Video: Conservatives need pop culture — here’s why
Conservative commentator Bill Whittle recently addressed the RightOnline conference and offered some friendly advice, first for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and then for the conservative movement as a whole. After predicting big things for Cruz’s future, Whittle warned the audience that unless conservatives can make inroads in affecting popular culture, the movement’s ideas will be lost to history.http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/09/04/video-conservatives-need-pop-culture-heres-why/
Better Storytellers, Better GOP
Effective politicians communicate ideas through tales of heroism and sacrifice.
It’s no secret that the Right is going through what some call a healthy debate and others see as an identity crisis.For some, the solution to what ails conservatism requires a sudden philosophical shift leftward to win back the last Rockefeller Republicans, presumably hanging on in nursing homes like stranded Japanese fighters who haven’t gotten word World War II is over. Others argue that Republicans must shake off the heresies of moderation and compromise and accept the unalloyed true faith of 100 percent conservatism.
Those are hardly the only choices, of course. For instance, some make a very good case for fighting fire with better fire and offering a slew of policies and reforms superior to what the Democrats have tacked up on the wall in recent years.
While I have my sympathies and positions in all of these fights, I’ve long argued that regardless of what policies Republicans should offer or what philosophical North Star they might follow, one thing the GOP could definitely use is better politicians.
Ronald Reagan’s cult of personality remains strong and deep on the right, and I count myself a member of it. But what often gets lost in all the talk of the Gipper’s adamantine convictions and timeless principles is the simple fact that he was also a really good politician. Barry Goldwater was every bit as principled as Reagan, but Reagan was by far the better politician. That’s at least partly why Goldwater lost in a stunning landslide in 1964 and why Reagan was a two-term political juggernaut. Reagan won votes from moderates, independents, and lots of Democrats.
To listen to many conservative activists today, we need a candidate as principled as Reagan to save the country, but you rarely hear of the need for a politician as good as Reagan.
Unfortunately, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go into elections with the politicians you have, not the politicians you want. So the question isn’t how to find better leaders but how to make the leaders we have better.
One answer is really remarkably simple: Tell better stories.
In July, Rod Dreher, the author of the memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, wrote a deeply insightful essay for The American Conservative on how the Right has largely lost the ability to tell stories. Worse, many of the stories we continue to tell “are exhausted and have taken on the characteristics of brittle dogma.”
This is a problem not just for Republican politicians but for conservatives generally. For roughly 99.9 percent of human history, nearly all of human wisdom was passed on in stories. We are a species that understands things — i.e. morality, politics, even religion — in terms of tales of heroism, sacrifice, and adversity. And yet so much of what passes for conservative rhetoric these days isn’t storytelling but exhortation. Whatever the optimal policy might be, if you can’t talk to people in human terms they can relate to, you can’t sell any policy. The war on poverty, for instance, has been an enormous failure in so many policy terms, but it stays alive because of the stories liberals tell.
Consider immigration. There are reasonable arguments on every side of the issue. But what is unquestionably and lamentably disastrous for Republicans is the way they’ve allowed themselves to get on the wrong side of this story. The tale of the immigrant making it in America is one most Americans love, even those who want to slow or stop any further immigration, legal or illegal.
Go back and watch the video of Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) telling his family’s story at the 2012 GOP convention, or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech at the 2004 convention. The same rank-and-file activists who oppose “amnesty” swelled with pride and affection at what this country means for the immigrant and what immigrants mean for the country.
As Dreher noted, conservatives have largely abdicated their role in “tending the moral imagination,” which Russell Kirk defined as “conservatism at its highest.” Too many on the right don’t even claim what victories there are in the popular culture, which is far richer and more rewarding than many older conservatives are comfortable acknowledging.
Many historians will tell you that the secret of Reagan’s political success was his gift for storytelling. By all means, Republicans, be more like Reagan — but don’t tell his stories, tell your own.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/357501/better-storytellers-better-gop-jonah-goldberg
Planned Layoffs Surge in August
According to a new report released Thursday, the number of layoffs announced by employers surged in August to the highest level in more than six months. Firms announced plans to layoff 50k workers, up 57% from last year. The announced job cuts were also 33% higher than July.Hardest hit was the industrial goods sector, shedding more than 22k jobs. "Heavy job cuts in the industrial goods sector are never a good thing, as they can be indicative of widening cracks in the economy's foundation," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the firm who published Thursday's report.
