JustOneMinute

Contraceptive Mandate Limited

Per the SCOTUSblog live commentary, Hooby Lobby seems to have won under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

More at Bloomberg.

Sunday Afternoon

Away we go.

"Rich" Is Someone Else

Ruth Marcus of the WaPo excoriates Hillary's "Poor Little Rich Girl" shtick but misses a key point:

You are truly well-off by anyone’s definition of the term. And hard work is the guys tearing up my roof right now. It’s not flying by private jet to pick up a check for $200,000 to stand at a podium for an hour.

Per ABC News, back in 2012 Hillary's net worth was between $5 and $25 miillion. That is not even walking-around money for the Hollywood billionaires and hedge-fund heroes with whom the Clinton's hob nob. And let's be clear - Hillary may be flying on private jets, but she is not flying in her private jet - she still has to cadge rides from friends and supporters, just as she has to borrow summer homes.

In her world she is not rich; she is a hanger-on with valuable political connections.

P.S. There is always room n the Democratic Party for an Affirmative Action hack with no relevant experience.

Unraveling In Afghanistan

Per the NY Times, Obama's commitment to withdrawal has a familiar consequence:

Taliban Mount Major Assault in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — In one of the most significant coordinated assaults on the government in years, the Taliban have attacked police outposts and government facilities across several districts in northern Helmand Province, sending police and military officials scrambling to shore up defenses and heralding a troubling new chapter as coalition forces prepare to depart.

...

With a deepening political crisis in Kabul already casting the presidential election and long-term political stability into doubt, the Taliban offensive presents a new worst-case situation for Western officials: an aggressive insurgent push that is seizing territory even before American troops have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The battle in Helmand is playing out as, about 1,500 miles to the west, Iraq is losing ground to an insurgent force that advanced in the shadow of the American withdrawal there. The fear pulsing through Afghanistan is that it, too, could fall apart after the NATO-led military coalition departs in 2016.

Already, areas once heavily patrolled by American forces have grown more violent as the Afghan military and the police struggle to feed, fuel and equip themselves. The lackluster performance of the Afghan Army so far in Helmand has also evoked comparisons with Iraq, raising questions about whether the American-trained force can stand in the way of a Taliban resurgence.

Officials in Helmand say the answers may come soon enough.

From which golf course will Barry be commenting?

Changing Demographics, Employment, And Immigration

Matt Drudge is highlighting this new CIS study which tracked where the jobs went from 2000 to 2014.

The gist, as described by the NRO Staff:

According to a major new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), net employment growth in the United States since 2000 has gone entirely to immigrants, legal and illegal. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CIS scholars Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that there were 127,000 fewer working-age natives holding a job in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2000, while the number of immigrants with a job was 5.7 million above the 2000 level.

I have reservations based on some stray thoughts about the baby boom of 1946-1964. In 2000, this cohort was aged 36 to 54, so all were in their prime working years; by 2014, they (fine, "we") were aged 50 to 68 and many had presumably retired.

So on a gross basis, maybe - MAYBE - a decline in US jobholders and workforce participation should not be a surprise; on an age-adjusted basis maybe workforce participation rates have been steady and all is well. [More on that here].

However, the CIS presents data that seems to answer that objection:

Other Ways of Defining the Working-Age Population. We see a similar decline in work no matter how we define the working-age population.... If we examine the 25- to 54-year-old native-born population, which is often seen by economists and demographers as the core of the work force, it shows the same pattern of decline. Their employment rate declined from 82.4 percent in 2000 to 80.5 percent in 2007 and was 76.7 percent in the first quarter of 2014. In contrast to natives, the share of immigrants in this age group working increased from 2000 to 2007, and did not decline as much as it did for natives during the great recession (Table 3). No matter how the working-age is defined, there has been a very significant decline in work among the native-born in absolute terms and relative to immigrants.

Well, then, hmm. Even Paul Krugman has admitted that the sun rises in the East waving in cheap labor reduces wages, which presumably is tough on unskilled natives but also discourages others from working.

Of course, on even numbered days progressives wring their hands about rising income inequality, without ever acknowledging the likely link between immigration (legal and illegal) and inequality. US inequality, that is - a President of the Americas would be pleased to see the rising standard of living in Central America as workers in America send money home, which is worth keeping in mind.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Times did a big survey of the history of the War on Poverty in the US which included this laugher:

The more important driver of the still-high poverty rate, researchers said, is the poor state of the labor market for low-wage workers and spiraling inequality. Over the last 30 years, growth has generally failed to translate into income gains for workers — even as the American labor force has become better educated and more skilled. About 40 percent of low-wage workers have attended or completed college, and 80 percent have completed high school.

Economists remain sharply divided on the reasons, with technological change, globalization, the decline of labor unions and the falling value of the minimum wage often cited as major factors. But with real incomes for a vast number of middle-class and low-wage workers in decline, safety-net programs have become more instrumental in keeping families’ heads above water.

In TimesWorld, when the topic is the American poor, immigration is happening in some other country.

A THOUGHT WITHOUT A HOME: Even as income (or wealth) inequality has been rising in the US and most European nations over the last thirty years, inequality between nations (e.g., the Chinese middle class versus the US middle class) has surely been falling. Discuss...

LATE ADD: A mere three weeks later Tyler Cowen takes to the Times with this:

Income Inequality Is Not Rising Globally. It's Falling.

Income inequality has surged as a political and economic issue, but the numbers don’t show that inequality is rising from a global perspective. Yes, the problem has become more acute within most individual nations, yetincome inequality for the world as a whole has been falling for most of the last 20 years. It’s a fact that hasn’t been noted often enough.

I am so far ahead of the curve I think I am catching up to myself from behind...

BS Will Never Die - Ongoing Phony Gun Trace Stats

Back in the day Obama and his chorus used to claim that 90% of crime guns recovered in Mexico were traced back to the US, which clearly signaled a need for stricter gun control here.

And now the NY Times is reprinting letters and citing a new Council on Foreign Relations report which makes the same claim.

Of course, Obama is more verbally than numerically oriented so his stats were widely debunked. The gist - Mexico recovers many, many crime guns, submits likely candidates (such as those with serial numbers that aren't obvious Bulgarian Army surplus) to the BATF, and gets a trace result on that subset. From FactCheck, updated 3/13/2010:

But is it true, as President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don't actually support that claim.

The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually "recovered in Mexico," but U.S. and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns than it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns "recovered" that are traced to U.S. sources necessarily is less than 90 percent. Where do the others come from? U.S. officials can't say.

...

And Mexico recovers a lot more guns than it submits to the U.S. In December 2008, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora put the number of recovered crime weapons in the country over the past two years at nearly 29,000, according to USA Today. And figures given by ATF make clear that the agency doesn't trace nearly all of those.

According to ATF, Mexico submitted 7,743 firearms for tracing in fiscal year 2008 (which ended Oct. 1) and 3,312 guns in fiscal 2007. That adds up to a fraction of the two-year total given by Mexico's attorney general. 

11,000 crime guns were submitted to the BATF for tracing in that time period, which is roughly 30% of the 29,000 revovered.

Are things that different today? Pending booth review, the judge's ruling is that the new CFR 'stats' are as phony as the old ones.

FWIW: This April 2013 report from the Wilson Center doesn't seem to have relevant e-trace data past 2011. They say this about Mexico:

Based on the most recently available data, ATF determined that 68,000 U.S.-origin firearms were recovered at crime scenes in Mexico from 2007 to 2011.60 Despite the strong past cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities on firearms tracing, the new Mexican administration has been slow to submit firearm trace requests to ATF. While this may simply be the result of new leadership personnel familiarizing themselves with ongoing government projects, U.S. officials have indicated that they have seen a worrisome lack of action on tracing and other law enforcement matters related to firearms trafficking.

And here is an interesting factoid from Guatemala, a country contributing to our border crisis, as mentioned in the NY Times letter, but not discussed in the CFR report:

Based largely on an ATF examination of just one Guatemalan military bunker with firearms recovered from FY 2006 to FY 2009, ATF determined that 2,687 of the 6,000 firearms (40 percent) had a nexus with the United States...

40, 70, 90, whatever.

GHASTLY: More from FactCheck:

The 90 percent figure was similarly cited by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) during a March 17 congressional hearing on the subject. Durbin said: "According to ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], more than 90 percent of the guns seized after raids or shootings in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States of America." Feinstein added: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must put a stop to that."

And it's been reported by a phalanx of news organizations, including the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, NBC and the Chicago Tribune, that 90 percent of Mexico's recovered guns come from the U.S.

Mexican authorities have made the same error: On CBS' "Face the Nation" on April 12, Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan said: "Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States."

Most who have used the statistic attribute it to ATF. Others attribute the figure to officials within the Mexican government. But that's not correct.

Partitioning Iraq?

The NY Times contemplates the long-term partition of Iraq with little enthusiasm.

Redrawn Lines Seen as No Cure in Iraq Conflict

By Robert F. Worth

ISTANBUL — Over the past two weeks, the specter that has haunted Iraq since its founding 93 years ago appears to have become a reality: the de facto partition of the country into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish cantons.

With jihadists continuing to entrench their positions across the north and west, and the national army seemingly incapable of mounting a challenge, Americans and even some Iraqis have begun to ask how much blood and treasure it is worth to patch the country back together.

Yes, and not just how much bloood and treasure, but whose?

