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Saturday, June 6, 2009
Fairness Doctrine Sweeps Venezuela as Opposition Media Head Indicted
Posted by on 6.6.09 @ 5:24AM
Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is imposing his own version of the Fairness Doctrine.
Authorities in the workers' paradise indicted Guillermo Zuloaga, president of the opposition media outfit Globovision.
Zuloaga is accused of "usury." Yes, usury. Really. It's a crime down there.
There is no reaction yet from Chavez's American friends, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Kevin Spacey, about the indictment. They also haven't commented on the fact that Chavez allows Islamic terrorist groups to use his country as a base.
Friday, June 5, 2009
CORRECTED: Center for Independent Media's Minnesota Branch Lies
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 11:33PM
The pissing match in the comments section at the Minnesota Independent website escalates.
I seem to have been blocked so I posted my lengthy response here.
Some liberals lie and lie and lie some more, and then when they get caught, they keep on lying.
CORRECTION June 9: It turns out the Center for Independent Media, which runs the Minnesota Independent, did not lie about its office space situation (though it still has ties to an unsavory group).
Toxic Mortgage Tycoons Herb & Marion Sandler and the ACORN Connection
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 5:39PM
The "Glenn Beck Program" did an excellent piece on June 3 about Herb and Marion Sandler, the toxic mortgage king and queen, and their connection to ACORN and the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending. (The video clip is embedded above.)
Through their charity, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, they gave at least $5,723,222 to the ACORN network. Specifically, the charity gave $4,498,222 to American Institute for Social Justice (since 2003), $700,000 to Project Vote (in 2005), $525,000 to ACORN (2000–2001 according to Activist Cash). This excludes any contributions that either Sandler may have made personally to ACORN or its affiliates.
According to the "Glenn Beck Program," the Sandlers paid ACORN to send out protesters to hound Wells Fargo Bank, which competed with Golden West, the Sandlers' bank. If true, this is an explosive allegation.
The Sandlers have also given heavily to the Center for Responsible Lending, an ACORN ally that champions the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Their foundation has given the Center at least $11,200,000 since 2005.
The Sandlers are also deeply involved in an effort to push America's journalistic culture even farther to the left. They have given a reported $10 million to ProPublica, a left-leaning investigative journalism outfit. Cheryl K. Chumley profiled ProPublica in last month's Foundation Watch.
Big Tobacco Will Be Just Fine
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 4:35PM
Even if the FDA starts regulating tobacco. Patrick Basham makes the case, noting Philip Morris' lobbying prowess. So why are anti-tobacco crusaders like Henry Waxman and Ted Kennedy playing along? And why does this big-government bill have bipartisan support? Look beneath the smokescreen.
A Question of National Character
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 3:46PM
Speaking to a French reporter while on his Middle East trip, President Obama said that the United States would be “one of the largest Muslim countries,” if its Muslim population was the measure. Jake Tapper fact checked that claim and reports that the White House used the CIA World Fact Book as a source for Obama’s erroneous statistic that there are seven million Muslims in the U.S. The actual size of the Muslim population in America, according to the CIA, is 0.6% of the total, or just under 2 million.
Tapper points out that the president did not say, and does not believe, that the United States is a Muslim nation, as some have lamented. As evidence for this, he recalls Obama’s speech of April 6, in Turkey, in which the president said that America, “does not consider itself a Christian nation, a Jewish nation, or a Muslim nation.” While Tapper may be correct on the literal meaning of the president’s words, the rationale behind them is utter nonsense.
The idea that America would be one of the largest Muslim nations is silly not just because the president’s figures were grossly over-inflated. It is silly because population size is not what makes a nation inherently Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. Culture does.
Take India as an example. India has the second largest population in the world at just under 1.2 billion people. Of them, the CIA says that 13.5% are Muslim. That gives India a Muslim population of over 162 million. Compare that to the largest Muslim nation of Indonesia, which has 200 million. Yet no one would think to claim that India is a Muslim nation, or that it is even, “one of the largest Muslim countries,” based on that number alone. India’s culture is as unique as it is ancient. In modern times, India’s culture and society may have been shaped by Muslims, but they are undoubtedly rooted in a history that long predates the introduction of Islam.
Similarly, America has a history rooted in Western European civilization, which is undeniably Christian. The Founders were Christian men who, guided by their Christian faith, stitched together a nation. Although they had the restraint to forbid the government from sponsoring a particular religion, to say that the United States is not a Christian nation is to deny both its history and the present reality. Indeed, with roughly one tenth of the worldwide Christian population, by the president’s own logic the United States would be one of the world’s biggest Christian nations, if not the biggest.
One aspect of the United States’ Christian culture is its acceptance of other religions. This is simply not the case in many Muslim nations, where Christians and Jews are shunned, discriminated against, and even driven out. A powerful example is the systematic marginalization of the minority Coptic Christian community in the president’s host nation, Egypt.
It is understandable that President Obama wants better relations with the Muslim world. It has been, after all, the source of many of America’s problems for the past 30 years. But to deny the very nature of the county in that effort is not outreach, it is obsequiousness. America’s relationship to Muslims should be predicated on mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance of one another. That means Muslims must understand and accept that America is at its root a Christian nation, just as they must realize that America’s actions in the world are not guided by that fact. The president does his cause no favors by pretending otherwise.
The Threat in North Korea
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 12:32PM
George H. Wittman's web article today, on the threat posed by a dangerously unstable North Korea (Road Back to Pork Chop Hill), prompted an interesting and informative criticism from military expert Stuart Koehl. Koehl has a much less dire assessment of the threat posed by the Kim Jong-Il regime, counter to Wittman's warning that combined South Korean and American forces would be hard pressed to maintain a strong position on the peninsula, as they did in 1950, in the event of an all-out North Korean assault.
I've hoisted Koehl's argument from the comments on that article. It's too long to post to the blog, so I've placed it here.
"Wouldn't It Be Nice..."
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 11:46AM
I've been sick the past few days and that's why blogging has been light. A lot has already been said about President Obama's Cairo speech, but I thought I'd chime in with some quick thoughts. Having read the text of the speech without watching, I was reminded of the Beach Boys song, "Wouldn't It Be Nice." That is, it was largely a fantasy of how wonderful things could be if current conditions were completely different, and everybody could put aside their petty differences and work together to live in peace with one another. The problem is, there's a genuine ideological difference between those who believe in a civilization based on representative government, religious freedom, tolerance of others, freedom of speech, women's rights, the rule of law, and those who see those very things as a threat to civilization. If appeals to reason and good will were enough to achieve peace, we would have achieved it long ago. But Obama was elected and now he gets to try things out his way, so we'll move out of the realm of theory and see if his approach can actually succeed.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.5.09 @ 10:22AM
Obama's strategy: Dishonorable and self-defeating (Washington Post)
The public option in the health reform plan, very simply explained (Greg Mankiw's Blog)
Here comes Pawlenty... brace yourselves, populist Republican '12 candidates (FiveThirtyEight)
The government makes a poor financier, which is why Detroit is screwed and San Jose is not (Boston Globe)
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Ohio Prosecutor: ACORN Voter Fraud/Illegal Voting Probe Underway
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 7:12PM
Darnell Nash, a voter in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has been indicted by a grand jury for, among other things, illegal voting.
Nash was registered to vote by ACORN.
Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County, Ohio Prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, just spoke with me.
Miday said an "investigation is continuing into activities by ACORN. Darnell Nash is the first we've charged in this ongoing investigation."
"ACORN workers approached him to fill out voter registration cards and he did so on nine different occasions using different names and addresses, then he actually registered and voted on Sept. 30 and voted with a different address and the address was an address here in the Cleveland area in a suburb called Shaker Heights."
Miday said that the Shaker Heights address is important because the person who actually lives there alerted the authorities after multiple registration acknowledgement documents came in the mail. Nash's vote was then flagged and Nash came to the attention of the board of elections. It held an administrative board hearing and summoned Nash to appear but he failed to show up for the hearing.
"After the election ACORN had to turn over all its voter registration cards and those amounted to about 70,000," Miday said. "The sheriff's office in Cuyahoga County has been going through mounds of paperwork."
"The activities by ACORN are being looked at. Through the investigation a number of employees of ACORN have been interviewed," said Miday.
The investigation is ongoing, he repeated.
Updated 9 p.m.: The New York Post previously reported on Darnell Nash's exploits. (I knew that name sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place it.) He or she is a unique individual. Here's a New York Post video about Nash (hat tip: Yid With Lid):
Center for Independent Media Smears Bachmann Over ACORN
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 5:40PM
The leftists at the Center for Independent Media have joined the smear campaign against Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) over her comments about ACORN.
Writer Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent (part of the Center for Independent Media) throws a spotlight on the demonstrably false critique published by PolitiFact of Bachmann's correct assertion that ACORN is eligible for $8.5 billion in federal funding. Birkey has deluded himself into believing PolitiFact is correct.
Here are some highlights from the pissing match in progress in the comments section below Birkey's article at the Minnesota Independent:
1) Matthew Vadum
Comment posted June 4, 2009 @
12:58 pm
PolitiFact did a terrible job.
