"A foreign policy in epic collapse"

Superb column, not a word wasted:





Krauthammer: Collapse of the Cairo Doctrine

"It’s as axiomatic in statecraft as in physics: Nature abhors a vacuum. Islamists rush in to fill the space and declare their ascendancy. America’s friends are bereft, confused, paralyzed..."

Questions:

What countries, exactly, does Obama consider to be "America's true friends"?  Our primary allies when push comes to shove?  Britain? Israel? India? Germany? Egypt? France? Turkey? Australia? 

All the above?  None of the above?  How much does Obama understand about power blocs and strategic alliances?  Is he really naive enough to think such notions are out-moded, that the UN and NATO are all that's required?  Does he believe that the force of his own rhetoric, personality, and good intentions are powerful enough to carry the day all by themselves?

Who knows?  What we do know is that every aspect of his foreign policy is falling apart -- he's insulted and alienated old friends, and all his kow-towing and other overtures toward supposed new friends and allies (the Muslim Brotherhood? Really?) are being spit back in his face.

What a thoroughgoing disaster of a presidency. When Obama finally leaves government, he'll skip off to make easy millions serving on the boards of appropriately progressive corporations and non-profits, while raking in other millions giving speeches to adoring audiences. He'll be fully convinced that he deserves every bit of that, and more. Surveying the public debt, economic decline, and policy wreckage he'll leave behind, anyone who still harbors some notion of natural justice will need to sit down, toss back a stiff drink or two, and re-think their views about how the world really works.

Byron

Shame

Somebody remind me, What, exactly, is liberal about today's "liberalism"?

By any coherent meaning of the term, it's not liberalism at all. What the left wants is to centralize power in a redistributional mega-state.

Nobody is supposed to notice that such redistribution requires an enormous, many-pronged apparatus of enforcement -- a vast expansion of government power which then can be used for all kinds of things.

The inevitable result is a host of Federal agencies (e.g., IRS, DEA, FBI, EPA, etc., etc., etc.) that can, if they decide to, devastate you financially, ruin your business, wreck your marriage, seize your home and property -- destroy you and your life from top to bottom.

There is nothing liberal about today's "liberalism."  To give it that name is a perversion of language.

Lots more at this link.

Byron

Best Majors

What these have in common is that they involve things people want done and are willing to pay for. Truck driver in North Dakota would be high on this list if it required a college degree instead of just a CDL.

10 Best College Majors for a Lucrative Career

Another interesting list would be "Vocational Training Programs That Pay More Than the Average 4-Year College Degree."

There would be plenty of those, and the cost is MUCH less, especially if you consider the opportunity costs of four years of college vs. an 18-month or 2-yr training program in welding, etc.

Byron

Eastwood talks

The backstory. A fun read:

Eastwood says his convention appearance was 'mission accomplished'

Finding out what's in it

Health insurance premiums for NC college students rise 51% under ObamaCare

This is one more repeat of an old, bad joke already heard far too many times -- the deliberate low-balling of cost estimates to get the legislation passed.

All versions of socialized medicine make two bad predictions, and they make both of them on purpose to get the program passed into law in the first place.  Without exception it will (Oops!) always turn out that (1) People use the system much more than predicted; and (2) The services (procedures, prescriptions, etc.) they use turn out to cost a lot more than predicted.  Golly, call Ripley.

The result is a program in the red from Day One, and in a long dive straight into the debt toilet from there.  When Medicare began in 1966, it  cost $3 billion. In 2010 it cost $523 billion, blowing all cost predictions to smithereens. The CBO estimate for 2020 is $932 billion, and over a Trillion Dollars by 2022 -- estimates that we can safely predict will be grossly exceeded.  Fraud and abuse remain rampant, with only 5% of claims audited.

The whole model is hopeless, because it creates an undifferentiated, anonymous, common pool of Other People's Money that is very poorly guarded, and which every participant in the health care system has a strong incentive to dip into as deeply as possible. The results are as inevitable as time and tides.

Byron

How it works

FDR and many others argued, with perfect logic, against The Machine, and why it must never be created or allowed to exist.

But here we are.

In one easy lesson, here's an example of The Machine and how it works.

It's fascinating -- slow-motion train wrecks always are:

The Machine: The Truth Behind Teachers Unions