The number of retrospectives of the events of September 11, 2001 are too many to count.  The repercussions of the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, D.C., and in the air space over Pennsylvania effected every American in one way or another, and there are just as many stories to go along with those people.

For us today, I think a more relevant discussion is where we were on September 10, 2001, and where we are in the present, September 11, 2011.  What have we done right?  What have we done wrong?  What does the future hold?

Like Time Magazine says, the discussion must go beyond 9/11.

On the foreign policy front, everything changed on that day.  Before the attacks, do people remember what was discussed about foreign policy for much of George W. Bush’s first year as President?  Not much.  We had the takedown of a military intelligence jet in China.  We had issues with North Korea and Iraq, which always seemed to crop up.  But no major issues loomed.

Of course, the repercussions of that day extend to every corner of the globe.

Most prominent of course is the wars started in the Middle East.

Afghanistan was by every definition a war of necessity.  A decade of nation building there, with our limited successes and failures, by no means changes that.  Afghanistan ultimately is a country that we cannot rescue.  Going forward, it is a geographic region that must be over seen, but not controlled.  Pulling out of Afghanistan for the most part makes sense.

Iraq will always be the historical question that plagues the Bush legacy.  Was it a war of necessity?  How badly were we misinformed about weapons of mass destruction?  Years later, and after liberals accusations for years, no evidence has ever come forward that the intelligence failures were intentional, and I don’t think most Americans believe it to be.

The larger question for Iraq was whether the costs were worth the result.  First and foremost, never let anyone tell you that the removal of Saddam Hussein was not a good thing, for the Middle East as well as the larger world community.  United Nations and American reports show that we can document hundreds of thousands of civilians massacred in Iraq and placed in mass graves.  Saddam was on of the great murderers of the twentieth century.  He should no be missed by anyone.

Whether the cost in blood and treasure was worth his removal, I don’t think anyone will be able to say.  There is much too much political influence into that debate to really ever get a fair analysis of the costs and benefits of the decision.  I think the public believes that the war was not worth the costs.  That, in and of itself, is an important lesson for future politicians.  It is ironic that President Obama largely makes the same argument for the legitimacy of his actions in Libya as the Bush Administration uses for Iraq:  that the removal of a hated tyrannical leader was worth the costs and repercussions.

Long term who knows.  In Iraq, we are only beginning to see the long term repercussions, as a fledgling democracy emerges.  In Libya,a very different war initiated for very different reasons.  we have no idea the manner in which the new leaders of that country will take their country.  Many of their military leaders are linked to terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda…which does not bore well for the future.  We have seen the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, which few can doubt were also repercussions of 9/11, in one manner or another.  However, the eventual composition of governments in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and maybe Syria are unknown, and could vary from completely democratic and cooperative to islamic fundamentalist.  Time will tell.

On the home front, we created the Department of  Homeland Security.  Whether this was a correct decision in and of itself can be debated.  It is now the largest department other than the Department of Defense, with a myriad of bureaucracy that only Washington, D.C. could create.  We passed the Patriot Act, which did a lot of good and has been essential to our safety over the past 10 years.  At the same time, questions about personal freedoms are valid, and go on.

However, despite the larger historical arguments, whether about foreign wars or changes in our homeland security, one thing is clear:  we are safer.  We are not completely safe; and it is a fool’s errand to ever believe we will be fully safe.  We were not completely safe on September 10, 2001 any more than we are today.  That was a national delusion that was shattered 10 years ago.

We are not a perfect country, and have never been a perfect country.  Perfection is for philosophers alone.  We have had leaders lead us through the issues that have arisen ever since the first plane flew into the North tower of the World Trade Center.   They have done their best, and only politics obscures this fact.  I thank God that George W. Bush was President that day; many liberals disagree.  But that is a political argument, not a practical one.  He led us spiritually, emotionally, and ultimately militarily, and few could have done better.  I am thankful Rudy Giuliani was Mayor of New York, and led that city through the most challenging days of its existence.  I thank Michael Bloomberg, who has navigated the waters for the last 10 years, allowing the World Trade Center and its Memorial to come about.  And I give thanks to our current President Barack Obama, who despite irrational rhetoric from the left, has largely followed the tenets that his predecessor set, and ultimately made the decisions that led to the assassination and ultimate justice for the man responsible for this crime against humanity.

So on this day, 3,652 days after the towers collapsed, and the fires were burning in the Pentagon, and smoke rose in the fields of Pennsylvania, let the nation remember.  Let us remember that we live in a world of evil, and threats will always exist, and we must always be ready.  We must never forget.  Whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, political or not, we must remember the reality of the world we live in.  Never again should we be so naive as to believe that we are exempt from the hatred that exists.

