Charles Sykes – A Nation of Moochers (St. Martin’s Griffin)

Charles, then Charlie, was the morning news guy on a rock station that hired me at the beginning of my career behind a microphone. While I was just getting started, he was moving toward the next phase of his career which would eventually find him becoming a conservative talk show host and author.

To say that Sykes is an opinionated, well researched and hard hitting is an understatement. As a recovering talk show host myself, it’s been my thought that if you want to gage just how effective a host is is in delivering his message, then measure him by his critics. Sykes foes spiral quickly down the familiar path of name calling, ad hominem personal attacks and those that claim he is a full throated liar, but can’t seem to manage to cite any examples.

Sykes latest literary effort, A Nation of Moochers, out now in paperback, details his case that the United States has gone through a shift in character and become, as the title suggests, a nation of moochers. While the left takes that as an attack on the 47 percent-ers, Sykes doesn’t spare many when he makes his case. He includes corporate/Wall Street bailouts, questionable tax exemptions, and other entitlement costs that cross all classes under the banner of MOOCHER. His “Moocher Checklist” is a wildly sweeping and detailed airing of moocher laundry.

Sykes laments the seeming passing of character traits like self-reliance and personal responsibility and the upshot of the scrambling for a handout mindset. It’s pretty easy to see his point when you consider that our parents and grandparents were embarrassed to be on the dole for even a short time while today we have folks decrying the lack of fairness that unemployment benefits run dry after a staggering 99 weeks! Amazingly much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be coming from our so-called “leaders” like Nancy Pelosi; who famously tried to sell us the bullshit that the fastest way to grow the economy was more public benefits!

I’d like to give Sykes credit for driving so many liberals to the brink of their sanity with his well-researched points, but for the very ludicrous nature of their stance had them on the edge from the start.  

 

Philip Mudd – Take Down: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda (University of Pennsylvania Press)

Disappointing.

It’s seems the best word that I can come up with to describe Philip Mudd’s book, Take Down: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda. For a book that carries the a subtitle that professes to offer an insider’s point of view of critical piece of the war on terror it falls more than a little flat.

Mudd, served as the Deputy Director of the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA, so his creds would suggest an access to a multitude of insider information. While there are certain understandable limitations due to national security concerns, other who have had less access than Mudd, have offered up a greater level of detail and insight into the inner workings of counter terrorism.

In the preface, Mudd details how he came to work at the CIA in what amounts to a post-graduate in need of a better job lark that turned into a multiple decades long career that saw him rise to highest levels of the Agency. I can’t quite decide if Mudd chose to play things close to the vest out of loyalty or if he was more a political creation who showed an adeptness working the corridors of power that groomed his steady rise or was just a guy who was never a party to the heavy lifting and nasty side of intelligence.

Tapping out at just 200 pages including the less than detailed index and no end notes, Take Down is a rather thin, 30,000 foot perspective rather than the advertised insider view.

Kim Ghattas – The Secretary (Times Books)

The publicity blurbs for this book are laced with terms like: eye-opening, revealing, poignant, gripping, terrific, vivid, colorful, candid, fast-paced and substantive. Touting unprecedented access to a sitting Secretary of State, The Secretary: A Journey With Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power from BBC, State Department radio and TV correspondent Kim Ghattus promised an intimate portrait of American foreign policy from the top down.

What it delivers is something altogether different. The Secretary reads like two storylines under one cover; the first a jaundiced, “journalist” almost awestruck tale of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who approaches things from the point of view that the United States is almost irreparably damaged on the world stage and only Obama and Clinton can fix it. While that may be Ms. Ghattus’ point of view, I think the record of the first term speaks volumes about the inept nature of the Obama foreign policy; makes me long for the day of George W. Bush’s “strategery.”

Second the book spirals away from its proclaimed subject and becomes a screed for the authors world view more than Obama/Clinton doctrine.

It does take long for the fawning to get rolling with the line early on; “Although he had belittled her foreign policy experience during the campaign, Obama knew that only Clinton came with the built-in international stature and credibility that allowed her to instantly board a plane and stand in for him while he fixed the economy at home.” It begs the questions; how’s that working out for you? With the economy continuing to stagnate into the second term. It’s also laughable on its face that a partial term Senator and community organizer could be critical of the foreign policy stance of a one-term Senator, whose foreign policy experience amounted to hosting teas for foreign dignitary’s wives while First Lady.

