December 1-3, 2015
Dec 01 12:49 Ted Cruz, opportunist Dec 01 13:45 Trump's confusing foreign policy Dec 01 15:35 Defining domestic terrorism down Dec 02 01:52 Rand Paul's fiction Dec 02 11:36 Is Ted Cruz Donald Trump Jr.? Dec 03 11:09 Telltale signs of a sick society Dec 03 11:50 DFL's property tax propaganda Dec 03 14:17 Dayton: DFL gas tax is dead
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Ted Cruz, opportunist
There's no question about whether Ted Cruz is a skilled debater. Apparently, though, his debating skills are limited. Sen. Cruz thinks that political opportunity outweighs the need for honesty and intelligence. This time, Sen. Cruz thinks that creating a no-fly zone in Syria is foolish .
During his interview with Bloomberg, Sen. Cruz criticized Sen. Rubio and Mrs. Clinton "for supporting a no-fly zone and arming the so-called moderate rebels. I think none of that makes any sense. In my view, we have no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war,' he said, arguing that Rubio and Clinton 'are repeating the very same mistakes they made in Libya. They've demonstrated they've learned nothing.'"
Sen. Cruz should be ashamed of himself. Saying that a no-fly zone is a mistake is a mistake. I suspect that he knows that but he couldn't resist the opportunity of linking Sen. Rubio and Mrs. Clinton. Building a safe haven, which a no-fly zone would do, might cause a dramatic reduction in refugees leaving Syria.
Is Sen. Cruz foolish enough to think that a dramatic reduction in Syrian refugees fleeing their country is a mistake? Seriously? Is Sen. Cruz foolish enough to think that potentially reducing the number of ISIS terrorists using the crisis to get into western Europe and the United States is a mistake? If he is, then he isn't qualified to be commander-in-chief.
I don't think Sen. Cruz is that stupid. I think, though, that Sen. Cruz can't resist being a political opportunist, even if that means being dishonest.
"If the Obama administration and the Washington neo-cons succeed in toppling Assad, Syria will be handed over to radical Islamic terrorists. ISIS will rule Syria."
Sen. Cruz, establishing a no-fly zone is the opposite of toppling Assad. It's simply creating a safe haven for victims of Assad's brutality. It wouldn't require but a handful of US boots on the ground while protecting Syrians.
If you want to talk about learning from the past, let's look into how establishing a no-fly zone in 1991 in northern Iraq created Kurdistan. The US protected the Kurds from Saddam Hussein after Operation Desert Storm. Now the Peshmerga, the Kurds' army, are one of our best allies in the Arab world. If that's Sen. Cruz's definition of a mistake, he should visit dictionary.com. Their definition of mistake is "an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc."
I'd argue that protecting the Kurds and creating a loyal Arab ally in the heart of the Middle East is a success story.
Originally posted Tuesday, December 1, 2015, revised 02-Dec 11:32 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 05-Dec-15 08:32 AM
Ted Cruz an "opportunist?"
Dishonest?
Unintelligent? Even perhaps, Foolish?
How many other Canadians do you view that way?
Trump's confusing foreign policy
If I didn't know better, I'd think that Donald Trump didn't have a clue about foreign policy. I'm thinking that because Mr. Trump thinks that going into Afghanistan after 9/11 was a mistake but thinks that bombing the s--- out of ISIS is smart .
During an Oct. 6 appearance on CNN, Mr. Trump said "We made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place. It's a mess, it's a mess and at this point we probably have to (leave U.S. troops in Afghanistan) because that thing will collapse in about two seconds after they leave." Of course, Trump denied saying that , telling Alisyn Camerota "We made a mistake going into Iraq. I've never said we made a mistake going into Afghanistan."
Everyone's seen the video of Mr. Trump talking about bombing the s--- out of ISIS. That's when he said "ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil camps, certain areas of oil that they took away. They have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the s--- out of 'em. I would just bomb those suckers. That's right. I'd blow up the pipes. ... I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you'll get Exxon to come in there and in two months, you ever see these guys, how good they are, the great oil companies? They'll rebuild that sucker, brand new - it'll be beautiful."
