The City Square

Pres. Obama is not carbon-neutral

2012-01-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

Much attention has been given to Pres. Obama's traveling to a "clean energy" event yesterday in gas-guzzling motorcade. This is, of course, not new. Below is my video of Obama's motorcade going to the San Francisco Airport after an October-2009 fund-raiser in the City. Can you count all the vehicles?:

The kicker is that newspapers reported the next day that Obama spent the night in the City. This motorcade, with all its carbon emissions, was just practice.

P.S. Did you include in your vehicle count that there are multiple police vehicles blocking traffic at every cross-street along the path of the motorcade?

When ideology clashes with reality

2012-01-26T16:07:00.001-08:00

Gay rights activists are outraged at a gay actress because she says she chose to be gay. The LA Times reports:

Former “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon says she is gay by “choice” – a statement that has riled many gay rights activitists who insist that people don’t choose their sexual orientation.

Here’s what Nixon, who recently shaved her head to play a cancer patient in a Broadway production of “Wit,” told the New York Times Magazine:

“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

It seems to me that gay activists have unnecessarily backed themselves into a corner over this. The case for gay rights should not depend on a claimed lack-of-choice.

More hypocrisy at the Obama campaign

2012-01-16T12:51:00.001-08:00

At the Corner, Katrina Trinko writes:

Deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter wrote a memo last week blasting Mitt Romney for leading a private equity firm. . . . But apparently Cutter wasn’t always so opposed to private equity firms: she previously worked as a spokeswoman for J.C. Flowers … a private equity firm

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Vaguely related: Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Kennedy

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of liberal hypocrisy:
•Occupy Portland and Michael Moore's hypocrisy
•President Obama preaches Tolerance
•Dem attack against lobbyists is led by a Dem lobbyist
•Minimum wage and hypocrisy
•UN humanitarian hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy at the UN Climate Change conference
•Dems, taxes, and hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrite of the day: movie director James Cameron
•Liberal gay bashing
•Poster child hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy: Supermodel Gisele and Prince Charles
•Eco-hypocrisy: Barack Obama
•Eco-hypocrisy: Nancy Pelosi
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion
•With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming
•Edwards' hypocrisy on the poor
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy

Affirmative action backfire

2012-01-08T23:55:00.001-08:00

The US Supreme Court will soon decide whether to hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case challenging racial preferences in school admissions. Two of the Amici briefs filed in this case are particularly interesting. They argue that the effect of affirmative action has been the opposite of intended. Ed Whelan of National Review writes:

I’d like to highlight a provocative new line of attack on racial preferences made in two of the amicus briefs—one by law professor Richard Sander and journalist Stuart Taylor Jr., and the other on behalf of three members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Gail Heriot, Peter Kirsanow, and Todd Gaziano.
As Sander and Taylor summarize it, “a growing volume of very careful research, some of it completely unrebutted by dissenting work, suggests that racial preferences in higher education often undermine minority achievement.” This research focuses on the so-called academic “mismatch” effect of racial preferences—that is, the effect of placing the recipients of racial preferences in more advanced academic settings than their objective qualifications would warrant.
It is, of course, not surprising that anyone who is overmatched by his academic environment would tend to do poorly compared to others who are well matched for that same environment. (Sander and Taylor note that the “median black receiving a large admission preference to an elite law school … ends up with grades that put her at the 6th percentile of the white grade distribution.”)
But what recent research has discovered, according to the two amicus briefs, is the more striking finding that, across various measurements, the recipients of racial preferences perform worse than similarly qualified minority students attending less elite institutions. For example, mismatched students transfer at a higher rate out of science majors, are less likely to pursue a doctorate, are less likely to become college professors, have lower graduation rates from law school, and have much lower success rates on bar exams. Again, in each case the comparison is to similarly qualified minority students attending less elite institutions, so the broader implication is that racial preferences affirmatively harm many of their intended beneficiaries. [Emph. added]

Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe has more on this (hat tip: Instapundit).

PREVIOUSLY on affirmative action:
•California offers tutoring only to those qualified racially
•Asians try to cope with racist university admissions policies
•Justice Scalia on the incoherence of Affirmative Action law
•For liberals, "affirmative action" means "keep the Asians out"
•Liberals oppose even research on the issue of whether affirmative action works
•High school implements race-based punishments for misbehavior

Is it racist to require a photo ID to buy drain cleaner?

2012-01-06T19:54:00.001-08:00

CBS reports from Democrat-run Illinois:

CHICAGO (CBS) – A new state law requires those who buy drain cleaners and other caustic substances to provide photo identification and sign a log.

Republican efforts to require photo ID for voting are labeled as a return to the racist "Jim Crow" era (examples are here, here, and here) and provoke outrage. However, don't minorities, the poor, and the elderly need to buy Drano too? Where is the outrage?

WELCOME to readers of Instapundit, the internet's blog of record, and also to readers of Hogewash.

UPDATE: From the comments, Portland, Oregon, a trendy liberal city, requires a photo ID to buy spray paint. Still more racism?

Is DoJ funding ACORN's spinoffs?

2012-01-06T13:21:00.001-08:00

How does the Department of Justice spend the settlement money that it receives? Judicial Watch reports (hat tip: Instapundit):

Judicial Watch has investigated this controversial arrangement and in 2010 sued the DOJ to obtain information about the policy directing big portions of cash settlements from its civil rights lawsuits to organizations not officially connected to the cases. In response to JW’s lawsuit, the DOJ was forced to acknowledge that it has no official guidelines regarding “qualified organizations” that get leftover settlement funds and that it doesn’t monitor how the money is used.
In the Countrywide case, details of the unscrupulous arrangement are buried deep (page 10 of the 17-page settlement) in the court document where Bank of America’s Countrywide Financial
Corporation agrees to pay to resolve allegations that it discriminated against qualified black and Hispanic borrowers. The lender denies all of the charges, but wanted to end the case and caved into the government’s terms.
Here’s a synopsis straight out of the court settlement; all money not distributed to allegedly aggrieved persons within 24 months shall be distributed to qualified organizations that provide services including credit and housing counseling, financial literacy and other related programs targeted at African-Americans and Hispanics. Recipients may include “non-profit community organizations that provide education, counseling and other assistance to low-income and minority borrowers…”
This language essentially comes from ACORN’s mission statement. [Emph. added]

To summarize, DoJ doesn't know where the money goes but their policy, such as it is, seems written to send it directly to ACORN. (ACORN, after it became known for support of vote fraud and international-child-sex-slavery, has since reorganized under different names.)

How can it be that the Dept. of Justice spends money without monitoring "how the money is used"? Shouldn't that be a crime all by itself?

PREVIOUSLY on ACORN:
•Nevada accuses ACORN of 39 felonies
•Another ex-ACORN worker pleads guilty
•The hypocrisy of ACORN and others on minimum wage
•Think about it: When you feel threatened, isn't "Heidi Fleiss is my hero" the first thing you blurt out?
•NY Times kills ACORN story because it would make Obama look bad
•ACORN and vote fraud in Ohio

Democrats and their kool-aid

2012-01-05T18:52:00.001-08:00

Ed Driscoll reminds us today of the 909 people who died ("drank the kool-aid") in Guyana on November 18, 1978, at the direction of Rev. Jim Jones. Before moving to Guyana, Rev. Jones preached in San Francisco where, as documented here, he was celebrated for his active support of the Democrat party. Below, for example, is a photo of SF Mayor Moscone and Rev. Jim Jones greeting then VP-candidate Walter Mondale at the airport in 1976:
Rev. Jones was a strong supporter of Moscone and, some say, instrumental in his election as mayor in 1975. Walter Mondale later wrote praise for Rev. Jones.

And here is Rev. Jim jones with another politician he supported, Gov. Jerry Brown:

Who is Rick Santorum?

2012-01-05T13:11:00.001-08:00

Rick Santorum is currently popolar as the not-Romney candidate in the Republican presidential contest. He may technically not be Romney but he is certainly not the leader that the Tea Party wanted. For example, here he is in an 8/4/2005 interview with NPR [Hat tip: Cato@liberty] explaining his opposition to to personal autonomy and his support for keeping government "in the bedroom":

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

[This statement is in the audio of the interview but NPR, curiously, did not include it in the transcript.]

Later in the interview (c2:27 in the recording), Santorum says that the science classes should be teaching "the problems and holes, and I think that there are legitimate problems and holes, in the theory of evolution."

If Rick Santorum is the not-Romney, then I might rather have Romney.

UPDATE: Here is another instance of Rick Santorum attacking the TEA party and libertarians:

More at LegalInsurrection.

4.5 Billion to die this year, or maybe not

2012-01-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

In 2007, The Canadian, which bills itself as a "socially progressive and cross-cultural national newspaper," warned of a possible global warming disaster to occur by 2012:Since the world population in 2007 was only 6.6 billion, the claim that 4.5 billion of us would die by 2012 is non-trivial.

In science, hypotheses ("theories") are tested against experiment. Hypotheses which fail to agree with experiment are to be discarded.

Newspaper reporters operate by a different standard: if something is scary and attention grabbing, then it should be printed before anyone has a chance to refute it. In John Stokes case, he has been promoted to National Co-Managing Editor at The Canadian.

Hat tip: WattsUpWithThat.

PREVIOUSLY on global warming:
•More ethics problems among Global Warming "scientists"
•Global warmists propose mass killing of animals
•Democrat: Global Warming will destroy Washington DC by the year 2000
•Earth Day: environmentalism and the test of science
•The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility
•Yet another UN IPCC Glacier-gate scandal
•UN IPCC claims of melting Himalayan glaciers exposed as fraud
•Environmentalists at war with environmentalists over green energy
•EPA's new global warming rules, illustrated
•California global warming rules backfire
• France's carbon tax ruled unconstitutional
•UN IPCC responds to Climategate with wild accusations
•Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud
•Global warming and the test of science, III
•Global warming and the test of science, II
•Global warming and the test of science, I
•141 scientists wrote letter to UN challenging global warming hysteria.
•Ma'am Sen. Boxer for and against climate whistleblowers.
•BBC propaganda on global warming
•Climate alarmist Phil Jones to step down pending review
•Why Penn State's investigation of its global warmist will go nowhere
•Former boss calls James Hansen call an embarrassment to NASA
•NASA's global warming scientists caught hyping false data
•The resemblance of global warming true-believers to Islamists
•James Hansen "muzzled" by Bush White House?

The slow death of democracy in America

2012-01-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

If you live in a small city, say population less than 100,000, and you are upset about something the goverment is doing, it is very easy to find the mayor and give him a piece of your mind. This is less helpful than it used to be. Mayors and other elected city officials have less and less control over local affairs. Much of city funding now comes from states along with state mandates that local officials are powerless to change.

