The Daily Gouge, Thursday, November 1st, 2012

On October 31, 2012, in Uncategorized, by magoo1310

It’s Thursday, November 1st, 2012….and in keeping with the season, here’s Hank Murphy’s nominee for Parent of the Year:

Political correctness, as well as good taste, dictate he should have dressed the kid up as a can of Coke!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of Balls Cotton, a stingy rebuke we cannot imagine a parent sending any previous President….including the hopelessly hapless James Earl Carter:

MSDNC would note neither the content of the letter nor its tone; rather they would focus on the author putting two “r’s” in “Barack”.

In a related item, courtesy of the AEI, Gary Schmitt, writing for The Weekly Standard wonders….

Was Obama in charge—or not?

 

Much has been made of President Obama’s considerable use of the pronoun “I” on the night he announced to the nation the killing of Osama bin Laden. As Mark Bowden notes in his recently published account of the killing and the decision-making that led up to the operation, The Finish, the president was not shy about putting himself front and center when it came to the decision to proceed with the operation: “I directed Leon Panetta … I was briefed … I met repeatedly with my national security team … I determined … and authorized … Today at my direction.”

While a bit over the top when it comes to the “me” factor, nevertheless, the president is indeed commander in chief and, under the Constitution, with its unitary executive, he is, as the text of that document asserts, the sole holder of “the executive power.” Unlike many of the state constitutions of the time, the national executive authority was not divided among various state office holders nor as under the Articles of Confederation—the country’s first federal constitution—was it in the hands of the national assembly. So, whether critics of the president liked his rhetoric or not, whether they felt it was unseemly or not, it wasn’t out of bounds from a constitutional perspective.

Now, the founders thought the “unitary executive” was necessary because it provided two distinct but complementary institutional qualities: decisiveness and responsibility. In times of emergency, one man could act more quickly than many and one man, whose decision it was to act, could be judged for that decision more clearly by Congress and the nation than a muddle of decision makers. One only has to remember the now iconic picture relayed around the nation and the world the next day of the president, surrounded by aides, the vice president and the secretary of state, intently watching the feed from an overhead drone in the White House situation room as the operation against bin Laden’s compound went down to understand the role the president plays in such matters.

Of course, that was then. 

There are no pictures of the president watching a live feed from the drone that was above Benghazi the night Ambassador Stevens was killed. There are no pictures of the president monitoring the hours-long assault on the American diplomatic compounds there or the resulting firefight between the Islamists militia and U.S. security guards, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, both of whom were killed early in the morning of September 12.

What we do have are reports that U.S. commandos, gunships, and other specialized forces were moved into position to come to the Americans’ assistance. Now, putting aside the fact that such deployments do not normally occur without the highest level of consultation within an administration, what we don’t know is who made the ultimate decision not to deploy those forces into Benghazi. Did the president? If he did, what reasons can he give to justify the decision to keep from sending those forces in? It might even have been the right decision but we will not know that until we have a clearer picture of when he was informed, what he was told, how he stayed informed, and when and why he gave the order to stand down.

But the very fact that the White House and the administration have been reluctant to provide this information (and, indeed, seem to be passing the buck on who did what and when) raises another possibility: that the president was not carrying out his responsibilities as commander in chief. Yet whether distracted by the upcoming election, calls to the Israeli prime minister, or prepping for a fundraiser the next day in Las Vegas, presidents don’t get to delegate that power, even to a secretary of defense. So, the night of September 11 comes down to this: was the president in charge—or not? The Constitution makes it clear, he must be.

And in fact was, no matter who and how many he tosses under his ever-expanding bus….

….in attempting to evade responsibility.

Oh….and has the rest of the MSM mentioned what FOX is claiming as an exclusive?

Classified cable warned consulate couldn’t withstand ‘coordinated attack’

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/31/exclusive-us-memo-warned-libya-consulate-couldnt-withstand-coordinated-attack/

We thought not!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch with The Gang That’s Finally Starting To Shoot In The Right Direction, Dan Henninger reveals….

Romney’s Secret Voting Bloc

Mitt Romney’s margin of victory in Ohio could be evangelical Christians.

 

You’ve heard about Mitt Romney’s problems with the women’s vote, the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the union vote and the young Democrats vote. But there’s one major voting group that’s fallen off the map since the primaries. The evangelical vote.

When Mitt Romney’s 2012 candidacy was gaining traction in the primaries, the conventional wisdom instantly conveyed that the evangelical vote, skeptical of Mormonism, would sink him. What if in Ohio next week the opposite is true? There and in other swing states—Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida—the evangelical vote is flying beneath the media’s radar. It’s a lot of voters not to notice. In the 2008 presidential vote, they were 30% of the vote in Ohio, 31% in Iowa and 26% in Wisconsin.

