Showing posts with label Commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commentary. Show all posts

Sunday, September 6, 2015

[COMMENTARY] What Will They Vote Themselves?

There seemed no end to the teeming tide of Irish that washed ashore in New York City when the famine compelled a mass exodus out of the isle. By the early 1850s, the city and the country faced its first immigration crisis. At a time in which there were no social services – indeed, the very concept of a social safety net did not yet exist – the first wave of unskilled, unlearned Irish immigrants soon became a plague upon the city’s slums. “You have no idea what an immense vat of misery and crime and filth this great city is,” wrote the Protestant missionary and philanthropist Charles Loring Brace. “Think of ten thousand children growing up almost sure to be prostitutes and rogues.”
Brace was one of many charitable souls who took it upon themselves to descend upon lower Manhattan and to house and educate the destitute (Brace’s Children’s Aid Society endures to this day). These works, while undertaken out of a sense of altruistic obligation, were in part a project of self-preservation. These children were a great humanitarian tragedy in 1853, but by 1873 they would become the vanguard of a violent criminal epidemic. By the 1850s, more than half of the arrests in the city were of Irish-born immigrants. Seven in 10 foreign-born prisoners by 1858 were Irish. Nearly three-quarters of those arrested for drunken and disorderly conduct by the final year of the decade came for the Emerald Isle. The future seemed bleak.
Still worse to some was the prospect that the products of this privation who eventually emerged from the shadows would participate ill-equipped in the democratic process. “In 20 years’ time, they will have grown up, and they will vote, and what will they vote themselves?” the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, summarizing Brace’s thinking, wondered. These foreign masses needed to be assimilated into American society, and soon. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
“The great duty,” Brace wrote, “is to get utterly out of their surroundings and to send them away to kind Christian homes in the country.” And that is precisely what he did. Over the next 75 years, 100,000 destitute children were uprooted, put onto trains, and absorbed into rural America. The blight Irish of criminality foretold in the middle of the 19th century never materialized.
Today, a new generation of children is in jeopardy, and the future they will inherit is in peril. “An estimated 13.7 million school age children from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Sudan aren’t in school, out of a total of 34 million, the United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef, said,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. That’s 40 percent of the children in five Middle Eastern nations marred by war and civil conflict. UNICEF officials believe that rate could rise to 50 percent or more in the coming years as the conflicts roiling these countries intensify.
Some of these children are taken from this world too early, as was illustrated so traumatically this week when a three-year-old Syrian boy clad in playful shorts and a bright red t-shirt washed ashore on a Turkish beach. He and his older brother drowned when their makeshift boat capsized on the way toward Western Europe and what they surely hoped would be peace. These children never made it to relative safety in Europe, but tens of thousands of Middle Eastern migrants have.
Europe is now gripped by a refugee crisis of proportions unknown since the Second World War. Great columns of migrants are startling observers as they make their way down Hungarian highways and Bulgarian rail lines toward Austria, Germany, France, Great Britain, and, ultimately for some, toward the Atlantic and North America. So far in 2015, more than 300,000 migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have crossed the Mediterranean and into Europe – more than the sum total of refugees who crossed the Mare Nostrum in 2014, which totaled over 219,000. The bulk of them are Syrians who are fleeing a horrible conflict characterized by authoritarianism, radical Islamism, and chemical warfare. A substantial number are, however, of Eritrean origins – a nation struggling with abject poverty and ruled by an oppressive, dictatorial regime. The crises in these two nations are distinct but equally inextricable.
The practical effects of this wave of migrants on Europe are dramatic. The rise of Europe’s far-right elements has been catalyzed by the migrant crisis. The Schengen Agreement, which permits passport-free travel in between European Union nations, is coming unglued. Borders are being tightly controlled again in places like Italy, and the outlying EU member states of Hungary and Bulgaria are exploring the possibility of constructing steel security fences along their borders to keep out the tide of humanity escaping death at home. The Czech Republic has called for NATO aid to help enforce the borders on the periphery of the Schengen zone.
The political impact of this crisis is equally unnerving. “There is a clear difference between the new member states and the old member states,” Slovakia’s foreign minister said of the “scary” invasion of migrants from the East. He noted that, while Old Europe is “multi-racial” and “multi-religious,” the former Warsaw Pact does not have this same experience. In Hungary, where the far-right Jobbik party is already in control of the government, migrants are being shuttled off into makeshift camps or toward their western border with Austria. The government has asked the refugees to avoid entering into Hungary, but there is little they can do to stop the tide. Images of anti-immigrant activists attacking and beating unfortunate refugees are already beginning to surface.
But while xenophobic activists in Europe surely expect that the thousands of refugees will one day return to the homes they left, which in many cases no longer exist, that is an unrealistic hope. Germany is preparing to take in a staggering 800,000 asylum-seekers this year. The image of a dead toddler on a Turkish beach so shocked the conscience Europe’s elite that even recalcitrant governments in places like Britain softened their stance toward refugee admittance. So far, the UK has accepted only 216 people into the country from war-torn regions. Thousands will soon be allowed to resettle in Great Britain. The EU is working on a quota system that would force Western Europe to take in a portion of the hundreds of thousands of migrants straining Greek, Hungarian, and Italian services.
These migrants are unlikely to leave – where would they go? The West has displayed no spine to impose a resolution on the conflicts raging in their native lands. These refugees will settle into their new countries; some will assimilate, but many more will not. Unlike the America into which the Irish migrants of the 19th Century settled, Western Europe does not fetish and facilitate the assimilation of the foreign-born. One cannot help but think of Moynihan’s warning when one considers the children of these wars both in the refugees’ adopted countries and in those war-torn lands in which they remain trapped. What will they vote themselves? Literally, in the case of Europe where they will one day grow up to take advantage of the franchise, and figuratively in the ravaged and authoritarian Middle Eastern and North African provinces they will be bequeathed by their brutish forbearers. What kind of future will they make? There are too few Charles Loring Braces today to take the hands of these children and show them a better way. Many are truly on their own. What kind of world will they build for themselves and for us?