The markets are eagerly anticipating the August jobs report released by the Labor Department on Friday. Economists expect the report to show that the economy gained 180k jobs last month. While this number would be below the level needed to keep pace with population growth, the more interesting data will be the number of new jobs that are part-time. This year, three out of four new jobs created were part-time.
At the end of the month, the ObamaCare health exchanges, where individuals can buy health insurance, are set to open. It will mark the beginning of the full implementation of the new health care mandate. The law, designed to transform the health care sector, seems, instead, to be fundamentally transforming the labor market.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/05/Planned-Layoffs-Surge-in-August
Community Organizer Goes to War
By Ann CoulterOh, how I long for the days when liberals wailed that "the rest of the world" hated America, rather than now, when the rest of the world laughs at us.
With the vast majority of Americans opposing a strike against Syria, President Obama has requested that Congress vote on his powers as commander in chief under the Constitution. The president doesn't need congressional approval to shoot a few missiles into Syria, nor -- amazingly -- has he said he'll abide by such a vote, anyway.
Why is Congress even having a vote? This is nothing but a fig leaf to cover Obama's own idiotic "red line" ultimatum to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on chemical weapons. The Nobel Peace Prize winner needs to get Congress on the record so that whatever happens, the media can blame Republicans.
No Republican who thinks seriously about America's national security interests -- by which I mean to exclude John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- can support Obama's "plan" to shoot blindly into this hornet's nest.
It would be completely different if we knew with absolute certainty that Assad was responsible for chemical attacks on his own people. (I'm still waiting to see if it was a Syrian upset about a YouTube video.)
It would be different if instead of killing a few hundred civilians, Assad had killed 5,000 civilians with poison gas in a single day, as well as tens of thousands more with chemical weapons in the past few decades.
It would be different if Assad were known to torture his own people, administer summary executions, rapes, burnings and electric shocks, often in front of the victim's wife or children.
It would be different if Assad had acted aggressively toward the United States itself, perhaps attempting to assassinate a former U.S. president or giving shelter to terrorists who had struck within the U.S. -- someone like Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood terrorist.
It would be different if Assad were stirring up trouble in the entire Middle East by, for example, paying bounties to the families of suicide bombers in other countries.
It would also be different if we could be sure that intervention in Syria would not lead to a multi-nation conflagration.
It would be different if we knew that any action against Syria would not put al-Qaida or the Muslim Brotherhood in power, but rather would result in a functioning, peaceful democracy.
And it would be different if an attack on Syria would so terrify other dictators in the region that they would instantly give up their WMDs -- say, Iran abandoning its nuclear program.
If all of that were true, this would be a military intervention worth supporting!
All of that was true about Iraq, but the Democrats hysterically opposed that war. They opposed it even after all this was known to be true -- indeed, especially after it was known to be true! The loudest opponent was Barack Obama.
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq had attempted to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush. He gave shelter to Abdul Rahman Yasin, a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He paid bounties to the families of suicide bombers in Israel.
Soon after Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi was so terrified of an attack on his own country, he voluntarily relinquished his WMDs -- which turned out to be far more extensive than previously imagined.
Al-Qaida not only did not take over Iraq, but got its butt handed to it in Iraq, where the U.S. and its allies killed thousands of al-Qaida fighters, including the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Iraq became the first genuine Arab democracy, holding several elections and presiding over a trial of Saddam Hussein.
Does anyone imagine that any of this would result from an Obama-led operation in Syria? How did his interventions work out in Egypt and Libya?
As for chemical weapons -- the casus belli for the current drums of war -- in a matter of hours on March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein slaughtered roughly 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Halabja with mustard, sarin and VX gas. The victims blistered, vomited or laughed hysterically before dropping dead. Thousands more would die later from the after-effects of these poisons.