And so for this day, it is a time to remember.  It is also a time to look forward.  Lower Manhattan slowly rebuilds.  There are now more people living in close vicinity to the WTC site than lived there on 9/11…a remarkable fact.  We are a resilient country.  We now face many challenges, but none as stark as those of that day 10 years ago.  We are close to an economic recession, with millions of Americans out of work.  We suffer from huge debt that will effect our children.  An our power both militarily and politically wanes overseas.  But that by no means diminishes who we are, and what we can do.  9/11 was a tragedy, with 2,983 souls dying that day.  But from that tragedy, we will become a better, more honest, more secure country.  I honestly believe that, and so should you.

God Bless the United States of America.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara. 

Jonathan Alter has a well publicized piece on Bloomberg asking people opposing Barack Obama why he has been a bad president.

I know, I had to chuckle too.

Varied commentators have taken their stabs at answering the question.  Classic non-conservativeDavid Frum even took a swing at it.  Mickey Kaus at The Daily Caller probably had the best answer.

But I thought I would take a swing at it too…especially in direct response to Alter’s claims regarding the economy.

Obama’s failure economically can be divided into two distinct parts:  the stimulus, and everything after the stimulus.

1.  The Stimulus Was A Failure

Only an extreme liberal could claim that the stimulus was a glowing success.

Alter points out that as of February 2009, the country was losing around 700,000 jobs a month (Alter says it is 750k, that is incorrect; it is actually closer to 650k).  However, the fact that we were losing a lot of jobs is absolutely true.  But what is not necessarily true, and is up for serious debate, is whether the Obama stimulus stopped that hemorrhaging.  Liberals point out that the loss of jobs steadily decreased after passage of the bill.  But remember a key point:  not much money was spent during the summer of 2009.  In fact, the vast majority of spending was in 2010…after the recession technically ended.

One could argue that simply the emotional effect of the stimulus helped stop job losses.  I cannot disprove that, I guess.  But it could not have been directly related to spending, because of the simple fact that spending had not occurred.

Additionally, the money which had actually been spent may or may not have stopped those job losses.  Alter, and liberals, would like us simply to assume that is the case, that there is a linear relationship between the two.  However, if that was the case…why didn’t we see improving jobs numbers as we spent even more money in 2010?  Their explanation is simply flawed.  Is there argument that the small money that was spent in 2009 provided some stimulative effect, but much larger spending in 2010 had virtually no effect at all?

Alter also brings up, and to his credit partially debunks, a claim by the left that the stimulus was too small.  Paul Krugman leads the choir on this claim.  Alter points out, correctly, that nothing larger would have passed.  But this is actually irrelevant to the discussion.  Even a $1 trillion stimulus would not have succeeded.  Simply put, the throughput of money through the federal government is much too slow and inefficient to stimulate the economy in such a way.  For example, Obama himself now admits that his much ballyhooed ‘shovel ready projects’ was a joke.

Let us give Obama a little leeway.  At best, the Obama stimulus did push money into a flailing economy.  However, to state that it saved the economy and the nation is a leap of faith that only those that blindly believe in Obama would accept, without more evidence to support their claim.  The stimulus probably did do some good, as it blindly injected about $100 Billion into the economy during 2009.  However, that certainly did not produce any significant job production, which was the real goal of the stimulus.  That goal was stated by Obama himself.  So it was a failure, even by the bar set by the President himself; and that doesn’t even bring up the issue of the 8% unemployment rate promised by members of his administration.  Additionally, the stimulus was not, in fact,stimulative. Yes, money was spent, and that had some positive effects, but the ultimate goal of any economic stimulus is to have a multiplier effect, in which the spending can be recouped from future growth.  By any measure, that did not occur.

So only by the most ridiculous of liberal mantras was the Obama stimulus anything but a failure.

2.  Everything after the stimulus

As if the failure of the stimulus was not bad enough, President Obama doubled down on big government. First and foremost was the debate on Obamacare, which lasted for a year and a half.  The best liberal spin would argue that they passed a bill that provided virtual universal health care and lowered cost.  Any rational evaluation of the bill would argue that they covered most people in America, without truly reforming the system and without bending the cost curve significantly.

Economically speaking, the damaging part was the confusion and uncertainty the bill presented to private businesses.  To this day, neither government officials nor anyone else can clearly explain to you the long term effects this bill has on job production.  Some independent analyses describe a negative effect on job production.  However, one thing is for sure:  the passage of Obamacare increased costs and regulations for anyone hiring people going forward.  A brilliantly stupid thing to do during a recession, no?

Obamacare is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the regulatory mess this administration has wrought upon the nation.  Whether it be the EPA, the NLRB, etc., the Obama Administration has made it more difficult and costly to hire and keep people employed in the private sector.  Furthermore, the few industries that have steadily increased employment during this recession, led by energy and fossil fuel development, have been attacked on a virtually daily basis as being evil and illegitimate way to create jobs.

Democrats frankly have been completely missing in action regarding jobs since the passage of thestimulus in February of 2009.  Can anyone name a single jobs policy that they have passed since that time?  Obama will magically present a jobs bill sometime in early September, which will get no where because it will simply increase spending without really producing any jobs.  For most of that time, Democrats focused on Obamacare, which if anything destroyed new job production.

