The AIG-Counterparty “Wall Street” Bailout That Smells

The controversy over the federal government taxpayer bailout of AIG’s trading partners in late 2008 seems a big deal to me. It centers on why AIG’s trading partners, counterparties to complex derivative contracts, were paid off in full even though AIG was effectively bankrupt. If AIG had in fact gone bankrupt, AIG’s trading partners, which took ordinary business risk trading with AIG, would have been paid off at some lesser amount than full face value of AIG’s obligations. So why didn’t the government team, many of them Wall Street insiders themselves, negotiate or dictate a payoff of AIG’s obligations at some amount less than 100%? One would think that these trading partners would have been happy to get some portion of what AIG owed them, especially if it was more than what they would have received under an AIG bankruptcy. The thorny issue is that these counterparties included many of the big investment banks, most notably Goldman Sachs, and then-Treasury Secretary Paulson and many others calling the shots on the government side were former, and perhaps even future, partners and employees at these firms, which were filled with friends and former colleagues (in fact Paulson is a former Goldman CEO). Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail, but Goldman got a 100% bailout via AIG. Talk about conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety, at a minimum.

We now have found out that one of these counterparties, a foreign bank, was willing to, and perhaps expected to, receive less than full value on its contracts with AIG, but nevertheless received the full amount. Also, we’ve now learned that the NY Fed, when current Treasury Secretary Geithner was in charge, instructed AIG to keep secret the names of its trading partners, a cover-up perhaps out of fear of public outrage. Geithner, although then the boss, claims he took no part in that decision.

A couple of days ago, Geithner appeared before a House Committee and received a seemingly well-deserved grilling on all this (WSJ article and editorial). His defense – AIG’s counter-parties were paid off what they were legally owed to prevent a collapse of the financial system. Paying off AIG’s counterparties at, say, 80% would have caused a collapse of the system? Count me as unconvinced and smelling something fishy. Paulson also appeared before the Committee, saying that he had no knowledge that the counterparties were paid off at 100%, claiming that that was a NY Fed decision.

All this bolsters the suspicion that the Wall Street taxpayer bailout engineered by Wall Street insiders within the Bush and Obama administrations was much more generous to certain Wall Street firms than it needed to be and likely should have been.


John M Greco

Obama Calls Bush “Indecent” in his State of the Union Address; Bashing Bush is Easier Than Actually Acting Presidential

While flipping channels this evening, I inadvertently tuned in to Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address already in progress. I regrettably and inexplicably watched for a few minutes. After regurgitating the standard ultra-liberal view of an America filled with poor, hungry, marginalized, rudderless, dazed, and confused citizens clearly needing a benevolent government to direct their lives, a recycled bit from a John Edwards “Two Americas” speech, Obama said this: “In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency.”

The government of the last decade, presumably that of George Bush’s, of which I myself have been very critical on certain issues, is called indecent by Barack Obama, while his own administration is held out as finally one that is as “decent’ as the American people. Obama has been president for over a year now, responsible for many a misstep and fumble of his own and of no real accomplishment, and yet demeaning Bush is still his main act. This was a despicable comment by an ineffectual, erratic narcissist whose emptiness and nastiness is increasingly obvious to all but the willfully blind.

John M Greco

Obama Proposes a Dishonest, Cynical Token Spending “Freeze” in One Tiny Place in the Budget, While Continuing Reckless Spending Everywhere Else

Obama continues to amaze me, and not in a good way. His self-destruction continues with his ridiculous, cynical budget “freeze” proposal. Reeling in the polls and having just seen his ultraliberal agenda explicitly rejected in liberal Massachusetts via the Brown Senate election, he apparently thinks this ploy will win him bona fides among independents. To rescue our nation from the severe and unprecedented national indebtedness he and his fellow Democrats have caused, Obama now proposes a “spending freeze” to help control spending. A spending freeze sounds good, so Obama hopes it will fool the foolable.

But this proposal is a fraud even his supporters know is risible. It freezes, but does not reduce, only about 12.5% of the entire federal budget and only for three years. Says the liberal New York Times (link): “The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.” And even if such a “freeze” were enacted, with all the budget trickery up their sleeves Democrats would get around it anyway and spend whatever they like “freeze” or no “freeze.”

Furthermore, any spending freeze at all, however insignificant, seems to contravene what the Democrats have argued all year as they racked up this huge deficit -- that more government spending of any kind for any purpose is exactly what is needed to “jump start” our economy out of recession. So now at the same time that the Democrats are talking about another massive spending bill to improve the economy (i.e., to lower unemployment) after the first $787 billion failed (in fact, unemployment has risen), Obama proposes less spending in one small place because of the massive deficit. So should the federal government now spend even more money (which it has to borrow mostly from foreigners) or less?

Should Republicans support this proposed “freeze” for its symbolic value even if there’s no meat to it? Perhaps so. But for Obama, it is incoherent, and only a sign of his desperation to halt the well-deserved slide in his fortunes.


John M Greco

Why Obama’s Soft Stance on Islamic Terror?

It has always been clear to me that one has to draw conclusions from what Barack Obama does rather than from what he says. His recent missteps in protecting Americans from Islamic terrorists is drawing me to a much harsher opinion of him than I ever imagined a year ago when he started his term.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen Obama and his team:

* Screw up in not “connecting the intelligence dots” to keep the Nigerian Muslim Christmas Day “underwear” bomber from boarding a plane to Detroit.

* Proclaim the “the system worked” when the airplane bombing attempt narrowly failed because of the bomber’s difficulty in detonating the device and the quick action of a passenger, the “Flying Dutchman.”

