The Brown Folder

Are there any legitimate criticisms to be made about Romney's business background? Of course.

2012-01-11T09:07:00.000-06:00

No, Romney's record is not off-limits. No, free market capitalists are not morally bound to defend all practices that occur in those markets.

The biggest problem with the political attacks on Bain Capital, quite honestly, is that the politicians don't really understand what that business does in the first place. That's why Rick Perry makes idiotic statements about "vulture capitalism," and Newt Gingrich suddenly believes what he reads in the New York Times.

The grand truth about free markets is that they encompass all the choices of all the people, which, in sum, provide the greatest benefit to all of us in terms of growth and prosperity. That doesn't make all choices equally good - it simply protects, and benefits from, the right to make those choices. The fact that politicians can't understand particular businesses is not a fault of those politicians, but a description of all politicians; indeed, of all people.

What makes the current attacks on Bain "from the left" is not that they are "attacking free market capitalism." They're not. The problem is that they are based on the premise that the politicians can judge which businesses are most worthy. That's Obamanomics in a nutshell: picking winners and losers.

It would be legitimate, even conservative, to question whether Romney's business management background really is helpful experience for the job of president. That's an idiotic notion that started, I think, with Herbert Hoover. That's not to say somebody with extensive business experience is uniquely unqualified for the job, but the fact is that Romney's Bain existed primarily to pick winners and losers. It was the exact opposite of what the government needs to do. Turning around a failing company is not the same as balancing the Federal budget - not even close.

And the business school consensus building that often passes for leadership in private enterprise, gave the people of Massachusetts Romneycare. You'll be forgiven if you have a hard time distinguishing between that and Obamacare; Obama's folks can't tell the difference, either.

Yet Romney still defends it, and his rivals simply don't talk about it. Repeal of Obamacare is a singularly existential issue in this 2012 Presidential election year, and the current Republican front-runner takes it completely off the table.

The Republican field rallies around Mitt Romney

2012-01-10T08:44:00.001-06:00

Mitt Romney, Godfather of Obamacare, has finally earned the support of his former rivals in the Republican Presidential field.

How else to explain the attacks on his business record at Bain Capital? There's no doubt that the Obama campaign, should Romney win the nomination, will attack his brand of capitalism, too - it's what Obama does, both rhetorically and in policy. So what?

If there is one group of people among whom these types of attacks are likeliest to fall on deaf ears, it is Republican primary voters. So for Perry, Gingrich and Huntsman to offer them now can only be explained as a dry run to help the Romney campaign prepare for autumn, while simultaneously extinguishing all hope for their own struggling candidacies.

Romney has plenty of vulnerability - obviously. He is the one candidate in the race who removes Obamacare from the table as an issue. He may be the least likely to be able to actually beat Obama, having a track record mostly of failure in 20 years of electoral politics. He may be the most likely to destroy his own party electorally.

But the establishment figures (Newt, Perry, Huntsman) are now rallying around, doing everything they can to brush Romney's biggest vulnerabilities under the rug.

There's a reason it's called "The Stupid Party."

The cookie theory of egalitarianism

2011-12-09T09:49:00.000-06:00

Conservatives would like you to know how to get flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, butter, vanilla and chocolate chips. They want you to be free to use an oven. They want to get out of your way and let you do those things - or not - as you see fit.

Liberals want you to hand over all the ingredients, sit there and wait. Then they want to give you cookies. One apiece!

Hold on, not you. You're fat. No cookies for you. Have you been making your own cookies? Hand them over.

You people have terrible teeth. What, do you eat only cookies? Brush your teeth! Everybody give me a nickel and I'll get toothpaste for you. Eat a cookie until I get back.

No, not you, fatty. You come to the store with me. And you give me a quarter for toothpaste. We all have to do our fair share.

Hey, what happened to all the cookies?

If Cain represents rebellion against "experts," Obama represented rebellion against reality

2011-10-30T09:34:00.002-05:00

In a recent column, Michael Barone assesses support for Herman Cain as a symptom of a trend towards distrust of "experts." He even - perhaps rightly - suggests that Romney's resume is thin compared to previous nominees.

I am getting a little tired of this meme in political commentary. It seems to me that this is less a distrust of expertise, than it is seeking after the right sort of expertise. Cain has been a CEO of a large corporation, and served in appointed office on the Federal Reserve. Recent trend? Republicans previously nominated a man known for his business record who had only previously served in appointed office - in 1928. (I note this advisedly, since that nominee was Herbert Hoover.)

Voters may be right or wrong to weigh foreign affairs more lightly than economic concerns right now, but it seems to me that this is the explanation for Cain's popularity. He has plenty of expertise, but in the real world - a place to which the current president has few apparent ties.

It is not unreasonable to view the flailing, failing disaster of the Obama Administration and conclude that the area of expertise we should seek for the presidency is not to be found at Harvard Law. Herman Cain may or may not be the right man for the presidency, but if he is not, it isn't because he lacks proper experience or knowledge. He has plenty of both for voters concerned about the government's increasing strangulation of the economy.

If there was ever a year when voters chose a naive, inexperienced man with no clear expertise in anything, it was 2008. The presidency is now the job Obama has held longer than any other in his life. He has education, but almost no real-world experience in or out of government. He did go to all the right schools, I guess.

Cain's popularity - and, for that matter, Romney's steadiness in the polls - suggests not that voters are abandoning experts, but that they seek candidates with expertise outside of government. You know, in the real world.

The OWSers don't make me angry; they make me sad

2011-10-16T13:36:00.003-05:00

I hate to even give this "movement" more attention, since the MSM are headlining them despite small numbers and a message which is, to put it charitably, inchoate.

I wish it were not too late to coin the phrase "rebel without a clue," because it is absolutely perfect for this crowd.

I saw this picture from the Detroit off-shoot of OWS over at NRO this morning:

Make the banks pay for education? Seriously? Are these people former contestants from the Tonight Show's "Jaywalking" segments?

It brought to mind one of my soldiers back in my Army days. He and his wife had to attend financial counseling because they had been bouncing checks. They were really confused about how that could be happening, because, they said, "we still have lots of checks left."

When my daughter was small, on one occasion we told her we could not buy something because we didn't have enough money. "Go to the bank and get some," was the obvious solution - to my three-year-old.

Some commentators have gone out of their way to express sympathy for the sad stories posted over at the 99% blog, suggesting that they put a real human face on "the Great Recession." I've read through a bunch of them, too, and I have not found, for the most part, that there is a whole lot to connect those stories specifically to the current economy. Most are divided between three categories: truly sad stories, which could happen in any time; problems brought on by stupid decisions; and "we are the lucky ones" statements by people who are personally fine, but "ashamed" of their country.

We are the ninety-nine percent? Try 100%. All people have sadness in their lives - that is a constant of the human condition. We should all be more sympathetic and and helpful to each other; we should all "be kind," as Philo of Alexandria said, "for everyone is fighting a great battle."

But my sympathy evaporates when you angrily demand that "the banks" make you whole because somebody in your family got sick, or when you insist that your $120,000 in school loans be forgiven because you just learned that your lifelong dream of being a social worker makes your decision to borrow it look pretty stupid in retrospect. Those are not moral or political demands, they are mere selfishness; a symptom of our increasingly narcissistic culture.

Ultimately, the OWSers are really no different that Willie Sutton. They protest the banks because that's where the money is. At least Willie was honest about it.

I understand rage at the unfairness of life. We all go through that, to some extent, when we are growing up. One mark of maturity is that you grow out of that. The more you see of the world around you, the more you understand that "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Someday, maybe, they'll understand that.

The new frontrunner, Herman Cain (mostly) holds his own

2011-10-11T21:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure who won the debate, but I am pretty sure it wasn't the heckler at the end.

If Rick Perry had performed like this in his first debate, he might have held onto front-runner status. Not that he did anything particularly impressive, he just didn't fall apart. Given that this was his fourth debate, and the other candidates aren't even bothering to attack him any more, I don't think it as enough to revive his standing. And even if it does, I still don't think he'll be able to handle attacks.

Herman Cain certainly appeared to be a frontrunner, as his 9-9-9 plan (not from outer space) was singled out for criticism by nearly everybody, and Ron Paul chose to be Cain's Secret Santa during the candidate smackdown segment. On the one hand, Cain was in no way intimidated by the attacks, and, unlike Perry in earlier debates, also did not seem surprised at the criticism. I thought his "three reasons" response to Santorum, while strong in presentation, was a bit weak on the substance. His response to Paul, in which he denied making some statements Paul had referenced, and agreed with a need to audit the Fed, was fine, but he may have hurt himself later with his praise for Greenspan. We'll see if this dents his Tea Party support.

Romney's strategy throughout the night was to try to elevate himself and avoid attacks on people who are actual threats. His question, directed at Michele Bachmann, was fairly gentle, and allowed her to give a decent response. He replied to an early Huntsman criticism by characterizing it as the opinion of "some people." I think he is hoping not to draw too much fire, and keep a strong enough position to narrow the field after the early primaries.

This has simply got to be the last debate where Huntsman gets a seat at the table. I shouldn't have to explain that.

Santorum has turned in some good performances in these debates, but I don't think tonight was his best. I don't think he scored any points on Cain, although that seemed to be his goal.

The biggest question I've got is: "How many stellar debate performances will it take before people forget the 1990s and take Newt seriously as a presidential candidate?"

Now I know whose kids are occupying Wall Street

2011-10-11T08:51:00.001-05:00

I saw this comment on Facebook, and it really threw me for a loop. No name, because I don't know the guy, but here is his comment:

I don't care about the spending issue. I care about equality. Shut everyone up and institute a 15% flat tax across the board, no matter who you are, how much you make, with no loopholes. Oh but wait, then the rich would start to complain they are paying a disproportionate share because they make more, therefore are paying more. How would that be unfair?

When I read a comment like the one above, made by a middle-aged, employed person, I wonder just how many voters out there are this incapable of processing the most basic facts of their own lives, and the world they live in.

I hesitate to use this word, because "uninformed" is much more polite, but if you are still this uninformed by middle age, you are not ignorant; you are stupid.

This guy really doesn't understand that a 15% flat rate would be a tax cut for millionaires? He is not aware that 47% of Americans pay no Federal income tax at all? He thinks it is the upper end of the income curve that would gnash its teeth over his flat tax? He thinks the politicians talking about "fair shares" are talking about a flat tax?

Wow. Just wow.

Now I know whose kids are occupying Wall Street.

#GOPDebate: Bottom line - Perry is Done

2011-09-22T21:56:00.001-05:00

Well, I laid out my live thoughts on Twitter, and there is not much I would change.

Michele Bachmann was entirely ignored. She went back to her most successful tack by attacking Obama in her few opportunities, but was forced by the questions to return to the Gardasil issue. While the issue is legitimate, her previous statements have been - to put it charitably - stupid.

Gary Johnson, in limited chances, put out some very strong opinions, and for those who said they wanted something new in these debates, he brought it. He'll submit a balanced budget year one, and he'll veto any deficit spending. The handyman can!

But to me the big story is that Rick Perry has been incredibly weak in every debate appearance. I think he's done. I'd be shocked if he wins a single primary. Yet somehow, his weakness makes the entire field, which I once defended, seem even weaker than it did before Perry's entry.

And that worries me.

Palin time?

Some scattered thoughts on 9/11

2011-09-11T12:40:00.002-05:00

At the time we all said, "this will change everything." Ten years later, it doesn't seem like it did.

It doesn't seem like a new wave of patriotism was suddenly hammered into us by the magnitude of the attack. A young man I worked with at the time actually said, when asked if he was thinking about enlisting, "it isn't my fight." And that was in the days just after the attacks; the days of our great national unity. Much has been written rightly praising the brave and patriotic young people who have enlisted in our all-volunteer military since 2001, but the facts are these: with a population 31% larger than it was in 1985, we have 35% fewer people serving on active duty in our military.

Go ahead and praise the actual individuals who take up arms for their country, but be careful when you rhapsodize about a "9/11 generation." Young people today are far less likely to enlist in the military than they were even 25 years ago, and the population as a whole is largely indifferent to the idea of defense spending cuts. There are a lot of reasons for those things. The size of the military is determined by Congress, not by the number willing to serve. As for spending, it may be that many Americans have simply concluded that the War on Terror is over, and we won. Nevertheless, you simply cannot say that Americans as a whole, or her younger generation, have any greater commitment to national security – whatever their reasons – than they did before 9/11.

It doesn't seem like the old political battle-lines about foreign policy have shifted, either. It seems, at times, that 9/11 has just become another event for both sides to use as a cudgel against the other – even today.

The "blame America first" crowd hasn't shifted their accusing finger away from their own country so much as narrowed their focus to point only at certain Americans; to include their innocent fellow citizens among the victims of all that is wrong with America. Even the crackpots who immediately said "we brought it on ourselves," or "we deserved it" have never had to apologize, or ever even leave the mainstream. Many of their arguments, instead, were incorporated into the foreign policy of one of their acolytes, who was swept into the White House by "the 9/11 generation."

It doesn't seem like our people rededicated themselves to the nation's founding ideals, or to the ethic President Kennedy evoked when he exhorted us to ask not what our country could do for us, but what we could do for our country. In 2008, it seemed the prevailing sentiment was "can't this country do more for me?" And we elected the man who said "yes, we can;" who said, rather than rededicate the nation to its founding principles of liberty, he would "fundamentally transform it." He won.

It doesn't seem like our national resolve, so strongly felt ten years ago, to rebuild a taller, shinier building in Lower Manhattan prevailed in any meaningful way against our bureaucratic and regulatory overlords. Ten years on, and still no building stands at "Ground Zero."

Meanwhile, over in the Middle East, it seems that despite the "Freedom Agenda" of the last administration, anti-Israel, anti-American, Islamicism appears to be ascendant even in nations once in the vanguard of peacemaking. Here at home, we are asked to celebrate this as the "Arab Spring."

We sure showed them, didn't we?

Obama's #Jobspeech, annotated...

2011-09-08T20:44:00.002-05:00

Obama's tripe is so old and recycled, it's hard to come up with fresh smart-aleck comments, but here goes (this is a living document - I may come back later and add more comments):

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and fellow Americans:

Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that has made things worse.

It was so terribly urgent, I felt it was absolutely necessary to golf on Martha's Vineyard for a couple of weeks, then take a week or two writing this recycled speech.

This past week, reporters have been asking “What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress? How will it affect their polls, and the next election?”

But the millions of Americans who are watching right now: they don’t care about politics.

Buck up, Mr. President. At least all those reporters still care about you.

They have real life concerns. Many have spent months looking for work. Others are doing their best just to scrape by – giving up nights out with the family to save on gas or make the mortgage; postponing retirement to send a kid to college.

How common is that really? I mean people having kids when they are 47 or older, then postponing retirement to put them through college? Because if you are 65 when your kid graduates high school, it seems like you decided to put off retirement a long time ago. But hey, Obama's in touch with the problems of the common man.

Have you seen the price of arugula lately?

These men and women grew up with faith in an America where hard work and responsibility paid off. They believed in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share – where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loyalty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits; maybe a raise once in awhile.

And a gold watch at retirement?

Aren't these guys the ones who always accuse Republicans of idealizing the 1950s?

If you did the right thing, you could make it in America.

But for decades now, Americans have watched that compact erode. They have seen the deck too often stacked against them. And they know that Washington hasn’t always put their interests first.

The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours. The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy; whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that has defined this nation since our beginning.

I think if you asked the Founding Fathers where "security" and "fairness" ranked, you might get a different impression about what defined this nation from its beginning.

Those of us here tonight can’t solve all of our nation’s woes.

Bestill my heart! There are limits to his power? Is he just tuckered out from stopping the rise of the ocean?

Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives.

I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act.

Because "Son of Stimulus" didn't play well withe focus group, and we thought "Puppies, Candy Bars and Babies" was a little over-the-top.

There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans – including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything.

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for the long-term unemployed. It will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business. It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away.

Don't delay! Operators are standing by!

Everyone here knows that small businesses are where most new jobs begin. And you know that while corporate profits have come roaring back, smaller companies haven’t. So for everyone who speaks so passionately about making life easier for “job creators,” this plan is for you.

Pass this jobs bill, and starting tomorrow, small businesses will get a tax cut if they hire new workers or raise workers’ wages. Pass this jobs bill, and all small business owners will also see their payroll taxes cut in half next year. If you have 50 employees making an average salary, that’s an $80,000 tax cut. And all businesses will be able to continue writing off the investments they make in 2012.

Wait - including corporate jets? Why, yes, now that you mention it...

It’s not just Democrats who have supported this kind of proposal. Fifty House Republicans have proposed the same payroll tax cut that’s in this plan.

And just because it didn't work before, is no reason to stop doing the same thing over and over.

You should pass it right away.

Thousands - Democrats and Republicans just like you - already have!

Pass this jobs bill, and we can put people to work rebuilding America. Everyone here knows that we have badly decaying roads and bridges all over this country.

I did not know that. And I drive a lot.

Our highways are clogged with traffic.

So let's get rid of all the friggin' HOV lanes. You do know they increase congestion, right? Oh wait, we were talking about creating jobs, not getting to work on time...

Our skies are the most congested in the world.

