Political Mavens » 2013

Larry Lujack- The Best There Was
By Cory Franklin (bio)

When he died recently, Larry Lujack had not been a regular disc jockey on a major Chicago radio station for over quarter of a century. Yet tributes poured in not just from Chicago, but from all over the country. How was he able to evoke vivid, long-ago memories from so many people, most of whom never met him personally? It is a testimony to the medium - and to the man.

Posted by Cory Franklin on December 31st, 2013
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Would you give up your tax loophole?
By Dennis Byrne (bio)

President Barack Obama is right; we need to get rid of tax loopholes. But which loopholes?

Posted by Dennis Byrne on December 29th, 2013
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U.S., Russia relations throw off sparks
By Peter Brookes (bio)

Early in the Obama administration, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov a mock-up of a large red button inscribed with the Russian word “reset.”

Posted by Peter Brookes on December 27th, 2013
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Saving Mr. Banks - Invest More Wisely
By Marilyn Penn (bio)

The movie that purports to tell the tale of how Mary Poppins’ disagreeable author, P.L. Travers, succumbed to giving Walt Disney the rights to turn her creation into a studio blockbuster is strangely mis-titled. The story presented involves a sensitive young girl growing up in the Australian boonies with an alcoholic father leading his wife and three daughter family into a tailspin of misery and financial ruin. Played by Colin Farrell, the father is handsome, dashing and adventurous - except when he’s a falling down drunk who gets fired from every job and leaves his bewildered and vulnerable wife on the verge of suicide. Strangely, the little girl who is meant to be P.L. Travers never manages to identify with the mother’s plight even as she grows into middle-agehood. Instead, she remains stuck in the muddy memories of having let down her profligate father - a guilt so intense that it carries forward a traumatic memory involving some dropped pears - much heavier in every way than Proust’s madeleines.

Posted by Marilyn Penn on December 24th, 2013
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Low T: Actual Disease Or Slick Marketing Strategy?
By Cory Franklin (bio)

The FDA prides itself on taking an active role in protecting consumers from the risks associated with direct-to-consumer testing. Yet the FDA has been notably restrained on the pharmaceutical marketing saturating the media and Internet concerning “Low T”, a condition that might be a “disease” or simply just a slick advertising strategy to generate drugs sales.

Posted by Cory Franklin on December 24th, 2013
Permanent link: Low T: Actual Disease Or Slick Marketing Strategy?

Christmas and its Discontents
By Dave Shiflett (bio)

Here’s my annual Christmas message — a shorter version of this article recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

Posted by Dave Shiflett on December 23rd, 2013
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Save South Sudan now, or lose Africa
By Walid Phares (bio)

South Sudan is the newest country in the world and unfortunately seems to be on the edge of the newest civil war in the region. For the past week, clashes and killings have ravaged the capital and other areas of that young African country, yet all that comes from Washington is a heavy silence. Some observers believe that the U.S. administration is silent on purpose, allowing the confrontation to spread until the country no longer able to govern itself, ultimately leading the northern Jihadi regime to recapture influence over the south and restore itself as an Islamist power in the region after the loss of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Cairo. While there is no hard evidence to directly blame the Obama administration for this looming new disaster, we certainly can see that the protracted U.S. absence from the scene as indirect proof that pressure groups within the Beltway might want to see free South Sudan go down in flames. But is the drama only due to U.S. policies, or are there also local disastrous politics to indict? A full review is warranted to see clearer through the fog of war.

The African people of southern Sudan, trapped against their will within a wider border under violent regimes that suppressed their traditions since the late 1950s, struggled for sixty years, resulting in the massacre of a million (mostly) civilians, the enslavement of half a million, and four generations of men and women devastated by an atrocious war. From 1983, and increasingly since 1989, a northern Islamist regime unleashed ethnic cleansing and extreme horrors on the populations of the South, devastating villages and towns. Omar Bashir’s forces, indoctrinated by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists, committed genocide in the South before they later turned to Darfur. But the African resistance led by John Garang, commander of the Sudan Popular Liberation Movement, stood firmly, even as the movement lost most of its ground to the Jihadist army. Eventually, and thanks to support from American churches, Western lawmakers and NGOs, the Bush Administration helped the oppressed Black nation to obtain its right for self-determination in January 2011. In my book The Coming Revolution of 2010, I projected a victory to the south Sudanese who would then face the challenge of building a new republic. Indeed, after a referendum handsomely legitimized their claim to liberty, the Africans of South Sudan obtained their independence and separated from the oppressive northern regime, which was later accused by the International Criminal Court of Genocide in Darfur.

