Posted on June 19, 2013 by Paul Mirengoff in Immigration, Marco Rubio, Media

Another likely Rubio whopper

Marco Rubio made another one of his seemingly endless appearances on Sean Hannity’s program to advocate amnesty legislation. Rubio told Hannity that he has opposed amendments by Republican Senators to improve the legislation’s enforcement provisions because a new enforcement provision will be proposed tomorrow that is tougher and more effective than what has been proposed so far.

Rand Paul’s amendment, which Rubio voted against, would have given Congress, not the Department of Homeland Security, the ultimate authority to determine if the border is effectively secure. It would also have included enhanced security measures, such as requiring a double-layer fence to be completed within five years, as well as a number of other triggers that must be implemented before illegal immigrants could be awarded legal status.

Let’s see whether the amendment Rubio touted to Hannity is tougher and more effective than that.

John Thune’s proposed border fence amendment, which Rubio voted against, would have prevented the administration from granting any illegal immigrants legal status under the bill until at least 350 miles of double-tier fencing has been erected. And it would have withheld full citizenship rights until 700 total miles have been built.

Let’s see whether the amendment Rubio touted to Hannity is tougher and more effective than that.

By the way, Hannity also had Michelle Malkin on tonight, and the two discussed immigration reform, albeit as a secondary topic. As you would expect, Michelle was a forceful opponent of what Rubio is trying to sell.

Let’s hope that, going forward, Fox News provides something like equal time to such opponents. As for requiring Rubio to debate someone during one of his Fox News appearances, well that’s too much to hope for.

Posted on by John Hinderaker in Democrats, Liberals, The American Mind

Americans Don’t Like the Federal Government…

…so why do we keep giving it more money and power? Scott Rasmussen asked 1,000 Americans a simple question, but one that I don’t recall seeing polled before: do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the federal government? (The question included “somewhat” and “very” options.) The result was 35% favorable, and 60% unfavorable.

Therein lies one of the perennial mysteries of American politics. Most of us don’t think much of the federal government, yet, inexorably, we pay more and more of our money to it, and cede to it ever greater control over our lives. Why?

Part of the answer is that the government has established itself as an interest group in its own right, by far the largest and most powerful in the United States. The Democratic Party has become, essentially, the party of the public sector. And, while the private sector is larger than the public sector–for the time being, anyway–the public sector is, for obvious reasons, more consistently focused on government. Also, the government’s ability to dispense taxpayer largesse creates endless opportunities for cronyism, so that substantial blocks of the private sector can be co-opted.

No doubt other factors are involved as well. Whatever the reasons, at the moment it seems clear that government is firmly in the saddle.

Posted on by John Hinderaker in Democrats, Liberals, Obama Administration Scandals, Obamacare

How Obamacare Is Being Used to Create a Permanent Democratic Majority

To a remarkable degree, liberalism has been institutionalized as an official ideology, funded by your tax dollars. This editorial in Investors Business Daily explains, in shocking detail, how Obamacare is being used to fund Democratic Party operatives and drive Democratic Party enrollment:

The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange. That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. …

Shockingly, the $910 million is slated for bureaucracy, including rich compensation packages for exchange employees ($360,000 a year for the executive director) and contracts for computer equipment, public relations and “outreach.”

Outreach is the largest expenditure and where the real monkey business occurs.

“Outreach” is budgeted at an astonishing $190 million through 2014. So what is outreach?

California lawmakers passed a law (Senate Bill 35) requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange.
Last month, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1.

Of the 48 organizations that got grants, only a handful are health-care related. The California NAACP received $600,000 to do door-to-door canvassing and presentations at community organizations.

Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is “economic justice,” received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO got $1 million for door-to-door, one-on-one education and social networking. It describes its role as “engaging in both organizing and political campaigns, electing pro-union and pro-worker candidates.”

Community Health Councils, a California organization with a long history of political activism against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings and one-to-one sessions.
These organizations, closely allied with the Democratic Party, are being funded by your tax dollars to conduct “outreach,” meaning the kind of phone banking and door-to-door canvassing that activists do to turn out the vote. They will turn out the uninsured to enroll on the exchanges and in the Democratic Party.