Reporter Robert Farley's piece is ahit job on Bachmann. Farley
ignored important evidence that I provided him. His analysis is
incredibly superficial much like the hatchet jobs one can read at
the Media Matters for America website. Farley's piece is not
investigative journalism at all but a long-winded defense of
ACORN.
Among other things, he takes an ACORN official at his word even
though ACORN has a long, well documented history of lying about
its internal affairs. Besides, ACORN is engaged in racketeering
and election fraud is but a tiny bit of its business. It is
engaged in extortion, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars and is
under investigation by the FBI and at least 12 states. In recent
weeks ACORN and ex-workers were charged with election fraud in
Pennsylvania and Nevada.
I refuted the PolitiFact article at http://spectator.org/archives/2009/05/28/polifacts-fixers
and wrote an extensively researched report on ACORN available at
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pubs.html?id=663.
2) Andy Birkey
Comment posted June 4, 2009 @
2:18 pm
Thanks Matthew, but I'll trust the work of a Pulitzer prize winner over the Capital Research Center.
"The Capital Research Center came under fire in the 1990s for publishing studies highly critical of charities which engaged in anti-tobacco lobbying efforts.[9]. These charities include the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society. It was later revealed that tobacco giant Philip Morris provided $50,000 in funding to the Capital Research Center.[10]"
3) Matthew Vadum
Comment posted June 4, 2009 @
2:58 pm
Andy:
That's precisely the kind of snotty response I would expect from an arrogant journalist. Instead of examining the facts you are wowed by credentials. Shame on you. Your job is to pursue the truth wherever it leads you.
If you actually read my critique it is difficult for you to come away feeling that PolitiFact is right. My guess is, like Robert Farley, you're too lazy or careless to actually take in the evidence.
Anyway, I'm not surprised you feel that way, Andy, given that you write for an aggressively left-wing media outlet. Let's take a look at some of the dirty money the Center for Independent Media has taken in recently:
$100,000 from Tides Center in 2007
$75,000 from Tides Center in 2007
$60,000 from Tides Foundation in 2007
$12,500 from Tides Center in 2006
$10,000 from Tides Center in 2007
$6,000 from Tides Center in 2006
That's a total of $263,500 from Tides Center and Tides Foundation in the last three years alone.
Using your reasoning that means the Center for Independent Media is beholden to the extreme left. Tides has long supported the most radical left-wing and progressive groups in America.
It is run by Drummond Pike, a radical leftover peacenik from the 1960s. After the brother of his friend Wade Rathke embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN Pike came to the rescue of ACORN and paid off more than $700,000 in restitution owing to ACORN. Wade Rathke was on the board of Tides until fairly recently when news of the ACORN embezzlement scandal broke. Pike is also an officer of the Democracy Alliance, a George Soros-led donors' collaborative that seeks to permanently move America to the left.
By your reasoning, these people pay you so you must be doing their bidding.
Perhaps you should begin using facts instead of smears.
4) Andy Birkey
Comment posted June 4, 2009 @
3:53 pm
Matthew, I did read your essay, and I read Politifact's essay.
You're a right-leaning mouthpiece calling a left-leaning mouthpiece a ‘leaf-leaning mouthpiece."
Is ACORN Housing using taxpayer money for voter registration? That's the question. I've read through a number of your essays and all I can see is vitriol directed at ACORN and some spurious connections you claim as proof. Of course if you actually had proof that ACORN was using HUD money to do voter registration and we found to be in violation of law (i.e. a conviction), then we wouldn't be having this discussion, because your assertions would prove true.
5) Matthew Vadum
Comment posted June 4, 2009 @
4:17 pm
If the facts I presented at length regarding ACORN's well documented abuse of taxpayer dollars and various antics failed to make an impression on you I suggest you put down the bong and read the articles again. Everything I write is backed up.
No one apart from you and PolitiFact chose to focus on the rhetorical straw man of whether ACORN Housing is using taxpayer money from HUD for voter registration. It is not the question.
Robert Farley used this straw man knowing he could easily knock it down, and that's exactly the approach that your friends at the character assassination factory Media Matters for America do too.
Seriously, how can anyone write a fact-checking piece about a controversial statement made by the figure in question (i.e. Bachmann) and then proceed to focus on statements not made by the person?
PolitiFact is a joke.
It is undeniable that ACORN is eligible for $8.5 billion in federal funds this year. It won't get the whole amount as I have said repeatedly and as Congresswoman Bachmann has said repeatedly. The scandal here is the fact that a group under indictment and under investigation across America for fraud is eligible for any taxpayer dollars.
If you continue to defend ACORN, you are one of the criminal group's useful idiots.
Cap and Trade, Divide and Conquer
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 4:36PM
In a conference call this afternoon, House Republicans seemed to be enjoying the Democratic turf war over the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. The bill was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman, but other committees have been balking. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel has objected to a quick floor vote; Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson has threatened to vote the bill down in committee. All this caused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to set a June 19 deadline for moving the bill, unless the committees want to risk losing their jurisdiction.
All parties have since cooled. Pelosi has said June 19 isn't a "hard deadline." Rangel has said he'll try to stay on Pelosi's schedule. And Peterson says he wants to make the bill "workable" rather than defeat it outright. But only Waxman has embraced Pelosi's deadline.
Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Lee Terry (R-Neb.), and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) chortled over the Democratic divisions but also continued to pound away at the substance of the "cap-and-tax" bill. McCarthy zinged Waxman for having "admitted he has no idea what's in the bill." Terry described the "misinformation put out by the two authors of the bill," though he described them as "good people, I like to chat with them." Latta focused on the impact on manufacturing. "My district lives and dies by energy," he said.
All three of them concentrated on the cap-and-trade price tag of at least $1,600 per household, rising in the out years. Latta complained cap-and-trade was "more about raising money than reducing CO2. They've gotta have money for all the things they want to do." They were also unanimous in believing that cap-and-trade was now Nancy Pelosi's top legislative priority.
National Conservative Leaders Oppose Obama GM Bailout
6.4.09 @ 4:16PM
A group of leading conservatives issued the following statement against Obama's approach to General Motors:
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S UNPRECEDENTED BAILOUT OF GENERAL MOTORSPUTS AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ON HOOK FOR $50 BILLION -SO FAR
With no vote of Congress, not a single public hearing and private meetings conducted largely by Obama Administration officials who were never subject to Senate confirmation, the federal government now owns 60% of one of the world's largest multi-national corporations - and American taxpayers will be left holding the bill for years. The move not only provides huge potential risks and problems for the government, including the likely infusion of more capital in the future, but it also opens the door to micro-management of General Motors by federal officials and Members of Congress.
TAXPAYERS HAD NO SAY AND
CONGRESS HAD NO VOTE ON ISSUEIn December of last year, Congress chose not to act on legislation authorizing a federal bailout of the auto industry. Nevertheless, the Bush administration and now the Obama administration -without any legislative authority to do so - has provided General Motors and Chrysler with billions of dollars from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized by Congress for buying assets from financial institutions (not automobile companies). The Constitution and the rule of law seem to have taken a back seat to political calculations. Although the President claims he has "no interest in running GM," news reports indicate that administration officials are involved in deciding the types of cars GM is to build and where their headquarters are to be located.
UNITED AUTO WORKERS OFFICIALS
FAVORED OVER TAXPAYERS AND BOND HOLDERSThe UAW, which provided millions of dollars in campaign funds and support for the Obama campaign in 2008, received preferential treatment over other creditors - in the end, a deal comprised of a whopping $10 billion in cash and a 17.5% stake in General Motors. Professor Todd Zywicki of George Mason University Law School offers an observation on this point: "Mr. Obama may have helped save the jobs of thousands of union workers whose dues, in part, engineered his election. But what about the untold number of job losses in the future caused by trampling the sanctity of contracts today?"
To get an inkling of just how favorably the UAW was treated in this process, consider that Obama administration officials at the Treasury Department have claimed a victory for new contract terms requiring UAW workers to put in 40 hours a week before getting overtime pay. (That's the supposed good news.) The bad news is that UAW workers will still be allowed six unexcused absences before being fired. One final note that says it all: UAW President Ron Gettelfinger was an Obama delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY MUST BE ESTABLISHED TO PREVENT WASTE FRAUD AND ABUSE OF TAXPAYERS FUNDS AND OBAMA NEEDS TO SET DATE CERTAIN FOR GM RETURN TO PRIVATE CONTROL
We call on Congress to instruct the Government Accountability Office immediately to prepare to take the steps necessary in order to protect the taxpayers' 60% interest in General Motors. We also ask that the Treasury Department Inspector General establish a special task force to oversee and track the 50 billion dollars of taxpayer money provided to GM and President Obama to set a date certain for returning the company to private control.Duane Parde, President, National Taxpayers Union
The statement was signed by:
James C. Miller III, former Reagan Budget Director
Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America
William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government
Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
David Keene, Chairman, American Conservative Union
Kenneth Blackwell, former Treasurer, State of Ohio
Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
David McIntosh, former U.S. Representative, Indiana
Herman Cain, President, THE New Voice, Inc.