This process is continues to evolve. The State of California has given authority over local zoning and development issues to unelected regional government organizations. In the San Francisco Bay Area, this regional bureaucracy is known as "OneBayArea." To maintain the pretense of democratic approval, OneBayArea holds "public workshops" to discuss their plans and get public input. Participants at past workshops report, however, that workshop leaders claimed they couldn't answer questions because "there wasn't time" exposing the process as a sham. In the upcoming series of workshops, they are trying a new tactic: they are limiting participation and requiring pre-registration, a process which likely favors politically preferred groups.

If OneBayArea decides that your city must rezone its downtown or build high-density housing someplace inappropriate, who do you complain to? You are unlikely to get face time with the Governor unless you are known as a successful campaign donation bundler. You might be able to complain to your state assembly representative but he is but one of 120 legislators in the capitol and likely not even on the relevant oversight committee.

The end result of this process is that, in a maze of overlapping layers of bureaucracies, responsibility is lost.

The bureaucrats like it this way.

Obama administration is supporting immigration fraud

2012-01-03T23:09:00.001-08:00

The Daily reports:

Higher-ups within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to rubber-stamp immigrants’ visa applications, sometimes against the officers’ will, according to a Homeland Security report and internal documents exclusively obtained by The Daily.

A 40-page report, drafted by the Office of Inspector General in September but not publicly released, details the immense pressure immigration service officers are under to approve visa applications quickly, sometimes while overlooking concerns about fraud, eligibility or security. . . . .

[H]igh-ranking USCIS officials said the pressure has heightened after the Obama administration appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as director in August 2009 during an effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform, bringing with him a mantra of “get to yes.” . . . .

Civil servants who oppose the push for illegal immigration are punished:

At least five agency veterans seen as being too tough on applicants were either demoted, or given the choice between a demotion or a relocation from Southern California — where their families were — to San Francisco and Nebraska, according to sources and letters of reassignment provided to The Daily.

PREVIOUSLY on immigration:
•Obama policy: give citizenship to convicted terrorists
•Feds cede border to smugglers. Warn citizens to stay away
•Obama administration overturns rule of law on immigration
•Pro-illegal immigration protesters confront Minutemen in San Francisco
•Amazing: NY Times editors thought illegal immigration was legal
•California pays for schooling of Mexicans who live in Mexico and only cross the border to go to school
•Political bias on Spanish-language TV network Univision
•British pop star denied visa to US. Should she have tried to get in illegally instead?
•Sex slave ring arrested. Pro-illegal advocates object.

California offers student tutoring but only for students belonging to the right races

2012-01-03T22:15:00.001-08:00

One might have thought racial discrimination is prohibited in the US. It isn't. Take, for example, this announcement from the University of California at Berkeley seeking students to apply for tutoring jobs:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program

Seeking UCB Science and Engineering Students to tutor students in the following
Berkeley-equivalent classes starting Spring 2012 semester

CHEM 1A, CHEM 1B, CHEM 3A/B (organic), BIO 1A, BIO 1B,
PHYS 7A, PHYS 7B, MATH 1A, MATH 1B

Tutors will be working with community college students who are preparing to be competitive transfer applicants to the University of California. Students being tutored are participants in the UCB NIH Bridges to Baccalaureate (B2B) program. The program’s goal is to increase the number of people from African American, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander backgrounds in biomedical fields. [Emph. added]

While there is no mention of restricting tutors by race, Berkeley apparently intends to offer its tutoring services only to students belonging to approved races. The Federal government is so pleased with the racial outcomes that Berkeley has achieved so far that it gave Berkeley an award:
In announcing the award, U.S. Undersecretary of Education Martha J. Kanter declared "it is vital that we increase degree completion among Latinos.”

Californians passed Proposition 209 to outlaw racial discrimination in education. Prop 209 does allow for racial discrimination if, as in this case, it is needed "to establish or maintain eligibility for any federal program, where ineligibility would result in a loss of federal funds to the state."

In 1865, the abolitionists won the Civil War but, since then, the segregationists seem to be winning the peace.

PREVIOUSLY on racism:
•For liberals, "affirmative action" means "keep the Asians out"
•Occupy Portland protesters hurl racist taunts an African American
•Democrat: "Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men"
•The subtleties of White Privilege
•Racist cupcakes
•Is witch doctor image racist?
•Obama ally: "I hate white people...."
•“You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
•"The city wasn't ready to hire a white police chief."
•A prominent black politician says the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
•San Franciscans discriminate against blacks.
•"He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."

An Ivy League education

2012-01-02T13:04:00.001-08:00

The CBS/AP reports that Columbia University will offer college credit for protesting:

Columbia University will offer a new course for upperclassmen and grad students next semester. An Occupy Wall Street class will send students into the field and will be taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, a veteran of the Occupy movement.
The course begins next semester and will be divided between class work at Columbia’s Morningside campus and fieldwork that will require students to become involved with the Occupy movement outside of the classroom. . . . .

Will the course be unbiased?

Appel is a staunch defender of the Occupy movement, in her blog she said that, “it is important to push back against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”
Appel told the New York Post that while her involvement with the movement will color the way she teaches it will not prevent her from being an objective teacher. [Emph. added]

Does that sound likely to you? Me, neither.

The existence of a course like this is just another indication that the burst of the higher education bubble is long overdue.

The dumbing down of America

2012-01-01T19:50:00.001-08:00

The Obama administration is floating the idea that the government should prohibit employers from requiring job applicants to have a high school diploma. For each individual applicant who is a high school dropout, the Obama administration proposes [full text here] requiring the employer to follow a process to "determine whether a particular applicant whose learning disability
prevents him from [graduating high school] can perform the essential functions of the
job, with or without a reasonable accommodation."

The bottom line is that, if implemented, this will be very expensive for employers. Whether an employer chooses to (a) implement a complicated procedures for each dropout who applies, or (b) hire high school dropouts where they used to hire high school graduates, or (c) retain lawyers to defend the employer from discrimination lawsuits, this will waste a lot of money. Economically rational employers may decide simply to move operations offshore.

The Washington Times has more on this action by the EEOC.

Religion of peace update

2011-12-20T23:48:00.001-08:00

The Middle East Media Research Institute reports:

In video footage posted December 15, 2011 on the Internet, Sheikh Nader Tamimi, mufti of the Jordan-based Palestine Liberation Army, stated "The Americans and Zionists will end up in the garbage bin of history" and added, addressing the West: "Either you pay the jizya poll tax, or else we will bring the sword to your necks"

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here.

Via GatewayPundit.

Universities are still racist

2011-12-16T13:33:00.001-08:00

Asians reportedly are hiding their ethnicity when applying to colleges and universities. The discrimination that they face is documented, as Rich Lowry writes at National Review:

In 2005 the Center for Equal Opportunity, a think tank opposed to racial preferences, looked at males applying to the University of Michigan from within the state who had no parental connection to the school. If the applicant had a 1240 SAT score and a 3.2 GPA, he had a 92 percent chance of admission if black and 88 percent if Latino. If white, he had only a 14 percent chance, and if Asian, a 10 percent chance.

Forty years ago, When a liberal talked about "affirmative action," what he meant was "keep the Jews out." Now, when a liberals says "affirmative action," he means "keep the Asians out."

RELATED: A Democrat official attacks New Mexico's Hispanic Republican Governor Susana Martinez with racist remark.

PREVIOUSLY on racism:
•Occupy Portland protesters hurl racist taunts an African American
•Democrat: "Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men"
•The subtleties of White Privilege
•Racist cupcakes
•Is witch doctor image racist?
•Obama ally: "I hate white people...."
•“You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
•"The city wasn't ready to hire a white police chief."
•A prominent black politician says the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
•San Franciscans discriminate against blacks.
•"He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."

AP: Obamacare increasingly unpopular

2011-12-16T13:02:00.001-08:00

The AP reports on an AP-GfK poll:

The poll found unpopularity for last year's health care reform bill, one of Obama's major accomplishments. About half of the respondents oppose the health care law and support for it dipped to 29 percent from 36 percent in June. Just 15 percent said the federal government should have the power to require all Americans to buy health insurance.
Even among Democrats, the health care law has tepid support. Fifty percent of Democrats supported the health care law, compared with 59 percent of Democrats last June. Only about a quarter of independents back the law.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Graphs used by Liberals

2011-12-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

The left is currently excited about income inequality. To support their outrage, they show graphs such as this one which comes from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. It shows the share of wages received by the top 1% of earners:
After you recover from from shock at the unfair growth in income by the top 1%, notice that the above graph, as is typical of other examples, such as this, this, and this, begins at the year 1979. Why is that? If you guessed that the left chooses it because the 1970s was the historical low point for income reported by the rich, you would be right. Below is a plot, from Inequality.org, of the top-1%'s total pre-tax income, a more inclusive measure than the wage income plotted above. It covers the years 1913, when the income tax was introduced, through 2008:

Unlike the truncated graphs typically preferred by liberals, this one shows the income of top-1% has its ups and downs. Furthermore, the most recent data, for the year 2009, as reported by the NY Times (not included above), shows that the top-1%'s share of total income has dropped back to 17%. Contrary to the Occupy narrative, that number is certainly not high by historical standards.

Why is it that the income of the top-1% fluctuates so widely? One reason is that much of that income is related to stock markets and capital gains. That would be why there was a peak in the late 1990's (the dot-com boom) and in the late 1920's. Another factor is the income tax code. When marginal tax rates are high, tax shelters are popular and it is likely that much income is hidden. This would explain, for example, the long-term dip in income in the 1970s.

Whenever you see a graph purporting to show some trend, check whether it shows all the data available or just some period selected for its propaganda value.

Intellectuals and dumb ideas

2011-12-10T15:48:00.001-08:00

Intellectuals are often associated with great ideas and also with some truly awful ideas. This has led to the observation, often attributed to George Orwell, that "some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual can believe them." The question, of course, is why is so. I think that Frank Fleming explains it well:

The main problem may be confusing “simple” with “dumb.”
If something is simple, then dumb people will believe it. And if dumb people believe something, then soon some conclude that smart people should believe something else. There’s a flaw in that philosophy.
Why shouldn’t you touch a hot stove? There’s no complex, smart answer to that. You’ll get roughly the same answer from Stephen Hawking you’d get from Forrest Gump: It’s hot, and it will hurt.
But say you were going to argue that you should touch a hot stove. That would have to be a very complex answer, since it defies basic logic. And some people could run with that, talking in detail about pain receptors and the brain’s reaction to stimulus, and come up with a very smart-sounding argument on why touching a hot stove is a great idea.
Others will go further and mock all those ignorant people in the flyover states for their irrational fear of hot stoves and announce, “The most enlightened thing to do is to press one’s face against a hot stove.” Those people are what we call intellectuals.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Occupy Oakland

2011-11-15T00:07:00.000-08:00

Sally Zelikovksy and Steve Kemp document the collapse of civilization in Oakland, California:

PREVIOUSLY on the Occupy Wall Street movement:
•Occupy Portland explains its rape policy
•News media report on terrorists and patriots
•Occupy Portland protester loses it in front of KGW news
•Occupy Portland and Michael Moore's hypocrisy
•A Visit to Occupy San Francisco: photo essay
•Occupy Oakland and Marxism: a video

How to use environmental regulations to stifle competition

2011-11-14T11:19:00.001-08:00

A real estate developer shows how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) can be used against competitors, as the LA Times reports:

To halt a competing project near USC, Conquest Student Housing turned to a legal weapon that one of its co-owners allegedly compared to a crude bomb: cheap and destructive.
Conquest owned 17 buildings that rented to USC students. When the developer Urban Partners proposed erecting a new complex to house 1,600 students, Conquest sued under California's landmark environmental law.
It then filed similar challenges to unrelated Urban Partners projects elsewhere in the state.

