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Saturday, June 27, 2009
Re: Terrible Cap and Tax Bill
Posted by on 6.27.09 @ 9:09AM
My question is, what message did House Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John Boehner deliver to the eight Republican strays? If it was anything less than a promise, if they voted "yes," to:
1. Withhold all future NRCC funds
2. Recruit and massively fund a primary opponent
3. Remove them from any leadership roles they might have
-- then GOP leadership's message wasn't strong enough. This was a vote that demanded principle and unanimity for a party that claims the mantle of lower taxes and limited government, and once again, it failed.
The Government Can't Even Spell 'Health' Right
Posted by on 6.27.09 @ 1:23AM
It appears the U.S. government can't even spell health correctly, as shown in the below screen grab from government propaganda website HealthReform.gov. ("The Heallth Care Status Quo: Why America Needs Health Reform")
Should you trust the government to properly manage something it --with literally trillions of dollars at its disposal to hire writers and editors-- can't even spell right?
Friday, June 26, 2009
Hail Storm Greets House Passage of Terrible Cap and Tax Bill
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 7:56PM
A few minutes ago, just after the House narrowly approved a massive new federal energy tax, there was a nasty hail storm over Washington, D.C.
Could it be a sign from above that the cap and trade bill that just barely passed the House (219 to 212) is a terrible idea?
Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity suggests the fact that the vote was so close is significant given the Democrats' overwhelming majority in the House:
While cap-and-trade passed the House, it's a testament to the power of free market activists that it was a difficult, down-to-the-wire, tough fight. This bill, Speaker Pelosi's top priority, was supposed to sail through. Instead it crawled through and barely made it past the finish line in the House-and it took all the efforts of the White House to do it when the bill stalled a couple of days ago.
The bipartisan opposition to this bill shows just how broadly it will negatively impact the country. While some members' votes were won with backroom deals and special interest carve outs it is instructive to see that some commonsense Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with most Republicans, and they deserve our thanks. On the other hand, we are committed to holding the members of Congress who sided with Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi instead off hard-working taxpayers accountable.
Cap-and-trade is a massive new tax on American families and American businesses. It's especially crazy to pass such a huge new tax burden at a time when many families already face economic hardship.
Fortunately, we have always believed the place to kill this bill is the U.S. Senate. We will do everything we can to educate the public about the danger that this legislation poses for their family budgets and their economic freedom to help the voices of millions of grassroots activists be heard on this issue.
If the American people understand what this bill does, it will die in the Senate.
Meanwhile, here are the names of the eight Republican lawmakers who betrayed their party and their country by voting for this extremist legislation:
Mary Bono-Mack (California), Mike Castle (Delaware), Mark Kirk (Illinois), Leonard Lance (New Jersey), Frank LoBiondo (New Jersey), John McHugh (New York), Dave Reichert (Washington), and Chris Smith (New Jersey). (Why so many sellouts from New Jersey?)
Club for Growth: you know what to do.
P.S. I concur with my learned friend Jim Antle that this legislation is political death for Democrats.
Updated 12:45 a.m. Saturday: Michelle Malkin created linked to a cute "wanted" poster for the eight Republican sellouts (created by The LCA Broadside). Here it is:
National Energy Tax Passes House
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 7:23PM
The Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill has passed the House by a vote of 219 to 212. Unless momentum carries it, the legislation faces an uncertain future in the Senate. But I continue to believe this is lose-lose for the Democrats as they seek to pass the first broad-based tax increase of the Obama administration.
UPDATE: 44 Democrats voted no; eight Republicans voted yes.
Fili-Boehnered
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 6:06PM
House Minority Leader John Boehner is using his time to read the entire 300-page amendment added to the Waxman-Markey energy bill this morning at 3 am. He's pretty animated. Of course, members are more likely to let themselves be influenced by pork considerations like this:
Simple Arrogance
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 4:54PM
That's what's driving everyone who is pushing the passage of the cap-and-trade bill, from Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, to Al Gore, to Nancy Pelosi, to the president. Witness this from Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute:
For those not able to watch the circus on the House, the last fifteen minutes have been priceless. Rep. Louie Gohmert made a parliamentary enquiry about where he could find a copy of the 309 pages that were added to the bill at 2:49 AM. The chairman hemmed and hawed and finally said that she didn’t know. Then Rep. Joe Barton made a parliamentary enquiry about whether there was a rule of the House that a copy of the bill on the floor had to be available. The chairman said that she was not aware of such a rule.
Then after some more attempts to make enquiries about where a copy of the 309 pages could be consulted, Rep. Edward Markey disdainfully explained to his inferiors that a copy was in plain sight at the Clerk’s desk and was available on the web site. Then Rep. Barton pointed out that the copy available at the desk was the 1201 pages and a separate pile with the 309 pages of which the clerk was trying to insert the various pieces into their correct places in the 1201 pages. He inquired whether this was an official copy. The chair said that yes “in effect” it was. Hundreds of members rushed to the Clerk’s desk to read the 309 pages.
No, I made that up. Vote first, find out what you’ve voted on later.
And in a report today by the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer, there's this from Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu:
Everyone agrees this cap-and-trade concept will lead to higher electric bills and gasoline prices. How much varies by source.
Chu said recent studies by two agencies - the Congressional Budget Office and the Environmental Protection Agency - equated the extra cost to about $240 a year for the typical family.
"This is not a lot of money," he said.
These estimates are widely challenged, but even if they are right, I wonder if -- since $240 isn't a lot of money -- the secretary wouldn't mind covering my vehicle fuel next month?
Obama, Grifter
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 4:50PM
Whether it is three card monte, Lookie-Loo, the pigeon drop, or any of the other world-famous cons, the keys to success are speed, confusion, charm, and a smooth and distracting spiel. Is the Obama legislative strategy an enormous taxpayer grift?
Obama, Grifter
By Asher Embry
Obama’s urging once again that Congress act too fast.
You’d think they’d learned a lesson when the Stimulus was
passed.
But no, before they even read a bill it’s
passed and signed.
Barack’s now made it de rigueur, this legislating
blind.
So legislation through the halls of Congress blithely
hurtles,
Bestowing funds from “Stimulus” for jogging paths for
turtles.
We’re finding out, months later, it’s exactly as we
thought,
Few knew what lovely “gifts” our hard-earned money really bought.
And now Judge Sotomayor’s hearing’s scheduled much too
soon;
There’s barely time to analyze the fervid path she’s hewn.
The bills which tax our use of power are also rushing
through;
They're still collating pages so who knows just what they
do?
And health care change is on the way, few details yet,
alas.
No matter, says Obama, we just need a bill to pass.
We worry how health care’s reformed;
it’s really life and death.
We’d love to know they’ve thought this through; took time to take
a breath.
The hints we get dishearten, there’s the cost and so much
more:
Just what exactly is their “Health Choices Commissioner”
for?
“O” learned with bumper stickers, simple slogans are the
best;
No need to take positions when you’re just a Rorschach
test.
But governing is different, you’re supposed to have a plan;
Not simply “Hope” or “Change” or that most putrid, “Yes We Can.”
So far that’s all we’re getting, though,
their slogan legislation.
The reason, crass and cynical: “O’s” smooth manipulation.
It’s easier to pass a bill if you refuse to say
Exactly what it’s going to do or how you’re going to pay.
The con man knows the key to the deception in his grift
Is making sure he keeps it moving, always deft and swift.
So “O” and Ax and Rahm will keep on pushing fast and loose
Unless -- until -- we stand and say “no more” to this
abuse.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Busting a Cap and Trade
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 4:10PM
Reports on what's going on in the House on Waxman-Markey are all over the place. I've heard everything from imminent passage to the Democrats having to bring in the unions to muscle people because they don't have the vote to ram it through.
Conservative Michael Jackson Fans
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 4:02PM
Via the American Conservative, I'm reminded that Ronald Reagan once had much more effusive praise for Michael Jackson than anything to be found in my little stroll down memory lane. Of course, Reagan didn't know about Jackson's extracurricular activities at the time. Back then, none of us did.
Two More Studies of Cap'n Trade
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 2:30PM
The Beacon Hill Institute, the economics pros at Suffolk University in Boston (Go Sawx!), have hit Waxman-Markey (and the like) hard here late in the game. First on "green" jobs, in which they critique three studies that trumpet those beneficial byproducts of global warming reduction initiatives:
“Contrary to the claims made in these studies, we found that the green job initiatives reviewed in each actually causes greater harm than good to the American economy and will cause growth to slow,” reported Paul Bachman, Director of Research at the Beacon Hill Institute, one of the report’s authors….
The authors of the BHI critique identified a fundamental error in each of these studies, specifically “counting the creation of a green job as a benefit and rationale for its proposed program in and of itself.”
The BHI study also stresses that “Jobs -- green or otherwise -- are not benefits but are instead costs. If the green job is a net benefit it has to be because the value the job produces for consumers is greater than the cost of performing the job. This argument is never made in any of these three green jobs studies.”
And today comes their look at Waxman-Markey:
Cutting CO2 emissions by 83% over four decades – as proposed in the Waxman-Markey Discussion draft – might appear to be an easy goal, but the results indicate otherwise. The first point to note is that such cutbacks, whether done by the U.S. alone or in concert with others, would all be more expensive than doing nothing at all.
If the United States were to cut emissions alone, with no cutbacks (relative to trend) by other countries, it would bear the full cost of abatement (PV = $3.85 trillion) while reaping only about $0.27 trillion in benefits. This represents a net cost, relative to doing nothing, of $3.42 trillion. It would cost the United States $154 billion by 2020 and $1.318 trillion by 2050.
By 2045, the tax on carbon would need to rise to $714 per metric ton of carbon (equivalent to $195 per metric ton of CO2) to induce consumers to make the necessary cutbacks; from Table 1 we see that this would add $1.73/gallon to the cost of gasoline (in 2005 dollars) and 6.7 to 14.9 cents to a kWh of electricity – essential doubling the retail price of electricity.
The benefits are modest because by 2050 the U.S. would account for less than a sixth of world emissions of CO2; reducing U.S. emissions by 83% (relative to the 2005 level) by then would cut global emissions by just 11%, which would have a modest effect on climate, moderating the increase in global temperature by 2100 from 3.30ºC (the baseline no-controls case) to 3.12º.
As I've said over and over again: all cost, no benefit. All but a few House members have probably made up their minds on this already, but the Senate still has to address it.
Sebelius: Dems Need 60 Votes to Pass Health Care
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 2:21PM
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on just completed conference call Friday afternoon that health care legislation would require 60 votes to clear the Senate.
The statement comes as many liberals are pressuring Democrats to abandon the idea of bipartisanship and use the reconciliation procedure, which would enable them to pass a health care bill with a simple majority, while triggering a nuclear war with Senate Republicans.
During the call, a reporter asked Sebelius why the Obama administration was talking about bipartisanship when Democrats have enough votes in Congress to pass whatever they want.
"While the votes may be there because the majority is pretty hefty in the House of Democratic support, the reality in the Senate is basically you need 60 votes in order to move procedurally to a vote on anything," she replied.
IG-Gate: Obama's War on Truth
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 12:33PM
Pejman Yousefzadeh at The New Ledger:
Not content with Senator McCaskill's praise of the Walpin firing as being doubleplusgood, the White House instructed Norman Eisen, the White House Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, to march up to Capitol Hill and tell Congressman Darrell Issa and his staff that Walpin's firing was "an act of political courage." This, despite the fact that Eisen was unprepared to answer specific questions or comply with specific document requests to back up his claims. Quite properly-and demonstrating the mental acuity he was accused of lacking-Walpin is taking none of this lying down, demanding that the White House admit error and that Congressional hearings into his firing commence immediately. And even his political foes agree. . . .