Fred Smith, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Tim Phillips, President, Americans for Prosperity
Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator
Married...Without Children
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 12:11PM
In a web piece published today, Jim Antle looks at the direction the gay marriage debate is taking. What's at stake? Thomas Peters finds two clear examples of gay marriage infringing on religious liberty -- one in the UK, and one in San Francisco. Whatever your thoughts on the issue, the inevitable collision between legalized gay marriage and religious freedom must be taken into consideration. In both cases that Peters catalogues, the tension is between Catholic adoption services, who refuse to allow gay couples to adopt their charges, and state anti-discrimination laws, which require that they must. This has already played out in Massachusetts, where the Catholic Relief Services responded by ending their adoption services instead of compromising their principles.
Sanford in the Morning
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 11:41AM
This morning we and Americans for Tax Reform hosted an American Spectator Newsmaker Breakfast with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a leading fiscal conservative and oft-mentioned 2012 possibility. Sanford delivered a wide-ranging, reflective talk on everything from the Republican Party's identity crisis to his difficulties finding a Wendy's at which to dine in Alexandria. But Sanford focused heavily on South Carolina's budget and his reasons for rejecting the federal stimulus funds.
Sanford gave the example of a family that won the lottery and used the money to pay down debts, settle bills, and shore up their overall financial position. He said we would look at such a family as a financially prudent and responsible, so why should we not expect similar behavior from our elected officials? Instead, he argued, the stimulus is being used to provide a temporary infusion of funds that will permanently increase spending and indebtedness.
Sanford stopped short of saying that the stimulus should be seen as a litmus test for Republicans -- prompting what Dave Weigel calls his Mel Brooks moment -- but praised the House Republicans for their unified opposition to the spending bill. Sanford said Republicans should be true to their oaths of office and stand for the things they say they are going to stand for when it comes to controlling government spending.
On the economic front, Sanford warned that inflation would become a major challenge to the country as a result of the monetary and fiscal policy being pursued in Washington to deal with the recession. Sanford repeatedly compared the government's borrowing and inflating tactics to a "banana republic." He urged conservatives to become more informed on the issue so as to better explain the consequences of inflation to the American public.
Candid about his occasionally contentious relationship with the state legislature, Sanford talked about his successes -- the pigs at the state house -- and failures. He allowed there were things he'd do differently but said that there was often value in taking on losing causes. Probably not the message a party hungry for wins wants to hear, but perhaps a necessary one as the GOP tries to find its way out of the wildnerness.
All You Need to Know
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 11:13AM
Six thousand words and the words "terror," "terrorist," or "terrorism" do not appear even once.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 10:39AM
- The stimulus: efficient -- maybe. Effective -- no (Keith Hennessey)
- Economics professors should definitely be able to take advantage of their own schools (Freakonomics)
- Obama presidency tracks the economy (WSJ)
- Living in Israel is not like living in other Western countries (Jerusalem Post)
- How the White House keeps the media enthralled (Vanity Fair)
- A few statements in Obama's speech were... idiotic (Spengler)
The Guilt Feels So Goode
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 9:52AM
George Will has a great column today on the psychology of environmentalism, the recession and Mike Judge's new prime-time cartoon, The Goode Family, which is worth quoting at length:
[A] New York Times television critic disapproves. The show "feels aggressively off-kilter with the current mood, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-'90s, when it was possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed." That is a perfect (because completely complacent) sample of the grating smugness of the planet-savers, delivered by an entertainment writer: Reasonable dissent is impossible..."The Goode Family" does not threaten Jonathan Swift's standing as the premier English-language satirist. But when a Goode child apologizes to his parent for driving too much, and the parent responds, "It's OK ... what's important is that you feel guilty about it," the program touches upon an important phenomenon: ecology as psychology.
In "The Green Bubble: Why Environmentalism Keeps Imploding" (The New Republic, May 20), Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of "Break Through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists," say that a few years ago, being green "moved beyond politics." Gestures--bringing reusable grocery bags to the store, purchasing a $4 heirloom tomato, inflating tires, weatherizing windows--"gained fresh urgency" and "were suddenly infused with grand significance."
Green consumption became "positional consumption" that identified the consumer as a member of a moral and intellectual elite. A 2007 survey found that 57 percent of Prius purchasers said they bought their car because "it makes a statement about me." Honda, alert to the bull market in status effects, reshaped its 2009 Insight hybrid to look like a Prius. Nordhaus and Shellenberger note the telling "insignificance," as environmental measures, of planting gardens or using fluorescent bulbs. Their significance is therapeutic, but not for the planet. They make people feel better:"After all, we can't escape the fact that we depend on an infrastructure--roads, buildings, sewage systems, power plants, electrical grids, etc.--that requires huge quantities of fossil fuels. But the ecological irrelevance of these practices was beside the point."
The point of "utopian environmentalism" was to reduce guilt. During the green bubble, many Americans became "captivated by the twin thoughts that human civilization could soon come crashing down--and that we are on the cusp of a sudden leap forward in consciousness, one that will allow us to heal ourselves, our society, and our planet. Apocalyptic fears meld seamlessly into utopian hopes." Suddenly, commonplace acts -- e.g., buying light bulbs--infused pedestrian lives with cosmic importance. But:"Greens often note that the changing global climate will have the greatest impact on the world's poor; they neglect to mention that the poor also have the most to gain from development fueled by cheap fossil fuels like coal. For the poor, the climate is already dangerous."
Now, say Nordhaus and Shellenberger, "the green bubble" has burst, pricked by Americans' intensified reluctance to pursue greenness at a cost to economic growth. The dark side of utopianism is "escapism and a disengagement from reality that marks all bubbles, green or financial." Re-engagement with reality is among the recession's benefits.
Barack Obama versus Bill Clinton
Posted by on 6.4.09 @ 8:07AM
Surprise, surprise! It turns out Barack Obama doesn't think much of Bill. And he said as much during the presidential campaign.
After Obama won the South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton said dismissively that Jesse Jackson had won there, too, essentially implying, that, oh, it was some kind of black thing. Then, when his racial sensitivity was questioned, Clinton claimed incongruously that the Obama campaign had "played the race card on me." Weeks later, Clinton termed Obama's oft-cited (and well-documented) assertion that he was the only major candidate to oppose the Iraq invasion as "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen." And as the campaign wound down, Clinton complained, weirdly, that "they" (Obama? The media?) were engaged in some massive "cover-up" to hide public opinion surveys demonstrating Hillary's potential strength in a general election campaign.
"We had to figure out how to deal with a former president who was just lying, engaging in bald-faced lies," Obama told Wolffe. When the author asked if Bill Clinton had gotten into his head, Obama replied, "Yes, but I got into his."
True enough, and, according to Wolffe, that consideration entered into Obama's thinking when it came to choosing a running mate. Obama instructed his aides to consider Hillary -- if and only if they thought she'd help the ticket win in November. "But," Obama added, "I'm concerned about Bill Clinton being a loose cannon."
So what does the president say to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton these days?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
VA Gubernatorial Debate: All three Democrats leave the door open to tax hikes
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 10:05PM
Debating in Virginia tonight, all three Democratic gubernatorial primary candidates left the door wide open to imposing tax hikes on their constituents if elected.
When asked by a voter (via YouTube) "How much are you going to raise our taxes?", each candidate refused to rule out tax hikes, using classic word choice to do so:
Creigh Deeds: "Don't intend to raise taxes. I do not intend to raise taxes. I've never taken a no-tax-pledge because I think it's irresponsible. But it's not my intent to raise taxes."
Terry McAuliffe: "I don't want to raise anyone's taxes. I want the focus to be on growing our economy, creating new economic revenue. We're 27th in the country, we're about average on individual taxes, we're 36th out of 50 states on business tax, which is low. I want a climate to bring more business in and keep the small businesses here."
Brian Moran: "I'm not proposing any tax increases. The caveat there, is -- and let's be honest, this is leadership -- we need to invest in transportation. And we must do it in a way that's fair and equitable to Virginians. And that means not just taxing Virginians. I would not use an income tax for example because that's only Virginians. But somehow, we have to get everybody together to say ‘Come on, transportation is an economic necessity for Virginia.'"
Clear on that? Deeds said he does not "intend to" raise taxes. McAuliffe said he does not "want to" raise taxes. Moran started by saying he's "not proposing" tax hikes, but has a "caveat".
Reassuring, isn't it?
Obama Poised to Flip-Flop on Health Insurance Mandate
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 4:30PM
Via Karen Tumulty, I see this letter that President Obama has sent Sens. Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus, following their meeting yesterday, in which he lays out his thinking on health care reform.
In the letter, Obama writes:
But I believe if we are going to make people responsible for owning health insurance, we must make health care affordable. If we do end up with a system where people are responsible for their own insurance, we need to provide a hardship waiver to exempt Americans who cannot afford it.
While over the past few months the White House has said Obama would be open to the idea of an individual mandate, this language suggests that he's more or less accepted the idea, and that he'll use this "hardship waiver" concept to provide wiggle room to explain his tremendous flip flop.
Remember, this was one of the few significant domestic policy differences Obama had with Hillary Clinton during last year's Democratic primaries, and he was quite vocally opposed to having the government require people to purchase health insurance:
SEN. OBAMA: Number one, understand that when Senator Clinton says a mandate, it's not a mandate on government to provide health insurance; it's a mandate on individuals to purchase it. And Senator Clinton is right; we have to find out what works.
