The Other McCain

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

Ruh-Roh

Posted on | March 1, 2011 | 3 Comments

This is bad news any way you slice it:

Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the powerful Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has launched an inquiry into whether spokesman Kurt Bardella improperly shared e-mails from other reporters with a New York Times reporter writing a book on Washington’s political culture, POLITICO has learned.
Bardella has been cooperating extensively with the Times’s Mark Leibovich on the book, and Issa told POLITICO Monday that he would “get to the bottom” of exactly what Bardella shared with Leibovich.
Aides close to the office say Bardella’s job hangs in the balance of the internal probe.

While I’m resisting the urge to jump to any conclusion about the facts of the situation, if this is true — if Bardella was indeed sharing other reporters’ e-mails with Leibovich — it’s going to be hard for Bardella to keep his job. Those other reporters would raise holy hell about it.

In fact, for a congressional press secretary to be “cooperating extensively” on a project with one reporter might be seen as disadvantaging other reporters who don’t have that kind of relationship. But we don’t have enough facts to make those judgments, so we won’t.

Category: Congress, Darrell Issa

‘We Don’t Have the Mortgage Problem That We Initially Thought’

Posted on | March 1, 2011 | 5 Comments

Liberal wonk Robert Kuttner continues promoting a once-popular idea of how to deal with the mortgage crisis: “Write-downs” on loan principle (i.e., debt forgiveness) as a way to avert escalating foreclosures, bankruptcies and walk-aways. But there are several reasons that won’t work, and among the reasons named by Megan McArdle is this:

We don’t have the mortgage problem that we initially thought. We expected that foreclosures would be driven by resetting adjustable rate mortgages, i.e. higher payments. But with interest rates so low, the problems are on the income side. Either people took on more mortgage than they could afford, or their income has fallen, so they can’t afford the mortgage they have.  This is why most modifications are failing.

What McArdle is saying is that in late 2008-early 2009, when “write-downs” were seen as the solution, most policy wonks misunderstood the nature of the problem. The culprit wasn’t “balloon payments” or “predatory lending” or any of the other trendy explanations for the situation caused by the bursting housing bubble.

No, the problem was actually quite simple: People had borrowed more money than they could afford to pay back. Read more

Category: Economics

LIVE AT FIVE – 03.01.11

Posted on | March 1, 2011 | 3 Comments

TOP NEWS
Last American World War I Vet Passes Away

A portrait of Frank Buckles at the Pentagon

Joined AEF aged 15, died Sunday aged 110

Roskam Suggests Piecemeal Cuts Instead Of One Massive Cut
Taking a leaf from Cuomo’s book and letting Dems pick targets for cuts?
Also, White House signals willingness to deal.

What Next For Libya?
In the grim future of Libya, is there only war?



POLITICS
Wisconsin One Of 41 State Where Public Workers Earn More

Wisconsin Capitol Police observe the remaining protesters Monday evening

More, that is, than the taxpayers footing the bill.

Wisconsin Capitol Locked, Protesters Remain Inside

President Offers States More Flexibility In Implementing Obamacare

Earmarks Targeted In House’s $4 Billion Trim


Daley, Emanuel Talk About Mayoral Transition

Governor Cuomo’s Friends In High Places

NJ Retirement Rate Rises As Pension Reforms Loom

Cuomo Seeks To Cap Pay For School Superintendents



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
U.S. Stocks Rise; Dow Jones, S&P 500 Post Best February Since 1998
Higher Food, Energy Costs Eat Away Gains From Payroll Tax Cut
Things You Missed: Berkshire Addresses Writedowns, Disasters
Interior Finally Issues First Deep-water Drilling Permit Since BP Spill
With Pension Funds Strained, States Look At Moving To 401(k) Style Plans
Crude, Gold Drop As Extra Saudi Oil Eases Fears
NASA: Robotic Work Station Fails During Spacewalk
AT&T To Begin Selling Kindle In Its Stores



SPORTS
Fans In Danger Of Raw Deal As NFL Lockout Looms (Video)

Cam Newton - could he wind up playing for minimum NFL salary?

