Yet another GOP warning the Democrats ignored

Turns out, the GOP’s warnings about the possible collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and our overall economy as a result – weren’t the only ones Democrats ignored during the Bush years. Take a look at this quote from Harry Reid back in 2005 (via MM):

However, Democratic critics drew different findings from the [Social Security] report, arguing that it showed that Social Security was not in a crisis situation and did not require the private accounts that the administration wants to establish for younger workers.

“Today’s report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place — the minds of Republicans,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. “In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.”

Fast forward to now:

WASHINGTON – Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year’s report.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government’s “full faith and credit” but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that “the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be.”

Democrats like Reid fiercely resisted the characterization of Social Security as a “crisis” during the Bush years because they opposed his idea to privatize it – yet they offered few ideas of their own in turn. Will they still treat it as a minor “problem” and continue kicking it down the road for other Congresses to have to deal with? The WH website is sparse on details related to the admnistration’s plans on Social Security, and the Dems in Congress have so far been resistant to make tackling the issue a priority. Surprise surprise.

Stay tuned …

Flashback:

• 1/14/05 – Byron York: “Save Social Security First”? Just a few years ago, Democrats talked about a crisis they now deny exists.
• 2/17/05 – WILLisms: Total Bull Donkey: Democrats Develop Social Security Calculator.

Senators Weigh Tax Hikes to Pay for Health Care

Senators are considering limiting — but not eliminating — the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama’s plan to provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans.

Joe Biden is a major player, says Joe Biden

Yesterday’s Washington Post served up this headline: “Obama Enlists Biden’s Expertise About High Court.” The sole source cited by the Post for the proposition that Biden has a major say in selecting the next Supreme Court nominee is Biden himself. The only other source in the portion of the story that deals with Biden’s role in policy matters is Ron Klain, Talkin’ Joe’s chief of staff. Klain touted Biden’s foreign travels and asserted that “having a vice president who can do that sort of work has been a huge asset to the president.”

If anyone on the president’s staff thinks that Biden is making a major contribution, either through his views on a Supreme Court nominee or his travels, that person apparently was not talking to the Washington Post.

It’s not difficult to discern what happened here. Biden made a fool out of himself once more with his statement that he “wouldn’t go anywhere in confined spaces right now.” So he and his staff sought to plant a puff piece about his role in grown-up policy stuff. And the Washington Post duly obliged.

BY THE WAY: The paper edition of this story contains a priceless picture of Biden in full bombastic mode — mouth wide open, arms flailing — during the Roberts confirmation hearings. The captioning shows that Biden is saying to Roberts, presumably in the middle of a minute-long sentence, “the whole issue there is whether or not you know. . .”
Roberts is on a split screen looking rather icy.

Obama should put Biden to use when it comes time to prep the eventually nominee for his or her Senate hearing in order to make sure the nominee can suffer fools. It was my impression that even Chief Justice Roberts found Biden’s questioning a challenge in that respect.

CIA Briefing Notes Should Be Made Public, Says Congressman

U.S. Rep Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, yesterday released a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and CIA Director Leon Panetta requesting that the CIA’s Memoranda for the Record on the enhanced interrogation program be reviewed for declassification and publicly released.
“The American people should be given [...]

China Gets The Same Number of Votes As the U.S. on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council

The U.N. General Assembly filled 18 seats at the Human Rights Council Tuesday in a vote that drew criticism for its lack of competition and the high level of support enjoyed by countries with poor human rights records.

Obama’s Catholic-Basher

It appears that virulent anti-Catholicism is no bar to serving in the administration of President Barack Obama.

Iraq begins to pay the price of U.S. disengagement

We don’t receive much news about Iraq these days, but the little we do get isn’t very good. For example, Iraqi deaths in April 2009 numbered about twice the January-February 2009 average. In fact, April was the worst month by this standard since July 2008, when the death count was dropping dramatically.