Now, Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they've concluded that that 20 percent can't afford it. In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it, so now they're worse off than they were. They don't have health insurance and they're paying a fine. (Applause.) And in order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh, stiff penalty. And Senator Clinton has said that we will go after their wages.
The Spectator and the GOP
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 3:38PM
Ben Adler, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the conservative media, is not making sense:
Conservative publications, both in print and online, have generally competed to be the farthest right and the most extreme in their denunciations of “liberal treason.” National Review, The Weekly Standard, and The American Spectator—the three most influential conservative print magazines (not counting more academic quarterlies such as Commentary and City Journal)—have consistently backed the policies of the Republican Party and its leaders in Congress and the White House, even when those leaders seemingly betrayed their principles. Those publications didn’t complain, for instance, when George W. Bush abandoned his campaign pledge to advance a “humble” foreign policy to launch the Iraq invasion. And when they have criticized Republicans, it has usually been from the right.
Now, if I wanted to do the self-absorbed thing, I could point to dozens of articles and blog posts that I've personally written criticizing Republicans under The American Spectator banner, or document such articles by others, and I would have been happy to do so had Adler contacted me for this story, but I'll hold off and instead draw attention to how blatantly Adler manages to contradict himself within just a few sentences. First, he writes that along with other conservative magazines, TAS has backed Republicans, "even when those leaders seemingly betrayed their principles." Then he says when these magazines have criticized the GOP, "it has usually been from the right." This doesn't add up. Either we are shills who will sacrifice our principles to tout the Republican line, or we're so committed to our conservative principles, that we're willing to criticize Republicans. Both statements cannot be true.
ACORN Claims Democratic Officials Are Persecuting It
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 3:08PM
ACORN defendants Amy Busefink and Chris Edwards in a Las Vegas court earlier today. (Photo by Gary Thompson, Las Vegas Review-Journal)
* * * * *
Sometimes news is stranger that fiction. Lisa Rasmussen, who represents the extremely partisan ACORN, said that election fraud charges laid against the group in Nevada are motivated by politics, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
"The politically motivated charges, such as those brought by the attorney general and secretary of state, just highlight the voter registration system that is broken," Rasmussen said in a Las Vegas courtroom.
Except that the charges (PDF) against two former ACORN executives and ACORN, which helps to register Democratic voters and get them to the polls, were unveiled by Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller both of whom are Democrats. Allegheny County, Pa., District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr., who filed seven charges against former ACORN workers for falsifying voter registration forms, also happens to be a Democrat.
Maybe ACORN will cry racism now. Oh wait, Amy Busefink and Chris Edwards, the former ACORN officials in Nevada also charged with voter registration fraud, are Caucasian according to the photo accompanying the Las Vegas Review-Journal news report.
The defendants, who appeared before a Las Vegas magistrate today, are expected to appear in court next on July 15.
Government-Run Health Care or Bust
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 3:00PM
The liberal activist group Campaign for America's Future announced today the results of the straw poll of attendees to its "America's Future Now" conference, and found that 63 percent of respondents said they would not support health care legislation that did not create a new a government-run plan, even if that was the only way to get a bill passed.
While, like any straw poll, the results should be taken with a grain of salt, they do speak to the pressure that Democrats will be under by their liberal wing to offer a government-run plan modeled after Medicare. On Monday, a number of liberal groups used the conference to announce an $82 million effort to support President Obama's health care push and press for the government-run plan, which they call the "public option."
There is some indication that the pressure by liberal groups is already starting to have an effect in making moderate Democrats more open to the idea.
Imagine If This Happened Under Bush
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 2:44PM
From time to time on this blog I've tried to document boneheaded statements or various bungles occuring under President Obama's watch that would have been have been used, in the Bush era, to make the case for him being utterly incompetent. Two examples worth noting today.
The NY Times reports:
The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.
In other news, Obama said, "if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” which as Andrew McCarthy details, wouldn't even be true if you used more generous estimates.
Thoughts On the Nature of 'Cool'
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 2:17PM
One of my blog buddies tipped me to this quote from Terry Pratchett:
The monastery of the Monks of Cool is found in a laid back valley in the lower Ramtop mountains. They are a reserved and secretive sect and believe that only through ultimate coolness can the universe be comprehended, that black goes with everything, and that chrome will never truly go out of style. To become a fully accepted Monk, a novice is given the following test. Several outfits are laid out in front of him and the tester asks, "Yo, my son, which of these outfits is the most stylish thing to wear?" The correct answer is "Hey, whatever I select."
You know the type, right? Further thoughts on the day I stopped trying to be one of the Cool Kids. If you ever become an ex-Cool Kid, you'll know what I mean.
'Cuz We Sin So Well
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 2:06PM
This piece by Josh Culling of the National Taxpayers Union is a good reminder that sin tax increases often impact everyone -- saints and sinners alike.
We all remember President Obama's "firm pledge" on the campaign trail to shelter all Americans earning less than $250,000 per year from any tax increases. He promptly broke that promise on February 4, 2009, signing a 159 percent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes to fund an expansion in the State Children's Health Insurance entitlement program. The median income of smokers is $43,723 -- roughly $13,600 less than nonsmokers. And the cigarettes, alcohol, and food that moderate-income households purchase will take a bigger bite out of their finances.
Yet, the smoking poor aren't the only ones affected by increases in sin taxes. They often lead to hikes in taxes that affect broader segments in the population -- sales, personal and corporate income, and a host of "fees." This phenomenon is the result of the unpredictable revenue projections attached to sin taxes. Between FY 2003 and FY 2007, the state excise tax on cigarettes was raised 57 times. Only in 16 instances did the resulting revenue meet estimates.
No surprise here -- proponents of increased cigarette taxes promise they will reduce smoking and increase revenues. Over the long term, they can do one or the other but they can't do both. Because taxing activities reduces their frequency, sin tax increases to cover permanent spending programs will ulimately lead to increases in other broader-based taxes and fees. Which is why politicians who claim to favor low taxes -- Republicans especially -- should try to avoid them.
Libertarians: Infiltrate the Republican Party!
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 1:36PM
In a speech to the Libertarian Party of Connecticut, Peter Schiff sounded a lot like a Ron Paul Republican -- and maybe even a candidate for Senate against Chris Dodd.
When Bush Bashing Gets Old
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 12:02PM
The other day I speculated on how effective Bush bashing could prove for Democrats in 2010, and basically concluded that it depends on how successful Obama is perceived. However, I also think there is a danger of Bush-bashing sounding old, and via Jim Geraghty, I see that Jon Corzine gave us a perfect example last night as he kicked off his post-primary reelection campaign in New Jersey:
Incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine is kicking off his campaign tonight, and he's decided that he will ignore whoever wins the Republican primary tonight and pretend that he's running against former President Bush.
"My opponents won't tell you who they're going to cut — they'll have to check with George W. Bush on that! ...I won't entrust our state's future to the same people who gave us George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, skyrocketing unemployment, a housing crisis and the war in Iraq! New Jersey cannot afford to get Bushwhacked again!"
Jon Corzine's current approval rating is 36 percent, which is lower than former President Bush's approval rating of 41 percent.
Resorting to the same, worn out anti-Bush rhetoric in a desperate attempt to distract attention from his own failed term as governor does not strike me as a winning strategy, even in a heavily Democratic state.
Maybe A Sports Metaphor Will Get Our New Monkey To Dance!?
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 10:44AM
A liberal Pennsylvania group has set up a handy chart to track Arlen Specter's "progressive batting average," a chart which will apparently indicate whether the recent convert is "ready to knock it out of the park on progressive issues or whether he'll strikeout when his vote really matters for the progressive team."
Bully for these defenders of the flame. We, however, encourage our progressive friends to keep in mind the scene in A League of Their Own that began with Tom Hanks asking a young lady player, "Which team do you play for?" ended with "There's no crying in baseball!"
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.3.09 @ 9:48AM
- Tax people because they are smoking too much. Then regulate them so they can't quit (EconLog)
- Brad Delong of Berkeley claims that the Chicago school of economics is deceased (The Week)
- About that secret meeting Mr. Transparency had with Jeremiah Wright... (RedState)
- Make no mistake: China is still a dictatorial torture state (Boston Globe)
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
HuffPo's Investigative Journalism Effort Struggling?
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 8:07PM
Arianna Huffington (L) with Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans (R)
* * * * *
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is struggling, according to the Business Insider.
Arianna Huffington unveiled plans for her left-leaning gossip website's foray into investigative journalism in March but so far the site is reportedly having trouble generating content.
The evidence of internal chaos is somewhat thin so far but respected writers claim they were treated poorly by the outfit. One unhappy writer suggests that the Huffington Post Investigative Fund doesn't have much cash.
In March it was revealed that the program's startup budget would be $1.75 million. The money would be provided by the Huffington Post and the Atlantic Philanthropies. The Bermuda-based Atlantic Philanthropies is headed by Gara LaMarche, who used to be a vice president of liberal uber-philanthropist George Soros's Open Society Institute. LaMarche is a member of Soros's Democracy Alliance, a billionaires' club that is organizing to turn America into a European-style socialist state.
