ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

Conservative politicians want to cut spending — except for the military. Where that's concerned, they sound like liberals. In fact, conservatives have adopted several liberal ploys to justify today's bloated military budget.

First, big spenders on the right argue that Washington must continue doing everything that it has ever done abroad. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), one of the leading pork hawks, has denounced the idea of doing "less with less."

Yet the Department of Defense spends most of its money to protect other nations, including those that are populous and prosperous. All together, the Europeans have a larger GDP and population than America and ten times the GDP and three times the population of Russia. South Korea has 40 times the GDP and twice the population of North Korea. Why is the U.S. taxpayer still paying for their protection, 67 years after World War II ended?

Even worse has been Washington's foray into militarized nation-building. The Balkans remains a mess nearly two decades after Washington intervened. The Iraq War weakened America and strengthened Iran. The U.S. has been trying to create a competent, honest, and democratic central government in Kabul for a decade. None of these missions advances U.S. security.

But that raises the second excuse that phony conservatives use to justify a bloated Pentagon. Like liberals spending on education, these right-wingers equate money with results. Thus bigger Pentagon budgets mean increased national security. Only it's not true: greater military spending is strategic waste on a grand scale.

While the world is dangerous, it is not particularly dangerous to America. The U.S. is surrounded by oceans east and west and friendly neighbors north and south. America is allied with every major industrialized state save Russia and China. Washington already has a thousand military installations around the world. The American navy is equivalent to that of next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to U.S. allies.

Washington spends as much as the rest of the world — and spends more, in real terms, than at any point during the Korean War, Vietnam War, or Cold War. America could spend less and still possess far larger and more capable forces than anyone else.

Such overcapacity actually encourages Washington to meddle in foreign conflicts that foolishly deplete our military capital. As a result, guys using AK-47s and improvised explosive devices tied down the world's greatest power for years in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Terrorism remains a threat, but not an existential one like the old Soviet Russia. Moreover, Al-Qaeda has been wrecked by relatively inexpensive techniques short of conventional war: good intelligence, Special Forces strikes, international cooperation, financial sanctions. In contrast, the invasion of Iraq created an entirely new class of terrorists, some of whom have migrated to other conflicts, such as Libya and Syria.

The third idea spendthrift militarists have recycled from the liberals of yesteryear is using "baseline budgeting" to complain that Barack Obama has "cut" defense outlays. This is the same way Democrats once charged that Ronald Reagan drastically "cut" domestic spending — by reducing the rate of increase.

Total military outlays were $306 billion in 2001. Since then they have risen steadily, breaching the $700 billion barrier under Barack Obama in 2011. In real, inflation-adjusted terms, expenditures increased 74.5 percent over the last decade. In the Obama administration's first two years inflation-adjusted military spending rose 16.8 percent. Outlays last year, in real terms, were 23.5 percent above the Korean War peak in 1953, 22.5 percent above the Vietnam War peak in 1968, and 35.8 percent above the Reagan build-up peak in 1989.

Spending will stop racing ahead this year but not because of real cuts: the administration has only proposed reducing planned increases over the coming decade by $487 billion. As former House Majority Leader Richard Armey observed, these "cuts" are "only from the bloated CBO baseline. This means that [Obama] is merely reducing projected military spending, as opposed to cutting current spending."

If Congress does not trim overall spending by $1.2 trillion over the coming decade, the sequestration agreed to during last summer's debt ceiling debate is supposed to kick in, with the equivalent amount in cuts divided equally between domestic and military outlays. This prospect has caused much neoconservative wailing and gnashing of teeth.

In fact, say Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center and Ben Friedman of the Cato Institute, non-war outlays would still increase, only "by about 10 percent today, as opposed to the 18 percent the administration wants." (War expenses are exempted.) Overall, they figure, as a result of sequestration military expenditures would grow by 18 percent rather than 20 percent from now through 2021.

The present rate of growth is too much even for some hawks. "Under sequestration, the Defense Department would still be spending more money in 2021 than it is spending today," adds Andrew McCarthy of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Moreover, that spending increase — not cut, increase — comes atop a decade-long spending bonanza."

Yet some of the most prominent neoconservatives are scaremongers. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations cites an estimate that the combined effect of all "cuts" would result in a 31 percent drop in real military spending. But even if this "worst case" came to pass, real outlays would be at 2007 levels, which were 39 percent higher than in 2001. Moreover, the reduction would come when the U.S. was no longer fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. America would still lap the rest of the world in the global arms race.

The fourth tactic for conservatives addicted to military-industrial pixie dust is playing the "Washington Monument" game — threatening to kill the most important programs (in this case, weapon systems) first. Just as liberals, faced with demands for cuts to local budgets, will threaten schools, police, and fire departments first, pork hawks want to claim that DoD reductions must come out of indispensable programs. Again, that's not true: military cutbacks should start with force structure, especially army units.