But that’s not all. The actual process of enrolling people in the new exchange system has been outsourced to Democratic Party constituencies:

In addition to outreach, California’s actual enrollment process is also outsourced to employees of community organizations, unions and health clinics. These enrollment “assisters” will be paid $58 for each enrollee they sign up. An additional $49 million is budgeted to pay them the first year, but in future years, assisters will be paid out of the premiums collected by the exchange.

California’s Democrat-controlled legislature doesn’t want voters to know who, exactly, is receiving close to $200 million in “outreach” funding, so they passed a law that creates an exception to the state’s open records law:

Amazingly, California legislators passed a law that the exchange could keep secret for a year who received the contracts and indefinitely how much they were paid. California’s open-records laws would otherwise prohibit such secrecy.

So the outreach is funded by federal taxpayers, but California doesn’t have to tell you where the money went. The level of corruption we are seeing these days is breathtaking. The IBD editorial concludes:

What is known so far suggests that California politicians are exploiting health reform to enroll millions of the uninsured in the Democratic Party and fill the coffers of left-wing interest groups with taxpayer money. …

The template is repeated in every state. The Obama health law creates a permanent stream of funding for unions and community activists by outsourcing insurance enrollment to them.

Assisters will also guide the uninsured to sign up for whatever non-health social services they may be eligible for, including welfare, food stamps and housing assistance, according to the manual prepared by the Community Health Councils for California’s implementation.

Anyone who remembers the days of James Curley, Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall gets the picture. If you were poor or a newcomer to this country, you went to the local ward boss and got whatever you needed in exchange for your vote.

The difference is that back then, politics was local. Now the Obama health law is institutionalizing this corrupt style of politics across the country. Whether you live in California or New York, local community activists and unions will be recruiting people to enroll in ObamaCare and sign up to be part of the permanent, beholden Democratic voting majority.

The country is truly in dire straits. How could things possibly get worse? Well, we could import 40 to 60 million low-skilled, low wage immigrants over the next ten years–talk about a fertile field for “outreach!” Nah, we couldn’t possibly be that stupid.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Chris Christie, Churchill, Susan Rice

The Weekly Winston: Syria Policy Drift

I’ve been lax lately in my Churchill posts, but the appalling spectacle last week of the Obama Administration’s tentative and pusillanimous decision about Syria brings to mind one of Churchill’s most famous beatdowns of appeasement, his 1936 “Locust Years,” speech, which includes this peroration that applies perfectly to Obama’s Syria policy (just swap out “Secretary of State Kerry” for First Lord of the Admiralty, and “President Obama” for “Prime Minister,” and you have a perfect match).

The First Lord of the Admiralty in his speech the other night went even farther. He said, “We are always reviewing the position.” Everything, he assured us, “is entirely fluid.” I am sure that that is true. Anyone can see what the position is. The Government simply cannot make up their minds, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Footnote: Apparently John Kerry is one of the hawks inside Obama’s counsels.  Who knew that he was a neocon?  According to one story out today, he has in recent days argued for American air strikes on Syria, and faced resistance from the military.  Maybe he needs his magic hat back?

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Energy Policy

Energy Geek Week (2): Greens Need to Take Their Brown Lumps

I sometimes wonder what would happen to Hollywood if their political inclinations were actually put into practice.  Not many people would be able to drive to the theater to take in their latest films.  How would that work out for them?  This speculation was prompted by our pal Tom Pyle at the Institute for Energy Research, who writes this morning at RealClearEnergy about the colossally dishonest Gasland II, Josh Fox’s new film attacking natural gas production:

According to Fox’s narrative, shale gas drilling stands accused of methane contamination. But in April, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection concluded that naturally occurring shallow gas was responsible for contaminating well water of the three private homes in question. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for poor Josh.

In addition, another recent study from Duke University’s highly regarded Nicholas School of Environmental Studies concluded there was no groundwater contamination to be found from gas fracking in Arkansas.  I thought we were supposed to follow “science” on these matters? Meanwhile, in today’s Energy Geek Week installment, let’s have a little fun with the greenie enthusiasm for renewable energy, which, we’re endlessly told, is growing by leaps and bounds.  According to the latest data from the just released BP Statistical Review of World Energy, non-hydro renewables (the environmentally correct kind, since dams are yucky, which means solar, wind, and biomass chiefly) experienced 180 percent growth in total output from 2005 – 2012. (It helps to have all those subsidies.)  Coal output only grew 27 percent during this time.