Meanwhile, Capital Research Center (the think tank at which I work) has had two articles out in as many months on the state of American journalism.
This month Tim Cavanaugh penned "Bailing Out the Press: Can Non-Profit Status Save American Newspapers?" Here's a summary of the Foundation Watch article:
Could a bailout of the newspaper industry be on its way? A new Senate bill would offer financially struggling newspapers non-profit status in order to save investigative journalism. Critics say it probably won't work, gives nonprofit media a tax advantage, could subject the free press to IRS oversight, and could open the door to more serious government interference in the media. But when has that ever stopped a crusading politician?
Last month Cheryl K. Chumley wrote "ProPublica: Investigative Journalism or Liberal Spin?" Here's a summary of that Foundation Watch article:
The press is filled with sad stories about venerable for-profit newspapers that have been forced to declare bankruptcy and shut down. So it's striking that the billionaire liberals Herb and Marion Sandler have decided now is the time to fund a new nonprofit group called ProPublica whose mission is to serve the public interest by funding independent investigative journalism. Too bad Pro Publica churns out little more than left-wing hit pieces about Sarah Palin and blames the U.S. government for giving out too little foreign aid.
Another Obama Apology Tour
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 4:49PM
Previewing his overseas trip (and his much-touted Cairo
University speech) to the BBC, President Obama made clear he has
more apologizing left to do. Will he still be making apologies
when he ends his trip in Buchenwald and Normandy commemorating
the lives lost as a result of Hitler’s
atrocities?
Another Obama Apology
Tour
By Asher Embry
Obama told the BBC,
We’re treading very dangerously.
America just can’t “impose
[Our] values” forcibly on those
With different cultures, history
Within the “world community.”
Is this the message of his speech
In Cairo, where he’ll bow and preach?
We’ll change our ways to help assuage
The justifiable Muslim rage.
Still more U.S. self-flagellation
To fan Obama adulation;
In search of unrealistic ends --
That terrorists become our friends.
Then on to where the Nazis lost;
Where they unleashed their holocaust.
Our soldiers answered nobly
The call to vanquish tyranny.
We hope he won’t apologize
At Buchenwald, but recognize
Our values led to action then.
Lest history repeat again.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Yeah, What Jim said
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 4:42PM
I wish to associate myself, if he doesn't mind, with what James has written in his running debate with the always-thoughtful Daniel Larison. In this case, it takes a really bizarre reading of Sotomayor's whole speech, and indeed whole record, to conclude (as Larison did) that her racialism is benign or in the least bit defensible. James handled the argument brilliantly throughout (including in his earlier posts), so I merely say "Ditto to that."
Imprisoned Felons Voting
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 4:42PM
In an excellent analysis, Mark Impomeni explains the crucial case in which Judge Sotomayor opined that it was a slam-dunk case that CURRENTLY IMPRISONED FELONS -- not just felons who had completed their sentences, but actual, current jailbirds -- could no be denied the right to vote if their numbers are ethnically disproportionate. I continue to insist that conservatives are not focusing enough on this case, which has explosive political implications.
The truth is that felons are not denied the vote "on account of race," they are denied the vote on account of their own actions, their own breaking of the law, their own crimes, by and through which they themselves choose to forfeit their franchise (if they get caught, of course). Judge Sotomayor's argument to the contrary is tendentious at best. Impomeni does an excellent job providing the whole context for the dispute.
The Sotomayor 'Out of Context' Dodge
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 2:51PM
We keep hearing from liberals that it is unfair to criticize Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for her comments about the supposed superiority of Latina judges because the comments are allegedly being taken out of context.
In a 2001 speech, Sotomayor read from a prepared text: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Thomas Sowell tears apart this desperate rhetorical tactic:
In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification" when people realize what was said. The clearly racist comments made by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Berkeley campus in 2001 have forced the spinmasters to resort to their last-ditch excuse, that it was "taken out of context."
If that line is used during Judge Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings, someone should ask her to explain just what those words mean when taken in context.
What could such statements possibly mean-- in any context-- other than the new and fashionable racism of our time, rather than the old-fashioned racism of earlier times? Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups. [...]
The Sotomayor Precedent
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 2:47PM
Since we have both started to repeat ourselves to no obvious effect, this will be my final post in my Sotomayor exchange with Daniel Larison. Just a few quick quick points in response to his latest.
Larison: ... I would insist that conservatives who have sympathies for particularism and decentralism ought to criticize Sotomayor for just about anything else besides her statements about her identity, which Jim has halfway admitted she is "entitled to celebrate."
I've not "halfway admitted" it. I admit it wholeheartedly. She is perfectly entitled to be proud of where she comes from, who her family is, and what her experiences have been. She is entitled to celebrate that in the public square. What she is not entitled to do, in my view, is to argue that there is a specifically Latino way of judging if she wants a seat on the Supreme Court. There is never any shortage of boneheaded statements on the mainstream right and Larison may have found some regarding Sotomayor that I've managed to miss. But the bulk of criticism of her Latina lecture that I have seen -- and certainly the entirety of my criticism -- has not been her discussion of her background. It has concerned her arguments with Miriam Cedarbaum and Sandra Day O'Connor about impartiality and race neutrality.
Larison: Her critics keep talking about what would have happened to a white man had he said something comparable. Well, consider what is going to happen in the future to anyone on the right who expresses even a smidgen of pride in his culture or heritage after the blatantly unfair interpretations her words have received.
I've already said that if a nominee says his whiteness will make him a better judge than a Latina, I am happy to see him disqualified. Such a statement goes well beyond "a smidgen of pridge in his culture or heritage." The Obama administration and Sotomayor herself have already decided they don't want to defend such a statement on its merits.
Larison: As bad as the double standard is today, it can always get worse. Indeed, if the critics believe in the reality of said double standard, they must know that flinging these epithets will simply increase the disparity of standards. They may think they are redressing the imbalance by applying an absurd standard to all...
Two points: I don't think avoiding White Logic, Black Logic, and Latina Logic on the Supreme Court is an absurd standard to apply. And the standards that Larison finds too restrictive won't be relaxed when Sotomayor is confirmed.
Larison: On the Ricci case, I have to keep driving home the point that one can believe that the panel's ruling was entirely consistent with current law and that Ricci and his co-workers were shafted, as Jim puts it.
Fine. Then let the case get a full hearing so the American people can see what the law does to them. Sotomayor's participation in an effort to sweep the case under the rug has been the reason for criticism of her on this score, not her application of civil-rights law.
Larison: The idea that no one is questioning whether the New Haven firefighters in the case have been badly mistreated is odd. For the last week and a half, it seems as if quite a lot of people have been openly and actively questioning this very thing.
Yes, but it hasn't been multiculturalists doing the questioning, has it? See what happens when you write about affirmative action in a college newspaper.
Larison: I'm sorry, but if we are talking about the real world, could we remember back to the days of 2008 when Obama was routinely accused of racism or at least of sympathy with racists, and we were treated to more than a few celebrations of "Real America"?
So "Real America" and criticism of Jeremiah Wright are bad, and I'm the one setting absurd standards for racism? And there were no widely accepted celebrations of Obama from the perspective of the black American experience?
Larison: So Jim thinks her statement was racialist, and not racist?
Yes, I think the specific statements I have criticized have racialist implications but I don't think the entirety of her record supports the charge she is a racist.
I'll end with a prediction: Justice Sotomayor will not be a reliable voice for decentralism, the Tenth Amendment, or enumerated powers on the Court. But she might vote with the liberal bloc on affirmative action cases.
The Nongovernmental Report on Global Warming
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 2:43PM
In conjunction with today’s Third International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, the Heartland Institute (my organization and conference host) is releasing “Climate Change Reconsidered: A Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.” The 880-page book (posted entirely online at the Web site) challenges the scientific basis for concerns that global warming is man-made or is a cause for concern.
The report rebuts the several manifestations of findings by the United Nations Intergovernmental (I would say Pro-Governmental or Governmentalovin’) Panel on Climate Change, which serves as the foundation for several policies favored by President Obama and Congressional Democrats to limit greenhouse gas emissions. From the NIPCC site:
The scholarship in this book demonstrates overwhelming scientific support for the position that the warming of the twentieth century was moderate and not unprecedented, that its impact on human health and wildlife was positive, and that carbon dioxide probably is not the driving factor behind climate change.
The authors cite thousands of peer-reviewed research papers and books that were ignored by the IPCC, plus additional scientific research that became available after the IPCC’s self-imposed deadline of May 2006.
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to understand the causes and consequences of climate change. Because it is not a government agency, and because its members are not predisposed to believe climate change is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, NIPCC is able to offer an independent “second opinion” of the evidence reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report addresses several scientific areas, including global climate models, temperature record observations, solar variability, climate cycles, species extinction, glaciers, sea level, and more. In announcing the release of the book, Heartland President Joseph Bast said:
“I think it is fair to say that this is the largest independent compilation of research on climate change ever published, and I think it marks a real turning point in the national and international debates on climate….
“Whereas the IPCC pretends it has absolute confidence in its findings, and puts forward projections that might be predictions, but maybe they’re not predictions, this book doesn’t do that. It’s much more intellectually modest and I think honest.”