Mousavi Urges Iranians Abroad to Be "Faithful" to Islamic System
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 11:51AM
Mir Hossein Mousavi released a statement to Iranians living abroad, first thanking them for their support, then criticizing the government for stifling his speech, but ultimately asking them to remain supportive of the Islamic system of government:
I’d like to thank you again for your peaceful objections which have received widespread coverage across the world, and would like to ask you that by using all legal channels, and by remaining faithful to the sacred system of the Islamic Republic, to make sure that your objections are heard by the authorities in the country. I am fully aware that your justified demands have nothing to do with groups who do not believe in the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. It is up to you to distance yourself from them, and do not allow them to misuse the current situation.
This reinforces the point that for all the understandable enthusiasm for the idea of the Iranian people taking to the streets, Mousavi has not been willing to challenge the Islamic system of government itself. And as long as a theocratic regime persists in Iran, the pople will never be free.
About That New York Times Health Care Poll
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 10:34AM
Liberals have been touting a New York Times/CBS poll released last weekend suggesting broad support for government health care and higher taxes. Bill O'Reilly has written a column criticizing the poll because 48 percent of respondents said they voted for Obama, compared to just 25 percent who said they voted for McCain -- obviously a huge discrepancy. But I noticed this on Monday, contacted a few people, including the New York Times, and decided not to write anything, because there was an explanation that sounded plausible to me -- that after an election, there's a tendency for people to want to say they voted for the winner rather than the loser. If you look at the party identification and ideological breakdown of the respondents in the poll, it's actually pretty fair: 29 percent Republican, 35 percent Democrat, and 31 percent independent; 19 percent liberal, 41 percent moderate, and 34 percent conservative.
Here's the way Marjorie Connelly of the New York Times described it to me in an email:
When we ask respondents to our surveys who they voted for in 2008, we do so in order to look at voters who say they voted for Barack Obama as compared to those who say they voted for John McCain. We're not looking to recreate the 2008 election, because recall of past vote is notoriously unreliable as a guide to what actually happened.
Traditionally, candidates who have won the election get a boost after the fact. Voting is socially desirable, and people who didn't vote for whatever reason think they had and say they voted for the winning candidate. In addition, the gap between the candidates often expands and contracts as the
president's popularity goes up and down.In general, we use this question to provide crosstabs. For example, we might have looked at people who said they voted for Mr. McCain to see how what they said about health care reform. But, as you can see from our article, we used party identification for analysis instead.
Does this mean I think that most Americans are ready to embrace government health care? Not at all. The Washington Post/ABC poll that came out on Wednesday asked some helpful followups that showed how susceptible voters' attitudes are to messaging. For instance, when asked whether they would still support the creation of a new government plan if it would drive private insurers out of business, support nosedived to 37 percent. We still have a long debate ahead of us, and if the lackluster ratings for ABC's Obama health care special are any indication, Americans are not very engaged right now.
Democrats Rushing to Cap-and-Trade Suicide; UPDATED: Another 300Pages?
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 10:02AM
10:01 a.m. ET: According to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, Henry Waxman just tacked on another 300 pages in the dead of night! This monstrosity is like one of those 1950s sci-fi creatures that just keeps growing and growing . . .
PREVIOUSLY (8:53 a.m.): Such is the feverish haste with which Democrats are trying to rush Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade through the House that, as with the $787 "stimulus," they're preparing to vote on a 1,000-plus-page bill that none of them have read.
According to the Sunlight Foundation, on June 19, when the bill was placed on the House calendar, it was 964 pages. By Monday, when it was submitted to the House Rules Committee, it was 1,201 pages. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) has noted that the bill bypassed key committees, and none other than Rep. Charles Dingell (D-Mich.) has described it as a "huge tax."
Given this situation, the hurry to ram through the "massive job-killer" can only be compared to lemmings rushing toward a cliff. If Nancy Pelosi can impose party discipline, Democrats will find themselves under intolerable pressure to vote "yes" and the lemming impulse will prevail. But, as with the stimulus bill, no Republican should join this lemming rush.
Opponents of Waxman-Markey are praying that they can find enough "Blue Dog" Democrat votes to stop the bill. Yet the lemming impulse of the Democrats toward mass suicide could be so powerful that many House members will sign their own political death warrants today. Maybe some of these Democrats should talk to George "Buddy" Darden, the Democrat who representated the Seventh District of Georgia until he allowed himself to be talking into voting for Bill Clinton's gun-grabbing "crime bill" in 1994.
Legislative haste of the sort exemplified by H.R. 2454 contradicts the advice of our Founders. Smitty, a military man of constitutionalist persuasion who helps me out at my personal blog, was moved today to quote James Madison's famous expression of the rule of law:
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
Sheer regard for political self-preservation may produce enough Democratic "no" votes today to stop Waxman-Markey. If not, the repeal of this disastrous legislation should be the first campaign promise of every Republican challenger in 2010.
Surprise! Turns Out Specter Doesn't Mean What He Says
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 9:43AM
Sen. Arlen Specter on Meet the Press in May:
MR. GREGORY: Let me--I just want to turn, then, to the issue of health care. You would not support a public plan?
SEN. SPECTER: That's what I said...
MR. GREGORY: OK.
SEN. SPECTER: ...and that's what I meant.
Specter speaking to union activists about health care yesterday:
I know you are very interested in the public component and I think Senator Schumer has the right idea about having a public component which is to have a level playing field with the private sector, but the public component can be in place.
Wanted: CSPAN "BTU" footage
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 9:18AM
OK, here's a challenge: who among you are are better and/or more able at the moment to dig around, find and rip that great CSPAN moment from 16 years ago this month of freshman Rep. Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky ("'3M'...but 1 term"), skulking back down into the House chamber to change her vote after White House pressure, tearfully marching out to a chorus of the Republicans calling out "Bye, Marjie!"?
They were right. She and 40 or so of her colleagues soon, er, committed to spend more time with their families, and Al Gore told the Financial Times that this vote cost the Dems control of Congress.
The House Rs did manage to produce a different video which as of this check has gotten some legs, and at least has crept up into the low thousands of views. The 3M show on BTU, in my opinion, would garner many many more but needs only to be seen by about ten: if viewed in a handful of Blue Dog offices would spell a quick end to today's vote on the biggest tax increase in U.S. history, a "global warming tax" that is BTU's successor, if on a scale so grand that it makes BTU look like a tax cut.
There's a little time left. Let's refresh some memories.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.26.09 @ 8:58AM
- New Majority: The Dems cheat just as bad! We looked it up (New Majority)
- Liberals. Always exploiting non-profits (Washington Examiner)
- Hypocrisy > Relativism (Washington Times)
- Obama is actually conservative, i.e. horrible (Politico)
- Spengler on marriage (First Things)
- Are there enough votes for cap-and-trade? Red State wants to make sure the answer's no (Red State)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
TV Mobster's Wife Backs ACORN's Government Healthcare Push
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 10:58PM
It seems fitting that Edie Falco, who played a mobster's wife on HBO's "The Sopranos," spoke at a rally in the nation's capital organized by the racketeers at ACORN.
ACORN leads the Axelrod-style astroturf group known as Health Care for America Now, which organized the rally.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Star reports that Missouri settled a voter registration lawsuit by agreeing to pay ACORN $450,000 in legal expenses.
"The lawsuit has led to a 2,000 percent increase in the number of people registering to vote at Missouri public assistance agencies," said legal team spokesman Jon Greenbaum. "We appreciate that since they've been under court order, Missouri's Department of Social Services has been a national model in showing how to implement this law."
It was unclear at press time what percentage of the newly registered voters were dead people and cartoon characters.
Grassley: Amtrak 'Systematically Violated' IG Law
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 8:08PM
Officials of Amtrak have "systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act," Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) charged Thursday, making public a 94-page legal report prepared at the request of the Amtrak inspector general who resigned suddenly a week ago.
Fred Wiederhold, a veteran IG, retired without notice or explanation June 18 after a meeting with Amtrak officials where he presented the report by the law firm of Willkie, Farr & Gallagher.
"The allegations are serious, including third parties being told to first send documents under subpoena by the Inspector General to Amtrak for review, and the Inspector General being chastised for communicating directly with congressional appropriations and authorizing committees," Grassley said in a statement.
Grassley's accusation of illegal actions by Amtrak, including failure to comply properly with subpoenas, is the most serious to date in an investigation that has expanded quickly since the IG for the AmeriCorps program was given an ultimatum two weeks ago to resign or be fired.
In a letter to Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper, Grassley said the legal report "suggests a long-term and unrelenting interference with the activities and operation" of the IG's office. Grassley said his staff believes that members of the Amtrak IG office "be fearful of retaliation if they were to discuss the matters set forth in this letter with anyone, including Congress."
Grassley requested that Carper make four Amtrak employees "immediately available for interviews": D. Hamilton Peterson, Deputy Counsel to the Inspector General; Edward Puccerella, Director of Congressional & External Affairs; Colin C. Carriere, Counsel to the Inspector General; and E. Bret Coulson, Deputy Inspector General.
The American Spectator reported earlier Thursday that, according to sources with knowledge of the case, Amtrak vice president and general counsel Eleanor "Eldie" Acheson -- a close friend of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- had been involved in several of the disputes between the money-losing passenger rail service and the IG's office.
The Thriller Is Gone
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 7:49PM
Michael Jackson's death is perhaps more surprising than Farrah Fawcett's, but it is the final chapter in an increasingly bizarre life story that saw him go from the highest reaches of pop stardom to the life of a recluse. As a child of the '80s, I played the Thriller LP on my Fisher Price turntable. My father brought the album home for me when I was sick with the chicken pox, roughly at the peak of Jackson's popularity. Both Jackson's music and much else about him subsequently moved in directions much less to my liking, but anyone who grew up in my generation -- or who saw him even earlier on as part of the Jackson Five -- will remember a natural showman.
A sad day
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 6:08PM
I see four Republicans listed as "Yes" votes for the Waxman-Markey global warming tax that under no scenario or set of assumptions would have a detectable impact on the climate (meaning: it's not about the climate), in the latest tally by people who tally such things.
Mary Bono Mack (CA), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), and a Rep. Reichart from Washington State are the first three.
The last one, Chris Smith (NJ), is simply mind-bending. Global warming is the vehicle for the down with people, people are pollution, Zero Population Growth crowd. As I noted in Red Hot Lies, China is even seeking approval of "offsets" to sell to the EU and, soon, us, derived from their current "carbon footprint" subtracted from a hypothetical carbon footprint but-for their, ahem, coercive family planning policies.
That's right, carbon "offset credits" from forced abortions. Why, how could anyone even give a second thought to strolling down this path...or sprinting as Waxman-Markey would have it?
If Rep. Smith doesn't know this, he's insufficently informed and/or staffed on the matter.
Things you don't hear very often
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 4:28PM
"Hand me that piano".
"You can do what you want to the girl...just leave me alone".
And now, per Politico, my new favorite, in excusing why Al Gore was suddenly not, as had been announced, going to jet into town to (again!) be the Democrats' star attraction for passing a National Energy Tax (or "global warming tax", as I prefer to distill it) on the floor tomorrow, after some obviously cooler heads prevailed:
"It's a question of what was energy efficient for the vice president," [San Francisco's own Speaker Nancy] Pelosi said of the decision to keep Gore in Tennessee.
Yeah. Gore's travel schedule, his decision to maintain four homes, etc. typically revolves around the consideration of how to most wisely use energy.
Liberals Rally for Health Care NOW!
