Be The Tsunami: Today Is The Day

Bret Stephens: Not the Ones We've Been Waiting For

(via Ace)

Remember, vote only if you intend to vote Republican.

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Remember: 4 Days

(Slublog! via Ace)

Do something, Be the Wave!

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Remember: Be The Wave

(via Slublog @ Ace)

Join here.

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Memorial Day 2010

As a citizen of the freest, greatest country in history, I express my gratitude for those who throughout our history, have paid the last full measure so that we, collectively, could enjoy the fruits of liberty.

Thank you also to the many men and women--among them, some of my friends--who even now defend the freedoms I hold so dear. May we, collectively, never take our liberty, or those who defend it, for granted.

Congressman Sam Johnson, Air Force vet, on what you can do (broken link) to support the troops this Memorial Day.

Via Ace, a great video of our last WWI vet. Watch & learn.

Army vet & Yale alumnus Flagg K. Youngblood (my kind of name) has a great article up at the Young America's Foundation website (also broken link) about military service. From that piece, a few interesting stats:

At last count, the Department of Veterans Affairs found 41,891,368 Americans have served in uniform during times of war since 1775.

651,030 Americans have died in battle to protect liberty at home and abroad, and an additional 539,079 Americans have died in the line of military duty.

3,447 of the United States’ bravest have been awarded the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest tribute to military valor, since Congress authorized the decoration in 1861, per the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

At The Corner, Pete Hegseth quotes John Stuart Mill:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.

Remember Jason Dunham, American, Marine, Medal of Honor recipient.

There is something worse than war; there are things more important than life.

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The Expansion Of Executive Power

Aka, the ongoing Obama power grab:

(via Gabriel Malor @ Ace, natch)

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President Obama Owes Our Troops More Than What He Promised Last Night (UPDATED)

Ace runs through it all more extensively than I am either able or have time to do, but I do want to make a couple three points.

1. If he is worried about government spending, why is he focused on the relative pittance it would cost to fully fund the fight in Afghanistan and not the ridiculous cost of spending related to the Spendulus, Obamacare, & his bloated budget?

2. Why opt for an alternative that was not one of the 4 suggested by your commanders on the ground? Do you really know better than they?

3. A drop-dead date? Really? You think that will help either us or our allies? Enough with appeasing the leftists--they make up a small fraction of the 52% who voted for you in 2008. This is a stupid, stupid strategy.

I had a conversations a couple of weeks ago with several intelligence types and they all agreed that President Obama taking time tot sort this thing out was a good thing. None of them anticipated that the way in which he would "sort this thing out" would be an irresponsible plan that is more appeasing the extreme left of his party than legitimate solution to the Afghanistan question.

President Obama's inexperience is showing, once again.

Our troops deserve better.

You ought to read Byron York, too, who writes about Democrat party political lies calculations w/re: to Iraq & Afghanistan:

Democratic voters and candidates were playing a complex game. Nearly all of them hated the war in Iraq and wanted to pull Americans out of that country. But they were afraid to appear soft on national security, so they pronounced the smaller conflict in Afghanistan one they could support. Many of them didn’t, really, but for political expediency they supported candidates who said they did. Thus the party base signed on to a good war-bad war strategy.

[...]

Other top Democrats adopted the get-tough approach, at least when it came time to campaign. In September 2006, as she was leading the effort that would result in Democrats taking over the House and her becoming speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said George W. Bush “took his eye off the ball” in Afghanistan. “We had a presence over there the past few years, but not to the extent that we needed to get the job done,” Pelosi said. The phrase “took his eye off the ball” became a Democratic mantra about the supposed neglect of Afghanistan — a situation that would be remedied by electing ready-to-fight Democrats.

But now, with Democrats in charge of the entire U.S. government and George Bush nowhere to be found, Pelosi and others in her party are suddenly very, very worried about U.S. escalation in Afghanistan. “There is serious unrest in our caucus,” the speaker said recently. There is so much unrest that Democrats who show little concern about the tripling of already-large budget deficits say they’re worried about the rising cost of the war.

It is in that atmosphere that Obama makes his West Point speech. He had to make certain promises to get elected. Unlike some of his supporters, he has to remember those promises now that he is in office. So he is sending more troops. But he still can’t tell the truth about so many Democratic pledges to support the war in Afghanistan: They didn’t mean it.

