F

This is an excellent piece from Toby Harnden, writing for the Telegraph, in which he meticulously analyses the manifold breaches in security leading up to last week's near miss in Detroit:

There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: “On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.” Why pat yourself on the back for “winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now. It’s time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bush’s. It’s time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: “I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.”

Arrogant

As is usually the case, economist Thomas Sowell gets it right. Here are some excerpts from a piece appearing on National Review Online:

The only thing healthy about Congress’s health-insurance legislation is the healthy skepticism about it shown by most of the public, as revealed by polls. What is most unhealthy about this legislation is the raw arrogance in the way it was conceived and passed.

Supporters of government health insurance call its passage “historic.” Past attempts to pass such legislation — going back for decades — failed repeatedly. But now both houses of Congress have passed government-health-care legislation and it is just a question of reconciling their respective bills and presenting President Obama with a political victory.

In short, this is not about improving the health of the American people. It is about passing something — anything — to keep the Obama administration from ending up with egg on its face by being unable to pass a bill, after so much hype and hoopla. Politically, looking impotent is a formula for disaster at election time. Far better to pass even bad legislation that will not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election, so that the public will not know whether it makes medical care better or worse until it is too late for the voters to hold the administration accountable.

Don't Despair!

It's not over yet, folks. In spite of the Senate's dastardly deed this Christmas Eve, there's still a significant chance that Obamacare will fail.

Some encouraging considerations from Jeffrey Anderson, writing for National Review:

Harry Reid had the Senate meet for 25 consecutive days for the first time since the United States was deciding whether to enter World War I, and he held the Senate's first vote on Christmas Eve since the 19th Century. Such is the zealotry of those who champion the cause of government-run health care. Gaining control over what will soon be one-fifth of our economy is apparently so important that it requires a Christmas Eve vote — for a bill that would essentially start about four Christmases from now.

However, from the start of Christmas week, the important and interesting question was not whether the Senate would pass its bill (that was a foregone conclusion once Ben Nelson yielded to party pressure and waived his abortion objections in exchange for a nice helping of pork). It was whether those of us who believe in the longstanding American ideals of individual liberty, personal freedom, and private control, would continue to match the Democrats' determination to impose the opposite. For while passage of the Senate bill was a foregone conclusion, follow-on passage of a compromise bill in both chambers is not — not remotely.

The Democrats passed a highly unpopular bill with two votes to spare in the House and none to spare in the Senate. Now they have to blend the bills (mostly reflecting the Senate one) and get them back through both chambers — after hearing from their constituents over the holidays.

Furthermore, the House bill passed only because of relatively strong anti-abortion language demanded by pro-life Democrats in particularly precarious seats. The Senate bill doesn't contain that language. So either the anti-abortion Democrats in the House or the pro-abortion Democrats in the Senate are going to have to cave. Combine this with other issues, and the Democrats' almost-nonexistent margin for error, and final passage is anything but certain.

Additionally, the Democrats' bills would not go into effect in any meaningful way until at least 2013. They could have been written to go into effect immediately, but the Democrats made the calculation that it was better to delay implementation by several years so that they could mislead the American people by citing "10-year costs" for six years' worth of of Obamacare. That enabled them to pitch an approximately $2.5 trillion bill (its real first-10-year costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office) as an $871 billion bill. But that decision has left us with this reality: The Democrats can only implement their overhaul, and avoid is repeal, if the American people choose to send them back to Capitol Hill and to the White House in 2010 and 2012. The American people, and not the Democratic party, will ultimately decide Obamacare's fate.

But the American people will also decide the fate of Obamacare in a much more immediate sense. Across recent weeks, Democratic representatives in both congressional chambers have taken tremendous heat from the Obama administration. Now, over the holidays, they'll get to interact with their constituents face-to-face. They've felt the immediate pressures of Washington; now they'll get to feel the pressure from those who sent them there — the vast majority of whom oppose Obamacare.

They'll get to hear from people who don't want to pay higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher overall health costs; who don't want to lose their consumer-driven health plans; who don't want to see colossal sums of money siphoned out of Medicare and spent on Obamacare; who don't want a health-care system based on political cronyism (witness the shameless exemption of the longshoreman's union from the tax on "Cadillac plans," and the survival of Medicare Advantage in Florida but not anywhere else). They'll get to hear from people who don't want to see a trillion dollars over 12 years be transferred from taxpayers to insurers; who don't want to see deficits rise and the quality of care fall; and who don't want to have the federal government inject itself into the historically and rightfully private relationship between patient and doctor.