“At least a third of the country is beyond Baghdad’s control, not counting Kurdistan,” said Zaid al Ali, an Iraqi analyst and the author of “The Struggle for Iraq’s Future.” “But any effort to make that official would likely lead to an even greater disaster — not least because of the many mixed areas of the country, including Baghdad, where blood baths would surely ensue as different groups tried to establish facts on the ground.”

Yes, we would be waxing nostalgic for the India/Pakistan debacle in 1947.

They also allude without explanation to a wild card:

For the most part, Iraqis (with the exception of the Kurds) reject the idea of partition, according to recent interviews and opinion polls taken several years ago. In that sense, Iraq forms a striking contrast with the former Yugoslavia, where militias worked consciously from the start to carve out new and ethnically exclusive national enclaves. The sectarian strain may have led to Iraq’s current impasse, but it coexists with other sources of regional and ideological solidarity, some deeply rooted in history.

What are these uniufying sources? Offhand I would make the disheartening guess that we are talking about hatred of Western colonialism, Western cultural imperialism and hatred of the encroaching Jews, but the Times leaves us hanging.

One expert believes that the problem of governance in this paert of the world is fractal:

“You could split these countries into two or three or four, and you’d have the same practice of power in each of those units,” said Peter Harling, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who spent 15 years living in Iraq and Syria. “The problem is the divisive and autocratic and corrupt way power is practiced, not the borders.”

And the Times notes that the new ISIS caliphate spanning northern Iraq and Syria will be landlocked but will also control a key water resource:

Similar problems would afflict any effort to forge a new Sunni state in Iraq and Syria. For such a state to become sustainable it would need a real economy, and for that, it would require a major city — Aleppo is the only option — and probably a port on the Mediterranean, Mr. Landis said. Negotiating a land corridor that would achieve those goals without endangering the Alawite state would be nearly impossible, he added.

In Iraq, it has long been assumed that the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq, where the major oil fields are, would give the Shiites a tremendous advantage, leaving the Sunnis with only the vast landlocked deserts to the north and west. But northern Iraq also controls both of the country’s major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which flow southward toward Basra. That could provide one more reason for Mr. Maliki, or his successors, to fight hard for the recapture of the north and west.

In the 21st century water will be the new oil.

As to whether ISIS can avoid past jihadist excesses in the territory it is now trying to govern, Time Will Tell. But the Times offers this:

For all the jihadis’ boasts about founding a new caliphate — or Islamic state — the prospects of building any sort of cohesive or sustainable new Sunni entity in the region are slim. Already, there have been reports of factional battles among the gunmen who captured Mosul two weeks ago. The jihadists’ main partner in the north is a network of Iraqi Baathist former military officers with links to Sufism, an Islamic sect the jihadists view as heretical.

There ought to be room for an Awakening II in which moderate Sunnis ally with "Someone" to retake Sunni Iraq. I have a hard time imaginging the Sunnis would then seek to re-unite with the Shiite majority, and I can't guess who "Someone" might be (maybe Iran?). But at least Sunni Iraq would be led by relative moderates, not insane jihadists.

The Soccer/Politics Mash-Up

The US is through to the elimination round of the World Cup, which means we are at risk of exposure to Sudden Onset Soccer Expertise at least through early next week.

Folks have wondered about the sudden media interest in soccer from people who normally disdain sports. Interestingly, a seemingly unrelated survey from the Pew Research Center provides a hint of an answer; from a WaPo discussion:

Proud to be an American? You’re probably not a true liberal.

...

Michelle Obama took some heat in 2008 for saying that, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country..."

As it turns out, that sentiment isn't all that unusual on the far left of American politics. According to a new Pew Research Center study, only 40 percent of consistently liberal Americans say they often feel proud to be Americans.

The other 60 percent say that doesn't describe them.

Far be it from me to question their patriotism, but no kidding. The WaPo also notes that Solid Liberals have another distinctive quirk:

The poll also shows many liberals don't liken themselves to your average American. Just 51 percent say they feel as though they are "typical Americans" -- as compared to three-quarters of conservatives and at least two-thirds of all the other groups.

And the soccer connection? Isn't it obvious? The Solid Libs in the media love soccer because the Great Unwashed could care less. Rooting for America provides a special thrill because, unlike in, e.g., the Olympics, we will inevitably get our asses kicked and the Hegemon will get its comeuppance. Win-win!

HMM: The AllahPundit makes the same point in his lead:

Poll: Only 40% of “solid liberals” say they often feel proud to be American

Via WaPo, so that’s why lefties in my Twitter timeline were cheering when Germany scoredon the U.S. today.

No, I’m kidding. They didn’t cheer. They just said we had it coming and shook their heads sadly.

Just so.

Primary Results

We should have a Tea non-Party open thread.

Where Is Nate Silver When The Times Needs Him? (Part II)

Basic arithmetic is out the window as the Times helps us get Ready For Hillary!

Let's start with a quiz: do you have what it takes to report for the Times?

Here is their graphic showing changes in workforce participation by age and gender since the start of the recession.

Unless those charts are mislabeled (and all the talk of a 'mancession' was misplaced), women are showing smaller declines (or larger increases for the oldsters) then men in every age category except 35-44, which is a virtual tie.

So what story does the Times draw from this?

For Women in Midlife, Career Gains Slip Away

Not men, too?

Ms. Murphy is part of a small but economically significant group that is bucking a powerful decades-long movement of women of all ages into the labor market. In the years since the last recession began, many women like Ms. Murphy, in their late 40s and early 50s, have left the work force just as they were reaching their peak earning years.

The demands on middle-aged women to care for their parents, particularly during difficult economic times that force many families to share resources, are not the only reason for the shift. Some economists also attribute the unexpected phenomenon to extensive budget cuts by state and local governments, which employ women in large numbers and were hit harder during this recession than in previous downturns.

...

As the economy struggles to get back on track, the labor participation rate remains feeble for almost everyone. Still, the losses affecting this group of women — who normally would be in the prime of their careers — stand out from the crowd and highlight the challenges facing middle-aged workers who, for whatever reason, find themselves out of a job.

Apparently many men (more so than women) in this age range were also leaving the workforce. The Times explains why no one cares:

Men, too, have been pushed out of the labor market as jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries have been slow to return. But the rate of decline among adult men has largely tracked the curves of the economy and has been spread more evenly across ages.

Oh, please. Among the many problems with this story:

1. Where Is The Baseline? How has male and female participation been affected by past recessions? And should the Times, or anyone, wonder why female participation was drifting down before the last recession?

2. You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting Better: how is it that women 55 and older are able to stay in the workforce? Their participation has gone up, which makes sense if people want to cling to their job and rebuild their 201(k). But how did they dodge the problems of aging parents and public sector layoffs that hit women a few years younger?

3. What Is The Common Core Math? Some of the Times numbers are hard to decode. We are told that

Since the start of the recession, the number of working women 45 to 54 has dropped more than 3.5 percent. 

However, from the chart on the right showing workforce participation I see a decline for women of about 2.6 percent. However, the chart on the left provides a hint as to the possible legerdemain in play. Using my eyeballometric scanner I think that overall female participation has fallen from 59.2 percent at the start of the recession to 57.2 percent now. That would commonly be described as a 2 percent decline. 

However, the accompanying text says that the percentage change since the start of the recession is -3.5%. A headscratcher! But it is nearly true that 57.2 is 3.5% less than 59.2, and 59.2 is 3.5% more than 57.2, so that is probably their ploy.

So the next time the Times has a poll where Obama's disapproval rate rises from 48 pct. to 54 pct. we all know they will headline a twelve percent increase in Obama's disapproval, right? Or maybe not.

Their commitment to writing about problems faced by working women clearly transcended the statistics on offer.

Where Is Nate Silver When The Times Needs Him? (Part I)

It is Innumeracy Day at the Times as math and common sense get tossed out the window.

Let's start with David Leonhardt of Upshot, who mangles some basic arithmetic in an article about the student loan non-crisis.

Excerpting his key factoids:

The Reality of Student Debt Is Different From the Clichés

...

In fact, the share of income that young adults are devoting to loan repayment has remained fairly steady over the last two decades, according to data the Brookings Institutions is releasing on Tuesday. 

...

I realize that the stories of student debt are so common and visceral that many readers will view the Brookings argument with some skepticism. So let me walk through it.

The first thing to acknowledge is that student debt has risen over the last two decades. In 2010, 36 percent of households with people between the ages of 20 and 40 had education debt, up from 14 percent in 1989. The median amount of debt — among those with debt — more than doubled, to $8,500 from $3,517, after adjusting for inflation.

However!

The incomes of college graduates have grown since the early 1990s. And the repayment time for many loans has become longer. This combination creates perhaps the most surprising fact from the Brookings data:

The share of income that a typical student debtor has to devote to loan payments is only marginally higher than it was in the early 1990s — and somewhat lower than it was in late 1990s. It was 3.5 percent in 1992, 4.3 percent in 1998 and 4 percent in 2010.

Taking all this at face value we conclude that the number of households with student loan debt has increased from 14 percent to 36 percent, a 250% increase. The debt burden (adjusted for income) as a proportion of income per household with debt has not changed. Ergo, if 2.5 times as many households have taken up this burden then the total payments made by ALL young adults, debtor and non-debtor alike, has soared.

How can that possibly be squared with his bold intro (third paragraph online) that 

In fact, the share of income that young adults are devoting to loan repayment has remained fairly steady over the last two decades...

It can't. Young adults as a class are spending roughly 2.5 times more on debt service (adjusted for income), which means they have less money available for other things.

If twenty years ago 6 percent of the population had tuberculosis and today it was 15 percent I am reasonably cionfident that Mr. Leonhardt would not assure his readers that there was no public health crisis because the people suffering from TB today weren't coughing harder or any more feverish than the sufferers of twenty years ago.