With allies capable of defending themselves, the U.S. should not plan on fighting a major land war in Europe or Asia. And there should be no more nation-building. The U.S. should maintain superior air and naval forces, but in smaller numbers sufficient to prevent attack on America rather than to police the globe. Such a strategic readjustment does not mean the end of our ability to project force abroad: America would continue to act as an off-shore balancer capable of aiding friendly states against a hostile power seeking Eurasian hegemony. This would not only be more affordable but makes greater strategic sense than behaving as an in-region meddler determined to micromanage local conflicts.

Could the unexpected occur? Of course. Should the U.S. have a surge capacity in the event of an emergency? Certainly. Should Washington adjust its plans if international circumstances change? Definitely. But it makes no sense to maintain an oversized military for decades because someday a country like China might behave badly. When that time comes, a bloated Defense apparatus would be too slow and encumbered to act.

The fifth and last resort of Washington big-spenders is demagoguery. Advocates of a colossal military trash their opponents as "isolationists" who want to undermine America. Columnist Lurita Doan accused President Obama of seeking "to render our military neither well-armed nor well-planned." New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon — neoconservatives are nothing if not globalist — charged that "hard-bitten Leninists and disciplined Marxists" were behind plans to reduce U.S. military outlays.

Just look at the hype. Reductions in military spending, we are told, would be "totally destructive" and "very dangerous to the survival of the country," would "destroy" the Pentagon, set America on a "perilous course," be "dangerous and irresponsible," leave America "in the greatest peril," "would decimate our military," threaten America's "national security interests," be "totally devastating," send "a very horrible message" to America's enemies, create the "threat of gutting national security," "break" the military, "invite aggression," cause "severe and irreversible impact," leave America "teetering on the precipice of disaster," cause "catastrophic damage," "put our national security on the chopping block," leave "a hollow force," "disarm the United States unilaterally," result in "American lives lost," fail "to provide for the safety and security of our country," and call "into question our nation's ability to remain a free people."

All of this from returning military outlays to 2007 levels.

The fundamental question is whether military spending should respond to the threat environment. Leading Republicans answer no: America must always and in every situation spend more.

Pork hawks routinely denounce the post-Cold War drawdown, a 27.8 percent drop in real outlays from peak to trough that was erased in just six years. The Soviet Union had disintegrated. The Warsaw Pact had dissolved. Maoism had disappeared from China. Colin Powell observed that he was running out of enemies — down to Kim Il-sung and Fidel Castro. Still the pork hawks wailed. And some go farther. Max Boot decries every previous drawdown, including after the Revolutionary War.

Congressman J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) complains that spending reductions would result in an America "that can go fewer places and do fewer things." But what if going to most of those "places" and doing most of those "things" does not advance U.S. interests? Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has testified that military cutbacks might require reducing "our presence perhaps in Latin America, our presence in Africa." So?

There are bad actors in the world, but they need not automatically be America's problem. Gen. Robert H. Scales (ret.) argues that "We cannot pick our enemies; our enemies will pick us." Actually, in recent years Washington has done most of the picking and attacking: Haiti, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Libya.

Max Boot similarly asserts: "Certainly there has not been — nor is there likely to be — a decreased demand for the armed forces. They are constantly having new missions thrown their way, from defending our nation's computer networks to deposing a dictator in Libya and providing relief to Japanese tsunami survivors." None of these tasks justifies maintaining a titanic military in a constitutional republic facing a troubled future of deficits, debts, and unfunded liabilities.

Even those who say military outlays can never be cut must ultimately decide how much is enough. Half of the world's outlays? Three-quarters? Four-fifths? Even if Washington could afford to spend ever more, the rest of the world might not go along with America's plan. If the U.S. spends more to contain China, China is sure to ramp up its outlays to deter us. After all, Americans would not stand idly by if another country placed bases in Mexico and Canada, used its fleets to patrol the Gulf of Mexico and both coasts, and casually talked of war to contain American ambitions. China will act no differently.

America is more secure today than at any point since before World War II. Military outlays should be reduced accordingly.

That will require scaling back Washington's international objectives. But the U.S. should stop garrisoning the globe, subsidizing rich friends, and reconstructing poor enemies. Instead, it's about time Washington focused on defending America and its people.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan.

Today, in a 2–1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that defined marriage in the California constitution as one man and one woman.

The appeals court decision upholds the decision of the lower court, which struck down Prop 8 as unconstitutional. According to the court of appeals, there was no “legitimate reason” for California voters to enact Prop 8.