But this is of course fun with numbers and bases.  If you ask the question: which source of energy saw the most absolute growth in energy output from 2005 – 2012, the answer is: coal.  The figure below shows the increase in absolute energy output (measured in the common unit of Million Tons of Oil Equivalent, or MTOE) of non-hydro renewables and coal, and you can see how coal trounced renewables by a factor of four.  (Oil and gas are growing, too; tomorrow I’ll look at those figures.)

Click to Embiggen

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in Afghanistan, Obama Foreign Policy

Negotiating the terms of America’s humiliation

The U.S. has commenced negotiations with the Taliban. The Afghan government is excluded from the talks, which I consider a disgrace.

The U.S. has proved to be a worse than feckless partner. Why any state or group would ever again cast its lot with America, where there are other options, is beyond me.

Quite apart from the exclusion of the Afghan government, the negotiations strike me as a classic case of “lose-lose” as far as the United States is concerned. The Taliban has no good reason to negotiate seriously with us. It knows that most of our troops will be going home soon and that, therefore, its prospects for winning a military victory are good.

Under these circumstances, the Taliban cannot be expected to make concessions. Thus, the likely outcome is “no deal.” This is a loss for the U.S. because we will have gone to the Taliban, hat-in-hand and over the objections of our partner in the fight, and received nothing in return.

But because our negotiating position is so weak, a deal would be even worse. God only knows what concessions we need to make to obtain a deal from such a position. And whatever those concessions are, a deal would describe the terms of our defeat for all the world to ridicule.

I’m not cynical enough to believe that this is what President Obama wants, but the thought has crossed my mind.

Having determined that the U.S. shall lose this war, Obama’s best option is to have America go home as quietly as possible.

Posted on by Paul Mirengoff in Iran

The Iranian election — the foreign policy establishment’s take

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs (Subcommittee on the Middle East and Northern Africa) held a hearing yesterday on the Iranian elections. Wanting to know more about the subject, and to see our friend Tom Cotton in action, I attended.

Tom delivered a strong opening statement in which he made it clear that in order to justify any change in U.S. policy toward Iran, the regime must do more than hold seriously flawed elections. The good news was that the Democrats on the Subcommittee took basically the same position, at least in their public remarks. No one on the subcommittee appeared to believe that the Iranian election should engender optimism.

However, the three witnesses before the Subcommittee found reason to view the election results as a sign that Iran may be about to change course. These witnesses, I take it, represent the view of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. The witnesses were Alireza Nader of the RAND Corporation, Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

I tend to agree with the pessimistic position expressed by Tom and other subcommittee members. But having previously presented (in “eight takeaways”) a case for strong skepticism about the elections I thought that, in the interest of balance, I would present the takeaways from the more optimistic view expressed at yesterday’s hearing.

1. Sanctions are working in the sense that they are having an enormous negative impact on the Iranian economy.

2. The mandate for the newly elected Rouhani is to turn the economy around. This is his mandate from both the people who voted for him and from the “Supreme Leader” who permitted his election. The latter fears instability if the economy isn’t fixed.

3. The economy cannot be fixed if current sanctions remain in place.

4. Rouhani’s mandate, therefore, is to cause a lifting of these sanctions.

5. Rouhani can only accomplish this if Iran steps back from its drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

6. The regime might well have permitted Rouhani’s election because it’s looking for him to obtain a deal with the West on its nuclear program as a way out of the box Iran is in. In this sense, the regime views Rouhani, with his experience as a nuclear negotiator, as “a fixer.”

7. The West should therefore embrace the opportunity presented by Rouhani’s election and seriously attempt to negotiate a deal.

8. The test will be whether Rouhani comes up with a serious negotiating position, as he did ten years ago. Applying this test, we should be able quickly to tell whether negotiations hold promise.

9. Fears expressed by subcommittee members from both political parties that Rouhani’s election will cause a weakening of the sanctions coalition’s resolve are unfounded.

10. Rouhani’s election won’t change Iran’s hard line toward Israel or its policy in Syria. These will continue to be dictated by the regime and, in any case, there’s little reason to think that Rouhani dissents.

This appears to be the conventional wisdom in Washington right now. Whether it constitutes actual wisdom is another matter.