Category ►►► Liberal Lunacy

June 24, 2009

No Time for Sergeants - the First Post-Penultimate Word on the A.D.D.D.D.A.

I know I said the last post was the penultimate one on the subject of the Anti-Democratic Democrats' Denial of Democracy in Albany; but something so Kafkaesque has just happened in the New York State Senate that I cannot silently wait for the ultimate post... which will be the one where everybody's hash is finally settled. I am optimistic about much mirth and hijinks to ensue; I'm calling this the first post-penultimate word.

Our previous posts on this titillating topic are:

• New York Democracy + Chicago Rules... Hijinks Ensue
• More on the Anti-Democratic Democrats' Denial of Democracy in Albany
• Penultimate Word on on the Anti-Democratic Democrats' Denial of Democracy in Albany

The current hilarity writes itself:

In Albany, Separate Senate Sessions for Each Party

Republicans and Democrats attempted to hold separate Senate sessions at the same time on Tuesday, leaving the Capitol in confusion and bickering as members of both parties shouted over each other on the Senate floor, and each party claimed it was in control.

Though Democrats had entered the Senate chamber through a back hallway just before 12:30 p.m. and locked the doors -- much to the surprise of Republicans -- Republicans moved ahead with plans for their own session and began calling for votes on bills as Democrats sat silent in protest.

Exactly who was in control of the Senate -- or whether any of the procedural action the Republicans had taken was legally valid -- was unclear. Democrats were successful in blocking Republicans from taking control of the Senate gavel, which remained firmly in the hands of Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Westchester County, who was guarded by sergeants-at-arms on both sides.

The first point of puzzlement is why the sergeants-at-arms have sided with the Democrats... aren't they supposed to be neutral? How do they know which party legally controls the body? Are they lawyers? Have they even consulted with lawyers -- upon whose authority?

UPDATE, une 24th, 2000: Heh... that was how the story read yesterday; but today, the Times pulled another fast one: They jacked up the URL and ran a whole new story under it -- headline, body, page count, pocket change, blood chemicals, and all. Gone are the paragraphs quoted above, to be replaced by this:

Come to Order! Not a Chance, if It’s Albany

New York did not have one State Senate on Tuesday. It had two.

Democrats sneaked into the Senate chamber shortly after noon, seizing control of the rostrum and locking Republicans out of the room. Republicans were finally allowed to enter about 2:30 p.m., but when they tried to station one of their own members on the dais they were blocked by the sergeants-at-arms.

So then something extraordinary -- and rather embarrassing -- happened.

The two sides, like feuding junior high schoolers refusing to acknowledge each other, began holding separate legislative sessions at the same time. Side by side, the parties, each asserting that it rightfully controls the Senate, talked and sometimes shouted over one another, gaveling through votes that are certain to be disputed. There were two Senate presidents, two gavels, two sets of bills being voted on.

What is the point of such stealth-rewrites? They didn't make it any better for Democrats or harsher on Republicans... they just didn't like the first version (which can still be seen here), so they substituted a different one, with the same URL. Yeesh.

To serious-up for a moment, what I consider the most significant bill caught up in the maelstrom of madness -- a bill to legalize same-sex marriage throughout New York, the third-largest state in the United States -- might be doomed for this term. From a subsequent article in the Times:

Senators defied Gov. David A. Paterson on Wednesday and refused to take up any of the 10 issues he put on the schedule for a legislative session, indefinitely postponing votes on same-sex marriage and other signature items of the governor’s agenda....

Though gay rights supporters were initially pleased that the governor had placed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage on the agenda, many gay rights advocates were saying on Wednesday morning that they did not believe a vote would accomplish anything. There are myriad legal questions clouding any piece of legislation that the Senate takes up, and supporters of same-sex marriage are wary of seeing their issue turned into a political football.

“Nobody wants it to pass under a cloud, so it will be immediately subject to legal challenge,” said Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, a Democrat from the Upper West Side who sponsored the same-sex marriage bill that passed the Assembly last month. Even if the Senate did pass the bill the governor put on his agenda for Wednesday, and the legal issues were not so complicated, Mr. O’Donnell said same-sex marriage would still not be legal because the governor’s bill would have to be passed again by the Assembly.

The normal session expired in the middle of this month; depending on the outcome of the stalemate (I'm tempted to call it "Fool's Mate" instead), there may be insufficient time to bring up the same-sex marriage (SSM) bill before the expiration of the current "extraordinary session," called by N.Y. Gov. David Paterson. If it expires, and if Paterson does not call another, then I think the Senate is in recess until January... at least so the New York State Senate's own website seems to say.

Will there still be such impetus next year for jamming through such a fundamental change to a foundational insitution as marriage -- without any referendum of New Yorkers? I don't know; but at this point, those of us averse to monkeying with one of the foundations of Western civilization should be grateful for any delay we can get. Perhaps legislators will have an opportunity to think a second time, as Dennis Prager likes to say.

But back to whipping the cat in Albany! Let's run with both versions of the Times story; maybe by tomorrow, yesterday will have never happened at all.

We still have the same problem with the sergeants-at-arms siding with the Democrats -- the default-to-the-liberals favoritism found in Democratic states like New York. First the guards defended the "Democrats' gavel" against the rampaging Republicans, notwithstanding a 32 to 30 vote to oust former Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D). The same majority then elected Sen. Dean Skelos (R) majority leader and Sen. Pedro Espada (D) as president of the Senate; how can the sergeants unilaterally decide to abrogate that vote, "blocking Republicans from taking control of the Senate gavel?"

