Recently in Foreign Policy Category

Did I listen to the President's speech about our involvement in Libya this evening? Nope. Not to a single word.

Am I disinterested in what he had to say? Nope, not at all.

So why didn't I watch the speech? It's quite simple, really.

It's because I find it very difficult to watch as his head swivels back and forth between the two teleprompter screens. It's distracting as hell. Plus I find his cadence to be equally annoying.

Instead, I read it from the White House website. I can usually read it far faster than he can give it and I'm less annoyed than if I watched him read it.

I read her book several years ago. Being left of center, she couldn't help drastically softpedaling on criticizing the Vietnam war protesters--when the book was about American inaction that led to genocide, which is what happened in Indochina.

Now this.

Reply 1 - Posted by: Guillermo Fuego, 3/23/2011 12:34:41 AM     (No. 7477289)
It is called "R2P", pushed by Samantha Power. R2P is the code word for Responsibility to Protect, a burden that the US has assumed to protect the peoples of the world from cruel dictators as proscribed in UN resolution #1973.

Samantha Power has assumed a leadership role in directing US foreign policy, and she is behind this.

And all this time the Constitution said Congress, not the UN, was given the duty to declare war, something that hasn't happened since 1942.

We've been here before, but Ronnie Reagan put that to rights.

Maybe it's time to do it again.

I don't think you people, the two or three readers of this entry, understand the chasm of the stupidity coming out of Washington versus the wisdom of Caroline Glick.  HT.

Here in a paragraph is more wisdom than you'll find in the White House and the Dept. of State. Put together.

But [Bush's] belief that free elections would solve the problem of Arab radicalism and instability was completely wrong. At base, Bush's belief was based on a narcissistic view of Western values as universal.

With the Wikileaks controversy growing and their determination to publish classified State Department and US military documents regardless of the cost in human lives and international relations, I have to wonder whether it's time to classify Wikileaks as a hostile foreign intelligence operation and to sanction them just like any other such operation.

They have certainly shown disregard for international law and have worked with anti-American elements within this country, trying to cover themselves as some kind of journalism organization. If I recall correctly, using a cover as a journalist in order to perform espionage is a hostile (and illegal) act. Maybe it's time to be hostile in return and to terminate their operation "with extreme prejudice."

It's bad enough the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate are trying to make a bad situation worse with their poor handling (intentional or otherwise) of the economy. Now they want to bring back a horrible idea that helped turn a moderately severe recession into the Great Depression with their version of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

...[W]e're close to repeating the mother of all policy errors, the one made not in 1937 but in 1930--the one that started the Great Depression. We're on track to resurrect the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

--snip--

Last week the House passed the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. It's an amendment that gives dangerous new protectionist powers to the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the proximate cause of the global Great Depression, which after all these years is still on the books. Democrats--all but five of whom voted in favor of the bill last week--would do well to remember that in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran as a free-trader, pledging to lower Smoot-Hawley's tariff walls. The 99 Republicans who voted aye should know that Herbert Hoover's name lives in infamy for erecting them. Instead, Wednesday's vote was a bipartisan move to build those walls higher using currencies as the bricks and mortar.

The bill, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would mandate that the Department of Commerce take a foreign country's currency interventions into account in determining whether its trading practices are unfair. In the case of China--the target at which this bill is aimed--Commerce would determine that the amount by which the yuan is allegedly undervalued.

When Smoot-Hawley took effect, world trade ground to a halt overnight. Between the tariffs the US now placed upon all kinds of foreign goods and the retaliatory tariffs placed on American goods shipped overseas, all goods became too expensive and the workers and consumers around the world paid the price as economies around the collapsed.

Now the idiots in Congress want to do it all over again! Have these morons learned nothing from history? Wait, of course they haven't. In fact, they're recycling ideas from the FDR era and doing it just as poorly as it was done back then, not bothering to even understand why they were a bad idea than and are an even worse idea now.

If the aim of the Democrats is to devastate the American economy and the world economy, then they're on the right track with this really really dangerous bill.

They are doing just what I expected them to do. I warned you folks about it starting back in January 2009, again in April 2009, then again in September 2009, and once more in June of this year.

It seems they are bound and determined to take us back to the bad old days of the 1930's in America.

It's bad enough when Nancy Pelosi is working hard to take control of our economy and, in the process, damage it. Now she wants to do the same thing to the Canadian economy, too.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be in Ottawa to attend a meeting of the G-8 Speakers. But the buzz around town and across Canada has nothing to do with the official summit agenda. Ms. Pelosi, along with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey (co-author of the House's climate and energy bill), will be having dinner tonight with Ed Stelmach, premier of Canada's energy-rich Alberta province.