Friday, September 4, 2015

[COMMENTARY] Do what it takes to stop gun violence

On Air Shooting
Last Wednesday, my daughter Alison was brutally struck down in the prime of her life by a deranged gunman. Since that time I have stated in numerous interviews I have done with local, national and international media that I plan to make my life’s work trying to implement effective and reasonable safeguards against this happening again.
In recent years we have all witnessed similar tragedies unfold on TV — the shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona, the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut and churchgoers in South Carolina. We have to ask ourselves: “What do we need to do to stop this insanity?”
In my case, the answer is, “Whatever it takes.”
I plan to devote all of my strength and resources to seeing that some good comes from this evil. I am entering this arena with open eyes. I realize the magnitude of the force that opposes any sensible and reasonable safeguards on the purchase of devices that have a single purpose: to kill.
That means we must focus our attention on the legislators who are responsible for America’s criminally weak gun laws — laws that facilitate the access dangerous individuals have to firearms on a daily basis.
Legislators like Congressman Bob Goodlatte, who represents Roanoke, Virginia, where this atrocity took place on live television. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Goodlatte has had more than two years to bring up universal background check legislation and other gun violence prevention bills in his committee. He has refused to lead on this issue and has done absolutely nothing to help contain the carnage we are seeing.
On the other hand, Goodlatte had no problem cashing his check from the National Rifle Association during the 2014 election cycle. Shame on him.
But the issue of controlling gun violence is also being hampered by our elected officials on the state level. For example, Virginia state Sens. John Edwards, who represents Roanoke, where Alison and Adam Ward lived, and Bill Stanley, who represents the district where the shooting took place. Edwards’ district also contains the Virginia Tech campus, so he is fully aware of how easy it is for dangerously mentally ill individuals to acquire guns in Virginia. Yet he has been a constant opponent of sensible gun reforms like expanded background checks during his 15-plus years in the Virginia Senate, breaking ranks constantly with his colleagues in Virginia’s Democratic Party.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