Sporting News offers ideas to help break apparent deadlock

Nyets Lose Deron Williams’ Debut, 104-103 In OT

Kings Get Penner From Oilers In Quiet Day’s Biggest Deal



Spurs Guard Tony Parker Out 2-4 Weeks

Astros Flattened In Spring Opener As Wandy Struggles Again

Bulls Blow Out Wizards 106-77



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” Star Jane Russell Dies, 89

Jane Russell, 1921-2011, RIP

Made her debut in Howard Hughes’ RKO production “The Outlaw”; also famous as WW2 pin-up girl

CBS Courting John Stamos To Replace Charlie Sheen On “Two And A Half Men”?

RADAR Exclusive Charlie Sheen Video Interview: “I’m Not An Addict, The Show Will Be Back, And My Father Is Wrong”

James Franco Snubs Own Party After Bombing At Oscars


New “Dancing With The Stars” Cast: Chris Jericho, Kirstie Alley, Kendra Wilkinson

Oh, Mother! Madonna Embarrasses Lourdes At Vanity Fair Oscars Party

It’s A Girl For Gretchen Mol

Best And Worst Boobs At The Oscars



FOREIGNERS
Civil War In Libya: It’s On
New Zealand Fall Silent In Quake Memorial; Death Toll Continues To Rise
Egyptian Military Unveils Proposed Constitutional Changes
UN Observers Attacked In Ivory Coast; Belarus Denies Breaking Arms Embargo
Yemen Opposition Rejects Unity Government Offer (Video)
PRC Returns To Stricter Press Controls Amid Jasmine Protests
Turkish PM’s Cultural Remarks Rile German Pols



BLOGS & STUFF
Veronique De Rugy: Goldman Sachs Is Wrong, And So Is Moody’s
Charles Koch: Why Koch Industries Is Speaking Out
Jawa Report: Wisconsin Democrat Rep Gordon Hintz To GOP Rep Michelle Litjens: “You are F***king dead!”
Maggie’s Notebook: Orrin Hatch – Obamacare “An Awful Piece Of Crap”
Pirate’s Cove: Low-Flow Toilets Causing A Stink In San Francisco
Allahpundit: Rasmussen Poll Shows 58% Support Government Shutdown If No Cuts
American Power: Public Unions And The Socialist Agenda
Althouse: Governor Walker Orders Capitol Doors Locked Monday Morning

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

‘The Most Important Role of My Life’

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 32 Comments

Sunday night, when Natalie Portman accepted her Oscar, the radiantly pregnant actress concluded her acceptance speech by thanking “my beautiful love,” dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, for giving her the “most important role of my life.”

As Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com reports, Portman’s maternal joy rankled some viewers. Lizzie Skurnick Tweeted:

Like, my garbageman could give you your greatest role in life, too, lady.

Perhaps you will be surprised that Skurnick’s blog is called “The Old Hag.” Perhaps not. But Skurnick’s catty putdown of Portman evidently prompted an entire column at Salon by Mary Elizabeth Williams railing against Portman’s assertion of the greater importance of motherhood:

Why, at the pinnacle of one’s professional career, would a person feel the need to undercut it by announcing that there’s something else even more important? Even if you feel that way, why downplay your achievement? Why compare the two, as if a grueling acting role and being a parent were somehow in competition? And remind me — when was the last time a male star gave an acceptance speech calling fatherhood his biggest role?

It’s always something with these ax-grinders, you see? They can’t be content to let Portman have her moment, and celebrate with her the double joy of winning an Oscar and being pregnant, because the ax-grinders can’t stand to see anyone contented and joyful.

Ertelt quoted Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America: “The selflessness of motherhood is the antithesis of Hollywood narcissism.” Maybe that’s why Portman and other actresses — Hollywood’s had something of a “baby boom” in recent years — relish motherhood: It’s so unlike the selfish superficiality of show business.

But you don’t have to be in Hollywood, or be a mother, to appreciate this. The famous social critic Christopher Lasch once wrote a provocative book about family life called Haven in a Heartless World, the title of which summarizes what the family should be — a loving refuge from the cruelty of a world that has no reason to love us the way our own flesh-and-blood love us. Yet it is anathema to the ax-grinders for any woman to acknowledge a fondness for hearth and home because (at least in the ax-grinders’ disordered minds) a home-loving woman is undermining the feminist sisterhood’s crusade for career equality.

