Send In The Drones ... There Have To Be Drones

(Cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen and posted on his blog.  Click on image to enlarge and then be so kind as to return here, haste-posthaste.)

The nation of Iraq has once again descended into chaos as Sunni and Shiite  forces are battling for control of the country.  The conflict appears to have spilled over into Syria in order to take advantage of the confusion wracking that country.  And the US response?   No surprises here.

From the L.A. Times:

In a sign of the growing danger in Iraq, President Obama notified Congress on Monday that he was sending up to 275 U.S. military personnel “to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.”

Obama also is considering sending 100 or fewer special operations troops to Iraq to advise its armed forces as it battles Sunni Muslim insurgents, according to a senior U.S. official. It was unclear whether they would be among the 275 military personnel or in addition to them. ...

Analysts and military officials said sending U.S. military advisors may prove unavoidable to reverse the insurgents’ momentum. Without U.S. experts to guide drones and manned aircraft to targets on the ground, airstrikes may prove ineffective or accidentally hit civilians.    [Emphasis added]

From a promise of no troops on the ground in Iraq by the administration to the insertion of a "mere" 275 troops and possibly another 100 special operations troops to "guide" the drones.  All of this activity is allegedly to "protect" our personnel currently ensconced in that gazillion-dollar fortress euphemistically referred to as an embassy.

Now I'm just sure that protecting our oil interests in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with this move.  Not a chance.  Nope, no way.

In other words, here we go again.

No Surprise Here

(Cartoon by Jack Ohman, published 6/7/14 in the Sacramento Bee and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then kindly return.)

Yeah, yeah.  I took yesterday off.  Nothing in the Sunday papers moved me and it was just one of those low energy days.  But I'm feeling a little better today.

Actually, this cartoon reminded me that Doyle McManus usually has something to say, so I wandered over to read what he offered in his latest column.  He's reading excerpts from Hillary Clinton's new book (about to be published) and from what he sees, there's no longer any doubt that she will be a candidate for the 2016 Democratic nomination.

Here's what Doyle McManus had to say:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoir of her time as secretary of State isn’t officially being released until Tuesday, but thanks to a deluge of excerpts, we already know most of what’s in the book, and that makes it easy to figure out why she wrote it.

If there was any remaining doubt that Clinton is planning to run for president, “Hard Choices“ should remove it. ...

And, in the most interesting tidbits, she makes it clear that she differed with Obama on some issues: arming Syrian rebels (that divide was already well known), on being tough on Russia’s Vladimir Putin (she says she would have been tougher), on pushing Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak out of power (she counseled more caution), and on avoiding a clash with Israel over settlements in the West Bank. I’ll write more about those issues once I’ve had time to plow through the whole book.

The upshot: Clinton’s not going to run on Obama’s record. Which is exactly what any smart campaign strategist would advise.   [Emphasis added]

I don't think any of us had any doubt that she would run.  Most of us have no doubt that she will win the nomination.  And a goodly percentage of us believe she can win the White House, unless the GOP surprises us with a fairly rational, non-Tea-Partyish type candidate.  So far, I haven't seen anyone who fits the description, but the conventions are still two years away.  She's well-funded and well-positioned for a run, even in the midst of investigation after investigation of Benghazi by House Republicans.

Nor was there any doubt in my mind that she would run as far away from Obama's tenure as Al Gore ran away from Bill Clinton's tenure.  Obama has done a few good things, but he's not come close to fulfilling his various promises for "change."  And he's left too much undone on the big issues, preferring instead to secure his future and his future in history with bland baby steps. 

The problem I see is that Hillary's come with the same DLC background as the current president and is every bit the buddy of Wall Street banksters that he is.  You don't raise the kind of money she has at this point without those "friendships."

So, while Hillary won't be "more-of-same" in every detail, perhaps she will surprise me, especially when it comes to the treatment of women here and in the rest of the world. 

One can only hope.

Last Gasp?

(Cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 6/3/14 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge.)

The head of the EPA and President Obama have announced a new rule which is intended to cut CO2 pollution and to clean our air.  Like most of President Obama's "initiatives", the move is at best a modest one, a baby step, if you will.

But the critics aren't happy, especially those with a financial stake in coal and oil-burning power plants, in other words, our owners are not happy, even if we can't breathe.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy offered a blunt defense Monday of the Obama administration’s new rule to cut carbon dioxide pollution, touting its benefits against mounting criticism from the coal industry and some members of Congress.

“Given the astronomical price we pay for climate inaction, the most costly thing we can do is to do nothing,” McCarthy told a room full of staff members and environmental allies at the EPA headquarters in Washington.

 

She added: “There are still special interest skeptics who will cry the sky is falling. Who will deliberately ignore the risks, overestimate the costs, and undervalue the benefits. But the facts are clear. For over four decades, EPA has cut air pollution by 70% and the economy has more than tripled.”   [Emphasis added]

 

Much of the gain Ms. McCarthy is talking about are attributable to measures taken before President Obama took office, but at least he is making some kind of effort, for which I am grateful.  Perhaps Congress will now revisit the issue and move us even closer to some kind of sane energy policy.

