Smitty’s Three Word Immigration Bill

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

“Enforce existing law”

I’m not making it up. I’m married to an immigrant. There really is law on the books. People follow it.
Bluegrass Pundit notes an AP article, which says:

Latino leaders say they will work in coming months to pressure Republicans to give way and support an immigration bill – and make them pay at the ballot box if they don’t.

Meh. We have sufficient regulation. We’re just not paying sufficient attention to it.
Now, what would be smart would be for the GOP to reach out to those Latinos and point out that they may be working hard for a Stupakian bargain here; offering support that magically turns into a trip under the bus once the Latinos have outlived their usefulness. But who knows? The used bus salesman may yet organize another community and line it up for the magic trip:

Rule Of Law Upheld In West Virginia

Posted on Comments

by Smitty (via Marc Ambinder)

A legal precedent has been located that precludes a November vote for the final third of Senator Byrd’s term. From West Virginia’s Secretary of State, Natalie Tennant:

Part of this same [relevant] section of code, requires the candidate to have filed during the filing period. That filing period has already passed. There was a legal case in 1994 decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals that up held that position of requiring candidates to file during the filing period.

Apparently, people who wanted to run would have had to apprehend Senator Byrd’s impending demise and filed for a possible election. Howe tasteless would that have been?
The good news in all this is that, since the ruling falls in favor of the Democratic Party, we’re spared endless breast-beating about the crushing of voter expression, Republican Party thugger in general, and Rascal Rove vitriol in particular.
One hopes that this decision reflects the will of West Virginia citizens. Failing that, one hopes they remember well this little turn of events.

Insulted Again

Posted on Comments

By Dan Riehl this time, seconding Melissa Clouthier’s “wild animal” characterization of journalists as inherently untrustworthy.

At least he links me. Love me, hate me, as long as you link me.

Here’s the thing: Media bias is a subject about which every conservative is his or her own expert. To denounce “the media,” whole hog, is obligatory for conservatives and no one who wishes to be well-regarded among conservatives can be permitted to question the efficacy of this approach to media relations.

Therefore, I must be condemned as a weak reed, a pushover blabbermouth who should never be trusted or taken seriously in any discussion of conservative media strategy.

OK, I give up.

Meanwhile, I just got through interviewing Andrew Breitbart about David Weigel and the Journolist scandal.

Ignore me. Because I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no media bias.

UPDATE: Dan Riehl replies: “But journalists who want to play blogger half the time risk running into the Weigel-Space trap, because establishment figures can begin to see you as less serious, or a loose cannon.”

Translation: Your advice is not welcome, because actual insight into the organizational dynamics of media bias, based on years of newsroom experience, might contradict the popular theories propounded by the overpaid Republican “media consultants” who’ve been doing such a great job lately.

Help Wanted: No Journalists Need Apply.

Andrew Breitbart, Genius

Posted on Comments

Hmmmm. Why is he publishing David Weigel’s explanation?

Rep. Ron Paul (R, Tex.) knew that I liked him, and that I was voting for him — although that didn’t stop me from co-writing a story about the history of racist comments in newsletters he published. Bob Barr knew that I liked him, and trusted me enough to tell me, off-the-record, what he thought of people. I kept that trust with people, and people kept it with me. In this business you have to keep that trust or no one will talk to you, and then you can only learn what people want you to know. . . .

Yeah. It’s all about access. But . . . access to what?

Kagan Confirmation Circus

Posted on Comments

Yes, Michelle Malkin has declared this Kagan Kabuki Week in the Judiciary Committee, where Democratic senators will pretend that Kagan is a moderate pragmatist, and Republican senators will pretend that they’re still relevant. Some quick hits:

Flashback: Remember when Professor Glenn Reynolds called Kagan a “wise choice”? He didn’t mean that as a compliment, really.

Guess who gets the Google hits for “Elena Kagan nude”? Always glad to help. You can thank me later, ma’am.

UPDATE: Politico headline:

GOP plans attack on Kagan

When I was an assistant editor at The Washington Times, I waged a one-man campaign against using the language of violence to describe political debate. That kind of headline depicts the Republican Party as a gang of ruffians ready to assault the nominee.

Sen. Robert Byrd Dead at 92; Truly Eternal Filibuster Now Commences

Posted on Comments

He just became the best kind of Democrat, joining the sainted ranks of those who can no longer demagogue and pander their way to power, who no longer tax honest people into poverty so that their less industrious neighbors can be bribed with “free” government giveaways, and about whom even Republicans feel compelled to say nice things.

American children not yet born will pay the debts incurred to build all those pork-barrel edifices that now must be renamed the Robert C. Byrd Memorial Wastewater Treatment Plant, etc.

UPDATE: Cassy Fiano gathers the reaction from the dextrous blogosphere.

Krugman: If We Halt Policy That Causes Pain, The Situation Will Really Hurt

Posted on Comments

by Smitty (via Calculated Risk)

I realize that Paul Krugman is to the Ivory Tower what my Congresstool is to the Administration: an unattractive cheerleader sans pom-poms. But Krugman appears either to speak another language that merely looks like English, or be completely toys in the attic.