* Grant the “underwear” terrorist Constitutional rights, despite his not being an American citizen or resident, despite quickly ascertaining that he was a radical Muslim who just tried to blow up a plane, and despite knowing that his own father had told American authorities that his son had been radicalized and had spent time in Yemen.

* Bungle the interrogation of the “underwear” terrorist : Obama’s team only briefly and ineffectively questions him before he’s “lawyered up” and goes silent; also, for the interrogation they fail to call in the “High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group” that Obama touted as his solution to interrogating terrorists because, as explained by Obama’s Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, the unit is not “fully operational.” Then, Obama spokesman Gibbs states that in its 50 minute interrogation the FBI got all the information it was possible to get, an astounding and frankly ludicrous claim.

* Grant some of the terrorists held at Guantanamo, captured overseas and not ever having set foot in this country, Constitutional rights and proclaim the intent to transfer them to New York City for trial in federal court rather than a hearing before a military commission.

* Release an official report on the Fort Hood American-born and raised Muslim jihadist mass murder that is widely regarded as a complete whitewash, overflowing with liberal political correctness which doesn’t even mention Islam by name.

* Overrule a longstanding ban in order to allow terrorist-linked Islamist academic Tariq Ramadan to enter the US.

* Refuse to release the names of the attorney pals of AG Holder whom he has brought into the US Justice Department and who, like lawyers at Holder’s own firm, have defended Guantanamo Islamic terrorists and have advocated granting them full Constitutional rights.

* Release a captured Islamic terrorist to Algeria, which may put him back in action against us.

I can’t help thinking that Obama’s soft stance on Islamic terrorism evidences a deeply conflicted view of America, which in part sees America as a racist and imperialist country that’s getting what it has coming. He may disagree with terrorist methods, but I can’t help feeling, especially lately, that there’s some sympathy with their views of America. He’s certainly repeatedly apologized to the world for what he perceives as the multitude of American sins, particularly to Muslims, and in fact, prior to his nomination, even his wife said she had never felt proud of America.


John M Greco

Chicago's Insurance Exchange Building

Chicago's Insurance Exchange Building, still beautiful, still vibrant, on a crisp January day in 2010. Occupying one square block directly west of the iconic Chicago Board of Trade Building in the south Loop, between Jackson and Van Buren Streets, it was once home to the Mid-America Commodities Exchange and, per Leslie A. Hudson in Chicago Skyscrapers, to the headquarters of more insurance companies than any other building in the world. Completed in 1912 by D.H. Burnham, with a southward expansion in 1928, it shows the classic tripartite structure with a well-defined base and top, here punctuated by ionic colonnades separated by an unadorned middle.

Pictured above is the east face of the building.

Pictured on this vintage postcard is the initial northern half of the building, viewed from the northeast across Jackson Blvd; the northwestern corner of the old Board of Trade Building is visible on the extreme left.

Richard Balsamo

Side Notes on the Scott Brown Senate Election Win

Regarding Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in the Massachusetts special election for the US Senate seat previously held by the late Democrat Edward Kennedy:

* Remarkable, and ominous for Democrats: I read that Brown won in the Kennedy family’s spiritual base of Hyannis Port and in ultra-liberal Rep. Barney Frank’s district as well.

* This election result is about much more than just a referendum on nationalized health care. From the Brown campaign: “from our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants”. In his acceptance speech, Brown said “with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation — they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.”

* Barack Obama said recently in referencing the fate of Democrat national health care legislation vis-a-vis the Massachusetts special senate election: we are at a “precipice.” Obama used a completely wrong word -- “precipice” has a negative connotation in this context, something to step back from; he meant something like “threshold” or “crossroads” or “pivotal moment”. If George W. Bush, or just about any Republican for that matter, had made this significant linguistic mistake the ultraliberal media would have mocked him mercilessly. When Obama, a part-African-American Harvard Law graduate makes the mistake, that media is silent.

* Particularly reality-challenged ultraliberal theories have surfaced to explain Brown’s win: voters’ racism against Obama (Donny Deutsch and Keith Olbermann on the ultraliberal MSNBC); sexism (two female analysts writing at the liberal Politico web site); Brown’s physical attractiveness (liberal writer Sally Quinn on O’Reilly’s program); and the obligatory, reflexive, vapid, delusional It’s All Bush’s Fault (Barack Obama: “people are angry … because of what’s happened over the last 8 years”; note to BHO -- GWB's presidency ended a year ago, and you've been president since).

* Even relatively mature Democrats still can’t fully face reality: Democrat California Senator Feinstein on the election results: “You see anger. … everything is jobs and the economy and education;” Jobs yes, absolutely, but education? I think not. Here’s Republican winner Scott Brown's view: “Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the agenda of a new [Democrat] establishment in Washington.”

* The irony: the Massachusetts Democrats’ disgraceful behavior this past Fall in changing the rules to allow the Democrat governor to appoint an interim replacement for the deceased Kennedy rather than holding an immediate election (link), which had been the law, backfired on them. If the election had been held months ago, before the revolting behavior of Democrats all Fall on their push for nationalized health care and their hapless response to the Christmas Day airplane terrorist attack, the Democrats almost certainly would have won the election then.

* The two big state-wide post-2008 elections in traditionally Democrat states, New Jersey and Massachusetts, both of which Republicans have won, have come in states that Hilary Clinton won over Obama in 2008 primaries (link). Other Clinton-won states with 2010 Senate races with increasingly nervous Democratic incumbents: California (Barbara Boxer) , Nevada (Harry “The Undertaker” Reid), Pennsylvania (Arlen “Benedict Arnold” Specter), and Arkansas (Blanche Lincoln).