--snip--

A boom is underway in Northern Alberta to extract the gooey, thick tar and convert it to oil for refining into gasoline. But environmentalists hate the oil sands, calling them the worst climate-offending energy source of all, and almost no one expects Mrs. Pelosi is on an intellectually honest mission. As columnist Don Martin wrote in Canada's National Post, "A suspicious observer would think Wednesday's visit to Ottawa will be more about gathering input for a future trash-talking of the Alberta and Saskatchewan oilsands than an unbiased hearing of the facts."

It seems Nancy Pelosi doesn't like the tar sands. Never mind that Canada provides 10% of the US oil needs and provides thousands of jobs to Canadians, which in turn adds billions of dollars of income to Canada's economy. She doesn't want that nasty oil coming into her country and wants Canada to stop extracting that nasty oil from their tar sands and wants Canada to lay off all those workers extracting all that nasty oil from Alberta's tar sands. (She hasn't come right out and said that, but from listening to some of her earlier pronouncements, it's apparent to me that's exactly what she wants.)

Maybe it's time to remind Nancy that she is the Speaker of the House in the US, not Canada. She holds no power in Canada despite her lofty position in Congress. Does she believe she can convince Canadians to abandon one of their most plentiful natural resources, one that the US so desperately needs? Or does she figure she can ruin the Canadian economy, too? Is she really that arrogant?

Wait a second. Of course she is! We've seen enough of that when she was ramrodding that g**awful ObamaCare bill down the American people's throats. Did she care if it was unconstitutional? Heck no. (That we do know as we've seen her response to a question asked by a reporter about the constitutionality of the ObamaCare bill. She doesn't care.)

Wrecking the American economy isn't enough for her. She has to wreck Canada's too.

That ought to make her popular.

It isn't often I get to fisk someone's post on another blog. It's rare I get to do so twice in as many weeks. It's even rarer when I get to do it to the same blogger. I am going to enjoy this.

A Warning: This is a lengthy post.

Our friend Paulina, an occasional commenter here at WP, has posted about her confusion in regards to the upcoming elections. Let's help clear up her confusion, shall we?

The midterms are almost upon us, and the latest polls show Republicans overall ahead by 10%. As it stands now, Dems will probably keep the Senate majority (51 to 49) but the House is up for grabs. This is sad news indeed. And to be honest, I don't entirely understand the reason why Republicans are favored. So here is my post about why Dems are better than Republicans for the future of this country. (But mostly it's me being really mad).

She doesn't understand why Republicans are favored? Hmm. I think I can explain that easily - The people are tired of being ripped off by a spendthrift, thieving government filled with people who really don't really give a rat's ass about the American people except how to exploit them (and their money). Not only that, but Americans are tired of being condescended to by those very same people in government who have never had to meet a payroll, don't understand what it's like to run a business, and truly believe they are far better qualified to run our lives than we are.

Better yet I can explain it in fewer words: The government doesn't have a clue what the American people are really like or what they want, which is primarily to be left alone. Certainly the Democrats, including the President, don't understand this. They stopped listening to the American people once they got into office. That's why they'll likely be on the losing end of the mid-term elections.

The last line sums up a lot of her problem: she's emoting rather than actually thinking.

The economy and jobs situation in the US is still pretty sh***y. Unemployment rates are high, banks that profited from the bailout aren't lending, corporations are turning a profit but not hiring. Little guy on the street gets screwed. Surely this is bad, but has everyone forgotten WHY we are in this mess???? Did we forget the Bush tax cuts and pointless wars that depleted the treasury? Did we forget the deregulation of the banks that allowed this entire subprime-mortgage/housing bubble, economy-downturn thing to happen in the first place?

She'll get no argument from me about the economy and unemployment, but I'm not buying her explanation.

The Bush tax cuts weren't a contributing factor to the deficits. It was Congress's profligate spending that was the biggest factor. After the tax cuts the economy grew and with it, tax revenues. Revenues were the highest they've ever been. But Congress increased spending faster than the revenues grew.

Business may be making profits but they aren't hiring for a very good and sound business reason: Obama's hostility towards business and Congressional efforts to slap even more taxes, more regulations, and more onerous (and expensive) programs on them. Until they know what the effects of all of them will be they aren't likely to invest in expanding their businesses. Why should they when it's highly likely they'll be punished by the government for their efforts? Talk about a disincentive!

I'd like to know what deregulation of the banks she's talking about. It certainly didn't happen during the Bush Administration. Maybe she means the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 during the Clinton Administration? The act separated commercial banks from investment banks. The repeal allowed a the merging of the two, which in turn led to some of the problems we saw in the collapse of the housing bubble.

Also, the so-called pointless wars were a small percentage of the overall deficit. Afghanistan was not a pointless war. The Taliban were supporting and hiding Al Qaeda, refusing to hand them over after 9/11. They gave aid and comfort to the enemy. That were given the opportunity to avoid war. They refused. We obliged them and with the help of the Northern Alliance, threw the murdering medieval bastards out.
 
