Limits to Commerce

After deciding the Obamacare is not a tax and therefor not constitutional through Congress's authority to tax, the only justification for the individual mandate is the Commerce Clause. This gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce.

Congress has used torturous reasoning to stretch their authority. At one point they declared schools to be weapons free zones. Their reasoning was that weapons in schools discouraged learning which led to a less educated populous which could affect interstate commerce. The Court did not buy this argument.

In the case of Obamacare, the argument is that not participating in commerce affects it. While this is true, it is a troubling expansion of Congress's power.

In the 16th century wool began becoming important to the English economy. In order to promote the wool trade, several laws were passed. Clothing had to be made from wool. Even burial shrouds had to be wool. Things went a step further in London where the knitters guild got a law passed requiring every resident to own a flat wool cap.

If Obamacare's individual mandate is allowed to stand then there is nothing stopping Congress from passing this same type of legislation.

This is where the disconnect lies between liberal and conservative. Liberals have no problem with an all-powerful government. They see the government as the solution to all problems. Conservatives want a government with well-defined limits and distrust centralized planning.

Obamacare itself is an argument against an expansive government. No one in their right mind would call it a great piece of legislation. It is a series of compromises and bargains balancing the most that some Democrats would accept against the least that other Democrats would accept. The Republicans were not even part of the negotiations.

Four of the justices seem untroubled by expanding governmental authority. Not surprisingly, these four were appointed by Presidents Clinton and Obama. They see the Constitution as an out of date document. Like President Obama, they would prefer a much longer document that spells out positive rights. If they were to draw up a new constitution then this case would never have come to court because their new document would have embedded a clause for mandatory health care.

The other five see the dangers. No matter how tempting it may be to let this case through it sets the precedent for laws that are less desirable.

The government would have been on more solid ground if the law had somehow managed to differentiate itself so that a clear line could be drawn between this and future laws. The government's attorney tried to argue that this is a unique case because health care affects everyone. Justice Kennedy (the most likely swing voter) pointed out that most people will need health care in their life but everyone will die and be buried. What would stop the government from requiring burial insurance?

No matter what you think about Obamacare itself, the larger issue is the continuance or abandonment of limited government. If Obamacare passes the court then we might find ourselves wearing wool caps.

Narratives and Agendas

Through last weekend there was one main narrative about the fatal shooting of Treyvon Martin - that George Zimmerman, a "neighborhood watch", stalked Martin and executed him, possibly fulfilling a life-long desire to kill a black man then literally got away with murder by claiming self-defense.

Reporters poured through 911 records and pronounced that Zimmerman had a fear of blacks in hoodies based on three calls (out of 26 pages of transcripts). Nearly every account mentioned that Martin had just bought a packet of Skittles.

Many details were left out or outright wrong. Some accounts said that Martin was returning to his father's house. Actually his father lived in Miami and Martin was visiting his father's girl friend who lived near Orlando. The fact that this was a gated community lead many to assume that it was an affluent, white neighborhood. It was a mix-race neighborhood of condos. Some questioned if Zimmerman was actually a member of the neighborhood watch or just a busy-body. Zimmerman's race was seldom mentioned (he is half-Hispanic). The main picture shown of Martin has been touched up. Among other things, his skin has been lightened. The picture and another one of Martin in his football uniform make him appear small when he was actually 6'2".

More recently other details have emerged. Previously the only public account came from Martin's girlfriend who said she was on the phone with him at the beginning of the fight. Witnesses have emerged who said that Martin approached Zimmerman from behind and threw the first punch, knocking Zimmerman to the ground then sitting on his chest and banging his head against the ground. Zimmerman is supposed to have suffered a broken nose and needed stitches in the back of his head from this treatment.

Initial reports said that Zimmerman was questioned at the scene and released. Later reports say that he was handcuffed and interrogated without a lawyer before being allowed to seek medical aid.

Martin's character has suffered. He was able to be in Orlando because he had been suspended from school for two weeks, his third suspension. There is also a report that the school found some women's jewelry in his backpack that he could not explain but nothing was done about this. This last is important because it indicates that Martin might not have been as innocent as his supporters make him out to be.

In the meantime, activists across the country have continued to call for Zimmerman's arrest and conviction. In some cases they have bordered on calling for his assassination. Black activists are using this as an example of the violence that all whites do to all blacks. Anti-gun advocates are using the incident to try to repeal Florida's Stand and Defend law (which may not apply here). Anti-police activists are using this as an example of police-sanctioned killing. Even the President commented that his son would look like Treyvon before calling for more investigation. Congress is holding hearings.

Would any of these people care is the races had been reversed?

In many ways this is a mirror image of society in the early 20th century. Back then, if a black man killed a white man in self-defense he would have been lynched. That could easily happen to Zimmerman (especially after Spike Lee Tweeted his home address).

Everyone who contributed to this atmosphere of hysteria should be ashamed. Facts are still dribbling out. Take a deep breath and remember the Constitution's presumption on innocence.

Who wins elections?