This is inexcusable. Building a world-class transportation system is part of what made us an economic superpower. And now we’re going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads?

Hold on! China's rise isn't our demise!

At a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in America?

There are private construction companies all across America just waiting to get to work.

Seems like just last fall somebody was telling us that there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects. But now there are just legions of workers, leaning on their shovels, waiting for a shovelful of money from Washington so they can get started.

There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America. A public transit project in Houston that will help clear up one of the worst areas of traffic in the country. And there are schools throughout this country that desperately need renovating. How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart? This is America. Every child deserves a great school – and we can give it to them, if we act now.

The American Jobs Act will repair and modernize at least 35,000 schools. It will put people to work right now fixing roofs and windows; installing science labs and high-speed internet in classrooms all across this country.

Wow, those places sure ran down quickly after they were repaired in the last stimulus bill.

It will rehabilitate homes and businesses in communities hit hardest by foreclosures. It will jumpstart thousands of transportation projects across the country. And to make sure the money is properly spent and for good purposes, we’re building on reforms we’ve already put in place. No more earmarks. No more boondoggles. No more bridges to nowhere. We’re cutting the red tape that prevents some of these projects from getting started as quickly as possible. And we’ll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it would do for the economy.

This idea came from a bill written by a Texas Republican and a Massachusetts Democrat. The idea for a big boost in construction is supported by America’s largest business organization and America’s largest labor organization. It’s the kind of proposal that’s been supported in the past by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Also supported in the past by Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike: the Iraq War, Guantanamo Bay detentions, and raiding the Social Security Trust Fund. All good ideas?

You should pass it right away.

If you dial the number on your screen right now, you'll also receive a set of steak knives!

Pass this jobs bill, and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work.

It's the week after Labor Day. Thousands of teachers already went back to work.

These are the men and women charged with preparing our children for a world where the competition has never been tougher. But while they’re adding teachers in places like South Korea, we’re laying them off in droves. It’s unfair to our kids. It undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this jobs bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get extra tax credits if they hire America’s veterans. We ask these men and women to leave their careers, leave their families, and risk their lives to fight for our country. The last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home.

Did he just propose defense cuts? I mean, Ron Paul just wants to take away their air conditioning - Obama wants to lay them off?

Pass this bill, and hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people will have the hope and dignity of a summer job next year. And their parents, low-income Americans who desperately want to work, will have more ladders out of poverty.

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job. We have to do more to help the long-term unemployed in their search for work. This jobs plan builds on a program in Georgia that several Republican leaders have highlighted, where people who collect unemployment insurance participate in temporary work as a way to build their skills while they look for a permanent job. The plan also extends unemployment insurance for another year. If the millions of unemployed Americans stopped getting this insurance, and stopped using that money for basic necessities, it would be a devastating blow to this economy. Democrats and Republicans in this Chamber have supported unemployment insurance plenty of times in the past. At this time of prolonged hardship, you should pass it again – right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and the typical working family will get a fifteen hundred dollar tax cut next year. Fifteen hundred dollars that would have been taken out of your paycheck will go right into your pocket. This expands on the tax cut that Democrats and Republicans already passed for this year. If we allow that tax cut to expire – if we refuse to act – middle-class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time. We cannot let that happen. I know some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live. Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle-class taxes, which is why you should pass this bill right away.

This is the American Jobs Act. It will lead to new jobs for construction workers, teachers, veterans, first responders, young people and the long-term unemployed. It will provide tax credits to companies that hire new workers, tax relief for small business owners, and tax cuts for the middle-class. And here’s the other thing I want the American people to know: the American Jobs Act will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for. And here’s how:

The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next ten years. It also charges this Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Tonight, I’m asking you to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act.

Here's how it will be paid for: it's very simple. You will figure that part out.

And a week from Monday, I’ll be releasing a more ambitious deficit plan – a plan that will not only cover the cost of this jobs bill, but stabilize our debt in the long run.

I think he almost literally just said he would gladly pay us Tuesday for a hamburger today.

This approach is basically the one I’ve been advocating for months. In addition to the trillion dollars of spending cuts I’ve already signed into law, it’s a balanced plan that would reduce the deficit by making additional spending cuts; by making modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid; and by reforming our tax code in a way that asks the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share. What’s more, the spending cuts wouldn’t happen so abruptly that they’d be a drag on our economy, or prevent us from helping small business and middle-class families get back on their feet right away.

Now, I realize there are some in my party who don’t think we should make any changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid, and I understand their concerns. But here’s the truth. Millions of Americans rely on Medicare in their retirement. And millions more will do so in the future. They pay for this benefit during their working years. They earn it. But with an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program. And if we don’t gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won’t be there when future retirees need it.

Wait - didn't Obamacare already "bend the cost curve?"

We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it.

Boy, that sounds a lot like "we have to burn the village in order to save it."

I’m also well aware that there are many Republicans who don’t believe we should raise taxes on those who are most fortunate and can best afford it. But here is what every American knows. While most people in this country struggle to make ends meet, a few of the most affluent citizens and corporations enjoy tax breaks and loopholes that nobody else gets. Right now, Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary – an outrage he has asked us to fix.

If that's true, Warren Buffett is a tax cheat. I'm just sayin'...

We need a tax code where everyone gets a fair shake, and everybody pays their fair share. And I believe the vast majority of wealthy Americans and CEOs are willing to do just that, if it helps the economy grow and gets our fiscal house in order.

Yes, I'm sure they would be willing to do just that if it helps the economy grow and gets our fiscal house in order. But that's kind of the catch, isn't it? That's the part we disagree about, isn't it? I mean, we all understand that somebody, somewhere, still has money in his pocket. We just don't all think the economy would perk up if they would just stick it in an envelope and send it to Washington.

I’ll also offer ideas to reform a corporate tax code that stands as a monument to special interest influence in Washington. By eliminating pages of loopholes and deductions, we can lower one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Our tax code shouldn’t give an advantage to companies that can afford the best-connected lobbyists. It should give an advantage to companies that invest and create jobs here in America.

Let me break this down for you: we must create a new series of loopholes and special favors to replace the old ones. I don't believe there is anything wrong with special favors and I also believe tax incentives work. Just need to turn the dials, pull the levers, etc, until things are "fair." And we will keep on changing the tax code and loopholes and subsidies as often as I think we need to. In the past, both Republicans and Democrats have voted to make changes in the tax code, so this should not be controversial.

So we can reduce this deficit, pay down our debt, and pay for this jobs plan in the process.

And have our cake, eat it, too, and put a pet unicorn in every yard and a fairy in every rose garden. Now how much would you pay? Pass it now!

But in order to do this, we have to decide what our priorities are. We have to ask ourselves, “What’s the best way to grow the economy and create jobs?”

Should we keep tax loopholes for oil companies? Or should we use that money to give small business owners a tax credit when they hire new workers? Because we can’t afford to do both. Should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires? Or should we put teachers back to work so our kids can graduate ready for college and good jobs? Right now, we can’t afford to do both.

This isn’t political grandstanding. This isn’t class warfare. This is simple math.

Here is some more simple math: taking every dollar from every "millionaire and billionaire" in America won't pay for the hole you've already dug. But at least digging holes of debt is a shovel-ready project. I'll give you that.

These are real choices that we have to make. And I’m pretty sure I know what most Americans would choose. It’s not even close. And it’s time for us to do what’s right for our future.

The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away. But we can’t stop there. As I’ve argued since I ran for this office, we have to look beyond the immediate crisis

Hold on just one minute. If we look beyond the current crisis, won't we risk letting it go to waste?

and start building an economy that lasts into the future – an economy that creates good, middle-class jobs that pay well and offer security. We now live in a world where technology has made it possible for companies to take their business anywhere. If we want them to start here and stay here and hire here, we have to be able to out-build, out-educate, and out-innovate every other country on Earth.

Who's the "we" that needs to "outbuild and out innovate?" And who's the "them" that will stay here if "we" do that? Aren't those companies that can start up anywhere the ones doing the building and innovating? Shouldn't we be trying to figure out why it isn't attractive to do that here? Like maybe the grandstanding, class warfare and ever-changing list of favors in the tax code? Things like "The American Jobs Act?"

This task, of making America more competitive for the long haul, is a job for all of us. For government and for private companies. For states and for local communities – and for every American citizen. All of us will have to up our game. All of us will have to change the way we do business.

My administration can and will take some steps to improve our competitiveness on our own. For example, if you’re a small business owner who has a contract with the federal government, we’re going to make sure you get paid a lot faster than you do now. We’re also planning to cut away the red tape that prevents too many rapidly-growing start-up companies from raising capital and going public. And to help responsible homeowners, we’re going to work with Federal housing agencies to help more people refinance their mortgages at interest rates that are now near 4% — a step that can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket, and give a lift to an economy still burdened by the drop in housing prices.

For what it's worth, first-time buyers are not at all burdened by the drop in housing prices. But hey, you can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. I mean, who do you trust to pick winners and losers anyway?

Other steps will require Congressional action. Today you passed reform that will speed up the outdated patent process, so that entrepreneurs can turn a new idea into a new business as quickly as possible. That’s the kind of action we need. Now it’s time to clear the way for a series of trade agreements that would make it easier for American companies to sell their products in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea – while also helping the workers whose jobs have been affected by global competition. If Americans can buy Kias and Hyundais, I want to see folks in South Korea driving Fords and Chevys and Chryslers.

Except for those damn South Korean teachers. They can drive Hyundais.

I want to see more products sold around the world stamped with three proud words: “Made in America.”

Isn't that stamped on all of our T-Bills? There are plenty of those in China. Oh, I see what you did there. This plan just might work...

And on all of our efforts to strengthen competitiveness, we need to look for ways to work side-by-side with America’s businesses. That’s why I’ve brought together a Jobs Council of leaders from different industries who are developing a wide range of new ideas to help companies grow and create jobs.

Already, we’ve mobilized business leaders to train 10,000 American engineers a year, by providing company internships and training. Other businesses are covering tuition for workers who learn new skills at community colleges. And we’re going to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root not in China or Europe, but right here, in the United States of America. If we provide the right incentives and support – and if we make sure our trading partners play by the rules – we can be the ones to build everything from fuel-efficient cars to advanced biofuels to semiconductors that are sold all over the world. That’s how America can be number one again. That’s how America will be number one again.

Now, I realize that some of you have a different theory on how to grow the economy. Some of you sincerely believe that the only solution to our economic challenges is to simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations.

Well, I agree that we can’t afford wasteful spending, and I will continue to work with Congress to get rid of it. And I agree that there are some rules and regulations that put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it. That’s why I ordered a review of all government regulations. So far, we’ve identified over 500 reforms, which will save billions of dollars over the next few years. We should have no more regulation than the health, safety, and security of the American people require. Every rule should meet that common sense test.

But what we can’t do – what I won’t do – is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades. I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients. I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards. America should be in a race to the top. And I believe that’s a race we can win.

In fact, this larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everyone’s money, let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own – that’s not who we are. That’s not the story of America.

Yes, we are rugged individualists. Yes, we are strong and self-reliant. And it has been the drive and initiative of our workers and entrepreneurs that has made this economy the engine and envy of the world.

But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.
We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges. And leaders of both parties have followed the example he set.

Ask yourselves – where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways and our bridges; our dams and our airports? What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the GI Bill. Where would we be if they hadn’t had that chance?

I might be mistaken, but I think he just proposed another World War so a new generation can go to college on the GI Bill.

How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip? What kind of country would this be if this Chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?

"What kind of country would this be if this Chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? " *Sigh* I just had to repeat that line. Indeed, what kind of country would it be? Freer? More prosperous? Solvent?

No single individual built America on their own. We built it together. We have been, and always will be, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all; a nation with responsibilities to ourselves and with responsibilities to one another. Members of Congress, it is time for us to meet our responsibilities.

Except for our fiscal responsibilities.

Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight is the kind that’s been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past. Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight will be paid for. And every proposal is designed to meet the urgent needs of our people and our communities.

Declarations of war have been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past. That doesn't mean every declaration of war should be passed immediately, without debate.

I know there’s been a lot of skepticism about whether the politics of the moment will allow us to pass this jobs plan – or any jobs plan. Already, we’re seeing the same old press releases and tweets flying back and forth. Already, the media has proclaimed that it’s impossible to bridge our differences. And maybe some of you have decided that those differences are so great that we can only resolve them at the ballot box.

But know this: the next election is fourteen months away. And the people who sent us here – the people who hired us to work for them – they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months.

Stop the presses! I think he just offered to resign!

Some of them are living week to week; paycheck to paycheck; even day to day. They need help, and they need it now.

I don’t pretend that this plan will solve all our problems. It shouldn’t be, nor will it be, the last plan of action we propose. What’s guided us from the start of this crisis hasn’t been the search for a silver bullet. It’s been a commitment to stay at it – to be persistent – to keep trying every new idea that works, and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it.

Yes, listen to every proposal. The dismiss it with something glib, like "I won."

Regardless of the arguments we’ve had in the past, regardless of the arguments we’ll have in the future, this plan is the right thing to do right now. You should pass it. And I intend to take that message to every corner of this country. I also ask every American who agrees to lift your voice and tell the people who are gathered here tonight that you want action now. Tell Washington that doing nothing is not an option. Remind us that if we act as one nation, and one people, we have it within our power to meet this challenge.

President Kennedy once said, “Our problems are man-made – therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.”

These are difficult years for our country. But we are Americans. We are tougher than the times that we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been. So let’s meet the moment. Let’s get to work, and show the world once again why the United States of America remains the greatest nation on Earth. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Obama to Send Congress “The American Jobs Act” (NOT "stimulus")

2011-09-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

ABC News reports that Obama will send Congress “The American Jobs Act.” Let me be perfectly clear: it is definitely not a "stimulus bill."

From the article:

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on “Good Morning America” the specifics “will create jobs. They’ll get teachers back to work. First responders back to work. Construction workers, it will get money into small businesses. And the American people will see a tax cut with a payroll extension.”

Let's break that down a bit: It's the week after Labor Day. I am pretty sure teachers have all gotten back to work already. First responders back to work? What does that mean? 9/11 put first responders to work. I don't like the sound of that.

But I get it - "Hey, public sector unions, I got your back."

The more curious part of Daley's remarks was this:

”It will help the long-term unemployed and help small businesses hire veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at a time where there is a growing unemployment rate among veterans.”

Are they saying that the recently announced drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to make unemployment worse? That's pretty interesting, but consistent with Liberal thought. After all, they still think WWII was the best "jobs program" ever...

Some scattered thoughts on the #ReaganDebate

2011-09-07T21:00:00.001-05:00

Well, we all expected tonight to be the Rick Perry show, and it was. Brian Williams did a quick search on the Huffington Post and Paul Krugman to find a few ways to question the Texas record. Mitt and Huntsman had a few pre-scripted zingers.

What surprised me is how unprepared Perry seemed in response. There are good answers to all the dumb statements about the Texas record, but he came across as if he'd never heard the criticisms. Maybe dealing with Texas wildfires over the last couple of days reduced his prep time, but nobody was asking him about events of the last week; they were asking about his record over the last ten years.

Mitt needed to let go of his defense of RomneyCare, but at this point he is just too invested in that line of argument. Turning his back on RomneyCare would open up the old "flip-flopper" line of attack. And that, my friends, is why Mitt Romney will never be President.

Perry, similarly, needs to stop defending the Gardasil thing. When he says "I hate cancer," he might as well say "I love puppies." It would be equally relevant. His Gardasil executive order was indefensible in every way. For Parry, unlike Romney, it is still not too late to just say "I was wrong," and let it go.

Newt had some good, fiery answers. I will never vote for him for president.

Huntsman's only good moment was when he blasted those idiotic candidate pledges. Other than that...um, blue sky, weak core, China. He has some solid hair, though. I'll give him that.

Ron Paul is our lovable crazy uncle, and, as always, he made some good points, but he also trashed Reagan at the Reagan Library. He can't win (and he shouldn't.) I wish he would go away.

Perry's best answers were when he defended, and repeated his charge that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. Still, I expect Perry's poll numbers to drop a bit after this. What I don't know is whose numbers will improve.

Rick Perry is Fed Up. My book review...

2011-09-07T11:20:00.000-05:00

Rick Perry's Fed Up! has plenty to like and a bit to dislike for almost everybody, but because campaign books are tough to read, I read this one, so you don't have to.

The first thing that must be said is that this book, written long before Perry admitted he intended to run for President, was clearly written as a campaign book. It isn't a call to arms - it's a call to vote. Obviously, Perry's attacks go most heavily after Obama, but he also has some digs at his predecessor in the governor's office, George W. Bush, and spares his party no criticisms. A sampling:

"Both Democrats and Republicans share the blame, from Lyndon B. Johnson...to my friend President George W. Bush..."

"Indeed, this big-government binge began under the administration of George W. Bush..."

"The branding of Compassionate Conservatism meant that the GOP was sending the wrong signal that conservatism alone wasn't sufficient or, worse yet, was somehow flawed and had to be rebranded. For the first time, we were acting like liberals who call themselves progressives, running away to some degree from who we were, and what we stood for. The result is an ongoing and near-complete capitulation to the federal welfare state."

