Selasa, 23 Oktober 2012

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Mr. President, Let Me Introduce You to the Men Who Fought the Taliban from Horseback

Posted: 22 Oct 2012 09:36 PM PDT

Monday night, Mitt Romney noted that our Navy is at its smallest strength since 1917. The President responded thusly:

“You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916…Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military’s changed. We had these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. So the question is not a game of battleship where we’re counting ships. It’s ‘What are our capabilities?’”

A fine, snarky response, suitable for any playground. But let me give the President his due. Our military has indeed changed. We used cavalry extensively a hundred years ago. We do not now. Our fighter pilots fought great battles in the air with guns and now they use missiles. Our ships used to blast away with cannons and now they use…well…big cannons. And we still use ships to support those strange “aircraft carrier” things and, occasionally, to hunt down threats to merchant shipping such as pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Okay, maybe the President shouldn’t get much credit here. As it happens, horses played a pretty important role in recent military history as well. Just ten years ago, our invasion of Afghanistan began on horseback. Members of a group called Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595, part of a larger force named Task Force Dagger, which consisted of Green Berets, airmen from the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and combat controllers from the US Air Force. ODA-595  fought alongside members of the Northern Alliance, horseback, in the first-ever battle against the Taliban.

In fact, that battle, the Battle of Bishqab, featured a cavalry charge.

The combined Northern Alliance troops and Green Berets arrived at their staging area in the late morning. As the Afghan troops began assembling, Nelson, from his observation point two miles from the enemy's position, began his reconnaissance. Through his binoculars, Nelson could see a cluster of empty mud houses on top of a hill that was the village of Bishqab. On another hill nearby he identified at least one trench and a collection of brown pickups, several T-54/55 tanks, a number of BMPs – armored personnel carriers armed with cannons and machine guns – and several ZSU-23 anti-aircraft artillery.

To reach the enemy, Dostum's troops, about 1,500 cavalry and 1,500 infantry, would have to travel a mile over an open plain cut by seven ridges, each between 50 and 100 feet high and spaced about 600 feet apart. The momentum of their attack would be slowed during the crossing of those ridges and, worse, make them sitting ducks each time they reached the top of a ridge. To anyone familiar with military history, the Battle of Bishqab had the potential of being the Charge of the Light Brigade, Fredericksburg, and Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg all rolled into one.

The difference here, of course, was American air power. But would it be enough?

With his position plotting complete, Nelson began calling in air strikes. As the bombs began to fall, Dostum shouted into his radio, "Charge!" The first horse cavalry charge of the 21st century had begun.

When the first wave of horsemen had covered about a half-mile, the surviving Taliban heavy weapons opened up. Men and horses began falling to the ground, dead or screaming in pain from their wounds. But whether it was the fact that the horsemen were moving too fast, that the Taliban troops had not ranged their weapons, or some other reason, the defensive fire was not as concentrated or as accurate as it should have been.

When the surviving horsemen reached the second ridge, they halted, leaped off their horses, and laid down cover fire for the second wave of cavalry. That second line crashed into the Taliban trenches. Suddenly Taliban soldiers were throwing away their weapons and running away. The battle continued to rage as darkness fell. When the aircraft above had to leave to refuel, Dostum's troops were forced to abandon the battlefield when armored Taliban reinforcements arrived.

Soldiers on horses — American soldiers, mind you — also fought in a larger battle the next day and in the battle at Mazar-i-Sharif where Mike Spann, a CIA officer and our first casualty in Afghanistan, died.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld showed a picture of an American soldier on horseback in a news conference and that photo so impressed a sculptor named Douwe Blumberg that he began work on a monument to those soldiers. He visited Fort Campbell and worked with special forces soldiers there to make sure he had the details right. Vice President Joe Biden dedicated his finished work, a beautiful 16′ tall bronze statue he called America’s Response Monument, De Oppresso Liber (also known as the Horse Soldier Monument), on Veterans’ Day, 2011. It stood in the lobby of the building opposite Ground Zero for almost a year.

The President said he visited Ground Zero not that long ago. Perhaps he saw it. Or perhaps his Vice President mentioned the horse statue to him. Maybe not. He seems a bit hazy on the details of who our soldiers are and what they do.

He probably also missed the news that the Horse Soldier Monument was rededicated at its permanent location on Greenwich Street very near Ground Zero just this past Friday.

Perhaps once the election is over and he’s re-settled in his Chicago mansion, he can read Doug Stanton’s excellent book Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan and learn a bit about what a strong and versatile military really looks like.

