Zee Links and Minifeatures: February 2009 Archives
President Barack Obama reveres Abraham Lincoln. But among the glaring differences between the two men is that Lincoln offered careful, rigorous, sustained arguments to advance his aims and, when disagreeing with political opponents, rarely relied on the lazy rhetorical device of "straw men." Mr. Obama, on the other hand, routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates.
It isn't just Obama, although as President he should be held to a higher standard. The straw man (and its close cousins, Red Herring, ad hominem, false bifurcation, et al) have become staples of political argument on all sides and points of the compass. In my experience, it has certainly been more common on the political left in these few decades, but we've all got to stop it.
It's easy to build a straw man and knock it down. It's even easier to slip in a Red Herring or attack your opponent personally. But doing so accomplishes nothing, is intellectually dishonest, and shows glaring weakness in your own ability to argue the merits of your case. Furthermore, it poisons the debate. For instance, Sarah Palin never said "You can see Russia from my house." That was Tina Fey satirizing her. Ms. Fey's reading of her script was exactly in line with what she was supposed to be doing - she's a comedian and an actress, and it was funny in context. But the thousands who picked it up and repeated it as a method of discrediting the political opposition should be subject to a public shaming. A recent slander on the right giving Barack Obama complete blame for the stock market slide between the election and inauguration is equally vile. Yes, part of it was no doubt due to the rhetoric of the incoming President-elect (and more to the point, his Congressional leadership), as businesspeople and investors got a "preview of coming attractions" as it were, but to let President Bush off the hook completely is intellectually dishonest. Yes, President Bush tried to fix the cause pre-emptively several times and was stymied by the Democrats in Congress. But he could have chosen to try harder.
Every time you use a dishonest trick like this, your opposition wonders why it bothers to build an honest case for their point of view. Every time you use a trick like this, your opposition wonders why it should not reciprocate in kind. Every time you use a trick like this, everyone - including your own supporters who aren't completely brain dead - wonder why you did not or will not build an honest argument on the merits of your own position. How long before they conclude that it is because you are incapable of doing so? How long before they conclude that there is no such argument?
Thank you, Mr. Rove.
All too true. The agenda is likely to reshape American capitalism, if that's what you want. But let me rain on this parade as it passes -- before The Music Man runs off with River City's most beautiful women. While he promises to deliver Americans from recession, financial crisis and the Wall St. Pool Hall, Mr. Obama's agenda actually threatens to plunge America into new crises, while extending the current crises.Profoundly anti-market and anti-capitalist themes and tones run through Mr. Obama's speech. Nowhere in the world has a country risen to prosperity by blowing up markets (in energy, for example) and turning to massive state intervention (banking) to solve problems, especially problems that do not even exist (oil dependence).
Depressing how few people ask "What happens next?"
Obama's Threat to Charities and Universities: His Budget and Taxes
This is an attempt to channel money away from voluntary associations and direct it to the state. Some of that money, in turn, would be directed to public employee unions, and much if not most of that would be directed to the Democratic Party.
Now, let me ask: If the state is the only possible source for aid, who will help those that the state will not? Who will help those that the state chooses not to help?
And what happens if you qualify, but because someone in government doesn't like you, whether bureaucrat or politician?
War and Peace and Dissent in Islam
But why the contradiction in the first place? The standard view has been that, since in the early years of Islam, Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by the infidels and idolaters, a message of peace and coexistence was in order (sound familiar?). However, after he migrated to Medina and grew in military strength and numbers, the violent and intolerant verses were "revealed," inciting Muslims to go on the offensive -- now that they were capable of doing so. According to this view, quite standard among the ulema, one can only conclude that the peaceful Meccan verses were ultimately a ruse to buy Islam time till it became sufficiently strong to implement its "true" verses which demand conquest. Or, as traditionally understood and implemented by Muslims themselves, when the latter are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, they should go on the offensive, according to the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy.
Read the whole thing
So, it seems pretty hopeless, doesn't it? The financial world we've grown up with is collapsing under the sheer weight of looting. If governments can't do it, and a return to the gold standard can't do it, then where are we? At the edge of another dark age?Not quite.
I foresee the rise of private money once again, and returning in such force as to negate the government's role in the economy. In fact, the pieces for creating the Third Age of Money are already there.
The issue with money is finding a way to prevent the looting of the system, and Mr. Franks has done a lot of thinking about it. I'd be very surprised if it shook out completely in accordance with his scenario, but he's definitely onto something.
More on the oncoming death of the system at Fabius Maximus
(Fabius Maximus was a Roman general who beat Hannibal after Hannibal's brilliant victories of his first year in Italy by delaying him while Rome rebuilt. another page: "To be turned from one's course by men's opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold an office." Quintus Fabius Maximus, from Plutarch's Lives. Ring any recent history bells?)
The Coming Blue State Collapse
'Conscience' rule on abortions may be overturned
Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration today will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows healthcare workers to deny abortion counseling or other family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials.
Basically, the new rules from the Obama administration require medical professionals to commit what they may see as murder. Evidently, we don't have enough medical providers to kill all the unborn babies that people want to kill. Either that, or it's less of a violation of rights to force someone to commit what they see as murder rather than direct the requester elsewhere.
Ladies and gentlemen, if a given provider sees it as murder, you go to someone else, and that person makes the money for providing the service.
And if you can't find someone who doesn't see it as murder, maybe that should tell you something?
Quite frankly, if I were a medical provider, I'd consider quitting the profession or leaving the country rather than comply with the new rule. I imagine at least a few health care providers will do so, and quite a few who might have been doctors and nurses in the future will choose other professions. Aren't we already squawking about not having enough nurses and doctors?
Another question: How long before some doctor who feels that it is murder offers himself up as a test case and wins?
Movie Review: Media Malpractice
No matter. The sheer weight of the evidence John expertly documents, and the clever and telling juxtaposition of the widely varying treatment Obama and Joe Biden received from the media from Palin will have even the skeptics admitting that John has a point. In fact, John saves his best evidence for last, in two widely-remarked polls showing and confirming that Obama voters were significantly less knowledgeable about politics and the specifics of the election. That is John's entire point; the media served the nation poorly in one of its most important functions and left an electorate drowning in ignorance. John claims that he bears no ill will towards Barack Obama and hopes he succeeds, but that the media failed -- utterly.
How He Did It: A Diagrammatic Analysis of the Obama Campaign
Obama the Re-labeler: It's official: any combat forces in Iraq after August 2010 will be called something else:
A couple key points for the record: The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) - the treaties detailing the ongoing drawdown in Iraq - have been disappeared from the White House web page. (Curously, President Obama's Iraq plan still says "Obama and Biden believe it is vital that a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) be reached so our troops have the legal protections and immunities they need. Any SOFA should be subject to Congressional review to ensure it has bipartisan support here at home.") The treaties are also not mentioned in current media coverage of President Obama's planned Iraq drawdown.Then-candidate Barack Obama abandoned any pretense of withdrawing troops from Iraq on a rigid timeline in the summer of 2008. If this point was ever acknowledged by the media they've obviously since forgotten.
Payoffs to electoral supporters become a "stimulus". "Combat forces" are leaving Iraq, but we'll still have troops there, they'll still have weapons, and they'll still do what combat forces are doing today. Down is the new "up"
Should We Let California Go Bankrupt?
I don't think anyone has the resources for a "no" answer
There are a host of reasons why California has become toxic to business, ranging from the highest personal income tax rate in the country (small business owners are especially hard hit by PITs), to an environmental regulatory regime that has made electricity so expensive businesses simply can't compete in California. That is one reason why even California-based businesses are expanding elsewhere, from Google, which built a server farm in Oregon, to Intel, which opened a $3 billion factory for producing microprocessors outside of Phoenix.
California has been slowly killing all of the geese that lay the golden eggs for the last forty years, and we're coming to the end of the line. We can either change our tune before the last business leaves the state (and good luck luring them back!) or we can become a People's Republic completely. Even the People's Republics are moving away from that model. It doesn't work.