In contrast to the trial court, the appeals court decision bases its decision on very narrow grounds that might not apply in other cases not involving the unique facts of Prop 8.

The court states:

Whether under the Constitution same-sex couples may ever be denied the right to marry…is an important and highly controversial question.… We need not and do not answer the broader question in this case, however…[, because the] unique and strictly limited effect of Proposition 8 allows us to address the amendment’s constitutionality on narrow grounds.

However, the panel’s “narrow” reasoning is little more than an activist house of cards. According to the panel, because the California constitution guaranteed a right to same-sex marriage—a right that existed for less than six months as a result of another activist judicial decision that modified both how the California constitution had always been read and the application of a state law enacted through initiative—the people of California could not amend their constitution to putatively disadvantage those who would seek to avail themselves of same-sex marriage without meeting the liberal court’s heavy-handed standards for what constitutes “legitimate” reasons.

While denying that the decision creates a one-way ratchet in which any activist opinion creating rights or privileges becomes beyond correction by the people, that is precisely what this stunning decision does.

The ruling is lengthy and will bear additional analysis. But according to one legal scholar, “the case now has a seemingly clear path to the Supreme Court.” If the importance of the legal question wasn’t sufficient to guarantee that, consider that the decision was authored by liberal activist Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who has done much to contribute to the Ninth Circuit’s reputation for high reversal rates by the Supreme Court. Indeed, it has been frequently reported that Judge Reinhardt is so brazen about his lawless activism that he has bragged that the Supreme Court “can’t catch ‘em all”—“‘em” being his legally wayward opinions.

As the Ninth Circuit writes, the question of how to define marriage “is currently a matter of great debate in our nation.” Unfortunately, instead of permitting that debate to occur through the political process, decisions like the one issued today remove the question from voters in favor of judicially imposed social policy.

Many Americans will not recognize the name Abu Qatada. Qatada is a radical Muslim cleric currently behind bars in the United Kingdom waiting deportation to Jordan for terrorism-related charges. It has been widely reported that he is also wanted by authorities in Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Algeria and has been once described by a Spanish judge as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe.” The British government claims that Qatada provided religious and spiritual advice to extremist groups almost immediately after arriving in Britain in the mid-1990s.

Qatada is also a threat to the United States. A number of Qatada videos were found in the Hamburg apartment of Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 attacks. He is also alleged to have links to Abu Doha, an Algerian national who was instrumental in planning an aborted plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium celebrations in December 1999.

In 2000, Qatada was convicted in absentia in Jordan for his role in plotting terrorist attacks at high-profile tourist sites. Viewed as a threat to British security, he was locked up while waiting deportation to Jordan. After he appealed his deportation in 2009, the highest appeals court in the U.K. ruled against Qatada, saying that he could be deported to Jordan because the U.K. received adequate assurances from the Jordanians that he would not be tortured.

While waiting to be deported to Jordan, Qatada took the U.K. government to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to appeal the decision by the U.K. appeals court. Last month the ECHR overruled the British courts, ruling that deporting Qatada to Jordan would be a violation of his human rights. A U.K. court ruled yesterday that Qatada can longer be held behind bars and must be released on bail. It is expected that he will be back on the streets of London in the next few days.

The release, even on the terms of bail, of someone as dangerous as Qatada is unacceptable. Prime Minister David Cameron has been very critical of the ECHR and has led the calls in Europe for the court to be reformed. If supranational judges in Strasbourg continue to overrule decisions taken by national courts, London will soon have to choose between membership in the ECHR and its ability to deport terrorist suspects. The Prime Minister, Home Secretary, and Attorney General in the U.K. should do all they can to prevent Qatada from being released.

Rich Lowry: half-baked in America. Clint Eastwood's ad was bad history. If New York is giving the Giants a Parade, why not one for the Iraq Vets?...2012-02-07T04:00:00-05:002012-02-07T23:40:14ZMike Gallagher

The U.S. coal industry is facing a grim outlook in 2012, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pollution rules are one big reason.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule have contributed to the premature shutdown of several coal plants and the idling of coal mines across the country. The EPA’s attack on coal is sending electricity bills skyrocketing as more expensive sources of energy take coal’s place. While anti-coal protestors cheer, American families are paying the price.

Alpha Natural Resources, a major Appalachian coal producer, announced plans to lower coal production last Friday as demand for coal by electric utilities is dropping:

Alpha subsidiaries in Kentucky and West Virginia will idle four mines immediately and two others between now and early 2013, while several other mines will alter work schedules or reduce the number of production crews. Altogether 10 mining operations are affected, four in eastern Kentucky and six in southern West Virginia.… Alpha’s Central Appalachian businesses are seeing more electric utilities switch from thermal coal to natural gas to take advantage of gas prices at 10-year lows. A series of federal regulatory actions also have prompted utilities to implement plans for shutting down a number of generating stations that have traditionally run on coals sourced from Central Appalachia.