UPDATE: What’s this: A bayonet charge in 2011? In Afghanistan? That’s un-possible!

UPDATE 2: No American soldiers use bayonets these days, right? Not a one.
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Kamis, 18 Oktober 2012

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‘Binders’: The Left’s Lame Attempt at an Attack on Governor Romney

Posted: 18 Oct 2012 07:56 AM PDT

Desperate for something…anything…they can throw at the wall and attempt to get something to stick in criticism of Governor Mitt Romney, women on the left have chosen his reference to ‘binders’ (yes, notebooks) in Tuesday night’s debate as the latest in their faux #WarOnWomen outcry.

Honestly, I cannot wrap my mind around this one. I’ve heard a lot of dumb attacks during the time I’ve been actually paying attention to all things political, but this one takes the cake.

In case you hadn’t heard, the shrieking began after Governor Romney’s answer to a question about women’s pay equality (which was a pathetic question to begin with, given the fact that a law was passed years ago on this issue. Perhaps the woman posing the question had heard that the Obama White House pays its female emloyees less than their male counterparts)

So, the governor refers to notebooks full of resumes, and that is what they go after? Wonder if any of them are aware that a little 14 year old girl is lying in a hospital fighting for her life in Pakistan? Where is the same kind of outrage over this little girl being shot in the head for daring to speak out against the Taliban in defense of her education?!

Ladies, if–in your narcissistic attempt to make it all about you–you’re going to pick an issue to be up in arms about, perhaps you could at least make it one that is worthy of all that pent up anger.

The Word You Want Here, Mr. President, Is “Capital”.

Posted: 17 Oct 2012 11:26 AM PDT

For the life of me, I do not understand what Barack Obama’s economic philosophy is, even when he comes right out and says it.

What in the name of Adam Smith does that mean? Of course you can’t grow an economy from the top-down, which is a baffling statement for him to make since that’s exactly he has been trying to do since 2009. The Vote Buying Act Stimulus Bill? The “green” contributor paybacks loan guarantees to Solyndra, Fisker, and so on? That’s the very definition of trying to grow the economy from the top down.

I can suppose he meant that you can’t grow the economy by letting “millionaires and billionaires” pay less than whatever percentge of taxes Barack Obama thinks is their ‘fair share” while nearly half of us pay nothing at all. If that’s the case, and I’m almost sure it is, then the President doesn’t have an economic philosophy, he has an old 60′s protest sign he’s using as an economic philosophy. But that other sentence is equally nonsensical. You can not grow an economy from the middle class outward, because the middle class, largely, does not create capital and capital is what grows the economy.

I can not fathom what grown adult with even a small amount of responsibility for someone’s financial well-being could believe you can magically stimulate some arbitrary group of people you call the middle class into growing a vibrant economy. Growing economies need people at the top creating capital like Donkey Kong creates barrels. Economic growth is capital growth. Period.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the middle class. One day I aspire to a nice little upper middle class lifestyle. But the middle class is what happens when the upper class puts its wealth to work instead of hiding it away from greedy government grabbers or, worse, not hiding it from greedy government grabbers who spend it on floating outhouses and cars no one wants to buy. We need tens of thousands — no, thousands of thousands — of rich people trying to make themselves even richer by putting their money at risk. I want them out there churning billions of dollars into the economy and creating billions of dollars more of brand-spanking new capital that will enrich every last man jack of us. Employment will rise. Wages will rise. Workers will have more power as their labor becomes worth more and more. Consumers will spend more because they know they’re on far safer financial ground, which will further enrich small business owners and large business owners and all their employees, who will get their cut of all those dollars rolling in.

We all want a huge, happy middle class. That will only happen when the upper class thinks it can create more wealth. Capital is where it’s at, people. Capital at work drives the economy, creates and broadens the middle class, drives innovation, and makes America the world economic power it ought to be. Not government. Not hope and fundamental change. Capital.

That, to borrow a phrase from the President, is not politics; it’s economics.

 
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Senin, 08 Oktober 2012

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My Liberty News Link Review

Posted: 07 Oct 2012 07:15 PM PDT

I thought it might be worthwhile to recap the posts I wrote for Liberty News’ blog network this week, in case you don’t yet have the site plugged into your RSS reader. If you think it’s useful, I’ll make a regular feature. If I think it’s useful, I’ll make it a regular feature. If none of us like it, I’ll burn it like the White House wants to burn the memories of last week’s Presidential debate from our memories.