That last step was apparently one too many:

Conquest withdrew its challenges only after Urban Partners filed a federal racketeering lawsuit.

For a developer, the ultimate solution to environmental regulations, of course, is to have supported the right politicians. Politicians, no matter how liberal, are happy to give you a free pass:

In September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law to allow a football stadium proposed for downtown Los Angeles to avoid drawn-out CEQA litigation. He signed a second bill that would allow an unspecified number of other major projects to gain the same treatment.

If environmental regulations are good, shouldn't they apply even to politically-favored projects? Apparently not. That seems to support Urban Partners contention that environmental lawsuits really are just racketeering.

Obamanomics: its intellectual foundations explained

2011-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

Then: Joe Biden explains (via Instapundit) how he and Barack Obama developed the economic plan for their administration:

I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine and said 'Jon, what do you think we should do?' The reason why we called Jon is because we knew he knew about world markets, about how to respond. . . . We trusted his judgment.

Now: Politico reports on the bankruptcy of Jon Corzine's firm, MF Global:

The brokerage firm run by former New Jersey governor and senator Jon S. Corzine is being investigated by federal regulators after the discovery that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing, according to reports.
A federal official said on Tuesday that an MF Global executive had admitted that the firm used clients’ money as troubles mounted over bad bets on European sovereign debt, according to the AP.

Taken all together, it is not surprising that America's finances resemble MF Global's.

Occupy Portland explains its rape policy

2011-11-11T17:58:00.001-08:00

"The policy regarding contacting the police is if the survivor wants us to contact the police the sexual assault response team will contact them. If they don't want to contact the police nobody should contact the police."

The "unbiased" news media, illustrated

2011-11-11T13:11:00.001-08:00

Hat tip: LegalInsurrection, @MichelleMalkin, Jim Treacher

Related news, as summarized by GatewayPundit, on the Occupy movement:
Dead man in Salt Lake City…
Tuberculosis in Atlanta…
‘Zuccotti Lung’ on Wall Street…
Suicide in Vermont…
Murder in Oakland…
Occupy death toll mounts

Obamanomics: maximize the uncertainty

2011-11-10T12:18:00.001-08:00

On October 25, 2011, Pres. Obama spoke at a fundraiser (video):

"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge..."

As if to confirm Obama's lack of ambition and imagination, his adminstration today announced that it will yet again punt on the decision to build the Keystone pipeline. Reuters reports:

The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday it will explore a new route for a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, delaying a final approval beyond the 2012 U.S. election, sources briefed on the matter said.

This leaves investors and workers still guessing. Should investors continue tie up time, effort, and capital in this project or should they move on to something else? Should workers leave the pipeline area to move to places with better job prospects? If Obama has an economic strategy seems to be to maximize uncertainty and confusion. He wouldn't do that if he cared about jobs. He would make a decision, one way or the other.

Occupy Portland protester loses it in front of KGW News crew

2011-11-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

Media Matters caught again

2011-11-04T22:48:00.001-07:00

Regarding James Taranto's column yesterday at the Wall Street Journal, MediaMatters writes:

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto joined the onslaught of conservative media figures downplaying or dismissing sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain as "meaningless" or not "a real thing." Fox News has repeatedly hosted guests to talk down the allegations and push the claim that "so many" sexual harassment cases may be "frivolous."

The quotes above are fabricated: "meaningless", "[not] a real thing", and "frivolous" did not appear in Taranto's column.

The underlying claim of the ~~MadHatters~~ MediaMatters piece is also wrong. Taranto did not claim that the allegations against Cain were any of those things. He merely stated, correctly, that, so far, there is not enough information released to go beyond a "maybe".

PREVIOUSLY on the issues of facts and MediaMatters:
•MediaMatters' war against balanced news coverage: opposes liberals appearing on FoxNews
•Obama vs. Fox; Also MediaMatters caught again
•Mediamatters: disagreement is racist!
•MediaMatters caught dishonestly editing Glenn Beck
•Unbiased MSM gets its "truth" from Media Matters for America

Madeline Albright accuses Herman Cain of sexism

2011-11-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Washington Examiner reports:

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who served under President Clinton, attacked the embattled Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain for sexism during her appearance on Morning Joe this morning.

Noting that Cain had met with Cold Warrior and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to discuss foreign policy, host Joe Scarborough asked Albright if she had met with Cain and how that meeting unfolded. It turns out, they haven't met.

"Well, he didn't call me," Albright said, "I'm the wrong gender."[Emph. added]

I didn't know that left-wing-loon was a "gender."

More seriously, isn't just like a modern Democrat to think everything is sexism or racism? Ms. Albright has never expressed an intelligent thought on foreign policy. Her gender is not relevant. It is her blind-liberalism which is relevant.

PREVIOUSLY on Madeline Albright:
•Albright on alleged genocide: a half-million deaths were "worth it"
•Albright's spin on letting bin Laden get away: an underling did it
•The consequences of Carter-Clinton-Albright policy of appeasement of N. Korea
•David Zucker's funny video on the Albright-Clinton foreign policy

Work for the government, get rich

2011-11-02T15:39:00.001-07:00

The Washington Examiner reports:

As of July 2011, 12,199 retired California employees draw six-figure pensions, according to the watchdog group, California Foundation for Fiscal Reform (CFFR), up from 9,111 in March of last year. Three of the new six-figure pensions provide the retired recipients with more than $260,000 annually, with the most generous of the three worth $271,157 per year, according to CFFR.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Massive fraud found in Social Psychologists' research

2011-11-02T14:45:00.001-07:00

You may have thought that fraud in science was limited to global warming studies. Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine reports otherwise:

When colleagues called the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel too good to be true, they meant it as a compliment. But a preliminary investigative report (go.nature.com/tqmp5c) released on October 31 gives literal meaning to the phrase, detailing years of data manipulation and blatant fabrication by the prominent Tilburg University researcher.
"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.

The fraud apparently took the form of phony data. Stapel's coauthors used the data but reportedly were unaware of its fraudulent nature.

Stapel's research included work on stereotyping and discrimination.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

The spin team

2011-11-02T13:56:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered how, on some given story, reporters so often gravitate to the same unlikely spin? A partial answer was given when the Journolist internet mailing list was uncovered. Emails from that list exposed how journalists hashed out coordinated responses on issues such as how to attack a popular Alaska Governor.

The Vail Spot has published a very interesting list of confirmed participants in the Journolist. Included are journalists from Newsweek, Time, Politico, The Atlantic, Economist, The New Republic, Washington Post, New York Observer, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Human Rights Watch, and Media Matters, among many others.

Hat tip: Instapundit and Althouse.

2009 Stimulus bill: the prosecutions begin

2011-11-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

Politico reports that law enforcement is now catching up with Obama's 2009 Stimulus/Porkulus bill:

In written testimony prepared for delivery to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Inspector General Gregory Friedman said the investigations have involved "various schemes, including the submission of false information, claims for unallowable or unauthorized expenses, and other improper uses of Recovery Act funds."
So far, the investigations have led to five criminal prosecutions and brought in "over $2.3 million in monetary recoveries," Friedman said.

Why wasn't the stimulus money well-spent? In the case of the Dept. of Energy, here is one clue:

The stimulus funding DOE received — more than $35 billion — was greater than previous annual budgets for the entire agency, most notably its $27 billion in funding for fiscal 2011.

Obama's feckless leadership

2011-10-31T23:19:00.001-07:00

In foreign policy, as in domestic, a president can do damage that lasts for decades. While it is easy to imagine Pres. Obama's support of Islamist rebels in Libya and Egypt having disastrous consequences for years to come, there are other problems. In an interview with the Washington Post, Jordan's King Abdullah explains another more subtle lesson associated with Obama's leadership:

Washington Post: Do you and other leaders in this area believe you cannot rely on the U.S.?
Jordan’s King Abdullah II: I think everybody is wary of dealing with the West. . . . Looking at how quickly people turned their backs on Mubarak, I would say that most people are going to try and go their own way. I think there is going to be less coordination with the West and therefore a chance of more misunderstandings.

By turning so quickly on Mubarak, a long-time US ally, President Obama demonstrated that the US cannot be trusted. As future US presidents come and go, a lesson like that is one middle-east leaders will likely remember.

Hat tip: YidWithLid and Instapundit.

PREVIOUSLY, on the general subject of Obama's foreign policy:
•2009: Obama foreign policy in review
•Iranians chant "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them,"
•Obama disses Norway
•Iran accepts Obama's surrender
•Obama angers Iran
•Obama gets an education
•Krauthammer on a roll
•Obama's go-it-alone foreign policy: Russian edition
•Obama alienates Germany
•Obama's charm offensive not working
•Obama snubs Brazil
•Obama insults Britain
•On Iran's nuclear program, Obama abandons cooperation with Europe
•Obama antagonizes India

Strangling business is no way to create jobs

2011-10-31T22:42:00.001-07:00

How important is regulatory overreach to the current recession? Democrats say not much. Businessmen say otherwise. In Forbes, Wayne Crews provides an excellent and concise summary of the magnitude of the problem as viewed as business sees it:

The roots of today’s economic troubles are hinted at in a new Gallup Poll of small business owners, which finds compliance with government regulations tops their “problem list.”

Bigger businesses say the same. No one’s forgotten that Vegas resorts mogul Steve Wynn called Washington “the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime”; or that Bernie Marcus claims he could not have built Home Depot in the regulatory environment of today.

Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro this month called today’s White House the “most anti-business administration in my lifetime.” Even Apple’s Steve Jobs reportedly gave President Obama an earful on regulation, invoking impediments to manufacturing in the U.S and more.

Continental Energy CEO Harold Hamm, rebuffed by the president when describing the sheer torrent of domestic energy available and accessible, told the Wall Street Journal that Washington keeps “a regulatory boot at our necks and then turns around and asks: ‘Why aren’t you creating more jobs.’”

Everyone’s talking about spending and flat taxes; but for healthy recovery, the hidden tax of regulation needs flattening too.

