A World Gone Mad
Gary Gerard,
dumbhoosier.com
Drums Of War
One of the senior Pentagon correspondents at CNN, Barbara
Starr, wrote an interesting piece on her blog earlier this
week.
Basically, she says that while overtly the U.S. focus is on
putting diplomatic and economic pressure on Syria, the
Pentagon and the U.S. Central Command has started a review of
U.S. military capabilities.
You know how they always say they are taking “no options off
the table.” That’s D.C. speak for, “We’ll blow you up if we
have to.”
And, of course, all the president’s men and the president
himself are saying things like “must exhaust all other means”
or “last resort” when asked about what to do in Syria.
But, Starr writes, “... the military is beginning to look at
what can be done. One of the senior U.S. officials called the
effort a ‘scoping exercise’ to see what capabilities are
available given other U.S. military commitments in the region.
“The Pentagon is closely monitoring developments in Syria. It
wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t put some ideas on the
table,” one of the senior U.S. officials told CNN. “But
absolutely no decisions have been made on military support for
Syria.”
The two officials were not willing to be identified because
they were not authorized to talk to the media.
And then there was this in the Telegraph online:
The international community may be forced to 'militarize' the
crisis in Syria unless President Bashar al-Assad stops the
onslaught on his people, a senior U.S. official warned on
Wednesday.
The official from the State Department told The Daily
Telegraph that while the White House wants to exhaust all its
diplomatic options, the debate in Washington has shifted away
from diplomacy and toward more robust action since Russia and
China blocked a United Nations resolution condemning Syria.
Couple this with Israel – you know where that puts us –
threatening to attack Iran and it seems to me we better get
all the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in a hurry. So we
can send them to Syria and Iran.
Republicans For Obama
A poll conducted by Wenzel Strategies for World Net Daily
wnd.com shows 20 percent of Republicans leaning toward
re-electing President Barack Obama.
And this amid his decisions to nix the Keystone pipeline and
force Catholics to fund contraceptives.
Seriously.
It only makes sense, frankly. And I think that number will
rise given the current state of affairs in this country.
There are some positive economic indicators and I think
overall people are starting to feel a little better about
things. Unemployment, while still stubbornly high at 8.3
percent, seems to be improving. The stock market is flirting
with 13,000.
(Of course, house of cards that it is, the economy could
tumble again depending on whether the Eurozone can get its act
together.)
But even more importantly, the president has been able to
largely avoid the political fray while the GOP candidates
accuse each other of everything from stomping puppies to
tripping cane-wielding grannies in the crosswalk.
The Wenzel poll showed more than 20 percent of Republican
voters say they are more likely to support Obama than a
Republican challenger. Ron Paul does one tick better. Only 19
percent of Republicans chose Obama over him.
Even worse, the protracted mudslinging among Republicans has
put off the coveted independent voters as well.
Last fall, independent voters were leaning Republican 2-to-1.
According to the Wenzel poll, independent voters are now split
evenly or favoring Obama.
More alarmingly, even among people who say the country is
headed in the wrong direction, Obama still gets 20 percent of
Republicans.
I have only one question.
Why can’t Republicans figure this stuff out?
Oh no. They’re vowing to continue the snarkiness “all the way
to the convention.” If they do, they all but assure Obama’s
re-election.
Oh well, what’s the big deal? It’s just another four years of
massive government expansion and year-over-year
trillion-dollar deficits after all.
Threat to Democracy
Remember me railing on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in that
infamous Citizens United case? That’s the one where the court
ruled, basically, that corporations are people and money is
speech.
Then remember during President Obama’s 2010 state of the union
speech when he accused the court of reversing “a century of
law that I believe will open the floodgates for special
interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without
limits in our elections.”? That’s when Justice Alito caused an
uproar by mouthing that’s not true after the president’s
remark.
Then, months later Obama went off on corporate interests
spending money to sway federal elections. He called it a
“threat to our democracy.”
I fully concurred. Obama and I saw eye-to-eye on an issue.
Nevermind.
Last week he urged his top donors to support Priorities USA
Action. That’s a super PAC led by a couple former Obama aides.
That PAC has been having a tough time keeping up with
Republican PACs because of Obama’s aversion to that awful
Supreme Court ruling.
Not anymore. Obama decided to open the spigot. Now, he’s only
acting within the laws. But why grandstand about it in the
first place and then flip-flop?
But, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. This is the same
Obama who broke a vow to accept taxpayer money from the public
and agree to spending limits if his opponent did. That little
political ploy job helped him financially dwarf John McCain in
the the last election.
Free Cell Phones
In a little story I stumbled onto from Time online, I found
that last year, a federal program paid out $1.6 billion to
cover free cell phones and the monthly bills of 12.5 million
wireless accounts.
The FCC program is intended to help low-income people, but
observers say – gasp! – the program was fraught with
waste and abuse, with phones going to people who don’t
qualify, and hundreds of thousands of people who do qualify
having more than one phone.
According to Businessweek, 269,000 wireless subscribers in the
program were receiving free phones and monthly service from
two or more carriers.
But hey, what’s $100 million million among friends.
I know this may seem trivial in the scope of things, but it’s
just a microcosm of government at large. It’s endemic. It’s
systemic. It’s how our government functions from top to
bottom. Bloat, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, waste and
outright fraud.
Sometimes it seems hopeless.
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