It’s going to be a long year for Democrats.

John M Greco


Related Posts:

The Massachusetts Persecution on False Charges of the Innocent Amirault Family and Democratic Senate Candidate Coakley’s Disgraceful Role in It

Democrat Kennedy Proposes New Approach to Government – One Rule for Republicans and a Better One for Democrats

The Massachusetts Persecution on False Charges of the Innocent Amirault Family and Democratic Senate Candidate Coakley’s Disgraceful Role in It

About 15 years ago, the Wall Street Journal began a shocking and compelling series of articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz about the truly unbelievable and horrific persecution by numerous Massachusetts authorities of an innocent family on clearly false child-molestation charges (link). The family was a mother, daughter, and son named Amirault who ran the Fells Acres day care center. Rabinowitz’s stories contained about the most powerful writing I have ever read, as she systematically dissected the absurd charges, the biased legal processes, and the despicable and disgraceful conduct of so many of the Massachusetts authorities. I was deeply moved by the tragedy Rabinowitz so carefully related.

Martha Coakley, the Attorney General (no less) of Massachusetts who is now running as the Democratic nominee against Republican Scott Brown in the special election for the US Senate seat formerly held by the late Edward Kennedy, played a significant role in this horrific case. She appeared in it years after the convictions based on non-credible, fantastical manufactured testimony from young children without a shred of physical evidence, but at a time when most sane people, even in Massachusetts, recognized the egregious miscarriage of justice.

Dorothy Rabinowitz writes (link) about this case now once again in the Wall Street Journal:

In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles … met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted. Editorials in every major and minor paper in the state applauded the Board's findings.

District Attorney Coakley was not idle either, and quickly set about organizing the parents and children in the case, bringing them to meetings with Acting Gov. Jane Swift, to persuade her to reject the board's ruling. Ms. Coakley also worked the press, setting up a special interview so that the now adult accusers could tell reporters, once more, of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Amiraults, and of their panic at the prospect of Gerald going free. On Feb. 20, 2002, six months after the Board of Pardons issued its findings, the governor denied Gerald's commutation.

Gerald Amirault spent nearly two years more in prison before being granted parole in 2004. He would be released, with conditions not quite approximating that of a free man. He was declared a level three sex offender—among the consequences of his refusal, like that of his mother and sister, to "take responsibility" by confessing his crimes. He is required to wear, at all times, an electronic tracking device; to report, in a notebook, each time he leaves the house and returns; to obey a curfew confining him to his home between 11:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. He may not travel at all through certain areas (presumably those where his alleged victims live). He can, under these circumstances, find no regular employment.

Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants."

If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat….

Wall Street Journal reader Paul McCoy posted this comment to Rabinowitz’s article:

During the time the Amiraults were in jail, there was time to step back from the lynch mob daycare sex hysteria. Dozens of other cases around the country- CA, WA, etc. were prosecuted in exactly the same way, yet in all of those cases there were rational judges and people who stepped in to stop the madness and throw out the cases. So in the wake of the wave of all the other cases being dismissed, here comes Martha [Coakley], despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, despite the overwhelming vote of the parole board, [who] substitutes her own judgement that somehow, despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to a tragic miscarriage of justice, the Amiraults are guilty. She was a political toadie protecting the former prosecutor and now prominent Democratic politician Scott Harshbarger and the other cronies who prosecuted the case. She fought to keep the Amiraults in jail so those politicians wouldn't have to admit to themselves and the public they committed one of the most horrific miscarriages of justice in American judicial history.

What is it about Massachusetts and witch trials? Some people there seem to still relish them, as Martha Coakley, with all this history, won the contested Democrat nomination to run for the Senate just a few short weeks ago. Some Democrat Massachusetts voters apparently don’t mind the egregious miscarriage of justice.

Regardless, there will be a special place in Hell for Martha Coakley and all others from this horrible affair who misused their authority to persecute and destroy three lives for their own political and financial gain.


Dorothy Rabinowitz’s series is available at the Wall Street Journal online here and here.


John M Greco

Twelfth Night

Tonight is Twelfth Night, an evening of festivity ending the 12 Days of Christmas, which, along with tomorrow’s Feast of the Epiphany, closes out the traditional Christmas season, or Christmastide. In recent years, though, the masses seem to take their cue from retailers, so their Christmas season starts around November 5th and lasts till about mid-day December 25th, quickly followed by the clearing out of all Christmas decorations to make way for stuff for Valentine’s Day (formerly and properly known as Saint Valentine’s Day, before liberal political correctness took over).

I have long been confused by conflicting references to Twelfth Night as either the evening of the 5th or of the 6th of January. Wikipedia’s take (link):

It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking". However, there is currently some confusion as to which night is Twelfth Night: some count the night of Epiphany itself (sixth of January) to be Twelfth Night. One source of this confusion is the Medieval custom of starting each new day at sunset, so that Twelfth Night precedes Twelfth Day.

So tonight it is – the Twelfth Night, with then the Feast of the Epiphany tomorrow closing out Christmastide.

R Balsamo

The Movie "Nine" Goes Down For the Count

Nine is about the artistic and marital crises suffered by a prominent Italian movie director in the early 1960s. I saw and enjoyed the original theater version in New York in the early 1980s. However, it looks as though the makers of the movie version had some crises of their own.