If twenty years ago 4 percent of New Yorkers had been victims of auto theft and today that figure was 10 percent, I doubt Mr. Leonhardt would argue that there was no problem because the value of cars had only tracked with inflation, so really, nobody had lost more.

Groan.

FWIW the Brookings people manage to summarize this correctly:

Ultimately, Akers and Chingos conclude that typical borrowers are no worse off now than they were a generation ago...

They also note (as summarized by Mr. Leonhardt) that, although the increased prevalence of indebtedness may have macroeconomic effects on, for example, housing, the data is not in to support that.

 

Hope And Change Mugged By Reality In Iraq

The NY Times offers a poignant recounting of the collapse of Obama's "strategy" in Iraq:

Relief Over U.S. Exit From Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope

This is among the bits that vexed me:

Just as important if not more so, however, was the impact of the civil war in next-door Syria. Few if any expected on that day in 2011 just how far the Syria conflict would escalate, leading to the creation of virulent new Islamist jihadist groups like the Nusra Front and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS or sometimes ISIL, that would ultimately spill over the border and threaten Baghdad.

“The notion that Syria would completely fall apart and become this major staging ground for Nusra and ISIS, which wasn’t even ISIS at the time, I don’t think people anticipated and I don’t think could have been anticipated,” said Colin Kahl, who was the Pentagon official in charge of Iraq until the withdrawal.

Setting aside the specific emergence of ISIS, is it really true that no one could have foreseen that instability in Syria could bleed over into Iraq? My goodness, here is a Times account of the Eerily Non-Prescient Joe Biden's farewell trip to Iraq and environs in December 2011 (my emphasis):

Mr. Biden’s comments seemed calculated to reassure allies like Turkey in a region that is worried about a new wave of instability — not just because of Iran’s more aggressive behavior but also because of the violence in Syria.

In his meeting with the Turkish president, the senior administration official said, Mr. Biden acknowledged that there were fears in the Middle East about what would happen if the uprising in Syria managed to topple President Bashar al-Assad. But he argued that Mr. Assad himself was the greatest cause of instability and sectarian strife. “The problem right now is Assad,” Mr. Biden said in the interview. “Could something emerge that is more disruptive regionally? I don’t think so, but it could.”

"I don't think so, but it could" is quite different from "That can't happen".

They make nice bookends - Bush entered Iraq on the basis of faulty intelligence and Obama exited on the basis of faulty intelligence.

If the pleasant weather has lightened your mood, this piece by Meghan L. O'Sullivan on Obama's poor and narrowing options in Iraq should turn that smile upside down!

As a result, the Obama administration faces a difficult conundrum—one that presents the president with only two very poor policy approaches. Obama can either pursue an incremental, conditional approach that will satisfy his desire to put maximum pressure on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and minimize America's return to Iraq—but will likely fail to address the severity of the crisis. Or Obama can set aside his understandable caution and provide more robust military assistance before he can be confident of getting the political changes that are needed to turn any Iraqi government military gains into strategic successes. 

Obama was wise to send 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq, and he is correct to think that, without political changes, the Iraqi state will struggle to overcome its current security challenges given that it will be unable to win the support of either the Sunnis or the Kurds. But the political outcome that will bring all Iraqis back into a power-sharing government has become much more complicated just in the last week.

And every moment that the president waits, the more complicated it becomes as new realities consolidate on the ground.

Left unmentioned - where will we find an army with the fighting spirit to liberate (or should that be "liberate"?) Sunni Iraq from its Sunni jihadist occupiers? I think Shiite militias or the Shiite "led" Iraqi army can fight on their home turf but have no chance fighting Sunnis in Sunni territory. And the US had its hands full there back in first invasion and later allied with local Sunni chieftans to battle Al Qaeda in Iraq; what are the odds of Obama making that kind of troop commitment?

PRESUMABLY THAT WAS NEVER A RED LINE; Kerry admits that with the clock ticking, US action may precede Iraqi politcal reform.

A Corporatist RINO Checks In On Climate Change

Hank Paulson, former Bush Treasury Secretary, advocates for a carbon tax as a precaution against climate catastrophe. He is writing in the NY Times and preaching to the choir; any possible resonance with the Republican base is shattered by this passage:

Farseeing business leaders are already involved in this issue. It’s time for more to weigh in. To add reliable financial data to the science, I’ve joined with the former mayor of New York City, Michael R. Bloomberg, and the retired hedge fund manager Tom Steyer on an economic analysis of the costs of inaction across key regions and economic sectors. 

Steyer and Bloomberg? Smart guys, sure, but not exactly conservative icons, or even conservatives.

As to the merits of his proposal, put me down as a strong "Definitely Maybe". Carbon emissions are currently unregulated, unpriced and unowned, which means that IF (I say IF) they are dangerous then we are facing a Tragedy of the Commons problem. A higher price on carbon emissions would encourage conservation and reduce usage in transportation. It would also prompt energy-intensive manufacturers to locate their production abroad in more sympathetic regimes, which might be a bit of a job killer here (as if Obama worries about that...). That could be addressed (if the WTO rules and international relations allow it) with a Carbon Intensity tariff on imported manufactured goods designed to equalize the burden between our country and the country of manufacture. That sounds nightmarishly complex to me, but it probably sounds like a marvelous bureaucratic expansion to progressives.

Greg Mankiw has called for a revenue-neutral carbon tax (offset by a cut in ther Social Security payroll tax). I like that even better, although figuring out which taxes to cut to protect groups such as retirees is tricky.

MORE: Tyler Cowen has more.

Saturday AM

Away we go.

We've Seen This Movie

From the headlines:

U.S. to Send Up to 300 Military Advisers to Iraq

And from Jim Geraghty:

I suppose if there’s a chance you’ll run across Persians, 300 guys is a good number to have.

 

Only The Daughters

Torn from the headlines:

Obamas want daughters to get taste of minimum-wage life

I want to put Barry back into a job for which he is qualified too.

Per Hillary, We Need A Trigger Warning On The Phrase "Trigger Warning"

Hillary Clinton is not a fan of free thought, free expression, or the Second Amendment. And if guns actually "terrorize" Americans then surely the phrase "trigger warning" merits a trigger warning.

Fifteen Minutes, And More

As Andy Warhol sorta said, in the future verybody will be famous for fifteen minutes. And as Peggy Noonan nearly adds, every President will be infamous for 18 1/2 minutes.

Keep The Champagne Corked

Via Glenn we come to an interesting article about ISIS in Iraq:

ISIS: THIS TOO SHALL PASS

Mark Stout

 

After recounting their latest successes he gets to this:

 

However, this will not last. For an explanation why, we can turn to probably the most brilliant jihadist strategist to have touched a keyboard: Abu Musab al-Suri. He believed that “open fronts,” such as the 1980s jihad against the Soviet Union, efforts intended to liberate and hold territory, are unlikely to succeed. The simple fact is that they cannot stand up to modern military power backed up by modern intelligence. Instead, he recommended a turn toward individual jihad because it avoided the enemies’ strengths. In other words, Al-Suri would say that the more cities ISIS captures, the more money it has to keep track of, the more armored vehicles it acquires, the more social services it has to organize and deliver, the more it is setting itself up for a fall.

 

Examples are offered:

 

Afghanistan and Somalia provide evidence of the fundamental truth of the observation that al-Suri and Mobley make. Only a small push from the U.S.-led coalition was necessary to send the Taliban regime running in 2001. In Somalia, al-Shabaab and before it the Islamic Courts Union, have had tremendous difficulties holding on to power in the face of attacks from local opponents and the Ethiopian and Kenyan militaries, and occasional American raids.

 

I have one word: Hezbollah. They have been running southern Lebanon for decades and have withstood challenges from the very well organized Israeli military.

 

As to which modern military might challenge ISIS, my guess had been Iran: in a bid to broaden their appeal in the Muslim word beyond Shiites they might seek an alliance with local Sunni chieftans unhappy with ISIS, leading to Awakening II. Just whether that would be good news for the US remains a puzzle.

 

MORE: Citing al-Shabaab was bad luck, since they made headlines again today:

 

48 Killed in Terror Attack on Kenya Town, Police Say

Al-Shabab, a Somali al-Qaida-linked group, claimed responsibility for the hours-long assault on Mpeketoni in which 48 people were killed. The attack began Sunday night as residents watched World Cup matches on TV and lasted until early Monday, with little resistance from Kenya's security forces.

Obviously, that story does not contradict the notion that Al-Shabab has had trouble holding and governing territory. But they are not on the run, either.

GLASS HALF FULL: The NY Times mismatches headline and story in this guest piece by Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute:

Who Will Win in Iraq?

ISIS Will Fail in Iraq, and Iran Will Be the Victor

However, ISIS will "fail" in that they will not take Baghdad, which is now overwhelmingly Shiite. Whether the leaders of ISIS would consider his projected endgame a failure is far from obvious:

In short, despite the rapid success of the Sunni campaign, it is a kamikaze attack that will make the Shiite hold on the Iraqi state stronger, not weaker.

That said, it’s unlikely that Mr. Maliki will have the stomach to retake the Sunni-majority areas of western Iraq anytime soon. The rump Iraq, like the Assad regime in Syria, will be ever more in thrall to Iran, and committed to domestic policies that make the reconstitution of the country via a political process ever more unlikely.