[COMMENTARY] Witnessing evolution of newspaper industry

Four years ago, most of us wouldn’t have predicted award-winning TV series would debut via online streaming on websites such as Netflix and Hulu and would never be aired on cable or network television. Likewise, just four years ago most of us wouldn’t believe we would get news updates on our watches.
During my four years as the CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, I have watched nearly every media industry shift dramatically in response to the ever-changing technology and consumption habits of our audiences.
The same holds true for newspapers. This industry has been around far longer than radio, television or telecommunications, and some critics have questioned how we will continue to remain relevant in today’s digital world.
But today’s numbers speak for themselves: In the United States, the newspaper digital audience is skyrocketing, reaching 176 million unique visitors across all platforms in March (comScore, 2015). Circulation revenue is also rising, both in the United States and around the world. According to the 2015 World Press Trends Survey, global newspaper circulation revenue exceeded advertising revenue for the first time ever.
The reason? Newspapers are leveraging technology and audience data more than ever to create new content, products and services that attract audiences and advertisers. The appetite for quality content and information is insatiable, and over the last few years, we have transformed into an industry that adopts and utilizes the latest developments in social, mobile, print and video to better reach consumers with interesting and engaging content.
Let’s look at a few of the ways the news industry has evolved:
Social media: Newspapers are successfully tapping into our desire to remain “plugged in” and up-to-date on the latest happenings. USA Today, for example, uses Snapchat to cover live sporting events through instantly-delivered photos and captions. Periscope, Twitter’s live-streaming service that debuted in the spring, is being leveraged by reporters and media outlets as a way to give viewers the inside look at breaking news, sports events,and even political press conferences. The New York Times even used WhatsApp, a messaging app that is incredibly popular outside the United States, to broadcast information about the Pope’s visit to South America to its international audience.
Apps: Newspapers have developed niche apps with customized content, such as the New York Times Cooking App and the Denver Post’s Colorado Ski Guide, to build on popular features and further engage specific audiences looking to more deeply explore their areas of interest.
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Print special features: In response to readers’ desires for quality leisure-reading, newspapers have begun offering expanded Sunday sections, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s new lifestyle section, “Live, Life, Love.” Similarly, the Chicago Tribune has doubled its opinion pages, following the growing reader interest in local commentary.
New revenue streams: Advertisers are still taking notice of the growing audience and continued demand for newsworthy, useful content. This has inspired the recent interest in native advertising, or sponsored content, as a way to provide advertisements that don’t disrupt the reader experience and still provide valuable information. And today, advertising is just one part of a fully-diversified revenue stream, which includes event marketing, digital marketing services and increasing circulation content.
Much has changed in four years, and I can say with confidence that the newspaper industry is poised to continue evolving with new technologies and engaging content in the years to come. It’s been an honor to serve as CEO of NAA during the last four years and I look forward to cheering the industry’s continued success.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

[COMMENTARY] It's presidential improv as Trump surges on

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – It's what we've always wanted, isn't it? A totally unscripted White House race? No more predictable politics as usual?

If nothing else, Donald Trump has at least given us that.

He may not be the best person for the job, but Trump has saved us from the play-it-safe, poll-driven, stage-managed, social media-drenched tedium that passes for presidential politics. And in an era where White House campaign cycles have gotten longer and longer, and ever more vacuous, we can be thankful for that.

Even better: The political ruling elite can't stand it.

Trump, of course, was supposed to have been long gone by now. If you listened to the pundits, the Trump for President effort wasn't supposed to have gotten off the ground at all. Trump was a buffoon, a cartoon. A blowhard. A TV huckster. A soulless 1-percenter.

And that hair.

He wasn't even qualified to get in the ring.

But Trump not only ran, he became the favorite on the GOP side, and is gaining on Hillary in head-to-head polls. He has owned this presidential summer.

Along the way, he's had more lives than Rasputin.

Trump was supposed to be dead when he snarled about illegal Mexican immigrant rapists and thieves. But his poll numbers continued to rise.

He was supposed to be toast when he bashed Vietnam War hero John McCain. Nope. Trump went right on surging.

It was going to be a Waterloo when Trump took part in the first GOP presidential debate on Fox News. He would surely fold in the company of all those experienced pols and debaters.
But Trump was the star that night, the reason why many people tuned in. His ongoing battle with Fox host Megyn Kelly has done him no harm. And why should it? It's just one rich, well-coiffed TV celebrity going up against another.