Jonathan Alter can argue that Obama came into a terrible economic environment, and confronted huge  headwinds.  I will stipulate to that.  But the job of the President is to focus on the major problems of the country, and attempt to improve them.  Not only did Obama not help alleviate those problems…he actually aggravated the situation.  Not only did he not provide solutions, he was missing in action for much of his first term on the preeminent issue of the day, namely unemployment and economic growth.  Simply put, in every manner of evaluation, Obama has failed this country.

So yes, Mr. Alter, I think Mr. Obama has been a bad President, and I think I and others can more than prove that to be the case.

This has been cross posted on Neoavatara.

The Tea Party largely drove the wave election of 2010.  And there were three topics, above all else, that were a focus of their candidates:  The repeal of Obamacare, the economy and unemployment, and restraining the Federal Government.

Let us admit, in the beginning, that we have made no progress on Obamacare, and the economy is a mess we cannot hope to clean up until we send Barack Obama into retirement.

But the one hope we as a movement had was to restrain federal spending.  By taking the majority in the House of Representatives, we controlled the power of the purse.

Initially, Republicans thought they could get a grand deal, which would encompass extension of the Bush tax cuts, the 2011 budget (which Democrats failed to pass), and the raising of the debt ceiling.  Guess what?  It was Democrats, led by Barack Obama, that didn’t want such a wholesale solution.  Instead, the President made it the piecemeal approach, which is exactly why we are in the position we have been in for the past several weeks.

So, what did we actually get, and lose, in the deal?  Well, you want to look at Speaker Boehner’s PowerPoint presentation, here it is.  But the key points…

• The framework creates a 12-member Joint Committee (Super Committee) that is required to provide legislation by November 23, 2011 to cut the deficit by $1.5 Trillion over the next decade.   This bill must be voted on by the end of the year, without any amendments added on.
• Across the board spending cuts apply to discretionary spending, Defense, and Medicare.  Social Security, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits and military pay are exempt.
• As for the risk of the super committee coming back with tax cuts…doesn’t sound that likely.  James Pethokoukis has a nice piece on why baseline budgeting is actually going to help us out on this one.  The key point?  The CBO, using its somewhat arcane accounting measures, assumes the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of 2012, because that is the law of the land at this moment.  Thus, it will already take into account $3.5 Trillion in supposed increased revenues.  To raise taxes over that amount, the committee would have to cut even more from the budget.  Democrats will never accept that level of cuts.  So tax increases are simply not going to be a part of the committee’s recommendations.
• As for those huge budget cuts into defense…they may not be as bad as initially reported.  According to early reports, the total $800 Billion in cuts will include cuts from defense, foreign aid, homeland security, and other agencies involved with ‘defense-like activities’.   Real cuts to the Defense Department are more likely in the range of $400 Billion over the next decade…a large amount, to be sure, but the amount that Republicans had largely accepted as a reality long ago.
• The House and the Senate must take a vote of the Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution no later than October 1, 2011.

Would I call this a victory?  I guess, in the slimmest definition of the word.  Republicans, controlling just over half of one branch of the legislature, were able to turn Barack Obama’s neverending spending spree, and bend the curve.  Slightly, admittedly, but still, as for rate of increase, there is no doubt Republicans were successful.

Were we successful in achieving any longterm success?  Doubtful, and I would say nonexistent.  Long term expenditures are wholly dependent on our entitlement programs and the Defense Department.  Defense was certainly cut, as it always is; however, if the above analysis is correct, and total ‘defense’ cuts include other agencies, the effects could be minimal.  But entitlement cuts are tokens so far, and nothing more.  Medicare spending is restricted, which is an achievement, but Medicaid and Social Security are not touched, and Obamacare was not mentioned as far as I can tell.  Nothing less than the Ryan plan would have put us on the course for long term fiscal stability, and that was not achieved.

As a political statement, I would not call this a victory in the least.  Republicans looked flummoxed, rudderless, and almost in a state of internal civil war during this process.  That is to be expected, without a Republican President to lead us, and a Speaker of the House that, despite his best efforts, is not uniformly trusted by his caucus.  The process was worse than watching sausage being made, to paraphrase Otto Von Bismarck.  And Republicans did not come out of the process looking like leaders.

We should go forward, telling our constituents that we did make progress, but we did not have victory.  Victory will come when we make the changes necessary to set our fiscal course to a glide path to deficit neutrality.  And that victory, it seems, will not come until we hold the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  And even then, with Senate rules, it will be difficult (unless we take a page from our progressive friends, and use reconciliation; wouldn’t that be ironic?).

Of course, Democrats, especially the progressive wing in the House, could still scuttle this bill.  Economically that would be damaging; politically, Pelosi might as well hang the Democrat Donkey by a noose if she can’t rally her caucus.  But assuming that Obama forces their hand, and that things go as we expect, this deal is a win for us.  An imperfect deal, that achieved far less than we hoped…but still a win.  This is only the smallest of victories in a tiny battle in the long term war against federal spending and the debt.  Nothing more.  And we should portray it as such.

