Regime Change: "Let's brainstorm about Libya"

"Hillary Clinton, "Smart Power" and a Dictator's Fall" makes clear Rand Paul's accusation of her favoring regime change, though with regard to smart let's reserve judgement. Colin Powell's dictum "you break it you own it'" didn't register because owning it requires more a than an interest in brainstorming before moving on to other world events.  

Ask not what Your Country Can Do for You but for Me

Buffet Rejects Candidates' Message of U.S. Decline: “For 240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start,” as a contrast to the other billionaire, well maybe but certainly not anywhere in the same league, Trump and his trash talking our country down as a reason why we need him to pull us up.  
Berkshire Hathaway, Buffet's publicly traded holding company, is a conglomerate of many different types of companies operating independently and with a tiny central office with one principal role, allocate the funds generated by the independent units. its a Libertarian corporate structure which identifies and invests in success. Trump on the other hand runs an Authoritarian outfit dedicated to milking the maximum take for The Donald and his family where his inaugural, god forbid, speech would be "Ask not what your country can do for you but for me!"

Wingnut Welfare Covering Many Wrongs gone Horribly Right

"Becoming a conservative activist has actually been a low-risk, comfortable career choice. Most Republican officeholders hold safe seats, which they can count on keeping if they are sufficiently orthodox. Moreover, if they should stumble, they can fall back on “wingnut welfare,” the array of positions at right-wing media organizations, think tanks and so on that are always there for loyal spear carriers."   Paul Krugman "Twilight of the Apparatchiks"

You see Red State monopoly characteristics with gerrymandering and restrictive voter laws tightening Republican control but also there is a proliferation of wingnut political scams feeding off the system. For example the "Stop Hillary" direct mail campaign which like Max Bialistocks raises a vault full of cash from gullible little old ladies but unlike with Broadway there is no pay off required, no matter how many wrongs go horribly right. 

Rand Paul: Declare Libertarian or Betray Liberty

As a supporter of Rand Paul's presidential bid I now receive updates and requests for financial support for his Kentucky Senatorial campaign where his support of the GOP line, for example Mitch McConnell's obstructionist stance regarding a Supreme Court nominee, insults the Constitution. The Nevada caucus shows Trump's authoritarian mob will take over and force Rand to commit ideological suicide if he endorses the Republican nominee.  Declare yourself a Libertarian or betray liberty.

There Will be no Party to Rebuild

"Many a self-interested actor hopes they’ll rebuild the GOP around themselves amid the ashes" of a Trump victory, Noah Rothman wrote this week for Commentary Magazine. "That’s nonsense. There will be no party to rebuild."

Trump Supporters Raising Giant Middle Finger To GOP's Octogenarian Face

"Trump Shatters the Republican Party" is a reality that the GOP elite as pictured in NYT headline "GOP Senators say Obama Court Pick will be Shunned" appear not to understand, particularly Mitch McConnell, the octogenarian face that Trump supporters are raising a giant middle finger to.

Vance Persistent Unjust Pursuit of Aleynikow Disqualifies his Apple Demand

Cyrus Vance persistent pursuit of Sergey Aleynikov, a former Goldman Sachs programmer, shows a Luddite view of the world of open source collaborative programming and makes his office, Manhattan District Attorney, in particular the last place to be trusted with a key to the Apple IPhone. Government asks us to trust it but years of freedom of information releases show cases of venal conspiracies to hide mistakes and pursuit of convictions known by prosecutors to be unjust.  Despite the protestations of the FBI the information emanating from a smart phone to the cloud and the meta data recorded should be enough to convict or not. Depending on a piece of information locked away in a phone can lead to a miscarriage of justice through idiotic interpretation of the facts just like Vance's case against Aleynikov.  

Road to Chaos: Unity Governments in Libya Syria and Iraq

"U.S. Airstrikes in Libya Reveal Limits of Strategy" in a petrie dish developing ISIS malignancies. "Libya’s political leaders are currently divided between two loose political alliances centered on rival Parliaments in the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern city of Tobruk. But the United Nations effort to form a unity government, led by the German diplomat Martin Kobler, has been stymied by the factional differences — based on town, tribe, personality or religious persuasion — that helped set off Libya’s civil war in 2014 and have persistently dogged efforts to resolve it ever since."

