Daily Briefing

First Alvin Greene in South Carolina; now this. A Congressional candidate in Texas wants to impeach President Obama and, during the campaign, carried an oversized picture of the President with a Hitler-style moustache. Obviously, this is the type of person tha Keith Olbermann and Jeanine Garofalo mean when they accuse the “teabaggers” of being racist Obama-haters. Oh…hold on a sec. The candidate is Black? And a woman? And a Democrat? From the Lyndon LaRouche wing of the party, the same folks that were so accepted by the Left when, during the previous administration, they wanted to impeach President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Apparently, the LaRouchies no longer have the same legitimacy among Democrats and the media now that the worm has turned, and they have turned on their former patrons. 

Nanny-statism running riot among the pedagogical set. Teachers keep a watchful eye on children who have “best friends.” Such relationships, supposedly, lead to cliques, exclusion, and bullying. One would think that they would lead to trust and practice at (platonic) intimacy. Children may seek close bonds naturally, “[b]ut the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.” Lori Ziganto rightly takes these commissars of conformity and collectivism to task.

Gallup poll shows that conservatives still outnumber liberals by at least 2-1 in the U.S. This continues a trend from last year and is primarily the result of independents becoming increasingly conservative. The shift to the right may be partly cultural.  But there is also a considerable likelihood that some of the shift is a reaction against the excesses of the Obama administration’s left-liberalism.

The Supreme Court has unanimously decided three federal “honest services” fraud cases by (rightly) limiting such cases to bribery and kickbacks, as intended by Congress when the law was drafted, rather than the more exotic and attenuated theories prosecutors divised. Example, the case of Conrad Black who was basically prosecuted for failing to disclose to shareholders that part of his compensation for selling control of his Canadian company was a straw-man (for tax reasons) non-compete agreement that was legal under Canadian law but also affected American holdings. Black’s friend Mark Steyn, who assiduously reported about the abuse of justice in Lord Black’s case, has more.

More evidence that economic common sense actually is a good predictor of how humans generally react. As Medicare reimbursements decline, doctors take fewer Medicare patients. Shortages develop as government continues to distort the market further and more seniors enter the system. Oh, and as Obama/Reid/PelosiCare gain traction, more people will be thrown into similar government-administered programs.

Let’s see if the media give coverage to a Democrat contrasting “minorities and defectives” with “good, average Americans” with the same intensity and breadth as when a Republican says far less outrageous things.

Second Iranian ship to go to Gaza and run the blockade. Sent along with all the toys and construction equipment are “no more than 10 volunteers who have already undergone training, ’in light of the possibility that the Zionist regime may do something evil.’” Yes, this is all humanitarian, an approach for which the Tehran regime is world-renowned.

In a similarly Orwellian vein, is the campaign by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (can one imagine the uproar if there were an “Organization of the Christian Conference) at the UN is trying to get the UN’s appalling “Human Rights Council” to investigate the imagined odious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry in the West. That lamp of religious tolerance, Egypt, wants “the council’s special investigator into religious freedom to look into such racism, ‘especially in western societies’ to ‘work closely with mass media organizations to ensure that they create and promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity.’” Meanwhile, the rest of the article explains where the real religious intolerance in often deadly form lies and it isn’t the weak-willed and accommodationist West.

Continuing broadly with a theme, the “Nunsense” series reemerges to delight Off-Broadway musical aficionados yet again. I have no problem with spoofs of religion, done well. But, one wonders, would a bad critical review in the New York Times (and this did not get a bad review) be the only consequence were the musical a spoof of a different religion, say, one complete with even a representation of one of its key figures, a certain prophet? Or might there be a much more “explosive” critique? Just ask Danish cartoonists or South Park creators who draw spoofs of that prophet. For that matter, if anyone even shows a representation of this prophet, spoof or not.

By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court has reversed the Ninth Circuit (no surprise there) and upheld a federal statute that criminalizes giving “material support” to terrorist groups. The challengers argued that the law violated their free speech rights by preventing them from engaging in advocacy on behalf of the non-terrorism activities of such groups. They also argued that the law was unconstitutionally vague in the use of some terms. The case focuses on very basic free speech issues, but is not easy reading as it is very complex factually and procedurally.

Sarah Palin was right. Again. Canadian health care, soon to be emulated by the Obama administration: I have stage four colon cancer, and all I got was this lousy apology. From what some might call a “death panel.” Apology, but no treatment. Part (but not all) of the problem is a shortage of specialists. A government program produces shortages? You don’t say!

Bill Roggio’s excellent “Long War Journal” has an analysis of Predator drone attacks on Taliban and al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. Beginning in 2008, the frequency and lethality of the strikes increased significantly.

Conservative student organizations are vilified and investigated for much less than the Muslim Students Union at UC Irvine has been able to do many years without repercussions. But their actions in interfering with a speech by the Israeli ambassador appears finally to have prodded the timid and lethargic UCI administration into some form of discplinary reaction.

Yet another reason why self-reliance, and the right to own firearms, are so important. One cannot rely on the police to be there when needed.

While many commentators, left and right, are underwhelmed by President Obama’s curiously rote speech about the Gulf oil spill, this critique by L. A. Times political blogger Andrew Malcolm just eviscerates the President’s lame attempt to turn the opportunity to shill for the completely irrelevant cap-and-tax prosperity killer and alternative energy boondoggles. “And we’ve gotta start that right now because of an underwater leaking pipe 40 miles off Louisiana that we haven’t plugged and don’t really understand how it broke in the first place. So let’s do the electric car thing and build more windmills now.” BUT, the very best part of Malcolm’s piece was the entirely gratuitous picture of Florida governor Charlie Crist and a couple the state’s assets prominently displayed. (I’m talking about sunshine and beaches, of course.) The byline is the kicker.

Newsbusters vets the President’s oil spill speech for inaccuracies and distortions and finds some polluted information. For example, “Moving forward, Obama also misrepresented the state of the oil industry itself. He claimed that Americans ‘consume more than 20% of the world’s oil, but have less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean - because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.’

There I was, minding my own business, watching some of the World Cup matches,
‘This howler,’ writes John Hinderaker at Power Line, ‘is a favorite canard of Democratic politicians. As is so often the case, they are relying on the public’s ignorance. Most people don’t realize that in the U.S., oil isn’t counted as part of our “reserves” unless it is legally available for drilling. Thus, ANWR, to take one of many examples, isn’t counted toward the total “reserves.” The U.S. government could cause our reserves to skyrocket overnight by opening new areas, on land and in shallow water, to drilling. But the U.S. is the only country in the world that has deliberately chosen not to develop its own energy resources. No one else is that dumb.’”

There I was, minding my own business, on a break from watching the World Cup, when I come across this. It seems that some leftist professor (I know, redundancy alert) has determined that what is keeping the toiling masses (i.e., everyone other than leftist professors who, like Platonic philosophers, have escaped the cave of shadows) chained to their horrible and meaningless existence is soccer. Without this “opiate of the masses” (his appellation borrowed from Marx and Engels, not mine), the promised earthly paradise of socialism would already be with us. Of course, in perfect leftist logic, he wants the game banned.

Karzai knows our President and Congress, as well as America’s history of commitment to “friends.” He doubts that the West can defeat the Taliban. “People close to the president say he began to lose confidence in the Americans last summer, after national elections in which independent monitors determined that nearly one million ballots had been stolen on Mr. Karzai’s behalf. The rift worsened in December, when President Obama announced that he intended to begin reducing the number of American troops by the summer of 2011. ‘Karzai told me that he can’t trust the Americans to fix the situation here,’ said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ‘He believes they stole his legitimacy during the elections last year. And then they said publicly that they were going to leave.’” Karzai needs to read the biography of JFK and what happened to President Diem of South Vietnam when he seemed to go wobbly regarding American war plans. On the other hand, I doubt that the current president has JFK’s vigor in pursuing American interests.

This discovery will raise the stakes in Afghanistan, but the U.S. probably won’t stick around to benefit. Advantage, China.

During the debate about Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, the President and Democrats in Congress crowed about how the plan would “bend the cost curve downward.” They recieved a scoring from the CBO that projected a slight savings over ten years compared to the existing system. Critics objected loudly that those projections were fantasy. One problem was that the plan included a 21% cut in Medicare payments to doctors, a step likely to produce even greater unwillingness on the part of doctors to see such patients, as some of my family members have found out personally. Those cuts went into effect on June 1. Predictably, just as has always happened before, Congress wants to cancel those cuts. That, of course, would put the lie to all of those promises the President and his allies made about cost containment. Indeed, given that the new health care law increases significantly the number of people who will end up on Medicare and other government programs, the cost is likely to be far higher under the new program than it would have been under the old system. So it is rather rich that Mr. Obama blames Republicans for wanting to hold him and the Democrats to the promises they made to ram the program down the American people’s throats.

I can’t stand it. This is what we in California are saddled with as a “Senator.” Barbara “Please call me Senator” Boxer thinks that the greatest national security threat over the next twenty years is carbon emissions. To the extent she is talking about carbon dioxide when she exhales while speaking, I will agree. Otherwise, she has lived down to her name as one of the dimmest bulbs, if not the dimmest, in the Senate. One of the conceits of liberals is their conviction that they are so much smarter than conservatives. Uhhh, no. Via Hugh Hewitt.

Listening to the media, one gets the impression that the people of Gaza are suffering from a humanitarian disaster-in-the-making, with dire poverty and lack of water, basic foodstuffs, children’s toys, and building materials. Well, maybe not.  Here is more detail about the privations suffered by these poor people in bulging markets, well-stocked stores, Olympic-sized pools, and fancy restaurants.

Congratulations for the U.S. on its 1-1 tie with heavily favored England in the World Cup. Unless the Americans really come down in performance in their next two games, they should make it through to the elimination round. But for a far more technically beautiful game, there was Germany’s 4-0 over Australia.

This time of the year in Southern California commonly features foggy, gray mornings and, usually sunny afternoons before the fog returns at night. This is called “June gloom.” Here are a couple of bracing articles full of gloom in June. There is Reason’s Veronique de Rugy on the burden of U.S. structural deficits, and a piece from Arthur Laffer about the looming tax increase-caused double-dip recession.

Belmont Club’s Richard Fernandez on the wreckage of American-Israeli relations and the danger to peace caused by the blundering Obama administration’s feckless and ideologically-motivated posturing.

I don’t recall this practice being considered by Justice Kennedy during his investigation of comparative legal systems when the Supreme Court considered whether it was ever constitutional to execute by injection a 17-year old who had tied his victim with duct tape and drowned her after taunting her and laughingly telling his friends that he could get away with it because he was a minor.

Are we seeing the end of libel suits? Alternative media, quicker corrections, lack of success for plaintiffs, less aggressive and financially weaker large media operations all contribute to a decline in what once was a common exercise of legal rights.

Given the Republican winner, had Mickey Kaus won the Democratic Senate primary, I would have been voting Democrat in the fall.

But not for this Democrat.

What goes around, comes around. Israeli students work to send flotilla to Turkey with humanitarian aid for the Kurdish and Armenian minorities and to protest the occupation of Cyprus.

Excellent Krauthammer article on ”Those Troublesome Jews.” He discusses the historical use of blockades by countries to keep arms from reaching those countries’ enemies. While the Obama administration dithers and equivocates in public, while privately pressuring Israel, the U.S. has hardly been reticent about resorting to blockades. Lincoln? FDR? Kennedy? Moreover, the blockade is only the latest attempt by Israel to defend itself with ever more attenuated and milder forms of defense. More robust options have been delegitimated by pressure from Muslim countries in which the civilizationally insecure and paralyzed West acquiesces, as long as this only affects Israel. Israel has moved from Forward Defense to Active Defense to, now with the blockade, Passive Defense. Meanwhile Hamas continues to murder, oppress, and loot. Oh, and to kill Israelis with cowardly use of rockets fired from behind human shields in the form of residential areas. If this means, too, is delegitimated, Israel will have no reason to restrain itself anymore. And they won’t, if the alternative is national suicide.

Now, what could possibly go wrong here? FTC pushes plans for government subsidies of newspapers to “reinvent” journalism. Ed Morrissey does an excellent job of fisking the economic illiteracy that underlies the FTC’s arguments. Private advertising is already a “subsidy,” according to the “economists” at the FTC? as Mark Tapscott writes, “W]hat they cannot deny is what is clearly written in the FTC document and what it reveals about the intention behind the initiative, which is to transform the news industry from an information product collected by private individuals and entrepreneurs as a service to private buyers, to a government-regulated public utility providing a “public good,” as defined and regulated by government.” The result of all this is obvious. It’s not to protect newspapers and the broad dissemination of information. That is already done through the internet, despite the FTC’s odd dismissal of it as failed experimentation. Rather, this, like the interest in reinstituting the “Fairness Doctrine” and in promoting “community-oriented” broadcast licensing, are means through which government wants to extend its control over the press. They want to havethe traditional media become even more like Chris Matthews and other administration lapdogs. What’s next? Attempts to regulate political speech by bloggers? Oh, wait.

Interesting new intelligence reports that are reviving an older speculation. Are Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other al Qaeda capos being given safe haven by the Iranian regime and permitted to exit for purposes of terror attacks planned while in Iran?

With the violent attempt to run the Israeli-blockade botched, the “peace activists” sent another ship, the “Rachel Corrie,” on a similar mission. That one ended less dramatically. The ship is named after an American student who decided to use her vacation time to inject herself into the Palestinian-Israeli dispute by participating in a confrontation with an Israeli Army bulldozer that resulted in getting her killed. That death has sparked all manner of reminiscences among the impeccably leftist and pro-Palestinian international ”arts community.” Mark Steyn raises the obscene double standard at work there. Another Rachel, minding her own business at a pizza parlor, became a victim of a Palestinian homicide bomber. Her story, including her struggle for her life, is forgotten. Steyn also links to this piece by Tom Gross, former Sunday Telegraph Mideast correspondent, about the many Rachels killed by Palestinians. Gross also sets straight the romanticized story about Rachel Corrie and introduces the reader to the families of other children killed by the actions of Palestinians that Corrie was trying to abet. Looks like nothing has changed in the media’s and the international elite’s double standard about Israel’s defensive actions and the Palestinians’ terrorism.

There has been a lethargy and lack of urgency in the Obama administration’s response to the BP oil spill, to the point that the president of BP has not been able to get through to the White House to have a discussion with Mr. Obama. Secretary of Interior Salazar and press secretary “Dilbert” Gibbs have been able to burnish the administration’s faux-Mussolini credentials with the “we-have-our-boot-on-the-neck-of-BP” declaration. This curiously detached approach would have been greeted with a drumbeat of condemnation from the first week, had this occurred during a Republican administration. Obama is only now getting some heat. But, it turns out, that there may have been a reason for the administration’s lackadaisical manner. The President has known all along that the spill would take months to contain. That disclosure would have underscored the limits of government, something that an incorrigible statist cannot get himself to admit.

Interesting election polling on trends for November. I’m pleased to note that my long-term predictions of Republican gains in the 30+ seat range for the House are echoed by Larry Sabato and CQ. I am rather conservative in these things, due to my faith in the GOP leadership to seize defeat from the jaws of victory, but, then, so are Sabato and CQ. Republican gains could be higher, and this post shows what Republicans need to. Also check out this link. Message to the Republicans: Stop talking about huge gains; instead, get to work as if you’re going to lose so that you can possibly make those gains happen.

Not usually a topic for this type of post, but, since it involves media hypocrisy and double standards plus the flailing Newsweek, why not? Lori Ziganto lampoons Newsweek’s fretting over a Right Wing News story (link here) about conservative hotties in “new media.” Newsweekfinds this sexist and condescending because women are ranked on their looks, not their political acumen. Truth about the latter aside, as Ziganto shows in her post, this is the same Newsweekwith the cover of Palin intended to dismiss her as a lightweight because of her appearance. Never mind that, as Ziganto points out, Palin had more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined, a shortfall for the latter two that is becoming painfully apparent.

From Madison to Wilson, here is George Will on the limitless scope of progressivism and the dangers from unlimited government. “The Founders…believed that free government’s purpose, and the threats to it, are found in nature. The threats are desires for untrammeled power, desires which, Madison said, are ’sown in the nature of man.’ Government’s limited purpose is to protect the exercise of natural rights that pre-exist government, rights that human reason can ascertain in unchanging principles of conduct and that are essential to the pursuit of happiness. Wilsonian progressives believe that History is a proper noun, an autonomous thing. It, rather than nature, defines government’s ever-evolving and unlimited purposes. Government exists to dispense an ever-expanding menu of rights — entitlements that serve an open-ended understanding of material and even spiritual well-being.” Also, “Lacking a limiting principle, progressivism cannot say how big the welfare state should be but must always say that it should be bigger than it currently is. Furthermore, by making a welfare state a fountain of rights requisite for democracy, progressives in effect declare that democratic deliberation about the legitimacy of the welfare state is illegitimate.” That last sentence describes the Obama administration and its defenders rather solidly.

From the archives of Reason magazine, comes a needed reminder of the morality of capitalism. As philosophers have propounded for eons, the best human existence is a balanced and flourishing, well-examined life. To do that, however, a basic material independence beyond bare subsistence is required. Capitalism provides that gateway to a flourishing life better than any other system: “Our free enterprise system provides much more than the goods and services we consume; it furnishes ingredients of a balanced life that are often overlooked in discussions of economic performance.” Yet, capitalism’s very success breeds attitudes (such as risk-aversion and hard work) that, on their own may be good to a degree, but that become so dominant they threaten the golden goose that produced the riches that make everything possible. We may be living off the patrimony of earlier generations.

My recent copy of the Stanford Law School alumni magazine trumpets a lawsuit brought by one of its clinics to scrap the California education funding system as unconstitutional and extract yet more tax moneys from the overburdened taxpayers in this dysfunctional state and pour them down the well of an incompetent and top-heavy bureaucracy seeking to instill political correctness and out-of-touch left-wing ideology in its charges. The real problem with the budget is, as has now been documented so well, the same as in other states, a bloated compensation and pension system for public employees, especially in the public safety, corrections, and education sectors. This Barron’s article from March has many of the gory details. Consider especially the table of the states’ bond ratings. Note California’s. It’s in a (bush) league of its own. H/T Ali Vazin.

As new information emerges that contradicts the Islamist propaganda and the rush to judgment by the (mostly non-American) media and politicians over the underpowered boarding by Israel of the motley Turkish flotilla, Mark Steyn digs into the archives to compare this event with another massacre-that-wasn’t, the skirmish at the Jenin camp in 2002. With at least one paper using that name to characterize this week’s events, the reminder of that older embarrassment for the media is, once more, quite topical.

“What would Jesus abort” is the provocative question Ed Morrissey asks about Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that, “we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word.” Says Morrissey, “That should be the question Nancy Pelosi answers after assuring voters that she must craft her public policies to meet with the approval of Jesus Christ when He returns at the end of time. Pelosi must be hoping that she’ll have enough time to figure out an explanation for voting against a ban on partial-birth abortions.” Just reading what she said, I cannot believe that she is the second in line to succeed the President. But then, I cannot believe that Slow Joe Biden is the first. Or that Barack Obama, the golfer-in-chief, is the president.

I was going to put this item in the Humor category, because I thought it was a Carbolic Smokeball or Iowahawk concoction, but then I saw it was from the very serious folks at C-BS. The Al and Tipper show has come to an end, not because she finally realized he is an insufferable and pompous gasbag. No, it’s Bush’s fault! That supposedly incompetent and stupid Texas cowboy’s deviousness works so insidiously that his evil schemes took ten years to manifest a result. Somewhere there has to be the hand of Cheney at work.

From Cato and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity comes a video primer on the fiscal burden from government employee compensation. “Average wages for the federal sector now outstrips that of the private sector by well over 50%, but when also allowing for better benefits and tight job-security rules, the gap goes to double that of the average private-sector employees.”

