Government Incompetence

Deficit Balloons Into National-Security Threat

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Wall Street Journal | Feb. 1, 2010

The federal budget deficit has long since graduated from nuisance to headache to pressing national concern. Now, however, it has become so large and persistent that it is time to start thinking of it as something else entirely: a national-security threat.

The budget plan released Monday by the Obama administration illustrates why this escalation is warranted. The numbers are mind-numbing: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined—and that assumes Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s proposals to start bringing it down, and that the proposals work. [Read more…]

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State of the Union: Obama’s reality problem

Washington Post | by Michael Gerson | Jan. 27, 2010

President Obama’s primary problem is not rhetorical — though, about an hour into the State of the Union address, I gave up hoping that it might eventually build toward something remotely interesting. (For much of the speech Obama sounded like a commerce secretary at a professional conference on a particularly uninspired day.) Obama’s problem is not primarily political — though he seems in complete denial about the political dangers he faces. (He amazingly blamed his health-care failure on “not explaining it more clearly.”) Obama’s problem is not a vice president behind his right shoulder who can’t stop his distracting, sycophantic nodding — though it was certainly annoying.

Obama has a reality problem. [Read more…]

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The Lesson of an Affirmative Action President

American Thinker | by James Lewis | Jan. 28, 2010

You don’t pick brain surgeons by the color of their skin. You pick them by competence only. Same thing with airplane pilots. But we have allowed the profoundly irrational liberal media to persuade the American public that we are supposed to pick a U.S. president by affirmative action. Obama was elected to universal Hosannas because he is black. It wasn’t a secret. That’s why the Left around the world went into ecstasies when Obama ran and got elected. [Read more…]

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The Abdulmutallab Travesty

Many innocent lives may be lost because of the massive incompetence of this administration and their idiotic mishandling of a foreign terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda. The terrorist was provided with legal counsel and Mirandized before we could extract critical information about other threats to America. This is criminal negligence!

NRO | by Rich Lowry | Jan. 26, 2010

Intending to die in the act of destroying a jetliner, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab instead landed alive in Detroit as a kind of message in a bottle from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He knew more about its recruiting, training, and operations than anyone who is ever likely to fall into our arms babbling like a scared 23-year-old.

But the Obama administration shut him down. It didn’t go so far as to tell the Customs and Border Protection officers to cover their ears and try not to listen when Abdulmutallab made incriminating statements on the initial ride to the hospital, but it came close. It had an FBI team inform Abdulmutallab of his right to remain silent, after which he predictably remained silent. [Read more…]

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Terrrorism’s Victory

Human Events | by Herbert London | Jan. 21, 2010

As George Orwell noted the first duty of intelligent people is “the restatement of the obvious.” It is obvious or should be obvious that the goal of terrorists is terrorism. What that means precisely is not clear based on recent news accounts.

According to reports the United States escaped an enormous tragedy when a Nigerian, Umar Abdulmutallab, was apprehended when he attempted to blow up a KLM flight from Africa to America via Amsterdam. Alas, that is accurate as far as it goes. Overlooked in this calculus is that a terrorist who gains access to a commercial flight has already achieved his goal, i.e. promote the fear of terrorism. [Read more…]

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Obama Rewards Losers, Punishes Winners

Townhalll | by Larry Kudlow | Jan. 16, 2010

President Obama’s misbegotten bank tax is precisely the wrong policy at precisely the wrong time. It will wind up backfiring across the board. Why? Because bank consumers and borrowers are the ones who will wind up paying this tax, creating an obstacle to economic recovery.

Obama is actually rewarding losers and punishing winners — exactly the reverse of free-market capitalism. [Read more…]

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White House Blames Computers for Government Inefficiencies

The Hill | by Ian Swanson | Jan. 14, 2010

A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office.

This startling admission came Thursday from Peter Orszag, who manages the federal bureaucracy for President Barack Obama. [Read more…]

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“Notional” Security

Townhall | by Thomas Sowell | Jan. 12, 2010

The latest “screw-up” that let a man with explosives get on a plan on Christmas day is only part of a larger laxness and irresponsibility when it comes to national security. This administration pays lip service to national security and gives out with a lot of rhetorical notions that makes it notional security instead of national security.

The Muslim major who was arrested for the murders of American soldiers at Fort Hood had left so many clues to his hatred of this country that all you had to do was count the dots, without even connecting them, to see where he was coming from. But for a fellow officer to alert higher authorities to the danger would have meant risking damage to his own career moreso than to that of Major Nidal Hasan. [Read more…]

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Socialist Norway Blesses Criminality as a Career Path

FrontPage | by Rita Karlsen | Jan. 8, 2010

What is Norway up to? The question can be put directly to the country’s Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, because in his New Year’s speech he placed particular emphasis on the fact that it will be work that will make the difference in securing Norway’s future. Work, work, work – and now comes the news that criminal foreigners who serve more than a year in jail will henceforth automatically qualify for welfare. After three years in prison, they will have a right to a government pension and to health coverage. This will be the case even if they have come to Norway illegally. In other words, it pays for foreigners to come to Norway and commit serious crimes – and the more serious the crime, the greater the reward. [Read more…]

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Modern Day Lunacy

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American Spectator | by Walter Williams | Dec. 30, 2009

Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, and Rep. Joe Courtney D-Conn., a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, have introduced the Pre-existing Condition Patient Protection Act, which would eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions in all insurance markets. That’s an Obama administration priority. I wonder whether President Obama and his congressional supporters would go a step further and protect not just patients but everyone against pre-existing condition exclusions by insurance companies. Let’s look at the benefits of such a law. [Read more…]

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