Fiscal Cliff

I am somewhat baffled by all the talk on this as it seems rather clear to me that we will go off the fiscal cliff.  Let us consider the consequences:

1. All the Bush Tax Cuts will be null and void if we go off the cliff.  Yes, that includes those that went to the middle class but more importantly those of the rich.  The Democrats have long been the party of tax increases while the Republicans have been the tax cut party.  Win for Democrats on this one.

2. "Drastic" defense cuts take effect.  Though Obama managed to nullify the usual Republican supremacy in national defense in the late election, the Republicans are still viewed as the party eager to spend on the military whereas the Democrats still want to cut the military.  Recall that Clinton got the Peace Dividend by cutting the military in the wake of our Cold War win.  Again, win for the Democrats.

3. Payroll tax reinstated.  Obama cut payroll taxes (the ones that fund Social Security) and those are set to come back.  This comes as a break-even.

4. Unemployment benefits cut.  The Republicans have generally argued against continued extension of unemployment and thus this is a win for them.

5. Sequestration budget cuts will 'slash' spending on 'discretionary' spending.  Mostly meaningless but there will be much moaning over it.  Win for Republicans.

6. Medicare Doc Fix ends.  This makes it less likely for doctors to treat Medicare patients as they become unprofitable.  No winners.

So, by going off the cliff, the Democrats get dramatic tax increases (which will be combined with the coming Obamacare taxes that are set to also start next year) and cuts to the military.  The Republicans get some paltry cuts in discretionary spending.  There is no way that Obama can get a better deal than this.  Just going off the cliff is a huge win for him.  Better still, he can reinstated tax cuts for the middle class next year and they will be called the Obama Tax Cuts!  And just to put the cherry on top, the media will blame Republican intransigence for going off the cliff.  Ditto for the resulting recession.

The Fiscal Cliff holds no threat from Obama's view.  We already see this in the risible deal that Tim Geithner offered the Republicans.  The car is going off the cliff and the Republicans will be held responsible no matter what they do.  See, there is no downside for the Democrats so we're going to pull a Thelma & Louise.  Buckle your seatbelts!

Lincoln

The movie begins in December 1864 and generally concludes by January 31st of 1865.  Based on the book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, this bio of Lincoln details the events surrounding the passage of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery.  Though this was a hugely important event, legislation is by its nature boring; the movie fails to overcome that.  Sure, it is interesting to see the behind-the-scence arm-twisting and horse-trading to get votes in Congress but a little can go a long way.  Who would think we would hear the stories of half a dozen Democrats convinced to vote for the amendment?  The movie certainly has its charms.  Lincoln's homespun tales were the best part of the movie, especially the one about George Washington's portrait in a lavatory.  However, at 2 and a half hours, it mostly dragged.  Lincoln had it tough: a mentally-unbalanced wife, an eldest son eager to join the army, a cabinet that was often at odds with him, and a Civil War to boot.

Daniel Day-Lewis was not tall enough for the part and his fellow actors were too tall for their parts.  There were times when the camera angle was such to give the impression that he had great height but then the angle would change and he was near eye to eye.  This was most jarring, for me anyway, when he met with Grant.  Grant was 5 foot 8 inches tall, a full 8 inches shorter than Lincoln.  I am not a Civil War buff and I knew this. Yes, it's nitpicky but Lincoln towered over everyone physically as well as in character.  The complaints about his voice are overblown.  I expected this reedy squeak of a voice, especially considering the excerpts I had heard but he came off fine.

Tommy Lee Jones played Thaddeus Stevens, a leader of the Radical Republicans.  It is funny to see that his radical notions that threaten to derail the amendment are votes for blacks and that blacks are equal to whites.  Clearly, he was a man ahead of his time.  Of course, Jones looks absolutely ludicrous in his black wig, making it hard not to laugh when he first appears.

Sally Field paints a very different picture of Mary Todd Lincoln than is popularly known.  She is not just a crazy neurotic woman, though that is her fate after her husband's assassination.  Here, she is certainly difficult but she is also perceptive and witty.

 

Though interesting and often informative, it is far from gripping.  This is no Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan.  No reason to see this on the big screen.  Wait for the DVD from Netflix.