But the sky is a different color above Pennsylvania Avenue, and this week’s southern auroras can’t explain it. While Obama seeks more money, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Dr. Jan Eberly officially blogged that no evidence supports the idea that uncertainty over regulation hinders job growth. Business leaders like the above don’t count as evidence, you see.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamanomics:
•CEOs to Obama: Get out of the way!
•Survey of CEOs: Obamanomics is still the problem

•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy
•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach

•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

Occupy Portland and Michael Moore's hypocrisy

2011-10-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore calls on the rich to give back a million dollars each. Strangely, Michael Moore (net worth: $50 million) does not offer to give back any of his own fortune:

To respond to the questioner, as shown at the end of the video, the Occupy crowd is reduced to ad hominem attacks: they shout "instigator" and chant "Who's paying you?"

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of liberal hypocrisy:
•President Obama preaches Tolerance
•Dem attack against lobbyists is led by a Dem lobbyist
•Minimum wage and hypocrisy
•UN humanitarian hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy at the UN Climate Change conference
•Dems, taxes, and hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrite of the day: movie director James Cameron
•Liberal gay bashing
•Poster child hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy: Supermodel Gisele and Prince Charles
•Eco-hypocrisy: Barack Obama
•Eco-hypocrisy: Nancy Pelosi
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion
•With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming
•Edwards' hypocrisy on the poor
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy

Warning!

2011-10-28T13:45:00.001-07:00

The front label on the magnifying glass that I just purchased from Amazon says "important warning label on back." Here is the back label:
Who do you blame for the proliferation of stupid product warnings? Many blame lawyers but don't juries also share the blame?

Government health care is something to die for

2011-10-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

In a peer-reviewed study(abstract here and full text (PDF) here), two researchers from the University of Pennsylvania compared US health statistics with those from Europe. Here are their results for 5-year cancer survival rates:

The US does better in all categories and often dramatically better. If you get prostate cancer in the US, you have a mere 0.7% (5-year) chance of dying from it. In Europe, it is thirty times worse: 22.5%.

Numbers such as these are always questionable because different countries gather statistics differently. Since Obamacare has forced the issue, however, we need to compare with the best numbers we can find. In this case, that appears to be this U. Penn. study.

Hat tip: Prof. M. J. Perry.

Small businesses' No. 1 problem: government regulations

2011-10-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

In a survey released this week, Gallup found that small business owners say their number 1 problem is government regulations:

The Obama 2012 campaign sent out an email today saying

"[C]laims about 'job-crushing government regulations' seem like what they are: political talking points with no basis in the truth."

Apparently, business owners see it very differently.

Civilization suicide watch: Greece

2011-10-26T14:05:00.001-07:00

The socialists running Greece have run out of money. Rather than cut their budget as necessary, they are begging for bailouts from Europe's more fiscally-responsible nations. Rather than appreciating the offer of bailouts, they are comparing their benefactors to Nazis. Reuters reports:

Germany, the euro zone's largest economy, has been playing a key role in trying to prevent Europe's Greece-spurred debt crisis from spiraling. The "troika" unites the EU, IMF and the European Central Bank, which is headquartered in Frankfurt.
[A] cartoon from last month shows a soldier atop Venizelos asking why lists of names for the "Labour Reserve" remain empty, nodding at Greece's new austerity law which wants 30,000 state workers put aside. They will be laid off permanently if no other public sector job is found for them within a year.
In the cartoon, a young Greek answers the soldier: "They are empty as you exterminated the Communists, the Jews, the homosexuals, the gypsies and the crazies last time," in an obvious swipe comparing the "troika" to Nazis.

It seems obvious, to adults anyway, that, when you've run out of money, it is time to stop spending. Neither Greeks nor Democrats seem to understand that.

After all the challenges that mankind has overcome, will civilization be brought down by liberals' innumeracy?

The battle for Oakland

2011-10-26T00:08:00.001-07:00

Police battled the Occupy (OWS) protesters at Ogawa Plaza in Oakland. ABC 7 News reporter Amy Hollyfield reports that Oakland is still unsafe:

Because of all of this police activity, they have shut down a lot of the streets here in downtown Oakland, and they have advised people that work here to delay the start of their day. Don't come down here immediately, maybe stay home until further notice.

Oakland's Police Chief Jordan explains why they had to shut down the Occupy Oakland protest

The decision to move was based on public health and safety due to defecation, fire hazards, sexual assault incidents, violent behavior, and the denial of access of medical aid. . . . Several officers had been assaulted, doused with hazardous materials, paint and bottles.

Videos collected by Ed Driscoll show the tear gas flying during the battle.

Other than that, of course, it was just like a typical tea party.

PREVIOUSLY on the Occupy Wall Street movement:
•A Visit to Occupy San Francisco: photo essay
•Occupy Oakland and Marxism: a video

Occupy Congress!

2011-10-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

Maybe the rich really are the problem:
(Graphic found on facebook.)

PREVIOUSLY on the Occupy Wall Street movement:
•A Visit to Occupy San Francisco: photo essay
•Occupy Oakland and Marxism: a video

In NYC, the socialists make a discovery

2011-10-24T22:31:00.001-07:00

In the Wall Street Journal, James Taranto writes:

[A]ccording to the Daily News, "Zuccotti Park has become a haven for the homeless," who are abandoning shelters and camping out at the park, "enticed by the allure of free food and a community of open-minded people." But as in Boston, open-mindedness goes only so far. "We have compassion toward everyone. However, we have certain rules and guidelines," says Lauren Digioia, 26, who belongs to the "sanitation committee":
"If you're going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back," Digioia said. "There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled." [Emph. added]

Pot, meet kettle.

Occupy San Francisco!

2011-10-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

When they aren't getting arrested blockading Wells Fargo's headquarters, the Occupy San Francisco protesters live in this camp near the San Francisco Ferry Building:
The red flag in the center shows Che Guevara, the left's favorite mass murderer. When asked what he felt about living under a flag honoring a murderer, a kind resident explained that he didn't know who Che was. However, he enjoyed the free food.

In the above photo is a sphere with sign taped on it which further clarifies the political philosophy of these protesters. A close up of this sign is below:

The sign reads "we need affordable housing, rent stabilization, no more slum lords, livable wages, [and] 30 hours a week." That makes sense: if you are going to get all that free stuff, why work 40 hours a week?

San Francisco already has rent stabilization (see the SF Rent Board) with anti-landlord policies and the highest minimum wage in the nation. So, shouldn't the protesters celebrate living in this worker's paradise? Must not have worked out like they would have hoped.

Here are two more signs. I'll leave it to you to work out what their policy implications are:
Below is the encampment's kitchen, which appeared well stocked with boxes of apples and bread:
Left-wing protesting seems to generate an extraordinary amount of trash that overflows all the provided trash containers. This view is from just off the kitchen and you can see the Che flag in the background:
Living in a park for months at a time with trash always overflowing is not always popular. The protesters blame the police:
Managing these protests is a lot of work. Below is the org-chart for the Occupy-SF protest:
Note that they have volunteers in charge of "gender issues" and "arts + culture" but, unsurprisingly, no one has volunteered for "sanitation."

Also note that no one has volunteered for the "finance" post. Would you volunteer for that post if you lived in a camp that demonized bankers?

Many ask: are corporations people? The sign below on the left tries to answer that:
It reads:

"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one! -- I am the 99%"

Of course, corporations are executed, mercilessly, all the time: it is called Chapter 7 (liquidation).

Note the green sign in the center above. It was left by a Republican who brought it for today's anti-UN protest (see the post below). Is it out of place here? Will they notice?

PREVIOUSLY, you have seen this same park on this blog as the site of a Tea Party protest:
•To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in (Nov. 15)

PREVIOUSLY on Occupy Oakland:
•Occupy Oakland protesters are committed Marxists

RELATED: In Atlanta, the Democratic Mayor wants to clear the park of Occupy protesters. OWS protesters "don't want to restrict anyone's behavior" unless the anyone is driving to work in which case they are happy shut down the road. Zombie has an excellent photo essay on Occupy Oakland.

PREVIOUSLY on Tea Parties in the San Francisco area:
•Long Strange Trip: Hippies defend establishment; Tea Party protests (Jul 18)
•A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco and the left is not happy about it
•Collected photos of this year's San Francisco Tea Party events
•Minutemen vs. May Day protesters in San Francisco
•A tax day Tea Party breaks out in San Francisco's Union Square
•A tax day Tea Party breaks out on the San Francisco Peninsula
•3 in 10 Californians identify with tea party protests
•To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in (Nov. 15)
•A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco (Oct. 15)
•Videos of the October 15 San Francisco Tea Party
•San Franciscans speak to Nancy Pelosi (Aug. 14)
•The San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party Protest in Pictures (Apr. 15)
•Farmers protest in San Jose (Nov. 21).
•Tea Party breaks out in Palo Alto (Nov. 21)

San Franciscans protest against the United Nations

2011-10-24T14:17:00.001-07:00

There are those who idolize the United Nations as mankind's last best hope. Among other things, they see the United Nations as working to protect the world's environment. The affects of this work are starting to appear locally in the form of "green power" (i.e. expensive and unreliable power), and UN-advocated (via ICLEI) zoning regulations that strip home owners of rights to their private property. Today, a crowd, concerned largely with the "green" agenda, gathered in UN plaza in San Francisco, where the UN charter was signed in 1945, to protest against the UN:
It was a bi-partisan crowd: this is one of those rare issue cuts across party lines.

If you want to read more about this, see:

http://www.sfagainstagenda21.org/

http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/

and, for the other side:

http://www.iclei.org/

Why today? The UN declared that today is United Nations Day.

A Democrat's view of the world

2011-10-23T23:38:00.001-07:00

Journalist Nicholas D. Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and currently writes for the New York Times. A few days ago, after some zoo animals escaped, Kristof tweeted:
To which, the inimitable Glenn Reynolds replied:

MESSAGE TO NICK KRISTOF: Boehner would pull out a gun and make a rug. As would many millions of other Americans.

Liberals live in an imagined state of helplessness. No wonder they are so angry.

Democrats gone wild, 24 years later

2011-10-23T23:19:00.001-07:00

While Democrats complain about partisan bickering and try to blame it on Republicans, today marks the 24th anniversary of the Democrats' war against Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. If Democrats had any sense of decency or shame prior to this war, they abandoned them. Take, for example, Sen Kennedy's (D-MA) who declared:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy… President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

None of that vitriol bears any resemblance to reality but that mattered not to Democrats. Democrats have been in a state of unbridled anger unbound by any morality or ethics ever since.

For more on this anniversary, see LegalInsurrection.

Mission Accomplished!

2011-10-23T21:48:00.001-07:00

Is it really "mission accomplished"? That would depend on what Pres. Obama's mission was. Also, did he think the mission through from beginning to end? I see no evidence that he had a mission or that he thought through the consequences.

Related: Libyan rebels have Al Qaeda links.

UPDATE: Al Qaeda flag flies above Libyan courthouse.

