The View from Right Field

Donald Trump Is 2016’s Joe McCarthy: A Bully Who Needs To Be Called Out On It

I have been reading the new biography of George H.W. Bush, Destiny and Power: the American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, by Jon Meacham, and I came across a story about President Bush’s father, Prescott Bush, when he was running for the U.S. Senate from Connecticut in 1952.  I thought the story had some relevance for today:

“During the ’52 campaign, Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, the Republican red-baiter, who had won national celebrity by raising fears about Communist infiltration in America, was the featured speaker at a rally at the Klein Memorial Auditorium in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Beginning with a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1950, McCarthy had capitalized on Cold War tensions by claiming, at first, that he had a list of 205 ‘members of the Communist Party who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.’  The numbers would change – downward – and McCarthy frequently hurled reckless charges.  He had, however, tapped into widespread anxieties about the Soviets, and droves showed up to hear him in Bridgeport.  Arriving at the venue on Fairfield Avenue, Prescott was stunned by the si8ze and ardor of the crowd.  It was standing room only.  Seated onstage with McCarthy, Bush listened as the state’s national committeeman, party chairman, and finally Senator William Purtell all bid McCarthy welcome.  When Bush’s turn came, he remembered that his knees where ‘shaking considerably.’

The Heck with Climate Change, We Need to Stop El Nino

If NASA is right, it looks like El Nino is going to cause more problems this year than climate change.  The people worried about climate change (the weather phenomenon formerly known global warming) talk about what could happen 100 years from now.  According to these reports, this year’s El Nino is going to be as bad as 1998, which was only seventeen years ago.  That schedule means we are going to have another bad El Nino, maybe lots of them, a lot sooner than next century.

One question:  Could we keep El Nino out if Donald Trump gets to build his fence on the Mexican border?

What Christmas Is All About

My annual Christmas Eve Post:

Charlie Brown:  "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.  Lights, please?

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.  And they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you.  Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.’

"That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

 

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PS: "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is also to be treasured because it is one of the few places today where you can hear the story of our Savior's birth in the King James Version, which has a magnificence to its language that is timeless. 

Beating ISIS: Should We Collect Metadata or Trash the First Amendment?

Given that President Obama has called ISIS (aka Islamic State and ISIL) “a bunch of killers with good social media,” it is not surprising that Donald Trump has said we should talk to “Bill Gates and a lot of different people” to figure out how we can go about “maybe in certain areas closing that Internet up in some ways.”  Mr. Trump was dismissive of possible First Amendment concerns:  “Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’  These are foolish people.”

But it’s not just Donald Trump who is saying these things.  Here’s Hillary Clinton:

“Resolve means depriving jihadists of virtual territory just as we work to deprive them of actual territory. … They are using websites, social media, chat rooms and other platforms to celebrate beheadings, recruit future terrorists, and call for attacks.  We should work with host companies to shut them down ….  You’re going to hear all of the usual complaints, you know, freedom of speech, et cetera.  But if we truly are in a war against terrorism and we are truly looking for ways to shut off their funding, shut off the flow of foreign fighters, then we’ve got to shut off their means of communicating.”

Another Former Chicago Bears Player Is Diagnosed With Degenerative Brain Disease – And That Is News?

The Chicago Tribune reports this morning on yet another former Chicago Bears great who was diagnosed as having had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain injury that has been found in lots of former professional football players.  In fact, the reports of former football players have CTE are becoming so common, it is almost not “news” anymore that a former football having the disease.  A couple more of these, and we will be at the point that the real news will be that a person played professional football for any period of time and did not have a brain injury.

Professional football has become nothing more than very large men shortening each other’s life expectancy.  Which makes you wonder how much longer parents will allow their children to play football.

Why Does the Obama Administration Keep Making It Easy for People Like Donald Trump?

A week ago, The New York Times published a story saying Tashfeen Malik, who carried out the San Bernardino massacre with her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, had “talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad.”¹  The article went on to say:

“Had the authorities found the post years ago, they might have kept her out of the country.  But immigration officials do not routinely review social media as part of their background checks, and there is a debate inside the Department of Homeland Security over whether it is even appropriate to do so.”

Needless to say, the story was a big topic at the Republican debate last Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday, however, James Comey, director of the FBI, said that the things Tashfeen Malik had said were in “direct, private messages” to her husband and, according to a revision to the Times’ story, “were not made in widely accessible social media posts.”

