Two Strikes for Clapper

A look at who is looking out for us... with Mike Walker, Colonel USMC (retired) 

All, 

Our Director of National Intelligence is becoming more and more unintelligible.  On 10 February 2011 he argued too long that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is "largely secular."  First, we will ignore the obvious connection, as Director Clapper apparently did, that the word "Muslim" in Muslim Brotherhood stressed the importance of a sincere faith in God but instead implied some self-serving hyperbole or archaic leftover on the part of the good Egyptian brothers.

Even given that shallow excuse, how could James Clapper speak with such certain ignorance in a public hearing?  For if what Director Clapper averred is to be believed then the words "largely" and "secular" have no meaning. 

Here are a few quotes from the Muslim Brotherhood's Official English website (http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=813): 

"Ever since the Egyptian people in is (sic) majority, along with other African and Asian peoples, embraced Islam in the deep-seated conviction that it is a true religion revealed to a true Prophet by the lord of Mankind, Islam has fully and totally arranged the life and all activities of those peoples. The two basic sources of Islam are the Glorious Qur"an and the Sunnah which is both a theoretical explanation and a practical application of the Glorious Qur"an."

Gee, is that a "largely secular" statement, Mr. Clapper?  If so, how about this quote:

"The call of the Muslim Brotherhood was based on two key pillars:

1-The introduction of the Islamic Shari`ah as the basis controlling the affairs of state and society. 
2-Work to achieve unification among the Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberating them from foreign imperialism."

Still largely secular, James?  How about this:

"As for the first pillar, about 97% of the Egyptian people are Muslims, the majority of the Egyptian people are Muslims, the majority of whom perform the rites of worship enjoined by Islam. They abide by the Islamic ethics and apply to themselves to most of the rules whose enforcement does not require any government intervention or license. But legislation, the judiciary and economic and social dealings are founded on non-Islamic bases, thus creating a state of alienation between the people’s creed, on the one side, and their forms of activity which are governed by rules that contradicted their creed, on the other. The lack of any connection between the policies of the authorities in power and the legislations, on the one hand, and the Islamic Shari`ah on the other, led to the emergence of many social, economic, and political practices that are invalid under the Islamic shari`ah. It was incumbent on the Muslim Brotherhood in such a situation to adopt a system for sound Islamic education and the spreading of Islamic principles and ethics as well as the education of the Muslim individual, family, and society into commitment to Islamic ethics and principles."

Gee, that reads like a "largely secular" government is the problem and an exclusively "non-secular" form of government is the solution for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Director Clapper needs to do more than "clarify" his words. The crisis in Egypt is of great import to the United States.  Our intelligence community, led by Director Clapper, has the responsibility to accurately present the facts to the American people.   Mr. Clapper failed miserably in that regard during his remarks to Congress on the Muslim Brotherhood. 

There is an old rule in the intelligence business; if you lose your credibility then you lose everything.  Director Clapper was profoundly wrong in a matter of urgent national importance.  "Clarifying" is disingenuous and a disservice. 

OK, so we should be easy on the good fellow, right?  No.  Perhaps you recall this previous "Clapper fiasco" as recounted during CNN's 22 December 2010 Situation Room broadcast:

"BLITZER: But if the structure of America's intelligence (inaudible) organization is at the center of the new controversy. The national director of intelligence James Clapper in an interview this week that was televised, he was asked about a terror-related arrest in Britain which had occurred 12 hours earlier. The news was all over the TV networks, but Clapper had no idea. How could that be? CNN's Brian Todd is digging deeper for us tonight. Brian? 

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this is being called a simple glitch by Clapper's staff and not reflective of his work as DNI, but that glitch led the man who leads 16 intelligence agencies to be very embarrassed in front of network TV cameras. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: If you were watching CNN or any other news network on Monday, you may have known about this -- the arrests of 12 men in Britain allegedly plotting a terror attack. You may have known about it, but on Monday afternoon, several hours after the arrests, the U.S. director of national intelligence did not know when asked during an ABC interview. 

DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: London -- how serious is it? Any implication that it was coming here, any of the things that they have seen were coming here? Director Clapper? 

BRENNAN: The arrests of the 12 by the British this morning... 

(CROSSTALK)

BRENNAN: And this is something that the British informed us about early this morning. 

TODD: White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan quickly jumped in, but ABC's Diane Sawyer later came back to Clapper, who oversees 16 intelligence agencies. 

SAWYER: I was a little surprised you didn't know about London, Director Clapper. 

JAMES CLAPPER, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, I'm sorry. I didn't. 

TODD: The DNI's office called Sawyer's first question confusing and ambiguous. Brennan said before that interview, Clapper had been working on developments on the Korean peninsula and the START treaty.

BRENNAN: Should he have been briefed by his staff on those arrests? Yes. And I know there was breathless attention by the media about these arrests, and it was constantly on the news networks. I'm glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what comes out of the media. 

TODD (on camera): What do you make of that comment? Backspin?

OK, here's where we are at, Clapper Strike 1 is dismissed as a "glitch."

Clapper Strike 2 is dismissed as just needing "clarification."

Are we going to wait around until Strike 3 before we realize the wrong guy is in the job?

Right now, I have more faith in the "clapper light switch" than DNI James Clapper. The sales pitch "clap on-clap off" is somewhat credible while Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is not.  He seems to be operating more on a mindset of "wishful thinking" than an analysis of  the cold hard facts.  That is the path to disaster.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Helen Whalen-Cohen's piece "Say What?"from Town hall…

It's like something out of "1984."

In George Orwell's dystopia, "thought police" monitored citizens to make sure that they didn't disparage The Party. In today's world, college students all over the country face restrictions on speech in the form of "speech codes." These dicta include harassment policies, "free speech zones," "tolerance" policies and outright bans on "hate speech." The aim of these policies is noble -- to prevent discord and foster respect on campus -- but in the culture of political correctness run amok, such proscriptions often eclipse students' rights to express themselves freely.

Speech codes are regulations prohibiting speech that is otherwise protected by the First Amendment. They are prevalent -- and pernicious -- on college campuses.

How are student bodies affected by this wave of political correctness? Is it helping campuses maintain civility or causing deeper harm?

Speech restrictions no longer have to be issued from on high. After being immersed in a culture that values political correctness over First Amendment rights for long enough, students are learning to censor each other with two words: "I'm offended."

Greg Lukianoff calls it "unlearning liberty." As the president of FIRE, he has watched students trend away from discussion and towards policing one another. In an interview with the website Spiked, he points out that students are learning to let offense trump discussion, ending conversation: "There's a very predictable result, which is that if you allow the ultimate trump card against free speech to be a claim that 選'm offended,' then people learn very quickly to say they are offended." As Lukianoff notes, students learn to call on campus administration to quiet voices that they would rather not hear. What role will they expect the government to play in their lives after graduation?

Indeed, many students advocate speech codes today, a product of learning that they have a right not to be offended and that that right can be violated by someone else's thoughts. Campus policies such as "Stop Bias" are adding fuel to the fire. It asks students to find and report instances of bias anonymously (including bias surrounding "actual or perceived" marital status). The school's website even encourages students to report political differences as a form of bias, saying that Barack Obama or Sarah Palin can be listed as the "victims." This is not an example from Stalinist Russia, but Syracuse University. Such programs are ostensibly meant to create a safe space for discussion. But will encouraging students to police each other accomplish that goal?

Programs like these teach that the right response to offense is not debate, but censorship, and that it is appropriate to turn to university administrators to remedy the supposed harm. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me -- until I get to college.

Oh California...

