Who is responsible for racial polarization in America today?

See Seth Mandel's column "The Washington Post's Dreams of Dixie" and William Jacobson's column "Saturday Night Card Game." A taste from Mr Jacobson's column:

Everytime I think the Democratic race card players could not get more vile, more deranged, more patronizingly demeaning to blacks, someone manages to defy even my vivid imagination.

Morsi's powers are temporary

President Mohammend Morsi of Egypt gave assurances today that his decree placing all his decrees above judicial review is only temporary. WSJ reports:

Yasser Ali, a presidential spokesman, ... said Monday that Mr. Morsi assured judges that his decree is "temporary" and limited only to "sovereignty-related issues."

Also in the news today, Iran has given the Obama Administration assurances that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

More Obama ineptitude in Egypt

One day:

"I want to thank President Morsi for his personal leadership to de-escalate the situation in Gaza and end the violence," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who met Morsi Thursday, said at a Cairo press conference with Egypt's foreign minister announcing the accord. "This is a critical moment for the region. Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone of regional stability and peace," she said.

The next:

Egypt's highest body of judges on Saturday slammed a recent decision by [President Morsi] to grant himself near-absolute power, calling the move an "unprecedented assault" on the judiciary. In a statement carried on Egypt's official MENA news agency, the Supreme Judicial Council condemned this week's declaration by President Mohammed Morsi placing his decrees above judicial review until a new constitution and Parliament is in place, several months if not more in the future.

So, it turns out that the man that the Obama Administration praises one day as a great statesman turns out the next day to be just another petty Islamist tyrant. Talk about egg on the face.

The President's naivete concerning Mr Morsi's intentions is well-conveyed by the breathless coverage given by the New York Times to the new love affair between the two leaders. Gushes the Times:

The cease-fire brokered between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday was the official unveiling of this unlikely new geopolitical partnership, one with bracing potential if not a fair measure of risk for both men. After a rocky start to their relationship, Mr. Obama has decided to invest heavily in the leader whose election caused concern because of his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, seeing in him an intermediary who might help make progress in the Middle East beyond the current crisis in Gaza. ... Mr. Obama told aides he was impressed with the Egyptian leader’s pragmatic confidence. He sensed an engineer’s precision with surprisingly little ideology. Most important, Mr. Obama told aides that he considered Mr. Morsi a straight shooter who delivered on what he promised and did not promise what he could not deliver. “The thing that appealed to the president was how practical the conversations were — here’s the state of play, here are the issues we’re concerned about,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “This was somebody focused on solving problems.”

An engineer focused on solving problems? Rather an Islamist radical who supports the terrorist organization Hamas and seizes dictatorial power over Egypt. Bracing potential, indeed!

So, we have come full circle. We started with the dictator Hosni Mubarak and have ended up with the dictator Mohammed Morsi. The difference, however, is that Mubarak was friendly to the West and conciliatory towards Israel, while Morsi is a supporter of Hamas. How this state of affairs represents an improvement for US interests remains to be explained by Mr Obama. What it looks like instead is that the Administration hasn't a clue about what is going on in Egypt. Perhaps we should expect Susan Rice to make the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows tomorrow to explain that the new turmoil in Egypt is a spontaneous reaction to an offensive video.

Obama the Amateur. Carter redux, only worse

I have commented in earlier blog posts (for example, here) on President Obama's botched Mideast policy.

Mr Obama has pressured dictators to step down and promoted in their place so-called "democratic" movements, which have often turned out to be controlled by radical Islamist elements that are less friendly to the West. For example, in Egypt, Obama pressured Hosni Mubarak to step down and then supported the Egyption elections that installed a member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Morsi, as President of Egypt. As Reuters reported at the time, Israeli leaders were shocked at Obama's naivete:

One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam." It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks. Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?" "The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."