According to Trump's logic, if it can be called that, it was a mistake to go into Afghanistan and kill the terrorists that planned, then executed the terrorist attacks on 9/11 but it's a beautiful thing to "bomb the s--- out of ISIS" even though ISIS hasn't attacked the United States ... yet. In what galaxy does that make sense in? I don't have a problem with going after ISIS. Readers of LFR know that I'm down with that.
I'm questioning why Mr. Trump thinks it was a mistake to go into Afghanistan to demolish the terrorists that attacked the US on 9/11. Does Mr. Trump think that defeating the Taliban and sending al-Qa'ida running didn't protect the United States? If Mr. Trump thinks that, then he isn't too bright.
Actually, I think Mr. Trump is bright. I just think he speaks first, thinks later, if even then.
Finally, Sen. Cruz criticized Sen. Rubio for promoting the establishment of a no-fly zone that would slow the onslaught of Syrian refugees but he hasn't criticized Mr. Trump for saying invading Afghanistan after 9/11 was a mistake. Sen. Cruz and Mr. Trump deserve each other.
Posted Tuesday, December 1, 2015 1:45 PM
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Defining domestic terrorism down
After reading the opening paragraphs of this SC Times Writers Group article , I'm disappointed that the writer bought into liberal spin.
When Mr. Larson said "Perhaps the most obvious historical acts of domestic terrorism were committed against black Americans by white lynch mobs. In a single campaign of terror in 1918, white residents of Arkansas murdered 237 of their black neighbors in an attempt to enforce Jim Crow laws and maintain segregation. Recent scholarship places the total of American-Americans killed by lynching between 1877-1950 at 3,959 and likely many more undocumented cases exist as well," he exposed himself to criticism for buying that spin.
The reason why Larson deserves the criticism he'll get in this post is because he opened his article by saying "The United States has a terrorism problem. Despite our new-found fear of Syrian refugees, however, the greater risk is almost certainly from domestic sources." That's stupidity personified.
According to Mr. Larson, domestic terrorism is the United States' biggest terrorist problem today because "white lynch mobs" murdered black people 100 years ago. What type of idiot thinks that crimes committed a century ago constitutes a domestic terrorist threat in the 21st Century?
These paragraphs are breathtakingly painful:
News reports the past 15 years have included terrorist attacks by animal rights extremists, lone wolf snipers, a pilot angry at the IRS, religious extremists targeting Sikhs, Jews, Muslims and Christians, and, of course, multiple school shootings - at least some of which might also be described as acts of terrorism.
All of these attacks were committed by Americans against other Americans, and all with political or religious motivation to use terror to 'intimidate or coerce.'
Under this definition, the word terrorism is utterly meaningless, which, I suspect, is the goal of anti-war lefties.
Posted Tuesday, December 1, 2015 3:35 PM
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Rand Paul's fiction
If people want to read a good fictional novella, I'd recommend that they read Rand Paul's op-ed . What Sen. Paul's op-ed misses in serious policies, it makes up for with sensationalism and old-fashioned BS.
Early in the article, Sen. Paul reveals his goal by talking about Hillary Clinton's and Marco Rubio's "liberation foreign policy." After that, Sen. Paul's op-ed reads like a letter from an angry child upset that nobody's paying attention to him. There's good reason for that. Sen. Paul's upset that nobody's paying attention to him. There's a reason for that. He's sounding more and more like a not-quite-as-crazy-as-his-dad-noninterventionist.
First, Sen. Paul's accusations are without merit. He's basing his statements on a myth. Early in the op-ed, he said "When I forced the Foreign Relations Committee to debate an authorization of military force against ISIS, Senator Rubio and McCain insisted that the new authorization be unlimited temporally or geographically. Basically, they want a war without end against an undefined enemy in an unspecified region of the world."
I don't recall Congress putting a time limit on FDR after Pearl Harbor. I don't recall Congress giving FDR permission to declare war on Japan but not on Germany and Italy. War is, by its chaotic nature, open-ended time-wise. I'd be worried if Sen. Rubio and Sen. McCain agreed to give President Obama an AUMF that had an expiration date. That's the definition of insanity.