I, for one, am glad to finally see a major resource in this area that is not paid for and owned by government. Let them do things they are good at like running postal delivery, banks, and automobile companies.
Cross-posted at Globalwarming.org.
ACORN: We're the Victim in Pittsburgh Fraud Case
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 2:33PM
As it pretty well always does, ACORN claims it is a victim of the seven canvassers in Pennsylvania who presented fraudulent voter registration cards.
Yeah, right.
Ten Years and a Billion Bucks.
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 2:13PM
Former HHS Deputy Secretary and all-around brilliant guy Tevi Troy (full disclosure: he also happens to be my ex- boss) weighs in at Commentary on the threats posed to medical innovation and health care quality by the vilification of Big Pharma, increased regulation and the coming Obama Care.
Liberals and conservatives appear to agree on the need to unleash the possibilities in medical discovery for the benefit of all. But it cannot be ordered up at will. It takes approximately ten years and $1 billion to get a new product approved for use in the United States. Furthermore, only one in every 10,000 newly discovered molecules will lead to a medication that will be viewed favorably by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Only three out of every ten new medications earn back their research-and-development costs. The approval success rates are low, and may even be getting lower-30.2 percent for biotech drugs and 21.5 percent for small-molecule pharmaceuticals....
Scientific discoveries are neither inevitable nor predictable. What is more, they are affected, especially in our time, by forces outside the laboratory-in particular, the actions of politicians and government bureaucracies.
Read it in its entirety here.
Whoremongering
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 1:22PM
Many thanks to Christopher Orlet for his take-down of Sen. David Vitter. Here's another Vitter story: In his first run for Congress, in a special election in 1999, his runoff opponent was former Gov. Dave Treen. Treen's grandson disappeared on a hike out in the mountain West during the final week of the campaign. Treen suspended the campaign to go help find his grandson; the presence of a former governor in the last week of a comeback campaign spurred tons of TV coverage, and a TV helicopeter spotted the grandson and the lad was rescued. Treen returned home two evenings before the election, exhausted -- only to find that while he was gone, flyers at least tacitly encouraged by the Vitter campaign had gone up all over the black neighborhoods purporting to tie Treen in with former KKK leader David Duke as an ally if not outright supporter. Blacks made up less than 10 percent of the district's voters, but in an extremely close race they amounted to the key "swing" vote. Sure enough, those fliers had a big effect: Vitter won those black neighborhoods overwhelmingly, and with that overwhelming proportion of the black votes he barely eked out the victory over Treen. Here's the really sick thing about it: Dave Treen had spent the entire decade of the 1990s publicly opposing and rebuking David Duke, courageously and with great effect. If any major Republican official did more than Treen did to stop Duke's political rise (by "major" I exclude a number of lesser party officials who did yeoman's work but didn't have the profile of a major office-holder), that would be news to me -- and I was there in the thick of the anti-Duke battle the whole time. Meanwhile, I would challenge anybody to come up with any significant anti-Duke statements or actions by Vitter, who lived in Duke's district and feared that outspoken opposition to Duke would hurt his own political career.
So, in essence, we had the self-protecting, not-Duke-opposing Vitter convincing uneducated black voters that the bravely and effectively anti-Duke Dave Treen actually was a closer Kluxer. It was one of the lowest blows I've ever seen in politics, made even lower by the fact that Treen had suspended his campaign to help save his grandson and returned too late to effectively respond to the smear.
That story provides yet another example of why Mr. Orlet's portrayal of Mr. Vitter's (lack of) character is dead solid perfect.
Pawlenty Clears Deck for Possible 2012 Run
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 12:02PM
Gov. Tim Pawlenty is expected to announce today that he will not seek re-election in Minnesota in 2010, according to local CBS affiliate WCCO, making it more likely that he will run for president in 2012. The news also could have potential implications for the recount battle between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Lawyers for the two Senate candidates duked it out in the Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday, and if the judges rule in Franken's favor, Pawlenty will face the decision of whether to certify the election result or allow time for Coleman to appeal the decision in federal court. Now that he doesn't have to worry about facing Minnesota voters next year (and could very well be concerned with the Republican presidential primary electorate), he may be more likely to delay the certification.
Pawlenty, a converted evangelical Christian who appeals to working-class voters, could perform well in his neighboring state of Iowa in the 2012 caucuses, depending on the composition of the field. For instance, he would be competing for many of the same voters as Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, so should all three run, it could carve up those votes and allow a Mitt Romney to pull off a victory this time. If the field is cleared for him, however, he'd fare better. Either way, he'd likely be a strong contender in the state. The trick will be how he performs beyond Iowa, and whether he can overcome criticism that he is a big government Republican, as well as the sense among many that he's kinda boring and goofy (cue awkward joke about his lack of sex life). In fairness to him, his record on taxes and spending is a lot more conservative than you'd expect given some of his rhetoric, and he did oppose the economic stimulus package. For more on Pawlenty, I direct you to a profile I wrote about him for the Washington Post's Who Run's Gov site.
To Debunk the Rumor...
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 11:19AM
It is absolutely not true that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is attending the reunion of the models who posed for Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" album cover, but he is in fact in China assuring their government that their assets are safe.
Boyle's 15 Minutes
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 10:52AM
The journey of "Britain's Got Talent" contestant Susan Boyle has been an interesting case study in the modern media. Boyle was a classic Cinderella story, who, due to the wonders of YouTube, became an in international sensation overnight, but before too long the media turned on her. Just last week, the British tabloid the Sun reported on a series of ranting profanity-laced tirades by the small town Scottish woman, who they dubbed "RamBoyle" after the Stallone character. And she ended up losing on the reality show.
In today's New York Times, Ricky Jay puts the Boyle phenomenon in a broader historical perspective as only he can, comparing Boyle to another unexpected performance, by Mathew Buchinger in the Council Chambers in Edinburgh:
Buchinger demonstrated his skill on more than a half-dozen musical instruments (some of his own invention), danced a hornpipe and performed conjuring tricks with cups and balls, cards and dice. In front of the lord provost he fashioned a pen and with it produced a fine calligraphic document of the coat of arms of the city. The year was 1726. Buchinger was 52 years old, 29 inches tall — and, he had neither legs nor arms.
Jay continues:
[Buchinger] was heralded and discussed: the subject of stories, verse, jokes, slang expressions, souvenir prints and royal command performances. Samples of his calligraphy, fashioned by Buchinger holding a pen in between his unarticulated fin-like excrescences, are saved in the collections of the world’s most formidable institutions. He is even immortalized in a 1726 English broadside, “A Poem on Mathew Buckinger: The Greatest German Living.”
Both performers, Jay argues, benefitted from high ability relative to low expectations. However, after giving a few more examples of performers throughout the years, Jay observes that, "Our first look at Ms. Boyle generated not only expectation but surprise. But as she became overexposed, our surprise diminished. The extraordinary became commonplace....A performing cycle that once could have taken years is herein reduced to days. She’s unknown, we’re surprised. She’s embraced, we’re disenchanted. She’s the runner-up ... next?"
For those who aren't familiar with Ricky Jay, he's one of the world's leading sleight of hand artists and historians on the bizarre. You also may recognize him as an actor in David Mamet movies. If you have the time, check out this stunning card trick he pulled off.
Bending the Cost Curve
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 10:07AM
President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers is out today with a new report about the benefits of curbing the growth of health care costs. Reducing growth inflation from 6 percent to 4.5 percent, the report says, could mean as much as $2,600 in more income for the typical family of four by 2020, and $10,000 by 2030. Such cost savings could also reduce the unemployment rate by a quarter point, or 500,000 jobs.
But as the Washington Post notes:
The report contains few details about how those ambitious goals would be achieved, however, and does not address any increased federal spending needed to implement health reform. And the White House economists acknowledge that shaving 1.5 percentage points off the rate of growth in health spending would be extraordinarily difficult -- "probably near the upper bound of what is feasible."
The full report is available here.
Meanwhile, the industry groups that promised last month to save $2 trillion in health care costs over the next decade, are back with a more detailed letter. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet (available here), but here's how they vow to save money:
• Utilization of Care: $150 - $180 billion
• Chronic Care: $350 - $850 billion
• Administrative Simplification and Cost of Doing Business: $500 -$700 billion
In case you're keeping score at home, that's adds up to a range of $1 trillion to $1.7 trillion.
New from the June Issue
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 9:53AM
Yesterday we began posting the complete June issue of The American Spectator online with former Under Secretary of Defense Dov S. Zakheim's article on Robert Gates's vision for military expenditures.
Today's lineup features two more June articles: Andrew B. Wilson's explanation of how the American economy no longer resembles anything like the economy the WWII-era Keynesians thought about, and Rev. Michael P. Orsi's review of two new books exploring the Vatican's relationship with the U.S. (Massimo Franco's Parallel Empires: The Vatican and the United States-Two Centuries of Alliance and Conflict and George Weigel's Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace).
