The Other McCain

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

It’s FDIC Failed-Bank Friday!

Posted on | July 16, 2010 | 4 Comments

How’s that “recovery summer” workin’ out for ya?

Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida, two in South Carolina and one in Michigan, bringing to 96 the number of U.S. banks to succumb this year to the recession and mounting loan defaults. . . .
With 96 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures far outstrips that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 57 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks’ losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. . . .
As losses have mounted on loans made for commercial property and development, the growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of March 31.

So, six more bank failures, the Dow drops 261 points and even Ezra Klein admits Obamanomics can’t produce a real recovery.

All in all, a great day for pessimists!

Category: Economics

Fruit, Vegetable, Or Solid Red Meat?

Posted on | July 16, 2010 | 21 Comments

by Smitty (h/t NiceDeb)

One clip is the fruit of a corrupt mind, the other is from the Onion.

They’re both creepy. Seriously: have public speakers in the United States always engaged in the kind of deliberate deceit that this Shelton fellow does, or has the merger of news, entertainment and politics taken propaganda in the US to a previously unimagined level? I’m inclined to mistrust any hearkening to a ‘golden era’, as human nature is more or less constant, in my estimation. Possibly the Inter-tubes are just increasing the visibility of the Sheltons that have always been polluting the country.

Girl Raised From Birth By Wolf Blitzer Taken Into Protective Custody

As a meaty palate cleanser, your attention is drawn to RightKlik, where Ten Buck Fridays touts Van Irion, a lawyer, NTTAWWT, a zoomie (Air Force veteran, not that there is anything wrong with that which cannot be corrected with reasonable diet and exercise–I kid), and a Volunteer. In other words, two-thirds of an Instapundit. Go, Van!

Category: Uncategorized

Ezra Klein Admits: ‘It Won’t Work’

Posted on | July 16, 2010 | 104 Comments

“Notice that adding new jobs at a rate of 200,000 a month would take us 150 months — or 12.5 years — to get back to normalcy. So far, only April has seen more than 200,000 in non-census jobs growth — and even then, just barely.”
— Ezra Klein, July 16, 2010

Hmmm. Dow Jones Industrial Average down?  What could possibly explain this?

Stocks slumped Friday after earnings reports from two big banks disappointed investors and a survey showed that consumers are becoming more pessimistic. . . .
“It’s mostly about the poor consumer confidence numbers,” said Anthony Conroy, managing director and head trader for BNY ConvergEx Group. “The possibility of a double dip also starts to come to mind” for investors, he said, referring to a phrase that describes the economy falling back into recession.

Wow, who could have anticipated a double-dip recession? How could anyone have foreseen the failure of Obamanomics?

“The unfortunate truth, as sober economists freely admit, is that there is no easy cure for the financial mess caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. . . . Whatever policy Washington pursues, a quick and painless recovery is not going to happen, and the only real question is whether Democrats will delay recovery by implementing liberal policies that make a very bad situation even worse.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Dec. 8, 2008

“No amount of presidential persuasion, nor any conceivable quantity of federal spending, can repeal the basic economic law of supply and demand. Thus, if Congress should enact this idiotic ‘stimulus’ — a neo-Keynesian pump-priming venture absurdly overbalanced to the demand side of the equation — nothing is more predictable than its failure to spur real recovery.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Feb. 9, 2009

“Psychobabble about the ‘mood’ of consumers can’t fix the inescapable reality of the capital shortage, a shortage that will only be worsened by the deficit-driven flood of new government debt into the bond market. . . . As if Keynesian theory had not been completely discredited by the ‘stagflation’ crisis of the 1970s, just wait and see what happens now, as unprecedented government deficits siphon already scarce capital supplies away from private-sector investment.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, May 4, 2009

The problem with waiting for vindication in this regard: If liberals were capable of admitting they’re wrong about economics, they wouldn’t be liberals, would they?

UPDATE: Even the Federal Reserve admits it won’t work:

The euro rocketed to a two-month high of $1.29 and sterling jumped two cents to almost $1.54 after the Fed confessed that the US economy may not recover for five or six years. . . .
The Fed minutes warned of “significant downside risks” and a possible slide into deflation, an admission that zero interest rates, $1.75 trillion of [quantitative easing], and a fiscal deficit above 10 [percent] of GDP have so far failed to lift the economy out of a structural slump.