The funnest part of all this has been watching Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and the rest trying to appropriate little pieces of Trump's damn-the-torpedoes, "straight talk" shtick while not tipping all the way over into Crazyland.

Hillary pokes fun at her email foibles by cracking wise about self-vaporizing messages on Snapchat. And Jeb has been out there shaking his finger at "anchor babies."

But they can't do it, because they've got too much to lose, they want the job too badly. Their whole lives have led up to this moment. They can't take too many chances.

Trump, meanwhile, has already won and has nothing to lose. If he's not elected president, he'll go back to his billions, however many he actually has. His presidential run will make for a great reality series. His brand will be more valuable than ever. New business opportunities are no doubt already raining down on him.

American culture and politics are all about money and celebrity, and Trump's got both.
Trump has also been a Great Unifier. He has the professional pundits and the career pols, on both sides of the aisle, making palaver with each other as they try to figure out how to stop Trump in his tracks while at the same time trying to divine the secrets of his political success.

Suddenly, the Beltway pols and the pundits have a lot in common: We can't let Trumpwin, can we? If nothing else, it's proven that they're all part of the same hypocrisy, Michael Corleone would say. They have been exposed. It's been particularly entertaining to watch.
There is no playbook here. Nobody planned on the Trump Factor, so there's no way to counter it. This isn't how Jeb and Hillary drew it up. The TV talking heads spent months telling each other that the Trump Surge wasn't happening, and now that Trump has legs, they have no Plan B, except to try and goad Joe Biden into the race.



Saturday, August 22, 2015

[COMMENTARY] Contentions Is Hillary Clinton Finished?

That may seem like a wildly premature question in the summer of the year before the presidential election. To which I would respond: It’s too early to know the answer the question, but it’s not too early to ask it.
I say that because the extraordinary developments surrounding Mrs. Clinton’s private email server, which we now know contained material classified as Top Secret and is now in the hands of the FBI. It was on August 11 that the FBI took possession of Clinton’s server hardware and three thumb drives in her lawyer’s possession, which are said to contain copies of everything she turned over to the State Department. In addition, experts say that tens of thousands of emails she deleted may be recoverable. Which means Mrs. Clinton has now lost control over events, which is precisely what she was trying to ensure when she created her own homebrew computer system in the first place.


    Here’s some of what we know so far:
    • Mrs. Clinton, in attempting to cover up her actions, has lied on multiple occasions.\
    • Two veteran prosecutors in the Justice Department’s National Security Division are overseeing the investigation. One of them helped manage the prosecution of David H. Petraeus  (the retired general and former CIA director was sentenced to probation earlier this year and fined $100,000 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials.)
    • Experts say it’s a virtual certainty that her server was compromised by foreign intelligence services.
    If you want to understand the gravity of the situation, I’d urge you to watch this interview with Robert Baer, a former CIA operative and CNN national security analyst. Mr. Baer pointed out that if he had sent a document like the one Hillary Clinton had on her server over the open Internet he’d get fired the same day, escorted to the door and probably be charged with mishandling classified information. When asked if this situation was a “deal breaker” for Clinton’s presidential candidacy, Baer said, “As a national security employee, a former one, yes.”
    “I can’t tell you how bad this is,” he added. “A lot of things get talked about, a lot of gossip, but having documents like this sent across the Internet, it could be hacked very easily and probably were hacked, is a transgression that I don’t think the president of the United States should be allowed to, you know, have committed.”
    Bob Woodward, who knows about such things, said that the Hillary Clinton email scandal “reminds me of the Nixon tapes. Thousands of hours of secretly recorded conversations that Nixon thought were exclusively his …. Hillary Clinton initially took that position, ‘I’m not turning this over, there’ll be no cooperation.” Now they’re cooperating. But this has to go on a long, long time, and the answers are probably not going to be pretty.”
    That rather understates things. What we’ve seen so far has not been pretty at all. And with the FBI driving this investigation, things may get a whole lot less pretty for Mrs. Clinton. I understand the argument of those like Ross Douthat of the New York Times that “I simply do not believe that the Obama Justice Department is going to indict the former secretary of state and Democratic front-runner for mishandling classified information, even if the offenses involved would have sunk a lesser figure’s career or landed her in jail.” Still, in a career marked by scandal, this one has the potential to be politically lethal. We’ll know soon enough if it is.

