Politics

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It’s The IRS, Stupid!

2014 Midterm IssuesIsn’t it odd that Judge Walton thought the “prospect of future harm” by the IRS is  “speculative”.   Look at this chart of 2014 Midterm Issues from a recent Gallup poll and tell me that the prominence of “the way federal government works” issue does not bother you. We have a Constitutional crisis going on and Judge Walton just gave the IRS a pass on the most egregious behavior by the IRS since President Nixon. Arguably the behavior of Ms. Lerner and the IRS cover-up is much worse than anything the Nixon administration did. At least he had the decency to resign when he was caught. So for all of those people who thought that “the way federal government works” is a very important problem, Judge Walton has made the problem worse. It looks like laws and courts exist solely for the benefit of government agencies. Has our representative government officially been killed and replaced with an administration accountable to no one and a judicial system more than willing to look the other way?

If there is such a thing as an afterlife, President Nixon is probably pissed. For lesser offences he resigned the Presidency to preserve our way of government. Sadly this generation does not care about a form of government he once held dear. Let us imagine for a moment President Nixon is looking down on us and what he would see.

  1. Ms. Lerner targeted conservative groups under the auspices of the IRS. She realized that her targeting behavior was forbidden by IRS rules so she starts a cover-up. President Nixon chuckles. She releases the information about the targeting at a conference. This does not go over well and she is subpoenaed by Congress.  President Nixon chuckles some more. She makes a statement to the Congressional committee asserting her innocence and then promptly pleads the fifth. President Nixon chuckles some more and thinks the more things change, the more they stay the same.
  2. Despite IRS policies that say that IRS personnel must have either disk or printed backup copies of important emails, the IRS cannot produce Ms. Lerner’s and several others emails. President Nixon chuckles. The IRS deliberately ignored written policies and implemented a decentralized backup policy that is dependent on individuals who commit a crime will be stupid enough to leave behind incriminating evidence. Any IT guy will tell you that is a policy born to fail. Conveniently when the subpoenas arrive, the disk drives start failing and the IRS can no longer produce the emails. At this point President Nixon is probably wondering that if he was able to lose the Watergate tapes like this IRS lost the emails, the world would be different place today.
  3. President Nixon is confused with the IRS corruption problem. Evidently corruption in the IRS is not the IRS’s problem. The IRS had written policies they chose to not enforce. President Nixon chuckles because there have been no consequences. Judge Walton’s court has just said that corruption in the IRS is not the court’s problem because the IRS has promised to implement the policies they were already supposed to have already implemented. Judge Walton says that IRS corruption is not his court’s problem because the “prospect of future harm” by the IRS is  “speculative”.  President Nixon is chuckling again. He thinks the word “speculative” is a nice touch.

In the city of no consequences our federal government is running amok and Judge Walton has given his blessing.

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We Took Pew Research News IQ Quiz

My wife and I think of ourselves as above average news hounds so we were curious to see how we compared to 1,002 randomly sampled adults in a national Pew Research News IQ Quiz given on September 25-28. The results are in. My wife missed two questions and I missed one. This was better than 92% and 96% of America. Both my wife and I guessed wrong on the question, “Approximately what share of Americans currently live at or below the federal poverty line?” I guessed low and she guessed high. The correct answer was 15%. Only 20% of America got this question right. This question and the question, “On which of these activities does the U.S. government currently spend the most money”, were the two toughest questions on the quiz. I was surprised my wife missed it since the growth of entitlement spending has become such an intractable problem. There are no wise men or women in the room when the discussion gets around to how to “fix” social security.

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We Will Defeat ISIL Just Like We Defeated Al Qaeda… Yeah, that’s the ticket!

As a person who has already expressed his misgivings about the Administration’s strategy to fight terrorism as a long counter-terrorism effort, this Duffel Blog post, We Will Defeat ISIL Just Like We Defeated Al Qaeda, is way too funny. Here it is included in its entirety.

Barack Obama Official PortraitThe following is an op-ed written by Barack Obama, President of the United States.

Just over a decade ago, under my predecessor, our forces embarked on a campaign to fight the Global War on Terror after Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Our military performed flawlessly in Afghanistan, routing the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and ultimately, denied the terror group a sanctuary from where it could attack us again.

Today we stand secure, knowing that Osama bin Laden is dead, and his organization of Al Qaeda is decimated, unable to operate anywhere on the earth. And with our strike against Iraq, we have deposed a dictator and brought peace and freedom to a Middle Eastern country.