Now, as predicted, the new Islamist regime in Egypt has abandoned Mubarak's conciliatory attitude towards Israel, and declared its emphatic support for the leaders of Hamas, who, emboldened by their new found support in Cairo, have escalated attacks against Israel and launched hundreds of missiles from Gaza into the heartland of the Jewish state. As WSJ reports:

On Thursday, Mr. Morsi ordered Egypt's prime minister to lead a delegation into Gaza on Friday, Egyptian state television reported. The visit would pose an unprecedented challenge to Israel ... Mr. Morsi's activist response to Israeli-Palestinian violence marks a stark reversal from the more hands-off policies of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. ... For many Palestinians, a more supportive government in Egypt would be their first sense of change from an Arab Spring that until now has largely passed them by. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the two retain close ties. ... Many Israelis and Palestinians argue that it was the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that helped embolden Palestinian factions, including some elements of Hamas, to take a more defiant and confrontational approach to Israel that helped trigger this current flare-up.

The Washington Post writes:

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi signaled the extent of the shift on Friday when he sent his prime minister to Gaza in a show of solidarity with Hamas. The move was a radical break from the policy of Morsi’s ousted predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. ... Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil toured Gaza alongside Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a longtime Mubarak foe, in the highest-profile Egyptian visit to Gaza since Hamas took power in 2007. Morsi, meanwhile, warned Israel of a “high price” for continued military operations in the coastal enclave. “Egypt will not leave Gaza alone,” Morsi said in a speech to a crowd of worshippers at a mosque on Cairo’s outskirts. “I speak on behalf of all of the Egyptian people in saying that Egypt today is different from Egypt yesterday, and the Arabs today are different from the Arabs of yesterday.” ... Morsi, a longtime Muslim Brotherhood leader, came to power this year in elections in which he defeated a candidate with long-standing ties to Egypt’s military, which under Mubarak was a staunch defender of the nation’s peace treaty with Israel.

In sum, Mr Obama's "lead-from-behind" policies have overthrown our ally Mubarak, who played a stabilizing role in the region, and replaced him with the aggressive, radical, Hamas-friendly Morsi regime on Israel's doorstep. As a result, the Palestinians in Gaza have been emboldened and are now attacking Israel once again. And now, the Morsi government's statements have become so bellicose that we should not be surprised if hostilities break out between Israel and Egypt. At the same time, Mr Obama has failed to derail Iran's attempts to obtain nuclear weapons. Syria sinks further into chaos. Al Qaeda is growing stronger in Mali. Our consulate in Benghazi is a pile of smoking ruins and the next step in the deterioration of the situation could very well be further attacks on American embassies and consulates throughout the region. Finally, at this very moment of intensifying chaos, we are in the process of drawing down our troops throughout the Middle East so that we will have no means to project American power and influence there.

Obama, the Amateur. Carter redux, only worse.

Court Asian and Eastern European immigrants, not Latinos

I invite you to consider the following image: a fat, white good ole boy (a real Pappy O'Daniel type), putting his arm around the shoulder of a young Latino and saying: "Hey there, Pancho, why don't you consider voting for the Republican candidate." Doesn't work does it.

Ever since the days of Cesar Chavez and Bobby Kennedy, Latinos have been the natural constituents of the Democratic Party. Given this situation, if a general amnesty were granted to all Latino illegal aliens currently in the US and they all became US citizens, this would simply create more votes for the Democratic Party. Why, for heaven's sake, would Republicans ever want to bring this about?

Now consider the characteristics of the Latinos for whom this amnesty is being proposed: they are, for the most part, very hard working, but poorly educated and with little earning power. They are often gardeners, housekeepers, unskilled construction workers (drive by Home Depot any morning), restaurant busboys, or women providing in-home care for elderly family members. They are often paid in cash, and therefore do not pay payroll or income taxes. A recent article published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis characterizes this population and their disproportionate need for public assistance (in this case, for food stamps) as follows:

The Hispanic population is growing rapidly in the U.S. generally and in the southern states particularly. This rapidly growing population is characterized by high poverty rates among children and the elderly compared to other races. The Hispanic population is also less educated, characterized by low income, lacks English language proficiency, and has a need for public assistance. Hispanic total and household participation in the FSP [Food Stamp Program] increased rapidly, especially in metro counties. The increase in participation is about three times that of the total population. Participation of Hispanic children in the program was also much higher than for adults. The growing Hispanic population with special needs and requirements and rising participation in the FSP will pose new challenges to food assistance administration to serve this group.