And the Democratic members better listen. In the wake of Hillarycare's defeat in 1994, the voters took out their frustrations on typical Democrats, but they went much easier on the more conservative ones who had largely prevented Hillarycare’s passage. So, if history is any guide, those Democrats who vote against the final version of Obamacare (and, in the Senate, against the final cloture motion) will likely be spared, while those who vote for it will invite the voters' wrath.

In short, now is not the time for anyone who opposes Obamacare to despair or to quit. Now is the time to fight.

The Catholic?

Shakespeare the Catholic? A fascinating thought.

From the Telegraph:

The Venerable English College in Rome has found documents which may suggest that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic who spent some years in the city. It’s only conjecture – but the news will certainly excite the large number of people who believe that the Bard was a Papist.

Closer

From the Associated Press:

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has moved Pope John Paul II one step closer to possible beatification, the milestone before sainthood.

Benedict on Saturday approved a decree attesting to John Paul's heroic virtues. Benedict still must sign off on a miracle attributed to John Paul's intercession before the late pope can be beatified.

Destroy Capitalism, Save the Planet?

Writing for National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg tears into the Socialist hypocrites ensconced in Copenhagen. He takes particular umbrage with Latin America's numero uno blatherskite, Hugo Chávez.

The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman. In a typical stem-winder, he belched: “Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.”

I don’t know how to say “chutzpah” in Spanish, but you’ve got to hand it to the leader of the world’s No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.

As the World Turns

Climategate continues to burgeon. All the while, world leaders continue to pretend the scandal doesn't exist. Have they no shame?

From the Telegraph:

Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

On Terrorism and Its Causes

Andrew McCarthy, writing for National Review Online, offers his insights on the oft heard claim that the Guantanamo Bay prison is an enduring rallying cry for the recruitment of terrorists, and should therefore be closed.

After 17 years of attacks, we should have learned the difference between causes of terrorism and pretexts for terrorism. Terrorism is caused, and terrorist recruitment is driven, by Islamist ideology and by American weakness in the face of terror attacks. In that sense, Senator Durbin causes more terrorism than Gitmo ever will. Terrorist organizations are encouraged when they come to believe they can win — when they come to believe they can outlast America because we lack resolve.

Spinning History, Spinning the Truth

National Review's Victor Davis Hanson offers an excellent analysis of Obama's knack for twisting history in order to fit his template.

On the Cairo speech, for instance:

The following can be said of Obama’s Islamic mythography: a) Islam did not pave “the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.” To the extent Islam was involved at all, it was Greek scholars fleeing Ottoman pressure at Byzantium who sparked the Western Renaissance, while the Enlightenment’s Romantic movements proclaimed a desire to free classical lands from supposed Ottoman backwardness. b) Breakthroughs in navigation, pens, printing, medicine, etc. were largely Western or Chinese innovations. c) “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Córdoba during the Inquisition.” Córdoba had few Muslims when the Inquisition began in 1478, having been reconquered by the Christians well over two centuries earlier. d) Left unsaid was that the great colonizers of the Middle East were not the Europeans, but the Ottoman Muslims, who were far harsher and ruled far longer...

In these minor and major historical distortions, there are two recurrent themes. The most obvious is that George W. Bush has been culpable, and that a far more sensitive and astute Obama is here to set things right. Historical citations will be crafted, in deductive fashion, to support that thesis.

But there is a second sort in which the self-proclaimed global healer Obama marshals history for noble purposes. And in service to his inspirational global ecumenism, the president apparently feels free to twist and fudge the past in order to suggest that our cultures are all roughly equal, with pasts that are likewise both good and bad, and thus we now need to bond and unify with appreciation of one another’s differences.