Like I said yesterday ... an old lady can dream, eh? 

 

What David Said

David Horsey posted a thoughtful, even lovely, column yesterday, reflecting on the import of President Obama's second inauguration.  I think he nailed it in one.  I recommend you read the entire column (which isn't very long), but here's a taste:

The spirits of two great men, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., stood watch over the West Front of the United States Capitol on Monday as Barack Obama took the oath to serve a second term as president with his left hand placed on two Bibles -- one Lincoln’s and one King’s.

The event not only fell on the King holiday and 50 years after King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but also came within days of the 150thanniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Without the revolutionary changes for which Lincoln and King were martyred, Barack Obama’s presidency would not be possible. This was abundantly apparent four years ago when he became the nation’s first African American chief executive, but it seems no less remarkable and significant the second time around. ...

The residue of the racism that once justified slavery is still evident. There is no doubt that Obama would not be such a hugely controversial and maligned figure in some political circles and in certain parts of the country if he were white. The good news is that the beast of racial bias is cornered and dying. Obama’s reelection is proof of that and, perhaps, that is why the second inauguration of the man seems to be as important a marker of our progress away from slavery, Jim Crow and bigotry as was his first. The first time might have been a fluke; the second time is evidence of real change.

Amen.

But Can They Multitask?

(Editorial cartoon by Ted Rall and published 12/27/12 in the Los Angeles Times.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

So, unless something very dramatic happens, the 113th Congress will start with dealing with the fiscal cliff and with a review of gun control legislation.  Both are contentious issues and will no doubt fill the air with ink and electrons.  The question I have is whether the new congress will be able to deal with any other issues in the next two years, issues which Barack Obama promised would be handled back in 2008, issues which are long overdue.  The one I'm thinking about right now is immigration reform

The window to pass immigration laws next year is narrowing as the effort competes with a renewed debate over gun laws and the lingering fight over taxes and the budget, according to congressional staffers and outside advocates.

Key congressional committees are preparing for a package of gun control laws to be negotiated and possibly introduced in Congress during the first few months of next year. The shift would push the debate in Congress over immigration reform into the spring.

But as budget negotiations continue to stir tensions between Republicans and Democrats, and as lobbyists take to their corners over gun laws, some are concerned that the heated atmosphere could spoil the early signs of bipartisan cooperation on immigration that emerged after the election. ...

The crowded agenda has not changed plans by advocacy groups to launch a nationwide publicity and lobbying campaign early next year to put pressure on lawmakers to support changing immigration laws.

"As horrific as the tragedy was in Connecticut, in the grand scheme of things, these issues can run on parallel tracks," said Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, a think tank based in Washington.

"They are not in competition; they are complementary," said Angela Kelley, an expert on immigration at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. "The White House can walk and chew gum, as can lawmakers."

"If [lawmakers] are working 40 hours a week, they should be able to get both done," she said.

Asking our lawmakers to work 40 hours a week may be expecting a wee too much.  After all, they have to go home every weekend to make sure their constituents remember who they are and their donors are kept advised.  Still, even with a 32-hour work week and a little common sense, a sensible immigration law could be crafted and passed, especially now that the GOP has seen the national demographics.

That said, I'm still not optimistic.

Tyrannus Rex

So, has Grover Norquist reached his use-by date, like Karl Rove?

I don't think so, but David Horsey does, and so do many others.  This is one of those times I'd love to be wrong.

Norquist has never been elected to anything. Nobody ever said he should be in charge of the GOP’s true religion (although he claims President Ronald Reagan urged him to found his lobbying group, Americans for Tax Reform). But he certainly has been the Republicans’ key political theologian, making opposition to tax increases the party’s central tenet for more than 25 years.

He got 95% of Republican candidates for Congress, the presidency and state offices to sign a pledge never to raise taxes and he enforced it by getting retribution at reelection time on anyone who failed to keep the promise. Now, though, he is facing a dramatic rebellion in the ranks. The country is teetering on the so-called fiscal cliff thanks to Republican-backed legislation from 2011 that will automatically begin slashing the federal budget and raise taxes on Jan. 1 if an alternative plan is not adopted by Congress. This has everyone a bit freaked out, including quite a few GOP senators and representatives who have expressed a willingness to consider revenue increases for the sake of making a budget deal with the Democrats.   [Emphasis added]

I do understand the logic.  Republicans are suddenly faced with a problem of their own making, a big one.  In fact, it's a very big one.  They've just lost an election and, while they still hold the House, they've lost ground in both houses of  Congress and the electorate appears to be in a very pissy mood when it comes to tax breaks for the 1%.