Iraq was merely the continuation of the original Gulf War - Saddam had continuously violated the terms of the cease fire agreement since shortly after the Gulf War , so hostilities resumed. (Yes, I know it's simplistic, but in the end that's what it boils down to.)

The bail out and taxes deserve their own little paragraph. Republican's bailed out the banks (upper class). Democrats bailed out the car industry (middle class). Bush cut taxes for the rich (still in effect!), Obama cut taxes for the low/middle class AND is trying to cut taxes for small business which the Republicans in Congress are blocking. And don't even get me started on all the shit the Republicans blocked these past few years, including health coverage for 9/11 rescue workers! And they are upset about a community center!??!?!?

Ah, I can see her memory has again failed her. Blaming the Republicans for the bank bailouts? Really? Too bad it was the Democrats who pulled that off. Yes, Bush may have been in office, but the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. If they really didn't want to bail out the banks, then why did they pass the legislation? They had more than enough votes to kill it. Could it be because the legislation that created the bailout - H.R. 1424 - was sponsored by Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, a Democrat? Naw, that couldn't be it. It must have been the evil thought-control rays used by the GOP to get the Democrats to do their bidding.

In regards to the auto industry "bailout", again her memory fails her. It wasn't so much a bailout as it was a government takeover of GM and Chrysler, using over $60 billion of taxpayer money to short circuit the usual Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, bypass established bankruptcy law, rip off the bondholders (mostly mutual funds owned by pension and retirement funds) who should have been first in line for redress, and instead handed over bondholder funds to the UAW. That's right, the UAW, the same folks that helped force GM and Chrysler into Chapter 11.

Another memory failure? Obama cut taxes for the lower and middle classes when? Did I miss that? I recall something as part of the stimulus program that temporarily rebated income taxes. In other words they were tax credits, not tax cuts, and those 'cuts' will have to be paid back. And how did he cut taxes for low income people who weren't paying taxes? No one has been able to answer that question for me yet. About the only tax 'cut' that comes to mind is the annual adjustment to the trigger level that forces taxpayers to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax. That's nothing new.

I know Obama has proposed tax incentives for small businesses (which is not the same thing as tax cuts), but I am not aware of any actual tax cuts. (I would know as my wife and I are small business owners and we haven't heard squat about any tax cuts that would affect us in any way, shape, or form.) And those tax incentives? Any idea what they are? I do. They are basically tax credits for hiring new employees. Like that's going to work. Businesses won't hire employees unless they have work for them to do. The tax credits won't even come close to covering the actual cost of adding more employees. They certainly won't induce my wife or I to hire anyone. We can barely cover our payroll, bills, rent, and other expenses as it is. Another employee will end up putting us in the red, even with the tax credit. All this shows is that the President and his financial advisors haven't got a clue about why businesses hire new employees. And let's not get into the new taxes and fees that will be leveled on small businesses under the provisions of ObamaCare.

As far as " all the shit the Republicans blocked these past few years, including health coverage for 9/11 rescue workers", Paulina had better look at the legislation that was supposed to do that. It included so many riders and amendments that would allow waste, fraud, and a whole host of new entitlements that had nothing to do with 9/11 rescue workers and victims that it became an odious piece of legislation. If all it had done was address the health coverage as originally intended the GOP would probably have signed on. But it didn't. Shame on the Democrats for trying to use such a sleazy tactic to ramrod through pet projects and money wasting programs that wouldn't have stood a chance of passing any other way.

Here is a little list of the Dems major accomplishments lately from USA today:

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: The $862 billion "stimulus bill" invested in transportation and energy projects, tax cuts and education grants.

Oh, yeah, that's been such a big success. The only problem is that less than $55 billion has been allocated to infrastructure (building or repairing roads, bridges, and railways; water and sewer systems; electrical distribution and generations systems; communications [broadband access]; etc.), things that will be needed when the economy recovers. (Alternative energy and efficiency upgrades for homes, government buildings, and commercial facilities were not included in the total above.) What about the other $823 billion in stimulus funds? Wasted on unimportant things as far as I can see.

Affordable Health Care for America Act: The law $940 billion in the first 10 years will create new health care exchanges, expand insurance coverage to 32 million people who have gone without, close gaps in Medicare prescription-drug coverage and forbid insurance companies from rejecting people for pre-existing conditions.

This was an abominable piece of legislation that will cost hundreds of billions more than Congress has projected and provide nothing but substandard health care. How can anyone have voted for this piece of crap without knowing what was actually in it? That's insanity. It should not have passed as written because it has so many hidden and buried costs, obligations, and outright unconstitutional provisions that it should be scrapped in its entirety. Congress should start with a clean sheet of paper and try again, this time with complete transparency and true bipartisanship (not the "Sit down, shut up, and vote the way we tell you!" kind of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democrats in Congress) and with ideas that will actually work without destroying our health care system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "We have the worst health care system...except for all the others."