Saddam launched nearly two dozen more chemical attacks on the Kurds, resulting in at least 50,000 deaths, perhaps three times that many. That's to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Iranians Saddam killed with poison gas. Indeed, in making the case against Assad recently, Secretary of State John Kerry said his use of chemical weapons put him in the same league as "Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein."
Not even close -- but may we ask why Kerry sneered at the war that removed such a monster as Hussein?
There were endless United Nations reports and resolutions both establishing that Saddam had used chemical weapons and calling on him to give them up. (For the eighth billionth time, we did find chemical weapons in Iraq, just no "stockpiles." Those had been moved before the war, according to Saddam's own general, Georges Sada -- to Syria.)
On far less evidence, our current president accuses Assad of using chemical weapons against a fraction of the civilians provably murdered with poison gas by Saddam Hussein. So why did Obama angrily denounce the military operation that removed Hussein? Why did he call that a "war of choice"?
Obama says Assad -- unlike that great statesman Saddam Hussein -- has posed "a challenge to the world." But the world disagrees. Even our usual ally, Britain, disagrees. So Obama demands the United States act alone to stop a dictator, who -- compared to Saddam -- is a piker.
At this point, Assad is at least 49,000 dead bodies short of the good cause the Iraq War was, even if chemical weapons had been the only reason to take out Saddam Hussein.
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2013/09/04/community-organizer-goes-to-war-n1691596/page/full
Same Old, Same Old in Syria
By Victor Davis HansonPresident Obama's on-and-off-again planned American attack on Syria is nothing new. Besides its five declared wars, America has a habit of intervening all over the world.
Even apart from clandestine CIA operations, and even after the unhappy end of the Vietnam War, we have attacked lots of countries and non-state militias.
The roll call of recent American military interventions is quite astounding: Cambodia, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Liberia, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Zaire and Afghanistan.
Even the notion of Past American isolationism is a myth. In the four years between 1912 and 1916 alone, the U.S. sent troops into Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Even those busy years of intervention were not novel. Since our infancy, the U.S. military has been constantly engaged. In another four-year period between 1812 and 1816, America fought the British, the French, the Spanish and the North Africans.
Some of these deployments were effective, either furthering American and allied interests or serving a common humanitarian purpose. Greece was saved from communism after World War II. Saddam Hussein was forced out of Kuwait and ultimately Iraq. Dictator and drug-dealer Manuel Noriega was deposed from Panama. At other times, our periodic undeclared wars just made things worse.
With President Obama contemplating bombing Syria, is there any guide from the past about whether yet another attack is wise or silly?
Sometimes the president sought congressional approval (e.g., both Bushes in the two Iraq wars). At other times he attacked without authorization (Clinton in the Balkans). Obtaining a U.N. resolution seemed wise before the first Gulf War, but proved impossible in the Balkan bombing.
After Vietnam and the passage of the War Powers Act, it was more likely for a president to seek congressional authorization, but again not always. Reagan, like many others, bombed the Libyans and invaded Grenada without asking Congress.
Sometimes the undeclared interventions cost Americans tens of thousands of lives (Korea and Vietnam). But often, very few were killed (Panama and Grenada). The interventions could last just a few days, as when Clinton sent missiles and bombs into Afghanistan, East Africa and Iraq, or years on end like the costly ground fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam.
Our supposed motives varied widely -- whether revenge (bombing Libya or Afghanistan), enforcing U.N. resolutions (Korea), the prevention of genocide (Serbia), humanitarianism (Somalia), helping allies (Vietnam), regime change (Iraq and Libya), protecting U.S. commercial interests (Central America) or harming foreign efforts (Grenada).
If we collate all the interventions since the Marines invaded Tripoli in 1804, a certain pattern emerges. The more clearly defined and decisive the intervention, the more likely it was judged successful.
In addition, making progress or winning outright was essential to ensuring public support.