But then they did something even worse, discussed in detail in the first version of the story but only sketched in the second: When Majority Leader Skelos called Sen. George H. Winner, jr. to the podium... oh, but let the Times tell it in its original words, before editors decided to merely hint around the bush:

Shortly after Republicans walked onto the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon, their leader, Dean G. Skelos, called the chamber to order and asked one of the Senate Republicans’ deputy leaders, George H. Winner Jr., to “take the podium.” Mr. Winner, who was standing at the front of the chamber, attempted to climb the stairs that lead to the podium where the presiding officer stands but was stopped by a Senate guard.

“Senator Skelos,” Mr. Winner responded, “I have been instructed by the sergeant-at-arms not to take the podium.” Mr. Winner then walked to a desk in front of the podium, called the Senate to order from there and began calling votes on a list of bills. Since Democrats sat silent and did not voice any objections, Mr. Winner claimed that each bill passed by a vote of 62 to 0.

So in addition to defending the Democrats' presumably inherent right to hold the gavel at all times, regardless of any organizing votes to the contrary, the sergeants also forcibly prevented a Republican senator from even approaching the podium -- because the Democrats didn't want him to be allowed to speak.

One final example deserves note of the sergeants abandoning their traditional role as neutral defenders of the peace -- in order to concentrate on their other traditional role as New York civil servants, that of being liberal Democratic partisans. In the original version:

Republicans seemed just as caught off guard as the rest of the Capitol when the Democrats came in at 12:30 p.m. As news of the Democrats’ move spread, some Republican staff members rushed to the Senate chamber and peered in through the windows to watch the Democrats congregating inside.

Senator Winner, a Republican from central New York, described the Democrats’ move as unnecessary and possibly against the law.

“It seems to me somewhat petulant and or illegal to lock the doors,” Mr. Winner said.

The outer doors to the chamber were kept locked by the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, but some reporters were able to gain access through a back door.

The new version of the story makes clear that the Democrats snuck in alone -- and locked the doors against the Republicans. Thus, the sergeants-at-arms must have been holding the door against duly elected Republican state senators entering the state Senate chambers:

Democrats sneaked into the Senate chamber shortly after noon, seizing control of the rostrum and locking Republicans out of the room....

Early Tuesday, Republicans seemed as surprised as the rest of the Capitol when Democrats took over the chamber. Some Republican staff members rushed to the chamber to peek through small windows to watch the Democrats congregating. Some reporters were able to gain access to the locked chamber through the office of Mr. Espada, hurrying through a side room where Mr. Espada’s grandson was parked in front of a television, watching the Cartoon Network.

Note the curious omission of the fact that it was the sergeants who prevented Republican senators from entering the chamber (replaced by the reference to the Cartoon Network -- product placement, or do the Times editors simply have a "thing" for cartoons?) This fits in with the new version omitting the tidbit about sergeants jealously guarding the "Democrats'" gavel and brushing past the same sergeants preventing Sen. Winner from speaking from the podium. Could that be the reason for the rewrite -- to whitewash the complicity of the supposedly neutral guardians of the Senate in a partisan dispute against the GOP?

If so, what a sad and petty reason to engage in such an Orwellian rewrite of history. Times publisher "Pinch" Sulzberger should busy himself reading his Shelly; it may tell him some inconvenient truths about his own future and that of his family's media legacy:

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 24, 2009, at the time of 5:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 23, 2009

New Addition to the Encyclopaedia of "Argumentum ad Defatigationem"

I have a new one for you.

"Argumentum ad Defatigationem" is Latin for argument by exhaustion -- arguing in so fatiguing a manner that one's opponent just gives up and stomps off -- after which the arguer jumps up and down and shouts "I won!" It's a favorite trick of liberals (and too many libertarians); but liberals especially bring a tasty flavor to the proceedings with a number of rhetorical stunts that appear paralogical, but are actual diabolical.

The first one I identified, many years ago, was Argument by Tendentious Redefinition; this occurs when proponent secretly redefines a common and usually deplorable word -- but he relies upon listeners clinging to the original definition in order to tar his opponent with inuendo and subconscious slander. The classic example is a radical feminist who secretly redefines "rape" to include all heterosexual sex -- then repeatedly accuses ordinary heterosexual males of being "rapists."

Today's entry is a very different antic; I'm dubbing it Argument by Promiscuous Propinquity: One conducts it by taking two or more utterly disparate incidents and smooshing them together, one right after the other, to create the illusion that they are all the same incident.

If that seems a little vague, let me offer this clean example. Submitted for your approval, here are the first three grafs of the New York Times story linked above, titled "Tapes Reveal Nixon’s View of Abortion":

On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

And here are the fourth and fifth grafs -- the immediate successors to the above:

Nine months later, after Nixon precipitated the resignations of two top Justice Department officials and forced the firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate affair, Ronald Reagan, who was then the governor of California and would later be president, told the White House that he heartily approved.

Reagan told the White House that the action -- which would become known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” -- was “probably the best thing that ever happened -- none of them belong where they were,” according to a Nixon aide’s notes of the private conversation.

What do those two statements have in common? Nothing at all... except that both were recorded by the same device in the White House.

But what are readers to infer they have in common, this vile expression of racism and eugenics attributed to Richard Nixon, followed by Reagan's hearty approval? Clearly, the intent is that inattentive readers (that would be most of them) should mistakenly believe that Ronald Reagan approved of aborting biracial babies.

There is no transitional language between the two excerpts to alert readers that the reporter, the aptly named Charlie Savage, is making an abrupt, right-angle turn to a completely different subject. And in particular, note the phrase "nine months later;" if you simply sidle up and whisper "nine months," the first thing most Americans would think of was pregnancy -- further fostering the illusion that Ronald Reagan "heartily approved" of racial eugenics.

(Ronald Reagan is only mentioned once more in the article, in an almost parenthetical aside.)