Contributed by Mike Walker, USMC Colonel (retired)

All,

1. California is not broke.  The government in Sacramento is broke.  That is a huge distinction.  The average California Joe's and Jane's will go to work, pay their taxes, buy dinners, pay the rent, and get on with life in a pretty nice place to live.  The US and California economies will NOT tank if the dysfunctional Sacramento government goes through an ugly fiscal meltdown.

2. Sacramento is more broken than broke.  In the worst case scenario, the State government will not cease to exist.  California's government will still take in, on average, well over $1,000,000,000.00 per WEEK.  Put another way, it currently collects in the neighborhood of $200 million a day, seven days week, 52 weeks a year on average, even during a deep recession.

So, again, the US and California economies will NOT tank if the dysfunctional Sacramento government runs out of cash momentarily.  It will be embarrassing, ugly, and painful for some but not the end of the world. 

Why is this happening? The reason why California's government is always on the verge of going broke, in good times and in bad, is that it is unable to stop spending above and beyond the average +$1 billion it takes in every week.

3. THE worst thing that can happen is for the US taxpayer to bailout California's government.  Most of you may not know this but the California state budget (1 July 2010-30 June 2011) passed in October 2010 already has included a Federal bailout.  No kidding.

The elected officials in Sacramento already voted in a $5 billion Washington D.C. bailout (that does not exist) in order to try (in vain) to balance the government of California’s budget.  That deserves the gold ribbon for chutzpah.

A good thing that could happen is for the US government to give California's government an emergency LOAN but only if Uncle Sam requires Sacramento to abide by the same kind of emergency loan rules that Sacramento imposes on, say, a bankrupt public school district.  

Uncle Sam must require the California government to create a balanced multi-year projection (MYP) of its budget for the current and two subsequent fiscal years in order to receive the loan.  Uncle Sam should further require the California government to create a fiscal action plan (FAP) to permanently solve the budget disconnect between revenues and expenditures.  Uncle Sam should not release the bulk of the loan until both the MYP and FAP are enacted to the satisfaction of Uncle Sam.   

Uncle Sam needs to appoint a Federal Fiscal Advisor who will go to Sacramento with power to approve or disapprove California State government expenditures.  The Federal Fiscal Advisor should remain in place until such time that the California government pays back the loan. If California's elected officials refuse then let them live on their $200M a day and be done with it.

Warm regards from sunny California,

Mike

California’s Central Valley: Zimbabwe West?

ED MORRISSEY…. HotAir

Until recently, California’s Central Valley was one of the nation’s most productive agricultural regions.  Not only did it feed itself, the state of California, and the entire country, it also produced exports to other nations.  That kind of enterprise employed a lot of people in Central California, from farm hands to wholesalers, and created a high standard of living.

That continued right up to the moment that the federal government got more concerned over the Delta smelt, a small, inedible fish, than feeding people.  A court order cut off water deliveries for seven months out of the year to the Central Valley at the same time a drought hit, and the combination turned a once-fertile breadbasket to the world into a Dust Bowl — or as Investors Business Daily suggests, a government-initiated agricultural disaster on the same order as Zimbabwe today or Ukraine in the 1930s.   Monica Showalter reports that the region that once fed the world now faces widespread hunger as a result:

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry. Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno’s families are going hungry.

Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley’s farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It’s all driving the economy to collapse.

In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November’s unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

It isn’t just Fresno, although it appears to have taken the worst of the crisis.  Besides Fresno, four other Central Valley cities got listed in the bottom ten of MarketWatch’s 2010 survey on the worst places to do business in the US.  Fresno came in dead last at 102 on the list.

The collapse has another element to it for Californians as well.  The state has a huge budget shortfall, currently estimated around $26 billion, and cannot afford to expand safety-net programs to help the Central Valley.  One reason the budget hole is so large is because of the lack of revenue from normally-robust agricultural production in that region.  Instead of being a net revenue producer, the Central Valley threatens to become a sinkhole of welfare spending that will hasten the bankruptcy of the nation’s largest state, and an economy that would normally rank among the top 10 in the world if considered as a nation unto itself.