And President Obama, who has that second term Mitch McConnell was determined to deny him, has suddenly gotten a little surly.  He seems to think that he has a little political capital to spend so he's whipping that out against the GOP on the fiscal cliff issues.

House Republicans said on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, an immediate new round of stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits.

The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, was likely to meet strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other entitlements, to be worked out next year, with no guarantees.

He did propose some upfront cuts in programs like farm price supports, but did not specify an amount or any details. And senior Republican aides familiar with the offer said those initial spending cuts might well be outnumbered by upfront spending increases, including at least $50 billion in infrastructure spending, mortgage relief, an extension of unemployment insurance and a deferral of automatic cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.

This is a great opening gambit, one that should have been used four years ago when the Democrats had control of both houses as well as the presidency.  It would have made a difference then.  But, no, Mr. Hopey-Changey was all into bipartisanship, and the Democrats for all sorts of reasons played along.  That's why a single payer system or even a public option system for health care were never on the table. 

Gitmo is still open.  We are still operating under Bush rules for reading our emails and checking our library habits.  Oil companies are still drilling in sensitive areas, even after a catastrophic spill in the Gulf Coast.  Our use of drones has been expanded.  Wall Street is still calling the tunes.  No change, and for most of us, no hope.

 So, is the opening gambit a sign that times have changed?

I tend to think not.  Sometime before Christmas, a deal will be reached.  Our current crop of Democrats in the 112th Congress will have their collars tweaked by our owners, as will the President. Social Security will suddenly be on the table, as will Medicare/Medicaid, all before Christmas.  And we know what that means.  In 2014 both Karl Rove and Grover Norquist will be back in action.  With a vengeance.

Like I said at the start, I'd love to be wrong, so I called the DC offices of Senators Boxer and Feinstein and Congressman David Dreier and made my wishes clear.  I figure one for three is the best I'll do, but maybe that will be enough to get us to the 113th Congress.  Maybe we'll have better luck there.

That River In Egypt

Poor Mitt Romney.  I almost feel sorry for him.  He's being consigned to the GOP "black hole" like George W. Bush was, and Romney never even got to be president.  Like I said, though, I almost feel sorry for him.  If he'd have kept his mouth shut after the election, say, for about a month, he might not have been the target of barbs from the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindahl.  He might even have achieved some respectability like John McCain has, crazy as he is, and been invited regularly to the Sunday Morning Bobbleheads.  But, alas, no.  Romney had to keep yapping to his buddies, as David Horsey pointed out in this column, giving ammunition to those in his own party and the Democrats.

As many pundits have noted, Romney's characterization of government programs as gifts was an echo of his earlier disparaging remarks about the 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes. On both occasions, he was speaking privately with a bunch of fat-cat contributors and reinforcing their demeaning stereotypes of less fortunate Americans. It seems that Romney cannot help but be himself when he is around rich people.

The so-called gifts Obama gave included partial forgiveness of student loans, a provision of Obamacare allowing young people to stay on their parents' healthcare plans to age 26, suspension of deportations for immigrant children who have grown up in the United States and healthcare for people who otherwise do not have it or cannot afford it.

What Romney calls gifts, others call lending a hand -- no different than helping people hit by a hurricane. They are programs aimed at providing opportunities for people struggling to get a start in life or rise up from chronic poverty. They are a means to end dependency and create more productive citizens. Other Republicans apparently understand this. As Los Angeles Times reporter Morgan Little described in a Sunday article, several prominent GOP leaders have taken hard shots at Romney’s elitism in recent days.

It's quite clear that Romney's elitist comments really were a turn-off  to a lot of Americans during the campaign, and several of his wife's comments (like "You people ...) grated on folks as well.  The fact that he kept changing the message to fit the audience didn't help either, because the American voter isn't always as stupid as Republicans think.  And that's the part that fascinates me right now.

The Morgan Little article cited by Horsey (see the link in the quote) is really quite telling in a lot of ways.  The GOP has decided that Republicans need to make nice to the electorate, or at least sound like it.  They are now willing to at least talk about immigration reform.  Apparently someone shoved a census report in front of party leaders and coughed loudly.  But as far as I can tell, that's about all that's been changed in the rhetoric.  Black people, the poor, the elders, gays, even the Middle Class are still not terribly important. 

The reports on the "fiscal cliff" and how the lame duck session and even the next Congress will deal with it makes it clear that Republicans are still only interested in keeping the fat cats fat and on a weight-gain program.  Fighting the Democrats on every issue and fighting the President on every appointment is still uppermost in the Republican plans.

Of course, it doesn't help that at least at this point the Democrats haven't unsheathed their swords and probably won't.  Social Security and Medicare are still being talked about as "entitlements" and compromise is still the word of the day. 

I guess I'll just have to wait for the 113th Congress and the 2014 campaigns to see what changes are possible.  I hope I have the stamina and the popcorn for that.