This sounds like a petulant child:
Senator Rubio wrote the President at the time that he saw 'no legal reason preventing' him from using his 'commander-in-chief' powers to attack ISIS. His letter makes no mention of the Constitutional requirement to seek Congressional authority.
There's a reason for that. The AUMF that the House and Senate passed gave the president, then George W. Bush, the authority to go after terrorists "with global reach." ISIS definitely fits that definition.
As we enter into the season of determining the next Commander in Chief, I hope voters will seek out a leader who will learn from history and not pursue a reckless policy that seeks to liberate the world but in reality traps us under a mountain of debt and beguiles us into perpetual war.
I hope that voters will learn from recent history that the terrorists haven't quit fighting a war against us. Sen. Paul apparently hasn't figured it out that we don't quit fighting a war if the terrorists haven't quit waging war against the United States. That's the definition of national suicide.
Sen. Paul isn't concerned with preventing terrorist attacks. The thing that he's most worried about is "mountains of debt." It's time he figured out how to fight the terrorists while reducing the debt.
Posted Wednesday, December 2, 2015 1:52 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 05-Dec-15 08:23 AM
Gary, are you really equating Syria with WW II?
We could get involved, and equate it with Vietnam. The Tonkin Bay resolution. Conscription. The Nixon exit strategy, as put into action. All that good stuff.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 05-Dec-15 11:31 PM
Eric, I'm merely highlighting the fact that, in the past, Congress didn't set a deadline on how long a president's authority to wage war lasted. Would Sen. Paul have put a time limit on FDR to defeat Germany, Italy & Japan? Would Sen. Paul have accused that congress of being bloodthirsty warmongers and neocons?
Is Ted Cruz Donald Trump Jr.?
Apparently, Ted Cruz thinks that the path to the White House is by saying stupid, outlandish things. Apparently, Sen. Cruz thinks that impersonating Donald Trump is the best way to get elected. For instance, Sen. Cruz said that " the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats ." Later, Sen. Cruz said "Every time you have some sort of violent crime or mass killing, you could almost see the media salivating, hoping desperately that the murderer happens to be a Republican so they can use it to try to paint their political enemies. Now, listen, here's the simple and undeniable facts: The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats. The media doesn't report that."
Yesterday, I wrote this post to highlight Sen. Cruz's political opportunism. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Sen. Cruz said that "we have no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war" before saying that Sen. and Mrs. Clinton "are repeating the very same mistakes they made in Libya. They've demonstrated they've learned nothing.'"
If Sen. Cruz thinks that we don't have a dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war, then he isn't connecting the dots between the Syrian refugees coming to the United States and his own assertion that some of these 'refugees' are actually ISIS terrorists.
Sen. Cruz, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that some of the Syrian refugees are ISIS terrorists, then insist that we don't care about what happens in Syria. Those thoughts fit together like a sledgehammer fits into a petite lady's glove.
Sen. Cruz doesn't want the media to focus their attention on his vote to hurt the NSA's surveillance program. To his credit, Gov. Chris Christie won't let that issue die , though:
"In the seven years after 9/11, during the Bush administration, we had no attacks on American soil after 9/11," Christie said in the interview. He adds:
And a large contributor to that success was the intelligence community because it was empowered and supported by a strong president of the United States, who knew exactly what do to prevent terrorist attacks on the homeland, which has got to be the first priority that an American president is to protect the safety and security of the American people.
Sen. Cruz, why did you vote for a bill that helped prevent terrorist attacks and helped roll up entire networks of terrorists? The first responsibility of a president is to protect citizens from their enemies.
Sen. Cruz voted with Sen. Paul because the bill was popular at the time. It wasn't a principled decision. It was a political decision.
Sen. Cruz is sounding more like Rand Paul and Donald Trump each day.