Moreover, the Washington Post reports that the al Qaeda pipeline from Syria is “back in business” after a “lull.”

None of this is surprising. With the U.S. disengaging militarily, Iraqi militias, insurgents, etc. have every reason to become emboldened and to begin jockeying for an enhanced military position. And with President Obama taking a soft line on Syria (and, indeed, exploring a “dialogue” with that terror supporting state), the Syrians no longer have much reason to fear paying a price for promoting instability in Iraq.

Against this backdrop, clueless Nancy Pelosi, on a recent visit to Baghdad, promised that the U.S. will play an “intense” political role in Iraq even as our military role fades away. How political involvement will stem the flow of terrorists into Iraq, or the terrorist activities of those already present, Pelosi did not explain. Nor, as far as I can determine, did she explain why even non-terrorists will allow us to play an “intense” political role once we are no longer a significant military player.

Pelosi did say that,”if we are going to have a diminished physical military presence, we have to have a strong intelligence presence.” But Pelosi ignored the relationship between military presence and intelligence presence. If we are not in the neighborhoods providing security for Iraqis, they are not likely to risk their lives to provide us with intelligence. This is one of the lessons of the surge.

But then Pelosi, Obama, and the rest of the Dems have essentially been in denial when it comes to the surge.

U.S. Should Not Give Billions More in Aid to Pakistan Without Accountability, Says Democratic Senator

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said he cannot support legislation introduced by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (D-Ind.) that would give Pakistan $15 billion in non-military aid over the next 10 years.

Obama’s Census Nominee Likely to Face Questions on ACORN, Sampling in Confirmation Hearing

Changing the formula for the U.S. Census could mean shifting up to two dozen congressional seats to the Democrats, a Republican congressman warned Tuesday, as the Senate prepared to consider the nomination of a Census Bureau leader who supports "sampling" in the Census count.

Vindication for Gen. David Petraeus

It’s no secret by now – to the thinking classes, anyway – that Gen. David Petraeus has been vindicated by the successes we’ve seen take place in Iraq over the last year and a half. The General that the far left has for years loved to hate – even going so far as to take a nasty ad out on him in the NYT that strongly implied he was a “traitor” – has more than proved his worth to the US military, to coalition forces in Iraq, and to those of us here stateside who always believed that the war in Iraq was a worthy cause, and one worth winning.

Not only has he been vindicated with the successes taking place in Iraq, but he has as well with the change in plans – and personnel – in Afghanistan ordered by President Obama. David Ignatius writes:

It’s a small irony of history that Gen. David Petraeus, attacked by the left for his role in revitalizing the Bush administration’s effort in Iraq, is now being asked by a Democratic president to do much the same thing in Afghanistan.

The Centcom commander intends to apply the same counterinsurgency tactics he developed in Iraq, but Afghanistan will be in many ways a tougher fight.

Petraeus isn’t a man who likes to lose, and he’s assembling an all-star team. Gone is Gen. David McKiernan, a solid but uninspired commander; he will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a rising superstar who, like Petraeus, has helped reinvent the U.S. Army.

Petraeus has an asset in this new campaign that was sorely lacking in Iraq, which is strong diplomatic support from special envoy Richard Holbrooke, and this enables a regional approach to the war. Holbrooke and Petraeus are two headstrong bulls in a small paddock, but so far they are making this crucial partnership work.

To understand Petraeus’ basic approach, try to picture in your mind a horizontal line that charts the level of militancy of insurgent groups. On the left are the hard-core “irreconcilables” who could never be co-opted by the U.S. But as you move right along the line, the groups become more pliable and join the “reconcilable” camp.

What Petraeus did in Iraq was to move groups from one category to the other—transforming hard-core insurgents into members of tribal militias on the U.S. payroll. The remaining fanatics became targets for Special Forces “capture or kill” operations, which were overseen in Iraq by McChrystal.