    Tuesday, August 18, 2015

    [COMMENTARY] Contentions The Right’s ‘Hope and Change’ Moment

    hope and change - Google Search
    For years, many self-professed conservatives mocked and derided Barack Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns as substanceless self-affirmations that exposed the vapidity of many in the voting public. It should be clear now that a few of those conservatives really only wanted an Obama of their own. 
    The genius of Obama’s image-makers was to craft a candidate with malleable policy positions just vague enough to allow the voter to project onto him their individual hopes and aspirations. Obama was whatever you wanted him to be whenever you wanted him to be it. Donald Trump is the right’s Obama, insofar as his policy preferences are ill-defined, pliable, and reflective of whatever the audience immediately before him wants them to be. Not everyone eats this act up, but those who do have access to booming microphones that create the impression they represent more than a modest plurality of the Republican primary electorate. Nevertheless, that even this small number of self-identified conservatives has become swept up in the right’s “hope and change” moment is dispiriting.
    Those conservatives that continue to support Trump’s presidential bid are now doing so in spite of an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that indicates he was an orthodox liberal until only recently. Those voters who consider themselves down-the-line conservatives and cannot stomach a moment’s heresy from the 2016 field’s more accomplished Republican candidates seem perfectly comfortable embracing a figure who was once to the left of Hillary Clinton on virtually every weighty policy matter. That Trump remains impervious to this criticism suggests that his fluid policy preferences are of no interest to the 20 or 30 percent of the Republican primary voters that back him. What’s more, those who contend that Trump stands boldly athwart political correctness cannot support this contention: He has embraced PC rhetoric and emulated liberal scolds on issues related to racegender, and identity as well as any of The New Republic’s scribes. All that matters is his enormous personality and the cult around it.
    A recent dispatch from a New Hampshire campaign stop via Bloomberg’s Melinda Henneberger sheds light on this tendency. “[V]ery little of what the conservatives in the hall were going wild over could be characterized as conservative,” she noted while nevertheless adding that the rapt audience remained enthralled by the candidate’s whistle-stop ramblings. Henneberger, a keen observer of politics, seemed vexed by the fact that “many heads nod” when Trump floats proposals that were, until yesterday, traditionally liberal policy positions.
    When Trump vowed to compel American automotive manufacturers to dismantle manufacturing operations in Mexico and return them to the United States, his argument was that he could make this policy manifest by sheer force of will. “This is too easy, too easy!” Trump averred. “This is a couple of phone calls.” In their hearts, Trump voters know that there are economic forces at work that would render this misguided project a bit harder than simply making a phone call, but they want to believe that the avatar of their rebellion can move mountains. They want to comfort themselves with the notion that ill-defined wreckers within the Republican firmament are working against them. They want to think that displays of resolve are sufficient to create positive “change,” however they as individuals define it. Indeed, victory for the Trump backer cannot be defined as the pursuit of traditionally conservative solutions to vexing policy problems. Conservatism is of secondary interest to the Trump supporter. All that matters now is sticking it to a variety of perceived enemies; liberals, establishment Republicans, globalization, economic integration, foreign workers, et cetera. Trump is an outlet that facilitates venting.
    Deep down, the Trump backer cares little for about what comes out of the candidate’s mouth; his support is derived not from what he says but what he represents. The Republican media consultant and political professional Rick Wilson recently performed a compelling dissection of Trump’s stylistic approach to campaigning. He noted accurately that the reality television star’s methods are virtually indistinguishable from Barack Obama’s circa 2008.
    “You hated Barack Obama’s cult-like followers, with their mindless stares of adoration, their impervious barrier between emotion and reason, and their instant fury when confronted with the facts about his record, his history, or his philosophy,” he wrote to Trump supporters. “You hated Obama’s shallow, facile rhetoric, with its hollow promises and loose, lowest-common-denominator word-vomit disconnected from any real policy.”
    “But you love it from Trump,” Wilson added.
    Wilson’s admonition was dismissed by those who needed to hear it most. As a member of the enemy class of Republican campaign consultants – a group partly responsible for electing more Republicans to state and federal office in the Obama era than at any point since the 1920s, mind you – he can be safely ignored until the revolution is complete, and its nemeses are purged for their deviationism. The salience of his observations is, however, confirmed by the hollow and emotional objections it yielded from Trump supporters.
    Those on the right who have convinced themselves that there is some value in this void vessel into which they pour their discontent are sacrificing one of the most compelling arguments in opposition to Barack Obama’s administration: its self-evident incompetence. Trump’s backers have earned their anxieties — they are the product of the years of mismanagement over which this president has presided. Trump’s success, however, reveals that a significant number of conservatives do not merely seek remedy for their years of suffering; they want revenge. The right’s “hope and change” moment does differ from the one that Democrats are only just beginning to awaken from in one critical aspect: for those backing Trump, his appeal is as much aspirational as it is about score settling. And after almost seven years of “hope and change” there are a lot of scores to settle before we can “make America great again.”