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.2.09 @ 9:30AM
- Science is used for humans' benefit -- not the other way around (First Things)
- Get ready to lose a decade (Reason)
- In case you missed it: the military is once again using kill counts (WSJ)
- Vermont patriots (American Conservative)
- Bill Simmons eulogizes the old and decrepit David Ortiz's career (ESPN)
Monday, June 1, 2009
Leftists Using Tiller Murder to Advance Agenda
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 11:03PM
Leftists are using the murder of abortionist Dr. George Tiller to urge Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to reconsider the now-withdrawn politically motivated DHS report that labeled all conservatives, libertarians, and returning veterans as potential right-wing terrorists.
After being subjected to weeks of withering criticism from across the political spectrum, Napolitano quietly pulled the embarrassing report that seemed calculated to chill the speech of critics of the Obama administration's agenda. (After the report was publicized Democratic lawmakers like Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin said it was unacceptable for DHS to label right-wing Americans as potential terrorists.)
But the horrifying slaying of Dr. Tiller in his church on the weekend has sent affective activists into paroxysms of rage and the left wants the report reexamined.
Zachary Roth of TPM Muckraker writes:
But in the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion extremist -- who had also been said by the FBI during the 1990s to have been a member of the radical Freemen group -- the report is looking a little more reasonable.
Predictably, Roth concludes, "[p]erhaps that report is due for a reassessment."
Hiding behind a pen name, "Kyle" of People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, writes "it seems as if the report - far from being an offensive attack on Christians and anti-choice activists - was remarkably timely and accurate."
Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post lies about how conservatives reacted to the release of the DHS report. Linkins writes he "found it a bit bizarre that many conservatives seemed to want to go out of their way to identify and equate themselves with domestic neo-Nazi organizations and violent religious fundamentalists." Noting that "the word 'conservative' did not appear in the report," he argues that it made no sense for conservatives "to stand up for and embrace a violent political fringe."
In fact conservatives did no such thing and Linkins knows it. Conservatives protested this obvious attempt to shut down right-of-center criticism of the Obama agenda by lumping Ku Klux Klansmen and violent militias together with good government types and members of the Federalist Society.
The left's reaction today is just part of its long-running effort to delegitimize and marginalize those views it doesn't approve of.
The left is in this game to win it. Its leaders and activists will say whatever it takes to silence the right and advance the left's agenda.
Expect the left's howling to intensify in coming days.
The Curious Case of Dan Burton
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 6:39PM
The Indy Star opines on what will likely be one of the most crowded primary races in the country in 2010. Republican Dan Burton, who has represented Indiana's 5th District since 1983, has spent the past few decades amassing a legacy of missed votes, questionably funded golf trips, embarrassing misstatements and dubious personal behavior and little in the way of legislative accomplishments.
Because of all of this, Burton will face at least four Republican challengers in the 5th district primary. The challengers include former and current State Representatives and an Indianapolis physician who challenged Burton in 2008.
Burton is most likely looking for all the challengers to cancel each other out. Still the sheer number of candidates looking to knock him off will most surely send a message to the voters about sorry state of Burton's reputation both in Indiana and Washington. Should be interesting to watch.
It's a Young Man's World
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 6:36PM
The New York Times profiles Brian Deese, the 31 (not a typo) year old behind the Obama administration's efforts to save the U.S. auto industry...who has no experience in said auto industry or in business in general.
Now, in all fairness, as we all know, many of the men and women working in politics are young. Of course, most of them are not charged with restructuring vast swaths of the U.S. economy they have no first hand experience with in the middle of a financial crisis.
Lonegan: If I'm in office I can do stuff
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 6:18PM
Commercials are really expensive. At least, that's the understanding I've had as someone who does not buy commercials as a general rule. I also don't have anything to commercialize about. I think I can ride my bicycle pretty fast, and I think what I write can be good if I really try. But that's it.
Steve Lonegan is running for governor. Surely he has things to say. Apparently Rick Shaftan feels differently. Shaftan is Lonegan's campaign guy who's been responsible for pretty much every stupid move Lonegan's made and every smart move Lonegan didn't make. The commercial below is advertising one thing and one thing only: "If elected, I can do stuff."
Apparently the Lonegan campaign's Department of the Obvious is responsible for the scripts in these things. At least we unequivocally know this fact: Under Lonegan, New Jersey will never be the same as it is right now, but rather it'll be the same as it was at one point earlier, but different. And definitely better.
You know what? I'm going to start getting commercials to put out crucial messages to New Jersey voters. "Peanut butter is sticky" will be numero uno, followed by, "Water is wet."
Oh, and also? Tomorrow's election day. I'd go to the polls to do an on the scene report of what will clearly be a close election, but rather than hedge my bets, I've already gone ahead to start writing about how Christie won. Potential interviewees: Please use the present tense, even if we're talking about the future.
Geithner the Jihadist
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 5:24PM
Well, as the Washington Times editorialists say, don't take that headline absolutely literally. But read this editorial: It shows how the takeover of AIG supports sharia law. It's a great case to read about.
The Most Moving, Horrifying Case
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 5:24PM
Newspaper editorials speak with an institutional voice, but of course they have individual draftsmen. I wish I could credit the draftsman of this editorial (it was NOT me), but alas, I don't think custom permits. But my colleague(s) here at the Washington Times editorial staff have penned one of hte most eloquent and moving (and very, very sad) editorials I have read in a long time, about the plight of Kurdish poet Farzad Kamangar in an Iranian prison. Read it, and sincerely weep. THIS man, unlike Guantanamo residents, endured real torture. THIS man is innocent. THIS man, not those interrogated by the CIA abroad, is a victim. And this man, Mr. Kamangar, is abundantly courageous. Bless him.
Yes, Pro-Lifers Are Consistent to Condemn Killing
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 4:09PM
Jacob Sullum thinks it is inconsistent for pro-life groups to condemn the murder of George Tiller given their opposition to the abortionist's work. A friend writes, "If this is satire, it is still in bad taste." If serious, it's also a pretty simple-minded argument.
For starters, legal abortion does not invalidate all laws against killing. A person was as morally obligated to obey laws against murder in Nazi Germany or the antebellum South as anywhere else. But more importantly, you cannot separate the morality of an action from its consequences as easily as Sullum tries to do. What he dismisses as "tactical" concerns actually determine the morality of the action.
The deliberate destruction of human life is always and everywhere an evil, a premise that leads to two conclusions: the deliberate destruction of Tiller's life was evil and an effort to prevent evil cannot be morally justified if it in fact unleashes greater evils. It isn't just bad tactics to take actions that increase the destruction of human life; it is morally wrong.
Organizations dedicated to expanding human beings' legal protections against acts of lethal violence are perfectly consistent in condemning acts of lethal violence against human beings.
Fascism and Michael Moore's Dumb Ideas About Government Motors
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 3:02PM
Fascism, or more precisely, Mussolini-style corporatism, continues to advance in America with nary an objection.
The planned government takeover of General Motors, which filed for bankruptcy protection today, is just the latest part of the corporatist assault on American values. Even left-wing careerist Ralph Nader denounced the bankruptcy petition, calling it "an avoidable, crude weapon of mass devastation for workers, dealers, auto suppliers, small businesses and their depleted communities. For GM's voiceless owners -- the common shareholders -- it is a wipeout. "
The Obama administration is handing over a big chunk of GM to its political allies, the United Autoworkers of America, thus giving the workers ownership of the means of production, the textbook definition of socialism. Supposedly to protect the public interest, the rule of law was set aside as the repayment priority of bondholders was taken away in order to help Big Labor.
Of course, this is no way to run a company. Subjecting it to political control guarantees it will fail again and again and need more government bailouts in perpetuity.
GM will continue faltering, producing expensive politically correct environmentalist cars that will crumple like tissue paper in a crash and that nobody will want to buy.
It would be far better to simply allow GM to die rather than continue as the Fascist abomination it is in the process of becoming.
Meanwhile, left-wing nutter Michael Moore is bursting with dumb ideas about what to do next.
One is to "have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years." He says they're a success in Japan but leaves out the fact that Japan is tiny (374,744 square kilometers) compared to the U.S. (9,161,923 square kilometers) which is half the size of Russia, and that bullet train systems are prohibitively expensive.
Moore also wants the government to "[i]nitiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system." Great. More white elephant mass transit that Americans hate and won't use. Think of Amtrak multiplied say a hundred times.
Some of the other ideas to spout from Moore's head include producing expensive "or all-electric cars (and batteries)," using empty GM factories to make "windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy," and imposing "a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline."
While the powers that be may not be listening to Moore specifically, they are definitely listening to special interests that support the same kinds of boondoggles he wants to force down Americans' throats.
Empathy for Me, But Not for Thee
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 2:10PM
Daniel Larison's latest response makes explicit something I had suspected based on his previous posts: he is tearing Sonia Sotomayor's comments out of a context of multiculturalism, critical legal theory, and more mainstream forms of judicial liberalism and trying to shoehorn them into a context of particularism and a paleoconservative understanding of diversity. His comments almost treat these liberal ideologies as if they don't exist when they are in fact adhered to by many of the people now running the country -- which might suggest a need to start looking critically at the people who are wrecking the country right now instead of continuing to focus on the people who were wrecking it yesterday.