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 3:06PM
Thousands of liberal activists representing major unions, ACORN, and other affiliates of the Health Care For America NOW! coalition rallied in Upper Senate Park across from the Capitol today. A parade of speakers, including Sens. Chuck Schumer, Sherrod Brown, and Bob Menendez; Howard Dean; and Sopranos star Edie Falco touted the need for legislation that created a new government-run health care plan.
There was also a large presence of single-payer advocates, carrying signs such as "Affordable YES; Premiums NO" and "Desperately Seeking Single-Payer." One of the single-payer advocates heckled Schumer with a bullhorn as SEIU representatives tried to quiet him down.
I asked Dean about whether he was concerned about moderate Democrats who were not behind the inclusion of a government plan, and he said, "I think at the end of the day they will (support it)."
Will be working in more reporting from the rally into a longer piece for tomorrow's main site, so will have more details on the rally then.
Congress Should Stop Al Gore’s Job Killing, Economy Ruining, Global Warming Tax
6.25.09 @ 3:05PM
So argue a group of conservative leaders in the following statement:
Although Americans want Washington to stay focused on putting the economy back on track, Nancy Pelosi and her liberal Democratic Congress are trying to enact legislation that will keep the economy crippled. Analysts agree that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would cost millions of American jobs, shrink our economy and impose huge increases in gas prices, heating and electric bills on American families. We urge moderate Democrats to join Republicans and to vote “NO” on this devastatingly harmful bill.
The list of reasons to oppose cap-and-trade legislation keeps getting longer and longer:
- LOSES JOBS. At least 1.1 million American jobs every year and as many as 2.5 million in some years will be lost or sent overseas. Studies show that 2.2 existing jobs are wiped out for every 1 “green” job created in countries where cap-and-trade has been adopted.
- HURTS THE WORKING CLASS. The National Black Chamber of Commerce forecasts net 2.5 million jobs lost after accounting for new “green” jobs. Most will be lower or moderate income jobs that America cannot afford to lose.
- INCREASES TAXES. “Cap-and-trade is a tax and it’s a great big one,” says Democrat John Dingell -- somewhere between $1 and $1.9 trillion over five years according to White House economic advisor Jason Furman. What happened to Obama’s campaign pledge that he would never raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 per year?
- RAISES ENERGY COSTS. Obama promised that his cap-and-trade bill would make energy costs “skyrocket.” At least he is keeping his promise here. But the cost of most goods and services will necessarily skyrocket as well.
- DAMAGES THE ECONOMY. Cap-and-trade will increase the national debt by 26% by 2035, and will reduce the gross domestic product by $9.6 trillion ($9,600,000,000,000).
- ALL PAIN/NO GAIN. Even the flawed alarmist models find that the cap-and-trade bill would have almost no impact on global warming. The liberal Breakthrough Institute calculates greenhouse emission will be cut by just 0.5% through 2020. That doesn’t even count all the new greenhouse gas produced by China, India and other countries as American jobs move overseas.
The House of Representatives needs to come to its senses – don’t pass a massive job-killer in the middle of the worst economic crisis in decades. If it doesn’t, the Senate must stop this train before it derails our economy.
The statement was signed by the following leading conservatives:
Becky Norton Dunlop, Former Assistant Secretary of Interior
Tim Phillips, President, Americans for Prosperity
Fred Smith, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
Duane Parde, President, National Taxpayers Union
Brent Bozell, President, Media Research Center
Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America
Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator
Obama Wants to Let Those Pesky Geezers Die
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 2:36PM
In a rare moment of candor, President Obama explained to an audience how government-run healthcare would work in America.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.
In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."
He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
Obama said he has personal familiarity with such a dilemma. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than nine months to live, he said.
She fell and broke her hip, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" [...]
So, old people: screw you. In the future Uncle Sam will put you on an ice floe and let you float away to your heavenly reward. It gives new meaning to the Latin phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." (In English, How sweet and glorious it is to die for one's country.)
Medical decisions should be made by patients, their families, and their doctors, not by government bureaucrats, but that's ObamaCare for you.
A Farcical Affair
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 1:13PM
Michelle Malkin sees nothing funny about Mark Sanford's Last Tango in Buenos Aires. I very rarely disagree with Malkin, but bitter humor is an occupational hazard:
Sarcasm is my natural metier, and spending two decades in the newroom tends to put a keen edge on one's cynical indifference to the foibles of the famous and powerful. In some circles, a big-shot politician is like a rock star, so when a politician behaves like he's on tour with Aerosmith, it brings out my inner Mencken. (He once remarked that the only way a journalist should ever look at a politician is down.)
My cynicism is bipartisan. Sanford's Argentine escapade is, to me, as ludicrous and deserving of scornful laughter as any shenanigans of Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton.
If Bill Clinton is a punchline, Mark Sanford is a Monty Python routine.
Sanford Adultery Would Be Resume-Builder In Democratic Party
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 12:26PM
Let's look at a political double standard.
In general terms --of course, there are exceptions-- the adultery and public confession of South Carolina's Republican governor Mark Sanford is a career-ender for a Republican.
For a Democrat, however, it would be more of a resume-builder.
Cheap shot? Nah.
Hall of Shame
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 11:11AM
MSNBC has a helpful list of all the politicians who have been caught in sex scandals, dating from Clinton. Who will be the first female politician to break that particular glass ceiling?
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Talks About The Continuing Crisis
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 11:10AM
Bob Tyrrell, our editor-in-chief, has done a podcast interview with John J. Miller at NRO talking about The Best of The American Spectator's Continuing Crisis: As Chronicled for Four Decades by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 10:36AM
- Art illustrates the beauties of capitalism (Reason)
- Sanford gets points over Clinton, Ensign, etc. because he came out and said he was in love (Slate)
- The advent of data.gov. Seems like a pretty good idea (Wired)
- Gary Becker thinks newspapers are screwed, but isn't too worried (Becker-Posner Blog)
- Obama's bioethics council: a look ahead (Catholic World Report)
- The Miracle on Grass: USA! USA! (NY Times)
- Michael Barone: Time for Obama to put down the Staind CDs and join the grown-up world (Real Clear Politics)
But Everyone Lies About Sex!
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 10:27AM
Things have definitely changed since Bill Clinton was president. Back then, we were told that adultery didn't matter, "everybody did it," and that even acts of perjury didn't matter if the subject being lied about under oath was sex. Anybody who thought differently was a puritanical right-winger engaged in a borderline criminal conspiracy to bring down the president.
But recently we've been employing a very different standard for politicians in both parties. The mighty Eliot Spitzer was brought down by his infidelity and dalliances with hookers. John Edwards' affair has destroyed his reputation and whatever remained of his political career. John Ensign resigned his Senate leadership position and is almost certainly out of the running for 2012. Ditto Mark Sanford, who is no longer chairman of the Republican Governors Association and is highly unlikely to run for president.
Obviously, there were additional factors at play in each of these cases. With Spitzer, it was the illegal act of prostitution. Edwards' wife had cancer and their marriage played a prominent role in his 2008 presidential campaign. Ensign might have helped the husband of the woman he had an affair with secure employment. Sanford left the state he governed and was out of the country for days.
Nobody, as far as I can tell, said that their behavior was understandable or not a matter of public concern because their indiscretions were sexual in nature. One wonders how Bill Clinton would have fared in such a political climate.
UPDATE: There's an interesting discussion of what it takes for a politician to survive a sex scandal over at the New York Times' website. There are still quite a few survivors even now.
Jenny Sanford's Statement
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 10:25AM
Is very tough, moving, and wise. Worth a read.
Eleanor Acheson: Lobbyist
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 9:54AM
Responding to the question, "Who is Eleanor Acheson?" last night, blogger Dan Riehl discovered an interesting tidbit:
According to an official looking page, Eleanor Acheson was, or is a paid lobbyist for the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. (NRPC) She's listed from 2007 to the current calender year. Maybe I'm missing something, or there's another explanation for this, but why would a lobbyist be Amtrak's VP and legal counsel? . . .
Good question. Dan and I spoke by phone about this last night. NRPC is the actual corporate name for Amtrak. It appears that Acheson was being paid a few thousand a year to lobby the municipal government of New York City on behalf of Amtrak, in addition to her executive salary. Not necessarily a big scandal, just another fact that might raise questions, considering that Amtrak -- whose board of directors includes Hunter Biden, son of the vice president -- got $1.3 billion of "stimulus" money.
After I filed my special report about the Obama administration's evident purge of inspectors general, I learned a little more about the circumstances that led Amtrak IG Fred Wiederhold to resign suddenly last week. The professional staff of the Amtrak IG office is reportedly now "terrified" about their job security, because Amtrak put their human resources director in charge of the IG staff.
As I emphasized in the special report, there are now multiple investigations going on surrounding the administration's treatment of inspectors general -- at Amtrak, at AmeriCorps, at the International Trade Commission and also the special inspector general for the Troubled Assert Relief Program -- so please read the whole thing.
"The Erotic Beauty of You Holding Yourself"
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 9:32AM
I'm as gobstopped and disappointed over the Sanford affair as anyone. Nevertheless, of all the things we can now sadly say about the Governor, who among us would dare say Sanford doesn't have game? Although he used that game for badness and naughty mistress email, fairness requires we recognize Sanford's obvious talent for erotic verse. Thus, I do.
Tragically, Sanford was unable to channel that sly finesse into his press conference repertoire where, as he so ably demonstrated yesterday, he could have really used it!
Sanford's Sun Sets
Posted by on 6.25.09 @ 9:12AM
My take on the Mark Sanford revelations in the Guardian.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Latest From South Carolina
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 7:02PM
At least we know now that the Appalachian Trail is afterall safe for unaccompanied women.
ACORN's Disgraced Founder Wade Rathke Speaks
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 6:49PM
And lies issue from his mouth -- or in this case, from his computer keyboard.
Wade Rathke responds on his blog to the news reports about ACORN International changing its name.
"I'm just an organizer of lower income families around and not someone on either side of the fence with an axe to grind," writes Rathke who participated in an eight-year coverup of his brother's nearly $1 million embezzlement from ACORN.
So now he's being victimized?
He also says in a roundabout way that he resigned from ACORN. Not true. He was dismissed, as shown in the ACORN national board minutes of June 20, 2008. (See pages 10 and 11 in linked document.)
Conservatives Counter ABC Obamacare Infomercial
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 6:02PM
On a day when ABC News has turned over its programing to the White House so that President Obama can promote his health care agenda, Americans for Tax Reform gathered together a group on Capitol Hill to offer a competing, market-based vision for health care reform.
Sen. Jim DeMint was there to tout his health care proposal along with Rep. Tom Price.
Price, a former physician in Atlanta, said that, "If the fourth estate continues to be in the tank (for the Obama administration, it would endanger the future of the nation." Price outlined three "death knells" for the health care system: a government plan that would crowd out private insurance, coverage mandates, and "ceding quality to the federal government. He said patients need to make their own health care decisions and be able to choose plans that they own and control.
"We don't need an expansion of government," DeMint said, and he outlined his plan for health care that would maintain the employer-based insurance system, give vouchers to individuals that would replicate the tax advantages enjoyed by those who obtain coverage through their employers, and allow people to purchase insurance across state lines.
DeMint said his plan would be deficit-neutral because it would be financed by terminating the $700 billion TARP program. If the program isn't terminated, he said, it would just be used as a "slush fund" for the Treasury Department. However, when I asked DeMint how the plan would be paid for once the TARP money runs out, he replied, "We just have to see where we're going." He insisted that his reforms would bring down health care costs, and in any event would be less than the trillions that Obama's proposals would cost.