Judging by the thinking I've seen coming out of Washington of late, this may not be as satirical as the author thinks: Obama to Use Inheritance Tax to Pay Off Bush Deficit
Me too: I miss Bush
Not in the sense of wanting him to have had a third term, but I miss having as president someone who actually worked for the good of the country, could tolerate criticism (even when it was way over the line) and cared more about the good of the country than he did rewarding the people who got him elected or about how he looked in the process.
You know, a competent executive.
The three little pigs and the housing rescue plan, a modern fable by Greg Swann
Once upon a time there were three little pigs, and, although they were brothers and looked a lot a like, they could not have been more different.The first little pig was hard-working and thrifty. He spent very little of his income, saving and investing as much money as he could. He lived with his mother well into adulthood, helping her with her expenses. He finally bought a home of his own when he could afford to pay for it all in cash. As you might expect, the thrifty little pig's home wasn't flashy, but it was all his, free and clear.
The second little pig didn't save very much of his income, but he earned a lot of money as a rising executive, and he had an uncanny luck in the housing market. He bought a condominium on his 18th birthday, then traded up to his first single-family home before he was 21. By the time he was 30, the lucky little pig owned a very stately executive home -- and he had been able to make a whopping 50% down-payment.
The third little pig wasn't very good at working hard, and he had never kept a job long enough to get a raise. He wasn't at all good at saving money, but he could borrow and spend it better than any little pig anywhere. Like the lucky little pig, he moved away from home early, but he just kept moving -- from apartments to friends' couches to rental homes and then to one girlfriend's house after another.
Read the whole thing
While New York Bleeds Washington Thrives
That's because the growth industry is government. Of course the Washington DC economy is growing - Barack Obama and the Democrats who control Congress just agreed to spend $1.2 Trillion dollars on the government. Before that, George W. Bush and the Democrats who controlled Congress then (some of whom were officially Republicans) had increased the size of the federal government by an amount unprecendented since, well, the early part of Bill Clinton's term.
It wouldn't be the first time that Washington benefited from a national crisis. Back in 1930 the District of Columbia was a quiet Southern town, scoffed at by New York sophisticates. But as the federal government ramped up to fight first the Great Depression and then World War II, its population grew 65% in two decades, vs. just 14% for New York City.
The trouble would be finding a time when Washington didn't benefit from a national crisis. Government has been a growth industry since the 1930s. Every time there's a problem, no matter how transient, the putative solution that has gotten implemented has been "more government, permanently." Washington is going to grow as long as government is a growth industry.
A reality check for our government: Our Battered American
Obama's Pentagon review: Gitmo meets the standards of the Geneva Conventions
When does the military's compliance with international law qualify as bad news? When you're a new president desperate for excuses to follow through on a dopey campaign promise that'll please your nutroots base and no one else.
and
Actually, insofar as this gives The One a handy alternative to expanding our renditions program, it does mean good news for him -- or rather, it would if the left still cared about renditions, which they haven't since January 20th. Exit question: With opposition to closing Gitmo already near majority levels, the media had better keep this as quiet as possible, huh?
Read the whole thing
In case you missed it:
Video: Santelli tears up Obama's mortgage plan and his inclusion in the new White House Enemies List
Santelli's Chicago Tea Party: The Quest for Our Nation's Soul
The Revolt of the Kulaks Has Begun
What happens when the government repeals Posse Comitatus so they can legally send the army?
Rapidly Collapsing U.S. Foreign Policy
Iran, Russia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Syria - all within one month of Obama's inauguration.
Do you think that just maybe Bush's foreign policy wasn't as bad as it was portrayed by his political enemies?
Why Bank Nationalization Is So Scary
He misses the most obvious: When all the lenders are run by the government, who gets (and keeps) credit becomes a matter of government policy. What happens when the government doesn't like a good idea? What happens when the government doesn't like a particular person? There will be no other alternatives. What happens when the politicians of the current government don't like a particular idea, because it threatens their world view or the constituency of a powerful politician? What happens when a particular powerful politician doesn't like you? What happens if you're already in hock to the only lender there is when that politician makes that decision? There won't be any other choices.
I'm intentionally omitting "what happens if they do like a bad idea?" That one is obvious, and they do it all the time. They just voted to spend 1.2 Trillion dollars on subsidizing their electoral supporters.
I think a lot of political confusion can be traced to the mistaken idea that love scales. It doesn't.
Beautifully succinct summation of a bad assumption and why it is bad.
See if you can find a copy of David Friedman's classic "Love Is Not Enough" I first found it in Jerry Pournelle's "The Survival of Freedom". I'm sure Amazon has copies, or a used book store near you. If anyone knows of an online source, let me know, as I tried it on two search engines and came up empty.
ACORN claims that they're helping an innocent victim reclaim her house.
Michelle Malkin has the real story, and documents to prove it.
I have no sympathy for this person, but loads of sympathy for the person who bought it in good faith whom she is making difficulty for.
Stuart Varney nukes ACORN and the Obama plan
I love this story: Man steals burglars' car as they try to rob his home
>Rosario was greeted with high-fives from responding deputies
That's resourceful. Somebody needs to offer that man a job (he just got laid off). I'll bet he'll do well for you.
Obama warns mayors not to waste stimulus money
Invoking his own name-and-shame policy, President Barack Obama warned the nation's mayors on Friday that he will "call them out" if they waste the money from his massive economic stimulus plan.
Mr. President: Sixty percent of the nation told you your "stimulus" was wasted money before it passed. How much effect did it have upon you?
Obviously, not much
"If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to call them out on it, and put a stop to it," he said. "I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will call them out on it, and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."
Why should anyone else pay any more heed?
Activists 'shocked' at Clinton stance on China rights
Amnesty International and a pro-Tibet group voiced shock Friday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed not to let human rights concerns hinder cooperation with China.
Why? Nothing has changed for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
Eric Holder wants a conversation on race. Heather Macdonald gives him a real conversation on race
Not only do colleges, law schools, almost all of the nation's elite public and private high schools, and the mainstream media, among others, have "conversations about . . . racial matters"; they never stop talking about them. Any student who graduates from a moderately selective college without hearing that its black students are victims of institutional racism--notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of black students there will have been deliberately admitted with radically lower SAT scores than their white and Asian comrades--has been in a coma throughout his time there.
Q and O adds some great commentary on the same subject. After correctly lambasting the New York Post for the chimp cartoon, (and others for defending it) he segues to why people don't talk about race
Well, we probably don't talk enough about race. We don't have those frank exchanges of racial views. Indeed, we don't even have humorous public statements about race, even tangentially. Because all it takes is for Dom Imus to say something on the radio like, "That's some nappy-headed hos right there," and he's done. Al Sharpton comes around with a group of lusty, gusty fellows to demand your firing, as soon as he hears about it. And you lose your livelihood, because he'll get it.If you're white, there's no upside to having a talk about race. You run the risk of accidentally or unknowingly saying something insensitive, at which point the best thing that can happen to you is that you'll be publicly reviled as some sort of bigoted troll. Why take the risk?
Is that cowardice, or simply the result of a prudent calculation of risks and benefits?
No, the only time we talk about race, is when some buffoon like Sean Delonas makes a public faux pas that can't be ignored. And I don't see that changing any time soon.
Read the whole thing
Sane perspective on current events and the Depression from Victor Davis Hanson
FEC Investigation Confirms Obama Received Discount Mortgage
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has "closed the file" on Judicial Watch's complaint against Senator Barack Obama for allegedly accepting a below market rate mortgage loan in 2005 not available to the general consumer. In its factual and legal analysis the FEC confirms Obama obtained a discounted loan but said no laws were violated.
Let me get this straight: Someone sitting on the Senate Finance Committee (overseeing mortgage lenders) gets a sweetheart deal and no laws were broken?