Things That Make Me Ill

(Editorial cartoon by Kevin Siers / Charlotte Observer (May 25, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Sometimes I wonder why we even bother. Here we are in the middle of a presidential campaign at a time when our economy is almost as shaky as it was during the last presidential campaign and "our" candidate is consorting with the enemy. Oh, he may be bashing the vulture capitalists at Bain, but that's all for show.

From OpenSecrets:

If President Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's long career at Bain Capital are a liability, as some Democrats now worry, they don't seem to bother some of Romney's old colleagues: Employees of Bain Capital and Bain & Company have given more than $152,000 to Obama's campaign and the joint fundraising operation he runs with the Democratic National Committee. The analysis accounts for those donors giving $200 or more.

Yesterday [May 21,2012], Obama attacked Romney for his time at Bain, telling reporters that being successful at making money as the head of a firm that takes over other companies -- often dismantling them or laying off workers to return them to profitability -- is different than creating jobs. But OpenSecrets.org data indicates there are at least a handful of Bain Capital employees (and their families) who seem more impressed with the president than he is with their employer: they have given $41,278 to his campaign, and OpenSecrets.org identified at least three who have given a total of $96,400 to a joint fundraising committee operated by the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Obama has also collected $16,000 from employees of Bain & Company, the consulting firm that started Romney's career and helped spawn Bain Capital.

Yes, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what those folks have given Mitt Romney, but it's still a tidy chunk of change, and I'm not referring to the kind of change I thought we were promised in Obama's first campaign.

Silly me.

I guess that's just our Wall Street Overlords hedging their bets. Sometimes they're real good at that.

Some Welcome News

Another provision of "Obamacare" is about to kick in. It's not as dramatic as required coverage for pre-existing conditions and the opportunity to cover children over 18 on their parents plan, but it is still a very helpful one. It's also one that didn't get much publicity at the time Congress was considering the bill, although I am sure the lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies were busy trying to scuttle it. Fortunately, they failed.

The provision requires that pharmaceutical and medical device companies report most of the gifts and payments made to doctors. Free samples of medication are excluded from the reporting requirement, but free lunches and free trips to exotic places for "seminars" are not.

From a Los Angeles Times editorial:

The proposed regulations, which are going through a period of public comment, are appropriately strict in ways that would both protect patients and reduce medical costs. The payments and gifts would be available on a searchable public website. Free samples of drugs would be exempt from reporting, but otherwise, anything worth more than $10 total for the year would have to be disclosed. ...

Physicians who received research funding and other payments from pharmaceutical companies have sat on advisory boards for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have recommended drugs made by those companies. A survey published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2010 found that 71% of doctors had accepted food from drug companies, and that doctors who took payments were more likely to prescribe those companies' expensive brand-name medications rather than cheaper generics. ...

The provision does not ban such payments outright, but it does require reporting, which is a very healthy beginning. Even if patients don't flock to the website before making their decisions on a newer drug or a particular device, it's at least available.

In other words, the website will be a force for good even if few patients examine it. Watchdog organizations and news reporters will use it. For many doctors and pharmaceutical companies, the knowledge that their actions will be held up to public light is enough to curb the potentially troubling behavior.

Exactly so.

And the change is long overdue.

New Shame

The disastrous economy and now the 2012 elections have pretty much shoved other important news off the radar screen, especially when it comes to Guantanamo Bay. That's unfortunate because there's still a lot going on down in the US Gulag, most of it shameful abuse of America's highest ideals. The latest is noted by Kal Raustiala, professor of law and director of the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA. In an opinion piece written for the Los Angeles Times, Professor Raustiala comments on a devastating change imposed on lawyers for the inmates facing military commission trials.

The order requires all correspondence between the accused and their appointed military lawyers to be reviewed by federal officials.

The proposed order is a mistake, one that threatens to jeopardize the progress made in reversing Guantanamo's tainted legacy as a legal black hole. It likely violates the 6th Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel, which has long been understood to permit lawyers to communicate confidentially with their clients. [Emphasis added]

Imagine: everything discussed by the defendant and his lawyer can now be viewed by the prosecutors. Every detail, every mitigating circumstance, the names of every witness, every possible defense, every theory is wide open and fair game. The whole point of the confidentiality between the lawyer and his client, a frank discussion of the matter, is lost along with any notion of fair play in the proceedings. Up until now, the military defense lawyers have had to labor with one hand tied behind his back. Now both hands are tied.

Woods' order does not simply raise legal concerns, however. By violating the sanctity of attorney-client privilege, it jeopardizes the perception of American military commissions as fair and just, a perception that is crucial if these trials are to succeed.

To see why, consider the fundamental purpose of such trials. Why not simply imprison the suspected terrorists in perpetuity without trial? The chief reason, dating to the landmark Nuremberg tribunal, is the belief that a just and fair trial of even our worst enemies is the best vindication of our nation's values, and the best way to ensure that cycles of revenge are tamped down, individuals are held accountable and the truth emerges.