A Letter to Archbishop-elect Listecki

The Basilica of Saint Josaphat, Milwaukee

Your Excellency,

Congratulations on being chosen by the Holy Father to lead the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Since the news broke of your selection, many have been praying for you as you prepare for your new role on a much higher profile. Few bishops coming into a new archdiocese have faced the challenges you presently face, as you take up the Milwaukee mitre. At the same time, there are also unique opportunities before you, as you will soon hold the lever to set into motion the long-overdue revitalization of a once-great hub of Catholic culture in the United States.

First though, the unsavory business: The manifold problems dogging the Milwaukee Archdiocese are well-known by you and to anyone else not living in a cave for the past couple of decades. However, despite the archdiocese's nation-wide renown for unpleasant events, it has regularly surprised me and others that so little has been done, substantively speaking, from the higher-ups over the course of the past ten years or so. Frankly, many of us are thoroughly exasperated that our home archdiocese has persistently ranked number-one in the nation in pariah status when it comes to scandal and theological/liturgical heterodoxy.

No rational person expects perfection or overnight miracles at the snap of a finger, and it is very true that pleasing everyone is impossible (especially when all that truly matters is pleasing God). Yes, in an imperfect world, archbishops often have to approach controversial issues with a prudent sense of balance and measure to avoid even worse consequences and to keep the peace. But Milwaukee is far beyond that. As you surely know, Milwaukee is not a typical case. Intrigue and secrecy have become the established norm, along with rampant liturgical abuse and foggy guidance from the leadership. (Examples of this have been recorded on this blog for some time now.) All the while, traditional Catholics (for lack of a better term) are proffered the occasional lip service but, in substance, disowned and iced out of the family. Such Catholics who have the temerity to raise a hand in protest to make their voices heard are disparaged and cast as shrill whiners, distracting gadflies, intolerant blockheads, even half-crazy and summarily dismissed.

From parish to parish, Catholic school to Catholic school, the aberrations and confusion have long since become the norm in Milwaukee. In the quest to set things right, some have opted for a sort of charm offensive in their dealings with the unorthodox, hoping to win them over and placate the intensity of their liberal drive. One can understand the initial reasoning behind this attitude, but such a strategy will only work however, if there is an iron fist inside the velvet glove. For the last eight years, there has been no iron fist of last resort, just a limp, soft glove applied over and over again with little effect. The experiment to try to massage the opposition into complacency through charm has unquestionably failed. Far from mitigating the extant problem, the opposition in Milwaukee has only been reaffirmed and emboldened, knowing that they were able to bamboozle anyone thinking they could be won over with a smile and slap on the back.

It's time to employ another strategy. Of course, this doesn't necessarily translate to a fire and brimstone, "my way or the highway" approach, but it does require firmness of purpose, a clear vision of the actual situation and what needs to be done from day one, and the recognition that some people, for all their encomiums, are in principle, not going to be with you when the chips are down.

That said, there are many wonderful, holy priests, and lay faithful in Milwaukee who will be there to support you in your work.

All the best as you begin your new assignment. The prayers of thousands of Milwaukee Catholics, a truly great community of warm and loving people, will be with you as you hit the ground running on January 4.

Prayer Service for the Environment

This is absolutely absurd. From ABC News:

"Don't be afraid!" said the archbishop of Canterbury to the packed cathedral.

The congregation stretching out below his pulpit was led by Denmark's stately queen, Margrethe II, and a dozen clergy who included not only Lutherans but Catholic and Eastern Orthodox priests, South Africa's Desmond Tutu and two Buddhist nuns.

But it was the children at the head of the processional signaling the start of this Ecumenical Celebration for Creation -- held midway through the two-week climate summit in Copenhagen -- who had set the tone.

As the organ boomed and voices soared with "All creatures of our God and King/Lift up your voice and with us sing ..." up the aisle, two by two, the children led the adults.

In their hands they held the reasons for fear -- strange offerings for any church service.

First, held out in the cupped hands of the first three pairs of children, were pieces of dead bleached coral from the Pacific, "a symbol of rising sea temperatures, polluted, suffering and dying ocean worlds," as the program informed the congregants.

Then came three pairs of African children carrying cobs of dried-up African maize -- "symbol of drought and desertification, of failed crops, human hunger and suffering."

Then came children, each carrying stones uncovered by retreating glaciers in Greenland, "symbol of melting polar worlds, of rising sea and river levels, and loss of life-giving mountain water resources."