Just a week earlier, Ohio-based FirstEnergy directly cited the impact of environmental regulations as the basis for retiring six coal plants by September of this year:

Its generation subsidiaries will retire six older coal-fired power plants located in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by September 1, 2012. The decision to close the plants is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.

Natural gas prices are currently at a decade low, but as demand continues to grow, natural gas prices will likely rise. The switch from coal to natural gas by electric utilities in response to the EPA regulations is thus a boon to both environmentalists and the natural gas industry. As Charles Blanchard, the U.S. power sector analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, explains:

The interests of fossil fuel producers and environmentalists are (unusually) aligned: higher domestic gas prices would bode well both for gas producers and higher-cost renewable energy projects.… The impetus for [rising gas prices] will emanate from within the United States, as old age and EPA regulation force the closure of dozens of gigawatts of coal power plants.

Household electricity bills, which skyrocketed in 2010, will continue to rise as Americans are forced to use more expensive sources of energy to power their businesses and homes. This in turn will result in higher prices for other goods and services as higher electricity prices increase production costs.

Those most hurt by policies that increase the price of energy are lower-income households, which spend a much larger portion of their income on energy, and senior citizens, who have the highest per-capita residential energy consumption.

...But I think he doesn't nearly go far enough: U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., joined by representatives of student, senior and disabled voters, called on Minnesota Democrats to unify in opposition to a photo ID requirement for voting. He said that while most Minnesotans carry an approved, government-issued photo ID, "that's not true of everybody. And this democracy has got to work for

Tonight’s precinct caucuses give Minnesota Republicans a chance to have a say in which candidate is best-suited to face President Obama in November. Well, not really. The results of tonight’s vote are non-binding, which means no delegates will be awarded based on them. Which is the same way it works in a certain neighboring state whose caucus attract a great deal more attention. At least we should be able to conduct an accurate and timely count of the vote.

At this point, I’m torn about which way I should vote. I followed fellow Frater Saint Paul in jumping on the Gingrich bandwagon after he appeared to be the best and most viable alternative to Romney. While I still like a lot about Newt, his viability as the non-Romney candidate has now come into serious question. While I definitely think Ron Paul and his paleo-libertarian views have a place in the Republican Party, he is simply not a serious consideration for CIC. That leaves us with Rick Santorum. While Santorum raises concerns in a number of areas, it seems like he may now be best positioned to emerge as the chief contender to Romney. Wins in Minnesota and Missouri could help his campaign regain the momentum they briefly had (and lost) after the Iowa caucus. And a late switch to Santorum wouldn’t violate the Buckley Rule: “Support the most conservative Catholic candidate who is electable.” Okay, I may have added a little corollary there.

Pondering who to support tonight also lead to the realization that when it comes to GOP presidential primary endorsements (at least the contested ones), I’ve rarely had the privilege of been able to support a candidate from start to finish.

It started way back in 1980. Believe it or not, I was actually backing George H.W. Bush at the beginning of the primary campaign. Once it became obvious that Reagan was the man of the hour, I realized the error of my ways and became a confirmed Reaganite. Keep in mind that I was all of eleven at the time.

I don’t really consider 1988 to be much of a contest as Bush was the sitting VP and natural choice.

1996 was a different matter. Early on, I was actually intrigued by the candidacy of one Lamar Alexander. Yes, that Lamar Alexander. Anyway, once Lamarmentum failed to catch hold, I reluctantly came over to support the sacrificial lamb known as Bob Dole.

In 2000, I started out as a tepid supporter of George W. Bush. The media’s infatuation with “maverick” John McCain eliminated him from consideration and although I liked Steve Forbes’ policies, I just couldn’t see him winning a national election.

Going in to 2008, I was excited about having Rudy Giuliani in the hunt. Then there was the Fred Thompson bubble. Remember Sam Brownback? Finally, I settled (again) with John McCain.

Then there were the ones who never ran like Tommy Thompson or that former South Carolina governor who I was at one point convinced would make a fine candidate for president. Sigh. I’m not sure if this history is a indictment of my judgment or that of my fellow Republicans.

One thing is certain. No matter who I decide to vote for tonight, they won’t be the one I really want.

February 7-14, 2012 is National Marriage Week. During this week, a series of blogs explores the latest trends in marriage and their implications for adults, children, and society.

Though “Americans believe overwhelmingly in the importance of marriage,” for decades now, marriage has been steadily declining.