Nine, like Chicago, is a musical whose numbers have a surreal aspect to them. In fact, it’s very much like Chicago, and by the same director, but largely without the good acting, the good dancing, the good music, the good lyrics, the good script, and the good plot. The title has to do with the main character's flashbacks and emotional attachment to his nine year old self, but why this particular aspect is so important is not clear, at least in the movie version, although I confess to stretches of, ahem, inattention. It has a large cast of non-Italian, non-singers playing Italians with bad accents who occasionally break out in song; why the makers of this movie chose to cast in singing roles so many actresses who cannot sing may be the eternal question about this film. If you do wind up at the theater, my advice is to have your female companion elbow you for the “Be Italian” number, the only one worth distracting yourself for, and then return to your email, your nap, or your deliberations on places to vacation next summer. The "Folies Bergere" number also could have been pretty good – it has a catchy tune, but having the very overexposed and very-post-ingénue Judy Dench, heretofore and hereafter not known as a singer, belt it out in a dress with a generous décolletage is too much to bear, capturing in a nutshell this miss of a movie.

Richard Balsamo

Obama Team Fails To Prevent Airline Bomber & Then Claims “System Worked”

A known radicalized Muslim, despite previously having been reported to authorities by his concerned and fearful father and despite being on some kind of security watch list, on Christmas Day buys a one-way ticket on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit and in-flight sets off a bomb that he smuggled aboard. The explosion that would have killed all aboard doesn’t happen only because of the bomber’s incompetence in properly setting off his device, which we hear could have brought down the plane, and because of the quick interference by a vigilant passenger, the “Flying Dutchman”, who lunged across seats to grab the bomber and extinguish a flame he had ignited.

Janet Napolitano, the Obama appointee who heads the Homeland Security Department, the federal agency responsible for, among other things, airline security, said of the almost-successful airplane bombing: “the system worked” (link). This is the woman who incorrectly said at one point that the September 11, 2001, terrorists entered the United States from Canada, and who has directed her Department to refer to terrorist attacks as “man-caused disasters”.

Unlike so many of Obama’s other acolytes, who are just dangerous to Americans, Napolitano is an idiot as well. But her fecklessness toward Islamic terrorism is, as the saying goes, not a bug but a feature for this pseudo-moderate President who is culturally a blend of Islam and black radical pseudo-Christianity and who feels that the sins of the West in general and of the United States in particular are the understandable fuel for Islamic terrorism.

The indefatigable Jennifer Rubin writes (link) at Commentary Magazine’s Contentions blog:

Janet Napolitano’s the “system worked” remark is going to go down as one of those memorably idiotic statements that for better or worse become forever associated with an official’s name…. It reveals a fundamental policy cluelessness and sense of denial that we have learned, unfortunately, permeates the entire Obama administration…. A Georgetown University terrorism expert added, “This incident was a compound failure of both intelligence and physical security, leaving prevention to the last line of defense — the passengers themselves.” But the smartest observation comes from Ken Dunlap, security director of the International Air Transport Association: “We’ve spent eight years looking for little scissors and toenail clippers. . . Perhaps the emphasis should be looking for bad people.” But that would entail being candid about who the “bad people” are.

Being candid about who the “bad people” are was not a hallmark of the Bush Administration, with, for example, its random rather than targeted searches at airports, and it isn’t remotely true of the Obama Administration.

John M Greco

There Will Always Be an England (At Least in Memory)

More Islamicization stories out of merry England – they’re the drip, drip, drip of cultural water torture. It seems most Europeans, and many Americans, are in some sort of 1932-like haze, preferring to party like it's 1928 rather than face the coming storm there for the clear-eyed to see. They dismiss Barney Fife's (link) wise advice: Nip it in the bud, Nip. it. in. the. bud.

From Mark Steyn at the Corner at National Review Online (link):

Here are some snapshots of a society in very rapid transformation. First, by immigration: [Headline:] Record Level Of British Population Is Foreign-Born

Second, by the higher fertility rates of those immigrants: [news article excerpt:] The proportion of children born here to foreign mothers has also hit a new high. Some 24 per cent of the births in England and Wales last year – or 170,834 – were to mothers born outside the country.

Third, by marriage and conversion: [news article excerpt:] The former Roman Catholic from Warrington, who converted to Islam last year, gave evidence after swearing an oath to Allah and kissing the Koran.

But, if you look at the deference the state is willing to extend to Islam now and then pitch it ahead a decade or two, after more immigration, more births, more "reversions", one would not be sanguine about the long-term prospects of ancient English liberties. Nonetheless, complacency remains the order of the day. Anne Applebaum thinks we underestimate the appeal of "the very mildness of modern Europe" - or, as I call it, the vast gaping nullity of the multiculti state. Responding to an NR column of mine, Oliver Kamm in The Times of London professes to be "in favour of a vast gaping nullity".

The problem, as he'll live to see, is that that's only a transitional phase.

John M Greco

Why the Left Loves Global Warming, or, What’s It All About, Alfie?

Why? What’s it all about? It seems to be about power -- the real end game of the global warming hype. The surest way to expand the power of government is to have a crisis that seemingly needs a bigger government. If global warming didn’t exist, the left would have to invent it (as it seems they have) or something like it. Some gigantic crisis only a world government run by elites can tackle, for the betterment of a united, and controlled, mankind. A green utopia run by enlightened elites, with the power to end poverty, strife (but only for a while at best), and, while they're at it, perhaps pollution (line from Evita, sung by dictator Peron: “why not [actually] do some of the things you promised to”). And, I think, the power to end liberty.

