Author Archive: Stephen Green
June 19, 2017
BREAKING: Paris Terror Attack Targets Police on the Champs-Elysees, Suspect is Yet Another ‘Known Wolf’
But you’d guessed that already, hadn’t you?
DON’T BE EVIL: Google moves on extremist YouTube content.
I don’t trust Google to properly define “extremist.”
AFGHANISTAN: It’s Too Late.
Until now, Western forces have been able to keep the government in power by financing the budget and paying salaries and maintaining the Afghan army in the field. But it has become increasingly difficult, with the Taliban advancing in many parts of the country making US and NATO forces look increasingly irrelevant. Opposition politicans have been willing to contradict the Americans, but that may be changing.
In view of the growing brazenness of Taliban attacks, there are now deep fissures in the US National Security Council between those, including Mattis, who want to send thousands more US troops in a last-ditch effort to save the regime from collapse and those, such as adviser Steve Bannon, who want the US to walk away from what is clearly a failing military endeavor and a failed state. But Trump’s decision this week to hand over the troop decision to the military itself suggests that those arguing for a new troop surge will get the upper hand. This is a hopeless strategy.
No matter how many troops Mattis decides to send this summer, it will not rectify the political crisis in Kabul.
Forcing the nation-state model on a place where there is no nation and has only fleetingly been a state is doomed to failure.
GLENN’S USA TODAY COLUMN: We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel.
CALEXIT 2.0: Willing to Negotiate with Trump for California Breakaway.
Stephen Gonzales, the president of the California Freedom Coalition, told the Sacramento Bee the amendment would also open the door for negotiation. It would give the state’s governor the freedom to do a deal with Washington for the independence of California.
Gonzales said this new proposal would be much more appealing to conservative voters than the first Calexit initiative, which he admitted was “secession or nothing.”
“We have taken a different route, which we think will have far more support across the political spectrum,” Gonzales said.
If a statewide survey of voters conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at UC Berkeley is to be believed, Gonzales just might be on to something.
The survey, which was released in March, shows most Californians were already fed up with the job Donald Trump was doing as president. Most also “believe that the changes in laws and policies that his administration is proposing will negatively affect California overall and in many specific policy areas,” a Berkeley IGS statement read. “The largest proportions of voters feel the state will be negatively affected in areas relating to the rights of minorities, the environment, healthcare, international trade and women’s rights.”
Here’s the kicker: Even though most California voters surveyed were disgusted with Donald Trump 90 days into his administration, a majority (53-47 percent) also told Berkeley IGS that negotiation would be better than secession.
It isn’t that Californians have an undying love for the U.S. The voters who were surveyed said compromise would be better than taking a chance on the state losing federal funding.
Having your neighbor’s cake and eating it, too, is the foundation of progressive politics.
BUT OF COURSE: James Hodgkinson was a Democrat, but the media want ‘both sides’ to claim him.
When a Republican does it, the Republican is to blame. When a Democrat does it, it’s because of the “climate of hate” created by Republicans.
THE ROAD TO HELL: How Did Health Care Get to Be Such a Mess?
Through each legislative battle, physicians and their new allies, insurers, argued that federal health care funding was unnecessary because they were expanding insurance coverage. Indeed, because of the perceived threat of reform, insurers weathered rapidly rising medical costs and unfavorable financial conditions to expand coverage from about a quarter of the population in 1945 to about 80 percent in 1965.
But private interests failed to cover a sufficient number of the elderly. Consequently, Congress stepped in to create Medicare in 1965. The private health care sector had far more capacity to manage a large, complex program than did the government, so Medicare was designed around the insurance company model. Insurers, moreover, were tasked with helping administer the program, acting as intermediaries between the government and service providers.
With Medicare, the demand for health services increased and medical costs became a national crisis. To constrain rising prices, insurers gradually introduced cost containment procedures and incrementally claimed supervisory authority over doctors. Soon they were reviewing their medical work, standardizing treatment blueprints tied to reimbursements and shaping the practice of medicine.
It’s easy to see the challenge of real reform: To actually bring down costs, legislators must roll back regulations to allow market innovation outside the insurance company model.
A service cartel and massive government intrusion — who could have ever seen those leading to a cost explosion?
GLENN’S USA TODAY COLUMN: We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: After Scalise Shooting, GOP Congressman Seeks to Override D.C. Gun Laws.
