Friday, December 04, 2009

Somebody needs to get to know the American Constitution

Particularly, Article VI, Paragraph 3:

"...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Afghanistan

I didn't watch the speech and haven't as of yet read the transcript, but I've read a bit about what other people have said of the speech so I guess that's the same thing.

I don't think the deadline is serious. I don't think Afghanistan can be fixed. I'm not even so sure any more that the original 2001 invasion was worthwhile.

Among the things I've read on this subject in the last two days, one of the more interesting was a column by David Brooks, of all people. Pakistan is, and probably has been for some time, as much if not more of a problem than Afghanistan. There are also some interesting thoughts at Sullivan's blog as usual, particularly from his readers, pertaining to the utility of deadlines.

Once I come upon the transcript of the speech I'll try to give this subject more serious attention.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Wars are free, etc

Greenwald on Senator Bayh:

It's impossible to find a more perfectly representative face for the rotted Washington establishment than Evan Bayh. He is the pure expression of virtually every attribute that makes the Beltway so dysfunctional, deceitful and corrupt...

When the sad and destructive history of the U.S. over the last decade is written, the coddled, nepotistic, self-serving face of Evan Bayh should be prominently included. It embodies virtually every cause.

Here's how this fierce deficit-hawk responds to Chris Wallace's question on financing our wars:

WALLACE: Senator Bayh, you brought up the question of cost, and the administration has put the cost -- and this is kind of astonishing to, I think, a lot of people -- $1 million per soldier per year, so if you sent 30,000 soldiers, that would be a $30 billion price tag.

Now, some top Democrats are talking about the idea -- the new idea of a war tax to pay for the escalation in Afghanistan. Good idea?

BAYH: No, I don't think it's a good idea, not at this point, Chris. First of all, you need to provide for the nation's security regardless of your financial situation, and there's no bigger deficit hawk in Congress than I am.

I think we need to start coming to grips with this. We're going to have a big vote coming up on the debt ceiling. I don't think we should vote to raise the debt ceiling until we have a strategy in place to get our deficits down.

So we've got to take the fiscal situation seriously, but, number one, national security comes first.
Number two, we've got to look at cutting spending in other parts of the budget before we even talk about raising taxes.


I don't know how serious Wallace's question was in tone but at least one of the Villagers put the question our there. Even to accept the argument that "national security" spending takes priority over "lowly" domestic spending, shouldn't one ought to propose some means of financing our military necessities? And to want to finance them if absolutely needed from those who can most afford to pay for them? Say hello to our Democratic Party "majority".