Now, I have no idea whether the Times correctly quotes Nixon in context; but that's not relevant to this point. And it's utterly unpersuasive to object that the story does not explicitly state that Reagan's hearty approval was for Nixon's alleged eugenicism (nor does it explicitly say that the approval was for the firings and forced resignations). This gives Mr. Savage "plausible deniability," speaking of Nixon.

But really, words are my business; in a court proceeding, I would be a qualified expert on the subject. I know when someone is using language not to edify or enlighten but to obscure and mislead.

This series of five paragraphs is no accident: In the realm of serious, written, edited, and published prose or journalism, the Lizardian Rule of Intent reads, Never attribute to mere stupidity what can adequately be explained by malice; particularly when the object of the malice is, in fact, viscerally hated by the maligner. (If the same sort of appalling elite-media juxtaposition had befallen Barack H. Obama, I would more readily extend the benefit of doubt. Also, a mistake like calling the 2008 Republican VP nominee "Sarah Pallin" cannot be explained by malice and is clearly just a tyop to be shrugged off.)

Anyway, that is the new entry. I've thought about it for a while; I was going to discuss it right after the One's Apologia to the Moslems, when Paul Mirengoff at Power Line was defending the president by noting, with courtroom precision that bespeaks well of his talent as an attorney but not so well of his appreciation of political voice and tone, that Obama had not explicitly equated Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

Understanding Argument by Promiscuous Propinquity allows us to note the strangely inappropriate closeness, within the speech -- adjacency, in fact -- of the two incidents: Jews under the Nazis and Palestinians under the Israelis... a propinquity that defies benign explanation. But in that case, the transitional rhetoric made it kristall clear that he was comparing them: After describing the Nazi extermination of Jews, and before introducing Israel's entirely reasonable responses to Palestinian terrorism, Obama connected them by saying "on the other hand." That makes clear he is comparing one to the other... and context made clear he was equating, not contrasting.

So I abjured, awaiting a cleaner example; and here I have found it!

Argument by Promiscuous Propinquity... keep an eye out for it in future.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 23, 2009, at the time of 5:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 10, 2009

"You Have the Right to Keep Your Terrorist Secrets Safe..."

I don't know how much to believe this Weekly Standard story by Stephen F. Hayes -- I enjoyed his book the Connection, but I'm not sure how careful he is with the facts -- but he claims that the Barack H. Obama administration has actually begun instructing FBI agents that they must begin Mirandizing terrorists captured on the battlefield:

"I believe none of these [intelligence] successes would have happened if we had had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal – read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up,” Tenet wrote in his memoirs.

If Tenet is right, it’s a good thing KSM was captured before Barack Obama became president. For, the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

If this is true -- and I'm not yet sure it is -- the consequences would be dire. I joked about this earlier, saying that if we were to accept that all terrorist detainees should be treated as civilian criminal defendants, then we would have to let them all go... as none was read his Miranda rights; none was arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant issued by an American court; none was allowed to have his "attorney" (or minder) present during his interrogation; and in fact, soldiers don't even have legal grounds to enter mosques or safehouses or caves in the first place, since no American judge issued them search warrants. Let freedom ring! Release all the terrorists immediately on grounds that their constitutional rights were violated!

And if, after releasing all terrorists captured on George W. Bush's watch -- see how incompetent and irresponsible Bush was? He didn't even properly arrest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah -- we are to begin informing future captures that they have the right to remain silent and lawyer-up, does anybody believe we will ever again get any significant, valuable intel out of them?

As Tenet noted, would KSM have talked if we'd told him he didn't have to, that he could demand the interrogation cease any time he wanted, and that his terrorist attorney of choice had to be present during any interrogation that did continue? It's absolute madness... if true.

The tip comes from Rep. Mike J. Rogers (R-MI, 84%) -- and a perfect example of Hayes' sloppiness is that he doesn't identify whether he means that Mike Rogers (which he does) or Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-AL, 50%); I had to figure it out myself by Hayes' statement that the Mike Rogers he means is the one on the House Intelligence Committee.

I do believe Hayes is telling the truth that Rogers said what Hayes claims he said; but I'm not sure how thoroughly Hayes vetted Rogers' claim. I worry that since Rogers' accusation agrees so completely with Hayes' take on the administraiton, that the latter simply accepted it as "solid evidence," on the well-known logical principle that "It must be true, because it would be so wonderful for my argument if it were true."

That said, a claim of ideology-driven intelligence frivolity by this administration, made by a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- especially as Rogers is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism/HUMINT, Analysis and Counterintelligence and a former FBI Special Agent as well -- is serious enough to warrant investigation: Did President Obama actually order high-level detainees to be Mirandized on the battlefield (or elsewhere, but still before they can be interrogated)? Or is it possible that the Mirandizing only applies to lower-tier terrorists who are not thought to have significant intelligence, and who are intended all along simply to be prosecuted in civilian courts?

Before flying off all four handles, I want to see better verification of this story, along with more details about which and what kind of terrorist captures it applies to, and whether the president can override the policy in important cases.

But unless Rogers has simply fabricated this charge out of whole cloth (unlikely), even if we're now applying American constitutional rights only to low-tier, foreign national terrorists captured in a foreign country by our military, it would still severely undermine our legal position anent top-tier terrorists as well: A court could easily conclude that if the Executive agrees Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and protections apply to Osama bin Laden's chauffeur, then what is the legal argument why they wouldn't apply equally to bin Laden himself?

It's time for someone with a bit more credibility than Stephen Hayes to seriously dig into the Rogers claim; if accurate, this is the most dire Obamic threat to intelligence gathering yet unveiled as part of the One's almost pathological need to throw a stumbling wrench into the war against the Iran/al-Qaeda axis.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 10, 2009, at the time of 1:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 9, 2009

New York Democracy + Chicago Rules... Hijinks Ensue

The Democrats in Albany, New York, call it a "coup."