One of the first things that should have been done is tort reform. Without that the rest is moot. Doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine, which costs money, rather than actually working to treat their patients. Can anyone blame them? Who wants to be sued because they didn't perform all the tests to back up their diagnosis or because a patient demands extra tests? So the doctors cave and perform the extra tests to gather evidence in case they're sued for malpractice. That's no way to practice medicine. Unfortunately it's far too common.

It must also be remembered that every time government adds health insurance mandates, it costs money to provide those new services. They aren't free.

Oh, and one last thing: It will take 10 years worth of revenues to pay for 6 years worth of benefits. How do we pay for the following 6 years of benefits? No one has explained that yet.

Um, I actually wouldn't be so hard on the President in this. I think most Americans are suffering from Empire fatigue, Peter. Imperial overstretch. (HT: Instapundit)

In America we oscillate between the largely polar opposites of liberty and empire. That's the thesis of Richard Immerman's new book, Empire of for Liberty. (If you listen to this podcast from the Cato Institute, though it's long, you'll get the joke of the cross-out: It comes from the pen of Thomas Jefferson.) I think the pendulum is swinging back towards my preference.

It was just this morning I heard on the BBC World Service how in Afghanistan the popularity of making pre-pubescent boys into dancing prostitutes is gaining in popularity. Wonderful cultural practice, that. I guess we multiculturalists are only supposed to blame the West, which is why feminists are largely silent on the oppression of women under sharia.

I first heard of this utterly depraved evil from the indispensable Diana West. Suttee, anyone?

They've requested an additional half billion for security purposes. As our military scales down in the "good" or "safe" war, the diplomats will spread out in an "expanded role." But they're not feeling safe. Not at all.

It just goes to show what a thankless, pointless, and ruinously expensive fiasco trying to make Iraq Safe for Democracy was and is.

Doug Bandow has strong, articulate thoughts of decades' long duration. "How Much Longer" in the American Spectator from yesterday is merely his most recent endeavor. One would think it's a reasonable position since the South's population is at least triple the North's, and goodness knows its economy is many, many times larger. Time to walk on your own two feet, South Korea. You might start by allowing people to be armed as a gesture to prudence and freedom alike, like Israel, Switzerland, or the US of A.

I remember attending a Cato Institute program at a swank DC hotel in the summer of 1990, when I was a lowly intern, listening to Mr. Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter, still the highly esteemed foreign policy analyst, arguing in a vein in which President Dwight D. Eisenhower probably would have concurred.

Now it's twenty years later...and the argument to leave South Korea has slowly solidified in my mind.

I remember the retired gung-ho military guy lambasting Bandow and Carpenter, mainly by bringing up geography: there's just a plain, no natural obstacles. Seoul, the capital, being only 21 miles from the DMZ, likely targeted by a million rounds of ordinance. All the tunnels ready to go to lead the North Korean blitzkrieg miles into South Korean territory, etc. etc.

The vast majority of Americans don't realize that American troops, most of the 30,000 stationed there, are positioned as a "trip wire" to ensure a maximum of American casualties. This is to ensure further American involvement in case the armistice comes crashing down. Talk about cynical!

The 1990 rollicking debate was given prominent coverage in South Korea, and I had the first and only sensation of the bright lights of the TV cameraman panning dead on to me for about half a minute as I nibbled on the end of my spectacles, giving off my best policy wonkish thoughtfulness, which apparently succeeded with my librarian bookish wife.

Her library turned 100 today and lucky people sampled her homemade strawberry shortcake. She picked the berries and even made the whipping cream. Or is it creme?

It was 80 years ago yesterday, June 17th, that President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law, which instantly turned the Great Recession into the Great Depression. It was an act of trade protectionism that had exactly the opposite effect from the one intended. Call it an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences writ large.

Hoover and his congressional allies thought that reducing imports would strengthen the economy. Instead, it contributed to a collapse in world trade and the spread of protectionism around the globe. The lessons from this policy mistake are unfortunately all too relevant today.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff, conceived as a Republican ploy to gain the farm vote in the 1928 election, was a bad idea from the start.

It was one of the biggest mistakes the Republican Party ever got involved with.

It seems modern day Democrats are now looking to make the same mistake as the Republicans did in Hoover's day and for the same reasons. Should they pull it off, the unintended consequences won't be the same as those back in 1930. Instead, they'll be far worse.

Perhaps it's time for Congress and the President to stop punishing American businesses for succeeding here. Who knows, maybe new jobs will be created here as a result.

This letter to the editor appeared in Monday's Laconia Daily Sun. The author, one E. Scott Cracraft managed to use every single discredited and bigoted cliché in the book in his effort to paint the TEA party and its activists and supporters as the next Nazi Party. Originally I thought to just post it and my reply and leave it at that. But after rereading Mister Cracraft's diatribe, I realized what it really deserved was a complete fisking to show what a clueless and unthinking "useful idiot" he has become.

