 Morning Briefing For May 23, 2013
1. It's the 'Wacko Birds' vs. the Wackos Again If I were granted one wish about the state of today's politics it would be for the Democrats to be saddled with their own version of John McCain. Once again, McCain is working to score points for Democrats and undermine Cruz/Paul and Lee – the "Wacko Birds" – in their attempt to prevent a free debt ceiling increase. Back in January, Republicans and conservatives got together at Williamsburg and agreed to "suspend" the debt ceiling law until May 18 in return for the Senate passing a budget. I never liked the idea because, among other reasons, a Senate-passed budget is not such a good thing. Yes, they are not so excited about publicizing their blueprint for more debt, and yes, the fact that they didn't pass a budget for over 3 years was a good talking point. But do we really want them to have a vehicle for fast-tracking tax increases, debt ceiling increases, and other nefarious policies through reconciliation? That concern is shared by Senators Cruz, Lee, and Paul. They are also concerned that if the Senate goes to conference with the House on the FY 2014 budget, they will slip in a debt ceiling increase. Once that becomes part of the conference report, it would be privileged and inoculated from the filibuster or the amendment process. To that end, they have decided to block Harry Reid's unanimous consent request to go to conference over the budget until they agree not to slip in a debt ceiling increase. Needless to say, the Democrats have not made that commitment. I wonder why. In comes John McCain, Obama's newest ally, along with Susan Collins to chide the actions of the conservative senators as bizarre and unprecedented. He's right. It is unprecedented for new members of the Senate to take a leadership role in defending the country from the bipartisan statism that he has propagated so fervently over the past two decades. . . . please click here for the rest of the post → 2. A Timeline of Islamic Expansion In The Dark Ages Let me put down here some facts that are worth returning to from time to time, as arguments over the history of Islam and Islamism are back in the news with today's beheading in London. In debates over the history of tension between Muslims and Christians, the Crusades are often cited, out of their historical context, as the original cause of such clashes, as if both sides were peaceably minding their own business before imperialist Westerners decided to go launch a religious war in Muslim lands. This is not what actually happened, and indeed it is ahistorical to treat the fragmented feudal states of the West in the Eleventh Century as capable of any such thing as imperialism or colonialism (although, as Victor Davis Hanson has noted, even in the centuries after the fall of Rome, Western civilization retained a superior logistical ability to project force overseas due to the scientific, economic and military legacies of ancient Greece and Rome). Moreover, when Islam first arose, much of what we think of today as Islamic 'territory' in Anatolia, the Levant and North Africa was Christian until conquered by the heirs of Muhammad, such that speaking of one side's incursions into the other's territory requires you to ignore how that territory was seized in the first place. That entire region had been part of the Roman and later Byzantine empires, and was culturally part of the West until it was conquered by Muslim arms – Rome is closer geographically to Tripoli than to London, Madrid is closer to Casablanca than to Berlin, Athens is closer to Damascus than to Paris. All that said, it's worth remembering that the Crusades arose in the late Eleventh Century only after four centuries of relentless Islamic efforts to conquer Europe, and the Christians of the Crusading era cannot be evaluated without that crucial context. . . . please click here for the rest of the post → 3. "Immigration Reform" and Political Parlance The best way to win a political argument is by manipulating the rhetoric used to describe the two sides in a debate. The Democrats and the Chuck Schumer Republicans have done a marvelous job hijacking the term "reform" and deriding those who oppose their bill to grant mass amnesty, double record immigration levels, and hamper future enforcement, as anti "immigration reform." They have repeated the term "immigration reform" so incessantly that they are starting to sound like the sheep in Animal Farm. That's why I prefer to call the bill immigration deform instead of amnesty. It is a lot worse than amnesty; it is the antithesis of everything that is reform-minded. . . . please click here for the rest of the post → 4. Democrats, Corruption … and Pie Under normal circumstances, we might not notice when a small-state Democratic elected official resigns from office in disgrace. But in Martha Shoffner's case, we'll make an exception. Not out of schadenfreude, mind you, but an inquisitive exploration of the mind of the corruptocrat, and their deep-seated yearning for pie. They're not satisfied with a mere slice. They want the whole enchi…. well, you know. . . . please click here for the rest of the post → 5. Why Jindal is Right To Reject Medicaid Expansion Right now, the Louisiana Legislature is considering legislation to force Governor Jindal to accept the Medicaid expansion portion of Obamacare, and some Republican legislators are supporting it. While I may not agree with our governor 100 percent of the time, Gov. Jindal is 100 percent right in rejecting the expansion. Over time, the Medicaid expansion will impose a greater financial burden on Louisiana's state government, leading to further budget shortfalls and jeopardizing funding to our educational system and vital infrastructure projects that create jobs. Additionally, those Louisiana citizens who are currently receiving services under Medicaid will find their services diminished. . . . please click here for the rest of the post → 6. Google Needs Extra Time to Spy on Your Kids It seems that Google is constantly falling afoul of conservatives, consumers, pundits, regulators and really everyone else on earth (except for the Obama campaign) for its privacy-infringing tendencies. It got hammered for "alleged" spying in the Safarigate scandal, where it wound up agreeing to a record-breaking $22.5 million fine in connection with charges it surreptitiously tracked Apple Safari users who Google had said could opt out of tracking, and did what Google said was necessary to opt out. This spying of course enabled Google to grab data it shouldn't have had, to improve its highly profitable targeted ad business, and do it in a way that amounted to a violation of its contract with users. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
Sincerely yours, | |||||||
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
Morning Briefing: WackoBird Awesome
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