So obviously, when one of the world’s most famous and admired young women gets pregnant, then tearfully thanks the father of her child for giving her the “most important role” of her glamorous life . . . well, yeah, that really required a pushback from the ax-grinders. They’re not happy and they don’t want anyone else to be happy, either.


Category: Celebrities

Revealed: How Liberals Pretend to Be Doing ‘Investigative Journalism’

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 6 Comments

Nothing is easier than to fool a liberal, and journalists do this all the time by claiming to have exposed the allegedly nefarious and secretive actions of conservatives when, in fact, (a) conservatives were doing more nefarious than the ordinary business of political advocacy, and (b) the “secrets” supposedly exposed were never secret at all. Such is the story behind this Mother Jones headline today:

Revealed: The Group Behind the Bills that
Could Legalize Killing Abortion Providers

Under that headline, Nick Baumann and Daniel Schulman write:

First, it was South Dakota. Then Nebraska and Iowa. The similarly worded bills, which have quietly cropped up recently in state legislatures, share a common purpose: To expand justifiable homicide statutes to cover killings committed in the defense of an unborn child. Critics of the bills, including law enforcement officials, warn that these measures could invite violence against abortion providers and possibly provide legal cover to the perpetrators of such crimes.
That these measures have emerged simultaneously in a handful of states is no coincidence. It’s part of a campaign orchestrated by a Washington-based anti-abortion group, which has lobbied state lawmakers to introduce legislation that it calls the “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act” [PDF]. Over the past two years, the group, Americans United for Life, has succeeded in passing versions of this bill in Missouri and Oklahoma.

The article goes on to assert that the bills under consideration in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota “are far more sweeping” than the laws enacted in Missouri and Oklahoma, justifying the following criticisms:

The bills are so loosely worded, abortion-rights advocates say, that a pregnant woman could seek out an abortion and a boyfriend, husband — or, in some cases, just about anyone — could be justified in using deadly force to stop it.
A Planned Parenthood official testified last week at a hearing on Nebraska’s LB 232 that such legislation “authorizes and protects vigilantes.” . . . “This could be used to incite violence against abortion providers,” said Omaha’s deputy chief of police, David Baker.

Well, so they say, and I have no interest in refereeing this controversy. My point is that there is nothing at all secretive about Americans United for Life’s role in promoting these laws. The model legislation for the “Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act” is featured on AUL’s Web site, and providing model legislation and legal advice is a specialty that AUL proudly proclaims on its Web site:

AUL attorneys are highly-regarded experts on pro-life legal language and the Constitution, consulting on bills and amendments across the country. In addition, our model legislation enables legislators to easily introduce bills without needing to research and write the bills themselves, helping ensure that their efforts will have the desired impact and withstand judicial scrutiny. . . .
We are continually working to help legislators enact new pro-life laws that will go into effect and not be unnecessarily tied up in court . . . . To do that, we educate legislators on the issues and provide them with model legislation and legal advice on legislative language. We work hand-in-hand with legislators to minimize avoidable problems . . .

So it isn’t as if Baumann and Schulman had to go sleuthing around to figure out that AUL was advising state legislators on these measures. I’d dare say there isn’t a single piece of successful pro-life legislation anywhere in the United States that hasn’t had some imput from AUL. That’s what they do.

As to the claim that the pro-life bills in South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska are a backdoor means of declaring “open season” on abortion providers, AUL denies any such intent:

“Research shows that pregnant women are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse,” said Denise Burke, AUL’s vice president of legal affairs. “It is tragic that the pro-abortion lobby maligns efforts to protect these women.”
In a statement, Burke cited statistics about violence toward pregnant women, including a 1998 study that found “pregnant women are 60.6 percent more likely to be beaten than women who are not pregnant.” Burke said “a pregnant woman is more likely to be a victim of homicide than to die of any other cause. And case after case has demonstrated that husbands or boyfriends are often the perpetrators of pregnancy-associated violence and that this violence is often directed at the unborn child or intended to end or jeopardize the pregnancy.”

That’s from my article at The American Spectator, but unlike the Mother Jones writers, I don’t claim to that my reporting has “revealed” anything — those quotes came from a press release on the AUL Web site.