Marriage. Americans have become less likely to marry. In 1960, about two in three adults were married, compared to one in two adults today. This is partly because Americans are marrying later. Since 1970, the median age for first marriage has increased by more than five years for both men and women. According to the National Marriage Project, other contributing factors include rising cohabitation, a small decreased tendency toward remarriage, and perhaps some increase in lifelong singlehood.

Divorce. Since its peak in 1980, the annual divorce rate has declined slightly but remains high—nearly double the rate in 1960. Overall, 40 percent to 50 percent of first marriages will end in divorce or separation. However, some emerging data suggest that recent marriages are becoming slightly more stable. For example, couples who first married in and after the late 1980s are 3 percentage points more likely to celebrate their 10th anniversary than those who first married in the early 1980s. Higher income, marital birth, older age at marriage (after age 25), intact family of origin, religious affiliation, and college education all appear to lower the risk of divorce or separation during the first 10 years of marriage.

Cohabitation. Since the 1970s, cohabitation has become increasingly common. Prior to 1970, only about 1 percent of all couples (or 523,000 couples) living together are unmarried. Today, nearly 12 percent (or about 7.6. million couples) are. Among adults ages 25–44, more than 60 percent have cohabitated at some point. Cohabitation, however, is short-lived. After three years, only one-third of the cohabiting relationships remain. (About one-half transition to marriage, and the rest break up.) Even cohabitation with one’s eventual spouse may diminish the subsequent marriage’s stability. The likelihood of making it past their 10th anniversary is 10 percent lower if they had lived together with their wives prior to marriage.

Children’s living arrangements. For many, marriage is no longer treated as necessary for the begetting and raising of children. Since the 1960s, unwed childbearing has skyrocketed. Today, four in 10 children born are to unwed mothers, and the figures are higher among African-Americans (seven in 10) and Hispanics (five in 10). Unwed childbearing occurs primarily among women in their 20s and is the main driver of the growing share of children living in single-parent families.

Divorce, cohabitation, and unwed childbearing all contribute to the growing share of children living in non-intact families. Currently, only 60 percent of children live with both married, biological parents. As decades of research persuasively shows, on average, children in intact families tend to fare better than peers in non-intact families. Thus, children’s living arrangements can significantly impact their well-being, from poverty to education to health to future life prospects.

Increasingly, a marriage caste system is dividing Americans, and its implications are troubling. Director of the National Marriage Project and University of Virginia Professor Brad Wilcox writes, “Among the affluent, marriage is stable and may even be getting stronger. Among the poor, marriage continues to be fragile and weak. But the most consequential marriage trend of our time concerns the broad center of our society, where marriage, that iconic middle-class institution, is foundering.” The evidence is powerful:

• Divorce. Among those who married in the late 1990s, 36 percent of the least educated (high school dropouts), 37 percent of the moderately educated (high school graduates), but only 11 percent of the highly educated (college graduates) divorce or separate within 10 years.
• Cohabitation. Among women, 75 percent of the least educated and 68 percent of the moderately educated but only 50 percent of the highly educated have ever cohabitated.
• Unwed childbearing. Among the least educated women, 54 percent of births are outside of marriage. The figures are 44 percent for the moderately educated and only 6 percent among the highly educated (that is, real-life Murphy Browns are rarities).
• Children’s living arrangements. For 14-year-old girls, 52 percent of those with dropout moms live with both biological parents; the figures are 58 percent for those whose mothers are high school graduates but 81 percent for those whose mothers are college graduates.

Wilcox continues:

The retreat from marriage in Middle America cuts deeply into the nation’s hopes and dreams as well. For if marriage is increasingly unachievable for our moderately educated citizens—a group representing 58 percent of the adult population (ages 25–60)—then it is likely that we will witness the emergence of a new society. For a substantial share of the United States, economic mobility will be out of reach, their children’s life chances will diminish, and large numbers of young men will live apart from the civilizing power of married life.

This retreat is also troubling because highly educated Americans…have in recent years been largely unaffected by the tidal wave of family change that first hit the poor in the 1960s and has since moved higher into Middle America. Indeed, highly educated Americans, who make up 30 percent of the adult population, now enjoy marriages that are as stable and happy as those four decades ago. There is a thus a growing “marriage gap” between moderately and highly educated America. This means that more affluent Americans are now doubly privileged in comparison to their moderately educated fellow citizens—by their superior socioeconomic resources and by their stable family lives.

As such, America “is increasingly a separate and unequal nation when it comes to the institution of marriage.”

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that California's ban on same-sex marriage — enacted in 2008 in a popular vote on Proposition 8 — violates the constitutional right to equal protection. Cato's chairman Robert A. Levy, also co-chair of the advisory board to the American Foundation for Equal Rights (which sponsored the suit) has argued: "The principle of equality before the law transcends the left-right divide and cuts to the core of our nation's character. This is not about politics; it's about an indispensable right vested in all Americans."

