Anti-Obama Sentiment Sweeps the Nation
Anti-Washington = anti-Obama. BY Fred Barnes
The same thread runs through Governor Rick Perry’s smashing defeat of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary in Texas, the elections of Republican Governors Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Chris Christie of New Jersey last fall, and the Senate victory of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts in January. It’s an anti-Washington thread, for sure. But the core of it is an anti-Obama trend.
Consider this: What if President Obama had changed the way Washington does business, taken steps that actually improved the economy, offered a scaled-back, moderate agenda, and recruited a few Republican allies in Congress? Had he done those things, would there be a powerful, anti-Washington tide today? Of course not.
But Obama didn’t do any of them, and within weeks of his inauguration in January 2009, anger against Washington began to build. First, it was the tea parties, then Republicans turned sharply against Obama and his agenda, and by mid-summer independents joined in.
This handed Perry a winning issue in Texas. He showed up at tea parties and became the champion of states against the encroachments of Washington and the surge in spending. “It’s Texas versus Washington,” a Perry aide said. And Hutchison, pretty conservative in her own right, became the candidate from Washington.
I’m not a defender of Obama, but it’s true he was put in what would have been a tough spot for any president when he arrived at the White House. He had to deal with a deep recession. It’s also the case the liberal base of his party (to which he belongs) was obsessed with cashing in on the economic downturn to enact a sweeping liberal agenda. And with their large majorities in the Senate and House, Democrats felt they didn’t need many, if any, votes of Republicans.
So it would have taken a large dose of moxie for Obama to opt for more civility and bipartisanship in Washington and propose centrist policies. But if he’d done so it would have made a huge difference.
Take his promise to improve the political climate in Washington. Obama campaigned on the notion that he, alone among the presidential candidates, knew how to cure the Washington illness: the polarization and partisan fighting and gridlock and infestation of lobbyists. This is a promise he hasn’t come close to redeeming. He’s barely even tried.
On the economy, Obama let congressional Democrats draft the stimulus package with no input from Republicans (and no across-the-board tax cuts). It has been largely ineffective, nudging the economy a bit upward but leaving the country with 4 million fewer jobs than when Obama took office.
His agenda? Obama has indeed taken up issues on which the public wants solutions. But his proposals on health care, cap and trade, and other issues have actually alienated a majority of America. They’re too liberal, too costly, and too Washington-centered.
Read the rest: http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/anti-obama-sentiment-sweeps-nation
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Obama again ditching our British ally
More Diplomatic Incompetence from the Obama Administration
One wonders: does the Obama administration deliberately try to screw up our foreign policy, or is it just a matter of ignorance and incompetence? This is painful reading: "Argentina celebrates diplomatic coup as Hillary Clinton calls for talks over Falklands." Here is a photo of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Argentina's President Fernandez de Kirchner. So much for the idea that foreign relations would be conducted better by women.
Now, on to the news:
Argentina was celebrating a diplomatic coup yesterday in its attempt to force Britain to accept talks on the future of the Falkland Islands, after a two-hour meeting in Buenos Aires between Hillary Clinton and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for "friendly mediation" between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said she agreed that talks were a sensible way forward and offered "to encourage both countries to sit down".
Her intervention defied Britain's longstanding position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands' 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in Buenos Aires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands.
So, once again, the Obama administration has sold Great Britain, formerly our #1 ally, down the river, along with the inhabitants of the Falklands, whose opinions would seem to count for something. We are past the point where anyone could doubt that the Obama administration's hostility toward the U.K. is intentional. Obama seems to have substituted personal pathology for national policy. The London Times story continues:
Mrs Clinton's meeting with the flamboyant but vulnerable Argentine leader ended amid smiles and laughter. She gave no sign of backing the British position on negotiations, saying instead: "We would like to see Argentina and the UK sit down and resolve the issues between them in a peaceful and productive way. We want very much to encourage both countries to sit down. We cannot make either one do so. We think it is the right way to proceed, so we will be saying this publicly." ...
Ruperto Godoy, the official Argentine government spokesman on the islands, said the new pressure from Mrs Clinton was "very significant, very important" and would help Buenos Aires to force Britain to the negotiating table.
In the Falklands, reaction to the meeting ranged from dismay to fury. "It's outrageous after all the support we have given the United States," said Hattie Kilmartin, a sheepfarmer's wife. "They are not looking at the people who are actually living here and what they want, and it's crazy that they are even contemplating going against us."
I have to agree. It's crazy, but it's also the policy of the Obama administration, where perversity appears to be a virtue.
PAUL adds: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has politely told Clinton what she can do with her offer to mediate. Brown said, "We don't think that's necessary."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025724.php
One wonders: does the Obama administration deliberately try to screw up our foreign policy, or is it just a matter of ignorance and incompetence? This is painful reading: "Argentina celebrates diplomatic coup as Hillary Clinton calls for talks over Falklands." Here is a photo of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Argentina's President Fernandez de Kirchner. So much for the idea that foreign relations would be conducted better by women.
Now, on to the news:
Argentina was celebrating a diplomatic coup yesterday in its attempt to force Britain to accept talks on the future of the Falkland Islands, after a two-hour meeting in Buenos Aires between Hillary Clinton and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for "friendly mediation" between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, said she agreed that talks were a sensible way forward and offered "to encourage both countries to sit down".
Her intervention defied Britain's longstanding position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands' 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in Buenos Aires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands.
So, once again, the Obama administration has sold Great Britain, formerly our #1 ally, down the river, along with the inhabitants of the Falklands, whose opinions would seem to count for something. We are past the point where anyone could doubt that the Obama administration's hostility toward the U.K. is intentional. Obama seems to have substituted personal pathology for national policy. The London Times story continues:
Mrs Clinton's meeting with the flamboyant but vulnerable Argentine leader ended amid smiles and laughter. She gave no sign of backing the British position on negotiations, saying instead: "We would like to see Argentina and the UK sit down and resolve the issues between them in a peaceful and productive way. We want very much to encourage both countries to sit down. We cannot make either one do so. We think it is the right way to proceed, so we will be saying this publicly." ...
Ruperto Godoy, the official Argentine government spokesman on the islands, said the new pressure from Mrs Clinton was "very significant, very important" and would help Buenos Aires to force Britain to the negotiating table.
In the Falklands, reaction to the meeting ranged from dismay to fury. "It's outrageous after all the support we have given the United States," said Hattie Kilmartin, a sheepfarmer's wife. "They are not looking at the people who are actually living here and what they want, and it's crazy that they are even contemplating going against us."
I have to agree. It's crazy, but it's also the policy of the Obama administration, where perversity appears to be a virtue.
PAUL adds: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has politely told Clinton what she can do with her offer to mediate. Brown said, "We don't think that's necessary."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025724.php
For Obama and Pelosi, health care is ego trip
For Obama and Pelosi, health care is ego trip Washington By: Byron York via Washington Examiner
In the entire health care debate, among all the competing lawmakers, politicians, experts and pundits, there's just one person who has seen things from both sides of the political aisle. That is Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who was elected as a Democrat in 2008 and was part of the House Democratic caucus until last Dec. 22, when he switched sides to become a Republican. (Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter doesn't count, because he switched parties in April 2009, before the current health care debate got underway.)
Given Griffith's unique perspective -- he is also a doctor, with 30 years' experience as an oncologist -- perhaps he has some insight into why the White House and his former Democratic allies in Congress continue to press forward on a national health care bill despite widespread public opposition.
It's gotten personal, Griffith says. "You have personalities who have bet the farm, bet their reputations, on shoving a health care bill through the Congress. It's no longer about health care reform. It's all about ego now. The president's ego. Nancy Pelosi's ego. This is about personalities, saving face, and it has very little to do with what's good for the American people."
Conflicts driven by personal feelings can lead to self-destructive outcomes. Ask Griffith whether Speaker Pelosi, his old leader, would accept losing Democratic control of the House as the price for passing the health care bill, and he answers quickly. "Oh yeah. This is a trophy for the speaker, it's a trophy for several committee chairs, and it's a trophy for the president." It does not seem to matter that if Democrats lose the House, the speaker will no longer be speaker, the chairmen will no longer be chairmen, and the president will be significantly weakened.
As Griffith sees his former colleagues, Democratic leaders have become so consumed with the idea of achieving the historical goal of a national health care system that they are able to explain away the scores of opinion polls over the last six months that show people solidly opposed to the Democratic proposal.
The polls are wrong, they say. Or the polls are contradictory. Or the polls actually show that people love the health care plan. And even if the polls are right, and people hate the plan, real leaders don't govern by following the polls. So just pass the bill.
That's easy for Democrats like Pelosi, who occupy safe seats. Not so for dozens of moderate House Democrats whose votes are required for passage, but who face likely defeat for it. "I don't think there are that many moderate or conservative Democrats who want to be sacrificial representatives," says Griffith.
Just for the record, the RealClearPolitics average of polls on the Democratic health care plan shows 51 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor. A similar compilation of surveys by Pollster.com shows the gap at 51 percent to 43 percent. There have been more opponents than supporters of the plan since last July, when Democrats first began to unveil concrete health care proposals.
Can Democrats really ignore the polls all the way to the end? Yes, but it gets a little harder with each passing day. George W. Bush couldn't ignore public opinion when he wanted to remake Social Security and pass comprehensive immigration reform. Faced with broad opposition, Bush ultimately gave up.
And now Democratic leaders are showing signs of weakness. Why would they suddenly express interest, even feigned interest, in Republican ideas they derided for months? Why would they invite GOP lawmakers to a high-profile discussion of health care? Because they don't have the votes to pass the bill. "If they had the votes, we wouldn't have had the summit," said Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn on CBS Sunday.