"We can win this if we engage the American people," DeMint said of the health care battle. "They are not stupid."
The event also featured a panel of activists, policy experts, and a Canadian woman who shared her horror story with their government-run health care system.
Merrill Matthews, the director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, took aim at the government option. He argued that Medicare and Medicaid are rampant with fraud and abuse and use their market share to impose price controls on doctors and hospitals, which providers then recoup by jacking up prices on individuals and private insurers. He noted that though proponents of government health care like to point to the low administrative costs of Medicare, their estimates leave out costs such as staff salaries, building rent ,and insurance -- alll of which show up elsewhere in the federal budget. Nor do the estimates of administrative costs include fraud and abuse. The creation of any new government plan, Matthews said, would ding taxpayers for the start up costs, and would continue to change the rules on the private sector so that it could not compete.
Today, Preident Obama officially said he changed his mind and now supports the inclusion of an individual mandate requiring people to purchase health insurance. But Greg Scandlen, director of Consumers for Health Care Choices, explained that mandates have proven ineffective. For instance, even though we have mandates for car insurance, roughly 15 percent of car owners remain non-compliant.
The room also heard from Shona Holmes, a Canadian who was suffering from vision loss and had to come to America to get treated because she was put on a several month waiting list to see a specialist in her home country, even though she risked losing her vision if she was not treated in four to six weeks.
Does Sanford Survive as Governor Through the Weekend?
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 5:59PM
What a horrid affair, in more than one sense of the word. As Philip Klein points out, it is awful on so many levels. The question is not, will Mark Sanford resign? It is, when will he resign?
The affair and family betrayal are terrible. Add to that betraying his staff and having them lie for him, looking foolish in the process. And then abandoning his state duties, leaving his security detail in the dark, and being out of touch even for state emergencies, in order to fly to another continent for sex. (Yes, he said he wanted to break off the affair, but the story sounds no more plausible than his hike along the Appalachian Trail.)
A politician can survive betraying his family. But betray enough people, including the entire state's population, and you become a figure of ridicule, unable to perform your duties. How can he regain the credibility necessary to do his job?
He's outta' there. The only question is when.
And if he has any decency left, he will resign now. His family, whom he is putting through a public horror show, needs all of him if there is any chance of him making amends. His family should be his priority, and it needs healing, which isn't likely to commence in the glare of national publicity. His only decent option is to quit now.
Obama Says Thinking "Evolved" on Individual Mandate
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 4:52PM
One of the few actual domestic policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during their contentious primary involved whether to have a mandate forcing individuals to purchase health care. Obama was strongly opposed, his campaign hammered Clinton on this, and the issue was aired over and over again during their many debates. Yet today, Obama told Diane Sawyer that he's reversed on the issue because, "People have made some pretty compelling arguments to me that if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we've got to have healthier people not opt out of the system." This is ridiculous. He knew all of those arguments during the campaign, Clinton insisted that he'd have to adopt a mandate, and he pushed back forcefully.
Here's what he had to say during their Austin, Texas debate in February of last year:
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.
Transcript here. Video below.
This is now part of a wider pattern for Obama of blatantly deceiving the American people. Just last week, he told the American Medical Association:
And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.
Of course, in his press conference yesterday he said he didn't really mean it. There's no reason to believe anything Obama says, especially when it comes to health care.
Suppressing Science, Censoring Dissent
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 4:50PM
So much for "overwhelming transparency". CEI has stumbled upon some internal EPA emails revealing an effort to ensure contradictory science did not see the light of day in the Agency's effort to impose the biggest regulatory regime (and vehicle for social engineering) in U.S. history.
It seems that "science's rightful place" is bound, gagged and stuffed somewhere it can't get in the way.
How Stupid Does Barney Frank Think Americans Are?
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 4:23PM
If you had to pick one lawmaker to blame for the subprime mortgage bubble and subsequent collapse, that person would have to be House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) who is probably more culpable for the state of the economy right now even than Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut).
Frank has long pimped the disastrous Community Reinvestment Act and been a loyal friend of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Even as the economy went south last year, Frank stood by the CRA and the two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). The CRA mandated irresponsible mortgage lending and then Fannie and Freddie, under intense pressure from Frank and a chorus of lawmakers in Congress, bought up those doomed mortgages, bundled them together, and found suckers around the world to buy their mortgage junk bonds. (Note: They're actually called Mortgage Backed Securities or MBSs but perhaps we should call them Mortgage Junk Bonds or MJBs.)
Yet the shameless, inveterate liar now has the audacity to demand that the monumentally reckless Fannie and Freddie lower mortgage underwriting standards for condominiums.
As Doug Bandow puts it:
[A]fter wasting billions in taxpayer dollars to inflate and thus wreck the housing market, Rep. Barney Frank, the "go-to" guy when it comes to fixing the financial system, wants to waste more taxpayer dollars to inflate and thus wreck the housing market.
That about sums it up.
Frank, who is intelligent enough to understand how the economy works, refuses to acknowledge that he played any role in the financial crisis and his prescription for what ails America is more poison.
Meanwhile, as Frank plots the final destruction of American capitalism, Warren Buffett defies the pundits and the Obama administration by saying there is no economic recovery underway.
This has been blindingly obviously to honest observers for some time but sometimes someone like Buffett has to say the emperor has no clothes before people start paying attention.
Congressional Conservatives Offer Health Care Alternative
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 3:28PM
Anti-Obamacare legislators have moved beyond criticizing and offered the Health Care Freedom Act as an alternative to nationalized health care. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) spoke out today to announce the plan and react to President Obama’s Wednesday press conference. Like Obama’s plan, Sen. DeMint’s bill also aims to get all Americans health care coverage. But the conservative alternative does so by encouraging free market competition and using existing funds. Price argued that Obama was wrong to say the public option won't impact people's private health coverage: With tax subsidies for the government-sponsored plan, many employers and insurance companies may find it difficult to stay competitive. Some companies may drop their coverage and dump their employees onto the government plan.
Under the DeMint-Price bill, those who are satisfied with their insurance company can maintain their current coverage. Those whose employers don’t offer insurance or aren’t satisfied with their current coverage qualify for a $5,000 certificate to seek insurance on their own, from any state. DeMint pointed to the cost and ineffectiveness of existing government health care programs like Medicaid and Medicare. His bill reallocates money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (currently a “Treasury slush fund,” according to the Senator).
Opponents of the bill say that the $5,000 is not nearly enough to cover insurance costs for a family and individuals remain at-risk of being denied by the insurance companies. While the Health Care Freedom Act may not solve everything, it does at least show critics are offering positive alternatives to government-run universal health care.
Sanford and Sons
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 2:59PM
The Mark Sanford news is profoundly sad on so many levels. Sanford was one of the only Republicans who has been a consistent defender of limited government. During his time in Congress in 1995-2001, he racked up a solid economically conservative -- even libertarian -- voting record, slept on the couch in his Washington office to save money on housing, and kept his pledge to only serve three terms. As governor, he's been at war with the Republican-controlled legislature, vetoing one spending bill after another, in a battle that culminated with his valiant fight to reject the stimulus money. During an era when most Republicans talked a big game, he repeatedly put his career on the line to fight for smaller government. Today, conservatives everywhere should be mourning, because we lost the man who was in the best position to run for president in 2012 articulating limited-government philosophy. As I followed this week's story, I thought Sanford handled it poorly, but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he just took off to clear his head. I chalked it up to his eccentric and intospective nature. Unfortunately, once again it turns out you can never be too cynical as a political reporter.
It's absolutely disgraceful not only that he had an affair, not only that he lied about it publicly, but that he put his staff in a position to lie about it. And anybody who has followed Sanford was given the impression that he was a family man. Always close to his sons, so tight with his wife that she managed every one of his campaigns and even served temporarily as his chief of staff while he was governor. And yet he abandons them on Father's Day weekend to fly off to Argentinia to see his mistress, and now forces them to live through all this emotional pain in the media spotlight.
Sanford Admits Affair
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 2:38PM
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has admitted in a live press event that the reason he was in Argentina without the public's knowledge over the past few days was to visit a woman with whom he has had an affair. He also announced that he is quitting his post as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
He mentioned that his family had known about the affair prior to this week, and that he has already taken steps to work through the situation. During the press event he became visibly emotional, struggling at times to speak. He did give background on his partner and how he started a relationship with someone in Argentina, which seemed unrehearsed and possibly too forthcoming -- at times it seemed a little self-absorbed.
More to follow.
MORE:
Something does not quite add up. If his wife has known for at least five months that he has been unfaithful then there are two things to be explained: 1) Why was he in Argentina? He said that he was committed to a "long process" of working through the affair with his wife, so why would he be visiting this other woman? 2) Why was this scandal not avoided? From a purely political perspective, obviously Sanford would have been better off without the revelation of his affair. Even if he wanted to continue the affair, why would he go AWOL and fly to Argentina to do so? If he hadn't made the gross misstep of failing to notify anyone where he was, he never would have attracted attention. Is his paramour such an important figure in Argentina that she couldn't have met him somewhere stateside to avoid the attention that would inevitably follow a major national politician's unannounced trip to a foreign country?
In other words, based on what we know right now, there is absolutely no reason that this situation needed to be a political disaster for Sanford. If he simply could have provided any kind of excuse or shown any of the forethought with which politicians usually plot their dalliances, he still would be a 2012 contender for the Republican nomination. Either he really is that clueless, or there's even more to the story that we don't know right now.
EVEN more:
Meanwhile, in Columbia, the impeachment rumblings are only going to get louder.
UPDATE:
This explains a lot. Apparently Sanford and his wife were in a trial separation. Jenny Sanford released a statement explaining that because of his affair, two weeks ago she requested a trial separation, which she says she did for the sake of their kids and for the good of the marriage. For that reason, she didn't know his whereabouts. It also explains why he was visiting a woman in Buenos Aires even though his wife had already learned of his infidelity.
Ed McMahon, RIP
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 12:45PM
I was pleased to see the Conan-ized "Tonight Show" paid tribute to Ed McMahon, but it also reminded me that television appealed more easily to a broader audience during the Carson-McMahon days. Even the "Tonight Show" is now hosted by someone who appeals to a niche audience rather than Middle America. And while there are a few shows left with cross-generational appeal -- think "American Idol" -- those days are probably gone forever.
Before I was allowed to stay up late enough to watch the "Tonight Show," my first exposure to McMahon was "T.V.'s Bloopers and Practical Jokes," which he co-hosted with Dick Clark. It was miles away from Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd."
DeMintcare
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 10:24AM
Sen. Jim DeMint released his own health care plan today. I'm going to hear him speak in a bit, so I'll just post on it quickly for now and say that it does several good things, though a few I'm not crazy about. One aspect that I don't like is that it preserves the employer-based insurance model while providing vouchers for individuals to purchase health insurance. This may solve one of the problems with the employer tax exclusion -- that it's unfair to individuals purchasing insurance on their own -- but it doesn't solve other problems created when employers purchase people's health care, including the "third party buyer" problem that drives up health care costs because people feel that somebody else is picking up the tab. Other aspects of the bill are better, including that it "creates a nationwide market for health insurance by allowing individuals to purchase health insurance plans in any state." This is a key to giving consumers more choices and a way around the nearly 2,000 onerous benefit mandates states impose on insurers, which drive up the cost of policies.