He also offers some pre-emptive defenses of some expected attacks on himself and his record, explaining how states rights arguments were mis-used in the civil rights era. It came across to me as a passage inspired by Rand Paul's remarks on the 1964 Civil Rights Act during his 2010 campaign.

Perry also pre-empts liberal attacks on him for accepting Federal dollars even as he decries the Washington leviathan. Here, his arguments resonate, and we can expect them to be repeated. There are no Federal dollars, he argues, it all comes form the states. It is a difficult balancing act to decide when to accede to extortionate demands of Congress in order to get back the very dollars the state paid in to Washington, and when to decide to let the state's own dollars go.

Much has been made of Mitt Romney's subtle attacks on Perry in recent weeks, but Perry was jabbing at Romney months ago in this book, recounting the poor results (longer waiting times, out of control costs and rationing boards) of RomneyCare, even as he praises the experiment as an examples of states as "laboratories of democracy." "Is it any wonder," Perry asks, "that this is the state from which [Obama appointee and rationing enthusiast] Dr. [Donald] Berwick hails?"

Tea Partiers will find little to disagree with in Perry's prescriptions - he quotes all the right people and makes no effort to defend the GOP's mistakes. Mainstream Republicans, though, will find comfort in his assessment that the GOP can be fixed, and is still the best alternative between the parties.

Perry's main argument for his own candidacy boils down to one question that he says is one of the most important we can contemplate, namely, "Who gets to decide how we live?"

Perry says it's you.

Nation-building is tricky stuff...

2011-08-22T20:36:00.000-05:00

Many who have seen the Constitutional Charter for the Transitional Stage of Libyan Government have pointed with concern to the following passage:

Libya is an independent Democratic State wherein the people are the source of authorities. The city of Tripoli shall be the capital of the State. Islam is the Religion of the State and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia). Arabic is its official language while preserving the linguistic and cultural rights of all components of the Libyan society. The State shall guarantee for non-Moslems the freedom of practising religious rights and shall guarantee respect for their systems of personal status.

I would only note that the Constitution of Iraq, adopted in close cooperation with the United States, begins as follows:

Article 1:The Republic of Iraq is a single federal, independent and fully sovereign state in which the system of government is republican, representative, parliamentary, and democratic, and this Constitution is a guarantor of the unity of Iraq.

Article 2: First: Islam is the official religion of the State and is a foundation source of legislation:
A. No law may be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam
B. No law may be enacted that contradicts the principles of democracy.
C. No law may be enacted that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this Constitution.
Second: This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights to freedom of religious belief and practice of all individuals such as Christians, Yazidis, and Mandean Sabeans.

Nation-building is tricky stuff, isn't it?

Yes, Perry's Gardasil order matters. And it isn't good.

2011-08-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

Rick Perry and the HPV debacle

Over at Hot Air, somebody calling himself Jazz Shaw takes on Rick Perry's Gardasil controversy. The link is above, if you want to read it, but I'll save you a little time and summarize: "if you think Perry made a mistake, you are a benighted rube who does not understand that Gardasil will miraculously cure cancer and your ignorance will condemn all young girls to a horrible, cancer-ridden death."

Where to begin?

What Jazz fails to grasp is that Gardasil's efficacy is irrelevant. Government mandates are a use of force against individuals, and that force is only properly exercised with extreme discretion.

"Wiping out smallpox," which the writer uses as an analogy is a great deal different. Communicable diseases like smallpox pose public health threats that are not behaviorally determined. There is a clear public benefit to mandating such vaccines. But cancer is not a communicable disease. Nor is Gardasil a "cancer vaccine." But even if it were, that would not be a reason to mandate it. The only argument in favor of mandating Gardasil - even accepting all the claims made on its behalf by Shaw - is that it is for your own good.

On this one, I side with John Stuart Mill, who said that the "only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."

Beyond that, Perry's action was unilateral, circumventing the democratic process. A State Legislature of his own party passed legislation to reverse his action - and no, Perry did not accept this. He let it pass into law without his signature only after his staff had argued the legislature did not have the power to over-rule the Governor's executive orders. Got that? His staff argued (with his approval, one must assume,) that the Governor has the legitimate, unchecked authority to command his fellow citizens to - what? Anything? In this case it was to get a vaccine, but what is the logical end to this line of reasoning?

Again, any argument that begins with "Gardasil works," is entirely missing the point. Perry was wrong. I really don't think he understands that himself, even now, but at least he has sense enough to know that it is politically indefensible.

The Return of the Tea Party

2011-08-16T23:30:00.000-05:00

Technology as analogy for politics

2011-08-15T12:35:00.000-05:00

Analogies never fit exactly, but they still can be useful from time to time.

The history and current trends of Information Technology offer us an analogy for the political direction our nation will be choosing in the next election.

When desktop computer first began entering the workplace in large numbers, they were set up as "dumb terminals," allowing workers to log in to a personal account, but saving all files on a central mainframe. This model evolved into the one which is still familiar to most of us, the client-server model, where our files and work reside on our own desktop or laptop computers, but certain management and maintenance tasks are performed remotely from the server. This model has allowed for the evolution of laptop computers and more mobile businesses.

In more recent years, the rise of the smartphone has placed more and more data and applications not only on a mobile computer, but literally in the pockets of mobile workers. With the introduction of the iPad last year, the tablet market has exploded, with this new generation of mobile devices actually being considered as a replacement for notebook computers.

Along with this technology has come a "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) trend in the workplace. Workers, whose work and personal lives and hours frequently overlap, are less inclined to tolerate multiple devices, and would rather consolidate on a device of their own choosing. For their employers, this means giving up a lot of the centralized control which has characterized IT for the last twenty years. In exchange, they get workers whose autonomy and satisfaction leads to greater productivity.

So what's the analogy? On the one hand, we have a bright new technology that enables personal freedom and empowerment. On the other, we have a dusty old mainframe that promises to take care of everything, as long we stay seated at our desks and chained to the past.

You figure it out.

Republican cage fight! A reasonably accurate transcript.

2011-08-12T01:04:00.004-05:00

I am late in posting my comments. Other blogging duties took precedence, so I watched the repeat broadcast of the debate late at night. And really, both events are just preseason, right?

Rather than comment, I thought I'd just share a few highlights. I am pretty sure I transcribed them accurately, but I welcome your corrections:

Newt: The key to recovery is Six Sigma. I am just like Reagan. And McCain. Damn you, Chris Wallace!
...
Pawlenty: I know I hurt my campaign by wussing out against Romney in the last debate, so just let me say, the chick next to me is lame! Yeah!
Bachmann: Pawlenty is liberal.
Pawlenty: Wanna fight? C'mon!
...
Cain: I may or may not give you a dumb answer, but let me make clear, Chris, that was a dumb question.
...
Huntsman: That was a hard question, so let me just say: Buzzword. Platitude. Specific numbers. Cliché. And I will do this decisively.
...
Pawlenty: If you can find Obama's plan, I will cut your lawn. But if you're Romney, only one acre. Because he's a damn rich guy, get it? Wanna fight?! C'mon!
Romney: Ass.
...
Cain: America's got to learn to take a joke. (That one was actually real. And funny. And true.)
...
Bachmann: Yes, I voted for a tax increase, but it was clearly Pawlenty's fault.
Pawlenty: Wanna fight?! C'mon!
Bachmann: Pussy.
Pawlenty: Put 'em up! I can take you!
...
Santorum: Somebody please pay attention to me!
...
Bret Baier: Raise your hand if you want to end your campaign today.
All: Are you f'ing kidding me?
Newt: You can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
...
Pawlenty: Second swing at Obamneycare? Bring it! Okay...I could kick Mitt's ass! C'mon! But seriously, he's not quite as bad as Obama.
Romney: Tim is right. I'm not as bad as Obama. Let's just leave it at that, and stop talking about Obamneycare...uh...Obamacare.
...
Chris Wallace: What about the Constitutionality of Obamacare?
Romney: SputterBabbleJabber...states rights...localism is not exactly like socialism. So there. Instead of answering questions about my record, can I fight with Pawlenty again? He's a pussy.
...
Paul: I don't want to fight about this. The Constitution gives Romneys the right to do the wrong thing. I mean it's not really any worse than selling your body to fund your cocaine addiction. Freedom, etc.
...
Romney: As commander-in-chief, I would follow the instructions of my subordinates in Afghanistan.
...
Huntsman: Something about Paul Warfield and hacking. The relationship between the US and China is utterly failed in every way. It's a shame we have had utter incompetents in charge of this for the last two years. I am the only guy who can fix the damage wrought by Obama's US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman.
...
Santorum: Please let me fight somebody. How about Ron Paul?
...
Chris Wallace: You once said something that sounds dumb when I quote it out of context. Please respond.
Cain: I'd like to double down, please.
...
Santorum: Ron Paul is just like Barack Obama!
Paul: Mind your manners, whippersnapper! Chop some wood and sit in the corner!
...
Huntsman: Another hard question. Not picking a fight. We should talk about this. Nobody's wrong. Everybody's entitled to an opinion.
...
Paul: Hard question. Bizarre hypothetical. Get off my lawn!
Santorum: Yeah, that's bizarre, but it isn't hypothetical. Lemme at that guy! I can take him!
...
Santorum: The Supreme Court recently said that a man that committed rape could not be subjected to the death penalty, but the child conceived could. (This one's real)
...
Bachmann: Tea Party.
Cain: Yes.
...
Newt: Something about Whigs and central banks. Fundamentally. Clearly. Therefore.
...
Santorum: Newt's okay and he's bigger than me. But I can still take Ron Paul.
...
Santorum: Showmanship, not leadership to say we shouldn't raise debt limit, because we borrow 42%, but Medicare, Social Security and defense are 60%, so you can't balance by cuts! Limiting debt is dangerous, cutting spending is naïve and I'm against all tax increases! Realism! Experience!
...
Huntsman: I'm the only one on this stage that stood up against the thing nobody on this stage was for!
...
Closing Statements

Santorum: Winner. Experience. Underdog.
Cain: I'm the message.
Paul: Get off my lawn!
Romney: I'm not weird. Obama is.
Bachmann: C'mon. F%$* Obama.
Pawlenty: I need a drink.
Huntsman: Please remember my name.
Newt: Future trends. Complexity. Warshington. Me.

Last Night’s Wisconsin Fights Were On Obama Turf - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot - National Review Online

2011-08-10T10:59:00.000-05:00

Last Night’s Wisconsin Fights Were On Obama Turf - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot - National Review Online

As usual, Geraghty's analysis is right on, as he responds to Markos Moulitsas' take on last night's elections in Wisconsin.

I'd only add (expanding on my earlier post,) that Democrats have poured everything they had into rolling back Republican gains and legislation in Wisconsin this year. First, with fugitive senators trying to block the vote; second with an all-out effort to politicize a State Supreme Court race and get a majority to overturn the law from there; and third with these recall races.

In addition, it is probably worth noting that Hopper, running in a district carried by Obama in 2008, not only lost by only a 51-49 margin (1250 votes,) he did so in the midst of a personal scandal that could easily have accounted for most, if not all, of his losing margin.

Democrats who see anything good in Wisconsin's recall results are just whistling past the (metaphorical) graveyard. Hope that imagery isn't too violent.

Dems: Tea Party used to have "no policies," now they are responsible for downgrade?

2011-08-10T09:11:00.000-05:00

Now that the Democrat line is that the Tea Party is responsible for the downgrade, I was thinking back a year and half (or so) when the talking point was that the Tea Party has no policy of its own. Below are the policies I suggested at the time - I don't see "downgrade" among them. It's funny how this faceless group of rabble-rousing terrorists and racists with no ideas can so easily railroad Democrats. Maybe its not the Tea Party we should be worried about, but the "Devil made me do it" Democrats who are incapable of self-examination. Anyway - back to those prinicples I laid out last year. I can't see anything I'd change now:

In addition to the ongoing attempts to portray Tea Partiers as racist domestic terrorists, the newest line being passed around the liberal commentariat is that the people at these demonstrations aren't offering any solutions of their own.

It is a pretty bizarre notion that any political demonstration consists of people with detailed policy proposals emblazoned on their signs. Nobody stood watching anti-draft demonstrations of the 1960s, scratching their chins and saying, "I just don't understand what these people want. Where is their policy proposal? They just keep shouting 'Hell no, we won't go!' Go where?"

Still, just to help clear things up for those dimwitted enough to actually not understand the purpose of these ongoing demonstrations, allow me to lay out what I believe are a few beliefs of the majority of Tea Party demonstrators. Despite their simplicity, these are serious "policy proposals" nonetheless:

STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. The Tea Party crowd does not care that Bush's budgets spent too much. Bush is not in office any more. They don't believe two wrongs make a right. They don't believe a ticket for going 80 on the freeway is the same as a ticket for driving 120 in a school zone. Most importantly, they can do math, and they live in the real world. They can see that annual deficits measured in trillions are completely unsustainable, and they are utterly baffled as to why those in charge of the White House and Congress can't understand this simple truth, and instead keep committing all of us to more and more spending. We don't have the money. We're not going to get the money. SO STOP SPENDING IT. NOW.
STOP TRYING TO RUN ALL OF OUR AFFAIRS. Every day, it seems, we hear about a new invasion of the government into another business or sector of the economy. GM is now Government Motors; via TARP, the Feds have taken control of a large chunk of banking; they now want to overhaul financial regulations to give even more government control to that sector; they've taken full control of student loans; they are taking over the medical industry - the list is seemingly endless. Who do these people in government think they are? Send them to do a simple, well-defined job, and not only do they fail at that - driving our nation into an out of control financial tailspin - now they want to get their hands into everybody else's business. DO YOUR JOB. WE CAN DO OUR JOBS JUST FINE WITHOUT YOUR HELP.
TRY TO REMEMBER WHO'S THE BOSS. If Obama and the Democrats had to live in the real world, they might understand that in most places of work, the guy who writes their checks is the boss. On the other hand, they don't seem to get who's writing their checks right now. Governments have no money. People have money. Businesses pay no taxes. People pay taxes. We are the people. Our taxes are the checks that pay for your salaries, your light bills and all your crazy schemes. So when did you get this crazy idea that you get to over-rule us on how that money gets spent? We understand it's not a direct democracy; it's a representative republic. That's why our signs don't contain detailed policy proposals. They just spell out general principles. The details are your job. You see, you are servants, not rulers, and your bosses want you to spend less money, and get out of our business. Make it happen. DO YOUR JOB.

So there you have it. Policy proposals. And to think, they were right there in front of you all the time.

This is what a Republic looks like.

2011-08-09T23:14:00.000-05:00

Since Gov. Scott Walker's budget plan hit the floor of the legislature at the beginning of this year, the Left has pulled out all the stops to fight it, and to roll back Republican gains of the last election: importing and paying demonstrators, issuing crooked judicial rulings, office-holders fleeing the state, pouring millions of union dollars into a race for a State Supreme Court seat, and now, recall elections for six Republican State Senators. Democrats would need to win three of those races in order to flip control of the Senate. They have abused, bent and broken the rules; poured out-of-state funds into their efforts and shouted themselves hoarse.

As it stands at this writing, the Democrats appear to have failed. Oh, and two Democrat State Senators face recall elections next week.

But the really interesting news is that Wisconsin is already seeing astounding turnarounds in local government budget and private sector job creation under Republican policies. In a land suffering under the burden of a President who "made everything worse," a few Republicans have started to make a few things better.

Say, that sounds like the start of a national campaign...is it 2012 yet?

Rules of the game in government contracting

2011-08-09T21:54:00.000-05:00

FoxNews just aired a report about Anham, a defense contractor that is alleged to have overcharged the military for war zone supplies; for example, a $2 piece of PVC pipe for $140 (or so.) In response, the company says the charges are false, and that they have in fact saved the government $153 million.

Given that they work for a government that can claim to save millions of jobs even as long-term unemployment soars to record levels, and claim to cut spending by $2 trillion, even as it schedules increases of $7 trillion...well, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

They know the rules.

Tipping point for Obama?

2011-08-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

I keep reading that this week may have been the tipping point where the MSM finally lost faith in The One. I think that's wishful thinking, but still, it's refreshing to hear some otherwise reliable liberal voices beginning to mumble some of the things some of us were shouting from the rooftops three years ago.

I do think the one-line summary of Obama's Presidency, written now in wet concrete, is beginning to set:

HE MADE EVERYTHING WORSE.

That won't sway the MSM, no matter how many doubts they may voice this week, but once that summary is set in concrete, Independents will never come back to him, and even Democrats will feel free to stay home in 2012 (sorry, they won't vote for Perry.) And if those same Democrats begin to tell pollsters they disapprove of Obama's performance, the bottom will fall out of his polls.

Obama admits: 2008 was just a Hope-a-Dope

2011-08-04T23:08:00.002-05:00

At his birthday party, President Obama said:

"When I said ‘change we can believe in’ I didn‘t say ’change we can believe in tomorrow.’ Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we’ve got this big, messy, tough democracy...”

So there it is. It was all a hope-a-dope. Then again, in 2008 he told his faithful, fainting followers:

"Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals."

It seems to me that if "this is the moment" you're not selling a long-term deal. You're pretty much saying, as you did on election night 2008, "change has come" and:

"For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

Wait...did he just say tomorrow?

Does "The Hill" have no fact-checkers?