That's a change from the heady days of last year, when Democrats, as Griffith says, "never really wanted anyone else's input" on health care. When a Republican offered a suggestion, "There was a polite smile and a comment like, 'That's very interesting, and we'll take a look,'" Griffith recalls. Of course, they never did. Now, they make a big show of listening.
But it's too late to make the fundamental changes that would be required to improve the bill. It's too late to change public opinion. It's too late to reassure nervous lawmakers. The Democratic leadership has made the decision to push the bill to the very end, and so they will.
It's personal.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/For-Obama-and-Pelosi_-health-care-is-ego-trip-85871962.html#ixzz0h8E1vR1b
In the entire health care debate, among all the competing lawmakers, politicians, experts and pundits, there's just one person who has seen things from both sides of the political aisle. That is Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who was elected as a Democrat in 2008 and was part of the House Democratic caucus until last Dec. 22, when he switched sides to become a Republican. (Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter doesn't count, because he switched parties in April 2009, before the current health care debate got underway.)
Given Griffith's unique perspective -- he is also a doctor, with 30 years' experience as an oncologist -- perhaps he has some insight into why the White House and his former Democratic allies in Congress continue to press forward on a national health care bill despite widespread public opposition.
It's gotten personal, Griffith says. "You have personalities who have bet the farm, bet their reputations, on shoving a health care bill through the Congress. It's no longer about health care reform. It's all about ego now. The president's ego. Nancy Pelosi's ego. This is about personalities, saving face, and it has very little to do with what's good for the American people."
Conflicts driven by personal feelings can lead to self-destructive outcomes. Ask Griffith whether Speaker Pelosi, his old leader, would accept losing Democratic control of the House as the price for passing the health care bill, and he answers quickly. "Oh yeah. This is a trophy for the speaker, it's a trophy for several committee chairs, and it's a trophy for the president." It does not seem to matter that if Democrats lose the House, the speaker will no longer be speaker, the chairmen will no longer be chairmen, and the president will be significantly weakened.
As Griffith sees his former colleagues, Democratic leaders have become so consumed with the idea of achieving the historical goal of a national health care system that they are able to explain away the scores of opinion polls over the last six months that show people solidly opposed to the Democratic proposal.
The polls are wrong, they say. Or the polls are contradictory. Or the polls actually show that people love the health care plan. And even if the polls are right, and people hate the plan, real leaders don't govern by following the polls. So just pass the bill.
That's easy for Democrats like Pelosi, who occupy safe seats. Not so for dozens of moderate House Democrats whose votes are required for passage, but who face likely defeat for it. "I don't think there are that many moderate or conservative Democrats who want to be sacrificial representatives," says Griffith.
Just for the record, the RealClearPolitics average of polls on the Democratic health care plan shows 51 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor. A similar compilation of surveys by Pollster.com shows the gap at 51 percent to 43 percent. There have been more opponents than supporters of the plan since last July, when Democrats first began to unveil concrete health care proposals.
Can Democrats really ignore the polls all the way to the end? Yes, but it gets a little harder with each passing day. George W. Bush couldn't ignore public opinion when he wanted to remake Social Security and pass comprehensive immigration reform. Faced with broad opposition, Bush ultimately gave up.
And now Democratic leaders are showing signs of weakness. Why would they suddenly express interest, even feigned interest, in Republican ideas they derided for months? Why would they invite GOP lawmakers to a high-profile discussion of health care? Because they don't have the votes to pass the bill. "If they had the votes, we wouldn't have had the summit," said Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn on CBS Sunday.
That's a change from the heady days of last year, when Democrats, as Griffith says, "never really wanted anyone else's input" on health care. When a Republican offered a suggestion, "There was a polite smile and a comment like, 'That's very interesting, and we'll take a look,'" Griffith recalls. Of course, they never did. Now, they make a big show of listening.
But it's too late to make the fundamental changes that would be required to improve the bill. It's too late to change public opinion. It's too late to reassure nervous lawmakers. The Democratic leadership has made the decision to push the bill to the very end, and so they will.
It's personal.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/For-Obama-and-Pelosi_-health-care-is-ego-trip-85871962.html#ixzz0h8E1vR1b
Friday, March 5, 2010
It means he wouldn't be re-elected now
PPP: Obama’s approval rating now negative in every red state that flipped in 2008posted at 6:25 pm on March 1, 2010 by Allahpundit via Hot Air
-In Colorado a recent Rasmussen poll found his approval at 45/53. Research 2000 found his favorability at 46/47 in January.
-In Florida Rasmussen found his approval at 45/54 and Quinnipiac’s latest found it at 45/49.
-In Indiana Rasmussen has his approval at 44/54 and Research 2000 finds his favorability at 46/49…
-In Nevada Rasmussen finds his approval at 46/54. We found 44/52 in in January.
There are nine states in all but I’m giving you numbers for four where there’s a Democrat in trouble in the local Senate race and The One will be expected to — giggle — campaign for him. It’s working for Reid, isn’t it? In fact, just this afternoon, the White House declared its support for Blanche Lincoln (whose own red state did not flip) against newly minted lefty primary challenger Bill Halter. Why they’d do that instead of staying out of the race entirely is beyond me — the Obama imprimatur will be pure liability if she makes it to the general — but that’s the canniness we’ve come to expect after their successes in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
With the bludgeon of reconciliation now being wielded in earnest, I think it’s officially time to start predictions on where The One’s approval rating will settle if they push ObamaCare through. Over/under is 41
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/01/ppp-obamas-approval-rating-now-negative-in-every-red-state-that-flipped-in-2008/
-In Colorado a recent Rasmussen poll found his approval at 45/53. Research 2000 found his favorability at 46/47 in January.
-In Florida Rasmussen found his approval at 45/54 and Quinnipiac’s latest found it at 45/49.
-In Indiana Rasmussen has his approval at 44/54 and Research 2000 finds his favorability at 46/49…
-In Nevada Rasmussen finds his approval at 46/54. We found 44/52 in in January.
There are nine states in all but I’m giving you numbers for four where there’s a Democrat in trouble in the local Senate race and The One will be expected to — giggle — campaign for him. It’s working for Reid, isn’t it? In fact, just this afternoon, the White House declared its support for Blanche Lincoln (whose own red state did not flip) against newly minted lefty primary challenger Bill Halter. Why they’d do that instead of staying out of the race entirely is beyond me — the Obama imprimatur will be pure liability if she makes it to the general — but that’s the canniness we’ve come to expect after their successes in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
With the bludgeon of reconciliation now being wielded in earnest, I think it’s officially time to start predictions on where The One’s approval rating will settle if they push ObamaCare through. Over/under is 41
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/01/ppp-obamas-approval-rating-now-negative-in-every-red-state-that-flipped-in-2008/
Destroying Americans' future with failure now
What to Do About Long-Term Unemployment? - Business - The Atlantic
I agree with Kevin Drum when he says that "Mass, long-term unemployment is one of the most corrosive things any country can go through". But then he follows with "The fact that we're basically doing nothing about it is not just disgraceful, it's genuinely dangerous." This sounds great. But what, precisely, are we supposed to do?
You see the same thing in every recession for the last twenty years, at least: as jobs get scarcer, employers get pickier about filling their positions. Programmer jobs that once demanded anyone with a pulse and a C++ manual now require that you also have at least three years of experience designing websites for a fast food multinational, speak fluent Tajik, and be proficient in hacky sack. So just as employees are flooding the market from industries that need to permanently downsize, it becomes harder to transition into a new industry or job description.
The result: long term unemployment. What is the government supposed to do about that? Let's do some math: by generous estimates from non-White House sources, the $787 billion stimulus has created (or saved!) something under 2 million jobs. Currently, there are 11-12 million people unemployed. Soaking up half that would require three more huge stimuluses, even if you assume that returns are linear and do not diminish with more money spent. Yet even then, we would not guarantee that we helped the long term unemployed; we might just as easily boost employment for people who aren't finding it particularly hard to get a new job.
Roosevelt could make some actual inroads into the plight of the worst off by the simple expedient of hiring them. But this was before public sector unions got powerful, and the government wrapped itself in yards and acres of procedural red tape surrounding federal hiring, and public works projects. It was also in an era when public works involved considerably more raw human muscle power, and a larger percentage of the workforce was employed in relatively undifferentiated manual labor.
The sad fact is that there's not much to be done for the long term unemployed, other than the obvious step of making sure that they don't miss any meals. Government retraining programs have a dismal record. So do tax credits for hiring workers, which are notoriously easy to game. Stimulus is a blunt tool. And the government can't hire the workers itself. What's left? Threatening employers at gunpoint?
The answer is, nothing. We can, and should, ease the pain of those who lose jobs. But the government can't find you a job any more than it can find you a spouse or a hobby. The process of matching individuals to employers can only be done by individuals.
See original for links: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/what-to-do-about-long-term-unemployment/36845/
I agree with Kevin Drum when he says that "Mass, long-term unemployment is one of the most corrosive things any country can go through". But then he follows with "The fact that we're basically doing nothing about it is not just disgraceful, it's genuinely dangerous." This sounds great. But what, precisely, are we supposed to do?
You see the same thing in every recession for the last twenty years, at least: as jobs get scarcer, employers get pickier about filling their positions. Programmer jobs that once demanded anyone with a pulse and a C++ manual now require that you also have at least three years of experience designing websites for a fast food multinational, speak fluent Tajik, and be proficient in hacky sack. So just as employees are flooding the market from industries that need to permanently downsize, it becomes harder to transition into a new industry or job description.