Ghattas’ liberal plumage is never more on full display than when she gives all of one paragraph of coverage to the 9/11/12 Benghazi, Libya assassination of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and as she puts it “three other Americans.” She writes off the fallout from the attack as “partisan criticism” claiming that “Clinton managed to dodge most of the acrimonious attacks.” Only in the twisted mind of a liberal could an epic foreign policy failure and the cover up that followed be couched as partisan! And for the record the three Americans that lost their lives were: Sean Smith, an information management officer, and former U.S. Navy SEALs; Tyrone S. Woods, a senior security specialist and Glen Doherty, a security contactor and former SEAL Sniper.

At this point, only history will bring clarity to the level of foreign policy incompetence of Obama and Clinton and the devastating effect it will have around the globe. Certainly Ms. Gahttas has done nothing to paint a clear picture.

Brandon Webb & Glen Doherty – Navy SEAL Sniper: An Intimate Look at the Sniper of the 21st Century (Skyhorse Publishing)

If the U.S. Navy SEALs are the elite special forces, fighters of the U.S. Military, then the Navy Seal Sniper is the elite of the elite. They have passed the grueling, six month long,  BUD/S Training course that is a mental and physical challenge; and then been selected to tackle the next level and become Navy SEAL Snipers.

Both authors; Brandon Webb, a retired Navy SEAL Sniper, who notched combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan among other hot spots and Glen Doherty, a combat decorated SEAL, who was killed in action in Benghazi, Libya while attempting to rescue U. S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, bring a battle tested, authentic feel to the writing of this book.

Navy SEAL Sniper: An Intimate Look at the Sniper of the 21st Century spells out the evolution of the sniper, not only from the historical perspective, but the transition of the U.S. Sniper in particular; from good old country boy who was handy with a hunting rifle, to the research and development of technology that assists and elevates the role of the Sniper to that of one of the most effective and deadly, tools in the military toolbox.

Webb and Doherty detail the training that SEAL snipers go through to work in settings that range from mountainous jungle regions to urban settings. They also dissect a full scope of sniper gear including weapons, optics, camouflage, and technology that has improved accuracy and effectiveness. They spend considerable focus on the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of a variety of sniper weapons.

While the book is an encyclopedic compendium of all things sniper, it doesn’t read like an encyclopedia. It clear spells out the mechanics of weaponry without getting bogged down in too much technical jargon. The photos and design graphics that accompany the book are amazing and provide a balance to narrative.

It is the clear level of experience and intelligence that Webb and Doherty brought to the project that shines through in the writing; there is a well earned level of pride in the training they undertook and the work that they did on behalf of this country. 

 

  

Dahlkemper Talking Political Vision Is Laughable at Best

I am always amused by how some politicians view themselves. I laughed out loud when I read accounts of former Congresswomen Kathy Dahlkemper’s announcement that she was tossing her hat into the race for the Democrat nomination for County Executive against incumbent Barry Grossman.

Dahlkemper laughably proclaimed that Erie County’s top job called for more visionary thinking on economic development, poverty and stemming the areas perpetual brain drain. My first reaction was what was her first clue? And the second was REALLY?! Political vision from a women whose only experience in public office came in her one term in Washington, where she served as a reliable rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama.

Pardon me, but W T F?! How can anyone possibly take this women seriously? Her vote in the affirmative for Obamacare has saddled not only Erie County, but the entire United States with one of the most detrimental to business pieces of legislation in the history of the country! The economic devastation that this bill will cause to the country will only continue to grow as its multiple parts begin to take effect.

Talk about poverty…Ms. Dahlkemper’s vote will spur businesses that are teetering on the brink of insolvency to go under and others who have ability to choose to depart Erie County and take their business elsewhere. Imagine Erie without GE Transportation. Not a pretty picture as that proverbial snowball rolls down hill and comes to rest at Ms. Dahlkemper’s feet.