Skyfall

The movie opens with Bond in Istanbul and coming upon a number of dead or seriously wounded agents.  A hard drive has been stolen from a laptop.  Bond and his female driver, Eve, get into an epic chase to recover the hard drive.  They fail to get it and that becomes a national security threat that defines the rest of the movie.  Unlike most Bond films, the majority of this one takes place in the UK with a middle part in Shanghai and Macau.  This is interesting since MI6 is supposed to do foreign intelligence while MI5 is domestic intelligence.  I suspect there was a lot of arguing about turf between the agencies was left on the cutting room floor.

 

To a degree, this is an origin story of Bond.  We see his childhood home and learn that he was orphaned (this was revealed in the books but I don't recall if that had been mentioned in the movies).  We get to meet the man who taught him to shoot.  Bond shows little interest in his childhood home, even stating that he hated the place.  Granted, it is on a bleak Scottish moor in the middle of winter, which makes it quite unappealing.  We also get a scene where Bond does the word association that is sometimes humorous and paints him as a grim fellow.  The results of his psych analysis are revealed later, giving a deeper look into the character.  This isn't Sean Connery's Bond.

 

Javier Bardem is a peculiar villain.  I give him credit for his willingness to look silly.  That haircut in No Country for Old Men was a real winner but blond hair is painful on him.  Here, he is equal parts arrogant genius, deranged madman, petulant child, and playful goofball.  Yeah, it is a strange and complex character.  His love-hate obsession with M echoes a former villain; Elektra King in The World is Not Enough (1999).  He gives the obligatory "How come you won't die already" attitude some new life, seeming both amused and annoyed that Bond has yet again foiled attempts to kill him.  Also of interest, though he has amazing intel about the inner workings of MI6, the villain is not part of the Quantum group that was featured prominently in the last two films.  He would have fit just fine within it so I am perplexed that they didn't just say he was to keep that going.  Maybe next time.

 

The Bond girl who gets the most screen time with our hero is... Judi Dench. Unlike most Bond girls, there is nothing between them beyond the employer/employee relationship and some mutual respect that is shown with pithy barbs.  For her part, M proves willing to sacrifice her agents for the sake of the mission.  This is an ongoing theme with Judi Dench's M, dating back to Golden Eye (1995) where she told Bond she was only too willing to send him to his death if the circumstances warranted.  She is cold-blooded by her words but often motherly by her actions.  I think I preferred the more hands-off Bernard Lee in the role.  Give Bond his mission at the beginning and then scold him at the end.  M used to be a support character but with a big name like Judi Dench, M became a major character in the films.  M promises to remain a major character in future outings.

 

The Aston Martin made famous in Goldfinger (1964) returns in this film.  It is nice to see the old car again.  Bond has kept it in a garage all these years just in case he might need another ride.  I have read that car geeks were offended since that model is gutless compared to modern sports cars.

 

One big twist is that Bond has a base that the villain attacks, a complete reversal of the usual where Bond invades the enemy camp and blows it to bits.  Also of interest, this Bond finally gets Q.  This Q is a young fellow who is good with computers rather than gadgets.  Bond also gets Miss Moneypenny.  Both are welcome additions back to the series.  Bill Tanner, who was a regular in the book series, is also present here and in the last movie.  However, he doesn't have a clever name like M, Q, or Moneypenny so vanishes into the background.

 

Something of a departure from the usual Bond film but certainly enjoyable.  Thumbs up from Dave.

Iceberg Ahead, Ramming Speed!

Barack Obama worked on the presumption that America had struck the tipping point where there were more takers than makers, more people enjoying the largess of government than contributing to sustaining government.  It turns out that he was right.  Though it will be many years, perhaps decades, there is only one end point on this path: financial collapse.  Eventually, there will not be enough producers to supply the ever more voracious consumers.

What does this say about us?  Apparently, most of us don't want to be responsible for ourselves.  We want the government to handle those annoying issues like planning for our retirement (Social Security), arranging for our medical care (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare), or providing for our education (Pell Grants, Dept. of Education).  You see, most of us are now incapable of doing such complicated things and are only too happy to let the government do it for us.  We are children, doomed never to grow up; we are a nation of Peter Pans.