The result: long term unemployment. What is the government supposed to do about that? Let's do some math: by generous estimates from non-White House sources, the $787 billion stimulus has created (or saved!) something under 2 million jobs. Currently, there are 11-12 million people unemployed. Soaking up half that would require three more huge stimuluses, even if you assume that returns are linear and do not diminish with more money spent. Yet even then, we would not guarantee that we helped the long term unemployed; we might just as easily boost employment for people who aren't finding it particularly hard to get a new job.
Roosevelt could make some actual inroads into the plight of the worst off by the simple expedient of hiring them. But this was before public sector unions got powerful, and the government wrapped itself in yards and acres of procedural red tape surrounding federal hiring, and public works projects. It was also in an era when public works involved considerably more raw human muscle power, and a larger percentage of the workforce was employed in relatively undifferentiated manual labor.
The sad fact is that there's not much to be done for the long term unemployed, other than the obvious step of making sure that they don't miss any meals. Government retraining programs have a dismal record. So do tax credits for hiring workers, which are notoriously easy to game. Stimulus is a blunt tool. And the government can't hire the workers itself. What's left? Threatening employers at gunpoint?
The answer is, nothing. We can, and should, ease the pain of those who lose jobs. But the government can't find you a job any more than it can find you a spouse or a hobby. The process of matching individuals to employers can only be done by individuals.
See original for links: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/what-to-do-about-long-term-unemployment/36845/
2nd amend't: will court apply it to states?
Getting the 14th Amendment Right; The Chicago gun case and the fight for economic liberty
Damon W. Root
February 26, 2010
When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on March 2, 2010 in the landmark gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago, the Second Amendment won’t be the only thing on the justices’ minds. That’s because when it comes to protecting constitutional rights from the depredations of state and local governments, the Court must obey the 14th Amendment, which commands: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
McDonald will therefore turn on whether the right to keep and bear arms applies to Chicago via the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause or via its Due Process Clause. That distinction matters because the Privileges or Immunities Clause has been a dead letter since the controversial Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873, which gutted the clause while upholding a state-sanctioned slaughterhouse monopoly in Louisiana. And despite overwhelming historical evidence that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was specifically written and ratified after the Civil War in order to secure individual rights against state abuse—including the right to armed self-defense—Slaughterhouse has never been overturned.
So the stakes in McDonald are high indeed. And they aren’t just limited to gun rights...
In sum, the 14th Amendment was designed to protect an individualistic and market-oriented form of self-ownership, one that includes the right to armed self-defense, the right to private property, the right to liberty of contract, and the right to pursue an honest living free from arbitrary and unnecessary government interference. That’s the libertarian promise of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. And that’s why Tuesday’s arguments in McDonald v. Chicago matter for both gun rights and economic liberty.
Damon W. Root is an associate editor at Reason magazine.
Read the whole article: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/26/getting-the-14th-amendment-rig
Damon W. Root
February 26, 2010
When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on March 2, 2010 in the landmark gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago, the Second Amendment won’t be the only thing on the justices’ minds. That’s because when it comes to protecting constitutional rights from the depredations of state and local governments, the Court must obey the 14th Amendment, which commands: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
McDonald will therefore turn on whether the right to keep and bear arms applies to Chicago via the 14th Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause or via its Due Process Clause. That distinction matters because the Privileges or Immunities Clause has been a dead letter since the controversial Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873, which gutted the clause while upholding a state-sanctioned slaughterhouse monopoly in Louisiana. And despite overwhelming historical evidence that the Privileges or Immunities Clause was specifically written and ratified after the Civil War in order to secure individual rights against state abuse—including the right to armed self-defense—Slaughterhouse has never been overturned.
So the stakes in McDonald are high indeed. And they aren’t just limited to gun rights...
In sum, the 14th Amendment was designed to protect an individualistic and market-oriented form of self-ownership, one that includes the right to armed self-defense, the right to private property, the right to liberty of contract, and the right to pursue an honest living free from arbitrary and unnecessary government interference. That’s the libertarian promise of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. And that’s why Tuesday’s arguments in McDonald v. Chicago matter for both gun rights and economic liberty.
Damon W. Root is an associate editor at Reason magazine.
Read the whole article: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/26/getting-the-14th-amendment-rig
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Some nearly unbelievable thoughts from McCarthy
DP: Here's some incredible, very possibly prescient, analysis from Mr. McCarthy:
Transformation [Andy McCarthy]
On Sean's panel last night, when the conversation turned to how nervous Democrats supposedly are over what for now is teeing up like a very bad November, I felt like I was channeling Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and Rush. That is, I think our side is analyzing this all wrong: Today's Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already factored in losing in November — even losing big. For them, winning big now outweighs that. I think they're right.
I hear Republicans getting giddy over the fact that "reconciliation," if it comes to that, is a huge political loser. That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.
Consequently, the next six weeks, like the next ten months, are going to be worse than we think. We're wired to think that everyone plays by the usual rules of politics — i.e., if the tide starts to change, the side against whom it has turned modifies its positions in order to stay viable in the next election. But what will happen here will be the opposite. You have a party with the numbers to do anything it puts its mind to, led by movement Leftists who see their window of opportunity is closing. We seem to expect them to moderate because that's what everybody in their position does. But they won't. They will put their heads down and go for as much transformation as they can get, figuring that once they get it, it will never be rolled back. The only question is whether there are enough Democrats who are conventional politicians and who care about being reelected, such that they will deny the leadership the numbers it needs. But I don't think we should take much heart in this possibility. Those Democrats may well come to think they are going to lose anyway — that's why so many of them are abandoning ship now. If that's the case, their incentive will be to vote with the leadership.
At the end of the summit debacle, President Obama put the best face on a bad day by indicating that he intended to push ahead with socialized medicine and face the electoral consequences ("that's what elections are for," he concluded). He's right about that. For Republicans, it won't be enough to fight this thing, then deride it if Democrats pull it off, and finally coast to a very likely electoral victory in November. The question is: What are you going to do to roll this back? What is your plan to undo this?
This post from Irwin Stelzer at The Standard caught my eye this morning (my italics):
Americans overwhelmingly say that their main concern is jobs, and that they are satisfied with their current health care arrangements. In response, an allegedly chastened President Obama “pivoted,” and says his primary concern from now on will be job creation, which will take priority over his controversial plan to radically change the nation’s health care system. Yet, last week he backed a $15 billion job-creation bill, which passed the Senate, and a $1 trillion health care bill. Since the federal balance sheet is already under huge pressure, this set of priorities tells us that the Obama administration intends to concentrate available resources on transforming the economy — a long-term, permanent restructuring of the health care and energy sectors that was planned long before the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial mess Obama inherited.
Yup.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmQyOTI5NzNkMmMxY2IyYThhMjBmNjhkOWQ2MTY5YjE=
Transformation [Andy McCarthy]
On Sean's panel last night, when the conversation turned to how nervous Democrats supposedly are over what for now is teeing up like a very bad November, I felt like I was channeling Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and Rush. That is, I think our side is analyzing this all wrong: Today's Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already factored in losing in November — even losing big. For them, winning big now outweighs that. I think they're right.
I hear Republicans getting giddy over the fact that "reconciliation," if it comes to that, is a huge political loser. That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.
Consequently, the next six weeks, like the next ten months, are going to be worse than we think. We're wired to think that everyone plays by the usual rules of politics — i.e., if the tide starts to change, the side against whom it has turned modifies its positions in order to stay viable in the next election. But what will happen here will be the opposite. You have a party with the numbers to do anything it puts its mind to, led by movement Leftists who see their window of opportunity is closing. We seem to expect them to moderate because that's what everybody in their position does. But they won't. They will put their heads down and go for as much transformation as they can get, figuring that once they get it, it will never be rolled back. The only question is whether there are enough Democrats who are conventional politicians and who care about being reelected, such that they will deny the leadership the numbers it needs. But I don't think we should take much heart in this possibility. Those Democrats may well come to think they are going to lose anyway — that's why so many of them are abandoning ship now. If that's the case, their incentive will be to vote with the leadership.
At the end of the summit debacle, President Obama put the best face on a bad day by indicating that he intended to push ahead with socialized medicine and face the electoral consequences ("that's what elections are for," he concluded). He's right about that. For Republicans, it won't be enough to fight this thing, then deride it if Democrats pull it off, and finally coast to a very likely electoral victory in November. The question is: What are you going to do to roll this back? What is your plan to undo this?
This post from Irwin Stelzer at The Standard caught my eye this morning (my italics):
Americans overwhelmingly say that their main concern is jobs, and that they are satisfied with their current health care arrangements. In response, an allegedly chastened President Obama “pivoted,” and says his primary concern from now on will be job creation, which will take priority over his controversial plan to radically change the nation’s health care system. Yet, last week he backed a $15 billion job-creation bill, which passed the Senate, and a $1 trillion health care bill. Since the federal balance sheet is already under huge pressure, this set of priorities tells us that the Obama administration intends to concentrate available resources on transforming the economy — a long-term, permanent restructuring of the health care and energy sectors that was planned long before the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial mess Obama inherited.
Yup.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmQyOTI5NzNkMmMxY2IyYThhMjBmNjhkOWQ2MTY5YjE=
Obama Fatigue
Obama Fatigue by Victor Davis Hanson via PJ Media
Every President starts to wear on the public. But the omnipresent Obama has become wearisome in record time. Why?