This has been cross posted on Neoavatara.

Have we ever seen a moment like Monday night, when we had an American President more detached from reality?

Mr. Obama gave a political stump speech, which in and of itself was unsurprising.  In fact, he has said little different since April.  His speeches all amount to this:  Republicans are on the political fringe and intransigent, Democrats are reasonable and intelligent, and he alone wants a balanced approach, i.e. tax increases.

But the amazing part of the speech was that Mr. Obama now seems distanced from the political realities that even his own party has accepted.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently laid out a debt ceiling proposal with approximately $2.5 Trillion in cuts (only about $1 Trillion being real cuts), but more importantly, without any tax increases. Reid and Pelosi appear to have largely agreed on this proposal.  Yet, we had a Democrat President on primetime continue to demand for increases in tax revenues.

Even the mainstream media, usually oblivious to such stark issues, has noticed this one.  Gloria Borgerof CNN pointedly noted this fact after Obama’s speech.

Maybe this is the tipping point.  In the White House Press briefing on Tuesday, Spokesperson Jay Carney was innundated with questions of why the President has yet to offer any specifics for his budget proposal, especially at such a late date.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cqmMhzybek&feature=player_embedded

The media pummeled Carney for a solid 10 minutes on the simple fact that Obama has not laid out one single policy rider to this bill.  Not even one.  They then asked why the White House would not release the plan that was being discussed with Boehner which the President’s men state that was close to a deal.  The simple fact is that there was never a deal that Obama was close to accepting.

Forget the politics for a moment.  Mr. Obama doesn’t understand that he has marginalized himself.  Republicans had allowed Obama, over the past few weeks, taken the high ground.  But he never claimed the alter of leadership, for a simple reason:  he doesn’t know how to lead. Obama could have taken the mantel, and Republicans (with their usual ham handed way of dealing with these issues) would have probably lost the media battle.

Instead, Obama has acted like a petulant child, unable or unwilling to rise about the political rancor.  Additionally, unlike his immediate predecessors, Bush and Clinton, he is unable to tell progressives in his own base to sit down and shut up, for the greater good.  In all fairness, Republicans are not willing to compromise.  But Obama is the leader of his party in a way that no Congressional Republican, Speaker Boehner included, is.  But Obama has never showed the spinal fortitude to stand up to his own base, and doesn’t appear to be considering it this time around either.

The way forward is quite clear.  Something along the lines of the Boehner proposal is the only thing that will pass the Democrat Senate.  The public actually supports the ‘Cut, Cap, and Balance’ proposal by wide margins, but the intransigence of progressives in the Senate (and the White House, for that matter) make that impossible to pass into legislation.  I don’t like the concept of coming back to these spending fights 6 months down the road, but Mr. Obama has left little alternative.

The Boehner plan is, to put it mildly, less than optimal.  But ultimately, what can pass?  Even Paul Ryan, who I think has a lot of credibility here, has come out in favor of the plan:

The Budget Control Act takes an important step in the right direction by cutting $1.2 trillion in government spending over the next decade. Critically, it does this without resorting to Senator Reid’s gimmicks and without imposing the president’s preferred tax increases on American families and the struggling economy.

This bill is far from perfect. We still have a long way to go toward getting the key drivers of our debt — especially federal health-care spending — under control. But considering that House Republicans control only one-half of one-third of the federal government, I support this reasonable, responsible effort to cut government spending, avoid a default, and help create a better environment for job creation.

Obama is divorced from reality.  He doesn’t understand that approximately 2/3 of the country thinks we spend too much.  Yes, many people feel we could raise taxes on the rich, but it is far from a supermajority, and it is not going to happen with Congressional Republicans in power in the House.  Obama can either come to his senses, or he can drive this economy over the cliff.  I would not put the latter past him at this point.

That is why Ryan’s point, bolded above, is the key.  We need to win in 2012.  This President and this Senate will never, ever, pass the reforms necessary to put us on a track to fiscal sanity.  No deal that this President would have ever signed would have accomplished our goals.

It is better to frame the topic as we have, and to ‘kick the can’.  It is time to focus on 2012, because anything short of a Republican President and Republican Senate will not enable us to save this nation from a fiscal black hole.  Holding the line on CCB, as much as it makes me feel better, does not help accomplish the goal of retaking the White House, and thus, does not help to attain our ultimate goal of fiscal sanity.  So it is time to cut a deal, a bad one at that, and show this President and these Democrats for what they are:  completely and utterly detached from reality.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara.

Finally, the truth emerges.  After months of the media telling us that Obama, not Republicans, is the realist and pragmatist, yesterday we saw in the full light of day what Obama is:  a political hack and idealogue.

Mr. Obama, through his Press Secretary Jay Carney, yesterday clearly stated that the President would veto the “Cut, Cap, and Balance’ bill that Republicans in the House will pass this week.  The bill, which proposes $2.7 Trillion in cuts over the next decade with no revenue increases, has only one item missing for Mr. Obama to veto it.  Simply put, for Obama it is a motto of “Taxes or Bust”.

