|
In This Issue:
|
Sign up to get the letter emailed directly to you by clicking here! |
|
 Here nationalreview.com headlines: “Meet Jeb Bush’s National Security Advisor.”
The advisor in question happens to be John Noonan. NR notes that Noonan has been a contributor to The Weekly Standard (the mouth piece for the neocon faction):
Noonan’s hire is earning praise from the hawkish wing of the GOP and assuaging some early concerns among that crowd that Bush’s own views might resemble his father’s more than his brother’s.
I am also aware that neocon #1 Paul Wolfowitz has been added to the Bush foreign policy team. I cannot imagine a more unpleasant team addition.
Nationalreview.com wraps it up neatly by advising, “Noonan went on to serve as a policy advisor for Foreign Policy Initiative-a nonprofit organization whose board includes prominent thinkers associated with the neoconservative movement, including Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Bill Kristol, the founder and editor of the Weekly Standard.”
My focus regarding foreign policy and national security is based on a foundation of research provided by the Cato Institute and its vice president for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Chris Preble. When I ran the Noonan name past Chris this morning, his review was, shall we say, not brimming with enthusiasm: “On foreign policy, Jeb Bush could have learned from the mistakes of the past, and assembled a group of advisors who were so successful during his father’s administration. Instead, he has chosen to surround himself with many of the same people who urged his brother to invade Iraq and double down in 2007.”
I followed up with check in at Niskanen center, a new Libertarian Washington think tank organized by former Cato Institute senior operative Jerry Taylor. Niskanen’s Foreign and Defense Policy Matt Fay responded: “The selection of John Noonan shows that the Bush camp has learned nothing from the past decade and a half. Jeb had an opportunity to select someone like Bridge Colby to run his national security team. Colby may be a hawk on a number of issues, but he’s as smart and reasonable a foreign policy thinker you’ll find in DC. Choosing Noonan, Bush confirmed that the neoconservative viewpoint remains ascendant even after the debacle that was his brother’s foreign policy.”
When considering the best course for American foreign policy and national security, one of my favorite strategists is former CIA bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer. In Seeking America’s Survival, I outline some prototypical Scheuer thinking. A neocon slant it has not.
|
| >> read more |
|
When I was a kid my dad would talk to me about money. It was usually unsolicited advice. You know the kind.
The advice he would give was the same advice his father had given to him when my dad was a kid. It was more of a question.
“When is the best time to plant a tree?” he would ask. I had never planted a tree so I didn’t know. Then he’d answer “Yesterday.” I would think, “Great I’m already behind.” Then he would ask, “When is the second best time to plant a tree?” And he’d answer, “Today.” And I would think, “But I have a baseball game.”
Thinking back on his advice this morning I remember that it definitely made sense about the tree but it definitely was not a motivational speech. Talk about feeling like you’re behind the eight ball. And I didn’t have much money so the tree wasn’t getting planted even after baseball.
Now that I think about it, the whole idea of saving and investing isn’t a whole lot of fun, especially when you’re a kid. I’ve tried to teach my kids about compound interest. We opened bank accounts at Bank Newport. But when the statements come in there’s not much to teach about the importance of interest earning interest.
But the act of saving is an important lesson all by itself. And compound interest—when it actually does its magic—is fun. A whole lot of fun.
Teach someone you love about the importance of beating inertia by saving money—and they’ll never forget you.
|
| >> read more |
|
“It’s an astonishing event,” writes George Will, as reported in the WSJ. Hillary (Clinton) wants to change the First Amendment “in order to further empower the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political speech about the political class.”
Read here from Mr. Will’s speech at the William F. Buckley, Jr. Disinvitation Dinner about those who have had their invitation to speak at U.S. universities retracted because of their views. What is even more astounding is “there’s not a ripple of commentary about this on the stagnant waters of the American journalistic community.”
Will writes:
Free speech has never been, in the history of our republic, more comprehensively, aggressively and dangerously threatened than it is now. The Alien and Sedition Acts arose from a temporary, transitory fever and were in any case sunsetted and disappeared. The fevers after and during the First World War and in the early culture war era also were eruptions of distemper rooted in local conditions and local issues bound to disappear, which they did.
Today’s attack is different. It’s an attack on the theory of freedom of speech. It is an attack on the desirability of free speech and indeed if listened to carefully and plumbed fully, what we have today is an attack on the very possibility of free speech. The belief is that the First Amendment is a mistake. . . .
Yesterday the Democratic Party, the oldest political party in the world, the party that guided this country through two world wars and is more responsible than any other for the shape of the modern American state—the Democratic Party’s leading and prohibitively favored frontrunner candidate for the presidential nomination announced four goals for her public life going forward, one of which is to amend the Bill of Rights to make it less protective. It’s an astonishing event. She said that she wants to change the First Amendment in order to further empower the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political speech about the political class—and so far as I can tell there’s not a ripple of commentary about this on the stagnant waters of the American journalistic community.