This is entirely the result of federal government intervention in agriculture, which might be understandable if it was intended to help agriculture.  Instead, it comes as a hostile act to both the people of the region and Americans as a whole.  Thanks to the collapse of the Central Valley, food prices will increase as we have to import more from countries with much less strict environmental controls, which is merely an inconvenience.  The starvation that has begun is more than an inconvenience — it is a national embarrassment, and a moral outrage.

Christmas crap shoot...

Understanding Assange

Mike Walker, Colonel USMC, retired

Julian Assange is typically presented as either brilliant devil or hero.  The closer truth is that he is a very clever and spoiled adolescent who never grew up.  He is much more a mentally unstable lost soul than an evil ogre or shining messiah.

Unfortunately, cleverness has allowed his childish conspiracy visions to overcome the rational behavior required of a responsible member of any society.  Julian the child throws tantrums and acts out.  He is the eternal enfant terrible hidden behind a well-tailored suit, a disarmingly juvenile smile, and an adult vocabulary. 

Julian is the boy-man for whom the rules do not apply.  Everyone who gets in his way is the enemy.  In fact, everyone who gets in his way is not only the enemy, they are, without exception, connected to the giant cabal aimed directly at Julian Assange.  So is it any wonder he is now likely to go to jail for sexually driven crimes in sexually liberal Sweden?  No rules apply to Julian other than Julian’s, evidently to include his physicals needs.  He is in constant rebellion against a paranoid perception of unfairness caused by societal authority in any form.

Therefore Julian is doomed and a passing phenomenon.  He has and will continue to get his Andy Warhol moments of fame, but in the great scheme of things, his successes are unsustainable in the face of his self-destructive egoism.  For Julian Assange, the world does revolve around him.  Julian is endlessly needy making it hard to believe he is Australian.  He should be more the object of pity than anger and we should all feel a bit indebted to him.

We should be grateful that the tool that laid bare a great weakness in our 21st century information systems was such a deeply flawed individual.  Think of the future damage that could have been wrought by a truly sinister force if Julian Assange had not forced the adults to divert their attention and clean up a mess that this child as much found as created.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Blue State Corruption

Red state/Blue state maps after November 2

Even the NY Times sees that "Blue States" are  on the edge of a cliff, that many will see horrendous economic hardship in the very near future, states like California, Illinois, and New York. Debt derived from "compassionate" spending is a very real threat and there is a time to pay the piper.

Everyone knows individuals who do not handle their resources wisely. They will spend like there is no tomorrow and help forestall the inevitable by refinancing repeatedly. At some point there is no more wiggle room and bankruptcy/foreclosure comes home to roost. That is where the "Blue states" are. They have bought into the idea that you can spend your way out of reversals and that huge bond obligations can be put off indefinitely. With lower than expected income and huge growing debt they'll have no other way out than to declare insolvency... yikes! Didn't all those spend liberals geniuses in Sacramento see this coming? The hardest hit are the bluest of states, states with a majority of brilliant liberal financial planners assembled as their form of government.

Most "Blue state" elected officials view the events that surrounded the Wall Street collapses and bail outs as criminal activity by unscrupulous bond traders, CEOs and investors. Their question, "How could financial professionals not see the obvious unless they are inherently criminal?" My question, "How could state financial professionals not see the obvious unless they are inherently corrupt?'

Bobzhuman...

Julian Assange... Ah, to be the toast of the town! What an honor. "Hey, Julian, I loved the way that you poked a stick in Uncle Sam's eye!" 

You notice that he has no interest in leaking info about Russia's adventures in Georgia or China's in Taiwan. He would immediately be executed in some covert way... The US is a safe place to make your mark...

A word from Mike Walker, retired USMC Colonel in intelligence...

Secretary of State Clinton Should Resign?  What a laugh!

