Obama's chickens come home to roost--not good for O

Obama's chickens come home to roost  by Paul Mirengoff/Powerline

In a front-page story in today's Washington Post, Karen Tumulty finds that leading Republicans have unearthed a previously obscure concept with which to attack President Obama. That concept is "American exceptionalism." Tumulty seems to view this development as part jockeying for position among presidential hopefuls and part attempt to raise questions about Obama's Americanism.

Tumulty's first error is to assume that the concept of "American exceptionalism" is obscure. The term may not be common, but the view that this is an exceptional nation -- which is, I believe, supported by overwhelming evidence -- is a staple of American thought.

Until now, U.S. presidents have consistently articulated this view, their speechwriters competing to find ways to say it in novel ways. President Reagan's "shining city on the hill" probably takes the first-place prize. But think too of George H.W. Bush's statement (reiterated by Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic convention) that "America is a special place, not just another pleasant country somewhere on the UN Roll Call between Albania and Zimbabwe."

If the theme of American exceptionalism generally has been articulated mainly in "big occasion" speeches, that's because it is considered a given. And if we are now suddenly hearing a drumbeat, that's because Obama has challenged American exceptionalism.

He did so most notably when he stated in France, during his first trip overseas, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Suddenly America was just another pleasant country like England or Greece.

Obama followed up by saying that the values in our Constitution are exceptional. But he also mentioned our "imperfect" faithfulness to these values. And, though he acknowledged that U.S. leadership in the world is "incumbent," he expressed no particular enthusiasm or pride in this role. Thus, Obama's attempted "walk-back" from his initial put down of American exceptionalism was incomplete and unsatisfying.

Tumulty also implies that the comparison to the "Brits and Greeks" is the sole basis for the claim that Obama rejects American exceptionalism. But after Michelle Obama said that her husband's progress as a candidate made her proud of America for the first time in her adult life, Obama's gloss on her remark took no serious exception to it. And when Rev. Wright regularly castigated America in his sermons, Obama took no offense. Oprah Winfrey left Wright's congregation; Barack Obama did not.

One can understand why the concept of American exceptionalism underwhelms Obama. As Tumulty notes (per Seymour Martin Lipset), the concept often has been invoked as an explanation for why the U.S. is the only industrialized country that does not have a significant socialist movement or Labor party. Much of Obama's career, especially his many years as a community organizer, strongly suggests that he is less than comfortable with the fact that the U.S. is exceptional in this respect. No wonder he put the concept of American exceptionalism down when asked about it in France.

If American exceptionalism has indeed become a "conservative rallying cry," it means that Obama's chickens have come home to roost.

UPDATE: Obama is far from the only liberal who finds the concept of American exceptionalism a bit ridiculous. Tumulty herself seems to have trouble writing about it with a straight face. She begins her story with this line: "Is this a great country or what?"

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027798.php

Sen. Mark Warner; More Power to Death Panels?

Sen. Mark Warner – More Power to Death Panels?

 Apparently, Mark Warner didn’t get the memo. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the misguided, anti-free market Obamacare law that Republicans rightfully say will result in rationing of health care similar to other countries. Seniors do not want unaccountable Boards telling them their coverage has been slashed because costs happened to exceed estimates this year.

Sorry, you should’ve gotten cancer last year.

Independent Payment Advisory Board.

Obamacare created it, and its job is to ration medicare spending if it grows too fast. Slash. Cut. Deny payment for care. Bye Bye. You’re on your own.

Please tell me how many seniors lives are saved when a 15-member board decides if cancer drugs cost too much. Or a needed operation exceeds “cost projections.”

We can reform health care without death panels who decide how much can be spent this year, and anyone beyond that ration is out of luck.

Supporters claim the IPAB won’t be a death panel – the cuts they make will be “across the board” and not individual case-by-case decisions.

If you get denied, do you really care if your cut was individual or across-the-board?

However, Mark Warner thinks this panel is great! Mark Warner loves this Board so much, he wants it to have more and more power!

In a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility And Reform, Warner says we need to be “Strengthening and Expanding the Scope of IPAB.”

Look out, seniors! The Wall Street Journal says IPAB will “close Medicare financing gaps by adopting further Medicare cuts that would become effective without any congressional action.”

As it turns out, starting in 2015, decisions on how to cut costs in Medicare will be made by a 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which is set to become the all-knowing, all-powerful price control.


According to Peter Ferrara and Larry Hunter, writing in the Wall Street Journal: “there will be additional cuts to Medicare adopted by bureaucrats at the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board. ObamaCare empowers this board to close Medicare financing gaps by adopting further Medicare cuts that would become effective without any congressional action.”


The board, consisting of 15 “experts” appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would operate largely without congressional oversight. The board’s decisions on Medicare reimbursements would become law unless a three-fifths “super majority” of Congress takes action to overturn them. And the board’s decisions are not up for review by any court of law. (PD)

.And Warner wants the scope of power of this board “EXPANDED?”

Even Democrat Congressman Pete Stark wants to repeal it. “I intend to work tirelessly to mitigate the damage that will be caused by IPAB,” Stark said.

But Mark Warner likes that bureaucrats on a board have unilateral power to slash and ration Medicare coverage, and wants to expand their reach. To what? My health care?

How much say in our lives does Mark Warner want government to have?

Rationing of health care is the wrong way to contain costs for health care. The wrong way to make health care more cost efficient is establishing a panel to deny coverage.

The right way is to offer more choices and competition. It’s the only way to bring down costs while providing greater access to health care. Anyone claiming to understand a market economy, as Mark Warner claimed during his elections, should know that.

Ironic that for all the Democrats’ attacks about Republicans cutting off seniors from their health care, its the Democrats that actually did it.

Mark Warner’s wrong. Not only do we not need “panels” cutting seniors off of Medicare when they need it the most, but we certainly don’t need to be “strengthening and expanding their scope.”

Wonder what Sen. Webb thinks…

http://bearingdrift.com/2010/11/23/sen-mark-warner-more-power-to-death-panels

Palin Derangement Syndrome vs Reality Palin

All Sarah, All the Time  by John Hinderacker/Powerline

Actually, we probably spend less time talking about Sarah Palin than almost any political web site--a fact of which I am rather proud. But, for those who need a daily Sarah fix, here it is.

