Union address (full text) shows that he does not grasp the financial entitlement crisis.  As George Will noted (see ABC post-SOTU video clip, not linked text), sequester cuts the president termed "harsh & devastating" would cut all of $85 billion (2.4 percent) from FY 2013's $3.5 TR budget, and $1.2 TR (2.7 percent) out of $4 TR in federal spending projected for the next decade.  This he said despite the sequester having been the president's own idea.  (WATCH THE VIDEO IN THE LINK & CATCH THE PRESIDENT LYING ABOUT THIS DURING A DEBATE WITH ROMNEY.).  His idea of entitlement reform is ObamaCare, plus higher taxes on the wealthy--closing loopholes without the offsetting cut in rates that makes for growth-friendly tax reform.  In stark contrast, Marco Rubio's GOP response (full text) combined compassion with financial realism.

The sins of the past forty years have finally come home to roost.  Social Security & Medicare are, Michael Barone writes, caught in the twin pincers of sluggish economic growth & an inverted demographic pyramid.  MB begins with a startling population growth number:

[Last week] the Census Bureau reported that the U.S. birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, the lowest ever recorded.

The US total fertility rate (TFR) fell to 1.9 in 2010, below the replacement rate of 2.1.  While far higher than other Western country TFRs, it means that absent immigration the US population will decline.

Entitlement programs were built on optimistic assumptions as to economic & population growth, that have proven unrealistic:

NORTH KOREA: NUKE TEST 3

Ominous evidence of progress....

Pyongyang's third nuclear test was twice as powerful as its second (2009--the first, in 2006, is generally believed to have been a partial fizzle).  But that is the least of it.  This design was apparently lighter and more compact than the earlier ones--signs of work towards building a small but powerful warhead that can be placed atop a ballistic missile.

The 2006 test yielded less than one kiloton; the 2009 test yielded around 6 to 7 kilotons.  The latest test's yield was about twice 2009's, by some estimates (newly TV-reported U.S. intel estimate: 6+ kilotons).  If true this would place its yield at the level of the Hiroshima bomb (2/3 that for the Nagasaki bomb).  All three tests used plutonium, a fuel that requires a sophisticated "implosion" trigger to symmetrically compress the plutonium fuel to a super-critical mass in nanoseconds to achieve design yield.  Pyongyang is also working on a uranium enrichment route to a bomb, but there has been no uranium bomb test to date....

US DEBT BOMB EXPLODES

As China tops US as #1 goods-trading nation....

CBO's latest budget projections are scary....

But do not believe CBO's projections are likely to be correct; they are rosy scenarios, given that the past five years have been America's worst 5-year period since the Great Depression.  They assume 1.4 percent GDP growth in 2013 (possible), followed by an average of 3.6 percent for the next 9 years (a pipe dream, barring a miracle).  This assumes, the WSJ editors note, that tax revenues will rise more rapidly than historical levels over the past four decades:

IMPEACH OBAMA?

Did The One commit an impeachable offense?....

Did, as senior officials testified last week, the president give instructions at 5 PM at the start of the Benghazi siege, then leave, never checking back?  Or did the president lie when he said he issued three directives at the start of the siege?  How about his now-doumented lying to the nation about the cause of the attack, by calling it the product of an anti-Islam video when everyone knew right away it was a terrorist attack?  Sen. Lindsey Graham has put a "hold" on the Hagel (SecDef) & Brennan (CIA) nominations, pending full disclosure of WH actions re Benghazi.

Did the president authorize top-secret intel leaks, as was recently raised by Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post?

The FBI is investigating inner-circle White House officials as to who in May 2012 leaked the US-Israeli role in creating the Stuxnet cyberstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

MT summarizes the possibilities:

BRENNAN IN THE DOCK

CIA Director John Brennan's hearing....

Days before the hearing, Team Obama released a 16-page Justice Dept. Law of Drones memo, spelling out the legal justifications for allowing the administration to target Americans overseas if they are suspected of helping al-Qaeda.  Restraints are minimal & collateral casualties are permissible.  Three criteria are given: (1) the target is part of an "imminent" plot to harm Americans; (2) there is "undue risk" to US personnel if capture is attempted instead; (3) calls are applied within traditional law of war principles--re collateral damage, proportionality, necessity, etc.

Ron Radosh presents an impassioned case against Obama's drone policy.  He makes three arguments which, although well-stated, are all flawed: (1)"imminent" means a specific plot about to be executed; (2) "undue risk" of capture equates to a license to kill at will; (3) collateral damage principles are being violated.  ALL ARE WRONG.  Here's why....

TINSELTOWN TORTURE II

More on Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty....

As John Brennan goes to the Senate today, seeking confirmation as the new CIA Director....