It isn’t every morning that I get to wake up, turn on the news and end up with a good chuckle and a smile on my face.  But I have to thank Julian “Mr. Wikileaks” Assange for that early Holiday gift.

Now I do not know if dear Julian is just plain stupid, a world-class hypocrite, thinks the rest of us are simpletons, or some combination of the three but one thing is for sure, he is a public fool.

Newsflash to Julian: 

There are more international spies per square foot in United Nations Headquarters in New York City than anyplace in world.  That piece of real estate will beat out the CIA Headquarters in Langley , MSS HQ in Peking , or SVR HQ in Moscow for sheer concentration of spies.  Heck, some of the national delegations at the UN not only have their entire delegation engaged in intelligence collection but have the full staff of their state-run TV, radio, and print organizations busy at espionage work as well.

So Julian, you can bash the United States and Secretary of State Clinton to your heart’s content but this former intelligence officer ain’t buying your “Hate America ” line of bunk.

But good luck in Sweden , Mate!

Joseph Stalin the murderer of the best and brightest of Poland at Katyn...

Hard to believe that it would take so long to admit something that everyone knew already. Every Pole knows this for a fact, not as an urban legion but the horror of having so many of your loved ones massacred on a frozen lake. Read the article from the AP....

MOSCOW –  The World War II Katyn massacres were committed on the direct order of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Russia's lower house of parliament said Friday — a statement hailed by Polish officials.

The 1940 massacre of around 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens in western Russia by Soviet secret police has long soured relations between the two countries. President Dmitry Medvedev will visit Poland in early December.

Soviet propaganda for decades blamed the killings on the Nazis, but post-Soviet Russia previously acknowledged they were carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD — Stalin's much feared secret police.

The statement passed by the State Duma appears aimed as a step toward Russia definitively breaking with its Soviet legacy.

Some observers have expressed alarm in recent years that Russia may be quietly rehabilitating Stalin. Last year, a quote praising Stalin was restored to the decoration of one of Moscow's busiest subway stations; this year, Moscow's mayor proposed allowing posters depicting Stalin as part of the annual celebrations of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

"This historic document is important not only for Russian-Polish relations — much more it is important for us ourselves," said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma's foreign relations committee, according to the news agency ITAR-Tass.

Russia has turned over scores of volumes of documents this year about Katyn to the Polish government.

"Published materials, held in secret archives for many years, not only reveal the scale of this awful tragedy but show that the Katyn crime was committed on the direct order of Stalin and other Soviet leaders," says the statement, which also expresses "deep sympathy for the victims of this unjustified repression."

Communist legislators tried to amend the statement to remove the naming of Stalin, but were defeated.

"The falsification of history that we are fighting against in other countries is also taking place in our country, and today we could see it with our own eyes," Kosachev said of the amendment attempt. Russian officials frequently use the term "falsification of history" to attack perceived attempts to underplay the importance of the Red Army in the fight against Nazi Germany.

The head of the Polish parliament's foreign affairs committee, Andrzej Halicki, said he considered the Duma's statement to be a breakthrough.

"I am happy that such a process of reconciliation and truth is taking place," he said. "It is the first such act that proves that our relations and discussions are sincere."

However, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the conservative opposition Law and Justice party, said he still wants Russia to offer a full apology and compensation.

A U.S. historian who wrote a book about Katyn, hailed the Duma decision.

"I think this is part of a long process in which ultimately the Russian people will have to come to grips with their past," Allen Paul, who authored "Katyn: Stalin's Massacre and the Triumph of Truth," told The Associated Press.

___

Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this report.

Two takes on North Korea....

Charles Krauthammer on NKorea...

Last night I predicted that the administration would do exactly the wrong thing and call ... for a return to the Six-Party talks. Well sure enough, our envoy to North Korea, who's now in Beijing, last night called for, yes, a return to the talks.

This is after he had a meeting with the Chinese and he announced that it was extremely successful, that we and the Chinese had agreed ... on the need for -- strong measures? Retaliation? Sanctions? No. On the need for multilateralism. ...