Even disastrous and ill-thought-out interventions that accomplished nothing or made things worse, such as President Ford's 1975 attack in Cambodia, President Carter's failed Iran rescue mission (1980) or Ronald Reagan's intervention in Lebanon (1982-'83) did not cause lasting popular outrage -- given that setbacks were brief and the operations quickly ended.
In contrast, any war that drags on and costs thousands of American lives -- whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, the Philippines or Vietnam -- proves unpopular, even when they sometimes succeed in deposing tyrants and putting something better in their place.
In this regard, we should not expect much good from bombing Syria, given the difficulty to sort out the various insurgents and our loud prior announcements of limiting the use of force.
To the degree we are not willing to insert ground troops, it is more likely both that we won't accomplish much and won't get trapped in a quagmire.
It is wiser to obtain congressional approval, and the more foreign allies that join the better. Having a clear objective, a sound methodology and a definition of victory is essential, whether in big or small interventions.
But so far the president can't decide on the real objective in Syria, much less how to obtain it. Is the goal the elimination of WMDs, the punishment of Bashar Assad for using these weapons, restoring the president's credibility after unwisely issuing red lines, immediate U.S. national security interests, the removal of Assad himself or help to the insurgents?
If the president neither obtains congressional approval nor makes the attempt to go the U.N., the attack will probably be unpopular abroad -- even more so without any allies or American public support.
Finally, promising in advance that whatever we do will probably be short and limited will make it likely that, if it fails, it will be forgiven and forgotten -- and if deemed successful, it will have little, if any, lasting, strategic effects.
http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2013/09/05/same-old-same-old-in-syria-n1691536/page/full
The Guns of September?
There
are grand forces in human history. Then there are the actions of fools
who think they can control events and who then start actions that
spiral out of control.
Ninety
nine years ago this summer, a small series of events soon sparked a
World War that resulted in decades of carnage -- World War I, The
Russian Revolution, WWII, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War all had
their beginnings in that period. Few people today are taught much about
WWI except perhaps that it began with an arms race. That race was
almost more symptom than cause. The huge fleets of surface naval fleets
that had been the focus of the arms race were largely bit players in
the war that ensued. The real cause was that far too many European
leaders of that era were certain that events could be manipulated to
their political advantage.
It must be emphasized the crowned heads of Europe knew each quite well. Indeed, perhaps they knew each other too well. The German Kaiser was, after all, a grandson of Queen Victoria. The Russian Tsar was married to one of Victoria's granddaughters. The Tsar's mother was sister to the mother of Britain's reigning monarch, King George V, another grandchild of Victoria. Nor were the elected political leaders strangers to each other. In the run up to WWI, European leaders were pretty much playing an insider's game of one-upmanship. As they were raising the stakes on each other in the quest for ever bigger battleships, more overseas colonies and more advantageous mutual assistance pacts, the players missed signs of simmering discontent among those they ruled or governed. The major difference between those leaders and the West's leader's today seems to be that the leaders in 1913 felt they were entitled to rule by Divine Right. Political leaders in 2013 leaders seem to feel almost as entitled because they are certain they are smarter than everyone else.
It must be emphasized the crowned heads of Europe knew each quite well. Indeed, perhaps they knew each other too well. The German Kaiser was, after all, a grandson of Queen Victoria. The Russian Tsar was married to one of Victoria's granddaughters. The Tsar's mother was sister to the mother of Britain's reigning monarch, King George V, another grandchild of Victoria. Nor were the elected political leaders strangers to each other. In the run up to WWI, European leaders were pretty much playing an insider's game of one-upmanship. As they were raising the stakes on each other in the quest for ever bigger battleships, more overseas colonies and more advantageous mutual assistance pacts, the players missed signs of simmering discontent among those they ruled or governed. The major difference between those leaders and the West's leader's today seems to be that the leaders in 1913 felt they were entitled to rule by Divine Right. Political leaders in 2013 leaders seem to feel almost as entitled because they are certain they are smarter than everyone else.
The
problem was that events didn't play out as any of these leaders had
planned, nor could they hope to control outcomes once shots had been
fired in anger. In addition, few of them really understood warfare, as
there hadn't been a war between major European powers since 1870.