Rick Santorum's biggest argument for the nomination is that only a true conservative can win. He claims that moderates like Dole and Ford lose. I think that he is overlooking a more important point - resume. Here's a breakdown of the elections since 1960:

Nixon/VP&senate vs Kennedy/Senator - Kennedy
Goldwater/senator vs Johnson/president - Johnson
Nixon/VP vs Humpfrey/VP&senate - Nixon
Nixon/president vs McGovern/senator - Nixon
Ford/president&house vs Carter/governor - Carter
Reagan/governor vs Carter/governor - Reagan
Reagan/president vs Mondale/VP&senate - Reagan
Bush(41)/VP&senate vs Dukakis/governor - Bush
Bush(41)/president&senate vs Clinton/governor - Clinton
Dole/Senator vs Clinton/president - Clinton
Bush(43)/governor vs Gore/VP&senate - Bush
Bush(43)/governor vs Kerry/senator - Bush
McCain/senator vs Obama/senator - Obama

There is a pattern here. The losers all have their roots in Congress. In 13 elections, a challenger from Congress has never defeated an incumbent. The two incumbent presidents who were defeated were defeated by governors. What is more, an incumbent VP with roots in Congress does poorly against a governor.

This should come as no surprise. Governors have executive experience, members of Congress do not.

It also demolished Santorum's argument about moderates.

The EPA and the Court

A couple of days ago the Supreme Court ruled against the EPA. In case you missed it, here's what the case was about:

In 2007, a couple bought some land near a lake and began building a 3-bedroom house. Before they got very far the EPA notified them that they had damaged a wetland. They were to stop all construction and repair the damage. Failure to do so could result in a fine of $25,000 per day.

The couple tried to challenge this in court but ran into an obstacle. The EPA had not actually issued a ruling against them, it had only warned them that it would. The EPA considered their compliance to be voluntary and would only allow them to take the case to court after an EPA review on the merits of the case.

In other words, the only way that they could challenge the ruling would be to continue construction until the EPA actually levied ruinous fines. Then they could take a chance on winning their case in court and having the fines waived or losing and being responsible for fines that they could never pay.

The property owners argued that they should be able to sue based on the original order. The EPA argued that allowing people to challenge them in the court would slow the EPA's good works and hurt everyone.

The Court sided with the property owners 9-0 that they should be able to take the EPA to court.

On one hand this was a no-brainer. Who would expect the highest court to support an argument against taking arguments to the courts? The Justices had a vested interest which probably explains their unanimity.

On the other hand, the EPA was using a variation of the same argument that the government will use in justifying the Individual Mandate. This holds that the Mandate does so much public good that it's legality should not be questioned. It you listen to the supporters, this is the essence of their argument, that the whole thing falls apart without the Individual Mandate so it has to be upheld. The fact that this is a significant expansion of the government's authority is waived aside as immaterial.

Will the Court agree or will it rule that Congress exceeded its Constitutional limits? The EPA ruling shows that the Court does not always accept the argument in favor of giving up liberty in the name of the common good.

Santorum endorses Obama!

Really!

"You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who's just going to be a little different than the person in there," said Santorum. "If you're going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future."

Santorum has previously made it clear that he does not care about economics. Romney's economic plan and Paul Ryan's budget are nearly interchangeable so economically Romney is mainstream Republican. No, Santorum is talking about social policy where he is not only to the right of Romney, he is to the right of the majority of the country (including Catholics who have been voting for Romney).

Santorum probably realizes that he cannot win the nomination this year so his best hope for becoming president is for Obama to win reelection. That would provide an open election in 2016 (or even better, Biden would be the Democratic candidate).

Losing a primary and regrouping worked pretty well for Romney. It gave him exposure and he learned a lot from the experience. He is a better candidate now than he was in 2008. Santorum might do better in four years. I doubt it, several current governors will be looking at the White House by then, but it is Santorum's best chance at becoming President.

So, when he says that we should stay with Obama he means that this would be best for him, not the country.

Santorum will probably be living down this statement for a long time. People still remember when Ralph Nader said in 2000 that Bush and Gore were indistinguishable.

I hope that this gaff finally forces Santorum out of the race. He is not going to win and he is just poisoning the water for all Republicans.

Gaff of the Day?

It is amazing what people are calling a campaign gaff these days. Everyone knows that Romney is rich but it is considered a major gaff to admit that his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs. More recently, one of Romney's advisers was talking about the difference between a primary campaign and the presidential campaign. Everyone knows that during the primary Republicans lean right and Democrats lean left as they try to appeal to their core constituents. Once the primaries are over, the candidates each moderate their campaigns and try to appeal to the swing voters. That makes this a fair statement:

Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.

If Santorum or Gingrich were to win the nomination then they would do the same thing. That makes them hypocrites for waving Etch a Sketches and claiming that Romney has no fixed values. It's almost like they would prefer Obama to one of their own.

Malia and the Press

When the Obamas moved into the White House, they wanted their daughters to have as normal a life as possible. They quickly established a rule that the daughters are off-limits to the press unless they are with their parents. This is a fair request. It would have been nice if the press had respected a similar boundary with the Bush twins. Instead, every time they got caught with alcohol while still 20 it made the evening news and Leno's monologue.

In practice, the rule on the Obama girls means that the President can use them for political gain but they are otherwise off-limits. That rule has been stretched a bit so that there was almost no press coverage when the girls went skiing in Aspen in February with their mother.

The rule was strongly enforced last week when Malia went on a trip to Mexico with a dozen classmates and 25 Secret Service agents. At the White House's insistence, the wire service story about this trip was pulled in order to give the kids some privacy. The trip came back into the news after an earthquake but only to say that Malia is safe and unharmed.

