The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Surprise: Philly ‘Sanctuary’ Advocates Don’t Like Reporting Illegals to Feds

Posted on | August 25, 2011 | 5 Comments

Mike in Ardmore tipped me to this story from Philadephia:

Outside the Immigration Court building at 9th and Market Streets on Wednesday, about 100 demonstrators knelt on the sidewalk in memory of recent deportees, whose names they wore on string-and-paper necklaces.
It was just one stop in a mile-long walk to increase public pressure on Mayor Nutter to end a program in which the Philadelphia police share the names of the people they arrest – and their country of origin – with federal immigration authorities.
Advocates for immigrants say the voluntary agreement, signed in 2008, can result in deportations even when the original criminal charges are dismissed. . . .
The perception in immigrant communities that local police are acting in concert with Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) only adds to the problem, they say.
“That makes it harder for police to do their jobs. . .and less safe for everyone,” said Jen Rock, co-director of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, the interfaith coalition that sponsored “Walk A Mile In Our Shoes,” from Love Park, to the Liberty Bell and back to City Hall.
In a non-binding resolution in June, City Council unanimously opposed renewing the arrangement, which gives ICE agents access to the city’s Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System.
Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety, said Philadelphia is “on track to renew” the PARS agreement at the end of this month, with the possibility of some slight modifications.

Illegal immigrants are criminals, and those who assist illegals are accessories to the crime. In a just world, Jen Rock and her “sanctuary movement” buddies would be serving time in Leavenworth for impeding federal law enforcement. And all the illegals would be deported.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Joey Vento, R.I.P.

Category: Crime, Immigration, Pennsylvania

Radtke, Red State and Riehl
UPDATE: Radtke Campaign’s Attorney Demands Retraction and Apology
UPDATE: Radtke Denounces ‘Scurrilous Behavior’ by GOP ‘Establishment’

Posted on | August 25, 2011 | 56 Comments

UPDATE 4:50 p.m. ET: Dan Riehl clarifies the timeline and emphasizes: “It’s between the Radtke Campaign and RedState, no matter how some are trying to muddy the water to distract.”

UPDATE 1:10 p.m. ET: Dan Riehl links to a legal letter sent by Patrick McSweeney, attorney for Virginia Senate candidate Jamie Radtke:

On behalf of Jamie Radtke, I am sending this letter demanding your immediate and prominent retraction of your August 24, 2011, posting on RedState and your August 25, 2011 Morning Briefing in which you repeat statements of certain unnamed persons who attended the August 13th dinner at the RedState Gathering in Charleston, South Carolina at which Ms. Radtke spoke. One of the statements in your posting claimed that Ms. Radtke “gets drunk, and gets so embarrassing that I have to duck away….” Another statement that you repeated charged: “She was a drunk, rambling idiot that took 30 minutes to introduce a director who himself was confused.” Those statements are false. You plainly repeated the statements quoted above without regard to their accuracy.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE 1:15 p.m. ET: In case you didn’t notice, McSweeney’s letter is CC’d to Jeff Carneal and Tom Phillips, respectively the president and chairman of Red State’s parent company, Eagle Publishing.

UPDATE 1:20 p.m. ET: Will these statements by Erickson be acceptable to the Radtke campaign’s attorney?

UPDATE 2:10 p.m. ET: In an e-mail “campaign update” sent to Radtke’s supporters and conservative bloggers, her communications director Chuck Hansen writes that “the Establishment Republicans and their buddies in the Establishment Media going after Tea Party supporters who threaten their Good ‘Ol Boy power is an all-too-common phenomena.” More from Hansen’s e-mail:

George Allen’s cocktail party social set lived down to expectations this week, working through Erick Erickson to launch some very nasty attacks on Jamie. So much for Virginia gentlemen.
Of course, they had no problem accepting the Tea Party’s activism, energy and votes last year, which put them in power in the House . . .
Yesterday, on the front page of Redstate.com, Erick Erickson lashed out and wrote a blog smearing Jamie Radtke with completely false attacks by publishing libelous pejoratives in hopes of damaging her reputation.
Erickson wrote his column in response to a report on another blog that he had told Radtke, “My bosses are HUGE [George] Allen friends, not just fans. They are socially connected. So I’m having to tread carefully in this.”
Erickson, after confirming that he had made the statement, wrote a vicious blog that defamed Jamie’s character.
“Erick’s blog goes beyond the pale,” Radtke stated. “He crossed the line by publishing complete falsehoods. Now, it is his responsibility to admit he did wrong, set the record straight and apologize – and that is what I am asking Erick to do.
“This kind of scurrilous behavior and treatment has been repeatedly carried out on tea party leaders and conservative candidates who dare challenge the good ‘ole boy Washington Establishment. This attempt by the Washington Establishment to destroy the tea party and their candidates must stop. Enough is enough.
“What is most important is that we focus our attention on beating a President and his liberal Democrat friends who want to fundamentally change America. I encourage the tea party to stay determined and committed to fight back against the negative narrative on us and let’s defeat Obama and his liberal cohorts.”
Carter Wrenn, chief strategist for Radtke’s campaign, stated that a formal letter from legal counsel had been sent to Erickson demanding a retraction. “To put it as bluntly as possible,” Wrenn said, “Erick Erickson made an untrue and malicious attack on Jamie Radtke yesterday and repeated it again today. He should retract his statement, admit it is untrue and apologize for his mistake.”
Rocking the Boat in DC is hard, and doing so gets the entrenched interests very angry – that’s why it takes a special, determined leader to make it happen. Jamie is that kind of person, a new generation of courageous, conservative leader, who will stand up to Establishment Washington and their attacks and win!

You can see most of this at Radtke’s site. Meanwhile, Ben Smith and the Washington Post are popping the popcorn. Erick Erickson calls this a “distraction” — as any accusation of libel always is.

PREVIOUSLY (12:28 p.m. ET): The fallout continues from yesterday’s eruption of an online knife-fight between the campaign of Jamie Radtke, Virginia’s Tea Party candidate for Senate, and Red State’s Erick Erickson.

Erickson accused Dan Riehl of fomenting that fight, and Riehl isn’t denying it. The alleged motive involves another prominent conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin. Remember that Red State scored a publicity coup by hosting Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential announcement. Malkin wrote a column exposing flaws in Perry’s record and, when Red State’s Streiff wrote a post impugning Malkin’s “integrity and intellect,” Dan Riehl demanded that Erickson retract the slur.

(I can’t recall Malkin ever getting directly involved in a blog war. Even after Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs threatened Malkin in April 2009, she refused to respond. But you may have noticed how rapidly LGF’s decline and fall ensued.)

Erickson refused to stifle Streiff and says that Riehl responded with threats of destruction. I’ve known Dan long enough to know that he doesn’t make idle threats, so if all of this is the fulfillment of Dan’s vow of vengeance, it is not an entirely unexpected development. But there are two points worth noting:

  1. Dan didn’t start it. Streiff attacked Malkin, and Dan chivalrously defended Malkin’s reputation. If Erickson had disavowed Streiff’s attack, the blog war would have ended there.
  2. Erickson’s counter-attack on Jamie Radtke was probably a blunder. He practically called Radtke a drunk. She’s a Christian home-schooling mother of three, widely admired by Tea Party activists in Virginia. Erickson’s attack on her is likely to rally her supporters, and to hurt Red State more than it hurts Radtke.

But we have to ask if this might turn into something more serious than a blog war. As I said yesterday, one of the reactions I got from non-combatants was, “Uh-oh — he’s going after Carter Wrenn.”

That’s Radtke’s campaign manager, a veteran Republican operative with a street-fighter’s reputation. You don’t call Wrenn’s candidate a drunk and then just walk away.

David Frum sees the controversy as evidence of the influence of “hidden power brokers,” and Dave Weigel at Slate and John Hudson at the Atlantic have also taken notice of this dispute, but I’m not sure any of them understand how Erickson’s attack on Radtke has upped the ante in this game. And I’m reasonably sure we haven’t seen the last card played.

Category: Dan Riehl, Jamie Radtke, Red State, Tea Party, Virginia

$5 Billion To B-of-A, And All The IRS Got Was A Lousy T-Shirt Full Of Platitudes

Posted on | August 25, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich, saith the sagebrush of Omaha on 15 August:

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

Oh boo-effing-hoo. Wait, what’s today’s news?

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced a surprise $5 billion investment in Bank of America Thursday morning, sending shares of the struggling Dow component surging more than 25% in early trading.

So, why don’t you just pour your company’s money into the IRS? Surely, all that matters is keeping the USS Sacred Holy Ideological Theater steaming, right? Later:

Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) shares have taken a beating on concerns that the banking giant may need to raise capital to shore up its balance sheet. But the stock made a comeback Wednesday after influential analyst Meredith Whitney said Bank of America wouldn’t need fresh capital.

0:00 / 3:14 BullHorn: Is worst over for BofA?
The bank announced it would lay off 3,500 employees earlier this month, on top of the 2,500 layoffs that the company announced earlier this year.