Posted Wednesday, December 2, 2015 11:36 AM
Comment 1 by Leo Pusateri at 02-Dec-15 09:51 PM
Ted Cruz' assertions are provable through research. Felons who have been given back the right to vote after their sentences in states where it is allowed overwhelmingly register to vote as democrats.
Comment 2 by Leo Pusateri at 02-Dec-15 09:53 PM
We have a dog in the Syrian civil war. But overthrowing the current regime is not the answer. Thus the 'mistakes' he was talking about re: Libya.
They made the same mistake pushing for regime change in Egypt, too..
Taking out leaders in the middle east without having a friendly regime to fill the vacuum is a fool's errand, and has already netted deadly consequences.
Comment 3 by Gary Gross at 03-Dec-15 11:14 AM
Marco Rubio didn't push for regime change in Egypt. That was Hillary & Obama.
As for overthrowing Assad, Rubio didn't advocate for that, either. Tying Rubio to Obama on that is unwarranted.
Rubio's calls have been to destroy ISIS, which is totally justified.
Comment 4 by eric z at 05-Dec-15 08:15 AM
A Cruz - Fiorina ticket might be one to resonate with some Republicans. Both so warm and lovable. Both knowing what to say and how to say it. Neither inflating the resume.
Telltale signs of a sick society
A longtime blogging friend who goes by the pen name of Lady Logician wrote a rant in the wake of yesterday's San Bernardino shooting. Suffice it to say that you might be offended with LL's rant if you're a delicate snowflake on a college campus or if you're a hard left ideologue. LL's rant contains more microaggressions per character than the thought police would permit if the First Amendment didn't exist.
Without further adieu, here's the Lady Logician's rant:
The usual suspects wasted no time in clamoring for more gun control - before police even knew what they were looking at. But not once - NOT ONCE - has anyone talked about the fact that we live in a society that completely devalues life. If someone makes you angry, make them pay. Someone hurts you....hey - an eye for an eye man. And Gaia forbid you get inconvenienced by a pregnancy or an elderly parent that cramps your style.....don't want it....it's just a clump of cells anyway - who cares. We are a selfish society that feels that their rights trump everyone else's.
You really want to stop the mass shootings in America? START VALUING THE LIVES OF OTHERS OVER YOUR OWN!!!! It's that freaking simple!
This morning, she wrote Part II:
RANT PART 2 - Another reason for much of what is going on in the world today is the loss of the concept of the dignity of human life. In a world where a fish is more important than feeding humans, humans are no longer a priority. We have taken conservation of the planet to the extreme and forgetting that HUMANS ARE PART OF THE PLANET TOO! However, we have fallen into the PETA/H$U$ trap of thinking that humans are not as worthy of conservation (as a species) as animals. When we think of humans as animals, we start ACTING like animals and the taking of human life is just another manifestation of that. After all - it's survival of the fittest, right?
The sickness has spread too far. When Kermit Gosnell was convicted of performing late term abortions , the prosecution painted a grisly picture of Dr. Gosnell's practice:
Prosecutors described Gosnell's employees as nearly as desperate as the patients. Some had little or no medical training, and at least one was a teenager still in high school. One woman needed the work to support her children after her husband's murder.
Stephen Massof, an unlicensed medical school graduate who could not find a residency, told jurors that Gosnell taught him how to snip babies' spines, something he then did at least 100 times at the clinic. "I felt like a fireman in hell," Massof testified. "I couldn't put out all the fires."
If society won't put a high priority on human dignity, if society doesn't put a higher priority on human life than on a 2"-long fish in California's Central Valley, if society doesn't put a higher priority on slowing down and thinking things through than they put on 'getting things done', then we'll deserve the world we'll get.
We're already getting a glimpse of that world. It isn't a pretty sight.
Posted Thursday, December 3, 2015 11:09 AM
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DFL's property tax propaganda
The DFL's intentional deceptions are disgusting. Minutes ago, they posted this tweet:
Remember: #mnleg had large surplus last yr too, but GOP budget produced increases in prop taxes, tuition & health care costs #SurplusChoices
- Minnesota House DFL (@mnhouseDFL) December 3, 2015
It's time that the DFL stopped lying about property taxes. The DFL's budget didn't prevent property tax increases. I wrote this post in 2014 to highlight that fact. In that post, I linked to this post , which talked about the Princeton School Board voted to raise "the school district tax levy by 25.16 percent for taxes payable 2015 to fund the 2015-16 school year."