As Judicial Watch noted in its complaint, Northern Trust has supported Barack Obama's political campaigns for elected office since 1990. Moreover, Northern Trust Vice President John O'Connell essentially admitted the company provided Obama preferential loan terms because of his position in the U.S. Senate. "A person's occupation and salary are two factors; I would expect those are two things we would take into consideration," O'Connell told The Washington Post [emphasis added]. "This was a business proposition for us."
We have already established that they would not have treated someone else in the same manner. What is different except that Barack Obama is an elected official, evidently bought and paid for?
Must be nice to be able to order the case dropped from the White House.
Q and O on the assault on free speech.
One of the most defining phrases in the history of America free speech is "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."It has never been "I don't like what you say and it sounds like "hate speech" to me so you should be silenced".
Hate Speech is really all about shutting down debate. And the irony is that those using it are guilty of more hate speech, more often and in worse ways, than the ones they are using the argument against.
The entire concept of Hate Speech needs to be the subject of a Supreme Court decision eliminating it as a criterion for censorship. Let the KKK talk - and we know exactly how subhuman they are, and how much their opinions are worth (which is to say, precisely zero if not some negative amount). I've read the Constitution several times, including the amendments, and I cannot find anything protecting someone from being offended, if for no other reason than you can always manufacture something to be offended about (something the Founders were quite well aware of). Since you can always manufacture offense, this becomes a movable goalpost and highly useful for shutting down the other side in a debate.
We can start using Hate Speech against the Hate Speech Police. But far more effective, and correct, would be to eliminate Hate Speech entirely.
Let's see how long before this is banned as offensive hate speech:
The expression "create or save," which has been used regularly by the President and his economic team, is an act of political genius. You can measure how many jobs are created between two points in time. But there is no way to measure how many jobs are saved. Even if things get much, much worse, the President can say that there would have been 4 million fewer jobs without the stimulus.
Not that anyone sane and rational would believe such a claim. But if he can tell people who want to believe in him that "Four million more of you still have jobs because of the stimulus" they'll all believe he's talking about their job.
(Some of) Our Critics & Their Imaginary Conservatives
As I often noted on this blog and elsewhere, "It's easier to be gay among conservatives than it is to be conservative among gays." Conservatives don't vilify me when I come out as gay, but when certain gay liberals learn of this blog, they're convinced I support a political party (and/or philosophy) made up mostly of people who hate me because of the nature of my .Simply put, our actual experiences don't register to these people.
These guys seem to be living in a world which hasn't changed since Harvey Milk rose to prominence, a time when there were almost no openly gay elected officials and when coming out as gay could compromise your career. No wonder they're all so enamored with the film. And they accuse us of living in the past and having retrograde ideas.
It's a cherished illusion that makes them believe they're crusaders for Truth and Justice.
Lot of people on the political left think they don't know any conservatives, or any Republicans, which are not the same thing. For that matter, social conservatives are not the same thing as fiscal conservatives.
In reality, I have met many examples so hateful towards conservatives that the people they know who are conservative mostly keep quiet. About a year ago, I heard one person say something truly rude in a room of about eight or ten people they knew - but I knew that only one other person in that room was not a conservative. It's not like we have to wear some kind of scarlet letter (yet). Furthermore, I'm pretty certain that not one of the other people in the room acted in the way alleged.
The next time you're about to say something bad about conservatives, ask yourself if saying the same thing about Jews (or Black people or homosexuals or women) would make you uncomfortable. If the answer is "Yes", maybe you should reconsider.
For conservatives, maybe the time is here where we should start speaking up "I'm conservative, and I don't believe that."
Not that this will remove the guilty party's ability to rationalize it. "You're okay. But those other conservatives are all eeevil" (among other responses). Jews have been getting this treatment for roughly the last two thousand years. It's amazing how well people evade the central truth, which is that their internal picture about the accused group is wrong. But we can stop enabling it by our silence.
FREE SPEECH IN THE AGE OF OBAMA: "An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle." Plus this: ""When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren't going to ransack my house or anything ... they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn't a part of any hate groups." Since when do government officials search homes to ensure the absence of impure political thoughts?If something like this had happened with Bush, it would have been proof that fascism was descending had descended upon America.
Congress Stymies Investigations With Hidden Provision
When Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, read the words "conduct or refrain from conducting," alarm bells went off. The language means that the board -- whose chairman will be appointed by the president -- can reach deep inside a federal agency and tell an inspector general to lay off some particularly sensitive subject. Or, conversely, it can tell the inspector general to go after a tempting political target.
Reason recently obtained shocking video from another Hayne and West collaboration that may shed light on the question. In 1993, the two conducted an examination on a 23-month-old girl named Haley Oliveaux of West Monroe, Louisiana, who had drowned in her bathtub. The video shows bite marks mysteriously appearing on the toddler's face during the time she was in the custody of Hayne and West. It then shows West repeatedly and methodically pressing and scraping a dental mold of a man's teeth on the dead girl's skin. Forensic scientists who have viewed the footage say the video reveals not only medical malpractice, but criminal evidence tampering.
People that need to go to jail if not be sentenced to death.
Obama Stimulus Saves Microsoft Billionaire Hundreds Of Millions
As opposed to the $8 per week the working stiffs are getting.
It's starting to enter public consciousness that the real patrons of the Democratic Party are really big businesses who don't want smaller businesses to be able to compete with them.
Been a while since I posted this: In California, your property taxes are based upon your purchase price (plus no more than 2% per year, compounded). But if values fall, you can get your assessment lowered by appealing your assessment. It's really pretty easy - I appealed two years after I bought. One form and my assessment went down.
San Diego County Assessment Appeals Board has the forms necessary. If you're in some other county, use their form.
Flying pigs alert: Just when you're about to give up hope, bend over and kiss your backside goodbye, California State Senate Republicans do something intelligent and principled
The game of chicken in Sacramento just claimed its first victim, one that has to send a chill down Democratic spines. Republicans in the state Senate ousted their leader, the man who crafted a deal with Democrats to resolve the budget standoff with massive tax increases as part of the package. The GOP has apparently accelerated their car, and the Democrats will have to decide whether to swerve or crash:
I agree with Captain Ed:
The budget needs more than just $16 billion in cuts. California needs a real austerity program, one that sheds government workers and government programs. The Golden State also needs to stop borrowing money, which comes from the massive spending. How massive? The governor's office claims that they have kept spending level at $105 billion per year, but even at that rate, they spend more than 20 times what Minnesota does while only having about six times the population.
Trust your government: Obama poised to sign stimulus into law has absolutely nothing to do with Stocks drop on worries about economy, car makers
Yeah, and pigs are flying formation over the White House, too.
Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama on Air Force One that he would not rule out the possibility of a second stimulus package. Yet he added that there are no plans for such a package at the moment
In other words, after wasting 1.2 Trillion dollars of your money, if the economy doesn't recover on its own despite the government sucking up all the investment capital, they'll go waste some more.
What the legislation is not expected to do is change the nation's economic fortunes quickly. So part of the White House's goal has been managing expectations.
If it's not going to work quickly, why do it? If the government just got out of the way, the economy would recover on its own. What makes you think the stimulus plan will work at all if it doesn't work quickly (like within 12 months) ? How is it "needed stimulus" if it doesn't happen when we need it?
Stocks tumbled Tuesday as investors grew more doubtful that the government can quickly turn around the still-weakening economy.
Has nothing to do with the fact that this is the first market session since the stimulus was approved by the Senate. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Nor is http://www.recovery.gov/ any kind of a neutral site, auditing where the money was actually spent. It's a White House run shill site telling you what the White House wants you to believe. The media doesn't have any problem pointing out this sort of thing when Republicans are in the White House.