Finally, consider the question of whether a general amnesty would even staunch the flow of Latino illegal immigration. Would not a general amnesty rather simply encourage even more illegal immigrants to come north? The message an amnesty would send would be: Just make it to the US and survive long enough; eventually, you, too, will be granted citizenship. Thus, illegal immigration might actually increase after a general amnesty. Of the amnesty legislation for illegal immigrants of 1986, the NYT writes:

President Ronald Reagan signed that bill into law with great fanfare amid promises that it would grant legal status to illegal immigrants, crack down on employers who hired illegal workers and secure the border once and for all. Instead, fraudulent applications tainted the process, many employers continued their illicit hiring practices, and illegal immigration surged.

So, even if the Republican Party could win additional Latino votes by agreeing to a general amnesty (which, obviously, it cannot), it is not at all clear that an amnesty would be beneficial to society as a whole. It is questionable whether the contribution of a wave of poorly educated, low-income Latino citizens to society would be greater than their burden on it. What's more, it's not at all clear that a general amnesty would even put a halt to Latino illegal immigration.

Instead of courting the Hispanic vote with the promise of a general amnesty, then, I recommend that the Republican Party take a different approach (at least here in Silicon Valley): encourage more legal immigration from Asia and Eastern Europe (from India, China, and Russia, for example) and court these new immigrants as potential Republican voters. For simplicity, I will refer to this group of potential US citizens as non-Latino immigrants.

If the US applied the correct filters, non-Latino immigration would result in an enormous new influx of ambitious, high-tech workers into California. Everywhere you look in Silicon Valley, you see non-Latino immigrants already helping to build the high-tech economy. The education level, technical and engineering skills, and earning power of this population is significantly higher than what is found in the Latino population. Since these immigrants work in high-tech companies with well-defined HR procedures, they are not paid in cash under the table, like many Latino workers are, and therefore actually pay taxes. My guess is that they also make much less use of social services than the Latino population does. As a group, they generally place a very high value on education, so that the school districts where non-Latino immigrant families preponderate often have outstanding public schools, with little gang activity (think of the Mission attendance area in Fremont, where property values are sky high because of the schools). All the software companies I have ever worked for in Silicon Valley have always drawn and continue to draw extensively on this pool of non-Latino immigrants. In fact, these immigrants often form the backbone of software development teams (as they do in the software company I work in) throughout the Valley.

In my opinion, non-Latino immigrants are natural constituents of the Republican Party. My experience is that they have conservative family values. They believe that one should get ahead through hard work, not government handouts. They understand the financial mess the US finds itself in and find it repugnant. Their value system is decidedly entrepreneurial and meritocratic. Statements like President Obama's "You didn't build that" are counterintuitive to them. Try telling the Indian and Chinese high-tech entrepreneurs of software companies like Tibco and Informatica that they didn't build those companies.

In sum, the Republican Party should forget about pandering to Latinos and blacks and instead promote real, global diversity by advocating for more non-Latino, non-black immigration into Northern California. Once these new immigrants from Asia and Europe are absorbed into the American melting pot, they will be far more likely to support the many strands of conservative thought that find their natural home in the Republican Party.

Who has the whip hand?

I have read several commentators on the election express the sentiment that President Obama now has the whip hand. One commentator wrote that Mr Obama’s position was “strengthened by his reelection.” Now that is about the most stupid statement I have ever heard. Yeah, Obama would have been considerably weakened if he had lost.