• "The Circuit Court Ruling on Proposition 8," by David Boaz
• "Marriage Equality for All Couples," by Robert A. Levy and John D. Podesta
• "The Constitutional Case for Marriage Equality," Cato Video

Via Breitbart.

In a historic first, Josefina Vazquez Mota was chosen on Sunday to be the presidential candidate for Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN). Vazquez Mota’s primary win makes her the first woman in Mexico’s history to be chosen to run for president by one of the country’s three main parties. The road to Los Pinos, the Mexican equivalent of the White House, will be a difficult one.

The lineup is now set. Currently leading in the polls is Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) candidate Pena Nieto. With the PRI party, however, comes uncertainty regarding its return to power, the party’s 71-year hold on the country’s leadership still fresh in the memories of many. Leading the conservative-right PAN party, Vazquez Mota will also be up against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the candidate from the leftist Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). While she currently trails PRI’s Nieto by nearly 20 points in the polls, Vazquez Mota’s nomination is likely to tighten the race.

The three leading candidates are competing to replace President Felipe Calderon, whose term in office expires in December 2012.

Numerous issues will assume a prominent place in the campaign, not the least of which is Mexico’s continued fight against organized crime and drug trafficking. To date, nearly 50,000 people have died—the majority participants in criminal activities—in fights between criminal organizations and against the government and innocent citizens. As the leader of Calderon’s incumbent party, Vazquez Mota will have to stand up against those who criticize Calderon’s efforts and who seek to use them to paint the National Action Party in a negative light. As of Spring 2011, however, 83 percent of Mexicans continued to support the use of the Mexican army to fight drug traffickers, a figure that has been nearly constant in recent years. Other issues such as jobs, poverty, the curbing of the excessive powers of monopolies and unions, rule of law, and energy reform will also figure prominently in the race.

As an economist by education, former Minister of Education and Social Development, and former congresswoman, Vazquez Mota boasts an impressive resume. Receiving 55 percent of the vote in the primary, it’s clear that the newest presidential candidate has won the hearts of her party; now, she must win those of the people.

Critical for U.S.–Mexican relations will be the selection of a president who fights to keep Mexico on the democratic track, advances a reform agenda that makes government more transparent and accountable, builds public trust and confidence, advances economic freedom, and stands ready to work closely with the U.S. on a wide range of trade, border, and security issues. At first glance, Vazquez Mota, the most conservative of the three candidates, appears to be the best of the bunch.

Say what you will about the Minnesota Poll and the Hubert H. Humphrey poll.  As bad, inaccurate, DFL-biased and seemingly-rigged as both are, they both actually release their cross tabs – such as they are. So far. With the WaPo’s … Continue reading →

Anyone hoping to see serious changes to Cuba’s ruling system was again disappointed on January 28 when Raul Castro spoke. In a speech marking a critical conference, the Cuban leader promised change, term limits, economic reform, and a willingness to move younger party members to a more elevated status. Yet, as Raul Castro made many promises to his people during his 48-minute address, one could not help but notice the disparity between his words and the reality of Cuban life and politics.

At one point, he boasted that Cuba is one of the safest and most peaceful nations in the world “without extrajudicial executions, clandestine jails or tortures…[Cuba has] basic human rights that most people on Earth can’t even aspire to.” He forgot to point out that in a police state, law and order usually reign—at least on the surface.

If Cubans have enviable human rights, then why must the government repress nearly all forms of dissent? Why, according to Human Rights Watch, “does the regime continue to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, forced exile, and travel restrictions”? How does it explain the brutal treatment of Cuban women, “las Damas de Blanco” (“the Ladies in White”) who speak for those unjustly jailed by Cuban authorities? Or why does it still hold American Alan Gross, who was jailed in 2009 after donating computer equipment to Cuban Jews?

Castro railed at corruption but ignored the fact that its causes are rooted in the malfunctioning economy and the bureaucratic tyranny of the totalitarian state. And while he may want to jettison ration books in his “egalitarian” society, he fears letting go of the censorship of books and information or permitting free travel.

He warned party loyalists that “opening up” did not give them a right to “meddle in decisions that should be left up to the government officials.” As for democracy and consent of the governed, Castro justified the 52-year-old dictatorship in the following manner: “to renounce the principle of a one-party system would be the equivalent of legalizing a party, or parties, of imperialism on our soil.”

For Raul Castro and the island’s communist elite, term limits, economic reform, and new faces in high places ultimately mean little when an unelected tyrant still calls the shots.