1) Money: There is none. Every time the president talks of another billion for this, and trillion for that, the people sigh: “We don’t have it; he’s going to borrow it.” Unemployment is near 10%, so borrowing nearly $2 trillion each year makes more sense to Keynesian economists than to voters who don’t find hope by maxing out their credit cards when they lose their jobs.
Obama is weirdly oblivious to number crunching — as is true of many who have never been self-employed or had to scramble without a public salary. Yet even Hillary is now whining that her foreign policy is frozen by the fact of mounting American debt...
2) Style: Great orators get better in their rhetoric, not worse. It turns out that the people risked a blank slate in Obama in part because in his teleprompted hope and change orations, he sounded fresh and mellifluous. Voters assumed he would wear well. But in nonstop interviews, press conferences, and conversations, the impromptu president seems no more comfortable than was an ad hoc George Bush. And just as liberals were turned off by Bush’s cowboyisms, so too conservatives are tired of Obama’s professorial, condescending sermons. After a year, the people are tired of all the “let me be perfectly clear” psycho-drama, the “make no mistake about” pseudo-tough man pose, the straw man “I reject the false choice that some would…,” and the narcissistic “I have ordered…..my team…to.” The boilerplate is now recognizable even to the Washington press corps...
3) Laureate Warmaking: Utopians cannot get away with quadrupling the number of targeted killings in Pakistan and Waziristan against suspected terrorists and their wives. Twangy Texans who believe that we are at “war” against non-uniformed enemy combatants logically order Predators assassinations against what they see as a ruthless, bloodthirsty radical Islamic “enemy” in a “them or us” fight to the finish. But, again, not so Nobel Peace laureates, who want terrorists to be Mirandized, the architects of 9/11 to be tried in civilian courts in New York, and CIA interrogators to be investigated for waterboarding known mass murderers...
4) Saintly partisanship: Crass politicians can get away with the nuclear option or reconciliation. Hard-nosed Republicans senators once threatened to go nuclear with 51 votes in the Senate to get judges confirmed in the manner that once outraged liberal politicos who now are more than happy to ram through health care without 60 votes. But messiahs? Obama once gave a sermon on the dangers of mere majority rule, when he was a backbencher in the Senate and a favorite of the hard left. “Majorities” in his refined mind were then a sign of rowdy tyrannical populism. So such a parliamentarian really cannot now threaten to use a bare majority to smash through health care, not when he has assured us that he is no Harry Reid or Barbara Boxer, but rather a “no more blue/red state” “healer.” The wages of hypocrisy are usually more costly than mindless partisanship. And the more Obama talks of bipartisanship and reaching out, the more the law professor seems to go out of his way to be petulant and trenchantly “my way or the highway.”
5) The “Bush Did It” whine is over: Why? Two reasons: 1) Obama has copied Bush on almost all the anti-terrorism protocols that worked, such as tribunals, renditions, Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan, Predators, wiretaps and intercepts. And to the extent he has not — a trial for KSM in New York, a witch hunt against the former CIA interrogators, Miranda rights for the would-be Christmas Day bomber, proposed closing of Guantanamo — the people wonder: what in the hell is this guy doing? 2) Obama turned Bush’s misdemeanors, like deficits, borrowing, and new government programs, into felonies. So in comparison, Bush doesn’t look quite so bad now: next time Obama plays the “Bush Did it” card, the public will think either “Thank God” or “Yeah, but not as badly as you did”.
6) Race is a no-no: We have variously heard that opposition to Obama is based on: 1) right-wing, tea-party know-nothing angst; 2) greedy Wall Street profit-making to ensure riches for the elite; 3) narrowly-minded partisanship of Republicans that only want power for themselves rather than what is good for America; 4) the clueless American people and their “broken” system that hasn’t yet fathomed what a rare chance they have with a prophet like Obama who can lift them out of their NASCAR ignorance. All of those tropes either did not resonate or backfired. Obama laughing about “tea-baggers,” his “fat cats” quip, his “partisans and Washington insiders,” and the notion that Americans will come to appreciate health care once he forces it upon them — they all failed. What is left? The race card. Some of his own supporters have played it; other losing politicians like Gov. Paterson tried it. Yet it is a prescription for turning failure into catastrophe. Every time Obama got near racial grievance-mongering — the Rev. Wright mess, the “typical white person” slur, the clingers speech, the Holder “cowards” outburst, the Skip Gates “stereotyping” whine — he sunk in the polls or had to backtrack big time. The population is so tired of racial chauvinism,...
Bottom Line?
Can Obama recover in the midterm elections? Compare the following ifs: if the economy grows by 5% (it could, given the massive government borrowing) in the third quarter and unemployment goes below 8% (not likely) in a natural cycle of rebound; if Obama kills or catches Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden (kills is the operative word); if the Democrats clean house of Dodd, Rangel, Pelosi, Reid, etc. and start using old time (are any left?) centrists as their public spokespeople; if Obama himself shows more humility, drops the “I”s and “me”s, weans himself off the teleprompter, quits all the bowing and apologizing, and, Clinton-like, starts talking about balanced budgets, well, then there is a chance of recovery. But note if he were to do that, he would not be Obama as he has been for nearly the last half-century. More likely, he’s going to Carterize it to the end, and end up at 85 writing op-ed responses why he really, really was a great president nearly forty years prior.
The whole article: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/obama-fatigue/
Every President starts to wear on the public. But the omnipresent Obama has become wearisome in record time. Why?
1) Money: There is none. Every time the president talks of another billion for this, and trillion for that, the people sigh: “We don’t have it; he’s going to borrow it.” Unemployment is near 10%, so borrowing nearly $2 trillion each year makes more sense to Keynesian economists than to voters who don’t find hope by maxing out their credit cards when they lose their jobs.
Obama is weirdly oblivious to number crunching — as is true of many who have never been self-employed or had to scramble without a public salary. Yet even Hillary is now whining that her foreign policy is frozen by the fact of mounting American debt...
2) Style: Great orators get better in their rhetoric, not worse. It turns out that the people risked a blank slate in Obama in part because in his teleprompted hope and change orations, he sounded fresh and mellifluous. Voters assumed he would wear well. But in nonstop interviews, press conferences, and conversations, the impromptu president seems no more comfortable than was an ad hoc George Bush. And just as liberals were turned off by Bush’s cowboyisms, so too conservatives are tired of Obama’s professorial, condescending sermons. After a year, the people are tired of all the “let me be perfectly clear” psycho-drama, the “make no mistake about” pseudo-tough man pose, the straw man “I reject the false choice that some would…,” and the narcissistic “I have ordered…..my team…to.” The boilerplate is now recognizable even to the Washington press corps...
3) Laureate Warmaking: Utopians cannot get away with quadrupling the number of targeted killings in Pakistan and Waziristan against suspected terrorists and their wives. Twangy Texans who believe that we are at “war” against non-uniformed enemy combatants logically order Predators assassinations against what they see as a ruthless, bloodthirsty radical Islamic “enemy” in a “them or us” fight to the finish. But, again, not so Nobel Peace laureates, who want terrorists to be Mirandized, the architects of 9/11 to be tried in civilian courts in New York, and CIA interrogators to be investigated for waterboarding known mass murderers...
4) Saintly partisanship: Crass politicians can get away with the nuclear option or reconciliation. Hard-nosed Republicans senators once threatened to go nuclear with 51 votes in the Senate to get judges confirmed in the manner that once outraged liberal politicos who now are more than happy to ram through health care without 60 votes. But messiahs? Obama once gave a sermon on the dangers of mere majority rule, when he was a backbencher in the Senate and a favorite of the hard left. “Majorities” in his refined mind were then a sign of rowdy tyrannical populism. So such a parliamentarian really cannot now threaten to use a bare majority to smash through health care, not when he has assured us that he is no Harry Reid or Barbara Boxer, but rather a “no more blue/red state” “healer.” The wages of hypocrisy are usually more costly than mindless partisanship. And the more Obama talks of bipartisanship and reaching out, the more the law professor seems to go out of his way to be petulant and trenchantly “my way or the highway.”
5) The “Bush Did It” whine is over: Why? Two reasons: 1) Obama has copied Bush on almost all the anti-terrorism protocols that worked, such as tribunals, renditions, Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan, Predators, wiretaps and intercepts. And to the extent he has not — a trial for KSM in New York, a witch hunt against the former CIA interrogators, Miranda rights for the would-be Christmas Day bomber, proposed closing of Guantanamo — the people wonder: what in the hell is this guy doing? 2) Obama turned Bush’s misdemeanors, like deficits, borrowing, and new government programs, into felonies. So in comparison, Bush doesn’t look quite so bad now: next time Obama plays the “Bush Did it” card, the public will think either “Thank God” or “Yeah, but not as badly as you did”.
6) Race is a no-no: We have variously heard that opposition to Obama is based on: 1) right-wing, tea-party know-nothing angst; 2) greedy Wall Street profit-making to ensure riches for the elite; 3) narrowly-minded partisanship of Republicans that only want power for themselves rather than what is good for America; 4) the clueless American people and their “broken” system that hasn’t yet fathomed what a rare chance they have with a prophet like Obama who can lift them out of their NASCAR ignorance. All of those tropes either did not resonate or backfired. Obama laughing about “tea-baggers,” his “fat cats” quip, his “partisans and Washington insiders,” and the notion that Americans will come to appreciate health care once he forces it upon them — they all failed. What is left? The race card. Some of his own supporters have played it; other losing politicians like Gov. Paterson tried it. Yet it is a prescription for turning failure into catastrophe. Every time Obama got near racial grievance-mongering — the Rev. Wright mess, the “typical white person” slur, the clingers speech, the Holder “cowards” outburst, the Skip Gates “stereotyping” whine — he sunk in the polls or had to backtrack big time. The population is so tired of racial chauvinism,...
