Monthly Archives: June 2012

Walking Small

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With apologies to Sheriff Pusser; but the disrespect comes from the administration.  Why are we so timid in front of the People’s Republic of China?  Where did that timidity get us vis-à-vis the Soviet Union prior to President Reagan?

At the Shangri-La Dialogue conference, a gathering of the Asia-Pacific region’s national defense officials to discuss regional security questions, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ought to reassure the PRC that the new US military strategy focusing on Asia was not designed to contain them, saying

Some view the increased emphasis by the United States on Asia-Pacific as a challenge to China; I reject that view entirely.

Never mind that the PRC is an aggressive and growing threat to the US and to our friends and allies.

A PLA representative asked Panetta

My question is, sir, could you enlighten me a little more how the US plans to develop military-to-military relations with China?

Panetta responded with a list of American planned initiatives: plans to cooperate on cyber and space, creating teams to work on these difficult issues, exchanges between military commanders, and a visit to China later this summer by the secretary himself.  (And I thought President Obama had all the self-importance in the administration.  [/snark])  Notice that, though: the PRC asks what are we going to do to please them; they have no plans at all to approach us.

As Senator John McCain (R, AZ) noted after the conference,

Realities are we are retiring ships.  We are having the smallest navy since World War II.

There is great reluctance on the part of this administration to confront China’s aggressiveness toward us and our friends and allies, and shrinking capability being left to subsequent administrations who might have a greater interest in the region’s security.

Yet this timidity is part and parcel with our government’s performance in another part of the world.  While thousands of Syrians die at the hands of the Assad regime, our government sits around clucking its collective tongue and shaking its finger very firmly at Assad—and does nothing of substance.

Senator Joe Lieberman (I, CT) notes that while he thinks the administration is making progress toward a halt in the bloodshed in Syria, it “is moving too slowly.”

Lieberman went on, saying that Panetta had assured him that DoD has a series of plans that they can implement, yet:

I don’t think anybody expects that [Panetta’s claimed plans] would include American troops on the ground in Syria nor will they require the US to take on the fight against Assad alone.

So even those little vaunted and lightly touted “plans” involve nothing more substantive than continued Obamatalk—idle chit-chat and finger waving, with no intension of doing anything serious.

Then Lieberman summed up this administration’s behavior:

If we to continue to say that we won’t do anything to help the Syrian people unless there is UN Security Council authorization, that is essentially saying to the Russians, ‘you can block the world from coming to the aid of these people in Syria against your ally Assad,’ and that is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Senator McCain got right to the point:

I can’t think of a time in the many years that I have served this country in many ways that I have been more embarrassed about my country and their failure to carry out our fundamental principles.  It is shameful because the countries in the region say that they need American leadership, not American unilateral action….  It is patently obvious that this president does not believe that America leads.

And Iran.  After three years of Obamatalk, Iran now is just months away from obtaining nuclear weapons.  Even today, the administration is just sitting around talking with the Iranian “negotiators.”

We’re not even carrying Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick—nor are we prepared to use one, should one magically appear, like that McNairy County sheriff was.

Some Thoughts on Government Surveillance

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Here’s the nose of the camel, courtesy of (here’s a surprise) the EPA, as reported by Fox News.  The EPA is flying drones over private property in order to “inspect” that property for government averred purposes.  Apparently, the EPA has been doing this for nearly 10 years over, among other regions, an area the EPA calls Section 7 (an area containing Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri).

A large concern has to do with jurisdiction.  Nebraska, for instance, has the responsibility for environment questions in its part of Section 7 through its Department of Environmental Quality; the EPA has only an oversight role.  Nevertheless, the EPA insists on conducting this surveillance with its own airborne resources—ostensibly as a cost-efficient way for it and state governments to reduce the number of on-site inspections and focus on “areas of the greatest concerns.”  Hmm….

Nebraska Congressmen Adrian Smith, Jeff Fortenberry, and Lee Terry (all Republicans) and Nebraska Senators Ben Nelson (D) and Mike Johanns (R) sent a letter expressing concerns about this hidden searchsurveillance to the EPA by that said, in part

Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska pride themselves in the stewardship of our state’s natural resources.  As you might imagine, this practice has resulted in privacy concerns among our constituents and raises several questions[.]

There’s another concern, also, though.  It’s better for us to have the on-site inspectors.  At least then the property owners/lessors know when the government’s surveillance is occurring and can accompany the government’s men.  And they can make sure, at least on the particular trip, that the government’s inspection is limited to the claimed purpose.

