Analyzing the issues of the 2016 election

At Chicago Boyz David Foster writes an excellent piece about what is at stake in this election. For example, here he is on the healing of American society.

The political and social divisions in American society today are extreme, and do not bode well for the long term. Neither of the candidates is ideal to address this problem, to put it mildly. Trump is bombastic and sometimes crude in his speech; he has exhibited less-than-wholesome attitudes…indeed, repulsive attitudes…toward women. But Hillary’s whole political existence is based on divisiveness; the breaking of American society into interest groups and the setting of them against one another. There is also considerable hostility toward men embedded in the ‘progressive’ movement of which Hillary is the avatar, and sometimes exhibited by Hillary herself. The Democrats have also repeatedly demonstrated great contempt for broad swaths of American society: Christians, ‘rednecks,’ people without college degrees, etc etc.

He also analyzes global terrorism, the protection of free expression, economic growth, improving K--12 education, saving higher education, maintaining American power, and the avoidance of a permanent ruling class.
Read more here.

"Decline by design," or "Islands Disease?"

Obviously, I am one who thinks it is important to read daily what the smart people in the blogosphere are saying about the events in the news. I also think talk radio is important, although my work schedule only allows me to hear bits and pieces.

This morning I was fortunate to be able to listen for a few minutes to Dan Caplis on KNUS in Denver. Dan thinks that although Obama says he has no strategy yet for dealing with the Islamic State, that Obama does have a strategy for America in the world: "decline by design."

Dan was talking with another radio host, whose name I believe, was Chuck Bonniwell. I hope I have spelled his name correctly. Chuck disagreed with Dan. He believes Obama is just lazy, having spent too much time in tropical climates, he must have "Islands Disease."

Which do you think is correct? Or do you have a different theory?

The decline of American power

Claudia Rosett believes that the most underreported foreign news story of 2013 is the decline of American power.

This past year saw many parts of this story covered in detail. There has been endless print about the U.S.-led diplomatic dalliance with Iran, from which Iranian officials emerged to announce their “inalienable right” to enrich uranium, while America officials advertised as an achievement a half-baked short-term nuclear deal that has been neither clarified nor implemented. Not only has the U.S. failed to stop the “unacceptable” Iranian bomb program; America has gone far to erode its own credibility in denouncing as unacceptable — yet de facto accepting — everything from rogue nuclear programs to the theft of massive amounts of information from its own National Security Agency. Where does this go?

There’s also been plenty written about the rise of Putin’s increasingly despotic and ambitious Russia — looming over Ukraine, and reasserting itself in the Middle East. This year brought the U.S. climbdown over Syria, in which the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons translated into gains for Moscow and irrelevancy for Washington. Another story was China’s territorial jockeying, along with Japan’s growing worry about the reliability of the old U.S. defense umbrella. On North Korea, there has been plenty of copy devoted to young hereditary tyrant Kim Jong Un conducting his maiden nuclear test — North Korea’s third since 2006 — while the U.S., alerted in advance, looked on.