Weekly Run-Down: February 15th - 21st, 2009

Afghanistan and Pakistan

On Monday we learned that the Pakistani government agreed to enforce Sharia Law in Northwest Pakistan – particularly Swat Valley – and that the government has halted their offensive against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Taliban in the region has been burning down schools and attacking government facilities and soldiers. Just last Thursday, Dianne Feinstein disclosed information about Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States in our efforts to take out terrorists inside their country by using a Pakistani air base.

If you thought the situation in that part of the world couldn’t get any worse, think again.

Pakistan is not looking good. The government is making concessions to the enemies we are trying to defeat, but it wasn’t because they wanted to – they had lost the battle against the Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley region. The already weak government – which presides over nuclear weaponry – is appearing to get weaker by the day, and Feinstein’s outing of their cooperation with us doesn’t help the matter.

When will our inept politicians learn to keep their mouths shut about active and undisclosed military operations? Feinstein ought to be removed from her position as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

New Israeli Government and Iran’s Nuclear Program

On Thursday, the IAEA admitted that Iran did indeed have enough low-grade uranium to enrich for a weapons-grade nuclear bomb. The next day, Israeli president Shimon Peres selected Benjamin Netanyahu to build a new Israeli government.

The Iran/Israel dilemma is heating up rather quickly with the developments in just the last two days. Netanyahu is a hard-line conservative who has little patience for threats and attacks by Israel’s Muslim antagonists. He is charged with forming a coalition government in which he will most likely be aligned with parties that are much more nationalist than his own. And with the news out of Iran which confirms that their uranium quantities are sufficient to create a nuclear weapon, it may only be a matter of time before Israel decides it cannot take the risk to allow weaponization to happen.

So much for Barack Obama’s insistence on peace between the Israelis and their enemies.

Venezuelans Vote for Dictatorship

Venezuela voted last Sunday to abolish term limits which will allow President Hugo Chavez to run for office indefinitely. Just over 54% of the voters decided it was time to help install Chavez as the next great dictator of Latin America. Why a majority of any country would vote for laws that expedite a dictatorship – assuming the voting was legitimate – is almost unimaginable.

The Obama administration has another matter to deal with – this one much closer to home. Chavez had recently expressed his intentions of engaging directly with Obama to try to fix the broken relationship between his government and the United States. Surely, that is something our new administration will welcome with open arms. It should be comforting to all of us knowing that Venezuela has been cozying up with degenerating Russia in recent months.

Obama Signs Spending Bill, Stock Market Tumbles

Despite signing into law what Obama called “the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history,” Wall Street fell 298 points on Tuesday. The very next day, Obama announced his mortgage bailout plan. The combined effects of these two announcements garnered a nearly 500-point drop in the stock market in an abbreviated trading week, due to the President’s Day holiday.

It is becoming quite obvious that investors and businesses do not like the policies being put forth by the new administration. It is equally as obvious that the American People with the means to spend and invest have very little confidence with our new government. As soon as our politicians figure this out and stop pushing us deeper into debt and financial ruin, the better off we’ll be.

CNBC’s Rick Santelli nailed the sentiments of much of the population on Thursday morning while on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. (You can watch the video here.)

We don’t need more spending packages or new government bailouts and programs. What we need is a down-sizing of government, a lifting of tax burdens, and incentives to purchase new goods and services. I laid out several ideas that would spark plenty of economic growth immediately and in the long-term in my article, The Stimulus Needs Stimulus. I think it’s time for somebody in our federal government to take a look at it.

Compean and Ramos Released from Prison

In one of very few bits of good news this week, the two Border Patrol agents, who were convicted and imprisoned for shooting an illegal alien drug smuggler on our nation’s Southern border, were released from prison on Tuesday. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were convicted of assault, lying in their report, and violating the “victim’s” Fourth Amendment rights of illegal search and seizure – which is an absolute farce. The “victim” was a drug smuggler who had illegally crossed our national border and was later convicted of smuggling 750 pounds of marijuana into this country.

Compean and Ramos had been in prison for two years after being convicted in 2006. President Bush commuted their sentences as one of his final acts in office.