Of course, this won't work.  We see the result of this path playing out even now in Europe and yet we blindly follow the same trail with hope in our hearts and emptiness in our heads.  The markets know where we are headed; the Dow fell 313 points, demonstrating great faith in the future.  Reality will catch us but Obama will no longer be president by then so why should he care?

Some predictions:

1. We will go over the financial cliff.  Obama has long wanted tax increases (he campaigned on them) and a recalcitrant Republican House gives him the perfect opportunity to raise taxes and blame it on the Republicans.  Blaming the Republicans is a favorite game of his.

2. The economy will continue to stagnate.  The lapse of the Bush tax cuts and the introduction of Obamacare taxes and mandates will be a drag on job creation.  The 4th quarter of 2012 might prove better than expected as investors and businesses attempt to realize profits before taxmageddon strikes.  This will make for a very weak 1st quarter of 2013.

Some positive thoughts:

1. Americans have shown, yet again, that we aren't racist.  If anyone wants to continue this race card nonsense, what does that say about the people who voted against Mia Love (black Republican in Utah) and Alan West (black Republican in Florida)?  Are those voters racist?  No.  It is all about party-affiliation, not skin color.  Retire the race card.  Obama could still be a great president if he would abolish the race card in America.  He won't because it benefits his party to use it.

2. Obama has now inherited the Obama economy.  No more blaming Bush.  Honestly, what kind of CEO would still be blaming his predecessor for poor performance four years after he took over?  If Romney had won, he would have inherited the Obama economy, not the Bush economy.  Obama has to take ownership at this point.  Doesn't he?

Big Bird will be fine

Contrary to what some think, Sesame Street will be just fine if the Federal Government stops subsidizing PBS and NPR.  It is a hot commodity and ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox will get in a bidding war to air the further adventures of Big Bird, Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster, and all the rest.  Yes, there will be commercials but the program will be otherwise the same.  In fact, PBS will probably stay on the air as it is and just have commercials.

 

That aside, why do we need public radio or public television?  I have hundreds of TV stations and countless radio station that don't require my tax dollars.  Why should one station get subsidized with my taxes?  Perhaps there was a call for that when there were only 3 broadcast stations but that is no longer the case.  Between satellite and cable, there is no reason for a state-sponsored channel.  To make matters worse, we have a yearly deficit over a trillion dollars a year and we can't cut the $445 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?  Rather than extort through taxes that money from the citizenry and then give it to CPB, why not let the citizens keep that money and voluntarily fund CPB if they want it?

 

No matter who wins on Tuesday, I fully expect CPB to live on as a needless budget item.  It takes a Herculean effort to reduce the rate of growth of the budget and a Sisyphean task to actually cut the budget.  If we can't cut an entirely non-essential program like CPB, then we're doomed to become Greece.

No Americans Died in Watergate

Imagine it is September 11th of 2004 and the US Ambassador in Middle Eastern country and 3 others are killed in a terror attack.  Let us also suppose that said ambassador had sent multiple requests for added security and reported that there had been attacks on the embassy.  Further, let us say that the British ambassador had been withdrawn on account of a terrorist attack.  Moreover, let us say that the embassy reported the day before the attack that terrorists were massing and that the embassy's locally-hired security forces (not US Marines) appeared to be casing the embassy.  Would the press treat this as a distraction from the campaign?  Would they paint it as an effort by the Kerry campaign to draw attention away from the Swift Boaters?

Suppose it was discovered in the aftermath that a former Navy Seal had requested permission to aid the besieged embassy and was refused.  Not once.  Not twice.  No, three times.  He finally ignored the order and went to assist anyway.  Would the press not demand the identity of the person who told the Navy Seal to stand down?

Assume that the attack on Americans proceeded for 7 hours and the US had forces one hour away but those forces were not dispatched.  Let us suppose that there were drones in the sky that supplied live pictures of the attack to the Situation Room at the White House and there was also constant contact between embassy staff and the State Department.  Now, suppose that the administration said it didn't act because it didn't know what was happening.  On top of that, let us say that the administration had reduced the security present at the embassy the previous month despite the protest of the head of security and the ambassador.