2011-08-04T12:45:00.003-05:00

Dow plunges after debt deal, raising anxiety over economy - The Hill's On The Money:

"After morning trading on Thursday, the Dow had lost more than 1,000 points since July 25, the first day of trading after talks between President Obama and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on a big debt deal broke off.

By comparison, the Dow lost 819 points on Oct. 6, 2008, when the House failed to approve the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)."

First, the House of Representatives did not reject TARP on October 6th. President Bush signed it into law on October 3d. The House rejected the bill on September 29th, and while stocks dropped more than 700 points that day, they recovered 500 the very next day. Most of the drop on the 29th, in fact, preceded the final vote, which many had assumed would result in passage of the bill. Its rejection was a surprise.

Second, beginning on October 1st, when the Senate passed a new version of TARP, stocks began a steady fall. During the week following enactment of TARP (October 3-10) the Dow fell by over 2000 points. As noted by The Hill, this included a one-day drop of 819 points on October 6th.

I recognize that rises and falls in the market can always be interpreted more than one way, but let's at least get the facts straight before we get to the interpretation: the market dropped temporarily, recovering most of its losses the next day when the House rejected TARP. It reacted far more adversely after TARP was passed, and signed into law.

So when we look at the market's reaction today, it seems to fit a pattern: when politicians claim to have solved a problem, Wall Street doesn't doesn't buy it.

UPDATE: The Hill has now (2:32 PM) revised the story to note the September 29th date, and the 777 point drop. However, they have not included any mention of the recovery on the 30th, nor of the much larger crash which followed passage of TARP. Instead, they imply that the only market drop was due to Republican rejection of the TARP bill, which they compare to this week's debt deal, also attributed to Republicans alone, despite strong bipartisan support. The original story might have been dismissed as carelessness. The revised version cannot be explained as anything other than deliberate dishonesty in pursuit of a partisan message.

Time for Nirvana's music catalog to enter the public domain?

2011-08-02T11:26:00.000-05:00

The article below was passed along to me by a friend who seemed to think this was good news - and I guess it is, to a certain extent, but it also raises a lot of questions in my mind.

Drug Prices To Plunge As Patents Expire

The next 14 months will bring generic versions of seven of the world's 20 best-selling drugs, including the top two: cholesterol fighter Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix.

It's worth noting, I think, that pharmaceutical companies spend many millions of dollars on both years of research and on navigation of the FDA's approval maze for each drug they bring to market. Some of those drugs offer truly miraculous cures for debilitating illnesses. In exchange, US intellectual property laws grant them a maximum of twenty years of protection, some of which will tick by before the drug even gets to market.

For example, the patent protecting Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering drug, ran out in June, 2011. That drug was approved by the FDA in 1997 - just 14 years ago. By contrast, Nirvana's last album was released in 1993 - so how long until it hits the public domain, so that we can freely download it?

Some argue that drug pricing is just too high, and drug companies make plenty of money. That argument is tough to sustain, though. James Cameron's Titanic, released the same year as Lipitor, quite famously earned more than $1 billion, yet Cameron still retains all rights, and will pass those rights, and continued profits, to his heirs.

You can argue that copyright has been extended too far, or drug patents not far enough, but I don't think you can argue that the current system is rational.

A deal is struck, and US debt is downgraded anyway. Because the issue was never the "ceiling."

2011-08-01T10:08:00.001-05:00

Egan-Jones today downgraded US debt from AAA to AA+. You can read the report, but here is the money quote:

We are taking a negative action not based on the delay in raising the debt ceiling but rather our concern about the high level of debt to GDP in excess of 100% compared to Canada's 35%.

It was never about the debt ceiling - it was about the debt. Nothing has changed with the deal.

Washington insiders hoping for bad news

2011-07-30T12:20:00.000-05:00

John Carney at CNBC reports that a "Washington insider" has been hoping for panic and bad news in the markets, so that the parties in Congress might be spooked into making a deal. Just like back in 2008:

He's still holding out hope for a panic sell-off at the end of the day.
"It's the only thing that's going to bring everyone together on this," he said.

Holding out hope for bad news - that's all you need to know about Washington insiders and people who push for deals and compromises. They think they know better than you, than me, than all of Wall Street. They've been screaming "panic!" for weeks now, yet nobody is running through the streets.

But they also have faulty memories of 2008. When the House of Representatives rejected the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" on September 29th, the market did indeed stumble, losing 775 points that day. But here is the rest of the story:

Leading up to the first vote, we were told repeatedly that this bill not only had to pass, but had to pass that very day or it would trigger a worldwide financial meltdown and Great Depression 2. Yet, despite the bill's failure, the sun rose on September 30th, there was no worldwide crash, and the Dow recovered almost all of the previous day's loss. (Hourly tracking of the market would in fact show that most of the losses occurred prior to the vote, whose outcome was not certain.)

It wasn't until the series of votes from October 1-3, reviving and passing the bill, that the market would truly crash, losing over 2300 points in a week. That's right - the big crash did not occur when the bill was rejected, it occurred when the bill passed.

In retrospect, nothing good came from that bailout. The Washington experts were wrong. Big surprise.

Please pay attention: Democrats have never wanted a solution by August 2d

2011-07-29T09:02:00.003-05:00

The chief argument advanced in favor of passing the Boehner Plan in the House of Representatives is that Republicans should "take what they can get," and "put the ball in the Democrats'" court.

There are only two flaws in this reasoning - its premise and its conclusion.

Democrats have agreed to nothing and conceded nothing. "Taking what you can get" is fine, but first you have to get it. Republicans are conceding ground with no agreement and no offer from the other side. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Harry Reid has openly promised that the Boehner plan will not pass the Senate.

The very idea that the Senate would bear any sort of blame by refusing to pass the Boehner plan ignores the fact that this already happened a week ago, followed by no Democrat counter-proposal, yet here is the conservative commentariat still talking about "intransigent Republicans." I get that the mainstream media has the "Republicans shut down government" stories all queued up, but why is this now a right wing talking point?

Should the Boehner bill pass, it will be the second solution passed by the House despite the Senate's open avowal to kill it. If there is one argument in support of passing the Boehner plan with absolutely no credibility whatsoever, it is that this will put the ball in the Democrats' court.

It should be abundantly clear to anybody with eyes that Democrats have no interest whatsoever in passing any plan, and they never did. Their obvious goal is a government shutdown for which Republicans will be blamed. This, of course, is exactly the strategy that has been openly discussed all year as Obama's only hope for re-election, and yet Republicans act as if they don't know what's going on here.

So, there they go, ready to kick the football, and Lucy isn't even pretending to hold it.

Look, I understand that shutting down the government and blaming Republicans is the Democrat end game, and I also understand that there may be no way to change that media narrative. But why in the name of all this is holy are so many conservative commentators jumping on board the blame-wagon?

Moody's calls for US to refinance debt on zero-down, subprime, no-documentation loans!

2011-07-18T12:41:00.001-05:00

I laughed so hard I cried when I read this article...

Budget: Moody's Suggests US Eliminates Debt Ceiling - CNBC:

"Ratings agency Moody's on Monday suggested the United States should eliminate its statutory limit on government debt to reduce uncertainty among bond holders."

Because, frankly, there'd be a lot less uncertainty about the government's solvency if it could borrow limitless amounts of money.

Go try to explain that to your mortgage broker next time you buy a house.

"Listen, you'll have a lot less uncertainty about whether I'll make my payments if you stop trying to put a limit on how big a loan you'll approve. I mean, come on, man! Don't tie my hands!"

Oh, I know - I'm oversimplifying. Moody's explains further:

"In the United States, Moody's said the debt limit had not effectively curbed the rise in government debt because lawmakers regularly raise it and because that limit is not related to the level of expenditures approved by Congress."

There, you see? It make much more sense now. The debt limit doesn't really restrain debt because it always just gets raised anyway. Therefore, instead of refusing to keep raising it, we should just not have a limit at all.

I think I tried that argument with my parents when discussing curfew back in high school.

Lefty nonsense: "Obscene Wealth" vs. truly obscene Federal profligacy

2011-07-15T11:32:00.000-05:00

I ran across this link via an acquaintance who found it to be a compelling indictment of the excesses of capitalism:

11 Things the Richest U.S. Households Can Buy That You Can’t | United for a Fair Economy

Excerpt (with highlights and emphasis from the original):

The richest 400 households can pay off every student loan for every single student in the entire United States. No more paying for an education, so that you can get a good job so that you can... well, pay off your education.
The richest 400 could pay your rent, and the rent of every single renter in the entire United States for three years.
The richest 400 could pay the mortgages of every house in the whole country for 14 full months.
The richest 400 households can buy every single house that was foreclosed on in 2007 and 2008.
The richest 400 households could pay the annual salaries of 19 million families for one year. So go ahead, take that year-long, family vacation around the world you’ve always dreamed of.
The richest 400 can pay off all credit card debt for every single person in the entire United States. Imagine that! No more credit card debt looming over your shoulders!

Etc. You get the point. Well, you might want to keep in mind that there actually are a few things that the "obscenely rich" can't buy with all of their money:

If you took every penny away from the richest 400 Americans, it would not balance the Federal Budget even for this year alone.
Since this is about wealth, not income, they would be left with nothing to contribute next year.
All of their wealth would not cover Social Security and Medicare for even one year.
You could confiscate all of their wealth and barely cover half of what Obama is currently demanding to have added to the Federal Debt Ceiling.

So there's a little food for thought. The "obscene wealth" of the wealthiest pales in comparison to the obscene profligacy of the Federal government under President Obama.

Just a few #BudgetTruths to consider

2011-07-10T13:38:00.000-05:00

There is an old saying that holds "you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts." Here are a few facts:

The top quintile of income in the United States starts at $88,000 of household income. If you make that much money (I'm looking at you, Schoolteacher married to a Cop,) you are not "middle class." You're "the rich." You make more that 80% of American households. So be really careful about supporting "taxing the rich."
Even if you assume higher rates do not affect behavior or earnings, consider this (I'm looking at you, Mr. President): you can take away 100% of all income over $250,000 in this country and not make the slightest dent in the nation's fiscal crisis.
There is no budget to balance. The Congress of the United States has not passed a budget in more than two years (I'm looking at you Democrat majorities,) yet has spent in excess of 7 trillion dollars in that time.
Standing athwart reform of Social Security and Medicare is the only political stance guaranteed not to save those programs, but to doom them.
Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them. Businesses don't pass "some" of their costs on - they always and without exception pass on 100% of every cost, plus a margin, or they go out of business. That isn't semantics - it's math.
In the last three years, Federal spending has skyrocketed by almost 30%. There is not a tax problem.

Feel free to play this game at home kids.

I don't get what Jon Huntsman is selling

2011-06-15T11:28:00.001-05:00

6 Days from Jon Huntsman Jr. on Vimeo.

Can you feel the excitement? Only six days until - HUNSTMANIA!

*crickets*

Don't get me wrong, I'll listen to the guy, but I just don't understand the point of announcing you'll announce. And I really don't understand trying to build anticipation for a guy who has yet to even casually introduce himself to 99.1% of Americans. (Yes, Utah really is .9% of the population of the United States.)

I am pretty plugged into politics, and about all I know about the guy is that he was governor of Utah, and served as Ambassador to China in the Obama administration - the most disastrous presidency in my lifetime.

So chalk me up as one who really has no idea what he's selling here, or why I should be excited about it.

Take a lesson from the huge buzz that was built up for "it!" which turned out to be the Segway. All that build-up for a dang scooter? It'll change our lives? Really?

I guess the difference is that the only buzz Huntsman is generating is the echo of his dirtbike on the canyon walls.

So I guess that's two reasons we should call him "Scooter."

A. Barton Hinkle, à la Dr. Seuss, assesses the #debt crisis (brilliant!)

2011-06-12T01:34:00.001-05:00

I found this over at the indispensable FreeRepublic.com, but it was originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Pass this one around!

Credit: Hinkle

A. Barton Hinkle

By A. Barton Hinkle - Published: April 22, 2011

(With apologies to Dr. Seuss.)

In the kingdom of Whatsis , on the Island of Ooze,

Lived a gaggle of Spendits of two different hues.

Each Spendit was feathered, each Spendit was plump,

Each walked with a kind of galumpety-lump.

They all looked alike, although it is true

Some Spendits were Red, and others were Blue.

But regardless of color, they all loved to eat

The fruit of the jubjub: It was juicy and sweet -

Like an orbulus orange, but tastier yet

And filling, and wholesome, and wetter than wet

And it gave them a case of the all-over yummies

As soon as a bite of it tickled their tummies.

The jubjub had grown on the Island of Ooze

For centuries - Eons! - Millennia! - choose

Your own measure then times it times ten;

The tree had grown giantish even back then.

And none of the Spendits, who were all rather small

Had ever seen anything close to it all.

But the Spendits did not merely eat the fruit - no!

They took jubjub twigs and arranged them just so

Into houses and stables with jubjub-leaf roofs,

And they used jubjub seeds to make goomfa-la-goofs

Which they slowly paraded 'round Jubjub Tree Park,

Which they'd paved, as you've guessed, with jubjub tree bark.

And everything oozlered on for a while,

With the Spendits all living in comfortable style

And the jubjub providing for every need;

Life in Whatsis was good, all the Spendits agreed.

Not a thing in the kingdom would now be amiss

If the Spendits had simply left it like this.

But oh no! - for you see, the Spendits grew greedy

And the Spendits with needs grew even more needy

And the ones who had plenty felt they deserved even more

So all of the Spendits Spent more than before.

Who started it off, no one ever quite knew -

Though they all blamed each other, as Spendits will do.

First little by little, then a lot by a lot

The Spendits began Spending more jub than they got.

An extra leaf here or a bit of fruit there -

Why, no one would miss it! Why, no one would care!

The tree was so big and the Spendits so bitty

That to not help themselves seemed almost a pity.

And besides, the jubjub had so many fine uses!

They Spent it for carpet, and fleeces and flooces,

And wingdigs, and wackmeres, and snorples and sneetches,

And fabric for jerkins and waistcoats and breeches.

They used it for tires and hung it as art -

Everything on the island had some jubjub part.

Then one day a small Spendit named Melody Monk

Was alarmed to discover the jubjub had shrunk.

It couldn't be possible! Yet it was so:

The nine-hundred steps that it took her to go

From Branch A to Branch B took eight sixty-three -

And since SHE was the same size, it must be the tree.

Then soon other Spendits began to take note -

So they made measurements, which they carefully wrote

In jubjub-leaf ledgers, so they could compare

How much jubjub there WASN'T with what USED to be there.

"Our jubjub is shrinking!" they cried in dismay

As they hacked off more pieces and dragged them away.

They formed a commission to study the tree,

And built it an office - then two, and then three -

And they staffed them with scholars, and clerics, and clerks

Who stayed up all night reading mystical works

So the blue-ribbon panel could answer the riddle

Of what could be making their giant tree little.

They studied two decades, then three, and then four,

While the Spendits kept Spending the same as before

And the jubjub kept shrinking, 'til one day they found

The top of the tree just an inch off the ground.

The leaves and the branches were all gone, it was true -

Which left them with only one thing left to do.

The top of a tree is not NEARLY as big

As the part underground - so they started to dig.

They brought in a giant jub-powered steam shovel

To dig out the roots, while back up above-l

The Spendits kept Spending jubjub for whatever

Seemed useful, or needed, or fancy or clever.

But once in a while they would pause and look down

At the hole that was growing below them, and frown,

And argue about which of them was to blame

For the gash in the ground - for it seemed quite a shame

That right in the middle of Ooze there should be

Such a black deficit where there once stood a tree.

"Our children!" they cried, in a voice like a moan

"There will be no more jubjub when they are all grown

If we keep digging like this! We must stop it right now!"

The problem, of course, was they didn't know how.

They'd gotten so used to their jub-Spending ways

That anything else left them lost in a daze.

"This is YOUR fault!" said some of the Reds to the Blues.

"You and your snork-snackered bar-bufaloos,

"Your fancy-dress gowns and your jewel-covered glasses

Have left nothing left for the Red Spendit masses!

Why, none of us Reds would have cause for complaint

If you greedy Blues had just shown some restraint!"

"Oh, it IS?" said the Blues, as they drew themselves up.

"What about your wumbulus flupper-de-flup?

Your mingulous gomers and two-decker kleetches?

Your hair bows and bracelets and lace-covered breeches?

Your Ooze Day Parades and your cakings and ices?

You Reds are the Spendits to blame for this crisis!"

So there they all stood, pointing fingers and yelling

While below them the black hole kept growing and swelling.

And then at the moment of greatest confusion

The panel announced it had reached a conclusion:

The Kingdom of Whatsis was bound for disaster.

The Spendits all nodded, then Spent even faster.

The last that was heard, from fifteen miles below ground

Was a very faint, kind of a grubulous sound.

The Spendits had all fallen in, don't you see,

In the hole they had made of their glorious tree -

And many years later they're bickering yet

Over who is to blame for their national debt.

But nobody else cares - no one even remembers

The kingdom of Whatsis or its big-Spending members,

Who could have been spared a horrible fate

If someone had only stood up to relate -

In the midst of their jubjub consumption and gigging -

The First Rule of Holes: When you're in one, quit digging.