The biggest problem with economic development in Erie County has nothing to do with a lack of political vision on the part of its County Executive, but an unwieldy web of competing entities struggling for funding and trying to cling to their own piece of the turf. It’s pretty hard to be effective when you have more than 20 groups posturing for a place in the spotlight. No one wants to give an inch in their little fiefdom, so nothing gets accomplished.

Now imagine someone as clueless as Kathy Dahlkemper bumbling and stumbling into the mess. While Grossman hasn’t done much to fire innovation in his first term the thought of Dahlkemper in that role is a truly frightening thought!

Neil Barofsky – Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street (Free Press) Paperback Edition with new foreward

Washington never met an acronym or a program it couldn’t throw at a problem. If the problem is big enough, the remedy seems to be to throw more acronym laden programs at it; not in an effort to fix the problem, but more often than not to merely appear like the problem is being addressed.

Neil Barofsky was nominated as the SIGTARP that was nominated in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration in an effort to ensure against waste, fraud and abuse in the $700 billion TARP program. In English, Barofsky was the lawyer charged with unenviable task of trying to prevent politicians and Wall Street types who were largely responsible for creating the economic circumstances that created the financial mess that necessitated the Troubled Asset Relief Program; more correctly labeled the Wall Street bailout.

In Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street Barofsky tries to valiantly to detail the machinations and internal struggles he faced in the push and pull between Washington and Wall Street. The incestuous nature of so many former Wall Street investment bankers retiring to move over to government side of the street to take on high level roles in presidential administrations screams with a fox guarding the henhouse cartoonish quality.

The picture that is painted by Bailout and so many other Washington insider books really makes it crystal clear why the American people have it right when they show an ever increasing distrust and disgust with everything happening in our nation’s capital. Forget about the best and the brightest we are saddled with lowest of the low; people more focused self-preservation and self-promotion than with truly doing what it best for the country and its people.

The insights that Barofsky offers about the nomination process should sicken any taxpayer concerned with our future. Battling against the odds Barofsky, did his noble best to prevent total anarchy from setting in, in a scenario that had the potential to be fraught with fraud and abuse.

This should be treated as a clarion call that in order to truly clean up the mess that has been created by politicians and Wall Street insiders would be to bring in outsiders who are skilled not in the workings of Wall Street/Washington axis, but folks that are skilled forensic accountants and investigators who are focused on bringing real change to real problems. I’m not sure if I should commend Barofsky for his efforts or question his sanity for taking on this insurmountable challenge.

Betsy McCaughey – Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law (Regnery Publishing)

During the debate over the Affordable Care Act, which better known as Obamacare, then Speaker of the House and well known MENSA member Nancy Pelosi famously proclaimed “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.” Unlike the genius Pelosi and I would safely bet a preponderance of the then members of the House and Senate who voted for this legislation, former New York Lt. Governor and health policy advocate Betsy McCaughey has actually read the 2572 pages of this convoluted law in its entirety.

McCaughey was a tireless campaigner against the passage of this mess and as now delivered a concise rendering of what the law actually says and does to the American people and the U.S. healthcare system in Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law.

While the chatter leading up to the passage of the law painted a wonderful picture full of all of the tremendous benefits that the American people would reap under this new approach to healthcare. But like so much that comes out of Washington, the American people were sold a bill of goods and the promised savings and improvements to healthcare delivery have already been proven to be an outright lie even before much of the law takes full effect.

McCaughey spells out the reality of the healthcare law including;

• The implementation of the largest tax increase in the last 20 years

• The tremendous cuts to payments that doctors, hospitals, and many other healthcare providers will receive for care delivered to the elderly.

• Why a massive number of employers who currently provide healthcare insurance are considering dropping those plans or cutting down the number of folks who participate in the benefit by slashing workforce or the number of hours workers currently work.

• If you’re wondering about the huge growth in the number of IRS employees being added to the federal payroll that is the mechanism that will be used for reporting and tracking if you receive employer provided healthcare and how much employers contribute to the cost of those plans.

 McCaughey spell out the cold, hard, reality of Obamacare in direct, easy to understand language that arms readers with the truth about what’s actually in the law. Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law, should be required reading for so-called best and the brightest on Capitol Hill who foisted this 20 pound legislative turd onto the American people. I would hope that Ms. McCaughey would also be kind enough to send a personally signed copy over to Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts whose misguided vote allowed this nightmare to continue.