"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler
by Smitty
“The American people want leadership from this White House, not childish partisanship.”
Here is a link to his Stuck on Stimulus report.
The good news? Dissent is no longer raaaaacist, even if dissent has not yet regained its ‘highest form of paaaaatriotism’ status.
by Smitty
Klavan delivers primo ganja:
by Smitty
Ken Cuccinelli, VA AG and all around tough guy, made it to Federal Court today, reports CNSNews:
A federal judge in Richmond heard arguments Thursday on the administration’s motion to dismiss Virginia’s lawsuit challenging the new law. The Justice Department claims Virginia lacks standing to sue and that Congress acted within its constitutional authority in passing the law.
U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson said he will rule on the motion within a month.
Of course, Eric Holder’s Department OJ is so blind as not to grasp the truth in Panthergate, so maybe an imbecile opinion here is simply falling in character.
Sudden idea: how about getting “Nation of Cowards” Holder a job as a FIFA official? This would minimize his impact on justice in the US. Discuss.
Update: Just in, via email from AG Cuccinelli, emphasis original:
Dear Friends,
Today marked an important landmark in Virginia’s case to overturn the individual mandate contained in the recent healthcare bill: the first oral arguments in the case. While most of the arguments are similar to those we have laid out for you in previous emails (link to those arguments here) – there was at least one very interesting development.Some of you might remember a conversation between the President and George Stephanopoulos back in September of last year where President Obama denied that the healthcare bill was a tax. Here is a segment from that conversation (link to the video here):
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.Well, today, during the first oral arguments on Virginia’s healthcare case – Judge Hudson asked the attorneys for the US Government if the healthcare bill was a tax bill or a healthcare bill. The answer they gave was both!
Overall, we are pleased with how the case is proceeding, and we’ll continue to update you with its progress. If Virginia’s case survives the motion to dismiss, a summary judgment hearing is scheduled for October 18, 2010, at 9:00 a.m. to decide if the federal health care law is unconstitutional. Stay tuned.That’s all for now!
—-
Sincerely,
[Ken’s Signature]
Ken Cuccinelli, II
Attorney General of Virginia
by Smitty
Salon quotes an NYT interview where LG reports: “I ain’t gay”.
Nice tangential datum, Senator, but what matters more is your objection to the taste of Tea in your mouth:
On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious,” he recalled. During a later meeting, in Charleston, Graham said he challenged them: “ ‘What do you want to do? You take back your country — and do what with it?’ . . . Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.”
In a previous conversation, Graham told me: “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.” Now he said, in a tone of casual lament: “We don’t have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.” Chortling, he added, “Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.”
“they can never come up with a coherent vision”, Senator? Really? For starters:
In summary, Senator Graham, the vision is that of the Founders: 50 states delegating a minimal set of powers to a Federal government to keep the whole safe from enemies foreign and domestic. And this is the vision that you’ve sworn, in the Air Force and Congress to uphold. Thus, your confusion is confusing. What is your problem, Senator?
Update: More at Liberty Pundits
Update II: Dan Riehl infers more than I would about the good Senator.
UPDATE 8:55 p.m.: Video of Charmaine Yoest’s testimony:
She was introduced — and subsequently cut off at the 5-minute mark — by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-EadBabies).
UPDATE 7:45 p.m.: From the testimony of Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life:
First, I urge this Committee to officially investigate the discrepancies that have arisen this week between Ms. Kagan’s testimony and the written record about her actions related to lobbying the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists during her tenure in the Clinton White House. The questions surrounding this period are troubling and call into question Ms. Kagan’s ability to adopt an impartial judicial temperament. . . .
We are asking this committee to investigate Ms. Kagan’s record related to her interaction with both the AMA and ACOG during her tenure as a policy advisor to President Clinton.
I’d like to focus attention tonight on her apparent efforts to influence and distort the record on the medical science related to partial-birth abortion. In a December 14, 1996 memo, Kagan addressed the pending release of a proposed statement by ACOG that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary. The release of such a statement, she argued, “. . .would be a disaster . . .”