So Mailiki continues to govern Shiite Iraq and ISIS keeps Sunni Iraq. That sounds like a defeat ISIS can live with; as to whether Obama would be willing to go on national television and declare that to be an ISIS defeat, well, that would really be a job for Susan Rice.

I Blame Gary Taubes

From Drudge:

Price Index for Meat, Poultry, Fish & Eggs Rockets to All-Time High

I blame Gary Taubes although others may point to Nina Teicholz or TIME Magazine.

 

Affirmative Action Alternatives

David Leonhardt of the NY Times appraises some alternatives to race-based affirmative action, and deliver a classic of the "people are too dumb to respond to incentives or look out for their children" genre.

He opens with some good news on the legal front:

Affirmative action as we know it is probably doomed.

When you ask top Obama administration officials and people in the federal court system about the issue, you often hear a version of that prediction.

Five of the Supreme Court’s nine justices have never voted in favor of a race-based affirmative action program. Already, the court has ruled that such programs have the burden of first showing “that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice.”

The issue appears to be following a familiar path in Chief Justice John Roberts’s court. On divisive social issues, the Roberts court first tends to issue narrow rulings, with the backing of both conservative and liberal justices, as my colleague Adam Liptak has noted. In later terms, the five conservative justices deliver a more sweeping decision, citing the earlier case as precedent. With affirmative action, last year’s case involving Texas could be the first stage.

So what could replace it? Apparently the trick is to find a basket of proxies that collectively substitute for race. Incone alone doesn't work because there are too many poor whites. That leads to this proposed solution:

The insight of both books is that the obstacles facing many black and Latino children can be captured through a set of variables that are, on the surface, race-neutral. A system based on these factors, rather than race per se, would be undeniably constitutional and more politically popular.

The most obvious of the factors is income — but it is not the most important. Supporters of today’s affirmative action often point out that a strictly income-based version of the program would produce much less racial diversity, and they’re right. Fewer than one-third of households making $40,000 a year or less are black or Latino, according to census data.

But income alone understates the challenges facing many minority children. Black and Latino students are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods than white and Asian students with similar incomes. Black and Latino families are also less wealthy than white and Asian families. And black children in particular aremuch more likely to be growing up without two parents in their home.

Proponents of a new kind of affirmative action prefer an approach that focuses on wealth, neighborhood and family structure, as well as parents’ income, education and other factors. Doing so steers clear of the legal restrictions on racial classifications — and, in the minds of most Americans, is fair. Is an affluent teenager with a 1,300 SAT score really more accomplished than the valedictorian of a troubled high school with a 1,250? No.

So the key insight here is to reward current dysfunction. Parents may not want to quit their jobs or dissipate their wealth, but the benefits of a quick divorce are obvious. Set one parent up in a separate, poor household (that "divorce" was nasty) and boom - little Johnny or Sue, who never did succeed in becoming a recruitable athlete, is now a recruitable kid from an impoverished, broken home.

Take the War on Marriage from the tax code and the ObamaCare subsidies, tell people that getting and staying married will keep their kids out of good colleges, and the progressive/feminist struggle against the patriarchy will have another advance. Brilliant.

MORE: Scouring the archives I notice that David Leonhardt has belly-flopped on Affirmative Action before. But he's Keeping Hope Alive!

 

Innocents Abroad And At Home

The NY Times delivers two papers in one! The editors deplore the humanitarian crisis at the border and continues to play along with the Administration line that the influx of young illegals has no connection to Obama's executive implementation of the DREAM Act.

But back on the front page the Times comes home to reality:

Migrants Flow in South Texas, as Do Rumors

By JULIA PRESTON  JUNE 16, 2014

...

While most men are held and processed quickly for deportation, border authorities struggling to manage the influx have been releasing pregnant women and parents with young children, allowing them to join family members living here and issuing them a deportation hearing notice. Migrants have sent word back home they received a “permit” to remain at least temporarily in the United States, feeding rumors along migrant routes and spurring others to embark on the long journey.

“I heard in Guatemala that people were caught by immigration, but then they let them go and gave them a permit,” said Carmen Ávila, 26, who is seven months pregnant and came with her 4-year-old son, Jostyn. “The word got around and that’s why so many people are coming.”

Migrants here said they planned to attend their court hearings and fight for a chance to stay. But officials have no specific plan to monitor compliance, and based on the pace of the overburdened immigration courts, it seems highly unlikely that any of the migrants would be deported soon.

We get this odd detail:

In a perplexing problem for the Border Patrol, many women and youths who cross the Rio Grande illegally now run toward agents rather than away from them, believing that being caught is the first step toward an entry permit.

The Times editors leave their readers with a plea for immigration reform, and a puzzle:

It’s infuriating to see the long-term reform that would ease the problem — by opening more routes to legal immigration, and restoring mobility to a population trapped on this side of the border — being sent to its doom by the short-term political scheming of Congress’s hard-core anti-immigrant, anti-Obama caucus.

In their world, people are ignonring current US law to flee terrible conditions. But if the US law was reformed and their entry remained illegal they would... respect the new law and remain in those terrible conditions? Why?

In my world they are coming becasue they believe there is an excellent chance they will be allowed to stay, and current practive suggests they are correct.

Oh, well - yet more evidence proving I will never have the intellectual agility to be a Progressive.

And More Harshing Of The Mellow

Breitbart News passes along a CBS News story that will harsh progressive mellow:

The Hunt for the Ever-Elusive Tea Party Killer Leads to... Occupy Wall Street

Liberals were so excited when news broke of a husband-and-wife team of psychopaths killing two police officers and a heroic armed civilian who confronted them in Las Vegas... and threw a "Don't Tread On Me" Gadsden flag over one of their victims.  At last!  At long, long last!  The elusive Tea Party killer had finally arrived!

...

While living in Lafayette [Indiana], Jerad and his wife Amanda took part in last November’s “Million Mask March” – a gathering of protesters from the Occupy movement, anarchists, and hacktivists.

Ooops!

Let's flash vack to the NY Times coverage of the recent spree killers in Las Vegas:

Antigovernment Obsession Preceded Las Vegas Shootings

...Just before noon, the couple entered a CiCi’s Pizza parlor, where Mr. Miller shot one officer in the head. Then the couple opened fire on the other.

They draped one officer’s body in a swastika and a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag that has been adopted as a symbol of the Tea Party. On the other, they pinned a note warning of “the beginning of the revolution,” a phrase they also shouted, the police said.

A symbol of the Tea Party! So what's up with that Gadsden flag, hmm?

Readers of the Times with a long memory (i.e., not the Times editors) may recall this comparison of Tea Partiers and Occupiers from 2011:

It is a culture war, young versus old, left versus right, communal food tables versus “Don’t Tread on Me” flags.

In fact, the two movements do share key traits. They emerged out of nowhere but quickly became potent political forces, driven by anxiety about the economy, a belief that big institutions favor the reckless over the hard-working, grievances that are inchoate and even contradictory, and an insistence that they are “leaderless.” “End the Fed” signs — and even some of those yellow Gadsden flags — have found a place at Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street protests alike.

Gadsden flags at Occupy protests?!? Yes, really - 1, 2, 3. Sorry, libs.

To paraphrase the Breitbart reporter, crazy is apolitical.

 

Harshing Barry's Mellow

The NY Times actually takes a bit of a dig at President 404. Deep in their discussion of the current collapse in Iraq ("Obama Pushes Iraqis to Mend Sectarian Rifts") is this:

The deepening crisis in Iraq shadowed a getaway weekend for Mr. Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughter Malia in the desert near Palm Springs, Calif. Before teeing off Sunday morning at a golf course owned by the technology billionaire Larry Ellison, Mr. Obama was briefed by his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, on Iraq and on the evacuation of embassy personnel in Baghdad, the White House said.

No word on whether the President had arugula for lunch, but that aside, golfing with his billionaire buddies sounds perfectly out of touch.

The Shark Must Look Like A Minnow From Up There

Paul Krugman jumps so high over the shark he achieves low-earth orbit:

Yes He Could

Several times in recent weeks I’ve found myself in conversations with liberals who shake their heads sadly and express their disappointment with President Obama. Why? I suspect that they’re being influenced, often without realizing it, by the prevailing media narrative.

The narrative? Not, just to dwell on the last couple of weeks, the VA debacle, the Bergdahl debacle, or the meltdowns in the Ukraine and the Levant? Or, channeling my inner Progressive, the Cheney-NSA regime, the drone wars, the gun control collapse, the immigration collapse, the Children's Crusade - geez, what's a lib to do?

Brace yourself and (Keyboard trigger alert!) swallow anything you are drinking:

The accepted thing, it seems, is to portray Mr. Obama as floundering, his presidency as troubled if not failed.

But this is all wrong. You should judge leaders by their achievements, not their press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year. 

Really:

Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year. In fact, there’s a very good chance that 2014 will go down in the record books as one of those years when America took a major turn in the right direction.

That comes to us live from the Reality Base. On my planet a few more good years like this one and any remaining Democrats will vote to remove the letters "B" and "O" from the alphabet. But we agree that 2014 is likely to go into the record books.

The Earnest Prof divulges the recipe for his Kool-aid:

First, health reform is now a reality — and despite a shambolic start, it’s looking like a big success story. Remember how nobody was going to sign up? First-year enrollments came in above projections. Remember how people who signed up weren’t actually going to pay their premiums? The vast majority have.

Uh huh. Health care is such a success that no Demeocrat anywhere is willing to run on it. We all expect a wave of waivers this summer as Obama tries to shield voters from the emerging reality this November. And FWIW, no, I don't remember how "people who signed up weren’t actually going to pay their premiums". I remember headlines that "only" about 80 percent of enrollees would pay their prmiums, and that seems to have been borne out.