While the seatwarmers who are the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors vote to join the clownshow at L.A. City Hall in boycotting Arizona, California jobless claims are at record highs. The California economy continues to groan under unfavorable regulatory and tax burdens, the state’s government spending habits resemble Greece’s, but, thank goodness, our politicians know just the important thing to do. Boycott Arizona over a law that even Californians support despite a campaign of lies and smears by the media and other opponents of the law that they generally have not read.

Another dog-bites-man story: Academics are biased in the application of academic freedom and free speech, and liberal California attorney general and candidate for governor enforces the law in a fashion biased against conservatives.

How often have we been told that we should just adopt the Canadian system of health care and everything would be grand, with no uninsured, excellent and immediate care for all, and everything for far less than in the U.S.? Some commentators, such as Mark Steyn, attempted to pierce the fog of misinformation for those who simply do not understand basic economic principles or how government works. Unfortunately for the myth, even in Canada, reality eventually catches up with the fable. With predictable problems, something needs to be done, even, gasp, private incentives.

Barack’s most excellent Memorial Day adventures. Former Senator Fred Thompson chimes in on Twitter: “Obama couldn’t give Memorial Day speech due to stormy weather. Apparently his teleprompter didn’t have a windshield wiper.” Ahh, Fred, if you could only have run your campaign in ‘07-’08 like you make jokes.

As expected, the U.S. is using the BP blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico to put a moratorium on offshore drilling. But, the oil is still there, especially since we are not willing to open up more drilling on land or closer to shore. Other countries are not deterred, even in seas that share a border with U.S. territory. Even Canada knows a good thing when it sees one. They might as well get the oil if the U.S. won’t, though there are probably limits to what Canada get extract, and cooperation would be in everyone’s interest of most efficient production. In a process ongoing for years, Chinese and other foreign companies also will soon be enjoying an off-shore drilling presence in the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of the Castro brothers.

This should be interesting. Elena Kagan’s favorite jurist is a former Israeli judge “whose creativity in advancing liberal causes by overturning elected officials’ policies makes [Justice Thurgood] Marshall look almost like a champion of judicial restraint.” Judge Richard Posner “has pointed attention to Barak’s extraordinarily aggressive pattern of sweeping aside the actions of elected officials based on little more than his own policy preferences. In ‘Enlightened Despot,’ an April 2007 New Republic review of Barak’s book The Judge in a Democracy, Posner wrote that Barak should be ‘considered Exhibit A for why American judges should be extremely wary about citing foreign judicial decisions.’”

So the farcical UN Human Rights Commission, parroting the discredited Human Rights Watch, claims that the Arizona law violates international law. Professor Julian Ku is unconvinced. As well he should be. Since when are illegal aliens entitled to all the same rights as citizens? Even the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected that notion. Perhaps the  boys and girls at the U.N. should look at the discrimination problems that aliens face in Mexico, and that everyone faces in most of the countries that sit on the Human Rights Commission.

Mark Steyn on the West’s creeping acceptance of the female genital mutilation that is prevalent in quite a number of African and Asian Muslim cultures. There is, increasingly, a curtain of silence descending in the West over practices that only a couple of decades ago were the object of resounding condemnation.

Not long ago, the Euro was flying high. But, as happened with American (and Spanish, British, Japanese, Chinese…) real estate, that was a mirage. I remember telling my mother (who receives a small pension from Germany because of her work there many years ago) several years back that the Euro was well over-priced, in view of the internal economic and political inconsistencies of the Euro zone countries. It is possible that the pendulum has swung too far, though I read that even careful experts predict another 7% drop. Here is a column by Mark Steyn about the Euro’s structural problems. Written in 2001. As the Euro was about to get under way.

A government of radicalized slackers. Yes, but think of the children who can be musicians and artists and not have to worry about health care even after they are no longer on mom and dad’s policy when they reach age 27.

Multi-culti correctness strikes again. Not long ago, the female angle on the controversy allowed some of the multiculturally sensitive to justify rousing themselves to use their faculty of reason and condemn this barbaric practice. Now the correct thing is to play along. Officially. Instead of prosecuting the practitioners of this mutilation. At first glance, accommodating those who just want a little ritual nick seems to make sense if that prevents at-home efforts that result in gross deformity or death. Except that the latter are not the result of a little ritual nick, but the full-frontal attack. If someone just wants to do a little ritual nick, that won’t result in the serious injuries that the article mentions. So, there is little to gain from this policy. At the same time, there is a loss because it accepts the legitimacy of the concept of female mutilation. An update indicates that the Australian doctors may be reconsidering this. Seems they were following the lead of the Americans. That figures.

The law of unintended consequences strikes, which is hardly surprising, given the complexity of the bill, which nobody read before its passage, anyway. How Obama/Reid/PelosiCare will make it less expensive to pay penalties than to provide insurance to lower-paid employees. Not only will that drive more people into government-controlled exchanges (at best), but it will lead to restructuring of how many companies are organized.

President Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo likely will not happen this year, either. Or, probably, next year. “But late Wednesday, the House committee unanimously approved a defense bill for 2011 that bans spending money to build or modify any facility inside the United States to house Guantánamo detainees, according to a summary of the bill.”

Mark Steyn on the collapse of Greece. The problem? It’s not just Greece. The contagion is spreading. “And yet and yet . . . riot-wracked Athens isn’t that much of an outlier. Greece’s 2010 budget deficit is 12.2 per cent of GDP; Ireland’s is 14.7. Greece’s debt is 125 per cent of GDP; Italy’s is 117 per cent. Greece’s 65-plus population will increase from 18 per cent in 2005 to 25 per cent in 2030; Spain’s will increase from 17 per cent to 25 per cent. As lazy, feckless, squalid, corrupt and violent as Greece undoubtedly is, it’s not that untypical. It’s where the rest of Europe’s headed, and Japan and North America shortly thereafter. About half the global economy is living beyond not only its means but its diminished number of children’s means.”

Pollster Rasmussen has reported a definite lack of popular enthusiasm for Obama/Reid/PelosiCare even after weeks of campaigning by the President. Additional polling confirms the administration’s failure to solidify support. In fact, support is eroding: “While overall attitudes were roughly unchanged from last month, the percentage of people who reported that they have ‘very favorable’ opinions of the legislation fell from 23 percent to 14 percent during the month. At the opposite end of the spectrum, 32 percent of people reported ‘very unfavorable’ opinions, up slightly from the 30 percent reported last month.”

South Carolina joins Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Oklahoma in tightening restrictions against illegal aliens. Other states are studying the laws, and the public support for Arizona-style regulations is high.

Oh, goody; Congress is going to pass another $190 billion tax-and-spend boondoggle. But this one will be financed by energy “fees” that will be passed on to the consumers. At least one-third of it will be so financed. The rest will be borrowed.

I remember not long ago, when dissent against the President was the epitome of patriotism. Now, it’s sedition. And this from someone who was mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, though this should nix that eventuality. One can only imagine the media outcry had a Republican governor made such a statement about Bush critics.

Before Obama/Reid/PelosiCare was crammed down the American people’s throats, there was the CBO scoring that claimed that the cost would be less than a trillion dollars over ten years. While those numbers were patently ridiculous for a number of reasons, the law’s supporters over and over promised that the plan would “bend the cost curve downwards.” Opponents claimed that part of the problem was the unrealistic assumptions that Medicare providers’ compensation would be cut by 21% as the law provides. It has taken just a couple of months for the opponents to be proved right. Even those numbers, which will clearly bust the CBO cost scoring, are unduly optimistic if the government hopes to do more than keep the number of doctors who still accept Medicare payments from dwindling further.

The culture of victimhood that is a hallmark of postmodern Western civilization has thoroughly infected Canada, a country that, in its atmosphere of advanced multiculturalism, looks more and more like a university. As the author points out, the new proof of reality is, “I am offended, therefore I am.” That reality manifests itself with the burgeoning plethora of victim groups. “Gays, lesbians, the transgendered, the bi-curious and presumably the bi-focal all are terribly angry when someone doesn’t show complete and utter deference to every aspect of their agenda. The race card is being played to justify crime, anti-social behaviour, irresponsibility, awful song lyrics and ridiculously baggy pants.” And now there are the shiksas.

Beware the muni bond bubble. Why cities and states are not too big to fail. The good news? A graph that does not include California as one of the states with an especially bleak fiscal future.

This looks like the recent final exam I wrote for my constitutional law class. Here, however, it’s the SEIU that invades a residential area for a demonstration on a Sunday afternoon. If the tea party protesters had done this, including trespassing on private property to terrorize a kid, we’d never hear the end of it, from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi to Dilbert Gibbs to the administration’s media battalion.

A devout Catholic student is suspended from school for wearing a rosary. Although the district superintendent has temporarily suspended the suspension, the principal claims the student’s behavior was insubordination because it violated an unwritten policy against gang attire. Sounds like he was on double secret probation, as connoisseurs of the movie Animal House will recognize. As if a rosary and gang attire (on a student government-type) in the same thought is not ludicrous enough, the principal justified his decision because the student’s rosary ”endangered the safety, health, morals or welfare of himself or others.” I have to believe that the principal is an atheist. How else to explain that having a devout Catholic kid wearing a rosary could endanger the wearer’s morals. If he’d only worn a “Gay Pride” or “Bush=Hitler” t-shirt. That’s the correct speech that students must be free to utter. Reason number 147 not to have children attend government schools, if possible.

Mark Steyn comments about President Obama’s mealy remarks in memory of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter whose head was sawed off by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other jihadists. The murder was recorded on a video that did brisk sales in certain parts of the world and spawned imitators. All Obama could bring himself to utter was the rather passive, “Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is.” In light of those brisk video sales, the value of a free press is probably not what captured the world’s imagination. Then, as Steyn notes, there is the vapid “the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments.” I made some remarks a couple of years ago at a minor awards ceremony. The award was in honor of Daniel Pearl. Even I, with much lesser oratorical talents (and not speech writers) came up with something more robust, moving, and fitting the occasion than what Obama delivered. But then, I also don’t have a problem calling radical Islamic terrorists just that.

The Democrats have been braying loudly that they were the victors in Tuesday’s election, and their media wing at the networks and newspapers has been dutifully reporting this as the truth. The real loser, however, was President Obama.

While Rand Paul currently enjoys a huge lead against a very liberal Democratic candidate in the KY Senate race, it will be interesting to see whether he can keep his foot out of his mouth long enough not to blow his lead between now and November.

Meanwhile the Arkansas Democratic Senate run-off will likely nominate November’s loser. The Republican nominee is a Congressman, so it is likely that he will be more politically savvy than Rand Paul, with his name likely to be his biggest liability in a state with a streak of religious seriousness.

I have long been a fan of Congressman Tom McClintock, ever since I met him years ago when he was running for his first state political job as California assemblyman. He is not the most jovial guy, but he is intelligent and politically savvy. Here he is telling Mexican president Felipe Calderon to butt out of America’s domestic politics.

The federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declines to extend the Supreme Court’s constitutionally weak and politically impractical Boumediene to Bagram Air Base, likening Bagram to the American-controlled prison in post-WW II Germany that produced the sensible precedent of Johnson v. Eisentrager that denied habeas corpus jurisdiction in federal courts over enemy combatants detained overseas.

When Mexican politicians want to play to the public, they demonize Americans and the United States. Indeed, it seems a national sport for Mexican officials to comment about internal American matters and to inject themselves into domestic American political issues. But should an American politician so much as breathe a word of non-support for any Mexican policy, Mexican politicians strut around like little roosters, crowing shock and dismay and demanding that the gringos mind their own business. Recently, Mexican boorishness has reached another level, as the Mexican president has the effrontery to criticize the Arizona anti-illegal alien law. While visiting the U.S. This from someone who can’t secure his own country, who encourages Mexicans to violate U.S. laws to get here in order to relieve the pressures inside the centuries-old political, social, and economic mess that is Mexico, and whose countries has laws against illegal (and legal) aliens far more draconian than Arizona’s. Off course, he is simply playing the tune that American liberals do, as well, and he may have felt emboldened by President Obama’s own unhelpful, though rather mealy-mouthed, remarks on the subject of the Arizona law. But still.

I have been warning about Republicans overhyping the November election. While I find speculations about 100-seat pick-ups interesting but useless and will stick with my 30-seat estimate. If things go better, great. It’s certainly not beyond the realm of reason. While the result in the Pennsylvania special election is not particularly meaningful, as the district has a 2-1 Democratic registration advantage and the Republican candidate won nearly 20% of the Democratic vote, some of the overreaction of the GOP’s nervous nellies actually is useful if it dampens the braggadocio emanating from some Republican leaders and commentators. Then there is also the knack of the Republican leadership to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Ann Coulter explains why the Republicans can never be counted in.

Obama administration envoy apologizes to China for U.S. human rights violations over the Arizona law. Oddly, no one mentioned China’s treatment of Mexicans during the swine flu outbreak last year.

With the boundaries of tolerable government deficits and debt fast approaching, and only unpalatable choices of massive cuts, massive tax increases, or massive inflation (a form of virtual taxation) available despite whatever productivity gains and economic growth might slowly materialize, today’s anti-incumbency candidates may well come to regret their decisions to run for office. This is an excellent editorial about why those candidates might come to remember the adage, “Be careful what you wish for, as you might get it.”

Election update: Anti-incumbent; anti-DC; anti-establishment trend continues. Specter loses Dem PA Senate primary; new candidate helps Dems to retain seat; still vulnerable. PA-12 special election: Dems retain Murtha seat, but by much less than 2-1 registration edge; winner ran as pro-life, anti-ObamaCare. AR Dem Senator Lincoln in run-off against very liberal Lt. Gov.; if she wins, she loses in November; if opponent wins, he loses because, though he is not a DC incumbent, he’s very liberal. KY GOP Sen primary: Rand Paul (son of Ron) defeats establishment choice.

What’s new on the Arizona front? Arizona Public Utilities Board member offers to help Los Angeles enforce its boycott: “If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.”

Ed Reyes, one of the most visible members of the clown show known as the L.A. City Council, is taken to task by a reporter for his buffoonery and grandstanding regarding the Arizona anti-illegal alien law. Just look at this: The reporter also discovers that California Penal Code Section 834b bears a remarkable similarity to portions of the Arizona law that Reyes and the rest of the chatterers find so objectionable.
“(a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. (b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following: (1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status. (2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States. (3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity. (c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly prohibited.”

After Eric Holder, someone else who has not read the Arizona law but criticizes it: Janet Napolitano.

New study: Happiness begins at 50. Well, should be almost there, then.

One of my former students wrote about her experience at her job, with her boss calling “motivational meetings” during which the associates are belittled and their lack of job security touted as a prod to make them work even harder. Associates are told not to talk to each other without the boss’s consent. Clearly, this person has some major personality problems and insecurity issues and should be nowhere near a position of power. The employees that are being emotionally abused and treated with less regard for their well-being than the office fax machine will leave the first opportunity they get. Unfortunately, as I remember from my first law job, there are too many bosses who seem to be unaware that there is a Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed slavery. Not that it likely matters to people with psychological problems as this boss has, but they they might read this list of practices that ensure a lack of employee productivity. And this list.

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell criticizes the influence of lawyers over military tactics in The Tomb of the Unknown Lawyers.

This should get the Arizona haters another adrenaline boost. The governor signed a law that prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic groups. In other words, it prohibits the typical identity group studies grievance course.

Reason’s Matt Welch on the Truth many politicians at all levels choose to ignore: We are out of money. One observation, though. The deficit limit of 3% of GDP that the EU imposes on member states has been regularly ignored by all of them. 

This tale is tragic, indeed, but it is not intended as an allegory of the current leadership of the Republican National Committee.

Another call for sanity against the ever-increasing mania for meaningless college degrees. What are students from the bottom quarter of their high school class doing in college? No wonder they routinely fail to get even a two-year degree. 

A Delaware pediatrician, a man trusted by families, has been accused of sexual misconduct, including rape, of more than 100 children, including infants and toddlers. He videotaped some of the assaults. Worse still, he was a target of an internal investigation in 1996 and a police investigation in 2005 that brought no action. Why was this not handled better by the hospital and the police? And where were the parents, not bringing up the matter with the police in 1996? I expect that the media will soon have long-lasting and breathless reportage into the metaphysics and moral tenets of pediatrics and the sexual practices of pediatricians to determine to what extent this is a systemic issue. Just like they do with the huge amount of sexual misconduct with minors that goes on in government schools and other institutions. Oh, wait, the media don’t care about that.

Mark Steyn on “the dots some don’t want to connect,” the “some” being the likes of Eric Holder and the dots showing the influence of radical Islamism on the terrorists. Steyn also raises the clout of the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the UN, an appellation that raises no eyebrows in the media-academic-political elite. Now, try for that same nonchalance if there were an Organization of the Christian Conference. Does anyone notice the overt political nature of the religion involved in the real thing? No rendering onto Caesar what is Caesar’s and onto God what is God’s. That’s why the terrorists’ mindset cannot be dealt with as if they were some ordinary criminal group or even some misinformed isolated or small religious cult.

Despite plenty of hot air provided by his trademark soaring teleprompter readings, the President’s ratings balloon continues to descend in crucial areas. He has stabilized in traditionally Democratic states, but is losing—and often doing so badly—the swing states where most of the endangered Democratic Congressmen are. Also worth noting is that the states where Obama’s support is highest tend to be the states with the greatest budget problems and the worst taxes.

With the California economy reeling, and the economic millstone of the state’s anti-CO2 emissions law that the Governor signed in 2006 threatening further hardships, California voters signed petitions to put a suspension measure on the November ballot. Predictably, Arnold has gone on the offensive against the “greedy oil companies.” Curiously, greed is no object when it is the snake-oil purveyors of “green jobs” who line up at the trough of taxpayer-provided subsidies.

The latest Obama pledge expiration date is coming closer, and it’s a big one. As conservatives confidently explained, Obama’s iron-clad campaign pledge that, under his plan, “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase — not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital-gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” is being walked back. He is only waiting for his “deficit commission” to give him political cover before moving. It is actually a good thing for those at the lower income levels to have more “skin in the game.” 

Canadians discover that the Greek contagion has hit close to home. Just as working German “haves” do not want to support leisured Greek have-nots, working Canadian “haves” do not want to support leisured Quebecois have-nots. More generally, working haves are increasingly resenting having to support leisured have-nots. That’s why tax increases are not viable policy, and why the welfare state is increasingly unsustainable.

What is new in the field of deprivation of rights in the UK? Mark Steyn has a list of those outrages feeding what he calls the “slow-burn bonfire of liberties.” Steyn is also spot-on about a phenomenon more and more observed in the U.S. as well, in matters of “equality” and personal liberty. Some groups are more equal than others before the law, so that their liberties matter more. “In the land of [Lord Justice] Laws, a gay is more equal than a Christian. A Muslim is more equal than anybody. A black man is more equal than a white man, unless the white man is gay and the black man a Christian. An eco-zealot is more equal than an Anglican.” Meanwhile, back in the UK, a judge imprisons a man who defended himself with BB gun against gang that attacked him; the gangsters still roam free. Am I glad that George Washington defeated Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown that day in 1781!

What a shocker! CBO has revised its projections for Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. The “reform” will cost $115 billion more than estimated. So, in six weeks the cost estimates have increased by one-eighth. Now the estimates are over the $1 trillion figure that the Democrats were so eager to avoid in the run-up to the vote. At the time, the opponents insisted over and over that the numbers were bogus. Well, here we are. And these revised figures are hopelesslt optimistic and still do not take into account the Medicare payment fudging that allowed the CBO to approve the figures it did.

