Free Frank Warner

Still figuring out Heath Ledger’s $24,000 a month rent

How was it worth it that actor Heath Ledger paid $24,000 a month for his Broome Street apartment in SoHo, Manhattan?

That’s $800 rent a day for four months until Jan. 22, when he died there. What possibly could make a three-bedroom apartment worth that much?

We know he had a masseuse, a housekeeper, some skateboards, a mattress on the floor, and those six kinds of prescription drugs. OK, that might have done it.

Frank Warner

Why would dolphins kill babies?

Beautiful, intelligent dolphins ram and kill baby porpoises, and they even kill baby dolphins.

Why? And why did this phenomenon seem to be confined to the coasts of Virginia and northeast Scotland? Off Virginia, the deaths initially were blamed on U.S. Navy exercises. Off Scotland, animal lovers blamed oil rig technicians. The teeth marks -- and new video -- finally proved the dolphins did it.

Marine experts can’t figure it out. Food is not in short supply to these dolphins, but these marine mammals commonly kill porpoise babies and dolphin infants.

‘Look at ’em play.’ The experts are coming to the conclusion dolphins always did this, and probably do it everywhere. Years ago, we humans probably saw the dolphins killing baby dolphins, but it was from such a distance that we couldn’t make out what was going on.

Scientists say we had such respect for dolphins we assumed they were playing with their young. They were killing them!

(Remember The Twilight Zone’s “It was a cook book!”?)

Frank Warner

Retired Gen. Jimmy Cash has one thing to say: Stop Iran

Retired Air Force Gen. Jimmy Cash, who once had charge of monitoring all foreign missile launches for possible nuclear attack, boils down the global war on terror.

There are eight terror-sponsoring countries that make up the grand threat to the West. Two, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan just need firm pressure from the West to make major reforms. They need to decide who they are really going to support and commit to that support.

That answer is simple. They both will support who they think will hang in there until the end, and win.

We are not sending very good signals in that direction right now, thanks to the Democrats.

The other six, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya will require regime change or a major policy shift. Now, let’s look more closely.

Afghanistan and Iraq have both had regime changes, but are being fueled by outsiders from Syria and Iran . We have scared Gaddafi’s pants off, and he has given up his quest for nuclear weapons, so I don’t think Libya is now a threat.

North Korea (the non-Islamic threat) can be handled diplomatically by buying them off. They are starving. That leaves Syria and Iran. Syria is like a frightened puppy. Without the support of Iran they will join the stronger side. So where does that leave us? Sooner, or later, we are going to be forced to confront Iran, and it better be before they gain nuclear capability.

Stakes and mistakes. Cash doesn’t believe President Bush has articulated well what’s at stake if Iran’s theocratic dictatorship is not neutralized and if we start backsliding in Iraq and other fronts. And he doesn’t believe the Democrats are either ready or willing to act decisively and helpfully.

Cash says the democracies must win. He worries that, if the Democrats really withdraw all U.S. troops from the Middle East next year, Iran could take control of much more of that region’s oil and choke the West back to the 1930s and worse. That’s one reason the retired general also wants the U.S. to start immediately building more nuclear plants and drilling new oil wells.

I think Cash might be exaggerating the Democrats’ chances of pulling the rug out from the Middle East, if they put a Democrat in the White House in a year. But he can go only by what the presidential candidates are saying, and the Democrats do talk a lot about withdrawal.

The only choice. The general’s bottom line:

A President must make the war decision wisely, and insure that the cause is right before using his last political option.

HOWEVER, CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE IF WE ARE HELL-BENT ON DEPENDING ON THEM FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS.

No oil for bastards. We don’t want to steal anyone’s oil. But we can’t ignore illegitimate regimes who use oil to fund oppression and destroy democracy. Let the people of the Middle East control their oil -- in freedom.

Frank Warner

So Bush didn’t lie? Saddam said he pretended he had WMDs to scare off Iran

CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday will carry an interview with George Piro, the FBI agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein for months after his December 2003 capture.

Saddam still wouldn’t admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did. Because, says Piro, “For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq,” he tells [reporter Scott] Pelley.

He also intended and had the wherewithal to restart the weapons program. “[Saddam] still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there,” says Piro. “He wanted to pursue all of WMD…to reconstitute his entire WMD program.” This included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.

Wait a minute. Saddam acted as if he had WMDs, and probably told aides he had WMDs, and ran his armed forces as if they had WMDs? You mean, it really appeared as if Saddam had WMDs? President Bush and the CIA reasonably concluded that Saddam had WMDs? You mean, Bush didn’t lie? No!