There are some aspects of this that make me uneasy. I agree that it is inappropriate to send reporters along with the trip but why is it out of bounds to simply report that she went on the trip? This was a minor story (at least until it was pulled) and did not invade on her privacy. I wonder if the story was pulled for political reasons rather than because of issues of privacy? So far this year Malia spent Christmas break (or is that Winter Holiday?) in Hawaii with her parents, then went skiing in an exclusive resort with her mother and sister. Now she is off on an international jaunt. At a time that her father thinks that the rich are keeping too much of their earnings, it looks bad for the President's daughter to be living like the 1% at taxpayer expense. Was the story really pulled over privacy or because the Obamas' lavish lifestyle looks bad? Did the White House kill the story on Malia's behalf or on Barack's?

I am also worried about the power of the White House to pull stories internationally. It started with a French wire service and was picked up by the London Telegraph. Both killed it. What other, more important, stories has the White House killed?

I am not worried about Malia's destination. Some people including Santorum questioned the wisdom of sending the First Daughter to a country that the State Department has issued warnings against. Mexico is a big country and several places are quite safe, especially with a Secret Service escort. I expect that the State Department vetted the destination.

An Unprepared President

The more behind I read about behind the scenes in the White House the more I think that Barack Obama's background left him utterly unprepared to be president.

Obama made it clear during the campaign that he saw differences in opinion as something that could be easily smoothed over. That was the basis of his offer to meet with the leaders of hostile countries without precondition. Domestically, Obama believes that all political differences can be resolved by getting people together. If they meet in good will and with the country's interests at heart then they will come to a reasonable consensus. It never occurred to him that instead of coming to a consensus, their views might harden and become non-negotiable. This has happened within his own cabinet.

I suspect that what Obama really believes is that a gathering of well-intentioned people will eventually come around to his way of thinking and is mystified when they do not. This leaves the President totally unprepared for the concept of principled opposition. Since he does not understand it, he attributes it to base motives. When Republicans opposed the stimulus and tried to explain their position, he lectured them about listening to Rush Limbaugh. When the Tea Party formed he blamed it on racism. When the Republicans had a landslide election in 2010 he blamed it on Fox News.

This is also why he keeps thinking that diplomacy will convince Iran to give up their nuclear program. Again, he can't grasp the idea of a fixed ideology so different from his own.

Obama is a believer in class warfare. One of his goals has been to raise taxes on the rich, not because it would increase revenues, but simply because he believes that they get to keep too much of their income.

President Obama means for green energy to be his signature, long-term accomplishment along the lines of Kennedy's commitment to a moon landing. That has led to billions in tax money wasted on failed technologies. When critics question the spending on green technologies, Obama complained that they were not forward-thinking and compared them to flat-earthers.

More then most residents of the White House, the Obamas live in a bubble. They consciously decided that they would not make any new friends when they went to DC because these could be people with agendas. Obama only has a few advisers he trusts. He dislikes Congress and does not have a personal relationship with anyone in Congress, not even the Democratic leaders he depends on.

Obama dislikes socializing and politics. He spends most evenings at home, eating dinner with his family. While this is admirable for most people, it puts him at a disadvantage.

Another casualty of Obama's dislike of Congress is his disdain for the separation of powers. He often complains about how powerless he is to accomplish anything. The EPA has expanded its authority to mandate automobile fuel standards and power plant emissions without Congressional approval. His Justice Department has made the case that "due process" required before executing an American citizen abroad does not have include the judiciary.

While Obama expects others to put the nation first, this is not in his temperament. He prefers to set political traps rather than to govern. After the Republicans made a proposal for reforming Medicare, Obama and the Democrats decided against offering their own reform. Instead they painted themselves as the defenders of the current system and ran ads showing the Republicans literally throwing seniors over a cliff. Obama will not even admit that there are severe structural problems in the entitlement programs. His policy on these and other problems is to "kick the can down the road" in the hope that eventually looming problems will be so immense that they can no longer be ignored.

Worst of all, Obama is so convinced of his own innate superiority that he does not recognize his shortcomings and try to correct them. Instead of addressing the concerns of the Tea Party, he wishes that he was as accepted in the US as he is in Europe. In other words, he blames his shortcomings on us for not recognizing his superiority.

All of this makes Barack Obama singularly unprepared for the office that he inhabits.

State of the Primary

Santorum won Mississippi and Alabama. So who came out ahead and behind?

Surprisingly, Romney came out ahead although you would never know it from the coverage. He won Hawaii and American Samoa. Even in the two states he lost, he still got some delegates. The result is that he picked up 42 delegates while Santorum only won 38.

Gingrinch was the big looser. As the only southerner in the race, he had hoped to win big in Mississippi and Alabama. Instead he barely beat Romney for 2nd in those states.

While the press continues to talk about Romney's weakness, it is becoming obvious that he will win the primaries. He has the best campaign staff, by far. Santorum is having problems even filing full slates. He came up short in Ohio and Illinois. He didn't even make it onto the ballot in Virginia.

Santorum and Gingrich cannot match Romney's campaign. The experience of having run in 2008 also helps him. This is the first national campaign for Santorum and Gingrich. Ron Paul has experience but lacks wide appeal.

This also gives Santorum the best chance against President Obama of the four contenders. Obama will have a first-rate campaign staff and can only be beaten by a similar campaign.

That does not mean that Romney will win. Originally he was running on his record as a governor and businessman. Thanks to Newt's attacks on Bain Capitol and the Occupy movement's attacks on rich people in general, Romney seems almost afraid to mention that he got rich by fixing a lot of broken companies. It's considered a major gaff for him to mention that his wife drives a couple of Cadillacs (he's a self-made multimillionaire, what's she supposed to drive?). Without a compelling personal story, Romney doesn't have anything left except going negative against his opponents.