Buffett’s investment is nearly identical to the $5 billion investment that Buffett made in Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) in September 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. That was seen as a major endorsement of Goldman’s then at-risk business model. Goldman bought back the preferred shares it issued to Berkshire in that transaction earlier this year.

It would be cool if we could rule out more federal reserve shenanigans. However, until such time as we return to a representative government, we can safely assume the bankers are, once again, financially raping future generations in favor of covering their sad little backsides.

Update: Surber-lanche!

Update II: And Buffet is hosting a BHO fundraiser? Really? Certainly his right, just as it is the right of this blog to consider fundraising for BHO a self-indictmnet. Get bent, Mr. Buffet.

Category: Weimar America

Two Words: ‘Bench Strength’

Posted on | August 25, 2011 | 6 Comments

Many conservatives were disappointed when Paul Ryan declined to run for president in 2012, and many conservatives — among them Joy McCann at The Conservatory — have raved almost deliriously about Marco Rubio’s speech at the Reagan Library:

I’ve been supporting Marco Rubio, of course, since before I knew who Marco Rubio was. The day “those treacherous bastards” at the NRSC endorsed Charlie Crist (May 12, 2009, a day that will live in infamy) I went all-in for Marco, who at that point was trailing Crist by 35 points in the polls. And it was the video of Marco’s farewell speech to the Florida House that inspired me to write: “[E]verybody who has seen this video is asking the same question: Why in the world would John Cornyn and the NRSC back Charlie Crist against this guy?” Read more

Category: Election 2012, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan

Obama’s Erstwhile Allies: Left-Wingers Attack Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller

Posted on | August 25, 2011 | 7 Comments

In February 2007, Iowa’s longtime Democratic attorney general Tom Miller endorsed Barack Obama, giving him an early boost in that key caucus state.

Fast-forward to October 2010. The “robo-signer” scandal had brought into question the legal validity of tens of thousands mortgages involved in foreclosure proceedings. Miller was announced to head up the Mortgage Foreclosure Multistate Group (MFMG), composed of the attorney generals of all 50 states, tasked with investigating the problem. In the months following that announcement, Miller reaped a bonanza of more than $250,000 campaign contributions from banking, insurance, and real-estate interests. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone sees this as corruption (as if shady dealings were anything unusual in the age of the man who brought the “Chicago Way” to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue).

OK, so now New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman (who occupies the position once held by Eliot Spitzer) has been kicked off the executive committee of the mortgage investigation:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was removed from a leadership role in negotiating a nationwide foreclosure settlement with U.S. banks because his office “actively worked to undermine” the effort, a state official said.
Schneiderman, who doesn’t want a settlement to bar further investigations of mortgage practices by individual states, was removed from the executive committee of state officials working on the deal, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said yesterday in a statement.
“New York has actively worked to undermine the very same multistate group that it had spent the previous nine months working very closely with,” said Miller, who is leading the state group. For a member of the executive committee, that “simply doesn’t make sense, is unprecedented and is unacceptable,” Miller said.

Now, the idea here is this: The MFMG is working to negotiate a blanket nationwide settlement, acting essentially as a broker to give the mortgage industry a package deal to settle all claims, rather than miring the industry in endless legal battles in multiple jurisdictions. Schneiderman apparently doesn’t want the settlement to preclude further state actions against lenders, but such a position effectively negates the purpose of the MFMG.

Are you following me so far? OK, so now it gets juicier. Scheiderman is claiming martydom and is being hailed as a hero by the Left, including David Dayen at Firedoglake:

The booting of Eric Schneiderman from the executive committee of the 50 state AG “investigation” of foreclosure fraud is pretty funny in this context: the AGs are supposed to be undertaking an investigation. Schneiderman is one of the few AGs actively involved in just such an investigation. And so he’s the one who has to get the boot.
This shows the depravity of once-respected Iowa AG Tom Miller, who is spearheading the “investigation.” He has wanted a settlement to put these issues behind the banks from the very beginning. He wants the headlines that come with the settlement, the pot of money to show that his efforts helped homeowners, and the minimal disruption such a settlement would provide.

Which is both (a) true and (b) absurd as an accusation, in that the entire purpose of the MFMG is “a settlement to put these issues behind the banks” — i.e., to find some equitable means to allow legitimate foreclosures to proceed, which is absolutely necessary to a recovery of the housing market.

As it is, lenders have thousands of homes on their books which are more than a year in delinquency, but which can’t be legally foreclosed and resold because “robo-signer” documents have clouded the titles. The huge stockpile of unforeclosed delinquencies is looming over the housing market and, until the backlog is cleared — until the deadbeats are evicted and the homes re-sold — the normal pricing system can’t function.

