JUNE 23, 2009
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1. Governor Sanford’s Office Checks In With Us
This is only a story because Sanford is standing up to Democrats and erstwhile Republicans
2. Rules of Disengagement: A Troubling New U.S. Combat Posture In Afghanistan
Going The Wrong Way
3. Massachusetts Democrats Waste $174M in Federal Stimulus Money
As if we couldn’t see this coming
4. NEWSFLASH: High Deficits Mean High Taxes
This is only surprising to Barack Obama
5. Guess Which Nevada Senator is Less Popular than John Ensign
The only thing saving the Republicans from their own incompetence in the Senate is the answer
6. Mitch McConnell Signals the GOP Will Do Nothing Substantive Against Sotomayor
He Wants Us to Believe Mediocrity is a Sign of Success
———————————————————————- 1. Governor Sanford’s Office Checks In With Us
This is only a story because Sanford is standing up to Democrats and erstwhile Republicans
With all the reports of a missing Governor Mark Sanford whose staff and wife allegedly have no idea where he is and have not heard from him, I figured it was worth checking in with his office. His Communications Director sent us this statement:
“The governor put in a lot of time during this last legislative session, and after the session winds down it’s not uncommon for him to go out of pocket for a few days at a time to clear his head. Obviously, that’s going to be somewhat out of the question this time given the attention this particular absence has gotten. Before leaving last week, he let staff know his whereabouts and that he’d be difficult to reach. Should any emergencies arise between the times in which he checks in, our staff would obviously be in contact with other state officials as the situation warrants before making any decisions.”
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2. Rules of Disengagement: A Troubling New U.S. Combat Posture In Afghanistan
Going The Wrong Way
As a general matter, while I write a fair amount about national security strategy, I’m usually hesitant to wade into military tactics, a subject best left to the professionals. Even among those who know their stuff, military tactical decisions often involve difficult tradeoffs on which reasonable people can and do disagree, plus people who lack a military background (as I do) often make hilarious mistakes when attempting to lay out the facts of such stories, let alone dissect them, without running them by someone who knows their stuff. I’d prefer to avoid the kind of armchair generalship we had among so many on the Left during the Bush years who were hair-trigger quick to accuse U.S. tactical decisions of being (1) incompetent or (2) atrocities.
All that being said, I find myself utterly baffled by this report from the Associated Press on comments made by and on behalf of the new commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and his spokesman, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, and of course I have to wonder if the order comes from McChrystal or originates higher up the chain of command from the political branches.
There are reasons why the U.S. military needs to be careful about civilian casualties, because casualties make us unpopular with the Afghan public and cause friction with the Karzai government. But then, the “Team America” image of left-wingers to the contrary, our military is always more careful about civilian casualties than it would be if it was 100% focused on killing the enemy. That’s the nature of our military even without formalizing an order in the rules of engagement, and moreso when you consider the rules of engagement typically ordered in most circumstances.
But McChrystal’s order strikes me as going way too far in taking us out of the business of fighting the enemy. First, we know full well that our jihadist enemies love to use innocent or captive civilians as human shields; that particular war crime is their standard M.O. and has been for many years (as it is against the Israelis as well) - I can recall that being their standard tactic at least as far back as Mogadishu. To give them a complete sanctuary by virtue of committing a war crime is a very bad precedent that diminishes the U.S. military’s effectiveness - thus prolonging the war - and only encourages more of the same barbarity. Second, publicly announcing that the strong preference for not shooting at people hiding behind civilians is being codified in a hard and fast rule only gives the enemy more encouragement and advice as to how to nullify our forces.
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3. Massachusetts Democrats Waste $174M in Federal Stimulus Money
As if we couldn’t see this coming
he Massachusetts Democratic Party wasted close to $33 million dollars of stimulus money. They literally flushed it down the drain by overpaying for labor costs on water treatment projects.
To recap the waste comes from the difference in the prevailing wage from the Federal Prevailing wage as outlined in the Davis-Bacon act and the Massachusetts prevailing wage. According to the Beacon Hill institute this difference accounts for $17.7 of every $100 dollars spent on public works projects going directly to inflated labor costs, lining the pockets of the Unions.