In spite of the efforts by the Tea Partiers (and the corporate media) to make the "Tea Party" movement appear "mainstream," the movement's "core" is far from mainstream. This movement includes people who arm themselves to overthrow a legally elected government. In some states, they have advocated succession from the Union. Some anti-Obama activists have even gone as far as calling for a military coup against the Obama administration.

This guy has tried to tie just about every fringe group he can think of to the TEA party movement. I'm surprised he hasn't tried to include the Weather Underground. Oh. Wait. It's President Obama who has ties to members of that domestic terrorist organization!

Cracraft's accusations ring hollow if for no other reason that there's been absolutely no evidence tying any of the militia groups to the movement. The "core' as he calls it has no desire to overthrow the government except by the same means the present government came to power - the ballot box. But there will be one difference: we won't need to stuff ballot boxes or commit massive voter fraud in order to throw the bums out.

The Tea Partiers also include religious conservatives who have forgotten that the U.S. Constitution does not make the American Republic a "Christian Country" but rather separates church and state while providing the most religious freedom possible. Others want to ban a woman's right to reproductive freedom. Interestingly, these same people who cry out against abortion also judge "welfare moms" for having too many babies! And yes, in spite of the movement's public rejection of racism, there are some racists in that movement These people cannot accept the fact that the American people (and the Electoral College) elected an African-American President with a "foreign" sounding name. Many of these are "Birthers," who even question President Obama's right to be president even though he won the election fairly and legally. No mainstream politician of either party has supported this lie but this urban legend persists, largely due to some of whom are in the Tea Party movement or who support it.

This country was first settled by religious refugees seeking to be free to practice their religion without interference from either their rulers or the established churches. Cracraft seems to forgotten this as well as the Constitution states there is a freedom of religion, not just freedom from religion. Over the past 50 years or so too many in this country have done their best to drive free expression of religious belief underground as if it were a dirty little secret to be hidden away from prying eyes. They have used the courts to redefine the meaning of the First Amendment in such a way as to ban almost all public displays of belief. Being a person of faith is not a disqualifier for holding public office, despite what Mr. Cracraft would apparently like to believe.

He also seems to believe that only the TEA party has racists. I hate to disillusion him, but there are far more racists within the Democratic Party than the TEA parties. He also ignores the fact that quite a few TEA party supporters voted for Obama and have since come to see him for the disingenuous big-government socialist he is. That isn't racism. That's regret. The only similarity between the two is that they both begin with the letter 'r'.

Then too, the anti-immigrant sentiment on the part of many Tea Partiers can be construed as racist. I rarely hear those opposed to immigration reform talking about white, European immigrants. It is usually about Asians, people from the Middle East, and Hispanics. Racist or not, there does seem to be and element of the "politics of meanness" among the Tea Partiers.

We aren't anti-immigrant. Many of us are immigrants or children of immigrants. We are anti-illegal immigrant. There's a big difference between the two. It's possible Cracraft is incapable of telling the difference because to him all the illegal immigrants are future Democrat supporters...once they can figure out a way to grant them amnesty and a short ride to citizenship. Never mind the legal immigrants such a move will screw over.

Conservatives have frequently criticized liberal presidents in the past, including President Clinton, but no conservative has gone so far as to question their qualifications to serve. "Red-baiting" has become common on Tea Party signs and at Tea Party gatherings. No liberal candidate has been called a "communist" or a "traitor" to his or her country in a long time. This includes people that are more liberal than Obama. The Constitution, in order to protect our political freedom, narrowly defines what "treason" is and I fail to see how our current president fits this definition. Thus, I cannot help but believe that there is a strong racist element in the movement against President Obama.

As the old saying goes, "You shall know them by the company they keep." It is Obama who has consorted with known and self-avowed anti-American terrorists (Bill Ayer and Bernadine Dohrn, just to name two). It is Obama who, for almost 20 years, attended an unabashedly racist church with a pastor who spouted bigoted, racist rhetoric and called upon God to damn America, much like any radical Muslim cleric.

Of all our previous Presidents, only Obama has worked so hard to conceal his past, the details of his upbringing, his scholarship, and his vital statistics. Every other President's life was an open book. But not Obama's. We know nothing of his academic achievements. We know nothing of any articles or papers he might have authored while editor of the Harvard Law Review. And what we do know of his time at HLR is not flattering, with more than one colleague of his from his time there saying he was basically a do-nothing editor-in-name-only, deigning to grace the others working there with his presence from time to time and not much more.