From a poltical perspective, however, this flap over the MFMG is a matter of priceless hilarity. Remember David Goodner, the left-wing anti-war pest who harassed Debbie Wasserman-Schultz at the Iowa State Fair? Goodner is a “community organizer” with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI), which is raising hell over Schneiderman’s ejection from the MFMG executive committee:

“Miller threw Schneiderman under the bus and as a result we’re likely to see a significantly weaker settlement,” said CCI member Judy Lonning from Des Moines. “We’re extremely disappointed. Tom has really let us down.” . . .
“Obama wants a quick settlement so this isn’t a campaign issue,” Lonning said. “He seems more interested in raking in campaign donations from Wall Street than he is in winning justice for everyday people and American homeowners, and Miller’s move played right into Obama’s hands.”
“It’s a cheap political shot, made to let the big banks get back to business and put Obama back in the White House,” Lonning said, “and in the meantime, American homeowners get to sit back and watch as the greedy bankers that ruined their lives are let off the hook once again.”

Damn right! Obama and Miller sold you out! They’re in the pockets of Wall Street! You’ve been betrayed! That means it’s time to . . . vote Republican.

Category: Barack Obama, Liberals

LIVE AT FIVE – 08.25.11

Posted on | August 25, 2011 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Intensifying Irene Has NC, Northeast In Cross-hairs

A boy walks on the beach at Nassau as Irene passes through the Bahamas

People in Northeast urged to prepare for possible storm damage

Loyalists Rally After Gaddafi’s Call To Rid Tripoli of “Traitors”
National Transitional Council approves $1.6 million bounty for former leader




What Becomes Of Apple Without Steve Jobs?
Resigns as CEO; promptly appointed Chairman of the Board. Has been on medical leave since January



POLITICS
Gallup: Perry Takes Double-Digit Lead Over Romney

Mitt Romney faces down critics at a NH town hall meeting

Also, Ron Paul leads Michele Bachmann

Alabama Immigrant Law Irks Business

Obama’s Vacation: Earthquakes, Revolutions, & Hurricanes




Torah Charity Founder Accused Of Fraud

“Super Committee” To Launch Website For Public Input

An Absence Of Tributes To Black Leaders

Governor Christie To Announce Decision On Fracking Ban



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Stocks Rise As US Durable Goods Orders, Home Prices Beat Estimates
Gold Falls As Investors Cash In Gains
German Consumer Sentiment Weakens
Home Short Sales Jump In US
Bank Of America Tries To End Merger Rumors
Crude Trades Near Two-Day Low
Dutch Court Bars Sale Of Samsung Smartphones
Google Pays $500 Million Over Illegal Drug Ads
Patrons, Police Losing Patience With “Anonymous” BART Protests
RIM’s Newer Phones To Get Android Apps



SPORTS
Cy Young Winner Mike Flanagan Dies, 59

Mike Flanagan, 1951-2011, RIP

Won 23 games in 1979 for Weaver’s Orioles; found dead on front lawn of home
“No one made me laugh like Mike Flanagan. Tonight, he made me cry.”



Weaver Comes Through As Halos Shut Down ChiSox

Two Crisp Dingers Lead A’s Over Yankees

Red Sox Pound Rangers 13-2

Polanco Gives Ailing Phils A Boost, But Mets Break Skid With 7-4 Win

NBA Players far From Optimistic Heading Into Next Meeting With Owners

Harvick Wins Third Straight Truck Series Race

Nats Nearly Blanked Again, Lose 4-2 to Snakes



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Will & Jada “Extremely Happy” Despite Breakup Rumors

Honestly, TMZ, Marc Anthony? LOLWUT?

This whole Marc Anthony thing is like bad fanfic

Kardashian & Humphries Sign Pre-nup; Lawyer Explains It All

How Max Aguilera, 3, Got A Black Eye

Does Hustler Really Have A Rihanna/J-Cole Sex Tape?