Now, I was critical of the Iraq war in 2003 and strongly opposed it for many years. I felt at the time that our actions in a country where we had limited understanding of the culture could see U.S. soldiers standing in the crosshairs of a sectarian divide between Shia and Sunni.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

The war came to a close, and by all accounts, it was a rousing success. Our American Army defied the naysayers who likened the conflict to a Vietnam quagmire. The comparison was laughable of course, considering our involvement in Vietnam was almost two years longer than in Iraq.

But sadly, a new terror group has emerged. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, a band of brutal thugs who have overtaken parts of Syria and Iraq, could potentially attack us at home again. Much like our medical professionals who have found a cure for cancer, we will find a cure for the cancer of ISIL.

While I don’t wish to arouse fear and hysteria amongst the public, let me be clear: ISIL is a threat to every interest we have and it is beyond anything we have ever seen. It has an apocalyptic end-of-days vision that threatens our very existence.

So that’s why I have ordered an extremely limited engagement against ISIL forces and am assuring the American people that we will not put boots on the ground. We are clearly at war with these extremists, and when faced with an enemy of such dangerous magnitude, it is the only choice we have.

You may have heard my primetime address where I outlined my strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL. In the speech, I used our efforts in Somalia and Yemen as models for what we can achieve. With drone strikes over the past few years, we have completely destroyed Al Shabaab in Somalia and AQAP in Yemen, although we’re still trying to figure out what that acronym stands for.

I’d like to highlight a few more points here to assure the American people that we will win this war against these terrorists — at some point in the future which may be three to four, or even maybe six to seven years from now, but it’s kind of hard to say at this point — and the threat will be diminished.

First, we will begin conducting airstrikes inside Syria at a time and place of our choosing. Under the direction of Gen. Lloyd Austin at Central Command, the military will target key militant facilities, armament, and weaponry, until they smarten up and completely blend in with the local populace.

While we bomb ISIL, which is fighting against the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — who we don’t want to support because he’s a war criminal but we’re kind of supporting him but nevermind that — we will support moderate elements of the Free Syrian Army, which is fighting ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra, and Assad.

We will take great pains to not enter someone else’s civil war, because that’s a first class ticket to failure.

Second, we will train moderate Syrian rebels and Iraqi security forces to take the fight to ISIL. As our experience has taught us in Iraq, the key to winning a war in the Middle East is to train up locals to “own” the battle and take charge of their future. In Mosul, we saw how our training efforts truly paid off, as Iraqi Army units bravely held ground when attacked by militants.

Our troops have long shown what can be achieved with shifting objectives, no strategic foresight, andvigorous support from the American people who don’t have to sacrifice anything. I call on each and every American to tie a yellow ribbon around a tree, bake an American flag cake, and support the troops who are fighting for your freedom.

In closing, I must stress that our war on terror began with Al Qaeda, but it did not end there. I pray that we soon reach our limited objectives in time for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run.

Thank you, and God bless America.

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Was The War In Afghanistan A Long Counter-Terrorism Effort?

mini-meLast weekend I heard one Administration supporter after another correcting journalists that the fight against terrorism is not a war but a long counter-terrorism effort. Okay, how is that different than that Mini-Me war in Afghanistan? I grew up during the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War is giving me those same vibes. There is nothing that inspires fear and loathing in me more than administration officials talking about long counter-terrorism efforts and limited wars. I heard it before. If we embrace the Clausewitz thought that war is policy by other means then we have to conclude the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not one of our shining foreign policy achievements if our objective was a long term reduction in terrorism. Like Vietnam the war in Afghanistan has struggled to find the political objective for us being there for over ten years. Since we continue to struggle with our political objectives in Afghanistan, why should we expect a long counter-terrorism effort to have a different outcome? All you need to do is ask yourself two simple questions, what was the objective for the war in Afghanistan and did we accomplish it. With a foreign policy stuck on stupid I guess it is not surprising that we have even less international support for our fight against terrorism than we did with our previous wars in Iraq! I understand the sentiment to avoid mentioning the word, war, but the war in Afghanistan can probably be best described as a long counter-terrorism effort that failed. Without any significant policy changes it is a sign of insanity when you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

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The Folly Of Thinking You Can Fight Terrorism With Police Actions

It has been over a week since Joe Scarborough uttered these words, Obama saying he has no strategy against ISIS is a tactic straight out of “The Art of War”. I thought the the Obama administration had declared that the war on terror was “mission accomplished” and any future acts of terrorism would be best handled with either a shrug of the shoulders or an arrest warrant. In this law abiding world the wisdom of “The Art of War” was not necessary when arrest warrants would suffice. It is amusing to think this Administration might seek wisdom in their fight against terror from a book written two thousand years ago about battle strategies. To paraphrase Tommy Vietor, “Dude, the Art of War was more than two years ago!”