So when Saddam didn’t cooperate fully and immediately with United Nations arms inspectors to prove he had no WMDs, the U.S. took the only action that would (1) punish Saddam’s violation of U.N. resolutions and (2) find out once and for all whether Saddam had WMDs?

And wasn’t the more important objective of the 2003 invasion to remove a totalitarian regime and replace it with democracy? After all, Saddam was violating U.N. Resolution 688, which required him to end his repression.

The nature of dictatorship. As Piro’s interrogations of Saddam reveal, the real problem in Iraq wasn’t the WMDs, which killed relatively few of Saddam’s victims. The problem was the secretive and unaccountable nature of its tyrannical regime.

That had to change. If your government has no free press, no opposition parties and no independent courts to check your ruler’s claims, and no constitution and free elections to throw out your ruler when he lies and murders, you are in hopelessly big trouble.

Five years ago, that’s where Iraq was.

Frank Warner

Robert Reich says Bill Clinton also said GOP had all the ideas

Robert Reich, U.S. labor secretary during the Clinton administration, says Bill Clinton is forgetting his own arguments, in the 1990s, that the Republican Party was the one with the ideas.

Reich says Clinton should stop attacking Barack Obama for saying the same thing. Reich makes pretty much the same point I made earlier today. He writes:

[T]he attack ads being run in South Carolina by the Clinton camp which quote Obama as saying Republicans had all the ideas under Reagan, is disingenuous. For years, Bill Clinton and many other leading Democrats have made precisely the same point – that starting in the Reagan administration, Republicans put forth a range of new ideas while the Democrats sat on their hands. Many of these ideas were wrong-headed and dangerous, such as supply-side economics. But for too long Democrats failed counter with new ideas of their own; they wrongly assumed that the old Democratic positions and visions would be enough. Clinton’s 1992 campaign – indeed, the entire “New Democratic” message of the 1990s – was premised on the importance of taking back the initiative from the Republicans and offering Americans a new set of ideas and principles. Now, sadly, we’re witnessing a smear campaign against Obama that employs some of the worst aspects of the old politics.

Reich has been an interestingly independent voice during this election campaign. Among other things, he has pointed out that, as the gap between rich and poor widens, the rich of the richest are the hedge-fund managers, from whom Democrats receive more contributions than Republicans. The hedge-fund managers apparently want to keep their tax advantage. Their profits are taxed at about half the tax rate of regular income. And the Democrats aren’t refusing the contributions.

As Bill Clinton can see, Reich is not looking for a job in the next Clinton administration.

Frank Warner

Daniel Patrick Moynihan also called GOP the party of ideas

Much has been made of Barack Obama pointing out that the Republican Party has been the party of ideas -- bad and good -- for the last 10 or 15 years.

Apparently, my hero, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, said the same thing in 1981.

Moynihan, a New York Democrat who held the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Hillary Clinton, was what I call an open-eyed liberal. He studied social problems in detail (The breakdown of the two-parent family puzzled him most) in the liberal hope of finding enlightened solutions.

The will to solve. But what Moynihan saw as Republican ideas really was the Republican willingness to try something, anything -- tax cuts, toughness against totalitarianism, reduced regulation, welfare reform -- to shake up the status quo.

In the early 1990s, a few Democrats saw merit to some of the Republican ideas and came up with practical alternatives of their own. The Democratic Leadership Council, with Bill Clinton as one of its champions, took a shot at open-eyed liberalism.

Clinton did push a few of the DLC’s ideas as president. He repeatedly made the case for two-parent families. He signed welfare reform, encouraged the chronically jobless to get jobs. He even had a balanced budget in 2000. Nevertheless, many of his accomplishments looked more Republican than Democrat, and the conventional wisdom still was that the Republicans were the ones to ask for ideas.

Status quo Democrats. Today, it does little to recommend the Democrats that many of their leaders are unwilling to do anything significant about the biggest problems confronting us. Energy crisis? Don’t build nuclear plants. Don’t set up windmills. Global warming? Just sign Kyoto, but don’t do anything. Dictatorships enslaving half the globe? Ignore the screams. Social Security and Medicare crumbling? By all means, do nothing.

That’s closed-eyed liberalism. Shut your eyes, wish your problems away, and blame someone else when the problems only get worse. If someone else attempts a solution, throw up roadblocks and complain.

Now, of all our presidential candidates this year, who really is spelling out the problems honestly, and who really is offering solutions that have a chance of working?

Who has an idea?

Frank Warner

Nevada Hispanics bail out on Obama

A recent study found minority groups tend to hold prejudices against other minority groups. The Nevada Democratic caucus, in which Hispanics appear to have abandoned Barack Obama, is further evidence of this phenomenon.