Here was my week at Liberty News.

And my week at Liberty News’ sister blog, the Campaign Trail Report.

In the near future, the two blogs will be combined into one, so you won’t need to watch more than one place to read all of my extra-Shacktacular posts. Until then, there’s this. Handy, eh?
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Minggu, 07 Oktober 2012

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Days After the Debate, Confusion Reigns in the Ivory Tower

Posted: 06 Oct 2012 02:31 PM PDT

Normally, when a mere mortal like you or me launches an endeavor and fails in an early part of it, we do what Nat King Cole suggested — pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and start all over again. Sometimes, though, you find one of the petulant few, the person who believes their own BS, who thinks they can, quite literally, do anything. When a person like that tries to cross the street and stumbles over a curb, they don’t stand up, brush their trousers, shake their head ruefully at their own clumsiness, and share a chuckle with the everyone who saw it. No. They blame the curb and summon a horde of yes men to rival Ruby Rhod’s entourage to find and excoriate the paving company cruel enough to entrippenate someone whose nose is pointed Heavenward.

Which brings me to the point. Last week, the President got beaten in a debate. Badly. Mitt Romney delivered the most polite rhetorical curb-stomping seen since Ronald Reagan took Walter Mondale to the woodshed in 1984. His loyal followers have taken it hard. Normally, when your candidate takes a drubbing, you take a mental step back and attempt to analyze his performance. You ask questions about how he phrased his arguments, how he countered the arguments of the other guy. You need to take the view of a non-partisan, a view from the vantage point of someone who might know a little about the issues but who doesn’t marinate in them for hours every day. You need to look at your candidate’s performance through the eyes of someone who gets their news from, well, the news — television, radio, a quick glance over the headlines on Yahoo or even Drudge.

What you should not do, what a normal person would not do, is assume that the pure white light of your guy’s truth will shine through and banish the other candidate as if he hit the stage and suddenly brandished the Phial of Galadriel in the face of Shelob.  Yet that is what the President’s most ardent admirers have done for the past several days. They assembled like Lion Force Voltron to form a Human Ablative Blame Shield to protect his evidently fragile ego from any real criticism. Ace compiled a few of the reasons the HABS gave in a recent a New Yorker article for why the President lost. Here are a couple.

He’s Just Too Interested In Finding Common Ground and Rising Above Petty Disputes To Lower Himself To Being An Effective Debater.

[...]

Obama Was “Too Professorial” To Explain Complex Thoughts To A Lay Audience.

Ace is only exaggerating a little here. He provides quotes from the New Yorker article, then a little commentary of his own that is very much worth your time. He treats their confused attempts to understand why the Shining One seemed so very mortal with the perfect amount of derision.

I want to leave you with two things. First, the people in that article, the people who are either too isolated from the rest of humanity to be able to think outside their own narrow view of the world, want to run every part of your life. Indeed, they have already taken control of great swaths of your life already. If you don’t believe me, just wait until Obamacare hits with its full force in just a year or so.

Second, Ace left the very best reason Barack Obama lost to Mitt Romney.

The Dog Ate His Debates Notes, then Obama Ate the Dog.

Good night, everyone. Try the veal.
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Jumat, 05 Oktober 2012

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What’s Up with the Odd Jobs Numbers? I Have an Idea but It’s Not Good News.

Posted: 05 Oct 2012 08:46 AM PDT

The September jobs numbers are out and the left is skipping around like Navin Johnson flipping through a brand-new phone book. There is some reason to celebrate, though I wouldn’t exactly crack open the good champagne, for a reason I’ll explain in just a bit.

First, the good news. Unemployment dropped below 8 percent for the first time in 44 months and it didn’t get there because a whole bunch of Americans gave up and stopped looking for work.

The unemployment rate in the U.S. unexpectedly fell to 7.8 percent in September, the lowest since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, as employers took on more part-time workers.

The economy added 114,000 workers last month after a revised 142,000 gain in August that was more than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median estimate of 92 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an advance of 115,000. The jobless rate dropped from 8.1 percent and hourly earnings climbed more than forecast.

That is a very good unemployment number. It’s not nearly what we had during the Bush years, but these days anything below 8 percent feels like a triumph. On the other hand, those numbers don’t quite add up. How is it we added 142,000 jobs and got a 0.2 drop in the unemployment rate last month while this month we added fewer jobs but got a bigger drop? Much of last months rate drop came from people leaving the job market. This month, that didn’t happen. In fact, people entered the job market. Well, kind of.

