Sacrificing the Troops

President Obama won't use American soldiers on the ground in Iraq or Syria because he wants to avoid casualties and costs.  Let's assume for the moment that Obama's position is correct.  The question then arises as to why Obama is sending thousands of American troops to West Africa where they may be exposed to Ebola.  Is it okay to sacrifice troops to fight a virus which kills 70% of those infected but not okay to risk confrontation with terrorists in Iraq, a mission which in the past decade has resulted in a casualty rate of less than 1%?

I write this today because the news just broke that the troops going to Africa are getting 4 hours of training on how to deal with Ebola and the various protective measures that are required.  Look, I know that these troops are not tasked with treating patients, but it nevertheless seems pretty clear that one or more of the thousands of troops sent to Africa will encounter infected people.  Surely, our troops ought to be trained what to do (and not to do) in such circumstances.  As someone who has seen his fair share of army training, I know that a four hour training session is better than nothing, but not much better than nothing.

The reality here is that American troops should not be put in harm's way like this.  Obama could ask for volunteers from the military and those folks can go if they choose.  If Obama is going to order our forces to Africa, however, then the country at least owes them proper training which will allow them to return home safely.

 

The Cruise Ship Quarantine

We learned this morning that a worker from the Dallas hospital which has been the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak is on a cruise ship now in port in Belize.  This worker had no contact with the Ebola patient, but "may have" handled specimens generated from the first Ebola patient.  The worker is now confined to the cabin in a quarantine situation.

Remember the protocols that the CDC and president Obama proudly touted when the threat of Ebola first surfaced.  There would be no Ebola problem in the USA because we had well developed public health systems and protocols in place that had worked for years in dealing with Ebola.  At least, that is what they told us, but it was just another lie.

We now know that whether or not there were protocols, no one from CDC bothered to make sure that the people at the Dallas hospital were told about them.  As a result, we have a nurse flying on a commercial airplane with a fever (and Ebola it turns out) after getting approval of the trip from CDC itself.  We have a person exposed to Ebola on the perfect place to spread this sort of virus, a cruise ship.  Indeed, we have the epitome of craziness in that as of now, the potential patient has not been removed from the ship and flown home (hopefully not on a commercial flight) but remains on the ship where a true disaster will result should the person begin to exhibit symptoms of Ebola. 

I hope that someone in authority comes to the realization that this person needs to be taken off the ship NOW. 

 

Delusions Gone Wild

As each day passes, the collapse of the Obama administration and the electoral hopes of Democrats seem to get worse.  In the House, the Democrat talking points have moved from "we plan to take control" to "we surely will gain seats" to "we hope to break even" to "we hope to minimize our losses".  In the Senate, the Democrats have also moved from confident statements about how they will retain control to statements about how it is a toss up and now to statements about who is to blame for the loss of control by the Democrats.  Day after day, new polls come out that just make the situation look worse.  Today, for example, Quinnipiac has Republican Gardner up by 6% over Democrat incumbent Mark Udall in Colorado, a race that was generally rated as likely Democrat at the start of the campaign season.  Barring an earthquake among the voters in Colorado, Udall is toast.  Even in New Hampshire, the Republican Scott Brown is running ahead in the latest poll.  With a little bit of luck, the GOP could easily pick up a net of eight to ten seats in the Senate.

I started with a quick recap of the electoral scene, because I was struck by the latest piece by CNN commentator Sally Kohn called "Four Ways Democrats Have Already Won".  To say that Kohn's view is delusional, is a major understatement.  In her view, the election is shaping up as a major win for the Democrats even if they lose control of the Senate.  The first way in which Democrats have won is that "there is still a contest for the senate."  I am not making this up.  Sally Kohn thinks that the continued campaign for control of the senate means that the Democrats have already won.  She ignores all those statements by Democrats about how they would easily keep control of that body.  She ignores the recent trend that strongly favors the GOP.  Most important, she ignores the outcome of an election that the GOP is winning. 