 

Suppose the President and his administration had claimed that the attack grew from a protest  of a YouTube video that got out of hand.  Presume that the administration continued that claim for two weeks.  Then we learn that there was no protest.  All had been quiet on the streets at 8 pm, not a protester in sight.  Also, such had been reported to the Situation Room at the time.  Would the press be disinterested in such revelations?

Obviously, there would be calls for everyone involved in the fiasco to be fired for incompetence and the press would hammer the president for failing to aid Americans.  The event would be the story of the ongoing presidential campaign and every question to the president or the administration would have asked about it.  It would have destroyed President Bush's re-election bid if such had happened, and rightly so.

 

As it happens, everything above has happened but Barack Obama is president and the media are letting the story slide.  To pursue the story is to torpedo the re-election of their candidate.  Whether Obama is re-elected or not, the truth about Benghazi will come out.  If he is in office, it will be a massive blow to his presidency.  This isn't sex with an intern that can be overlooked by saying "move on" or "it's only sex."  Nor is this a burglary cover-up by the administration.  Here is a case where there were multiple warnings of danger to the embassy from multiple sources and the administration responded by reducing security.  To add insult to injury, the administration then misled the public about the attack when it knew - or certainly should have known - what happened within 24 hours.

 

One wonders why the administration prevaricated.  The most likely answer is that only a week earlier at the Democratic Convention, it was repeatedly voiced that al Qaeda was crippled (i.e. Osama bin Laden was dead).  A successful al Qaeda attack the following week looks extremely bad.  Better that it was a protest that got out of hand.  Thus began the cover-up that has only made things worse.  The administration just wants to keep the story from breaking until after the election, like Nixon with Watergate.  We know how well that turned out for him.  But he was Republican, so perhaps Obama will fare better.

2016: Obama's America

The movie opens with an autobiographical sketch of Dinesh D'Souza.  He tells how he grew up in India and went to college in America.  He remained in America after graduating from Dartmouth.  This is important because his background gives him insight into President Obama.

He dispenses with the birth certificate stuff by announcing that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii.  His father, Barack Obama Sr., departed for Harvard when Barack Jr. was still an infant.  Obama did not see his father again until he was 10, and then only briefly.  Barack Sr. died when Obama was 21.  And yet, D'Souza holds that Obama Sr. has everything to do with President Obama's views.  How can an absent father have that kind of impact?

D'Souza interviewed friends of Barack Sr. and learned that he was an anti-colonialist.  D'Souza's own grandfather espoused the same views so he was quite familiar with them.  India and Kenya had both been part of the British Empire.

President Obama's mother had nothing but good to say about his absent father.  Obama himself reveals in his book Dreams from my Father that he idolized a father who was a stranger to him.  Thus, according to D'Souza, President Obama adopted the belief system of his father.  This strong anti-colonialism would explain why he spent 20 years in the church of Reverend Wright, why he would associate with Bill Ayers, his animus toward American oil while subsidizing Brazilian oil, and so on.

 

Basically, D'Souza uncovers a storyline where Barack Obama is seeking to right wrongs by transferring wealth that America stole back to the countries from which it was stolen.  This same pattern goes for the domestic economy as he pursues a policy to tax the rich and 'spread the wealth around.'  It is surprising to see how much had not been revealed about Obama during the 2008 campaign.  How does his mentoring by a known Communist whom he mentions in his autobiography not get reported during his run for either the Senate or the Presidency?  How is it that Bush, Gore, Kerry, and McCain all released their college transcripts but Obama hasn't?

 

Though often interesting in what it tells, the mechanics of the movie are often awkward.  Repeatedly there were scenes where D'Souza is on the phone with this or that expert.  What, is this the X-Files?  Why this bizarre interview by phone while he has cameramen at both locations to film?  Really?

 

The conclusion is that another Obama term will leave the United States weaker and might result in a nuclear-armed Caliphate that stretches from Iran to Morocco.  It is interesting how Obama has helped to topple secular dictators (Libya, Egypt) but not Islamist regimes (Iran).  If Obama is re-elected, it will be interesting to watch this movie again in 2016 to see how the predictions pan out.