It's a paradox, guns-sales edition

2011-10-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

The Daily Caller is shocked: "Gun crime continues to decrease, despite increase in gun sales." Any NRA member could have told the reporter that it is not "despite" but "because." But, that is not a concept that a liberal can easily wrap his mind around.

PREVIOUSLY on the paradoxes that vex liberal minds:
•Paradox: student test scores improve despite school funding decrease
•It's a paradox: Congress unpopular "despite record"
•"Ironically," conservatives and their children are happier
•It's a paradox!: Crime down when criminals are in jail.
•Paradox: crime is down (again)
•Paradox: few fraudulent voters if voters are required to have IDs

Occupy Oakland

2011-10-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

Steve Kemp and friends visited Oakland on Monday and came back with some interesting video of what the Occupy Wall Street (Oakland) movement believe:

At one point the interviewer asks whether capitalism is effective. From among the protesters responses:

"I don't think capitalism is effective at all."

"I think [capitalism] is a total bogus system. It is based on slavery and genocide"

"I think capitalism is inherently bad because it feeds on resources... it needs to keep feeding on resources. So, capitalism is not sustainable." [But don't try to take her iPhone away from her.]

In the 20th century, the human race experimented with national socialism and international socialism. The results were disastrous but, apparently, that doesn't bother the OWS/Occupy-Oakland protesters.

Separately, an e-mail dump obtained by Big Journalism reveals that MSM journalists have been helping craft the OWS message at the same time that they file "unbiased" reports on the movement.

President Obama preaches Tolerance

2011-10-18T01:05:00.001-07:00

The White House has released a new Presidential proclamation, as FoxNews reports:

President Obama demanded that Americans “preach tolerance” in a proclamation he issued announcing “National Character Counts Week.”
“Together, all Americans must cultivate moral fortitude, preach tolerance, and demonstrate the value of respect for those different from ourselves,” he stated in a press release issued by the White House. [Emph. added]

The official proclamation is here. According to Dictionary.com, tolerance means "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own." USA Today reports on a speech given by the President. Judge for yourselves whether the President is "fair" and "objective" toward those with differing "opinions":

President Obama used some of the harshest rhetoric of his term today in denouncing the Republican jobs plan, saying the GOP's emphasis on less regulations would harm the environment, undercut health care and fail to produce necessary jobs in the short term.
"You got their plan, which is let's have dirtier air, dirtier water, (and) less people with health insurance," Obama said in kicking off a three-day bus tour at the airport in Asheville, N.C. [Emph. added]

Video is available here. Read ThinkProgress' approval of Obama's intolerant rhetoric here.

Just to be clear, it is not the President's intolerant (and childish) rhetoric that I disapprove of here. It is his hypocrisy of trying to have it both ways.

When three wars are not enough

2011-10-14T14:38:00.001-07:00

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, move over. ABC's Jake Tapper reports:

Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA.

The left says that "war is not the answer" except, apparently, when the left is in power.

The distinction between advocate and activist

2011-10-14T14:10:00.001-07:00

Former Enron-adviser and current New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explains why he is not in the park with the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters:

Some readers have been asking me to go make a speech at one of the OWS demonstrations. If you think about it, however, you’ll see why I can’t.
I’ve been granted the enormous privilege of expounding my own views twice a week in the world’s greatest newspaper. I try to make the best use of that privilege, doing all I can to get the truth across and also advocating for what I believe to be the right policies. There are, however, some restrictions that come with the privilege; one of them is not crossing the line between advocate and activist. And there are good reasons for drawing that line. [Emph. added]

I suppose that one of those "good reasons" is that, if he was in the park chanting slogans, we would see him for who he really is rather than who he and the NY Times would like to pretend that he is.

I would find the mainstream media more credible if they were, at the minimum, honest about who they were instead of hiding behind meaningless distinctions and false pretenses. One of the better features of new-media reporting is the honesty. When, for example, Prof. Althouse reported on the Wisconsin protests, blog readers already knew who she was and what here biases were. That makes it easy to interpret, evaluate, and appreciate her reports. Mainstream media reporters also have opinions and biases but, by hiding them under the pretense of "objectivity," readers are left to guess where the reporters blindspots are.

In other news, the New York Times is again cutting newsroom staff under pressure from weakening revenue.

Hat tip: Newsbusters.

Do lobbyists oppose lobbying?

2011-10-13T23:57:00.001-07:00

At the Washington Examiner, Timothy P. Carney reports:

The campaign of Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts, just sent out a fundraising email with her typical scourge-of-the-special-interest stuff:

As one of Elizabeth Warren's earliest supporters, you know she's a tireless fighter for working families. She's gone toe-to-toe with the big banks and armies of corporate lobbyists -- and won -- and she'll do it again as Massachusetts' next United States Senator.

The sender? Corporate lobbyist Doug Rubin, who's also a senior advisor to Warren's campaign. Rubin founded the Beacon Hill lobbying firm Northwind Strategies, which represents Deepwater Wind, GTECH Corporation, Equity Office Properties, and the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.

Separately, Elizabeth Warren is famous for her "nobody in this country ... got rich on his own" rant.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of liberal hypocrisy:
•Minimum wage and hypocrisy
•UN humanitarian hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy at the UN Climate Change conference
•Dems, taxes, and hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrite of the day: movie director James Cameron
•Liberal gay bashing
•Poster child hypocrisy
•Eco-hypocrisy: Supermodel Gisele and Prince Charles
•Eco-hypocrisy: Barack Obama
•Eco-hypocrisy: Nancy Pelosi
•The ever-increasing energy use of Al Gore's mansion
•With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming
•Edwards' hypocrisy on the poor
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy

Obama Admin defunds a piece of Obamacare

2011-10-04T14:30:00.001-07:00

The Obama administration has killed the CLASS program, one of the many financially-unsustainable pieces of Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal writes:

The Health and Human Services Department recently shut down a government insurance program for long-term care, known by the acronym Class. HHS also released a statement claiming that reports that HHS is shutting down Class are "not accurate." All HHS did was suspend Class policy planning, told Senate Democrats to zero out Class funding for 2012, reassigned Class's career staffers to other projects and pink-slipped the program's chief actuary.

With a bipartisan-consensus that Class is a fiscal disaster, will Congress repeal Class? The Wall Street Journal says probably not:

All of this would seem to make repealing Class an easy vote for Congress, but, this being Washington, it isn't. Since the CBO says Class's front-loaded collections cut the deficit to the tune of that $86 billion, HHS has to pretend that the program is still alive to preserve these phantom savings.
Some Republicans are also nervous about repealing Class because, under CBO's perverse scoring, they'll be adding $86 billion to the deficit.

Read the whole thing.

Crony capitalism: Obama ignored warnings

2011-10-04T11:44:00.001-07:00

The Obama administration ignored multiple warnings in the days preceding Pres. Obama's trip to tout Solyndra, as today's Wall Street Journal reports:

Just days ahead of the president's 2010 visit, an email from one OMB staffer to another indicated growing worry about the political risks. "I am increasingly worried that this visit could prove embarrassing to the Administration in the not too distant future, given 1) what we just heard today from DOE that Solyndra is delaying their IPO at least until the end of the year, and 2) what the auditors said about Solyndra making it through the year absent new financing," the email said.
Another OMB staffer wrote, "Hope doesn't default before" Mr. Obama's May 26 visit.
Two days before the visit, Steve Westly, a California venture capitalist who raised funds for Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, emailed Ms. Jarrett to express concern about the visit, saying it could "haunt him in the next 18 months if Solyndra hits the wall, files for bankruptcy, etc."

Separately, another Obama-backed "green" energy company is in trouble, as the New York Times reports (hat tip: GatewayPundit):

In a remote desert spot in northern Nevada, there is a geothermal plant run by a politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil.
The company is Nevada Geothermal Power, which like Solyndra, the now-famous California solar company, is struggling with debt after encountering problems at its only operating plant.
The amount of money the federal government has at stake with Nevada Geothermal — a loan guarantee of $79 million plus at least $66 million in grants. . . . [Emph. added]

Governments should not be venture capitalists. They are just not good at it.

Sen. Durbin admits: Obama "Jobs" bill unpopular even with Democrats

2011-09-29T23:52:00.001-07:00

During his speech earlier this month, Pres. Obama commanded Congress to "pass this bill" some 17 times. Apparently, he hadn't checked to see even whether the Democrats would support the bill. The Hill reports:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment, Democrats in Congress don’t have the votes to pass President Obama’s jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change.

If any more proof was needed that Obama was never serious about the Jobs bill, this is it.

Politicized Science, the delta smelt, and California famers

2011-09-29T12:23:00.001-07:00

U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger declared that testimony from two Interior Dept. scientists, Frederick V. Feyrer and Jennifer M. Norris, was “false,” “contradictory” and “misleading” and that the Interior Department acted in “bad faith” in regards to the use of the delta smelt fish and the endangered species act to stop water flow to California farmers. More at Instapundit, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Examiner.

PREVIOUSLY on California farmers protesting against the water cutoff:
•Farmers protest in San Jose (Nov. 21).
PREVIOUSLY on politicized science:
•EPA uses phony peer review
•National Academy of Sciences warns EPA on junk science
•The failed science of environmentalism
•Federal Judge rejects Federal enviromental "science" as "arbititrary and capricious"
•The politicization of medical research funding
•2 more examples of politicized science: Gulf oiil spill and California's air regulations
•AIDS advocates distorted science
•Politicized science of crime statistic s
•Politicization of medical science
•Bee colony collapse disorder: the cause is whatever your politics say it is
•Ozone hole and politics

Colorado cantaloupes have killed more people this year than US commercial nuclear power in its entire history

2011-09-28T13:28:00.001-07:00

The UK Guardian reports:

A listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupes from Colorado has killed 13 people and infected 59 others, US health officials have said. [Emph. added]

The FDA associates the outbreak with Jensen Farms’ Rocky Ford-brand cantaloupes.

How many people have been killed by commercial nuclear power plants in the US? None, as best I can tell. This Wikipedia article lists deaths from nuclear and radiation accidents and none are attributed to US commercial nuclear power in its entire history. (The Wikipedia article does not list Three Mile Island because no one died at Three Mile Island. For more details, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's summary of the health effects of Three Mile Island is here.)

Hat tip: Instapundit

Obama's rich fantasy life

2011-09-27T10:25:00.001-07:00

In Commentary, Peter Wehner writes:

I have written before about Obama’s deep, almost desperate, need to portray himself as the opposite of what he is, to conceive of himself in a way that is at odds with reality. We have seen it in all sorts of areas, including claiming himself to be a voice of civility, portraying himself as a champion of bi-partisanship, lecturing others about profligate spending, and saying he is the only responsible “adult” in Washington. Now we see this habit in a new arena – this time, the president as Obama the Stoic, a man so committed to “pressing on” for the cause of social justice he just doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself. Indeed, he has now decided to sermonize to others not to complain, not to grumble, and to “stop crying.”

This is akin to John Edwards hosting a weekend seminar on the importance of marital fidelity.