Posted by Jude at HughHewitt.com (link):

What is it about global warming and environmentalism that has so many leaders falling over themselves to be declared the most saintly and swift in response, even before the facts are in and agreed upon? Maybe, since the fall of Communism - and before that the utopian Marxist ideal - the world's political class, along with the many citizens who root for the elite political class as a matter of principle or to curry favor, have been searching for such a unifying concept to build the Super-State around.... It is all about power.

From Mark Steyn at National Review Online (link):

Beginning with FDR, wily statists justified the massive expansion of federal power under ever more elastic definitions of the commerce clause. For Obama-era control freaks, the environment and health care are the commerce clause supersized. They establish the pretext for the regulation of everything: If the government is obligated to cure you of illness, it has an interest in preventing you from getting ill in the first place — by regulating what you eat, how you live, the choices you make from the moment you get up in the morning. Likewise, if everything you do impacts “the environment,” then the environment is an all-purpose umbrella for regulating everything you do. It’s the most convenient and romantic justification for … “soft despotism.”

John M Greco

Climategate Shows Global Warming Alarmism Is a Faith-Based Initiative

The “Climategate” scandal, or hoax, has seriously damaged the standing of academic scientists and peer-reviewed science in general, as we have seen how a large group of prominent “scientists” actively engaged in a conspiracy, de facto if not de jure, to deceive the world via faked “data” that purported to demonstrate global warming in the first place and its human origin in the second place.

What we do know: the earth’s temperatures are not static, they are constantly changing, sometimes getting warmer and sometimes getting cooler. At times, the earth has been a relative hothouse and at times it has been a relative icebox. Even recently, relatively speaking, England and Chicago have been under ice, but, on the other hand, Greenland was warm enough to settle on and be named “Greenland” rather than ice-land. All this before man began burning oil and coal in a big way.

We certainly must be as environmentally responsible as possible, consistent with actual science. But we should not destroy our economies and way of life based on fear instigated by fraudsters who stand to gain financially, from scoring big research grants to selling books, films, and “carbon credits.”

And we also know this: some of the big hypesters of anthropogenic global warming don’t behave in a way they themselves describe as environmentally responsible. To wit -- Al Gore’s gigantic and wasteful carbon footprint has been well documented, and the attendees at the upcoming Copenhagen world climate conference will generate a larger carbon footprint in a few days than some countries do in a year. All this makes normal people believe that the leaders of the movement don’t really believe what they’re preaching, appearing to be modern-day Elmer Gantrys.

Will any of this mounting evidence of fraud deter the global warming acolytes? I doubt it, since their faith was never founded in true science, which is properly infused with skepticism and based on open inquiry and reproducibility of results. Rather, they are true believers, for whom faith in man-caused global warming has taken the place of organized religion, bringing a sense of purpose and meaning. True believers are not dissuaded by absence of science, let alone proof of fraud.

In response to “Climategate,” global warming advocates must rely on the “fake but accurate defense” – there may be some fraud, but is should not distract us from acting urgently on global warming, since the so-called scientists were only faking data to demonstrate the man-caused global warming we all know is happening. It’s wasted effort to argue with true believers that it's largely from faked and uncertain "science" in the first place that we “know” that global warming is happening and that it is man-caused.

Given the scope of what the alarmists want the people of the world to do, what they advocate is, to borrow a phrase from the Bush II years, the ultimate faith-based initiative.


John M Greco

Liberals Feigning Ignorance of History, To Their Advantage, So They Think

Two recent statements by liberals have astounded me for the boldness of their dishonesty, or, as Obama would say, of their “bearing false witness.” It happens all too frequently, unfortunately. For example, how about the immeasurable dishonesty from Democrats lately about Obamacare being budget neutral, not raising taxes, “bending” the medical cost curve downward, not negatively impacting Medicare (despite the hundreds of billions of dollars of cuts in black and white right in the bill), etc., etc.

I know these falsities are made to fool the foolable and to influence those inattentive to politics and history. But here’s what has struck me lately.

First from a liberal “journalist” at The Atlantic magazine, whom I see is still around – I would read the occasional article by him back 15+ years ago when I flipped through his magazine. Courtesy of Peter Wehner at The Corner at National Review Online, James Fallows writes this (link) at The Atlantic online:

I am not aware of a case of a former president or vice president behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power … Cheney has acted as if utterly unconcerned with the welfare of his country, its armed forces, or the people now trying to make difficult decisions. He has put narrow score-settling interest far, far above national interest.

I could only shake my head reading this bald lie. I immediately thought of the multitude of outrageously disparaging comments made by Al Gore about Bush and Cheney during their 8 year run. Fallows is not an idiot – he surely remembers them. But as an apparent ultraliberal enslaved to his ideology, he can’t acknowledge that. He pretends Gore’s comments didn’t happen and thinks most of his readers won’t know any better.

Wehner reacts (link):

Let’s see if we can help Mr. Fallows by going way, way, way back in history — to, say, the George W. Bush presidency, when former vice president Al Gore charged that Bush had “brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon,” and that Bush had “betrayed this country” and was a “moral coward.”

Funny, but I’m not aware that Fallows had anything critical to say about Gore at the time, even though what Gore said about Bush is far more personal and ad hominem than anything Cheney has said about Obama. You would think that Fallows, if he were concerned about the welfare of his country, its armed forces, or the people then trying to make difficult decisions, would have spoken up at the time. But shockingly he did not.

And there’s this whopper -- on November 6 Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, apparently responding to a report that one person of tens of thousands at various anti-Obamacare rallies had a sign with Obama as Hitler, said: “Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler…” (link). Gibbs is either an idiot or a liar, and I suspect he’s not an idiot. If there was one constant about the many anti-Bush rallies over the years, it was the heavy doses of Bush as Hitler imagery (and Bush as a chimp as well). Just watching the occasional TV news show I saw countless examples. Yet here’s Gibbs, pretending none of that happened, and seizing on one supposed case to slur all opposed to Obamacare.