Bottom Line?
Can Obama recover in the midterm elections? Compare the following ifs: if the economy grows by 5% (it could, given the massive government borrowing) in the third quarter and unemployment goes below 8% (not likely) in a natural cycle of rebound; if Obama kills or catches Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden (kills is the operative word); if the Democrats clean house of Dodd, Rangel, Pelosi, Reid, etc. and start using old time (are any left?) centrists as their public spokespeople; if Obama himself shows more humility, drops the “I”s and “me”s, weans himself off the teleprompter, quits all the bowing and apologizing, and, Clinton-like, starts talking about balanced budgets, well, then there is a chance of recovery. But note if he were to do that, he would not be Obama as he has been for nearly the last half-century. More likely, he’s going to Carterize it to the end, and end up at 85 writing op-ed responses why he really, really was a great president nearly forty years prior.
The whole article: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/obama-fatigue/
One man standing against madness
Senator Bunning’s Unappreciated Gifts [Alan Reynolds via NRO]
Sen. Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) blocked “extended” unemployment benefits beyond their scheduled expiration on February 27. That thwarted bill would also have put off, again, a scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians. Democrats were outraged. But why?
Bunning just wanted to use leftover “stimulus” money to pay for the benefits. Why not? Such transfer payments accounted for over 80 percent of stimulus spending last year.
Besides, as Federal Reserve policymakers noted, the evidence is overwhelming (see here and here) that extending unemployment benefits from six months to nearly two years has raised the unemployment rate by a percentage point or two. I’ve waited since 1991 for someone to prove I’m wrong about that. Nobody has, because nobody can.
If the maximum duration of jobless benefits were trimmed by 13 to 20 weeks (which is all that’s at stake), they would still be far more extended than ever before. But the unemployment rate by the time of this November’s elections would be much lower than otherwise. Would Democrats prefer to go into the elections with an unemployment rate near 10 percent or a rate below 9 percent?
As for Medicare, slashing payments to physicians is the Democrats’ favorite way of paying for expanding Medicaid enrollment and health-insurance subsidies for the non-poor. If they really think that will work, how can they possibly object to saving money sooner rather than later?
— Alan Reynolds, National Review’s economics editor from 1972 to 1976, is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute.
Links at:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTM4ZjJkNTliOWQ4ZTgzYzRjMDBhNTE0YmVjZDZlMTE=
Sen. Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) blocked “extended” unemployment benefits beyond their scheduled expiration on February 27. That thwarted bill would also have put off, again, a scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians. Democrats were outraged. But why?
Bunning just wanted to use leftover “stimulus” money to pay for the benefits. Why not? Such transfer payments accounted for over 80 percent of stimulus spending last year.
Besides, as Federal Reserve policymakers noted, the evidence is overwhelming (see here and here) that extending unemployment benefits from six months to nearly two years has raised the unemployment rate by a percentage point or two. I’ve waited since 1991 for someone to prove I’m wrong about that. Nobody has, because nobody can.
If the maximum duration of jobless benefits were trimmed by 13 to 20 weeks (which is all that’s at stake), they would still be far more extended than ever before. But the unemployment rate by the time of this November’s elections would be much lower than otherwise. Would Democrats prefer to go into the elections with an unemployment rate near 10 percent or a rate below 9 percent?
As for Medicare, slashing payments to physicians is the Democrats’ favorite way of paying for expanding Medicaid enrollment and health-insurance subsidies for the non-poor. If they really think that will work, how can they possibly object to saving money sooner rather than later?
— Alan Reynolds, National Review’s economics editor from 1972 to 1976, is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute.
Links at:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTM4ZjJkNTliOWQ4ZTgzYzRjMDBhNTE0YmVjZDZlMTE=
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
O's Nixonian folly--trying to control markets
Obama Embraces Nixonomics--The folly of imposing wage and price controls
Barack Obama has often modeled his policies on Franklin Roosevelt. Lately, though, he's been coming across more as Richard Nixon Lite.
In 1971, fed up with the steady rise of wages and prices, Nixon had a big idea: Attack inflation by imposing strict controls on wages and prices. A federal board was created to establish guidelines and enforce compliance, on the assumption that government officials were wise enough to decide the correct price for millions of products and the right wage for millions of workers.
The main result was to prove the folly of such intervention. Nixon's own chief economist, Herbert Stein, admitted that the administration eventually had to give up because the program was "a total disaster." Among the unwanted side effects: "Cattle were being withheld from market, chickens were drowned, and the food store shelves were being emptied."
Motorists had to wait in line for hours to buy gasoline. At one point, Americans faced a nationwide shortage of toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper. Oh, and the inflation rate didn't fall. It rose.
So how does Obama intend to make health insurance affordable? He wants the federal government to regulate premiums from coast to coast. He unveiled the proposal shortly after a California company owned by WellPoint raised charges on some individual policies by as much as 39 percent.
Obama will not stand for it. Under his plan, says the White House, "if a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, health insurers must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable."
I have a better idea. If a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, customers can head for greener pastures. Among the several dozen competing insurers in California, some presumably will leap at the chance to grab their business. If other companies decline to offer lower rates, however, it's a surefire sign that the increase is both reasonable and justified.
The administration thinks WellPoint has no reason to raise prices because it had billions in profits last year. But the company says it lost money on individual policies in California, because medical prices rose and many customers dropped their coverage, leaving the company with a sicker and more expensive clientele.
Obama may fantasize that WellPoint will keep furnishing its product forever while stoically swallowing losses. It's more likely to devise ways to curtail benefits, make it harder for applicants to qualify, and raise the hassle factor so unprofitable customers go elsewhere. If things get bad enough, it can abandon the market -- leaving consumers to pay the low rate of nothing while also getting nothing.
Such ostentatiously noble but naive schemes are becoming the pattern in Obama's economic policy. A law he signed last year regulating credit card companies, which took effect this week, was supposed to save consumers huge sums. But it has suffered a bruising collision with the real world.
The Associated Press reports that in recent months, "credit card companies jacked up interest rates, created new fees and cut credit lines," while shutting down many accounts entirely. The law, says AP, "has helped make it more difficult for millions of Americans to get credit, and made that credit more expensive."
This administration, like Nixon's, has also elected to override the private sector when it comes to setting pay scales...
Read the rest: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/25/obama-embraces-nixonomics
Barack Obama has often modeled his policies on Franklin Roosevelt. Lately, though, he's been coming across more as Richard Nixon Lite.
In 1971, fed up with the steady rise of wages and prices, Nixon had a big idea: Attack inflation by imposing strict controls on wages and prices. A federal board was created to establish guidelines and enforce compliance, on the assumption that government officials were wise enough to decide the correct price for millions of products and the right wage for millions of workers.
The main result was to prove the folly of such intervention. Nixon's own chief economist, Herbert Stein, admitted that the administration eventually had to give up because the program was "a total disaster." Among the unwanted side effects: "Cattle were being withheld from market, chickens were drowned, and the food store shelves were being emptied."
Motorists had to wait in line for hours to buy gasoline. At one point, Americans faced a nationwide shortage of toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper. Oh, and the inflation rate didn't fall. It rose.
So how does Obama intend to make health insurance affordable? He wants the federal government to regulate premiums from coast to coast. He unveiled the proposal shortly after a California company owned by WellPoint raised charges on some individual policies by as much as 39 percent.
Obama will not stand for it. Under his plan, says the White House, "if a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, health insurers must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable."
I have a better idea. If a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, customers can head for greener pastures. Among the several dozen competing insurers in California, some presumably will leap at the chance to grab their business. If other companies decline to offer lower rates, however, it's a surefire sign that the increase is both reasonable and justified.
The administration thinks WellPoint has no reason to raise prices because it had billions in profits last year. But the company says it lost money on individual policies in California, because medical prices rose and many customers dropped their coverage, leaving the company with a sicker and more expensive clientele.
Obama may fantasize that WellPoint will keep furnishing its product forever while stoically swallowing losses. It's more likely to devise ways to curtail benefits, make it harder for applicants to qualify, and raise the hassle factor so unprofitable customers go elsewhere. If things get bad enough, it can abandon the market -- leaving consumers to pay the low rate of nothing while also getting nothing.
Such ostentatiously noble but naive schemes are becoming the pattern in Obama's economic policy. A law he signed last year regulating credit card companies, which took effect this week, was supposed to save consumers huge sums. But it has suffered a bruising collision with the real world.
The Associated Press reports that in recent months, "credit card companies jacked up interest rates, created new fees and cut credit lines," while shutting down many accounts entirely. The law, says AP, "has helped make it more difficult for millions of Americans to get credit, and made that credit more expensive."
This administration, like Nixon's, has also elected to override the private sector when it comes to setting pay scales...
Read the rest: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/25/obama-embraces-nixonomics
O ignores: 3 of 4 say no to current bill--CNN
Why Obama defies the public on health care Washington Examiner By: Byron York (via NRO)
Chief Political Correspondent, Washington Examiner
"There have been a lot of comments from every Republican about the polls," President Obama said near the end of the mind-numbing White House summit on health care reform. "What's interesting is when you poll people about the individual elements in each of these bills, they're all for them."
What Obama was addressing was a dilemma that drives Democrats crazy. Polls show the public supports some parts of the Democratic national health care reform plan, but adamantly opposes the comprehensive bill now dying a slow death on Capitol Hill.
