Photo Flap

The secret flyover of New York by Air Force One, intended as a photo op, terrified thousands of New Yorkers who feared a replay of 9/11.

Barack Obama says he didn't know beforehand of this. That's is certainly plausible, since you'd like to think the president doesn't micromanage such matters.

But that doesn't absolve Obama, or senior administration figures, from responsibility.

Louis Caldera heads the White House Military Office. It serves an important function, since it coordinates the military units that assist the president. George Bush made the position, previously a political one, into a professional one held by an active-duty admiral given the enhanced security needs post 9/11.

Obama instead filled the position with a political appointee, presumably to reward a supporter. And in return, we shouldn't be surprised his appointee sought ways to make Obama look good with a photo op.

Terrifying New Yorkers, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, is what we get from this "change" by the Obama administration.

It Was Nice While It Lasted

Barack Obama's decision to release the memos on the CIA interrogation techniques means we will get much less useful information from terrorists, who now know we won't even scare them into telling us useful information.

We are led to believe that putting harmless insects in enclosed spaces, while leading the prisoner to believe the insects are dangerous, is bad. But it is OK to launch missile strikes on suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In other words, scaring terrorists is bad, killing them is good.

As bad as all that is for our security, it is possibly not the worst aspect of this.

By not firmly and decisively rejecting prosecutions and investigations into Bush administration officials, Obama has exposed as a joke that he wanted to heal the partisanship wounds in Washington. To consider criminalizing policy differences is a new low in our politics.

The peaceful transition of power, from one party to another, is one of the great achievements in American history. It rests on the premise that the defeated party only loses political power - the members of that party don't lose their freedom or lives. So losing an election is bad, but not that bad.

Now Obama and the Democrats are raising the specter that this great principle and tradition is at risk. And it is critical that it be a tradition, so that each party has confidence it won't be prosecuted when it leaves office.

I wonder how many Obama voters thought the change they were voting for included putting at risk America's unprecedented history of peaceful transitions of power?

Now She Tells Us

Hillary Clinton has an interesting take on the increase in violence in Iraq recently. She said: "I think that these suicide bombings....are unfortunately, in a tragic way, a signal that the rejections fear that Iraq is going in the right direction," adding that there is "overwhelming evidence" of "really impressive" progress.

The progress in Iraq is due to George Bush's courageous decision to seek to win in Iraq with the "surge", which most leading Democrats roundly condemned as hopeless. And that progress was manifest for all of last year during the presidential campaign.

Funny how she didn't say that when she was running for President nor campaigning for Obama last fall.

The Tortured Memos

The release this week by the Obama administration of memos regarding "enhanced interrogation techniques" that the left characterizes as torture is quite illuminating. This op-ed in the Wall Street Journal gives a good feel for what really occurred.

First, it shows the degree to which these interrogation techniques were carefully governed by legal guidance. The real torturers of the world don't worry about such things.

Second, it shows how constrained such techniques were, such as waterboarding being limited to 20 or 40 second intervals, or playing on a terrorist's fear of insects by telling him they put an insect in the confined space he was being held but in fact it was a harmless caterpillar. So now terrorists know, even if they are subject to such techniques in the future, that they are often a ruse to play on perceived, rather than real, fears.

And we are learning, now that Bush administration officials feel they can speak about the interrogations, that they were very helpful. For example, as late as 2006, half of the actionable intelligence we had on al Quaeda came from these interrogation techniques.

How many lives were saved, at the expense of hurting and scaring some murderous terrorists?

If your child was held by a terrorist, and the government captured his accomplice who might know information about your child's location, would you want these techniques applied to the terrorist to help rescue him?

If your answer is "no", I doubt you'd think that if you were actually confronted with such an awful situation.

Preventable Deaths

The Center for Disease Control reports that of the 45 children who died of influenza this past season, 31 had not been vaccinated. There is a good chance that a number of these deaths could have been prevented but for the fears raised by the anti-vaccination activists.

The scientific evidence is clear: there is no link between vaccination and autism. Moreover, vaccines are one of the extraordinary achievements of the past 100 years, saving millions of lives and relieving billions more from suffering.