War-crimes trials have long been tarred by cries of "victor's justice." It is only through scrupulous adherence to fair, neutral and time-honored procedures that we can forcefully refute such criticism. [Emphasis added]

I am one of the critics Raustiala refers to when it comes to these military commission trials. I believe that they are a coy emulation of justice, mere dog-and-pony shows designed to give the appearance of justice with none of the substance. I believe that this latest move merely confirms my worst suspicions.

And I am deeply ashamed of what this country has become.

Some Good News

It's the New Year, one which is an election year, and I've already found some good news. There may be plenty of crazy racists in California, but not as many as the Republicans were counting on.

Opponents of California's Dream Act have failed in a signature-gathering drive aimed at overturning the new law that will permit some undocumented immigrants to receive publicly funded college aid. ...

The effort garnered 447,514 signatures, not the required 504,760 valid voter signatures required to place the matter before voters ...

The Dream Act allows undocumented students who came to the country before age 16 and attended California high schools to apply for public financial aid, including Cal Grants. Those students already are eligible for in-state tuition, and Gov. Jerry Brown also signed a companion measure this year affording them access to private financial aid.

"Going to college is a dream that promises intellectual excitement and creating thinking," Brown said in a prepared statement upon signing the contested bill, Assembly Bill 131, in October. "The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us." [Emphasis added]

In a state as populous and diverse as California, the right wing couldn't find half a million loonies willing to sign on to the mean-spirited attempt to repeal a decent and compassionate law. Republican legislators, of course, are spinning it a little differently. They promise that the issue won't go away because the state's budget won't allow for such spending. Giving kids a chance for an education is frivolous in their eyes.

Of course, this victory is only half-a-loaf, which while better than no bread at all still doesn't fully solve the problem. Once these students graduate, unless there has been some meaningful immigration reform giving them a shot at citizenship or at least legal residence, they won't be able to secure the jobs which will enrich the state and its citizens.

Such reform has to come at the national level, and it won't come from the 112th Congress during an election year. The various candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to bash immigrants by trying to outdo each other in cementing our borders against the unwashed hordes trying to sneak in and steal our vital essence. Congressional Republicans have already made it clear that anything that smacks of "amnesty" will not be tolerated, even when that "amnesty" is being extended to kids who were brought here before they were sixteen and had no say in the matter. And congressional Republicans control the House and are gunning to take the Senate in 2012.

That means we are going to have to elect Democrats across the country to Congress so that at least we have a shot at humane reform. We might have to hold our noses at voting for Obama, but there is every reason in the world to vote for decent people down the ticket. That way we might finally get the change we voted for in 2008.

A Sign Of Hope

Sometimes people amaze me in a good way, and this is one of those times. Three returning vets decided to make a difference in a Baltimore neighborhood. Against pretty daunting odds, they are succeeding.

Operation Oliver, which began in July, is a one-year commitment to the neighborhood, the veterans say. It involves cleaning up alleys, rehabilitating homes, organizing volunteers and notifying police about illegal dumping sites and drug dealing.

To say the idea has caught on would be an understatement. Word of the intensive yearlong service project has spread throughout Maryland — and the nation.

Some veterans, such as Earl Johnson, a former Army Ranger who served in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, have moved into the neighborhood. Others, such as Jeremy Johnson and Blake, live elsewhere but visit Oliver frequently. Nearly 1,000 volunteers, including more than 100 veterans, have joined the effort. ...

The improvement is noticeable. Nearly 50 homes are being rehabilitated through Earl Johnson's organization, the One Green Home at a Time Foundation, another of the partners. Five tons of trash have been hauled away, an area that was once a site of prostitution is now a playground, an organic garden is planned for a weed-filled lot, and the veterans take residents on weekly job-hunting trips.

The neighborhood of about 5,000 people is predominantly black, and more than 70% of Oliver's households earn less than $25,000 a year. Of its 2,600 properties, more than 1,100 are listed as vacant by the city.

Because city and states can't or won't do the work necessary to rehabilitate such neighborhoods, the people had to do their own community redevelopment and had to do so without the funds which too often go to gentrification projects and strip malls. Instead of poor families being forced out, they are taking part in their neighborhood.

Glibertarian and other conservative sorts will probably use this as an example of why government assistance in such projects is unnecessary, that the people are capable of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. That's too facile an explanation. The people of that neighborhood needed the help and the encouragement provided by those returning veterans precisely because they had been forgotten and ignored by their own government. Now they're reclaiming what was theirs all along.

Good on them, and good on those vets.

Politics As Usual

Kathleen Sebelius, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has over-ruled the FDA in making "Plan B" pills available to women under the age of 17 without a prescription.