The way to avoid a "charade," according to Steny Hoyer, is to vote the opposite of what you think is right.

2011-05-31T15:35:00.000-05:00

From TheHill.com:

"My advice to them would be not to play this political charade," Hoyer said at his weekly press briefing.

The way to avoid a "charade," according to Hoyer, is to vote the opposite of what you think is right.

You see, 114 Democrats are already on record saying that they support a "clean" debt limit hike. The party is also on record demanding a vote on this.

Now that the vote is scheduled, they have decided it would be hypocritical to do what they have said they would do, and what they believe is best for the country. Doing the opposite would be the highest sign of political integrity.

If this makes sense to you, congratulations. You're a Democrat.

Obama is just like Reagan? If only...

2011-05-26T11:32:00.001-05:00

Geraghty points to this account of Tony Blair's that Obama's latest initiative on the Middle East was prompted by Obama's fear of a UN resolution in favor of Palestinian statehood. If true, this confirms (again) the opinion many of us have had of Obama since 2008: he is not only a left-wing radical, still steeped in the economics of a 1930s Democrat and the foreign policy outlook of a 1980s campus radical, but he remains (mentally) on his 1980s campus, immune to the realities of the world around him, and still more concerned that his ideology meet with his peers' approval than whether that ideology is, in fact, correct.

This naiveté, combined with his suffocating level of self-regard, goes a long way towards explaining Obama's incompetence. It would be funny if it were not so dangerous.

But here come Obama and Cameron, likening themselves, in a Times of London op-ed, to Reagan and Thatcher, and the "Arab Spring" to the Cold war.

Yeah, you're just like Reagan in the Cold War. That is, if Reagan had told the Pope to back off on his support for Solidarity in Poland, capitulated at Reykjavík, and beseeched Gorbachev to "shore up this wall!"

Republican candidates are good messengers, but do they have the right message?

2011-05-26T09:10:00.000-05:00

Jay Cost presents a pretty solid case that the Republican field already is very strong, but I'm not quite convinced, and it has less to do with the character or records of the candidates than with the messages they are running with.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that Democrats who are still telling themselves that Obama is unbeatable are either delusional, or just whistling past the graveyard. Any basically competent Republican will, at a minimum, make this a real race.

What concerns me is the whole "this won't be easy" message. Pawlenty, in particular, seems to want to make "suck it up, kids" his central theme; to make green-eyeshade scolding the mark of true leadership. That sounds to me a lot like Walter Mondale's 1984 message ("He won't tell you that. I just did.") Maybe it's a Minnesota thing. I just don't think that people get enthused by messages like that - even in the current political climate where most people basically agree with the fiscal assessment.

In other words, the message can't be "we can beat this thing if we all sacrifice." It needs to be more along the lines of "we have to unleash the people from an over-reaching government that has grown far too large under Barack Obama."

It might seem like a subtle difference, but it isn't. "Telling hard truths" is a loser message. The people know budgets have to be cut. We need to talk about the great results we will get from that - and the great result is not that the budget will be balanced. No matter how much people agree on the importance of a balanced budget, that's not, and shouldn't be, the highest goal. Nobody votes for a President to balance the budget. That is just a steppingstone - a means to an end.

And the end is that America will be stronger, freer and more prosperous.

This argument has two added benefits. First, it makes the balanced budget simply one of the assumptions; a given. It's not our goal in itself, but it is a necessary step towards what we all agree upon. Therefore (second benefit,) anybody who stands in the way of balancing the budget is against America's strength, freedom and prosperity.

What the hell happens on campus? And why does it cost so much?

2011-05-26T08:22:00.000-05:00

What the hell happens on campus? (The Homa Files)

"If increasingly students don’t study, teachers don’t teach, and college employees aren’t primarily concerned with either, it raises the question of what the hell happens on campus."

Homa comments on some eye-opening figures cited in Rich Lowry's column from last Friday over at RCP. One stat that he highlights is this: the mean individual college debt burden on $23,000 is 8% higher than it was just last year. It would seem that the younger set, which strongly supported Obama's election three years ago, shares his fiscal discipline. Unfortunately for them (and all of us,) they will soon find out the hard way that Obama's policies are not likely to create the kind of career opportunities they are going to need to pay off all of that debt.

Middle East Policy: Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) ... Yeah, THAT KISS

2011-05-21T01:26:00.000-05:00

Newtmandias: a Gingrich lament in sonnet form

2011-05-19T10:03:00.002-05:00

Inspired by Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler's epic statement to the Huffington Post the other day, allow me to submit an even more ambitious version, in sonnet form:

Newtmandias
The literati bade their minions to
Respond to weakness seen on Meet the Press
To smite disruptive outsiders like Newt
(Not spilling drinks upon their cocktail best)
Attacking what they did not understand
Establishing new Twitter memes and lore
Anon they slung distortions at the man
'Til smoke and dust of falsehoods swept him o'er
Emerges now Colossus from the dust
With sword unsheathed he is not eas'ly downed
"For love of country!" cries he as he thrusts,
"I'm frankly fundamentally renowned!"
Energized, now cries he from his chair,
"Look on my works, Tea Party, and despair!"

Bin Laden is dead. Party on, Garth?

2011-05-04T08:37:00.000-05:00

There are three parts to my delayed reaction to the killing of Osama bin Laden by Seal Team 6 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and here is Part the First:

As I watched the reaction to the killing on television Sunday night, I couldn't help but become very uncomfortable with the impromptu rallies - both for their nominal motivation (cheering the death,) as well as their apparent motivation (Obama re-election rallies.)

As to the second motivation, I don't think I am reading too much into the rallies. I saw Obama signs being waved, and picked up numerous Twitter and Facebook comments along the lines of "whatcha got now, Republicans?!" Whether or not this event boosts Obama's political fortunes all that much is the subject of Part the Third; suffice it here to say, if this is your immediate reaction to the killing of bin Laden, you have a very narrow and unhealthy outlook.

I know it has become almost trite to bemoan our nation's lost moral compass, but what concerns me more than the political angle was just the general party atmosphere around the killing.

Last night, O'Reilly had a guest, a priest who had expressed disapproval of these rallies. As usual, the host mis-stated his guest's argument, and shouted him down. I am with the priest. As he said (if you could hear him beneath O'Reilly's idiotic ranting,) bin Laden may well be "better off dead," but that "necessary evil" is not cause for celebration, but for quiet reflection.

O'Reilly, as have others, compared the celebrations to the outbursts on V-E and V-J Days following victories in the Second World War. But those were not celebrations of any particular death. Rather, they were celebrations of an end to all the killings of that awful war; a nationwide homecoming celebration.

If we want to grant a benefit of the doubt to the partiers, it may be that they are all dumb enough to think that bin Laden's death really is the end of the "War on Terror;" that our decade-long battle was against only one man; that bin Laden was some sort of head of state, and his state will now crumble. Given that most of them appeared young enough to have been pre-teens on 9/11, who knows what forms their worldviews?

If you've been on a plane yet this week, you already know that the TSA still stands vigilant against shampoo, groping the elderly and lame in the name of ... well, in the name of something. Our Armed Forces still patrol Afghanistan and Iraq. Precious little has changed, and this war, when (if?) it ends, will end not with a bang, but a whimper.

Osama bin Laden is better off dead, the world is better off without him, and I do not mourn his loss. I am grateful for the men who carried out the mission, and grateful for their success.

So is it only because I am not of the video-game generation, that when his brains splattered the wall behind him, it just didn't seem like the right time to crack open the champagne and howl at the moon?

As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation?

2011-04-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

While the chanting reverberated through Wisconsin's stat capitol building a month ago, there were some who theorized (hopefully) that these protests would herald a new political backlash against the Tea Party movement. At the time, I disagreed.

The re-election of conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser would seem to vindicate my view. Time will tell whether the election is really a harbinger of a nationwide, permanent shift - as permanent as things can be in politics, anyway - but let's take a look at just how big this narrow victory really is:

Wisconsin has not voted for a Republican for president since 1984. Although George W. Bush lost there both times by a very narrow margin, suggesting the state might be "purple," Wisconsin went for Obama by a 14% margin.
Both US Senate seats from Wisconsin were held be Democrats from 1993 until last fall.
The left was enormously motivated, turning out 90% of registered voters in liberal Dane County, which include Madison and the University of Wisconsin, and the race was heavily politicized as a referendum on the policies of newly-elected Governor Scott Walker and the Republican legislative majority.
Interest groups nationwide poured money into the race, and all the enthusiasm, if one were to believe most media reports, was on the Democrat side.

Despite all that, in this purple-leaning-blue state, the Democrats' high-water mark still fell short. Consider the contrast to the Tea Party movement that arose in the spring of 2009. The high-water mark for that movement was probably around the time the Democratic Congress passed Obamacare in defiance of the huge crowds outside the US Capitol, and despite overwhelming opposition expressed in public opinion polls. Yet nine months later, voters still threw Democrats out of office in historic fashion. Imagine if 2010's election had been in April instead of November.

As always, it's tough to make prediction a year and a half out from an election, but Wisconsin's results would seem to demonstrate that even the highest outrage of the left does not motivate a majority, and that's good news for Republicans who take fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty seriously.

Obama's incoherent Libya speech was par for the course

2011-03-28T19:38:00.000-05:00

I found the speech utterly incoherent.

The United States is an indispensable leader, but our leadership must be dispensed with. We had to act because Gaddafi is an intolerably brutal dictator, but we can't remove him from power. Every country is different - for example, in Libya, Gaddafi used force against his own citizens, which violates our core values. By contrast, in Iran "change is fiercely suppressed."

The gratuitous and mean poke at Iraq policies of the past was par for the course. I can't remember a speech he's given that did not include a dishonest smear of somebody.

The repeated references to the youth leading a wave of freedom was aimed at the Democratic base, in my view. It's the same silly talking point that's been all the buzz at Daily Kos and Huffington Post since the union hirelings and indolent students descended on the capitol: "Look! Madison is just like Tahrir Square!"

The president remains an empty suit, and his incompetence will continue to make the world a much more dangerous place.

I'm not opposed to all wars...

2011-03-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

I suffer no illusions about Muammar Gaddafi. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Libyan people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Gaddafi poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Libya will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an attack on Libya without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

Of course you have guessed by now that the above is part of Barack Obama's speech against the Iraq War, with names and place substituted to reflect the current war.

Just food for thought.

No, the Wisconsin protests are nothing like the Tea Parties

2011-03-10T10:18:00.001-06:00

Some analysts are beginning to postulate that the protests in Madison, Wisconsin may turn into a larger sort of wave in favor of Democrats. I don't see it. I think there are a few disconnects in Wisconsin that suggest it will be tough to expand the protests to a greater political movement:

1. The disconnect between the apocalyptic protest rhetoric and reality.
Tea Partiers warned of the dangers of Obamacare and the stimulus. Since those things passed, none of the promised benefits have come to pass, and all of the dire warnings have been proven true. Deficits are at catastrophic levels, the economy remains in its doldrums, Obamacare has been ruled unconstitutional, and health insurance costs have skyrocketed while availability has shrunk.

By contrast, we are not going to see Wisconsin teachers in poverty next year - or ever. Their pay, benefits and lives just won't really change all that much. They'll still earn above the median income, as they do everywhere in America.

2. The disconnect between abstract "disapproval" and real-world disapproval.
People may say that they favor "collective bargaining rights," but it's difficult to imagine that very many of them could articulate exactly what they mean by this. It's even more difficult to imagine that, seeing government workers in Wisconsin remaining unionized next year, they will be at all angry about how Republicans took away...what?

3. The disconnect between disapproval and action.
Don't be misled by the apparent size of the protests in Madison. Unions have organized protests, and bussed in out-of-state protesters. This is probably the biggest contrast with the Tea Parties which were, and remain, completely un-organized, grassroots movement. People who wanted to join a march got in their cars and drove there. That is a level of enthusiasm that can't be matched by the Wisconsin protests.

The participants in Madison are hardcore Democrats - unionized government employees and campus leftists (it is a big college town, you know.) They certainly will vote against Republicans in 2012 - but they did that in 2010, also. Those crowds just don't contain the same numbers of former Independents as did the Tea Party events.

Anything can happen in politics, and I'm not one to suggest that Republicans have some kind of irreversible grasp on power. But they are much more likely to lose their majorities because they've disappointed the Tea Party crowd than because they ticked off hardcore democrats in Madison, Wisconsin.

HOV lanes make traffic worse - because that's what they were meant to do

2011-03-08T07:37:00.000-06:00

Joan Didion on Traffic | The Weekly Standard

Whenever I am out on the overcrowded freeway, looking over at the empty HOV lane, it occurs to me that those lanes serve no purpose other than to make traffic much worse. No sane person could expect them to accomplish anything else, and there can therefore be no other motive.

It turns out, my impression is factually correct.

Wisconsin state workers already pay for their pension? Then why are they so mad at Scott Walker?

2011-02-25T20:17:00.000-06:00

Over at tax.com, a fellow named David Cay Johnston makes the claim that Wisconsin state workers already cover their own pensions. Naturally, this silly claim has been picked up, and waved triumphantly about by the lefty blogosphere.

I'm not going to dive down into the details, as a number of suckers already have in Johnston's comments section. Why bother? The truth is a lot simpler to discern here.

If what Johnston claims is true, it's funny that none of the protesting state workers have made the same claim, don't you think? I mean, you would think that would have come up when workers were asked to concede on this point.

You would also think, if they are already covering their retirement benefits, then Walker's proposal that future collective bargaining be restricted to wages would not be much of a sticking point, either. After all, if they are already covering their retirement, this wold be no change at all.

So why are they so mad?

Let's not get caught up in foolish arguments.

The state workers understand what they pay and what they don't, even if Johnston doesn't.

If you follow the money in Wisconsin, it leads to Democrat machine politics

2011-02-24T10:49:00.002-06:00

From the fever swamps of the left to your (Wisconsin) neighborhood democrats, dark conspiracy theories about the nefarious Koch brothers, and their puppetry of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are slowly becoming mainstreamed.

Let's put a couple of things into perspective here. I have no problem with "following the money," but the Kochs have hardly tilted the playing field. Their contribution to Walker's 2010 campaign was dwarfed by contributions to Democrats by Wisconsin teachers' unions alone.

There's big money in politics all right, but as the indispensable Michael Barone has pointed out, the biggest money of all comes from AFSCME, which contributed almost $90 million in 2010, almost exclusively to Democrats.

It's no wonder Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against the reforms proposed in Wisconsin. It's not about unions, or collective bargaining, or workers' rights or any other anachronistic nonsense being chanted by the dime-store tub-thumpers in the capitol building.

It's about protecting the campaign cash gravy train that's been the heart and soul of the Democrat machine for the last fifty years.

And the provision in the bill that they fear the most has nothing to do with concessions on pay or even collective bargaining. Rather, it's the change in law which would give government employees the option to join the union in the first place. Right now, those workers have no choice. They have as much as $1,100 a year extracted from their paychecks (read: Wisconsin tax dollars) and have no say in the political purposes on which it is spent.

Less than 7% of private sector workers are unionized. If government workers' unionization shrank to that level, Democrat campaign cash would dry up very quickly.

Let's face it, the outcome of the battle in Wisconsin will ultimately have little appreciable effect on the pay or working conditions of government employees.

For Democratic politicians, though, it's a battle for survival.

Workers' rights implies employer powers; powers government does not have

2011-02-20T08:47:00.000-06:00

When he first ran for President in 1992, Texas billionaire Ross Perot often promised that when he got to Washington, he'd "run it like a business."

It's one of the biggest reasons I didn't support him.

There's no doubt that Perot is a successful and intelligent businessman, but it's difficult to believe he could manage to amass his fortune and never figure out this truth: government is not a business.

Today, we have thousands of government employees demonstrating in the street over employment contract disputes in Madison, Wisconsin, and it seems to me that they share Perot's misapprehension about how government works.

Again: it isn't a business. For one thing, government should never have, or achieve, a goal of growth or profit.

They are called "public servants" because they are not simply employees serving the finite economic purposes of a business. Public servants serve a need defined by our society, and body politic, as necessary for the common good.

That's not to say they should not be paid fairly. However, their compensation is also a political decision, and ultimately, both the lawmakers and government unions are on the same side of the negotiating table.

It is not morally within the realm of the powers of elective office to elevate the needs of this self-selected minority above those of the larger society which both elected and non-elected public servants are supposed to serve.

Nor can it be truly a right for non-elected public servants to use the powers of collective bargaining to elevate their standing above those they are supposed to serve. Implicit in collective bargaining is the ability to quit; to hold the continuation of the business hostage. But striking government workers aren't shutting down one factory. They are shutting down the government. They aren't using their leverage against a small ownership group; they are using it against the entire body politic and even subsequent generations of taxpayers, all of whom have no real say in the negotiation.

In an ideal world, all of our wages would be determined by a free market. But a free market implies free decision-making, and taxpayers are simply not free to decide what they are willing to pay on a contract by contract basis. They are only free to decide who will make those decisions for them over a limited period of time, based on a limited set of priorities.

Their elected officials are bound to represent those interests, expressed in a free election, and public servants are bound by the same. Government decides things, and acts, more slowly than private business. That's one of the reasons, unfortunately for those who choose it, that "public service" used to be generally lower paid work.