Melting Support

From CBS News:

With world leaders debating how to address climate change in Copenhagen and the U.S. Senate poised to take up a climate bill in the coming months, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds that just 37 percent of Americans believe the issue should be a priority for government leaders.

That's a significant drop from April of 2007, when 52 percent of those surveyed said the issue should be a high priority.

Thoughts on the Church in America

The big divide between Catholics (especially in the US as a result of the proximity to pick-and-choose Protestantism) is between those who, on the one hand, believe that the Church cannot err when teaching on faith and morals (only) and those who do. The former group recognizes the important, yet basic distinction between dogma and Tradition (immutable) and tradition (mutable). This key distinction is one of the most basic elements of Catechesis 101, but unfortunately, it has been poorly understood (if at all) by many Catholics who simply never received proper formation in the fundamentals of the faith, and here in the States, there are scads of such Catholics. Tradition and Dogma (otherwise known as the Magisterium) by its very definition, cannot change. Jesus is, as St. Paul tells us, "the same yesterday, today and always." What the Church taught about Christ after the first Council is the same as what the Church teaches today, albeit the language has developed somewhat, but more on that later. Similarly, with regard to morals and the ethical life, the teachings of the Church cannot change because they deal with guide posts set out by "nature and nature's God" in order for humans to reach their end, qua persons made in God's image and likeness. Why would a benevolent God leave His children with no way of knowing with certainty which actions are pleasing to Him and which are not? Or, perhaps even better put: Why would God tell us that action X is wrong yesterday but not today? What kind of confusion would result from such ambiguity? Look at the Episcopalians and you'll see the answer to that query. They are splintering off left and right, with no sign of stopping. God, in His love and mercy, provides us with the teachings of the Church in order to help us along the way to Him. This is not an exercise in triumphalism or arrogance, to suggest that the Church, when teaching the essentials about life and the articles of faith, is infallible. No, it is simply a recognition of our status as creatures in need of God's assistance, and that is nothing but an embrace of realism, not a dance with utopian naïveté. It is precisely because of our incredible weakness as human beings, from laymen to priests, popes and bishops, that the Holy Spirit graciously illuminates us on the essentials via the Church's teachings. We cannot do it on our own. We need help. This constitutes a firm rebuttal to the narcissistic, stomach turning "Yes we can" mantra of a secular political campaign. I am fond of Archbishop Chaput's thoughts on the meaning of true hope:

For Christians, hope is a virtue, not an emotional crutch or a political slogan. Virtus, the Latin root of virtue, means strength or courage. Real hope is unsentimental. It has nothing to do with the cheesy optimism of election campaigns. Hope assumes and demands a spine in believers. And that’s why – at least for a Christian -- hope sustains us when the real answer to the problems or hard choices in life is ‘no, we can’t,’ instead of ‘yes, we can.’

Again, this is pretty basic stuff for those of us who have studied Socrates, Cicero, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, JPII, et al. Human nature does not change; a man of one-million years ago has the same basic needs (physical and spiritual) as any of us today. Murder and theft were wrong then, and are wrong now. Eating a balanced diet was good for mankind then, and it is good for us today. Let's not over-inflate the vague notion of "change" so as to justify any newfangled idea the crops up today or tomorrow. In that regard, I'm more of a Burkean conservative than a Rousseaunian revolutionary. A lot of people like to say that because change happens, the Church must adapt with the times, etc.. In other words, the Church should change her stance on the whole gamut of issues to better suit my needs today. Interestingly enough, this is the same apparatchik that peddles the "living Constitution" theory in politics; a theory stating that the Constitution is a "living document" that needs to grow with the evolving standards of the times, etc. No, it is emphatically not a living, organic document. Scalia is right in this regard. The document was written down precisely for that reason, i.e., so that it wouldn't bend and curve to fit different demands. Constancy is why we write things down. Now, there is a way to change the Constitution, and it's called the amendment process, which the Founders intentionally made cumbersome and hard to do...for a reason. In any event, those who believe that faith, the moral life and even politics, should be dictated by change hold one overarching world view in common and that is relativism. Sure, how we understand doctrine can develop, in terms of the language we use to grasp this or that teaching, but that does not mean that the teaching itself changes. (I recommend reading Newman's excellent work on the development of doctrine.) Again, the question doctrinal development is a fundamental tenet of the Church's teaching that many miss because of poor catechesis. And so, we arrive at the second group of Catholics in the States.