Back in April, the policy director of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, predicted that evangelicals in time would coalesce behind Mitt Romney. Yesterday he endorsed Mr. Romney, the first time he has done so for any presidential candidate.

Ralph Reed, the president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, has been spending a lot of time in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the belief that evangelical support for Mr. Romney could be decisive. He notes that when George W. Bush won Ohio in 2004, the Kerry camp thought their dominance of Democratic Cuyahoga County around Cleveland had the state locked up. But Mr. Bush’s solid support in evangelical-dominated counties from Cincinnati to the West Virginia border carried Ohio by two percentage points.

Before the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, Mr. Romney was eight points behind the president in Ohio. In the past week, the Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News Organization poll had Mr. Romney even with Mr. Obama, and a few days ago the Rasmussen poll put him up by two points.

Mr. Reed notes that in several opinion polls—NBC, Pew and ABC—the percentage of evangelicals claiming to support Mr. Romney has been in the mid-70s. “We estimate that in 2008 there were 350,000 evangelicals who didn’t vote in Ohio,” Mr. Reed says. “Obama carried the state by 260,000.” If that support of 70% or more holds for Mr. Romney in Ohio, and if the share of the evangelical vote increases by a point or two, then the challenger could carry the Buckeye State.

Also worth noting is that one of the biggest events of the 2008 election—the Saddleback Church interviews that evangelical Christian leader Rick Warren did with Barack Obama and John McCain—didn’t happen this year despite an offer from Mr. Warren. (Likely because (a) Rick Warren is no longer a “leader” of anything but Saddleback Church, (b) he sacrificed what influence he once had by cozying up to Obama in 2008, and (c) after his position on gay marriage “evolved” and attempting to ram birth control and abortion down Catholics’ throats, Obama knew he couldn’t fool even those evangelicals gullible enough to vote for him the first time.) Mr. Obama’s effort in 2012 to reach out to these folks has been minimal. Mr. Romney met three weeks ago with the Rev. Billy Graham, who is actively supporting the governor. In May, Mr. Romney gave a well-received commencement speech on religious values at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.

Perhaps Mr. Obama concluded that the evangelical vote was his 47%. It’s generally thought that the president burned any remaining bridge to them with the gay-marriage decision that Joe Biden made for him. But it’s more complicated than one issue.

Four years ago, evangelicals mainly supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. When John McCain became the nominee, he and the evangelical community never connected, and many evangelicals stayed home. This time they are in motion.

The president of Ohio Christian University, Mark A. Smith, says, “The intensity of voters in the faith community is as high as I’ve seen it in the last 12 years.” The driver of that intensity is religious liberty. “We took a direct hit with the Affordable Care Act,” he says. Evangelicals watched the Obama administration’s big public fight with Catholic hospitals and charities. What they concluded is that the health-care law was a direct threat to their own private outreach programs.

Mr. Smith says that if evangelicals in Ohio’s rural communities repeat their turnout levels from 2000 and 2004, they will offset the Obama advantage in Cuyahoga County. “Six different faith groups are out there” for Romney in Ohio, he says. “That didn’t happen the last time.”

Mr. Smith and others I spoke to this week cited one more reason for their enthusiasm: Paul Ryan. Steve Scheffler, a longtime GOP activist in Iowa, says it was “the best possible choice” Mr. Romney could make for the ticket. “It galvanized evangelicals.”

Of course all this is also the reason Barack Obama can drill millions of campaign dollars out of Hollywood and Manhattan. This paranoid political money is missing a deeper issue in the 2012 campaign. In his campaign and his presidency, Barack Obama has been explicit about a historic enlargement of the nation’s public economy. For anyone whose life consists of making a living in private work and donating off-hours to private charity and private worship, there is a sense of being squeezed by this president. And among these are evangelical Christians.

Yeah….like us; and our bottom line on The Great Misleader?

But close enough for government work.

And since we’re on the subject, courtesy of the New York Times via Conn Carroll’s Morning Examiner, James Pethokoukis details another area in which Big Government is working far too hard:

Once-Rare Response Is Now Routine and Overused

 

Your company’s server’s down?  Call FEMA!

A superstorm requires supersmart government. But making wise decisions from a distance is hard. Economists call this the problem of local knowledge. The information needed for making rational plans is distributed among many actors, and it is extremely difficult for a far-off, centralized authority to access it. The devil really is in the details. (This is why the price system, which aggregates all that dispersed insight, is more economically efficient than a command-and-control system.)

So emergency and disaster response should be, as much as possible, pushed down to the state and local level. (Just like Romney said.) A national effort should be reserved for truly catastrophic events. Indeed this preference for “local first, national second” can be found in the legislation authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But just the opposite has been happening in recent decades. There were, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis, 28 FEMA declarations a year during the Reagan administration, 44 during Bush I, 90 during Clinton, 130 during Bush II, and 153 so far during Obama’s term. The result is federal emergency response effort stretched thin in its capabilities to deal with major disasters.