It makes no sense, but what about prejudice makes sense?

Frank Warner

Congressional Budget Office forecasts no recession, but we’ll fix it anyway

Congress is willing to borrow $150 billion – adding to this year’s expected $219 billion budget deficit – to fix a recession that isn’t there.

The Congressional Budget Office says a recession isn’t’ coming. Reuters reports:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The slowing U.S. economy is unlikely to sink into an election-year recession and an economic rebound could begin as early as next year as housing and financial market turmoil fades, the Congressional Budget Office forecast on Wednesday.

In the meantime, the U.S. budget deficit will grow to $219 billion this year, up from the $163 billion registered last year, according to a CBO report submitted to Congress. But that forecast by Congress' nonpartisan budget analyst does not include the cost of an economic stimulus measure that is quickly moving through Congress and could cost around $150 billion or more. The deficit projection for fiscal 2008, which ends September 30, also does not include more money Congress is likely to approve this year for the war in Iraq.

While CBO noted an elevated risk of recession, its outlook was weighted more toward the United States working through its current economic problems and escaping a full-blown recession.

I thought a “stimulus package” might be a good idea, but if the signs of recession are that weak, borrowing that much more money is more likely to undermine confidence in the U.S. economy than bolster it.

Investors, here and abroad, want to see a U.S. economy that is paying its bills and preparing to pay for rising Social Security and Medicare costs. Investors don’t want to bet on any organization whose only solution to everything is debt.

Frank Warner

Bin Laden’s son says dad shouldn’t kill civilians, but he’s no terrorist

Osama bin Laden’s playboy son, Omar, says his father is no terrorist, but he probably should stop killing civilians.

“I try and say to my father: ‘Try to find another way to help or find your goal. This bomb, this weapon, it’s not good to use it for anybody.’ I don’t think 9/11 was right personally but it happened.”

This deadly thinking passes as logic in Egypt, but Omar, let’s say I flew a jet into the Cairo Tower, killing everyone in it. Am I a hero or a terrorist?

Frank Warner

Democratic debate: Obama and Clinton now pretend they hated Reagan

I hope you saw some of the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate last night. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama finally went at it over Ronald Reagan (or not).

Here’s the CNN transcript. As you read it, keep in mind that Reagan had something to do with winning the Cold War. Also keep in mind that President Bill Clinton had a love-hate relationship with the national debt.

In other words, keep in mind that Clinton and Obama really aren’t talking about how much they disliked Reagan (recently listed in Hillary’s Top 10 presidents of all time). They’re talking about how much they dislike each other:

OBAMA: What she said wasn’t true.

MODERATOR: She says that the new programs that she proposes she essentially can pay for.  She says that you have failed in that regard in the tune of some $50 billion worth of new programs that you cannot account for.

How do you respond to that charge?

OBAMA:  What she said wasn’t true.  We account for every single dollar that we propose.

Now, this, I think, is one of the things that's happened during the course of this campaign, that there's a set of assertions made by Senator Clinton, as well as her husband, that are not factually accurate.

And I think that part of what the people are looking for right now is somebody who's going to solve problems and not resort to the same typical politics that we've seen in Washington.

(APPLAUSE)

That is something that I hear all across the country.  So when Senator Clinton says — or President Clinton says — that I wasn’t opposed to the war from the start or says it's a fairy tale that I opposed the war, that is simply not true.

When Senator Clinton or President Clinton asserts that I said that the Republicans had had better economic policies since 1980, that is not the case.

Now, the viewers aren't concerned with this kind of back-and-forth.  What they're concerned about is who's actually going to help the get health care, how are they going to get their kids...

(APPLAUSE)

... going to college, and that's the kind of campaign I've tried to run.  I think that's the kind of campaign we should all try to run.

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON:  Well, I couldn't agree more.  But I do think that your record and what you say does matter.  And when it comes to...

(APPLAUSE)

... a lot of the issues that are important in this race, it is sometimes difficult to understand what Senator Obama has said, because as soon as he is confronted on it, he says that's not what he meant.

The facts are that he has said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote. Now, I personally think they had ideas, but they were bad ideas. They were bad ideas for America.

(APPLAUSE)

They were ideas like privatizing Social Security, like moving back from a balanced budget and a surplus to deficit and debt.

And with respect to putting forth how one would pay for all of the programs that we're proposing in this campaign, I will be more than happy, Barack, to get the information, because we have searched for it.

You have a lot of money that you want to put into foreign aid, a very worthy program.  There is no evidence from your Web site, from your speeches, as to how you would pay for it.