At times, I think that the main purpose of liberalism is the avoidance of unpleasant realities.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

PREVIOUSLY on liberals and their fantasy worlds:
•Liberal talk show hosts and their paranoid fantasies
•Rep. Pete Stark fantasizes about Pres. Bush's motives
•Hate crime fantasies
•Real or fantasy: Obama's core value is "unity"?
•Salon Magazine and its sexual fantasies involving Sarah Palin
•Michelle Obama fantasizes that she is the first White House resident to care about military families
•Feminist imagines that all men are pro-rape and pro-domestic violence
•Rep. Barney Frank's fantasies: the mortgage crisis was caused by "conservatives"
•How reporters avoid addressing reality
•If only hate could change false to true

It's a paradox, education edition

2011-09-23T23:56:00.001-07:00

The Sacramento Bee reports on a "paradox": student test scores have increased after several years of public school budget cuts:

They write:

It's a trend that would seem to defy conventional wisdom: As public school spending has declined in California in recent years, student achievement test scores have gone up.
Statewide, school districts spent 6 percent less from 2008 to 2010, but the percentage of second- to seventh-grade students scoring proficient on the state's standardized English test rose from 48 percent to 55 percent.
In the Sacramento region, the same held true. School districts in the four-county region cut annual spending by about $120 million, or 4.4 percent, from 2008 to 2010, hampered by the lousy economy and state funding cuts. That translates to a 1 percent cut per student. But during that same period, their state achievement test scores improved – a lot.

It is a "paradox" only if you think that government schools spend their money wisely on things that actually affect student learning.

PREVIOUSLY on the paradoxes that vex liberal minds:
•It's a paradox: Congress unpopular "despite record"
•"Ironically," conservatives and their children are happier
•It's a paradox!: Crime down when criminals are in jail.
•Paradox: crime is down (again)
•Paradox: few fraudulent voters if voters are required to have IDs

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of education:
•Study: teacher's unions are bad for education
•Study: sexist women teachers stunt learning of girl students
•Black students, harassed for "acting white," get $150,000
•Teaching self-esteem backfires
•Education in Korea vs. the US: does "self-esteem" backfire?
•LA pays teachers not to teach
•What teachers learn in teacher's ed.
•Obama promises to throw money at schools
•How to get a job teaching in California even if you are illiterate

A very impressive political ad

2011-09-21T13:10:00.001-07:00

Sophisticated thinking at the New York Times

2011-09-19T14:06:00.001-07:00

James Taranto spots the New York Times having difficulty with math:

The New York Times reports from Frankfurt that "foreign leaders" are pressuring the Greek government to institute "a range of draconian layoffs and pay reductions among public sector workers" in order to avert default. Check out this bit of analysis in the course of the story:
The original aid package requires Greece to reduce its deficit to 7.5 percent of gross domestic product this year, and below 3 percent by 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The reduced number of workers employed in the public sector would only add to the difficulty of meeting these targets as payroll tax collections shrink.
Unless employees of the Greek government pay more than 100% of their wages in taxes, this cannot possibly add up.

NPR: Obama is still like Jesus

2011-09-17T23:10:00.001-07:00

Not all liberals have soured on Pres. Obama. Frank James, writing at NPR.org, stills sees Obama as a biblical figure:

The realities of governing as opposed to the unrealities of presidential campaigns may have made President Obama a much more human figure compared with the almost messiah-like status he had in the eyes of many supporters in 2008.
But that doesn't mean there still isn't the occasional moment reminiscent of a Bible story.
At a rally on the campus of North Carolina State in Raleigh, N.C. Wednesday where President Obama went to drum up support for his jobs bill, this happened.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you, Barack!
THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) But first — but if you love me — if you love me, you got to help me pass this bill. (Applause.) If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill.
Here's John 21:15, the New International Version, describing a scene between Jesus and his disciples:
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter,"Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

Hat tip: The Corner and Hot Air.

PREVIOUSLY on NPR:
•NPR's Frank James says minorities support child prostitution?
•NPR: If criminals make you uncomfortable, you are a "hardened racist"
•NPR allies itself with George Soros
•NPR declares Sonia Sotomayor to be "moderate" or even "conservative"

RomneyCare, fail

2011-09-15T15:25:00.001-07:00

In a preview of what ObamaCare will do for the US, a study by Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute found that RomneyCare has been a disaster for Massachusetts, costing over 18,000 jobs. The Boston Herald reports (hat tip: GatewayPundit):

The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops on the campaign trail.
“Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that,” said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings. . . .
Despite Romney’s vaunted business acumen as a successful venture capitalist, Bachman said the former governor “was a little naive about what would become of the law.”
The Beacon Hill Institute study found that, on average, Romneycare:
• cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;
• drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;
• slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and
• reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.

Class warfare

2011-09-15T00:42:00.001-07:00

Steve Kemp captures another yet another fascinating video of Democrats in action. This is from Rep. Barbara Lee's Town Hall meeting in Oakland California, August 16, 2011 and features rhetoric from Representives Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva and Mike Honda. Their agenda is class war:

Bob Turner (R) wins NY-9!

2011-09-13T23:19:00.001-07:00

Republican Bob Turner won in a heavily Democratic district in New York City (Brooklyn/Queens). Separately, the Republican Mark Amodei won in Nevada-2, a safe Republican district.

Turner's victory is particularly surprising not just because of his party but also because he is a Catholic running against a Jew in a heavily Jewish district. Polls seem to indicate that the key issue was not Obama's economic policies but rather Obama's strained relationship with Israel. (Slate argues that it the Democrat's support for gay marriage.)

The Washington Post is trying to spin the results as showing a "fickle" electorate. They cite Democrat Hochul's win in an upstate NY special election earlier this year as evidence that "Republican momentum should be seen as momentary." Their article omits mentioning that the margin of victory in that election was provided a dirty trick: Millionaire Democrat Jack Davis ran as a pretend "Tea Party" candidate garnering 9% of the vote, giving Hochul the margin she needed for victory.

Both sides in the NY-9 campaign are accusing the other of dirty tricks, as the Daily Caller reports (hat tip: LegalInsurrection and Ace):

The campaign of Democrat David Weprin sent out a press release Tuesday accusing supporters of Republican Bob Turner of organizing an effort to jam the Weprin campaign’s phones. In response, Turner communications director William O’Reilly noted that Jewish residents of the district were receiving phone calls from a phony group calling itself “Jews for Jesus for Turner,” which he called an attempt to scare Jewish voters.

Are there no adults in the room?

Obama's idea of "bipartisianship"

2011-09-13T15:39:00.001-07:00

The Hill reports:

Obama's top political adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday that the administration was unwilling to break up the president’s $447 billion jobs plan if Republicans were only receptive to passing certain elements.
"We're not in a negotiation to break up the package. It's not an à la carte menu. It's a strategy to get this country moving,” Axelrod said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America." [Emph. added]

When, exactly, has the Congress ever passed a ~~pork-barrel spending~~ "jobs" bill without negotiating elements of it?

If there is an adult in the room, he is not the one living in the White House.

“Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”

2011-09-11T23:26:00.001-07:00

From ChicagoBoyz (Hat tip: Instapundit):

The only part of the American national security establishment that successfully defended America on 9/11 was the portion of the reserve militia on board Flight 93, acting without orders, without hierarchy, without uniforms or weapons, by spontaneous organization and action.

Because of Todd Beamer and his compatriots on Flight 93, the enemy knows that brave American citizens would stop any similar hijack attempts. In a few harrowing minutes, the passengers on Flight 93 did more for the future secuity of airline passengers than anything that the TSA, with its crotch-checks and naked-body scanners, has done in the years since.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of terrorism:
•Dept. of Justice supports citizenship for terrorist-Americans
•The TSA's new slogan (comic)
•Arab Technology meets German Engineering
•Saddam provided terrorists with money, training camps, and weapons says ex-Minister Aziz
•9-11 in review

•Round-up of left-wing terrorism
•Yet another left-wing terrorist
•Obama's humane plan for te rrorists: kill rather than interrogate
•The root cause of terrorism
•Gitmo torture: Metallica is proud of its music's message to terrorists
•Speaker Pelosi's deep thoughts on giving Miranda rights to terrorists.
•AG Eric Holder was for enhanced interrogation before he was against it.
•The NY Times finally admits we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq
•Gitmo torture tactic revealed: "she touched my thigh!"
•Terror color codes updated for Obama (illustrated)
•NY Times skeptical of Bush but trusts terrorists
•Global warming predicted to cause more terrorism
•Before Al Qaeda: the socialist-terrorist alliance of the 1980s

CEOs to Obama: Get out of the way!

2011-09-07T19:54:00.001-07:00

CNBC reports (Hat tip: Instapundit):

We asked several CEOs leading up to the speech what bold steps Obama could take to reduce the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.
John Schiller, chairman and CEO of Energy XXI, said "if the government would get out of the way, from a regulation standpoint, and let us [XXI] do what we do good you'll see us continue to hire and grow this economy."
"I think that's a message from across the board," said Schiller.
Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup, told CNBC there are some specific things that can be done "in terms of moving government out of the way where its in the way of job creation."

In other words, it's the regulations, stupid.

PREVIOUSLY on the failure of liberal economic theories:
•Survey of CEOs: Obamanomics is still the problem

•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy
•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach

Is it a "civil right" for drug addicts to get welfare checks?

2011-09-07T18:54:00.001-07:00

News4 (Jacksonville) reports:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida plans to challenge the state's law requiring new welfare recipients to pass a drug test.An ACLU spokesman told The Associated Press Wednesday the lawsuit is being filed on behalf of a 35-year-old Orlando man, Luis Lebron.The spokesman says Florida's drug testing law is unconstitutional, saying it violates the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure protections.

PREVIOUSLY on the ACLU:
•In support of Al Qaeda, ACLU sues Boeing
•The ACLU and America's legal paralysis
•ACLU opposes the Bill of Rights but supports easy vote fraud
•ACLU argues for right to privacy for those who have sex in public bathrooms
•ACLU funded ads vs. the facts

After gun control comes knife control

2011-09-07T13:12:00.001-07:00

Boston already has strict gun control but still has a high and rising murder rate. Consequently, the great minds on the Boston city council are proposing strengthening the knife control laws. You can watch a video of Councilors Michael Ross and Tito Jackon explaining their proposal here.

Knife control and even pepper spray control in Massachusetts is not new. TheBlaze writes:

Current Massachusetts law bans all sorts of weapons and imposes draconian prison terms for their possession. Many knives such as switchblades are illegal outright. You need a license to carry pepper spray. One could guess this has made the city much safer from rogue female joggers.