When will the Administration accept that air strikes foment chaos rather than order?  It is not an instrument for keeping a fragile unity government together. Not until the Allies accept the idea of balkanized Libya, Syria and Iraq where the various tribes and sects split to form independent federal states will there be a diplomatic solution toward pacifying the region. 

GOP Opinion Makers are Federalist, their Constituency is Not!

Brooks' "A Little Reality on Immigration" is a pathetic appeal to rationality by a Republican elite to a constituency that just showed it's giant middle finger in the recent New Hampshire primary with a well educated, prosperous and you would think moderate and rational electorate. The GOP opinion makers are Federalist and their constituency is not!  For example the party's mindless march towards a garrison state is contrary to the people's desire for less government but the strident neocon foreign policy as espoused by their establishment good little boy, Marco Rubio, will result in the polar opposite. It's symptomatic of the party's disconnect.

Crony Capitalism Run Amok

Measuring Big Coal's Mountain Devastation is a lesson in externalities, unaccounted costs. As global resources become scarce theses costs have to be taken accounted for when measuring the public good.

Scalia's Death Assures Wealth Free Elections? Hasn't Jeb! Already Done That?

What are left wing pundits smoking? Bernie Sanders and Donald Trumps non super PAC campaigns are proving how useless big outside money is, yet they think The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia could bring an end, at least for a time, to one of the country’s most hated decisions, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. and stop our elections from becoming increasingly bankrolled by the super-wealthy. and assuring candidates like Jeb! of a winning hand?

Clarence Thomas is a more Faithful Originalist? I got to read up on Him

The point isn’t that Justice Scalia’s jurisprudence was libertarian—Kennedy votes with the Cato Institute’s position more and Clarence Thomas is a more faithful originalist—but that his commitment to the rule of law, and to bringing the Court back to a more principled jurisprudence, is in itself a libertarian victory. Without Scalia, the same kind of attention would not be paid to the Constitution’s text, structure, and history—especially by so-called liberal originalists.

John Kerry, like Woodrow Wilson, Mistakes High Moral Ground as a Basis for Lasting Agreement

On Saturday, while meeting President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, Mr. Kerry was overheard offering reassurances that his fragile plan would succeed. “We will make it work,” he said. He then said he had heard that Mr. Lavrov had put the chances of success at 49 percent at an open meeting of the conference.

Time waits for no Administration to Allow a Balkanized Iraq

"Sunni's Anger, A Lasting Rift, Threatens Iraq" makes clear that a unified Iraq will not work. Barack Obama should decide to promote and support a balkanized Iraq of Kurdish, Sunnis and Shiite states because delay aggravates the treachery of old wounds and emotions that unity does not deny.

Time waits for no Administration.  Its disconcerting to read:

"Mr. Crocker, the former ambassador to Iraq, said he had given up hope that the Obama administration would become more deeply engaged in seeking a political accommodation among Iraq’s factions. But he and Mr. Pollack, along with other experts on Iraq, have joined a task force organized by the Atlantic Council, a research organization based in Washington, that will make policy proposals on Iraq to the next administration.

“Unfortunately, that’s 11 months away,” Mr. Crocker said.

“The Islamic State rose because of a political vacuum,” he noted. “It wasn’t a military success but a political failure that allowed it to take hold.”

And yet, Mr. Crocker, you would ask Kurdish and Sunnis allies to tolerate Baghdad's Shia treachery until our next administration is installed and be as blind as you that a unified Iraq is counter to a grand strategy to pacify the Middle East. 

SCOTUS Stay of EPA Rule: Much Ado About Nothing

Supreme Court’s Stay of Obama’s EPA Climate Rule is causing a big commotion among top down decision makers who want “legally sound policies enacted in the United States to curb carbon emissions.” It’s laughable how these conveners of The Paris Accord believe what they do matters when the reality is that President Obama through Secretary of State John Kerry took a victory lap for our having lead the World in lower emissions without written instructions from above. Currently the U.S. uses less coal because fracked gas is so much cheaper. It happens to be cleaner so the Administration got a good result to crow about but the market did not need a gun pointed to its head to use it.  If the Supreme Court determines that the EPA over reached then no big deal since its rules codify the market reality that coal is going out of business. Readers of the financial press know but it’s doubtful there are many that do among those wringing their hands over this SCOTUS action.