Just look at the latest survey from CNN and Opinion Research. When asked if they support "preventing health insurance companies from dropping coverage for people who become seriously ill," 62 percent say yes. When asked whether they support "requiring all large and midsized businesses to provide health insurance for their employees," 72 percent say yes. And when asked if they support "preventing health insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions," 58 percent say yes.
On the other hand, asked what Congress should do on health care -- pass the current bill, start work on an entirely new bill, or stop working on the issue altogether -- a huge majority opposes the Democratic proposal now on the table. Just 25 percent of those surveyed want to see the bill passed. Forty-eight percent want Congress to start over, and 25 percent want lawmakers to stop working on health care altogether. Put those last two together, and an overwhelming majority of 73 percent do not want Congress to pass the current bill.
"The White House is cherry-picking the news it likes; that's what Obama was doing when he said the public is all for" elements of the bill. But bring up the polls showing people just don't want the current bill, and the administration gets a little dodgy.
"Who knows what is in those polls, how they were taken, when they were taken?" White House health care spokeswoman Linda Douglass told Fox News during a break in the summit.
But why do people support some elements of the bill while opposing the bill overall? Some Democrats blame Republican misinformation. Some believe it's because the bill isn't yet a reality, and people would love it, if it were only passed. Others say the public is just stupid.
Few Democrats can accept the possibility that voters are telling them their whole approach is wrong. Big, comprehensive legislative proposals just make people nervous.
"We don't do comprehensive well," Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander said at the health summit. "We've watched the comprehensive, economywide, cap and trade. We've watched the comprehensive immigration bill ... we've watched the comprehensive health care bill. And they fall of their own weight."
That's what's happening now. And it's something Democrats would know, if they had listened to one of their leading pollsters....
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Why-Obama-defies-the-public-on-health-care-85426622.html#ixzz0h2CfaXbg
Chief Political Correspondent, Washington Examiner
"There have been a lot of comments from every Republican about the polls," President Obama said near the end of the mind-numbing White House summit on health care reform. "What's interesting is when you poll people about the individual elements in each of these bills, they're all for them."
What Obama was addressing was a dilemma that drives Democrats crazy. Polls show the public supports some parts of the Democratic national health care reform plan, but adamantly opposes the comprehensive bill now dying a slow death on Capitol Hill.
Just look at the latest survey from CNN and Opinion Research. When asked if they support "preventing health insurance companies from dropping coverage for people who become seriously ill," 62 percent say yes. When asked whether they support "requiring all large and midsized businesses to provide health insurance for their employees," 72 percent say yes. And when asked if they support "preventing health insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions," 58 percent say yes.
On the other hand, asked what Congress should do on health care -- pass the current bill, start work on an entirely new bill, or stop working on the issue altogether -- a huge majority opposes the Democratic proposal now on the table. Just 25 percent of those surveyed want to see the bill passed. Forty-eight percent want Congress to start over, and 25 percent want lawmakers to stop working on health care altogether. Put those last two together, and an overwhelming majority of 73 percent do not want Congress to pass the current bill.
"The White House is cherry-picking the news it likes; that's what Obama was doing when he said the public is all for" elements of the bill. But bring up the polls showing people just don't want the current bill, and the administration gets a little dodgy.
"Who knows what is in those polls, how they were taken, when they were taken?" White House health care spokeswoman Linda Douglass told Fox News during a break in the summit.
But why do people support some elements of the bill while opposing the bill overall? Some Democrats blame Republican misinformation. Some believe it's because the bill isn't yet a reality, and people would love it, if it were only passed. Others say the public is just stupid.
Few Democrats can accept the possibility that voters are telling them their whole approach is wrong. Big, comprehensive legislative proposals just make people nervous.
"We don't do comprehensive well," Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander said at the health summit. "We've watched the comprehensive, economywide, cap and trade. We've watched the comprehensive immigration bill ... we've watched the comprehensive health care bill. And they fall of their own weight."
That's what's happening now. And it's something Democrats would know, if they had listened to one of their leading pollsters....
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Why-Obama-defies-the-public-on-health-care-85426622.html#ixzz0h2CfaXbg
Transformation
DP: Here's some incredible, very possibly prescient, analysis from Mr. McCarthy:
Transformation [Andy McCarthy]
On Sean's panel last night, when the conversation turned to how nervous Democrats supposedly are over what for now is teeing up like a very bad November, I felt like I was channeling Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and Rush. That is, I think our side is analyzing this all wrong: Today's Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already factored in losing in November — even losing big. For them, winning big now outweighs that. I think they're right.
I hear Republicans getting giddy over the fact that "reconciliation," if it comes to that, is a huge political loser. That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.
Consequently, the next six weeks, like the next ten months, are going to be worse than we think. We're wired to think that everyone plays by the usual rules of politics — i.e., if the tide starts to change, the side against whom it has turned modifies its positions in order to stay viable in the next election. But what will happen here will be the opposite. You have a party with the numbers to do anything it puts its mind to, led by movement Leftists who see their window of opportunity is closing. We seem to expect them to moderate because that's what everybody in their position does. But they won't. They will put their heads down and go for as much transformation as they can get, figuring that once they get it, it will never be rolled back. The only question is whether there are enough Democrats who are conventional politicians and who care about being reelected, such that they will deny the leadership the numbers it needs. But I don't think we should take much heart in this possibility. Those Democrats may well come to think they are going to lose anyway — that's why so many of them are abandoning ship now. If that's the case, their incentive will be to vote with the leadership.
At the end of the summit debacle, President Obama put the best face on a bad day by indicating that he intended to push ahead with socialized medicine and face the electoral consequences ("that's what elections are for," he concluded). He's right about that. For Republicans, it won't be enough to fight this thing, then deride it if Democrats pull it off, and finally coast to a very likely electoral victory in November. The question is: What are you going to do to roll this back? What is your plan to undo this?
This post from Irwin Stelzer at The Standard caught my eye this morning (my italics):
Americans overwhelmingly say that their main concern is jobs, and that they are satisfied with their current health care arrangements. In response, an allegedly chastened President Obama “pivoted,” and says his primary concern from now on will be job creation, which will take priority over his controversial plan to radically change the nation’s health care system. Yet, last week he backed a $15 billion job-creation bill, which passed the Senate, and a $1 trillion health care bill. Since the federal balance sheet is already under huge pressure, this set of priorities tells us that the Obama administration intends to concentrate available resources on transforming the economy — a long-term, permanent restructuring of the health care and energy sectors that was planned long before the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial mess Obama inherited.
Yup.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmQyOTI5NzNkMmMxY2IyYThhMjBmNjhkOWQ2MTY5YjE=
Transformation [Andy McCarthy]
On Sean's panel last night, when the conversation turned to how nervous Democrats supposedly are over what for now is teeing up like a very bad November, I felt like I was channeling Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and Rush. That is, I think our side is analyzing this all wrong: Today's Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already factored in losing in November — even losing big. For them, winning big now outweighs that. I think they're right.
I hear Republicans getting giddy over the fact that "reconciliation," if it comes to that, is a huge political loser. That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.
Consequently, the next six weeks, like the next ten months, are going to be worse than we think. We're wired to think that everyone plays by the usual rules of politics — i.e., if the tide starts to change, the side against whom it has turned modifies its positions in order to stay viable in the next election. But what will happen here will be the opposite. You have a party with the numbers to do anything it puts its mind to, led by movement Leftists who see their window of opportunity is closing. We seem to expect them to moderate because that's what everybody in their position does. But they won't. They will put their heads down and go for as much transformation as they can get, figuring that once they get it, it will never be rolled back. The only question is whether there are enough Democrats who are conventional politicians and who care about being reelected, such that they will deny the leadership the numbers it needs. But I don't think we should take much heart in this possibility. Those Democrats may well come to think they are going to lose anyway — that's why so many of them are abandoning ship now. If that's the case, their incentive will be to vote with the leadership.
At the end of the summit debacle, President Obama put the best face on a bad day by indicating that he intended to push ahead with socialized medicine and face the electoral consequences ("that's what elections are for," he concluded). He's right about that. For Republicans, it won't be enough to fight this thing, then deride it if Democrats pull it off, and finally coast to a very likely electoral victory in November. The question is: What are you going to do to roll this back? What is your plan to undo this?
This post from Irwin Stelzer at The Standard caught my eye this morning (my italics):
Americans overwhelmingly say that their main concern is jobs, and that they are satisfied with their current health care arrangements. In response, an allegedly chastened President Obama “pivoted,” and says his primary concern from now on will be job creation, which will take priority over his controversial plan to radically change the nation’s health care system. Yet, last week he backed a $15 billion job-creation bill, which passed the Senate, and a $1 trillion health care bill. Since the federal balance sheet is already under huge pressure, this set of priorities tells us that the Obama administration intends to concentrate available resources on transforming the economy — a long-term, permanent restructuring of the health care and energy sectors that was planned long before the failure of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial mess Obama inherited.
Yup.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmQyOTI5NzNkMmMxY2IyYThhMjBmNjhkOWQ2MTY5YjE=
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Leftist points against interrogation fall apart
Declassified Documents This Week Confirm Library Tower Plot
In recent days, the Left has been apoplectic that, in interviews for my book Courting Disaster, I continue to assert that CIA questioning of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed helped thwart a plot to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast — the Library Tower in Los Angeles. Those claims have been debunked, the critics argue, because key operatives in the plot were arrested in 2002, before KSM was captured. Using information from KSM to break up the plot Library Tower plot would “have been a tremendous achievement in surmounting the time-space continuum,” writes the Huffington Post. FBI agent and CIA critic Ali Soufan has made much the same claim.
