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David Warren looks at the sham Middle East peace process.
…Now consider Mahmoud Abbas. He is the head of the Palestinian Authority, successor to the leadership of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Does my gentle reader believe he wants Israeli soldiers to leave the West Bank? Those who say “yes” have been seriously misinformed. Think, for a moment, and you will understand why Abbas would want the Israeli soldiers out, even less than Netanyahu would want to withdraw them, or to withdraw the Jewish settlements they defend.
This is because, if they do withdraw, Hamas will come to power, and slaughter the colleagues of Mahmoud Abbas — plus the man himself, should he not get out in time.
We can know this for fact. We actually saw what happened when the Israeli soldiers withdrew from Gaza, after uprooting all 21 Jewish settlements there. It took Hamas less than two years to physically eliminate their Fatah rivals, and they would have done it faster had the Israelis not launched the occasional airstrike against a significant Hamas target (in response to gratuitous rocket attacks into Israeli territory). But in the end, Fatah’s Gaza generals and administrators bloodily “disappeared,” usually with their families.
…While Abbas was smiling in his grandfatherly way in Washington this week, his ambassador in Tehran, Salah Zawawi, was declaring that, “the relentless struggle (jihad) against the Zionist occupier will continue until the liberation of Holy Quds.” That would be Jerusalem in your English-language atlas.
So much for the “moderates.” …
Peter Wehner shares his thoughts on the political considerations affecting Obama’s Afghanistan policy, that Charles Krauthammer discussed in an article in yesterday’s Pickings.
…And it’s not the first time such a thing has been said about Obama. Here is a paragraph from a June 23 Washington Post article on the controversy then surrounding General Stanley McChrystal:
…In exchange for approving McChrystal’s request for more troops and treasure, Obama imposed, and the military accepted, two deadlines sought by his political aides. In December, one year after the strategy was announced, the situation would be reviewed and necessary adjustments made. In July 2011, the troops would begin to come home. [emphasis added]
These are damning admissions — war policies not only being influenced by partisan considerations but in important respects being driven by them.
…Yet in Tuesday’s prime-time address to the nation, Obama, rather than walk back from his arbitrary withdrawal date, went out of his way to re-emphasize it. “Make no mistake,” the president said, “this transition will begin because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s.”
It turns out that the locution “our interests” refers not to America’s national interests but to Obama’s political self-interest instead. …
Peter Wehner also blogs about a liberal who has lost perspective, to put it politely.
I’ve admitted that it’s become something of a hobby of mine to point out how the left is becoming increasingly unhinged and alienated from America and turning on the American people with a vengeance (see here and here). We can add the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson to the list. According to Robinson,
In the punditry business, it’s considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it’s impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.
…We have gone from an estimable people to a bunch of spoiled brats — all because the citizenry is rising up against a president who they believe (with considerable evidence on their side) is doing harm to their country. …
In the WSJ, Allysia Finley tells us more about the most expensive school ever built. The next question we’d like answered is: How much do all the yahoo administrators in the L.A. school district get paid?
At $578 million—or about $140,000 per student—the 24-acre Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in mid-Wilshire is the most expensive school ever constructed in U.S. history. To put the price in context, this city’s Staples sports and entertainment center cost $375 million. To put it in a more important context, the school district is currently running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off 3,000 teachers in the last two years. It also has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country and some of the worst test scores. …
…The district’s building spree has sparked outrage from charter schools, not least because they are getting only a tiny piece of the bond pie. California Charter School Association President Jed Wallace says a charter school can be built at a seventh of the cost of the Kennedy complex and a quarter of most L.A. schools. For example, the nonprofit Green Dot built seven charters in the area—to serve about 4,300 mainly low-income students—for less than $85 million in total. These schools also have a collective graduation rate that’s nearly twice as high as that of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which Education Week magazine pegs at 40%.
Mr. Rubin says it’s unfair to compare charters with traditional public schools because charters aren’t saddled with onerous government regulations regarding labor and environmental standards. What he doesn’t say is that charter schools don’t have taxpayers as a backstop. Traditional public schools “have no accountability or restraints,” Mr. Wallace bristles. “They don’t have to make the tough choices when costs run over.” …
David Harsanyi engages in a little bit of Christina Romer-bashing.
Admitting you’re a fan of economics is another way of saying you live a deeply tragic life.
…But the most crucial lesson I’ve gleaned from smart men and women who practice the dismal science is this: Those who claim to grasp the vagaries of the economy enough to predict the future with any amount of certitude are charlatans.
Which neatly segues into a discussion about the reckless tenure of technocrat Christina Romer, former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and one of the chief architects of the stimulus plan. …
In Euro Pacific Capital, Michael Pento gives a brief explanation of the importance of goods producing jobs in an economy.