It was a hard-and-soft strategy — using kinetic firepower to clear an area, and then gentler counterinsurgency tools to hold it and build through economic development.

Petraeus’ plan in Afghanistan is to hit the enemy very hard this year with the additional 21,000 troops President Obama has approved — and then see if the Taliban coalition begins to crack. Much greater violence is ahead initially, as the U.S. attacks Taliban sanctuaries in the south. But if the strategy succeeds, the “chameleon insurgents,” as Petraeus calls them, will begin to peel away.

As Petraeus envisages reconciliation with the Taliban, it will happen village by village, across Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts, rather than in a big sit-down with the group’s leader, Mullah Omar.

Ignatius correctly points out that there are tough challenges ahead in Afghanistan, and notes that having Petraeus and Holbrooke tackling those challenges head on will aid in bringing about the kind of change we ALL want to believe will happen in Afghanistan -a change for the (much) better.

Hmm. With the vindication of Petraeus in mind, I wonder where the apologies are from the Hillary Clintons of this country who disparaged the General’s own words on the progress that was taking root in Iraq as early as the summer of 2007, a few months after the surge plan was put in place? Remember this Sept. 2007 quote?

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, opened her questioning of Petraeus and Crocker with the standard “I honor you for your service.” And then she let the two of them have it.

“You have been made the de facto spokesmen for what many of us believe to be a failed policy” in Iraq, Clinton said. “Despite what I view is your rather extraordinary efforts in your testimony both yesterday and today, I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief.”

Clinton added that “any fair reading of the advantages and disadvantages accruing post-surge, in my view, end up on the downside.”

Perhaps she’ll get around to saying “I’m sorry, Gen. Petraeus” right about the time she finishes apologizing for the US military allegedly “killing civilians” during recent US-led airstrikes in Afghanistan … killings that were actually committed by the Taliban. It’s always accuse first, ask questions later with the left – especially as it relates to our military. John Murtha sure must be proud.

And so should our Apologist in Chief.

Hey, Harry Reid, do you think we have an entitlement crisis yet?

I want to remind you of what Harry Reid said just a few years ago in response to Republican calls for Social Security and Medicare reform. [...] Read the rest »

Is it over for the Republican Party?

Our friends Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett are on a sort of Three Tenors tour playing to big houses and talking about Obama’s first 100 days. They are speaking at the Minneapolis Convention Center tonight together with Dennis Prager. If Bill makes it to bed on time tonight, I’ll be joining him tomorrow morning in the studio at the top of the hour around 8:00 am (Eastern), 7:00 am (Central) to talk at least a bit about the future of the Republican Party.

It wasn’t long ago that liberal commentators such as Thomas Edsall and Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger foresaw a bright future for the Republican Party. So did conservative commentators such as Fred Barnes and Jim Geraghty.

I took issue with Barnes in my 2003 post “What is realignment?” and with Geraghty in my 2006 National Review piece “Still a majority?” I hope to get a chance to take these pieces up with Bill and Seth Liebsohn tomorrow morning.

Now that the wise men of Time and many others are writing the obituary for the Republican Party, the conventional wisdom is rapidly shifting in the other direction. They may be right this time, but I would like to provide grounds for keeping an open mind on the question.

Does Colin Powell rate the unconditional political fellowship of Republicans?

Being on the road today meant, among other indignities, exposure to CNN. At breakast, I was treated to a CNN type interviewing David Frum and feigning concern for the future of the Republican party. The issue was Dick Cheney’s comments about Colin Powell. David opined that there should be room in the Republican party for Powell. He added that, after all, Powell is the only general in our recent history to have won a war.

But the extent to which there should be “room” in the Republican party for Colin Powell cannot depend on how many wars he won as a general. Rather, Powell’s comfort level with Republicans, and Republicans’ with him, should turn on the extent to which he agrees with the views of most Republicans.