If we use the media’s own spin over the past few months, that should get Mr. Obama criticized for being an ideologue, or as some liberals have put it, an economic hostage taker or terrorist.  That is what they called Republicans as they pushed their ideas on the country.  The double standard, although expected, is mind blowing.  We should never expect fair treatment in the media, and this is just one more example.

As the debt ceiling debate rolls on, to whatever fruitless end Mr. Obama and the Republican establishment are set upon taking us, I have to wonder…what is our goal here?

Conservatives, it is time to call Obama’s bluff.  Boehner has been ill-suited to make the grand bargain, largely because he has no room to maneuver.  However, Eric Cantor and others could convince the base that a deal is worth making.  What kind of deal am I talking about?

Well, I am talking about a huge deal.  Give the Democrats some tax increases.  Hell, give them the Bush tax cuts if they want.  I simply don’t believe that even that would sell the plan to them.

Well, now we shall see.  There appears to be an outline of this plan forming, in all places, in the Senate’s Gang of Six minus one.  The plan would cut $3.7 Trillion from the debt over 10 years.  Tom Coburn, who is the member of the Gang who jumped ship, appears to like the concept:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who had pulled out of the Gang of Six in May, also rejoined the group and praised the plan as something that could win the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate.

“The plan has moved significantly, and it’s where we need to be — and it’s a start,” Coburn said. “This doesn’t solve our problems, but it creates the way forward where we can solve our problems.”

Coburn said the plan would reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over the next 10 years and increase tax revenues by $1 trillion by closing a variety of special tax breaks and havens.

He also noted, however, that the Congressional Budget Office would score the plan as a $1.5 trillion tax cut because it would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. It would generate a significant amount of revenue out of tax reform and reduction of tax rates, which authors believe would spur economic growth.

Coburn said he expected a “significant portion of the Senate” to support the plan — “maybe 60 members.”

Now, call me skeptical.   A $1 trillion increase in taxes…that is going to be scored as a tax cut?   The elimination of the AMT, an albatross on the necks of tens of millions of middle class Americans, would be an excellent device to get some tax relief, and I am fully in support of eliminating it.  However, we have heard this before; remember the budget deal earlier this year?  I want to see major details before I jump on board.  Coburn’s voice is a positive note however.

If this is real, and Coburn is accurately describing the plan, it would shift the debate.  Ever since Obama theoretically accepted the concept of a ‘grand bargain’, Republicans have been playing on the defensive.  Mitch McConnell’s plan was nothing more than a plan to save face, with some political games included.

But something on the lines of the above plan would force Mr. Obama to put his cards on the table.  Like in past debates, Obama doesn’t really want to take a stand on anything.  He talks about reforms in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, but demands tax cuts in return.  Fine.  Let ustheoretically give him the tax cuts, but only for what we want in return.

On entitlements, the plan would fully pay for the Medicare “doc fix” over 10 years, allowing doctors to avoid a drastic cut in Medicare payments under the law, which is regularly avoided but never paid for.  The plan also contains strong enforcement procedures. One of these would require a 67-vote supermajority in the Senate to circumvent spending caps.

Supposedly, Social Security reform is also on the table, but any savings from the program would not be used for deficit reduction.

Now, Mr. Obama, where are your cuts?  Where is your plan?  If this deal is true to its word, $2.7 Trillion in cuts need to be on the table.  We shall see if this President is ready to make true changes to entitlements.  He will have to support some real reforms and real cuts to programs that, so far, he has refused to touch other than with rhetoric alone.

If not, I dare him to veto whatever the Congress sends up to him.  Don’t call our bluff, Barack.

This has been cross posted on Neoavatara.

I wrote a post last year about the end of the Space Shuttle program, titled ‘Space Shutttle:  End of an Era‘, that can be read here.  It has, over time, been one of the most popular postings on my blog.  I think there is a simple reason why.  For my generation (I was born in the early 70s), we missed out on Mercury and Apollo.  We didn’t see Neil Armstrong land on the moon.  Our vision of space travel began with the Space Shuttle.

Additionally, we did not see the great disasters of American History…Pearl Harbor, and that assasinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  What we did see was the Challenger explode on a January morning in 1986, and more recently the Columbia disintegrating on re-entry.  Those images are seared into many of our memories.

July 8, 2011 is the scheduled launch of the 135th and last space shuttle mission.  This is, for all practical purposes, the end for the last great American space program.

Where does NASA go from here?  Financial realities mean that it will be a downsized program, and likely will have less manned flights.  From now until the eventual successor of the Shuttle, Americans will be dependent on the Russian space program to keep the International Space Station alive.  In fact, other than the minimal current activity by the Chinese, the Russian will basically own human space travel for the next decade.

American space travel and exploration will continue.  But something truly palpable ends today.  America led the way into space, and the Shuttle program’s termination brings a large part of that to an end.  This will be a program more concerned about costs than discovery, less concerned about going to Mars than to send satellites to investigate global warming.  That is simply the world we live in.