And the financial press is writing things like this:
Fiscal Stimulus Is a Ruse Absent Fed Pixie Dust:
Advocates of fiscal stimulus would have us believe the government is Santa Claus, delivering gifts to those who are nice without extracting anything from those who are naughty. Economic modelers say with absolute certainty that every $1 spent by the government translates into $1.47 or $1.50 or $1.63 of gross domestic product. The specificity of these forecasts -- down to the last penny -- doesn't do much to convert the atheists among us. The same models that didn't see a recession until it was under way are now specialists in human psychology?Besides, where's the proof that fiscal stimulus delivers?
"Empirically, nobody can point to a single Keynesian episode that worked," says Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.
Read the whole thing
As opposed to substance? What was your first clue?
At the battle of Asculum in 279 BC, the Greek king Pyrrhus defeated a Roman legion, but at frightful cost to his own troops. When sycophantic courtiers congratulated him on his "great victory," Pyrrhus responded: "one more such victory, and we shall be undone."President Obama plans to celebrate his Asculum -- passage of the (at least) $787 billion "stimulus" bill -- with a signing ceremony in Denver Tuesday. Sycophantic liberal commentators hailed this as a great victory for the president, but it comes at the cost of the illusion Mr. Obama represents a change from the corrupt old ways of Washington.
He rammed through a bill crafted in secret, allowing Republicans (and most Democrats) absolutely no opportunity to proposed an alternative, and no hand in drafting the bill whatsoever, wheedled votes by asking "pretty please" but wasn't willing to compromise one whit on the biggest government spending bill ever, one with so many benefits set aside for so many Democratic interest groups that the entire thing could be most honestly entitled "The 2009 Election Spoils Bill". Not one Republican house member voted in favor, and only three senators. You own this one, Obama, and it's going to be a millstone about your neck. Yeah, you won passage of this bill. But it's going to sink you (along with the country's economy).
I would like for it to be otherwise. The only way to sink Obama involves sinking the country as well. I'd rather he did the right thing for the country. But he's not doing that.
Republicans have almost no power in the state legislature apart from this supermajority requirement, so it's not surprising that they're reluctant to pass up a chance to use it to get spending cuts. Democrats heavily invested in nanny-state policies over the past few decades, though, and refuse to consider large-scale rollbacks of state government programs. Doing so would jeopardize their standing among key constituencies, especially public-sector unions like AFSCME and SEIU. Instead, they want to bulldoze Republicans into jacking up taxes even higher, making the state that much less competitive and forcing business relocation to increase.
and
Is that enough? If the Republicans refuse to budge, Democrats will likely play chicken and blame the layoffs of public employees on the GOP, especially given the concessions already made. Newt Gingrich lost that game in 1995 when he played it with Bill Clinton. Republicans had more strength in 1995, too, than they have had in California over the last decade.
No good deed goes unpunished, especially at the ballot box.
Today's assignment: Look up the real (economic) reason why Rome fell. Consider the parallels with the United States today.
Legislature adjourns with no budget; governor prepares to lay off 10,000
I have loads of sympathy for the individuals involved, but none for our bloated state budget.
Both parties exercise hypocrisy: Targeting the filibuster again
My position remains exactly as it was when the Republicans were in the majority: Keep the filibuster, but force those who want to filibuster a bill to actually stand up and filibuster. The current "virtual" filibuster is too cheap.
Bringing all senate business to a halt de-motivates the use, and gives an excellent strategy for peeling off senators who can tolerate a virtual filibuster, but would not be able to abide a real one.
The filibuster should only be used for the most important of things, and the need to defeat cloture means you have to have your support in line ahead of time.
Not to mention that anything that slows down the pace at which Congress rapes American taxpayers can't help but be a good thing.
Oh, and one more thing: In order to preclude recess appointments, Congress needs to have a quorum, not just one member of the majority party.
The Culture Of Corruption On Steriods
Why not? They were just as corrupt before, and got complete control of government. Obviously, the voters want more.
Here's your change: Going soft on the military dictatorship in Burma
Remember Barack Obama's pledge to make this the Most Transparent Administration Evah? Josh Gerstein at Politico notices a few items that seem to have slipped by the national media, thanks to a lack of openness on the part of Obama's communications team. Obama issued three executive orders and a handful of regulations without ever announcing them:
"We didn't know because The One didn't tell us"? So much for hard hitting investigative reporting.
On the other hand, I have to remark on an impressive achievement for Obama: Four weeks in, and Jimmy Carter is starting to look good.
Projected jobs numbers don't quite add up
A + B adds up to considerably more than A + B when certain politicians want it to. At least on the reports written by them and their subordinates.
Clearly, the White House is using the time-honored mathematical method of pulling numbers out of one's rear end. They are so bad about it that no one at the White House apparently thought to reconcile the numbers to see whether they even came close to agreement before publishing them. If someone produced numbers like this in the private sector for a project, they'd be fired. In the public sector, they get to run things.
William M. Briggs, Statistician: Count 'em: The White House should not control the Census
We statisticians are lovely folk--we know some great jokes, and can integrate multidimensional integrals faster than you can crack open a peanut--but we cannot be trusted to not play with our own creations, especially when our bosses, eager for a certain result, are watching over our shoulders.
Obama puts attempts to use constituents to put pressure on Freshman Republican to vote for stimulus bill, instead by a margin of 1400 to zero, they want it stopped
Obama: Caterpillar will re-hire people if stimulus passes; Caterpillar CEO: No, we won't
Obama's new deal is the same old blunder
Rubin hits the nail on the head. The fiscal fantasies of Hope are about to slam head-on into the economic realities of the bond market. Economic reality is an unmovable object, and liberals are about to discover that Hope is not an irresistible force.
"Real and tangible progress for the American people" Not!
"Real and tangible progress for the American people." That's how the current President of the United States, in his weekly address yesterday, described the bloated $800 billion spending monstrosity that he just rammed down our throats. (Please don't called it a "stimulus" package: the only thing it stimulates is fiscal irresponsibility.) I wonder if the current President of the United States had a little smile on his lips when he said those words: "Real and tangible progress for the American people." Real and tangible progress for the governmental juggernaut is more like it. Did he snigger, just a little, when he went on to claim that throwing billions at every conceivable Democratic boondoggle would somehow "save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years"? Did he manage to keep a straight face when he said that opening the US Treasury to Democratic interest groups would "ignite spending by business and consumers alike"? I didn't actually hear the speech, but I wonder how he managed to get through the claim that putting the country in hock would "lay a new foundation for our lasting economic growth and prosperity."
The "war" on Barack Obama? Oh, please
Good faith? When exactly did the Democrats show good faith? This bill started out by locking Republicans out of its draft, as well as many Democrats through Nancy Pelosi's refusal to return to regular order in the House. This is the most expensive bill ever considered by the Congress, by far the most expensive project ever considered, and yet the Democrats have failed to allow any meaningful debate or access to amend the bill. In fact, they have yet to provide the bill to some members, but K Street already has its copies. Yet they want to force a vote today on a bill comprising 1500 pages of legisation, with an initial cost of $785 billion and a ten-year cost of over $3 trillion without giving people a chance to read it -- and the Republicans are acting in bad faith?
Eight years of slandering and libeling George Bush on every subject under the sun is ok. Eight years of calling for impeachment and criminal prosecution based upon policy differences is "patriotic". But disagreeing with Barack Obama on the biggest bill ever considered by our government is "war". This must be the most irregular verb ever.
The Anchoress pretty much has it covered in Obama & Dems: Put your dreams away
The Obama administration finds a bomb in Iran
So imagine my interest to see the Los Angeles Times report that the intelligence agencies have reversed themselves again; (bold emphasis added):Little more than a year after U.S. spy agencies concluded that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration has made it clear that it believes there is no question that Tehran is seeking the bomb.
In his news conference this week, President Obama went so far as to describe Iran's "development of a nuclear weapon" before correcting himself to refer to its "pursuit" of weapons capability.
Obama's nominee to serve as CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, left little doubt about his view last week when he testified on Capitol Hill. "From all the information I've seen" Panetta said, "I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability."