Christopher Knight Divorcing Adrianne Curry

Oxygen Ready To Move On From Paris Hilton Experiment

Simon Cowell Slams Simon Fuller, Admits Anger At “American Idol”

Redmond O’Neal Avoids Prison, Heads Back To Rehab



FOREIGNERS
PM Singh To Hazare: End Your Fast, We’ll Consider Jan Lokpal Bill
IDF Responds To Rocket Fire, Hits Targets In Gaza
Tracking Assets In The Arab Spring
Dear Leader Annoys Locals During Rare Siberia Visit
Ahmadinejad Calls On Assad To Talk With Opposition
Earthquake In Peru Injures 19
Ukrainians Protest Tymoshenko’s Treatment On Independence Holiday



BLOGS & STUFF
AmSpecBlog: Rick Perry Takes The Lead

Hat tip: NRO's The Corner

Weasel Zippers: Romney Waffles Again On Gorbal Warmenism


Allahpundit: Team Obama Calls On Texas Dems To Go After Rick Perry




Gateway Pundit: Bloomberg Bans Clergy From 9/11 Ceremony
Lonely Conservative: If We’re Going To Bring Up Ruby Bridges…
Proof Positive: Michelle & Barry’s Excellent Adventure
Sister Toldjah: Senator Obama Calls President Obama “Unpatriotic” For Adding Trillions To National Debt
Battle Rattle: Marines In Afghanistan, Be Careful Where You Fart


SOTD – Stormy Weather

Category: Live at Five

VIDEO: ‘Herman Cain Stands With Us’

Posted on | August 24, 2011 | 4 Comments

A pretty effective 90-second video:

Cain recently released his “Vision for Economic Growth” (PDF), which is a lot more than we’ve gotten from Barack Obama.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Video

The Economics of Wishful Thinking

Posted on | August 24, 2011 | 18 Comments

The frustrating thing about Ezra Klein is that, just when you think the Boy Genius of the Juicebox Mafia has gotten the scent of a clue, he goes running off on another liberal wild-goose chase:

When the financial markets collapsed [in 2008], household debt was nearly 100 percent of GDP. It’s now down to 90 percent. In 1982, which was the last time we had a big recession, the household-debt-to-GDP ratio was about 45 percent.

So far, so good: Ezra appears to have realized that the current recession reflects an underlying economic reality, rather than being a mere political construct. But then . . .

That means that in this crisis, indebted households can’t spend, which means businesses can’t spend, which means that unless government steps into the breach in a massive way or until households work through their debt burden, we can’t recover.

Sigh. How can we even begin to explain what’s wrong with Klein’s longing for interventionism? He could have been content, after all, to use the household-debt figures as an argument that the recession is not Obama’s fault. Yet his fanatical commitment to Keynesianism leads him inexorably to endorse “massive” intervention. I had hoped Ezra might be making progress a year ago, when he noticed that the stimulus was under-performing in terms of job creation, but now he’s backsliding.

Robert Barro today attacks one aspect of the Keynesian fallacy, the alleged “magic multiplier” of government spending. But make-believe math is evidently all the rage these days, including at the CBO. Ed Morrissey scoffs at their rosy scenario:

The CBO estimates that the US economy will finish this year at a 2.3% GDP growth rate for 2011, a neat trick for an economy that has grown at 0.8% in its first two quarters, and at 2.7% in 2012.  JP Morgan estimates that it will finish at 1.5% this year and 1.3% next year, and the difference is significant in terms of revenues and deficit projections.

What seems to be taking hold is the Economics of Wishful Thinking, where people insert some gigantic absurd hypothetical “if” into their equations — “If the Federal Reserve were to buy $10,000 worth of Powerball tickets next week . . .” — and then present this as a feasible alternative to sound, practical policy. But fiscal rainbows and monetary unicorns won’t fix the problem and these delusional what-ifs serve only as a political distraction from the grim reality.

We have somehow managed to take a round-trip to 1979, the Waterloo of Keynesianism, and yet it is as if liberals learned nothing from that experience. Ezra Klein wasn’t even born then, so he can perhaps be forgiven for not understanding the error that has been repeated. (How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya, Ezra?) But if history is any guide, last year’ historic mid-term Republican landslide was merely the harbinger of an even more savage drubbing of Democrats next year.

BTW, the price of gold fell to $1,757.30 an ounce today, about $150 off its record high Monday, so if you’ve been wishing you’d bought in earlier, this might be a good chance to join the gold rush before it surges past $2,000. If you had bought at $1,200 an ounce in May 2010 and sold at $1,800 earlier this month, you would have cleared a 50% profit in 15 months. But even if you waited and were to buy in at today’s price, then get an opportunity to sell at $2,100 any time in the next six months, that would still be a sweet 20% profit.

Going a bit further into “what if” speculation: On Feb. 17, 2009 — the day Obama signed into law his $787 billion stimulus bill — gold was selling at $970 an ounce. For a mere $600 billion, we could have bought two ounces of gold for every man, woman and child in America, and the value of that investment would today be more than $1 trillion, or $3,514 per capita, a net gain of 81 percent.

Just a hypothetical, but at least it doesn’t involve rainbows and unicorns.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!


Category: Economics, Ezra Klein, Gold
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