In response, White House documents show that Kagan drafted an amendment to ACOG’s statement, dramatically altering their language, which stated that partial-birth abortion: “may be the best or most appropriate in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman.” ACOG subsequently adopted Ms. Kagan’s handwritten change into their final statement.
Kagan claimed before this Committee that she was simply a scribe for changes coming from ACOG. But Kagan’s response raises more questions than it answers.
And this was not an isolated case. We have further evidence that she pursued this same strategy with the AMA.
Similar to ACOG’s original position, the AMA issued a policy stating that no situations had been identified where partial-birth abortion was the only appropriate method of abortion and that ethical concerns surrounded it.
In a White House email dated June 1, 1997, Ms. Kagan wrote that she just came from a meeting which focused on “whether the AMA policy can be reversed at its convention on June 23.”
Kagan then concluded: “We agreed to do a bit of thinking about whether we …could contribute to that effort.”
Elena Kagan was so opposed to the passage of a ban on partial-birth abortion that she appears to have advocated for ACOG and the AMA to suppress or modify their view. She made a deliberate decision to advocate for partial-birth abortion, even to the point of working to deceive the American public about the medical science related to the procedure.
Whole thing here. Earlier today, Yoest sent an e-mail to a quarter-million pro-lifers asking them to contact their senators and call for an investigation.
PREVIOUSLY: Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan resumed today at 4 p.m. ET, but unless you’ve got C-SPAN 3, you can’t watch the testimony from witnesses. PBS, which covered the first three days of hearings live, won’t be carrying today’s testimony. And if you’re relying on network news . . . well, let’s let Scott Whitlock of Newsbusters explain:
Wednesday’s evening news shows and Thursday’s morning programs continued to minimize or leave out important moments of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings. . . .
The New York Times on July 1 reported the intense questioning by Senator Orrin Hatch on an abortion memo written by then-Clinton White House Counsel Kagan.
Hatch demanded, “Did you write that memo?…But did you write it? Is it your memo?”
Kagan’s memo worried that a American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) report on abortion could be a “disaster” for the Clinton administration.
None of the morning shows on Thursday mentioned the exchange between Hatch and Kagan. On Wednesday, only CBS’s Evening News raised the subject.
It’s pretty sad when the New York Times does a better job of reporting than any of the Big Three networks, which lost a combined 1 million viewers in the past three months. Maybe these two phenomena are related?
UPDATE: More on the MSM failure:
What was the big story in Wednesday’s confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan? According to the New York Times, it was “Republicans Press Kagan on Social Issues,” while the Washington Post focused on how Kagan “charmed her critics.”
Yes, the W is for “Weigel,” which term seems to have become as offensive (or boring) to some readers as “epistemic closure” or even “Elena Kagan Sex Tape” — the latter being a sort of satire of Rule 5, for which Marty Eisenstadt disclaims any responsibility.
Summer is a great time for blog-fights because traffic always goes down during the summer anyway, and you might as well be in a pissing match as trying to get people to pay attention to politics on the cusp of the Fourth of July. (Why do you think Pat Leahy scheduled the Kagan hearings now, anyway?)
This summer’s Weigelian Götterdämmerung generated some interesting spin-offs, including John Hawkins’ feud with David Frum, Dan Riehl’s kiss-my-ass to the D.C. Republican establishment, and Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 “Let’s Make a Deal” bid for the Journolist archives:
Does anybody really care about this stuff? Frankly, we don’t know, because nobody’s reading blogs three days before Fourth of July. Obviously, the traffic-suckage has reached critical mass when even Instapundit resorts to traffic-baiting with an Andrew Sullivan beatdown.
Not that I’m against Sully beatdowns, but at some point, you get tired of repeating that the obstetric-obsessed marijuana-addicted immigrant poofter appears to be descending into AIDS-related dementia. Even Ace of Spades seems to be growing weary of rolling Sissy Fuss up that hill.