The language reflects the extent to which senior U.S. officials now discount a National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 that was instrumental in derailing U.S. and European efforts to pressure Iran to shut down its nuclear program.
"Like a fire bell in the night"
Words then versus deeds now: Obama's words versus Obama's Deeds
An off-the-record speech at the National Press Club?
Obama's Broken Promises Were Entirely Predictable
President Obama seems to think that just because he wasn't vetted by the national media prior to his election, his administration doesn't have to vet its cabinet nominees. Individually, these missteps wouldn't be news. But the sum total of their parts leads one to believe there is a pattern -- just as there was in Chicago with Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Pfleger, Mansour, etc. -- and if it weren't our country, it'd almost be comical. Hardly anyone today, and certainly nobody a year from now, will be able to listen to President Obama's campaign pledges about transparency, ethics, and change and keep a straight face.
Justice Dept. Lawyers in Contempt for Withholding Stevens Documents
Last month, Sullivan told the Justice Department to turn over all its internal communications regarding a whistleblower complaint against the FBI agent leading the investigation into the former Alaska senator. The agent, Chad Joy, complained about some Justice Department tactics during the trial, including not turning over evidence, and an "inappropriate relationship" between another agent working the case and the prosecution's star witness.Stevens was convicted in October of lying on Senate disclosure documents about hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations from an Alaska businessman. In November, the Republican lost his bid for reelection to the Senate seat he had held since 1968.
This was known in October (well before the election) yet both the justice system and the media sat on the news until after the election, no so coincidentally contributing to Stevens (a Republican) narrowly losing his Senate seat to a Democrat.
The entire stimulus bill came within one vote of failing on a procedural vote in the Senate.
You see, he meant to tell the committee that Robert Blagojevich, the governor's brother had asked him to do some, uh, fund-raising to the tune of $10,000, on three separate occasions, but he just wasn't given a chance to testify to all these things fully. So, it's really the committee's fault, with their slipshod procedures and what not. That's why he told the committee that he had not been asked for any fund-raising at all.
Yes, but with him being another Democrat in the Senate, I'd rate the chance of anything being done to remove him to be somewhere below "pigs flying."
Burris covered up solicitation
There is no possibility that Burris simply "forgot" about such a demand. In the first place, that's exactly what the House was investigating, a pay-for-play arrangement for the open Senate seat. In fact, one has to question why Burris himself didn't report such a blatantly corrupt demand to state or federal authorities. He never paid the money, but the demand itself is explicitly illegal, and as a state lawmaker Burris had a higher responsibility than most to report the attempt.
Oldie but Goodie: The Road to Serfdom
What chapter do you think we're on?
Happy Birthday to Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both born 200 years ago today.
The title of this article is "Our Clever President" but a better title would be, "Our Intellectually Corrupt President and the Sycophantic Press That Loves Him"
President Barack Obama's first presidential news conference was performed feebly by the once-ferocious White House press corps and shrewdly -- if deceptively -- by the president. In the six years I did communications on former President Ronald Reagan's White House staff, I don't recall a single news conference in which there were no follow-up questions, no challenges to anything the president had said recently, no assertions of fact that the president was challenged to deal with. In fact, I don't remember former President Bill Clinton, either, ever getting a full 45-minute prime-time news conference pass.
More on the politicization of the US Census: Let Statisticians, Not White House, Conduct the 2010 Census
Unfortunately, it is now clear that a new agency is not what the White House officials have in mind and that, indeed, having the Census Director report to someone on the president's West Wing staff is exactly what that they have in mind. (Note what the White House press secretary says)
and
First of all, the White House and its Congressional allies are wrong in asserting that the Census in the past has reported directly to the president through his staff. Directors of the Bureau often brief presidents and their staffs, but, as a former director (under President Reagan), I don't know of any cases where the conduct of the Bureau was directly under White House supervision. That includes Clinton in 2000, Bush 41 in 1990 and Carter in 1980.They also are dead wrong about the feasibility of using sampling and computer models to make adjustment a credible way to improve the accuracy of the population count for purposes of reapportionment and redistricting.
I am in favor of counting every single warm body. In fact, I demand it. But I want to actually count the ones there are, not risk creating others out of thin air. If some people are worried that some people will somehow slip through the cracks, get them out to be counted. And if they're in the country illegally, and therefore aren't counted because they worry they might be deported, I don't see that as a problem. Anything other than counting actual warm bodies is both wrong and a violation of the Constitution, which does not say "every ten years we'll take a guess at how many people there are" or "every ten years we shall estimate how many people there are." It says, "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years".
e·nu·mer·ate (-nm-rt, -ny-)
tr.v. e·nu·mer·at·ed, e·nu·mer·at·ing, e·nu·mer·ates
1. To count off or name one by one; list: A spokesperson enumerated the strikers' demands.
2. To determine the number of; count.
In short, we've got to count actually people in order for them to count. If you think there are more people hiding out in some places, you've got to find them in order to count them. Question: Why do you think it is that in some congressional districts, all supposedly of approximately equal population, 60,000 votes is enough to win election, while in others it takes three times that? Could at least part of it be traceable to creating imaginary people out of thin air?
Remember This Catchphrase: "Maybe Too Little, Always Too Late"
The eight previous recessions and when stimulus was passed by the government. In all but one case, the recession had already abated, but we couldn't see it until later.
Stimulus Plan Caters to the Privileged Public Sector
So what's not to like? Well, nothing - if the Roman Empire or China's Qing Dynasty is your idea of a historical role model. Those regimes epitomize what happens when most of a nation's wealth goes to support an ever-expanding bureaucracy and associated private-sector rent-seekers at the expense of both private commerce and public infrastructure. Look in the dictionary under the word decline.We can already see its early signs. Across the country, cities are being forced to choose between maintaining their basic infrastructure and honoring the medical, retirement and other pension obligations owed to retired public workers. The head of the Atlanta Fire Fighters' Pension fund described groups like his as "the 800-pound gorilla in the room." This primate has the power to stomp on the ability of states, cities and counties to put money into improving much of anything or even considering lowering taxes.
Stimulus Bill Abolishes Welfare Reform and Adds New Welfare Spending
A major public policy success, welfare reform in the mid-1990s led to a dramatic reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty. This successful reform, however is now in jeopardy: Little-noted provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate stimulus bills actually abolish this historic reform. In addition, the stimulus bills will add nearly $800 billion in new means-tested welfare spending over the next decade. This new spending amounts to around $22,500 for every poor person in the U.S. The cost of the new welfare spending amounts, on average, to over $10,000 for each family paying income tax.
Economic suicide. As I said last week, do some research into why the Roman Empire fell. The real reasons are all economic in nature, and we are replicating every single one of them.
The differences between residential and commercial real estate provide the means to test the hypothesis that government intervention or the lack thereof caused the housing bubble and subsequent collapse of the financial system. We can compare the two markets because the same institutions ultimately make residential and commercial loans. They make loans in the same communities and regions. Changes in the economy affect both types of real estate at the same time and to the same rough degree. The only major difference between the two markets lies in the degree of government intervention
When you compare and contrast the system with larger amounts of regulation (residential loans) with system with smaller amounts of regulation (commercial) it is plain to see that lack of regulation did not cause this meltdown. Government created distortions of the market did.
Hat tip: Q and O
Who will investigate the Obama administration?
Rep. Darrell Issa is not working from a position of strength. As the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa wants to exercise some, well, oversight when it comes to the Obama administration's controversial decision to transfer control of the Census Bureau from professionals at the Commerce Department to political aides in the White House. But as a member of the minority party on Capitol Hill, Issa doesn't have the power to compel the administration to do anything.
The press won't - they're too busy getting tingles up their leg because 90% plus are Democratic partisans. The Republicans can't - they'll be defeated on party line votes. Nobody else has the resources.