    Monday, August 17, 2015

    [Commentary] How to settle the A-10 retirement standoff

    A-10s
    The best way to resolve the A-10 retirement debate is to satisfy both sides with a solution that eliminates the operational and economic arguments driving it.
    The primary vocal critics of the Air Force decision to retire the A-10 close-support aircraft are Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and freshman Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. All three have strong ties to the A-10. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, is home to the largest A-10 base. Closure of the base would have serious economic impact. Ayotte’s husband is a former A-10 pilot. McSally flew A-10s in the Air Force.
    The Air Force has presented strong operational arguments defending the retirement of the A-10: Other aircraft perform the A-10’s close-support mission today with the same effectiveness, and more survivability. The A-10 can only perform close support whereas other aircraft can perform close support and other missions, thus offering more value in a smaller Air Force. And with today’s precision weapons and automation, pilots can train for both close support and other roles without sacrificing effectiveness.
    Former A-10 pilots argue from an emotional point of view citing personal experiences. With the strong support of McCain, Ayotte and McSally, they have organized a support group and congressional contingent advocating retention.
    But they have been unable to shoot down the rationale the Air Force puts forth in defense of retiring the A-10. Their arguments are laden with shrill, emotional points of view, but are mostly anecdotal and unpersuasive when measured against objective, logical reasoning.
    Moreover, this impasse is having adverse impacts on Air Force plans to field the F-35. To continue to operate the fleet of A-10s, it is necessary to forgo building up the maintenance force necessary to field the F-35. This slows the development of proficiency in Air Force F-35 pilots and, consequently, the operational readiness and competence of F-35 squadrons.
    It also forces the Air Force to alter its rhythm to balance training, operational readiness and deployment commitments, creating a problem for combatant commanders who depend on having the F-35 in overseas theaters.
    But there is a way to resolve this annual fight between the Air Force and A-10 advocates in the Army and Congress.
    The Army likes the A-10 not just because of its attack capabilities but even more so because it is totally dedicated to close support of Army forces. The Army fears that without the A-10, and even though other aircraft can perform close support satisfactorily, the Air Force will not be there when needed.
    To ensure the Army can depend on Air Force close support, the Air Force and Army should agree to negotiate a formal compact to team Air Force squadrons and controllers with Army brigades. Squadrons of F-16s, B-52s, B-1s and, soon, F-35s would be required to allocate a portion of their training to exercise and deploy with specific Army units. This teaming concept is not new but has not been enforced to the extent of this proposal.
    An added benefit would be the close, symbiotic relationship that would bond the units, boosting team esprit and combat effectiveness, potentially more than exists today with the A-10.
    To satisfy economic issues motivating opponents, the Air Force needs to ensure that Davis-Monthan — the A-10’s master base with more than 80 A-10s and 4,000 jobs — remains a major Air Force installation and economic engine in Arizona. It must, therefore, replace the A-10s with another operational mission at the base and at smaller Air National Guard A-10 locations.
    Because the Air Force will likely retain its existing bombers, it will need at least one other big base with large ramps, a long runway and modern facilities for its new stealth bomber, the Long Range Strike Bomber. Dispersal of bombers, particularly nuclear bombers, is also necessary for nuclear deterrence to work. There is no bomber base in the southwest. Davis-Monthan would be an excellent choice.
    Davis-Monthan could also be a home for the KC-46A tanker, or the upcoming T-X trainer. Since Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix is already a new F-35 training base, Arizona would then retain its two large bases with new, important Air Force missions, thus mitigating economic concerns.
    For smaller Air National Guard A-10 units, the Air Force can find new missions as it does routinely during drawdowns and equipment changes.
    The standoff between the Air Force and congressional opponents has become debilitating. Both sides need to work together for an amicable solution. Teaming Army and Air Force units for close support and replacing A-10s with new aircraft at Davis-Monthan are win-win for both. 
    Retired Gen. John Michael Loh is a former Air Force vice chief of staff and former commander of Air Combat Command.