Andrew Murray is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

Finding alternatives to cutting essential military capabilities without raising taxes or ballooning the federal deficit is prudent and necessary.

It is bad enough that, after more than 1,000 days since passing a budget resolution, the Senate has decided to forgo this fundamental obligation once again this year. Even worse is the absurd excuse by Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D–NV) that a budget resolution is unnecessary because Congress already has one—in the form of the Budget Control Act (BCA).

Reid and other Senate leaders contend that the spending cap in the BCA, the product of last year’s debt ceiling debate, is a sufficient proxy for a budget resolution. This nonsensical claim willfully misrepresents the scope of a budget resolution and reflects how thoroughly the Senate majority has abandoned its fundamental governing responsibilities.

It ensures that, although the House will adopt a budget resolution, Congress will stumble along for at least another year without a coherent bicameral plan to begin addressing the government’s looming fiscal crisis—because the Senate has simply chosen not to consider one. If taken seriously, after three straight fiscal years without a congressional budget resolution, this decision could spell the end of any coherent practice of congressional budgeting itself, simply by neglect.

A budget resolution is a broad budget framework that sets priorities for spending and taxes. It guides how much will be spent and where spending should be allocated among government programs such as national defense, transportation, welfare, Medicare, and so on. A budget resolution also establishes what tax policies and major program reforms should be adopted. It charts the budget course in a rational, coherent way for all the spending and tax bills that follow.

The BCA was never more than a poor substitute for a budget resolution—a rushed, eleventh-hour “solution” to a manufactured debt ceiling crisis. Its cap on discretionary budget authority affects only about one-third of total spending, and it is riddled with deliberate loopholes that make the limit all but meaningless. Apart from that, the BCA contained a requirement for a “super committee” to identify at least $1.2 trillion for additional deficit reduction. That process has failed, triggering a crude enforcement procedure that now threatens devastating cuts in defense spending and must be rewritten.

But the BCA offers no sense of budgeting priorities (as a budget resolution does), no recommendations for entitlement reforms, no overall direction for major spending and tax policies. To say, as Senator Reid did, that because of the BCA, “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year—it’s done, we don’t need to do it,” is to disavow a fundamental obligation of governing.

The Senate’s planned inaction on a budget is a cavalier choice not to take its governing responsibilities seriously. It should be judged on those terms.

It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected under the First Amendment, it should not be surprising that Catholics and Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainline Lutherans alike find common cause in defense of their liberties.

Such is the case with the firestorm of opposition to Obamacare and the Obama Administration’s attack on religious liberty. Under a new Obamacare mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House is mandating that virtually all religious employers, with the exception of churches, provide health care coverage for contraception — including abortion-inducing drugs — thereby trampling upon their constitutionally guaranteed free exercise of religion. And it is this mandate that has caused a vehement response in churches and synagogues across the country.

Yesterday, the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, warned that the nation’s 70 million Catholics are ready to go to war with the Administration’s dictates, saying “Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church. This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets.”

Donohue’s remarks follow those of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and at least 153 Catholic bishops across the country who have weighed in with opposition to the mandate. “We Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so,” wrote Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Michigan. Those penalties include fines imposed by the federal government that could cost larger organizations millions of dollars per year.

The Catholic Church is not alone in its opposition to Obamacare’s onslaught against religious freedom. David Addington, The Heritage Foundation’s vice president of Domestic and Economic Policy, details the growing ranks of the faithful who say the Obama Administration has crossed a very dangerous line. The National Association of Evangelicals commented that “The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent” and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America stated, “In declining to expand the religious exemption within the healthcare reform law, the Obama Administration has disappointingly failed to respect the needs of religious organizations such as hospitals, social welfare organizations and more.” The Agudath Israel of America stated its opposition, as did the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America.

The Obama Administration is beginning to feel the pressure. On Sunday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius authored an op-ed in USA Today defending the Obama Administration’s actions, claiming that a very narrow exemption to the mandate is evidence that the White House is “working to strike the right balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing women’s access to critical preventive health services.” That exemption, though, does not apply to institutions like religious schools and hospitals. Sebelius might claim the Administration is offering grace to people of faith, but in fact it is not. In an editorial that ran the same day as Sebelius,’ USA Today agreed with those standing on the side of religious liberty, writing that “in drawing up the rules that will govern health care reform” the Obama Administration “galloped over” the line and violated the “simple proposition that the government should steer away from meddling in church affairs.”

The Obama Administration’s actions, though entirely counter to the freedom of religion, should not be surprising given the nature of the President’s health care law. Obamacare has given the federal government broad power over one-sixth of the American economy and thereby purports to grant Washington the power to force religious institutions to take actions contrary to their faith. Addington writes that this kind of concentration of power “has proved to be a drastic and dangerous experiment.” America’s religious leaders and the faithful have awoken to this wolf at their door and are lashing out in defense of their freedoms. Congress, too, should act now by repealing Obamacare and restoring the religious liberty that is so central to our way of life.