What intrigued me most about Joe’s comment was the idea that Joe and probably the most of the country thinks we are fighting a war on terrorism while the Administration seems to be locked into a police action strategy supplemented with a few extralegal drone attacks. Arguably the Administration’s greatest accomplishment in the battle with terrorism was when they ignored the legal issues with conducting a covert operation in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. It is kind of amusing to think of a Pakistani police officer knocking on Osama bin Laden’s door and announcing we have a warrant for your arrest. Successful police actions are few and far between in the fight against terrorism. The inconvenient fact is that the Administration has a strategy to fight terrorism and they do not want to talk about it since most people would blame them for the four deaths in Benghazi. It was the Benghazi fiasco that convinced the public of the broad policy failure associated with the police action approach. Nothing condemns a policy faster than a dead ambassador. I think most of the country expected a terrorism policy that improved upon what we learned during the Bush Administration. What we got was an outright rejection of everything we learned over the previous eight years and a new strategy that can be blamed for killing the ambassador. The Administration seems to have gone back to the Clinton terrorism strategy and replaced cruise missiles with drone attacks. Unfortunately this Administration is having the same lack of success fighting terrorism as the Clinton Administration. There was a good reason that the Bush Administration chose to fight terrorism differently than the Clinton Administration. The Clinton strategy wasn’t working! As we approach the anniversary of 9/11 I think the people fear we have laid the groundwork to repeat this tragedy.

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Clueless Politics In Texas

The news channels were bubbling this weekend with the riots in Ferguson and the indictment of Governor Perry on two counts of abuse of power. These are sad and avoidable issues that left me confused. My morbid curiosity finally got the best of me after I watched the video video of Ms. Lehmberg’s arrest for drunken driving. Even though I lived in Texas for twenty years her behavior was appalling even by Texas standards so I was curious why she was still in office.  The best source for information about Ms. Lehmberg’s arrest was the Austin Chronicle article from last year titled, “What Happens Next?” I suspect everyone thought this would be the time when leaders in both parties quietly agree to show her the door and quietly clean up the mess. A temporary district attorney would be in charge until an election could be held in November of 2014. That doesn’t sound too bad but that did not happen. The best explanations for the Perry indictment is that the public integrity agency is the only tool left for Democrats to attack their political rivals if they cannot win in the ballot box.  Despite losing the appeal in the Tom Delay case and the continued allegations that this agency is overtly partisan, I guess it is not surprising that her office chose to double down on the issue and decided to indict Governor Perry for abuse of power when he threatened to veto her funds.  The image of a district attorney conducting public integrity investigations from a prison cell has to look bad to independent voters. With the Democratic party struggling at the polls, this effort makes them look both foolish, desperate, and vindictive. In this case Ms. Lehmberg and the public integrity commission were better off when people thought they were a bunch of fools. Now they have removed all doubt.

Update: I read that some of the people on the grand jury have come out to discuss why they chose to indict Governor Perry. I do not know if discussing grand jury deliberations with the press is illegal but it is ill advised with so many of the cool headed Democratic and Republican political operatives saying the legal foundations for the indictment are very “sketchy”. The jurors’  willingness to talk to the press makes a strong case that the district attorney and the jurors are too personally invested in this decision for the average person to believe that this was the result of a careful evaluation of the evidence. If a Republican governor cannot get a fair grand jury in Travis county solely because he is a Republican then it is time to move the responsibility for public affairs investigations to a different location with less partisanship. Sorry Austin you blew it! It is time for a change and you have no one to blame but yourselves. You abused it so now it is time that you lose it!

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Broad Policy Failure… “Watching the administration is like watching a cross between Keystone Cops and amateur hour”

On the eve of what looks like Iraq’s demise, I think the case for a broad foreign policy failure by the Administration has been made. It is all over except for the shouting when a former Defense official says,

"The bottom line," the official added. "Watching the administration is like watching a cross between Keystone Cops and amateur hour."

Benghazi was the tip of the ice berg where we should have learned our lesson. Instead we get the same story being played out in Syria, Ukraine, and Iraq. With great power comes great responsibility and we walked away.

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Did The Bergdahl Trade Signal That Democrats Have Given Up On Trying To Woo The Middle Class?