The rest of us call it an election. (Perhaps Democrats are simply unfamiliar with the concept.)

How I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the New York State Senate from yesterday at 3:00 pm through today. For months, Republicans and even some Democrats had grown increasingly frustrated under the leadership of the majority leader, Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith. But only two Democrats had any inkling what was about to happen.

In the midst of a boring, routine day of Senate debate, Republican Sen. Tom Libous from Binghamton rose to offer a resolution to "reorganize the Senate leadership." The Democrats were caught completely off their guard. Stunned, they watched as two of their number -- Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens -- defected to support the Republican majority leader, Dean Skelos, against the then-current majority leader, Democrat Malcolm Smith. (In fact, Espada and Monserrate had been coordinating this move with the Republican minority for several weeks.)

Democrats tried every trick in the book to prevent the leadership election from occurring: They fled the state Senate to try to prevent a quorum, cut off the lights and power to the Senate chambers, and sabotaged the internet connection. But the Republicans stuck to their attack; and before the Democrats could stop the proceedings, the GOP had won the vote. With dizzying speed, the minority plus the two defectors had mustered a bare majority of those voting to replace Smith with Skelos.

And now Smith is left wailing like a banshee that there has to be some "legal recourse" by which a judge (any judge, anywhere!) can reverse the election results:

Still reeling from a sudden revolt a day earlier that shifted control of the New York State Senate to Republicans, Democrats huddled behind closed doors in the Capitol on Tuesday morning, seeking a legal path to help them block the power grab.

But it was far from clear whether they would be able to keep Republicans from assuming control of the Senate, or even whether they would be able to keep more members from defecting and further cementing the new Republican majority.

The Democrats' whiny petulance and outraged feelings of entitlement practically stifle the atmosphere. In their latest anti-democratic lunge for lost leadership, they have locked the Senate doors and won't let the Republicans inside:

Throughout Tuesday morning, stunned Democrats continued to insist that they were still the party in control of the Senate, and that Malcolm A. Smith -- only five months into his role as head of the Senate majority -- was still their leader. The standoff had grown so tense that the secretary of the Senate -- a position appointed by the Democratic conference -- was refusing to hand over the keys to the Senate chamber to the Republicans. The Republican leadership called for the secretary’s resignation, and vowed to hold Wednesday’s session, whether in another room or in a park.

Democrats in New York more and more resemble prepubescent brats pitching a tantrum. Perhaps next, the Democrats will demand a new vote... and somehow strip Skelos from the ballot.

Here is a simple syllogism to bear in mind: Democrats have about as much respect for democracy and rule of law as do Kim Jong-Il of North Korea and Oogo Chavez of Venezuela... scratch a pack of liberal Democrats and you'll find the bestial mob of feral children in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, running naked through the underbrush screaming "Kill the pig, kill the pig!"

I'm starting to think it possible that enough of a backlash will build that angry New York voters will help return Republicans to power in the United States Congress. I even begin to ponder whether the Republican nominee in 2012 might stand a reasonable chance of beating Barack H. Obama in the Empire State, three years and some loose change hence.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 9, 2009, at the time of 10:55 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 1, 2009

Democrats to America: Roast or Freeze - We Don't Care!

Democrats are now moving swiftly and boldly to jack up the cost of heating oil, gasoline, and natural gas; the plan is to reduce carbon release by forcing low-income and middle-income Americans to live without fuel:

A powerful congressional chairman has joined a growing number of Democrats who want to sharply increase the cost of drilling leases that the government provides on federal lands, a move vigorously opposed by Big Oil and Republicans.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, has proposed a plan to boost royalty rates by 50 percent and to cut the lease periods to five years from the current 10 years or more. His recommendation would be part of a sweeping overhaul of the $22 billion, scandal-tarred oil and gas drilling program that the Interior Department oversees.

The plan also appears in line with the broader energy goals of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who is conducting a review of the Interior Department's handling of oil and gas leases and royalties as the House prepares to push through a bill to address climate change and the Senate works on its own energy legislation.

However, think not that this is just random nastiness or bootless monkey-wrenching. The Left actually has a plan -- which strikingly resembles President Barack H. Obama's plan to make American cars "more competitive" against European and Asian imports by forcing GM, Ford, and Chrysler to raise prices while they produce less popular cars. That should do the trick!

In the present instance, Chairman Rahall (D-WV, 89%) and Secretary Salazar intend to make American-generated petroleum products "more competitive" on the world market by making companies pay a much larger bribe to the federal government for the privilege of spending their own money to extract oil and gas:

The bill "would reform the onshore oil and gas leasing program in order to provide a more coordinated, efficient and competitive use of oil and gas resources," according to an outline of the plan provided by the committee.

Mr. Rahall's plan fits neatly into the broader efforts of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats to make a "dramatic shift" in energy production toward green sources, said Sharon Buccino, director of land and wildlife programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

So heck, as soon as we can invent some "green sources" to replace the oil and gas-driven energy economy, we'll get this country going again like gangbangers!

The Rahall bill would also make a number of other changes that only seem petty, but are actually quite incoherent; the most intriguing is to require the (soon to be created) Office of Federal Energy and Mineral Leasing to create and live by "five year plans." Apart from the obvious hat tip to the former worker's paradise -- cruelly crushed by the thuggish President Ronald Reagan (did you know he was a neo-con?) -- this component of the bill raises an intriguing question: Do Democrats believe that the primary impediment to "a more coordinated, efficient and competitive use of oil and gas resources" is... flexibility and a capitalist free market?

Ordinarily, one expects that we need fewer rigid, long-term, smothering plans that react to changing stresses and circumstances with all the rapidity of the Blob spreading across that ice rink; typically, one would prefer instead to let the free market adjust prices to balance supply and demand. But the experts at the liberal table have a more intellectual approach. Their reasoning is very subtle. Resistance is futile.