The EU is learning a lesson that many saw coming, and one that the U.S. administration has yet to learn. One cannot get oneself out of debt problems by borrowing, if the debts are structural and there is no change in the underlying fundamental behavior that gave rise to the debt in the first place. The problem of Greece is not one of liquidity to be cured with an injection of euros, but one of solvency. Just as the last financial “rescue” for Greece failed to solve the problem, the current ”bail-out” promises just delays the day of reckoning in the desperate hope that, somehow, economic growth will pick up and bail everyone out. There won’t be enough of that, given the structurally anemic growth that is built into the European regulatory and welfare state.

Meanwhile, the Germans, who must pay the largest share under the agreement, are unhappy and feel backed into a corner. Historically speaking, that has not been a good state of affairs.

George Will: The fiscal disaster that is Los Angeles will lead to inevitable bankruptcy, as the mayor tries to undo what he spent 15 years as an SEIU organizer creating. “They [the union] are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself for ever-larger portions of wealth extracted by the taxing power from the private sector. Increasingly, government workers are the electoral base of the party of government. So Villaraigosa must live with the arithmetic of interest-group liberalism….The nightmare numbers include the state’s unemployment rate (12.6 percent)—it is higher than the nation’s (9.9)—and the city’s rate (13.5), which is higher than the state’s. The city’s long-term success depends on its schools, in many of which most of the children come from homes without fathers, and in some of which, Villaraigosa says, 40 percent of the children are in foster homes. He has little control over the school system and, anyway, unions oppose radical reforms.” I love L.A.

Similar warnings (and some proposed solutions) from former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.

In Great Britain, the Tories have formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, forcing Labour out. We’ll see how long this marriage of inconvenience lasts. Mark Steyn is completely underwhelmed by what the oldest parliamentary system in the world has wrought, as he describes what was barely averted.

I wonder if they would have been as sensitive regarding Madonna covered with dung.

Greece is in deep financial difficulties that will likely lead to default on the debt and economic shock. To get out of the economic death spiral over the long term, the New York Times advises Greece to privatize government programs, including health care. Same advice regarding energy and transportation. (Here is the Times article.) Of course, there is no government program to take over some private industry, including Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, that the Times does not favor for the U.S. 

Is this a broken-clock-is-right-twice-a-day event or are the endtimes upon us? The L. A. Times: “[W]e find that we’re no fans of incumbent Barbara Boxer. She displays less intellectual firepower or leadership than she could.” I have but one quibble. I think the Times is being profoundly unfair to the Senator. She is, in fact, displaying all of the intellectual firepower and leadership that she can. What the Times is seeing is all there is.

The bailout of collective Greek profligacy and laziness has been extremely unpopular in Germany, the country that will bear the largest burden of the cost. As an article that I linked last week noted, this is the era of “No Good Option” economics. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been been most unhappy about her lack of good options, as her government has moved reluctantly to bail out the Greek rioters in what I think is ultimately an unsuccessful attempt to stanch the monetary bleeding. Now, the electoral chickens are beginning to come home to roost. Merkel’s Christian Democrats got hammered in local state elections in North-Rhine Westphalia. They dropped 10% from the previous election. Worse, due to the way representation is determined, Merkel’s ruling coalition lost control of the Bundesrat (”Federal Council”), the upper chamber of the national legislature as a result of that state election. I was born and lived in Duesseldorf, the capital of North-Rhine Westphalia. It is the most populous of the German states. Historically, it tends somewhat left in its politics, though it is a swing jurisdiction. This is not fatal to Merkel, but it is a sign. Worse, like the hung Parliament in Britain, Merkel now has to trim whatever bold steps she might have taken (or been pushed to take by the more emphatic of her party members) to help the German economy long-term.

First there was the promise of shale oil. Now there is the potential of shale gas to help tremendously in meeting future (clean) energy needs of the U.S., as well as affecting geopolitics to the detriment of the petrodollar-fueled bad boys of the world.

Via Legal Insurrection: Arizona law is not “racist”—Eric Holder.

The President’s strategy of the politics of racial division. “In a video to Democrats, the president embraced identity politics; black, Hispanic and female voters are to be courted at the expense of white middle-class America. ‘It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women, who powered our victory in 2008, stand together once again,’ he said….Imagine the media uproar had President George W. Bush, for example, in 2006 called for ‘whites, Southerners, Christians and veterans’ to vote for the Republican Party. Mr. Bush would have been excoriated (rightly) for racist and sectarian pandering.”

Run-away global warming continues its devastating advance. Arctic sea ice melting gets its latest start on record. From Roger Sowell, the evidence against warming in California. Some of his data nicely show the cyclical nature of warming and cooling.

President Obama has often been portrayed as an unduly aloof, thin-skinned narcissist with a superiority complex. For those inclined to that view, the President’s lack of self-deprecation contrasts unfavorably with the much more relaxed-in-his-skin George W. Bush. For those, as well, the President did not disappoint with his jokes at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner. “The outer-directed tone of the material, which was credited to Axelrod, White House speechwriter Jon Favreau and ex-Hillary Clinton speechwriter Jon Lovett, was in keeping with Obama’s inaugural voyage as presidential joker last year. Making the rounds of the traditional spring dinners, the president cracked wise on just about everyone but himself….Obama’s derisive tone surprises and dismays some of the people who’ve written jokes for presidents past.”

The American Medical Association is to doctors what the American Bar Association is to lawyers, a small collection of ideologically liberal outliers that does not represent the majority of doctors and tries to put itself in a quasi-monopoly position in various matters affecting medicine by cozying up to Big Government. That’s why they collaborated with the administration on Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, even though their product has begun to fall apart already in exactly the ways that opponents described. Fortunately, a new organization has formed, Docs4PatientCare, to shed the light on the new health care law that the AMA does not want to shine.

Shortly after the health care bill was adopted, several corporations took accounting write-downs of additional health care costs caused by tax changes under the health care bill. There were also predictions that employers might end employee health care benefits, speculations that were dismissed by Democrats as fear-mongering. Well, it seems major corporations are considering ending health insurance and paying the penalties under Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, which will drive more people into government-type programs and put more financial pressure on them. Now makers of medical devices say that the additional costs from taxes under the health care law will cause them to change their business approach by, in part, laying off workers

Mixed signs about jobs. The good news is that hiring is up. The bad news is that the unemployment rates under both key measures are up, as well. Moreover, the job growth is fueled partly by the hiring of government census workers for temporary jobs and the job growth is far too low to produce significant reductions in the unemployment rate soon. 

Does this seem a bit provocative? A large mosque near 9/11’s Ground Zero in Manhattan? To be called Cordoba House, Cordoba being the last Islamic stronghold in Spain, a country the Muslims refer to as Andalusia and which the more emphatic among them consider ”theirs”? The project will cost a lot of money, which they’ll probably get from Saudi front organizations.

Mark Steyn on the unwillingness of the media and the President to call the facts regarding various actual or attempted terrorist actions, a reticence not displayed when conservatives engage in spirited but peaceful demonstrations.

The advent of the “No Good Options” era of politics. Or, the looming end of the entitlement state, at best; or the end of Western civilization as we have enjoyed it over the past two centuries, at worst. Unfortunately, the longer we refuse to accept the former, the more likely we end up with the latter. By expanding entitlements and deficits, the administration, indeed, is running against the gathering gale, thereby making the worst case more probable. 

On the day of the British elections, Mark Steyn delivers another account of the societal rot pervading that increasingly dystopian polity.

I knew it! Just go to the nearest major discount chain department store and look around.

Finally, the last of the Navy SEALs on trial before a court martial for allegedly punching an Iraqi prisoner was acquitted. “The prisoner is Ahmed Hashim Abed, who is the suspected masterminded [sic] the grisly killings of four American contractors in Iraq six years ago.” The government’s case fell apart under defense questioning. The problem is that the military appears to have made this a showcase for their policy against detainee abuse, a policy driven by political correctness rather than by judgment on of a case on its merits.

There is lots of talk about hedge funds getting various exemptions from regulation under the proposed financial services law. Could that be because hedge funds contribute overwhelmingly to Democrats?

This may be one case when two heads may not be better than one. I really enjoy the prime minister’s remark that this ”underscores the need for a ’structured approach to anger management.’” This is the Obama/Holder approach to terrorists.

Tolerant liberals who accuse tea party protesters of imaginary violence, act violently. More dog-bites-man news: Media try to find excuses and shift blame.

Mark Steyn is skeptical of the “lone wolf” explanation quickly peddled by the government for the Times Square would-be bomber.

The hypocrisy of liberals calling for more civility (when not calling opponents racists and Nazis) reaches to the highest levels.

Getting away from the Nazi stereotyping of such requests, the mundane reality of being asked about your papers when traveling in other countries.

Newly-released FBI documents throw in doubt original official version of the 1971 Kent State shootings that have been officially and popularly characterized as unprovoked action by the undisciplined National Guard.

Times Square would-be bomber disliked Bush. It is also widely reported, but unconfirmed, that he is a registered Democrat. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit provides additional links to how suspect was captured.

Even polling by the New York Times and C-B.S. confirms that the American people support the Arizona law, with 62.5% of those having an opinion saying the law is right or does not go far enough. IBD poll similarly confirms two-to-one support for the law among Americans.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner has collected the 10 dumbest things said about the Arizona anti-illegal alien law. Half of them are from the New York Times and the Washington Post. No surprise there. Cameo dumb statement appearances by President Barack Obama, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Again, no surprise there.

Speaking of dumb things said, one of the more idiotic posers in political punditry is the lightweight Bill Maher. It’s always satisfying to see him get exposed, dressed down, and so on.

Mark Steyn on the descent into societal madness of Great Britain. Writing in red and blue on a white background as a sign of racism. Given what the administration and its media have done in just two years, the U.S. should get to that point by the beginning of the second Obama term.

Unfortunately, Australia seems little better on the free speech (or common sense) front. And Canada’s allergy to free speech through its “human rights” tribunals is well-established.

Mark Steyn unloads on the critics of the Arizona law. He sees the conflict between the people of Arizona and the law’s critics as a clash between, on the one hand, people in Arizona who have encampments of illegal aliens near their houses and who fear for their safety and, on the other hand, out-of-touch coastal elites whose only connection with illegal aliens is through their gardeners. Meanwhile, Arizona is threatened with stronger sanctions than what the UN has imposed on Iran. At the same time, the people horrified about the prospect of people having to show a driver’s license are not much concerned about SWAT teams patrolling a rally by tea party members. “[T]hey were the police department of Quincy, Ill, facing down a group of genial Tea Party grandmas in sun hats and American-flag T-shirts. If I were a member of the Quincy PD I’d wear a full-face visor, too, because I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror. And yet the coastal frothers denouncing Arizona as the Third Reich or, at best, apartheid South Africa, seem entirely relaxed about the ludicrous and embarrassing sight of peaceful protesters being menaced by camp storm troopers from either a dinner-theatre space-opera or uniforms night at Mayor Newsom’s re-election campaign.” Indeed.

First quarter economic growth figures came in lower than expected. Better than a year ago, but much worse than last quarter 2009. Not terrible on their face, but very poor if compared to normal growth coming out of a recession. Enough to create some, but not much, job growth. On the other hand, the comparative lack of federal spending increases means that the growth figure is not artificially inflated by public sector sleight-of-hand. Job numbers are also not on the up-swing, though a nominal improvement may come through the hiring of census workers. But that will end soon, and time is running out for the Democrats before November.

From the Mahattan Institute: Exploding the myth of the overworked and underpaid public school teacher. Public school teachers in California are particularly well paid, work among the fewest hours, and produce students with terrible test results. Public school teachers get paid better than most white collar professions. They get paid 60% more than private school teachers, thought private school students perform better. The highest paid are in Detroit, at nearly $50 per hour. Of the ten highest-paying districts, all are in California, Michigan, and the Northeast, mostly poorly-performing districts in financially-strapped states.

The Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti on the Democrats’ preferred method of political discourse—demagoguery and personal invective.

So, would this be enough reasonable suspicion in the eyes of liberals to ask for identification of legal presence?

Excellent post by Ed Morrissey from last summer about the job- and growth-killer that is cap-and-trade. The projected jobs lost in the graph are each year, not cumulative. From 2012-2035, cumulative job losses approximate 30 million. The bill has been passed by the House, but is pending in the Senate. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Democrats go ahead with it before the election. Likely it would destroy them politically. I think that the Republicans should try to bring the bill to the floor. The Dems will try to prevent that, and I don’t know that the Republicans can outmaneuver them. But it would be worth it to talk about this disaster, especially now that Lindsey Graham has walked back his pledge of support for climate legislation.

George Will strikes at the hypocrisy and pomposity of the critics of Arizona’s anti-illegal alien law, from Nancy Pelosi and other “sanctuary city” advocates who are adopting the nullification and interpositions theories of Southern segregationists of the 1950s, to the President’s claim of Arizona’s “irresponsibility” caused by the federal government’s failure to fulfill its border security responsibilities, to liberals who are aghast at racial profiling while supporting affirmative action programs that do nothing but profile on the basis of race.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis’s campaign director and dependably liberal law professor Susan Estrich has reservations about the law. But, unlike the hysterical know-nothings on the left, she understands that the impetus for the law is not some racist rage bubbling barely beneath the surface of every supporter of the law. Rather, it is the fear of crime and frustration with the federal government’s abandonment of its duty to guard the border that has led to the law. Liberals should be glad that Arizonans are not taking more resolute steps to deal with the drug crime problem, such as this neighborhood did. Moreover, Estrich properly takes down Archbishop Roger Mahoney for his intemperance in condemning the law and, by implication at least, its supporters. I cannot wait for this man to retire. In fact, though I am in the process of converting to Catholicism, I am going to wait to complete the process until he is gone early next year.

Clueless Democratic Congressman (redundancy alert) invokes predictable reference to Nazis in describing the Arizona law. If he’s concerned about people being asked about id’s, he doesn’t have to go to 1930s Germany. He can go to today’s Mexico. Or to the mall when a credit card purchase is involved. Or to any real estate transaction under federal law.

New tax law will target not the “wealthiest,” but the most productive. These folks in 15 select professions, who constitute a very small percentage of the population, and already pay 50% of income taxes paid, will be hardest hit. Among the hardest hit (and most productive) are lawyers (at number 3) and professors (at number 15).

Law professor and former Bush administration adviser on immigration matters Kris Korbach, who helped draft Arizona’s anti-illegal alien law, explains why the state acted and what the law does and does not do. Unlike most of the hysterical critics, who haven’t read the law, he knows what he is saying.

Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett analyzes Congress’s sudden attempt to justify Obama/Reid/PelosiCare’s individual mandate as a tax rather than a commerce clause-based mandate with a penalty. I wrote about this a month ago and argued that, as a “tax,” the penalty would still be unconstitutional, because it is not a normal revenue-raising tax, but a penalty that can only be upheld if the mandate to which it is connected is itself constitutional under another clause, such as the commerce clause. If the mandate is not constitutional under the commerce clause, calling it and the connected penalty a tax will not save it. Professor Barnett agrees.

Another exploit by the Man of Steele. Often, it’s not what he says but how, when, and where he says it. The sentiments regarding immigration policy are not, within a broader context, unreasonable, and one also has to consider the forum. Still, to weigh in on this matter at this point, and not to address more strongly, yet sympathetically, the border security issue, creates further problems. Still, unless he resigns voluntarily, he’s probably safe until at least early 2011, and, likely, 2013.

The stupefying tyranny of Powerpoint. Powerpoint, or any other chart, outline, or graph can organize concepts and promote understanding of complex matters. But a lot is not necessarily better than a little. Here is the problem, a point with which I agree wholeheartedly: “Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making.” “Commanders say that the slides impart less information than a five-page paper can hold, and that they relieve the briefer of the need to polish writing to convey an analytic, persuasive point. Imagine lawyers presenting arguments before the Supreme Court in slides instead of legal briefs.” Actually, law school professors use a lot of Powerpoint, something that does not require students to pay attention and digest the material themselves. That encourages intellectual laziness and hampers the development of reasoning and writing skills. Those shortcomings are more and more prevalent among students, in part, no doubt, due to the increasing use of Powerpoint in secondary schools and colleges.

This sounds as bad as the individual mandate, requiring people to pay for water that they aren’t using. At least it’s a local policy.

Will the Republicans in 2012 follow their usual pattern and select the Crown Prince next-candidate-in-waiting (i.e., Romney)? Or will they go the Goldwater (or Wendell Willkie) route and choose a dark horse?

From the archives but, as the Senate considers taking up the issue, still relevant: The economic costs of cap-and-trade energy taxation. Ed Morrissey provides a summary of how the bill will kill jobs and harm the economy for essentially no impact on any global warming that might be occurring. Here is the report itself. More of the same, but from the Department of Energy. And it will cut U.S. refining capacity, raising gasoline prices subtantially and making us more dependent on foreign gasoline.

Did anyone see this coming? Most economists believe stimulus did not reduce unemployment.

Asian and White men need not apply for a seat on the Obama bus. Why does our post-racial uniter-in-chief insist on playing the racial angles and wedges so quickly and easily? Why the hatred directed at one part of society? It’s not just Obama, it’s liberals in general who paint their world in racial and other identity-group colors, where White (and, to a lesser extent, Asian) males are routinely vilified and denigrated to become the new Jews. “Every speech on domestic policy that the President gives paints one group of Americas as evil and tells everyone else they need the government, headed by Obama, to protect them from their evil neighbors. By shear process of elimination, the most dangerous Americans, the ones everyone else needs Obama’s government to protect them from, must be middle to upper-middle class white people who work in business and especially those who own businesses large and small…which is the demographic at the heart of the Tea Party. The apparent sincere belief by many on the left that the wide spread Tea Party members are evil, violent people springs precisely from decades of indoctrination in which leftists are progressively trained to view their fellow Americans as evil, dangerous people from whom the benevolent state must protect them. They are especially trained to view white business people as evil. When they see a collection of white, small-to-medium-sized business-owners/self-employed, they automatically see a group of evil and dangerous people. They can’t help it. This is all they’ve been taught and all they say to each other.”

Instapundit links to some fascinating discussions about the probabilities of alien life in space, what forms that life might take, our attempts to contact such life, and what should be done if contact is established. There is a link to an interview with the physicist Stephen Hawking and a terrific article by Gregg Easterbrook.

I posted previously about the Iranian cleric whose scientific speculations led him to the conclusion that earthquakes increase in frequency due to women’s immodest attire. This produced a Facebook-launched response led by a woman particularly conflicted about modesty. Or earthquakes. Her project shook, so to speak, the world. Or at least Facebook. Adopting the scientific method for testing hypotheses, women agreed to dress particularly immodestly on Monday to see if they could produce a “Boobquake.” Well, the Iranian cleric may have earned some crowing rights, as a 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan. Undaunted, the expert on female seismism proclaimed that 134 earthquakes in the 6.0-6.9 range occur each year. Only if there were a flurry of such quakes might she be persuaded that the cleric may have a case.

Gallows-humor piece by Mark Steyn on the Democratic strategy, rolled out recently by Bill Clinton, to make the tea parties the new front on the fight against terror. Sample paragraph: “Will it work? For a long time, Tea Partiers were racists. Everybody knows that when you say ‘I’m becoming very concerned about unsustainable levels of federal spending’ that that’s old Jim Crow code for ‘Let’s get up a lynching party and teach that uppity Negro a lesson.’ Frank Rich of the New York Times attempted to diversify the Tea Party racism into homophobia by arguing that Obamacare opponents were uncomfortable with Barney Frank’s sexuality. I yield to no one in my discomfort with Barney Frank’s sexuality but, with the best will in the world, I find it hard to blame it for more than the first four or five trillion dollars of federal overspending. Eschewing such cheap slurs, Time’s Joe Klein said opposition to Obama was ’seditious,’ because nothing says sedition like citing the U.S. Constitution and quoting Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately for Klein, thanks to ‘educator’ William Ayers’ education reforms, nobody knows what ’seditious’ means anymore.”