Indeed, the theories of ground warfare some of these leaders had been
schooled in had been largely unchanged since the days of single shot
smooth bore muskets and muzzle loading cannons firing round shot an
entire century earlier.
The war they started -- a war that some planned to complete in a few weeks -- quickly went off schedule. Instead of a short, mobile war, it became one of entrenchment that was fought for over four bloody years with automatic weapons, modern artillery, and poison gas. The resulting carnage was such that it was often impossible to even tell which army the fallen had fought for, much less to identify individual bodies. At Verdun, where over 230,000 were killed, the estimated remains of over 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers were interred en masse in the Douaumont Ossuary.
The subjects and citizens who patriotically rallied in 1914 soon turned on their rulers: Mass mutiny in France; Revolution in Russia; The dissolution of the Austro-Hugarian, Ottoman and German Empires. Among the major players, only Britain and the Commonwealth nations survived with their power structures largely intact, but the cost had been high. One price wasn't apparent for some time to come: The intelligentsia, ashamed to have rallied enthusiastically to the battle cry of "For King and Country," embarked upon a cycle of secular cynicism that is still playing out across the Anglo-sphere today.
When I see the pictures of John Kerry dining with Assad, Hillary Clinton meeting with various world leaders, Obama meeting with his advisers and Putin posing for the cameras as if he were successor to the autocratic Tsars I fear an insider's game is once again being played by people who think they have the power to limit and control the outcome. There isn't a player on this stage whose intellect, judgment, and experience is to be trusted. The few who have experienced war seem to have forgotten the lessons. Everywhere I look I see clowns to the left and jokers to right.
The war they started -- a war that some planned to complete in a few weeks -- quickly went off schedule. Instead of a short, mobile war, it became one of entrenchment that was fought for over four bloody years with automatic weapons, modern artillery, and poison gas. The resulting carnage was such that it was often impossible to even tell which army the fallen had fought for, much less to identify individual bodies. At Verdun, where over 230,000 were killed, the estimated remains of over 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers were interred en masse in the Douaumont Ossuary.
The subjects and citizens who patriotically rallied in 1914 soon turned on their rulers: Mass mutiny in France; Revolution in Russia; The dissolution of the Austro-Hugarian, Ottoman and German Empires. Among the major players, only Britain and the Commonwealth nations survived with their power structures largely intact, but the cost had been high. One price wasn't apparent for some time to come: The intelligentsia, ashamed to have rallied enthusiastically to the battle cry of "For King and Country," embarked upon a cycle of secular cynicism that is still playing out across the Anglo-sphere today.
When I see the pictures of John Kerry dining with Assad, Hillary Clinton meeting with various world leaders, Obama meeting with his advisers and Putin posing for the cameras as if he were successor to the autocratic Tsars I fear an insider's game is once again being played by people who think they have the power to limit and control the outcome. There isn't a player on this stage whose intellect, judgment, and experience is to be trusted. The few who have experienced war seem to have forgotten the lessons. Everywhere I look I see clowns to the left and jokers to right.
Events
on the world stage began to spin out of control some time ago with the
financial crisis of socialist programs in an age of declining
birthrates. The only positive factor may be that very few of those who
are governed by the world's current crop of politicians seem ready to
rally to any call for action. This isn't a game and increasingly all
around the globe people are refusing to be treated as the pawns of those
in power. Senator Rand Paul's question
is being asked all around the world today in a slightly different form
should warm the hearts of libertarians. Fewer people than ever before
seem to want to be the first to die -- or to see their children die, if
all it will serve to do is to enhance the image of their leaders. That
may be the factor that might prevent events today from becoming as
awful as those that began in August, 1914. It certainly won't be the
improvement in the quality of the world's political leadership.
Why Is Government Fixing the Price of Milk?
Prices should be decided by buyers and sellers.
The Denver Post warns, "Milk, food prices could rise if Congress fails to act."Congress is working on a farm bill, which, among other things, will set limits on how high or low milk prices can be in different regions of the country.
Politicians from both parties like to meddle in agriculture. When the Heritage Foundation told Republicans not to pass any farm bill, "conservative" politicians banned Heritage from their weekly meetings.