Funnily enough, even Pravda has noticed (and viewed with alarm) what's happening here:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people....

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack [Lucky Lefty] Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

I would object to being lectured and ridiculed by the very people that we helped liberate from the clutches of the original Marx buggers, but I'm too busy taking notes.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 1, 2009, at the time of 4:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 14, 2009

The Raucous Baucus Max-Tax Flim-Flam Plan

Always, those in the public sector have eyed the private sector as Martians observing the Earth: "vast and cool and unsympathetic." They envy the money; gross domesic product is many times larger than the measley $3 to $4 trillion available to the feds even in the age of Obama. They envy the productivity, which puts government programs and R&D to shame. They envy the freedom of CEOs simply to make decisions -- while government bureaucrats can only write memos of recommendation and shunt them one notch up the chain of infinite regress that is the government heirarchy.

They cannot duplicate the success of Capitalism and entrepeneurship, quite naturally; those qualities are characteristic of liberty, while government is its antithesis. So as with everyone consumed by envy -- even H.G. Wells' Martians -- what they cannot duplicate they can at least destroy.

Which brings us around, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, to the Democrats and their government takeover of health care:

Senators are considering limiting -- but not eliminating -- the tax-free status of employer-provided health benefits to help pay for President Barack Obama's plan to provide coverage to 50 million uninsured Americans.

Mighty considerate of them not to offhandly eliminate it; having us that momentus favor, surely we cannot carp about a little, itty-bitty tax, can we? By the way, anent those "50 million uninsured"... the only way to reach that number is to include the huge number of young, healthy, and well-paid young workers, who voluntarily choose not to carry insurance because they think themselves indestructable.

(Thank goodness I'm finally going to subsidize them! I couldn't stand the guilt, knowing I have condemned by inaction those young adults to having to pay for what they use, just as if they were ordinary people.)

On the controversial question of taxing health benefits, [Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max] Baucus is staking out a position that could put him at odds with Obama.

The president adamantly opposed such taxes during the campaign, arguing they would undermine job-based coverage. Obama's aides now say he's open to suggestions from Congress, even if he criticized Republican presidential rival John McCain for proposing a sweeping version of the same basic idea.

Baucus said he wants to modify the tax break, not abolish it.

"We are not going to repeal it," he said.

Baucus suggested that the benefit could be limited by taxing health insurance provided to high-income individuals, although he did not specify at what income levels. He also said that plans offering rich benefits -- for example, no co-payments or deductibles -- might be taxed once their value exceeded a yet-to-be-determined threshold....

In government jargon, the tax-free status of health insurance is called the "tax exclusion."

Let's set aside the weasle words for a moment and just look at the extreme case; we can reason backwards from there. Suppose that, contrary to Baucus' (D-MT, 80%) hand-on-heart claim, he really does intend to "repeal" the "tax exclusion"... what would that mean to taxpayers?

How does it work? Your employer pays you a salary (taxed), and he also pays for your medical insurance; yes, the latter is technically "income;" but it's not really, because you have no choice in how it's spent, other than small variations that the insurance plan my allow you -- picking an HMO or a Preferred Payer Plan, for example. (The purpose of the putative tax exclusion was, of course, to encourage employers to offer such plans -- which is why nearly everybody who wants medical insurance has it today.)

Employer-provided health insurance is considered part of workers' compensation, but unlike wages, it is not taxed. The forgone revenue to the federal government amounts to about $250 billion a year.

You rich villains are stealing the government's money!

In a typical case, your employer may pay you $50,000 salary and may pay about $450 per month in health-insurance premiums; you yourself may have to pick up a smaller portion of the premium, perhaps $150 per month. That means the total payment is, let us say, $600 per month or $7,200 per year.

The employer-paid part of that ($5,400 per annum) is not taxed: The employer deducts it as a business expense and the employee doesn't have to declare it as income. If the employee itemizes his income tax (for example, if he's buying a house and wants to deduct the mortgage interest), he may be able to deduct all or part of his own share of the premiums ($1,800 per year). Thus, he doesn't have to pay tax on anywhere from $5,400 of his "income" to $7,200, depending on how much of his own payments are deductable.

Splitting the difference, he gets to "deduct" (deduct or not have to report) $6,300 from his income. Since this will clearly be a marginal deduction, it all comes out of the highest income tax he's paying (unless that drops him below the level for that tax rate). This rate is currently 35%, I believe, but the specifics are less important than the principle.

So the final tally is: The taxpayer pays $2,205 less to the government than he would were the "tax exclusion" repealed; that of course means that if it were repealed, he would have to cough up an additional $2,205 to the feds -- so that other people would get to use government-controlled health insurance for free.

Sweet, isn't it? You pay a couple grand extra per year for the privilege of having private health insurance; but if you drop it and take the government-run health care instead, you pay no extra tax. As the Romans say, "Cui bono?" Who benefits? The public sector does... at the expense of the private sector, of course: This is yet another way that ObamaCare will drive people out of private health-insurance plans and into the loving arms of Uncle Sugar.

Of course, Baucus says (yesterday) that the Democrat-controlled Congress doesn't want to completely eliminate the "tax exclusion"; they just want to levy an extra tax on some of your health-insurance premium, not all of it. So they're not actually stealing the full $2,200... just a portion.

Of course, it still means that you must pay an extra penalty for using private health insurance but not for using ObamaCare. Thus the perverse incentive for everybody to dump private insurance in favor of government-run health care remains; it's just not quite as strong as if they went the full Monte. (And who knows what they will say tomorrow? Especially as the bill-writing continues, and it becomes obvious that the numbers just won't add up.)