But future historians will tell us that this wasn’t the end of the third depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn’t the end of the Great Depression. After all, unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

As far as rhetoric is concerned, the revival of the old-time religion is most evident in Europe, where officials seem to be getting their talking points from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover, up to and including the claim that raising taxes and cutting spending will actually expand the economy, by improving business confidence. As a practical matter, however, America isn’t doing much better. The Fed seems aware of the deflationary risks — but what it proposes to do about these risks is, well, nothing. The Obama administration understands the dangers of premature fiscal austerity — but because Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress won’t authorize additional aid to state governments, that austerity is coming anyway, in the form of budget cuts at the state and local levels.

If you look at a generator, the real work occurs at the rotor/stator level. There is a governor, but what does it do? It governs the rotor to deliver the product at a desired frequency. If you ask an engineer how he’s going to tweak the governor so that the governor can produce more electricity, he’s going to look at you like you’re totally new, or an Eclownomist.
Say the rotor is rotating too slowly. The governor needs to detect that, and open the throttle on the engine which turns the rotor. Engine output increases, rotor speeds up, governor eases off the throttle. This is a closed-loop system. Useful systems are usually closed-loop, because that implies stability.
What is dawning upon citizens around the world, who are neither stupid nor instinctively political, is that the world is governed by thieves and morons that are stupid and all too political. No good can come of this open loop system of debt and more debt. Like an idiot savant dope fiend on a bender, the best result of Krugmanism might be a slightly lengthened euphoria before an even more devastating crash.
Not everyone is keen on these delaying tactics, Mr. Krugman. One of the hallmarks of maturity is a desire to front-load the bad news. We all know it will be bad. We knew the promises of the politicians were bogus at campaign-time.  The governor has swamped the generator in debt.  Things have to change, or the system will overheat, and the smoke will come out of the windings.  We know that the depth and severity of the brownout will be decreased if it comes sooner rather than later.
We all realize that you’re basically a paid court jester, Mr. Krugman. You write what you’re paid to write. The notion of liberty in general, and economic freedom in particular, might strike you as far too egalitarian for your world. You really believe that the governor makes the juice.
But people are not generators, Mr. Krugman, and the governor is a part of the load, not the driver.
Maybe studying a bit of engineering would disabuse you of your foolishness.

Working Hard, Trying To Help The Huffington Post With Those Typos

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

The editors at the Huffington Post have an editorial: G-20 Leaders Pledge To Halve Deficits By 2013. We here at The Other McCain would like to get rid of that spurious ‘L’ in the title: G-20 Leaders Pledge To Have Deficits By 2013. This implies that, yes, the deficits will still exist by the time 2013 rolls around. That is, unless the whole global economic ball of wax has melted down into a puddle of that substance known as Bushdidit.

Beyond this sad typo in the title, let’s examine the rest of THP’s Orwellian outing:

Wary of slamming on the stimulus brakes too quickly but shaken by the European debt crisis, world leaders pledged Sunday to slash government deficits in the most industrialized nations in half by 2013, with wiggle room to meet the goal.

Translation: when a budgetary Houdini is at work, wiggle room makes any restraint an avant garde fashion statement. ‘Les boys do cabaret’.

They generally sided with cutting spending and raising taxes, despite warnings from President Barack Obama that too much austerity too quickly could choke off the global recovery.
“Serious challenges remain,” they cautioned in a closing statement. “While growth is returning, the recovery is uneven and fragile, unemployment in many countries remains at unacceptable levels, and the social impact of the crisis is still widely felt,” according to the document from the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations.

Briefly: theater is about scripts. Reality is about meaning, which you’ll find elsewhere.

Summit participants navigated a careful course between Obama, with his emphasis on growth, and fellow leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel who advocated spending cuts and even tax increases.
“Advanced economies have committed to fiscal plans that will at least halve deficits by 2013 and stabilize or reduce government debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016,” according to the statement. The gross domestic product (GDP) measures the value of all goods and services, and is considered the best gauge of economic health.

Translation: we have felt things in anticipation of elections. We are committed to feeling something else later.

At the same time, the statement incorporated Obama’s cautions against pulling back government supports too quickly. “To sustain recovery, we need to follow through on delivering existing stimulus plans, while working to create the conditions for robust private demand,” it said.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the summit host, told a wrap-up news conference that “fiscal consolidation is not an end in itself” and that there is “an ongoing role for stimulus in the short term.” Summit participants have been using the term “fiscal consolidation” to refer to spending cuts and tax increases.

Translation: when we say “plan”, we don’t really consider any timeframe beyond our next round of bond sales. Also, people are glomming onto the fact that we are not using terms like “cuts” in any meaningful way. Instead, we’re instituting new, more vague and abstract terminology to help us get past the sad demise of public liberty and government accountability.

“G-20 still has a lot to do to fully entrench the global recovery but these are important steps forward. They are steps that Canada has been seeking,” Harper said.
A White House statement said the G-20’s Toronto agreement carries through with existing stimulus programs while recognizing that deficit-reduction “needs to be calibrated … and tailored to national circumstances.”

The protester wrecking crew was quite a success at the G-20. Plans are underway for G-20palooza, a worldwide urban renewal tour where heads of state gather for photo ops and speechifying, while a nameless, yet curiously well-funded mob cuts right through inconvenient local interests to clear property in preparation for the future.
The US, in particular, views this as a handy work-around for obstructions presented by the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment, and the ridiculous population of bitter cling-ons who insist on impeding Holy Progress.