Then there’s climate policy. The Obama administration’s new rules on power plants won’t be enough in themselves to save the planet, but they’re a real start — and are by far the most important environmental initiative since the Clean Air Act. I’d add that this is an issue on which Mr. Obama is showing some real passion.

Let's cut to the Times analysis of the President's new proposals, which have yet to survive the regulatory review process. First, some context:

Thanks partly to a surfeit of natural gas that few people saw coming, emissions in the United States have already fallen 10 percent from 2005 levels and are still heading down, even without Mr. Obama’s new rule.

Then:

It is clear Mr. Obama’s immediate goal is not to solve the emissions problem, but to get the country moving faster in the right direction. The new rule alone offers little hope that the United States and other nations can achieve cuts on a scale required to meet the internationally agreed limit on global warming. But experts say that achieving the pledge Mr. Obama made in Copenhagen — a 17 percent reduction in the nation’s greenhouse gases by 2020, compared with the 2005 level — would be quite likely, if his plan survives.

And:

Yet, by itself, the president’s plan will barely nudge the global emissions that scientists say are threatening the welfare of future generations.

“Is it enough to stop climate change? No,” said Ted Nordhaus, chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank in Oakland, Calif. “No political leader in the world has a serious agenda to do that.”

After lauding financial reform as "much weaker than it should have been" but "real" Krugman rallies for the Big Finish:

Put it all together, and Mr. Obama is looking like a very consequential president indeed.

As was Jimmy Carter.

 

I'll Take Them Seriously When They Do

Yesterday the Times headlined an ominous story about the next medical crisis:

Threat Grows From Liver Illness Tied to Obesity

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR  JUNE 13, 2014 

Despite major gains in fighting hepatitis C and other chronic liver conditions, public health officials are now faced with a growing epidemic of liver disease that is tightly linked to the obesity crisis.

In the past two decades, the prevalence of the disease, known as nonalcoholic fatty liver, has more than doubled in teenagers and adolescents, and climbed at a similar rate in adults. Studies based onfederal surveys and diagnostic testing have found that it occurs in about 10 percent of children and at least 20 percent of adults in the United States, eclipsing the rate of any other chronic liver condition.

There are no drugs approved to treat the disease, and it is quickly becoming a leading cause of liver transplants around the country.

Doctors say that the disease, which causes the liver to swell with fat, is particularly striking because it is nearly identical to the liver damage that is seen in heavy drinkers. But in this case the damage is done not by alcohol, but by poor diet and excess weight.

Although sugar is mentioned a few times withojut any conviction there is no emphasis on fructose. This despite past guest pieces by Gary Taubes and columns by their own staff noting the probable link between fructose and fatty liver disease. That omission is especially puzzling because the Times readership can be relied upon to revel in a high-fructose corn syrup basher.

Bracing For The Cocktail Hour

As the sun sets on a lovely Saturday I am prepping for the cocktail hour and taking to heart some advice that drifted by on Twitter a few days ago. I believe the author was the Ace of Spades and his topic was the Must-Be-Discussed World Cup.

I paraphrase:

If you experience Sudden Onset Soccer Expertise ask your doctor if STFU will work for you.

Noted.

Surprising Only Team Obama

A few days back we noted the NY Times coverage of the next humanitarian crisis - children coming from Central America to cross the US border. Why the sudden influx? The Adminstration explanation, dutifully (and nearly straight-facedly) reported by the Times and echoed in their credulous (and incredible!) supporting editorial, was gang violence in Central America. The possibility that Obama's executive implementation of the DREAM Act had attracted new illegals was given short shrift, except by illegals themselves.

And now the WaPo joins in:

Influx of minors across Texas border driven by belief that they will be allowed to stay in U.S.

There is growing evidence that a surge of tens of thousands of Central American minors across the Mexican border into Texas is being driven in large part by the perception they will be allowed to stay under the Obama administration’s immigration policies.

Administration officials — after initially dismissing such reports — are now attempting to push back on the idea, warning parents not to send their children as officials scramble to accommodate tens of thousands who already have arrived in Texas.

Jaws are dropping in the White House and the NY Times editorial suites.

The administration has emphasized that the influx of minors is being driven foremost by widespread gang-related violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. 

That contradicts the UNHRC report, excerpted in this post:

Guatemala:

Sixty-two percent of the children did not mention serious harm as a reason for leaving. Eighty-four percent of the children shared hopes for family reunification, better opportunities for work or study, or helping their families as a reason for coming to the U.S.

Honduras:

Forty-three percent of the Honduran children did not mention serious harm as a reason for leaving. Twenty-one percent of the children discussed situations of deprivation. Similar to the children from Guatemala, 80% of the Honduran children shared their hopes for family reunification, better opportunities to work or study, or to help their families as a reason for leaving, but very few gave one of these as the only reason.

We can't expect Times editors to refer to source material when the adminstration is delivering dictation. But the WaPo took a new tack:

Republicans point to the crisis as evidence that Obama’s policies have contributed to a widespread belief that young migrants will be allowed to remain in the country. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Thursday that her staff found evidence on a recent tour of a Border Patrol station in Nogales, Ariz., that the young migrants are being promised as much before leaving home.

Two of Feinstein’s staff members visited the Nogales facility, where hundreds of children were sent for processing in recent weeks after the patrol stations in the Rio Grande were overwhelmed. In a statement to The Washington Post, Feinstein said the children were being well fed and cared for, but she emphasized that “what concerns me is why the children are crossing the border in the first place.”

“After engaging with the children and U.S. personnel, my staff learned that many of the children were smuggled across the border after hearing radio ads promising they would not be deported,” Feinstein said. “My staff also heard that religious organizations are spreading the same message.”

Ouch. Reality bites.

 

Saturday Morning

After all the talk about President 404 and the mysterious IRS computer crash that ate Lois Lerner's emails, Typepad crashed last night and delivered the timeless '404'.

But we are pressing on this morning, '404' snark and all.

Hope From Iran On The Collapse In Iraq

Matt Drudge has an ominous headline - Iran To The Rescue? - but as the sun breaks through on a Friday afternoon I am employing the power of positive wishful thinking.

The NY Times provided these thoughts about Iran's possible role:

As Sunni Militants Threaten Its Allies in Baghdad, Iran Weighs Options

As a backer of the Shiite majority in Iraq, Iran has a problem:

Any form of direct involvement would come at a high price, with the largest Shiite country in the world becoming an active player in the growing sectarian conflict in the region.

“Numerous [religious] sites could potentially be destroyed or taken hostage by Sunni extremists. They are traps for us, as for any incident there the Shiite world will be looking to us for action,” said one analyst, who asked not to be named because of his critical stance.

Direct involvement also conflicts with another Iranian goal:

“We are in a dilemma. We are a Shiite country, but trying to be the leaders of the entire Muslim world. As a result we can’t even act in our own backyard.”

Actually, being Shiite may present Iran with an opportunity very similar to that exploited by Gen. Petraeus during the surge. Back in 2006 during the Anbar Awakening Gen. Petraeus was able to persuade moderate Sunni chieftans to turn on their nominal Sunni/Qaeda allies and side with the US. Part of the appeal was that for the local chieftans, allying with al Qaeda was riding the tiger - their fellow Sunni jihadists were not going away quietly and had every intention of being in charge. The US, on the other hand, was neither Sunni nor likely to stick around once the fighting was done (and how has that worked out?).

Iran could attempt a similar pitch to any remaining moderate Sunni chieftans today. The obvious question would be whether Iran really would leave, or simply empower Shiites in what are now the Sunni portions of Iraq. However, if Iran wants to position itself as a credible leader of all Muslims they would have every incentive to help the local Iraqi moderate Sunnis repel ISIS, and then depart themselves.

And propping up Iraq today might earn Iran some points with Europe and the US. Or are we going to turn around and re-impose sanctions on them after they save our bacon in Iraq and the nuclear talks inevitably stall?

Tricky. It is time like this I am grateful the US is led by the smartest guy in the world.

Any Day Now

Obama will decide what, if anything to do about Iraq sooner or later:

Obama Says He Will Decide on Military Support for Iraq in ‘Days Ahead’

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he would make a decision “in the days ahead” about whether to use American military power to help the besieged Iraqi government stave off collapse at the hands of Islamist insurgents, but he ruled out using ground forces.

“This poses a danger to Iraq and its people and, given the nature of these terrorists, it could pose a threat eventually to American interests as well,” Mr. Obama said of the offensive now threatening Baghdad. “We will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq, but I have asked my national security team to prepare a range of other options.”

The president cautioned against expecting quick action, saying the planning would take “several days” to make sure any airstrikes were effective.

Planning those airstrikes is tricky because they are going after moving targets. Moving toward Baghdad, at last report.

While we wait the Defense and State Departments have rallied the #HashtagArmy:

And he can escalate those hashtags all day, subject only to his tee times.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Yes, I'm #Shameless.

MORE: We hear from Baghdad Barry, via Hit and Run:

 

Back To The Root Of Our Economic Troubles

The NY Times Business Section was filled with gloom in an article about the 'new normal':

U.S. Economic Recovery Looks Distant as Growth Stalls

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM  JUNE 11, 2014

WASHINGTON — Recessions are always painful, but the Great Recession that ran from late 2007 to the middle of 2009 may have inflicted a new kind of pain: an era of slower growth.