More reaction to the “news” that Obama/Reid/PelosiCare will cost more than expected and do less than advertised. Even the New York Times, late to the dance as usual, is waking up to the law’s defects that critics have been talking about for a year and that common sense predicts. “Since the law’s passage, the Grey Lady has reported that New York state’s efforts to regulate insurance companies drove premiums through the roof and destroyed the market—and an individual mandate, which the state lacked, is a theoretical fix at best. The paper of record also reported that the law may not actually bring down costs for the sick, that the law was hastily and confusingly written (enough that it may deprive Congressional representatives and their staffs of health care coverage), that it may not help all the tough-luck cases it was supposed to resolve, and that health insurers may soon be turned into de facto public utilities.”

Gearing up to win by fraud what they will not win fairly this year, Democrats move again to undermine the fairness of voting procedures. This time, they want to enlist the feds, led by Senator Russell Feingold. Why does that not surprise me? Feingold was a proud co-sponsor of the “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002,” better described as the Incumbent Protection Act. Making vote fraud easier is so Venezuela. Oh, wait.

Global warming alarmists trying to prove a tenet of their faith by travelling to what they expect to be an ice-free Arctic run into a problem. Arctic ice. Again and again. And have to be rescued before they freeze. I say we leave them there. Mother Nature is sending strong signs of what she thinks of the desirability of these folks reproducing.

Now it can come out: Government report now says that health care “reform” will increase health care costs, not bring them down. “It also warned that Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15% of hospitals into the red and ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors.” Pelosi was right. The bill had to be passed for members of Congress and the media to find out what was in it. Everyone with a rational and functioning brain, on the other hand, predicted this.

Do you mean to say that having government take over substantial parts of the private sector, shutting down opposition media and imprisoning regime critics, bullying political opponents, building on a long tradition of caudillo government, and setting up paramilitary units to back the president in an ever-more-pronounced cult of personality, produces nepotism and political corruption, impoverishes the country, and transfers wealth from productive individuals to rent-seeking drones? How shockingly unpredictable! Not.

If the Catholic Church is trying to burnish its image, apologizing for past behavior of its hierarchy in connection with child abuse is commendable. More important, however, is not to take current or future actions that undermine its moral authority. Again, taking steps to eliminate child abuse is commendable, and the Church has made great strides in that direction. Awarding a race-pandering lunatic such as Michael Pfleger a lifetime achievement award is not the way to go. The Archbishop of Chicago has not only insulted many millions of Catholics with this stunt, he has alienated tens of millions of Americans who would find the manner in which Pfleger supported Obama repulsive and will cast blame on the Church. After all, the hierarchy can easily make the case that the Catholic Church and the hierarchy do not support pedophilia. But this latest self-inflicted wound is the direct result of official action and will be seen as such. Stupid and sickening.

In commenting about an Iranian mullah’s assertion that the recent swarm of earthquakes was the result of adulterous behavior, I facetiously mentioned that we should not feel superior to the cleric because we blame tsunamis on anthropogenic global warming. I should have known better than to think I made a clever joke. There is no satirizing climate “science” and the collapse of Western rationality.

Via Instapundit, a post and some links about the connections between Wall Street bigwigs (especially Goldman, Sachs) and Democratic politicians. The metastacising problem of crony capitalism under the Obama administration. Sample quote from Goldman, Sachs guy on financial regulation laws to be passed by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House: “We’re not against regulation. We’re for regulation. We partner with regulators.” No wonder Obama doesn’t think he should return the nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from Goldman, Sachs. 

Good. I hope that the rest are acquitted, as well. The evidence is so flimsy, and the charges so lacking in moral weight that this is a welcome result. The whole proceeding was so tainted by the smog of political correctness, however, that I did not think the military court would have the integrity to resist. I am pleasantly surprised. 

I have written this before, and it is becoming more and more obvious. It is time for Steele to resign. The problems from financial waste and stupid fundraising are piling up. He lets his mouth get away from him. Even putting the best spin on this, he is stating a plausible issue in the worst (and unnecessarily bad) way for the party whose interest he is supposed to advance. And it gets tiresome to have to interpret his stupid racial comments as gaffes. And, seriously, would anyone in the room be “scared” of Steele?

From Byron York at the Washington Examiner: At White House meeting, Guys who have filibustered a Supreme Court nominee sit down with guys who have not filibustered a Supreme Court nominee to lecture against filibustering a Supreme Court nominee.

As someone who came to this country as a ten-year-old speaking some English but well short of being at ease with the language, I am very skeptical of ESL programs that, to me, trap pupils in a cycle of failure. We arrived in Los Angeles on July 26. My parents bought a TV as one of their first purchases, and I also had six weeks before school began to play with some American kids in the apartment building. There were no special accommodations at the school for German-speaking kids, and it was sink or swim. I was supposed to be starting second semester of fifth grade in September (L.A. Unified still had children start school then both in fall and at mid-year based on their ages), but I was placed in the first semester of fourth grade based on my language performance. By late October I was moved up to the second semester of fifth grade (in part because I was so far ahead of the fourth graders in arithmetic, science, and aspects of social studies). By spring I was winning the class spelling competitions. Even if my progress was faster than other pupils might have shown, others likely could acquire at least average English skills with a few months more time. Children learn to mimick languages extremely well, and language immersion is the most commonly touted approach to learn a foreign language at any age. Hence, I am not surprised that keeping pupils in ESL programs is pedagogically harmful.

Spectacular photography and interesting article about volcanic lightning.

I wrote about this a few days ago. Instrumental about the accusations against the Pope was an article in the New York Times. Now, walking back accusations about the Pope. Looks like the Times did not engage in top-notch journalistic practices. Taking your evidence for the accusations only from a plaintiff’s attorney whose business it is to sue the Catholic Church should be self-evidently reckless.

Sorry, guys. We get to decide that you’re not sufficiently “gay.” I get a certain smug satisfaction when I see a homosexual organization use the defense they sought to deny the Boy Scouts. By the way, I agree that they have the right to decide their own membership. As, though, do others.

Economist Robert Samuelson on the dangers from the Value-Added Tax that has become the rage of speculation in Washington, as the administration seems hell-bent on turning the U.S. into a stagnating “social democracy.” Problems? Higher government spending, higher taxes, higher prices, lower standard of living. There is a reason why the EU’s average standard of living per capita is $2000 per annum less than that of West Virginia, one of the very poorest of American states. Note also that the cancerous growth in government spending has not been due to defense: “For decades, the expansion of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — programs mostly for the elderly — was financed mainly by shrinking defense spending. In 1970, defense accounted for 42 percent of the federal budget; Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were 20 percent. By 2008, the shares were reversed: defense, 21 percent; the big retirement programs, 43 percent. But defense stopped falling after Sept. 11, 2001, while aging baby boomers and uncontrolled health costs keep retirement spending rising.”

Weekly Daily horror story of government health care leaves victim feeling lighter. Regrettably, this is not the only such incident. There is at least a pair.

I remember how the media lambasted George W. Bush for taking vacations, jogging, and playing golf. President Obama takes vacations, and the media hardly notices. He plays lots of basketball and boasts about working out in the gym. The media yawns. Now comes news that the President has already played far more golf since taking office than W did during two terms. The media’s reaction? Ho-hum.

Does the need of liberal nanny-staters to control the lives of others know any bounds? The government’s next project? Controlling the use of salt in food. Not just in restaurants. Will they next tax salt or monitor home use of salt through government-regulation dispensers?

Another government practice that makes me grit my teeth is the mounting burden of penalties and fees on traffic tickets. I have been fortunate so far to avoid traffic citations, but I hear about this from my wife who works in the court system. The traffic fines are deceptively small. Then penalties and fees are added that support various social programs having nothing to do with the fine’s purpose. Those penalties and fees can quintuple the cost of the ticket. They are like taxes, but are not assessed in similarly open fashion. Instead, they are stealth taxes. If government wants the money, the laws should be changed openly and the fines imposed honestly.

Ayatollah: Extramarital sex causes earthquakes. Obviously, I’ve already thought of the cheap humor line. At least it’s a better theory than the one peddled by American liberals that tsunamis and hurricanes are caused by man-made global warming. Via Instapundit.

What happens when a country gets taken over by a socialist clicque bent on economic redistribution that creates an economic system hell-bent on debasing its currency. Mark Steyn explains the deterioration of Zimbabwe from an economic bread basket to an economic basket case. Even by African standards. Why is it that so many African countries that were net producers and exporters at independence have become such economic wastelands?

Unable to get past her own prejudices, NBC reporter asks stupid question, then gets answer not comprehensible to liberal White elitist.

Jonah Goldberg addresses a critical question. If we become Europe under Obamaism, who will be the U.S.? Europe with its sluggish growth produces a high structural unemployment rate and a standard of living on average worse than that of the poorest states in the U.S. It lags in innovation and medical and scientific innovations. It has cannibalized its military budgets to the point that they can defend themselves only under the American defense umbrella. But (and this process has started already), the U.S. can sustain its own welfare state only by significant cuts to its military budget. If that welfare state gets bigger, as it’s slated to do under Obama, the military has to be cut more drastically. Either a subsequent administration has to clean up the Obama mess, or the welfare state will endanger national security. Meanwhile, if the U.S. folds its military umbrella, the Europeans will have to scrap their welfare state or prepare to learn Russian and/or Farsi.

Is there a doctor strike looming as a result of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare? At least, there is likely to be a smaller supply to go along with the higher demand. That means longer wait times and less time with the doctor, i.e., less care. Did anyone see that coming?

Unfunded public pensions in defined benefit plans are a looming disaster for California at all levels of government. Higher taxes for less government service, in order to cut large pensions checks. Like L.A. District Attorney Steve Cooley’s $275,000 that he can collect while also working on another government job. “As a state with some of the highest tax rates in the nation, (albeit prop 13—property tax relief), asking taxpayers to foot the bill for public employees, (that are making more than the private sector), will certainly not be defensible.” Indeed.

I was part of a panel discussion about the death penalty this week at my school. The event was hosted by the leftist National Lawyers Guild. In his preliminary announcements, the group’s head discussed upcoming activities. One of them is to demonstrate to end U.S. intervention in the Philippines. Apparently, these leftists are still fighting one of various Communist and Islamist insurgencies (the latest supported by al Qaeda) that go back to the Spanish-American War. In any event, predictably enough, the National Lawyers Guild folks are not opposed to these terrorists in the Philippines killing people.

First, they came for my guns, and I didn’t resist. Then, they came for my knives, and I didn’t resist. Then, they came for me, and I had nothing with which to resist. Well, maybe my cane. Britain is the canary in the coal mine regarding the erosion of individual rights that eventually gets here. The old man and the Swiss Army knife that he used to cut up fruit for his wife on a picnic. Mark Steyn explains: “In the Nineties, Britain banned guns - and, despite being a small island with rigorous port-of-entry checks, found itself with more gun crime than ever before. However, it also found that, instead of shooting each other, Britons started stabbing each other - to the point where makers of school uniforms now offer them in Kevlar. So naturally the government began cracking down on knives.” I don’t think that will happen here. Before the second Obama administration, that is.

While the President achieves a non-binding communique about spent nuclear fuel, the Iranians are clearly so impressed by his steely resolve that they send him greetings that they are speeding up nuclear fuel operations and getting closer to weapons-grade uranium enrichment. While working on improving their delivery systems (longer-range missiles). Meanwhile, Syria delivers SCUD missiles to Hizb’Ullah that can cover all of Israel. Does that mean Obama will humiliate the Iranian and Syrian regimes the way he humiliated Israel’s Netanyahu? Or will he just continue with exaggerated Kabuki stylings of American resolve, while waiting for the 3-5 years (or less) for Iran to get deliverable nuclear weapons? Pressed by opponents in his Senate primary, the conservative-until-primary-day John McCain is talking tough.

With the minor hiccup by Mother Earth that is the eruption of the Icelandic volcano causing all manner of problems for Europe, one can hardly imagine what would happen were this scale of eruption to occur.

Toyota may have very publicized problems, but the worst-built cars remain American, led by Government Motors. I have resolved never to buy a Government Motors car again, anyway, so this just adds to the sense of satisfaction.

It was only a matter of time: Tea Party Barbie. Not the tea parties my daughters used to play with Barbies.

Mark Steyn finds another great foreign policy success story for the administration that is going to heal the world. Syria delivers SCUD missiles to Hizb’Ullah. Steyn: “Not to worry. The Administration remains committed to sending a new ambassador to Assad’s court who can ‘press the Syrian government in a firm and coordinated fashion,’ according to the White House. Firmly pressed coordinated fashion works great for Obama’s next GQ shoot. Not sure it counts for much with the Teheran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis.”

Having denied the Holocaust, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is asking the U.N. to investigate the 9/11 attacks. He has insisted that the attacks were a fabrication, thereby joining more than 1/3 of Democrats (according to polling). 

Democrats seeking to infiltrate tea party Tax Day protests with provocateurs intended to depict the protesters as racists.

There I thought that only American courts hear bizarre cases. The Canadian Supreme Court has the run-of-the-mill “boyfriend uses unwanted probe on unconscious girlfriend during asphyxial sex” assault case. “It might not be everybody’s idea of sexual foreplay, but for an Ottawa man and his live-in partner, being bound and choked into unconsciousness was a favoured way of life….However, things went too far during one of the couple’s asphyxial trysts in early 2007. Several weeks afterward, the woman reported to police that, while she had been out cold, her partner used a dildo to violate her.” The kicker, other than that the girlfriend has sought unsuccessfully to recant, is that the couple have an eight-year relationship and are parents of a two-and-a-half-year-old son. Legal question: DId she consent?

While our government moves the American economy in one direction, the Cubans are moving in the other. The Cubans are liberalising to be more productive and provide better service. It follows that moving in the other direction, means less productivity and worse service. Who knew? Castro’s communists are beginning to get this, but Paul Krugman and other defenders of the Obama administration do not, apparently. Note also that Raul Castro admits that Cubans are “impatient for change.” The Cuban version of “Hope and Change”?

The wages of run-amok political correctness: A dead man. The result of a joking remark by a White guy directed at his Black friend. The friend was not offended and did not complain. In fact, he is shattered by his friend’s suicide. Who is the culprit? The person who listened in, “overheard” the remark, and, in the totalitarian manner of the politically correct, reported the remark (presumably blissfully ignorant of the context) to the bosses. The bosses, bending to the same incipient totalitarian impulse, suspended the speaker, in preparation for holding a hearing in advance of disciplining him. The one who deserves punishment is the personality-deprived busibody who couldn’t mind his own business, or at least educate himself before tattling.

With the first spring flowers of a George W. Bush rehabilitation appearing, Mark McKinnon and Myra Adams ask whether Bush will be the next Harry Truman. I rather suspect so. While I miss W, I miss Cheney more.

I recently posted about my conclusion that RNC chairman Michael Steele should resign for his administrative incompetence and lack of focus. Others have the same concern. This is a left-leaning political analyst’s take on the matter. Until the last part, he’s a little more pessimistic about the GOP’s problems than I am or the current polls warrant.

While the President is signing agreements to reduce the nuclear deterrent, promulgating policies not to modernize the American nuclear arsenal, and notifying enemies of American defense strategy, the Russians are interfering in their neighbors’ domestic affairs. Hearkening back to Soviet-era tactics, the Russians precipitated the coup in Kyrgyzstan that installed a pro-Russian government. That, in turn, will result in the American supply base there being closed, which will make the American re-supply effort in Afghanistan more difficult. It also makes the crash of the Russian-built and maintained plane in Russia that killed the Polish president and military chiefs more suspicious.

I thought about making this Maxine Waters quote a Quote for the Week, but I prefer that those be uplifting, thought-provoking, or deftly witty. Obviously, those are not Maxine Waters’s strengths. To quote: “I just watched—the Republicans were out there—they were having a great time. They were laughing, they were waving the American flag; they were egging them [the anti-health reform law protesters) on, and I thought that was outrageous behavior.” I’ll say. Laughing and waving the American flag. What’s next? 

Think that our government (federal, state, local) needs more money? Even adjusting for cost of living differences, government in the U.S. already spends nearly three times the average of governments in other countries. It spends more than 95% of other governments, per capita. Even leaving out defense expenditures, the U.S. spends more than 93% of other governments, per capita.

Seriously? Again? What’s with the bowing to authoritarians? The other guy never bows back. Wish that Obama were as respectfulobsequious and welcoming with Republicans, doctors, and the 10% of the population he expects to pay the taxes for his redistributionism.

How the upcoming Supreme Court nomination may mean more trouble for the President and Democrats. Far more voters believe the Supreme Court is too conservative than too liberal. A plurality further believes that the President’s nominee will be too liberal. A majority of voters correctly identified Justice Sotomayor as liberal, suggesting that the President’s ideological direction has become set in the public’s perception. And then there is this: “By a two-to-one margin, voters believe justices should be guided by what’s written in the Constitution rather than on notions of fairness and justice. However, by a 44% to 32% margin, voters believe the president holds the opposite view.”

The Washington Post gives a run-down of candidates on the President’s list to replace Justice John Paul Stevens.

I recently posted about the questions that have been raised about the alleged incident of tea party anti-Obama/Reid/PelosiCare protesters spitting on a Congressman and hurling racial slurs at various Black Congressmen. The incidents made no sense under the conditions that existed there. Indeed, it looked more like an attempt by the Congressmen to perform some political theater and possibly to provoke an outburst by the protesters. Not surprisingly, there has been no corroboration. Rather belatedly and disingenuously, some of the media (here the Washington Post) are beginning to walk back their earlier incendiary claims of racially-motivated protesters. 

In addition, I raised the possibility that, if such incidents occurred then (or occur in the future), they are the result of provocateurs from the Left. Some such pseudo-anarchist group is now proclaiming its intentions to disrupt and discredit tea party protests by playing to the media-endorsed stereotypes that the Congressmen also sought to foster. Of course, this is a rather clumsy attempt, as the protesters are now on notice, and anyone chanting racial slurs or holding racially-tinted signs will be quickly singled out and if he is a leftist provocateur, identified as such.

LTC Ralph Peters takes aim at the administration’s decision to dismantle American nuclear weapons and to prevent the development of new and better weapons. “This is a very real — and unilateral — weakening of our national security. In the past, our ambiguity made our enemies hesitate. The new policy guarantees that they’ll intensify their pursuit of bugs, gas and weaponized computers. Intending to halt a nuclear arms race, we’ve fired the starter pistol for a rush to develop alternative weapons of mass destruction….The new policy won’t stop Iran and other rogue states from pursuing nukes (even though Iran and North Korea were singled out as policy exceptions). But it will accelerate the proliferation of other weapons of mass destruction. And it certainly won’t reduce the probability of war.It will also ensure that our aging arsenal will have to be content with a few Band-Aids; that we won’t develop new, safer nuclear weapons — and that we’ll increasingly have to rely on the kindness of strangers.”

From the archives, Princeton professor Robert George on the need to oppose same-sex marriage. There are many that relate to the stability of families. One is the issue of the uniqueness of the marriage relationship, especially between just two members of the opposite sex, that goes beyond the variety of other human relationships, including friendships, that the state has no reason to control. “If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union—and thus to procreation—will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy….Is this a red herring? This week’s Newsweek reports more than 500,000 polyamorous households in the U.S.”

When identity groups clash: Muslim soccer team refuses to play soccer team from “gay” Paree.

I have written extensively about the issues surrounding the constitutionality of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. Here is one of the attorneys for the states who are challenging the federal law.