The BLS reported today that private sector employment increased by 67,000, while overall employment fell by 54,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6% from 9.5%. Far be it from me to highlight the negative side of this report but it is vitally important to know that manufacturing payrolls decreased by 27,000 and the Goods Producing sector of the economy produced ZERO jobs in August. …
…In fact, we lost over 200k goods producing jobs just in the last 12 months. Manufacturing, mining, construction and agricultural jobs create goods that can be traded and stored and provide the basis for developing real wealth. That is why they are so important and without them a country is doomed to chronically increase its trade and current account deficits. That leads to a constant erosion in the value of the currency and causes an inexorable selling of domestic assets into foreign ownership. …
Also in Euro Pacific Capital, Mark Hanna gives a snapshot of some of the latest economic numbers and what they mean.
U.S. stocks rallied on employment data that degraded month over month, but was not as bad as had been anticipated in some quarters… It certainly was an interesting week where a few reports the market viewed as positive, overshadowed many more that were showing weakening. …
On the economic front were 2 very closely watched economic reports – the monthly unemployment data, and ISM Services (which represents 80%+ of the economy). Both were weaker than the previous month, but with whisper numbers of negative private job creation any positive job growth was seen as a positive. So while the trend is down, it was “better than expectation” which normally is enough to get the market rallying. The headline number is not worth mentioning as it is affected by census workers, but the private jobs figure was +67,000 versus an expectation of +40,000. In an economy with over 110M workers, one would not think a difference of 27,000 jobs would bring such cheer to the market, but this was the case. Of course the U.S. economy requires in excess of 125,000 jobs each month simply to keep up with population growth, so that bar was not beat – and the 67,000 is significantly lower than the 107,000 jobs created in July. … The unemployment rate increased from 9.5% to 9.6% as over half a million people re-entered the workforce; hence even as there was an increase in jobs the number of people entering the workforce was a much larger figure, leading to a higher unemployment rate. …
In the Corner, Veronique de Rugy looks at Obama’s alternative to Bush tax cuts.
Now, I guess to try to appear more business-friendly, the administration is weighing “hundred of billions in small business tax cuts,” according to the Washington Post:
The White House is seriously weighing a package of business tax breaks — potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars — to spur hiring and combat Republican charges that Democratic tax policies hurt small businesses.
…And if you remember, in an interview, William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, said, “Our member surveys for plans to add inventory and plans to hire are all coming in at 35 year lows. They have no reason to hire anybody because they don’t have anything to do. That’s why the tax credit is a silly idea.”
If the administration were so eager to help businesses, large or small, it would end the constant public-policy uncertainties that businesses are facing: The health-care overhaul, which will bring new but still unknown obligations to insure employees, and legislation aimed at tackling climate change, which could raise businesses’ energy costs, add to the uncertainty about the economy. The new financial regulation, which will take years to put in place, adds its share of uncertainty, as does the potential expiration of the tax cuts. Meanwhile, as government spending increases, so do the chances of more taxes in the future. …
Ed Morrissey laughs at the Obami for yet another gaffe.
Today, the Washington Post notices that the White House doesn’t bother to do much research. Of course, had Jamie Stiehm been an avid reader of our Obamateurisms of the Day feature at Hot Air, the Post may have noticed this over a year ago:
…“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” According media reports, this quote keeping Obama company on his wheat-colored carpet is from King.
Except it’s not a King quote. …
For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you’re fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War.
For the record, King never claimed the phrase as his own. He quoted Parker, one of his inspirations, in using this phrase, a point never noticed by Barack Obama during his campaign. He repeated the phrase often enough that it caught the attention of Reverend Matt Tittle, who attempted to inform the campaign in April 2008 that Obama was misattributing the quote. The campaign never replied to Tittle, but for a while Obama dropped the reference, and Tittle thought the message had been received. …
In Popular Science, Rebecca Boyle writes about an interesting prospect for cheap, efficient, green energy.
One ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium and 3.5 million tons of coal, according to the former director of CERN. via Telegraph
An abundant metal with vast energy potential could quickly wean the world off oil, if only Western political leaders would muster the will to do it, a UK newspaper says today. The Telegraph makes the case for thorium reactors as the key to a fossil-fuel-free world within five years, and puts the ball firmly in President Barack Obama’s court. …
…The Telegraph says this $1.8 billion (£1.2 billion) project could lead to a network of tiny underground nuclear reactors, producing about 600 MW each. Their wee size would negate the enormous security apparatus required of full-size nuclear power plants. …
…But nuclear plants need fuel, which means building controversial uranium mines. Thorium, on the other hand, is so abundant that it’s almost an annoyance. It’s considered a waste product when mining for rare-earth metals.
Thorium also solves the non-proliferation problem. Nuclear non-proliferation treaties (NPT) prohibit processes that can yield atomic bomb ingredients, making it difficult to refine highly radioactive isotopes. But thorium-based accelerator-driven plants only produce a small amount of plutonium, which could allow the U.S. and other nations to skirt NPT. …
In the Michigan View, Henry Payne reports a story of Green hypocrisy and a little bit of poetic justice.
Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit.
Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.
Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.
Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large. …