And those local actors shouldn’t just be local government officials. The private sector has a role to play, as well. Wal-Mart’s invaluable relief work after Hurricane Katrina is the forgotten bright spot of that disaster.

In his 2008 paper, “Wal-Mart to the Rescue: Private Enterprise’s Response to Hurricane Katrina,” Professor Steven Horwitz of St. Lawrence University points out that “Wal-Mart and other ‘big box’ retailers such as Home Depot … responded with speed and effectiveness, often times despite attempts by government relief workers to stymie it, and in the process saved numerous lives and prevented more looting and chaos than actually took place.” As the Jefferson Parish sheriff, Harry Lee, said on “Meet the Press” back then, “If American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn’t be in this crisis.”

In addition to local knowledge, Professor Horwitz points to several other Wal-Mart advantages. It had a market-based incentive to help its customers and communities get quickly get back on their feet. And years of competing with other retailers made its decision-making process nimble and decentralized, just what you want in natural disaster where the situation is constantly evolving.

The government should give these private companies protection from civil liability and incorporate them into planning so their efforts aren’t turned away (as in Katrina) by uninformed officials.

To modify an ancient Chinese saying, “The flood waters are high, and Washington is far away.” Localizing disaster aid, both public and private, will result in more lives saved, less property lost and fewer taxpayer dollars spent.

In a related item, the WSJ reports on what may well be the next….

Taxpayer Deluge

National flood insurance may be the next bailout.

 

Apres Hurricane Sandy’s floods comes . . . more trouble for the National Flood Insurance Program. The government-backed operation needed a taxpayer bailout after Hurricane Katrina hit the Big Easy in 2005 and will likely need more help after this week’s devastation in New Jersey and elsewhere. What will it take to convince the feds that they can’t run a sound insurance business—a tsunami?

For those who don’t know, the 1960s-era program offers subsidized flood insurance at below-market rates to homeowners and businesses in flood-prone areas, and pays private insurers to administer the policies. As the Government Accountability Office put it oh so delicately last year, the program has a history of “significant management challenges,” including lax internal controls and outdated maps.

The program has crowded out private competition for decades, which leaves taxpayers on the hook when disaster strikes. (Why we’re subsidizing Snooki’s Jersey Shore beach house is beyond us.) As Roger Pielke Jr. notes nearby, it also creates the moral hazard of inducing homeowners to live too close to the ocean, increasing any economic damage.

It’s too early to know the losses from Sandy, but consider the numbers: As of the end of August, the flood program covered 236,068 policies in New Jersey with $54.5 billion in exposure. Any losses will come on top of the $18 billion the program already owes Treasury, mostly to pay claims from Katrina. If the program exceeds its $20.8 billion federally-mandated borrowing cap, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the program, has to petition Congress for more money—which now seems likely.

What awkward timing. Republicans this year agreed to renew the program through September 30, 2017, in exchange for minimal reforms such as raising premiums and allowing the purchase of private re-insurance. That’s all to the good, but as Hurricane Sandy shows, it’s not enough to shelter taxpayers from unpredictable big winds and heavy rains. Only private insurers, and private risk, can do that.

The place this particular Pandora’s Box should have remained.  When will America, or more specifically, America’s political class realize, with very few exceptions, government is never the cheapest or most efficient provider of anything?!?

Which brings us to today’s Money Quote, courtesy again of the WSJ:

….The larger liberal fallacy here is that effective government requires bigger government. Americans expect a government, at whatever level, to do its core functions well. But the bigger and more costly the government, the more likely it is to do more things poorly.

The rush to use Hurricane Sandy to justify a bigger federal government makes us wonder if there’s an excuse liberals won’t use to grow Leviathan? The reality of the federal fisc is that whoever wins next Tuesday is going to have to choose between functions best done by the federal government and those that can be done better by others. A government that can’t distinguish between a big storm and Big Bird is simply too big.

Next up, in our “Talk About Going Out With A Bang!” segment, as this forward from Bill Meisen demonstrates, Kim Jong-un is nothing if not original:

North Korean army minister ‘executed with mortar round’

A North Korean army minister was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il’s death.

 

Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of his father in December. On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave “no trace of him behind, down to his hair,” according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and “obliterated.”

The execution of Kim Chol is just one example of a purge of members of the North Korean military or party who threatened the fledgling regime of Kim Jong-un. So far this year, 14 senior officials have fallen victim to the purges, according to intelligence data provided to Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the South Korean Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee.

Those that have fallen from favour include Ri Yong-ho, the head of the army and Ri Kwang-gon, the governor of the North Korean central bank.