Howard Kurtz, one of the savviest media critics around, is "starting to believe the detractors are wrong and that Palin is executing a shrewd strategy that has catapulted her past potential rivals:"

In her TLC series on Alaska, we see Sarah the frontierswoman hunting, skeet-shooting, and beating a captured halibut to death. None of these skills are in demand in the Oval Office, but they cast her as a strong, swashbuckling figure. Compared to that image, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty seem like, well, guys in suits.

There is no question that among potential Republican Presidential candidates, Palin dominates the news coverage:

According to a Google News search by New York Times blogger Nate Silver, Palin's name has been mentioned in about 20,300 articles this year, compared with 3,640 for Romney, 3,280 for Newt Gingrich, 2,980 for Pawlenty and 1,870 for Mike Huckabee. She has been Googled six times as often as these four gentlemen combined.

If you haven't been watching Palin's Alaska series on TLC, you can contrast Kurtz's positive take with this snarky summary of Episode 3 in the New York Post:

Sarah explains that there are two ways of catching fish, and the Palins do it the other way. They are net setters, who plant nets in the bay in the hopes that a school gets caught by the gills. But oh-ho-ho. Nerves can get fried when the fish aren't catchin', she says with a little wink. Track doesn't always agree with Super Todd: Father Nature and Fish Whisperer, so they get a little snippy with each other. Poor Track pulls up one measly fish at a time.


Sarah's still positive about it all. These are life lessons! "A big part of being a fisherman is knowing when to cut bait and run." This is also part of being an elected civil servant and the state's highest executive. "We'll get 'em next time!" she chirps.

Actually, I think the TV show is pretty good. I haven't read Palin's latest book, America By Heart, but Hugh Hewitt has, and he was impressed:

Palin's take on issues is often unique. "Frontier feminism," for example, is simply not a subject that most American politicians are familiar with, but when Palin writes that the "frontier also produced a different kind of woman" -- and backs it up with the story of Caroline Nichols Churchill -- she is making a case that most coastal elites cannot refute or even debate because of their near complete ignorance of the subject matter.

If the book has a target, it is in fact the coastal elites that define and drive so much of American culture. The big foots of Manhattan-Beltway-Los Angeles media aren't going to be familiar with Charles Stanley or Max Lucado, but Palin is comfortable quoting them in support of her points. Some of those elites might recognize the names of Fred Barnes, Arthur Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Rich Lowry, but they may blink at Palin's quick references to the Brooks' key book, "The Battle." The odds are good that these elites are not regular readers of National Review or the Weekly Standard and thus not remotely familiar with the arguments that powered the red wave this past November.

Palin's grasp of the current political moment is comprehensive. She knows the conservative movement. She is generous about those who lead it with her, spending time praising Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, for example. And contrary to press reports, she allots very little ink to direct criticism of the president.

"America by Heart" is an upbeat, positive affirmation of traditional American values.

There you have it: today's Palin fix.

UPDATE: One more, as Governor Palin effectively questions the Obama administration's competence in connection with the Wikileaks leaks:

First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop Wikileaks director Julian Assange from distributing this highly sensitive classified material especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months? ... [Assange] is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

What if any diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on NATO, EU, and other allies to disrupt Wikileaks' technical infrastructure? Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to permanently dismantle Wikileaks? Were individuals working for Wikileaks on these document leaks investigated? Shouldn't they at least have had their financial assets frozen just as we do to individuals who provide material support for terrorist organizations?

Most importantly, serious questions must also be asked of the U.S. intelligence system. How was it possible that a 22-year-old Private First Class could get unrestricted access to so much highly sensitive information? And how was it possible that he could copy and distribute these files without anyone noticing that security was compromised?

The White House has now issued orders to federal departments and agencies asking them to take immediate steps to ensure that no more leaks like this happen again. It's of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future. But why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July? What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?

Good questions all. As usual, Barack Obama and Eric Holder are no match for Governor Palin.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027792.php
 
http://liten.be//5MJfj
 
http://liten.be//CwXO9
 
http://liten.be//9PfOh

Simple economic reality--she knows more in little finger than O

Does Spending Cause Growth, Or Does Growth Cause Spending?  by John Hinderacker

Keynesian economists tend to focus on stimulating spending, as Keynes's central argument was that consumer spending generally lags, causing aggregate demand to be depressed. Most economists nowadays believe that this is wrong, and that spending is the effect rather than the cause of economic growth. Hiwa Alaghebandian of the American Enterprise Institute explains:




One would think that the events of the last decade have refuted Keynes once and for all. If stimulating consumer spending were the key to prosperity, we should all be in clover.

 
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027797.php

Poll: Americans want spending cuts, not tax hikes

Poll: Americans want spending cuts, not tax hikes via Laura Ingraham

The AP reports:

To ease surging budget deficits, Americans prefer cutting federal services to raising taxes by nearly 2-1 in a new poll. Yet there is little consensus on specific, meaningful steps - and a wariness about touching two gargantuan programs, Social Security and Medicare.

An Associated Press-CNBC Poll showed widespread anxiety about budget shortfalls exceeding $1 trillion a year. Eighty-five percent worry that growing red ink will harm future generations - the strongest expression of concern since AP polls began asking the question in 2008. Fifty-six percent think the shortfalls will spark a major economic crisis in the coming decade.
As for detailed cures, the poll shows little agreement - a problem that has long bedeviled lawmakers who often speak about taming federal deficits but seldom vote to do so. Given more than a dozen options for helping balance the budget, majorities backed just four: Reduce the number of federal workers, trim their salaries, cut overseas military bases and eliminate the tax deduction on home mortgage interest in exchange for lower income tax rates.

"I'm sure there's waste somewhere," said Terri Davis, 44, a travel company employee from Ashburn, Va. "But I like a lot of government programs that keep order in the streets, that do research about what's dangerous. A lot of things are worthwhile."

Budget deficits have been winning increased attention from President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans, who will control the House next year and wield increased clout in the Senate. Despite their midterm election victory, the GOP holds only a slight 44 percent to 38 percent edge in trust on the issue, with 13 percent saying they trust neither party, the poll shows.

Obama announced a pay freeze Monday for the government's 2 million nonmilitary civil servants, saying, "Getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice."