For the first time ever, the Health and Human Services secretary publicly overruled the Food and Drug Administration, refusing Wednesday to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold over the counter, including to young teenagers. The decision avoided what could have been a bruising political battle over parental control and contraception during a presidential election season. [Emphasis added]

This moves comes from an administration that promised in 2008 to stop ignoring science in favor of political expediency. That Plan B has been demonstrated to halve pregnancy if used properly apparently doesn't matter to Barack Obama when an election campaign is underway. That Plan B would obviate the need for abortion doesn't either. Rather than acknowledge that women under 17 just might be having sex (consensual or not), Mr. Obama would rather avoid the battle.

What is so particularly disturbing is the effect this political calculation will have particularly on younger women, according to medical experts:

Several major medical groups reacted swiftly Wednesday to denounce the federal government's decision to limit over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptives for younger teens. ...

The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine and American Society for Reproductive Medicine said Sebelius made the wrong call.

“As advocates for the health and well-being of all young people, the AAP recommends that adolescents postpone sexual activity until they are fully ready for the emotional, physical and financial consequences of sex,” said Dr. Robert Block, AAP president. “However, as physicians who care for our nation’s children, it is our responsibility to protect the health of our teenage patients, and an unintended pregnancy can have significant implications for adolescents’ physical and emotional health.” ...

The ASRM issued a statement from Dolores J. Lamb, the organization's president, that said in part: "We are very disappointed that Secretary Sebelius opted to insert herself into what should be a scientific decision made by the experts at FDA. The data are clear that emergency contraception can be safely used by adolescent women without requiring a prescription. Sadly, it appears that once again our leaders are putting political expediency ahead of reproductive health." [Emphasis added]

I guess some things are just more important than the health of women of any age, but particularly younger women. Things like four more years of power, four more years of doing the non-controversial, four more years of taking the easy path rather than the right one.

So much for change.

Just Average

If the current slate of articles up at Watching America is any indication, the rest of the world is just as edgy as we are when it comes to the US economy and its role in the world economy. That of course is no surprise. A few articles, however, looked at what this means in terms of US foreign policy, and at least one focused on President Obama's leadership in that regard. He didn't get such a high grade.

At the end of the third year of his presidency, Obama is at best one of those average presidents who govern the White House time and time again. He even ranks among those who were below average, a fact that is reflected in poll results. His poll rankings are bad, so bad that he must fear for his re-election — even though the Republicans until now have only been able to summon up laughingstocks instead of true campaign rivals. ...

It almost appears that Obama, the Democrat, is conducting a form of recessive foreign policy that one would associate with “America-first” Republicans. Presumably, this is not a precept of the Obama administration, but rather one that operates according to the motto: “Let’s see what the next day brings.” This motto fits a president who does not govern very effectively but rather nonchalantly.

Ouch! That's got to leave a mark.

Unfortunately, that's a pretty accurate description of the last three years in terms of both US foreign and domestic policy. I admit that part of the disappointment can be attributed to the high hopes the entire world had for the new president. His campaign speeches spoke to a profound change, and given the disastrous eight years of the Bush administration, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The world even awarded Obama the Nobel Peace Prize before he barely warmed the chair in the Oval Office in anticipation of a brilliant new era in the US. Expectations were high, even though the circumstances he inherited were daunting.

Even given the unrealistic high hopes, however, Obama's leadership, or rather his lack of leadership, has turned out to be disappointing. Instead of profound change, we've gotten more of the same policies, and even worse, an enhancement of those policies. Yes, Obama has had to deal with the obstructionist behavior of the Republicans in Congress, but he has responded to that challenge by simply shrugging his shoulders and giving in.

We're hearing stronger speeches from the White House these days as the election campaign starts heating up. The president is pushing for his jobs bill (too little, too late) and payroll tax reductions (which underfunds Social Security), but the electorate has heard it before, primarily in 2008. Our memories aren't that short. He might win re-election, but if he does it will be because the Republicans can't come up with a viable candidate. Why should they? They've done just fine with close facsimile of one currently occupying the post.

Either/or, it's going to be another long and painful four years at best.

Looking Backward

My visit to Watching America was a bit of a mixed bag this weekend. Oh, there were several articles that looked promising, but they just didn't grab me. The one that did was seriously flawed: it stated that the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize went to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Libya. Ms. Sirleaf is from and is now president of Liberia. Either the translator of the article from Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau screwed up the translation or completely missed the mistake made by the original author. Either way, the mistake points out the dangers of translation.

In any event, the article deals with awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to politicians still active on the world front. The author uses two examples, Ms. Johnson Sirleaf and Barack Obama, of why this isn't such a good idea. I was particularly interested by the comments on Obama's award.

The 2008 Nobel Peace laureate Obama became a war president in 2009 and this year's winner allows the police to beat demonstrators with billy clubs. It would be best to give the peace award only to retired politicians when they can do no further harm. ...

Now they're left with someone between Martin Luther King and Albert Schweitzer who has thousands of terrorists shot to death from the air; sometimes they hit the bad guys and sometimes they hit their women and children. It's all justified by the principle that politicians sometimes must do terrible things to prevent even worse things from happening.