This is what the next two years are going to look like, folks. It's not like this should be any news to anyone who watched Congress in 2007 and 2008. But nothing can defeat the awesome power of blind wishful thinking at the ballot box. The congressional elections of 2010 will be our next chance to see some accountability in government. Let's hope the mechanisms for accountability aren't completely dismantled or circumvented by then.
Cato Institute: Economists against the "stimulus"
Senate passes Obama's economic recovery plan
President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan has passed the Senate and is on its way to difficult House-Senate negotiations. Just three Republicans helped pass the plan on a 61-37 vote and they're already signaling they'll play hardball to preserve more than $108 billion in spending cuts made last week in Senate dealmaking. Obama wants to restore cuts in funds for school construction jobs and help for cash-starved states
and
Even so, in the hours before Monday's vote, Republican opponents attacked it as too costly and unlikely to have the desired effect on the economy. "This is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.All 36 votes in opposition were cast by Republicans.
Were the Republicans right? It appears so
Stocks plunge as government unveils bailout plan
"The good news is they are going to spend a trillion dollars, the bad news is they don't know how," said James Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group."They built this up as being a panacea," he said. "There was so much hope pinned on them to do a good job. The expectations have been so high. It's hard to live up to."
Investors also questioned whether this plan, which followed previous efforts in the final months of 2008, would work. Some selling was to be expected, however, as stocks rose sharply last week ahead of the announcement
Were stocks rising last week because the plan looked likely, or because it looked like the Republicans might actually hang together enough to stop it in the senate (possibly with the aid of a few not completely insane Democrats, such as California's Dianne Feinstein, who were making noises about being unhappy with it).
It spends over a trillion dollars, and there really isn't a Plan in it to revive the economy - except the same kind of throwing money around that was discredited back in the seventies.
Geithner's speech "basically puts a spotlight on the fact that the government has no idea how to fix the problem," said Jeff Buetow, senior portfolio manager at Portfolio Management Consultants. "People bought on rumor and hope, and now they're selling on reality."
That trillion dollars has to come from somewhere. It's a trillion dollars that taxpayers aren't going to have for other things.
Did I say a trillion? What's a factor of three among friends? $3 trillion! _ Senate, Fed, Treasury attack crisis
"It's gone deep. It's gotten worse," President Barack Obama said of the recession at a campaign-style appearance in Ft. Myers, Fla., where unemployment has reached double digits. "The situation we face could not be more serious."If any more emphasis were needed, Wall Street investors sent stocks plunging, objecting that new rescue details from the government were too sparse despite the huge numbers. The Dow Jones industrials dropped 382 points.
If Obama and the Democrats were trying something that had a track record of success (like tax cuts), or even something that has never been tried before where there's a good reason why it should work, this would not be the case. But instead of solving the problem, they're trying to do a political payoff to all of their special interests and call it an economic stimulus. I could call what comes out of a horse's backside an economic stimulus. That doesn't make it one. The financial markets know the difference, even if most of the electorate does not.
You know, I may have voted for John McCain, but I really did not expect Barack Obama to be this bad. I was hoping that with the experiences and the economics we have learned since the last round of economic failures of anything like this magnitude (back in the seventies). I thought he might be smart enough to respond to issues like this in an intelligent manner. I thought he might be able to bypass political payoffs as long as they would hurt the country this badly. Looks like I was wrong on both counts. Thus far, he has failed every test of his competency he has faced. No, that's too weak. He has aggressively done exactly the wrong thing.
Keynesianism is failure. My first macro course taught Keynesian techniques. The math unambiguously and inescapably led to what mathematicians call a monotonically deteriorating situation - continuing outward shifts in the tradeoffs between unemployment and inflation, where trying to keep them reasonably balanced (the so-called "misery index") generates more of both. When I called the prof (a well known full professor of economics) on this, and asked him in what way this was not merely a lesson in how to lose more slowly, he responded by asking, "Why do you think they call it the dismal science?" Well, excuse me, but if Keynesian economics was a complete and valid picture of the world, we wouldn't ever get the good situation we started with in the first place. It may be what they taught when Obama and I started college, but that doesn't make it right or accurate. Arthur Laffer and other improvements in then-prevailing economic theory have done quite a lot to improve our understanding. The crisis of the seventies lingered and got worse until Ronald Reagan applied the new theories and that was what caused our decade long meltdown to stop.
Why has Obama chosen a Keynesian response given this improved understanding? The best hypothesis I can come up with - the simplest theory that explains the observed facts and is not contradicted by them - is that if you apply Keynesian theory to the current crisis, the response it dictates is what Obama wanted to do. In other words, he started with the answer he wanted, and looked for a way to justify it.
If he continues like this, Barack Obama is going to make Jimmy Carter look good. At least Mr. Jimmy inherited the bulk of his insane economic policy from his predecessors, and at that time it was the best fully accepted theory we had. Barack Obama is trying to change the few things George W. Bush got right about the economy.
FACT CHECK: Examining Obama's job, pork claims
President Barack Obama had it both ways when he promoted his stimulus plan in Indiana and later at a prime-time news conference. He bragged in Indiana about getting Congress to produce a package with no pork, yet boasted it will do good things for a Hoosier highway and a downtown overpass, just the kind of local projects lawmakers lard into big spending bills.
Telling us, "There's no pork in this bill!" while using that pork to "sell" the bill. I knew Obama was a politician, but I didn't know he was this good at talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time!
Why Obama Wants Control of the Census
President Obama said in his inaugural address that he planned to "restore science to its rightful place" in government. That's a worthy goal. But statisticians at the Commerce Department didn't think it would mean having the director of next year's Census report directly to the White House rather than to the Commerce secretary, as is customary. "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science."
Elbridge Gerry had nothing on Barack Obama.
Social Security Crisis Nearer Than Common Wisdom Holds
In theory, Social Security is supposed to continue paying benefits after 2017 by drawing on the Social Security Trust Fund.Furthermore, the trust fund is supposed to provide sufficient funds to continue paying full benefits until 2041, after which it will be exhausted. At that point, by law, Social Security benefits will have to be cut by approximately 27 percent.
However, in reality, the Social Security Trust Fund is not an asset that can be used to pay benefits. Any Social Security surpluses accumulated to date have been spent, leaving a trust fund that consists only of government bonds (IOUs) that will eventually have to be repaid by taxpayers.
2017. That's the year the current presidential term ends. What happens when Congress has a choice of continuing to spend as it has and drastically cutting long promised social security benefits, or cutting all the wasteful spending they have committed themselves to in order not to cut social security benefits? They could also do a mixture of the two, but my money is bet upon them increasing taxes, incidentally resulting in even less money collected (cf Laffer Curve)
Leaving behind "politics as usual"? Here's one instance. Since Richard Nixon resigned, opposition research has been done by employees of the political parties or campaign workers. Obama has broken with that "business as usual", and hired an opposition research person at the White House.
Great antecedent there. He appears to be trying for the Johnson-Nixon-Carter trifecta - the worst of all possible worlds.
Barely Bipartisan But a Senate Stimulus Deal is Done
votes in the Senate but several spending provisions that would not have kicked in until after 2011 drew fire from both sides of the aisle. Collins and Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, spent most of the week closeted with 18 centrists, including six Republicans, hammering out the deal reached late Friday. In the end only Collins, her fellow senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania signed on. Collins said she will continue to lobby her G.O.P. colleagues.
Hope they don't think they're any kind of hero cutting the waste from $890 billion to $780 billion, particularly as the bill would have died completely if they didn't sign on. Seven-eighths of the waste going to Democratic political patronage is still both counterproductive and money we should not spend.
More history of "stimulus" packages here: Once More, With Feeling
If you know Washington, you shouldn't be surprised that the real cost figure is much higher
$780 B (for base deal) $46.5 B (for amendments added during debate) $348 B (for debt service)Total equals $1.175 Trillion
To put that in perspective, the total cost of House bill is $1.168 trillion ($820 billion for bill and $348 billion for debt service)
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says Obama stimulus harmful over long haul.
CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.