A bipartisan deficit commission that Obama appointed is to issue a report this week, while another bipartisan panel dominated by former officials has released its own budget-balancing plan. Both groups are taking fire for considering savings from popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Asked to choose between two paths lawmakers could follow to balance the budget, 59 percent in the AP-CNBC Poll preferred cutting unspecified government services while 30 percent picked unspecified tax increases. Republicans leaned heavily toward service reductions while Democrats, usually staunch advocates of federal spending, were about evenly split between the two alternatives.

http://www.lauraingraham.com/b/Poll:-Americans-want-spending-cuts,-not-tax-hikes/-54033470330705083.html
 
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101130/D9JQCLT80.html

Worst jobs performance since WWII under Obama

No end in sight to U.S. economic crisis as 'scariest jobs chart ever' shows post-recession unemployment is at its worst since World War Two


By Daily Mail Reporter

As unemployment in the U.S. nears the dreaded 10 per cent mark, it is a chart to chill the bones of any job hunter.

Comparing previous recoveries from all 10 American recessions since 1948 to the current financial crisis, the stark figures show almost no improvement in employment figures in the past year.

Some commentators have described the comparison as 'the scariest jobs chart ever', pointing to the fact that only the 2001 recession took longer to bring employment back to pre-crisis levels....


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336078/Post-recession-unemployment-scariest-job-chart-worst-WW2.html#ixzz17LNChIb9
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336078/Post-recession-unemployment-scariest-job-chart-worst-WW2.html

Poll: Tea party support continues to surge

Poll: Tea party support continues to surge

USA Today reports:

Just about as many Americans want Tea Party-backed members of Congress to take the lead in setting policy during the next year as choose President Obama, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

In a survey taken Friday through Sunday, 28% say Obama should have the most influence on government policy next year while 27% say the Tea Party standard-bearers should. GOP congressional leaders are chosen by 23%, Democratic congressional leaders by 16%.

The results reflect the strength of the Tea Party movement as the GOP prepares to take control of the House of Representatives in January.

The survey also underscores Obama's weakened standing. His overall job approval rating, at 42%, is 1 percentage point higher than his historic low in midsummer. His 35% approval rating on the economy is the lowest of his presidency.

The nation's mood "guarantees that there will be gridlock," says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The government follows public opinion and public opinion is all over the lot about who should now be running things."

Sabato predicts that "overlapping, contradictory mandates" will be claimed by Obama from his election in 2008 and House Republicans from this month's midterm congressional elections.

Those surveyed are divided about how much change they want.

Fifty percent say the greater risk is that House Republicans will go too far in trying to reverse laws enacted by the Democratic majority over the past two years; 43% say the risk is they won't go far enough.

http://www.lauraingraham.com/b/Poll:-Tea-party-support-continues-to-surge/145961556496965727.html

Ski day--no posts until later or Sunday

The voter fraud hall of shame: Milwaukee voter fraud conviction makes ACORN’s 2010 total at least 15

The voter fraud hall of shame: Milwaukee voter fraud conviction makes ACORN’s 2010 total at least 15 The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

By Matthew Vadum -

Yet another former ACORN employee was convicted of voter fraud last week. This brings the total number of convictions for former workers from the embattled group to at least 15 so far this year.

Kevin L. Clancy of Milwaukee pleaded guilty last week to participating “in a scheme to submit fraudulent voter registration applications,” according to Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen. Clancy admitted to filing multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals and registering himself and other voter registration canvassers to vote multiple times while working on an ACORN voter drive.

Clancy received a 10-month prison term for his crime. Clancy’s sentence will begin when he completes another sentence he is currently serving for armed robbery.

“The integrity of elections is dependent upon citizens and officials insisting they be conducted lawfully,” Van Hollen said. “Wisconsin’s citizens should not have to wonder whether their vote has been negated or diminished by illegally cast ballots.”

So far 2010 has been a banner year for ACORN voter fraud prosecutions.

In Milwaukee, former ACORN worker Maria L. Miles, who worked with Clancy, pleaded guilty to “falsely procuring voter registration.” She will be sentenced next month.

Also in Milwaukee, Frank Edmund Walton was convicted of “falsely procuring voter registration.” According to Van Hollen, Walton solicited voter registrations while working for a group called the Community Voter Project. Court documents indicate that after committing the crime he became an ACORN employee. Walton will be sentenced in December.

In Washington state, ex-ACORN canvasser Kendra Lynn Thill was convicted of voter registration fraud and given a 12-month deferred sentence.

In Miami, Florida, former ACORN voter registration canvassers Maurice Childress, Kashawn John, Liltovia Rhodes, Carlos Torres, Evangeline Williams, Lilkevia Williams, and Richard Williams, were all convicted of “false swearing in an election.” All were sentenced to probation, community service, and forbidden to participate in political campaigns, according to the office of Katherine Fernandez Rundle, State Attorney for Miami-Dade County. In addition, Childress and Richard Williams were ordered to serve 72 days and 125 days in jail, respectively.

Arrest warrants were issued for three other former ACORN canvassers in the Miami area who are apparently still at large.

In Pennsylvania, former ACORN workers Alexis Givner, Mario Grisom, and Eric L. Jones, were convicted of voter registration fraud-related offenses. All three were sentenced to two years probation.

ACORN, the nonprofit shell corporation that runs the ACORN network, is still facing criminal prosecution in Nevada. Although ACORN filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Election Day to escape its debts, prosecutor Conrad Hafen, who is Nevada’s chief deputy state attorney general, previously said neither bankruptcy nor dissolution would “necessarily protect (ACORN) from prosecution” in Nevada.

The trial of ACORN for conspiracy to commit felony voter registration fraud was scheduled to begin Nov. 29, but ACORN lawyer Lisa Rasmussen had a scheduling conflict and the proceeding has been postponed. The trial will likely proceed in 2011. Hafen won’t be heading the prosecution’s team because he was recently elected a justice of the peace.

If ACORN is found guilty at the trial whenever it gets underway, the conviction would cause an earthquake in leftist organizing circles across America that could embolden prosecutors nationwide to take on ACORN and similar shady groups. Until it was charged by Nevada last year, ACORN had frequently boasted about how it — as opposed to its employees — had been able to duck prosecution for election fraud-related offenses.

Two weeks ago former senior ACORN executive Amy Adele Busefink cut a deal with Nevada prosecutors in hopes of avoiding prison time for her role in a voter fraud-related conspiracy.