No word on their particular….

….pattern of penance to the Party.

And in the Environmental Moment, another glowing solar success story as related by David Harsanyi in Human Events, courtesy of Jeff Foutch and the American taxpayer:

Is this what Obama’s green-energy future looks like?

 

It was one of Barack Obama’s favorite green-energy companies. And green-energy companies, according to the president, are one of the best ways to facilitate economic growth. Well, yesterday, The Denver Post detailed the criminal investigation of Abound Solar, a defunct solar-panel manufacturer in Colorado that was run on taxpayer “investments,” for securities fraud, consumer fraud and financial misrepresentation.

Abound shuttered its Colorado plant during the summer and filed for bankruptcy, leaving “125 workers without jobs and taxpayers holding the bag for up to $60 million in defaulted loans.” (Human Events senior reporter Audrey Hudson has already detailed the efforts by the House to investigate the company.)  Here’s what Weld County prosecutors are  looking into:

The securities-fraud investigation stems from allegations that “officials at Abound Solar knew products the company was selling were defective, and then asked investors to invest in the company without telling them about the defective products,” the DA’s office said in a news release.

Similarly, the consumer-fraud allegation is that Abound knowingly sold defective panels to customers.

The third subject of investigation is that Abound allegedly misled financial institutions when the company was seeking loans.

Since Obama’s “jobs plan” brochure pins the nation’s economic future on the growth of “green-energy jobs” — in fact, it’s one of two areas in the glossy pamphlet that has anything to do with job growth –  it seems fair to judge the campaign’s case for the future using one of the companies it touted in the past. Abound was rolled out continually by the administration, the subject of numerous mainstream news stories regarding the stimulus in particular and clean energy generally.

Here is Obama touting Abound Solar personally in a weekly address in 2009. The president claims the project will create 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs.

The company first began fleecing the American people with the help of the president in 2009, when then-CEO Pascal Noronha claimed that even without stimulus help his company was on track to create 420 new jobs by the end of the year.

Norohna was at the White House with Obama to welcome his first round of American “investment” as part of the $787 billion stimulus package. “We are honored that the White House invited us to participate in this event. The president’s commitment to help us a build a clean energy economy further validates the work our employees do every day to harness the power of the sun, and provide its energy in abundance in the form of low-cost solar panels.”

Abound Solar was also awarded a $400 million loan guarantee in 2010.

During my 8 years in Colorado, I can’t tell you how many times I was informed by highly enlightened and intelligent people that photovoltaic solar panels were the future of energy and an explosion of jobs were right around the corner. Half of the four solar manufacturers that received loan guarantees have failed. The Obama administration’s response? Slap tariffs on Chinese companies to make solar panels more expensive for everyone. Maybe — and this is just a theorywhen you flush companies with millions in taxpayer cash for purely ideological reasons you incentivize irresponsible behavior.

Can you think of a better 30-second spot to run between now and next Tuesday?!?

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, a story of political-correctness run so wild we don’t know whether to laugh or cry:

Ohio college group leads campaign against ‘racially insensitive’ Halloween costumes

 

Anyone with plans to dress up as a gangster or belly dancer this Halloween may want to reconsider. A group at Ohio University is leading a campaign to bring attention to what it calls “racially insensitive” costumes that perpetuate ethnic and racial stereotypes.

“We’re a culture, not a costume,” the group, Students Teaching About Racism in Society, or STARS, says in its annual Halloween poster campaign, now in its second year. On its website, STARS shows students holding photos of costumes deemed offensive by the group. In one instance, a Muslim student stands next to a picture of a white man wearing a ghutra and iqal over his head with bombs strapped to his chest.

“This is not who I am and this is not okay,” reads the message above the picture. Other images show an Asian student holding a photo of a geisha and an African-American man positioned next to an image of a gangster. The caption reads: “You wear the costume for one night, I wear the stigma for life.”

A representative from the group was not immediately available for comment Wednesday. In a statement on its website, the group said “The purpose of S.T.A.R.S. is to facilitate discussion about diversity and all isms (sexism, classism, heterosexism, ethnocentrism etc.) with an emphasis on racial issues. “We aim to raise awareness about social justice, and promote racial harmony. Our job is to create a safe, non-threatening environment to allow participants to feel comfortable to express their feelings,” the group said.

Okay, to be honest, we laughed until we cried!  Our favorites included:

In all honesty, does Mohammad look anything like the suicide bomber?  Which is the costume: the belly dancer or the chick in the hijab?  And since when are all white guys kith and kin to the banjo player….

….in Deliverance?

As we’ve observed so many times before, America’s colleges and universities are uniquely qualified in one area: the employment and production of educated idiots.  This simply proves Ohio University is no exception.

Magoo



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