But why should politicians be involved in agriculture? Why should they set food prices, any more than they set the price of books or staplers? The market decides most prices, so we don't have to wait with bated breath for politicians to make up their minds.
In a normal market, sellers charge the highest price their customers will pay -- and then lower the price when they lose customers to sellers who charge less. Competition keeps prices low, not generosity or warm-heartedness. Or government.
The price of milk, on the other hand, is decided by regulators, using complicated formulas. They set one price for wholesale milk used to produce "fluid" products and another for milk used in making cheese. It's a ridiculous game of catch-up, in which the regulated prices never change as fast and efficiently as they would in a market, one buyer and seller at a time.
Next week, California will hold public hearings about milk price negotiations, as if more arguing will reveal the "correct" price. The agricultural news site Agri-View reports that dairy farmers filed a petition with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), demanding it implement an earlier, massive milk-price compact agreed to by cheesemakers and legislators.
Under the agreement, cheese processors must kick in an additional $110 million to a statewide pool of money used to pay dairy farmers, who are upset that they've been paid less than what farmers get in surrounding states.
Rob Vandenheuvel of the state's Milk Producers Council says, "Government has the responsibility to keep us in line with what the rest of the country is making, and they're not doing it. It gives us no choice but to spend money on lawyers."
Great. How many lawyers does it take to produce a gallon of milk?
The dairy farmers say some dairy farms lose money, which proves milk prices are too low. But cheesemakers say they can barely stay in business, proving milk prices are too high.
Why is any of this the legislature's business? It shouldn't be. Prices should be decided by buyers and sellers.
Prices are not just money. They're information. Rising prices tell farmers to produce more; that increases supply and prices go back down. Falling prices tell producers to invest in other products. This system works well for plums, peaches, cars and most everything we buy.
But bureaucrats and lobbyists say milk is "special."
Vandenheuvel says cows can't be subject to market demand because "there are several years of lead time between when you decide to buy a cow and when that cow produces milk."
The CDFA agrees because: "Milk is a perishable product and must be harvested daily," and "Milk continues to be viewed as a necessary food item, particularly for children."
I say, so what? It's not "lead time" or being "perishable" or even being "necessary" that makes milk unique. Plums and newspapers are perishable and harvested daily. It takes long lead times to build assembly lines to make cars. No entrepreneur has a guarantee of market demand once the factory is complete. All business is risky.
The CDFA wails that without price controls, "no other regulations would be in place to assure an adequate supply of milk."
Give me a break. It's in planned economies, like Venezuela, North Korea and the former Soviet Union that shortages occur. When politicians micromanage markets, consumers suffer.
Milk isn't "special." Almost no product is. Let competition set the price.
http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/04/why-is-government-fixing-the-price-of-mi
The Beltway Choom Gang
The President decides not to enforce another law he doesn't like.
One irony of the Syria debate is that President Obama is now appealing for support on foreign policy from a Congress that he treats with contempt on domestic issues. Witness, in merely the latest example, his decision to suspend the enforcement of a federal drug law because it doesn't fit his political agenda.In a sweeping memorandum last week, the Justice Department all but ordered U.S. attorneys nationwide not to enforce federal marijuana laws. The memo was a long-delayed response to voter referenda last November in Colorado and Washington states that legalized adult recreational use of marijuana, not merely in the usual fake "medical" context.
There's just one problem: All states are explicitly barred from regulating the possession, use, distribution and sale of pot and narcotics under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Like it or not, Congress declared marijuana to be a dangerous drug that should be banned.
California argued a decade ago that its medical marijuana law let individuals grow their own for personal use, but the Supreme Court ruled in Gonzales v. Raich in 2005 that federal law had supremacy. Defenders of ObamaCare even used the Raich precedent to claim that the feds could force all Americans to buy health insurance.
Now Attorney General Eric Holder says never mind all that, and Americans should mellow out about such legal nuances. Justice's four-page memo is dressed up in the language of enforcement priorities and "limited resources," but as a practical matter it means no prosecutor who cares about his career—which is to say all of them—will bring another marijuana case.