The Tea Partiers are not engaging in "mainstream" talk. They have an extreme reactionary agenda which should be a concern of every American. They are using violent language, arming themselves, and even calling themselves "right wing terrorists." I have to laugh when a self-commissioned militia "colonel" spoke of defending themselves against leftists at a recent Tea Party in Washington. In case you have not heard, armed left-wing groups in the United States pretty much died out with the Weather Underground in the 1970s. It is not the liberals or progressives who are dressing up in camouflage and conducting field maneuvers utilizing automatic weapons (I think the Second Amendment calls for a "well regulated militia" with a chain of command subordinate to the elected civilian authorities and not a bunch of grown boys playing army in the woods). Nor is it the liberals and progressives who are making death threats to members of Congress with whom they disagree.

There he goes again, painting a picture of the TEA party supporters as fringe militant wackos. Well guess what? All these guys are are fringe element wackos, but they aren't TEA party folks. They have as much to do with the core of the TEA party movement as you do, which means none.

If all he knows of the TEA party is what he's seen on TV or from the New York Times, Washington Post, the Huffington Post, or the Daily Kos, then Cracraft is so mis- and un-informed as to be laughable. Not one of these 'sources' is reliable, unbiased, or without a political agenda that does not have the good of the American people as their focus. Like any media source, left or right, they can't be trusted. The fact that he appears to do so shows he's become incapable of thinking for himself and can only parrot what these sources have programmed him to say.

Some Tea Partiers, in their literature and websites, even call for employers to fire liberal employees simply because they are liberal. It does not matter what the employee's work performance is like. They also want to remove liberal teachers from our schools whether or not they are good teachers. They even encourage their followers to break off social relations with liberals and to totally marginalize them. And they accuse liberals of "intolerance?"

I've heard this claim, but I haven't seen a shred of evidence. He's made the claim. It's up to him to prove it.

I know I don't want the good teachers to be fired. But what I don't want are educators that aren't teaching what they're supposed to be teaching and are instead indoctrinating our children, teaching them what to think, not how to think, how to reason things out on their own. These days far too many of our kids are coming out of school totally unprepared to make it in the real world. They haven't been taught the critical thinking skills that will allow them to succeed away from the indoctrination centers we call schools. All they've been taught is how to allow others to think for them and to not question what they've been told.

As far as tolerance is concerned. The most intolerant people I have come across in my life have all been liberals. For them, tolerance is something other people must have, not them.

The Tea Partiers and their ilk protest and claim that as a "grass roots" movement, they are not responsible if there are some "wackos" in their ranks. But, while urging the American people not to "paint them with the same brush," the Tea Partiers seem to paint all liberals and progressives as Marxists, communists or terrorists, if not worse. And, I am not sure that they are even using these terms accurately. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that many of their opponents tend to paint them as "racists" and "fascists."

When a large majority of the liberals/progressives in power spout Marxist/Communist ideals and support leftist/fascist dictators over democratically elected governments, then yes we'll call them Marxists and Communists and fascists.

When our President insults our staunchest allies and embraces our enemies with open arms, then yes, we will paint him with the same broad brush. To quote yet another old saying, "By their actions you shall know them." So far our President's "smart diplomacy" has done more damage to America's foreign relations in a little over a year than eight years of Dubya's presidency.

One also has to be cynical about the "grassroots" label: the Tea Partiers and their Tea Parties are being funded by some very wealthy conservative interests. Some of these interests do not want banking reform. Others have a personal stake in seeing that meaningful health care reform is eventually defeated. How else could Sarah Palin pull down $100,000 per speech? Also, one look at a typical Tea Party website shows the movement's close association with extreme right-wing national movements and organizations.

Oh, really?Just who is financing the TEA party movement? I notice he didn't name names. He made the claim, it's up to him to prove it.

On the other hand, the Democrats, and particularly the extreme left-wing of the party, has been heavily financed by multi-billionaire George Soros, an unabashed socialist (his claim, not mine) and someone who is not a friend of the American people. Like most on the Left, he believes we aren't capable of making our own decisions and he's willing to spend his billions to make sure our ability to do so will be stripped from us, one step, one right at a time. Also, much of the Hollywood elite are willing to support political causes most Americans find repugnant. They pour millions into the Democrat party to help elect candidates that are more than willing to dismantle the Constitution because we're too stupid to understand that we need the morally bankrupt progressives to tell us what we need.

As to Sarah Palin's $100,000 speaking fee: So what? When she speaks at TEA party functions she has given that money to help fund the movement on more than one occasion. Bill Clinton pulls down that much for the same thing, but Cracraft hasn't asked who's financing his speaking engagements, has he? It's a specious point. Get over it.

I have no doubt that there are well-meaning members of the "silent majority" in the Tea Party movement who are simply afraid of government and who came blame them? The Federal Government can be scary to all of us! After eight years of George Bush, who turned a federal budget surplus into a deficit through his wars and giving tax breaks to rich Americans, who would not be suspicious of the federal government and its motives? The well-meaning Tea Partiers should consider who their real "enemy" is: the "Military/Industrial Complex" (a term, incidentally, coined by a Republican, not a liberal Democrat) which has received more taxpayer money than every "welfare cheat" combined.