For example, what is Powell’s position on the stimulus bill, on retaining the Bush tax cuts, on judicial nominations and philosophy, on what to do about the health care system, on dealing with Iran, on dealing with Israel, on missile defense, on dealing with the remaining terrorist detainees, on gay marriage? Without at least some of these answers, no meaningful discussion of how Republicans should view Powell “politically” (as Cheney put) is possible.

I don’t know any of these answers. I do know that Powell supported Barack Obama in 2008, so it seems likely that his position on most of these issues is not consistent with the views of most Republicans. If so, then Powell might reasonably conclude that, though he’s free to remain a Republican, there’s little reason for him to do so. And Republicans should shed no tears if, under these circumstances, he leaves the party.

It may be, however, that Powell voted for Obama for personal or racial reasons, despite substantial disagreement with him on the issues. In that case, there might well be room for Powell in the Republican party. But this depends solely on issue affinity, not on how well Powell performed (in partnership with then Secretary of Defense Cheney) during the first Gulf War.

The making of a Minnesota suicide bomber

We have written several times about Shirwa Ahmed, the Somali immigrant to Minnesota who returned to Somalia to wage jihad. On a mission from Minneapolis, Shirwa Ahmed killed 29 people in a suicide bombing in northern Somalia last October. Our posts on Ahmed are collected here.

Because it is feared that Ahmed’s case may be representative of those of other Somali immigrants who have disappeared from the Twin Cities to receive training in jihad in Somalia, it has created concerns among law enforcement int the Twin Cities. Indeed, Ahmed’s case has given rise to a federal investigation and related grand jury proceedings.

Last week the Minneapolis Star Tribune produced a useful profile of Ahmed in “The making of a Minnesota suicide bomber.” The Star Tribune characterizes the investigation arising from Ahmed’s death “one of the most far-reaching U.S. counterterrorism investigations since 9/11.”

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for inviting me on his show before his Three Tenors appearance in Minneapolis tonight and asking me about Ahmed’s case.

First, they came for the Cheerios

Read this post »

Gov. Palin signs on for memoir – will be published in the spring of 2010

Great news for all of us Palin fans (via ToT):

Gov. Sarah Palin has signed a book deal with HarperCollins Publishers for what is described as her memoir.

“There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate, and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about,” Palin said in an interview today in which she announced the deal.

Palin and HarperCollins would not say how much she was being paid. Asked why, the former Republican nominee for vice president said she didn’t want to distract from the substance of the book.

“The idea is to focus on the content of the book and what’s coming in terms of me being able to tell my story unrestrained and unfiltered,” Palin said.

[...]

The book is to be published sometime in spring 2010. Palin will have a collaborator, who is expected to be chosen soon. The governor said she wants to do a lot of the writing herself, and that it will be her story and her words.

“It will be nice to put my journalism degree to work on this and get to tell my story, Alaska’s story. There have been so many unauthorized books and publications that have spoken to somebody else’s opinion of who I am, what my family represents and what Alaska is all about,” she said.

[...]

HarperCollins president and CEO Brian Murray said in a written statement that “Governor Palin is one of the most charismatic, inspiring and controversial figures to appear on the national political stage for many years.”

“She has a fascinating story to tell, and we look forward to publishing what surely will be a captivating book,” he said.

Amen to that. She’s done a few interviews, made some speeches, and gotten on with her life as Governor of Alaska since the wild vice presidential roller coaster ride she took with John McCain came to a screeching halt, so it’s not like she’s been out of the spotlight, but it sure will be nice to read about her without that biased mainstream media filter, without their spin, and in a detailed book rather than the occasional interview here and there.

I’m sure the obsessed nuts on the far left, like Andrew Sullivan, will scavenge the book for “info” on her Trig pregnancy and will try to “dig” for any possible ammo to use against her, but those of us here in the sane world will enjoy her personal perspective on the 2008 campaign, on the issues confronting Americans today, and on her life in Alaska as Governor, wife, mother, and grandmother.

Can’t wait.