Voter fraud, also called electoral fraud, is a blanket term encompassing a host of election-related improprieties. In this case, Busefink entered an “Alford plea” which is roughly equivalent to “no contest.” The case involves a conspiracy to provide illegal financial bonuses to voter registration canvassers exceeding their daily quotas. Nevada law forbids the practice on the theory that such bonuses provide an incentive for canvassers to file bogus registrations.

Busefink’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 10.

Matthew Vadum is a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank that studies the politics of philanthropy.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/23/the-voter-fraud-hall-of-shame-milwaukee-voter-fraud-conviction-makes-acorn%e2%80%99s-2010-total-at-least-15/#ixzz16DDejdHC
 
http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/23/the-voter-fraud-hall-of-shame-milwaukee-voter-fraud-conviction-makes-acorn%E2%80%99s-2010-total-at-least-15/

Three and a half minutes to understand the Euro crisis

True lesson of Thanksgiving from someone smarter than me

Paul Rahe: America's first socialist republic  by Scott Johnson/Powerline

We are proud to have provided the platform launching Professor Paul Rahe into the blogosphere. He is one of the country's most distinguished scholars, but he has also proved to be a natural blogger as well. He now posts regularly at Big Government, which has collected Professor Rahe's Big Government posts in one convenient spot.

In view of his classic study of Republics Ancient and Modern, Professor Rahe is the academy's foremost authority on the history of republics. Although his recent work on "soft despotism" is not far from these Thanksgiving reflections we first posted last year, neither is his older work on republics:

On Thanksgiving, it is customary that Americans recall to mind the experience of the Pilgrim Fathers This year, it is especially appropriate that we do so -- as we pause, in the midst of an economic maelstrom, to count our remaining blessings and to reflect on the consequences of our election of a President and a Congress intent on "spread[ing] the wealth around."


We have much to learn from the history of the Plymouth Plantation. For, in their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims conducted an experiment in social engineering akin to what is now contemplated; and, after an abortive attempt at cultivating the land in common, their leaders reflected on the results in a manner that Americans today should find instructive.


William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony, reports that, at that time, he and his advisers considered "how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery." And "after much debate of things," he then adds, they chose to abandon communal property, deciding that "they should set corn every man for his own particular" and assign "to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end."


The results, he tells us, were gratifying in the extreme, "for it made all hands very industrious" and "much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been." Even "the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."


Moreover, he observes, "the experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years . . . amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times . . . that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing." In practice, America's first socialist experiment "was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."


In practice, "the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."


Naturally enough, quarrels ensued. "If it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men," Bradford notes, "yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And [it] would have been worse if they had been men of another condition" less given to the fear of God. "Let none object," he concludes, that "this is men's corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them."


The moral is perfectly clear. Self-interest cannot be expunged. Where there is private property and its possession and acquisition are protected and treated with respect, self-interest and jealousy can be deployed against laziness and the desire for that which is not one's own, and there tends to be plenty as a consequence.


But where one takes from those who join talent with industry to provide for those lacking either or both, where the fruits of one man's labor are appropriated to benefit another who is less productive, self-interest reinforces laziness, jealousy engenders covetousness, and these combine in a bitter stew to produce both conflict and dearth.

Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. He is the author, most recently, of the companion studies Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion, Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic and Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect.

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See Powerline for all links: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027755.php

Deficit reduction not that complicated--without tax hikes

Deficit reduction -- must tax increases be on the table?  by Paul Mirengoff/Powerline

A few days ago, In a post about deficit reduction, I wrote: "If tax increases and reductions in the defense budget are on the table -- as I believe they will have to be -- then so too should [Obamacare] the enormously expensive new entitlement the Democrats created against the will of the American people." In response, a reader pointed me to an analysis by the Cato Institute's Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation.

According to that analysis, "it's simple to balance the budget without higher taxes," Indeed, the budget can be balanced without any dramatic spending cuts. All that's required is to "limit spending growth and allow revenues to catch up." Under a hard spending freeze at current levels, says the Center, citing CBO numbers, the budget would be balanced by 2016. And if spending growth is limited to 2 percent, the budget would be balanced by 2020. This is true even if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are extended.

I have no doubt that the budget can be balanced without raising taxes. And it may be that the budget can be balanced through the freeze the Center suggests.

However, it's still my view that to reach a deal that would achieve meaningful deficit reduction, tax increases will probably have to be on the table. For any deal struck in the next two years -- and quite likely thereafter -- will have to be negotiated with the Democrats.

In any event, the Center's video, presented by Dan Mitchell, is well worth watching.



http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027759.php

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027744.php

http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/press/p10-04-10/p10-04-10.shtml

Sarah Palin just nails the whole Wikileaks fiasco re: Obama

Serious Questions about the Obama Administration's Incompetence in the Wikileaks Fiasco


by Sarah Palin on Monday, November 29, 2010 at 12:17pm.

We all applaud the successful thwarting of the Christmas-Tree Bomber and hope our government continues to do all it can to keep us safe. However, the latest round of publications of leaked classified U.S. documents through the shady organization called Wikileaks raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s incompetent handling of this whole fiasco.

First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop Wikileaks director Julian Assange from distributing this highly sensitive classified material especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months? Assange is not a “journalist,” any more than the “editor” of al Qaeda’s new English-language magazine Inspire is a “journalist.” He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

What if any diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on NATO, EU, and other allies to disrupt Wikileaks’ technical infrastructure? Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to permanently dismantle Wikileaks? Were individuals working for Wikileaks on these document leaks investigated? Shouldn’t they at least have had their financial assets frozen just as we do to individuals who provide material support for terrorist organizations?

Most importantly, serious questions must also be asked of the U.S. intelligence system. How was it possible that a 22-year-old Private First Class could get unrestricted access to so much highly sensitive information? And how was it possible that he could copy and distribute these files without anyone noticing that security was compromised?

The White House has now issued orders to federal departments and agencies asking them to take immediate steps to ensure that no more leaks like this happen again. It’s of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future. But why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July? What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?

We are at war. American soldiers are in Afghanistan fighting to protect our freedoms. They are serious about keeping America safe. It would be great if they could count on their government being equally serious about that vital task.

- Sarah Palin

http://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-palin/serious-questions-about-the-obama-administrations-incompetence-in-the-wikileaks-/465212788434

Chandra Levy--another life lost to illegal alien scum

Chandra Levy died for INS' sins (of omission)  by Paul Mirengoff/Powerline

Ingmar Guandique has been found guilty in the murder of former federal intern Chandra Levy. Guandque is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, a fact that reports from some major MSM outlets failed to note.