Whether we identify them as relativists, or by the more cheeky nomenclature of "Cafeteria Catholic, the modus operandi is always the same, rooted in the following assertion: "The Pope is not infallible when he speaks on matters faith and morals, but I am inerrant because I say that the pope isn't." That is pretty much the logic of those Catholics who are pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-gay "marriage", etc., and go around believing themselves as Catholics in good standing with the Church. They take it upon themselves to declare what is true for them. For such folks as these, "Truth" is in itself an offensive idea because it implies objectivity, which, down the road will, by necessity, imply a personal commitment by means of conforming one's life to that standard of objectivity. This is a process that begins and ends with an important virtue often lacking in such people: humility. And as an aside, the Church is very clear about what issues are not open for compromise. Some on the left gain a lot of mileage by throwing the death penalty and war in with the aforementioned scourges on humanity, but these two cases are not intrinsically evil, as abortion. Here is what then-Cardinal Ratzinger had to say on this very point back in '04:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

Quod erat demonstrandum, I might add.

But, hey, if you're a Cafeteria Catholic, the solution is easy: you can just agree to disagree with the very man who is now the successor to Saint Peter. What a convenient strategy! Pick and choose whatever sounds nice to you at the time. Isn't that what Luther and company finally decided to do, after all? Why bother with the Church of Christ if I can have the Church of me, myself and I? Tu es Petrus..."big deal", these people say, "ego sum Petrus", or rather, "ego sum Deus". Ironically, for those who do not believe that God provided one way to discern the most important questions about life (through the Magisterium that is safeguarded by the Pope), by necessity they must confer upon themselves an almost God-like power to define the most fundamental questions of reality on and by their own authority. What hutzpah! Either that or despair in utter existential nihilism because there's no point to anything...so why even bother? Take your pick, relativist.

The problem with contemporary education is not so much that people are being programmed to believe that there is no such thing as truth, but rather it is that students are being convinced that "my" truth is just as valid as "your" truth. Truth is debased to the level of mere feeling and the level of the subjective. This is problematic for the Catholic because for us, Truth is not just an idea or concept, but rather a Person. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." And again, "Christ is the same, yesterday, today and always." (Hebrews 13:8)

Let's do a little logical syllogism based on Scriptures:

- Christ is Truth

- Christ is always the same

- Ergo, the Truth is always the same

In other words, TRUTH DOES NOT CHANGE.

To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of the hackneyed and intellectually barren talking points put out by liberal Catholics espousing all this relativist drivel; it's insulting to the intellectual and spiritual patrimony of Athens, Jerusalem and Rome. Sadly, these people are better versed on the inane ramblings of MSNBC talking heads like Rachael Maddow and Michael Moore than on the timeless wisdom of Aquinas and von Bathasar. As we well know, the Catholic Church has a beautiful, ancient culture and boasts an array of rich traditions going back about two-thousand years. Many of these are on display most conspicuously during the liturgy, when properly celebrated. I'm fed up with seeing all of this beauty watered down and erased by the demands of liberal ideologues (and vulgarians, I might add) pushing a political agenda and harboring a chip on their shoulder. If anyone claiming to be Catholic doesn't hold fast to the totality of the Church's teachings, why not join the Episcopalians, you can get the incense, bells and vestments without having to be inconvenienced by a "restrictive" moral code. To hold on to the noble things of the past and to the teachings of Christ, as passed on to us through His Bride, the Church, both in and out of season, is not old-fashioned and mossy but rather admirable, even heroic. It's the stuff from which Saints are made. Why else do we admire and honor the martyrs of the Church? Martyrs gain instant access to heaven precisely because of their final decision to cling unreservedly to the Christ and His Church, even unto a bloody, painful death.

Beautiful

Copenhagen Bound

Several Republican congressmen are set to make an appearance at the Copenhagen climate summit in order to hinder Democratic-led machinations on any international climate legislation. Talk about entering the lion's den.
From Politico:

House Republicans are preparing for a trip to Copenhagen and looking to derail Democratic efforts to negotiate an international climate agreement.