It does not seem to dawn on them that while two terrorists in the plot were indeed captured in 2002, the 19 other operatives in the plot who were still at large when KSM was captured (including KSM’s partner in hatching the plot, Jemmah Islamiyah terrorist Hambali) might still have been determined to carry it out.
Unfortunately for HuffPo and the other critics, new evidence emerged this week in declassified CIA documents released by the Obama administration which confirms that this was in fact the case. Specifically, the administration released Top Secret Congressional testimony from then-CIA director Mike Hayden on April 12, 2007, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. (Hayden’s testimony begins on page 6 of this PDF), which shows that the plans for the West Coast plot were alive and well after KSM’s capture, and were disrupted because of information he provided the CIA.
Read the rest: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjMxY2U3ZGZhMjk1ZTA0ODhkYzUxOTEyZGY1MDZhYjU=
In recent days, the Left has been apoplectic that, in interviews for my book Courting Disaster, I continue to assert that CIA questioning of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed helped thwart a plot to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast — the Library Tower in Los Angeles. Those claims have been debunked, the critics argue, because key operatives in the plot were arrested in 2002, before KSM was captured. Using information from KSM to break up the plot Library Tower plot would “have been a tremendous achievement in surmounting the time-space continuum,” writes the Huffington Post. FBI agent and CIA critic Ali Soufan has made much the same claim.
It does not seem to dawn on them that while two terrorists in the plot were indeed captured in 2002, the 19 other operatives in the plot who were still at large when KSM was captured (including KSM’s partner in hatching the plot, Jemmah Islamiyah terrorist Hambali) might still have been determined to carry it out.
Unfortunately for HuffPo and the other critics, new evidence emerged this week in declassified CIA documents released by the Obama administration which confirms that this was in fact the case. Specifically, the administration released Top Secret Congressional testimony from then-CIA director Mike Hayden on April 12, 2007, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. (Hayden’s testimony begins on page 6 of this PDF), which shows that the plans for the West Coast plot were alive and well after KSM’s capture, and were disrupted because of information he provided the CIA.
Read the rest: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjMxY2U3ZGZhMjk1ZTA0ODhkYzUxOTEyZGY1MDZhYjU=
Terms now mean new things in DC
Our Current D.C. Lexicon [Victor Davis Hanson via NRO]
partisan bickering—a period when conservatives are unexpectedly gaining the upper hand.
partisan bickering—a period when conservatives are unexpectedly gaining the upper hand.
gridlock—a time when liberal legislation polls less than 50 percent among the American people.
bipartisanship—triangulating Republican legislators who join liberals on key legislation.
filibuster—a sometimes necessary Senate remedy to thwart reactionary excess — in its perverted form, unnaturally turned on progressives.
centrist—a Republican who votes for Democratic-sponsored legislation; to be distinguished from an opportunist, who, as a Democrat, votes for Republican-sponsored legislation.
Smoke, mirrors, fudging, dodging lying
Ducking and Dodging - Stephen Spruiell - National Review Online
The Democrats can’t explain away the gimmicks in their health bill.
‘We have some strong disagreements on the numbers,” President Obama said after Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) concluded his devastating critique of the Democrats’ budget claims, “but I don’t want to get too bogged down.” In the ensuing debate, what became clear is that the Democrats just don’t have an answer to Ryan’s arguments. They ducked, dodged, and changed the subject repeatedly, because Ryan’s numbers themselves are unimpeachable.
The Democrats are touting an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that their health-care bill would reduce the deficit by around $130 billion over the next ten years. What Ryan pointed out — and what no Democrat even attempted to counter — is that this is because the legislation front-loads tax hikes and Medicare cuts and defers costs, forcing the CBO to score ten years of offsets with only six years of spending. Looked at on a level playing field, the true ten-year cost of the bill is $2.3 trillion rather than $950 billion, Ryan said.
Then he brought up another gimmick: The bill is full of double-counting. “Savings” are counted as offsets for new health-care spending and at the same time set aside to pay for future entitlements. For instance, the Democrats claim $52 billion in offsets as a result of increasing Social Security payroll-tax revenues. But these dollars are already claimed for future Social Security beneficiaries. They can’t pay for both. The Democrats take another $72 billion in premiums intended to fund a new long-term-care program and count them as offsets for other spending. Ryan pointed out that Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad has called this “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”
Perhaps most important, Ryan confronted the Democrats with the issue of the “Doc Fix” — a separate bill that would have added $371 billion to the Democrats’ legislation if it hadn’t been stripped out. The Doc Fix would have prevented Medicare reimbursements to doctors from plummeting by 21 percent, a drop that Congress put into the bill to improve its CBO score but never planned to allow, most political observers agree...
Read the rest: http://article.nationalreview.com/426321/ducking-and-dodging/stephen-spruiell?page=1
The Democrats can’t explain away the gimmicks in their health bill.
‘We have some strong disagreements on the numbers,” President Obama said after Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) concluded his devastating critique of the Democrats’ budget claims, “but I don’t want to get too bogged down.” In the ensuing debate, what became clear is that the Democrats just don’t have an answer to Ryan’s arguments. They ducked, dodged, and changed the subject repeatedly, because Ryan’s numbers themselves are unimpeachable.
The Democrats are touting an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that their health-care bill would reduce the deficit by around $130 billion over the next ten years. What Ryan pointed out — and what no Democrat even attempted to counter — is that this is because the legislation front-loads tax hikes and Medicare cuts and defers costs, forcing the CBO to score ten years of offsets with only six years of spending. Looked at on a level playing field, the true ten-year cost of the bill is $2.3 trillion rather than $950 billion, Ryan said.
Then he brought up another gimmick: The bill is full of double-counting. “Savings” are counted as offsets for new health-care spending and at the same time set aside to pay for future entitlements. For instance, the Democrats claim $52 billion in offsets as a result of increasing Social Security payroll-tax revenues. But these dollars are already claimed for future Social Security beneficiaries. They can’t pay for both. The Democrats take another $72 billion in premiums intended to fund a new long-term-care program and count them as offsets for other spending. Ryan pointed out that Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad has called this “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”
Perhaps most important, Ryan confronted the Democrats with the issue of the “Doc Fix” — a separate bill that would have added $371 billion to the Democrats’ legislation if it hadn’t been stripped out. The Doc Fix would have prevented Medicare reimbursements to doctors from plummeting by 21 percent, a drop that Congress put into the bill to improve its CBO score but never planned to allow, most political observers agree...
Read the rest: http://article.nationalreview.com/426321/ducking-and-dodging/stephen-spruiell?page=1
Gov't Motors/Unions raw power against Toyota
The taint in the Toyota probe Washington Examiner Editorial
Regardless whether one loves or hates Toyota, a herd of huge elephants in the living room of this controversy have thus far been completely ignored in news reports and analysis. These include, first, a pair of related conflicts of interest underlying the government's role, and, second, the disreputable records of several key "expert" witnesses in the mounting crusade against the besieged automaker.
The conflicts of interest begin with the fact the federal government is itself the controlling owner of General Motors, having invested billions of U.S. tax dollars in one of Toyota's two main American competitors. There is no creditable way to separate federal policy decisions from their commercial effect on both Toyota and GM as long as the government is simultaneously prosecutor, judge and jury. At the very least, the government must divest its GM shares as soon as possible.
The other conflict of interest is with the government's major partner in GM ownership, the United Auto Workers union. Aside from the fact Toyota has for decades successfully resisted UAW attempts to organize the Japanese automaker's U.S. work force, the UAW is among the most powerful special interests doling out campaign contributions to congressmen sitting in judgment of the stricken car company on two key House panels. Nineteen of 36 Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee cashed sizable UAW campaign contribution checks to their 2010 re-election campaigns, including the present and immediate past chairmen, Henry Waxman and John Dingell. Similarly, 12 of 25 Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee got such checks. Are Democrats who have long claimed that money corrupts politics now so brazen as to claim they are exempt from such special interests influences?
Then there are the familiar names from the past reappearing now at the center of the swirling Toyota scandal, especially Joan Claybrook and Clarence Ditlow. Claybrook was administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Carter. Her chief claim to fame at NHTSA was forcing automakers to install air bags despite warnings that the technology needed further development to avoid killing infants and children. At least 65 deaths resulted, including infants and children who were decapitated by the exploding devices.
Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, is mainly known for endorsing NBC's use of rocket igniters to cause rigged explosions in GM pickups. The object was to "prove" the network's sensational allegation that some GM pickups were dangerous. When the allegation was exposed as groundless, NBC apologized profusely for the simulations. Despite their records, Claybrook and Ditlow as often cited as auto safety experts, including 19 times just in the past week in the New York Times and The Washington Post. If journalists insist on quoting Claybrook or Ditlow as experts on Toyota's alleged safety defects, they ought to at least give readers the whole story about the pair's disreputable past...
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/The-taint-in-the-Toyota-probe-85208902.html#ixzz0gzgXXzMt
Regardless whether one loves or hates Toyota, a herd of huge elephants in the living room of this controversy have thus far been completely ignored in news reports and analysis. These include, first, a pair of related conflicts of interest underlying the government's role, and, second, the disreputable records of several key "expert" witnesses in the mounting crusade against the besieged automaker.
The conflicts of interest begin with the fact the federal government is itself the controlling owner of General Motors, having invested billions of U.S. tax dollars in one of Toyota's two main American competitors. There is no creditable way to separate federal policy decisions from their commercial effect on both Toyota and GM as long as the government is simultaneously prosecutor, judge and jury. At the very least, the government must divest its GM shares as soon as possible.