But it isn't any more - why is that?

To save you time, Palin & Obama's remarks as Wordles...

2011-01-13T19:38:00.000-06:00

Sarah Palin's remarks:

President Obama's remarks:

The Term ‘Blood Libel’: More Common Than You Might Think - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot

2011-01-12T18:23:00.000-06:00

The Term ‘Blood Libel’: More Common Than You Might Think - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot - National Review Online

Geraghty has a pretty good round-up here. Not surprisingly, the phrase "blood libel" raised no alarms until just today, when Sarah Palin used it. Funny, that.

I hope they are all able to unwind their panties the next time Andrew Sullivan and others use the phrase.

As Michael C. Moynihan points out over at Reason, the term "eliminationist," which has gained a great deal of currency among finger-pointers of late, is one first coined to describe the Nazis.

Given that, perhaps Palin's phrasing was especially appropriate...

Mission accomplished...uh...everybody who's ever used the word "target?"

2011-01-09T10:32:00.000-06:00

So tweeted Kos yesterday:

So blogged Kos in 2008:

Take a breath. You have to be a horrible person to try to score points off the Arizona shooting

2011-01-08T21:51:00.004-06:00

Democratic Leadership Council, 2004

Using targets in graphics, calling political adversaries enemies, saying “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” etc. It’s figurative. No sane person takes it literally, and no insane person is motivated by it.

Even critically-acclaimed murderous political fantasies can’t be blamed (can they?)

Today’s shooting in Arizona clearly was not a political act. The shooter had no discernible political philosophy at all (even if his old pals say he was left-wing.) I’m pretty sure he didn’t even have any clear perception of the world around him. He was deranged. There is no deeper meaning, much as we wish that there were.

Sarah Palin, 2010

That, after all, would be easier to understand.

Yet, because of his reported drug problems and criminal record, some on the right will want to use this to push for more drug laws. (UPDATE: Yep.) Because he chose to shoot, some on the left will use it to push for gun laws. (UPDATE: and check.) Each will accuse the other of hypocrisy.

Enough.

Bad things happen. This was one of them. A really, really bad thing.

Blaming your political foes for it is kind of, well, putting a target on them.

WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system | World news | guardian.co.uk

2010-12-19T13:32:00.000-06:00

WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system | World news | guardian.co.uk

Now that is really rich. Cuba found Moore's propaganda too implausible to allow. As they say, read the whole article.

(h/t The Corner)

Simpson-Bowles commission presents a "Wimpy" proposal; don't give them the hamburger!

2010-11-11T08:27:00.000-06:00

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform ("Simpson-Bowles Commission") has released its preliminary report on debt and deficit reduction. The report has met a mixed reaction, although on balance, it seems that Democrats are most strongly opposed to it. It's hard for me to understand why, and I mostly agree with ATR's take.

The most important thing for you to know about this "measured, bipartisan" proposal is that it boldly calls for balancing the budget in thirty years. Yes, thirty. To accomplish that, it calls for a number of measures that I still need to take some time to absorb, but let me take on one of the more alarming ones here.

The report calls for "capping" tax revenues at 21% of GDP. At a glance, I suppose, most people like any sort of cap on taxes. Here are some reasons this may be the most appalling proposal

Since the end of the Second World War, the tax burden has gone above 20% only twice, and only very briefly (in 2000 and in 1945.) For the past thirty years, it has averaged 18.2% of GDP. That "cap" of 21% would be the highest tax burden in American history, and nearly a 17% tax hike above the average. See here.
During times of recession, the burden normally appears to fall. Right now, tax receipts are about 14.2%. Under Simpson-Bowles there would still be room for a 33% tax hike. Think about that.
Based on track records, there is reason to believe that the "cap" would in practice become a "floor."
One of the many difficulties of pinning taxes to GDP is that it requires accurate forecasts of GDP, income and profits. There are no such forecasts - especially from the Congress.
Having a cap suggests that tax rates would automatically drop if the cap is exceeded, but there is no enforcement mechanism; tax rates don't adjust throughout the year. There is also no mechanism for a "make-up" if the burden is exceeded in any given year.

There are numerous problems with the proposed cap, not least of which is that, as I pointed out above, it would be the heaviest tax burden in our history. And in exchange for that, we'll balance the budget by the time your unborn grandchildren get married.

When I call this a wimpy proposal, I don't mean it isn't bold enough. I mean it reminds me of Wimpy: "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

Don't fall for it. Don't give them the hamburger.

There may not be a conservative "mandate," but there is definitely an anti-liberal "mandate"

2010-11-10T07:50:00.000-06:00

Democrats can't wait to jump in front of a microphone to declare that, despite the overwhelming margin of victory in last week's elections, Republicans don't have a "mandate."

Well, what does that mean, exactly?

There is really no question that electoral victories - by any margin - can be won without regard to, or even discussion of, any issues. (Alvin Greene anyone?)

There is also no doubt that parties and office-holders can "go too far" interpreting a mandate to do so from their election.

What Democrats are in denial about right now is that it is they who went too far. There may or may not be a mandate for conservative policies, but one thing is abundantly clear: there is a mandate to undo everything Democrats did for the last two years.

It turns out, "the most electable conservative candidate" is exactly who got nominated

2010-11-04T13:20:00.000-05:00

I'm a little tired of being lectured about the supposed iron-clad rule of William F. Buckley, Jr. that one should vote for "the most electable conservative candidate." Or was that "the most conservative electable candidate?" Because that would mean something different, if you think about it.

Either way, the phrase has been over-used, mis-used and abused, and mostly brought out to hammer candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. So let me lay some things to rest here.

Exactly who was "the most electable" in the Nevada primary? Sue Lowden? Why? Because she's represented one state senate district for a few terms? That would have made her a formidable opponent to the sitting Senate Majority Leader, who's held statewide office in Nevada for decades?

Let me put it this way: I'll bet chickens to doctor's appointments that Sue Lowden would not have fared any better in the general election, and would have been painted as just as much of an eccentric as Angle.

Who else was there for Republican primary voters to consider? Danny Tarkanian? Tarkanian, though successful in suing his opponent for defamation in a failed state senate bid, has never won an election for anything. The sum total of arguments in his favor seems to be that his father was a very famous basketball coach. Enough said.

CNN's exit polls in Delaware tell us that voters would not have elected Mike Castle, either. That's not really provable, because it's an election that never took place, but the data puts a bit of dent in the ongoing claims that he'd have been a shoo-in to the Senate. Neighboring Maryland rejected the eminently "electable," likable, popular, mainstream Republican Bob Ehrlich for governor by a margin similar to O'Donnell's. Some states were remarkably immune to this year's "wave."

Ultimately, though, the sheer emptiness of the "most electable" dictum comes down to this: electability is determined by elections, and that includes primaries.

And that is the one really big flaw in the ongoing arguments for the "electability"of Mike Castle, Sue Lowden, and all those others that we were too stupid to nominate: they lost their elections.

You can argue that Republicans could have used some better candidates in places like Nevada and Delaware. You can't argue that they were ever on the ballot.

The American Spectator : The Observer at His Own Funeral

2010-11-04T09:36:00.000-05:00

The American Spectator : The Observer at His Own Funeral: "Obama's metaphorical 'car in the ditch' is apparently an electric car which, if it ever gets out, will drive America into a glorious future by picking up 26-year-olds and depositing them at job interviews for work made possible through the 'Stimulus' package."

As they say, read the whole thing...

The morning after

2010-11-03T07:32:00.000-05:00

Before getting too worked up about the handful of races Democrats managed to pull out, let's reflect on the enormity of last night's electoral victory.

Republicans now hold a larger House majority than at any time since the 1946 election. AS big as 1994 was, this one is bigger.
Republicans gained more seats in the House and Senate than Democrats gained in the wake of Watergate and Nixon's resignation in 1974. Keep that in mind as a "scale of repudiation."
Democrats will want to talk about the races they squeaked out, starting with Harry Reid. Reid, the sitting Senate Majority Leader, squeaked out barely 50% against a complete unknown, and may well have broken election laws to do so. Let the Democrats talk. They were thoroughly thrashed. No party wins every race.

Now comes the fun part - holding Republicans' feet to the fire.

Tuesday predictions...

2010-10-31T23:25:00.000-05:00

Prediction time:

75 seats (minimum) in the House of Representatives.

Majority in the Senate.

I arrived at this conclusion about two weeks ago, and I think it's conservative. We'll see. I am working on another post about exactly how much - or how little - it will matter.

Who's afraid of corporate cash?

2010-10-27T11:19:00.000-05:00

The blogosphere was all abuzz with stories about the protester who got kicked by a Rand Paul supporter in Kentucky during an attempted publicity stunt.

Now we learn that the victim was a paid protester who has participated in various stunts across the country.

Naturally, liberals want to paint this as an example of Tea Party types trying to prevent free speech. A few thoughts on that:

First, it wasn't, technically, "free" speech, since she got paid to do this.

Second, she was an employee of MoveOn.org, a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation. Remember back when President Obama criticized the Supreme Court's Citizen's United v. FEC decision because it would bring that dreaded corporate cash into our elections?

Citizen's United is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, same as MoveOn.org.

Funny how that works, isn't it? In January, we needed to stop the evil influence of corporations like that. Now we have to stop the people who are stopping those corporations from buying political speech.

I shouldn't have to add this qualifier, but I suppose I do: I am not advocating tackling, beating or kicking liberal protesters. In fact, I think the best argument against them is to let them talk.

"Miss me yet?" "Yes!" says...Donna Brazille???

2010-10-25T08:28:00.001-05:00

Everybody wants to own Ronald Reagan now. Even President Obama, while campaigning for office, held up the Reagan presidency as his model. But Reagan's enduring popularity, his clear victory in the Cold War, and people's tendency to avoid speaking ill of the dead make it mush easier for even the most vicious of Reagan's contemporary detractors to have softened in retrospect.

Not so with George W. Bush. The mysterious billboards that have popped up, with a smiling, waving W asking "Miss me yet?" have not been embraced by the angry left - including the President, who stubbornly (bitterly?) clings to blaming Bush for everything bad.

Yet, in a New York Times forum this morning, Democrat strategist Donna Brazille, decrying current "extremism" in Republican politics, says:

With the departure of George W. Bush, the (Republican) party has lost its integrity. Its once principled soul is gone.

Say again? George W. Bush fondly remembered as his party's "principled soul" by a key operative of the party for which Bush hatred as been the heart, soul, and raison d'être for ten years now? That's a dizzying turnaround.

Somebody put a billboard up outside of Donna Brazille's office...

"Partial repeal" will only make the GOP accessories after the fact

2010-10-22T18:46:00.000-05:00

Recent reports suggest that Republican leadership is already toying with compromise half-measures as opposed to total repeal of Obamacare. Some might argue that they should get rid of whatever they can. After all, it is mathematically impossible for the GOP to win a veto-proof majority, so isn't it better to get what you can get?

How do I put this?

NO!!!!

Very little could be more destructive. Partial repeal is partial ownership.

Imagine you've bought a house, and the day you move in, you find a dead body in the basement. What do you do? Cover it with a tarp and buy a bunch of air fresheners? Wait for the neighbors to cal the cops and then try to explain you didn't do it?

How do I put this?

NO!!!!

Of course you wouldn't do that. Because if you did, you wouldn't be making it better.

You'd be an accessory after the fact.

Compromises and half measures, insofar as they are ever used at all, are for building legislation, not for tearing it down. Of course Obama will veto repeal. Make him do it. Make him explain to the police where the body came from.

Obama Healthcare Shuffle

2010-10-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

If I only had a brain - or a Harvard diploma...

2010-10-12T09:50:00.001-05:00

Anne Applebaum takes on the topic of anti-elitism in the Washington Post today, and gets it exactly wrong. While it may be true that the view of what constitutes the elite has changed a bit over the years, the constant has been that those who wish to be part of the elite value credentials, while those who deride the idea of elitism believe in accomplishment.

Take Applebaum’s assertion that affirmative action expanded the “meritocracy.” To the contrary, the opening of Ivy League doors through affirmative action is, instead, expressive of a Wizard of Oz view that all you need to prove you are smart – indeed, to actually be smart - is a fancy piece of paper. Recall, the Scarecrow does not receive a brain at all, he only gets a diploma. Affirmative action only replaced the old legacy system with a different system, but one which still enables the elites to choose their own successors. They are the Wizards of Oz, deciding which hapless Scarecrows shall be deemed worthy of their diploma – their mark of approved intelligence.

The outcry against elitism was never against education per se, or even against particular schools. "Yale" and "Harvard" are figures of speech to the meritocrats, while "University of Idaho" and "community college" are evidence to the elites.

It is important to note that Yale and Harvard, while used as symbols of elitism to those who deride the elite, are equally marks of superiority to those who consider themselves to be the elite. The difference between the two is that meritocrats believe you go to Harvard or Yale because you are smart; the elites believe you are smart because you went to Harvard or Yale. The university names become figures of speech not to question the educational merits of the institutions themselves, but to mock the shallow credentialism that they too often represent.

Recall, as Applebaum points out, that Clarence Thomas graduated from Yale Law. Yet Tea Party activists never decry Thomas’s elitism. At the same time, the left sniffs derisively that he got there by affirmative action. In other words, he ought to be grateful to have had his empty Scarecrow head bestowed with this honor.

George W. Bush must cause the greatest distress for all. A third generation national political figure, scion of East Coast wealth and a graduate of both Yale and Harvard, he was nevertheless derided as an idiot by the elite. Because, you see, he only got in under the old rules for "legacies," not the new rules for today's favored groups.

The reason some (like Applebaum, apparently) get so confused by criticisms of the elite, is that they are so completely caught up in their own credentialism fetish. It isn’t about the school you attended. When Christine O’Donnell says “Yale” it’s just a figure of speech.

To the elites, though, there are no figures of speech, and even if there were, Yale and Harvard could not possibly be “just words.”

It's fine to read between the lines. But you ought to read the actual lines, too

2010-10-03T14:34:00.001-05:00

Over in the Washington Examiner, Byron York documents the union-driven (and funded) attendance at yesterday's "One Nation" rally in Washington.

In his report, he quotes Maida Odom (representing AFSCME) who says "I'm saddened that people haven't risen above their bigotry. If you read the Republican Contract with America, you can see the bigotry in between every line."

Interesting. Given that she can't even get the title of the document right, you'll pardon my skepticism about whether she read any other part of it.

Maybe she figures that "between the lines" is just white space anyway, that she might just as well stare at a blank piece of paper, then spout off her preconceived notions and Democrat talking points.

For the rest of us, "reading between the lines" is just a figure of speech, and you can't read between the lines if you haven't read the actual lines.

Van Jones endorses Tea Party candidates!

2010-09-29T08:31:00.001-05:00

Van Jones recently popped up to offer dire warnings about the Tea Parties:

I don’t think you want the Tea Party running your community, running your family, running your government.

Well, the good news for Van is this: the Tea Parties don't want to run your families and communities. They're the ones that want the government to leave us all alone. It's the crowd in power now who think they know best about your schools, your doctors, the food you eat, how much money you "should" make, how much you weigh and an endless list of other concerns that are rightly no concern of the government's.

So if you really, really, just don't want the Tea Party "running your family," the best thing you can do is vote for Tea Party approved candidates.

So, thanks for the endorsement, Van!

This is what "rescue" looks like? Really?

2010-09-29T08:26:00.000-05:00

I keep hearing that TARP was necessary to "save the financial system."

Really? Two years of decline, stagnant growth and 10% unemployment? This is what rescue looks like?

I feel like I'm on Season 3 of LOST - "we have to go back!"

Why is this recovery so weak? "This time you've got me."

2010-09-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the "Great Recession" ended in June of 2009. Why does that bit of policy arcana matter?

In June, 2009, not one penny of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka, "Stimulus," had been spent. Our government spent 862 billion dollars to stimulate and economy that was already out of recession.

What did we get for our money? Persistent unemployment hovering just below 10% and a stagnant growth rate.

Historically, recovery period growth has been explosive. This time, it hasn't.

What's the difference? Well, to quote President Obama in a different context, "The big difference here (is) you've got me."

Obama to Tea Party: "What would you cut?" Short answer: "Everything"

2010-09-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

At his "town hall" forum the other day, President Obama responded to a question about the Tea Party movement saying, in part, this:

And so the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically what would you do. It's not enough just to say, get control of spending. I think it's important for you to say, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits, or I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits, or I'm willing to see these taxes go up.

As I've explained previously, this is a standard to which liberals and the media (but I repeat myself) do not hold any other demonstrators. Did Obama demand of anti-Iraq War protesters in 2006 that they present a plan indicating which brigades should draw down first, or outline a transition plan to hand off to Iraqi forces? Of course not.

But, just for the sake of argument, I'll appoint myself as a Tea Party spokesman. Why not? It's not a top-down organization. So, the question was, what would I cut?

Short answer: EVERYTHING.

Only in Washington, DC is that notion considered beyond the pale, but the simple fact is that this year's estimated(!) deficit of $1.4 trillion is larger than the entire Federal budget was as recently as 1995. That's only fifteen years ago. Some of us are still driving the same cars as we were then, but Congress has very nearly tripled its spending (of our money) and they can't figure out where to cut? Honestly, anybody who has to ask "where should we cut?" is fundamentally unserious. There is no reason that the first cut cannot be across the board, applied to every single line of the budget.

