Obama and Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

Every President developes a National Security Strategy and Obama recently came up with his. Some have described his policy as "Bush Lite" for while he wants to pull back from unilateral actions and pre-emptives strikes he does not disavow such actions. He just says that he will only undertake such actions as a "last resort" which, I would think, Bush actually thinks that he did as well.

But the scariest part of the "Obama Doctrine" is that for the first time,his National Security Strategy warns about "the security threat posed by “individuals radicalised at home”. Sounds like a return to the days of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and McCarthism. The only change will be who will feel the wrath of the federal government.

http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16243791&fsrc=rss

Public Pensions

The NY Times recently ran a story on public pensions in the city. 13 police officers retired at age 40 with annual pensions of $100,000 and up. And 9 additional officers were in the 30s when they retired with $100,000 annual pensions. And these pensions will go up annually, with inflation. (Curious if they will go down in the event of deflation.)

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/When-a-public-pension-is-a-trust-fund-94698759.html

Meanwhile, stiking teachers are complaining about proposed cuts in pay in California. These teachers are making an average of $100,000 per year. We have reports that public pension endowments are underfunded to the tune of $3 trillion.

There is a significant problem here. We are heading to a cliff, like Greece.

http://keithhennessey.com/2010/05/26/underfund-pensions/

Obama and His Role

Obama recently explained his role as President:

"My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about: the spill."

Think about that. This is amazing. He thinks that when he gets people
"to think about him and how much he's thinking about what he thinks they think he should be thinking about, his job is done", according to a Wall Street Journal article.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272542364164212.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

In the book, Atlas Shrugged, a government official is infuriated that a train is stopped in a tunnel by a problem. Rather than try to understand the problem and help work toward a solution, he DEMANDS that the train continue on its way, ignoring the problem. And the train is destroyed along with everyone on it, as well as the tunnel.
" 'God damn these railroad people!' said Kip Chalmers. 'They're doing it on purpose. They want to ruin my campaign. I can't miss that rally! For Christ's sake, Lester, do something!' "

The scene is reminiscent to Obama's response to BP's oil leak. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to stop the leak and Obama believes that simply issuing orders is all that he needs to do. Obama is the one who approved this well. Obama is the one who wanted to expand off shore drilling around Florida. Complain all you want about deregulation and Palin's "drill baby drill" to obfuscate the issue.