The convenience of the government can never be an excuse for abridging our individual liberties.

A Choice of Words

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In a discussion of the wisdom of holding to Charlotte, NC, as the site of Democratic Party’s September national convention, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said,

We can’t go back to a map where we’re not growing the electorate, but where we’re shrinking it.   So we have to be in places like North Carolina.

He made his remark in an environment of then-candidate Obama having carried the state by 14,000 votes out of 4.2 million cast in 2008, a Republican legislature having been elected in 2010, the Democratic Party’s incumbent governor deciding not to stand for reelection in 2012, the state’s unemployment being the 5th worst in the country, the state’s voters having passed an amendment banning same-sex marriage just before Obama announced his support for gay marriage, and so on.

Woodhouse’s sentiment is certainly sound.  The Democratic Party can’t, politically, be seen to be in retreat in the face of these setbacks.  But notice the phrasing he chose.  “we’re not growing the electorate,” “we’re shrinking it.”

The electorate, it seems, consists of Democrats and Progressive agenda supporters.  The electorate—all Americans eligible to vote—doesn’t include Republicans, Conservatives, or anyone opposed, or merely indifferent, to the Progressive agenda.

Hmm….

Right to Vote and DoJ

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The Federal Department of Justice has written a letter to letter to Florida’s Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, ordering him to stop trying to purge the Florida voter rolls of ineligible “voters.”  Interestingly, the order is predicated on technical, procedural grounds: five counties in Florida still are subject to the National Voting Rights Act of 1964, and Detzner didn’t say, “Mother, may I?” to DoJ before attempting the purge.

Never mind that an early inspection of the state’s rolls turned up as many as 182,000 folks registered to vote who may not be US citizens.  Never mind that, as the spokesman for the Florida Department of State, Chris Cate, said,

Bottom line is we are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot[.]

Never mind that the state has had in place for months a request to the Department of Homeland Security to match the state’s driver’s license records with the DHS’ databases to facilitate the assessment of citizenship and thereby of voting eligibility.  The DHS has been unresponsive.

This move comes on the heels of Attorney General Eric Holder’s racist speech which he gave to the Council of Black Churches last Wednesday concerning voter eligibility.  The Wall Street Journal had some choice words concerning those racist words from our AG; I won’t go into that here.

But such attacks, together with Advancement Project Co-director, Penda Hair’s ironic remark, which included this

We commend the attorney general of the United States Eric Holder for ensuring that the right to vote, the fundamental pillar of our democracy is protected for all American citizens

make the larger point here.  In the name of protecting the sanctity of an American voter’s ballot, Progressives are actively attacking it.  They pretend not to see that if ineligibles aren’t prevented from voting, the votes of honest Americans are diluted or outright cancelled by ineligible, false, votes.

Al Franken (D, MN), for instance, was elected to the US Senate in 2008 by 312 votes out of 2.9 million votes cast.  In 2004, President George Bush carried Florida by 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast.  Identifying ineligible voters and getting them off the rolls matters.

I have to ask: what’s the Progressives’ real objection to an honest voter roll?

Four More Years

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Here’s what we’ve seen in the last three years:

  • Obamacare, which nationalized 16% of our economy.
  • Dodd-Frank, which seeks to nationalize our financial industry in all but name with its control over private business financial decisions via the CFPB.
  • The HHS contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients mandate, which is a naked attack on our religious freedom.
  • Annual spending of $3.6 trillion in 2011, up from $3 trillion in 2008.
  • Annual deficits of $1.2+ trillion per year.
  • A national debt exploding to nearly 100% of GDP in 2011 from 60% in 2008.
  • A refusal even to consider a budget for the last three years.
  • A bailout of two American car companies (disingenuously called a bailout of the American auto industry, even though of the seven major car companies in the American industry, only two were in trouble).  The bailout worked so successfully that one of those American car companies is now an Italian car company, and the other one still is into us for $25 billion.
  • Hampering of our energy industry by slow-walking, or outright blocking, drilling capacity on Federal lands and, through regulation, attempting to decimate our coal producers.
  • Blaming this administration’s failure to answer our country’s challenges on everything from his predecessor to a tsunami in Japan, to ATMs, to the Arab Spring, to airport check-in kiosks, to Fox News, to Super PACs, to the Supreme Court, to….
  • Discussing the issues before us by denigrating the issue raiser.

Can we afford four more years?