Now, why is this important?  It's important because I think elections are about the future.  But how do you determine what will happen in the future?  Well, you have to look to the record, you have to look to what we say in campaigns, and what we have done during our careers.

And I want to be just very explicit about this.  We are not, neither my campaign nor anyone associated with it, are in any way saying you did not oppose the war in Iraq.

You did.  You gave a great speech in 2002 opposing the war in Iraq.  That was not what the point of our criticism was.

It was after having given that speech, by the next year the speech was off your Web site.  By the next year, you were telling reporters that you agreed with President Bush in his conduct of the war.  And by the next year, when you were in the Senate, you were voting to fund the war time after time after time.

BLITZER:  All right.

CLINTON:  So it was more about the distinction between words and action.  And I think that is a fair assessment for voters to make.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER:  OK.  Thank you, Senator.  Senator, we're a little off topic.  I have to let Senator Obama respond, then Senator Edwards, who's going to come...

OBAMA:  We're off topic, but...

BLITZER:  But go ahead and respond, and then I want to get back to this issue that we're talking about, fiscal responsibility.  But go ahead.

OBAMA: Let's talk about it.

Hillary, I will be happy to provide you with the information about all — all the spending that we do.  Now, let's talk about Ronald Reagan.  What you just repeated here today is...

CLINTON:  Barack...

OBAMA:  Wait.  No.  Hillary, you just spoke.

CLINTON:  I did not say anything about Ronald Reagan.

OBAMA:  You just spoke for two minutes.

CLINTON:  You said two things.

OBAMA: You just...

CLINTON:  You talked about admiring Ronald Reagan and you talked about the ideas...

OBAMA:  Hillary, I'm sorry.  You just...

BLITZER:  Senator...

CLINTON:  I didn't talk about Reagan.

OBAMA:  Hillary, we just had the tape.  You just said that I complimented the Republican ideas.  That is not true.

What I said — and I will provide you with a quote — what I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to.  Because while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA:  I was fighting these fights.  I was fighting these fights.  So — but I want to be clear.

So I want to be clear.  What I said had nothing to do with their policies.  I spent a lifetime fighting a lifetime against Ronald Reagan's policies.  But what I did say is that we have to be thinking in the same transformative way about our Democratic agenda.

We've got to appeal to Independents and Republicans in order to build a working majority to move an agenda forward.  That is what I
said.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA:  Now, you can dispute that, but let me finish.

Hillary, you went on for two minutes.  Let me finish.

The irony of this is that you provided much more fulsome praise of Ronald Reagan in a book by Tom Brokaw that's being published right now, as did — as did Bill Clinton in the past.  So these are the kinds of political games that we are accustomed to.

CLINTON:  Now, wait a minute.

Wolf, wait a minute.  Wait a minute.  Just a minute.

BLITZER: Senator Edwards, let them wrap up.  Then I'm going to come to you.

Yes?

CLINTON:  I just want — I just to clarify — I want to clarify the record.  Wait a minute.

EDWARDS:  There's a third person in this debate.

BLITZER:  Wait a minute, Senator Edwards.  Hold on.

There has been a specific charge leveled against Hillary Clinton, so she can respond.  Then I'll bring in Senator Edwards.

CLINTON:  I just want to be sure...

OBAMA:  Go ahead and address what you said about...

BLITZER:  We have got a long time to.  You'll have a good opportunity.

CLINTON:  We're just getting warmed up.

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON:  Now, I just — I just want to be clear about this.  In an editorial board with the Reno newspaper, you said two different things, because I have read the transcript.  You talked about Ronald Reagan being a transformative political leader.  I did not mention his
name.

OBAMA: Your husband did.

CLINTON:  Well, I'm here.  He's not.  And...

OBAMA:  OK.  Well, I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes.

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON:  Well, you know, I think we both have very passionate and committed spouses who stand up for us.  And I'm proud of that.

But you also talked about the Republicans having ideas over the last 10 to 15 years.

OBAMA:  I didn't say they were good ones.

CLINTON:  Well, you can read the context of it.

OBAMA: Well, I didn't say they were good ones.

CLINTON:  Well, it certainly...

OBAMA:  All right, Wolf.

CLINTON:  It certainly came across in the way that it was presented, as though the Republicans had been standing up against the conventional wisdom with their ideas.  I'm just reacting to the fact, yes, they did have ideas, and they were bad ideas.

OBAMA:  I agree.

CLINTON:  Bad for America, and I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago.
(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA:  No, no, no.

Hey, this campaign might avoid the big issues as much as most campaigns. But it sure is interesting.

Frank Warner