Iran is unimpressed by Obama’s new nuclear plan: “Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer (to politics). Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience. Be careful not to read just any paper put in front of you or repeat any statement recommended,” Ahmadinejad said in the speech, aired live on state TV. “(American officials) bigger than you, more bullying than you, couldn’t do a damn thing, let alone you.” Unlike 53% of American voters, the Iranian thugocracy has taken the measure of Mr. Obama and easily recognizes the obvious weakness and inexperience. They don’t seem to want just to take “yes” for an answer. Based on 15 months of empty threats they probably figure they can just thumb their noses at the U.S. and wait for more concessions and inaction.

Everyone knows that Obama/Reid/PelosiCare sooner or later will require the government-controlled rationing of health care by an agency that Sarah Palin so wickedly designated as “death panels.” That produced much liberal caterwauling, from the media to the administration. Now the New York Times points to the desirability of government decisions to limit the availability of options and to have patients and doctors “learn to say ‘no.’” Once again (and as anyone with common sense knew), Palin was right, and the administration and the media lied.

Commenting on that Times article, Ed Morrissey has it exactly right: “Once again, we have people looking at this from the notion of a shortage, crisis market.  If we want to solve the problem of overutilization, which is what ObamaCare purports to do, we’re going about it in exactly the wrong manner.  We need to restore pricing signals in order to make consumers aware of the consequences of their decisions, not shield those costs even further by having taxpayers subsidize even more of those costs.  That would require getting insurance out of the way of normal, routine medical care and using it only for catastrophic issues, and providing tax-free shelters for medical-care funds controlled by individual consumers. Instead, we’re slowly turning the entire medical system into an HMO, only this time with Congress and the executive branch running it.  It will suck so many resources out of the middle class that only the wealthy will have any real options outside of the government-controlled network in a few years as insurers go broke under Obama’s regime of price-fixing.”

Some kudos for the current American health care system, in the New York Times, no less.

Justice Stevens will be retiring. Democrats better hope it’s sooner, not later.

A coming primary-care physician shortage under Obama/Reid/PelosiCare? Who could have predicted that happening? And just because Medicaid reimbursement rates are laughably low? Why, those dastardly doctors, not putting people’s welfare before their own greed! Unlike lawyers, professors, public sector union members, politicans, and everyone else. What to do? Why, hire non-doctor medical personnel. Except that there is an expected shortage of nurses, as well. So, the system will be strained to the breaking point, with much longer wait times and service lines. Again, who could have predicted that, just because it is the experience in every government-controlled or dominated health care system and other economic activity?

Is there a racial double standard in the enforcement of hate crime laws? Most likely “yes,” though this evidence is only anecdotal.

Heliogenic climate change. Sun-driven climate effects: It not only makes sense, but has shown a correlation over centuries, to the point where the correlation and the common sense would strongly implicate causation. Other factors (planetary wobbles, ocean currents, cosmic rays) have effect, too, but it makes no sense to dismiss the impact of that huge, hot, energy-emitting ball of gas in the (cosmically-speaking) immediate neighborhood.

Pope Benedict names replacement for Los Angeles archbishop Roger Mahoney. Important fact: The Mexican-born Jose Gomez, currently the archbishop of San Antonio is a member of the conservative Opus Dei order and replaces the insufferably liberal Mahoney.

Arctic ice at a high point. Wonder how those polar bears are doing. Article cautions that media is right to ignore this and not to consider it as an omen regarding climate change, just as a “blip” in the other direction should not have led the media to run hyperbolic stories about global warming. Gee, now they admit that. How likely is it that with the next natural fluctuation (currents, wind patterns) in Arctic ice that suits the media’s global “warmongering” these cautionary words will be thrown to the wind, so to speak? 

Paging Borat: Which state has the riskier bonds, California or Kazakhstan? Answer: Which state has 12.5% unemployment, massive unfunded liabilities for its public employee unions, a bad regulatory climate, and among the highest income and sales taxes of any state?

Rasmussen polling on voters’ attitudes as to who more closely represents their views: Tea Party 48%; Obama 44%. Big split though, between the Political Class (87% favor Obama) and Mainstream Americans (63% favor the tea party). Other polls show similar trends. Looks like Americans are not fooled by the Obama/Reid/PelosiCare propaganda offensive: “A USA Today/Gallup Poll finds 44% of Americans believe healthcare will worsen as a result of Obama’s healthcare bill vs. 34% who think it will help; 55% believe Obama’s bill will worsen healthcare costs, 29% help; 61% believe Obama’s bill will worsen the federal deficit, 23% improve; and 46% believe Obama’s bill will worsen the economy while 35% think it will help.” Ouch.

Yet more evidence of the failure of government policies compared to voucher programs.

This Australian columnist assesses the change in U.S. rhetoric and the over-the-top humiliation of Israel’s Netanyahu and concludes that another of President Obama’s campaign promises has reached its expiration date. Obama is fine with a nuclear-armed Iran and is trying to isolate Israel so that the latter doesn’t do to Iran’s nuclear program what it did to Iraq’s in 1981 and Syria’s in 2007. Israel is finding out that the Obama Doctrine is to humiliate and alienate America’s friends and coddle and bow to America’s enemies. Does any one think that Obama would have humiliated the latest Palestinian thief-in-chief or Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, or Hu Jin-tao in such fashion?

Eloquence fails when the TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States) takes the day off. But POTUS (President of the United States) can’t be blamed for being long-winded and unfocused and failing to answer the question. He used to be a law professor. Sort of.

Good news. On the surface. Employers add jobs at highest rate of month-to-month increase in three years. But it’s only a month-to-month increase. It is still far below what is needed even to make a dent in the core unemployment rate. In fact, that rate was unchanged. The broader unemployment rate, which measures underemployment as well, rose. About a third of the new jobs was due to federal government census worker hiring. Public employment goes up while wealth-producing private employment stagnates. But that and the “stimulus” bill hiring will soon end. A prospect of a long, slow recovery, made slower as I wrote a couple of days ago, by the government’s policies.

The job outlook for college graduates continues to look dim, at least for another year. It is much better than for high school grads. That also means that law school enrollment will continue to climb. For a while, at least, until it becomes totally unaffordable.

Proposition 14 on California’s June primary ballot proposes an election system that would have open primaries, after which the top two vote-getters would face each other in the general election. At first blush, it appears that such a system would entrench the dominant party in gerrymandered districts and, overall, suppress the ability of third parties to compete sufficiently to maintain their organization. Yet, others claim that such a system actually would allow third parties to compete more effectively in certain “one-party” districts as a credible alternative to the dominant party. I believe that the former scenario is more likely, but, in any event, I do not like any system that interferes substantially with the ability of political parties, which are, after all, private entities, to field candidates in the general election that their own members have picked.

Taking aim at the venom spewing from the (mainly) New York Times’s stable of pundits. I use “stable” on purpose, given that Messrs. Krugman, Rich, and Blow resemble parts of certain animals commonly found in stables. The article exposes the blind hatred, bigoted paranoia, and loony elitism of these self-admiring defenders of righteousness.

Despite my lack of confidence in the President’s domestic and foreign policy programs, I support the gist, though not all particulars, of his anti-terror project. Victor Davis Hanson puts his finger on the reason: With some, mainly cosmetic, modifications, Mr. Obama has abandoned last year’s follies that played to his base and has moved in the direction of the Bush-Cheney approach of yore. I am not quite ready to call Obama “Bush without the stetson,” because there are still vestiges of the old Obama that reappear at inopportune times. But the movement is palpable, though discreet (some might say “secret”), and increasingly robust. Just ask the increasingly isolated Eric Holder. 

Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal asks whether this time the sky really is falling on the expansion of the welfare and nanny state: “What if after more than a century of growth in the national government, starting with the Progressive Era, the American people are starting to push back. Not just the tea partiers or the 13 state attorneys general seeking protection under the 10th Amendment and the Commerce Clause. But something bigger than that….Powerful political forces suddenly seem to be in motion across the U.S. What they have in common is anxiety over what government has become in the first decade of the 21st century….As to the condescension and sniffing left-wing elitism this opposition seems to bring forth from Manhattan media castles, one must say it does recall another, earlier ancien regime.”

Is this the founder of the Pee Party? Meet Dr. No(bamaCare).

With tuition costs rising faster than inflation and universities failing to control costs, the federal government is going to step in to “equalize conditions” and open up choices. By providing more funding. The funding that allowed universities to “capture” the benefit of government subsidies for students by—raising tuition. But, naturally, government rules inevitably follow government funding.

Over the past several years, I have noticed an unusually large number of dead bees in the backyard, with the deaths not confined to the dying-off in the fall. Now comes news that something is killing off large numbers of colonies of honeybees world wide. This is very troubling, especially as no one really knows. While pesticides are suspected, the use of pesticides is not new. Moreover, environmentalists do not have a good reputation for dispassionate analysis of problems. In light of the dubious science and the human havoc wreaked by the original work of problematic environmentalism, Rachel Carson’s DDT-bashing Silent Spring, I am particularly skeptical of such claims. But the reduction of bee populations can have dire consequences.

Having manipulated the numbers and gamed the costs and benefits until they could get a CBO-scoring that would declare Obama/Reid/PelosiCare to cost less than $1 trillion, the Democrats passed a “doctor fix” in Medicare funding apart from the bill. Now, it appears that the Democrats will try to pass another such bill, which immediately puts to the lie their pre-passage absurdities of deficit neutrality.

The President, the Congressional leadership, and assorted media pundits assure us that the people will soon love Obama/Reid/PelosiCare as they find out what’s in the law, now that it has passed (to borrow from Nancy Pelosi). Oddly, it seems that Democratic members of Congress, home on Easter break, are not eager to spread the gospel (”good news”). The President sits on his high horse and mocks Republicans before hand-picked audiences with false bravado to “Go for it” (campaign against the bill), but his ground infantry is unwilling to come out and fight in less pacified territory. That would be places inhabited by their constituents. The reason is clear; they will be sacrificed politically for the greater glory of their commander-in-chief.

I realize it’s a day late to post an April Fool’s Day offering, though technically I am publishing this before midnight local time. This is great satire about Sarah Palin becoming a Democrat, and the reception she gets among her new-found friends. The thing is, once one accepts the premise, the rest is utterly convincing.

Ninth Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu is not a big hit among the state’s district attorneys. It seems they think that he’s far left and out of the mainstream on capital punishment. They are only partly correct. It’s not just on capital punishment.

Speaking of concern about far-left groups, the CIA believes that an ACLU-backed project at Gitmo is endangering its covert agents. Why is Human Rights Watch tailing covert agents and trying to identify them? It seems that the CIA tried to get the Justice Department to take an interest, but were unsatisfied by the response. It might be recalled that Eric Holder has been trying to dodge questions about the appointment to Justice Department positions of former defense attorneys for Gitmo detainees. So the CIA has requested outside help. They got it—in the person of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the “Scooter” Libby investigation.

Rather than coming up with genuinely false articles as an April Fool’s Day topic, a task better left to The Onion, I have decided to take actual news stories that, in their way, sound like journalistic pranks.

A liberal New York Times columnist (I know, redundancy alert) earnestly pens his evaluation of President Obama’s foreign policy performance and his prediction for the President’s grand success in cutting diplomatic Gordian knots, even in the Middle East. This guy makes so many preposterous statements I really had to check twice to see if the piece was satire. Example: “It fell to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to play the role Khrushchev once played in toughening a young American president. The former Soviet leader thought he could browbeat Kennedy only to discover, in Vienna, that the Kennedy charm was not unalloyed to steel (’It will be a long, cold winter.’) Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to think he could steamroll Obama. He earned a frosty comeuppance.” Stop it, you’re killing me. It was because Khrushchev (figuratively) ate Kennedy for lunch at Vienna and was able to get away with openly humiliating the upstart by berating him publicly, that the wily Russian decided to precipitate the Cuban missile crisis the next year. That ended with Kennedy blustering after a behind-the-scenes deal was reached to trade non-stationing of Russian missiles not yet in Cuba for removal of American missiles already in Turkey. It was the removal of the latter that the Russians were trying to achieve with their gambit. Closer to home, while Obama may be able to humiliate Netanyahu (for a price still to be paid), Vladimir Putin has been less impressed by our President than has the Times columnist. A bit more realism about American foreign policy.

If too many people move to Guam, the island could tip over. So quoth a member of Congress. Yes, from the party of people who think they are so much smarter than conservatives. In his defense for a moment, I have read that he has a serious disease that may affect his mind.

A HuffPoster has a sound proposition for President Obama: Come out of the closet and admit you are a proud socialist. His evidence is unimpeachable: The President has not changed since his days in the Senate just two years ago. While in the Senate, his voting record was to the left of the Senate’s only admitted socialist, Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont. The others to Bernie’s left? Senators Joseph Biden and Sheldon Whitehouse. Note that I am not calling Obama a socialist, though his policies strongly tip in that direction. Rather, the evaluation comes from someone who is on the Left and, presumably, an expert.

With their low birthrate, perhaps the Japanese should celebrate it less and do it more. This is better than Hello Kitty, so look for the spin-the-phallus tradition to arrive soon at parties around the world.

For those who have come to believe that Barack Obama’s declarations are about as sound in value as the greenback, here, courtesy of Jim Geraghty at Campaign Spot is a must-read list of Obama promises and pledges and their expiration dates.

This confirms the suspicion of many who believe that the Obama administration’s take-over of health care is not a one-off. The French, long jealous of the success of American capitalism and frustrated by the increasing global (and European) irrelevance of France, want the U.S. to coordinate efforts with them to control “world capitalism” through a thorough regulatory regime. Not surprisingly, they have found in Mr. Obama a supporter of such dirigisme that has stifled innovation but increased the power of bureaucrats and political elites at the expense of the well-being of the masses. Now for an example of how government programs on a much more modest scale than world financial regulation or health care for 300 million people work—or don’t work.

One of the dubious and, one suspects, ideologically-driven military prosecutions. The case against some SEALS who are accused either of punching a terror suspect after he was captured and before he was turned over to the Iraqis, or of covering up the deed. The terrorist was the leader of the group that murdered some contractors working for the U.S. military and then burning, mutilating, and desecrating their bodies. The case seems to be running into some difficulties. Now, where are all those “human rights” lawyers so concerned about defending the unpopular when military trials of terrorists are involved? When it is an American serviceman involved, these principled defenders of the rule of law are nowhere to be seen.

What is it with liberals taking their clothes off in public to “raise awareness” of something or other, when the connection between nudity and the something or other almost always seems forced? I have nothing against nudity, but there are times and places and circumstances where that works and where it doesn’t. If the barer of the corpus is attractive, that’s what will be remembered, rather than the message. If not, as might be said about the typical specimen, one is unlikely to pay attention long enough to get the message. The whole performance seems too desperate and, by now, totally derivative.

Law student sues school over legal writing grade. And loses. Also in the news, dog bites man.

Conservative intellectual and author Norman Podhoretz defends Sarah Palin against conservative critics: “Much as I would like to believe that the answer lies in some elevated consideration, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the same species of class bias that Mrs. Palin provokes in her enemies and her admirers is at work among the conservative intellectuals who are so embarrassed by her.”

I have previously posted about the troubling nomination by the President of UC Berkelely law professor Goodwin Liu to the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Here is another article, by attorney Ted Frank, describing some of the views that are emblematic of the Left that composes the American legal academy but that make Liu’s appointment so problematic.

Life on the ever-growing government plantation. It’s about power, not health care. “[I]f you want to know where it all leads, look at our inner cities that were long ago taken over by government compassion.”

With Fed policy unlikely to change soon, this four-month old analysis of low-interest-rate foolishness and its impact on stagnation and joblessness by driving dollars abroad continues to be relevant. I am a strong currency type. I like solid interest rates and low taxes and government spending. For ten years we have had exactly the opposite, and now we have it on steroids. Hence, we have a weak currency. “The irony of the zero-rate policy, coupled with Washington’s preference for a weak dollar, is a glut of American capital in Asia (as corporations and investors shun the weakening U.S. currency) and a shortage at home. For gold and oil, the low-rate policy works, weakening the dollar so commodity prices go up and providing traders with ample funds to buy into the expanding bubble. Those markets are almost daring the Fed to try to break out of its zero-rate box. But for small businesses and new workers, capital rationing is devastating, spelling business failures and painful layoffs. Thousands of start-ups won’t launch due to credit shortages, in part because the government and corporations took more credit than they needed (because it was so cheap).”

From the same author, great examples of how the weak dollar policy hurts American prosperity, but helps those abroad. It also fosters the income disparity about which liberals are supposedly so concerned.. The rich have extra dollars to put into commodities, foreign currencies, and stocks, all of which retain value as the dollar erodes compared to other currencies. But the middle class and the poor lose ground.

Twenty ways that Obama/Reid/PelosiCare limits your freedom.

Jonah Goldberg addresses the question, Why is it not appropriate to call the President and his program “socialist”? Actually, Goldberg thinks that “corporatist” (the core of classical fascism) is the proper designation. I agree.

But that was before the expiration date on his position. When Mr. Obama still opposed the individual health insurance mandate.

Political vulnerabilities of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare: “It lacks the bipartisan support that created and protected new entitlements in decades past. The public does not have confidence in it. Worst of all, it creates an imbalance between winners and losers for four years, and it amounts to a staggeringly expensive new entitlement at a time when the country has to think hard about how to trim its sails.”

What was a stream will become a river under the new health care regime. Doctors leaving private practice and becoming salarymen.

Ahh, the famous Crunchberry precedent. Why lawyers have that certain public image. “A woman…claimed she was deceived by the cereal’s marketing and packaging. She claimed she had been eating the cereal for four years under the assumption that the Crunchberries were in fact real berries. A California judge dismissed the complaint stating there’s no such fruit as a Crunchberry and that the box clearly depicts them as round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls.” The firm had previously sued about Froot Loops. Hope they don’t come after Lucky Charms.

Yet another in a long line of unlearned lessons that teach the same thing over and over, namely, what happens when the government controls economic decisions. The government’s policies ruined the currency, so currency “reform” was imposed. Why? “The idea behind the currency exchange, economists say, was to confiscate the cash of people who had become relatively rich selling on the private market and to restore the equality espoused by the communist system. ‘They wanted to make everybody the same,’….”

This should stir up the environmentalist bee hive.

We already knew that the new health care law creates new government bureaucracies and new public sector jobs. But who knew this? Obama/Reid/PelosiCare creates jobs—in India. And Indian private enterpreneurs may then hire a few Americans.

The Obama administration’s foreign policy on display once again. Humiliate your democratic “friends”; bow down to authoritarians; hug leftist thugs. The closer the ally, the more contemptuously (and contemptibly) you treat the leader. See, the President’s treatment of Britain’s Gordon Brown last year and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu now. The more anti-American the regime, the more you supplicate. See, the President’s World Apology Tour 2009 and the polite and cooperative treatment of Russia’s Putin and Iran’s Ahmadi-Nejad. It will be interesting to see how Obama deals with the Palestinian “leadership.” More about the Obama diplomatic skills that are causing us to be loved so much more by our allies than when we had that cowboy unilateralist, George W. Bush. Funny how this is covered so much more by the foreign media than by our own Obama-enchanted media.

Getting hammered Charles Krauthammer explains what people who paid attention have known for months. Obama/Reid/PelosiCare cannot be funded the way the President claimed. Watch for the coming Value-Added Tax, a pernicious type of regressive sales tax that can provide huge windfalls of money for the federal government. It’s pernicious because, unlike the state sales tax, it is not added to the final transaction for the customer to see. Instead, it is hidden in the price, as it is assessed at every step of the market for a product. Therefore, it is politically less risky for government to raise it. Watch for prices to go up. The Europeans have this to fund their welfare state, and Obama likes the European model of societal decline. Europeans come to the U.S. and are astounded how inexpensive our products are. The VAT is one significant reason. Dr. K. also points out what I have been telling students who get into discussions with me, that there is no reason for the public option. The system is set up that insurance companies inevitably will become like regulated utilities, the lapdogs of government, with the government setting prices and terms and levels of care.