Sometimes the CBO should be taken with much salt, like when it encourages things that the majority party in Congress likes. When it says things that the majority party doesn't like, however, it's always worth paying attention to.
There just isn't any benefit to passing this stimulus bill - unless you're one of those hoping for a payoff for supporting the Democrats in the election.
Top 10 Reasons to Oppose the Stimulus
In fact, there is no way to effectively monitor the "stimulus" for waste, fraud, and abuse
The stimulus plan presents a stark choice: The government can spend unprecedented amounts of money quickly in an effort to jump-start the economy or it can move more deliberately to thwart the cost overruns common to federal contracts in recent years."You can't have both," said Eileen Norcross, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center who studied crisis spending in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "There is no way to get around having to make a choice."
For all the time I've spend bashing Democrats in the last couple of weeks though, here's one where I have to admit they did the right thing:
Democrats defeat GOP plan on mortgage rates
The plan by Nevada Republican John Ensign would have encouraged banks to issue mortgages with interest rates of 4 to 4.5 percent. The government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have bought the mortgages on the secondary market. Jumbo loans would have been ineligible.
This plan might have sounded good for the country - until you thought about it. I'd certainly enjoy the money from refinancing everyone in my book of business, but it remains a bad idea. Exactly where is the money to do all of this going to come from? It's going to come from distortions of economic rewards and risks, and the taxpayers are going to foot the bill. Why should renters in Arkansas foot the bill so someone in California or New York City can have a $500,000 tax subsidized mortgage? Why should a renter in Montana foot the bill for (re) over-inflating prices in high demand areas? The conforming loan limits for the areas in California where everyone lives are significantly higher than the basic $417,000 limit for conforming loans.
The best thing the government can do is force businesses to tell the truth about their products, then get out of the way (I can also see forcing equal treatment regardless of race, sex, etcetera, but businesses that do not treat everyone equally suffer their own economic penalties - usually severe enough to put them out of business.). A significant portion of the blame for the current crisis falls to government policy that mandated lenders approve loan applications that otherwise would not have made the cut, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that the results were a larger number of foreclosures. It's not like there was any kind of grand conspiracy on the part of lenders to limit the number of people who would be allowed to get home loans. Lender's realize that The Mortgage Loan Market Controls the Real Estate Market, and the more people who are eligible for home loans, the more money they will lend out, and the greater the demand for it, which equates to price. The government's purpose was noble and good, but the damage would not have been nearly as bad without the government's poorly thought through good intentions. We all know what's paved with those.
Here's a direct payoff to the Unions that supported Obama: Gateway Pundit: Obama signs Executive Order preventing non-union companies from bidding on government construction
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today denounced an Executive Order signed by President Obama that repeals Executive Order 13202, that prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.
I'm with RNC Chair Michael Steele on this one:
"President Obama's executive order will drive up the cost of government at a time when we should be doing everything possible to save taxpayer dollars. Federal contracts should go to the businesses that can offer taxpayers the best value - not just the unions who supported the Democrats' campaigns last year. Quietly signing executive orders to payback campaign backers undermines Obama promise to change Washington. It is a disappointment for Americans hoping for more transparency and less politics as usual in Washington."
Obama never promised his change would be for the better. Details count.
This is pure political opportunism:
Obama Puts Census Under Rahm Emanuel's Control
Now, why would Rahm Emanuel want the Census under his control in the White House? Huh? Why might that be? "The census is used to allocate federal aid to states and draw electoral districts," the New York Times editorial board wrote in order to REMIND PRESIDENT OBAMA that he might not want a REPUBLICAN in charge of drawing "electoral districts." Good god almighty. So now Obama's administration has decided that they'll do the census themselves.
Making the census a political tool? All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
Suppose the Bush Administration had put Karl Rove in charge of the census
Where's The Film About Our Real Superheroes?
We cannot escape but we still haven't developed the guts to tell stories about what's really going on. We're afraid to call the evil to account and we're afraid to call our own sons and daughters the real heroes.
Michael Totten: A Dispatch from the Border with Gaza
I don't drink, but I am reliably informed by medical practitioners and those who do drink that in order for any hangover cure to be effective, you've got to stop consuming alcohol long enough for it to work.
Unfortunately, we're now on steady Obama feed that's going to last nearly four more years.
Obama Should Channel Harding, Not FDR
Nah. That would make too much sense.
As a result, the recession that started in 1920 ended before 1923. Lower taxes and reduced regulation helped America's economy quickly adjust after the war as entrepreneurs and capital were freed to create jobs and push the economy to recover. Harding's free market policies lead to the Roaring Twenties, known for technological advances, women's rights, the explosion of the middle class, and some of the most rapid economic growth in American history.
Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
Encourage terror by treating with it, by responding positively to it, and you will get more terror. The Gods of the Copybook Headings strike again.
This is what a hellhole looks like: Yemeni Central Security Forces' Outright Theft of Land Without Compensation
The state comes, knocks down your house and sells your land for a park, and there's nothing to do about it because the authorities you would appeal to are the ones driving the backhoe.
A list of some of the pork in Obama's "stimulus" bill at Michelle Malkin
Oh, wow!
For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.
No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.
What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what's even more, we're letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!
But we want something in return.
None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.
I've got them. So should you. Monty Python is funniest in the original context. The Bridge of Fate is nowhere near as funny without the earlier Coconuts sequence. Ditto Robin's Minstrels, "Not being seen", and many others. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, that proves my point.
Without further adieu, I present The Monty Python Channel
And if you watch, for crying out loud, order their DVDs! It's a fair bargain to keep some of the greatest material known to man in front of the eyes of another generation or two! You wouldn't want to impoverish future generations, would you?
Torture is still torture. Rendition is still rendition
Liberals condemned rendition during the Bush administration because it lacked judicial oversight, did not afford individuals access to counsel, and because it often subjected persons to torture and longterm detention. Because Obama has ordered governmental interrogators not to engage in torture and has ordered the CIA to close its longterm detention centers, liberals now say that rendition does not raise any problems. Apparently, snatching people without a court order, not giving them a lawyer, and then placing them in a remote country were never too much of a problem after all.
government distortions of sanity, part infinity plus one
Yes, I'm aware of the mathematics of the aleph null set. My point is this: Does anyone want to argue with me that the sane thing to do is fire these nitwits for cause, after which they should never work in the industry again? Instead of "We're going to let you have a salary of up to ten times the national median", which is extremely likely to make it far more difficult to attract competent replacements?
The idiotic politics of class jealousy strike again.
Which do you think would end up better for everyone except the idiots who ran the banks into the ground? Their salaries are limited to $500k per year, or they get fired for cause and are essentially unemployable in the industry forevermore? That would have been the situation before Roosevelt got the government so thoroughly involved. Do you think this new situation, where their jobs are saved despite malfeasance, inadequate oversight, policy failures and manipulating company results for their own benefit?
Of course, Obama's new Treasury Secretary feels sorry for them. After all, he was one of them a month ago.
Rape as a recruitment tool for jihad
Toxic Gases Caused World's Worst Extinction
An ancient killer is hiding in the remote forests of Siberia. Walled off from western eyes during the Soviet era and forgotten among the endless expanse of wilderness, scientists are starting to uncover the remnants of a supervolcano that rained Hell on Earth 250 million years ago and killed 90 percent of all life.
Before spending $1.2 trillion dollars on a stimulus, Maybe we should consider the effects "stimulus" packages have had in the past. Which is to say, they exacerbated the problem and delayed a recovery.
More here: How Government Prolonged the Depression
So what stopped a blockbuster recovery from ever starting? The New Deal. Some New Deal policies certainly benefited the economy by establishing a basic social safety net through Social Security and unemployment benefits, and by stabilizing the financial system through deposit insurance and the Securities Exchange Commission. But others violated the most basic economic principles by suppressing competition, and setting prices and wages in many sectors well above their normal levels. All told, these antimarket policies choked off powerful recovery forces that would have plausibly returned the economy back to trend by the mid-1930s.