Kohn's second "victory" is that "Democrat policies are emerging as third rails".  That claim is confusing to say the least.  First of all, it assumes that there are actual Democrat policies.  It is the lack of policies from Obama and the Democrats that have doomed them to failure this year.  Americans have no idea what the Democrats want to do to grow the economy.  We don't know how Obama wants to confront ISIS and the other terrorists (assuming that he does).  Even Obama seems to have no idea how to handle Ebola.  All that Kohn can say is that Obamacare has not been the defining issue of this campaign.  Kohn thinks it is because the public likes Obamacare so much.  She's wrong.  The real reason is that there are so many other disasters brought about by the Democrats and the president that the entire mess has moved to center stage.

Kohn's third Democrat victory is that the "Republican War on Women" attack is now permanent and will prevail.  The reality is that the public doesn't care about silly and phony attacks like this when there are real issues to be decided.  Kohn ought to take a close look at Colorado where senator Udall made the War on Women such a central theme of his campaign that people there have started to call him senator Uterus instead of senator Udall.  Udall's campaign has, of course, collapsed.

Last, Kohn says that the Democrats have won because Republicans are so desperate that they are supporting measures like voter ID.  Kohn ignores the polls that say that roughly 80% of the American people think that voter ID requirements make sense.  A few more "victories" like this one for the Democrats and they will become a permanent minority.

In 1964, Barry Goldwater lost an enormous landslide election to Lyndon Johnson.  In the months after debacle, bumper stickers appeared that said something like "26,000,000 Americans can't be wrong".  The point was that those who voted for Goldwater were right.  Of course, those same bumper stickers ignored the fact that something like 39,000,000 Americans voted the other way.  In many respects, the delusion of the Goldwater supporters reminds me of Kohn's claims today.  In politics, the important victory is winning the election.  Everything else is a delusion.

 

Who Even Notices?

After years and years of hearing every Thursday about the number of initial unemployment claims the week before, I heard the figures for last week when they were released at 8:30 this morning.  The number was very good, a multi-year low.  But no one cares.  The stock market is set for another major dive today; as I write this the futures show that the Dow will open about 150 points lower than yesterday's close.  The world economy is in turmoil.  Commodity prices are gyrating with moves that many would have thought unlikely just a month ago.  Europe is most likely in a recession.  Japan never seems to get out of a recession.  China is moving from rapid growth to something much slower, and it could easily move into recession as well.  And then there's America.  Our economy should have bounced back after the big recession in 2008-2009, but the policies followed by the Obama administration prevented any strong recovery.  That means that right now, as the rest of the world slips into recession, the USA does not have the built up economic strength to prevent our economy from taking a major hit as well.  On top of this, the various central banks of the world are out of weapons to use against an economic slowdown.  After all, once interest rates are near zero, they can't go any lower.

 

The Lack Of Competence and Honesty -- This Time It's a Killer

We all know that the administration of president Obama is neither competent nor honest, but tonight came news of a new and terrifying low.  We learned that the latest nurse diagnosed with Ebola realized on Monday that she was running a fever when she was in Cleveland and scheduled to board a plane to return to Dallas.  The nurse quite properly and responsibly called the CDC and told them that she had been on the team that had cared for the first Ebola patient and that she was now running a low fever.  She explicitly asked if she ought to go to the airport and board the plane or if she should go to a hospital in Ohio for testing.  The CDC told her she was fine to fly, so she did.  By the next morning, her temperature had soared and she was diagnosed with full fledged Ebola in Dallas.

Think about this.  The CDC is the government's main defense against Ebola.  It is the agency that is supposed to know how to deal with this dreaded disease, but it does not.

This afternoon, we were told by the CDC personnel that the nurse had violated the CDC protocols by traveling by commercial airplane.  It was her fault, you see.  The nurse did not follow instructions.  No one knew for sure if anyone had told the nurse about restrictions on flying, but the CDC and its leader Dr. Friedan did not take any responsibility for the lack of instruction.

Now, this has all unraveled.  We hear that the CDC gave express permission for the nurse to fly.  Either the folks as the CDC don't know their own protocols or they are lying about just what those protocols are.  Over 100 passengers on the Frontier Airlines jet have been put at risk of catching Ebola because the Obama CDC is either incompetent or dishonest or both.