So goodbye, Space Shuttle…you will not be forgotten, but you will be missed.

This has been cross posted on Neoavatara.

There has been a very slow, but steadily increasing, argument on the left that conservatives should pay heed to.  Liberals are suggesting that the President should invoke the 14th Amendment to ignore the debt ceiling, and spend the way the White House wills.

The argument has become more prevalent as we get closer to the August 2nd ‘doomsday’.  It was most pointedly noted by Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in an interview several weeks ago.  In actuality, it was proposed even earlier, by Bruce Bartlett in late April 2011.

More recently, ultraliberal Katrina vanden Heuvel made a similar argument that goes something like this:  Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which says that “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.”  The left’s convoluted understanding of the amendment then argues that Congress cannot default on any debt, because of this passage, and thus the President has constitutional grounds to ignore the debt ceiling all together.

First and foremost, it is quite laughable to have liberals point to the strict reading of any amendment of the Constitution (can you say ’2nd Amendment’?).  But that belies the point that the 14th Amendment actually was much more specific in its scope than these liberals would have you believe.

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which you will note the liberal authors conveniently dismiss, states the following in toto:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

That appears to be a much more specific and targeted amendment.  A more in depth reading of the discussion over the passage of the 14th Amendment points to a simple fact:  the amendment was never to convey the power to the President to simply ignore Congressional spending powers.  It was, in actuality, an amendment written to prevent political blackmail by using the debt to damage political enemies (in this case, those made during the Civil War).

Furthermore, no one in this current political climate is questioning the validity of the debt.  They are question how to pay it.  And in fact, even if the debt default day were to pass, the debt would not be defaulted on.  What would be at risk is payments for government programs.  This would initially include discretionary spending, and ultimately spread to nondiscretionary items such as Defense, Social Security and Medicare.  But at no point in time is anyone dismissing the validity of the debt we have accrued.

Ms. vanden Heuvel does make one point which should scare Republicans…that Obama would be on strong legal footing, at least initially.  There are numerous Supreme Court rulings, including Freytag v. Commissioner (1911), where the Court has held that the president has “the power to veto encroaching laws. . . or to disregard them when they are unconstitutional.  It is doubtful that such a broad interpretation would stand up in this current Supreme Court.  However, in the interim, who would stop Obama?

The answer is simple, but not politically pleasing:  Impeachment.  Moe Lane at RedState was the first that I saw to float the idea, but I think the prospect was looked over too quickly.

The Oath of Office, taken at the time of the inauguration, is clear:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

A pure reading of the Constitution leaves all decisions of the purse to Congress.  This is the most everlasting of Congressional powers.  For the President to ignore this most sacred power of the legislature is to spit on the essence of what the Constitution stands for:  a document that ensures no tyranny, by the power of checks and balances.

If this simply a bargaining too which is supposed to threaten conservatives, threat of impeachment should get liberals attention.  And Obama’s.  If they believe we conservatives are truly the ‘wack jobs’ that the press makes us out to be, then impeachment is definitely in the cards.

Politically, I am not a huge fan of impeachment.  It did the Republican Party no favors when we impeached Clinton.  But sometimes, the Constitution demands it.  I hope it never gets to that point, because politically it would damage Republicans for generations to impeach the first African American President.   But sometimes, one cannot avoid the inevitable.  We should raise the specter of impeachment now, and prevent the crisis all together.  I don’t want to impeach Mr. Obama, but ignoring the Constitution cannot be ignored.

This has been cross posted on Neoavatara.

A Food and Drug Administration panel today voted 6-0 to halt the use of cancer drug Avastin for the treatment of breast cancer, saying studies have failed to show Avastin is effective for that purpose.  The recommendation came after two days of testimony from patients, doctors, and advocacy groups.

The panel faced several tearful accounts of women, young and old, who believed Avastin saved their lives.

Dozens of protesters, many wearing pink T-shirts and carrying signs that included “Save Avastin” and “I question the FDA’s right to take life from a woman,” demonstrated outside the agency’s Silver Spring headquarters as the hearing began Tuesday, accusing budget-conscious government bureaucrats of rationing care by getting between patients and life-saving drugs. The committee then heard several hours of often-emotional pleas from patients and family members who believed the drug was keeping them or their loved ones alive, as well as from advocates for patients suffering from other cancers worried about the impact on their treatment. The benefits of the drug have been shown to outweigh the risk for other cancers.

Crystal Hanna, a mother of two who will celebrate her 36th birthday Friday. “I’m a testament that the drug does work…I’m not just a statistic,” she said. “Keep breast cancer on the label so that I and others like me can celebrate more birthdays.”

By pulling FDA approval, it gives insurance companies the ability to reject the use of the drug for breast cancers.  Avastin costs up to $100,000 a year.

This is an interesting test case for Obamacare.  Ultimately, Democrats have argued that a regulatory body, such as the FDA, should regulate what is paid for, and what isn’t, by health insurers.  Previously, many liberals had attacked insurance companies for denying care in these situation.  Now, however, it is the U.S. government, and not ‘evil’ insurers left to blame.