Democrats are trying to sell the bill as purely utilitarian:

Many experts say that Congress won't be able to come up with the kind of money needed to provide coverage for all unless limitations on the health care tax break are part of the mix.

"I don't see how you're going to put a package together ... unless you touch the exclusion," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income people [that is, welfare recipients].

(Note that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is heavily underwritten by the Democracy Alliance -- which itself is funded by George Soros and many other prominent radical lefties. Just thought you'd like to know.)

I am less and less willing to give any benefit of the doubt to this administration on any point touching politics, progressivism, liberal fascism, or attacks upon the "Right." If -- in addition to raising revenue -- a bill also tends to drive people away from a market-driven, capitalist solution and towards government nationalization of health care, I will naturally conclude that this, not revenue, is the real goal.

Some of the arguments by proponents of HillaryCare ObamaCare seem to be brazen attempts at misdirection:

Proponents of repealing the benefit say it encourages lavish health insurance plans that only add to waste in the health care system. And they argue that the benefit is unfair, since self-employed people don't get as big a tax break for health care.

First, who cares if some rich people are willing to pay through the nose for a plan that includes rhinoplasty? Evidently the Left does: They care so much, they want to repeal all differences in the level of medical care between rich and poor. Equality is so important to the bad stepchildren of George Soros that, instead of some having more than others, they would rather everybody be equally poor and equally miserable.

If carried to its logical conclusion, this "reasoning" leads to the destruction of all private property... the rich will have the money but be disallowed from spending any of it! The response by the rich would be to flee the country, quite obviously... taking all of their talent, drive, and money with them. This disincentivizes intelligence, courage, and entrepeneurship: Why bother starting up a company if you won't even be able to enjoy the increased money you might make?

And the second argument for government-controlled health care is even more specious: If it's true that "self-employed people don't get as big a tax break for health care," then for God's sake, give them a larger tax break! Don't take away the break enjoyed by ordinary, company-employed workers.

With every new day, everything about this administration and this Congress makes it more and more clear that they aim to fundamentally transform America away from what we have been for 220 years -- and turn us into something alien. This is not patriotic; this is unAmerican. This is French.

We must kill this bill before it kills us.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 14, 2009, at the time of 7:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 6, 2009

Obamic Apology Tour Crawls to Kabul

In a burst of enthusiastic self-abasement, the One the World Has Been Waiting For has dispatched his Clintonian emissary to (once again) apologize profusely -- "deeply, deeply" -- for American military actions... this time in Afghanistan; and this time knowingly without knowing what really happened (a "known unknown!"), whether anything happened, and if so, who was at fault:

Meeting with Afghanistan President Harmid Karzai and Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari in a prelude to their talks with President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington "deeply, deeply" regrets the loss of life, apparently as a result of a bombing there on Monday.

"Any loss of innocent life is particularly painful," Clinton said. Karzai responded before the cameras that he appreciated Clinton "showing concern and regret." The visiting leader also said he hoped Washington and Kabul could "work together to completely reduce civilian casualties in the struggle against terrorism."

State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said later that Clinton's remarks were offered as a gesture, before all the facts of the incident are known, because "any time there is a loss of innocent life we are going to be concerned about it, and we wanted to make that very clear."

The Telegraph offers a more complete version of Secretary of State Clinton's apology:

"I wish to express my personal regret and certainly the sympathy of our administration on the loss of civilian life in Afghanistan," Mrs Clinton said at a joint meeting with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president.

"We deeply regret it. We don't know all of the circumstances or causes. And there will be a joint investigation by your government and ours," Mrs Clinton said.

"But any loss of life, any loss of innocent life, is particularly painful."

Of course, the Telegraph also accepts the word of "Afghan officials" from "a Taliban-controlled district," that our military is to blame -- in fact, the British newspaper claims a much higher toll of "innocent life":

Afghan officials said up to 120 non-combatants were killed when US warplanes dropped bombs on two villages in Bala Baluk, a Taliban-controlled district in the western province of Farah.

Is it just I? Doesn't the very fact that "all the facts of the incident" are not known mean that we have no idea whether the lives lost were, in fact, "innocent?" We are told that women and children were slaughtered; according to the AP article:

The bombing issue arose earlier Wednesday, when Karzai ordered a probe into allegations by local officials that more than 30 civilians were killed by U.S.-led troops battling militants in western Afghanistan. The International Committee of the Red Cross said a team it had sent to the area saw "dozens of bodies in each of the two locations," including women and children.

Karzai's office said he was going to raise the issue with Obama. And the U.S. has sent a brigadier general to investigate.

One presumes that most children would indeed be innocent; but does "children" include 15, 16, and 17 year olds? If so, they could very well be Taliban killers or al-Qaeda terrorists and every bit as guilty as their compadres a few years older.

But in any event, the mere existence of "dozens of bodies"... "including women and children" does not actually prove that they were killed by any action of the United States military forces -- or indeed by any direct action of anybody -- even if we were to accept the Red Cross' assertions at face value, which I'm not prepared to do. Nor does it prove that we were in any way culpable. Even the generally less forgiving Telegraph article admits the possibility that it is the Taliban, not NATO, that is directly responsible for the deaths:

Abdul Ghafar Watandar, the provincial police chief, said Taliban militants used villagers as human shields by herding them into houses during the US air attacks.

We cannot yet even say how many people, innocent or guilty, were killed. We know from the Pallywood revelations that anti-American, anti-West Moslem activists -- would the Taliban qualify? -- see nothing wrong in faking deaths (e.g., the Mohammed al-Dura case), raiding morgues for long-dead corpses, or even toting the bodies of dead children from site to site, in full view of the elite news media, yet passing them off as different victims each time (à la Green Helmet Guy).