I have friends who support our efforts in Afghanistan who thought they could vote Democrat and do no damage to our efforts there.

Guys, I hate to tell you, you were wrong.

UPDATE 4:09pm BST: Former Democrat candidate for President, John Kerry, is one such tool (h/t Scott L.):

President Obama unveils his new Afghanistan strategy today, and in the nick of time Senator John Kerry has arrived with a report claiming that none of this would be necessary if former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had only deployed more troops eight years ago. Yes, he really said more troops.

In a 43-page report issued yesterday by his Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Kerry says bin Laden and deputy Ayman Zawahiri were poised for capture at the Tora Bora cave complex in late 2001. But because of the "unwillingness" of Mr. Rumsfeld and his generals "to deploy the troops required to take advantage of solid intelligence and unique circumstances to kill or capture bin Laden," the al Qaeda leaders escaped.

This in turn "paved the way for exactly what we had hoped to avoid—a protracted insurgency that has cost more lives than anyone estimates would have been lost in a full-blown assault on Tora Bora."

The timing of the report's release suggests that Mr. Kerry intends this as political cover for Mr. Obama and Democrats, and some in the press corps have even taken it seriously. But coming from Mr. Kerry, of all people, this criticism is nothing short of astonishing.

In 2001, readers may recall, the Washington establishment that included Mr. Kerry was fretting about the danger in Afghanistan from committing too many troops. The New York Times made the "quagmire" point explicitly in a famous page-one analysis, and Seymour Hersh fed the cliche at The New Yorker.

On CNN with Larry King on Dec. 15, 2001, a viewer called in to say the U.S. should "smoke [bin Laden] out" of the Tora Bora caves. Mr. Kerry responded: "For the moment what we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will. I think we have been doing this pretty effectively and we should continue to do it that way." The Rumsfeld-General Tommy Franks troop strategy may have missed bin Laden, but it reflected domestic political doubts about an extended Afghan campaign.

Remarkably, Mr. Kerry is now repeating those same doubts about Mr. Obama's troop decision, saying that the "Afghans must do the heavy lifting" and that he supports additional troops only for "limited purposes" and wants the U.S. out within "four to five years." Adapting his legendary 2004 campaign locution, Mr. Kerry is now in favor of more troops after he was against them, but in any case not for very long.

Since Senator Lieberman left in 2006, there are few responsible adults left in the Democrat party.

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Leftists Say We're Crazy Lunatics For Thinking The Country Is Headed In A Socialist, Freedom Reducing Direction (UPDATED)

But then they write health care "reform" legislation that will throw people in jail for not purchasing insurance. Something that wasn't "illegal" behavior has suddenly become something punishable with prison time.

Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?

Pelosi: … The legislation is very fair in this respect.

Look, folks, there are different paths to collectivist, socialist, repressive, Orwellian states, just because the United States isn't on the exact same one as, say, the former Soviet Union, doesn't mean that what the current group of leftists (including our President) is doing isn't of a piece with what was done elsewhere to limit the freedom of individual Americans.

This is how it's done in Nanny States. 20 years ago, the social democracies of Western Europe (including the UK) didn't look like they do now. Now, per the Telegraph, new environmental regulation could result in carbon rationing cards for subjects of the crown (remember, they're not citizens).

An Environment Agency spokesman said only those with "extravagant lifestyles" would be affected by the carbon allowances.

He said: "A lot of people who cycle will get money back. It will probably only be bankers and those with extravagant lifestyles who would lose out."

However, some have criticised the move as "Orwellian" and say it will have a detrimental impact on business.

Ruth Lea, an economist from Arbuthnot Banking Group, told the Daily Mail: "This is all about control of the individual and you begin to wonder whether this is what the green agenda has always been about. It's Orwellian. This will be an enormous tax on business."

Under the Climate Change Act, Britain is obliged to cut its emissions by 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050. This means annual CO2 emissions per person will have to fall from about 9 tonnes to only 2 tonnes.

Do you have an "extravagant lifestyle" as defined by the Holy Church of the Environment & Mother Gaia?

Prepare to have your unrighteous behavior curbed.

My friends here in the UK don't even know to be upset about most of these things. Like a frog in a pot of water, with the temperature slowly increasing, they're lives are managed and regulated to the Nth degree and they don't even know it.