Earlier this month the Massachusetts Republican House Leadership submitted an amendment to suspend the Massachusetts prevailing wage on all Stimulus funded projects. The Republican leadership was unable to force a vote when they fell one member short of the 15 needed to do so. Not one Democrat stood up for the tax payers to force a vote on the issue.
This week the Boston Globe reported that the total money earmarked for transportation projects coming to Massachusetts from the “Stimulus Package” is $800 million. Using the Beacon Hill Instutes estimates that means that $141 million dollars in Federal Stimulus money is being wasted by the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s inaction on the Republican Amendment.
Couple this $141 million with the $33 million outlined earlier this week and you get a total of $174,000,000 Federal dollars wasted by the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
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4. NEWSFLASH: High Deficits Mean High Taxes
This is only surprising to Barack Obama
This comes as a surprise to no one of course, except for an Obama administration which seems to believe that taxes can stay at more or less current levels despite their extraordinary spending binge. Instead, history suggests that if Washington wants to run historically-high deficits, then much higher taxes inevitably follow:
I suspect President Obama will wait to push for a massive tax increase until his lame duck term.
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5. Guess Which Nevada Senator is Less Popular than John Ensign
The only thing saving the Republicans from their own incompetence in the Senate is the answer
While Senator Ensign’s sudden fall in the polls has gotten the headlines, Harry Reid is even more unpopular. And while Ensign next seeks reelection in 2012, Harry Reid is up next year:
“At 39 percent, Ensign’s diminished favorable rating is slightly higher than that of the state’s senior senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid (34 percent), and far above that of the dismally unpopular Gov. Jim Gibbons (10 percent).”
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6. Mitch McConnell Signals the GOP Will Do Nothing Substantive Against Sotomayor
He Wants Us to Believe Mediocrity is a Sign of Success
One must wonder what Mitch McConnell paid or did to have the Washington Post’s Perry Bacon, Jr. write this total fluff piece on Mitch McConnell.
“When he was fighting campaign finance reform a decade ago, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was dubbed Darth Vader by his critics. He embraced the nickname, even announcing “Darth Vader has arrived” at a news conference.”
Well, when the article starts out with a gross distortion of the facts, we can only conclude that McConnell is desperate to hang on to power and distract from his failures as the Senate Republican Leader.
What gross distortion?
“Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was dubbed Darth Vader by his critics,” writes Perry Bacon, Jr. today.
“The Kentucky curmudgeon who dubbed himself the Darth Vader of campaign-finance reform is whipped, and he knows it,” wrote Jonathan Alter in Newsweek on April 9, 2001.
“Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who aptly describes himself as the “Darth Vader” of the campaign finance debate,” wrote the Kansas City Star on April 8, 2001.
“The antipathy is well known between Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the self-described Darth Vader of campaign finance reform, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who recently likened his presidential campaign to the adventures of Luke Skywalker,” wrote Mary Lynn Jones in the Hill on February 16, 2000.
Yes, Common Cause gave Mitch McConnell the designation once, but it says more about McConnell that he had to embrace and recycle the nickname for anyone to pick it up and use it “against” him.
Now Perry Bacon, Jr. in his fluff piece, recycles it to make McConnell seem more than the limp wristed leader he has been lately.
“McConnell has persuaded his Senate colleagues to pick targeted, potentially winnable fights against the Democrats, such as the party’s current push to make sure health-care reform does not include a government-run insurance option.
In other words, McConnell does not want the GOP to make much of a show on Sotomayor. You don’t have to read the rest of the article to understand why this article is even showing up.”
If you will remember from a few weeks ago, Manny Miranda, who heads an organization of conservatives who are organized to help defeat the Sotomayor nomination, sent Mitch McConnell a letter demanding the GOP not kowtow to Obama on the nomination.
A staffer for McConnell attended the Grover Norquist Wednesday meeting, an off the record meeting, and took that information back to McConnell’s leadership office where it makes it into the Politico. In the process, McConnell felt the need to bash Miranda — a loyal conservative activist.
And while McConnell has been leader of the Senate GOP, we’ve gone from 55 seats to 40 seats.
But that’s okay, McConnell is, in his mind, Darth Vader — the man who oversaw the loss of two Death Stars and in the end betrayed his own side.
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