ROSS DOUTHAT: Notes on a Political Shooting.
John F. Kennedy was hated passionately by many Republicans in Dallas, but Lee Harvey Oswald’s beliefs were Marxist, not right-wing. Nationalist movements, not partisanship, inspired Sirhan Sirhan and the Puerto Ricans who almost killed Harry Truman. George Wallace was shot by a man trying to make “a statement of my manhood for the world to see.” One of Gerald Ford’s two would-be assassins was a member of the Manson cult, the other a sympathizer with the Symbionese Liberation Army. John Hinckley famously shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.
And most recently — if a little less famously, because the media spent a long time assuming that he was Tea Party-inspired — Jared Lee Loughner shot Gabby Giffords because he was a lunatic obsessed with (among other things) the government’s control of grammar, and she had failed to answer his town hall question: “What is government if words have no meaning?”
So Hodgkinson’s seeming normalcy, his angry but relatively mainstream Democratic views, might be a warning sign for the future of our politics.
Indeed.
ILLINOIS MELTDOWN (CONTINUED): Official Warns Illinois Finances in ‘Massive Crisis Mode.’
The Illinois official responsible for paying the state’s bills is warning that new court orders mean her office must pay out more each month than Illinois receives in revenue.
Comptroller Susana Mendoza must prioritize what gets paid as Illinois nears its third year without a state budget.
A mix of state law, court orders and pressure from credit rating agencies requires some items be paid first. Those include debt and pension payments, state worker paychecks and some school funding.
Mendoza says a recent court order regarding money owed for Medicaid bills means mandated payments will eat up 100 percent of Illinois’ monthly revenue.
It gets ugly when the other people’s money runs out.
ROGER KIMBALL: Trump vs the Deep State.
MAKE ARMS SALES GREAT AGAIN: Lockheed nears $37 billion-plus deal to sell F-35 jet to 11 countries.
This would be the biggest deal yet for the stealthy F-35 jet, set to make its Paris Airshow debut this week.
The sale represents a major shift in sales practices from annual purchases to more economic multi-year deals that lower the cost of each jet.
The pricing of the jets was still not final, although the average price of the 440 jets was expected to be $85 million, the people said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly.
Yet another indicator that the controversial jet is anything but “failed.”
RELATED: F-35 Demo Pilot: Paris Performance Will ‘Crush Years Of Misinformation’
I look forward to seeing what it can do.
DO-NOTHING CONGRESS: GOP considers cancelling August recess to salvage agenda.
Senate Republican negotiators reported that they are not close to a deal on healthcare reform and that scheduling a vote by July 4, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pushed, is likely unrealistic.
That impasse has held up work on a budget resolution, which is necessary to move tax reform and the annual appropriations bills.
Once Republicans vote on a budget resolution for 2018, it will wipe out the special vehicle they plan to use to pass healthcare reform with a simple majority vote – a vehicle that was set up by the budget resolution for 2017.
Lawmakers calculate there are only 45 legislative days until the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.
With the party still sharply divided on health and tax reform, it looks increasingly possible that Republican lawmakers will leave town in July for a month-long break without any major accomplishments under their belts.
This is not the GOP majority I was hoping for, but it is the one I’ve come to expect.
THE LATEST ON LONDON, THE SYRIA SHOOTDOWN, AND MORE: Liz Sheld’s morning brief has it covered.
GLENN’S USA TODAY COLUMN: We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel.
Despite a clear requirement that Mueller be “disqualified” from this investigation, his dismissal by either Trump or Sessions on the heels of the president’s firing of Comey would create a political firestorm that the president — even if entirely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever—might be unable to survive.
And Mueller can’t fix things by simply recusing himself from the “obstruction” investigation, while delegating it to a subordinate. Perhaps unwisely, he has chosen lawyers who records show have contributed substantially to Democratic campaigns. Indeed, two have given the maximum $2,700 donation to Hillary Clinton last year, while another worked for the Clinton Foundation. No one could accept them as impartial towards the man who defeated her.
So if he cares about the rules, Mueller needs to resign.
Read the whole thing.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here’s the Only Father’s Day Gift Guide You’ll Need This Year.
I can personally vouch for the Anker battery and the Dyson car vac.
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER: A chlorine-resistant parasite could be lurking in your swimming pool this summer, CDC warns.