MAD-Magazine-Trading-Private-BergdahlLike most things with this Administration I do not understand the Bergdahl trade. If you have to make this deal the smartest political move would have been for the President to solicit support from the Senate and maybe get Senator Feinstein to explain the case to the public. If you do not have to make this deal then you should respect the wisdom of the Democratic Senators and Congressman trying to get re-elected this Fall and ask the Taliban for better terms. The clock was ticking and everyone knew that Bergdahl was damaged goods. There is a good case that he is a deserter. Desertion is a serious offense. Although the last deserter to be put to death was in 1945, I doubt the Army can be lenient since several people allege that Bergdahl was an enemy collaborator that caused the deaths of several soldiers. I suspect that several soldiers and some family members of the dead soldiers would be in favor of the death penalty. The families of the slain soldiers have to be wondering whether their son’s death was in vain? Even if Bergdahl is lucky and the courts are lenient, you have to ask the question why did the Administration go out of their way to make a trade for a person the courts are going to lock up for two years? This is an ugly deal which screams kick me, I’m stupid. With deals like this the best thing for the Democratic party right now is for President Obama to go to Hawaii and play golf for six months.

Obviously this trade will not play well with the military. The Duffel blog is all over that with their satirical Meteorologists Forecast Bowe Bergdahl Shit Storm piece. Less obvious but maybe more important is that this trade does not play well with the middle class. Unlike the rich and the poor the middle class has a vested interest in a government that works. The rich and the poor seem to do best when the government screws up. The middle class is stuck with the unenviable decision, do I go with the “stupid party” or with the party that says every scandal over the last six years was due to their stupidity. The Census data seems to indicate that the middle class got the message. As the Gateway Pundit points out in his article, EXCLUSIVE: Census Data Reveals GOP Is Party of MIDDLE CLASS by 2-1 Ratio, the party of the working class is the Republican Party. FDR’s New Deal coalition is unraveling and the Bergdahl trade shows that the Democrats have finally given up trying to woo the middle class. If the Democrats are going to win in the Fall, they are going to win without middle class votes. I can hear it already, we don’t need no mine workers in this new, improved Democratic party.

Hope and Change is just a bad memory now. The middle class is reluctantly going to the party that does the least harm. For all of those moms who voted for Bush in 2004 because he was strong leader against terrorism, the Bergdahl trade reminds them it is time to come home to the party who has not forgotten 9/11. I saw Mad Magazine’s new movie idea, Trading Private Bergdahl, over at Althouse. I have to concur with Meade who said:

If I’ve lost Mad, I’ve lost Middle America.

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Will President Obama’s Legacy Be Worse Than President Carter?

It is probably a little premature to be discussing Obama’s legacy but I could not help noticing that his own party is starting to snipe at him. Democratic candidates are finding it very difficult to be loyal to the party and get elected in the Fall. They can see the writing on the wall. It is hard to talk about important political issues when they are spending most of their time trying to downplay the pratfalls of the Administration. The Administration has spent the last six years claiming that their policy failures were because they were stupid and not partisan. Now Democratic candidates have to go out and convince independents that Democrats are not as stupid as previously thought. Apologizing for policy failures is a ball and chain issue that keeps Democratic campaigns struggling with independent voters. Unfortunately Democratic candidates also have to explain why there are so few policy successes and it is not just the Republicans who are cynical. I think most people would not have any difficulty agreeing that killing Osama bin Laden was this Administration’s most important accomplishment over the last six years. The problem for the Democrats is that most people are hard pressed to identify the second or third most important accomplishment. I doubt anyone except the Democratic faithful or the chronically ill would try to say that the Affordable Care Act was a success. The health care lies by the President are still a bigger deal with most voters than the meager results. Arguably the biggest issue should have been the economy. Some years back the Clinton campaign probably won the 1992 presidential election by focusing the public on the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid“. Remarkably this Administration is still looking for a success in the economy that they can lay claim to. After six years most people still see an economy that looks like it is stuck in stall mode with a seriously ugly long term unemployment problem. Our foreign policy is a mess. What was our policy in Benghazi, Syria, and the Ukraine? No one seems to know. How is it that Sarah Palin seems to have a better grasp of Putin’s political objectives in the Ukraine than the State Department? This sure looks like a broad policy failure. You cannot get around the facts that the Administration has been short on accomplishments and long on scandals. Now the Administration is stumbling its way through the VA scandal in a way that is beginning to incense Democrats. After six years of one scandal after another even Democrats are beginning to wonder if this Administration will ever get its wheel out of the rut? The frustration level of the American people is rapidly approaching the level I last saw when President Carter was in office. For an administration unaccustomed to serious questions from their friends, this could get ugly.