But that shouldn't apply to the Nobel Peace Prize because it exists to honor those people with the highest moral principles. When good wartime presidents get on that list, it reduces the principle of a peace prize to the ad absurdum level.

When Barack Obama was awarded this most prestigious of international honors, he had done absolutely nothing to earn it beyond making pretty campaign speeches promising hope and change. And the hope was soon dashed as the changes never came. Policies he promised would end didn't. Some were even expanded.

We were all taken aback by the award, but many of us also felt a little queasy by the unfounded prediction of a great and glorious new administration, one worthy of this great prize. I would imagine that these days members of that Nobel committee are also feeling a little queasy, as well they should.

It's About Time, Damn It!

Do yourself a favor: go read the entire opinion piece by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. He nails it in one.

Writing in passionate language which is more than faintly reminiscent of our Declaration of Independence, Prof. Turley indicts Barack Obama for continuing and even escalating the assault on our civil liberties initiated by the Bush administration, an assault which as a candidate our current president so decried.

Protecting individual rights and liberties — apart from the right to be tax-free — seems barely relevant to candidates or voters. One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States. [Emphasis added]

And here is the Bill of Particulars Prof. Turley offers:

President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them. The earliest, and most startling, move came quickly. Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture. ...

Obama failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised. He continued warrantless surveillance and military tribunals that denied defendants basic rights. He asserted the right to kill U.S. citizens he views as terrorists. His administration has fought to block dozens of public-interest lawsuits challenging privacy violations and presidential abuses.

Either Candidate Obama was just kidding during his campaign or the glories of the Unitary Executive mantle he inherited from George W. Bush corrupted him. It doesn't matter which; the results would have been the same under either explanation. What does matter is that the president is once again the candidate, and he is expecting those of us who worked to elect him the first time will forgive and forget, mostly the latter.

Jonathan Turley hasn't forgotten, nor should the rest of us.

And now the president

Medifraud

It appears that the Obama administration is getting serious about fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid systems. One official, Peter Budetti, deputy administrator and director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Center for Program Integrity even responded to an Los Angeles Times opinion piece which attacked Medicare's electronic billing system as one just made for the criminals to take advantage of.

Here's a few of his comments from that response:

Since President Obama took office, we have conducted an unprecedented crackdown on those who steal from Medicare, giving law enforcement greater resources, putting more boots on the ground and increasing penalties. In 2010, these efforts recovered a record $4 billion in taxpayer money.

But we're not just prosecuting fraud. We're also taking steps to prevent it. In the past, nearly anyone could fill out a form with the right information and become a Medicare provider. Criminals could set up false clinics, enlist willing accomplices and vulnerable seniors to submit false claims and begin collecting payments they had not earned for care they had not provided.

That's changing.

First, we're paying closer attention to who is signing up in the first place. Now, before you can become a Medicare provider, you have to go through a rigorous third-party review process that will make sure you have the correct licenses and meet all the requirements to bill Medicare. The days when you could just hang a shingle and start billing Medicare are over.

Second, if criminals do get into the system, they're now a lot more likely to get caught. Starting last month, our Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have for the first time a comprehensive picture of Medicare claims nationwide. This means that our investigators can see billing patterns in real time and analyze those patterns. They can identify potentially fraudulent claims before they're paid, investigate them and take action quickly. And we are doing this without placing an undue burden on honest providers, allowing them to focus on providing high-quality care to Medicare beneficiaries. [Emphasis added]

Mr. Budetti makes it clear that the very system attacked as being designed for fraud has itself made it easier to spot fraud. The electronic billing system provides CMS with ongoing, real-time snapshots of its use in much the same way credit card companies use their system to spot unusual credit card usage. He contends that it works to make the entire system more efficient and it also works to highlight suspicious activity.

If the supercommittee really does want to tinker with Medicare/Medicaid, here is one area that might make sense. Make the elimination of fraud from the system a priority and back that priority up with an increase in penalties for the crime and an increase in the budget of the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute the crime. Rooting out the criminal element from our health care system would be a lovely gift to the country.

It also would represent change we could believe in.

Perpetual War

This "hopey-changey" thing really hasn't worked out very well for the progressives who worked hard to get Barack Obama elected. Oh, there have been some positive changes on his watch: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has been rolled back; the US and Russia have "reset" their relations after eight years of back and forth threats between the Putin and Bush administrations; embryonic stem cell research is back on line. All of these are good things and I was delighted to see them. But, let's face it, it ain't much, especially given what we were promised.

What is especially grating is that Mr. Nobel Peace Prize has got us hunkered down even more deeply in Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of his assertions. We are still at war in both countries. We still have troops in both countries and will continue to have troops in both for years to come.


Mehdi Hasan, in a recent "Comment Is Free" column, noted the ongoing blood-letting going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests that it will continue unless and until the US really and truly leaves both countries.