At any rate, the question remains: Which party now is in the position of advantage and control? My opinion is that the Republicans are in a relatively strong position for one reason: we are closing in once again on the debt ceiling. Any increase in the debt ceiling must pass through the Republican controlled House. If the debt ceiling is not increased, financial chaos will ensue, possibly plunging us back into another recession. Presumably, President Obama will want to avoid that scenario.

It’s time for hardball, Republicans. All you need to do is channel your inner Angela Merkel and just say no. That is, no unless you get substantive reform in return. The argument is easy to make: By continually increasing the debt ceiling without reducing spending and the size of government or reforming entitlements, we are careening towards financial Armageddon anyways. Every well-run business recognizes that there are certain times when there is too much debt on the balance sheet and the level of debt must be reduced. To do anything else is simply to act irresponsibly. Yes, there will be pain associated with reducing this debt, but anyone who tells you this pain is avoidable after so many years of deficit spending is simply lying to you. We cannot delay any longer. The fiscal mess we find ourselves in is enormous and must be addressed now. Presumably, one of the reasons President Obama was reelected was to put our fiscal house in order, not to continue to kick the can down the road to the point where financial catastrophe (a la Greece) is the only possible outcome. It is time for Mr Obama to step forward as a responsible, mature, and capable leader and fix the financial problems that face us. If he cannot, then, probably Bill Clinton's assessment of him as an "amateur" should be accepted as true after all.

In sum, Republicans, you have substantial leverage and a powerful argument to back it up. It's time to use the whip.

Good luck, Oedipus.

The Greeks had a word for it: Até. It is a kind of blindness or self-delusion. At the very moment a man thinks he is at the pinnacle of success, Até clouds his mind and prevents him from seeing that he is actually on the threshold of ignominious disaster. Até benighted the mind of Oedipus. The great king thought he was the brightest man within the city walls, the exceptional man, the one man who could save the city from destruction, only to find out that he himself was the cause of the pestilence that beset his people.

This is the situation our Democrats find themselves in. They have won the presidential election. In California, they have raised taxes, preserved the power of the public service employee unions, and achieved a supermajority in the state legislature. Surely, these are great victories.

The problem is that now the Democrats must govern. Now they must solve problems. Now they must find common ground with an enemy that they have been demonizing for years, but that controls the House of Representatives and has absolutely no motivation whatsoever, for example, to raise the debt ceiling. Now, in California they are free to raise taxes to pay off the public employee unions. But, how long will it take for even stupid Californians to wake up and realize that the public employee unions are bankrupting the state?

Now the Democrats and their president must figure out how to bring down unemployment, avoid another recession, increase the growth of GDP to a more normal rate, reduce the deficit and debt, reform Social Security and Medicare, bring down the price of gas, recover America's AAA credit rating. And they must do all this while continuing to pander to unions and minorities on the one hand while at the same time trying to get a hostile opposition party to cooperate.

Now the President must figure out how to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons without leading America into war and sending the cost of gas through the roof. He must "lead from behind" the nations of the Middle East, newly liberated from dictators, but teeming with Islamic extremists, into a new era of peaceful relations with the West. And he must do this while preserving relations with Israel, a nation he has done nothing but insult throughout his first term.

Is being elected into this situation really a cause for celebration? It is true, gay marriage and women's rights to contraception and abortion paid for by the state have been preserved. Illegal immigrants need not fear. Food stamps will be sent every month. But, how much longer can this charade last? How much longer can trillion dollar deficits not have an effect?

In all his victory photos, Obama has the proud, smug look of affirmation on his face. Not a trace of humility there. Rather vindication. He has won. But now let him try to govern. He barely squeaked out a victory. The 70 percent approval ratings from his first term are a distant memory. This time he has no store of goodwill to draw on. Besides, even stupid Democrats won't buy the "It's all George Bush's fault" excuse forever.

In his moment of triumph, is Obama on the threshold of ignominious disaster? Good luck, Oedipus.