None dare call it socialist, though. Even if a majority of Americans don’t like it, Obama/Reid/PelosiCare has at least one friend: Fidel Castro. While el lider criticized Obama in bizarre terms as a fanatical capitalist imperialist, the health care take-over was one thing that was sufficiently socialist for him. Castro “couldn’t help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.”
But then there came this curious peek into what will be the future of America’s version of CastroCare: “Cuba provides free health care and education to all its citizens, and heavily subsidizes food, housing, utilities and transportation, policies that have earned it global praise. The government has warned that some of those benefits are no longer sustainable given Cuba’s ever-struggling economy, though it has so far not made major changes.
In recent speeches, [Fidel’s brother] Raul Castro has singled out medicine as an area where the government needs to be spending less, but he has not elaborated.”

Paul Krugman at The New York Times proves yet again that there’s a reason the paper isn’t read outside certain elite circles: If you’re going to engage in race-baiting, try to get crucial facts straight before you insult people.

Interesting poll results about the tea party members: Most are women; one-fourth are not Republicans; one-sixth voted for Obama; one-eighth are non-White.

Sometimes left/fascists are quite amusing, if one is into gallows humor. Cartoonists draw cartoons about the violence and intolerance of Islamists purporting to follow Muhammad, and Islamists prove the cartoonists’ point with death threats, riots, church burnings, and murders. Now, Ann Coulter travels to an almost equally benighted place, Canada, to give a speech about intolerance of dissent in that country, and the brain-dead students prove her point by creating such a hostile venue that they prevent her from speaking. The students had a strong assist from a warning letter to Coulter to mind her manners from the university’s academic vice-president, which demonstrates more delicious irony about the guy who is in charge, presumably, of freedom of inquiry. The two vocal protesters who were identified in press reports I read were a women’s studies major and a human rights major. No, I did not read that in The Onion. Here is Coulter’s account.

TARP does for mortgage defaults exactly what its critics predicted and its supporters denied. It merely spread out the crisis, thereby prolonging the recession. Exactly what the “stimulus bill” is doing. Instapundit: “I’m sure that healthcare will be completely different.” (For liberal readers: He’s being sarcastic.)

“Hey, check out that bombshell in 34D,” becomes a way to identify terrorists. If they succeed, will there be 72 gigolos waiting for them on the other side? On the other hand, wearing bras is deceptive and, therefore, non-Islamic. But that’s why the former are martyrs for the cause.

Some people think there are moderates among the Taliban. Those people inhabit the White House and State Department. Other people think that all cultures have equal dignity and value. Those people inhabit the universities and media offices.

Along the trajectory of the mindset that has brought us Obama/Reid/PelosiCare: The nanny/bully state continues to advance. “County supervisor Ken Yeager plans to ask his colleagues Tuesday to order up a law regulating when fast-food outlets can serve toy cars, action figures and other freebies as part of their children’s’ menus. Yeager says the toys entice young customers to load up on high-calorie fare and may contribute to childhood obesity.” What’s next? Banning McDonald’s playgrounds because they attract kids to the restaurant. When health care gets taken over by the government, lots of things quickly become “health issues” for the government to control. I would like to order up a law that has people like Mr. Yeager put in stocks in a public place (a McDonald’s?) for humiliation.

Some have blamed the “male culture” on Wall Street for the financial industry woes of 2008. A (female) writer for New York Magazine, for example, blames the crisis on too much testosterone. Turn about is fair play, and this (male) writer asserts that feminism, male bashing, and too little testosterone are the real culprits. This is the second part of his presentation. Love the title of the blog: “Had Enough Therapy?”

Following President Obama’s fascinating metamorphosis. “The more the golden-tongued Obama becomes the leaden-tongued pol who fails to persuade us, the more his popularity fades and his ‘brand’ — hopeful change — erodes. As we get balkier he gets grimmer — ‘Don’t be a big baby, this will only hurt a little bit!’ — and we begin to glimpse a desperate future.”

A fact of economics that Democrats apparently are congenitally unable to grasp: A basic lesson in the rules of supply and demand that will doom the latest entitlement program to emerge from the Democrats’ dependency dogma.

Understanding the Bart Stupak “betrayal” of pro-lifers: He’s a Democrat, he can’t help it. In all fairness to Stupak, though, in 2009 he said that he would do what he ended up doing. People were lulled into believing that he would stand up to Obama and Pelosi by his recent principled-sounding posturing.

The oldest lie: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” Whenever government offers to (have the productive class) pay for something or to “guide” people for ”their own benefit,” the irresistible urge to force people to comply with ever-more intrusive demands soon prevails. Thus, to come this decade from the foundation of the last fifty years of the “nanny state”: The emergence of the “bully state.” Via Instapundit.

More signs that Eric Holder is on the way out due to his and his department’s deceptions and embarrassing performances?

House passes Obama/Reid/PelosiCare 219-212. Via Instapundit: How they voted. Interesting map that raises some uncomfortable questions about the kinds of constituencies that favor socialization of medicine. Note that only the solid dark blue represents votes in favor of this monstrosity of a bill.

I will have much more to say about the illegitimate government take-over intended to turn this country into the trans-Atlantic version of the EUnuchs. In the meantime, some other reactions: “Democrats to America: Drop Dead”, The GOP 3-year pledge, Mark Steyn: “Happy Dependence Day!”,

Attorney General Eric Holder on the way out? A victim of his gaffes, his inclinations towards the leftism of the transnational legal elites, and the need for the President to find someone to throw under the bus when the President’s own policies fail.

Charles Krauthammer examines President Obama’s continuing anti-Israel machinations. Verdict?
“So why this astonishing one-sidedness? Because Obama likes appeasing enemies while beating up on allies — therefore Israel shouldn’t take it personally (according to Robert Kagan)? Because Obama wants to bring down the current Israeli coalition government (according to Jeffrey Goldberg)?
“Or is it because Obama fancies himself the historic redeemer whose irresistible charisma will heal the breach between Christianity and Islam or, if you will, between the post-imperial West and the Muslim world — and has little patience for this pesky Jewish state that insists brazenly on its right to exist, and even more brazenly on permitting Jews to live in its own ancient, historic, and now present capital?”
Can I pick all of the above? 

The difference between economically vibrant cities and, say, Cleveland? John Stossel shows that it is the degree of government control. The more control, the worse the economic health. Not really news, but something that voters apparently forget every time they vote for liberal politicians. Or for Obama/Reid/PelosiCare.

When the CBO “scored” the recent version of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare at $940 billion (as if that was pocket change), there was great feigned rejoicing among the Congressional leadership that this was a deficit-reduction bill. It was obvious to me and most others that these numbers were cooked. The CBO itself sent a cover letter to Congress explaining that these were just estimates based on information Congress had included in the bill (essentially the Senate bill from December). The CBO did not have the final House bill before it, so it could not figure the revised costs. In addition, the Congressional Democrats had been consulting with the CBO and running numbers for various scenarios. They changed the numbers as needed to come up with a result intended to provide political cover for “undecided” House Democrats. Now comes news even from reliably pro-liberal papers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, that these numbers are based on concocted assumptions carefully tailored to fit the predetermined goal that the CBO’s report had to come in at the amount the Democrats needed. In other words, the system was gamed. As others have shown, the bill contains assumptions and policies that will never become fact. And the Democratic leadership is telling members not to talk about the CBO particulars, but to focus on general nostrums about deficit reduction and coverage of uninsured. Via Instapundit.

The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes on the long-term political wrangling if Obama/Reid/PelosiCare is adopted. Nancy Pelosi has already said that, if the bill passes, she will move to add a public option soon. And then-candidate Obama, as well as a number of members of Congress (e.g., Barney Frank) have said that it is a prelude to a single-payer government plan. If the current partisanship looks ominous for American consensus and compromise politics, it is nothing compared to the annual fights that will happen with this government take-over.

I have written before about the less-noticed fact that the Republicans have made significant political gains in regular and special elections for state offices and state legislatures in 2009 and 2010. The election this November is not just about the control of the 112th Congress, starting in January, 2011. Perhaps more significant are the elections for governors and state legislatures, as those will determine who controls the decennial redistricting of state legislative and Congressional districts (the states also draw their Congressional district lines). This article in the Wall Street Journal addresses the longer-term impact of the health care vote on the Democrats’ political fate through the elections for control of the state governments after 2010.

An article from last fall by Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal about Obama/Reid/PelosiCare that, amazingly, six months later is just as relevant.

Now, this is a health care plan I can get behind. One page, three sentences.

Paul Bremer, the former American de facto governor-general of Iraq, on the West’s crisis of identity and the de-population time bomb’s effect on European welfare states. Bremer sounds remarkably like Mark Steyn in America Alone. “It is a fact of history that Europe is based on Judeo-Christian values. But Europe seems unwilling, or perhaps afraid, to acknowledge this reality. European bureaucrats omitted any reference to it in their draft ‘constitution,’ reflecting a willful disregard for the continent’s intellectual, moral and spiritual roots.
“Meanwhile, many Europeans are proud that they are evolving into a ‘post-sovereignty world,’ one in which the nation state disappears and citizens are called upon to shift their allegiance to the ephemeral ‘Union.’ Not surprisingly, almost all European nations have substantially reduced defense spending.  If you don’t know what you stand for, you cannot easily figure out how to defend it.”

Health care. The problem: ”The U.S. medical system is an inefficient hybrid, with government paying nearly half of the bills and shaping private spending through the tax preference for employer-provided insurance. The result is a third- party payment system in which nearly nine of 10 medical dollars is paid in the first instance by someone else. No surprise, national outlays are high and rising.”
The problem from a liberal perspective: “During the Clinton health care debate, Wall Street analyst Kenneth Abramowitz opined: ‘Right now, health care is purchased by 250 million morons called U.S. citizens.’ It was necessary to ‘move them out, reduce their influence, and let smart professionals buy it on our behalf.’”
The problem with liberals: It’s not about health care, but about power over people’s lives.

Interesting ideas on how the GOP can stop Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. Sounds like 1994’s Contract With America approach revisited. With similarly restless partisan dynamics in the body politic, it might be an idea whose time has come. Again.

Rasmussen’s polling shows that the Republicans are favored over the Democrats on the generic Congressional ballot by 10 points, the largest advantage for the GOP in the three years the poll has been done. Public Policy Polling only has the GOP 3 points, but they are polling registered, not likely, voters. Moreover, being a Democrat-leaning firm, they overstate the Democratic Party registration advantage, thereby favoring the pro-Democrat results. But even that polls confirms bad news for the Democrats. There is more Republican intensity, and those who blame both parties favor voting for the GOP by almost 2 to 1.

Some people think that it would be a good idea to house jihadists in regular prisons.

President Obama, moving from the Reverend Wright to the Reverend Sharpton. Is this really a good idea? Tawana Brawley, anyone?

The President wants to negotiate with the Taliban. Not totally unreasonable in theory to talk with the more accommodationist elements not committed to alliance with al Qaeda. If there are any. The problem is that the Taliban agree on certain basic premises, and tolerance of political democracy and individual liberty is not among them.

The (unnecessarily) deep recession. Why? Uncertainty and government excesses: “Most of all, [in the prior recent recessions] the federal government did not add to the uncertainties that paralyze investment and consumption during any recession. The waning days of George W. Bush’s Administration and the first 14 months of Barack Obama’s have done little else but pile on the uncertainties. The quarter of the U.S. economy made up by health care and energy has no idea what new regulations and taxes await. This confusion spills over into the rest of the economy, especially smaller businesses that can least afford to pay higher taxes, higher wages and higher gas prices or for pricey dinners with lobbyists, and so forth.”

Another Democrat steps in to advise the President. The problem? “We’ve had a series of detached performances — Fort Hood and  the Christmas Day bombing — in which he was weirdly unemotional. A snippy showing at the health-care summit. And an attack on the Supreme Court. Indeed, he seems most engaged when he’s attacking his opponents, as he refers to the growing number of those who disagree with him.” The solution? Change your personality. The problem with the solution? “It’s hard to conceal your personality in the 24/7 news cycle and in the most prominent job in the world. What was intriguing in the campaign — that cool, ’superior’ temperament — is now a liability. But it’s hard to change who you are. If Democrats are queasy about the president’s lacking warmth and empathy, not to mention some executive skills, there isn’t much they can do about it. Their dream candidate turned out to be rather flawed in ways that are critical to a successful presidency.”

According to the administration’s (suspect) figures, Obama/Reid/PelosiCare will save $132 billion in deficit spending over ten years. For that, we need government to get a huge say in the most personal private decisions. Yet the deficit for February, 2010,—one month—is $220 billion, the highest in U.S. history. Annual deficits of half a trillion to more than a trillion dollars are projected for the next ten years, under the administration’s own unduly rosy projections.

Warning signs for wavering Democrats from health care polling. The current bill is very unpopular. People want to start over. This plays to Republican themes in an election cycle that would be difficult for Democrats under the best of circumstances. These are signs from Democratic voters, as well as others. Worse, the opinions are stronger in Republican-leaning districts, quite a number of which are currently represented by Democrats.

Another instance of the liberal totalitarianism. Enforced play at recess. Money graph:

“And just how much are the little darlings at Broadway enjoying their newfound playground imprisonment? The article answers that question with a frank exchange between 11-year-old Esmeilyn Almendarez and 28-year-old Brandi Parker, the ‘recess coach with a whistle around her neck, corralling children behind bright orange cones to play organized games.’
“Esmeilyn: I don’t like to play.
“Brandi: Why do I have to go through this every day with you? There’s no choice.”

The liberal mantra on everything but abortion and sexuality.

The light at the end of the entitlement tunnel is, in fact, an oncoming train. But the administration insists that adding another huge entitlement program will save costs, cover everyone, and not change your choices. It won’t, according to them, suffer the looming problems of Social Security, the program that’s always cited by socialist-oriented lovers of government control as the gold standard of government programs. A socialist is someone who believes that this time, for sure, a government entitlement program will magically work. And they claim to be the “reality-based community.” 

Once again, the administration stands exposed. Having asserted that the Catholic Church is not opposed to Obama/Reid/PelosiCare in order to make the case to waivering House Democrats that the current Senate bill does not provide for abortion, the administration is hung out to dry by the Catholic Bishops Conference’s letter to the parishes that the Church opposes the bill over the abortion and freedom of conscience deficiencies.

Via Mark Steyn comes this cause for eye-rolling: Two IRS agents go raid a tax-cheat’s business to collect a delinquency. Of four cents. From 2006. Oddly, there is also a $201 assessment for interest and penalties that the taxpayer is still trying to figure out. The IRS isn’t talking. Even with the interest and penalty, having two agents spend several hours (plus time in the future) to collect $200 seems an absurd waste of resources. But these’ll be the folks who will soon be in charge of healthcare, saving us all kinds of money. What could go wrong?

One of the topics not brought up in polite liberal society is the problem of racially-motivated inter-minority violence or minority-on-White violence. Disproportionately, this is a problem involving violence by Blacks against others. The administration has made it its announced policy to investigate differences in rate of school disciplinary actions between Blacks and others. These writers wonder whether the administration will be as strong in its efforts to prevent violence by Blacks against other minorities. Judging by the actions of the other governmental bodies discussed in the article, these matters are too politically incorrect to be dealt with and are likely to be hidden, rationalized, or blamed on less disturbing, but also irrelevant, causes.

Whether or not the Democrats pass Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, the political retribution by the voters will be harsh. As two Democratic presidential pollsters, one for Carter, one for Clinton describe it, the backlash will be worse if the Democrats persist in their decision to follow Obama off the political cliff and pass this immensely unpopular bill: “First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate’s reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.” “Second, the country is moving away from big government, with distrust growing more generally toward the role of government in our lives.” Conclusion? “Voters are hardly enthralled with the GOP, but the Democrats are pursuing policies that are out of step with the way ordinary Americans think and feel about politics and government. Barring some change of approach, they will be punished severely at the polls….Unless the Democrats fundamentally change their approach, they will produce not just a march of folly but also run the risk of unmitigated disaster in November.”

Professor Stanley Fish asks the question that many are beginning to ask and about which I wrote some weeks back: Do you miss him yet, “him” being George W. Bush? Fish is hardly a right-winger, though he clearly is not part of the loony Left. And he’s right about Bush. And Obama. And Palin.

To be able to make statements like this with such aplomb, he must be either a great politician or a schizophrenic. Perhaps both.

Sean Penn wants reporters jailed and critics of his own politico-social efforts to die screaming of rectal cancer. Let’s see, what would be an appropriate response to Spiccoli? Oh, yes: I want Celebutards shot.

Speaking of dumbing down, the Red Chinese government will require new training in “Marxist journalism” for the press: “Under communist theories of journalism, media should support the leadership rather than operate as a watchdog.” Once again, the U.S. is well ahead of the Chinese, at least when the Democrats are in power. American journalists, especially those who graduate from journalism schools, are expert practitioners of communist news theory. It’s called the New York Times, the L.A. Times, NPR, PBS, CNN, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, etc.

Via Instapundit: “It is much more dangerous to publish a cartoon of Mohammed than to slice apart a Christian with a machete.”

Received your census form yet? The government has put me on notice that I shall be receiving mine shortly. Constant Conservative  has some thoughts about the distorted process the census has become. Rather than insuring proper representation and taxation through the then-expected use of “direct” taxes (such as poll taxes, in the traditional understanding of that term), the census is now the vehicle for allocation of massive amount of federal funds.

Are there plans to reduce or eliminate the mortgage interest deduction? That’d do a number on the real estate market.

Some bad news for the Democrats from the Senate parliamentarian. Reconciliation is a no-go in the Senate unless the house first passes the Reid bill and gets it to the President for his signature. The problem is that there is little trust by House members in the Senate’s dependability to address their concerns through a reconciliation bill if they accept the current Reid bill passed by the Senate in December. Of course, the parliamentarian can be overruled by unanimous consent (won’t happen) or by a Joe Biden power-play (definitely could happen, but will destroy Senate collegiality for years to come).

The problem? The dumbing down of higher education. The solution, according to this article? “Ill-prepared and unmotivated as many applicants are, colleges are eager to have them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to stay afloat financially. Admitting throngs of weak students, however, leads to an array of problems for non-selective schools….Instead of just trying to maximize “access” to college, we ought to limit government loans to those who seem to have the ability to benefit from higher education.”

On a not entirely unrelated topic to the above: The inflation in the number of law professors over the last decade. Up by 40%, far more than the number of students. Number of classes taught per professor has dropped to allow more research into, mainly, esoterica that feeds the perception of quality necessary to raise scores in the U.S. News rankings that law students crave and which they obviously are willing to pay higher tuition for. At least for now. No specific figures on the increase in the number of school bureaucrats, though it is agreed that the number has risen. Quite a bit, from my observations.

The struggle for basic civil rights continues. Civil rights and equal opportunity for all. There must be no bars to happiness, and people must be able to find happiness in bars.

One of the reasons for the administration’s inability to get their health care plan through the House of Representatives is the dislike that many House Democrats have for the entrenched leadership, many of whom come from gerrymandered California districts that produce ultra-liberal representatives far to the left of the swing district Democrats.

A Kafkaesque result from the political correctness rampant in California. The political correctness is the hamfisted intrusion into family life under California law that overreacts to mere accusations of “child abuse,” yet too often seems not to prevent the real cases of abuse. “A California couple wrongly accused of abusing their teenager was arrested and had their other children removed from their home. They’ve since been cleared of the charges, but no one seems to know how to take them off the state’s list of child abusers. Under California law, local authorities are required to add to the list anyone even accused of abusing children, even if they’ve yet to be charged. The problem is that the law apparently offers no guidance on who has the authority to remove people once they’ve been cleared.” Meanwhile, as the author notes, California proposes to add a similar registry for animal abuse. The totalitarianism of the law becomes more stultifying every day. One of Instapundit’s commenters offers a solution: “Let’s all go accuse our assemblymen, see if that fixes the problem.”