What's that definition of insanity again?
Now consider that this "stimulus" package looks a lot more like all the Democratic pet projects tied up in one bill they're trying to politically cover by telling people it's to help the economy.
What was that our new President said about transparency and accountability again?
Does it sound like he's taking it seriously? Not to me either.
Related Trivia tidbit: Lobbying up 25% since Democrats retook Congress at the end of 2006
This is rich: Guantanamo Judge Denies Obama's Request for Delay
The administration, which expected military judges to agree to its motions seeking suspension, was taken aback by yesterday's decision. Judges in other cases, including one involving five Sept. 11 defendants, had quickly agreed to the government's request.
Guess the judiciary isn't all set to sing Kumbaya with the new administration either.
What did the Democrats learn from the HillaryCare debacle? That most folks don't want government to control health? Nope. The lesson they learned was to try not to get noticed.
The list of things the Palestinians lie about is extensive. Actually, it's about infinitely easier to compile the list of things they don't lie about. Here it is:
Would you like to see it again?
I just had what seems an awful lot like a phishing phone call. Supposedly from my health care provider, some information. Then they want me to enter my medical number with them and birthdate. Sorry, but you folks called me. I only do that when I initiate the call, so that I know who's on the other end of the line. Hung up and called the provider via the usual number. They do have such a system, but no message for me.
Watch yourself out there.
Transparency or not:
White House bars Google caching
The White House has silently tripled the number of Web pages that it forbids Google and other search engines from accessing.
Can't have our new president held responsible for what he said yesterday, can we?
Still more on the "most transparent administration ever":
Obama panders to unions by cutting off information to workers
President Obama plans Friday to reverse an executive order allowing unionized companies to post signs alerting employees that they are allowed to leave unions.
Can't have the workers knowing that they have the right not to be in a union, can we?
Are there any Democratic politicians that actually pay their taxes?
Daschle apologizes for failing to pay taxes
Or is actually paying taxes for the little chumps (like you and me) whose money they spend?
Rangel. Geithner. Dodd. Jefferson. The list goes on and on.
More at Scrappleface. Let's hope you can laugh at it, because these folks are our national jokes for the next couple of years.
Speaking of Dodd:
Sen. Dodd says he'll refinance Countrywide loans
Dodd has acknowledged receiving mortgages in 2003 through a VIP program at Countrywide, which was sold to Bank of America Corp. earlier this year and has been the focus of allegations that it gave favorable loan terms to lawmakers.
Chairman of Senate Finance Committee: You caught me selling my influence for cheap mortgage money, so I'll do it again with someone else, and that will make it all better!
New York's Charles Rangel and five other Democratic members of the House enjoyed a trip to the Caribbean sponsored in part by Citigroup (see above) in November - after Congress had approved the $700 bailout for financial firms (including Citigroup).The members no doubt will object to the terms "junket," but that shoe fits. The National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group, has asked Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to investigate the Nov. 6-9 excursion to the island of St. Maarten.
HT: Q and O
More: Government of Helmsleys
There are a lot more where Geithner, Rangel, and Daschle came from. While I have David Boaz to thank for a clever title for this article, I am sure that he joins me in wishing that it never had to be written. Alas, the Obama Administration and its allies seem to have a serious problem when it comes to paying taxes. Or, as House Republican Whip Eric Cantor puts it, "It's easy for the other side to advocate for higher taxes because you know what? They don't pay 'em."
My and what sterling qualifications, too. Arrange a pardon for fugitives from justice, become Attorney General.
"Most ethical administration ever'? I do not think that means what Obama thinks it means.
Private Papers: Time to Beam Down to Earth
Above are two prime examples of how the policy switch advantages the enemy at the expense of the citizens. In the first, the folly of fighting terrorism through the courts could not be clearer. It is nearly impossible to build a public case based on state secrets. In the law enforcement model, the prosecution is not allowed to have secrets, and defendants are entitled to see the evidence against them as well as to confront all witnesses. That is because our nation is founded on the principle that the people, from whom the government derives its power, should enjoy the benefit of presumptions and the government should be required to make its case. When trying to confront our nation's enemies, however, we do not want to allow them the same benefit. By engaging them in courtroom battles rather than in military/intelligence ones, we do just that.
I can just see DOJ lawyers trying to arrest Al-Qaeda operatives.
So what's the over/under of civilian deaths before the Obama administration admits that Bush was right?
Cramer on Obama's Anti-Wall Street Comments: 'We Heard Lenin'
And you wonder why Wall Street is crashing and the economy is in the tank?
Indian Media: Doing the job American media won't do.
Change you can believe in: Dictatorship on the rise.
If you think they're not related, welcome to planet Earth and I hope we can be friends.
In the wake of the news slowly filtering out of Kentucky and the Appalachian/Ozark region of our nation that is suffering from the worst ice storm in memory, perhaps it's appropriate to ask the whereabouts of our own Savior. Turns out he's in Washington DC, basking in a toasty-warm Oval Office, serving the finest in gourmet food to the Democrat leadership, and preparing a deluxe Superbowl party for tonight.
A million people without power in killing cold. Over twice as many people as were in the City of New Orleans prior to Katrina. At least 42 dead. Why no outcry that Obama hates rednecks and wants them to die? Why no reporting in the media so that people will help on their own?
Kentucky freezes; Obama dines on $100 a pound steak
Kentucky: No Power, No FEMA - UPDATED
In fairness to President Obama, it is not really the job of the president to personally go in and rescue people after a natural disaster. The province in emergencies is still - as it was with Katrina - local, then state government, then federal intervention with funding and FEMA, etc. But the press and the Democrats didn't want to hear it with Katrina, where the staggering failures of the local and state governments were ignored so that the Bush-beating could commence. But it seems to me if Bush was crucified for "eating cake" with John McCain and not sending FEMA "fast enough" and not running down to NOLA to get in the way of rescuers for the photo-op, then there is certainly some room to criticize President Obama, who supposedly is having a black-tie dinner tonight with members of the press in the warm, cozy White House while hundreds of thousands have evacuated or are still not even being checked on.
Many pleading for faster response
That would also be a terrible thing to say, and I think playing the racism card is stupid, but the point is, when Katrina hit, the press pulled out every stop they possibly could - including the racism canard - to identify that disaster with a "Bush epic fail." They ignored his early pleadings to Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco to evacuate. They ignored his declaring NOLA and surrounding areas as Disaster Areas even before Katrina hit, so the fed could immediately get to work. They ignored the proper jurisdiction of emergencies (local, then state, then fed) and the extreme incompetence of the Louisiana leadership and made Katrina all about "what Bush did or didn't do." By contrast, the press seems to be going out of its way to insure that Obama is not associated with this week-long drama at all.
and
President Obama has not done that. 7 days into the mess, he has not asked Americans to donate to the Red Cross or other disaster-relief agencies. He has not flown over the area to see the extent of the disaster. He has not gotten onto the ground to meet with anyone. This is the first thing that Obama can rightly be criticized for - he should now, finally, make an appearance. The rest of it, the steak-eating, the cocktails, the ballgame - it is brought up only to illustrate the difference between what was unreasonably demanded of one president, and what is (reasonably) excused in another.
Who is the "They" now in California?
Anyone with capital who wants to start business X, knows that he can be put out of business by one supposed sexual harassment suit, a racial discrimination complaint, trying to fathom 500 pages of state EPA applications, a 10% income tax rate, and now a 9% sales tax to come. In California we hunt out the misdemeanor and ignore the felonies. Drive down my avenue, drop five trash bags of wet garbage on the side of the road, and the chances are great you will never be held accountable (even if your receipts are found in the trash and turned over to the sheriff), but please don't wire an outdoor light in the barnyard without a permit. You see, anyone who nods and obeys the law and pays, we hound; anyone who simply won't or can't, or causes too much trouble, we the state employee simply ignore.
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