In other words, all those trillions of dollars of neo-Keynesian fiscal stimulus and monetary interventions have accomplished nothing, in terms of real economic growth.

“Aggregate demand! Aggregate demand!”

Idiots.

UPDATE II: A belated welcome to Instapundit readers. You can tell I’m busy off-blog when it takes me two hours to notice a ‘Lanche.

Category: Economics

Media Matters: Arbiters of Legitimacy?

Posted on | July 16, 2010 | 36 Comments

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has bulldogged the Ground Zero mosque story from Day One, helping organize and promote opposition to the Islamicization of Lower Manhattan. So how does the Left respond?

Memo to media: Pamela Geller does
not belong on national television

Media Matters is telling TV producers not to give airtime to the woman who is arguably the most effective activist on this issue. So if the producers don’t book the attractive, informed, impassioned Geller, who will be on TV to present the case against the Ground Zero mosque? Either someone less knowledgeable and persuasive or no one at all.

In other words, Media Matter is trying to suppress dissent. And the smear of Geller is not an isolated example. Consider this headline:

When does Fox News’ ugly
race-baiting become the story?

That’s about the Black Panthers voter-intimidation case, which was dropped by the Justice Department amid accusations from a department whistle-blower that Attorney General Eric Holder had intervened on behalf of the nightstick-wielding Panthers. Endeavoring to dismiss the story as insignificant, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters spews a string of pejoratives:

. . . right-wing race baiting and fear mongering . . . hysterical far-right cries . . . right-wing wrath . . . Obama’s right-wing critics were leveling astonishing, race-baiting charges . . . uncontrollable race baiting . . . the very ugly context and the very ugly rhetoric that’s being pumped out by Fox News and other far-right commentators. . . . more right-wing furor . . .  the GOP Noise Machine and its ability to make life miserable for journalists who tell the truth about the far-right conservative movement in America today . . . radical and offensive rhetoric they employed against Obama  . . . the hysterical, relentless race-baiting  . . . dark, hateful comments . . .

This is a style of rhetoric we might call Argument by Assertion: Repetitively employing terms like “far-right” and “race-baiting” as if saying the same thing over and over made it so.

Sensationalism, Inc.

Let us stipulate that Fox’s coverage of the New Black Panther Party may be making a mountain out of a molehill, sensationally exaggerating a story beyond its legitimate significance. Let us also agree, however, that the news media do such things routinely.

How significant was Natalie Holloway’s disappearance? What were the national implications of the Caylee Anthony case?

And if we wish to isolate politically-motivated sensationalism, why did the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd get such saturation coverage? The Shepard case became a cause célèbre for the gay-rights movement, while Byrd’s death was touted as proof that a certain Republican governor of Texas was indifferent or hostile to black civil rights.

Surely Eric Boehlert never criticized networks for covering those stories in that context, yet unleashes a torrent of epithets — ugly rhetoric! hateful comments! — at Fox News for its coverage of the Panther case.

Is it only the “far right” that finds the Panther case troubling? Or are there legitimate reasons to worry that the dismissal of the case is, as many conservatives contend, significant of an unwillingness of the Obama administration to pursue accusations of discrimination that don’t fit the liberal agenda?

Was “race-baiting” the only motive for Fox News’ coverage of the story? Or could it be that the Panther story has an intrinsic audience appeal — a sort of man-bites-dog angle on civil rights — that makes for good TV?

Eric Boehlert wants to rule such questions out of bounds, asserting that anyone who suspects the Obama administration of racial unfairness can be peremptorily dismissed as engaged in hysterical far-right race-baiting: Nothing to see here. Move along.

Messages and Messengers

As with the attack on Geller, by accusing Fox of racial demagoguery, Media Matters is attempting to discredit the messenger, so that the mainstream media has a ready-make excuse to ignore any message that Eric Boehlert doesn’t like.

And notice how this works: If Fox covers a story that other networks ignore, the attack is directed at the network. However, if MSNBC books a guest (Geller) to discuss a story that it had otherwise ignored (the Ground Zero mosque), Media Matters screams bloody murder that this one guest is unacceptable.