For the sake of these preventable deaths, and for the triumph of science over phantom fears, the anti-vaccine movement needs to be defeated.

Unemployment Discrimination

Apparently, some jobs and people are deserving of more unemployment benefits if it is believed their jobs were lost due to foreign competition. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the advantaged unemployed get more benefits for a longer time than everyone else.

And this is fair?

The Handshake

Over the weekend, Barack Obama shook hands with Hugo Chavez, the socialist dictator of Venezuela.

Tyrants and thugs around the world seek legitimacy by being photographed and shaking hands with an American President. The images are broadcast in their country as a symbol of acceptability, and to deal their opposition a blow, by in effect saying: America accepts me, and it won't help you in your efforts to gain freedom at the expense of my power.

When he claimed in his inaugural address that "we would extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist", he made the thuggish regimes be responsible for modifying their behavior before America rewarded them.  

Obama's policies have switched that sequence, as if we are the nation who has wronged the tyrants and rogue states and need to reach out to them first.

As such, he is making a mockery of another applause line from his inaugural address, in which he said that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

Where's the Outrage?

Ted Stevens, the former republican Senator from Alaska, had his conviction thrown out due to prosecutorial abuse: the prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense team. The federal prosecutors in question now face their own legal problems, and Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the Justice Department will not attempt to retry Stevens.

This case has profound implications for the political balance of power in the Congress, since Stevens lost his re-election bid due to his conviction. As a result, a safe Republican Senate seat now is in the hands of the Democrats for the next six years.

Given how close the Democrats are to having a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, every additional seat they hold has a powerful impact on legislation. For example, the "stimulus" bill needed a few Senate Republicans to vote in favor - if Stevens held his seat and one more Republican vote was needed, the legislation may have failed or needed to be modified to attract another Republican vote.

For a story of abuse of power, and one that has such profound political implications, it is gotten relatively little press. Do you think that would be so if the political parties were reversed?

Promises Made, Promises Broken

Barack Obama has backtracked on another campaign pledge.

The Treasury Department recently decided not to label China a currency manipulator, contrary to Obama's stance during the presidential campaign.

While diplomatically it is probably the right decision, it illustrates one of the key facts about Obama's rise to the presidency: he would say whatever he thought helpful to win his election.

Contrast that with the actions of Ronald Reagan. After he lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford in 1976, Reagan kept his name in front of the public with a weekly radio address in which he discussed key economic and foreign policy matters. When you read his addresses, which he personally wrote, you can see the same ideas and values which Reagan governed by: promotion of free enterprise, limited government, and a strong defense of America's interests in the world.

With Reagan, you knew what you were getting. His views were often unpopular, certainly with the media, but they generally reflected his convictions.

With Obama, like Clinton before him, we have a politician whose policy views are poll-tested and meant to advance his political career. Obama's repeated backtracking on his campaign pledges reflects this.

Democrats Outsource Jobs

When the Obama administration and Congress approved the "stimulus" bill in February, the plan included new limits on the ability of TARP recipients to hire foreign workers who need H-1B visas.

The idea was to force the tarped firms to hire more American employees.

But the firms had already made numerous offers to hire foreign college and MBA students who attend U.S. schools, and since rescinding offers is both unethical and bad for one's reputation, the firms have come up with a solution.

They are moving the new hires to overseas offices.

Aside from deflating the pursuit of the American dream for such talented people, look at the result: the Democrats are sending high-paying jobs overseas which further erodes our domestic financial services industry. And those employees will now spend their money in foreign economies, rather than providing much-needed business to, and jobs with, American firms.

Nice work by the Democrats in outsourcing all of these jobs.

Atlas Strikes Again

The New York Times reports on the continued exodus of bankers from the "tarped" firms to boutiques, start ups, international firms, and retirement.

The restrictions on compensation and business practices; the threat of retroactive, extortionate taxes; the attacks by politically-motivated attorney generals who are abdicating their responsibility to protect citizens; the demonstrations at executives' homes by Acorn thugs; the death threats; and the fear of mob violence are driving financial services employees to leave the firms that have received TARP money for greener and more pleasant pastures.