The press is typically complicit in such lies, of course. Reporters often hire local "stringers" with suspect loyalties, if any; such stringers, familiar with the location and culture, cannot possibly fail to notice the fakery and stagecraft in these sick melodramas.

Nor can the Western and even American "journalistic" bosses fail to be aware of the opportunism and ideology-based deception their stringers routinely practice... any more than the top reporters and news readers could ever have been unaware that what Iraqis said in the Hussein era -- when accompanied by "minders" just outside camera range -- was worth less than zero.

Evidently, in both cases, many putative reporters considered the end (damaging America or the Bush administration) sufficiently vital to justify the means: degrading and slandering the United States and our military and jeopardizing American national security.

But let's suppose that many innocents really did die in Bala Baluk. The collapsing prosecutions of a number of Marine Corps officers and enlisted men for the supposed "Haditha massacre" demonstrate the terrible risk of humiliation and blowback run by those who go off half-cocked and conclude that if innocents are killed, Americans (or NATO) must be to blame. I refer here to accusers such as Rep. John Murtha (D-PA, 85%), to pick the most egregious example.

Murtha, congressman and poster-boy for the Democratic culture of corruption, so despised the American victories in Iraq and Afghanistan that he flatly announced that the Marines (his own branch of the service!) were guilty of wartime atrocities. (In this, he only mimicked Sen. John F. Kerry, D-MA, 100%, in a previous war.) On May 17th, 2006, speaking at a press conference, Murtha thus demonstrated his committment to a fair and impartial trial for the Marines accused in the Haditha case:

Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources [secret sources!] within the military have told him that an internal investigation [hidden evidence!] will show [precognition!] that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood." [Marines are bloodthirsty monsters!]

On December 21 of that year, eight Marines were charged with murder, negligent homicide, conspiracy, filing false reports and failure to investigate, and other UCMJ crimes; in the last two plus years, however, charges against seven of them were dropped, leaving only SSGT Frank Wuterich's case (seven counts of negligent homicide) still pending. But even if he is convicted -- which seems increasingly unlikely, as more evidence exonerating the Marines surfaces -- there is no way in which negligent homicide can honestly be described as having "killed innocent civilians in cold blood"; that is practically the definition of premeditated murder.

This cautionary tale directly applies to Hillary Clinton's crawlfest in Afghanistan. Here is what we do not yet know about the supposed American massacre in western Afghanistan:

• Whether the "local officials" were telling the truth or lying, accurate or mistaken about 30 to 120 civilians killed in a bombing; who are these officials anyway? What is their general attitude towards the American presence? That they are "officials" in "a Taliban-controlled district" immediately makes me skeptical of their claims.
• What, exactly, did the International Committee of the Red Cross see? And who showed it to them? Did they actually examine the bodies to ensure (a) that they had wounds consistent with the airstrike claim (as opposed to having been shot in the head at close range, a favorite tactic of militant Islamists holding human shields); and (b) whether they were actually dead? Or was the Red Cross simply shown shrouded lumps and told that they were bodies? Or were they shown anything at all, as opposed to being told about it by local Red Crescent affilliates? I'm not necessarily inclined to give the Red Cross the benefit of the doubt here, as they have lied, for political reasons, about American "massacres" in the past. Show us the bodies!
• Assuming those twin hurdles are overcome, how do we know it was American munitions that killed them? Perhaps the Taliban holding them in the buildings either decided to blow themselves up or else detonated their own explosives by accident.
• How many of those "dozens" or 30 or 120 were actually "innocent?" It's hardly uncommon for "local [Taliban-supporting] officials" to claim that all persons killed by NATO forces in Afghanistan have been innocent -- even if they are later identified as al-Qaeda or Taliban members or leaders.
• How do we know they were killed deliberately? They could have been caught in crossfire, they could have been "human shields," they could have died by a tragic accident (such as trying to salvage an unexploded bomb and accidentally triggering it).

If the answer to any of these questions falls out on the side of the American or NATO military, then Secretary Clinton's premature apology is a grotesque insult to our own armed forces: We should not apologize for fighting against the murderous evil of others, even if innocents die; those deaths are on the heads of the terrorists who precipitated the bloodshed -- in this case, by assassinating three government workers in Bala Baluk -- not on our heads for trying to stop them.

By "regretting," Clinton and Obama encourage the spread of the despicable meme that we are no better than the Taliban, that we massacre innocent people, that there is a moral equivalency between a mass murderer and the cops who try to stop him: Hey, they both have guns -- they both engage in violence -- they both kill... therefore, they're two sides of the very same coin, no?

A final point that I shouldn't even have to debunk: Some on the Left will surely point out -- rather gleefully, as if this is a rhetorical capper that completely clears the administration of any wrongdoing -- that Hillary Clinton did not actually say she "apologized" for the deaths, only that she "deeply, deeply regretted" them. But this is classic Clintonian deconstructionism, hair splitting, word parsing. Nobody in the Moslem world is going to care that she regretted rather than apologized; everyone will see it as an apology and an admission of guilt. Instead of regretting or apologizing, she should have said something along these lines:

That would have commemorated all deaths of innocents at the hands of terrorists without drawing moral equivalency between our military and our country, which has done more than any other nation in history to fight the horror of the Islamist holocaust, and refocused blame on those committing human sacrifice themselves. Evidently, that was too much to ask of Hillary Clinton and her Capo di Tutti Capi.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 6, 2009, at the time of 6:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 2, 2009

Weapon of Gas Discussion

A left-wing enviro "think tank" -- well, I reckon that's a misnomer! -- has suddenly tigged to what's stopping the mass conversion to Globaloney that the econuts have predicted (demanded!) for decades: It's not the preposterous premise, the muddled modeling, the risible rejection of ratiocination, the brouhaha of bullying, the abhorrent adhering to ad-hominems, or even the inconvenient injection of raw reality... the misbehaving meteorological malaise that causes ice storms and blizzards to descend upon global-warming gabfests like starving seagulls upon a seaside soirée.

