Author Archives: Doug Badger

Is President Obama Right About Putin?

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Vladimir Putin delights in outwitting President Obama at every turn. But is the President right when he says the Putin's Syria adventure is "not a smart strategic move?" [Credit: Daily Mail and Getty Images]

Vladimir Putin delights in out­wit­ting Pres­i­dent Oba­ma at every turn. But is the Pres­i­dent right when he says that Putin’s Syr­ia adven­ture is “not a smart, strate­gic move?” [Cred­it: Dai­ly Mail and Get­ty Images]

The U.S. and Rus­sia blun­dered to the brink of nuclear war in 1983 accord­ing to recent­ly declas­si­fied doc­u­ments, a reminder that as frayed as rela­tions between Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin have become, things could be far worse.

The NATO exer­cise that threat­ened mutu­al­ly assured destruc­tion began with a fic­tion­al sce­nario that today does­n’t seem all that fic­tion­al — Rus­sia deliv­ers arms to Syr­ia and Iran.

Lead­ers of sev­er­al Gulf States, threat­ened by Russ­ian inter­ven­tion, seek U.S. mil­i­tary involve­ment, accord­ing to the sce­nario.  The Pres­i­dent responds by dis­patch­ing mil­i­tary advis­ers to the region and increas­ing our naval pres­ence there.

As the NATO war game played out, ris­ing ten­sions even­tu­al­ly pro­voke Russ­ian mil­i­tary aggres­sion against its neigh­bors.  The U.S. Pres­i­dent, in response to a request from his mil­i­tary com­man­ders, autho­rizes the “lim­it­ed use of nuclear weapons against pre-select­ed fixed targets.”

Russ­ian mil­i­tary lead­ers who observed the NATO exer­cise con­clud­ed that the U.S. was plot­ting a real nuclear strike against the Sovi­et Union.  Amer­i­can intel­li­gence offi­cials had no idea at the time how bad­ly the Sovi­ets were mis­read­ing our inten­tions or how close the world was draw­ing toward nuclear con­fla­gra­tion.  War was avert­ed.  But just bare­ly, if the new­ly declas­si­fied intel­li­gence assess­ments are to be believed.

Today, Rus­sia is doing far more than mere­ly sup­ply­ing arms to Syr­ia and Iran, leav­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma frus­trat­ed and flum­moxed, but not fum­bling for the nuclear launch codes.  Instead, the Pres­i­dent watch­es help­less­ly as Vladimir Putin asserts him­self in a region where the U.S. once held sway, vague­ly warn­ing that Russ­ian inter­ven­tion is “not a smart, strate­gic move.”

He may be right. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Wrong About The Mets, Right About The Nats

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The Mets celebrated their NL East championship on Saturday night, leaving the Nats stuck in their culture of underachievement. [Credit: Dayton Daily News]

The Mets cel­e­brat­ed their NL East cham­pi­onship on Sat­ur­day night, leav­ing the Nats stuck in their cul­ture of under­achieve­ment. [Cred­it: Day­ton Dai­ly News]

John Boehn­er shed the bur­den of what had become one of Washington’s most cheer­less jobs last week.  Next week, Matt Williams may fol­low him.

Both Boehn­er and the Wash­ing­ton Nation­als’ man­ag­er began the year with high expec­ta­tions.  Boehn­er presided over the largest GOP major­i­ty since 1931.  Williams led a high pay­roll team rich in tal­ent. Both were under­mined by peo­ple they were cho­sen to lead, then blamed for fail­ures that were the fault of their fol­low­ers. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cheer Up Nats Fans, Mets Collapse Begins Today

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Mets' Ruben Tejada was credited with an inside-the-park home run last night, after Phillies RF Domonic Brown took a pratfall that turned a double into an inside-the-park home run. How success against the lowly Phillies masks the Mets weaknesses. [Credit: Washington Times]

Mets’ Ruben Teja­da scored eas­i­ly last night, after Phillies RF Domon­ic Brown took a prat­fall that turned a dou­ble into an inside-the-park home run. How suc­cess against the low­ly Phillies masks the Mets weak­ness­es. [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Times]

The Mets Melt­down begins today. They are 14–2 against the woe­ful Phillies, and just two games over .500 against the rest of the league.

Iron­i­cal­ly, win­ning six of sev­en games against the Phillies over the last ten days exposed New York’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Over those sev­en games, the Phillies aver­aged 5.7 runs per game. That’s near­ly two runs per game above their aver­age out­put for the rest of the sea­son. The Phillies are ranked 26th in run-scor­ing, but man­aged to tee off on Jason DeGrom and the Mets’ sus­pect bullpen, a sign that the vaunt­ed New York pitch­ing staff may be faltering.