The New York Times spins this as a good thing, since it is making big Wall Street firms smaller. But if size is a problem for these firms, it isn't due to the size of the number of investment bankers and traders - it is the size of the balance sheet risks they took which are being reduced regardless of employment levels.

Instead, this exodus of talent will mean that these firms are losing employees who will help them recover and make money - reducing the value of the government's investment in them.

No private investor, as a price for its investment in these firms, would demand such restrictions or punishments. They would want to make sure such people were staying, not leaving.

Nothing illustrates more clearly how divorced from reality the government and the Democrats are than this destructive behavior: the country is up in arms over the bailout for the financial services firms, and their actions and policies increase the likely taxpayer losses.

Tax Man Cometh

State governments are raising taxes to address the explosion in government spending over the past several years.

The highest tax rate in NJ, already one of the highest in the nation at 8.97%, is likely to go higher if Jon Corzine and his fellow Democrats get their way. Corzine has proposed a "temporary" increase in the top rate to 10.25%.

Just a few years ago, NJ's top tax rate was 6.37%. The new rate would mean a 61% increase in the tax rate since 2004.

This is the direct result of Democratic control of all branches of government and the ensuing spending and tax explosion.

To put this in historical perspective, NJ didn't have an income tax until 1976, and initially the highest tax rate was only 2.5%.

NJ has now joined California as one of the "People's Republics" among U.S. states. But without the beautiful weather.

Murder Rampage and Gun Control, Perfect Together

The recent multiple murders with guns have led to the typical chorus call for more gun control.

Most of such rampages already violates many laws, sometimes over 30.

Do you think adding one more violation will stop the murder?

The fallacy of gun control advocates is that more gun laws means fewer guns in the hands of criminals. Instead, more gun control laws means fewer guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, the very people who follow the law.

Moreover, gun control laws give the appearance of "doing something" about the problem when in fact they don't, and deflect attention from other government actions that might be helpful.

Let's not use the tragedy of these terrible crimes to promote bad policies that disarm law abiding citizens while keeping the criminals in business.

Americans Fight Back

You have to admire the bravery and determination of the American crew of the freighter Alabama that fought off the pirates that attacked their ship, and the attempt by their kidnapped captain to escape.

If only their nation, and the international community, took the matter of piracy as seriously as their efforts to defend themselves. The United States has already done far more than any other nation to deal with the pirate threat, but it hasn't been enough.

The number of ships in the Navy continues to decline, as we degrade our naval capabilities. We have about 280 ships in the fleet, down by over half from the Reagan-era peak. Fewer ships means we cover less of the surface area of the globe with our naval forces.

But just as importantly, we need to pursue a strategy that takes the battle to the pirates' base in Somali. Just like terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan who find it hard to plan attacks on America while fighting our troops in their region, so we should make the pirates defend themselves in their bases and homes, to deflect their energies from attacking ships at sea and defeat them.

China and Russia Rejoice

The Obama administration released its blueprint for defense spending, which calls for a reduction in spending on advanced weapon systems with a focus on spending on counter-insurgency weapons such as drones.

Unfortunately, such advanced weapons are an important part of preventing a military confrontation with China and Russia through deterrence. For example, all China needs is a local advantage near its territory, such as in a conflict over Taiwan, whereas American needs a predominance of power throughout the world to defend our interests and protect freedom.

The latter requires a plethora of advanced weapons, in addition to counter-insurgency capabilities.

The odds of a war with China or Russia at some point in the future just increased with Obama's new plan.

Climate Change Consensus?

The Cato Institute has run a full-page ad that challenges Barack Obama's assertion that climate change represents one of our greatest threats and that the science is beyond dispute.

In point of fact, Obama and the climate change activists know very well that many people disagree with them - there are many columns, editorials, and articles that oppose in various ways their views on climate change.