To return to the talks is exactly the wrong thing because it's exactly why -- if there's any logic at all to what's happened -- that's why Pyongyang has been doing this: (a) the attack with the artillery, and (b) the revelation earlier this last week of this vast, advanced facility for uranium enrichment.

The point is this is a regime in transition, a regime in a succession crisis, that is in economic disaster. The people are starving. It needs [outside] aid because we and the South Koreans and the Japanese have correctly cut it off years ago, and this is the way it [North Korea] beckons us into negotiations where, again, it will offer a phony agreement on some kind of halting of perhaps the uranium or plutonium program, and we will once again subsidize them. ...

I think everybody understands that the only outcome of this eventually that will be considered a success is if the regime eventually implodes and collapses of its own inefficiency and irrationality -- in fact lunacy in the way it governs itself.

And one way to do that is not to continue what we have been doing for 16 years -- [which] is negotiating and periodically caving in to threats like this, or attacks like this, with carrots, meaning keeping the economy of that state, which is really teetering on the edge of collapse, keeping it going...

___________________________________________________________________________________

Mike Walker on China and NKorea...

All,

Here is a report from the AP:

BEIJING – When North Korea tested a nuclear device last year, China issued bland criticism and urged Pyongyang to resume diplomacy. After a South Korean navy ship was sunk, most likely by a NorthKorean torpedo, Beijing sent its sympathies but called the evidence inconclusive.

Now that North Korea has unleashed an artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed four people — including two civilians — and raised tensions in the heavily armed region, Beijing again appears unwilling to rein in its neighbor.

For all China's growing international might, its tolerance of North Korea's wayward behavior shows how differently Beijing sees the world — or at least its corner of it.

"There is zero chance of China, either in open or in private, putting major substantive pressure on North Korea," said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Beijing's Renmin University.

If major damage is inflicted on South Korea from the irrational and deadly actions of North Korea, either literally or economically, the long-term damage will ultimately fall on China.

North Korea only exists  state because China makes it so.  

While most of the world is working to build a better future, such as the emerging powers in India and Brazil, China looks foolishly backwards.  Its relationship to North Korea is neither progressive nor enlightened, it is a throw back to a failed "kowtow" relationship going back to the days of decadent Chinese emperors and ever subservient Korean kings.  

What China seems incapable of seeing is that it cannot sponsor, however covertly, a horrific war in East Asia without severe consequences any more than the Japanese militarist could exploit their power a century ago.  Both courses were and are doomed to tragic failure.

China is at a crossroad.  It either advances the world forward in peace or helps to plunge it once more in to darkness and relentless warfare.  The sad reality is that China is an immature power.  It has no history of treating other nations as equals and is struggling, too often unsuccessfully, with the concept of equality of nations and races in East Asia.  To paraphrase Churchill, it seems that if you live in East Asia then the Chinese must either be at your feet or at your throat.  

It does not have to be that way but only the Chinese can make that choice.

Mike

Smallness... and very scary. This was the third person in line for four years to govern the US in case something were to happen the President and Vice President! She has always thrown these type of "playground" comments out. Remember her references to violence against gays when anyone opposed same sex marriages or her describing Tea Party activitists with Nazi symbols, etc.

John Boehner, caught up in historic election results that propelled his party into a dominate position in Congress and himself as the Majority Speaker was caught up in a moment of emotions...

Pelosi's response? Not so empathetic.

“You know what? He is known to cry. He cries sometimes when we’re having a debate on bills,” Pelosi said.

“If I cry, it’s about the personal loss of a friend or something like that. But when it comes to politics – no, I don’t cry,” she added. “I would never think of crying about any loss of an office, because that’s always a possibility, and if you’re professional, then you deal with it professionally."


Why would she need to say anything? Where are the adults? I guess this her definition of professionalism...

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45425.html#ixzz15w2SKH00