    Wednesday, August 12, 2015

    [COMMENTARY] Contentions Hillary Clinton’s Slow-Motion Implosion

    “It is very likely,” Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed when asked by a CBS reporter if he believed the Russians and the Chinese were reading his emails. “I certainly write things with that awareness.” The Democratic Party’s elder statesman and former presidential nominee might have known that he was twisting the knife. While it was perhaps unintentional, his comments reflect an accurate assessment bubbling up from the liberal subconscious that Hillary Clinton has been irreparably damaged by the revelations regarding her scandalous conduct as Kerry’s predecessor at Foggy Bottom.
    Hillary Clinton could have surrendered her “homebrew” email server, on which she conducted the affairs of state in violation of both State Department and White House guidelines, to a third party at any time. Indeed, that was the request of the Republican members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. If she were so inclined, she could have rid herself of the suspicion that she had something to hide. Clinton might not have found exculpation in a third party investigation of the system that once held over 30,000 deleted emails that Clinton assured Americans were of no interest to them, she would have at least created the impression that she had belatedly embraced transparency. Instead, she dug in, closed ranks, and bristled with indignation at anyone who dared question her integrity. In the process, Clinton repeatedly misled the publicand the press on matters both substantial and paltry.
    Hillary Clinton could have done many things to mitigate the damage wrought to her political image by the steady stream of information about her behavior at State. Instead, in deference to the sense of entitlement her enablers have cultivated over a quarter-century, she did nothing. Now, Clinton will be forced to surrender her server to the FBI. What’s more, the email communications that were contained on a thumb drive in the care of her attorney, a man without the requisite security clearances who wasdeemed post hoc by the State Department to suddenly be occupying a secure information facility, must also hand over to the Feds what is in his possession.
    This final shoe dropped after two inspectors general alleged that, not only did Clinton’s unsecure email server contain sensitive information that was marked as such at the time in which it was received, but some of that information was classified “Top Secret.” Among the communications Hillary Clinton received on her server included references to coded information and imagery obtained via secure methods. Carelessly allowing this material to be sent over an unclassified and unprotected email system is a violation of federal law. Full stop.
    But Hillary Clinton’s privilege does not die easy. Reporters have developed a tic that compels them to assert that Hillary Clinton personally is not the subject of any federal investigation. Only her potentially unlawful conduct has captured the attention of investigators.
    “There are several investigations into her conduct, not into her, but into her use of personal email and a personal server,” McClatchy reporter Anita Kumar told MSNBCon Wednesday. She was merely echoing a statement in her employer’s report, which averred, “Clinton, herself, is not a target.”
    This is an oft-repeated refrain. The Department of Justice to which this investigation had been referred last month has repeatedly asserted, “Clinton herself is not the target of the investigation.” This transparent effort to preserve Hillary Clinton’s rapidly decaying political prospects has roiled even FBI sources.
    “It’s definitely a criminal probe,” a source within the FBI told New York Post reporters last week. “I’m not sure why they’re not calling it a criminal probe.”
    “The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI can conduct civil investigations in very limited circumstances,” but that’s not what this is, the source stressed. “In this case, a security violation would lead to criminal charges. Maybe DOJ is trying to protect her campaign.”
    Maybe. Just maybe.
    The rhetorical gymnastics required of reporters and public officials who contend that Clinton is herself not a target of an investigation is simply a marvel. It’s also supremely insulting. The contention that only Clinton’s behavior and not her gilded personage is of interest to criminal investigators is a familiar dodge. It’s of a kind with open borders immigration activists who solemnly scold the public with the contention that “people can never be illegal” and then go about high-fiving one another as if they’ve deftly scored some stylistic points. No, people are not illegal, but their behavior sometimes is. No, Hillary Clinton is not the subject of an investigation, but her reckless disregard for America’s state secrets most certainly is. Only in the minds of Clinton’s increasingly desperate defenders is this a distinction with a perceptible difference.
    It seems likely now that the swirling controversy around Clinton’s conduct will dog her for the remainder of her presidential campaign. There will be no exculpation for her behavior – merely a slow drip of information regarding her conduct and the jeopardy in which it put American national security. Clinton’s claim to be a competent commander-in-chief is forever tarnished. Even if someone close to her were to fall on their sword, it is too late to avoid the impression that this attempt at damage control was not done at the behest of a Machiavellian political figure failing in the effort to revive her ailing career.
    Judging from the tone of the commentary surrounding Clinton’s downfall, it seems as though political observers that they cannot believe what they are witnessing. How could it be possible that a colossus like Clinton who seemed destined to occupy the Oval Office could be undone by such a careless misstep? But in the same way that a mosquito bite can fell the strongest man if left uncared for, what was once a minor scrape for Clinton has grown gangrenous. On Wednesday, a poll of New Hampshire Democrats showed that the eccentric socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has finally eclipsed Clinton. She now faces the prospect of a wounding primary and a competitive general election. If Democrats are forced to choose between advancing the liberal project and Hillary Clinton’s reputation, they will choose the latter. That horrible choice was once mere hypothetical. This morning, it is all too real.