President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid 2009 alone have shown their government control-loving, liberty-reducing in just the last 10 months. Card check to take away the secret ballot and sneak unionize wherever they can. Cap & trade to regulate 1/6th of the economy. Health "reform" to control another 1/5th or so. Takeover of domestic automakers. Takeover and regulation of the financial sector. Am I missing anything? I feel like I'm missing something.

The shocking thing about this is that I had no idea how wide reaching their grasp for power was until I started typing it all into this blog post.

My liberal-leftist friends are always convinced of the power of ever-greater reform and policy tweaking and technology and other knowledge advancement to bring efficiency to the inherently inefficient government bureaucracy.

But here's the thing, you cannot efficient-ize the government enough to make up for the concurrent loss of liberty.

UPDATE 14 November 6:17p BST: Ryan Decker's comment from the Facebook thread:

You could have ended the sentence thus: "you cannot efficient-ize the government." Even if the liberty/efficiency tradeoff did exist the point would be moot because government is not capable of increasing efficiency. Policymakers simply face the wrong incentives, lack the competence, and cannot process the information required to increase the efficiency of anything.

So there's no trade-off in which government policy could somehow increase efficiency at the cost of liberty. If they're taking your liberty, they're doing it inefficiently.

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Obama's Nobel: I Saw This And Thought It Was A Joke (UPDATED)

But then I remembered that they also gave one to Jimmy Carter.

And Al Gore.

And Yasser Arafat.

And I said to myself, "yeah, makes sense."

Like Ace said, somewhere (h/t Matt L.):

High school kids want to be popular. Nations want to be prosperous, secure and in America's case, a force for good in the world.

And like Bob & Tom said on the radio this morning (also, h/t Matt L.):

isn't this a bit like awarding super bowl MVP right now?

&

The Europeans are so mad that they weren't the ones to elect Barack Obama.

Or, like My Old Man said:

Is today April 1? This shows what a joke this [the Nobel Peace Prize] is.

But wait, there's more: I just got an invite to join someone's Facebook group (yup, I'm popular too): Help Barack Obama win the Heisman Trophy!

Then, of course, there's this: Nobel Peace Prize For Awesomeness

This is so utterly ridiculous, I almost wonder if this is a send-up of Obama. But then I remember how seriously these Nobel folks take themselves and realized that no, it is not a joke.

This is so outrageous, I almost feel bad for President Obama--I mean, this makes two weeks in a row that the Europeans (who are more in love with him, even, than the leftists) have made a clown of our President.

For shame. Does the office of the President of the United States mean nothing to these people?

UPDATE 10 October 1:09am BDT: Jansen G. does me one better and writes something intelligent about Obama's Prize:

So, Obama got awarded a peace prize for yet another promise, this time for promising a nuclear free world. After having added this venerable achievement to his trophy case, I have to say, Obama has done quite well making promises. US Senator? Check. President of the United States? Check. Nobel Peace Prize? Check. Though, all this makes me wonder: are any of these promises contractually enforceable? Because I'm not seeing much, if any, performance.

As for the substance (if you can call it that) of this Nobel Peace Prize, Obama promised reconciliation in the M-E, climate change, and a world free of nuclear weapons. Has there been any performance of any of these promises? No! Obama's speech in Egypt has had little affect on the contentious realities in the M-E, largely b/c it failed to address the real source of conflict (US involvement in anything related to or impacting M-E oil flow).
Performance on climate change? The conference on climate change doesn't start until December and its a virtually guaranteed failure given the interests of BRIC et. al.

And while Obama may believe in the ideal of a nuclear free world, he knows just how dangerous in addition to impractical an ideal it is. No one in their right mind believes disarming nuclear arsenals will do anything but create even stronger incentives for horizontal proliferation, further destabilizing already pressing crises. And that's just the catch. Obama either (A) disingenuously attempts a halfhearted, impractical endeavor to dismantle nuclear arms resulting in planned failure that potentially destabilizes a system that's fenced-in the powerful incentives of the prisoner's proliferating dilemma, or (B) he abandons the thought of an attempt to rid the world of weapons and goes down as one of the world's most undeserved Nobel Peace Prize winners. The obvious and preferable option is B, to continue to indulge in the proven double standard of the "powers-that-be." But one has to think that eventually these myriad of catch-22's that Obama promises his way into will expose him for the 'serial breachor' of promises he is.

Obama is an archetype with which, thanks to teen movies, we are all familiar: the popular kool kid who only hangs out with the leftist dork when no one else is around. And then, because the dork has a crush on the kool kid, he/she endlessly makes excuses for Obama.