Quick, somebody call the Pulitzer Committee!

Oh, and tell them I’m willing to share my award with Steve Ertelt, who got the same AUL press release.

UPDATE: Looks like it will be a three-way split on that Pulitzer: Bryan Preston got the same press release.

Category: Abortion, Journalism

Charlie Sheen, Victim

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 18 Comments

Last week, Charlie Sheen got himself denounced by the Anti-Defamation League after a radio interview in which he mocked Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre as “Chaim Levine” (for the record, Lorre’s birth name is Charles Levine). Not surprisingly, CBS responded by canceling the rest of the show’s season.

Evidently unsatisfied with partial career destruction, Sheen announced that he would sue Lorre, CBS and Warner Brothers, and went on NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America to let loose with yet more unhinged manic rants:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the Good Morning America interview:

“I get in trouble for being honest . . . I’m extremely old-fashioned. I’m a nobleman. I’m chivalrous. . . . I woke up and decided, y’know, I’ve been kicked around, I’ve been criticized. . . . People misinterpret my passion for anger. . . . They’re on a battlefield and they let their emotion and their ego — basically, they stomped on their diapers. They’re in breach [of contract], they’re in radical breach, and I’m like, ‘Sorry, guys, you screwed up.’ . . . . I’m out of a job. I’ve got a whole family to support and love. . . . I’m here to collect. They’re going to lose. They’re going to lose in a courtroom, so I would recommend that they do an out-of-court settlement.”

From his Today show interview:

“I don’t think people are ready for the message I’m delivering. . . . [He and CBS are] definitely at war. . . . The war is that they are trying to destroy my family, and I take great umbrage at that, and defeat is not an option. They picked a fight with a warlock. . . . They’re trying to take all my money and leave me with no means to support my family. It’s not rocket science.”

Addressing himself to Lorre, Sheen then recited a series of questions, including: “What [scripts] would we have shot, had you not ordered the suits into my home to shut down my party?” Sheen then read, for Lorre’s supposed benefit, from the handbook of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Watching Sheen on these video — thin, pallid, bleary-eyed, sweaty — ought to convince anyone who has any experience dealing with the mentally ill that, whatever his substance abuse issues, Sheen’s real problem is a narcissistic personality disorder. On the one hand, he wallows in self-pitying victimhood (his enemies wrongfully persecuting him) while on the other hand, in his grandiose moments, Sheen imagines that he will emerge victorious from this “battle.” It’s truly frightening to watch someone destroy himself in this manner.

Category: Celebrities

So Madoff Should Have Gone Into Something Respectable With His Penchant For Falsehood; Say, Global Warming

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 2 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Lucianne)

Ol’ Bernie is so bent as to be nearly admirable for his panache:

In a series of phone interviews with New York magazine, Madoff repeatedly said he wasn’t trying to justify what he did – and then he repeatedly tried to justify what he did.

“These people probably would’ve lost all that money in the market,” he said from prison in Butner, N.C., where he just wrapped up the first year of his 150-year sentence.

He blamed his clients – the fat cats and charities and foundations who lost billions in his bogus investment fund – for failing to question how he kept making steady profits even in down years.

“These banks and these funds had to know there were problems,” Madoff said.

He noted that he never explained his strategies or methods.

“I absolutely refused to do it. I said, ‘You don’t like it, take your money out,’ which of course they never did,” he said.

He says he told all of his investors not to risk any money they couldn’t afford to lose. But, he said, “everyone was greedy.”

In a purely Darwinian sense, I can nearly agree with the guy. Except that he lied. Systematically. Nature in the raw doesn’t really have any accounting for concepts such as truth, or God, or the notion of any judgement existing past the final heartbeat. The Madoffs of the world will always get theirs, if not on the mortal plain.
Airplane! justice, of the sort that Madoff argues, is something at which we laugh:

Category: Video

VIDEO: ‘Libyan Hit Squad’ (1986)

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 1 Comment

This tune was recorded 25 years ago by my buddy Chris Cassone:

(Via I Own The World.) Nice beat, easy to dance to, I’ll give it an 85.

Category: Chris Cassone, Libya, Music, Video
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