The Republic of South Sudan joined the international community and was endowed with hopes and oil resources to bridge the gap of poverty created by Khartoum over decades. International companies and foreign countries rushed to invest and help the new country rise. But the old “colonial power” in the north did not let go of the formerly enslaved people. Omar Bashir maintained his military pressure on border areas, including Abei province, to preempt similar African revolts among Nubians, Beja and Darfuris in the north. On al Jazeera, Jihadi ideologues often menaced the south with retaliation for separation “from the Umma’s land” and many programs “predicted” an internecine war inside the south. These “predictions” finally materialized when followers of the Vice President Riek Machar and the troops of the President Silva Kir clashed over a so-called “coup attempt” in December. Sources in the region said outside parties, with the blessings of Khartoum, worked on encouraging these fights as a way to trigger a civil war that would end in the economic and political collapse of the landlocked country. The sources added that the Islamist regime of Bashir made the same promise to both sides in the south – to open northern Sudan’s pipelines to the seaports, the only access for Petrol exporting, if the one camp defeats the other – hence pushing the two influential parties in Juba to clash.

While it looks like the international Islamist networks drove South Sudan over the cliff, the leaders of the young African countries are to be lamed as well. Both Silva Kir and Riek Mashar were longtime deputies to the historic leader of the southern struggle, Colonel John Garang, who was killed in an accident which many believe was an assassination by the north. President Kir and Vice President Mashar were supposed to lead South Sudan to democracy and prosperity, but post-independence experiences, particularly in Africa, present the danger of power struggle. However, Kir and Mashar and their friends in the West could have and should have avoided this bloodbath over power. Some indicate that Mashar has in the past sided with the regime against Garang before reuniting with the southern resistance. We will leave that argument to the southern Sudanese themselves to resolve, democratically, at the ballot boxes. For now, we need to do all we can to stop the violence, restore legal order, and insure human rights.

The Obama Administration has shyly stated that these are regrettable incidents and sent few dozen Marines to protect the embassy, as well as dispatched an envoy. This is not foreign policy at the level of the challenge. President Obama should say more and do more to save this African country born under his watch as a leader of the free world and first black president of the United States. President Obama should phone leaders of southern Sudan and ask them publicly and sharply to stop the violence immediately and initiate an immediate reconciliation process, with all measures needed to stabilize south Sudan. To allow the situation to decay to a point of no return is to indirectly be part of its demise. Sources in Washington are advancing that the Muslim Brotherhood lobby, backed by petrodollar interests groups, is behind the Washington “laisser-faire” policy attitude towards Juba. According to these sources, South Sudan is the most experienced resistance against the Jihadists on the continent, and since the fall of the Ikhwan regime in Cairo, the Brotherhood lobby wants to reinstall itself in Khartoum to counterattack the new Egypt with further destabilization. It seems that the price for Bashir to go after General Sisee and the Egyptian revolution is to topple South Sudan and give Khartoum a say over its lost oil. Are these sources going too far in their analysis? Facts on the ground seem to validate such an analysis, particularly the irresponsible inaction of Washington vis-à-vis South Sudan’s tragic events. The U.S. Congress must rise to hold the administration accountable for the potential fall of the newest and freest African nation, now submitted to the horror of Brotherly killings.

Dr Walid Phares advises members of the US Congress on the Middle East and is the author of The Coming Revolution (2010). He is writing a new book on the future of the Arab Spring to be published in 2014

Posted by Walid Phares on December 23rd, 2013
Permanent link: Save South Sudan now, or lose Africa

Stigmatizing top earners doesn’t fuel ascent of others
By Mark Davis (bio)

Here’s a test for code language recognition skills: When you hear complaints of “income inequality,” do you hear “some people make too much money?”

Posted by Mark Davis on December 22nd, 2013
Permanent link: Stigmatizing top earners doesn’t fuel ascent of others

Half-baked decision on same-sex wedding cake
By Dennis Byrne (bio)

A judge has ordered a Colorado baker to make wedding cakes for gay couples, despite the baker’s religious objection.

Posted by Dennis Byrne on December 20th, 2013
Permanent link: Half-baked decision on same-sex wedding cake

Her - A Review
By Marilyn Penn (bio)

The conceit of HER, Spike Jonze’s highly praised film is that as humans become more and more dependent on the increasingly sophisticated programs in their tech devices, the programs become more dependent on the humans as well. It’s a clever concept and would have made an amazing shorter film with its elegiac mood set off by tinkling piano keys and a nuanced performance by Scarlett Johansson’s voice. Its problem is that the loneliness and sadness of Theodore Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix, become attenuated to a repetitive series of sad-sack scenes, most of which seem more appropriate for a much younger character. I was reminded of a regular feature on Saturday Night Live years ago called “Deep Thoughts,” a parody of tendentious emotional outpourings.