Assuming the jury reached the correct verdict, Chandra Levy presumably would be alive today if the federal government had enforced the immigration laws as to Guandique. But even with the stakes of immigration enforcement this high (and higher -- think of Mohammad Atta), the feds attempt to block states like Arizona from taking effective measures to assist in enforcing the immigration laws.

It is difficult for the feds (and would be even with assistance from the states) to secure our borders to the point that no illegal immigrants can slip into the U.S. and remain here. But Guandique didn't exactly slip into the U.S. As Michelle Malkin reported, in an article she wrote about Guandique way back in 2002, he applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This is a program under which we allow the victims of natural disasters to remain in the U.S. while their homeland recovers.

Because Guandique applied, the feds knew he was in the country. Yet they did not track him down (and as far as appears did not go looking for him) after his application was denied. That left him free to attack several women in Washington D.C."s Rock Creek Park, before he eventually attacked and killed Chandra Levy.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027750.php
 
AP, ABCNews.com Omit Convicted Killer's Illegal Immigration Status, MS-13 Gang Membership By Ken Shepherd

Correction: My initial post incorrectly conveyed that Chandra Levy was an intern for then-Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.). She was in fact an intern for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

"Salvadoran Immigrant Ingmar Guandique Found Guilty of Murdering D.C. Intern Chandra Levy [12:45 p.m. ET]"

That was the breaking news headline that was blasted to my inbox from ABCNews.com regarding today's murder conviction of the suspect in the 2001 murder of federal government intern Chandra Levy.

In the Associated Press story by Matthew Barakat at the ABCNews.com website, there is no mention of the fact that Guandique is an illegal immigrant nor of the fact that he is involved in the ruthless gang Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13. This despite the fact that numerous news reports during Guandique's trial noted that he often wore turtleneck shirts in the courtroom to hide his gang tattoo.

You can clearly see that gang tattoo in an April 2009 file photo ABCNews.com included in their breaking news story.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027750.php

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/11/22/ap-abcnewscom-omit-guandiques-illegal-immigration-status-ms-13-gang-me#ixzz16D0WNwQh

A Compromise Verdict, and No Winners

A Compromise Verdict, and No Winners - Andrew C. McCarthy - National Review Online

The Ghailani verdict was irrational, but no more so than the decision to try him as a civilian in the first place.

A federal jury in Manhattan has returned what is transparently a compromise verdict in the terrorism trial of Ahmed Ghailani.

The case centered on al-Qaeda’s bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. There were 285 counts, including separate murder charges for each of the 224 people killed. Ghailani was acquitted on 284 of them and convicted on a single charge of conspiracy to destroy government buildings.

That sounds like a great victory for Ghailani, but it is nothing of the kind. On the one count of conviction, Ghailani faces a sentence of up to life imprisonment, and there is a mandatory minimum term of 20 years in jail. In that sense, it is a victory for the government: The object of a terrorism trial is to neutralize the terrorist, and one count will do the trick.

But beyond that, the Justice Department walks away from the case as a big loser. That’s because the Obama administration made this much more than a terrorism trial. It cherry-picked the case to be a demonstration that the civilian criminal-justice system is up to the task of trying terrorists. This was to be the “turn the clock back” moment — specifically, back to the Clinton years, when Eric Holder was deputy attorney general and when prosecution in civilian courts was the U.S. government’s principal response to the jihadist onslaught that began with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

This was the model that Barack Obama campaigned on and that the anti-anti-terrorist Left takes as an article of faith. No more Bush-era counterterrorism: no enemy combatants, no military commissions, no indefinite detention, and certainly no aggressive interrogation. The president and his attorney general are adamant that “the rule of law” must be restored.

Never mind that the laws of war — which support all the Bush-administration measures — are the rule of law during wartime. Never mind that at no point in our history have the nation’s wartime enemies been given access to the civilian justice system and endowed with all the protections and presumptions that American citizens receive. To the Obama Left, the law-enforcement approach is effective national security, a way to win the hearts and minds of Muslims and consequently make ourselves safer. It makes no difference that the country was demonstrably unsafe — and repeatedly attacked — during the Clinton years. Nor does it matter that people in Islamic countries have no idea of the legal differences between American civilian and military proceedings — they care only that we are imprisoning Muslims, not about the abstruse details of our basis for doing so.

The Obama Justice Department saw the Ghailani case as the perfect opportunity for the civilian system to prove itself. After all, the case had already been tried successfully: In 2001, before the 9/11 attacks, four terrorists were convicted and sentenced to life terms. Moreover, while critics of the law-enforcement counterterrorism model emphasize that civilian due process requires the government to hand over too much sensitive intelligence, thereby educating the enemy while we are trying to defeat the enemy, that argument was significantly diminished in Ghailani’s case. Because the case had already been tried in the civilian system, most of the relevant intelligence had already been disclosed. You could contend that this was not a good thing, but for better or worse it had already been done.

But instead of a shining moment for proponents of civilian prosecution, the Ghailani case is a body blow.

Even before the trial began, the trial judge ruled that prosecutors could not call a key witness, the man who had personally sold explosives to the defendant. The court reasoned that the government had learned of the witness during the CIA’s coercive interrogation of Ghailani, so permitting the testimony would have violated what the judge found (and the government did not dispute) were the alien terrorist’s Fifth Amendment rights. Similarly, the jury was not allowed to learn that Ghailani had confessed, and that after the bombing he had become a celebrity in al-Qaeda circles.

That is, swaddled in the protections of civilian due process, Ghailani was allowed to pose before the jury as a victim of circumstances who had no idea that the terror network was preparing simultaneous massacres at American embassies.

It seems to have worked, at least with one juror, who reportedly held out for a complete acquittal for several days. But even without the key witness and the post-bombing evidence, the circumstantial case against Ghailani seemed strong — strong enough to convince most of the jurors.

The verdict is obviously a compromise: In exchange for the holdout’s agreement to convict on one important charge, the other jurors apparently agreed to acquit on all the rest. And like most compromise verdicts, it is irrational. As a matter of law, a member of a conspiracy is responsible for all the foreseeable criminal acts of his co-conspirators. If the jury found that Ghailani was a member of the al-Qaeda conspiracy to bomb government buildings, it made no sense to acquit him of the other charges, particularly the murders of the people killed when the buildings were bombed. That is, a rational jury either convicts him of everything or acquits him of everything.