“Irreconcilable Differences”: The political minefield of forcing health care changes through the Senate. By the way, those problems are why I think that those who believe that the administration and the Democratic leadership will not use reconciliation are correct. The success or failure of the vote on Obama/Reid/PelosiCare will depend on their ability to bamboozle or frighten enough House Democrats into voting for the monstrosity that the Senate already has passed, with the promise of changes to come through the reconciliation process, a process that, after the House then votes to adopt the current Senate bill, never happens.

Health care, like any good that is at least to some extent “scarce,” if for no reason than that there are constant innovations available to only a few initially, must be rationed. In a private market, the rationing device is price. Under government, rationing occurs through other means (bureaucratic rules and sclerotic administration, nepotism and other corruption, political influence peddling and bribes, and, yes, sub rosa pricing through gifts, favors, and bribes) as well as more traditional price rationing through emerging black markets and other ways to escape more rigid government programs. Eventually, as always, to save government health care, privatization is needed.

From the archives, musings from Stratfor.com about the reasons for the Western European infatuation with Barack Obama that resulted in him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an infatuation not shared by all Europeans and doomed to disappointment by the intervention of the realities of national interests.

When science fiction becomes science and technology: New terrorist and other unconventional military threats.

Supporters of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare dredge up tales of people who have somehow suffered some economic injury because their insurance company would not pay for a procedure Some of those tales at least might contain kernels of truth about the incompetence of insurance company bureaucracies. Of course, given the long and ample track record of government bureaucracies, there is no reason to believe that they will perform better, and plenty of reasons to fear the opposite. In the meantime, there are many documented instances to show that government health care kills. Often brutally. And with, at best, perfunctory remorse by the bureaucrats in charge. Why would one expect any different from people for whom patients are merely intrusions into their lives of bureaucratic apathy and somnolence.

President Obama has left at least some House liberals with the impression that his current health care proposal is only the first step towards more comprehensive government health care.

Governor Mitch Daniels (IN), former Representative John Kasich (OH), ex-Ebay CEO Meg Whitman (CA), Governor Bobby Jindal (LA), Governor Haley Barbour (MS), Governor Tim Pawlenty (MN), Governor Rick Perry (TX), and Senator Jim DeMint (SC). All names that are still unfamiliar to many Americans. Plus Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul. And, of course, Sarah Palin. The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes muses about potential Republican presidential candidates for 2012.

A more thorough analysis than what the media will give of Senator Jim Bunning’s obstacle in the move to extend unemployment benefits last week. Portrayed as a villain, Bunning was merely trying to force compliance with the “Paygo” law that the President had so ostentatiously trumpeted as a yardstick of the Democrats’ fiscal responsibility during the State of the Union speech. Being held to the promises made during their political posturing infuriated the Democrats. Bunning just wanted them to find $10 billion in their multi-trillion dollar budget, including in the hundreds of billions of still-unexpended “stimulus” funds.

Amazing video of surgery that removes a live RPG from a soldier. Via Instapundit.

This is a bit of a dog-bites-man story, but worth reading, nevertheless. From pollster and analyst Michael Barone, a comparison of the two most populous states. Texas, a low-tax, low-regulation state, is an economic success even during the recession. California, a high-tax, high-regulation state, is an economic basket case. Texans must beware, though, that their success does not lead to Californication. After all, for many years, California was what Texas is. The culprits of California’s demise? Affluent coastal liberals in San Francisco and on L.A.’s Westside and public employee unions, both of them important constituencies of the Democratic Party, who have been able (until now) to persuade enough voters of the desirability of their cultural and economic Big Government values. That, and the Texas legislature meets only 90 days every two years, whereas the California legislature hones its dysfunctional politics all year long.

From Mark Steyn, the deadly cost of irresponsible ”greenism” and of the enviro-politico-industrial complex.

California and Greece present similar tales of political and economic dysfunction. Common thread: The destruction of state budgets caused by public sector unions. Conditions coming soon to Canada and all other welfare states with their bloated and inefficient government bureaucracies. Via Instapundit.

The Left and the media had a great deal of fun and opportunity for self-righteousness when the Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at President Bush. That event, as they saw it, was due to the negative way that foreigners viewed the United States because of Bush, an image that was sure to undergo a 180 degree turn for the better once Barack Obama was elected. It will be interesting to see how those same folks will react to this.

This is an unbelievable story. The son of one of the founders of the Hamas terrorist gang found peace in an Israeli prison. He converted to Christianity and also became an agent for the Shin Bet Israeli internal security service. When asked whether he considers his father to be a fanatic, his response is telling, if very controversial. Sounding like Mark Steyn in what can be seen as a call for an internal Islamic “Reformation,” he explains, “It doesn’t matter if he’s a terrorist or a traditional Muslim. At the end of the day a traditional Muslim is doing the will of a fanatic, fundamentalist, terrorist God. I know this is harsh to say. Most governments avoid this subject. They don’t want to admit this is an ideological war.” “The problem is not in Muslims,” he continues. “The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to.” These are not sentiments to endear him to people for whom apostasy is a capital offense.

Wall Street donations support Democrats over Republicans—by a lot. Recently, the same firms have given somewhat less to the Democrats, though they still give more to the Democrats than to the Republicans. Which the media reports as “Wall Street Shifting Political Contributions to Republicans.”

An interesting immigration case. Judge grants asylum to German family. Germany criminalizes home schooling. The German authorities have threatened to take away the family’s children, so the family has sought the help of an American home schooling network in Tennessee.

Non-comprehending jurors are not just an American problem. Yet we expect them to rule based on their interpretation of expert testimony about difficult forensic issues in criminal cases and complex economic matters in antitrust cases, to name a couple. Interesting side note: White juries do not discriminate against Blacks.

Solving the University of California’s budget problems: A lifetime of indentured servitude? As expected from the leftists who dominate the academy, those graduates who end up more successful or with more stressful, but also more highly-compensated jobs will subsidize the loan repayments of the slackers and those who take less stressful and well-paid but more ideological “public interest” jobs.

While Charlie Rangel may have his, ahem, tax problems, and Eric Massa has boy problems, this politician is accused of really heinous conduct. Meanwhile, one of our political parties recruits this, this, and this. But then, the other party recruits this, so maybe we aren’t doing too badly.

From Reason magazine, the folly of gun ban laws.

Via Mark Steyn, a link to an article about a new report that shows how the army’s ethos for political correctness and the mania for diversity killed innocent bystanders in the terrorist attack at Fort Hood.

George Will on immaturity as a lifestyle for young boy-men (into their 30s), a phenomenon about which there is increasing concern. “If you wonder what has become of manliness…note the differences between Cary Grant and Hugh Grant, the former, dapper and debonair, the latter, a perpetually befuddled boy.”

Via Professor Robert Chesney. Senators McCain and Lieberman have introduced a Senate Bill, the “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.” The bill would require at least some period of military detention and non-Mirandized interrogation by a group of interrogation specialists for persons who are suspected of engaging in hostilities against the U.S. or coalition partners through unlawful means, or who support such hostilities. Such interrogators would perhaps be from the HIG (High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group of FBI, CIA, and military interrogators established by President Obama, but not yet staffed seven months later). The bill also provides for the availability of non-criminal detention for such persons for the duration of hostilities and prohibits spending Department of Justice funds for civilian trials of them.

The return of the military commissions. An Obama/Holder promise with an expiration date. How unusual! Though there is precedent for it, I think that an attempt to try these guys before a military commission on the sovereign territory of the U.S. (after closing the Guantanamo detention center) is fraught with constitutional difficulties.

This supports my post a few days ago that there will be a health care vote. The Congressional leadership is ideologically blinkered and ready to lead their lemmings off the political cliff. Even if it costs them heavily in November, it’s a price they’re willing to pay to set the United States on a dysfunctional course of socialized economics and regulatory nannyism.

Excellent piece on what it means to have the right to keep and bear arms: “The notion that citizens have no good reason to be armed, because the State can protect them from violent crime, is one of the most dangerous lies Big Government has fed its subjects. The government reduces crime through the police and court systems, but no matter how tirelessly the police work, there is very little chance they can actively defend you from assault. There aren’t enough of them, and there never could be.”
“The right to protect yourself, and your family, from injury and death is an essential part of your dignity as a free man or woman. Without the First Amendment, you are a slave. Without the Second, you are a child. The Western nations which have abandoned this essential understanding of an individual’s right to self-defense have become rotting orphanages filled with dependent children….Losing the dignity of self-defense is part of the degeneration from master of the State to its client. As this dignity fades, the people and their government speak less of responsibilities, and more of entitlements. “

CNN’s Situation Room is likely to turn into the Situation Bunker. Looks like only people stuck at airports are still watching CNN.

Grab some popcorn or ice cream and a comfortable chair and let the follies begin: Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas opens the Democrats-against-Democrats election year spectacle. In other election news, Massachusetts Congressman William Delahunt (D) is retiring. Though this is a Democratic-leaning district (as probably every street in Massachusetts is), Republican Scott Brown easily won the district in his successful Senate run.

Why gun control doesn’t work. The lack of correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, according to states. Indeed, in the District of Columbia, murders went up after the 1977 gun ban and down after the 2008 Heller decision throwing out the D.C. ban on private handgun possession.

Via Mark Steyn, a John Stossel post on why he hates bureaucrats. A complaint (anonymous, of course) leads to a health department order to a hardware store to stop providing free donuts and coffee to customers, unless they hire a professional service or install kitchen facilities. This occurred in a town not far from where I live. I am not a fan of the hardware store in the story, but the government paper shuffler’s reaction is absurd. Another case of the run-away nanny state and the anonymous fussbucket (or competitor) whose neuroses ruin life’s little conveniences for the rest of us. I see the same attitudes among students at my school; the administration is the health department bureaucrat.

Guy dies in police custody after interrogation. It turns out that his nipples are ripped off, he has multiple injuries to his penis, and his skull has a hole in it. The police admit that he was perfectly healthy before the interrogation. Explanation for his death? Drinking water mixed with a cold medicine. Only in China. Where are our human rights lawyers? Oh yes, making sure that would-be terrorists are given Miranda warnings and that intelligence-gathering interrogations do not result in temporary sleep deprivation and water boarding.

Something sure to please many of my students and probably a colleague or five: Booze with lower hangover effect.

They may need that low-hangover oxygenated alcohol because they won’t like this: Law student employment offers plummet.

The kind of class one expects from a group that proclaims itself to be promoting the “Atheist Agenda.”

Harold Ford, Jr., is a centrist Democrat. A former Congressman from Tennessee (as was his father), who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from Tennessee in 2006, Ford moved to New York and was contemplating a run for Hillary Clinton’s former seat now occupied by Kirsten Gillibrand. Ford eventually dropped that idea. One explanation, whether or not that was his real reason, is that the Democrats are scared about the 2010 election. Maybe the nightmare is in the person of Mort Zuckerman, the owner of the New York Daily News.

Disgraced “green jobs” czar and self-proclaimed communist Van Jones receives award from NAACP? Organization’s head claims he is an “American treasure.” In addition to the information in the previous link, Jones called George W. Bush a crack pipe-licking crackhead, before calling for more civility in political discourse, now that Mr. Obama is President. The NAACP can’t find any more deserving person for its award? Or are they so marginalized they have to try to make themselves relevant by honoring a fringe conspiracy monger?

A powerful indictment of the IPCC climate change hysteria: “All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC’s 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves. Furthermore, it has also emerged in almost every case that the decision to include these scare stories rather than hard scientific evidence was deliberate.”

On child dead, another wounded in parents’ suicide pact over global warming. Where is Al Gore, who allegedly has made a billion dollars off global warm-mongering?

More polls for predictions for November, 2010, if the election were held under current trends: Professor Larry Sabato of the Univ. of Virginia, a nationally-known political forecaster: House—Republicans +27; Senate Republicans +7; Governors Republicans +6. Professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University uses a prediction model that Sabato says has been shown to be the most accurate for predicting mid-term elections. Focusing only on the House, Abramowitz predicts a best-case loss of 20 for the Democrats, a worst-case loss of 54, and a likely loss of 37. Democratic pollster Stu Rothenberg predicts Democratic House losses between 24 and 28, and Senate losses between 5 and 7, with higher gains possible. Much-in-demand political analyst Charlie Cook says it is “very hard” to see how the Democrats can keep the House, meaning a loss of at least 40 seats. I still say that the Republicans will gain around 30 House seats and now think they will get 3 to 5 more Senate seats.

Drill, baby, drill—in North Dakota. A potentially tremendous source of oil, if combined with drilling in other locales, on- and off-shore. It’s a matter of political will, not technology.

A number of people, including Token Conservative, have chimed in on this: Why Obama/Reid/PelosiCare may be unconstitutional. (I did not realize that there was an affirmative action component to this. Perhaps this does not apply to the newest model, though.)

The President is introducing a “smaller” health care bill on Thursday that isn’t really smaller. It’s the Senate bill with a couple of Republican ideas thrown in. Good cosmetics, as it puts the GOP in the position of having to oppose something that contains some of their own ideas. However, ultimately this will still be seen for the scam it is. Indeed, Pelosi has already made it an object of public ridicule by telling reporters that a bill can be bipartisan if it contains “Republican ideas,” although it gets no Republican support.

The House votes to extend the Patriot Act, you know, that terrible Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld law that destroyed the Republic by allowing the government to listen in on the conversations of suspected terrorists (as well as doing some really dumb things), and which all the Democrats supposedly opposed. They also killed an amendment to an intelligence bill that would have criminalized cruel, inhumane and degrading interrogations.

While we fiddled: Iran’s continuing march to nuclear armament. The problem isn’t that Iran shouldn’t have nuclear weapons; it’s that the deranged fascist regime currently holding sway there shouldn’t have any weapons, much less nuclear ones.

James Delingpole on the new world order that is the real goal of global environmentalists. It’s not science, but power. That’s why they treat skepticism as heresy, rather than a scientific challenge.

From Daniel Hannan, a British conservative member of the European Parliament (and a far truer conservative than David Cameron and the other Tory posers) on the paradox of the conservative intellectual and with an invitation to a British Tea Party. Not sure that I agree with him about the ancestry of today’s British (or American) left being Fox, Wilkes, and Paine. They were democrats or democratic republicans, not socialist progressives.

Justice Ginsburg supported Roe v. Wade when it was decided because she thought it would lead to government-funded abortions for poorer people. She believed that the reason was a concern about too much population growth, especially among “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Ginsburg was strongly pro-abortion choice, and Planned Parenthood has its roots in the eugenics movement, an outgrowth of the Progressive Era.

When the welfare state turns out to be an economic turkey, is there a Greece in our future? Economist Robert Samuelson believes so: “All welfare states face similar problems: burgeoning costs as populations age; an over-reliance on debt financing; and pressures to reduce borrowing that create pressures to cut welfare spending. High debt and the welfare state are at odds. It’s an open question whether the collision will cause social and economic turmoil.”

After months of increasing tension and frustration, Nancy Pelosi and the leadership may be losing control of the fractious Democratic caucus.

Not mincing words about Obama’s horrible health care bill: “The Obama plan contains fiscal gimmicks and gamesmanship which will lead to crushing deficits and debt; sanctions government intrusion into our lives unlike anything we have seen before; will lead to the destruction of a private insurance system which, while not perfect, delivers coverage to the overwhelming majority of Americans in a satisfactory manner; will result in the demoralization of our most honored profession, reducing medical care to the lowest common denominator in the cause of a false sense of fairness; and reflects the ultimate hubris of ideological, power drunk people who have proven themselves unworthy of our trust and who express, time and again, their disdain for the people they claim to serve.”

If the Olympics can have synchronized ribbon-twirling, why not this? That’s a gymnastics event even men could watch.

Is Obamanomics the current version of Nixonian wage-price controls and similarly guaranteed not just to fail, but to choke the economy? From insurance companies to credit cards, the guarantee of shortages and higher prices: “A law he signed last year regulating credit card companies, which took effect this week, was supposed to save consumers huge sums. But it has suffered a bruising collision with the real world. The Associated Press reports that in recent months, ‘credit card companies jacked up interest rates, created new fees and cut credit lines,’ while shutting down many accounts entirely. The law, says AP, ‘has helped make it more difficult for millions of Americans to get credit, and made that credit more expensive.’”

Liberals insist that the American Bar Association, in general, and its evaluation of judicial nominees, in particular, are not biased. (Liu is a liberal, Easterbrook a conservative.)

From the Mark Steyn archives, a classic from 2001. Substitute the name “Barack Obama” for many of the “Bill Clintons,” and the piece has a timelessness about the fecklessness of the Europeans and the need for a strong U.S.

Prodded by the controversial party at UCSD about which I have posted, Professor Victor Davis Hanson examines the virulent strain of racialism that runs through the American liberal elite. I especially enjoyed his description of racial hypocrisy in academia.

Ramesh Ponnuru on one of my favorite topics, the overselling of college degrees.

How about a headline that’s sure to pique one’s curiosity? “Every Man Is a Sex Addict.” HT: Instapundit

Portions of the $826 Billion stimulus that the President called “targeted, timely, and temporary” are about to become permanent, as a part of the baseline budget. So much for blaming George Bush for the deficits. As expected, it’s all about the Left’s reflexive and insatiable statist intrusion into people’s lives.

Senator James Imhofe calls for investigations into the climate scammers. That includes Al Gore, whom the New York Times has described as possibly the first carbon billionaire for the money he has made off his carbon trading schemes and his books and films, whose premises and conclusions have been almost entirely debunked.

They may not be hiring associates, and they may be laying off those they have, but one BigLaw characteristic never changes. As always, the partners make money.

Ann Coulter on the trap awaiting Republicans at the “health care summit”: “It’s as if the patient has a minor fever and the Democrats (as doctor in this example) want to cut off his arms and legs. The Republicans want to give the patient two aspirin. ‘Compromise’ means the Republicans agree to amputate only one arm and one leg….So Obama’s sole objective at the ’summit’ is to hoodwink Republicans into agreeing with some of his wildly unpopular ideas on national TV….This shouldn’t be hard, inasmuch as he will be talking to elected Republicans.”

CIA briefed 68 lawmakers about enhanced interrogations between 2001 and 2007. Score another for Cheney and for the CIA. But they are off-base about the fable that KSM was waterboarded 183 times. The interrogation program was effective and carefully thought-out.

I’m wondering the same thing: How long can the dollar avoid collapse?

More of the same concerns about the dollar. One needs to be careful not to overestimate China’s power over the dollar. By buying so many dollars, China has limited its own discretion. Dump dollars, see your holdings lose value, see the yuan appreciate, see your exports drop, see your unemployment rise.

One reason why China will not become the superpower some expect, or fear, is the lack of future families caused by the exaggerated male-female ratio, which will lead to fewer children to care for an already-aging population. In the meantime, an excessive ratio of men to women can promote social instability and military adventurism (as well as trafficking in foreign females), which can make China a threat to others over the next two decades or so.

In light of recent announcements from Iran that it has jumped the uranium enrichment queue and is well on the way to weaponizing uranium and from the IAEA that Iran never really stopped working on that enrichment for weapons, despite the claims of the ridiculously faulty NIE in 2007 that undercut the Bush administration, this post from Professor Victor Davis Hanson from five months ago remains remarkably timely.

Response by Matthew Franck of National Review Online a few months ago to an op-ed piece by the lawyers seeking to get the unelected federal judges to amend the Constitution and concoct a right to same-sex marriage.

Nanny state? What nanny state? The lobby of the perpetually fearful.