 It has been five years since the official end of that severe economic downturn. The nation’s total annual output has moved substantially above the prerecession peak, but economic growth has averaged only about 2 percent a year, well below its historical average. Household incomes continue to stagnate, and millions of Americans still can’t find jobs. And a growing number of experts see evidence that the economy will never rebound completely. 

For more than a century, the pace of growth was reliably resilient, bouncing back after recessions like a car returning to its cruising speed after a roadblock. Even after the prolonged Great Depression of the 1930s, growth eventually returned to an average pace of more than 3 percent a year. But Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, citing the Congressional Budget Office, said on Wednesday that the government now expected annual growth to average just 2.1 percent, about two-thirds of the previous pace.

Regular readers, especially those for whom mild OCD is a blessing rather than a curse (I know I am not alone here) know where this mighty freight train is headed. Was it really five years ago that Gregory Mankiw and Paul Krugman scuffled over unitary roots, the inevitability of an economic rebound, and the perils of economic forecasting? Yes it was!

Mankiw, in a nutshell, said that strong recoveries are not inevitable:

According to the conventional view of the business cycle, fluctuations in output represent temporary deviations from trend. The purpose of this paper is to question this conventional view. If fluctuations in output are dominated by temporary deviations from the natural rate of output, then an unexpected change in output today should not substantially change one's forecast of output in, say, five or ten years. Our examination of quarterly postwar United States data leads us to be skeptical about this implication. The data suggest that an unexpected change in real GNP of 1 percent should change one's forecast by over 1 percent over a long horizon.

Krugman, in his typically calm and well-reasoned fashion, explained that Mankiw was scum sucking vermin toadying up to his corporate paymasters. OK, I exaggerate slightly but his response did include "deliberate obtuseness" and "evil".

In any case, Mankiw proposed that Krugman bet on the Team Obama growth forecasts and Mankiw would take the other side. There is no 'man' in Krugman (unlike 'Mankiw'), so the bet was not taken up. Shrewd move - Team Obama had predicted an increase in real GDP of 15.6% from the end of 2008 to the end of 2013; the actual result was a real GDP increase (in chained 2009 dollars Gdplev, BEA, .xls) of, well, 6.3%. Ooops. Score one for evil obtuseness and the new normal.

SINCE YOU ASK: Yes, we had preemptively declared Mankiw the winner back in 2012, but we are spiking the ball again. Now ask me about Spurs-Heat.

Happy Birthday 41!

Life as a metaphor - Bush 41 goes skydiving on his 90th birthday. In addition to showing he stills kicks ass, 41 was free-falling as a statement about (a) Maliki's government in Iraq; (b) Obama's anti-terror 'strategy', or (c) the heirs to the House Republican leadership that scuttled him in '90.

Tough call.

BACK TO BUSINESS, or, ISN'T THIS SPECIAL: Iran sends their special forces to buttress Iraq. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and ISIS is being opposed by Assad of Syria as well as the Iranian mullahs, we have some unfamiliar allies. Does Assad still have to go? Hmm. Maybe if Assad gassed some ISIS strongholds... nahhh. OK, then, if Maliki is lined up with Iran is it time to impose sanctions on him?

We can count on 404 to sort this out.

Prepping The Hashtag

Obama was asked about Iraq today. From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Thursday that he was watching the rapid advance of militant groups in Iraq with “a lot of concern,” and that the United States stood ready to provide increased help to the Iraqi government, though he did not specify what kind.

Speaking in the Oval Office after meeting with Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia, Mr. Obama said: “Iraq’s going to need more help. It’s going to need more help from us, and it’s going to need more help from the international community.”

...

“I don’t rule out anything,” Mr. Obama said, “because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria, for that matter.”

"Or Syria"! Good catch, Mr. President. As to our plan for denying the jihadists a foothold in Syria, are we going to switch sides and back Assad now? Or cast about for any moderate rebels left to support?

When life hands Obama lemons he passes out the lemonade as if its a campaign rally:

The president said the escalating crisis confirmed his decision to reorient the administration’s counterterrorism strategy from fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan to focusing on a more diffuse set of terrorist groups, some linked with Al Qaeda, from the Middle East to North Africa.

He's been right all along! I do think that the final transcript will reveal a typo in the Times account; the correction will be that 

...the escalating crisis confirmed his decision to disorient the administration’s counterterrorism strategy...

In other words, Obama won't limit himself to losing in Afghanistan; he still thinks he can stand back and lose in Libya, Syria and Iraq as well.

The president did not announce a hashtag meant to terrify ISIS, so we are left with #ObamaIsStillThinking and my suggestion, #BackToIraq.

McCain Thunders Away On Iraq

John McCain noted that nobody likes an I told you so but took his chances and reminded the Senate that, on the topic of the importance of a continued American presence in Iraq, he told us so.

His current plan, such as it is: the President should get a new National Security team, including a new NSA and a new Chair for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Obama should also bring back Gen. Petraeus, Bob Kagan, and some other generals he named with a track record of success to form an advisory commission, or something.

Lest people are having trouble getting worried about the ISIS takeover of Sunni Iraq, Mccain mentioned that ISIS stole nearly half a billion dollars from the Mosul central bank, making them the best-financed terror group out there.

However, McCain had no suggestions for a hashtag, so Team Obama won't be listening and ISIS won't be trembling. I suggest #BackToIraq.

SPEAKING OF 'I TOLD YOU SO': Here is Michael Gordon of the NY Times, writing in Sept 2012, about the Obama effort in Iraq:

In the case of Iraq, the American goal has been to leave a stable and representative government, avoid a power vacuum that neighboring states and terrorists could exploit and maintain sufficient influence so that Iraq would be a partner or, at a minimum, not an opponent in the Middle East.

But the Obama administration has fallen frustratingly short of some of those objectives.

The attempt by Mr. Obama and his senior aides to fashion an extraordinary power-sharing arrangement between Mr. Maliki and Mr. Allawi never materialized. Neither did an agreement that would have kept a small American force in Iraq to train the Iraqi military and patrol the country’s skies. A plan to use American civilians to train the Iraqi police has been severely cut back. The result is an Iraq that is less stable domestically and less reliable internationally than the United States had envisioned.

 

Baghdad Bob, Meet DC Sue

The NY Times reports on the collapse of the Iraqi army in the face of a major militant offensive and includes this gem:

In a speech on Wednesday, Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, said that the American effort to buttress Iraq’s forces have been effective. “The United States has been fast to provide necessary support for the people and government of Iraq,” she said in remarks at the Center for New American Security in Washington.

Did she add that the Iraqi forces are serving with honor and distinction? Evidently her role in Team Obama is to handle the talking points no one else can deliver with a straight face, so I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of her in the next two and a half long years. Go long Botox.

AND STILL NO HASHTAG: Samantha Power(less) unlocks the door to the US arsenal:

Strongly condemn attacks in Mosul by the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (#ISIL), and its efforts to turn back clock on #Iraq's progress.

"Strongly" condemn? I was hoping for "Fiercely", but whatever. The lack of a new and improved hashtag clearly signals confusion and irresolution. I suggest #YesAllIraq, but please don't ask me what it means.

IS THIS AN ESCALATION OR A RETREAT? I learn this from Amb. Power's Twitter:

Appalled by ISIL kidnapping of Iraqi & Turkish citizens & Turkey Consulate staff. Join Govs of Turkey/Iraq in calling for immediate release.

"Appalled" beats "Unnerved" anyway.

NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND... No, #IraqWarIsOverCauseWeLeft is not what we are looking for as a signal of solidarity.

SEND IN THE DRONES: Does anyone think Obama can endure headlines about the collapse of Baghdad in the run-up to the Democratic rout this November? Does anyone think the Iraqi military can hold off collapse past November?

I think the political and national security concerns actually overlap on this one. We are going #BackToIraq.

Cantor Out

Cantor loses his primary to the a Tea Party insurgent.

Erick Erickson says that immigration was the spark but the arrogance of Cantor and his team was the fuel:

The media will play up Cantor’s loss by claiming it was about immigration. They will be wrong, but it will be useful for the rest of us. Immigration reform is now DOA in the House of Representatives thanks to David Brat.

But Cantor really did not lose because of immigration alone. Immigration was the surface reason that galvanized the opposition to Cantor, but the opposition could not have been galvanized with this issue had Cantor been a better congressman these past few years.

He and his staff have repeatedly antagonized conservatives. One conservative recently told me that Cantor’s staff were the “biggest bunch of a**holes on the Hill.” An establishment consultant who backed Cantor actually agreed with this assessment. That attitude moved with Cantor staffers to K Street, the NRSC, and elsewhere generating ill will toward them and Cantor. Many of them were perceived to still be assisting Cantor in other capacities. After Cantor’s loss tonight, I got a high volume of emails from excited conservatives, but also more than a handful of emails from those with establishment Republican leanings all expressing variations on “good riddance.”

 

Circling The Drain In Iraq

The NY Times covers the collapse of the Iraqi army and the Obama "policy" in Iraq:

After Capture of Mosul, Militants Extend Control in Iraq

BAGHDAD — In a lightning advance, Sunni militants who overran the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as government forces abandoned their posts pressed south toward Baghdad on Wednesday, occupying facilities in the key oil refining town of Baiji and seizing the city of Tikrit without facing much resistance, security officials and residents said.

Insurgents also raided the Turkish consulate in Mosul and seized the consul general and 47 other Turkish citizens, including special-forces soldiers and three children of diplomats, the Turkish prime minister’s office said. The development raised the possibility that Turkey, a NATO ally that borders both Syria and Iraq, would become directly involved in the fast-moving crisis in northern Iraq.