Posted by Marilyn Penn on December 18th, 2013
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Faking the Numbers for B.D.S
By Marilyn Penn (bio)

The NYTimes of Dec 17 reported the following in its front page article about the American Studies Association (ASA) vote to boycott Israeli academics:

Posted by Marilyn Penn on December 18th, 2013
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Please Stop Thinking Obama Means What He Says
By Monica Crowley (bio)

Barack Obama’s political history is littered with lies. There are smallish lies (”I never knew my Uncle Omar”) to the mega-lies (see the very partial list above.) One of my personal favorites is his constant refrain that if “anybody” has any “good ideas” about how to do X,Y, or Z, he’s “happy” to hear them out.

Posted by Monica Crowley on December 17th, 2013
Permanent link: Please Stop Thinking Obama Means What He Says

U.S. ‘not safer’ from al-Qaeda
By Peter Brookes (bio)

Years ago there was a popular TV commercial for an investment firm that proclaimed: When we talk, people listen. For the national security crowd, when the House and/or Senate intelligence chairs talk, people listen.

Posted by Peter Brookes on December 17th, 2013
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Of RG III, Derrick Rose, And John Greenleaf Whittier
By Cory Franklin (bio)

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.” Those words, written by 19th Century poet John Greenleaf Whittier, may turn out prophetic for two of America’s most talented 21st Century athletes beset by career-threatening injuries, Derrick Rose and Robert Griffin III.

Posted by Cory Franklin on December 14th, 2013
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My Humble Apologies
By Doug Gamble (bio)

When Palo Alto, California resident Merrill Newman was held captive in North Korea recently he was coerced into reading an “apology” for his “crimes” during the Korean War, a statement written by his captors. Last night I dreamed I was taken prisoner by the Democratic National Committee and forced to read the following “confession:”

Posted by Doug Gamble on December 13th, 2013
Permanent link: My Humble Apologies

Back In The USSR?
By Monica Crowley (bio)

Russian president Vladimir Putin is at it again, flexing his authoritarian muscles. This time, he’s trying to get the Russian media to resemble more closely the American media in the Obama era:

Posted by Monica Crowley on December 11th, 2013
Permanent link: Back In The USSR?

Shifting the Blame
By Marilyn Penn (bio)

Almost everything that is wrong with the Times’ sensationalized front page story, “Girl in the Shadows,” (12/9/13) is foretold by the explanatory caption in the passive voice: “As New York has been reborn, children like Dasani have been left behind.” The implication is that we New Yorkers, under the spell of our old imperial mayor, have cruelly abandoned the poor children of our city.

Posted by Marilyn Penn on December 9th, 2013
Permanent link: Shifting the Blame

Worst weekend to fly, except for all others
By Neil Steinberg (bio)

So I’m up at 5 a.m., too early to start working. Might as well browse online. As a change of pace, I slide over to the Daily Beast, the online remnant of Newsweek. Naming the site for the London tabloid in Evelyn Waugh’s comic novel “Scoop” surely seemed more clever when they first thought it up than now, when some slice of America must avoid it, assuming, with that name, it must be the house organ for Satan.

Posted by Neil Steinberg on December 8th, 2013
Permanent link: Worst weekend to fly, except for all others

Bridging High and Low Culture
By Marilyn Penn (bio)

In the annals of world literature, there are some very long books: Tolstoy’s War and Peace clocks in at 1,440 pages and Hugo’s Les Miserables beats that at 1,488. Now comes Part 1 of a biography of Barbara Stanwyck by Victoria Wilson: at 1,044 pages, it’s more than twice as long as three combined biographies of John Wayne, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe, infinitely more important screen icons than Ms. Stanwyck whose name would not be familiar to most people under 50. If Volume 2 of this devotional work is the same length as its predecessor, it might be longer than both the Old and New Testaments, a sobering and distressing thought. Fortunately, we can rely on the marketplace to correctly balance Ms. Wilson’s idee fixe with the realities of consumer interest, if not the subject’s proportionate merit.

Posted by Marilyn Penn on December 7th, 2013
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The ‘Sales Mode’ Ploy
By Monica Crowley (bio)

The man who launched a candidacy, won his party’s nomination, won the presidency, and until now, sustained his presidency, on well-delivered rhetoric is setting out to, well, give more speeches.

Posted by Monica Crowley on December 4th, 2013
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Time to dump the standardized tests
By Dennis Byrne (bio)

Posted by Dennis Byrne on December 4th, 2013
Permanent link: Time to dump the standardized tests

‘Fundamental Transformation’ Comes To The World
By Monica Crowley (bio)

I’m still combing through the details of the “deal” that President Obama, Secretary John Kerry and others in the administration struck with the Iranian regime, but one thing is obvious: it essentially clears the way for Iran to become a nuclear-armed power. Setting aside multiple, hard-fought UN resolutions calling for Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment, the “deal” allows Iran to continue enrichment and requires little to nothing of the regime in return for the easing of some sanctions.

Posted by Monica Crowley on December 2nd, 2013
Permanent link: ‘Fundamental Transformation’ Comes To The World