First, a good part of Clinton's budget surplus was funded by borrowing money from the Social Security Trust Fund, which has not been paid back and never will be.

Second, Bush didn't give tax breaks just to the rich. He gave them to every tax payer...unless Cracraft's definition of 'rich' is the same as that of the Democrats in Congress - Anyone with a job.

Third, at least one of those wars was not started by us, not by George Bush. It was started by Osama Bib Laden after his follower committed an act of war against the United States, one that was greater than the attack on Pearl Harbor back on December 7, 1941.

Fourth, the other war was started by Saddam Hussein in 1990. We merely got around to finishing it.

Initially, this anti-government movement included a large number of libertarians. While not always agreeing with them, I have always respected the libertarians more than the Republicans who seek to hijack their movement. The libertarians oppose government intrusion into any aspect of our lives. While they are against taxation and "big government," at least they are consistent. They may oppose taxation but they also are champions of personal liberty and oppose government interference in what one smokes or who one sleeps with.

I have to agree that the GOP has been trying to hijack the TEA party, trying to 'bring it into the fold', as it were. But we're too pissed off at the GOP, and particularly those within the party that we call RINOS, - Republicans In Name Only. The GOP betrayed its libertarian roots and became a somewhat less liberal version of the Democrat Party with the same spendthrift tendencies.

As we have seen, the RINOS had no problem spending money the American people didn't have. But that's no excuse for the Democrats to double down and create a deficit in one year that was bigger than Bush's deficit over eight years. (And we must remember these two things: the Democrats controlled Congress during the last two years of the Bush Administration - a time during which the two biggest budget deficits occurred - and that all spending starts in the House of Representatives.)

Mainstream America is sick and tired of being ignored by our employees, who spend without our leave, impose programs upon us we neither want or can afford to pay for, and forget that they work for us, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party Movement seems to have been taken over by extreme GOP conservative hypocrites who are committed to protecting corporate interests. While they whine about government interference in terms of regulating business, they seem to have no problem with regulating a person's personal lifestyle choices. While the Tea Partiers oppose government getting involved in health care, they seem to have no issue with banning same-sex marriage or medical marijuana. I hope the "well-meaning" Tea Partiers eventually realize which side they are really on.

Oh, and the Democrats haven't been doing just that, and rather blatantly while they're at it? They haven't passed legislation that created 'regulations' and 'rules' and laws whose sole aim is to cripple competition and lock out the small guy. They aren't pandering to those same corporate interests?

Cracraft has attributed far too many motivations to the a vast majority of TEA party supporters and activists. Mostly, we want to be left alone by government, want government to get its financial house in order, want the government to start following the Constitution, want the government to stop spending money it doesn't have and won't have in the future. Abortion, gay marriage, and a host of other social issues aren't even a blip on our agenda. The resistance to health care has nothing to do with denying people health care, but does have to do with its unsustainable cost, its intrusive nature, and its destruction of one of the best health care systems in the world all in the name the overused and purposely misdefined term 'fairness'. My question is, fair to who?

'Nuff said.

Doug Bandow has the details on the Near East political movement away from democracy, notwithstanding our very expensive and thankless efforts in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan. Quite devastating, actually.

When are we going to gain some humility and modesty when it comes to foreign policy? We're a republic, not an empire. I went to West Point with a great guy who is third generation. His grandfather and father were both alumni and Army generals. Is this the way it's going to be? Like in ancient, decadent Rome?

The hashish army after seven years of American tutelage isn't ready for jack sheet. Why that is must be a testimony to the ignorance and incompetence of the Afghans. What are we doing there? How is sending 30,000 more troops for another year and a half going to help? Can someone please tell me? This appears to be another Vietnam in the making.

HT: Mangan's

*Probably the tea chai, but I heard what I thought was a euphemism for the drug hashish, like calling marijuana "herb," as was done in my high school days in the early 1980s.

And Obama's nice guy, America weak-for-thee approach will almost certainly backfire. It is a tragedy that we have this man in the Oval Office. We are still paying for the mistakes of the horrible presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Now the stakes are too high. And, yes, John Bolton was right after all.

Where is the Obama Administration's pressure on Iran to stop enriching uranium? Sadly, the Americans are getting hoodwinked by Iran and Europe is [sic] happy that they don't have to vote for more sanctions or enforce the ones that are in place now. While the President gives up our missile shield to Russia, relaxes financial restrictions on Cuba, allows North Korea to violate their signed agreements and breaks campaign promises on a Sudan no-fly zone, the world applauds the most popular American President in history.

And here at home, Fareed Zakaria continues to call for more American compromises and more talk while characterizing Conservatives as unwilling to talk. It isn't that Conservatives think speaking to Russia about Iran is bad, a claim Fareed Zakaria erroneously tries to tag Conservatives with, it's that giving something without getting something in return is foolish and naïve.