About a half-dozen Republicans will make the trip to Denmark to oppose plans for cap-and-trade legislation, express their discontent with the scientific community that researches climate change and call for the United Nations to halt any negotiations until the academic scandal known as “Climategate” is resolved.

At least Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Republican Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, Darrell Issa of California and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee are making the trip.

House Republican leaders Tuesday laid out their plans for the U.N. climate conference, which will be to essentially buck all Democratic climate-change platforms.

Sympathy

From the Times Online

Nicolas Sarkozy stoked the debate over immigration today with a warning to Muslims to practise their religion discreetly or face rejection by moderate Islam in France.

The President voiced sympathy for Swiss voters who opted last week to ban minarets as he tried to reassert himself in a debate over national identity which he launched last month but that has since spiralled out of his control.

But in a column for Le Monde, Mr Sarkozy returned to his theme and said that the result of the Swiss referendum showed how important it was for France to define its identity.

"Instead of condemning the Swiss out of hand, we should try to understand what they meant to express and what so many people in Europe feel, including people in France," he wrote. "Nothing would be worse than denial."

Addressing himself to Muslims, he wrote that anything that could appear as a challenge to France's Christian heritage and republican values would "doom to failure" a moderate Islam in France.

Sometimes, the French President misfires, as when he talks about climate change and corporatism, but when he's right, as when he points out Obama's rank inexperience and naiveté or raises the question of national identity and culture, he's right on the money.

The Last Ten Years

COP15: Hip but meaningless

So the last ten years were the hottest on record (so we're told be the experts who know far more than we can ever hope). That decade just happens to coincide with the two terms of the Bush presidency. Somehow, I don't find this conclusion coincidental. What a joke. Much like a swinging nightclub in Manhattan's upper east side, the sleek climate conference in Copenhagen is swanky to be sure, and it has just about as much substance.

"Creating Jobs" Myth

Thomas Sowell, once again, gets it right about "creating jobs". From National Review Online:

President Obama keeps talking about the jobs his administration is “creating,” but there are more people unemployed now than before he took office. How can there be more unemployment after so many jobs have been “created”?

Let’s go back to square one. What does it take to create a job? It takes wealth to pay someone who is hired, not to mention additional wealth to buy the material that person will use.

But government creates no wealth. Ignoring that plain and simple fact enables politicians to claim to be able to do all sorts of miraculous things that they cannot do in fact. Without creating wealth, how can they create jobs? By taking wealth from others, whether by taxation, selling bonds, or imposing mandates.

War and Peace (and 26%)

More Americans are supportive of our mission in Afghanistan, but a very small number think the President deserves the Nobel Peace Price (anyone surprised?). Good news for the troops, bad news for the President.

From Politico:

Good news/bad news Q Poll on war and peace for Barack Obama.

Approval for the Afghanistan escalation is up by nine points in the past month -- voters now think the war is a good idea by a 57-to-35 percent margin.

A healthy 60 percent favor his new troop surge, according to the Quinnipiac survey, which has a two percent margin of error.

But only 26 percent think the president, who has been in office for less than a year, deserves to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Q: "The jump in public support for Obama’s war policy comes as voters say 66 – 26 percent he does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he will be awarded this week, and 41 percent say the Nobel committee’s choice of Obama for the award causes them to think less of it, while 6 percent say it makes them think better of the prize and 49 percent say it makes no difference."

SEALs Arraigned in Court for "Abuse"

From the Associated Press:

Two Navy SEALs accused in the mistreatment of an Iraqi suspect in the 2004 slayings of four U.S. contractors were arraigned in military court Monday, and one SEAL said he was gratified by support from the public and some members of Congress.

The judge scheduled courts-martial next month for Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill. A third SEAL will be arraigned later.

The SEALs have received an outpouring of public support on the Internet, and a California congressman has led a campaign urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to intervene. About three dozen protesters, including the mother of one of the slain contractors, stood outside the Norfolk Naval Station gate Monday morning holding signs of support. ...

The charges stem from an alleged assault after the SEALs captured Ahmed Hashim Abed in early September. Abed is believed to be connected to the killings of four Blackwater security guards who were protecting a convoy when they were attacked by Iraqi insurgents. Their burned corpses were dragged through the city, and two of them were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Surreal