Another encouraging aspect is that it, "Assures that every health care consumer has access to price information prior to treatment so they can make informed decisions about their care." I'm a free market guy, but I'm all for disclosure, because it allows the free market to function properly. There's no reason why it should be easier for me to research what BluRay player to buy than it is to find the prices and health outcomes at my local hospitals or doctors' offices. Also, the bill "Reduces predatory and frivolous malpractice lawsuits against physicians and hospitals." I'd like to know more about how the legislation achives that. I'm all for limiting frivolous lawsuits, but the trick is how to do so without depriving those who are legitimately harmed the ability to sue and be fairly compensated. DeMint's office claims that the bill would be deficit neutral because they would terminate the TARP bailouts by making companies repay them within 5 years. I'm all for that in theory, but I have no idea if it would be possible given the way the TARP contracts were written -- i.e. if banks didn't agree to the 5 year limit when they borrowed the money, could they be retroactively forced to abide by that time limit? To sum up, obviously the DeMint plan couldn't pass, and while I have some issues with it, I think it's a worthy alternative.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 10:16AM
- Conservatives and judicial restraint (NY Times)
- Meanwhile, the banks still are on the verge of being nationalized and Obama's fine with that (WSJ)
- Cap-and-trade, don't do it (National Review)
- Uh-oh, the left thinks Obama's selling them out. Imagine that, a president more concerned about majorities than fixing the country! (Paul Krugman)
- Fianancial crisis timeline, because there have been too many bailouts, bankruptcies, takeovers, etc. (NY Fed, via Greg Mankiw)
- AP style and ethics on facebook and twitter (Wired)
- Garry Wills's Bill Buckley Profile (The Atlantic)
Sanford Likes To Be in South America
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 9:45AM
Mark Sanford surfaced today at the airport in Atlanta, and he told the State that he was actually in Buenos Aires, driving along the coast of Argentinia. He says he had originally planned on hiking the Appalachian Trail (where his staff thought he was), but then, he told the newspaper, "I said 'no' I wanted to do something exotic." There's something really wonderful about this, and I admire his sense of adventure. In general, I think it would be cool if more people did this sort of thing more often. With that said, I found this comment by Sanford pretty surprising: "I don't know how this thing got blown out of proportion." Huh? He's a public figure who is governor of a state. He just got through a brutal legislative session that made him enemies of many if not most of the lawmakers in the state, and he also is at odds with his own Lt. Governor. I don't know how he thought he could ditch his security detail, disappear, not tell anybody where he's going, lead his wife and staff to give conflicting information on his whereabouts, and think it wouldn't become a big deal. The side of me that loves travel and eccentric characters is thinking, "Awesome!" But the side of me that follows politics is wondering, "What was Sanford thinking"?
UPDATE: Needless to say, the affair changes everything. How disappointing. Not just the affair, but the fiasco, putting his staff in the position to lie to reporters. Unreal.
More Bad Lending: Rep. Frank's Economic Remedy
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 7:45AM
It's a good lesson, as if we needed another one, on why politicians should not be allowed to run (read, ruin) the economy.
Observes the Wall Street Journal:
Back when the housing mania was taking off, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank famously said he wanted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to "roll the dice" in the name of affordable housing. That didn't turn out so well, but Mr. Frank has since only accumulated more power. And now he is returning to the scene of the calamity -- with your money. He and New York Representative Anthony Weiner have sent a letter to the heads of Fannie and Freddie exhorting them to lower lending standards for condo buyers.
You read that right. After two years of telling us how lax lending standards drove up the market and led to loans that should never have been made, Mr. Frank wants Fannie and Freddie to take more risk in condo developments with high percentages of unsold units, high delinquency rates or high concentrations of ownership within the development.
Yes, after wasting billions in taxpayer dollars to inflate and thus wreck the housing market, Rep. Barney Frank, the "go-to" guy when it comes to fixing the financial system, wants to waste more taxpayer dollars to inflate and thus wreck the housing market.
Don't worry, be happy. After all, worrying won't help and crying will just waste a lot of water!
Remember President Obama's Proposed Budget Cuts?
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 6:59AM
Yes? Then you're probably about the only person who does. Certainly no one on Capitol Hill is paying much attention to the president's proposals.
Congressional Democrats are largely ignoring President Obama's $19.8 billion in budget cuts.
The president proposed axing dozens of programs that he said were inefficient or ineffective, but members of the House Appropriations Committee are including the money for them.
They are looking to cut elsewhere - and are targeting even some of Obama's priorities.
Democrats on the panel are, for example, leaving out $60 million required to close the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba - one of Obama's campaign promises.
Disagreements between lawmakers and the White House amount to only a fraction of the $3.6 trillion budget's $1 trillion in discretionary spending. Democrats say they share Obama's larger goal of reducing spending. But they do not agree over which parts of the budget are bloated.
Spending bills marked up by the House have found funds for prisons for illegal immigrants, grants for public telecom facilities, and homeland security programs sending money back to local officials - all of which had been chopped by the White House.
Obama had called for $19.8 billion of cuts in discretionary spending next year, saying the reductions are "setting the right priorities with our spending."
But in the five spending bills that have so far been reported out of the House Appropriations Committee, lawmakers have ignored at least $655 million of the president's proposed cuts.
Oh, well. It really doesn't matter. After all, with the president planning some $10 trillion in increased deficits over the coming decade, what's a measly $20 billion in "cuts"?
So Much for President Transparency
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 3:59AM
President Barack Obama ran for office touting openness and transparency. That was then, this is now.
Reports Michael Isikoff for Newsweek:
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."
The hard line appears to be no accident. After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. This reversal of Bush policy was intended to restore a standard set by President Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno. But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation." Dan Metcalfe, the former longtime chief of FOIA policy at Justice, says the passage and other "lawyerly hedges" means the Holder memo is now "astonishingly weaker" than the Reno policy. (The visitor-log request falls in this category because of a pending Bush-era lawsuit for such records.)
From detention of suspected terrorists to public disclosure, this administration's slogan appears to have become: "Never mind." What's the next promise likely to be discarded?
Don't Feel Sorry for Harvard
Posted by on 6.24.09 @ 1:42AM
Instead of temporarily dipping into its nation-sized endowment, Harvard University has decided to lay off 275 workers, Reuters reports:
The Ivy League school took the action to meet budget constraints caused by an estimated 30 percent fall in its endowment for its 2009 fiscal year, ending June 30. [...]
Another 40 staff were offered reduced work hours.
While the layoffs affect a fraction of Harvard's 16,000 staff and faculty, they illustrate the recession's toll on America's oldest institute of higher learning and other universities which depend on endowments and donations.
Harvard's endowment, which stood at $37 billion on June, 30 last year, tumbled to $29 billion by December and is projected to end this month at about $25 billion, hit by volatility in financial markets and a drop in donations. The endowment funded about a third of Harvard's operating budget in 2008. [...]
Boo hoo. Poor Harvard and its $25 billion. I feel for the workers at Harvard and for its students who pay exorbitant tuitions while receiving politically correct indoctrination.
Some of the wealthiest universities in America are the biggest tightwads, Lynne Munson argued in an April 2008 Foundation Watch.
Harvard is notoriously tight-fisted. While tuition continues to skyrocket, institutional spending from tax-free higher education endowments (including Harvard's) remains meager. By sitting on donations --which are largely intended to benefit students-- for generations, they violate donor intent.
Don't feel sorry for Harvard.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Imagine what he thinks of cigarettes
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 9:50PM
This gem just in from Tuesday's press conference:
Obama: "At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation [Waxman-Markey bill coming to the Hosue floor Friday] is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe."
Uh...does this have something to do with that New York soda tax? I don't even have the heart to raise the respiration part about oxygen in/CO2 out, trees take oxygen, subject us to the horrors of photosynthesis ... wash, rinse, repeat.
But heck at least he's got a really good, well thought-out reason for the biggest tax hike in U.S. history, even if he's also incorrect about who actually pays the energy tax: you do, as his administration, CBO, pretty much anyone who's bothered to look has pointed out. More on how they are trying to pull this off later, but in sum it's not really a cost to you if the government gets the money, because you get a dollar-for-dollar benefit in... government (seriously). More please!
Still, this is either adorably (remember, it's The One) ignorant, or terrifying affirmation that his allies aren't blowing smoke, and he really does plan on using the Law of the Sea Treaty -- and its binding, unaccountable foreign court -- to claim to control the new refuge, in the face of collapsing temperatures, of "ocean acidification" from our burning coal, gas and oil. I'd say LOST is a backdoor, except it expressly says it governs "land-borne pollution." Gee, whatever could they be talking about?
Since none of this fun stuff will ever be reported, until that LOST thingy's a done deal anyway, just for a moment imagine if his name were Bush and he said something like that. Then again, given their cheerleading and masking of the scientific scandals, just think what a quandary our media would be in then. Worth the price of admission.
Obama to Insurers: What Are You, Chicken?
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 6:53PM
During today’s press conference President Obama used a popular taunt to defend the inclusion of a government-run health care plan.
“If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they’re telling us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?” Obama asked rhetorically. "That’s not logical.”
This more or less amounts to him saying, “What are you, chicken?”
The problem is that it wouldn't be a fair fight. Not when government is making the rules, regulating the insurers, and running the exchange on which the plans will “compete.”
“I think that there is a legitimate concern, if the public plan was simply eating off the taxpayer trough, that it would be hard for private insurers to compete,” Obama acknowledged. But he dismissed this concern, saying that it was just a matter of how the public plan is structured. But that’s just a trademark Obama tactic – to say he’s sympathetic to very real concerns of his political opponents, and then pretend that their concerns can be easily resolved, even though he doesn’t offer any details of how that would be possible.
The whole point of a government plan is that it will be so big and powerful that it can use its bargaining power to negotiate cheaper prices for medical care. This is a good thing, say its proponents. The problem is, the ultimate cost of providing care doesn’t fall – it just gets shifted onto those who have private insurance or pay out of pocket. This already happens with Medicare and Medicaid, representing a cost shift of almost $90 billion a year, according to one estimate by Milliman Inc.
And even if proponents of the government plan claim that it won’t have access to general revenues, nobody who is being intellectually honest would argue that if the plan is losing money, the federal government will allow it to fail without pumping more taxpayer dollars into it. When that day comes, conservatives can make all the arguments they want about how Democrats promised the government plan wouldn’t have access to taxpayer funds, and the only response will be that if we don’t bail out the government plan, tens of millions of Americans will lose their health insurance.
Our July 4th Guests?
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 4:45PM
Despite being “appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonments" in Tehran, it appears that President Obama still welcomes representatives of the Iranian regime at our embassies’ Independence Day celebrations.
Our July 4th Guests?
By Asher Embry
A few days hence we celebrate
Our independence, declared that date.
Those truths we found self-evident,
The essence of what makes us great.
How can we be so cavalier
On that of all days of the year
To let Khamenei’s thugs appear
And join us for our brats and beer?
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Is Obama Imposing Preconditions on Iran?
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 3:58PM
If you look at the transcript of today's Obama press conference, there are three words you won't find: "tough, direct diplomacy." Those words, you may recall, have been used by Obama throughout last year's election and during his first few months in office to describe his approach to engaging Iran. But today, two things were apparent: 1) He is more forcefully condemning the Iranian regime's brutal crackdown on protesters and 2) He is starting to impose preconditions on engaging Iranian leaders.
“The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonments of the last few days," Obama said at the outset of the press conference. "I strongly condemn these unjust actions.”
He went on to say of the protesters that, "Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history."
Asked how recent developments in Iran would affect his policy of talking to Iranians, Obama put the ball in the court of the Iranian leadership.
“We have provided a path whereby Iran can reach out to the international community, engage and become a part of international norms," he said. "It is up to them to make a decision as to whether they choose that path. What we’ve been seeing over the last several days, and the last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging in terms of the path that this regime may choose to take.”