Obama's apologists will always have a reason for why he was/is unable to deliver on his sweet nothings.

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Obama & Acorn: A Winning Partnership

My liberal friends always used to defend President Obama's vast executive experience as a community organizer by saying that, well, "Jesus was a community organizer." Ok.

Whatever you think of that characterization, it's true, you know, that Jesus preached to the sinners--harlots and, presumably, pimps, among them.

If I recall correctly, however, he did not offer to help them with tax evasion, fraud, & underage sex trafficking.

Change you can believe in: A new brand of community organizin'.

via Ace, per usual.

[Yes, I understand that President Obama is not ACORN. They're just "giving input" and helping "shape" his agenda.]

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American Healthcare Has It's Problems, But It's Still The Best In The World

Seriously. There are some things that could done to resolve these problems (see here & here), but American healthcare is still the best in the world, warts and all. Free market reform of American healthcare would only widen the gap between us and everyone else.

From doubleplusundead via Russ from Winterset at Ace of Spades (standard language warnings about AofS apply), a cautionary & enlightening tale.

It seems that a Canadian couple gave birth to a premature baby this weekend in Hamilton, Ontario. Since Canada is just another Third World Hellhole where brain surgery is done with a 16" Poulan and a 6-pack of Moosehead, its not exactly a shock that NOT. ONE. SINGLE. Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU for short) bed could be found for the child. I know what you're thinking: Russ, they couldn't find one single NICU bed available in the City of Hamilton for this baby? NO. They couldn't find one single NICU bed available for this baby in the entire PROVINCE of Ontario. You know, a PROVINCE? Sort of like a STATE, only 196% more [dumb]?

Luckily, Canada just happens to be the mildly retarded cousin of the United States of America; and like most families, we look after each other - even if the slow relatives are complete window-lickers who eat their own boogers in public. The baby was brought to Buffalo, NY, where she is enjoying the fruits of America's evil profit-driven health care system. If this was the end of the story, I'd be willing to smile and wish the happy hosers well with the addition to their family; however, as Paul Harvey used to say, there is ..... the rest of the story.

This kind of stuff--Canadians coming to American for medical care, surgery, &c.--happens all the time.

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3 Conservative, Market-Based Steps To Reform Health Care

(from Gabriel Malor @ Ace)

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Harry Reid's Nuts 4

A report on the contraction, not the possessive.

Would the voters of Nevada get rid of this guy already? I'm just glad I don't share my alma mater with him. He's an SUU & Utah St. guy. So there's that.

His memoir was just released in paperback form (not that I was waiting for the Amazon price drop or anything) and Mark Hemingway has posted his review at NRO.

I've recently become fascinated with the "blurbs" publishers or authors or whoever choose to put on their books from amongst the many reviews of their books. One that struck me as funny and not at all flattering was on the cover of the Ken Follett novel I'm reading at the moment. The New York Daily News called it "quick-paced." Wow. When that is the type of praise your book is getting, you've got problems. Fortunately, Follett was able to redeem himself with other, better books. Somehow I don't think Reid will get another shot.

Anyway, here's Hemingway on the reception/review of Reids memoir:

Every other major media outlet has been standoffish. Take this blurb from the Washington Post, proudly emblazoned on the back of the paperback edition: “Recounts fights with everyone from classmates to the man who would eventually become his father-in-law, preparing him for a senatorial life of battling the Bush White House and Republican filibusters.” Beware the value-neutral blurb: In fact, the Post never reviewed the book — the quote comes from a gossip column published a month before the book’s release. One of the most powerful men in Washington published a book, and the entire journalistic establishment’s reaction seems to have been, “If you can’t say something nice . . . ”

So he's been a belligerent cuss from day one, eh? Does that really surprise anybody?

A couple of years ago, Reid gave a speech at BYU as a part of one of their forums. Ostensibly, it was to appease all the haters who thought BYU was being partisan by having Vice President Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney give a talk at commencement (President Bush couldn't make it).

VP Cheney didn't say a single thing that could have been construed as partisan. Whereas Senator Reid, given his turn, made a complete fool of himself by giving what amounted to one of his usual senatorial rants against President Bush, Evangelical Christians, etc. He was his usual, classy self.