Justice warns that it will intervene if it discovers that marijuana is flowing to children or being trafficked to states where it is still illegal, though under federal law it is still illegal in all states. The memo tells prosecutors to ignore even "large-scale, for-profit enterprises," which are usually targets for taxation.
Prosecutorial resources aren't unlimited, and some crimes deserve more enforcement attention than others. But prosecutorial discretion is also not unlimited. A President can't simply make a blanket declaration that he won't enforce part or all of a law he doesn't like. He and the AG are effectively decriminalizing an entire class of narcotics crimes, rewriting a law passed by Congress. Imagine if a President decided to decriminalize securities fraud simply by decreeing that the government will devote no resources to prosecuting securities fraud.
Even liberal Members of Congress seem to understand this, because after the November referenda Democrats introduced legislation to exempt Colorado and Washington states from federal marijuana law. Under the Constitution Congress can't pass laws that apply in some states and not others. But at least Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette and her co-sponsors were being honest about the reach of the federal drug statute.
That's more than you can say about Messrs. Obama and Holder, who have been happy to cite federal supremacy against state laws they don't like. Justice sued to overturn Arizona's immigration enforcement law in 2010, and it is now suing Texas over voter IDs and even, for heaven's sake, Louisiana for letting minority children get a voucher to attend private schools.
As in those cases, the Administration's motivation on marijuana is politics, not the law. The politics of pot is changing, but more rapidly in Democratic-leaning states than across the country. It may be that a majority of Americans would favor decriminalizing the individual possession of small amounts of marijuana, but then Congress ought to debate and vote on it.
Mr. Obama could lead that debate, or at least offer his view, but he knows that the politics of drug legalization is still tricky and there could be a backlash in states with hot Senate races next year. Yet he also doesn't want to offend his pot-loving liberal base. So his political default is simply to declare he won't enforce current federal law.
Not since Nixon have we seen a Presidency so disdainful of the law, but at least Nixon had enough respect for legal appearances to break the law on the sly. This Administration simply declares it won't enforce the laws it doesn't like and calls it virtue. The media then give this a pass because Mr. Obama's decisions mesh with their own policy preferences.
Don't be surprised if millions of Americans begin to follow the President's example and conclude that they also don't have to follow laws they don't like—and not merely smoking reefer on the front porch.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323324904579044771286022400.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
Feds Spending $2.2 Million to Study Lesbian Obesity
NIH warned sequestration budget cuts could delay medical breakthroughs
The National Institutes of Health awarded an additional $682,873 to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for the study on July 17. The project had received previous grants of $778,622 in 2011, and $741,378 in 2012. Total funding has reached $2,202,873.
The project has survived budget cuts due to sequestration, which the NIH warned would “delay progress in medical breakthroughs.”
The study, being led by S. Bryn Austin, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, sets out to find the biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not.
At the time this study was first reported, a spokesman for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which is administering the project, said its future was uncertain because of the sequester.
“The NIH is currently assessing the impact on funding due to sequestration,” said Robert Bock, press officer for the NICHD, in March. “It is not possible to say how this (or any other NIH grant) will be affected in the long term beyond the 90 percent funding levels already in place.”
The NIH said the automatic budget cuts forced the agency to cut 5 percent of its fiscal year 2013 budget, amounting to a $1.55 billion reduction in spending.
“NIH must apply the cut evenly across all programs, projects, and activities (PPAs), which are primarily NIH institutes and centers,” the agency said in June. “This means every area of medical research will be affected.”
The NIH said cuts to research are “delaying progress in medical breakthroughs,” including the development of cancer drugs and research on a universal flu vaccine.
The study on disparities between sexual orientation and obesity continues to receive funding.
“Obesity is one of the most critical public health issues affecting the U.S. today,” the grant’s “public health relevance” statement reads. “Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the determinants, distribution, and consequences of obesity are receiving increasing attention; however, one area that is only beginning to be recognized is the striking interplay of gender and sexual orientation in obesity disparities.”