Trump NH Victory Giant Middle Finger to Party Elites

The Party that nominated Mitt Romney, a Bain Capital partner who restructured middle class jobs away and enjoyed tax saving from Swiss and Cayman Island enclaves, now sees itself where “let them eat cake” is not an answer.

A Policy Which Serves Up Decent Moderate People To Treachery

"Syrian Opposition Groups Sense Fading U.S. Support" shows a convoluted policy where "the United States did not want them to actually win the war" but resist "long enough to pressure the government to negotiate for a political solution."  Its too subtle a policy for a life and death reality of the recent al-Assad government's advance in the Aleppo region of Northwestern Syria so that efforts by the Western powers to negotiate from afar in a top down manner just serves up decent moderate people to treachery. Until the Allies look at Syria as a broken state that can not be put back together again will there be a logic and purpose to intervene.

Meddlesome Opinion that Inflames a Reality that Foreign Policy should stay out of

"Cuba Attacks Religious Believers Even as it Liberalizes Economic Rules" is an opinion piece from Cato that could be characterized as meddlesome.  It inflames a reality that foreign policy should stay out of.  Just let church groups such as mine work on it.  

Pitfalls of America’s Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes.

In the never ending quest to avoid bankrupting our liberty as well as our economy Perilous Partners by Ted Galen Carpenter and Malou Innocent studied the benefits and pitfalls of America’s Alliances with authoritarian regimes.  Sometimes our democratic values in “defense of vital interest requires making painful moral compromises.” Rather than be considered constant, interests need be re-assessed as conditions change to determine if truly vital.  For example Saudi Arabia has been a long time vital interest of the United States because of its petroleum and geographic assets. But now it’s geriatric monarchy tolerates a stew of conflicts gyrating toward a cataclysmic end.  Just as when the Shah of Iran fell, the blowback of supporting such a fractured vital interest leads to another implacable enemy and a garrison state at home

Congress is an Imbecile to Allow Such a High Entry Barrier

Under Mr. Shkreli, Turing acquired the rights to Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug for a parasitic infection, and raised the price fiftyfold, to $750 a pill.  Patents run out after seventeen years. A sixty year old drug with this high an entry barrier is an example of influence peddling run amok. 

Vaccine for Syria

$10 Billion is pledged for Syrian Refugees sounds like a good headline, but if its meant to feed and house refugees in Europe then the beacon of utopia will still shine brightly in the wrong place! Better to pour the money into Jordan and make the Northeastern border Syrian refugee camps so prosperous they grow and bust into Syria to make city states of moderates that cure the malignancy.

Global Economy Needs to Recognize the Loss of Illusory Savings

"Bad Loans Haunt Global Economy" is an example of denial that gives a prolonged ache among many versus a sharp pain to a few.  In the U.S. we have a good "Goldilocks" recovery underway, one where its not too hot nor too cold.  Its not clear that TARP helped us by bailing out the banks and auto industry rather it was a rejuvenated oil and gas industry that lifted us out despite the Obama administration's initial contrary vision at the Energy Department. Europe on the other hand bails out Greece by mandating banks to take its debt thereby saddling their economies with nonperforming assets and then depends completely on uneconomic energy policies that make energy expensive and in yet increases air pollution with dirty coal being burned when the sun don't shine or the wind don't blow. Much of the savings sloshing around in the global economy as indicated by low interest rates, below 0 in Japan, are worthless assets still not written down to their true value.  China's managed economy, for example, is not writing down as it should. Its doing the same as what Japan did as it entered the first long term recession of our era; one that is approaching thirty years!

Memo to John Kerry: ISIS targets Dysfunctional Central Governments

The United States and 22 other nations agreed to “a very specific schedule” for backing the formation of a national unity government in Libya, Mr. Kerry said, and discussed contributions that would be needed from each nation to stabilize Iraq and address the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

Liberty's Best Hope: Grover Norquist's Starve the Demosclerosis Beast

Iowa killed Rand Paul's vision of somehow moving the Republican party toward the libertarian side of the libertarian - authoritarian divide.  It was a quixotic charge at windmills. Liberty's best hope is Grover Norquist's tax pledge and starve the Demosclerosis beast in Washington so that urban regions that require more services will self tax and rural ones throttle back to an austerity that is fair.