The falling jobless rate had been a function as much of the continued shrinking in the labor force as it was an increase in new positions.

But the government said the total number of workers employed surged by 873,000, the highest one-month jump in 29 years. The total of unemployed people tumbled by 456,000.

The total labor force grew by 418,000, possibly accounting for the relatively modest net level of job growth compared to the total employed. The labor force participation rate, which reflects those working as well as looking for work, edged higher to 63.6 percent but remained around 30-year lows.

Well, that doesn’t help much. More odd numbers. We added 114,000 jobs, part of 873,000 workers who entered the job market, yet the unemployment rate dropped by 0.3 percent. We’re 759,000 jobs short. Let’s see where they might be…

The level of part-time workers reported the largest jump for the month, gaining 582,000.

Ah! Well now we’re getting somewhere. If you add up the new full-time jobs and more than three times as many part-time jobs, you have a number that’s closer to that 873,000. Still, we’re 177,000 jobs short. So where are they?

Simply put, they may not exist. Well, they exist, but not as official jobs the BLS can count. There are two surveys the BLS does. One is the establishment survey, which checks employers and official paperwork to see if there are any new jobs, what kind of jobs they are, and how many people have applied for unemployment benefits. This is the “on the books” survey. The other is the household survey, where they ask people if they’re working and what kind of work it is. We tend to assume these numbers will match each other, but there’s an entire off the books economy that divides the two.

Look at it this way. If you paid someone a hundred bucks a day to clean your house and keep your yard picked up, that person could tell the household survey they had a job, even though that job wouldn’t show up in the establishment survey. Same goes for those Mom and Pop stores that avoid reams of paperwork and otherwise job-killing taxes, regulations, and such by paying a couple people part-time wages to sweep up or run a cash register for a couple few hours a day. You know what else might qualify as a job? Working for barter.

The official jobs numbers are still bad. Job growth is slower now than it was last year, which means we’re not exactly recovering. The “U-6″ unemployment rate, which also includes people who are working part-time because that’s all they can find and those who have stopped looking for work, is stuck fast at 14.7 percent. What this tells me is we’re settling into a trough of resignation. Folks aren’t holding out for full-time work because the work just isn’t there. They’re taking part-time jobs and working under the table to pay their bills, more now than at any point in the past few years. Those are not signs of a recovering economy but the opposite. Americans are now looking for ways to get around the government to survive. Government is not a help but an impediment and so resourceful Americans are stitching together whatever they can find, above board or not, to put food on their table, a roof over their heads, and increasingly expensive gasoline in their cars.
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Kamis, 04 Oktober 2012

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It Wasn’t “Down Goes Frazier”, but It Was Close

Posted: 04 Oct 2012 09:50 AM PDT

I won’t recap the entire 90-minute curb-stomping Mitt Romney put on President Obama in last night’s debate; plenty of other people have already done that (see Jay Nordlinger, Andrew Malcolm, Byron York, Our Still Future Ambassador to Vanuatu, Pete da Tech Guy, and Ace). I do have a few quick thoughts, though.

1) Mitt Romney will never be the candidate, nor the president, I want him to be. He’s going to be a lot more like George W. Bush than Ronald Reagan (or even than George H.W. Bush). Worst case, he’ll be a lot like Nixon, with less shiftiness and no enemies list. When I adjusted my expectations — stopped looking for him to talk about taxes from a conservative POV, for instance — his performance looked a lot better.

2) I expect progressives and the lapdog media will grab a few convenient scapegoats on whom to blame the President’s performance. That won’t fly. The President was petulant and got rattled more easily than a door handle during a taping of Ghost Adventures. The only person you can blame for the frowns, smirks, sighs, and head-shakes is Barack Obama. Remember George H.W. Bush’s watch glance. Only one person is responsible for how you look once you hit the big stage.

3) The President laid two or three huge whoppers on us: the old canard about being able to keep your doctor and health insurance plan if you like it, that he cut trillions from the budget, and that the IPAB (AKA: The Death Panel) doesn’t have the power to deny care. I’m sure there were a couple others, but those were the ones that jumped out at me. The lapdog media probably won’t jump on them all that hard, but the Romney campaign has good video editors and at least $100 million to spend on campaign ads between now and Election Day.