This is a very clear policy shift, and isn't too far off from where the Bush administration was, at least during the second term. At the very minimum, the policy of engaging Iran is now in a holding pattern.
Amtrak IG Probe: Who Is Eleanor Acheson?
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 3:29PM
A quick Google search on the name Eleanor Acheson produces a hit on Hillary Rodham's famous 1969 comencement address at Wellesley College:
The Ellie Acheson mentioned is Eleanor "Eldie" Acheson was Hillary's roommate at Wellesley. She is a longtime supporter and close friend of Hillary's.
Four decades later, Eleanor Acheson is vice president and general counsel at AmTrak, where inspector general Fred Wiederhold resigned Thursday without warning or explanation. Sen. Charles Grassley says Wiederhold's unexpected resignation came after he was asked to provide "specific examples of agency interference with OIG audits and/or investigations."
A bit more Googling shows Eleanor Acheson to be a Friend of Joe -- Joe Biden, that is, Amtrak's most famous rider and currently vice president of the United States. Wiederhold has said nothing publicly since his resignation five days ago.
Google doesn't tell us whether the former Amtrak IG's curious silence has anything to do with the well-connected legal honcho at Amtrak. At least, not yet. But maybe Michelle Malkin will want to know if there is a connection.
Obama Backs Off WH Econ Estimates, Struggles to Defend Bogus Health Care Claim
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 3:13PM
President Obama today conceded that his administration “missed the mark” when it estimated the unemployment level if the stimulus package passed, but that didn’t stop him from making a series of dubious claims to push his health care agenda.
During his afternoon press conference, Obama was asked about the fact that the White House projected that unemployment would now be around 8 percent if the stimulus legislation passed, yet in reality it now stands at 9.4 percent and he says that it will reach the double digits.
“Keep in mind the stimulus package was the first thing we did, and we did it a couple of weeks after Inauguration, and at that point nobody understood what the depths of this recession were going to look like,” Obama said. “If you recall, it was only significantly later that we suddenly get a report the economy tanked. It’s not surprising then that we missed the mark in terms of estimates of where unemployment would go.“
Of course, at the time, President Obama was arguing that we were facing the worst crisis since the Great Depression.
Asked if he could estimate the peak unemployment rate, he said, “I’m not suggesting I have a crystal ball. Since you just threw back at us our last prognosis, let’s not engage in another one.”
Yet even though he’s suddenly shy about making prognoses, he said, “Here’s some things I know for certain. In the absence of the stimulus, I think our recession would be much worse.”
Of course, given that the same team that gave us the first set of estimates is in charge of calculating how many jobs are “saved or created” as a result of the stimulus package, it would be wise to avoid taking his statements at face value. Which brings us to health care.
During his opening remarks, Obama reiterated a promise he has made over and over again:. “There’s no doubt that we must preserve what’s best about our health care system, and that means allowing Americans who like their doctors and their health care plans to keep them,” he said.
Last week, the Associated Press reported that “White House officials suggest the president's rhetoric shouldn't be taken literally,” and Obama confirmed this when ABC's Jake Tapper asked him about how Americans would lose their insurance if their employers decided to dump them in a new government-run exchange.
“When I say if you have your plan and you like it… and you have a doctor and you like your doctor, you don’t have to change plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform,” Obama said.
In other words, the government will not force people to change plans. But this rather immaterial, given that independent analysts from the Congressional Budget Office to the Lewin Group have estimated that anywhere from 23 million to 119 million would lose their current health care, depending on the nature of the legislation as employers drop health care coverage and direct their workers to government.
Obama’s response during the press conference was to dip into the stimulus playbook and argue that even more people would lose their current health care if we did nothing.
“Let’s assume that nothing happened,” Obama theorized. “I can guarantee you that there’s a possibility out there that a whole lot of Americans, there are not going to have the same health care they have, because what’s going to happen is, as costs keep going up, employers are going to start making decisions, ‘we’ve got to raise premiums on our employees,' in some cases, 'we can’t provide health insurance at all,' and so there are going to be a whole set of changes out there.”
So, essentially, this is the equivalent of arguing that legislation will “save or create” more employer-based health care than would have otherwise existed. Thus Obama can manufacture whatever numbers he wants.
Now as a matter of policy, there’s no particular merit in guaranteeing that everybody will get to keep their current health care coverage. Personally, I would support a health care proposal that eliminated the employer tax exclusion and transferred that benefit to individuals. Such a disruption to the current system would undoubtedly mean that some people would have to lose their current health care plans, even though I think we’d end up with a better system with expanded coverage, because individuals could choose their own plans rather than having an employer do it for them, those who are on their own could enjoy equal tax treatment, and people could take their policies with them from job to job.
But the point of drawing attention to this is to highlight Obama’s dishonest approach to health care, and governing in general. He doesn’t want to level with the American people and acknowledge that there are tradeoffs involved in any major policy initiative. If people want to overhaul the entire health care system, it’s going to have an effect on every aspect of the system. This idea that we can change everything that people don’t like while preserving everything that people do like, as if it exists in a bubble, is tremendously deceptive. Obama now has to backtrack on his stimulus claims, how will he react if health care passes and suddenly millions of Americans are losing the health care plan they like?
The One President
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 2:34PM
Barack Obama on the impact of his Iran statements versus those of Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham: "All of us share a belief that we want justice to prevail. But only I am the president of the United States."
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. President. A three-man presidency shared by Obama, McCain, and Graham would truly be horrifying to contemplate.
Obama Press Conference
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 12:22PM
I'll be commenting on the press conference live via Twitter here (@philipaklein) for those so inclined.
The Return of Mark Sanford
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 11:05AM
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will return to the state tomorrow after a hike along the Appalachian Trail turned into headlines suggesting he had disappeared. Sanford communications director Joel Sawyer told reporters, "It would be fair to say the governor was somewhat taken aback by all of the interest this trip has gotten."
The political repercussions for Sanford, a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, will outlast the trip. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer feels he was misled by Sanford's staff. Sanford's political opponents are presenting this bizarre incident as an example of the governor going AWOL. I think Sanford should try to turn this around by challenging other politicians to go away and leave us alone for a while.
Your Free Credit Report
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 10:20AM
Sung to the tune of "I Married My Dream Girl."
Poll: Confidence in Stimulus Begins to Erode
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 9:58AM
Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical that President Obama's trademark stimulus package will prove effective, according to a new Washington Post/ABC news poll released today (see article/full poll results). The poll found that 71 percent of respondents either thought the stimulus package had made no difference or was actually hurting the economy; looking ahead, just 52 percent say the package has helped or will help the economy, down from 59 percent in an April poll.
As President Obama embarks on the boldest expansion of government since the Great Society, 48 percent disapprove of his handling of the deficit, the same as the number who say they approve. Meanwhile, Americans expressed support for a smaller government with fewer services over a larger government with more services by a 54 percent to 41 percent margin.
While these numbers suggest problems for Obama down the road, for now he still enjoys a 65 percent approval rating, and 58 percent see him as a new-style Democrat compared with just 36 percent who view him as a tax and spend liberal. At the same time, opinion of Republicans remains in the toilet, with just 36 percent saying they had a favorable opinion of the GOP.
Get A Life, Holden, Even Though Your Brother is Dead
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 9:03AM
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 8:53AM
Thomas Sowell asks why the GOP is so terrible. Figure it out, kids (National Review)
The WSJ looks at some portentious words of Ben Bernanke in 2003
Anne Applebaum chalks one up for the ladies in Iran (Washington Post)
Massachusetts health care: a disaster by any standard (Slate)
A little legwork on the IG scandal (The Other McCain)
Rahm Emanuel's method for controlling the media singlehandedly (Washington Post)
Where's the Guv? He's Hiking the Appalachian Trail
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 7:49AM
Philip Klein pointed out that Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina seemed to have disappeared. A bit odd, to put it mildly, for a man who's been in the national spotlight and is seen as a serious conservative contender for the presidency in 2012.
But he's been found, kind of. His staff says that he is busy hiking the Appalachian Trail. Reports the Wall Street Journal:
After sparking a four-day mystery about his whereabouts, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's spokesman said the governor had been hiking along the Appalachian Trail.
Until late Monday night, Mr. Sanford's whereabouts hadn't been revealed since Thursday, when he took off in a sport-utility vehicle normally driven by a bodyguard, turned off his mobile phone and stopped communicating with his office, family and close political allies. Mr. Sanford has been viewed as a likely contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
![[Mark Sanford]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-GL717_Sanfor_BV_20090216094447.gif)
Mark Sanford
On Monday, South Carolina elected leaders had considered temporarily transferring the governor's power to another state official, according to people familiar with the situation. Officials decided against the move after being told by aides to the governor that they knew Mr. Sanford's location.
In a statement Monday night, the governor's spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said Mr. Sanford "is hiking along the Appalachian Trail. I apologize for taking so long to send this update, and was waiting to see if a more definitive idea of what part of the trail he was on before we did so." But Mr. Sawyer said he hadn't received an update from the governor Monday.
Mr. Sawyer earlier Monday had said his office knew how to reach the governor, if needed, but declined to reveal where he was. Mr. Sawyer said at the time that the governor was taking time to "recharge" and "to work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside."
The state's top attorneys spent Monday researching state laws, which are ambiguous, about whether an extended or unexplained absence can trigger the temporary replacement of the governor or transfer of authority to Lt. Gov. André Bauer. Both men are Republicans.
Mr. Sanford's absence follows a bruising battle with Obama administration officials and with Mr. Sanford's opponents in the state over $700 million in federal stimulus funds he refused to accept, despite rising unemployment and steep funding shortages in South Carolina. Mr. Sanford argued that taking the money would be bad fiscal policy, and said he would refuse to apply for the cash unless the state used an equal amount to pay down its debt.
Mr. Sawyer, the governor's spokesman, said in his statement late Monday: "I want to emphasize that this isn't something that either staff or [First lady Jenny Sanford] is concerned about. As we said earlier today, it isn't unusual for the governor to be out of pocket for several days after the legislative session. We knew he would be difficult to reach, and that he would be checking in infrequently. Given the media attention this has generated, we'll obviously update you once we have some more specifics to pass along."
Assuming there's nothing more here, it still is a strange story. But I hope that's all there is, since Gov. Sanford is one of the brighter lights in today's political firmament.
Fading Approval for the Obama Agenda
Posted by on 6.23.09 @ 6:57AM
The American people are growing ever more skeptical about the Obama economic agenda. Reports the Washington Post:
Barely half of Americans are now confident that President Obama's $787 billion stimulus measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism about the state of the nation that followed the 2008 election has abated, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Overall, 52 percent now say the stimulus package has succeeded or will succeed in restoring the economy, compared with 59 percent two months ago. The falloff in confidence has been sharpest in the hard-hit Midwest, where fewer than half now see the government spending as succeeding. In April, six in 10 Midwesterners said the federal program had worked or would do so.
The tempered public outlook has not significantly affected Obama's overall approval rating, which at 65 percent in the new survey outpaces the ratings of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at similar points in their tenures. But new questions about the stimulus package's effectiveness underscore the stakes for the Obama administration in the months ahead as it pushes for big reforms in health care and energy at the same time it attempts to revive the nation's flagging economy.
Let's hope the trend continues. There still might be time to save the U.S. from bankruptcy!
Monday, June 22, 2009
ACORN International Changes Its Name. Why?
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 9:21PM
ACORN may be about to embark on a huge rebranding effort in order to reinvent itself.
As I told the Washington Times, the revelation that disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke has renamed ACORN International, which is ACORN's international consultancy, is a sign that Rathke is trying to dissociate the ACORN affiliate from the oceans of bad ink ACORN has received in the U.S. over the last year.