The Weekly Standard picked up on this bald lie and ran a collage of photos from rallies and exhibits with 56 images of Bush as Hitler (link; also nearby). As with Fallows, Gibbs surely remembers all that, but won’t acknowledge it, preferring to pretend the ubiquitous Bush as Hitler and Bush as a chimp imagery never happened.

I honestly don’t know why people like Fallows and Gibbs lie like this, when their falsities are so obvious to anyone half awake during the Bush/Cheney years. As I said, I know they say these things to fool the foolable and to influence those inattentive to politics and history, but in doing so they only reveal their debased morality.

Addendum: In the past, when liberals were in control of almost all national media, before conservative talk radio, the internet, and Fox News, Fallows and Gibbs would have gotten away with their statements uncontroverted media-wise in any effective, widespread way. But that was then. In today's world, easily refutable falsities won't fly any more (ask Dan Rather), though Fallows and Gibbs seem not to know that yet, almost certainly because they only read and watch liberal media, and they know those outfits won't call them on any fibs. Old habits die hard.

John M Greco

Navy Seals Charged with Assault in Capturing Terrorist – Military Leaders Once Again Fail Their Own Troops

The American military leadership continues to show its fecklessness in sticking up for and protecting the backs of the very men and women it leads into battle. Close on the heels of the Islamic Jihadist murder spree at Ft. Hood that led the Army’s top general, one George Casey, to disgrace himself by declaring that as bad as the murders were, it would be even a greater tragedy if Army diversity should suffer, comes this story from the Navy.

Not to be outdone by the Army in prostrating before the liberal god of political correctness and sensitivity, the Navy now is prosecuting three Seals for allegedly assaulting a terrorist prisoner this past September. According to this Fox News story (link), the prisoner came up with a bloody lip after being transferred to Iraqi authorities and claimed that the Americans had done it. He is suspected of being behind the horrific murders and mutilations of the four American Blackwater security personnel in Iraq a few years back, a story that had shocked the nation. The news story notes that “[t]he military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.”

George Bush’s military leaders charged many servicemen with various war crimes, and to my recall the charges have been dropped one by one after lengthy investigations, though not before the accused and their families suffered much. George Bush’s Justice Dept. even went after Border Patrol agents. The American military leadership continues to periodically sacrifice men and women to show their bona fides to the liberal establishment, home and abroad, and to the Muslim world. This disgrace started under Bush and there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Obama will do anything but fan the fires.

John M Greco

Obama’s Health Care Push -- Destroy for Socialized Medicine

The Wall Street Journal reports (link) today that the Chinese are very critical of Obama’s fiscal management as they increasingly worry about the ability of America to repay its massive debt, much of which is owned by the Chinese themselves. And a big part of that fiscal mismanagement is Obama’s and the Democrats' relentless push for ObamaCare, with the unwillingness to try sensible alternative market-based and patient-centered reforms, all in the face of a massive federal deficit and unprecedented peacetime spending orgy.

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson writes today (link) in a piece titled Obama’s Malpractice:

Recovering slowly from a devastating recession, it's widely agreed that … a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending, and curb massive future deficits…. So, what do they [the Democrats] do? Just the opposite. Their sweeping overhaul of the health care system -- which Congress is halfway toward enacting -- would almost certainly make matters worse…. The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it…. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them [Obama and the Democrats] to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.

So why are the Democrats pursuing this reckless and destructive path? John Steele Gordon writes (link) today at Commentary Magazine’s Contentions group blog:

Obama, Pelosi & Co. see this as a one-time opportunity to make socialized medicine inevitable. By destroying the current health-care system under the name of reform, they would make single-payer unavoidable…. [Obama] is bent on sharply shifting power in the direction of the government, away from individuals and the free market, and is willing to defy both the public and fiscal sanity to achieve this goal.

John M Greco

Ft. Hood Jihad Attack Shows Lethal Liberal Political Correctness Infests the Army

I cannot get over the astonishing comments (link) by the leader of the United States Army, General George Casey: “As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

A peacetime “political general” if there ever was one. He and undoubtedly many other higher-ups have lost their way in the fog of modern liberal political correctness. This general does not see that the primary and essential purpose of the American military is to protect America and Americans, not to celebrate diversity at the cost of security to those it should protect. To be sure, the American military should embody American cultural principles to the extent consistent with its purpose. Muslims have been serving in the military along side Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths, and should continue to do so, but only under the same rules for all, not under special hands-off, look-the-other-way rules especially for them. Evidence is streaming out that the Army has become so focused on not appearing anti-Muslim that it has become anti-everyone else. Thirteen Americans are now dead, and many others are wounded, because the Army looked the other way at numerous signs of an impending Jihadist attack, and indeed, evidence strongly suggests, created a culture of intimidation that has made soldiers afraid to report disturbing information about a Muslim lest it damage their careers. Will General Casey meet with and tell the wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters of the dead that “as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse”? He was able to say those words for the liberal hosts of the Sunday morning political talk shows on the liberal networks; if he won’t say the same thing to the families of the dead he’s a coward.