Maybe Turkey will bail out Obama? Presumably they would request some NATO support, and maybe Obama would even go along.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was holding an emergency meeting with top security officials on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, and the Turkish foreign minister cut short a trip to New York and was returning to Ankara, government statements said.

Turkey has long taken an interest in northern Iraq for economic reasons and because of the sizable and often restive Kurdish minority, which straddles the border and controls a region of Iraq east of Mosul.

Back to the collapse:

Citizens in Baiji, a city of 200,000 about 110 miles south of Mosul, awoke Wednesday to find that government checkpoints had been abandoned and that insurgents, arriving in a column of 60 vehicles, were taking control of parts of the city without firing a shot, the security officials said. ...

...

The militants’ advance spread alarm in Baghdad, 110 miles south. Though the city seemed calm, residents said they were shocked by the news and feared that the insurgent group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, would push on toward the capital.

The Iraqi army lacks motivation, leadership and a plan and is plagued by desertions. And since you ask, yes, the Times delivered some "I told you so" coverage in their earlier story:

The swift capture of large areas of the city by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria represented a climactic moment on a long trajectory of Iraq’s unraveling since the withdrawal of American forces at the end of 2011.

The rising insurgency in Iraq seemed likely to add to the foreign policy woes of the Obama administration, which has faced sharp criticism for its swap of five Taliban officers for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and must now answer questions about the death of five Americans by friendly fire in Afghanistan on Monday night.

Critics have long warned that America’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq, without leaving even a token force, invited an insurgent revival. The apparent role of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Tuesday’s attack helps vindicate those, among them the former ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, who have called for arming more moderate groups in the Syrian conflict.

In Obama's head, Bush was wrong to enter Iraq in 2003 so therefore it was right to exit Iraq in 2011. As to arming the moderates in Syria, well, Obama has made pretty speeches and drawn red lines, so really, what else could he have done?

As to what happens next, this CNN opinion piece has a mixed message:

The international community has a humanitarian and strategic prerogative to act against ISIS's most recent gains in Iraq; the Iraqi government needs as much support as it can get in challenging ISIS.

Aside from a robust military response, Iraqi President Nuri al Maliki's government needs to challenge the jihadists ideologically. He needs to reach out to the disenfranchised Sunni population, a group that has become marginalised economically and socially during his time in power, for this is the well from which most ISIS fighters are drawn. Taking a purely heavy-handed approach will just feed into the jihadist propaganda.

Encouragingly, al Maliki seemed receptive to such suggestions in March when he attended, alongside Quilliam representatives,Baghdad's first anti-terrorism conference. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that this is Iraq's war now, and no one else's.

Puzzling - this is "Iraq's war now, and no one else's" but the international community "has a humanitarian and strategic prerogative to act"?

Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal presents an unnerving map of the ISIS and other insurgent gains. His earlier coverage included some recent history:

Mosul was the last major city to serve as a bastion for the ISIS after the US and Iraqi forces launched counterinsurgency operations as part of the surge that began in 2007. By the time US forces left Iraq at the end of 2011, the ISIS was operating as terrorist cells in the city. Close proximity to Syria allowed the ISIS to continue operating in Mosul and the northwestern province of Ninewa. The ISIS began reasserting itself as the Syrian civil war picked up steam in the summer of 2011 and US forces withdrew from Iraq a few months later in December.

Jimmy "Best Case" Carter has left the building.

MORE: I should include the Administration response, as reported by the Times:

In Washington, the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statementthat the United States was “deeply concerned about the events that have transpired in Mosul,” and that the Obama administration supported a “strong, coordinated response to push back this aggression.” The statement said the administration would provide “all appropriate assistance to the government of Iraq” and called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria “not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region.”

Not even a hashtag? As to supporting a "strong, coordinated response", how about organizing one? Or is Obama planning to lead from behind on this?

MUMBLING OUT LOUD: Imagine that events play out and insane Sunni jihadists take over a big chunk of once-Shia led Iraq. Do the militant mullah of Iran (a) decide they need more friends from the West and show new flexibility on their nuclear program, or (b) decide nobody - especially no Sunni ISIS jihadists - can out-crazy them and it's time to nuke up? 

If it were me, I would consider nuclear weapns a deterrent against the West, not against ISIS - what, are the Iranians going to nuke Falluja? But I am not a militant mullah, for whom the "nuke Falluja" question might give them a chance to bust out their impressions of the comically miserly Jack Benny.

Showing The Common Touch

Hillary's financial woes are totally relatable; how can middle class Americans resist her 'by the bootstraps' success story?

Back To The Belmont With California Chrome

YouTube provides a little Belmont warm-up.  Here is Secretariat in 1973; and the Affirmed-Alydar showdown in 1978 is a classic.

This weekend we also have Nadal-Djokovic, Ranger-Kings, Heat-Spurs, and some baseball. Darn this sunshine and beautiful weather!

Listen To The Children

The child in the White House explains the Bergdahl decision. As James Taranto nearly said, we are all children now (and always have been).

Bikram B-Ball

If you can't take the heat get out of the Finals.

I thought the pace of this game (fast and faster) was wildly entertaining. LeBron obviously has an amazing physique but he will get knocked for not being able to endure a bit of adversity. C'mon, who doesn't remember Michael Jordan's "Flu Game" in the '97 Finals against the Jazz? How about Larry Bird getting 34 and 17 in the heat of Boston Garden against the wilting Lakers in 1984?

Classics.

HE'S GOTTA BE LIKE MIKE: LeBron endorses Powerade?!? C'mon, Be Like Mike!

Unmentionable

Neil Irwin of the NY Times 'Upshot' hews to the party line on immigration, aka "That Which Must Not be Named". His topic is poverty and the puzzle is why the poverty rate has not fallen since 1979, despite decent economic growth over that period. he has lots of ideas but no mention whatsoever of the possible impact of legal and illegal immigration on the wages of the unskilled. You can only imagine my surprise.

For a brief deviation from the party line we can flash back to a Paul Krugman column from 2006. He opens with a bit of groveling to establish is prog-cred:

''Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,'' wrote Emma Lazarus, in a poem that still puts a lump in my throat. I'm proud of America's immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my grandparents fled Russia.

In other words, I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. 

Then, the throat-punch:

But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. If people like me are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant demagogues, we have to acknowledge those facts.

First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration -- especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration.

A bit of gratuitous Bush-bashing is meant to ease the reader's pain:

That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants do ''jobs that Americans will not do.'' The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays -- and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.

Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should -- and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.

Right, as if no lib has ever made the "jobs Americans won't do" argument. That argument is generally offered by immigration advocates, like Bush, not its demagogic opponents. 

But in TimesWorld immigration is never a problem and Bush is always a pinata.

 

A Recap

Jon Stewart recaps the evolving Bergdahl prisoner swap story.

The Times covers disgruntlement on the Hill:

Senators Show Frustration After Briefing on Ex-P.O.W.

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and JEREMY W. PETERS JUNE 4, 2014

WASHINGTON — White House officials failed Wednesday night to quell rising anger and frustration in both parties on Capitol Hill after a senators-only classified briefing about President Obama’s decision to free five Talibanprisoners in return for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who military officials say walked off his base in Afghanistan five years ago.

...

enator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, exited the briefing visibly angry and said he left with more questions than answers. “I think we can all agree we’re not dealing with a war hero here,” he said.

Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, said she remained concerned about what she called the five “high risk” detainees. “I’m not satisfied with their ability to prevent them from re-engaging in the fight,” she said. “I think that is one of the things that worries me most.”

Senator Mark S. Kirk, Republican of Illinois, said senators pressed the briefers — top officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff — on whether Mr. Bergdahl deserted in 2009. But the senator said they gave no answer.

“They ducked it,” he said, characterizing the response as, “We’re looking into that.”

An enduring mystery - who among the current crop of Best and Brightest thought that setting up a Rose Garden victory lap with Obama was a good idea? And even though the buck always stops elsewhere, how did Obama's political radar fail to register the problems here?

To be fair, it has moved the conversation away from the VA scandal.

Nobody Could Have Seen This Coming

The NY Times reports on the next humanitarian crisis:

Wave of Minors on Their Own Rush to Cross Southwest Border

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — After a decade apart, 13-year-old Robin Tulio was finally heading to the border to be with his mother. A maid, living illegally in Baltimore, she had decided the time was right to smuggle her son into the United States.

Like so many others across Central America, Robin said his mother believed that the Obama administration had quietly changed its policy regarding unaccompanied minors and that if he made it across, he would have a better shot at staying.

She hired a smuggler, but Robin didn’t make it.

“It’s too hard,” he said after being caught in Mexico recently and sent home to Honduras. But his aborted journey helps explain why there has been a rush of migration of unaccompanied minors so severe that the United Nations [link] declared it a humanitarian crisis akin to refugees’ fleeing war.

Since Oct. 1, a record 47,017 unaccompanied children have been apprehended at the southwest United States border, most traveling from Central America, part of a larger wave that includes some youngsters accompanied by their parents and some traveling alone.

Now if you are thinking there is a connection between this children's crusade and Obama's June 2012 executive action deferring prosecution of young illegals, well, you don't have what it takes to report for the Times [or write editorials].

First, we hear from the silly, uninformed illegals:

Many say they are going because they believe that the United States treats migrant children traveling alone and women with their children more leniently than adult illegal immigrants with no children.

Next we get the truth from the Adminstration:

The Obama administration says the primary cause of the influx of children is rising crime and ailing economies in Central America, not policy changes in the United States.

