This is distressing:
Fully eliminating the payroll tax cap would provide more than enough income to keep Social Security solvent for more than 75 years; Obama’s current proposal would fall short of that goal, the adviser acknowledged.
I’m always distressed by cockamamie long-term plans, but whose goal is to make Social Security solvent for 75 years? If we still have our present Social Security system in 75 years, it will represent a complete failure by multiple generations of Americans to think of a better way to finance retirement than a glorified ponzi scheme. I will be profoundly pissed if I ever collect a Social Security check.*
*And I’ll be even more pissed if the only reason I don’t collect one is because I’m rich and we’ve started means-testing.
Apollo posted this at 8:18 PM EDT on Friday, June 13th, 2008 as Running with the antelope
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This is very depressing. Gas is heading to five frickin dollars a gallon, in an election year, and both presidential candidates completely refuse to address the issue.
In a rational world, the Republican candidate would make “Drill, Drill Drill!” his campaign motto. This is the single easiest issue for McCain to put himself in a significantly more popular position, and to show some real leadership. Instead of turning this into a winner, he’s content to offer the inane platitudes about keeping ANWR “pristine.”
I miss Fred.
P.S. Sign up with the Newtster. Drill! Drill! Drill!
Apollo posted this at 9:31 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 as Running with the antelope
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The worst press secretary in memory, who presided over the president’s public relations fiasco that ran throughout 2005 and who was probably responsible for lots of damaging leaks, is now writing a book about how bad the president is. Perhaps Michael Brown will now write a book attacking the president as well.*
In a just world, two people would hold Scott McClellan’s legs while President Bush got a running start and kicked him in the gonads. Lots of other Republicans would get a free shot as well, right after they took their turn on el Presidente.
*Perhaps this isn’t really so amazing. Before making this post, I felt it necessary to check Amazon and make certain that Michael Brown hadn’t written a book attacking the president.
Apollo posted this at 10:17 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 as Running with the antelope
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Jonah Goldberg’s call for McCain to pick a Democrat for VP is distressingly persuasive. Perhaps the best point is this: “And for movement conservatives, the next four years could be a time for much-needed rebuilding.”
If I let myself think about it, it makes me sad that Mitt Romney - MITT ROMNEY! - who denounced Reagan in 1994 - who has the charisma of unflavored room temperature yogurt - somehow became the standard bearer for movement conservatism this last year. That was wrong, and it’s plain that movement conservatives need a time out to think about things for a while. The fact that some conservative types are hyping Romney for VP emphasizes this point.
A point that Jonah didn’t make, but that I’ve been pondering for a while, is that conservatism needs plausible deniability with candidate McCain. Plainly the man is not a movement conservative, so it would be a shame if any defeat he might suffer would be interpreted as a defeat for conservatism (time to move further left: Specter ‘12!).
However, in terms of actual policy, I’m not sure how much conservatives have to gain from a McCain presidency. The only area where he’s promising radical reform is with his gawdawful cap-and-trade scheme. More open borders, same general tax structure, no major entitlement initiatives, no real prospect of tilting Washington decidedly to one party and thus enabling reform. America, domestically, after 4 years of President McCain, won’t be a much different place so long as conservative senators can fight off his immigration proposals.
His heart just isn’t in the fights of movement conservatives, or even reform-minded conservatives. He is first and foremost a hawk. And that’s fine, but we do not want whatever it is that a President McCain will do to be defined as “conservatism.” Picking a Democrat for VP seems like the only way for that to be the case.
Conservatives need to get their act together, but we should never forget the costs that can have. 1964 might have a romantic attachment for movement conservatives, but probably not so much for the tens of millions whose cities were devastated and families ruined thanks to the Great Society. A President McCain with a Democrat VP and a Republican Party in Congress that has enough room to define itself as something other than John McCain’s worker bees would be the best way to clean out the party without having to lose in Iraq and on the Supreme Court.
P.S. I miss Fred.
Apollo posted this at 12:54 AM EDT on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 as Conservatism, There Is Only One God And Jonah Goldberg Is His Prophet, Running with the antelope
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From VDH, I learn that Ricardo Sanchez is now calling for American retreat from Iraq. Asking Ricardo Sanchez what we should do in Iraq was on my to-do list right behind asking Maginot how to defend against the Germans. Reading the transcript reminds me of all my rants about how mediocre has been American generalship:
[While allowing terrorists to take control of large portions of Iraq] I saw firsthand the consequences of the administration’s failure to devise a strategy for victory in Iraq that employed, in a coordinated manner, the political, economic, diplomatic and military power of the United States.
Harry Truman had it right that the buck doesn’t stop until it gets to the president. If a Lieutenant General gets to pass the buck for the failure of American forces under his command, then no one short of the Oval Office is responsible for anything. Unbelievable.
Our Army and Marine Corps are struggling with changing deployment schedules that are disrupting combat readiness training and straining the patience and daily lives of military families. It will take the Army at least a decade to repair the damage done to its full-spectrum readiness, which is at its lowest level since the Vietnam War. In the meantime, the ability of our military to fully execute our national security strategy will be called into doubt, producing what is, in my judgment, unacceptable strategic risk.
I have seen this trope peddled by Democrats, and I called it “gobstoppingly jawdropping“, but to see a retired general say, in effect, “We must run away from this fight so that we’ll be prepared for an unforeseeable potential fight in the future” is…gobstoppingly jawdroppinger. I just don’t understand that sort of mindset. Perhaps if these people were saying “We’re going to have a war with China in five years,” then this would be warranted. But they’re not. What is the likelihood that there will be a more important use of military power in the next ten years?
Whatever the priority of the people who use this line of reasoning is, it is not American victory. It makes me presume that, wherever the next fight will be and whatever might be at stake, they’ll just use the same rationale for running away again. The purpose of the military is not “full-spectrum readiness”, whatever the hell that means, it’s killing America’s enemies. Judging by the fact that only one American general, Petraeus, was advocating a more aggressive use of American force in Iraq, I have a feeling that Sanchez’s ignorance regarding the military’s raison d’etre is widespread among those with stars on their collars.
Read that piece from Sanchez. At the very least, you will no longer be nagged by the question, “How did Iraq get this bad?”
Apollo posted this at 5:39 PM EST on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 as Iraq, Running with the antelope
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James Clyburn, Majority Whip in the House, had a remarkable admission in the Post:
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party’s efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.
Clyburn, in an interview with the washingtonpost.com video program PostTalk, said Democrats might be wise to wait for the Petraeus report, scheduled to be delivered in September, before charting next steps in their year-long struggle with President Bush over the direction of U.S. strategy.
Is Clyburn implying that some members of the Democratic caucus were hoping for a negative report? And wouldn’t a negative report be a sign of the military’s failure?
Hubbard posted this at 9:34 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 as The Democratic Congress, Running with the antelope
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