There have been many instances of incompetence by Obama and his people.  Normally, the incompetence just disrupts lives and businesses and costs heaps of money.  In a few instances (like when Hillary Clinton denied any additional security for the Benghazi consulate), people have died due to that incompetence.  Never before, however, has the lack of competence by the Obamacrats placed the lives of so many people in jeopardy.

I still cannot believe just how bad this is.

 

Obama Is Late Again

For the last six years, president Obama has generally been a reactive leader.  For all the discussion about the concept of "leading from behind", the real issue for America has been Obama's practice of responding rather than leading.  Think about some of the bigger examples of this:

1.  Over the three years that the key website for the Obamacare exchange was developed, Obama did not bother to check in on how things were going.  He imparted no sense of urgency to those working on the project.  In fact, he claims to have only found out that the website would not function when it went live and collapsed.

2.  When there was a need to make a decision on construction of the Keystone Pipeline, Obama would not make a move.  Since no one actually forced the issue, Obama had nothing to react to, so he did nothing.

3.  When he first took office, Obama called for a massive stimulus plan, but then he never proposed anything.  Instead, he waited for congressional Democrats to come up with an incoherent package of items that for the most part did not work to stimulate economic growth.

4.  When the Russians began making moves that might threaten the Crimea, Obama did nothing.  He watched the Ukrainians try to keep that province out of Russian hands, but did nothing but make a few comments on the subject.  After the Russians took Crimea from Ukraine, Obama reacted weakly with some rather silly "sanctions" against Moscow.  Then he went to the sidelines again to watch as Russians took over the eastern section of Ukraine.  To this day, Obama still has taken no real actions against the Russians.

No matter how poorly these things turned out for Obama, he cannot bring himself to be proactive.  Just look at the last two days.  Ebola threatens from Africa, so Obama gives a speech that there is little chance that we could have Ebola cases here, but if we do, our health system could easily handle it.  That speech was less than a month ago.  Today, we got the third case.  The latest victim was on a commercial airlines flight with a low grade fever that got worse and led her to the hospital.  This victim was a nurse who was supposed to be following a government protocol that barred her from travel on a commercial airliner.  Despite the government's rules, NO ONE TOLD THE NURSE.  The Obamacrats don't take steps to prevent the spread of the disease, they react to it once it happens.  Now, hundreds of people across America may have been exposed to Ebola because of that.

Then there is Kobani (Ayn al Arab).  For the last month and a half, ISIS forces have been moving closer and closer to that Kurdish city in Syria.  For almost that entire time, the ISIS forces were in territory that had no trees and very little vegetation.  In other words, the ISIS forces were in areas that made them perfect targets of American air power.  Obama did nothing.  He did not allow our air force to strike at the ISIS terrorist army, and they eventually got all the way to Kobani.  Now, ISIS controls half of that city, and guess what, Obama has allowed a stepped up air campaign.  Obama has been responding to an avalanche of criticism regarding the paltry amount of power used against ISIS.  Now that ISIS troops are inside the city and have the ability to hide in all sorts of buildings, NOW Obama allows the used of more planes.  Today, there were 18 missions by American planes against ISIS.  Two weeks ago, that would have meant 18 sure hits on major ISIS targets.  Today, it means that American planes may have hit some hidden terrorists, but maybe they did not.  How much of Kobani will be flattened in attacks on ISIS?  How many civilians will die in attacks that easily could have come weeks ago and prevented ISIS from getting to the city?  How steep will the price be for Obama's failure to lead rather than react?

 

Further Proof That Ebola is Big Stuff

With the news that a second healthcare worker in Dallas has Ebola and that she flew on a commercial flight just before being diagnosed, the White House is finally paying attention.  President Obama has cancelled his campaign visit to Connecticut today in order to stay at the White House to meet with staff about the response to the Ebola outbreak.

I do wonder if this is a reaction to the terrible Ebola news or if the Malloy campaign in Connecticut suggested that Obama not come to the state today.  This visit was not to raise funds; Obama was going to address rallies in Bridgeport and Hartford.  Given the current state of Obama's popularity, it may be that Obama cancelled so that he would not be embarrassed when no one turned out to see him.  I would like to think that Obama is actually attempting to do his job and to protect the nation against Ebola.  I would like to think that, but I still wonder nevertheless.  It is hard to ignore history.