Obama offers plenty of negatives but Romney will need more to convince people to vote for him.

Afghanistan - where do we go from here?

Let's face it, we aren't making friends in Afghanistan. Let's pause a moment to remember why we are there.

Days after 9/11, the FBI concluded that it had been planned by the terrorist group al Qaeda which was, at the time, headquartered in Afghanistan. At the time Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban and we asked them to turn over al Qaeda. They refused and threatened us. So we invaded and overthrew the Taliban. Our only beef with the Taliban was that they were sheltering al Qaeda. Granted, they were oppressive, especially to women, but other governments have done worse and we haven't bothered to overthrow them.

It turned out that the Taliban was very weak. A few weeks later and the Taliban had vanished. So had al Qaeda.

We assembled a government and make promises about building Afghanistan a proper infrastructure. Then we pulled the army to go attack Iraq.

In the interim, the Taliban reassembled and began counter attacking.

In 2004, the Democrats complained that President Bush had taken his "eyes off of the ball" and that Afghanistan was where the real war against terror was taking place. After the success of the Surge in Iraq, both candidates in the 2008 election promised to do the same in Afghanistan. After being elected, President Obama did authorize a surge although it was less than what the military requested and it had a politically-inspired end date.

The Afghan surge did not go so well. Things worked out in Iraq because the surge coincided with the Awakening movement - the realization that the members of al Qaeda who had gone to Iraq to fight the Americans were not really the friends of the Iraqis. Nothing like that has happened in Afghanistan. Instead, the Afghans are increasingly seeing the Americans in an unfavorable light.

The drone war hasn't helped. Drones have become Obama's favorite weapon but it is hard to prove that the group you killed with a drone-based missile was really a group of terrorists.

Plus we expanded the war into Pakistan where the drones are really a touchy subject. This got trickier when we invaded their country in order to kill bin Laden.

Obama had trouble with his commanders. One had to resign after an article indicated that his private opinion of the President was less than enthusiastic. He does not get along with the President of Afghanistan, either. Neither man trusts the other.

The events of the last couple of weeks have made our position even worse. First, it came out that some holy writings including copies of the Koran were included in papers that were burned. This is understandable when you realize that the troops doing the burning cannot read Arabic.

Then a disturbed soldier committed an unthinkable act and killed a number of civilians, mainly women and children.

So, where do we go from here? Al Qaeda is long-gone. The Taliban controls a good bit of Afghanistan. We are trying to protect a government that we consider corrupt long enough to equip an Afghan army. It is questionable if this army will ever be strong enough to stand on its own and if we will be able to trust it if it can.

Our fight started out against al Qaeda but morphed into a fight with the Taliban.

We are not winning any friends by staying but if we leave we will seem weak.

Rush and Fluke

Rush Limbaugh said something that he shouldn't have and eventually apologized. Why are people still making a fuss over it? Because they see this as a chance to eliminate Rush. This has been a dream of the left for twenty years. Many liberals want to see the "fairness doctrine" restored to radio. This would require equal time for dissenting opinions and would shut down talk radio. This is known as the "Flush Rush Bill". Since TV favors liberals, there is no corresponding movement to shut down the Daily Show.

What about Sandra Fluke? What was it that she said that set Rush off? You can find a transcript of her testimony here. After reading it, I am tempted to agree with Rush. I take issue with many of her points.

The biggest issue is completely hidden - it is the assumption that contraception always equals birth control pills. There are other contraceptives and many of them do not require a prescription (and presumably would not be covered by any plan). Further, the standard advice to unmarried women with multiple sexual partners is to use condoms to prevent the spread of disease. That makes birth control pills redundant.

Condoms are also an inexpensive method of birth control for married couples. Granted, they have a higher failure rate than the pill but this means that someone who cannot afford the prescription is left completely without contraception.

The most heart-wrenching part is the story of a woman who needed to take birth control pills to prevent cysts. This is a read herring. The woman was unable to convince her insurance that she needed the pill for medical reasons unrelated to contraception. Yes, it would have simplified her life if a prescription for the pill was accepted without question but that is not why she needed it. The woman did develop a large cyst and had to have her ovary removed. This is where the heart-wrenching part comes in:

Since last year's surgery, she's been experiencing night sweats and awaking and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the removal of her ovary. She's 32 years old. As she put it: If my body indeed does enter early menopause, no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me have my own children. I will have no choice at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies, simply because the insurance policy -- that I paid for, totally unsubsidized by my school -- wouldn't cover my prescription for birth control when I needed it.

This woman was not going to give her mother any grandbabies, regardless. She is 32 so she is past her prime fertility. She is gay. Most important, she had to take birth control pills for a medical condition. How could she have children if she couldn't stop taking the Pill?

Krugman's Horse and Cart

In a recent column, Paul Krugman came up with an explanation for why the recovery has been so slow compared with the Reagan recovery. It seems that it is all the government's fault for not spending enough.

A reasonable person might protest that the federal government is not on an austerity budget. Despite bipartisan talk about the deficit, government spending continues to rise.

Krugman's answer to that is that he is not talking about federal spending. He is talking about state and local spending. If they had been jacking up spending instead of cutting back then everything would be great.

There is one flaw in Krugman's argument - he is calling for deficit spending from entities that are required to balance their budgets. The only way that a state or city can spend more is to raise taxes (which many have done just to cover the shortfall caused by the recession). Even then we are talking about zero sum spending where government entities redistribute money. Unless you believe in the magic stimulus fairy, taxes represent as much drag on the local economy as spending increases it. Keynesian theory is based on government borrowing which states and cities cannot do except on a limited scale for capitol projects (like roads). Only the federal government can borrow to meet general spending.