Sep­tem­ber may very well ampli­fy this pitch­ing weak­ness. While they have romped over the Phillies, outscor­ing them 103–62 over the sea­son, their mar­gins against the Nats (38–34), Mar­lins (49–44) and Braves (69–52) are much clos­er and have relied more on dom­i­nant pitch­ing than hit­ting. If their pitch­ing stum­bles against the Phillies augur Sep­tem­ber strug­gles, then the Mets’ play­off hopes could vanish.

Their scor­ing binge against the Phillies has engen­dered hope that they can hit their way out of holes dug by bad pitch­ing. Not likely.The Mets are aver­ag­ing a lit­tle more than 4.1 runs per game, around the league mean. But when you back out the 103 runs they’ve scored in 16 games against the Phillies, they’re putting up an ane­mic 3.82 runs per game, which would rank them among the league’s worst.

There is good rea­son why 19 per­cent of the Mets offen­sive out­put has come against Philadel­phia. The Phils have the sec­ond worst pitch­ing in base­ball. Only the Rock­ies are worse and their ERA is mis­lead­ing­ly high since they play half their games in hit­ter-hap­py Coors Field. The Phillies pitch­ers can’t blame their home ball­park for the fact that they have giv­en up an aver­age of 5.07 runs per game. The Nats yield a run per game few­er, while Mia­mi (4.13) and Atlanta (4.71) are both much tougher to score on than the Phillies.

And, oh yeah, the Phillies poor pitch­ing is com­bined with a defense that is by far the worst in the majors. They have coughed up 85 more runs than a team of aver­age defen­sive com­pe­tence, accord­ing to Base­ball Ref­er­ence. Mean­ing that the Mets could pile on runs just by putting the ball in play, as last night’s tragi­com­ic inside-the-park home run by Ruben Teja­da illustrated.

New York’s dom­i­nance of the Phillies masks the fact that the Mets enter the stretch dri­ve as a lousy hit­ting team with weary arms.

The under­achiev­ing Nation­als don’t deserve to win the divi­sion but chances are that, a month from now, they will find them­selves cham­pi­ons of the Nation­al League Least.

On Wind And Eagles

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Citing potential damage to protected species, a federal judge recently put a crimp in the Administration's forced march toward wind energy. [Credit: Daily Mail]

Cit­ing poten­tial dam­age to pro­tect­ed species, a fed­er­al judge recent­ly put a crimp in the Admin­is­tra­tion’s forced march toward wind ener­gy. [Cred­it: Dai­ly Mail]

Two strains of envi­ron­men­tal­ism col­lid­ed in a fed­er­al court­room this month, pit­ting pro­tec­tors of bald and gold­en eagles against advo­cates of the Oba­ma Administration’s forced march toward wind power.

The eagles won.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

High on Trump

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Donald Trump is leading the GOP pack heading into tonight's debate. Why that's good news for Democrats. [Credit: CBS Pittsburgh]

Don­ald Trump is lead­ing the GOP pack head­ing into tonight’s debate. Why that’s good news for Democ­rats. [Cred­it: CBS Pittsburgh]

The mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary on Down­ing Street is in a cozy Den­ver neigh­bor­hood, tucked amid cof­fee shops, bou­tiques and oth­er arti­facts of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion.  Enter­ing the store on a bright Sun­day morn­ing, I’m greet­ed by a glassy-eyed young man slumped in a chair with a large bowl of bud on his lap.  His job, in addi­tion to rolling ju-jus, is to check IDs, turn away minors and iden­ti­fy out-of-staters, whose pur­chas­es are lim­it­ed to one-quar­ter ounce per trans­ac­tion. Col­oradans can legal­ly buy four times that amount, the state’s law­mak­ers evi­dent­ly believ­ing that natives can han­dle their weed bet­ter than non-residents.

His col­leagues behind the counter are in a sim­i­lar­ly ami­ca­ble stu­por, but knowl­edge­able about their prod­uct and full of advice to pre­vent patrons from pulling a Mau­reen Dowd, the New York Times colum­nist who descend­ed into a para­noid delu­sion­al state after lock­ing her­self in a hotel room and wolf­ing down a THC-laced Sky Bar. The del­i­ca­cies at this shop are said to con­tain safe amounts of the active ingre­di­ent, enough to pro­duce a man­age­able eupho­ria that won’t end in an emer­gency room vis­it or inspire anoth­er loopy New York Times col­umn.

There is some­thing vague­ly sur­re­al about get­ting med­ical advice, how­ev­er sound, from peo­ple in a drug-induced haze at ten o’clock in the morn­ing.  The “wake and bake” crew at the mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary fits the car­i­ca­tures that oppo­nents of legal­iza­tion have sketched, mak­ing them a bad adver­tise­ment for their polit­i­cal cause.