This irrationality should not be a problem for the Justice Department on appeal. Compromise verdicts are a seedy but well-recognized feature of the criminal-justice system. Trials are extraordinarily expensive and burdensome, and we want them to have finality — that’s why judges push juries hard not to hang. But sometimes, when jurors are at an impasse, the only way they can reach a resolution is by compromising on the charges. It’s not logical, but it’s a decision, and an appellate court won’t look behind it.

But that is the only good news for the Obama administration. It put all its “rule of law” chips on Ghailani and came away with 284 acquittals. Americans will naturally ask: If the civilian justice system couldn’t get this case right, how can we responsibly trust it to handle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters, a more difficult case that would require massive disclosure of sensitive intelligence under civilian due-process standards?

Though an opponent of civilian prosecutions for enemy combatants — precisely because I’ve seen their wages up close — I am inclined to cut the DOJ some slack on this result. Ghailani has been convicted and will never be able to kill Americans again. Moreover, what appears to have gone wrong here is the selection of a terrible juror. If there hadn’t been one, if there had been twelve rational people, there would have been 285 convictions and no acquittals. I’ve had nutty jurors before. It happens, and it can happen to any prosecutor.

But it’s far less apt to happen in a military commission, where the jurors are military officers. And that’s the important takeaway here: The Ghailani civilian prosecution was a mistake long before the verdict was returned, not because of the verdict that was returned. This civilian prosecution was a misadventure because politics was permitted to trump justice and, predictably, justice was not done.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/253524/compromise-verdict-and-no-winners-andrew-c-mccarthy

Sharia Law: Coming Soon to a Courtroom Near You

Sharia Law: Coming Soon to a Courtroom Near You - Hans A. von Spakovsky - National Review Online

An Oklahoma judge rules against the public interest.

If you thought only U.S. laws ruled the land, you thought wrong — at least according to a crazy decision recently handed down by a federal judge in Oklahoma.

On November 2, Sooner State voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum that directs courts to “rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and forbids “courts from considering or using international law” or “Sharia law.” Muneer Awad responded by filing suit, and Judge Micki Miles-LaGrange, a Clinton appointee, promptly issued a temporary restraining order, putting the people’s voice on hold.

The plaintiff asserted that his First Amendment rights would be violated if Oklahoma’s constitution was amended to implement this ban against consideration of Sharia law. The amendment, he claimed, would constitute official “disapproval” of his religion. Moreover, it would invalidate his last will and testament, which incorporates various teachings of Mohammed.

Judge Miles-LaGrange bought the argument that banning foreign law would inhibit the practice of religion — in this case, Islam — and lead to excessive government entanglement with religion. She confused the practice of religion — which is not banned under the referendum — with the imposition of a foreign body of law derived from Islam.

In coming to these erroneous conclusions, the judge misunderstands the purpose of the First Amendment, as expressed by the Founders. The Establishment Clause was solely intended to prevent a national church from being funded with tax dollars, and to prevent the government from favoring any particular religious sect.

James Madison, the chief proponent behind the enactment of our Bill of Rights, said the Establishment Clause meant that “Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.” Judge Miles-LaGrange does not explain how Oklahoma’s amendment would “inhibit” a Muslim from worshiping in his own way as dictated by his own conscience. Nor does she explain how it would prohibit a Muslim from abiding by Sharia law if he chose to do so.

To appreciate how strange the judge’s decision is, imagine if Oklahoma had passed a law saying that state courts could not substitute Roman Catholic canon law for state and federal law. No serious person would protest that this somehow inhibited Catholics in the practice of their religion.

This thought experiment also illustrates the broader point that only state laws passed by legislatures or referenda — and U.S. laws passed by Congress — provide the rule of decision for issues that are properly before our courts.

If Mr. Awad wants to live his life by his perceptions of Sharia law, he is entitled to do so, to the extent that it is consistent with federal and state law. But no one has a First Amendment right to require U.S. courts to rule according to foreign laws, including those that implement religious views. (For an example of where such a requirement might lead, read this Cully Stimson post about a New Jersey trial judge excusing a husband’s criminal conduct “because under Sharia law, [a] Muslim husband had a ‘right’ to rape his wife.”)

Our society and legal system are flexible. We make reasonable accommodations for various religions. Throughout American history, religious principles have served as a basis for decisions in many different contexts, and our precedents and traditions recognize this. But neither Jews nor Christians are allowed to force their religious laws and views into our state court systems as a substitute for the laws passed by our elected representatives.

That difference is illustrated by an example. If a mortgage lender wants to structure a mortgage for a Muslim in order to satisfy certain Islamic principles prohibiting interest, the lender can certainly do so by writing the contract terms accordingly. But if a lawsuit is filed over the mortgage, the deal will be construed according to applicable state and federal mortgage and contract laws.

That is much different from adding a contract provision that says any court dispute over the contract will be resolved under Sharia law. Such a provision should not be allowed, as it would permit foreign, religious-based law to override our state and federal laws.

In a blatant example of political correctness run amok, Judge Miles-LaGrange concluded that granting injunctive relief would not be adverse to the public interest. She is wrong. Striking down a constitutional law passed by the direct expression of the public will is certainly adverse to the public interest.

One final odd note: Judge Miles-LaGrange didn’t enjoin the new law from going into effect, which is what a judge normally does when a court finds a law unconstitutional. Instead, she enjoined the state from certifying the election results, something I have never seen before. So Oklahoma is prohibited from declaring the official outcome of the election. Although that effectively prevents the law from being implemented, it is a bizarre holding that helps obscure the fact that more than 70 percent of Oklahomans approved the primacy of American law in their state court system.

— Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department official.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/253653

I’m Going to Miss This Congressman--Speaking truth to power

I’m Going to Miss This Congressman - By Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner - National Review Online

By Kathryn Jean Lopez


From retiring congressman Pete Hoekstra:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued the following statement after a jury cleared African embassy bomber and former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani of all but one charge in the attacks:

“The ruling in this case confirms that the decision by President Obama to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other Gitmo detainees in civilian courts was a mistake and will not work. This case was supposed to be the easy one, and the Obama administration failed — the Gitmo cases from here-on-out will only get more difficult.