The best example (or worst) of Reid's classiness from his memoir is pointed out, per usual, by DrewM @ Ace:

While no one expects Reid to praise George W. Bush, the degree to which he is judgmental and catty regarding the former president pretty much speaks for itself. Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a [witch].’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”

What’s the purpose of recording for posterity a bit of hearsay defaming a woman Reid admits he has no cause to dislike? Is Reid really so petty as to insult someone’s mother? Why yes, yes he is.

On the one hand, I'm extremely put off by Reid's antics. On the other, I'm incredibly amused by the damage he and his partner in crime, Nancy Pelosi, do to their party. It's a commentary on the party leadership as a whole that these two are the leaders of the Democrat party in Congress.

Bravo, Democrats, bravo.

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'1-2-3 Curahee!' PresidentGeneral Petraeus Causes The Comatose To Wake

And the lame to walk (with a big assist from modern medicine).

From This Ain't Hell via DrewM @ Ace.

Watch CBS Videos Online

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Semper Fi

Is it just me, or do the Marines seem to like one President more than the other?

See for yourself, at Blackfive, a military blog.

I'm told there are more Democrats in the military now than ever. But Blackfive doesn't think the party is relevant:

I don't think the fact that the party of the President really matters in discussions on whether the troops like him or not. That said. The current president has a lot of deeds to make happen in order to overcome his words:

[ed. note: click link and see video of Obama accusing US military of haphazardly bombing villages & killing civilians. Damned by his own words.]

I mean, come on, would YOU want to work for a boss that has that kind of appreciation for you and your brothers blood?

(h/t DrewM @ Ace)


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CPAC Day 3

Matt & I agree, Saturday was the best of the three days of CPAC. And that's how it should be: Good conferences ought to build, day to day, with the final day and the final speech being the best of all. Given that Rush Limbaugh gave a great final address, I'd say mission accomplished. For the text of that speech, click here.

For most of the day, we sat dead-center, about 20 rows back from the front.

The first speech we heard was Bill Bennett's. He was President Reagan's Secretary of Education and is the author of the Book of Virtues. He was reasonable and insistent on not calling Obama's policies socialist. He said they are from the extreme liberal left wing and that they were bad, but that they weren't socialist. Fair enough.

On education, he said it is important that we teach children American history--that we teach them to be patriotic. Of course, I agree with all of this.

Ann Coulter is the funniest woman I have ever heard. She could be a straight stand-up comedian. She is all the more enjoyable because she skewers liberals. Sure, lots of what she says is inflammatory. But it's no worse, indeed, much less offensive, than what many on the left do to those on the right. She doesn't, for instance, use four letter words. Ace has got preliminary video of Coulter's speech.

Incidentally, it is one of my disappointments that I did not get to meet Mr. Ace O'Spades. There's always next CPAC.

The afternoon had panels on education reform (read: more choice--also a pet interest of ours), energy policy, and culture/Hollywood. Robert Davi, of Goonies & James Bond fame, participated in the latter panel and was fantastic. We also enjoyed an Irish couple who presented on their film which decries the human cost of global warming hysteria.

Before Rush, we got the results of the CPAC straw poll. For the 3rd year in a row, my guy, Mitt Romney, won the day. CPAC loves Mitt.

So, yeah, we came away optimistic, enthusiastic, having made a few more friends & contacts, have learned a little more about a few more issues, and with an improved vision of what we can and ought to do as conservatives in America.


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Militant Atheism

Sorry for the dearth of posts over the last week. I've been traveling (NYC) and will be traveling some more this week. I'll be in DC for a little research and a whole lotta CPAC.

For those who don't know, CPAC is the big, yearly, conservative get-together. I'm going to try and blog it the way I did the RNC, as there will be lots and lots of good conservative speakers. If you're in the area and plan to attend, shoot me an email and we'll meet-up. I'm hoping for a little face-time with Mitt and my blogger-hero, Mr. Ace O'Spades.

In the meantime, here's a fantastic quote from Dinesh D'Souza about "evangelical atheists." These are the people who claim to not believe, but actively try to persuade people to not believe the way they do.

Atheists spend a lot of time thinking about the motives for belief. Why do religious people believe these ridiculous things? When you turn the tables on atheists and ask them why they don't believe, they will answer, "Because we don't have enough evidence. We don't believe because there's no proof." But if you think about it, this is an inadequate explanation, because if you truly believe that there is no proof for God, then you're not going to bother with the matter. You're just going to live your life as if God isn't there.