Uh huh.

“We have heard sort of rumors and reports, or suggestions, that the increase may be in response to the perception that children would be allowed to stay or that immigration reform would in some way benefit these children,” said Cecilia Muñoz, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, in a conference call with reporters on Monday. “It seems to be quite clear that what is driving this is what’s happening in their home countries.”

Officials said that recently arrived children would not benefit from the immigration bill passed by the Senate last year or from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that lets minors who meet certain criteria avoid deportation.

It is true that strictly speaking, recent illegal entrants won't qualify for Obama's Executive DREAM because they don't meet the requirement of five years in the US. That means kids caught at the border may well be sent back. 

But the Times opened with a story of a ten-year illegal attempting to smuggle in her 13-year old. If she had succeeded, would Team Obama really have tried to make the case that the child was not a five year illegal resident?

The Times does push back ever so gently against the Administration line:

But even as the government moves to confront the situation, children, parents, immigration officials, lawyers and activists interviewed say that there has been a subtle shift in the way the United States treats minors.

That perception has inspired parents who have not seen their children for years to hire so-called coyotes, guides often associated with organized crime, to bring them north. It has prompted other parents to make the trip with toddlers in tow, something rarely seen before in the region.

“If you make it, they take you to a shelter and take care of you and let you have permission to stay,” Robin said after he stepped off a bus on a Thursday night with eight others caught on their way north. “When you appeal your case, if you say you want to study, they support you.”

Lest you wonder whether anyone could have foreseen that Obama's Executive DREAM would encourage illegal immigration by kids, we defer to Mickey Kaus, writing in April 2013:

Magnet on! Amnesty border rush starts

“Where do I go for my amnesty?” One reason I got interested in the immigration issue was the similarity between the … well, let’s call it Liberal BS of the welfare reform debate and the BS of the immigration debate.  ...

Similarly, advocates of immigration amnesty would now like to deny the obvious: that even talk of amnesty is a powerful magnet for more illegal border-crossing. They should go to South Texas, where the rush has already started, according to a report from WOAI in San Antonio.

...

The Daily Caller easily found corroboration of WOAI’s account in official stats.  Despite the assurance of DHS secretary Napolitano that the border’s secure and getting more so, Illegal crossings seem to have started rising in 2012. A couple of points:

...

–Nevertheless, something official did happen in 2012 Obama issued his de-facto executive DREAM Act–”deferred action” for young undocumented immigrants.  Is it crazy to think that the huge jump in children being brought across the border (8,041 in 2008 to 24,481 in 2012) had something to do with this–e.g. parents bringing in their kids so they will qualify under the next “deferred action,” or under any future DREAM-like legislation?

The IBD made similar points in Dec 2013:

The Dream Act By Executive Order Draws In New Wave Of Illegal Immigrants

Immigration: The Border Patrol and other agencies report a "surge" of unaccompanied minors coming across our border. It coincides with the White House's de facto amnesty via the Dream Act to reward such lawbreaking.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement noted a "surge" in unaccompanied alien children in its year-end report last week, pointing out that 24,668 foreign minors in the country illegally were placed in the care of a federal de facto baby-sitting service because no parents were around to care for them.

Last year's number was a near doubling from 2012, and nearly quadruple what it was at the start of the decade, according to a report on Fox News.

CHERRY-PICKING THE UN REPORT: The UN reporters interviewed 404 children from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. The kids from Mexico are in a different legal world - they are instantly deported if caught, so Mexican gangs recruit them for all sorts of jobs.

The El Salvador kids describe a crazy level of violence. However, this is from the summaries for Guatemala and Hondiuras:

Guatemala:

Sixty-two percent of the children did not mention serious harm as a reason for leaving. Eighty-four percent of the children shared hopes for family reunification, better opportunities for work or study, or helping their families as a reason for coming to the U.S.

Honduras:

Forty-three percent of the Honduran children did not mention serious harm as a reason for leaving. Twenty-one percent of the children discussed situations of deprivation. Similar to the children from Guatemala, 80% of the Honduran children shared their hopes for family reunification, better opportunities to work or study, or to help their families as a reason for leaving, but very few gave one of these as the only reason.

Neither Fool-Proof Nor Dowd-Proof

Maureen Dowd illustrates that people who gobble down edible marijuana without doing any basic research into timing and effects may have problems. At least she spared a lab rat or two from a long, stressful afternoon, because who knew?

Prof. Althouse delivers an appropriate excoriation.

MORE: Best title contender here. Yes, I have updated my "To Steal" list, but remember, it's won't be theft, it will be homage.

LATE ADD: She had been warned...

No Deserter Left Behind

The swap of five Gitmo Taliban leaders for one US Army deserter may not be the PR coup Obama was looking for.

Nathan Bethea, a soldier who was part of the effort to find Bergdahl, is not exactly happy about the situation:

We Lost Soldiers in the Hunt for Bergdahl, a Guy Who Walked Off in the Dead of Night

For five years, soldiers have been forced to stay silent about the disappearance and search for Bergdahl. Now we can talk about what really happened.

 

But he is ready to move on:

 

I forgave Bergdahl because it was the only way to move on. I wouldn’t wish his fate on anyone. I hope that, in time, my comrades can make peace with him, too. That peace will look different for every person. We may have all come home, but learning to leave the war behind is not a quick or easy thing. Some will struggle with it for the rest of their lives. Some will never have the opportunity.

 

And Bergdahl, all I can say is this: Welcome back. I’m glad it's over. There was a spot reserved for you on the return flight, but we had to leave without you, man. You’re probably going to have to find your own way home.

 

Two Papers In One

The NY Times provides double coverage of Obama's emerging war on coal. First, the good news (for their Upper West Side readership) about Obama's proposed new EPA regulations:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday will announce one of the strongest actions ever taken by the United States government to fight climate change, a proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, according to people briefed on the plan.

...

Because burning coal is the largest source of the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for trapping heat in the atmosphere and dangerously warming the planet, the rule is expected to have a powerful environmental impact. 

One little rule covering the US but not Europe, China or India? Please. If, I say IF Obama can leverage this into a global deal, then maybe it will be a drop or two in the bucket.

The Times comes home to reality in a news analysis piece accompanying the main story:

Trying to Reclaim Leadership on Climate Change

...

On Monday, Mr. Obama is bypassing Congress and taking one of the biggest steps any American president has ever taken on climate change, proposing new rules to cut emissions at power plants. Yet, by itself, the president’s plan will barely nudge the global emissions that scientists say are threatening the welfare of future generations.

“Is it enough to stop climate change? No,” said Ted Nordhaus, chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank in Oakland, Calif. “No political leader in the world has a serious agenda to do that.”

Powerful, yet ineffectual; somehow that captures the spirit of this administration.

It is clear Mr. Obama’s immediate goal is not to solve the emissions problem, but to get the country moving faster in the right direction. The new rule alone offers little hope that the United States and other nations can achieve cuts on a scale required to meet the internationally agreed limit on global warming. But experts say that achieving the pledge Mr. Obama made in Copenhagen — a 17 percent reduction in the nation’s greenhouse gases by 2020, compared with the 2005 level — would be quite likely, if his plan survives.

And will that be enough?

The world’s nations have set a goal to limit the warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level. If that is to happen, many studies suggest that global emissions need to peak no later than 2020 and then begin to fall. Today, emissions are not falling nearly fast enough in the West, and those reductions are being swamped by a rapid rise in the East. Experts say that a global peak in 2020 is exceedingly unlikely, if not impossible — and that will be true even if the United States and other nations manage to keep the pledges they made in 2009.

Well into the 2020s, it will still be technically possible to meet the global warming target, but the longer nations put off taking bold action, the more expensive and disruptive it will be to do so once they finally get serious.

They do mention that fracking plus the economic collapse make 2005 an attractive baseline:

Thanks partly to a surfeit of natural gas that few people saw coming, emissions in the United States have already fallen 10 percent from 2005 levels and are still heading down, even without Mr. Obama’s new rule.

They forgot to mention the recession, but I didn't.

These Changing Times

Mark Landler of the NY Times looks at Obama's many pretty words on national security and comes away scratching their heads:

In Obama’s Speeches, a Shifting Tone on Terror

By MARK LANDLER MAY 31, 2014

WASHINGTON — Few leaders place more weight than President Obama on the power of the spoken word to clarify a messy world. But after five and a half years and dozens of speeches — most recently at West Point last week — the trail of Mr. Obama’s pronouncements has grown muddier. Speaking to cadets at the United States Military Academy, Mr. Obama said, “For the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America, at home and abroad, remains terrorism.” A year ago, speaking at the National Defense University here, the president said of the post-9/11 war on terrorism, “this war, like all wars, must end.”

Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 2009, Mr. Obama said, “There will be times when nations, acting individually or in concert, will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” On Wednesday at West Point, he said, “Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences.”

By themselves, these statements are not contradictory. And White House officials insist that the policies laid out in his speeches, whether on the use of force or the nature of the terrorist threat, are rigorously consistent. But Mr. Obama’s tone has shifted radically, depending on his audience and the context. Taken together, the speeches offer a portrait of a president whose ambivalence about the wisdom of military action has only deepened since he took office, even as his view of the world’s dangers has darkened.

 

He closes with the same "Talk is cheap" message" delivered by the NY Times editors:

The trouble is that a shrunken vision does not make for inspiring oratory. Mr. Obama’s instinct when he gets into a difficult situation has always been to deliver a speech. Some experts said he might be better off not giving one for a while.

 Two and half more years of golden silence? We should be so lucky.