Quick Hits:

• Where does pork barrel spending go? A new investigation by The Washington Post finds that congressional earmarks are sometimes used to fund projects near lawmakers’ properties.
• Will California’s ban on gay marriage stand? The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is set to decide today whether Proposition 8 violates the Constitution.
• Gas prices are again at record high levels. At an average $3.37 per gallon in January, a typical household spent $168.50 on gas last month — $30 more than in 2010.
• Iran is responding to U.S. sanctions targeting the country’s central bank, calling it “an antagonistic move, psychological warfare which has no impact.” Lawmakers there are also vowing to ban crude exports to European countries.
• Is the individual mandate at the heart of “ObamaCare” a conservative idea? Is it constitutional? And was it invented at The Heritage Foundation? In a word, no. Read more about it on The Foundry.

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The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently delivered a new report, “A Historical Perspective on ‘Hollow Forces.’” It is cold comfort to those who are really worried about the ability of our military to defend us.

A military that looks good on paper but can’t adequately defend the country is the definition of a “hollow force.” A military force becomes hollow when it lacks sufficient capabilities to field trained and ready forces, conduct current missions, and prepare for future threats. If a military can’t do all three well, it is hollow—it can’t really deliver on government’s promise to provide for the common defense. In both the 1970s and the 1990s, military leaders used the phrase “hollow force” to describe their declining capability to meet the armed forces’ responsibility to defend the nation.

Warnings about the potential for another “hollow force” arose in 2006. The lion’s share of additional spending on the military over the last decade has gone to funding operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many “core” military activities—including buying new ships, planes, and vehicles—have been under-funded for decades. In addition, years of combat operations have caused great wear and tear on the force, resulting in multiple combat tours for many servicemen and equipment such as combat helicopters wearing out far faster than expected.

The warning then was that if we didn’t invest to rebuild the military after combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ended, the force would “go hollow again.” That concern was echoed by the bipartisan panel chartered by Congress in a 2010 review of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review report. The panel concluded that the armed forces lacked the capacity to meet the responsibilities of protecting U.S. interests worldwide.

Those concerns were exacerbated when President Obama announced his new Strategic Guidance that envisions significant reductions in military forces. The U.S. military will be required to further divest the capacity to robustly defend U.S. interests around the world. On the ground, in the sea, and in the air, American forces will shrink drastically. The Army will shrink by 72,000 people, the active Marine Corps will be reduced by 20,000, the Air Force will see six tactical fighter squadrons de-established while an additional training fighter squadron will be eliminated, the next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter procurement will be slowed, and the Navy will retire seven cruisers and two amphibious ships at an early juncture while delaying the procurements of new ships.

There is a potential for even more cuts that would be required to comply with the Budget Control Act of 2011. The House Armed Services majority staff determined that without question, the military capability would be further greatly diminished. “The Navy will likely mothball more than 60 ships,” the report concludes, “including two carrier battle groups, while we give up nearly a third of Army Maneuver Battalions and Air Force fighters, a quarter of our bombers, and jeopardize our ability to defend America against a nuclear attack. As a service, the Marine Corps will be broken.”

So what practical advice does the CRS have to offer in dealing with these challenges? The simple answer is: not much. The CRS report points out that in several ways, the challenges the military faced in the post-Vietnam years differed from those the services confronted during the Clinton presidency. Similarly, the report notes out that the issues confronting today’s military differ in key respects as well. The report concludes that, “given these conditions, it can be argued that the use of the term ‘hollow force’ is inappropriate under present circumstances.”

That’s not very helpful. How a military goes hollow is not as important as the fact that the nation is left with a force that can do the job as advertised. What is critical to understand is that if a military can’t field trained and ready forces; conduct current missions; and prepare for future threats, it is inadequate. With the Pentagon facing a dramatic reduction in capability, it is irresponsible to suggest that this isn’t something worth worrying about.

The CRS report offers a useful historical perspective on the challenges the U.S. military has faced after the “drawdowns” after Vietnam and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is wrong to infer from the report “don’t worry, be happy” about the challenges the military currently faces. The report notes that there are those who argue that this drawdown can be “managed” to prevent the military from going “hollow.” There were those that argued the same thing after Vietnam and the end of the Cold War. In many ways, they were wrong.

Rather than just accept the Administration’s claim that it is going to keep us a lot more safe with a lot less defense, let’s give the issue more careful scrutiny than glib comparisons with the mistakes of the past.