That changes things.  Except it doesn’t, because Mr. Comey’s statement didn’t say anything about the fact that, regardless of whether Ms. Malik posted her comments publicly, immigration officials don’t routinely look at social media in checking people who are applying for a visa.  And, in fact, there is apparently a debate within DHS as to whether it is even appropriate to check social media.

President Obama Goes Back to Hawaii for Vacation; American Troops Go Back Into Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Now Syria, Too.

Last year in December, President Obama celebrated the end of our “combat mission” in Afghanistan.  It wasn’t true at the time, but ending our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was one of the things his presidency was supposed to be about, so he used some slick wording and clever definitions to claim our combat mission was ending when it really wasn’t.  Now The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is doing even more in Afghanistan:

“A U.S. Special Operations spokesman confirmed in an email that ‘additional U.S. special forces have been sent to augment our Train, Advise, and Assist mission in Helmand.’  The spokesman declined to comment on the number of teams.

The role of the A-Teams in Helmand is to advise Afghan troops as part of the NATO support mission, but they often accompany Afghan forces during military operations and fight when they are threatened.  They are also authorized to call in airstrikes.”

In other words, U.S. special forces units are fighting in Afghanistan.  If our “combat mission” was ever over, it’s back on now.

Did George W. Bush’s Invasion of Iraq Create the Islamic State?

In recent discussions on the Islamic State (a/k/a ISIS and ISIL¹), many people have pointed to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq as where and when it started, or at least where its predecessor(s) started.  (See, for example, here and here.)  Their point is, after we invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, the Shiites took over, excluding, and ultimately radicalizing, the Sunnis in Iraq.  The Sunnis, or at least some of them, turned to Al Qaeda.  More recently, they have turned to ISIS.  Without the invasion, the argument goes, the Sunnis wouldn’t have been radicalized (because they would still be running Iraq, apparently; what the Shia would be doing in that case isn’t explained) and ISIS would have not had a place to grow.

It may be that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein was not a good idea.  (For an opposite view, see here.)  At the very least, the invasion of Iraq was poorly planned and poorly executed.  We invaded with just enough troops to beat Saddam Hussein’s depleted army – but with not nearly enough to secure the country after we won.  When Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told the House Armed Services Committee that it would take several hundred thousand troops to run Iraq after the invasion, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said Shinseki’s number was “wildly off the mark.”  It wasn’t.  It was based on prior military occupations that were successful.²  In fact, given the number of troops we had in Iraq after the invasion, it is good Saddam Hussein didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction (other than leftovers from the past).  We probably wouldn’t have had enough troops to guard all the storage sites. 

What Do Hillary Clinton’s Emails Tell Us About Whether She’s Experienced Enough To Be President

Hillary Clinton’s supporters talk about her experience, both as a senator and as secretary of state, in explaining why she would be a good president.  Eight years as a senator; four years as secretary of state.  She’s prepared.

Really? Another batch of former Secretary Clinton’s emails came out last week.  As has often happened, several of them were marked “Classified” and others had lots of information marked out (“redacted” is fancy term).  The State Department, however, in line with what former Secretary Clinton has claimed, i.e., that she never received or sent any documents marked “Classified” on her home server¹, said that the “Classified” stamps were new and do not indicate that the information in the emails was classified when Secretary Clinton sent them.

Except that doesn’t work. The subject matter of these emails, and their attachments, is the same now as it was then.  If the subject matter is classified now, it almost certainly was classified then, and it should have been marked “classified.”  But whether it was marked classified or not, if the information was secret or confidential, it needed to be handled as if it were classified, and if former Secretary Clinton was receiving or sending it on her personal server at home, then it doesn’t appear that is how she was handling it.

Goodbye, Starlin. We’ll Miss you.

In effect, Starlin Castro and some money just got traded for a 35-year old second baseman (Ben Zobrist) and a 28-year old starter/reliever (Adam Warren).  Whether Zobrist is the right way to go at second is questionable (he’s old), but hopefully Warren can help.  We need pitching.

In any case, my post of June 15, “In Appreciation of Starlin Castro,” which concluded “Starlin Castro.  Cubs’ shortstop.  For a long time.” was way off.  Starlin didn’t even make two more months as the Cubs’ shortstop.  Still, he handled his benching in August, and then his move to second base, very professionally.  And he came back to have a great September and help us get to the playoffs, where he had a solid series against the Cardinals.

Starlin gave Cubs fans hope for the future back when we didn’t have much.  I am glad he got to the playoffs with us this year, and I hope he does well with the Yankees.  We’ll miss you, Starlin.