Which brings me to Don­ald Trump. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

An Iran Deal Fit For A King

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Iranians celebrated a deal that lifted sanctions against their nation. The deal is less popular in the U.S. Congress, but that hardly matters. [Credit: The Guardian]

Ira­ni­ans cel­e­brat­ed a deal to lift sanc­tions against their nation. The agree­ment is less pop­u­lar in the U.S. Con­gress, but that hard­ly mat­ters. [Cred­it: The Guardian]

Three thou­sand years have passed since a shep­herd-turned-war hero-turned-ter­ror­ist-turned-king cap­tured an obscure city sit­u­at­ed on a hill 34 miles inland from the Mediterranean.

David, Israel’s sec­ond king, would estab­lish his cap­i­tal in that city whose name is every bit as inapt as Philadel­phia (city of broth­er­ly love) or Los Ange­les (city of angels). Jerusalem, David’s cho­sen cap­i­tal, means “city of peace.”

It has more often been a city of con­tention, war and strife.  The rever­ber­a­tions from that ongo­ing dis­cord reached the Supreme Court last month in a case that car­ries impli­ca­tions for whether the U.S. will con­tin­ue to be gov­erned as a Repub­lic or ruled by a king. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare’s Next Chapter

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Chief Justice John Roberts ' opinion in King v. Burwell betrayed widely-held misconceptions about health insurance markets. [Credit: Human Events]

Chief Jus­tice John Roberts ’ opin­ion in King v. Bur­well repeat­ed wide­ly-held mis­con­cep­tions about health insur­ance mar­kets.  Con­ser­v­a­tives should take note. [Cred­it: Human Events]

“The Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act grew out of a long his­to­ry of failed health insur­ance reform.” Chief Jus­tice John Roberts, in uphold­ing Oba­macare subsidies.

Oba­macare is the newest chap­ter in that long his­to­ry of failed health insur­ance reform.  Con­ser­v­a­tives who hope one day to replace it would do well to learn from its errors and con­ceits. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare And The Daughters of (40% Less) Charity

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The President last week professed his love -- appropriately chaste, of course -- for Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association and tireless Obamacare advocate. [Credit: Wikipedia]

The Pres­i­dent last week pro­fessed his love — appro­pri­ate and chaste, of course — for Sis­ter Car­ol Kee­han, pres­i­dent of the Catholic Health Asso­ci­a­tion and tire­less Oba­macare advo­cate. [Cred­it: Wikipedia]

I just love nuns gen­er­al­ly.  I’m just say­ing.  – Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, June 9

And nuns just love him too.  At least nuns who run hos­pi­tals seem to.  And with good rea­son: the Pres­i­dent advo­cates poli­cies that enable hos­pi­tals like those oper­at­ed by the Daugh­ters of Char­i­ty to pro­vide less char­i­ty.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare Has Reduced Uninsured By Nearly 8 Million

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A fresh government study has found that Obamacare has so far reduced the number of uninsured by eight million. [Credit: publicbroadcasting.net]

A fresh gov­ern­ment study has found that Oba­macare has so far reduced the num­ber of unin­sured by eight mil­lion. [Cred­it: publicbroadcasting.net]

The num­ber of unin­sured peo­ple declined by near­ly eight mil­lion dur­ing the first nine months of 2014, reduc­ing their ranks to 37.2 mil­lion, accord­ing to an analy­sis of data released late last week by the Nation­al Cen­ter for Health Sta­tis­tics (NCHS).

The survey’s find­ings con­flict with a report issued last month by the RAND Cor­po­ra­tion, which esti­mat­ed that the num­ber of unin­sured fell by 16.9 mil­lion since Obamacare’s imple­men­ta­tion [sub­scrip­tion required].  The RAND study put the num­ber of unin­sured at 25.8 mil­lion, near­ly 12 mil­lion few­er than the NCHS esti­mate. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Is Obamacare What We Deserve?

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Many who signed up for Obamacare coverage

Some who signed up for Oba­macare cov­er­age had been unin­sured for years.  That cov­er­age could unrav­el if the Supreme Court rules next month that the Admin­is­tra­tion unlaw­ful­ly sub­si­dized their cov­er­age. [Cred­it: Mia­mi Herald]

For 20 years, I was afraid.  Afraid of get­ting sick and not hav­ing health insur­ance.  But when I got can­cer, I final­ly had a health plan that I could afford.  With­out it, I wouldn’t be here…I’ll always remem­ber how afford­able health care saved my life.  I believe every­one deserves the same chance I had.  Don’t you?  Julie, the pro­tag­o­nist of a recent ad pro­mot­ing Obamacare

The Supreme Court next month will issue a rul­ing that could result in Julie los­ing the health insur­ance cov­er­age she feels she deserves. Con­tin­ue read­ing →