We often discuss regulations and spending as if they were unrelated, but for every regulation, there is an enforcer. As you may already know, in the early 1990s, Congress mandated "low flow" toilets. It is unlikely that law will ever be repealed, but we can defund it. Sure, it's only one example, but it symbolizes so many things. How about somebody bring a sing to the next Tea Party rally?

Get rid of the toilet cops!

Was O'Donnell the strategic choice? That depends on your strategy.

2010-09-15T16:49:00.000-05:00

Picking a candidate in a primary solely because you think he has a better chance to win the general election is not voting. It is, strictly speaking, gambling. But that’s what some GOP gurus call "strategic thinking."

The simple fact is that making bets on how to get that 51st vote in the Senate this year isn’t strategic at all – it’s tactical, and it's short-sighted. It ignores the next four years of Castle’s potential term in office, not to mention the 2014 election, in which, presumably, he’d be favored. It simply isn't enough to vote for 51 "R's" if the R doesn't stand for anything.

Delaware primary voters made a strategic choice; a choice for 2020, and 2016, and 2012 – and maybe this year, too. That remains to be seen. But this is what change looks like. It doesn’t happen all at once, but it has to start someplace. First you take the hill, then you take the bridge, then you win the war. Always be advancing.

We’ll know in November whether the day has come when Delaware is ready to elect a Conservative the Senate, but we already know that day would never come if Republican primary voters weren’t ready to nominate a Conservative first.

Karl Rove continues to attack the character and integrity of Christine O’Donnell, as if Mike Castle or Chris Coons have no baggage. It's not as if Coons has ever won a statewide race. Is he not a self-descibed former "bearded Marxist?" And now he's a shoo-in? Really?

The Delaware Republican primary voters who have already weighed the issues Rove raises found them not to be disqualifying. For that matter, the Delaware Republican Party presumably weighed those issues when it made O’Donnell its nominee for this very same Senate seat just two years ago.

So when those same experts tell us now that O'Donnell has no chance, or she is unqualified, they are proving only their own cynicism and bad faith.

Morning in America? The NRSC got a wake-up call, and (for once) didn't hit the snooze button

2010-09-15T10:45:00.001-05:00

After initial reports that it would not support O'Donnell, the NRSC now says it has sent her the maximum donation allowable.

After backing Specter, Crist, Bennett, Murkowski, etc., maybe the NRSC is finally figuring out that they shouldn't be trying to figure out how the Tea Party fits into the Republican coalition, but how the Republican Party fits into the Tea Party coalition.

Okay, Rove, Castle and NRSC, we know what you think of us. Now you know what we think of you, too.

2010-09-15T09:23:00.001-05:00

Just a few days ago, your betters were lecturing you about how important it is to win elections, and that therefore Mike Castle ought to be the Republican nominee for Senate from Delaware. It did not matter to them that he votes with the Democrats half the time. All that mattered, they argued, is that he can win. We all had to pull together on this one.

But before all the votes had even been counted in Christine O'Donnell's win over Castle, there was Karl Rove, attacking the freshly-minted nominee; there was the NRSC, pledging to spend not one dime in support of her candidacy; there was Mike Castle himself, refusing to support her.

Why? Because not one of them really thinks victory is important. Not one of them thinks we need to pull together - they want you to get out and push.

They have clearly already surrendered.

When Karl Rove launches into his diatribe of accusations against O'Donnell, he's not calling her unqualified, he's calling Delaware primary voters stupid. When Mike Castle refuses to endorse O'Donnell, he is telling those same voters that he still knows better than they do. When the NRSC says that if the Tea Partiers want O'Donnell, they can pay for her campaign themselves, they are saying that Tea Partiers are useful only if they shut up and do what they're told.

And all of that just proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Delaware Republicans made exactly the right choice.

The time to support liberal Republicans is against Democrats, not in the Republican primary

2010-09-14T08:02:00.001-05:00

A lot of high profile conservatives have been debating the O'Donnell/Castle primary for the Senate in Delaware, and their debate raises some important issues.

I have not followed the race closely enough to comment on the issues that have been raised about O'Donnell's character and honesty, which i think are an entirely separate matter. I only want to comment on the whole notion of choosing a nominee based on general election "electability."

I can understand the argument that even a liberal Republican is better than any Democrat. the first vote either one casts will be for the leadership from his own party. Here's where I jump off, though:

This race is for a Senate seat. In the House, the agenda in majority driven, and each member, proportionately, has less power due to both procedural rules and sheer numbers. In the Senate, every member is a minority of one, with the ability to torpedo major legislation, sometimes entirely singlehandedly.

If Mike Castle gets six years in the Senate, it is a virtual certainty he will be the one man to stop some major Republican initiative, probably before the 2012 election. That's what liberal Republicans do. And when they do, it is enormously destructive politically. It not only defeats that specific piece of legislation, but validates Democrat attacks on Republican "extremism." After all, it is so extreme, the party's own members are sticking out there necks to stop it.

The time for conservatives to support a Mike Castle is after he nominated, not before. It is only after he is nominated that he is the lesser of two evils. To argue that the general electorate is not conservative enough to support the more conservative candidate from the Republican primary ignores the fact that the first step towards changing that general electorate is for the Republicans themselves to move to the right. If they are a little bit nervous, prominent Conservatives don't need to be enablers for the moderates and squishes.

They talk about him like a dog?

2010-09-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

Eugene Robinson needs his diaper changed

2010-09-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

Over at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is plugging his ears, closing his eyes, and singing really loudly.

Wait, did I just call him childish? Because that would be a really immature thing to do. It would be uncivil, really. It would be worse than name-calling. I would be implying that there is no legitimate reason to disagree with me, so he must be mentally impaired in some way; arrested development; bad motives.

That would be a really poor example for me to set. So I take it back. He's not childish.

But he thinks you are.

Obama wasn't damning Bush with faint praise - it was just another "bitter clinger" moment

2010-09-01T15:34:00.000-05:00

During his Oval Office Address on Iraq last night, President Obama said that "no one can doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security."

Many have criticized the president for his lack of graciousness; accusing him of, in effect, damning former President Bush with faint praise.

In fairness, from Obama's perspective, perhaps support for the troops and love of country is a pretty high bar to clear. After all, can you imagine anybody (with a straight face) offering the same assessment of our current president?

Still, it came across to me as another "bitter clinger" moment. In other words, Obama was not praising George W. Bush at all. Rather, he was analyzing the petty, backwards, and childish motivations that must have led him to try to win a war in which the nation was already engaged.

It's perfectly understandable, you see? Bush was bitterly clinging to an antiquated notion of patriotism and tribal loyalty. Not like President Obama, Citizen of the World.

James J. Kilpatrick, RIP

2010-08-16T14:37:00.000-05:00

Conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick has died at the age of 89. I don't pretend to have known him personally, but about fifteen years ago we had a correspondence over a period of about six months or so. He tended to cover a lot of court-related issues, and I'd sent him some clippings from a local story on jury selection, and the rights of jurors. Like me, he found it interesting, and asked me to keep him posted on developments. As I recall, he wrote two or three columns on the case.

As a young man with a day job who was also an occasional free-lance writeer, I shared with him some of my own writing. He was kind enough to respond with kind words of encouragement, and I have always appreciated the time he took to do so.

Again, I did not know him personally, but I can tell you personally that he was a gentleman in the traditional sense of that word. I was, and am, an admirer of his work, and of the man. May he rest in peace.

You've got to see this Alvin Greene video...

2010-08-16T12:02:00.000-05:00

(h/t Campaign Spot)

Once again, Obama takes sides against America

2010-08-14T13:28:00.001-05:00

Last night, to nobody's surprise, President Obama registered his official support for the construction of the Ground Zero Mosque. Like Mayor Bloomberg, he dismisses opposition as either emotional or bigoted, and lauds the mosque as a symbol of America's freedom and tolerance.

But building this mosque has nothing at all to do with either freedom or tolerance. Common sense, common decency and good manners should be reason enough not to build the Ground Zero Mosque. That they are not tells you all you need to know about the motivations of the Imam Rauf and his crowd. They are not unaware of the offense to all Americans. They are being deliberately confrontational. The people (like Michael Bloomberg) who defend the mosque on the basis of a false understanding of tolerance are deliberately ignoring the very nature of the ongoing threat against our nation.

The people who danced and sang in the streets in the Middle East on 9/11 will dance and sing again the day that mosque opens. They know what it means, even if Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama do not.

'D' is for 'Dumb joke'

2010-08-13T12:50:00.000-05:00

Obama the other day trotted out a lame old joke:

"You want to go forward, what do you do? You put it in 'D.' When you go backward, what do you do? You put it in 'R.'"
Then, with another chuckle, he added: "I'm just sayin' that's not a coincidence."

Okay. Well, I learned back in high school that when you really don't know what you are doing, and you're barely scraping by, you're a 'D' student.

And when I watch football, it seems to me that the job of the 'D' is to stop all forward progress.

And when I go to the movies, 'R' is for adults.

Or, as Question the Culture puts it:

Well sir, if you've driven to the edge of a cliff, R is exactly the gear you want to be in. And no, it's not a coincidence and it's not funny.

The presidency: just another dead-end job

2010-08-09T10:11:00.004-05:00

Reading The Prowler over at American Spectator and this passage (emphasis mine) jumped out at me:

"The President is tired of dealing or bored with all the B.S., or that things haven't broken the way he wanted and it's not shaping up to be the job that he thought it was going to be. The way some of them talk they make the President sound like a recent college graduate unhappy with his first job stuck in the mailroom."

Back in the summer of 2008, I observed that if Obama were elected, the four year term would turn out to be the longest-held full-time job of his life. He didn't even spend four years in any one college.

Who knows what’s really going on in the White House (or Obama’s head,) but the quote above sure would fit a pattern, wouldn’t it? A “recent graduate unhappy with his first job?” It kind of is his first job.

And you know, for those of us who have always found the guy exceptionally self-absorbed and arrogant, it fits that pattern, too. I mean, who else would view the presidency as a dead end job?

Want to curb childhood obesity? Then let kids be kids!

2010-07-27T15:43:00.000-05:00

In Michele Obama's ongoing war against childhood obesity, one culprit has gone strangely unmentioned: the public schools.

Contrary to the ridiculously self-indulgent and superficial school lunch reforms called for by certain celebrity chefs, the greatest harm to children's health comes from the forced inactivity which has greatly increased over the last twenty years. This is important, because children are, by nature, active. Inactivity is trained behavior.

It's been estimated that some 40% of schools have eliminated recess in the United States. From my own experience in our local school district, although recess technically remained, it had been reduced to about ten minutes, with no running or shouting allowed, by the late 1990s. I suspect our local district is not alone.

Inside the classroom, modern school designs often include no windows, closing off even a view of the playground. The rooms are festooned with video screens and electronic instructional materials - exactly the sort of environment any good parent would try to avoid creating at home. All-day kindergarten continues to expand, penning otherwise active children into these cushioned cells beginning at ever earlier ages. Extensive homework is assigned beginning in very early grades, ensuring that free time after school will be occupied with even more indoor sitting.

The public schools are notoriously unable to teach basic academics, but they are succeeding in one area: teaching kids to sit around instead of playing. You want them to slim down? Let them be kids.

The curious case of Shirley Sherrod; or the end of the race card?

2010-07-21T22:21:00.001-05:00

In the curious case of Shirley Sherrod, there seems to be a lot of blame to go around. Andrew Breitbart ran with a video without trying to find any greater context. The NAACP issued a knee-jerk condemnation and called for her firing. The White House fired her. Sherrod herself, although she tempered her racial remarks, when heard in context, added several looney left-wing remarks in the speech, possibly violating other standards of conduct for Federal employees.

The NAACP retracted its condemnation, accusing Fox News of "snookering" them, by not showing the full speech - which was originally delivered to themselves. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs apologized, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack offered to re-hire her.

After all that - and more - I don't even remember now what got this whole ball rolling. Do you? I didn't think so.

But after a few days of knee-jerking, name-calling, firing and un-firing and spinning, I do know this:

The NAACP and the White House look like complete, incompetent clowns, and I know for sure that I should ignore them whenever they cry "racism."

Andrew Breitbart is a genius.

If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the moon?

2010-07-20T11:47:00.001-05:00

I remember my dad waking us up to come downstairs and watch the footage of Neil Armstrong on the moon. His historic first step was taken forty-one years ago today.

I still have the envelope of 8 X 10s that NASA sent to me in response to a letter I wrote. I eagerly anticipated every moon launch that followed, and dreamed about adventure in space - our only modern equivalent of the age of exploration.

Yet in school, and on television, I often heard people arguing that all that space program money would be better spent on feeding the poor here at home.

"If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (insert your cause here)?!"

So here we are, 41 years later, having abandoned manned spaceflight, and asking ourselves, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the moon?"

In the end, or at least for the time being, those who argued the money would be better spent on earth have won the day, as present entitlement spending far exceeds the NASA budgets of yesteryear.

But has that made us a better country?

It's long past time for Sheila Jackson Lee to go

2010-07-18T00:01:00.023-05:00

The 18th Congressional District in Texas is considered by all analysts to be a safe Democratic seat. The incumbent, Sheila Jackson Lee, has held the seat since 1994, and won with just over 77% of the vote two years ago. But in a year that swept a Republican into a Senate seat held for more than half a century by teh Kennedys of Massachusetts, who knows?

One thing we know for sure - Sheila Jackson Lee is an embarrassment. She embodies the insulated arrogance of power that has driven ordinary people to march in the streets in Tea Party rallies, and to crowd town hall meetings to demand their voices be heard.

Lee, you may recall, is the Democrat rep who chatted on her cell phone at a town hall meeting while a constituent was asking her a question. Really.

Among her legislative initiatives was the introduction of a resolution to honor Michael Jackson last summer. Yes, really.

Her opponent this year is not a professional politician, but he is a US Navy veteran, a constitutionalist, and a strong conservative. His name is John Faulk.

The moneybomb is today.

This genre used to be called "progressive," but I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with Obama. Or did it???

2010-07-17T23:10:00.000-05:00

Hey, funding 19th century technology like windmills and trains; advocating 1930s ideas like socialized medicine and corporatism - if that isn't "living in the past," what is?

President Obama, you just don't send Europe flowers any more

2010-07-15T22:00:00.003-05:00

Comes word today that EU president José Manuel Barroso believes that the relationship is not working. It's much like when your wife wants to "have a talk." Barroso thinks we "should do more together."

As Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform points out, "Obama was always overblown as a symbol because US foreign policy interests tend not to change."

Ladies, don't you know you are not supposed to marry a man thinking you can change him?

Do you remember those heady days of 2008, when the Obama team told us how he could heal our foreign ties, tattered by eight years of the arrogant, cowboy Bush? Remember how he was going to "push the reset button?"

I think he must have grabbed the wrong remote.

Well-made oil spill timeline video from RightChange

2010-07-14T18:55:00.000-05:00

Oil Spill Timeline from RightChange on Vimeo.

The national debt is not like a cancer, but a VAT is a lot like chemo

2010-07-13T10:02:00.001-05:00

Erskine Bowles, co-chair of President Obama's debt and deficit commission, a.k.a., "pass the buck committee," declared yesterday that the nation's debt is "like a cancer."There is very little suspense in awaiting this commission's recommendations - they will certainly recommend substantially higher taxes, including, in all likelihood, a Value Added Tax (VAT.) In fact, equating the current deficits and skyrocketing debt to a mysterious and incurable disease is quite an obvious tip of their hand on that.

Despite the identification of many contributing causes to various cancers, nobody in the medical world really knows what causes the disease. Additionally, there still is no cure. There are, however, some treatments - awful, painful, disfiguring and permanently disabling treatments in many cases, but what can you do? It's brain surgery, radiation and chemo, or die right now.

The national debt, and the annual budget deficits which extend it, are nothing at all like cancer. We know exactly what causes deficits and we know exactly how to eliminate them. It would be idiotic to apply the high dose chemo and bone marrow transplant of a VAT.

Our annual deficit has been estimated to be in the range of $1.4 to $1.6 trillion dollars. The cause of that is overspending and nothing else. As recently as 1997, the entire Federal budget was only $1.6 trillion. Yet, during years of strong growth and low unemployment (suggesting decreasing needs for spending,) and exploding revenues (suggesting overtaxation,) Federal spending has more than doubled, to $3.55 trillion. There is no conceivable justification for spending increases of that scale in such a short time.

Bowles is wrong to call that a cancer. Cancer can attack anybody, and, while it can sometimes be cut out (surgically, radiologically or chemically,) it can't be cured. And if we treat this debt like cancer, it will certainly return, and be even more damaging to an economy which has been permanently and structurally weakened by a VAT.

Our government doesn't have cancer. It is just fat and lazy. To get rid of cancer, you have to endure horrible treatments. To lose weight, you just have to stop eating.

Sure Obama is unpopular. So what?