This whole affair is a massive disgrace to the Army command structure and a betrayal to Americans. One would not have thought that the rot of liberal political correctness would have infested the Army, but it obviously has to horrific consequence. We have an immense scandal, and one imagines that lots of people should be fired over this but probably won’t be. Knowing what I now know, I do not have faith in either the Army or the Obama Administration to honestly get all the facts and properly fix things to minimize the chance of future deadly internal Jihadist attacks. For the modern American Army, it seems that scrutiny of a Muslim, even when seemingly warranted by myriad danger signs, is regarded as anti-Muslim and violative of its foremost purpose and principle – “diversity.” The Army used to sacrifice lives to defend America; now it sacrifices lives to defend diversity.

JMG

Related Posts:

US Army Has Been Choosing Diversity Over Security; After the Ft. Hood Jihadist Murder Spree, Will the Army Take Responsibility?

On the Ft. Hood Muslim Terrorist Mass Murder & Military Liberal “Political Correctness”

US Army Has Been Choosing Diversity Over Security; After the Ft. Hood Jihadist Murder Spree, Will the Army Take Responsibility?

As more stories about the Ft. Hood Islamic Jihadist mass murder come out, one thing is becoming clear – the United States Army has chosen “diversity” and liberal political correctness over the physical security of our country and that of its own soldiers. Anyone watching TV or reading the papers has now seen multiple current or former colleagues of the Ft. Hood Jihadist relate how they were uncomfortable with his often-professed radical Islamic ideology and anti-Americanism, how he had had counseling, but that nothing seemingly was done about him by Army authorities out of fear of appearing anti-Muslim.

Army Chief of Staff General George Casey appeared yesterday on the NBC News interview program “Meet the Press.” Here’s my partial transcript; the clip is available on You Tube.

Host David Gregory: “How did the Army miss this [increasingly unstable guy]?”

Casey: “I don’t want to say we missed this. We’re starting to see [Islam-related] anecdotes like this come out, [but] I worry a little bit about speculation like this based on anecdotes….” After describing how there will be a thorough investigation, the results of which we all should wait for, Casey stated “Right now, it’s way too soon to be drawing any conclusions about what his motivations were.”

Gregory asks about possible anti-Muslim backlash in the Army:

Casey: “Our diversity, not only in the Army but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

Losing some diversity would be worse than what, General Casey? Eradicating the Army of vocally pro-Jihadist Muslims would be worse than what, General Casey? No statement from Casey about how the Army never has and never will allow liberal political correctness and special sensitivity toward Muslims to endanger this country or service men and women. Not a whit. Only that diversity is all important, trumping security. And Casey calls the Jihadist murder spree a “tragedy,” as if it were a tornado or a flood, something out of the Army’s control.

And this interview was not an aberration. Casey repeated this line of thought on other interview shows (link). His attitude is a disgrace, and helps explain why numerous Army personnel were afraid to forcefully speak up and/or take action against the man who became a Jihadist murderer for fear of Army repercussions against them. A fish rots from the head down. General Casey should resign – he has failed the Army and his country, and his attitude is patently a danger to service men and women going forward.

Linda Chavez writes (link) at Commentary's blog Contentions:

Taken at his word, Casey’s chief concern seems to be not protecting American soldiers from death at the hands of a jihadist in their midst, but preventing a “backlash” against “diversity” …. The statements were offensive on several levels. It’s as if our leaders — civilian and, in this case, military — believed that Americans are a pack of bigots who’ll be beating up innocent Muslims on the streets and vandalizing mosques if given the least excuse. That hasn’t happened, even in the aftermath of 9/11…. From President Obama on down, including the military chain of command, government officials seem to want to squelch legitimate questions about the role that Hasan’s religious views played in his decision to open fire at Fort Hood. That kind of willful myopia will breed suspicion and distrust among the American people and put servicemen and women at risk. And if Gen. Casey truly believes that “diversity” is more important than protecting his troops, he should hang up his uniform.

In WWII, to take just one of innumerable examples, Italian Christians fought Italian Christians, German Christians fought German Christians, and Japanese Americans formed one of bravest combat units in the war. This country should expect no more and no less from service men and women of any ethnic background or religion, including Islam.

Mark Steyn asks (link) at National Review Online the broader question about who the more dangerous enemy of Western culture is, and he doesn’t think it’s a bunch of Islamic Jihadists in a cave in Afghanistan.

So who's nuttier? The [Ft. Hood Jihadist] guy who gives a lecture to other military doctors in which he says non-Muslims should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats? Or the guys who say "Hey, let's have this fellow counsel our traumatized veterans and then promote him to major and put him on a Homeland Security panel? Or the Army Chief of Staff who thinks the priority should be to celebrate diversity, even unto death? Or the columnist who, when a man hands out copies of the Koran before gunning down his victims while yelling "Allahu akbar," says you're racist if you bring up his religion? Or the Secretary of Homeland Security who warns that the principal threat we face now is an outbreak of Islamophobia? Or the president who says we cannot "fully know" why Major Hasan did what he did, so why trouble ourselves any further?

In the larger context, the Ft. Hood Jihadist murder spree is just part of the ongoing attack on Western culture by the Unholy Alliance (link) of radical Muslims and anti-Western leftists and ultraliberals. It will be a long struggle.

JMG

Related Post: On the Ft. Hood Muslim Terrorist Mass Murder & Military Liberal “Political Correctness”

From the Politburo to Obama -- Twenty Years After the Berlin Wall the Left Still Attacks Western Civilization, But Now from Within

Musing on the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the false sense of triumph over communist ideology that it inspired, Melanie Phillips, writing (link) in the Daily Mail, reminds us (not that much reminder is needed) that the far left simply switched tactics and now attacks us from within:

Soviet Communism was a belief system whose goal was to overturn the structures of society through the control of economic and political life. This mutated into a post-communist ideology of the Left, whose no-less ambitious aim was to overturn western society through a subversive transformation of its culture.