I don't believe in unicorns, so I just go about my life as if there are no unicorns. You'll notice that I haven't written any books called The End of the Unicorn, Unicorns Are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion, and I don't spend my time obsessing about unicorns. What I'm getting at is that you have these people out there who don't believe that God exists, but who are actively attempting to eliminate religion from society, setting up atheist video shows, and having atheist conferences. There has to be more going on here than mere unbelief.

If you really look at the motivations of contemporary atheists, you'll find that they don't even really reject Christian theology. It's not as if the atheist objects to the resurrection or the parting of the sea; rather, it is Christian morality to which atheists object, particularly Christian moral prohibitions in the area of sex. The atheist looks at all of Christianity's "thou shalt nots"—homosexuality is bad; divorce is bad; adultery is bad; premarital sex is bad—and then looks at his own life and says, "If these things are really bad, then I'm a bad guy. But I'm not a bad guy; I'm a great guy. I must thus reinterpret or (preferably) abolish all of these accusatory teachings that are putting me in a bad light."

Ace's commentary is also right on.

I would say more that Evangelical Atheists' zeal for fresh converts is due to their reductivist and juvenile thinking, wishing to reduce most of human evil to one underlying cause, religion. Take away religion and we live in a utopia.

I rather doubt that. I think the fault lies with us and not in the stars, or the god beyond the stars. People do all sorts of bad things and they hardly need religion as their motivation for doing so.

My experience with atheists in the academy (not as many as you might think) pretty well reflects D'Souza & Ace's.

That, and they always hate when you point out that the "great" atheist movements of the 20th century--Soviet Russia (specifically Stalin), Hitler's Germany, Communist China, the Khmer Rouge (really, I could go on)--have killed millions more than the reductivist-ly-argued, religion-motivated deaths of any or all centuries.

Take away religion--specifically, Christianity/Judaism--and the morality taught by these religions and the world becomes a pretty sucky place--do unto others, before they do unto you.


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GOTV for Ace

Now that I'm back in London, I expect to be blogging more regularly, owing, of course, to the normalization of my schedule and whatnot.

Given that today is my first day back and I'm still unpacking and recovering from the effects of jet-lag (much worse going forward than back), this one will be short and really, just an appeal for all y'all to go and vote for Ace of Spades HQ as the Best Conservative blog. It's easy and it's true.

Vote here.

Reasons for voting Ace? Well, he and his co-bloggers are all ardently pro-Israel which, you know, makes them "good guys." That ought to be enough right there. And if that isn't enough, they're pretty funny.

It's the last day and the voting is close, your vote could put Ace Over The Top (good movie).


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More Military Times Poll Goodness (UPDATED)

Found out about this from Ace (who else?) and Hot Air. I have to assume that this bit of info about "don't ask, don't tell" comes from the same poll, but I'm not 100% certain and don't want to take the time to do the research to confirm.

Anyway, the gist of it is this: 10% of active-duty troops have said they would not re-enlist if the policy of "don't ask, don't tell" were stopped. That is, if gays were allowed to be openly gay in the military, 10% of the troops would look for work elsewhere.

Most active-duty service members continue to oppose President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to allow gays to serve openly in the military, a Military Times survey shows.

Moreover, if the policy was repealed, nearly 10 percent of respondents said they would not re-enlist or extend their service, and 14 percent said they would consider terminating their careers after serving their obligated tours.

Why is this significant? Because Obama's press secretary has promised to kill "don't ask, don't tell."

Ace:

A great many progressive liberals find fault with this policy and they desire a military that embraces people's various sexual lifestyles in an open, respectful way. Unfortunately, a great many progressive liberals have absolutely no desire to serve in the military -- whether don't ask, don't tell is the law or not -- which means that the military will continue recruiting from a population which does not share the enlightened, humane, pro-homosexuality goo-goo of the progressive liberals.

Don't ask, don't tell makes military service less attractive to gays and progressive liberals. But they, largely, are not inclined to serve in any event. Repealing the code makes service less attractive to traditionalists and, yes, conservatives (as well as blacks and Hispanics) who tend to be liberal on many issues but not particularly progressive about homosexuality) who actually are inclined to serve.

One can argue about the fairness but those actually willing to join the club ought to have some say in its rules. Those unwilling to join should have far less a say.