“The sites of the terrorist attacks against our embassies were processed as crime scenes and ample evidence was gathered, yet the administration still failed to convict Ghailani for the murders of 224 innocent men, women and children. It is unrealistic for the administration to continue even considering civilian trials for the remaining Gitmo detainees, most of whom were picked up on the field of battle or as part of terrorist takedowns.


“Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that he is close to making a decision on whether to move forward with the Obama administration’s plan to try KSM and the other 9/11 conspirators in court in New York City. This ruling should serve as the wake-up call that the Obama administration needs to reverse course and do the responsible thing — to reinstate military tribunals for all Gitmo detainees.


“The families who lost loved ones on 9/11 and the citizens of our great nation have cried out for justice in those attacks. Military tribunals remain the best, the only option for that to happen. It’s the only real choice left for President Obama and his attorney general to make.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/253517/im-going-miss-congressman-kathryn-jean-lopez?sms_ss=blogger&at_xt=4ceb5367f9711d79,0

Remember when protest was patriotic?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Remember when protest was patriotic? Washington Examiner

"Protest is patriotic!" "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism!"

These battle-cries were heard often, in a simpler America of long ago -- that is, before last November. Back then, protests -- even if they were organized by the usual leftist apparatchik-groups like ANSWER or ACORN -- were seen - at least in the media - as proof of popular discontent.

When handfuls of Code Pink ladies disrupted congressional hearings or speeches by Bush administration officials, it was taken as evidence that the administration's policies were unpopular, and that the thinking parts of the populace were rising up in true democratic fashion.

Even disruptive tactics aimed at blocking President Bush's Social Security reform program were merely seen as evidence of boisterous high spirits and robust, wide-open debate. On May 23, 2005, the Savannah Morning News reported:

“By now, Jack Kingston is used to shouted questions, interruptions and boos. Republican congressmen expect such responses these days when they meet with constituents about President Bush's proposal to overhaul Social Security.

“Tinkering with the system is always controversial. To make Bush's plan even more so -- political foes are sending people to Social Security forums armed with hostile questions.

By now, Kingston, a Savannah lawmaker and part of the GOP House leadership, has held 10 such sessions and plans at least seven more.”

On March 16, USA Today reported that Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum "was among dozens of members of Congress who ran gantlets of demonstrators and shouted over hecklers at Social Security events last month. Many who showed up to protest were alerted by e-mails and bused in by anti-Bush organizations such as MoveOn.org and USAction, a liberal advocacy group. They came with prepared questions and instructions on how to confront lawmakers."

This was just good, boisterous politics: "Robust, wide-open debate." But when it happens to Democrats, it's something different: A threat to democracy, a sign of incipient fascism, and an opportunity to set up a (possibly illegal) White House "snitch line" where people are encouraged to report "fishy" statements to the authorities.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the "Tea Party" protesters Nazis, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman --forgetting the events above -- claims that left-leaning groups never engaged in disruptive tactics against Social Security reform, and various other administration-supporting pundits are trying to spin the whole thing as a deadly move toward "mob rule" and – somewhat contradictorily -- as a phony "astroturf" movement.

Remember: When lefties do it, it's called "community organizing." When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "astroturf."

But some people are noticing the truth. As Mickey Kaus notes, "If an 'astroturfing' campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn't it ... community organizing?" Why yes, yes it is.

As someone who's been following the Tea Party campaign since the beginning, it seems to me to be the most genuine outbreak of grassroots popular involvement in my lifetime. People have been turning out, in the tens of thousands at times, because they feel that Obama pulled a bait-and-switch and is moving the country much farther to the left than he promised during the campaign.

More significantly, most of these people are turning out to protest for the first time in their lives, and they're planning for future political involvement in years to come. Perhaps that's what's got the critics worried.

It's true, of course, that conservative and libertarian organizations -- ranging from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions to FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity -- are getting involved and providing advice and support, just as numerous lefty groups have always done with left-leaning movements.

But, as I noted in an April 15 column in The Wall Street Journal, those groups were playing catch-up to a movement that was already rolling on its own.

The truth is that for my adult lifetime, "protest" has been a kind of Kabuki engaged in by organized groups on the Left with help from the press -- as in the recent bus tour of AIG executives that was organized and paid for by an ACORN affiliate and in which the protesters were heavily outnumbered by the media, who nonetheless generally treated it as an "authentic" expression of populist discontent.

Things like that tour led President Obama to warn bankers that he was the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks, one of a number of thuggish statements he's made along these lines.

Funny how fast the worm -- or maybe it's the pitchfork -- has turned. Now that we're seeing genuine expressions of populist discontent, not put together by establishment packagers on behalf of an Officially Sanctioned Aggrieved Group, we're suddenly hearing complaints of "mob rule" and demands for civility.

Civility is fine, but those who demand it should show it. The Obama administration -- and its corps of willing supporters in the press and the punditry -- has set the tone, and they are now in a poor position to complain.

Whether they like it or not -- and the evidence increasingly tends toward "not" -- President Obama and his handlers need to accept that this is a free country, one where expressions of popular discontent take place outside the electoral process, and always have. (Remember

Martin Luther King?)

What historians like Gordon Wood and Pauline Maier call "out-of-doors political activity" is an old American tradition, and in the past things have been far more "boisterous" than they are today.

Rather than demonizing today's protesters, perhaps they might want to reflect on how flimflams and thuggishness have managed to squander Obama's political capital in a few short months, and ponder what they might do to regain the trust of the millions of Americans who are no longer inclined to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt.

The Washington Examiner’s Sunday Reflections contributor Glenn Harlan Reynolds blogs at InstaPundit.com, and hosts "InstaVision" on PJTV.com.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/2009/08/glenn-harlan-reynolds-remember-when-protest-was-patriotic

The ever-present, enviro-commies on Climategate anniversary

On the anniversary of Climategate the Watermelons show their true colours

By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: November 19th, 2010

Green on the outside, red on the inside....

Watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. This is the theme of my forthcoming book on the controlling, poisonously misanthropic and aggressively socialistic instincts of the modern environmental movement. So how very generous that two of that movement’s leading lights should have chosen the anniversary of Climategate to prove my point entirely.

The first comes courtesy of German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer who has openly admitted what some of us have been saying for some time: that “Climate Change” has nothing to do with man’s modest and thoroughly unthreatening contribution to global mean temperatures, nor even with the plight of baby polar bears so sweet you could almost hug them if you didn’t know they’d take your arm off in a trice. All it is, really, is a Marxist exercise in minority grievance-mongering and wealth redistribution on a global scale.