Nobody as far as I can tell has criticized Sotomayor for expressing pride in her roots and her community. What has been at issue is her sustained argument with the idea that a wise old man and wise old woman can meaningfully strive for the same impartial justice -- and her conclusion that a wise old Latina woman could make "better" decisions. Sotomayor's remarks are preferable to other multiculturalist pronouncements in that she expresses pride in an actually existing culture rather than a generic celebration of non-whiteness. But at its root is a point of view where some cultures and heritages can be celebrated while others cannot (some are in fact denigrated).
That means we get to hear the good news about mass immigration but not the bad, celebrate the fruits of diversity but not question whether the New Haven firefighters are getting shafted, and talk about the richness of communities so long as they were not built or inhabited by dead white males. In the real world where this ideology has been in vogue, expressions like Sotomayor's routinely coexist with accusations of racism against conservatives. I'd like to hear of an example where it has ever been the other way around.
Unlike some others, I have not actually called Sotomayor a racist -- I have not seen evidence of a real animus against white people -- but I have said that when the logic behind identity politics is laid bear, you get something that looks an awful lot like racism. Taken too far, it is detrimental to fair, color-blind justice. There is a real debate here over whether the way to get "beyond race" is to actually stop counting people by race or to emphasize race even more in pursuit of diversity. Sotomayor has made clear which side of that debate she's on, and it isn't a side where La Raza lies down with the League of the South in a joint celebration of particularism.
Larison argues that "having dramatically lowered the standards of what counts as a racist statement," conservatives will ultimately pay the price. I've argued at length against conservatives playing the race card and have enumerated many examples of them doing so foolishly. But I don't think it's setting a ridiculously low standard to ask potential holders of high office to refrain from saying their race physiologically qualifies them for the position -- a statement that would have indeed been historically more harmful coming from a white man, but is inappropriate across the board in an era of increasing racial diversity and the sharing of institutional power.
The only way I see any "boomerang" effect for conservatives is if they actually say or do something racist. And if they do, they'll deserve all the criticism and political fallout that they get. But not a seat on the Supreme Court.
Progressive Groups to Spend $82 mln to Push Gov't-Run Health Care Plan
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 1:35PM
A collection of a liberal activist groups and Howard Dean, on Monday announced plans to spend more than $82 million in an effort to support President Obama's health care push and press for legislation that includes a new government-run plan modeled after Medicare to be offered on a national insurance exchange.
The effort is being announced in a press conference right now as part of the annual progressive conference, "America's Future Now" (previously named the "Take Back America" conference during the Bush era).
"We've put together enough resources to win this fight," Richard Kirsch, the campaign director of Health Care for America Now, a coalition of 1,030 national and local progressive groups. He said that the coalition, which includes the major unions AFL-CIO and SEIU and and MoveOn.org, would organize events nationwide and take out ads to promote their brand of health care reform, which they expect to pass by the fall. "This will be the crowning achivement of a new era of progressive politics."
Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, which organized the conference, said that the United States was in the midst of the "greatest era of progressive reform since the 1960's." He said conservatives were splintered and isolated, and the movement "lost its verve," while progressives were better organized than ever.
Along with other speakers, Borosage argued that America is now a left-of-center nation.
"The election of Barack Obama was the beginning," Dean said. "It was not the end." It was now up to progressives to make sure that Washington doesn't prevent Obama from achieving liberal goals.
Celinda Lake, a progressive pollster, presented her research demonstrating that Americans have rejected Reaganomics and now want government to be part of the solution of their problems.
UPDATE: During the question and answer session, I asked Dean about his comment that the inclusion of a government-run plan is a line in the sand for progressives, and whether he would not support legislation if it did not include such an option. “I think that everybody up here agrees that a public option is essential," he said, and said such an option should resemble Medicare.
In response to another question, Dean said it was more important to have a bill with a government-run plan than to have Republican support. “What's the point of having a crummy piece of legislation that’s bipartisan?” he asked rhetorically. “Bipartisanship isn’t an end by itself.”
He said while it would be wonderful to work with Republicans on health care reform in theory, "If they’re in there just to shill for insurance companies, then I think we should pass it with 51 votes."
Richard Nadler, RIP
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 12:51PM
On the main site today, we run a piece by Richard Nadler, who died unexpectedly at his home on Saturday. As the editor's note says, Nadler was very active in conservative causes and published K.C. Jones, an outlet that helped a few conservative writers get their start. We met -- virtually -- thanks to the immigration debate, a subject about which we had decidedly different views. But Nadler was always a gentleman and a spirited polemicist, a fact to which many who crossed swords with him on immigration policy will attest. R.I.P.
Did Bill O'Reilly Kill Dr. George Tiller?
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 10:04AM
This is the implicit accusation made by Salon columnist Gabriel Winant:
When his show airs tomorrow, Bill O'Reilly will most certainly decry the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller, who was killed Sunday while attending church services with his wife. Tiller, O'Reilly will say, was a man who was guilty of barbaric acts, but a civilized society does not resort to lawless murder, even against its worst members. And O'Reilly, we can assume, will genuinely mean this.
But there's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller's name first appeared on "The Factor" on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."
And it was not an inapt description, as any pro-lifer acquainted with Dr. Tiller's late-term abortion practice would tell you. He performed abortions involving pregnancies in which the fetus was well past the point of "viability." That such abortions are legal is a fact. Whether Dr. Tiller's own practice was entirely within the law was much disputed in recent years. The reason O'Reilly addressed Dr. Tiller's practice in so many episodes is because the doctor's Kansas clinic was the subject of criminal investigation.
There is no evidence to suggest that O'Reilly had anything to do with the murder in which 51-year-old Scott Roeder is reportedly a suspect. Reports by the Kansas City Star indicate that Roeder had for many years been a particular type of crackpot. Roeder was reportedly involved in the so-called "Freeman" militia movement long before the first episode of "The O'Reilly Factor" was aired on Fox News.
However anyone might reproach O'Reilly for his rhetoric, the Fox personality is not responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller. Indeed, he is less responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller than Bill Ayers is responsible for those left dead by the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery in Nyack, N.Y., perpetrated with the assistance of some of Ayers' former Weather Underground comrades.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 9:59AM
- In defense of copyrights (NRO)
- It is time. Oprah must be stopped (Newsweek)
- Companies faced a 75% marginal tax last quarter (Cato@Liberty)
- Larry Summers, allowing himself to be used (Weekly Standard)
- Tim Geithner with a tall task ahead in China (Daily Beast)
- Investment strategies for extremely low-wealth people (Econlog)
- The roots of inequality are a little different than usually depicted (Reason)
More of the Same Bush Bashing
Posted by on 6.1.09 @ 9:45AM
Chris Cillizza notes that in the 2010 Senate races, Democrats are once again trying to use the strategy of tying Republican candidates to former President Bush. Much of the article focuses on whether the practice will get too old and whether Bush's popularity will improve like other former presidents, but at the end of the day, the effectiveness of such an approach will depend on how Americans view President Obama. If Obama is still broadly popular, the economy has improved, and things are relatively stable on the foreign policy/national security front, then I think Democrats will be able to run campaigns saying, "If you like the way the country is heading now, then don't vote for Republican X, because he wants to return to the old, failed Bush policies." However, if Obama's popularity is starting to wane, the economy is in turmoil, and/or there's a major international crisis or national security incident, any Democrat who starts in with the Bush bashing will just look desperate, like they're trying to distract attention from the current administration's problems.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
President Obama's Intelligence Briefing at Five Guys
Posted by on 5.31.09 @ 11:00PM
The following is not a story from the Onion.
President Obama cares so much about protecting our nation from external threats and saving taxpayer dollars that he combined a burger run with an important briefing about the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, an intelligence agency within the Pentagon he hadn't previously been aware of.
The Politico reports that some guy in line at Five Guys who happened to work for the intelligence agency let the president know that the agency has something to do with satellite imaging or maps or, you know, whatever.
The transcript provided by the Politico:
Obama: What do you do Walter?
Walter: I work at, uh, NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Obama: Outstanding, how long you been doing that?
Walter: About six years
Obama: Yea?
Walter: Yes.
Obama: You like it?
Walter: I do, keeps me...
Obama: So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial...uh...
Walter: Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery..
Obama: Right
Walter: [unintelligible] ...support systems, so...
Obama: Sounds like good work.
Walter: Enjoy the weekend.
Obama: Appreciate it.
Note that the president didn't ask Walter what he did at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. President Obama asked what the agency did.
Obama’s Broadway Jaunt
Posted by on 5.31.09 @ 11:15AM
President Obama took a break Saturday with a jaunt to New York City for dinner and a Broadway play. But don’t be concerned, he took the small jet (along with two others).
Obama’s Broadway
Jaunt
By Asher Embry
Kim Jong Il’s deployed plutonium, and missles, threats, and
lies.
Iran is daily plotting still for Israel’s demise.
In Pakistan there’s turmoil and the country could implode.
Near Georgia, Russia readies troops and trouble they forebode.
At home, our spending’s soaring, and our deficits balloon.
Tax revenues are sinking fast, down drastically through June.
GM’s declaring bankruptcy, and no one knows who else.
So all of us are cutting back and tightening our belts.
While “everyday Americans” are struggling every day,
So glad Barack could find the time for dinner and Broadway.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