Krugman's argument rests on the fact that state and local spending were higher at this point in the Reagan recovery so he figures that the spending must have caused the recovery. He has it backwards. The recovery happened independent of government spending. Instead, the expanding economy provided more tax revenue which accounts for the increased spending. Many of these entities had raised taxes during the lowest part of the recession so when things returned to normal their revenue was greater than it had been.

Of course, these entities never cut taxes to their pre-recession levels. They simply spent more. Columbus raised taxes from 1.5% to 2% in the early 1980s then raised them to 2.5% during the current recession. Doubtless they will raise it to 3% the next time a deep recession hits. All of this causes a drag on the economy which Krugman ignores.

When looking at ways to speed the recovery, Krugman will need to look further than government spending.

Handicapping Obama

The election is still a bit over nine months away. How are President Obama's chances of reelection?

Since World War II, only two incumbent presidents (Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush) have been defeated. In addition, Lyndon Johnson thought that his chances of reelection were poor and dropped out of the race.

The common factor in all three of these cases was the existence of a challenger in the primaries. This challenger captured at least 20% of the vote. This indicated a significant dissatisfaction for the incumbent within his own party. This looks good for Obama. He is unchallenged in the primaries.

Polls cannot be trusted this far out but they show Obama to be weak. Even if he polls slightly ahead of the Republican challengers, the Republican race has not ended yet. At this point there are supporters for each candidate who say that they would vote for Obama before they would vote for their candidate's rival. This happened four years ago - supposedly Hillary supporters would go for McCain over Obama. These people normally come back to the fold by election. that means that Obama's current numbers are weaker than they look.

The economy was a major factor in Carter's and Bush's loss (to say nothing of Herbert Hoover in 1932). Inflation was running 10% or higher in the Carter years and the country was entering a new recession. Carter seemed helpless to do anything about the economy. Bush was running at the tail end of a mild recession.

By itself, the economy is not the deciding factor. The important thing is the direction of the economy and the public perception of the President's role. Unemployment was high in 1984 but dropping and inflation was the lowest it had been in years. That let Reagan claim credit in his Morning in America ads. From the start, Reagan took ownership of the economy. It cost him in the 1982 mid-term when the country was in the grip of a double-dip recession but by 1984 things had improved. This allowed Reagan to win 49 states. Reagan's most effective line in 1980 and in 1984 was "Are you better off now then you were four years ago?"

In contrast, Bush seemed clueless about the economy in 1992 as was Carter in 1980.

This is a serious weak spot for Obama. By the election, the economy will have been in recovery for 3 1/2 years but it doesn't feel like it. This opens him to charges of mismanaging the recovery. It also hurts him that he continues to blame the Bush administration. After four years and trillions of dollars, the economy is Obama's.

Foreign affairs can hurt an incumbent. The Viet Nam war dragged down Johnson. Carter looked helpless after Iran held the American embassy staff hostage for more than a year.

Foreign affairs hurt Bush in different ways. He was a war president and nations have a tendency to retire war presidents during peace. There was also widespread anxiety about the trade deficit with Japan. This was made worse when Bush got sick at a state dinner and threw up in the Japanese president's lap.

Obama is a war president although he inherited his biggest wars. Iraq and Afghanistan will probably not be held against him unless conditions change. On the other hand, if the US-supported governments in Iraq or Afghanistan fail then Obama will be blamed for turning victory into defeat.

And that is not all of Obama's problems. There are numerous hot-spots that could erupt between now and the election. Obama has political capitol invested in the Arab Spring, especially Egypt and Libya. If either of them turns into an Islamic dictatorship then it will reflect badly on him. As it is, several US citizens who were in Egypt to promote democracy are under threat of arrest and conviction for interfering in Egypt's affairs.

Obama had chances to intercede in Iran and Syria and passed. Now Syria is in a civil war

Iran is a special case and could sink Obama all by itself. It has directly threatened the US Navy. It continues to develop nuclear weapons. It also has an interest in destabilizing Iraq.

A worst-case for Obama would be for Israel to attack Iran's uranium refining facilities. This could cause the Islamic world to insist that Obama choose sides between Israel and Islam. Egypt could well break off relations with the US after an Israeli strike.

Then there are gas prices. This was another factor in Carter's defeat. Obama has pointed out that he cannot affect gas prices. That is a poor defense after prominent Democrats attacked Bush over the same issue in 2008. Worse, he just cancelled a pipeline and his Secretary of Energy is on record suggesting that high gas prices are a good thing.

A final factor is the presence of a third party challenger. If one materializes, it will not happen until Summer. depending on which side they draw from, a third party challenger can deliver a margin of victory to the least similar candidate. This happened in the 1980 and 1992 elections. It also happened in the 1968 and 2000 elections when the sitting vice-president was defeated.

Despite his sense of inevitability in 2008, Obama came close to losing the election several times. He did not win enough delegates to give him the nomination outright. First Hillary Clinton had to concede and release her delegates. Obama was ahead of McCain all Summer but it was so close that it was usually within the margin of error (i.e. a poll with a 5% margin of error might show Obama ahead by 3%). The Republican convention and Sarah Palin put McCain ahead for several weeks until the banking collapse. Voters blamed the Republicans for the collapse and Obama finally took a decisive lead.