Right now there are only 2,190 Google hits for the search "obama shmendrik." I expect that to grow exponentially in the coming months, alas. HT: Instapundit

It appears the Obama Administration has finally figured out that the Hondurans did have the legal right to oust former President Zelaya.

After making all kinds of noise about the supposed "coup" and how the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court removing Zelaya under their own constitution and laws were somehow wrong, the Obama Administration now concedes their actions were lawful and will magnanimously allow them some say in their own affairs.

Gee, isn't that just swell?

So much for "smart diplomacy."

Now that Obama has gotten his way in regards to Honduras and the return of Chavez protege Zelaya to the presidency, I have to wonder what he will do should Zelaya impose a Chavez-like socialist dictatorship, abolish the Congress, eliminate freedom of speech, muzzle the press, tear up the Honduran constitution, and 'disappear' his political opponents?

I have no doubt our own Chavez fan will praise Zelaya's actions and make some kind of noise about "correcting past American wrongs" by allowing a representative democracy to fall into the hands of his socialist brethren.

For some time now I've seen protest signs, blog posts, and comments in a number of forums equating President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. As I was reminded the other day, there's no way Obama is an incipient Hitler. Such claims are demeaning and insulting. But that's only because President Obama is...

...Neville Chamberlain.

As Bill Whittle tells us, "It is the men Liberals label as warmongers that make the peace, and those they call peacemakers that bring the wars."

And so it is with Obama, abandoning our allies in Eastern Europe with his cancellation of the missile defense shield, leaving them to the predations of Russia and Iran, while coddling up to those same adversaries in the hopes of peace.

Chamberlain, seen as a peacemaker, did the same thing back in 1938, handing Czechoslovakia over to Nazi Germany in return for promises of peace. A little over a year later the Nazis invaded Poland and the world was at war. Hitler's promises meant nothing. Chamberlain's assurances of "peace in our time" became the ashes of a funeral pyre piled with bodies of over 50 million war dead.

Obama may come to learn the same thing, only this time it could mean the nuclear annihilation of Israel and a good portion of the Middle East. He's also dithering on Afghanistan. In the mean time American troops and those of our allies in the area are fighting and dying while they wait for him to make up his mind.

At this point Obama needs to be a hawk, not a peacemaker. The situation demands it.

Listening to this report on NPR's Morning Edition one would get the impression an authoritarian military junta now ruled in Honduras.

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has taken refuge in Brazil's embassy. Zelaya was ousted in a June coup but slipped back into Honduras on Monday. (emphasis added)

On June 28, soldiers burst into Zelaya's bedroom and forced him at gunpoint onto a plane and then left him on the tarmac in Costa Rica in his pajamas.

Later that day, the Honduran Congress named Roberto Micheletti president.

Micheletti is demanding that Brazil hand over Zelaya to face criminal charges. Micheletti's administration has said for months that Zelaya would be arrested if he set foot on Honduran soil. Honduran soldiers have surrounded the Brazilian embassy.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the defacto administration that Brazil won't tolerate a breach of its embassy, but he also warned Zelaya not to provoke Honduran security forces into invading the building.

The report makes it sound as if Zelaya was removed during a military coup and that he's trying to get reinstated to his rightful office. The media is playing it up as if he was illegally removed from office. But he wasn't.

He was tried and convicted of violating his country's laws, its constitution, by trying to remain in power even though by law he is allowed to serve only one term as president. He tried to force a referendum to illegally alter the Honduran constitution in such a way that he could have potentially become President-for-Life, just like his buddy Hugo Chavez. The other two branches of the government, the judicial and legislative, saw the move for what it was and it's illegality, impeached him, convicted him, and removed him from office.

Let's repeat the lesson:

Then president Manuel Zelaya tried to force referendum that would have illegally amended the Honduran constitution to make it possible for him to become a defacto dictator. The Honduran Constitution was set up to prevent just such a thing. What's worse, he conspired with a foreign nation, Venezuela, to make this happen. In most nations this is called treason. And in most nations treason is punishable by life imprisonment or death. He broke the law.

The Honduran Congress and Supreme Court followed the law and removed Zelaya using the process as laid out in their constitution. They followed the rule of law.

Now Zelaya's socialist backers, including Chavez, Castro, Morales, and the biggest socialist of all - our own President Obama - want Zelaya returned to office so he can usurp Honduran law and install himself as the next Latin American strong man, wiping away years of democratic reform and turning a free representative democracy modeled after our own into a socialist dictatorship.

Some have complained that Zelaya didn't have a fair trial, but under whose law did he have an unfair trial? Too many of his 'supporters' here in the US seem to think US laws and legal traditions apply. They do not. Only Honduran law applies, period. As the saying goes: different country, different laws.