Sowell: Bell Went ‘Incoherent’ To Avoid Obscurity

by Ben Shapiro

Thomas Sowell’s syndicated column this week took on Derrick Bell, whom Sowell knew at Stanford. Sowell writes that Bell was not a leading scholar, and that he found himself between a rock and a hard place in career terms:

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Are Rush Limbaugh’s ratings going to take off and soar as a result of the recent Sandra Fluke controversy? According to nonpartisan radio expert Michael Harrison, that’s exactly what may happen. In fact, it's happening now.

by John Nolte

Say what you want about Bill Maher; he is not a stupid man. But in an interview today with ABC's Jake Tapper, he sure sounds like one:

RoboGate:Bush DOJ Prosecuted GOP Official for Illegal Robocalls, Will Holder?

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice did not respond to two telephone inquiries made by Breitbart.com’s as to whether or not there would be a prosecutorial probe into the illegal ‘Rush’ robocalls that flooded highly contested districts targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

'Game Change': Palin Breakdown Meme Crushed by Facts

by Stacy Drake

It has been well established that HBO's anti-Sarah Palin movie, "Game Change," is full of distortions about the former vice presidential candidate.

I covered some of them in a piece on Big Hollywood titled "Top 10 Lies of HBO's 'Game Change." In it, I briefly mentioned the fact that the movie depicts Palin as having a mental breakdown during the 2008 campaign.
At the 68 minute mark in the movie, the filmmakers show Palin (Julianne Moore) at a table with campaign staff going over material to prep for her debate against Joe Biden. The movie depicts Palin as being detached and unresponsive. She mutters to herself about missing her baby.

by Charles C. Johnson

The story of Cassandra Butts is an important example of how Critical Race Theory and its adherents continue to shape President Barack Obama's worldview and his administration.

At Harvard Law School from 1988-1991, Butts was one of the student advocates of Professor Derrick Bell’s strike for "faculty diversity." She was also a fast friend of Obama’s, whose career she has helped to promote from the halls of the Harvard Law Review to the White House.

Broken Promises: Pensions All Over America Are Being Savagely Cut Or Are Vanishing Completely

How would you feel if you worked for a state or local government for 20 or 30 years only to have your pension slashed dramatically or taken away entirely? Well, this exact scenario is playing out from coast to coast and in the years ahead millions of elderly Americans are going to be affected by broken promises and vanishing pensions. In the old days, things were much different. You would get hired by a big company or a government institution and you knew that the retirement benefits that they were promising you would be there when you retired in a few decades. Unfortunately, we have now arrived at a time when government institutions and big companies have promised far more than they are able to deliver, and "pension reform" has become one of the hot button issues all over the nation. Many Americans that have been basing their financial futures on their pensions are waking up one day and finding that their pensions are either gone or have been cut back dramatically. According to Northwestern University Professor John Rauh, the latest estimate of the total amount of unfunded pension and healthcare obligations for state and local governments across the United States is 4.4 trillion dollars. America is continually becoming a poorer nation and all of that money is simply not going to magically materialize somehow. So where is that 4.4 trillion dollars going to come from? Well, either pension benefits are going to have to be cut a lot more all over America or taxes will need to be raised dramatically. Either way, we are all going to feel the pain of these broken promises.

For a long time, most analysts have believed that if someone was going to leave the euro, it would be a weak nation such as Greece or Portugal. But the truth is that financially troubled nations such as Greece and Portugal don't want to leave the euro. The leaders of those nations understand that if they leave the euro their economies will totally collapse and nobody will be there to bail them out. And at this point there really is not a formal mechanism which would enable other members of the eurozone to kick financially troubled nations such as Greece or Portugal out of the euro. But there is one possibility that is becoming increasingly likely that could actually cause the break up of the euro. Germany could leave the euro. Yes, it might actually happen. Germany is faced with a very difficult problem right now. It is looking at a future where it will be essentially forced to bail out most of the rest of the nations in the eurozone for many years to come, and those bailouts will be extremely expensive.

Peter Schiff Judge Napolitano, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, John Stossel 03-...

Peter Schiff - Lew Rockwell - 09 March 2012

Miller bids adieu to Rep. Kucinich

Mexico’s Drug War: Not Another Colombia

Natalia Cote-Muñoz, Research Fellow for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

The drug war in Mexico grows more brutal daily. It is practically impossible to read news from that country without exposure to a myriad of literal rolling heads, mass graves, shootouts, and grisly abductions. While addressing the Council on Foreign Relations on September 8, 2010, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton qualified the situation in Mexico as “looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, when the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country.”[i] In fact, both U.S. and Mexican policymakers have proposed tactics based on the Colombian experience. However, one must closely examine the practical differences between the two countries before applying Colombian tactics to Mexico indiscriminately, since in practice many of Colombia’s crime strategies might well be ineffective in the Mexican case.