OK, so . . . David Weigel. People who say that Weigel never did the Right any favors are giving short shrift to an episode recounted by Ikeonic:
I didn’t know Dave Weigel from a hole in the wall until January 2010. At that time, I was researching and blogging about an idiot named Dale Robertson — who was caught holding this sign at a Houston Tea Party event. Dave Weigel broke the story for a wider audience and it was picked up by Chuckles at Little Green Footballs . . .
Weigel’s original story reported this reaction from the Houston Tea Party Society:Update: Josh Parker of the Houston Tea Party Society tells me that Robertson was booted out of the event for this sign.I thought to myself: Wow, now there’s a newsworthy nugget that Chuckles seems to find irrelevant in his zeal to tar and feather all Tea Partiers as racists. . . .
Even Media Matters reported the Houston Tea Party Society’s repudiation of Robertson because Dave Weigel reported on it! Some folks at Houston TPS were kind enough to give me some praise for blogging on their behalf, but it was really Dave Weigel who got the Houston TPS their due in a way I never could have with my miniscule following.
When the online Left, and even the Washington Times, tried to elevate Robertson as a “Tea Party Leader,” Weigel pushed back against this clearly erroneous meme. Dave didn’t do that to curry favor with anyone, but simply because this raaaaacism smear was a bogus hit-job, an illegitimate narrative that was being exploited to perpetuate a falsehood.
Several of my friends have pointed to Weigel’s habit of covering the fringes of the conservative movement, the goofs and nutballs and tinfoil-hatters. “He’s just interested in making us look bad,” seems to be the basic complaint.
Actually, I think this points to Weigel having the same Hit-‘Em-Where-They-Ain’t instinct that drives a lot of my reporting expeditions. Rather than engaging in pack journalism — jumping on the big Story Of The Day that everybody and his mother is already covering — there’s more news opportunity (and a lot more fun) in reporting stuff that isn’t yet on the radar of the mainstream press.
Why, after all, did I go racing off to Kentucky to debunk the “Lower Glennbeckistan” angle on the Census worker hanging? Why did I start rattling the tip-jar to go cover Doug Hoffman in NY-23 almost as soon as I got off the phone with his campaign?
Hit ’em where they ain’t: Find a developing story that deserves more coverage and then jump into it neck-deep.
That approach to reporting works no matter what the story is. Who was the first music critic to see the breakthrough potential of the Ramones or REM or Nirvana? Better yet, who set out on an expedition to North Wilkesboro, N.C., in 1965 to cover a hillbilly pastime that now rivals the NFL as America’s favorite sport?
In politics, the hit-’em-where-they-ain’t approach means keeping an eye out for long-shot candidates and marginalized movements. The nature of American politics is that today’s kooky fringe is tomorrow’s rising insurgency and perhaps next year’s power structure.
Obama’s early association with the fringe leftovers of the ’60s New Left (Bill Ayers, et al.) led to a successful campaign fueled in large measure by the same anti-American kooks who thought Ned Lamont would make a good senator. Glenn Beck has become a TV star and bestselling author in large measure by chronicling shady connections among members of today’s Democratic/Progressive coalition — connections once known only to readers of publications that most reporters would dismiss as “right-wing fringe” — including WorldNetDaily, David Horowitz’s Discover the Networks and the John Birch Society’s New American magazine. (Hey, who has the lowdown when the story is a Russian spy?)
Whatever Weigel’s sins, his reporting on the Dale Robertson meme shows that at times he performed the valuable journalistic service of separating the factual wheat from the bogus chaff in MSM coverage of the Right. I’ll also remind you of Liz Mair’s suspicion that Weigel got burned by a progressive on Journolist for the “sin” of defending Rand Paul.
And by doing such things, Weigel pissed in Charles Johnson’s cornflakes.
So he can’t be all bad, can he?
by Smitty
Heritage has a piece entitled: ‘Why Obamanomics Has Failed – Annotated’. Questions beginning with ‘Why’ being quite a Smitty-magnet, let’s see what these esteemed think-tankers are swimming in.