Obama's special understanding

Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East can be summarized as follows:

I, Barack Hussein Obama, have a "special understanding" of the Nations of Islam. This special understanding is the result of the environment I was raised in (my father was a Muslim by birth and my stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, brought me to live in Muslim Indonesia when I was young). Because of my special understanding, I have a sensitivity to the injustices perpetrated against the Nations of Islam by prior US administrations and to the legitimate grievances those Nations have against the United States.

I have therefore determined that the US government, as now personified by me, will "reset" its foreign policy towards the Middle East. This reset will include taking the following actions:

• expressing regret for the policies of prior US administrations,
• refusing to continue such policies,
• withdrawing all American troops from the Middle East,
• supporting Islamic-based "democratic" movements against dictators in the Middle East, and
• refusing to treat Israel as a special ally.
As a result of this reset of US policy, I expect that the Nations of Islam will respond to my beneficence and drop the grievances they hold against the US and that democratic governments friendly to the US (because friendly to me) will spring up across the Middle East.

One can see why the attack on Benghazi represented the utter failure of Obama's policy. If Obama had a special relationship with the Nations of Islam and his reset of US foreign policy was supposed to usher in a new era of harmony between democratic Muslim governments and the West, then why did terrorists in newly liberated Libya murder the US ambassador? If the Obama narrative was to be upheld, the attack on the US ambassador could not be construed as an act of violence directed against the US government (as embodied by President Obama), but rather it had to be interpreted as the understandable (if extreme) expression of outrage at a disgusting and reprehensible video produced by someone in no way affiliated with the US government. This is the reason why Obama and UN Ambassador Rice were so adamant about attributing the attack to the video. If they had been forced to acknowledge that it was a terrorist attack directed at the US government, they would have been forced to acknowledge that Obama's foreign policy of soothing the "legitimate" animosity of the Nations of Islam against the West had been all for naught and that Obama had no special relationship with the Middle East whatsoever. In other words, the Obama administration's entire characterization of the attack in Benghazi was determined by its need to deny the reality of what had happened and to insist that its foreign policy was still bearing fruit. In reality, it was a bitter harvest. The attack in Benghazi was a slap in the face to the US government. How else could the murder of a US ambassador be interpreted than as an assault against the sovereignty of the United States?

Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East is now in a shambles. Allies have been betrayed. In their place have come to power fundamentalist Islamic regimes whose friendliness towards the United States (whether Obama-of-the-special-relationship is in charge or not) is highly suspect. Like the Shah of Iran before him, Hosni Mubarak, a faithful ally of the United States (if also a brutal dictator) has been overthrown and replaced by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who has to be prodded to express regret at attacks on the American embassy in Cairo and who lectures the US President on how to suppress videos that are offensive to Muslims. Israel has been insulted. Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons have not been stopped. By 2014, all American troops will have been removed from the Middle East, we will have no military resources their to project American power, and we will thus have squandered all the hard fought gains we spent so much American blood and treasure to win. Afgahanistan (and perhaps other countries) will fall back into the category of "failed state" and the lack of a US presence there will allow Islamic extremists (like the Taliban) to regain strength in the vacuum created by American retreat. In another 10 years, we will be right back where we started: The Arab Street will still hate us and we will have no military assets to exercise our influence in the Middle East. Even worse, as Obama continues to rack up trillion dollar deficits, we will have no money to spend on military assets anyway.

The new era of harmony that Obama expected to bring about between America and the Middle East through his "special understanding" of Islam will prove, just like Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time," the illusion of a fool.

God speed you to a special ring in Hell

My wife is a teacher in California and, thus, forced to be a member of the California Teachers Association (CTA). This morning Dean E. Vogel, president of the CTA sent a letter to all CTA members celebrating the CTA's "victories" in California yesterday. Some excerpts from the letter are:

Last night, we achieved a monumental victory for our students, our union and our State. Because of the outreach done by our members, California voters demonstrated their willingness to invest in our public schools and colleges [the CTA's characterization of Prop 30, which raises taxes] and also rejected a deceptive ballot measure aimed at silencing educators, other workers and their unions [the CTA's characterization of Prop 32, which proposed to do away with mandatory union dues].