This was what might be called 'cultural Marxism'. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.

This key insight was developed in particular by an Italian Marxist philosopher called Antonio Gramsci. His thinking was taken up by Sixties radicals -- who are, of course, the generation that holds power in the West today. Gramsci understood that the working class would never rise up to seize the levers of 'production, distribution and exchange' as communism had prophesied. Economics was not the path to revolution.

He believed instead that society could be overthrown if the values underpinning it could be turned into their antithesis: if its core principles were replaced by those of groups who were considered to be outsiders or who actively transgressed the moral codes of that society. So he advocated a 'long march through the institutions' to capture the citadels of the culture and turn them into a collective fifth column, undermining from within and turning all the core values of society upside-down and inside-out. This strategy has been carried out to the letter.

This Through The Looking Glass mindset rests on the belief that the world is divided into the powerful (who are responsible for all bad things) and the oppressed (who are responsible for none of them). This is a Marxist doctrine.

Fourteen months ago, Melanie Phillips wrote, also in the Daily Mail, about one of Gramsci’s acolytes:

The seditious role of the community organiser was developed by an extreme left intellectual called Saul Alinsky. He was a radical Chicago activist who, by the time he died in 1972, had had a profound influence on the highest levels of the Democratic party. Alinsky was a ‘transformational Marxist’ in the mould of Antonio Gramsci, who promoted the strategy of a ‘long march through the institutions’ by capturing the culture and turning it inside out as the most effective means of overturning western society. In similar vein, Alinsky condemned the New Left for alienating the general public by its demonstrations and outlandish appearance. The revolution had to be carried out through stealth and deception. Its proponents had to cultivate an image of centrism and pragmatism.

His creed was set out in his book ‘Rules for Radicals’ – a book he dedicated to Lucifer, whom he called the ‘first radical’. It was Alinsky for whom ‘change’ was his mantra. And by ‘change’, he meant a Marxist revolution achieved by slow, incremental, Machiavellian means which turned society inside out. This had to be done through systematic deception, winning the trust of the naively idealistic middle class by using the language of morality to conceal an agenda designed to destroy it. And the way to do this, he said, was through ‘people’s organisations’.

And who, Phillips writes, reportedly idolized Alinsky, was trained in community organizing by “the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago, worked for an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, whose modus operandi … is rooted firmly in the Alinsky method,” … and who “himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method”?

Star pupil Barack Obama himself.


JMG

On the Ft. Hood Muslim Terrorist Mass Murder & Military Liberal “Political Correctness”

Yesterday an American-born Muslim Army doctor opened fire on unarmed Army personnel in the Fort Hood military base in Texas, killing 13, as of now, and wounding 29 while shouting the seemingly now-requisite “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great” in Arabic). Liberal media, as always, are turning themselves into pretzels to avoid even mentioning (link) that the killer is a Muslim and that Islam was connected in any way.

The Army has a lot to answer for, but given the atmosphere of liberal speech censorship commonly referred to as “political correctness,” I seriously wonder if it will even ask the questions, let alone formulate solutions, especially considering that the commander-in-chief is extremely deferential to Islam, being culturally some unique blend of Islamic and radical Christian influences admixed with the radical leftist views, as he grew up, of his family and their friends.

Here are the facts in evidence at this time. An American-born devout Muslim Army psychiatrist begins to exhibit increasingly angry behavior about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and praises Muslim suicide killers. He had received at least one poor performance review as a doctor, and in the past had to be counseled to behave better with patients. He had scrawled Arabic on his apartment door in Maryland. He was training on his own with small arms, unnecessary for his job as a doctor. The Army transfers him to Fort Hood from the D.C. area for a reason as yet unknown, and this year promotes him to the rank of major. He comes to the attention of authorities because of pro-jihad internet postings. The Army’s response to all this: as yet unknown.

How enervated the military has become from liberal “political correctness” about what is being referred to as “Muslim soldiers with attitude” remains unclear, but every honest and attentive American will have very strong suspicions and will form rebuttable presumptions.

Former soldier Ralph Peters has justifiably harsh words (link) in the New York Post:

The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood. Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.

Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.

Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. 31 soldiers were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don’t roll in this maggot’s chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.

There’s another important issue, too. How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist whacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who’ve been assigned to his care? And he’s not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on?
For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I’m ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.

Stephanie Gutmann, author of The Kinder, Gentler Military: How Political Correctness Affects Our Ability to Win Wars, writing (link) at The Corner at National Review Online, reminds us of history:

This is not the first time American soldiers have been victims of politically correct policies. In 2000, Navy brass were so concerned about appearing to be "sensitive guests" in Yemen's Port of Aden, that sailors patrolling the deck of the U.S.S. Cole were not allowed to carry loaded weapons. The ship did not deploy "picket boats" and establish a perimeter. In other words, the destroyer was totally unprotected when a small motorized skiff packed with explosives steered by two men, now believed to have been al-Qaeda, plowed into its hull, killing 17.

Even two hours after the attack, as the wounded ship listed in the harbor, sentries spotted yet another small skiff motoring deliberately toward them. One [sentry] raised his rifle and aimed, not to shoot them — he couldn't have — but in the spirit (as he told Navy Times) of "Nobody's getting near this ship." Almost immediately, his superior told him, "Let me tell you something about the rules of engagement. You can't point a loaded weapon at these people. That's an act of aggression."

The U.S. military would like to pretend it's not about defense and aggression, and it's sacrificed many young men and women to maintain this fiction. How many more victims of political correctness can we afford?

John M Greco