Source: Borderland Beat

Inequality, Drugs, and Violence: Colombia 2.0?

On the surface, similarities between the two countries are obvious: both are tainted by the almost uncontrolled presence of organized crime and a quickened tempo of violence. As in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, urban violence has risen, and criminal groups have proliferated. The news regularly portrays drugs cartels slamming into each other and the state, usually through indiscriminate homicides and massacres that target innocent civilians. Such was the case in Monterrey in August 2011, when gunmen burst into the Casino Royale, burning down the building and killing over fifty people.[ii] In fact, Ciudad Juárez, the most dangerous city in the world, has surpassed Medellín’s homicide rate, reaching 10 to 11 deaths per day.[iii]

Moreover, both Colombia and Mexico suffer from some of the world’s most unequal distributions of wealth. In 1995, Colombia was ranked the fifth most unequal country (of those with available statistics), with a Gini[1] coefficient of 0.57, while Mexico was ranked the eighth worst with a Gini coefficient of 0.52. Between 2006 and 2010, Colombia’s inequality ranked 0.58, while Mexico’s coefficient was 0.52, qualifying them as two of the lowest ranked countries in the world.[iv] This income inequality, partnered with the lack of available jobs, especially living-wage positions, has increased crime as an alternative for earning an income. The profits of drug trafficking are not only high but can also kick in immediately, and many job-seekers are willing to risk the accompanying dangers to obtain a share. It is no wonder that economic inequality has been one of the factors creating fertile ground for the development of criminal organizations.

President Correa. Source: Associated Press

Press freedom in South America has been in flux since the Diario de Pernambuco, the continent’s oldest newspaper, first put ink to paper in 1825. As long as there have been authoritarian governments in the region, powerful figures in one administration after another have struggled to mitigate the effects of negative media coverage. In many contemporary legal cases, the resulting litigation has developed into outright censorship. For example, in 2007, the Argentine media sent President Cristina Kirchner’s Casa Rosada scuttling for legitimacy through its coverage of the maletinazo scandal, in which a U.S. assistant attorney alleged that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s government had attempted to smuggle roughly USD 800,000 in cash to the Kirchner campaign by means of a suitcase belonging to Venezuelan-American Guido Antonini Wilson. In the same year, President Chavez abolished Venezuela’s longest-standing private television channel, RCTV, claiming that its critical coverage was threatening his government. In 2009, Caracas revoked 34 companies’ radio licenses after Chavez had invoked “tyranny” when referring to private radio broadcasters. Ironically, Chavez received South America’s highest accolade for journalism, the Rodolfo Walsh Prize, from Argentina’s National University de la Plata last year.

China vs. Taiwan: Battle for Influence in the Caribbean

Associate Lynn Tu from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

China’s projection of influence in some previously unfamiliar regions of the world continues to grow, that much is clear. When it comes to Latin America and the Caribbean, Beijing has strengthened its ties, particularly by means of comprehensive trade relations, with countries like Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela. This has been done not only to secure non-traditional trading partners and commodity sources like oil and soybeans, but also to corner established markets for its many traditional exports. China’s relationship with the Caribbean is complex, as this region is particularly important to Beijing’s foreign policy goals regarding Taiwan, which has some of its greatest supporters there. Several Caribbean states currently recognize Taiwan as an independent republic, instead of maintaining the “one-China” position that has been endorsed by the mainland government.

Investment and Development

Unsurprisingly, China has been able to establish strong economic ties abroad, particularly in the developing world, by means of a series of investment deals. These include some major initiatives in the Caribbean in recent years.

Caribbean Map - World Atlas

In September 2011, Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu visited Jamaica to meet with Governor-General Patrick Allen and Prime Minister Bruce Golding. While there, Hui put forward a five-point proposal for intensifying bilateral relations. The goals outlined by both sides included: promoting high-level exchanges to deepen mutual political trust, strengthening economic and trade cooperation, improving agricultural cooperation, expanding people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and promoting coordination in international affairs.^[1] Also during the visit, Hui signed two separate agreements for grants valued jointly at RMB 21 million (USD 3.2 million), as well as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on agricultural cooperation.^[2] In November 2011, the Jamaican government approved a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with the Chinese island of Macao. According to a high-ranking Jamaican official, Arthur Williams, the agreement will facilitate the effective exchange of tax information between Jamaican tax authorities and their counterparts in Macao.^[3]

By Ziad AbdelnourinShare16

Is free-market capitalism, as historically practiced in the United States, still alive, or is it now just a footnote in our economic history?
Americans have traditionally believed that the invisible hand of the market means that capitalism will benefit all of us without requiring any oversight. However, Adam Smith never said that there would be, nor did he believe in, a magically benevolent market that operated for the benefit of all without any checks and balances.