2010-06-25T08:15:00.000-05:00

With the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing Obama's approval ratings in negative territory (disapproval higher than approval) for the first time, conservatives once again thump their chests and take heart in the inevitability of electoral victories ahead. Indeed, NBC/WSJ would seem to be a trailing indicator, if one follows Rasmussen or Gallup's daily tracking.

But is it really that bad for Obama?

History suggests that it is not. Obama's approval numbers and trend line are very similar to Ronald Reagan's, and better than Bill Clinton's through his first year and a half. Clinton had fallen as low as 37% approval during his first year, a point Obama has yet to hit. Reagan dropped below 50% in December 1981, and stayed below for nearly two years.

We keep waiting for the bottom to drop out of Obama's numbers, and maybe it will, but it hasn't yet. The American people are impatient, but they are also willing to give credit - deserved or not - to the man in the Oval Office.

Reagan, of course, inherited a dreadful domestic economy and a perilous world from Jimmy Carter. His bold initiatives eventually paid off, and the people loved him for that. Clinton benefitted greatly from circumstances beyond his control, as well as from the election of Republican majorities in Congress in 1994. The people never did love him (his "personal approval" numbers were, and are, abysmal,) but gave him high marks on the job because we are a practical people. Things seemed to be going okay, so why change?

So what about Obama? It is difficult to conceive of a circumstance in which the United States economy, resilient as it has proven to be, can weather the radical attacks on it and thrive despite Obama, but I think that is what it would take to help his numbers. In foreign affairs, there is no doubt he is making the world a more dangerous place, but unless those chickens come home to roost, it is unlikely the average voter will care. In fact, even a successful attack on the United States, caused by Obama's ineptitude, could give him a "rally 'round the flag" type of boost in approval - at least temporarily.

All of this is just to say, pay no attention to the poll numbers. The reason to defeat Obama is that his ideas, stuck in the 1930s and divorced from reality, are bad for our nation and for the world. That is the message. Whether or not he is personally popular is only important to his own dictatorial cult of personality.

McChrystal clear? Not so much.

2010-06-24T08:09:00.005-05:00

You've been hearing about it for a few days, but if you haven't read the article for yourself, you should. A lot of folks have made a lot of comments - here are just a few quick thoughts of mine:

Some are defending McChrystal on the basis of the fact that the most derogatory comments in the article are not direct quotes; they are quotes from aides, often un-named. This is absurd. Those close aides travel throughout the theater and beyond with the CG, and when they speak, they speak for him. That's why they were in the room with the general and the reporter. He is just as responsible for their statements as his own in this context.
I think there is a tendency among conservatives to hail all the generals we hear about as the new Patton or MacArthur. At least ninety percent of these commentators don't know anything at all about these guys. Neither do I. I've read some good things about McChrystal (even in this article,) but that doesn't make him a towering historical figure. The one indisputable fact I know is that agreeing to this Rolling Stone profile, and the interview format employed, was plainly idiotic. I can't imagine what he was thinking, or why he was unable to see it would not end well.*
To continue from above, I am certain there are other commanders equal to the mission - and not only Petraeus. If there were not, that would be a sad and dangerous commentary on the state of the Armed Forces. Stanley McChrystal is known to accompany troops on dangerous patrols on a fairly regular basis, a habit which put his life in jeopardy regularly. He clearly does not view himself as indispensable. If he is indispensable, then those patrols would be properly viewed as acts of utter recklessness, rather than as the acts of courage and leadership that they are.
McChrystal clearly had to go, but that doesn't mean the points he and his staff made should be ignored. Thomas Sowell makes this point better than I can. What McChrystal said matters - to us and to our enemies, and how this affects the culture of leadership in the Army matters, as well. I don't think it will be as devastating as Sowell suggests, but it's a point worth pondering.
Finally, and most importantly, President Obama must remember that loyalty and commitment run on a two-way street. We trust the armed forces to execute a mission, and they trust the civilian leadership to remain committed to that same mission. Obama has exhibited a pronounced finger-pointing tendency, and a detachment from world affairs. That, not guerilla tactics or difficult terrain, is what can turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. As General Westmoreland put it, "No nation should put the burden of war on its military forces alone."

We wish General Stanley McChrystal well in his continuing career of service to our country, and wish our nation victory in Afghanistan.

* UPDATE: Marc Ambinder's notes suggest one reason McChrystal thought the interview was a good idea: "He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really. " I'm curious to see how many of his defenders drop their cases now.

Negotiating merit pay for teachers

2010-06-18T22:45:00.000-05:00

In the Washington Post, Michele Kerr argues that merit-based pay and promotions are fine, but ought to be subject to a few conditions. Those conditions are below, along with my comments:

Teachers be assessed based on only those students with 90 percent or higher attendance. I think this is fair. If a student's performance is hindered by lack of attendance, that is clearly not the teacher's fault. I should note that in Texas, at least, 90% attendance is a requirement for advancement, so very few students would be excluded by this standard.
Teachers be allowed to remove disruptive students from their classroom on a day-to-day basis. I would be shocked to find anybody who objects to this. A better disciplinary policy, based on common sense, might be one of the toughest things to actually implement, though. This is one of the areas where the education establishment stands in the way of reform. It is worth observing that this policy would take us "backwards" to those golden conservative days.
Students who don't achieve "basic" proficiency in a state test be prohibited from moving forward to the next class in the progression. I think that eliminating"social advancement" policies is one of the prime goals of the merit-based pay movement. Setting this condition up front achieves the goal immediately. I'm on board.
That teachers be assessed on student improvement, not an absolute standard -- the so-called value-added assessment. This is the most problematic condition. Ms. Kerr argues that an absolute standard would work against teachers dealing with the lowest performing students, and this is true. But an improvement-based standard works against teachers of high performing students. What's the middle ground? I think there needs to be a level of achievement after which performance can't be rated low. Say, for example, 90% efficiency. If your students are at that level, and they don't fall, you're good. If they are at 50% and improve to 55%, you've hit a performance mark. The other difficulty is this: how to decide the starting point. If you teach third grade, and you teach your kids well, there is no way to compare that to next year's third graders. The relevant comparison is last year's second graders to this year's third graders. It can be done, but let's not pretend it's simple.

Ms. Kerr's piece is worth reading. If more teachers are entering the profession with her background, that's a good thing.

Congressmen recommending suicide? It's nothing new...

2010-06-16T21:44:00.000-05:00

"Go shopping" vs. "Go on vacation" - a juxtaposition

2010-06-15T23:49:00.001-05:00

In remarks to airline employees on September 27, 2001, President Bush said:

When they struck, they wanted to create an atmosphere of fear. And one of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry. It's to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.

That's the famous "go shopping" speech, for which liberals still mock him.

Earlier today, President Obama said:

Here in Pensacola, the beautiful beaches are still open. The sand is white and the water is blue. So folks who are looking for a good vacation, they can still come down to Pensacola. People need to know that Pensacola is still open for business.

And then he had a sandwich.

Read in context, Bush's remarks make a lot more sense than Obama's. Bush is sayng, "The point of the terrorists' attack was to make us afraid to fly. Our response must be to show them we are not afraid." Obama is saying, "People are losing money in Florida, but the oil isn't here yet, so please spend money before it gets here."

It is really tiresome to point out the double standard so often, but I do wonder when the Democrat-media establishment will begin the mirth and ridicule of Obama.

Waiting....waiting...crickets...

No, Mr. President, we are not "running out of places to drill"

2010-06-15T23:33:00.003-05:00

It's hard to know where to begin critiquing the president's Oval Office Address on the BP oil spill. It was, as is typical for Obama, self aggrandizing, patronizing, shallow and dishonest.

For now, let's just take a look at one of the biggest lies - his claim that "oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water."

The United States imports a lot of oil, but the two largest exporters to us are Mexico and Canada. We further import from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, and even the Bahamas. So, of all these nations on the North American continent, we are to believe that the United States alone is running out of oil to drill, while everybody else drills enough to sell some to us? Canada exports 2-3 times as much oil to us as does Saudi Arabia.

The United States has 20 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and an estimated 134 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Those estimates do not even include U.S. oil shale deposits, which are estimated to be the richest in the world, containing approximately 2,175 gigabarrels of recoverable oil.

We are not "running out of places to drill," we have chosen to place most of those areas off limits.

In fact, the very deposit BP was attempting to tap is estimated to be the second largest deposit in the world, covering "an estimated 25,000 square miles, extending from the inlands of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Texas." In other words, the very deposit now spewing into Gulf waters could have been reached from dry land.

Nearly all of America is placed off limits, by law, to exploration and drilling, and a combination of environmentalists and NIMBY governors of both parties have combined to push drilling farther and farther offshore.

In short, we're not running out of places to drill, we're getting run out of them, and now Obama wants to accelerate that by shutting down drilling in the Gulf.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg adds more info about "known reserves," and argues that oil is the green fuel.

Russia, Turkey & Iran: Cuban Missile Crisis redux?

2010-06-11T08:43:00.002-05:00

One of the things we remember best about President Kennedy's brief presidency is his steel-willed response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is difficult to believe that the current president - whose primary foreign policy belief expressed during his campaign was that we needed to talk more with our enemies - has the same nerve - or achieve the same results. It appears, though, that we may be poised to find out.

The recent "Gaza flotilla" incident, in which anti-Israel activists, sponsored by terrorist organizations, as well as by NATO member Turkey, clearly demonstrated how far respect for America has fallen, and how clearly President Obama's message that the United States is abandoning Israel has been heard.

Since its founding, Israel has been able to count on the United States as an ally, through both Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet, since entering office, the Obama administration has repeatedly snubbed, lectured and scolded Israel, while coddling Iran's dictatorship, and holding out olive branches to terrorist states.

In doing so, he has not increased respect for, or dialog with, the United States. To the contrary, Obama's overtures have been met with sneering disdain by Iranian "president" Ahmadinijad.

Now we come to learn two separate, but related things which portend a crisis in the Mediterranean that will challenge the United States in much the same way as the Soviet attempt to stage missiles in Cuba did 48 years ago. Following Israel's thwarting of the recent attempt to run the Gaza blockade, Iran has publicly offered to escort the next flotilla. Understanding full well that this has nothing to do with humanitarian aid to Gaza, Ahmadinijad has declared that "Israel is doomed." Perhaps most ominously, the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Russia held a summit in Istanbul on June 8th, signaling a shift in alliances, and perhaps much larger consequences to the next challenge of Israel's blockade.

Turkey, in sponsoring the first flotilla, tested the boundaries, and found that the United States was willing to let her ally Israel twist in the wind of ugly world opinion. The next challenge to Israel's blockade will not be a test of Israel at all, but of the United States.

President Kennedy responded to the Soviet challenge with a blockade of Cuba. Will President Obama join Israel's lawful blockade, or allow a major power shift in the Middle East? The fate of more than Israel hangs on the answer to this question.

We Con the World (video)

2010-06-03T20:31:00.001-05:00

Good stuff, from Caroline Glick and Latma TV.

UPDATE: Banned by YouTube, but available at PJTV.

Pretty short distance between Sestak, Romanoff and Blago

2010-06-03T13:50:00.002-05:00

The corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich begins today, and it strikes me that the timing could not be much worse for President Obama.

Among other things, Blagojevich is charged with trying to sell the temporary appointment to fill Obama's former Senate seat partly in exchange for a plum political appointment for himself. Among those with whom he reportedly negotiated, was one Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel is also thought to be at the center of the "pay to play" scandals currently unfolding in Pennsylvania and Colorado, where Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff, respectively, appear to have been illegally offered political appointments in exchange for dropping their candidacies in Democratic Senate primaries.

When I was a boy, I learned in school about old time city machine politics, and the widespread use of patronage jobs to bribe supporters and donors. In the year since, we were taught, laws were put in place to prevent that sort of thing from poisoning our political processes.

Yet here we are, in 2010, with the White House's defenders out there arguing that "everybody does it," and "it was not, technically, illegal." They seem quite unaware that Rod Blagojevich, on trial in Federal court, is arguing the exact same thing.

Fair investigations and trials may eventually find that nobody involved broke the law. For now, though, the only facts we know are these:

There is a very high profile Federal corruption trial of a former Democratic Governor of one of our largest states on - the charges involve "pay to play" schemes
Candidates in several states all report "pay to play" schemes offered to them by the White House
Some of the same people are involved in all of these stories - and they work in the White House

It doesn't take ether a genius or a conspiracy theorist to see a strong connection. The only question is whether voters will connect the dots, and add it to the list of reasons they don't like Obama.

UPDATE : Looks like the press is connecting the dots...

Employers Will Pass Obamacare Costs onto Employees (via NRO)

2010-05-28T08:36:00.000-05:00

Survey: Employers Will Pass Obamacare Costs onto Employees

While White House spinmeisters continue to promote the false promises of Obamacare, out in the real world, employers have begun to put pen to paper to figure out the real impact of this thing.

Not surprisingly, they are finding it unaffordable and lacking in positive benefits.

It's no wonder support for repeal has grown to 63%, according to Rasmussen.

The Brown Folder

Are there any legitimate criticisms to be made about Romney's business background? Of course.

The Republican field rallies around Mitt Romney

The cookie theory of egalitarianism

If Cain represents rebellion against "experts," Obama represented rebellion against reality

The OWSers don't make me angry; they make me sad

The new frontrunner, Herman Cain (mostly) holds his own

Now I know whose kids are occupying Wall Street

#GOPDebate: Bottom line - Perry is Done

Some scattered thoughts on 9/11

Obama's #Jobspeech, annotated...

Obama to Send Congress “The American Jobs Act” (NOT "stimulus")

Some scattered thoughts on the #ReaganDebate

Rick Perry is Fed Up. My book review...

Nation-building is tricky stuff...

Yes, Perry's Gardasil order matters. And it isn't good.

The Return of the Tea Party

Technology as analogy for politics

Republican cage fight! A reasonably accurate transcript.

Last Night’s Wisconsin Fights Were On Obama Turf - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot - National Review Online

Dems: Tea Party used to have "no policies," now they are responsible for downgrade?

This is what a Republic looks like.

Rules of the game in government contracting

Tipping point for Obama?

Obama admits: 2008 was just a Hope-a-Dope

Does "The Hill" have no fact-checkers?

Time for Nirvana's music catalog to enter the public domain?

A deal is struck, and US debt is downgraded anyway. Because the issue was never the "ceiling."

Washington insiders hoping for bad news

Please pay attention: Democrats have never wanted a solution by August 2d

Moody's calls for US to refinance debt on zero-down, subprime, no-documentation loans!

Lefty nonsense: "Obscene Wealth" vs. truly obscene Federal profligacy

Just a few #BudgetTruths to consider

I don't get what Jon Huntsman is selling

A. Barton Hinkle, à la Dr. Seuss, assesses the #debt crisis (brilliant!)

The way to avoid a "charade," according to Steny Hoyer, is to vote the opposite of what you think is right.

Obama is just like Reagan? If only...

Republican candidates are good messengers, but do they have the right message?

What the hell happens on campus? And why does it cost so much?

Middle East Policy: Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) ... Yeah, *THAT* KISS

Newtmandias: a Gingrich lament in sonnet form

Bin Laden is dead. Party on, Garth?

As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation?

Obama's incoherent Libya speech was par for the course

I'm not opposed to all wars...

No, the Wisconsin protests are nothing like the Tea Parties

HOV lanes make traffic worse - because that's what they were meant to do

Wisconsin state workers already pay for their pension? Then why are they so mad at Scott Walker?

If you follow the money in Wisconsin, it leads to Democrat machine politics

Workers' rights implies employer powers; powers government does not have

To save you time, Palin & Obama's remarks as Wordles...

The Term ‘Blood Libel’: More Common Than You Might Think - By Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot

Mission accomplished...uh...everybody who's ever used the word "target?"

Take a breath. You have to be a horrible person to try to score points off the Arizona shooting

WikiLeaks: Cuba banned Sicko for depicting 'mythical' healthcare system | World news | guardian.co.uk

Simpson-Bowles commission presents a "Wimpy" proposal; don't give them the hamburger!

There may not be a conservative "mandate," but there is definitely an anti-liberal "mandate"

It turns out, "the most electable conservative candidate" is exactly who got nominated

The American Spectator : The Observer at His Own Funeral

The morning after

Tuesday predictions...

Who's afraid of corporate cash?

"Miss me yet?" "Yes!" says...Donna Brazille???

"Partial repeal" will only make the GOP accessories after the fact

Obama Healthcare Shuffle

If I only had a brain - or a Harvard diploma...

It's fine to read between the lines. But you ought to read the actual lines, too

Van Jones endorses Tea Party candidates!

This is what "rescue" looks like? Really?

Why is this recovery so weak? "This time you've got me."

Obama to Tea Party: "What would you cut?" Short answer: "Everything"

Was O'Donnell the strategic choice? That depends on your strategy.

Morning in America? The NRSC got a wake-up call, and (for once) didn't hit the snooze button

Okay, Rove, Castle and NRSC, we know what you think of us. Now you know what we think of you, too.

The time to support liberal Republicans is against Democrats, not in the Republican primary

They talk about him like a dog?

Eugene Robinson needs his diaper changed

Obama wasn't damning Bush with faint praise - it was just another "bitter clinger" moment

James J. Kilpatrick, RIP

You've got to see this Alvin Greene video...

Middle East Policy: Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) ... Yeah, THAT KISS