The ad's quotation from Barack Obama, along with many other comments by climate change activists, illustrates the increased use of appeals to an alleged consensus and personal denunciations of those who disagree with the activists as a rhetorical technique to make their case.

The proper way to make one's argument on any topic is to cite facts, integrated in a logical manner. Asserting that something is common knowledge when it isn't, or making personal attacks against those who disagree with you, is evidence that the speaker can't use facts and logic to make his case or is an intellectual thug - or both.

Overvaluing North Korea's Strength

The failure of North Korea's missile launch this weekend to enter space after apparently breaking up during its flight represents an ongoing fact about that nations nuclear capabilities: it consistently fails in efforts to demonstrate viable ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities.

Previous missile launches also failed, either exploding shortly after takeoff or breaking up in flight.

The monitoring stations that tracked its nuclear test a few years ago suggest either a lack of an explosion or a very small one that didn't work properly.

This is of course good news, because it means North Korea poses less of a threat than otherwise. But it also means that we should not take actions that damage America's interests in order to thwart North Korea's WMD ambitions.

We have consistently overvalued "doing something" about North Korea, from Bill Clinton's 1994 deal to George Bush's strenuous push in the past couple years of his presidency to negotiate a deal with the tyrannical regime.

In these deals and negotiations, North Korea has gotten fuel and maintained access to the international economy in return for its threats and tests.

And now it is Barack Obama's turn, who is also overvaluing the North Korean threat. Obama announced he wants to reduce significantly America's nuclear arsenal and prevent development of replacement or new weapons as a way to gain international support for non-proliferation efforts.

Amongst other problems, we need to build new nuclear weapons to replace an aging stockpile. Since nuclear material declines due to radioactive decay, eventually nuclear weapons need to be replaced to maintain their deterrent value.

Obama not only isn't doing anything to rejuvenate our nuclear arsenal, he is proposing to make it harder to do so.

Obama's Unilateralism, Bush's Multilateralism

If you think the title of this post is backward, consider Afghanistan.

Barack Obama's policy in Afghanistan includes American generals taking command of our war effort in southern Afghanistan - a command that was previously NATO's responsibility under George Bush.

Obama has taken the go-it-alone path, while Bush sought to create a more multilateral effort in Afghanistan.

This is another case where the left got it wrong. Since America is willing to lead and fight for freedom and against the terrorists, while Europe isn't, any chance of success requires decisiveness American leadership.

Obama is right to take this path, but he doesn't articulate the issue. Instead, we are treated to Obama saying America needs to be more humble and that we can learn much from Europe.

Such as how to appease terrorists and free ride on the efforts by others?

Hostages

North Korea has captured two American journalists near its border with China and has charged them with espionage.

Don't expect the dictatorial regime to release the hostages without compensation in the form of U.S. forbearance in shooting down the North Korean missile launch (which we decided not to shoot down), diplomatic concessions, or a "goodwill" gesture to demonstrate their "peaceful" nature.

FedEx Fights Back

FedEx recently announced that it may threaten to cancel a purchase of cargo planes from Beoing worth billions of dollars if Congress passes legislation to make it easier to unionize the shipper.

FedEx is simply making it clear that increasing its costs through unionization has a price.

Promises Made, Promises Broken

During the election, Barack Obama said that no family making under $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.

He has already broken that promise.

Obama's first tax increase is an whopping 159% increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over half of smokers are low income, so most of the tax burden will fall on the poor and middle class.

Along with the huge tax increase in Obama's budget through the cap-and-trade system which will fall on everyone, Obama will have to raise taxes on everyone to pay for his spending spree.

And continue to break his campaign promises.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

Apparently, Congressmen are in favor of bonuses after all - for their own staffers.

Personally, I think paying staffers bonuses is a good thing, as a reward for hard and good work.

But has Congress done a good job?

Its policies help create the financial crisis through laws that promoted subprime borrowing to increase home ownership, and Congress opposed efforts to limit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's size - which opposition added tens of billions of dollars of losses to taxpayers.

So if these Congressmen don't think Wall Streeters should get bonuses, why should Congressional staffers?