Or, as Edenhoffer so helpfully puts it it Neue Zurcher Zeitung: (H/T Global Warming Policy Foundation):

First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

And if that sounds sinister, wait till you hear what our old friend Nicholas “Lord” Stern has gone and done. Nicky, you’ll remember, was the funny little World Banker responsible for possibly the most hysterically overblown policy document in the entire history of the great Global Climate Change Scam: the infamous Stern Review which recommended, inter alia, that we all go veggie in order to spare the planet from hideous boiling man-made meltdown.

Now, “Lord” Stern (of Brentford, no less) has gone one better. He has got it into his dear little head that he has the power, influence and importance to dictate terms to the US economy. If America doesn’t toe the line on CO2 emissions reductions, he has threatened, then it could jolly well find itself the victim of an international trade boycott.

I would give you the link to the Times article in which Ben Webster’s interview appears, but sadly it’s hidden behind a paywall. Still, Watts Up With That has the gist:

Lord Stern said that Europe and the Far East (sic) were forging ahead of the US in controlling emissions and switching to low carbon sources of energy. They would not tolerate having their industries undermined by American competitors that had not paid for their emissions. “If you are charging properly for carbon and other people are not, you will take that into account,” he said. “Many of the more forward-looking people in the US are thinking about this. If they see a danger on the trade front to US exports that could influence public discussion.”

Asked what type of US products could face restrictions, Lord Stern said: “Aircraft, clearly, some cars, machine tools — it’s not simply what’s in the capital good, it’s what kind of processes the capital good is facilitating.”

What a mellifluous turn of phrase the man has: “what kind of processes the capital good is facilitating.” Doesn’t it just make you SO happy to think that this veritable Gerald Manley Hopkins among economists has the ear of several G20 leaders?

But I don’t believe a word of his threat, do you? Not, at least, in so far as the Far East is concerned. Can anyone seriously imagine China or Japan or any of the Asian tiger economies severing trade links with the US in order to make a political point about a non-existent environmental problem based on “science” which they all know is a crock. For China, for the BRICs economies generally in fact, AGW is just a handy pretext for milking the Western nations of what money they can. It’s certainly not an issue over which they’d choose to lose money on a point of principle.

Where the European Union is concerned, on the other hand, Lord Stern’s toys-out-of-pram scenario looks frighteningly plausible. Frightening, that is, for those of us unfortunate enough to live in the EU and to be one of the US’s bigger trading partners; not frightening at all for the US, though, for whom if we carry on going in the direction we’re heading at the moment the EU will soon be a sclerotic, socialistic irrelevance.

Here’s my prediction: with the exception of crazed socialist relicts like California (which really ought to be allowed to secede and take its proper place on the North American continent as a kind of comedy pariah state), the US is going to grow increasingly bored with the Great Global Warming Scam. Cap and trade will go the way of the failed Chicago carbon exchange – and with it all prospects of a binding global agreement on carbon emissions.

But that’s only the beginning of the fun. Thanks to the glorious mid-terms, the House is about to fill up with red meat conservatives who know “Climate Change” is a crock and will be hoping to secure some kind of Climate Nuremberg. Then, when Obama goes in 2012, the whole AGW issue will as far as America is concerned be dead in the water.

Not in Europe, unfortunately. Increasingly, the EUSSR will look as irrelevant as the old USSR, burdened with entirely unnecessary eco-taxes and regulations, destroyed by the watermelons of the green movement. Sad, isn’t it?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100064423/on-the-anniversary-of-climategate-the-watermelons-show-their-true-colours/

Revolt against the TSA--Americans tire of being suspects

Revolt against the TSA   by Scott Johnson/Powerline

The revolt against the TSA seems to me a sign of the times. Popular frustration with the TSA dates back to its establishment during the Bush administration. It is another big government bureaucracy that appears inconvenient and inept. It provides more security theater than security.

The TSA It is bound by a form of political correctness that has long rendered it a joke. With its newly implemented scanning and patdown procedures, however, the TSA has become something worse than a joke. It has become intrusive and humiliating to a degree that is difficult to accept. Reader Kim Nelson writes, for example:

I thought the TSA uproar was probably much ado about nothing until tonight when I flew from Providence to Philadelphia.


I have an artificial hip which sets off metal detectors every time I fly. Tonight I found out that the metal detecting wands are no more. Instead, there was an extremely personal pat down, .leaving no part of my body untouched. I was appalled by the experience.


The fact that I had to go through it though I'm a man in my 50's with nothing more serious than a speeding ticket in my lifetime is pretty ridiculous. There is no reason in the world to think that I'm a threat.


I believe that this approach is more of the politically correct approach that the federal government has taken since September 11, 2001. The authorities make the general public jump through all kinds of hoops that add nothing to airline safety (such as chasing people away from waiting in their cars to pick up someone outside an airport) instead of a more intelligent approach focusing on people who are likely to pose a threat.

In its absurd and humiliating intrusiveness, the TSA has become a perfect metaphor for the Obama administration. And presiding over the organization is Janet Napolitano, the lady who has been dubbed Janet Incompetano and Big Sis.

Big Stupid would also fit. Napolitano is of course most famous for her public reassurance of the American people in the aftermath of the attempted Christmas Day bombing that was thwarted by a brave passenger. According to Napolitano, "the system worked."

Asked how the system could have worked when the Nigerian charged with trying to set off the bomb was able to smuggle explosive liquid onto the jet, Napolitano responded: "We're asking the same question."

Michelle Malkin issued a clown alert. Michelle observed: If the "system" had "worked," the U.S. consular officials who granted Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab a short-term visa last June would have revoked it immediately upon being informed by his father that he was a Muslim radical with al Qaeda ties."

Napolitiano provided similar reassurance in the aftermath of the recent discovery of concealed cargo bombs headed to the United States. Napolitano contended that the bombs that made it on board should not be taken as a sign that the security system didn't work. "We use a multilayered system, out of which intelligence-sharing is the first layer," Napolitano said.

In its absurd intrusiveness and glaring incompetence, the TSA has become a perfect metaphor for the Obama administration. Thus the revolt.
 
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027720.php

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/27/clown-alert-janet-napolitano-says-the-system-worked/