They pick up with Meltzer at the WSJ: ‘Why Obamanomics Has Failed’. RTWT, but I’ll summarize here.
. . .they want new stimulus measures—which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed.
. . .
Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics.
First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions.
Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
. . .
Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems.
. . .
Another large part of the stimulus went to relieve state and local governments of their budget deficits.
. . .
The Obama economic team ignored past history.
. . .
Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back.
. . .
Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law.
The value added by the Heritage post is the thorough annotation of the points I’ve cribbed above.
These are some of the tactical aspects of the failure, as President Vuvuzela cruised his domain, popping up in Racine, Wisconsin today (h/t Gateway Pundit)
Meanwhile, the political wrecking ball swings on, as the House approved the Wall Street overhaul legislation, again, emphasis mine:
The House of Representatives passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s financial system Wednesday setting the stage for a final vote in the Senate where votes for the far-reaching bill remained in flux.
The party-line vote, 237-192, came after Democrats backed down from a $19 billion tax of major banks and hedge funds in hopes of securing Senate Republican votes.
President Barack Obama says House passage of a massive overhaul of financial regulations is a victory for everyone who was hurt by what he is calling Wall Street “recklessness and irresponsibility” that caused the financial meltdown and millions of job losses.
“Never again, never again should Wall Street greed bring such suffering to our country,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., declared.
Now, I don’t think Steny quite as big as tool as Gentleman Jim Moran, but a crescent wrench is as good as a socket set when you’re getting nailed.
All of this farce and theater, again, is purely tactical. None of it bespeaks the entitlement worm gnawing the heart out of the budget. If you want some real doom and gloom, check out Perot Charts. Gore, un-elected, went toys-in-the-attic. Ross just hoists an analytic middle finger at everyone.
I, for one, like this chart that shows the cancer of mandatory spending (entitlements) as an increasingly fat chicken we just keep on pluckin’:
Megan McArdle bemoans that there is ‘No Easy Way to Fix Social Security’.
I confess, I fail to see the liberal romance with Social Security. I don’t mean the notion of making sure that old people don’t go hungry. I mean an attachment to Social Security in its current form so strong that it interprets any change in benefit levels as tantamount to implementing an ice floe strategy. The program was implemented in 1935. What are the odds that its structure and retirement age are suitable for the current era?
I am strongly in favor of generous progressive programs to care for the indigent and disabled. But surely it’s at least arguable that there are better ways to provide for most peoples’ old age than a massive government-run system whose PAYGO structure would be criminal fraud if it had been implemented by a private firm? I mean, I understand the arguments that “a program for the poor is a poor program.” I don’t agree with them, but I understand them, and I think the worries are legitimate. But so is the conservative argument that we can’t make everything a universal entitlement in order to make sure that the poor get a little bit of the action.
The conceptual problem, Megan, is that social programs are not a Federal task. Progressive sodomization of the 9th and 10th Amendments, which we can perhaps admire from the academic vantage of the question “How would you, over time, trick the US Constitution into eating itself?”, has wrought a level of debt that is difficult to conceptualize.
Do debt and entitlements make it such that even Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is an exercise in wishful thinking?
Smitty’s Laundry List, while not detailed, includes the following:
In summary, Obamanomics is based upon a theoretical foundation of failure. However, a proper theoretical foundation will, initially, look as bad or worse. We The People have to knuckle down and support that theoretically successful approach.
PREVIOUSLY:
by Smitty (via Blogprof)
Now, if Gibbs is such a buffoon that he (a) didn’t watch Brown directly, and instead (b) repeated what a subordinate related, then (c) we should hear of someone getting fired over this.
Listen, Gibbs, the White House has a tremendous credibility deficit as it is. Shameful performances such as this simply worsen the problem. You’ve got four months, clown. I hear Stanley McChrystal is a free agent. Maybe we can see about getting a Press Secretary who is packin’ the gear, and send you, Gibbs, to a street sweeping outfit or some other menial form of labor commensurate with your integrity.