Begin with a short WSJ video discussing the film.  Bigelow's remarkable honesty in telling the story, save for exaggerating the torture techniques used, marks her as a serious participant in the national conversation, unlike many of her Hollywood compatriots.  Add in "ZDT" screenwriter Mark Boal assailing senators who seek an inquiry as to whether torture worked--Boal says clearly it did:

BLOCK OBAMA, NOT HAGEL

The GOP should resist political temptation....

Yes, Hagel is a shockingly unqualified SecDef nominee. Marine vet Jed Babbin eviscerates Hagel, noting that the nominee said this: “There are a lot of things I don’t know about. If confirmed, I intend to know a lot more than I do.”  Pundit Stephen Hayes cited low points, and noted that Hagel had said, in an effort to minimize his obvious ignorance: “I won’t be in a policymaking position.”  But his boss is in the top command position....

At WSJ, Bret Stephens summarizes the dismal Obama 2.0 security outlook:

SUPER CULTURE BOWL

Thoughts on America's annual ritual....

THE ATHLETES: ILLITERATE MILLIONAIRES.  Begin with depressing news: second-graders in Buffalo are learning grammar by ... correcting NFL players' tweets.  A 108-yard kickoff return cannot cure this problem.

LIGHTS OUT.  Donald Trump called the 35-minute power outage "a very, very bad thing for the country."  The country, he added, is being run like America's deteriorating infrastructure.  Incredibly, the breakdown occurred despite $336 million--one-third of a billion dollars--having been spent to repair the 38-year old stadium, whose roof was destroyed in 2005 by Katrina.  It is plausible that the blackout gave the 49ers time to regroup and give the Ravens a scare.

SUPER SUNDAY.  What now is a weekend extravaganza was a simple game in early years.  I attended Super Bowls II & III in Miami, while a student at the University of Miami....

OBAMA 2.0: GOP STRATEGIES II

What GOP strategies might work....?

Bear in mind that 2016 may see the campaign for Hillary 1.1, possibly launched in her 60 Minutes co-interview with President Obama.

Begin with one potentially insane idea that would kill GOP chances: Kentucky Tea Partiers are weighing joining forces with hard-lefties to nominate a GOP challenger to 5-term Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader--despite Rand Paul supporting his fellow GOP senator.  This is a perfect recipe for electoral catastrophe.  Tea Partiers need to accept that purist excess will irremediably divide the GOP.

The GOP House decision to suspend the debt ceiling until May 19 is a wise tactical retreat that will deprive the president of his phony "default" card, one the public thinks is real & for which the GOP & not the president would be blamed; the extension is spelled out in a five-page bill, a brevity rare for Congress.  Jon Huntsman praised the GOP House plan to pass a bill conditioning payment of Congressional salaries on passing a budget; this can force the Senate to pass a budget--legally mandated--for the first time in four years.

The NRO editors note that the GOP House can pass a bill redefining what is subject to the federal debt ceiling, so that debt service payments are not counted under that ceiling.  The result, they write:

NOMINEE HAGEL IMPLODES

SecDef nominee Chuck Hagel unravels....

Thursday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was a very bad-hair day for the nominee.

Begin, however, with Hagel's best defense (scroll down to second video clip, 0:58), noting that during his two Senate terms he had cast over 3,000 votes, hundreds of committee votes, given hundreds of speeches, interviews & written a book.  No one quote, Hagel said, defines him.  Fair enough....

Now view this grilling (6:37) from freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).  Hagel apparently did not supply the committee with much requested documentation--only 4 of some 100 speeches in the past five years.   Cruz showed video of Hagel accepting that Israel in 2006 was guilty of war crimes in fighting Hezbollah.  Cruz concluded with a clip showing Hagel accepting an al-Jazeera accusation that the US is the world's bully.  Hagel denied the obvious evidence of the videos--which, according to Cruz, were presented with quotes in context.

And there is more....

OBAMA 2.0: GOP STRATEGIES I

What defines Obama & his goals for this term?....

Republicans are faced with what Charles Krauthammer calls "Obama Unbound"--a re-elected leftist president who aims to dethrone Reaganism & restore an energetic hyper-statism.  Symbolic of the rise of statism is the dominance of the DC-area affluent in national numbers: surpassing Silicon Valley, the Washington Metropolitan area now boasts the top three counties in household median income & an astonishing seven of the top ten highest household median-income counties.  WSJ's Dan Henninger adds that Obama's goal is--as GOP leaders now realize--to literally annihilate the opposition; DH writes that O's "hope & change" mantra has been replaced by "search & destroy."

Perhaps worse, the GOP faces a lucky president, one who, safely re-elected, can ignore the provisional 4Q2102 0.1 percent GDP decline--which, if the revised number (about a quarter away) confirms, is the first shrinkage for the economy in 3-1/2 years.  The WSJ editors, hardly shills for Obama, do note other, better numbers underneath the marquee number, but still the economy is growing well below where in 2010 the Fed thought it would be now.

Obamaism, explains Michael Ledeen, combines corporatism & socialism, drawing from, but different than, pure fascist ideologies: