Monthly Archives: January 2011

Politics, Russia

Russia Says Nyet To START

Turns out, not surprisingly, the problem with the START treaty as voiced by most Republicans and people who can read was confirmed by none other than the Russian DUMA. This presents a problem for President Obama, who championed the passage of the treaty in the Senate last month and insisted that the linking of defensive missile systems to offensive missile systems was not in the legal and binding part of the treaty.

Russia was not fooled. Instead, it appears that the President has made the U.S. look like the fool for his dancing around the issue like he did. The Russian DUMA insistes that limits on US missile defense capabilities are a central element to the treaty.

The State Duma plans to confirm the link between the reduction of the strategic offensive arms and the restriction of antimissile defense systems’ deployment in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed between the US and Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs says.

“During the ratification of START in the US Congress the American lawmakers noted that the link between strategic offensive armed forces and antimissile defense systems is not juridically binding for the parties. They referred to the fact that this link was fixed only in the preamble of the document. Such an approach can be regarded as the US’ attempt to find an option to build up its strategic potential and the Russian lawmakers cannot agree with this,” Kosachev says.

We will deal with these interpretations. The first thing is that our American colleagues do not recognize the legal force of the treaty’s preamble. The preamble sets a link between strategic offensive arms and defensive arms. The second thing is an attempt to interpret certain provisions of the treaty unilaterally.

The Russian lawmakers insist that all the chapters of the treaty including the preamble are legally binding, which is a common norm of international law. It is not lawful to take certain provisions and to give them unilateral interpretations like the American senators do, Alexei Arbatov, a member of the Carnegie Scientific Council, says.

There is a plausable explanation as to why President Obama treats the preamble to the START treaty the way he does. It is for the same reason he doesn’t much like our own Constitution. The document he refers to as ‘a charter of negative liberties.’ To most people, including the new majority party, the Preamble to the United States Constitution is a statement of the Constitution’s fundamental purposes and guiding principles.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Dittos for the preamble to the START treaty. It sets the ‘purpose and guiding principles’ for nuclear arms control. In the last two years, we have witnessed all kinds of extra-constitutional legislation and actions taken by President Obama and his then majority party. Well, with one exception. They have taken one part of the Preamble, ‘promote the general Welfare,’ to use as a blank check for their redistribution of wealth ideas. The rest of it is only relevant when they want it to be.

In the final analysis, like other major legislation on his plate, the President put his priority on passing legislation for the sake of passing it, regardless of its effects. The desperation of a failing community organizer manifested itself in the emergency, ‘the sky is falling,’ need to pass START  so he could boast about how he made the world safer. Meanwhile, Russia and the world are laughing at us. And him.

Link: Surprise: Russian Duma To Codify Missile Defense Language in New START

Economy, Politics

Today’s Special – Thomas Sowell Interview

Peter Robinson at the Hoover Institution interviews Dr. Thomas Sowell, noted economist, historian, and philosopher on his new book ‘Basic Economics’ and today’s economic situation and why we are where we are.

The interview is chock full of food for thought.

Thanks to the Hoover Institution for producing this interview, Peter Robinson for asking the questions, and Dr. Sowell for sharing your genius and book, Basic Economics, with us.

Economy, Politics

Repeal It, The Alternative Already Exists

Listen to all the reporting and hand wringing over the thought that the new House majority party is out to repeal Obamacare. As though something terrible will happen. Actually, passing Obamacare, or more correctly, shoving it down our throats, is precisely why there is a new majority party in the House. It’s not that Americans would not like improvements in health delivery and health insurance in this country. It’s just that they did not ask for and do not want THIS solution.

The alternative exists that will deal with those ten percent of Americans that don’t have and for some reason do not want health insurance. It will do it without ruining the health insurance industry and the plans for the other 80 or 90 percent of Americans and their employers that are just fine with their current situation and the plans they have. The alternative is not a budget buster. Nor does it take your choice away or make your health care decisions for you. That alternative is H.R. 3400

The Empowering Patients First Act, or H.R. 3400, would allow:

  • Individuals to choose their health insurance (no mandates)
  • Deductibility of health insurance premiums regardless of who pays
  • Employers to provide flexible health-insurance options to employees
  • Health insurance coverage for low-income families (300 percent of the federal poverty level)
  • Health insurance for high-risk individuals (pre-existing conditions)
  • Sale of health insurance across state lines
  • Expansion of Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs
  • Individual membership association health insurance plan
  • Association Health Insurance Plans
  • Medical liability limitations (Tort reform)

Unlike Democrat-care, the Republican alternative would not impose fines on workers or employers, require cuts in Medicare, increase taxes, require a new government bureaucracy, require a “government health insurance” option nor add $1 trillion or more to the national debt.

Pulled this out of the archives . . .

At the beginning of President Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009 a truism was spoken about “comprehensive” (that’s political-speak for government-controlled) health care.

President Obama said “A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.”

The truism that seems to escape Democrats is that for 65 years, they continue to ignore the will of the people. That socialized medicine is one thing that Americans do not want, and it’s time to move on. If the president really believes what he is saying, then he ought to be confident enough to also say that if his plan does not increase the availability and quality of care and the debt, and does not decrease the cost, then he will scrap his version of health care reform before his term ends and enact H.R. 3400, the Republican alternative.

Regarding President Obama, you have a decision to make. Is he lying about there not being a Republican alternative, or is he that far out of touch that he doesn’t even know it exists? Which one works for you?

Besides, if you take the president at his word, it should be President Obama calling for its repeal. He said he would not sign a health care reform bill if it did not bring down costs or if it increased the debt. By any account, Obamacare has not lived up to what he promised. Do you still trust what President Obama says? It’s a rhetorical question.

The American people already answered that one. And it’s time for a change. H.R. 3400, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, ought to be the course of action to take where actual health care reform (as opposed to deform) is concerned. Whatever comes out of it, it ought to be something that the American people want, not what a bunch of idealogues high on government-run health care want. An idea that has been rejected routinely for 65 years.

Europe, Fairness Doctrine, Politics

Fairness Doctrine Is Censorship In Hungary

Actually, it is considered censorship here too, although the political Left will disagree. Freedom, especially freedom of the press and freedom of speech has been diminished in Hungary.

Hungary’s recently elected right-wing government has introduced a law demanding — under threat of fines and even shut-down — that news sources be “fair and balanced,” to borrow a phrase from a US news network.

But it doesn’t stop there.

[T]the agency created to determine whether news outlets are in compliance is stacked with political allies of the prime minister and would essentially have the freedom to punish news outlets as it sees fit.

The EU gets it and does not approve. Brings into question the notion that Hungary is not representative of the EU.

The law has raised concerns among Hungary’s European Union partner countries, particularly given that the country will assume the EU’s rotating presidency on January 1. Germany, in particular, has questioned whether Hungary can now be considered a legitimate representative of European values.

Media included in the law is TV, daily and weekly newspapers, magazines and internet sites. The whole nine yards. What is particularly amazing is that it wasn’t that long ago that Hungary was in the communist bloc where there was no freedom of the press. What are they thinking?

Link: In the Middle of Europe, a Democracy Introduces Press Censorship

Economy, Pensacola

Deficit Commission And Debt Ceiling Sleight Of Hand

Hearken back to 2008. The government’s budget (yeah, they had one back then) was what it was. The debt was what it was also. Since that time, we’ve seen what we were told were ‘bailouts’ for various and sundry items that were going to save the economy from collapse. Instead, what happened was that the size of government grew.

Now, the president’s Deficit Commission dutifully omitted the part about going back to where we were in 2008, as if the new bloated government was the new starting point to work on decreasing the debt. They, through this sleight of hand, have assumed the massive growth in government in the last two years as a given, instead of the temporary booster shot that the bailouts were sold to us as being.

Putting aside all the minutiae and detail, the crux of the proposal comes down to two points: capping federal government expenditures at 22% — and eventually 21% — of GDP, and capping revenues at 21% of GDP.For virtually all of the Clinton and G.W. Bush years – and during all the Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon years – federal expenditures ranged between 18 and 20% of GDP.

The more important problem is on the revenue side. According to Office of Management and Budget figures, federal revenues have NEVER reached 21% of GDP. In fact, only in Bill Clinton’s final year in office – and during WW II – did revenues even exceed 20% of GDP. During the whole time from 1960 through 2008, federal tax revenues almost always fell between 17 and 19% of GDP, only occasionally rising above 19% (chiefly in Clinton’s second term) or below 17% (G. W. Bush’s first term). Even President Obama’s FY 11 Budget has federal revenues rising only to around 19% of GDP by 2015. So the 21% “cap” represents two full percentage points of GDP above what we have experienced even during historically “high” tax environments.

The next project for the new congress (remember we still don’t have a 2011 budget) is whether or not to raise, I said RAISE, the debt ceiling. That is a process that allows Washington to put us further into debt. It is also the process that will codify and approve the smoke and mirrors of the stimulus spending as being temporary, to being the new bloated state and size of our government as being permanent.

Question is will the American people see it this way? When Obama says we need to cut spending, he means that after increasing spending by orders of magnitude that we should be content with that, keep the size and reach of government where it is,  and then we shouldn’t be spending any more.

Which brings us to ‘put our money where your mouth is’ day. Will congress acquiesce to the current size of government and all the bureaucracy that goes with it or will they say NO to raising the debt ceiling? If they approve raising the debt ceiling, will they follow up with the drastic cuts needed so we will not have to raise our grandchildren’s debt again?

Here is something else to ponder. No matter the spin about spending out there, our national debt has now surpassed, or on its way to soon surpass, our GDP. Put simply, we’re spending, and continue to spend, more than we make.

Link: What Am I Missing?

Venezuela

Venezuela – U.S. Without Ambassadors

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the hemisphere’s idiot, kept the heat up and bolstered his domestic street creds by refusing to accept Larry Palmer as our U.S. ambassador. Palmer is the White House nominee for ambassador who is awaiting Senate confirmation.

In response, the Obama administration revoked the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez who was out of the country at the time. Great move by the State Department and the President. What we have down there in Venezuela, aside from a maniacal communist dictator, is another Kim Jong Ill of the West that is building his political career on hating the United States and supporting all sorts of things that can ultimately bring harm to the United States.

Both sides have shown firmly entrenched stances and no willingness to compromise in the past week as the U.S. government revoked the Venezuelan ambassador’s visa in response to Chavez’s refusal to accept the chosen U.S. envoy.

“Much of the cooperation between the United States and Venezuela in recent years has involved lower-level and lower-profile individuals and agencies than the ambassadors, so the immediate fallout will be limited,” said Shannon O’Neil, a fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

“But this latest round of escalating tensions ends any hope for calmer relations or more expansive cooperation. Demonizing the United States remains too important a political foil for Chavez,” O’Neil said.

This news account does not say what input Sec. of State Clinton had in the decision, but I’m reminded of a James Carville quote, when he said ‘if Hillary gave [Obama] one of her balls, they’d both have two.’ Regardless of how it came about, Obama did the right thing.

Iran

Iran Jails Journalists, Happy New Year

After interviewing Sajjad Qaderzadeh in October, two German journalists were jailed and remain in custody. Sajjad is the son of the woman who is sentenced to death by stoning. The German journalists were arrested for ostensibly journalizing without permission.

On this New Years Day, I’m so thankful that I was born in America.

Happy New Year from the land where Freedom and Liberty were born, and need preserving.

Link: Son of Iran woman to be stoned wants new sentence

Uncategorized

2011 Mummers On Air And Online

I got your Mummers RIGHT HERE!

WPHL-TV 17 has been broadcasting the Mummers Parade for years. That’s good if you live in the Philadelphia TV market area. But there are a few other markets outside of Philly that will also be broadcasting the parade.

From their website . . .

The 2011 Philadelphia Mummers Parade will broadcast in the following markets/channels;

Philadelphia:  WPHL  9a – 5p & 8p – 10p

New York:  WPIX – will carry 2.5 hrs hours on THIS TV (Channel 11.3)  1p – 3:30p

Maryland, Washington, D.C.:  WDCW – will carry the parade on their primary station (Channel 50)  2p – 5p

York, Lebanon, Lancaster, Harrisburg:  WPMT – will air the full parade on 43.2  10a-5p

Web Video:

For those outside those markets, web video of the entire Mummers Parade will be available on an hour delay at the following url:

http://www.myphl17.com/community/mummers/video/