4) Mitt Romney has better be ready for an entirely different debate on October 16th. Not only should be expect the President to be more aggressive and snarky, he’s going to have to knock the President down in a format in which he is far more comfortable — the town hall debate in a very blue state. When the President can work a crowd, and feed off the reactions he gets, he is far more energized and engaging than when he’s standing on a stage sans teleprompter. Romney should not forget that working a crowd is the only professional job experience Barack Obama really has. He’s good at it.

5) A lot of the catchphrases that have gotten a lot of use thus far in the campaign barely made an appearance last night: “you didn’t build that”, “47 percent”, “corpsemen”, “if you like your plan, you can keep it”, “economic patriotism”.

6) A room full of bonobos hopped up on bath salts would have been more dignified than the post-debate ruckus kicked up by the despairing commentators on MS-NBC. It was as if Chris Matthews’ leg-tingle achieved sentience and ran around the studio like an Alien face-hugger.

7) I’m sure plenty of people will regard Jim Lehrer, last night’s moderator, as a failure. I think he did just fine. I liked the free-flow of the debate and I don’t see where any one candidate gained a clear advantage in time. Lehrer changed the topics when necessary and enforces the rough time limits, which is about all a moderator should do. I want to see all the debates done like last night’s was.

8) WUT??
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Rabu, 03 Oktober 2012

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Exciting Announcement: Today, I Am A Staff Writer.

Posted: 02 Oct 2012 12:45 PM PDT

Some of you may know I’ve been looking to move from being a full-time office mook (a pretty fair summary of my current position) to a full time writer and social media evangelist/adviser/troubleshooter. Thus far, the quest has provided some tantalizing leads, but not much in the way of paychecks. As much as I love writing and social media, I’m still bound by the need for cash money, since my landlord is not fond of tweets and pop culture reference-laden essays as payment.

Today, though, one of the best leads had turned into a gig. and not just any gig, but a really good gig, with good people and in a good place!

As of today, I am the Staff Writer (well, that’s what I’m going to call myself) at the new Liberty News web site. My friend Duane Lester, who you’ll know as the brilliant guy behind All-American Blogger and the All-American Podcast, is now my new boss (so when I write all manner of brilliant things, you can send the atta-boys right to him at his Twitter feed). I can only imagine he recently stocked up on BC headache powders and strong drink in anticipation of his new duties.

Not only will I write several short, pithy posts a day (for which I will need a boundless supply of pith) but I’ll also work with Duane to build the site into a juggernaut of conservative news, culture, opinion, and gleeful jackanapery. He has a few big plans, some of which he’s shared with me, and if we can do even half of what he wants, Liberty News is going to be one heck of a great place to visit every day.

Wait. It already is a great place to visit every day. But it’ll be an even better place to visit every day. You know what I mean. (How was that Duane? Good, huh? Why did you just pour yourself another drink??)

The Shack won’t go anywhere for the foreseeable future. I still need a place that’s mine where I can  write longer political pieces and wax geeky about gaming, sports, music, and all the other non-political things I enjoy. I’m still free to work on other projects as well, so if you’re in need of a good social media wrangler with strong writing chops, I’m your man.

So there you have it! Visit me over at Liberty News during the week and read your way around the site. Tell a friend, even!

UPDATE: I spoke a bit hastily. Not only will I be writing at the Liberty News Blog, but also as their sister blogs Campaign Trail Report and The Union Label Blog. In the very near future, all three blogs will get folded in on each other to form a blogging singularity of irresistible wonderment, but until them, RSS feeds all around!

The Delivery Presents – A Birthday Bash with @FingersMalloy, @irishduke2, @DavidLimbaugh, and @KurtSchlichter!

Posted: 02 Oct 2012 10:18 AM PDT

Three years, folks. Whoda thunk it? I don’t really have a lot to say that I haven’t already said in my Twitter feed or on the show except to thank you all again for listening, sharing The Delivery with your friends and family, and the kind support you’ve given me. Please don’t stop. I’m going to need a whole lot more over the next three years and the three years beyond that. Just know that I’m grateful for every bit of it.

Thanks also to my fantastic guests Kurt Schlichter, David Limbaugh, Tom LaDuke, and Fingers Malloy who came on to celebrate with me. Oh yes, and Socky the Sock Puppet, too. Can’t forget Socky, right? You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better two hours of podcast than in this show. All my guests brought their best to the mic and we rocked it until there simply was no more rocking left to do.

So what now? Well, plenty, as it happens. I’ll keep you posted as the new cool things come on line. Until then, jump into the live show, bring some friends, and become one of the Deliverati before the rest of the world realizes it’s the new cool thing to be.

The Delivery -Episode 166
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