That happened before Kurt Daudt was elected as Speaker of the House. That didn't happen until January, 2015.
St. Cloud school district has imposed its largest tax levy increase in six years for 2015. The district's property-tax levy will increase by $3.3 million, or 14.75 percent, to nearly $26 million. The school board voted unanimously Thursday night to approve the 2015 levy.
This happened during 2014, too. It's difficult to blame the MNGOP for those property tax increases, especially considering the fact that Paul Thissen bragged about the DFL's " Historic Investment in Minnesota's Future ." After the DFL significantly raised K-12 spending, shouldn't we have the right to expect a year or 2 of no property taxes from the school districts? Instead of getting stable property taxes, we get historic property tax increases.
The thought that the DFL is now lying about Republicans driving up property taxes is disgusting but predictable. The DFL isn't in the business of telling the truth. They're in the business of lying to people if they think that's what will help them win elections.
Posted Thursday, December 3, 2015 11:50 AM
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Dayton: DFL gas tax is dead
The best news from today's budget forecast, other than the fact that there's a major surplus, is that Gov. Dayton admitted that a gas tax increase is dead for the upcoming session . That might've been the most painful statement he's made as governor.
That all but officially ends Move Minnesota's gas tax increase campaign. I wrote this post to highlight the features of House Transportation Committee Chairman Tim Kelly's plan. Chairman Kelly's plan invests heavily in roads and bridges without diverting funds to transit. The reason why Move Minnesota opposed Chairman Kelly's bill is because he didn't raise taxes and because he doesn't put a high priority on 'investing' in transit.
Chairman Kelly wrote this op-ed to highlight his proposal. A big key to the plan is investing "$7 billion into needed road and bridge repair without raising taxes." Chairman Kelly's plan repurposes "revenue that is already being collected from existing sales taxes on auto parts, the Motor Vehicle Lease sales tax, the rental vehicle tax and the sales tax on rental vehicles." Currently, that money goes into the general fund.
As I said last spring, why should taxes that are imposed on rental vehicles and leasing motor vehicles go into the general fund?
Chairman Kelly's plan creates a "Transportation Stability Fund." The TSF will "not only provide new money for roads and bridges statewide, but also for small city roads, bus services in Greater Minnesota, suburban county highways and metro area capital improvements."
This is what Gov. Dayton and the DFL were upset about:
In addition to the dedicated funds provided by the Transportation Stability Fund, the proposal would also utilize $1.3 billion in Trunk Highway bonds, $1.2 billion from realigning Minnesota Department of Transportation resources, $1.05 billion in General Obligation bonds, and $228 million in General Funds.
According to Paul Thissen, Chairman Kelly's plan stole money from schools and other DFL priorities. That's interesting considering the fact that Thissen insisted that the DFL had made an historic investment in education and paid back the school shifts.
At what point does Rep. Thissen think Minnesota's middle class is overtaxed? For that matter, does Rep. Thissen think that Minnesota's middle class is overtaxed?
The good news is that the DFL's dreams of raising the gas tax is over.
Posted Thursday, December 3, 2015 2:17 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 03-Dec-15 04:06 PM
Just because Dayton said a gas tax was off the table today does not mean it will not be back on the table a week before the session ends.
All this does is allow the DFL to focus their tax and spend energy on another area they deem worthy of fleecing the public out of their hard earned money. There is never enough money for a DFLer.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 03-Dec-15 05:16 PM
Chad, I pray that the DFL revives talk of a tax increase late in the session. That'd be a gift of incredible proportions.
Picture this: We've got a multi-billion dollar surplus. Republicans are proposing major tax relief right before an election.
The DFL couldn't give Republicans a bigger gift than a tax increase of any size right before the election.