    Saturday, July 25, 2015

    [COMMENTARY] This is no time to give up on America's national treasures By Maureen Finnerty

    We heard it again earlier this month when President Obama designated three major sites in the Western U.S. as national monuments: We should stop adding new national parks and other protected areas until we can pay for the ones we have now. Others have suggested hiking visitor fees so that those who use the parks and national monuments pay the freight for maintaining them.
    There is no denying that many of America's national parks and historic places are in disrepair today or offering shortened visitor hours, fewer interpretive guides, and other services that should make a visit to one of our national crown jewels a special experience. This is a tragedy, but it is no reason to give up on preserving more of what makes America unique.
    The reason we add a park is because something of outstanding value to our nation's heritage is in danger of damage or outright loss. That imminent destruction is, most often, human plans to pave it over or tear it up in the quest for minerals or real estate development. Precluding the possibility of new parks says that we have already protected everything that will ever be worth protecting. That's preposterous.
    Of course it would be better if we addressed all unmet national park and historic site goals. We should rebuild roads, replace roofs on historic buildings and restore unglamorous, but vital, utility systems. We should also underwrite scientific evaluation and monitoring that will assure the landscapes and the plants and animals on them can survive and even thrive.
    It is troubling that, as a nation, we lack the political will to foot the bill to protect and restore our shared heritage. This isn't a question of available funding. The amount of what we need to do to fix our parks is staggering when compared to anyone's household budget, but minuscule when compared to what it costs to run a mighty nation. We can afford it. However, we have been choosing, politically, not to do so.
    Why not just jack up the cost of entering a national park? In fact, fees create a cost barrier that excludes the youth and lower-income people that are under-represented among our park users today. Thus, they limit who can benefit from the opportunity to experience firsthand the natural and historical heritage that makes America unique.

    Saturday, July 4, 2015

    [COMMENTARY]'All Men...Are Endowed by Their Creator With Certain Unalienable Rights'


    [Editor's Note: With these words--239 years ago--our Founding Fathers declared the independence of the United States of America.]
    IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
    The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
    He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
    He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
    He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.




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