Thanks to you, our schools and colleges will avoid $6 billion in trigger cuts, our local communities will receive funding to keep police on the street and our state can begin to pay down the wall of debt it's amassed during the recession.

And, with the defeat of Proposition 32, we sent a message that Californians believe in the rights of unions to speak out on behalf of the middle class. We sent a message that you can't buy California because we're not for sale. This hard-fought victory for democracy exposed the real agenda of the corporate special interests behind Proposition 32. Those millionaires and billionaires never cared about the checks and balances of our democracy, only the checks they could write to buy even more political influence in Sacramento and Washington.

My wife showed me the email and I was moved to send the following reply back to Mr Vogel:

Dear Mr Vogel,

You write: "Those millionaires and billionaires [only cared about] the checks they could write to buy even more political influence in Sacramento and Washington." This is a description not of the Kochs, or of Karl Rove, but of the modus operandi of the teachers union: use dues from teachers to line the pockets of politicians so that they, in return, fatten up the already fat pensions of teachers. The reason, Mr Vogel, why the State of California has amassed a “wall of debt” is because it has been governed for decades by profligate, union-coddling Democrats, bought and paid for by the CTA. And the truly disgusting part is that, as you enrich public union employees at the expense of the general taxpayer, you claim to be acting “on behalf of the children.” A tear rolls down my cheek as I think about your dedication and selflessness.

As for our wonderful public servants, the police and firemen, Chuck Reed, the Democratic mayor of San Jose, has this to say about them:

"Our police and firefighters will earn more in retirement than they did when they were working. ... When did we go from giving people sick leave to letting them accumulate it and cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are done working? There's a corruption here. It's not just a financial corruption. It's a corruption of the attitude of public service."

Michael Lewis, Boomerang, Travels in the New Third World

A corruption of public service, yes, the same thing can be said about you. You are not a selfless public servant, acting on behalf of “schools, kids, and communities.” Far from it. Rather, you are just a corrupt union thug, stealing from the general taxpayer all you can so that you can pay it out to your own special interest group, the teachers, and pay off Democratic politicians to keep the money laundering scheme going. Corrupt public unions are transforming California into The New Third World, effectively bankrupt, but nevertheless rushing headlong to spend ever more and more and more on benefits for public employees. We don’t need to look at faraway Greece; it’s happening right here in California!

A special ring in Hell is reserved for political hacks like you who speak falsehoods so shamelessly. I wish you: God speed there! You may have won a victory this time by spending millions of dollars to deceive a gullible California electorate. But your time is coming to an end. The house of debt will soon collapse. And your new Democratic supermajority in Sacramento and your newly reelected, trillion-dollar-deficit President in Washington will only hasten the coming debacle. And, when the end finally comes, the citizens of California and the United States will take a pitchfork to the Democrats and union thugs who brought them low and chase them out of town.

I'm back

My faithful readers (all one of them) may have noticed a dearth of posts over the past several months. I have been too depressed to write. It started when John Roberts, in a fit of ... I know not what ... declared Obamacare constitutional. It was at that moment that I sensed the election had slipped away. Things were beginning to snowball against Obama, but Roberts reversed everything. I have been pouting ever since. Yesterday seems to have delivered something of a catharsis to me.

Mitt Romney is a decent man. I voted for him yesterday. I genuinely like the awkward, Mormon geek. But, he was not conservative enough for me.

Besides, in a way, I am glad that Mr Romney did not get elected. We are in a terrible mess and I would rather see the Democrats get the blame as things go from bad to worse. Hopefully, the coming collapse of the welfare state will arouse the mass of the American populace from their slumbers and move them to run the Dems out of Washington and Sacramento forever.

At any rate, I hope to start posting more now. Lord knows the next four years will give me plenty to talk about.