Scientifically, the FDA panel is on solid ground.  No studies have shown a significant benefit from Avastin in breast cancer patients.  Politically, however, is another story all together.  Will Democrats now fight to defend the FDA ruling, in the face of young mothers and grandmothers pleading for the drug?  If they cannot do it for Avastin, which is very expensive and of questionable benefit, then it is unlikely that they will ever be able to do it.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara.

Richard Stengel is lauded by the political left as a smart and knowlegeable reporter, and is well thought of as Editor of Time Magazine.

After this week’s edition, one has to wonder why.

Time’s headline story is titled, “Does It Still Matter?’.  It refers to the U.S. Constitution.  And in large part, Stengel’s answer is “No”.  In fact, he basically argues that it never mattered.

Stengel points to the irrelevancy of the Constitution is pointing to war powers.  He goes on:

Stengel’s most relevant passage states the following:

“We can pat ourselves on the back about the past 223 years, but we cannot led the Constitution become an obstacle to the U.S.’s moving into the future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, an evolving sense of civil and political rights…

…The Constitution does not protect our spirit of liberty; our spirit of liberty protects the Constitution.  The Constitution serves the nation; the nation does not serve the Constitution.”

These passages, more than any other, show Stengel’s bias, and in the end, his ultimate stupidity.  The Constitution does protect our spirit of liberty, in so far that without such a document, what would we define as liberty?  Would we, for example, simply inherently understand that free speech is a right, without such a declaration as the first amendment?  The Constitution serves our nation, to be sure; but a nation which does not serve the Constitution is abiding by what law, exactly?

The previous passage is even more telling.  ’Sensible health care’?  Who is to define ‘sensible’?  The liberal left?  Maybe sensible is a health care system that provides more freedom, not less, that ties does not tie down the individual to decisions made by an undemocratic body that they had no voice in choosing.

Stengel’s argument is ultimately this:  the Constitution should not be a barrier to [our] liberal agenda.  That is what he means. He is not making a historical analysis, nor a legal one.  He is making a political argument.  Stengel’s bias shows at every turn.

A perfect example is when he discusses the President’s power to wage war.  He largely ridicules the constitution’s passage on the power to declare war.  And here, he may have a point; in this day and age, spending months debating a declaration of war makes little sense.  But where he falls off the tracks is when he discusses the War Powers Act, and Obama’s ridiculing Congress’s demand for Presidential action,  inspite of his earlier support of the War Powers Act.

But herein lies Stengel’s mistake:  his problem is not with the Constitution, but with the War Powers Act itself.  The Act has long been held as unconstitutional by many conservative jurists.  Stengel confuses a largely idiotic Congressional action that tried to limit President Nixon’s actions in Vietnam, after being mislead year after year by the military.  But the act itself contradicts what the Constitution says about the power of the President to wage military action.  Congress always had, and always will, have the ultimate roadblock if they wish to use it:  defunding the military action itself.

So in this example, Stengel’s problem is not with the Constitution…but with a Congressional act that is and likely always has been unconstitutional.

His lack of understanding then moves on to the debate over the debt, where he questions why Republicans are making such an issue.  Basically, his argument is this:  the debt, no matter what the size, is constitutional.

Well, he is right.  If we had morons in Congress (and you could argue that is exactly what we had from 2006-2010), you could run up any debt and it would be constitutional.

But then he goes on to make an argument you are hearing over and over again from the left.   Stengel argues that the President, using Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, could simply ignore Congress, because of the following passage:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Stengel, and delusional leftist, miss a simple point:  Congress, by not passing an increase in the debt limit, is not questioning the validity of the public debt.  What they are doing, however, is saying that all other expenditures will need to be withheld until such time the debt is paid.  So, you want to fund the military, Medicare, etc.?  Too bad, because the 14th Amendment makes clear that the debt is pre-eminent.  The President can’t ignore the debt…and as such, he will have to pay the debt first, before moving on to other government expenditures.

Maybe the  to prove Stengel is a hypocrite is a conversation he had with Howard Kurtz regarding the Wikileaks controversy, and why he, as an American, could print those leaks:

KURTZ: But Rick, you say right here in your editor’s note in “TIME” magazine that these documents released by WikiLeaks “harm national security,” and that Assange meant to do so.

STENGEL: Right. I know. But there’s no way around that.

I mean, I believe that’s Assange’s intention. I believe on balance that they have been detrimental to the U.S. But our job is not to protect the U.S. in that sense. I mean, the First Amendment protects us in terms of releasing this information which does enlighten people about the way the U.S. conducts foreign policy.

Mr. Stengel, if the words in the Constitution don’t matter…why do you think that document protects you in any sort of way?  Or does it matter only in you line of work, which provides your life subsistence, and not in any other American’s life?