The candidate of 2012 is not the Obama of 2008. He can no longer run on a vague Hope and Change. He will run on his record against a challenger who can promise the moon. Obama's most significant accomplishments are either unknown or unpopular which does not give him much of a record to run on. He still has the advantages of incumbency but that could be overtaken at any time by events.

At this point, I would give Obama slightly better than a 50/50 chance of reelection. He does not have any challenges within his own party and none of the Republicans feel inevitable. He does not have any advantages like a strong economy and it is hard to imagine any foreign affairs triumphs in the near future. Several things could go wrong and take his presidency with them.

Rating the Candidates

My quick rating of the four Republicans still standing:

Romney - He's the frontrunner. The same qualities that worry conservatives are likely to attract moderate swing voters. He also has the best-organized campaign and is the only candidate left with actual executive experience. That gives him the best chance of beating President Obama. It is not a sure thing but it is a shot. He still says things that can be used against him. He is naturally friendly and open, more than people are used to which makes him seem a little strange.

Deep down conservatives know that Romney is no Reagan and he will break our hearts but he is still an improvement over Obama.

Gingrich - His campaign is fading fast. He finished Michigan behind Ron Paul. And conservatives with long memories remember that he already broke our hearts. He became made numerous promises when he became Speaker of the House. He was going to eliminate whole departments and de-fund PBS. He didn't accomplish many of his promises. Instead he led his party to higher-than expected losses in 1998 which led to his resignation.

Paul - He is the first to admit that he is not in the race to win. He just wants to keep the Libertarian wing from being forgotten.

Santorum - If Romney will break conservatives' hearts, Santorum will break the party. He appeals mainly to the most hard-core social conservatives and has no appeal to moderates or libertarians. Santorum could pull down the entire ticket and deliver the House back to the Democrats.

So, the best choice is to hold your nose and vote for Romney - advice that Clinton gave the Democrats in 1996 about his own candidacy.

Obama's Bubble

I've been reading The Obamas and one thing that strikes me is the extreme bubble that the President lives in. Looking back at what I know of Obama, I think that this has been a defining trait of his life.

His childhood must have been difficult. He started as the son of a white woman and an African at a time when mixed race couples were shot at in some states (it happened to a friend of mine). His father abandoned him and his mother moved to Indonesia and married again. Obama's childhood alternated between of being a foreigner and being a black man raised by whites. Where most blacks in America are descended from slaves, Obama was descended from slave owners.

According to Dreams From My Father, by high school, Obama found a Marxist mentor. In college he says that he didn't have time for anyone except Marxists and radical feminists.

Obama worked for for a private company for a short time and felt like an outsider. He felt like an infiltrator. This antipathy to for-profit employers continues to show up in his speeches.

He spent two years as a community organizer but ultimately was a failure at it. He got his law degree and ran for office. He eventually settled in as a part-time college teacher and state senator. He disliked the Illinois Senate.

After being elected to the US Senate, he discovered that he didn't care much for it either. Several times The Obamas mentions Obama's low regard for Congress and politics in general.

After being elected to the US Senate, the Obamas decided that they would not make any new friends. They worried that new acquaintances would be false friends who were actually advancing an an agenda. They continued this trend after Obama's election to the presidency, actually pulling back on the number of friends they were still in contact with.

So, where does this leave us? All of his adult life Obama has shunned people with conflicting opinions. He is dismissive of them as shown in his speech about bitter clingers.

Obama came to office convinced that any problem could be solved by getting intelligent, well-meaning people to talk to each other. Eventually they would come to a compromise. He was shocked to find that this does not happen. Even within his own cabinet, people will become more fixed on their opinion instead of open to compromise.

Since he was never exposed to dissenting views, Obama tends to see them in the worst possible light. Republican opposition is not based on principled views, it is a cynical attempt to ruin his presidency. Tea Party opposition must be racially motivated.

This has hobbled his Presidency. He fully expected that a well-meaning outreach to countries such as Russia and Iran could reset relations.

During the Gulf Oil Spill, Obama's distrust of executives meant that the spill was going on for weeks before he ever talked with the head of BP.

Other presidents regularly socialized with Congress. Bush invited Congressional leaders to the White House regularly. So did Clinton This served him well when dealing with then-Speaker Gingrich. Newt said that he always "melted" in Clinton's presence and took a couple of days to recover.

In contrast, Obama does not socialize with Congress. It was a front page story when he played golf with the new Republican Speaker. Once.

The result of this is that not even the Democratic leadership in DC really cares for Obama. Reid and Pelosi distrust him. The circle of advisers he trusts keeps getting smaller and smaller and the remaining ones are reluctant to tell him what he needs to hear.

Ironically, Michelle Obama once worked in the Chicago Mayor's Office but left in disgust because he relied on such a small circle of advisers. Now, years later, Michelle and her husband are in the same position.

The Lorax and Message Movies

Lou Dobbs from Fox News accused the movies The Lorax and The Secret World of Arrietty or indoctrinating children. I think that Arrietty is a stretch but there is no doubt that the Lorax is a message movie. That's what Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) meant it to be. Most of Seuss's books are straightforward stories aimed at helping young children to read. Any message is minor (ex. Christmas is too commercial). But, Seuss did write some books that took sides on issues in a fairly strident way and the Lorax is at the top of the list. The message is that logging and manufacturing are evil and that nature should be left as untouched as possible. That trees were cut down in order to spread this anti-logging message is just ironic.