“It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women,” the project’s abstract states. “In stark contrast, among men, heterosexual males have nearly double the risk of obesity compared to gay males.”
Though Bock declined to comment for this story, the NIH issued a general statement to the Washington Free Beacon defending the study as part of its overall mission to reduce obesity in the United States.
“NIH research addresses the full spectrum of human health across all populations of Americans,” the NIH said. “Research into unhealthy human behaviors that are estimated to be the proximal cause of more than half of the disease burden in the U.S. will continue to be an important area of research supported by NIH.”
“Only by developing effective prevention and treatment strategies for health-injuring behaviors such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, drug abuse, inactivity, and poor diet, can we reduce the disease burden in the U.S. and thus enhance health and lengthen life, which is the mission of the NIH,” they said.
Thus far, the study has yielded one report, published in January, which found that gay and bisexual males had a “greater desire for toned muscles than completely and mostly heterosexual males.”
http://freebeacon.com/feds-spending-2-2-million-to-study-lesbian-obesity/
Report: USAID Wasting Millions in Taxpayer Dollars in Afghanistan
SIGAR says lack of oversight has led to waste
USAID signed a $236 million contract with the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in 2008. Since then, the American aid group has exercised little oversight over the taxpayer dollars despite warnings there is a “high risk” that the Afghan agency is engaging in “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
This potential loss of millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars was discovered by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and revealed in a new report issued on Thursday by the oversight group.
“Despite financial management deficiencies at the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to provide millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in direct assistance with little assurance that the MoPH is using these funds as intended,” SIGAR wrote.
The SIGAR report is just the latest in a series that outlines how U.S. taxpayer dollars have been wasted and spent on projects that benefit Iran, al Qaeda, and even the Taliban.
It is also not the first time that SIGAR has singled out USAID for criticism.
In June, SIGAR cited USAID for what it called “widespread cronyism and corruption that led to the waste of $70 million in Afghan reconstruction funds.”
This time around, the aid group was caught taking a hands-off approach when it came to overseeing the use of some $127 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars, according to SIGAR’s report.
Taxpayer dollars committed to the program are likely subject to “waste, fraud, and abuse,” SIGAR reported. “USAID is providing funds without assurance that the MoPH has adequate accounting systems and internal controls to account for and protect these funds. “
Afghanistan’s MoPH is tasked with delivering health services across Afghanistan, including immunizations, prenatal care, and other services.
The MoPH signed a $236 million “Partnership Contracts for Health” (PCH) contract with USAID in 2008.
Under the deal, the American aid group promised to fund the MoPH’s “delivery of health services to local Afghan clinics and hospitals” in 18 Afghan provinces, according to SIGAR.
USAID has already disbursed $190 million despite warnings from SIGAR that the money is likely being wasted.
“The assessment found deficiencies in the MoPH’s internal audit, budget, accounting, and procurement functions,” SIGAR reported. “USAID officials stated that they have not verified what, if any, actions the MoPH has taken to address these deficiencies.”
USAID has maintained that it has “no obligation” to remedy the Afghan health agency’s issues.
“A USAID official told SIGAR that USAID has no obligation to address the deficiencies identified or to verify any corrective actions that the MoPH may have implemented for the ongoing PCH program,” SIGAR reported.
SIGAR said that its finding raises “serious concerns about the integrity of the PCH program.”
USAID has provided $190 million of the $236 million it promised.
“However, SIGAR’s review found that about $127 million has actually been spent, resulting in potential excess obligations of about $63 million,” according to the report.
SIGAR is recommending that USAID immediately cut off its funding “until program cost estimates are validated as legitimate.”
USAID disputed SIGAR’s findings in a letter sent late last month to the watchdog group prior to the report’s release.
“Overall, USAID took strong exception to the title of our draft report and any implication that there is a high risk of misuse of funds for the PCH program,” SIGAR said.
However, USAID has promised to review its funding and determine whether the Afghan health agency could be misusing taxpayer funds.
http://freebeacon.com/report-usaid-wasting-millions-in-taxpayer-dollars-in-afghanistan/
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