Illustration by Topos Graphics

By Ramesh Ponnuru Last week’s release of the February employment report set off the predictable partisan squabbling, with Democrats emphasizing the positive (227,000 new jobs) and Republicans the negative (the still-shrunken labor force and still-high unemployment rate).

Bad or Worse in Afghanistan?

By Victor Davis Hanson

The latest mass killing by an American soldier follows a three-year downward spiral: the burned desecrated Korans, the murdering of Americans by Afghan “allies,” the surge followed immediately by loudly announced withdrawal dates, four different senior commanders in three years, a musical-chairs rotation likewise on the diplomatic side, and a president clearly uncomfortable that his prior promises as a candidate to fight unflinchingly in Afghanistan were strait-jacketing his presidential impatience at leaving.

Japan's Lost Decade -- and Ours?

By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- Since the financial crisis, a shadow has hovered over the U.S. economy: Japan. Could what happened there happen to us? The bursting of Japan's real estate and stock bubble in the early 1990s has had lasting consequences: a "lost decade" (actually, two) of meager growth and weak job markets. Though hardly a depression, Japan's prosperity has been partial and unsatisfying, enjoyed by some and missed by others.
Let it be said that some economists now think Japan could break from this dismal pattern. Here is John Makin of the American Enterprise Institute in a recent commentary: "After many years of false starts, the Japanese economy may finally be set to boom -- or at least to enter a period of sustained growth with a sharply rising stock market." At about 9,900, Japan's Nikkei stock index is about a quarter of its historical high of 39,915.87 in 1989.

No one should write off the Golden State. But it will take massive reforms to reverse its economic decline.

By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN and JOHN F. COGAN

Long a harbinger of national trends and an incubator of innovation, cash-strapped California eagerly awaits a temporary revenue surge from Facebook IPO stock options and capital gains. Meanwhile, Stockton may soon become the state's largest city to go bust. Call it the agony and ecstasy of contemporary California.
California's rising standards of living and outstanding public schools and universities once attracted millions seeking upward economic mobility. But then something went radically wrong as California legislatures and governors built a welfare state on high tax rates, liberal entitlement benefits, and excessive regulation. The results, though predictable, are nonetheless striking. From the mid-1980s to 2005, California's population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000.

Time for George Will to Reassess? Peter Wehner

The most recent New York Times/CBS poll (which John and Jonathan write about) has President Obama’s approval rating down to a record low of 41 percent. If you are a supporter of the president, the internal numbers are downright depressing. The judgment of the Times seems about right to me: “President Obama is heading into the general election season on treacherous political ground.”

Santorum and the Danger of Becoming the Grievance Candidate Peter Wehner

At various times throughout the presidential campaign, Rick Santorum has shown himself to be impressive: articulate, forceful, passionate, and a fine, and at times an outstanding, debater. But there are other times when he’s simply off-key. One example is his silly statement that “I’ve always believed that when you run for president of the United States, it should be illegal to read off a teleprompter, because all you’re doing is reading someone else’s words to people.” My former White House colleague Michael Gerson systematically blows apart Santorum’s argument in his Washington Post column today.

Contentions Obama’s Poll Troubles Suggest His 2012 Strategy Is Backfiring John Podhoretz |

The fallout from two major polls yesterday—Washington Post/ABC and New York Times/CBS—finding measurable and significant drops in support for Barack Obama nationwide during the past month has instantly changed the national conversation. Obama is in trouble, and there’s no pretending he isn’t. One poll might have been viewed as an outlier, but two polls taken around the same time with the same sample size of American adults can’t be dismissed as statistical noise. In the New York Post today, in a column written before the release of the NYT/CBS survey, I suggest the media focus on macroeconomic good news is blinding commentators (many of whom wish to be blinded) to facts of American life that can’t be so easily measured. People will not be convinced that they should feel better than they do about their current financial condition and the prospects for the future by assurances about a positive change in the unemployment rate that says nothing about what’s going on with the value of their house and the cost of oil at the pump.

By Jennifer Rubin

Mitt Romney talked to Fox News’s Neil Cavuto about the prospects of a brokered convention. He explains (beginning at the 2:04 minute mark) why that isn’t going to happen and why, in any case, it would be a disaster for the Republican Party:

I Hate War! by Gary D. Barnett

Edwin Starr said it best in his song War. "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

As a libertarian, I continually struggle with the widespread acceptance, and in many cases, love of war by Americans. Since I detest aggression, I therefore despise war. The only legitimate force that is acceptable in my opinion is that for self-defense of life, liberty, or property, and self-defense should not allow for any use of force that extends past defense to aggression. It is irrelevant to me whether one’s defense is protected individually or collectively, so long as the non-aggression principle is followed.