What may be most profound is not what Stengel says, but by what he omits. Stengel asks, “If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it certainly doesn’t say so?”  It in fact does exactly that.  There is not one mention, even in passing, of the 1oth Amendment, which reads:  ”The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  Kind of important to discuss to his thesis, no?  Yet Stengel simply ignores it all together.  Telling, in my humble opinion.

Is our constitution an imperfect document?  Of course.  It was written by fallible and flawed, albeit brilliant, men.  But Stengel largely discounts the importance of the Constitution.  The Constitution is the document on which all of our liberties are based.  That does not mean it should not be changed, or altered…there are mechanisms for that.  If one believes that Obama’s individual mandate should be codified in the Constitution, be my guest:  get an amendment passed.

But Stengel’s real argument, the one that underlies the tone of  his entire piece, is this:  The Constitution is too hard for us to change, so let us ignore it.  That, my friends, is how tyranny begins.  Basic liberties should not be easy to ignore, or dismiss, whether we like them or not.  Those liberties, codified in our Constitution, protect us from people like Mr. Stengel, who think they mean well as they slowly erode rights you and I believe are worth fighting for.

And that is why the Constitution matters.

This was cross posted on Neoavatara.

As the legal case for Obamacare makes its way up to the Supreme Court, both sides have been ferreting out their legal defense of their positions.

Legal scholars have noted that the Obama Administration’s defense of their massive health care plan has changed over time. Originally the government was arguing that the law was regulating the mental activity of whether or not to purchase insurance. But now the argument is that it’s regulating the activity of obtaining health care.  The shifting defense should raise doubts about the Obama team’s confidence of winning in court.

The insecurity of the defenders is showing, to be sure.  Neal Kumar Katyal, President Obama’s solicitor general, defending the national health care law last week, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn’t like the individual mandate could always avoid it… by choosing to earn less money.  He made the argument under questioning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati.

That does not strike me as the most steadfast legal defense imaginable.  Not to mention, the judges in the Sixth Circuit trial were less than amused.

During the Sixth Circuit arguments, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, asked Kaytal if he could name one Supreme Court case which considered the same question as the one posed by the mandate, in which Congress used the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution as a tool to compel action.

Kaytal conceded that the Supreme Court had “never been confronted directly” with the question, but cited the Heart of Atlanta Motel case as a relevant example. In that landmark 1964 civil rights case, the Court ruled that Congress could use its Commerce Clause power to bar discrimination by private businesses such as hotels and restaurants.

“They’re in the business,” Sutton pushed back. “They’re told if you’re going to be in the business, this is what you have to do. In response to that law, they could have said, ‘We now exit the business.’ Individuals don’t have that option.”

Throughout the oral arguments, Kaytal struggled to respond to the panel’s concerns about what the limits of Congressional power would be if the courts ruled that they have the ability under the Commerce Clause to force individuals to purchase something.

Today, the judges on the 11th Circuit in a parallel case were just as unconvinced.

Judges on a federal appeals court panel on Wednesday repeatedly raised questions about President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, expressing unease with the requirement that virtually all Americans carry health insurance or face penalties.

Chief Judge Joel Dubina, who was tapped by President George H.W. Bush, struck early by asking the government’s attorney “if we uphold the individual mandate in this case, are there any limits on Congressional power?” Circuit Judges Frank Hull and Stanley Marcus, who were both appointed by President Bill Clinton, echoed his concerns later in the hearing…

Hull also seemed skeptical at the government’s claim that the mandate was crucial to covering the 50 million or so uninsured Americans. She said the rolls of the uninsured could be pared significantly with other parts of the package, including expanded Medicare discounts for some seniors and a change that makes it easier for those with pre-existing medical conditions to get coverage. Dubina nodded as she spoke.

Hull and Dubina also asked the attorneys to chart a theoretical path of what could happen to the overhaul if the individual mandate were struck down but the rest of the package was upheld.

Even more interesting is the lengths that Justice Frank Hull, a Clinton appointee, pushed Katyal:

“I can’t find any case like this,” said Chief Judge Joel Dubina of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. “If we uphold this, are there any limits” on the power of the federal government? he asked.

Judge Stanley Marcus appeared to agree. “I can’t find any case” in the past where the courts upheld “telling a private person they are compelled to purchase a product in the open market…. Is there anything that suggests Congress can do this?”

Katyal argued that healthcare is unique and unlike purchasing other products, like vegetables in a grocery store. “You can walk out of this courtroom and be hit by a bus,” he said. And if such a person has no insurance, a hospital and the taxpayers will have to pay the costs of his emergency care, he said.

To many observers, it looks like Hull, who was supposed to be a liberal vote on this court, is looking for a way to strike down the mandate without killing the bill all together.

If both the 6th and 11th Circuits strike down the constitutionality of the individual mandate, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the Supreme Court, will be hard pressed not to do the same.  Although Kennedy is difficult to predict, the bipartisan nature of the lower courts could sway him.

Of course, ultimately this will go to the Supreme Court.  But the legal arguments to this point should make any supporter of the individual mandate very wary of its prospects.

This has been cross posted at Neoavatara.