There's no point in reinventing the wheel so to speak, so I'll just quote myself (which I confess feels a little weird).
"The brand is tarnished and he doesn't want to be associated with ACORN because of all the problems that he is, ironically, largely responsibly for," the Washington Times quoted me saying. "He just wants to keep up his community organizing without being burdened by the bad public relations."
The new name for the international affiliate is Community Organizations International.
"This may indeed be the beginning of an ACORN network-wide rebranding, but a rotten ACORN by any other name still stinks," Newsmax quoted me saying.
Newsmax reported that I described ACORN International as "a nonprofit group that aspires to spread the gospel of [radical community organizer] Saul Alinsky across the globe."
Something about this rebranding-in-progress --if that's what it really is-- doesn't seem right, though.
As I noted earlier today, ACORN is suing whistleblower Anita MonCrief to shut her up. ACORN also sent a cease-and-desist letter to the reformers of the ACORN 8 in order to bully them into silence.
It doesn't make sense to use up legal resources on these activities if the ACORN network is preparing to change its name in an effort to improve its image. It could be the case that Rathke himself, who was forced out as chief organizer of ACORN last year after officials learned he covered up his brother's $1 million embezzlement for eight years, took the initiative all by himself.
It could also be the case that ACORN is serious about protecting its property, including its ACORN trademark (as it claims in the lawsuit against MonCrief and the letter to ACORN 8) and told Rathke in no uncertain terms that he couldn't use it anymore.
Time will tell.
Another Worthwhile Project Funded by the Simulus Package
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 7:42PM
You can't help but be encouraged when reading about all of the good projects being funded by the nearly $800 billion stimulus bill. Wonderful programs, all serving the public. Not the slightest hint of pork in them.
NOT!
Most of the $2.2 billion in economic stimulus money for Army Corps of Engineers construction projects will be spent in the home districts of members of Congress who oversee the corps' funding, a USA TODAY analysis found.
Two-thirds of the money will be spent in states or districts represented by members of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees that direct how the Corps of Engineers spends its money, the analysis found. The corps is spending its stimulus money on construction projects in 43 states for building or fixing water and sewer lines, dams, reservoirs, levees and harbors.
President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress say the $787 billion stimulus package didn't contain any money for projects requested by members of Congress. However, the stimulus law directs the corps to spend its extra funding on current projects - which were all selected by Congress in past spending bills.
The states getting the most money - California, Mississippi, Illinois, Texas and Florida - all have lawmakers serving on the appropriations committees. The seven states getting no corps stimulus funding include Michigan, which has the nation's highest unemployment rate but no members on the energy and water spending panels in either chamber.
Oh, well. As I've said before, it's only money!
Iranian Protester Pleads for More Int'l Pressure on Regime
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 5:25PM
CNN interviews an Iranian protester only going by the name "Mohammed," to protect his identity. He calls on the world to get tougher with the Islamic regime and even says the Iranian people want to accept Israel.
Transcript here.
A taste:
Mohammad: Yes. Let me tell you something. For about three decades our nation has been humiliated and insulted by this regime. Now Iranians are united again one more time after 1979 Revolution. We are a peaceful nation. We don’t hate anybody. We want to be an active member of the international community. We don’t want to be isolated… We don’t deny the Holocaust. We do accept Israel’s rights. And actually, we want — we want severe reform on this structure. This structure is not going to be tolerated by the majority of Iranians. We need severe reform, as much as possible.
Roberts: Interesting perspective this morning from Mohammad, a student demonstrator there in Tehran.
Mohammad: Excuse me, sir. I have a message for the international community. Would you please let me tell it?
Roberts: Yes, go ahead.
Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely — is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it’s illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message…to the international community, especially I’m addressing President Obama directly – how can a government that doesn’t recognize its people’s rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help international community. Don’t leave us alone.
Chetry: Mohammad, what do you think the international community should do besides sanctions?
Mohammad: Actually, this regime is really dependent on importing gasoline. More than 85% of Iran’s gasoline is imported from foreign countries. I think international communities must sanction exporting gasoline to Iran and that might shut down the government.
Bioethics PR
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 5:16PM
Something that might have been overlooked with all the other big news going on last week: President Obama quietly disbanded the President's Council on Bioethics. This group, formed after President Bush's 2001 executive order on embryonic stem cell research, advised the president on policies regarding stem-cell and other bioethical issues, and drew criticism from the left for being too restrictionist.
One of the Council's members, Peter Augustine Lawler of Berry College (no relation to me), offered some reflections on his dismissal in the Weekly Standard on Friday. He notes a few barbs at Bush's attitude toward bioethics -- one of the few areas where Bush actually did well -- and counters by demonstrating both the Council's diverse makeup and its quality of discourse. Because of this diversity, Lawler writes,
I want to emphasize that this [the Council's work] was a scientific dispute on the moral implications of what the studies show conducted at the highest level. Socratic dialogue illuminated the disagreement and allowed those involved to remain friends in common pursuit of the truth, but no expert consensus emerged. No Council member was ideological in the sense of having anything but the highest respect for and full openness to what we can learn from science. And if expert means being a genuine scientific authority, they were all clearly among our nation's most formidable experts.
When even experts disagree, people are stuck with thinking for themselves. And there's a moral basis for compromise.
Lawler fears that Obama plans to replace the Council with a group of "experts" who will have neither the expertise of the outgoing Council nor their intellectual honesty.
The experts, we have to remember, very often hide their own personal opinions and ideological agendas behind their impersonal claims to merely be following what the studies say. We can learn from them, but as long as they fall short of perfect objectivity based on perfect wisdom, we shouldn't trust them. These days, the people, above all, should distrust meddlesome, schoolmarmish judges and bureaucrats (and presidents who enable them) who want to deprive them of the capacity of thinking for themselves.
Indeed, reading between the lines of the NY Times report on Obama's decision to dismantle the Council, it seems as though, sadly, he intends to replace it with a PR organ and nothing more.
The council was disbanded because it was designed by the Bush administration to be "a philosophically leaning advisory group" that favored discussion over developing a shared consensus, said Reid Cherlin, a White House press officer.
President Obama will appoint a new bioethics commission, one with a new mandate and that "offers practical policy options," Mr. Cherlin said.
So the President believes that problems in bioethics require no philosophical consideration, but instead quick and practically developed shared consensus? Obviously the only way to arrive at a shared consensus on these tricky issues is to make sure beforehand that everyone there is ready to tell you what you need to hear to pass the laws that are politically expedient. The article ends:
Dr. Alta Charo, an ethicist at the University of Wisconsin, said that much of the Bush council's work "seemed more like a public debating society" and that a new commission should focus on helping the government form ethically defensible policy.
A commission of this kind, Dr. Charo said, "lets the president react judiciously to rapid and often startling changes in the scientific landscape."
I.e., instead of considering very weighty problems with the serious thought they deserve, the commission should quickly turn around recommendations that allow the president to continue judiciously advancing his agenda.
McConnell Hammers on Dems' Safeway Contradiction
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 5:12PM
Mitch McConnell took to the Senate Floor earlier today to go after Democrats for something I've mentioned a number of times -- that President Obama has touted a health and wellness program run by Safeway that provides financial incentives for employees to maintain healthy behavior, but the Democratic health care bill would actually kill it.
McConnell said:
"In fact, during a speech last week to the American Medical Association, the President discussed one particular wellness and prevention program at the Safeway supermarket chain, which has dramatically cut that company’s health care costs and employee premiums. The President even said he’d be open to helping businesses across the nation adopt wellness and prevention programs like the Safeway plan....
"And yet the bill that Democrats are now trying to rush through the Senate would actually ban this program from being copied and implemented by other companies....
"The Safeway program has proven so successful that the company wants to increase its incentives for rewarding health behavior. Unfortunately, current laws restrict it from doing so. But instead of offering legislation that corrects the problem, the so-called reform bill being pushed through the HELP Committee would do the opposite: it would actually prohibit companies from implementing the Safeway program.
"Let me repeat that: The bill that’s currently being pushed through the HELP Committee doesn’t let companies consider an employee’s health status when providing insurance — meaning employers would be banned from rewarding healthy behavior like Safeway does and offering lower premiums to workers who manage their chronic diseases, eliminate high-risk behaviors like smoking, or lose weight. In other words, it would prohibit companies from implementing programs that have been proven to cut health care costs. I thought that was the point of health reform…
There is a danger that this argument gets too far into the weeds, but it's an important one to make because it demonstrates the fundamental dishonesty in Obama's declaration that he wants to pursue a non-ideological approach to health care based around what works. Here we have a program that everybody sees as a success, and yet it will be outlawed if Democrats get what they want because liberals believe that fairness is a higher goal. In this case, they think it's unfair for smokers or overweight Americans to pay more for their health insurance, even though they incur higher health costs, even though the costs get shifted on to the healthy, even though charging them more would encourage them to lose weight and quit smoking, and even though it would save the system money.
Obama Hearts Tobacco Lobbyists
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 4:41PM
Tim Carney of the Examiner has the story. Today Obama stated, in his voice so eloquent and commanding, "today, despite decades of lobbying and advertising by the tobacco industry, we passed a law to help protect the next generation of Americans from growing up with a deadly habit that so many of our generation have lived with."
And by that he meant, "today I am giving Philip Morris exactly what its lobbyists wanted so that big tobacco can have more money."
Because, as Carney points out, "the largest tobacco company in the country -- controlling a majority of the U.S. cigarette market--has actively supported this bill for years."
I am just glad that Obama is looking out for America's beleaguered tobacco execs -- it's a tough industry out there, what with everyone quitting smoking -- and keeping it low under the radar so that the left doesn't foil his plans.
Mark Sanford Missing Since Thursday
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 3:41PM
South Carolina's State newspaper has a rather bizarre story reporting that the whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford have been unknown since Thrusday:
Neither the governor’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, has been able to reach Sanford after he left the mansion in a black SLED Suburban SUV, said Sen. Jake Knotts and three others familiar with the situation but who declined to be identified.
Sanford’s last known whereabouts were near Atlanta, where a mobile telephone tower picked up a signal from his phone, authorities said.
First lady Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press today her husband has been gone for several days and she doesn't know where he is.
The governor’s personal and state phones have been turned off and he has not responded to phone and text message since Thursday, a source said.
Jenny Sanford said she was not concerned.
She said the governor said he needed time away from their children to write something.
The governor’s office issued a statement Monday afternoon: "Gov. Sanford is taking some time away from the office this week to recharge after the stimulus battle and the legislative session, and to work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside.
Will the Left Kill Health Care Reform?
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 3:28PM
In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman has an op-ed criticizing moderate Democrats for wanting health care reform to be bipartisan. In the past week, I've been increasingly convinced that the prospects for passing health care legislation will largely hinge on how uncompromising liberal Democrats are, most significantly, when it comes to the inclusion of a government-run plan. Right now, it looks like the Democrats simply do not have the votes to pass a very liberal bill, but they might be able to pass scaled-down legislation without a government-run plan that offers lower subsidies, less intrusive regulation, and requires less tax increases. Of course, that's only if Democrats can pare down the legislation without eroding liberal support. From the liberal mindset, reform without a government plan is not actual reform, because then you'd be left with a system in which government is merely providing subsidies for people to purchase private insurance -- and to liberals for-profit insurance is at the root of the problems with our health care system. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who chairs the 80-member House Progressive Caucus, has said repeatedly that a majority of the caucus would not vote for a bill that did not include a strong government plan. If Republican opposition to health care legislation holds, then just 40 Democratic defections would be enough to stop legislation from getting out of the House. If the progressives are as serious about drawing a line in the sand as Woolsey suggests, the bill would die even if Republicans lose some votes. Or, alternatively, we could end up with a situation in which the House passed a bill which includes a government plan, but it can't be reconciled with a Senate bill that does not. Either way, it seems that for legislation to get passed, there will be a point at which pragmatic Democrats will have to be able to convince liberals that even if they don't get exactly what they want, moving the ball down field is still worthwhile. That could be a tall order.