The other conflict of interest is with the government's major partner in GM ownership, the United Auto Workers union. Aside from the fact Toyota has for decades successfully resisted UAW attempts to organize the Japanese automaker's U.S. work force, the UAW is among the most powerful special interests doling out campaign contributions to congressmen sitting in judgment of the stricken car company on two key House panels. Nineteen of 36 Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee cashed sizable UAW campaign contribution checks to their 2010 re-election campaigns, including the present and immediate past chairmen, Henry Waxman and John Dingell. Similarly, 12 of 25 Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee got such checks. Are Democrats who have long claimed that money corrupts politics now so brazen as to claim they are exempt from such special interests influences?
Then there are the familiar names from the past reappearing now at the center of the swirling Toyota scandal, especially Joan Claybrook and Clarence Ditlow. Claybrook was administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Carter. Her chief claim to fame at NHTSA was forcing automakers to install air bags despite warnings that the technology needed further development to avoid killing infants and children. At least 65 deaths resulted, including infants and children who were decapitated by the exploding devices.
Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, is mainly known for endorsing NBC's use of rocket igniters to cause rigged explosions in GM pickups. The object was to "prove" the network's sensational allegation that some GM pickups were dangerous. When the allegation was exposed as groundless, NBC apologized profusely for the simulations. Despite their records, Claybrook and Ditlow as often cited as auto safety experts, including 19 times just in the past week in the New York Times and The Washington Post. If journalists insist on quoting Claybrook or Ditlow as experts on Toyota's alleged safety defects, they ought to at least give readers the whole story about the pair's disreputable past...
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/The-taint-in-the-Toyota-probe-85208902.html#ixzz0gzgXXzMt
Monday, March 1, 2010
Nothing like ultimate hypocrisy from their mouths
Speaking of reconciliation...
Watching this video assembling the vehement pronouncements of prominent Democrats inveighing against circumvention of the filibuster, It would be easy for a citizen to become cynical about politics. It would be easy, but it would be right.
Naked Emperor News has compiled the wise words of Democratic worthies including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, Christopher Dodd (who is in especially good form) and Max Baucus denouncing the threat that Senate Republicans might abolish the use of the filibuster to obstruct judicial nominations.
The video leads off with Barack Obama worrying about "majoritarian absolute power" -- you know, the kind the Founders warned against. And it continues with timely thoughts from relevant actors, most of whom have continued in the Senate and will have the opportunity to adapt their past wisdom to current needs. It's a living Constitution, after all!
This is an impressive and educational highlight reel.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/02/025673.php
Watching this video assembling the vehement pronouncements of prominent Democrats inveighing against circumvention of the filibuster, It would be easy for a citizen to become cynical about politics. It would be easy, but it would be right.
Naked Emperor News has compiled the wise words of Democratic worthies including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, Christopher Dodd (who is in especially good form) and Max Baucus denouncing the threat that Senate Republicans might abolish the use of the filibuster to obstruct judicial nominations.
The video leads off with Barack Obama worrying about "majoritarian absolute power" -- you know, the kind the Founders warned against. And it continues with timely thoughts from relevant actors, most of whom have continued in the Senate and will have the opportunity to adapt their past wisdom to current needs. It's a living Constitution, after all!
This is an impressive and educational highlight reel.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/02/025673.php
Making It Worse for workers, abortion
Making It Worse [Ramesh Ponnuru via NRO]
One of the under-appreciated defects of the Democrats' health legislation is that it would sharply raise implicit marginal tax rates for low-wage workers. It would, that is, punish such workers for bettering their lot. After looking over the Obama administration's proposed changes to the legislation, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute e-mails that the resulting legislation would be worse, in this respect, than either the House or Senate versions of the bill. He also says that high-income workers would have more of an incentive to drop their health insurance under Obama's proposal than under either the House or the Senate bills. "That would cause insurance markets to unravel even faster."
The National Right to Life Committee points out in a press release that the president's revisions make the Senate bill's abortion provisions slightly worse as well. For example, the Senate bill provides $7 billion to Community Health Centers, and includes no restrictions on the use of these funds to pay for abortions. The president ups the funding to $11 billion.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjVhZDU2MzUxOTIxZDNhNWIyOTM2ZjliYjc1MGFkOWU=
One of the under-appreciated defects of the Democrats' health legislation is that it would sharply raise implicit marginal tax rates for low-wage workers. It would, that is, punish such workers for bettering their lot. After looking over the Obama administration's proposed changes to the legislation, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute e-mails that the resulting legislation would be worse, in this respect, than either the House or Senate versions of the bill. He also says that high-income workers would have more of an incentive to drop their health insurance under Obama's proposal than under either the House or the Senate bills. "That would cause insurance markets to unravel even faster."
The National Right to Life Committee points out in a press release that the president's revisions make the Senate bill's abortion provisions slightly worse as well. For example, the Senate bill provides $7 billion to Community Health Centers, and includes no restrictions on the use of these funds to pay for abortions. The president ups the funding to $11 billion.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjVhZDU2MzUxOTIxZDNhNWIyOTM2ZjliYjc1MGFkOWU=
Pin the Bogeyman On the Tea Party
Pin the Bogeyman On the Tea Party By Bill Frezza
Have you watched with amusement as various political commentators have tried to demonize the amorphous Tea Party movement by outing behind-the-scenes bogeymen allegedly pulling the strings of this latter day Great Awakening?
Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Dick Armey. Newt Gingrich. Grover Norquist. Jack Abramoff. Lyndon LaRouche. The John Birch Society. The list goes on.
None of it is sticking.
From time to time one professional politico or another may try to jump out in front of the parade. But everyone knows that the Tea Party has no leader, and with a little luck never will. That's because it's not a political party. In the best tradition of the American Revolution, it's an angry mob. Hence, the name.
Political parties have platforms, policy prescriptions, and principals (though rarely principles). Party candidates connive to get elected promising to "solve problems" and "serve constituents" - in practice the people, corporations, and special interest groups that finance their multi-million dollar election campaigns. The goal of a political party is to get its hands on the levers of government so its unlimited reservoirs of power and money can be used to advance party interests.
The highest principle of any political party is to replace the bogeymen of the rival party. Whether Democrat or Republican their pitch is always a variation on the same theme. "Trust us, you threw us out when we made a hash of things last time we had the upper hand but this time will be different!"
How has this game of musical factions been working for America?
The Tea Party is not a political party. It does not seek power and money. The Tea Party is the primal voice of "No." It is the embodiment of the admonition that when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole you should stop digging. It is the realization that when a giant Rube Golberg machine starts to come apart at the seams, patching it up with more hairy contraptions designed to hold the monstrosity together until the next election almost always makes matters worse.
The Tea Party does not want Congress to do the People's business. It wants the People to do the People's business, each minding his own.
The Tea Party will never actually elect its own candidates to office. If it tries it will implode. But it may find its voice and change the course of history if it can keep its message both simple and faithful to the one and only issue that unites its members.
Imagine the impact on political discourse if the Tea Party threw its weight behind any candidate from any party that takes the Pledge of No.
"If elected I promise to vote "No" on any bill that proposes to expand government power for any purpose. I promise to vote "No" on any bill whose net effect does not reduce government spending. I promise to vote "No" on any bill whose net effect does not reduce federal taxes...
Read the rest: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/02/22/pin_the_bogeyman_on_the_tea_party_98353.html
Have you watched with amusement as various political commentators have tried to demonize the amorphous Tea Party movement by outing behind-the-scenes bogeymen allegedly pulling the strings of this latter day Great Awakening?
Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Dick Armey. Newt Gingrich. Grover Norquist. Jack Abramoff. Lyndon LaRouche. The John Birch Society. The list goes on.
None of it is sticking.
From time to time one professional politico or another may try to jump out in front of the parade. But everyone knows that the Tea Party has no leader, and with a little luck never will. That's because it's not a political party. In the best tradition of the American Revolution, it's an angry mob. Hence, the name.
Political parties have platforms, policy prescriptions, and principals (though rarely principles). Party candidates connive to get elected promising to "solve problems" and "serve constituents" - in practice the people, corporations, and special interest groups that finance their multi-million dollar election campaigns. The goal of a political party is to get its hands on the levers of government so its unlimited reservoirs of power and money can be used to advance party interests.
The highest principle of any political party is to replace the bogeymen of the rival party. Whether Democrat or Republican their pitch is always a variation on the same theme. "Trust us, you threw us out when we made a hash of things last time we had the upper hand but this time will be different!"
How has this game of musical factions been working for America?
The Tea Party is not a political party. It does not seek power and money. The Tea Party is the primal voice of "No." It is the embodiment of the admonition that when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole you should stop digging. It is the realization that when a giant Rube Golberg machine starts to come apart at the seams, patching it up with more hairy contraptions designed to hold the monstrosity together until the next election almost always makes matters worse.
The Tea Party does not want Congress to do the People's business. It wants the People to do the People's business, each minding his own.
The Tea Party will never actually elect its own candidates to office. If it tries it will implode. But it may find its voice and change the course of history if it can keep its message both simple and faithful to the one and only issue that unites its members.
Imagine the impact on political discourse if the Tea Party threw its weight behind any candidate from any party that takes the Pledge of No.
"If elected I promise to vote "No" on any bill that proposes to expand government power for any purpose. I promise to vote "No" on any bill whose net effect does not reduce government spending. I promise to vote "No" on any bill whose net effect does not reduce federal taxes...
Read the rest: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/02/22/pin_the_bogeyman_on_the_tea_party_98353.html
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