Does knife control prevent crime? Britain already has knife control. In the Wall Street Journal, Joyce Lee Malcolm reviews the results of Britain's efforts at gun and knife control:

The ban on handguns did not stop actual crimes committed with handguns. Those crimes rose nearly 40%, according to a 2001 study by King's College London's Center for Defence Studies, and doubled by a decade later, according to government statistics reported in the London Telegraph in October 2009.
Knives? It's illegal for anyone under age 18 to buy one, and using a knife for self-defense is unlawful. In 1991, American tourist Dina Letarte of Tempe, Ariz., used a penknife to protect herself from a violent attack by three men in a London subway. She was convicted of carrying an offensive weapon, fined, and given a two-year suspended sentence.
The result of policies that punish the innocent but fail to deter crime has been stark, even before the latest urban violence. The last decade has seen a doubling of gun crime. According to the latest annual report of the Home Office (2009), there was a 25% increase in crimes involving contact, such as assault and battery, over the previous year.

PREVIOUSLY on crime:

•NPR: If criminals make you uncomfortable, you are a "hardened racist"
•Pro-crime immigration policy
•Fake hate crimes
•Hate crimes (and anti-Semitism) in the U S
•Our outdated criminal justice system
•Court: Big brother may track you
•CSI Fail: bite mark analysis
•Why is Islam popular in prison?
•Obama DoJ: vote fraud helps "increase turnout"
•An insider's guide to vote fraud
•In liberal paradise, dissent will be a crime
•Should it be a crime to disagree?
•Art or hate crime: you decide
•Pro-crime: left defends sex slave ring because they were illegals (say what?)
•To rise to power, 20th century fascists depended on liberal do-gooders.

Democrats and their short memories

2011-09-05T23:53:00.001-07:00

It was just a few months ago when liberals started lecturing about "civility." Now, they have forgotten about that completely. Recently, they have been outraged aver Boehner's "unprecedented" action delaying Obama's speech by a day. In doing so, they forgotten how Democratic Congresses have treated Republican Presidents. James Freeman at the Wall Street Journal looked into how the Democrats treated one of Reagan's requests to speak and Reagan's much more civilized response to it:

Much of the media has been running with the claim that a president's request to speak to Congress has never been rejected until this week. Various Capitol Hill "historians" have been quoted saying that House Speaker John Boehner took unprecedented action when he cited the difficulty of hosting President Obama on the president's requested date of Sept. 7. We're not so sure.
The truth is that you don't have to go back that far in the nation's history to find a similar circumstance. And unlike the current speaker, who quickly agreed to host the president on the following day, Sept. 8, a previous holder of the gavel refused to grant the White House request, regardless of the date and time.
The June 24, 1986, edition of The Wall Street Journal featured a story headlined, "President's Bid to Address the House On Nicaragua Is Rejected by Speaker." That's right, no quibbling over the date and time, just a flat-out rejection. In that case, President Ronald Reagan wanted to address the House before its critical vote on funding for the anti-communist "Contra" rebels in Nicaragua. . . . Reagan already had the votes to prevail in the Senate, and Mr. O'Neil wanted to avoid having the spotlight turned on the House, which would make him and his colleagues accountable to the public if Contra aid were rejected. . . .
A White House aide at the time tells us that Reagan simply shrugged off the rejection and said, "They have televisions up there on Capitol Hill, don't they?" He made his case on TV instead and then won the House vote to continue assisting the Nicaraguan freedom fighters. [Emph. added]

Hat tip: Greg.

PREVIOUSLY on Democrats and short memories:
•Rep. Speier rewrites history
•Speaker Pelosi, the Democratic Party, and hysterical amnesi a
•Rep. Barney Frank suffers amnesia regarding housing policy.
•Moveon forgets whether is supported or opposed Afghanistan war
•Memories work differently in adults and children

The environment: communists vs. capitalists

2011-09-05T19:28:00.001-07:00

Liberals often blame pollution on "greedy corporations." So how do communist societies deal with pollution? The New York Times reports on how Chinese Communist Party officials lower pollution:

This capital city’s skies were clogged with pollution, as is often the case, and China’s government was concerned. So it summoned officials of the American Embassy here to a meeting.
But the session had nothing to do with hazy skies. Rather, Chinese officials were peeved that the Americans were monitoring pollution themselves, and posting on Twitter for anyone to read, their more precise findings, which usually judged the smog far worse than official Chinese readings.
Chinese officials feared the conflicting information “might lead to ‘social consequences,’ ” an American Embassy cable quoted the officials as saying. So could the Americans please block Chinese citizens from visiting the Web site?

In sum, the communist solution for pollution: lie about it.

The details my differ but Al Gore uses the same strategy.

Yet another Democrat fundraiser arrested

2011-09-04T22:33:00.001-07:00

The Orange County Register reports that Ms. Kinde Durkee was arrested "in connection with" her work as a Democratic campaign treasurer:

A prominent Democratic campaign treasurer who works for federal, state and O.C. lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and state legislators Lou Correa and Jose Solorio has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of mail fraud, The Orange County Register has learned.
U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Thom Mrozek confirmed Saturday afternoon that Kinde Durkee of Burbank-based Durkee and Associates, was arrested by the FBI on a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento. Special Agent Steve Dupre of the bureau’s Sacramento office said she was arrested in connection with her position as a campaign treasurer.

The LA Times reports that Durkee is accused of embezzlement of campaign funds.

PREVIOUSLY on Democrat fundraising:
•Democrat fundraiser indicted
•Top Dem fundraiser pleads guilty
•Clinton Donor indicted
•Top Dem fundraiser pleads guilty
•Corruption loses a key advocate
•How to buy a congressman
•How politics is done
•Bernie Madoff was a major donor to left/liberal causes.

Yet another "green" disaster

2011-08-31T15:24:00.001-07:00

In July, the National Park Service proudly announced the completion of a solar energy system at Yosemite. From the National Park Service press release:

Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Neubacher led a ribbon cutting ceremony today, July 27, to dedicate the El Portal Photovoltaic Project. Neubacher was joined by representatives from the offices of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Congressman Jeff Denham (R-19th), Mariposa County Supervisor Lee Stetson, contractors, and National Park Service staff. The event dedicated the largest grid-connected photovoltaic system within the National Park Service (NPS).

. . . . The park estimates saving approximately $50,000 per year on electricity purchased off the grid . . . .

. . . . The project was funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment act and cost $5.8 million. . . .

It costs $5.8 million and only saves $50 thousand per year! Not counting interest costs, that means is pays for itself in 5,800,000/50,000 = 116 years, on the unlikely assumption that it lasts that long. No business would touch such a bad deal. It was paid for with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (A/K/A Porkulus) funds and various "rebates".

Hat tip: Don Surber and Coach.

Liberal policies collide with liberal regulations

2011-08-31T14:14:00.001-07:00

The Obama administration came into office with the dream that "green" jobs would lift the economy out of its slowdown. One problem with "green" jobs is that they don't make economic sense. Another one is that they conflict with not just left-wing union and protectionist rules (Davis-Bacon Act, Buy America Act) but also with environmental rules (National Environmental Policy Act). Investor's Business Daily reports (hat tip: Instapundit and National Review):

President Obama's green jobs agenda has become a victim of its own red tape. Several internal reports show that state-level projects have stalled for years due to federal regulations favored by labor and green groups — big boosters of the green jobs push.

The reports offer a peek into the dysfunction within the White House's green jobs initiative. In 2009, Obama dedicated $7.2 billion of stimulus funds to build "clean tech" jobs. He vowed to create 5 million jobs over the next decade.

So far, that effort has "created or retained" just 7,140 jobs, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That's about $1 million per job. The number is actually down from last year, when the EPA claimed 16,605 green jobs.

Audit reports by the Energy Department's Inspector General Of fice offer some clues as to why: Trying to comply with federal regulations such as the Davis-Bacon Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Buy American Act has stalled many projects. [Emph. added]

US rewards tax avoidance more than innovation

2011-08-31T12:55:00.001-07:00

In a free enterprise system, companies are rewarded for making products that people want to buy. In a liberal/progressive system, companies are rewarded instead for their skills at manipulating complex government rules and regulations. A new study from the Institute for Policy Studies finds that the US has the latter system. The New York Times reports:

The authors of the study, which examined the regulatory filings of the 100 companies with the best-paid chief executives, said that their findings suggested that current United States policy was rewarding tax avoidance rather than innovation.
“We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises,” the study concluded. “On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.” [Emph. added]

The self-contradictions of the last paragraph above shows the left/liberal bias of the Institute for Policy Studies. (Reducing unnecessary costs, such as taxes, does in fact make an enterprise "more effective and efficient.") It is interesting that, despite this bias, they still understand that our left/liberal tax system is sapping American productivity.

Jane Jamison, RIP

2011-08-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

One of the San Francisco Bay Area's finest bloggers has passed away. She wrote under the pen name Jane Jamison and was the founder of the very successful Uncoverage.net blog and, more recently, a contributor at Right Wing News.

In a recent post, she described some of the perils of being a conservative in the San Francisco Bay Area:

I have written for years and worked radio for years under a pen name. I do so because in the past when I used my real name for my broadcast and written work, I have had my car vandalized, my home vandalized, phone threats, death threats and my children were approached by strangers at their sports activities.
Liberals can be very dangerous people, especially here in the bay area, where I have had my tires flattened and my car windows broken when I attended counterprotests against liberal groups. They have pushed, shoved and threatened me with violence at their protests over the years when I would show up with counter protest signs or question their activities. I unfortunately, have to do work with liberals in the San Francisco bay area who undoubtedly would fire me or not hire me due to my political beliefs, so I keep my professional writing persona and my personal life “separate” for my safety. [Emph. added]

(It is wise to remember that liberals are not "tolerant.")

Although I never met Ms. Jamison in person, she was a long-time friend of this blog. Examples of our shared interest in SF Bay Area protests are here and here. At Uncoverage, she did impressive original investigative work exposing the scandals that the local media preferred to ignore. Her contribution to the cause of freedom will not be forgotten.

Voting with their feet: Student edition

2011-08-29T22:58:00.001-07:00

The Associated Press reports:

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Weeks after Indiana began the nation’s broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing.
It is a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say the practice violates the separation of church and state.
In at least one district, public school principals have been pleading with parents not to move their children.

Hat tip: Instapundit and American Glob.

PREVIOUSLY on foot-voting:
•Americans flee Blue states

Life in a government monopoly

2011-08-29T13:01:00.001-07:00

The Washington Post reports that the US Postal Service pays workers to do nothing:

Long-standing labor agreements with two major postal unions prohibit the Postal Service from laying off or reassigning workers because of broken equipment or periods of low mail volume. Instead, idled employees show up for work, sit in a break room or cafeteria and do nothing.
Standby time totaled 170,666 hours in the first six months of 2011, costing the Postal Service $4.3 million, according to an audit by the Postal Service inspector general’s office. In 2009, 1.2 million hours were billed at a cost of $30.9 million.