ACORN Gets Heavy with Its Critics
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 3:15PM
As I noted a few days ago, the thoroughly corrupt activist group ACORN is threatening the ACORN 8, a reform group headed by Marcel Reid and Karen Inman, because it's afraid of them and wants to shut them up. The group argues the ACORN 8 is violating ACORN's intellectual property by using the word "ACORN" in its name.
It recently sent the ACORN 8 a "cease and desist" letter. Here is a PDF of the June 11 letter from ACORN lawyer Arthur Z. Schwartz of the New York City law firm of Schwartz, Lichten & Bright PC. Blogger Procrustes has some background information on the longtime activist lawyer.
Lying and threatening is standard operating procedure at ACORN.
ACORN is also suing whistleblower Anita MonCrief to shut her up.
$3.25 Trillion in U.S. Treasurys?
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 2:42PM
Shopping in Weimar Germany circa 1923
* * * * *
Bloomberg quoted Goldman Sachs saying late last month that the U.S. government would have to sell $3.25 trillion (with a T!) in debt this fiscal year in order to meet its obligations:
Obama has increased the U.S. marketable debt to an unprecedented $6.36 trillion to fund bank bailouts, stimulus spending and the budget deficit. The government will have to sell a record $3.25 trillion of Treasuries in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., one of the 16 primary dealers required to bid at Treasury debt auctions.
A massive increase in the money supply will wreak havoc. We are so screwed.
"Putting Obama First"
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 12:52PM
President Obama’s reaction to Iranian protests demonstrated his “Third Way” political philosophy of “Putting Obama First.”
“Putting Obama First”
By Asher Embry
Obama’s mumbling on Iran was, sadly, as expected.
It showed his core philosophy is just as we suspected.
Not speaking out against Iran’s suppression at its worst
Just proves his guiding principle is: “Put Obama First.”
The problem was these protests put in jeopardy his dream,
To sit down face to face with Tehran’s leadership supreme.
And then he’d work his magic and convince them with his
charm
To give up nukes and terror and to otherwise disarm.
The world would then revere Barack, they’d celebrate his
name.
Without Barack to save us, we would never be the same.
Though no one else could tame Iran, Obama got it done.
And then we’d finally all admit: he really is “the One.”
But now that dream was waning as the freedom protests grew.
Faced with disappointment, what’s a megalomaniac to do?
That’s why O issued statements which were tepid, soft and
late.
Pronounced he was excited seeing “vigorous debate.”
He didn’t want to jeopardize his chance to sit for tea
With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; persuade him to agree.
There’s no other explanation for ignoring freedom’s cry.
We’ve always stood with democrats and never questioned why.
Some will say “O” played it right; not “meddling’s” smart and
knowing.
Many say it’s just his inexperience which is showing.
They hate to say “we told you so,” reminding as they
grouse:
He never had these problems in the Illinois State House.
They point to Putin’s move invading Georgia, with a fight;
It took “O” several days and tries to get his statement
right.
Best case -- his incompetence -- gets the benefit of the
doubt,
But please don’t rashly rule the “messianic” theory out.
We fear he’d still be mute today if polling didn’t find
His interest and the rest of ours had thankfully aligned.
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Is There A Dr. No in the House?
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 12:50PM
According to a Mason-Dixon poll, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is viewed favorably by just 34 percent of Nevadans. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza points out that Reid's numbers are even worse than those of Republican colleague John Ensign, who just admitted an extramarital affair and resigned his leadership position. Reid is up for reelection in 2010 and should be vulnerable to a Republican challenge.
Except the Republicans don't have a candidate. If Congressman Dean Heller takes a pass on the race, there is no obvious GOP challenger for Reid. Which raises the question: Might this not be an opportunity for a Ron Paul Republican?
Paul placed a distant second behind Mitt Romney in last year's Nevada Republican caucuses. His supporters did even better at the state convention, forcing party regulars to adjourn and hold a conference call instead. So we know the bodies are there. Ensign nearly toppled Reid in 1998 during a campaign where the Republican argued that most of what the federal government does is unconstitutional. There is a general anti-incumbent mood in the state right now. The same poll that shows Reid faring poorly also has President Obama dipping below 50 percent favorability and has Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican, at just 10 percent (which is why he is not a plausible candidate). A Paulite might be well positioned in such an environment. And did I mention that Reid voted for the Iraq war?
Unlike Gary Johnson in New Mexico, Rand Paul in Kentucky or even Peter Schiff in Connecticut, there is no obvious candidate, so the Ron Paul Republicans face the same problem as the rest of the party. But it would certainly seem like an opening if they could find someone remotely credible.
Everything Seemingly Still Spinning Out of Control
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 11:55AM
It is time to mark the one year anniversary of the AP's groundbreaking report on the state of... everything.
Key quote from that momentous article:
"It is pretty scary," said Charles Truxal, 64, a retired corporate manager in Rochester, Minn. "People are thinking things are going to get better, and they haven't been."
Unfortunately I don't have the kind of access to retired corporate managers in Rochester, Minn. that the AP does, but I imagine that if we were to ask him, Truxal would say the same thing today. Everything is seemingly still spinning out of control. Batten down the hatches, and wait another year for the time when the AP can report that everything is coming back into control.
License to ILL
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 11:24AM
Dan McCarthy has some good thoughts on conservatism, kitsch, and white rappers, though Michael Steele may be disappointed by his take on the hip-hop Republicans' efforts.
It's Not Exactly Reaganesque
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 11:11AM
But in substance, this statement issued over the weekend by President Obama strikes the right balance: affirming the principles for which the United States stands -- e.g., governing through consent rather than coercion -- without being counterproductive, siding with a political faction, or overvaluing empty talk.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.22.09 @ 8:49AM
- Smoke 'em if you got 'em because the busybodies in Congress will move heaven and earth to take'em away (Reason)
- Lessons from the successful war against terrorism in Sri Lanka (Washington Times)
- Poor Democrats. The CBO just had to go and introduce a little reality into their schemes and ruin everything (NY Times)
- Leslie Gelb: Leave the Iranians to their own devices (Daily Beast)
- A profile of the third brother Emanuel -- the one who isn't (as far as we can tell) ruining the country or Hollywood (The New Republic)
- A draq-queen Catholic priest has a Billboard dance hit? No, it's just people profiteering through anti-Catholicism again (American Papist)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
'We Don't Need No Stinkin' Transparency!'
Posted by on 6.21.09 @ 9:05PM
Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports on the loophole -- big enough to drive the White House visitor's log through -- in the Obama administration's "transparency" policy:
As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies.
Of course, the "dismayed" goody-two-shoes in the public-interest crowd should have expected this, as the Chicago Tribune's John Kass observes:
The use of political muscle may be prohibited in the mythic transcendental fairyland where much of the Obama spin originates . . . But our president is from Chicago. . . . David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel come right from Chicago Democratic machine boss Mayor Richard Daley. They don't believe in fairies . . .
It's the Chicago Way. Now, formally, it's also the Chicago on the Potomac Way. . . .
The Examiner's Michael Barone similarly sees the Chicago Way at work in the White House. The question is whether the leg-thrillers in the White House press corps -- who react to Obama like 13-year-old girls react to the Jonas Brothers -- will let their rock-star president get away with being Mayor Daley of America.
Are the fawning lapdogs who do stenography for Robert Gibbs goody-two-shoes idealists? Or are they cynics? How otherwise to explain why the unexplained resignation of Fred E. Weiderhold -- the inspector general for AmTrak, Joe Biden's pet program -- has scarcely been noticed by the D.C. press corps? You'd probably get more hard-hitting investigative reporting from the Jonas Brothers fan-club newsletter.
The Iranians Certainly are Patriotic Voters
Posted by on 6.21.09 @ 8:20PM
Too bad Americans aren't as patriotic as Iranians. It seems that Iran has perfected the 100-plus percent turn-out level for elections. But only in 50 cities.
Iran's Guardian Council has admitted that the number of votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of those eligible to cast ballot in those areas.
The council's Spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, who was speaking on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Sunday, made the remarks in response to complaints filed by Mohsen Rezaei -- a defeated candidate in the June 12 Presidential election.
"Statistics provided by Mohsen Rezaei in which he claims more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities," Kadkhodaei said.
Boss Tweed and (the original) Mayor Richard Daley would be proud.
Terrorists Buying Guns?
Posted by on 6.21.09 @ 3:58AM
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg is concerned. Terrorists might be buying guns. They must be stopped, all one million of them!
It seems that being placed on the government's supposed terrorist list doesn't prevent you from buying guns. It worries Sen. Lautenberg. And it would worry me ... if being on a watch list with a million supposed terrorists actually meant anything.
The government's consolidated watch list, used to identify people suspected of links to terrorists, has grown to more than one million names since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It also has drawn widespread criticism over the prevalence of mistaken identities and unclear links to terrorism.
A report in May from the Justice Department inspector general found that the list kept by the Federal Bureau of Investigation carried the names of 24,000 people included on the basis of outdated or sometimes irrelevant information.
Gun rights advocates said showing up on a terrorist watch list should not be grounds for being denied a gun.
"We're concerned about the quality and the integrity of the list," said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association. "There have been numerous studies and reports questioning the integrity, and we believe law-abiding people who are on the list by error should not be arbitrarily denied their civil rights" under the Second Amendment.
The government can't take away people's constitutional rights by simply putting their name on a list. It certainly can't do so when there's no evidence the list is accurate. Sen. Lautenberg should start by insisting that the government clean up its watch list and stop categorizing innocent people as terrorists.
Even Democracy Might Not Solve the Iranian Nuclear Problem
Posted by on 6.21.09 @ 3:41AM
The ongoing battle over Iran's presidential election is important, but isn't likely to lead to a free society. Mir-Hossain Mousavi is more moderate than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but still a member of the elite. Nor is the Iranian president in charge of the most important state institutions, particularly the security agencies.
Indeed, Mousavi is a long-time fan of nuclear power. Even if he had the authority to shut down the nuclear program, he likely wouldn't. In short, whatever happens as a result of the current protests, the West is still going to be stuck confronting the Iranian nuclear program. Reports the Los Angeles Times:
The widespread protests in Iran, even in the improbable event they deliver presidential challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi to power, are unlikely to dramatically change the country's nuclear ambitions or the strategic complications the West faces in countering Tehran's political gambits across the Middle East.
Iran's nuclear program, which Washington alleges is intended to produce atomic weapons, is ingrained in the national psyche. It was begun decades ago and is embraced across the Iranian political spectrum. Its future rests more on the wishes of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the ruling clerics than it does with hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the more moderate Mousavi.
The nuclear endeavor, along with geography, vast oil supplies and resistance to Western pressure, are crucial to Iran's stature in the region. The political tumult and bloodshed over the June 12 elections may force a shift in domestic policies, but not a scientific mission that predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"The elections are a crisis from within the system itself," said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist at Cairo University. "It might change internal issues, but the nuclear agenda will not be modified. Iranians are united around this.
Let's hope democracy triumphs in Iran. But even then, our geopolitical problems with Iran won't be over.
- Two Weddings and a Demerol
- Obama's Vision Through History
- Barney and Friends