If Gleen Grenwald and other humane, compassionate, forward-thinking liberals announce their intention to sign up in great enough numbers to offset the losses among the current cohort of recruits, fine, we can dispense with the issue of how this policy affects the military's actual purpose -- to fight and win wars. And then we can have the debate solely on the grounds the liberals wish to have it on, on the questions of fairness and dignity and openness to diverse sexual orientations. And other gay [stuff] of this nature.

But somehow I doubt that any such large-scale pledge to serve will be forthcoming.

Me too.

13 January 3:44pm BST: Matt P. weighs in with an angle that hadn't occurred to me:

The one thing that hit me right away about this is that repealing don't ask don't tell is just one more way for BHO to reduce defense spending. Not only that, he could point to the decrease in spending being a result of "natural" attrition and possibly not have to pay as much of a political consequence because, "People just aren't willing to sign up like they used to."

I read an article awhile back on the Op-Ed page of the WSJ in which the author argued for Keynesian-style spending on the military. At least, he said, if you're going to spend huge amounts of money, you might as well spend it on things that are useful rather than just making stuff up like, "green jobs." He specifically outlined increasing the military budget to pay for big ticket items--new jet fighters, expensive parts for destroyers and carriers and other things along those lines.

Though the whole Keynesian approach doesn't appeal to me the way it does to (apparently) Obama, I could at least support spending large amounts of money of military modernization projects & recruiting.

I'm afraid, however, that Matt P. is right and the military won't be getting a dime. More "green" jobs!

At this point, I think people would just like "jobs"(!).


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Harry Reid's Nuts 3

A report on the contraction, not the possessive.

I've kind of neglected this feature over the last few months. Not for lack of material, but for lack of interest. Even when Reid said or did something ridiculous (on a fairly regular basis), I just couldn't seem to find the motivation to post anything about it.

Given that he's now saying outrageous things about Iraq, like, he had anything at all to do with the success there, I couldn't help myself.



Of course, Ace says it best:

This is the spin that we all knew was coming. Indeed, we've already seen it a dozen times, but not from Harry "The War is Lost, the Surge Has Failed" Reid. The claim, of course, is that by arguing for surrender and defeat, the liberal defeatists were actually arguing for a change in strategy that would result in victory.

Bear in mind, this is especially galling coming from him, as he did not merely say the war is lost. He also was a prime opponent of the surge, arguing it could never work. And then, when the surge began, he said it was doomed. And then, even when it succeeded, he declared the surge a failure.

And now that the surge is so obviously a victory that even he can't deny it, he says You're welcome. I did that.

Whatever else you may believe about Iraq, the myth that Democrats had anything whatsoever to do with the positive outcome, ought not enter into the realm of the remotely possible.

And that's one of the great disappointments: They could have been constructive. They could have worked with people like John McCain, who called for something approximating The Surge at least 2 years ahead of The Surge.

But they didn't. They played politics with the war, called it "lost," accused our troops of all sorts of bad things--terrorizing women and kids, for instance--and on and on. Now that things are hunky dory, they--Harry Reid in the forefront--want to take credit for the very thing, against which, they actively worked.


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'Good Guys' Don't Do This

From Ace:

Hamas Declares "Day of Wrath:" The Day of Wrath will join the other days of the Hamas week, Day of Vengeance, Day of Massacre, Day of Murder, Day of Senseless Bloodletting, Day of Explosively-Expressed Grievances, and of course Day of Intense Cultural Inferiority Complex and Extreme Sexual Confusion which Leads to Outbursts of Psychopathic Violence.

Day of Wrath. Also known as "Friday."

srael is on heightened security alert today after Hamas declared a "day of wrath" after the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Gaza.

Thousands of security personnel were on alert after the Islamists called for "massive marches" after the main weekly Muslim prayers, starting off from the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and from all other mosques in the West Bank.

Witnesses said that violent scenes had been reported in east Jerusalem, with protesters throwing rocks at soldiers. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that thousands of extra officers had been deployed to deal with the ongoing clashes.

You know who gets my sympathy & wrath? The Palestinian people get my sympathy. For the most part, they do not deserve to be ruled by a bunch of Iran-proxy, terrorist thugs. Hamas and the people who put them in power (some of the former) get my wrath.

Israel is doing about what you would expect of any country who has received over 3000 rocket/mortar attacks in the last year and, you know, believes strongly in self-preservation.


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