Media Matters is attempting to exercise the power of an arbiter, to arrogate to itself the authority to decide which stories are newsworthy and which sources are credible, and it does so through intimidation. The message to news producers and editors couldn’t be clearer: Give serious coverage to a story we don’t like, and we’ll unleash these attacks against you.

Remember Liz Mair’s theory that David Weigel’s Journolist e-mails were made public because Weigel had dared to dispute the Left’s narrative that portrayed Rand Paul as a racist. Weigel wasn’t toeing the line. He hadn’t cooperated in the Meme-O’-th’-Day agenda and, by speaking out, had helped kill the meme that Democrats were employing to tremendous advantage. Was that why he became the Luca Brasi of MSM reporters?

Hey, I’m just askin’ questions . . .

Other than class warfare — the GOP as “party of the rich” — no message has been more electorally productive for Democrats than the “R is for Racist” meme (which seems to be shaping up as the MSM’s pre-emptive explanation for any Republican success  in November). By furiously attacking stories that disrupt or distract from that message, Media Matters is shaping the political battlefield to favor Democrats.

Don’t wait for the network news exposé of this partisan project operating under the guise of a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit, unless you’re prepared to wait until hell freezes over.

Category: Atlas Shrugs, Fox News, Media Bias

At The Patrick Murray Campaign Kick-Off

Posted on | July 15, 2010 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

A healthy crowd (possibly breaking a hundred, but I really didn’t look carefully) turned out at the Army & Navy Country Club tonight to hear Gov. George Allen get the VA-8 campaign to elect Patrick Murray off to a good start.

For my efforts, I was rewarded with a copy of Allen’s great big little book of sports analogies:

That was the fun stuff. Less fun was the fact that my Nokia N97 just really isn’t what you want for this sort of work. I shot a video of George Allen’s speech, which has surprisingly good quality given the poor lighting, sound, and crowd conditions, and then the thing had a melt down three minutes into Murray.

Furthermore, while I just installed avidemux, I haven’t really puzzled out how actually to use the tool. So, no chopping George into smaller chunks for better blog posting, tonight anyway.

The upshot of all this is that a reasonable camcorder is going to be a requirement for the 28Aug Restoring Honor event that Glenn Beck is hosting, as well as the 9/12 March on DC that Freedom Works is doing.

Meanwhile, back at the post, Patrick Murray is a top-drawer candidate, and the Smitty portion of this blog is going to be a jolly fun campaign notebook to stir the hearts of all patriots. We’re going to be on those Democrats like shallow platitudes on BHO’s teleprompter, we are. Support your local candidate! Go, Murray!

Category: Patrick Murray

Devastating Report on Kagan Nomination; Press Conference With Sen. Jeff Sessions; UPDATE: Press Conference Postponed

Posted on | July 15, 2010 | 33 Comments

Americans United for Life is about to release a bombshell 54-page report on Elena Kagan’s 1996 intervention in the partial-birth abortion issue, and has scheduled a Capitol Hill press conference this afternoon:

Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, will host a press conference today with several leading Senators at 2:30pm to discuss a new report released today by Americans United for Life Action which contains new information regarding Elena Kagan’s role, during her time in the Clinton Administration, in pressuring the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to change their policy statement on partial-birth abortion. Senator Sessions will be joined by Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life Action, and leaders of other major pro-life organizations.

The report is embargoed, but it highlights serious ethical issues and may be enough to reignite the debate over Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote next week on the nomination, but that vote could well  be delayed.

UPDATE: The press conference “has been postponed due to a floor vote that was scheduled in the United States Senate” on the financial regulation bill, however, the PDF of the report is now online.

Category: Abortion, Senate, Supreme Court

My Engagement This Evening

Posted on | July 15, 2010 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

Gov. George Allen explains:
Whoever your GOP/Libertarian/Other candidate is, they merit your support. Go out there and knock ’em conscious.

Category: Patrick Murray

Go, Pamela Geller

Posted on | July 15, 2010 | 33 Comments

by Smitty

May Fortune smile on this wonderful, courageous lady:

Mayor Bloomberg, this blog has no insight into who’s pulling your strings, but you need to pull your head out, mister. Hopefully New Yorkers resist this awful Cordoba Mosque, and metaphorically toss you into Hell’s Gate at the next election.

Category: Atlas Shrugs
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