The Lorax is just the most recent in a long line of ecological message movies and TV shows. Around 20 years ago Ted Turner produced Captain Planet and the Planeteers. This featured a multinational group of teenagers who controlled the "five elements". One of the Planeteers was an American and he was a proxy for all Americans as the other four showed him the error of his ways. They fought against evil, sub-humans whose goal was to produce pollution.

Around the same time Ferngully came out in which a young man was shown the evils of deforestation by some supernatural creatures. He eventually went native and helped fight the evil loggers and their heavy equipment. This plot was recycled for Avatar.

These movies are different from movies like Cars 2 or the recent Muppet Movie. Both of those featured big oil as the villain but that was a side-note to the actual plot. The plot needed a villain and big oil was used but the point of the movie was not to sell a message. Cars in particular had a mixed message. The cars were entered in a race to prove that a new alternative fuel was safe while the villains tried to discredit the fuel. It eventually turned out that there was no alternative fuel. It was all a plot to discredit the idea of alternate fuels. But all of this was just a plot device for a buddy movie. The Muppet Movie was written during the Gulf oil spill and oil companies were at the top of the unpopular list at the time. What was needed was someone who wanted to tear down the Muppet Theater. Motivations were secondary.

I always hate message movies. They make me feel used. This is in contrast with movies where the message is secondary. The Iron Giant is an anti-gun movie but that message is pretty well hidden and the message can easily be interpreted to mean that guns are not evil by themselves. Cars 2 can be interpreted as an attack on the alternate energy industry. But there is no way to reinterpret Captain Planet. Polluters are evil pig-creatures and Americans are ignorant.

This comes down to parental responsibility. If you take your child to a movie you should know ahead of time if it is selling a message you disapprove of. If you take your child anyway then you should be prepared to discuss the message. Modern logging includes reseeding and sustainability (and did in 1971 when the book was written) but the story collapses if you include this bit of reality.

It is distressing that so many message movies are presenting messages from the left. This is changing. Many of the superhero movies have a conservative message hidden deep inside. In the meantime, there have been a string of message movie flops. Happy Feet 2 and the many movies about the Iraq war all lost money. Maybe Hollywood will get the idea.

Peal Oil

A few years ago the theory of Peak Oil was popular, especially on the Left. Peak Oil is hit when most of the easily recoverable oil from an oilfield has been pumped. After that, production declines quickly. According to this theory, the formula for figuring production from an oilfield is valid for an entire nation or even the entire world. The originator of this theory, M. King Hubbert, correctly predicted that the US would hit peak production between 1965 and 1970. Because of this success it was assumed that his prediction for the world would also be true. According to this, we passed peak production almost a decade ago in 2004.

The Left, especially the eco-wing has been cheering this on. They figured that Peak Oil would solve all of the world's problems. Once oil production starts to fall rapidly we will see major changes to civilization. As gas becomes more expensive, people will travel less. Eventually food production will start to decline. Governments will change. There will be a major reduction in population due to starvation. Eventually humanity will emerge with a smaller, sustainable population based on green energy (because there will be no alternatives).

But Peak Oil hasn't happened. In fact, the US is producing more oil than ever even though we were supposed to have passed Peak Oil 40 years ago. So what happened?

Economics. What Peak Oil was actually measuring was production of easily recoverable reserves, known as conventional oil. The assumption was that unconventional oil was either too scarce or too difficult to recover to make a difference.

Let me make an analogy with fruit. Conventional oil is the low-hanging fruit. Someone finds a new orchard and starts picking fruit. Others join in and production climbs. But eventually more than half of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. It becomes harder to find a tree that has not been picked. Some additional fruit can be recovered by jumping up but it is not significant. Most of the fruit pickers move onto an other orchard. Eventually most of the orchards have been stripped of low-hanging fruit. Does that mean an end to fruit gathering? Not at all. Someone goes out and buys a ladder. Some others pool their resources and buy a cherry picker (there is a reason these things have that name). Suddenly the fruit reserves have grown enormously. The amount of fruit that is recoverable with cherry pickers dwarfs what can be recovered from the ground. There is more overhead, the cost of the cherry picker is passed along, but it is offset by the increase in supply.

That is what we are seeing now with unconventional oil. Some of it comes from tar sands. Some of it comes from hydraulic fracturing. It costs more to recover but there is a lot of it - a lot more than conventional oil. There is more on the subject here.

But what about that group that was cheering for Peak Oil to solve the Earth's problems? What will they do? Or, more accurately, what are they doing?

They are trying to stop unconventional oil, of course. Suddenly fracking is dangerous. It contaminates the water supply. Tar sand is unacceptable. There are thousands of oil pipelines criss-crossing the country but adding this one more will be an environmental disaster.

Obama's Corporate Tax Plan

At 35%, the US has one of the world's highest corporate tax rates. We also have tax laws riddled with loopholes. The effective tax rate is closer to 25%. Some companies pay more, some pay less. Even that average is higher than the world average. Conservatives have been wanting to lower corporate taxes for some time. President Obama's deficit reduction panel also recommended lowering the tax rate and eliminating loopholes.

Today the White House rolled out a new tax proposal. Most loopholes would be eliminated and the corporate tax rate would be reduced to 28% except for manufacturers which would pay less and for oil and gas companies which would pay more. Where does this leave us?

Confused.

The current effective rate is 25%. Obama wants to eliminate loopholes and reduce the tax rates, all in a revenue-neutral way. How did he come up with 28%? The quick answer is that he is not eliminating all loopholes. A couple of the biggest deductions would remain. Plus, he proposes some new loopholes. Manufacturers will pay a lower rate. Rick Santorum proposed something similar and fiscal conservatives had a fit.