American Massacres Have Been Common for Centuries. by Jack D. Douglas

For hundreds of years Americans have been committing massacres of women and children, old men and sometimes even young men, mostly unarmed or armed only with primitive weapons. The early massacres were mostly of Indians who refused to leave their lands when Americans decided it was God's will that they steal those lands for nothing or for a few trinkets. In the Civil War Sherman and Grant routinely massacred Southern civilian populations with bombardments of cities, burning homes and Atlanta [though I do not know death figures], and so on. The introduction of automatic weapons led quickly to far more massive U.S. massacres, obviously in the Philippines where freedom fighters were using primitive weapons to try to gain freedom from the U.S. Empire.

By eriy

It may be that the biggest single problem confronting the liberty-minded is the existence of a large (and growing) American proletariat. There have always been poor people, of course. But the proletariat is distinct from people who are merely lower down on the economic totem pole – or down on their luck.

I am just now finishing up a book about the Dust Bowl in the 1930s by Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time (see here). In it, you read of people who endured real poverty – as in, starvation poverty, living in a sod-walled, dirt-floored “dugout” in Oklahoma. No electricity – much less TeeVee (let alone a flat-screen TeeVee with Netflix streaming set up in front of a Rent-a-Center sofa in an air-conditioned Section 8 apartment with a refrigerator full of EBT-acquired food ). And of how reluctant – how ashamed – these people (most of them) were to even ask for government assistance. And when they did ask, in their utter desperation, all they wanted was enough help to keep them from literally dying – and to help them get back to work.

The unprovoked murder of 16 civilians may derail recent moves towards peace negotiations with the Taliban

by John Glaser

Outraged Afghans have vowed vengeance after an American soldier murdered at least 16 civilians, including nine children, in a killing spree over the weekend that President Hamid Karzai said “cannot be forgiven.”

Nazim Shah was traveling to Kandahar when the massacre happened, but returned to find his entire family killed. Crying into the phone, he told The Independent: “All my family is dead … We will get revenge on those who killed my family. We won’t let this rest easily.”
U.S. and Afghan officials have braced themselves for revenge attacks from insurgents and possibly another breakout of widespread protests after those that erupted in response to the burning of Muslim holy books last month.

The War on Gaza

Israel and its apologists will blame Palestinian militants for the latest flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip, but no one disputes that relative quiet was broken when an IDF airstrike last Friday killed Zuheir al-Qaisi and Mahmoud Al-Hannani of the Popular Resistance Committees. Palestinians, though reportedly not Hamas, responded with rockets into southern Israel. At least 18 Palestinians have been killed so far by Israeli airstrikes, including a 12-year-old boy. The Israeli military said three Israelis were wounded in the more than 90 assaults from rockets and mortars.

Photos of ‘Cleanup’ at Iran’s Parchin. Site Lack Credibility

by Gareth Porter

News stories about satellite photographs suggesting efforts by Iran to “sanitize” a military site that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said may have been used to test nuclear weapons have added yet another layer to widely held suspicion that Iran must indeed be hiding a covert nuclear weapons program.
But the story is suspect, in part because it is based on evidence that could only be ambiguous, at best. The claim does not reflect U.S. intelligence, and a prominent think tank that has published satellite photography related to past controversies surrounding Iran’s nuclear program has not found any photographs supporting it.

Egypt Predicts Ceasefire in Two Days

by Jason Ditz,

The fourth day of Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip continued, killing at least seven people, including three civilians. The toll of the recent bombing campaign so far is 25 killed.

Egypt’s envoy to the Palestinian Authority downplayed the continued violence, saying he believed that a ceasefire would be finalized within the next 48 hours. Israeli officials, however, seem to dispute that.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is openly talking of a full-scale ground invasion, and the Israeli military says it is “ready” to launch such an operation, the first of its kind since 2009′s Cast Lead, which killed about 1,400 people.
Meanwhile Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that rockets fired in retaliation to Israel’s attacks meant the Palestinians no longer would be allowed to have a territorially contiguous state. The Palestinians “have condemned themselves to a separation that looks like it will continue for generations,” he said.

Is Iran a Threat?

by David R. Henderson,

On Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012, I gave a talk at the Rotary Club of Monterey. I’ve spoken there two or three times in the past, always with a good response, but always on economic issues. This time I decided to push the envelope by making my case that the Iranian government, while it is a threat to its own people, as all governments are to various degrees, is not a threat to the United States. The president of the club told me that the turnout for the speech, whose topic was announced well in advance, was unusually high. I would estimate it at 120 to 140.
A tech-savvy participant had found a map of Iran showing it surrounded on all sides by U.S. military bases, with a U.S. flag representing each base (here’s a similar map). He asked me if I wanted that shown, and I said, “Yes, thank you.”

Thursday, March 15, 2012