“It’s my health; it’s my choice.” So sayeth the premier of Newfoundland, Canada, to explain his decision to go to Florida for a heart procedure not available to him soon enough under the Canadian public system. Mark Steyn and Scaramouche propose this as the slogan against Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. I like the sound of it.

There are a number of messages in this. Lead-in: Female sexual cannibals do not find their male partners particularly tasty. I think they are only referring to spiders.

Are the Democratic votes there for Obama/Reid/PelosiCare? Not yet, and there is much doubt that enough Democrats will fall on their swords, given the tremendous unpopularity of the proposal. Read the links, epscially the strategy analysis by Bush economist Keith Hennessey. His alternatives sound about right, though I think that, if this proposal fails, Obama will propose some very minimal piecemeal changes to the current system that attract some Republican support (the Rahm Emanuel approach). He can then call that a victory for “health care reform” and blunt the Republican message in the fall. But we are about a month or two away from that.

Wall Street Journal article about how lawfare affects the American military’s tactical decisions. Does this endanger our troops? Certainly it should put to rest once and for all the leftist canard that these terrorists using children as human shields are just yearning to play by accepted rules of civilized warfare if there weren’t the evil Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld denying them the full rights of American civilians.

The federal court lawsuit that challenges the democratic decision of California voters to overturn the state supreme court’s 4-3 decision that concocted a right for same sex couples to marry despite the express command of a previous democratically-adopted statutory initiative, is brought by two attorneys of opposite political views. One of them is the former Bush 43 administration Solicitor General, Theodore Olson. Some months back, the two of them co-wrote an opinion piece defending their suit. Professor Nelson Lund replies. Since then, Olson has written that same-sex marriage is really “conservative,” a truly preposterous piece of sophistry that deserves a separate response.

Mark Steyn on the the West’s propensity to fiddle while the mullahocracy in Iran is gathering lots of kindling and matches: “It is certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s.” For an eye-rolling example of idiotic nannyism by the federal government to protect someone from non-existent danger, read the comment by USAF44 in Steyn’s comment thread.

Continuing with Steyn’s theme, LTC Ralph Peters describes the subterfuges by Iran that will result in its inevitably becoming a nuclear power. That, in turn, will have a grossly distorting effect on the balance of power in the neighborhood. And not just Iran’s neighborhood.

China’s economy rests precariously on the willingness of the American consumer to buy its product. The Chinese have grabbed a tiger by lending to the U.S. and is trying to hold on while it figures out how to let go without suffering a disaster. Though the article is a few months old, its point is still valid.

The next time your favorite Obama supporter is outraged about how nasty those Tea Partiers are to the President and complains about (false) stories of conservatives comparing Mr. Obama to Hitler or some other unsavory character, refer the outraged O-bot to this site.

Doctor, my eyes.

For the first time, Harry Reid is signalling support for a public option health care bill to be approved by “reconciliation,” a process normally reserved for only a few types of budget-related bills. For reconciliation, debate would be severely constrained and adoption could be by majority vote without filibusters. Procedural and tactical obstacles remain. It is possible that Reid is doing this to get the bill adopted while allowing various electorally-endangered Democratic Senators to vote against it for political cover. In theory, that might work. But the bill is immensely unpopular, and if this is seen as being done to shove an overwhelmingly unpopular proposal through the Senate, voting against the bill at this late stage will not save them. With partisan hostility as high as it is, and having voted in favor of earlier versions, they will be tarred as being part of the party that voted for the bill.

Meanwhile, we need more scientists. I wonder how many tenured professors were laid off from “identity group studies” departments?

What are the economic, social, and cultural costs to be paid from a shrinking population? Historically, such trends were accompanied by deflation, stagnation, friction, and collapse. Unfortunately, this is no longer an academic question for Japan and many parts of Europe. There are now human laboratories where these trends are working themselves out. The article does not address other, perhaps less obvious problems, such as the decline of productivity due to the loss of capital as creditors will not lend on collapsing asset values and to ageing and shrinking populations.

Two lessons from this: Don’t be greedy; Ignorance of the law is no defense.

Mark Steyn on the show trial in the Netherlands of Dutch politician and Islam critic Geert Wilders. While Wilders seems a jerk (something not unknown with politicians), this trial is a bad joke. Similar abuses of power happen with the Candaian “Human Rights Commissions” and criminal and administrative proceedings in England. Meanwhile Elton John can claim that Jesus is a homosexual with impunity (which is the right result, nevermind the astounding display of theological ignorance “Sir” Elton emitted). The Dutch government is, as Steyn points out, essentially criminalizing the platform of the main opposition party. With truth no defense, this is akin to sedition prosecutions, but with fewer rights than the infamous American Sedition Act of 1798.

Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online commends President Obama on his support of targeted killings and other assertive tactics against terrorists in Pakistan. I agree. But he is also left wondering whether Obama is ordering the killings (with their potential attendant loss of intelligence) as tactics in a military strategy, or just as a way to avoid judicial interference with detention and interrogation of detainees. I have wondered about that previously, as well. But I also wonder about Pakistani duplicity in all this.

Victor Davis Hanson echoes my thoughts about Obama’s cynical approach to the Bush tactics of fighting terrorists.

A former student, attorney Janice Brenman, has some thoughts (and a link) on what makes good doctors go bad. Exhibit 1: Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray.

The Wall Street Journal on the failure of liberal governance (and left-wing radicalism in a center-right country).

An enlightening 2004 review of Samuel Huntington’s book Who Are We? that explores some troubling issues about immigration (primarily from Mexico) and lack of assimilation, with the potentially explosive effect on the historic American Creed. What makes this particularly relevant today is Huntington’s indictment of the “denationalized” American elites’ efforts to undermine the traditional American Creed and culture through multiculturalism, transnationalism, and racial preference entitlements.

Solving the looming retirement funding crisis and the welfare state’s Ponzi scheme. Intergenerational conflict and novelist Martin Amis’s “voluntary” euthanasia booths.

For those who need to see Mr. Tiger Woods’s passably-scripted, but poorly-voiced “apology,” here it is.

This is a transcript of the Woods statement that seems to differ substantially from the others. [CAUTION: Content warning of the first order]

Mark Steyn asks, “They need drugs to do this in Santa Cruz?” Well, actually, Mark, yes; the usual tree of choice for hugging is the California Redwood. This guy obviously was hallucinating when he hugged a common palm tree.

Not quite Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of Roe v. Wade, who eventually became a pro-lifer, but this should still stick in NARAL’s and NOW’s craw.

Washington State Supreme Court holds that the Second Amendment applies to the states by incorporation into the Fourteenth. Is this a portent of things to come from the “real” Supreme Court in the McDonald case to be argued early next month? I doubt that this Washington decision would have come out this way even two years ago before the U.S. Supreme Court gave a green light to constitutional protection of a right to own handguns by confirming that the Second Amendment right was a personal, not a collective, right.

Creeping Stalinism from the Canadian Commissars for Conformity and Correctness, the due-process-deprived Human Rights Commissions.

The Wall Street Journal’s Richard Brookhiser on the historical counterparts to the Tea Party. I think that his use of the opposition to the FDR Court-packing plan is mistaken. As he points out, that was heavily infused with various liberal elites, such as the elite elements of the lawyer class. The Populist Party of the late 19th century might be a better comparison. I also disagree with his dismissal of various broad middle-class based movements during the founding era, such as the original Tea Party participants and the other Sons of Liberty.

Emerging briefly from the witness protection program or wherever she has been hid, Hillary Clinton expresses concern that Iran may be heading towards military dictatorship. Welcome to the club, Hillary, however belatedly. I wrote about this last June in “The Iranian coup d’etat,” based on the analysis by various Iran experts and observers.

Regarding the recent claim that Iran was now a nuclear state (presumably referring to its enrichment capacity that puts it qualitatively closer to the high level enrichment needed for weaponized uranium), Ann Coulter recalls the ridiculous NIE report from 2007 that proclaimed, in the face of contrary reports from numerous foreign intelligence services, as well as the judgment of the Bush administration and common sense, that Iran had ceased enriching uranium in 2003.

Driving under the influence—of work. The dangers of the mobile office, an unsettlingly frequent sight on L.A. roads.

Senator Evan Bayh claimed that the lack of bipartisanship in Congress caused him to decline to run for re-election. Since there wasa a definite lack of bipartisanship in Congress as Democrats vilified George W. Bush and his policies (Social Security reform, the Iraq War, national security policies) when Bayh ran for re-election in 2004, this sounds specious. This blog has evidence that suggests a different reason, namely, some ethical difficulties involving the Senator and his wife that might resurface and damage him in an anti-incumbent year and a sour electorate. HT: Instapundit.

I do like Senator Bayh’s carefully-nuanced statement with its correct main point: The Democrats’ Stimulus boondoggle has failed to create private jobs.

From Politico, evidence of the receding blue tide of Obamania.

Environmentalism kills. A lot. And, too often, it does so unabashedly at the design of its high priests.

While a $555,000 student loan debt is clearly an unusual case, six-figure debts, particularly when graduate/professional school education is included, are not unusual. As I have posted many times before, this is not a sustainable business model.

Why are the Smithsonian’s presidential portraits of Democrats much bigger than those of Republicans? Is it the institution’s ideological bias, the greater need of Democrats for personal validation through bigger monuments, or some other size issue?

In the aftermath of the subtly pro-life, but still controversial Focus on the Family Super Bowl commercial featuring University of Florida’s Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, the National Organization for Women is demanding the airing next year of a pro-abortion commercial, according to Carbolic Smokeball.

From a few months ago, a preview of what would happen if terrorists were to be brought from Gitmo to the U.S.? Shoebomber Richard Reid sues for greater free speech and free exercise of religion protections. Not that it will do any good. The “human rights lobby is complaining about the Supermax prison as being another form of torture worse than Gitmo. So much for the administration’s assertion that closing Gitmo will remove a source of recruitment for jihadists.

For you Joseph Conrad (or Iowahawk) connoisseurs, Iowahawk channels his inner E. J. Dionne to chronicle an East Coast liberal’s journey into the wild and unfathomable American heartland in Heart of Redness.

Mark Steyn laments the creeping conformism spurred by the nanny state and the groupthink among the putative elite induced by liberal indoctrination.

And now for a somewhat different take on romantic relationships than what one usually hears in the West. The reaction in the article from outraged British women is predictable. Notwithstanding that reported reaction, and not coincidentally, Islam has been getting a goodly number of converts in Europe, with surveys of female converts showing the more robustly traditional sex roles in Islam as a point of attraction.

 Rather astounding designs for long-range bombers. By the Germans from World War II. The technology was well ahead of what the allies had. Fortunately for history, while the Germans had the skill, they didn’t have the time or the resources.

This would be far worse than global warming.

Scott Ott at Scrappleface feeds rumor that he is leaving his post writing satire and joining the Obama administration as speech writer. Says Ott:
“What I loved about covering the president as a satirical journalist is that the stories wrote themselves. My fans, in their countless dozens, marvel that I came up with so much side-splitting satire. But frankly, it’s hard to take credit for what I have done. I’m just a stenographer sitting in the shadow of the masters. There’s not time or space to properly thank all of the Obama administration officials who have made my job so easy.”

Muslim groups in the U.S. challenge the proposed use of full-body scanners at airport security checkpoints. Mark Steyn has a tongue-in-cheek ”solution”: Objecting Muslims get an exemption, while the rest of us, children included, get the full scan. Count on the TSA not to see the satire.

What, if anything, do atheists contribute to rational debate (emphasis on “rational”) about the existence and essence of God?

The National Petrochemical Refiners Association and other groups (e.g., truckers) have filed a challenge to California’s “anti-global warming” carbon emissions regulation law. A former student of mine, an expert in chemical engineering and fossil fuels, Roger Sowell, has an excellent post about the suit on his blog. Here is a link to the complaint, which argues that the state law is pre-empted by federal law on fuel content (weak) and by the Commerce Clause (better).

Can we start calling them socialists yet? And will liberals finally stop complaining when someone calls Obama, who is on the Democrats’ left wing, a “socialist”? A majority of Democrats and liberals, and only they, like socialism.

Regarding Obama/Reid/PelosiCare, most Americans are opposed, most want current plans scrapped, most want to wait until after the election for a new attempt; of course, the political class overwhelmingly favors it, while productive Americans overwhelmingly oppose it.

From Instapundit: THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d see a new Orwellian era of surveillance. And they were right. Obama administration argues that cell phone owners have no expectation of privacy in the phones’ whereabouts.

Iran’s leaders have promised something huge for today to “punch the West.” Lots of speculation about what they have planned. Iran expert Michael Ledeen believes that the regime plans massive and violent repression.

How much is a college degree worth?

Quoting the historian Arnold Toynbee, “Civilizations die from suicide, not from murder,” Mark Steyn contemplates the danger for and from American timidity and decline.

According to liberals, the latest racist codeword was to describe Obama as “articulate.” But that has been supplanted by “professor,” a term by which Sarah Palin referred to Obama. Never mind that Obama was, in fact, a professor (or at least an adjunct associate professor).

An interview with Professor John Yoo, who discusses torture, the Geneva Conventions, and the war powers of Congress and the President.

Free speech problems at UC Irvine. A repetitive occurrence from the same quarters. Compared to more restrained Muslim student associations at other schools, this one has a history of bullying and trying to silence critical speech. Also repetitive is the UCI administration’s cowardice in dealing with these people. But UCI is not alone in its cravenness.

The administration’s counter-terrorism director actually wrote in an op-ed piece that people who criticize the decision to Mirandize the would-be crotchbomber are helping al Qaeda.

Interesting. The Obama birth-certificate movement started among Democrats on the Left. There’s some overlap with the 9/11 Truthers and the CBS research into the George W. Bush National Guard records. It’s interesting to recall, too, that the Willie Horton ads against 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis were started in the primaries by Democrat Al Gore.

One more reaction to the Tebow Superbowl ad, via Carbolic Smokeball. I have to point out that this is a parody, because NOW and similar groups often make arguments and take positions that seem parodic, but turn out to be the real thing.

Sarah Palin treated as Obama’s political equal? That is not a good sign for the President. He has appeared to often on the TV screens, making grand, formal speeches to the populace or to Congress. That creates overexposure and eventual boredom with the Obama brand. The press then goes for the newest thing, here, someone with less recent saturation of the airwaves. 

In an article titled Cheney’s Revenge, a summary of the Obama administration’s reversals of its earlier pretentious posing of moral superiority over the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld policies.

The curiously-named Yid with Lid takes a look at Obama’s collapsing poll numbers and concludes that a significant contributor is the budget. Those numbers, especially the 17% rate of strong disapproval over strong approval does not bode well for Mr. Obama or the Democrats to whose necks this millstone will be tied.

Instapundit (law professor Glenn Reynolds) declares that the recent Tea Party convention confirms that the movement is the U.S.’s third Great Awakening. Unlike the first two, which were religious-based revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries, this one is secular.

Some feminists react against Tim and Mom Tebow’s pro-life, Focus-on-the-Family sponsored Superbowl commercial by claiming it approves violence against women. That’s quite different from the way feminists reacted in 2008 when an ad was produced that showed and advocated violence against Sarah Palin.

Vaccines do not cause autism. The British medical journal Lancet published a study in 1998 that purported, on the basis of a mere 12 cases, to show such a connection. Since then, many studies have shown there is no connection, while none have supported the 1998 study. Investigative reporters have since uncovered that the author of the study was working on a rival vaccine and was paid off by trial lawyers to find the connection he “found.” Lancet has known this for several years, but only recently retracted its earlier study. What is it with British “scientists” and scare-mongering based on fraud? Vaccines can cause bad reactions in a few people, and there are some good reasons to weigh decisions about a few of them carefully. But, overall, failure to have children get vaccinated is hugely irresponsible. As someone who had a lot of the childhood diseases for which there are now vaccines, I can vouch for the fact that whooping cough, mumps, and measles are no walks in the park. Oh, and don’t get medical advice from morons.

Christopher Hitchens describes the sociopathy and the existential threat to others that is the xenophobic militaristic crime fortress of North Korea.

While the people of North Korea try to survive the starvation produced by their criminal government and perverted socialist economic system, Australians are dealing with their own version of a problem, one indicative of the cultural condition of the West. Censors require that only women with substantial bosoms be depicted in porn, presumably to avoid simulated child pornography.

What? The Democrats as weak on defense and strong on collectivism? What a concept. Old stereotypes revived? More likely, leopards don’t change their spots, if one only cares to look.

I well remember the grief George W. Bush got if he mispronounced a word, such as “nuclear.” Slate magazine had a column about Bushisms that ran well after Bush left office. Although Obama has released more than a reasonable number of gaffes and verbal bombs, predictably he has not received the same degree of scorn from the enraptured press. Here is the latest: Obama and the “corpseman.”

First the crotchbomber, now this. The al Qaeda version of this. If one of them succeeds in blowing herself up, Homeland Security will respond by subjecting all women larger than 32A to special searches.

The United States as a conservative, center-right country, according to yet another poll.

The “certainty” of another terrorist attack on the U.S. within three to six months.

About those melting Himalayan glaciers…. If someone did a 6th grade science fair project the way “climate scientists” treat their “facts” and prove their theories, he or she would fail.

Feminists love to complain about sexism in the criminal law system. If four guys had lured a woman into a motel room, blindfolded her, tied her to the bed, punched her in the face and Krazy-glued her female anatomy, would they have got probation?

In light of the false appeals to bipartisanship and the expressions of shock at supposed conservative anger that emanate from the Obama administration and their media supporters, a history of liberals smearing conservatives. Most of these examples are from quite recent times.

Is this the end of the Reign of Error? With cratering audience ratings, will MSNBC pull the plug on Keith Olbermann? Or at least on his show?

What is this world coming to? The Netherlands is being taken over by sexual puritans. In the U.S., wouldn’t this be a constitutional right?

“I’ve never heard leadership admit publicly to being so lost.” Obama/Reid/PelosiCare’s swan song? Incidentally, Intrade has the likelihood of “health care reform” passing by the end of June at about 1 chance out of 3.

Always follow the money. Hey, the guy’s got a big electric bill to pay for his mansion.

The proposed Obama tax increases. History shows repeatedly that tax increases never produce the revenue projected for them. People seek to avoid them by altering their behavior if they can, especially the truly rich. Moreover, the increases stifle growth of wealth, so less tax revenue is produced from economic activity.

This is what a trillion dollars looks like—in $100 bills. If you only carry $1 bills, the graphic would be 100 times as large. Consider, too, that the deficit would be more than 1.5 times this graphic, and the federal budget nearly four times. Also check out the link for the $11 trillion and rising fast national debt. So when the federal government says that it needs more revenue, consider the huge amount it is getting and spending.

The middle class is not as secure from tax increases under the Obama plan as the President proclaims.

New York’s policy for its homeless population: Export them—to France.

In an effort to clear out the backlog of items on my “to blog list,” I am going to start a feature called the Daily Briefing. The hope is that each weekday (more or less) I will link to three stories (more or less) that I have found informative about important current issues or that are particularly well-written in analyzing a more fundamental issue. I will do so without much commentary, which I will leave to my other postings. We’ll see how it goes. A little like Instapundit, but with less time and money to spend on the effort.

Speaking of Instapundit, how about a budget deficit reality check for and by the White House? Time for Obama supporters to stop pointing the finger at Bush. They look increasingly detached from reality.

A quick summary of campaign finance law history about restrictions on corporate spending on ads versus giving to candidates. Only the former was addressed in the recent case; the latter prohibitions are still in place.

I was going to tell my wife about this, but I’ll just text her on the drive to work.

Forget Panda or Chinatown eateries, here is the really authentic Chinese cuisine. Mu-shu puppy; Peking dog; cat and broccoli. It really puts the ”chow” in chow mein.