A decade on from 9/11, bloodshed and chaos continue to plague Afghanistan and Iraq. A US state department report published on Thursday revealed that the number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan had jumped by 55% last year; in Iraq, attacks were up 9%. The US-led invasions and occupations of both countries have been a dismal failure – thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars squandered. The presence of western troops in Muslim lands has provoked more terrorism than it has prevented. ...

Putting more boots on the ground was a gross misjudgment. More US troops have died fighting in Afghanistan during Obama's two and a half years in the White House than in Bush's two terms in office – and, despite the recent decision to start bringing troops home, there will be more US military personnel fighting the Taliban at the end of Obama's first term in office than at the start.

Iraq, meanwhile, has become the forgotten war – yet an astonishing 47,000 US troops remain stationed there. Earlier this month, Obama told a group of supporters: "If somebody asks about the war [in Iraq] … you have a pretty simple answer, which is all our folks are going to be out of there by the end of the year."

Not quite. US military leaders expect to keep up to 10,000 "folks" in Iraq beyond the 31 December 2011 deadline, agreed by the Bush administration, for a full US withdrawal. ...

Nope, no change here.

We have always been at war with East Asia

Downgraded President

The committee that gave Barack Obama the Novel Peace Price at the start of his presidency must be having second thoughts, even ninth or tenth thoughts. It was clear that the award was made not on past achievements, the usual basis, but rather on the hope that he would earn it. He has not, of course. He has upgraded the war in Afghanistan, pushed further into Pakistan, and now is sending drones to Libya and other countries. He has not proven to be a peacemaker, at least in foreign policy.

World leaders have also pulled back from the joy and relief that the Americans had elected someone who would undo all the mischief of the Bush years, someone who would lead the lone superpower and its allies into a new world of sanity and stability. Instead of stability, the world is awash with economic and political turmoil, much of which can be linked to the unstable American economy. The past month has been especially tumultuous as Congress grappled with the debt ceiling and then was rewarded for its efforts by a credit downgrade by Standard & Poor.

It is against such a backdrop that I found this article from Germany's Stern at Watching America. It's subtitle truly reflects its contents: "The Downgraded President."

...make no mistake, the ex-messiah Obama finds himself in a free fall. He lost his messianic magic a long time ago and has used up all his credit with voters. This past week was disastrous. First the Tea Party hounded him into a bad compromise on the debt battle. At the same time, the unemployment rate (of 9.1 percent) and meager growth prospects nurtured fear of a renewed recession. Then came the slap in the face from S&P, and 30 U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan in one fell swoop on Saturday, more than ever before on this mission. Obama’s America seems to be socially divided, politically torn, economically at the abyss and militarily leached. “Yes, we can.” Anything but. Obama is now recording the worst poll ratings of his term in office.

And who is to blame for this misery? The Tea Party freaks? The legacy of the financial crisis? Certainly, all play a little part. Above all, however, it is the president himself. There is a jarring dissonance between Obama’s promises and reality ...

That last sentence quoted should have sounded familiar because it is an allusion to a Maureen Dowd column. Even she gets it right. Obama's promised changes and renewed hope were just campaign talk. Either because he lacks nerve, or imagination, or will, his administration has thus far been a disaster with only a few bright spots to keep some sense of sanity alive.

Now, with elections looming next year, he's begun his campaign for re-election. This weekend he kicked off a bus tour through rural America to talk about jobs. I suppose we should be grateful that he at last recognizes that the economy will not be improved until people get back to work, but I have yet to see any evidence that he is ready to propose a meaningful program to accomplish that.

In other words, he's in campaign mode and this is just more talk.

Nope, No Change Here

The Obama administration has continued the tradition of treating marijuana as a gateway drug, one just as dangerous as heroin, and therefore not worthy of consideration as a viable medical treatment. Apparently more than sixty years of propaganda weighs more heavily than sixty years of hard scientific research.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Marijuana has been approved by California, many other states and the nation's capital to treat a range of illnesses, but in a decision announced Friday the federal government ruled that it has no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a dangerous drug like heroin.

The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis. ...

DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart sent a letter dated June 21 to the organizations that filed a petition for the change. The letter and the documentation that she used to back up her decision were published Friday in the Federal Register. Leonhart said she rejected the request because marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.”

This is the third time medical marijuana supporters have had their petition to reclassify marijuana denied, but at least it only took the DEA a couple of months to deny, rather than years. The supporters can now appeal that decision in the courts. While the past two appeals failed, supporters hope that with the growing body of research which substantiates the medical benefits of cannabis the third time will be the charm.

I think the administration fears are bogus. I think they are concerned that with the legalization of commercial growth (with proper safeguards and appropriate regulations) might undercut the oh-so-important War Against Drugs and all that entails. In that respect, they are probably right. If this country allowed legal growth and distribution (and taxation), we wouldn't need that stupid program because the Mexican drug gangs would lose an important source of revenue.

Morons.