Related video:
|
| >> read more |
|
In fact all American voters must demand that their elected representatives in Washington turn thumbs down on what Pat Buchanan calls the “largest trade deal in history.”
Mr. Buchanan highlights that pressure for “fast track” on TPP is coming from two sources:
- The editorial pages of papers like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post that truckle to the transnational corporations that provide the advertising revenue stream keeping them alive.
- Obama is relying on Congressional Republicans who, for all their bravado about defying his usurpations, know on which side their bread is buttered. It’s the Wall Street–K Street side.
Related video:
|
| >> read more |
The Cato Institute’s Ted Galen Carpenter advises “There is little credible evidence that Havana has been involved in promoting terrorist activity at any time during the past two decades…If a government is on the terrorist sponsor list, it ought to be guilty of, well sponsoring terrorism.”
President Obama has announced, much to the displeasure of the war hawks, that Cuba would be removed from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. Rand Paul has signed an open letter of support for the president’s action on Cuba.
Debbie and I have, for the last twenty-five years, lived in a strongly Cuban influenced community here on our little island of Key West. The Cuban folk we know all agree that there is a long road ahead in terms of the Cuban government freeing their people from the oppressive yolk that has held the country back for decades. I was just yesterday speaking with a young woman who has been in the states for about a dozen years, but whose mother remains in Cuba. My Key West friend goes back to Cuba often and is the first to explain how bad conditions are. But with, not inconsiderable reservation, she hopes that the Obama initiative can be an initial stepping stone to a brighter future for the Cuban people.
Here in Key West we are only 90 miles from Cuba and a number of our most savvy business owners are already making preparations for a resumption of more normalized relations with Cuba. In that there is no acknowledged reason to currently suspect the Cuban government of terrorist activities it is time for the American people to get behind President Obama and Rand Paul on normalizing relations.
Related video:
|
| >> read more |
|
If you’re interested in long-range shooting it’s important to pick the right cartridge for you. I like the Sniper 101 video series by TiborasaurusRex. Don’t be put off by the name. This is an incredibly informative series for serious shooters or those who aspire to be. Like most skills in life it’s important to build a strong foundation while trying to keep it simple. Rex does an incredible job of describing the task at hand in an easy to follow manner. Your eyes may glaze over now and then but this video gives you the intel on cartridge selection while trying to keep it simple.
From the video: What is the best sniper cartridge? Examine the long range potential of .223, 5.56 NATO, .243 Win, 6.5×284 Norma, .260, 7mm-08, 7mm Rem Mag, 7mm Ultra Mag, .308, 7.62 NATO, 30-06, .300 Win Mag, .300 Rem Ultra Mag, .338 Lapua Magnum, .408 Chey Tac, .416 Barrett, and the .50 cal BMG. Rex systematically breaks down long range cartridge selection, so you can make a informed decision.
|
| >> read more |
|
 Remember the 1990s when the Clinton re-election campaign took cash from the Riadys of Indonesia and various Chinese political operatives? Remember how the Clintons rented out the White House for fund-raising “coffees” and sleep-overs? And of course you remember Bill’s pardon for Marc Rich as the Clintons departed the White House.
Kimberly A. Strassel writes in the WSJ that the standard operating procedure for the Clintons never changes. Only the details change.
Say this about Bill and Hillary Clinton: They are predictable. Some politicians dare to change, even to evolve, but not the former first couple. In these uncertain political times, Team Clinton’s lack of ethics—and its stock response when caught—is our one constant.
Read more from Ms. Strassel here on how Hillary and Bill keep piling on scandals and liabilities.
Strassel writes:
The Democratic Party has changed. It’s now more Obama than Clinton, its left dominated by progressives who didn’t grow up under Hillary, and don’t much like her. They want Elizabeth Warren, and what surely terrifies the Clintons is the potential party explosion were the Massachusetts senator to jump in at this moment of vulnerability. Would it take much to send the party bolting to a fresher female firebrand—without the baggage?
Maybe not, because Mrs. Clinton isn’t putting on the best show. She never had Bill’s political charm, and her years out of elected politics are showing. She looks grim. She looks cautious—hedging her bets, refusing to take positions. She looks out of touch, in the Scooby-Doo van. Mrs. Warren doesn’t have any of these problems.
The most likely scenario is still that the Clintons prevail—the media lets go the stories, the party sticks with the $2.5 billion woman. But as the Clintons replay the scandal script, and keep adding liabilities to Hillary’s campaign, you have to imagine a growing number of Democrats are wondering: what if? The Clintons might, at the very least, want to consider updating that manual.
Related video:
|
| >> read more |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