Voting with their feet

2011-08-29T12:52:00.001-07:00

People always want better lives for themselves and their families. Whether they are fleeing by boat from communist Cuba or Vietnam or climbing the Berlin wall, the better life has always been on the side that offers individual economic freedom. Traveling within the United States does not require such heriocs but people still migrate. In the Beast, Michael Medved writes (hat tip: Instapundit) on Americans migrating:

New Census numbers show citizens fleeing by the millions from liberal states and flocking in comparable numbers to bastions of right-wing sentiment. Call it the Great Political Migration.

Between 2009 and 2010 the five biggest losers in terms of “residents lost to other states” were all prominent redoubts of progressivism: California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey. Meanwhile, the five biggest winners in the relocation sweepstakes are all commonly identified as red states in which Republicans generally dominate local politics: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia. Expanding the review to a 10-year span, the biggest population gainers (in percentage terms) have been even more conservative than last year’s winners: Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Texas, in that order.

For the migrants who are Democrats, there must be some cognitive dissonance as they flee the results of their policies.

PREVOUSLY on the failure of liberal economic theories:
•Survey of CEOs: Obamanomics is still the problem
•A CEO explains how Obama's policies damage the economy

•CEO: businesses are "frightened to death" of Obamacare and Obama's regulatory overreach
•Obamanomics and the prolonged recession
•How to lie with statistics
•3M: “Politicians forget that business has choice"
•Obamacare: Corporatism in action
•Obama 0, Germany 1:
•Medical insurance prices rising due to ObamaCare
•Laws of Economics 1; Obama 0
•Why Liberal economics fails: redistribution does not create wealth (Illustrated)
•Obamacare endangers student health
•Why business isn't hiring
•Dodd-Frank finance "reform" bill stops bond market cold
•Why unemployment insurance must be extended (illustrated)
•Obamanomics still failing, Washington Post discovers
•Russia goes supply-side
•Study: Liberals are economically illiterate

Are Obama's deficits helping the economy?

2011-08-25T22:36:00.001-07:00

Pres. Obama and the Democrats claim that deficit spending "stimulates" the economy. This is the Keynesian school of economics. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Robert J. Barro, Professor of Economics at Harvard, explains the problems with this theory:

[I]n true Keynesian spirit, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said recently that food stamps were an "economic stimulus" and that "every dollar of benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity." Many observers may see how this idea—that one can magically get back more than one puts in—conflicts with what I will call "regular economics." What few know is that there is no meaningful theoretical or empirical support for the Keynesian position.
The overall prediction from regular economics is that an expansion of transfers, such as food stamps, decreases employment and, hence, gross domestic product (GDP). In regular economics, the central ideas involve incentives as the drivers of economic activity. Additional transfers to people with earnings below designated levels motivate less work effort by reducing the reward from working.
In addition, the financing of a transfer program requires more taxes—today or in the future in the case of deficit financing. These added levies likely further reduce work effort—in this instance by taxpayers expected to finance the transfer—and also lower investment because the return after taxes is diminished.

In short, deficit spending, such as on welfare, distorts incentives, reducing both work and investment. So much for theory. What does the empirical evidence say? Prof. Barro continues:

Theorizing aside, Keynesian policy conclusions, such as the wisdom of additional stimulus geared to money transfers, should come down to empirical evidence. And there is zero evidence that deficit-financed transfers raise GDP and employment—not to mention evidence for a multiplier of two. [Emph. added]

Hat tip: JustOneMinute.

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College graduates are more religious than high school grads who are more religious than high school dropouts

2011-08-22T13:18:00.001-07:00

President Obama ("bitter clingers") and Democrats would like to associate religion with lack of education and sophistication. The facts are otherwise says W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He and his colleagues have looked at the relationship between education and church attendance and found, as US News reports:

In the past decade, 23 percent of the least-educated whites attended religious services monthly or more often, compared with 37 percent of moderately educated whites and 46 percent of college-educated whites, the researchers said.

In other words, college grads are twice as likely (46% vs. 23%) to attend church regularly as compared to high school dropouts.

This work was presented last Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in Las Vegas.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

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The New York Times prints left-wing propaganda

2011-08-20T16:30:00.001-07:00

This may be a dog-bites-man story but John Hinderaker provides an excellent summary of what is wrong with the hit-piece on Rep. Issa that the Times published.

Politicized science at the EPA

2011-08-20T16:07:00.001-07:00

A new study shows that the "peer review" that the EPA uses when deciding on endangered species status is phony. Granting of "endangered species" status can come with a huge economic cost.

CEO survey says Obamanomics is still the problem

2011-08-20T14:54:00.001-07:00

Chief Executive magazine updated its CEO Confidence survey and executives continue to report that they'll be more willing to hire when Obamanomics (Obamacare, regulations, protectionism, high taxes, and trillion-dollar deficits) is repealed or scaled back:

The ranking of hiring-inducing priorities that were ranked “important to extremely important” were as follows:

Backlog of work or increased revenue — 88.2 percent
Evidence of economic expansion — 77.2 percent
Repeal of Health Care Reform or eliminate uncertainty over its provisions — 71.6 percent
Reduction in government regulation of business — 62 percent
Government holds line on debt ceiling — 56.3
Reduced corporate tax rate to OECD average — 54.3
Balanced federal budget — 53.9
Gov’t passes all free trade agreements without delay — 48.8
Repeal Dodd-Frank or eliminate uncertainty over its provisions — 48.2

Hat tip: LegalInsurrection.

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Noam Chomsky and his imaginary world

2011-08-13T23:42:00.001-07:00

In his early career, Noam Chomsky was a brilliant linguist. Currently he is best known as a leading leftist intellectual. Here is what passes for leftist intellectual thought:

Let me highlight what this brilliant scholar says, starting at about 1:07 in the video:

Christian Right has something else in mind. They are looking forward to Armageddon. There is a whole belief system. Probably Geo. Bush number 2 probably believed in this. If you have Armageddon, then the souls that are saved rise to heaven. Jesus Christ comes for a thousand years of peace and the whole story. Fine. The pro-Israel christian right are the most anti-semitic people in the world. They want all the Jews in the world to be exterminated except for the 144,000 who are somehow converted.

The man is completely delusional.

Hat tip: TheBlaze.

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Unintended consequences

2011-08-13T23:28:00.001-07:00

How innocent well-meaning Medicare regulations are causing shortages of critical cancer drugs.

Is morality innate?

2011-08-13T22:56:00.001-07:00

According to an LA Times Op-Ed, even infants have a sense of morality:

Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom notes that "it is often beneficial for humans to work together … which means it would have been adaptive to evaluate the niceness and nastiness of other individuals." In groundbreaking research, he and his team found that infants in their first year of life demonstrate aspects of an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even fair and unfair. When shown a puppet climbing a mountain, either helped or hindered by a second puppet, the babies oriented toward the helpful puppet. They were able to make an evaluative social judgment, in a sense a moral response.

Or, maybe the infants were just hoping that the 'helpful puppet" would give them a free lunch?

CEO: Obama's policies damage the economy

2011-08-11T23:36:00.001-07:00

David Farr, the CEO of Emerson Electric, explains how Obama's policies limit employment and hamstring growth:

GDP in the U.S. grew in the first half less than 1%. . . . It's not new news. We have to deal with it. We have a tradition in the company to deal with those things.
Then we have a government situation, their inability to deal with the real gut issues of excess spending and debt. All we hear out of government is, we're going to raise taxes. We don't like corporate planes. We're going to sue Boeing, one of the most strategic companies we have in this country, for building a new plant in South Carolina. We have no desire to really go after corporate tax reform, which would (finally) change this country and encourage people to invest and reinvest and create jobs in this country, but rather demagogue and go after people that actually create those jobs, be it corporations [or] people that are successful. . . .
So, as I look at what [is] coming at us in the second half of this year, I do not see the catalysts that would say that [the] economy will be fundamentally different in the second half than we saw in the first half. . . . Fundamentally, there's nothing going on in the U.S. right now that would encourage corporations to ignore the excessive regulations coming at us. . . . You look at the new health-care bill. You look at the last week. We decided in Washington to raise the CAFE standards for the second time within three years on the day that we announced less than 1% first-half GDP growth in the U.S. economy. I would say Washington is arranging the chairs on the Titanic.

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Our narcissist-in-chief

2011-08-11T23:19:00.001-07:00

How smart does President Obama think he is? At the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens reviews the record:

"I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," [Barack Obama] reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."
On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

There is wisdom in knowing one's limitations. Obama doesn't.

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The Federal budget problem, clearly explained

2011-08-11T13:47:00.001-07:00

(Warning: contains vulgar language)

Hat tip: Greg.

Study: teacher's unions are bad for education

2011-08-09T21:45:00.001-07:00

From Nashville's NewsChannel5 (Hat tip: Instapundit):

The AP discovered school systems without teachers' collective bargaining rights performed slightly better than those with negotiated contracts. Thirty-eight school districts don't have collective bargaining rights, and the AP found those systems averaged a higher percentage of students who earned proficient or advanced scores.

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President Obama: the Movie

2011-08-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

From Rush, Obamageddon and Barackalypse Now:
From Instapundit, Downgrade (which apparently features a sinking ship):

Not enough rich to cover the deficit

2011-08-05T15:09:00.001-07:00

Dan Surber provides the numbers.

Sharia Law practiced in Australia

2011-08-03T15:20:00.001-07:00

According to this TV report, women's rights are disappearing as Sharia Law is being practiced in cities across Austrialia:

Some clerics have defied government bans to establish their own courts to decide divorce cases, child custody issues, and financial disputes. Brian Seymore reports that's just the start as Muslim leaders call for traditional Islamic Law to be fully adopted in Australia.

Hat tip: Leonard

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Obama and the economics of fear

2011-07-20T16:01:00.001-07:00

Business Insider interviewed (hat tip: Legal Insurrection) Steve Wynn, the CEO of casino company Wynn Resorts, and he had some choice things to say about Obamanomics:

And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems, that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration.And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America.

You bet and until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, God, don't be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama's deal and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America.[Emph. added]

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The answer depends on where you are looking

2011-07-13T12:42:00.001-07:00

As explained by master cartoonist Michael Ramirez:

National Academy of Sciences warns EPA on junk science

2011-07-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

From Inside EPA, as quoted by PJ Tatler, the Environmental Protection Agency gets a scolding:

A key EPA science adviser is warning that the agency must succeed in making its scientific research programs more transparent and sound in order to to bring credibility back to agency science, or EPA will risk increased scrutiny from House Republicans and industry that could prompt a “crisis.”

“You can’t fail this time,” Thomas Burke, associate dean of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who also chaired a recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel on ways to improve EPA risk assessments, told EPA officials and other scientific advisers during a discussion on the agency’s new chemical safety research program June 30.

“The sleeping giant is that EPA science is on the rocks . . . if you fail, you become irrelevant, and that is kind of a crisis,” Burke told a joint meeting of EPA’s Science Advisory Board and EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) charged with looking at the reorganization of the agency’s research programs.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

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