By the way, the US is still the world's biggest manufacturer by a wide margin. Manufacturing jobs have been decreasing because the cost of labor was greater than the cost of automation.

President Obama wants to punish oil and gas companies. This might be a popular move since gas prices are up but these companies' earnings are not out of line. Their profits are around 6% of their sales. They sell a lot of gas and oil so they make a lot of money but Obama has more influence over the price of oil than they do. The current spike was caused by hostilities with Iran which were triggered by sanctions the Obama administration pushed through. Compare this with Apple which counts nearly 30% of its income as profit. Outside of populism, why tax one company higher than another?

Isn't it a little hypocritical for Obama to propose removing loopholes then make exceptions for industries that he does and does not approve of? It might even count as scary.

Apple takes its own hit. It currently has billions in earnings in foreign accounts. They cannot move these profits to the US without paying taxes on them. Obama wants to change this and tax money earned abroad. This would be unique for the industrialized world.

Obama's proposal has little chance of being considered this year which makes it nothing but a campaign document.

Oil and the Economy

Gas is the highest it has ever been at this time of year. It is forecast to set new record prices this Summer. This is bad news because gas and oil prices can have major and unexpected influences on the economy. I never see anyone mention it but the last round of gas price hikes triggered the Great Recession.

Here's what happened.

People were constantly refinancing their homes based on inflated prices. They were taking out variable rate mortgages which were running at record lows. This was because the Fed had been keeping interest rates down in order to stimulate the economy (through low mortgage rates). This is also how a single mother could afford a half-million dollar house.

This demand for housing caused by low-interest mortgages was the driving force behind the real estate bubble. Because there was such a demand for houses and because the value of houses kept going up (and because of Federal action to increase minority home ownership), the standards for getting a loan had been relaxed almost to non-existence. After all, if someone got in financial trouble they could always sell the house for a profit. Because of this, the default rate on mortgages, even sub-prime ones, was low which gave rise to the infamous financial instruments.

Then oil prices started going up. This not only affects the cost of driving. It affects the cost of shipping. It also affects the price of goods created from petroleum including plastic and fertilizers. Directly or indirectly the cost of everything was affected and we started seeing inflation. In order to head this off, the Fed made a minor adjustment in the prime rate.

That minor change showed up in variable interest rates. Suddenly a lot of people could not afford their houses. People began to default. Banks put their foreclosed houses on the market at bargain rates so they could recover their money. That was enough to burst the housing bubble. Housing prices started dropping and people suddenly found themselves underwater. This was amplified because the old requirement of a large down-payment had been dropped. In previous decades, a house could lose 10% of its value and still be worth more than the mortgage but this was no longer the case in the days of no-money-down mortgages.

Big financial institutions started failing. Some, like County Savings, were direct casualties of falling real estate prices. Others were taken down by the sub-prime-backed financial instruments.

The fall was inevitable. Too much debt was loose in the system and it was going to collapse eventually. The point is that it was the jump in oil that did it. It stressed the system enough to break it.

Could that happen again? There are not any obvious major bubbles but the economy is not in any shape to take new stresses. When gas prices go up, people start cutting back. Even if it does not cause a new recession, it could slow the recovery to a crawl (or a slower crawl).

There is a bright side to higher oil prices. The US has vast reserves of oil that are only recoverable at a high price. This includes deep-water wells and shale oil recovered through fracking. That can potentially create thousands of jobs. Will this be enough to offset job losses caused by high oil costs? And will an administration that is sold on clean energy support jobs from oil?

John Glenn 50 years later

I barely remember John Glenn's historic flight. I was only seven when it happened. I was certainly aware of the aftermath. Glenn was suddenly our nation's greatest hero.

Glenn was from New Concord, Ohio which is close to my native Zanesville. It is so close that I remember a local private airport having the plane that Glenn learned to fly in. It was in the back of a hanger.

That Summer Glenn returned home for one of many parades. My mother took me and some friends to see him. It was so crowded that we barely got a glimpse.

By order of JFK, Glenn was grounded. Kennedy felt that Glenn was too important to risk in a future flight. He was eventually cleared for spaceflight late in his life and flew a shuttle mission as the oldest astronaut.

In order to understand why Glenn's flight was so important you have to understand the Cold War and the Space Race. The US and the USSR were competing for the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. A huge portion of the world was communist or socialist at the time. This was not the socialist-light that you find in modern Europe. This was the real thing and it was hostile to the US and Western Europe.

Each side was trying to show that it could produce the best results and the USSR had a big head start. At the end of World War II, Germany had most of the world's knowledge on rocketry. We gathered up the top scientists and brought them to the US to work on our rocketry program but we left a lot of talent behind. The USSR took these and gave them more resources to work with. They launched Sputnik, the first satellite and a few years began launching manned spacecraft into orbit. Prior to Glenn's flight we had only launched two sub-orbital shots. Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth. For the first time we were in the race.

Kennedy was advised that we could never catch up with the USSR in near-Earth space. The only way to win the Space Race was to propose something so different that the Soviets had to start from scratch. This was the moon program. It was a gamble but Kennedy was sure that with an even start we could get to the moon before the USSR. He was correct.

While the moon shot took a lot of money, it had immeasurable benefits. It was the biggest peacetime research and development project ever. Technology developed for the space program was spu off into entire industries. In winning the Space Race, we also won the ideological race. American industry grew while the USSR stagnated. In the end the USSR simply fell apart. The Space Race was part of this victory.