No, none of that is the problem. It's that damned phrase, "global warming." It just doesn't sing. Liberal lexicographers at ecoAmerica have fallen into a frenzy of phraseology, trying to find a New! Improved! dictionary of doom and disaster to awaken the weary bourgeoisie:

The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”

The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

They advocate globaloney proselytizers eschew "grim warnings" in favor of terms that sound vague but are in fact meaningless... but which poll well. Ecospeak dictionary in hand, they plan to send "TALKING POINTS" (caps are theirs) out to advocacy groups around the world, helping them gin up support by spinning up their speech.

How did we find out? Well, EcoAmerica e-mailed its secret report to a number of friendly (that is, liberal Democratic) lawmakers; it wanted to keep the results under wraps until they could find a way to frame it so that the entire project would not end up a laughingstock. Alas for them, some well-meaning cement-head on their website accidentally cc'ed a number of news organizations.

Heh.

Of course, they have every reason to worry about the report leaking prematurely:

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

Well, yeah. We do. And so it is. As word trickles down to the masses about how their legislators are spending the staggering emergency deficits they have voted to snow voters with hot air on global warming, strong steps might be taken through the proper channels. 2010 approaches faster with every passing month.

Here are some of ecoAmerica's suggested circumlocutions. I wonder how much they got paid for this?

• "Global warming"  →  "our deteriorating atmosphere;"
• "Carbon dioxide"  →  "the dirty fuels of the past;"
• "Cap and trade"  →  "pollution reduction fund;"
• "Energy efficiency"  →  "saving money for a more prosperous future;"
• "Environment"  →  "the air we breathe, the water our children drink." (That's still boring; now if they had it, "the water we breath, the children we dunk," they might have something.)

The movement should have come to me; I would have given them much more bewildering babble at a small fraction of the probable millions they forked over to ecoAmerica. Viz.:

• "Banning all industrial operations" could be renamed "greenlining;"
• "Carbon rationing" becomes "redistribution of illth;"
• "The Kyoto Protocol" -- frightening, technical, foreign -- becomes "atmospheric contingency operation;"
• "Tailpipe emissions of carbon and carbonoids" becomes "van-caused disasters;"
• "Mandating use of hybrid cars for all non-governmental usage" becomes "the Prius is right;"
• A "collapsed economy" is a "global financial resimplification;"
• An "ice-age Earth" is defended as "it's cool to be blue;"
• And complaints from globaloney deniers of "flawed general circulation models that cannot even accurately predict the past" shall henceforth be referred to as "exochronic evidentiary discrimination."

See? No need to modify hypotheses that are shot down and predictions which fall flat. All we need do is change the user interface, and presto! Hope meets anthropogenic global climate change.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 2, 2009, at the time of 11:52 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

April 30, 2009

Everybody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

At the end of an AP story on the extraordinary lengths to which the administration of Barack H. Obama is going to urge, cajole, and even bribe our "allies" into accepting released detainees from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility -- so that the president can shut it down and bask in the warm glow of being patted on the head by Europe -- I stumbled across this arresting exchange:

In speaking to reporters Wednesday, [Attorney General Eric] Holder also said it is possible the United States could cooperate with a foreign court's investigation of Bush administration officials.

Holder spoke before the announcement that a Spanish magistrate had opened an investigation of Bush officials on harsh interrogation methods. Holder didn't rule out cooperating in such a probe.

"Obviously, we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it," Holder said. [Any country? Any country at all can open a "probe" of American officials, and Holder will seriously consider cooperating with it?]

"This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law and to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately created court, we would obviously respond to it," he said.

Oh yes, the "rule of law." But whose law? The rule of law in Spain forbids any interrogation of captured unlawful combatants and terrorists without them having an attorney present to object and demand classified intelligence; is that our new policy too? For that matter, the rule of law in Saudi Arabia demands that rape victims be flogged or even stoned to death. Will we "cooperate" on Saudi probes of such promiscuous women here in the United States?

The juxtaposition of Holder's offer of "cooperation" (complicity) and the hoped-for acceptance of Gitmo detainees strongly suggests that a grand bargain may be in the works: European countries may accept releasees in exchange for American recognition of the "universal jurisdiction" of individual courts of "human rights."

Does our looming cooperation imply that we might even look favorably upon a demand that we arrest and extradite named defendants to stand in the dock of such courts? Perhaps suspecting that he had given a bit too obvious a "tell," Holder seemed to retreat slightly (but only slightly):

Pressed on whether that meant the United States would cooperate with a foreign court prosecuting Bush administration officials, Holder said he was talking about evidentiary requests and would review any such request to see if the U.S. would comply.

But this is manifestly absurd: If the Attorney General of the United States once accepts the absurdity that a Spanish court and Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, sitting in Spain and operating under Spanish law, actually have jurisdiction over American officials making official policy decisions inside the United States about how American military and intelligence agents can interrogate detainees at an American Marine Corps base inside Cuba... then how can Holder later limit such jurisdiction to "evidentiary requests?"

If Garzón has legal authority to demand we hand over evidence, he also has legal authority to demand we hand over "war criminals," from American military personnel, to John Yoo, to Jay Bybee, to William Haynes, to Douglas Feith, to Alberto Gonzales, to Richard Myers, to Dick Cheney -- even to former President George W. Bush himself.

This is even more outrageous than the suggestion that we prosecute any of these individuals ourselves, or that we form a "truth commission" and haul them before it for public show trials. This is, in essence, outsourcing the prosecution of the previous administration to foreign courts. Call it "extraordinary judicion."

If we ever once accept that a European court -- and not even a recognized "international" one! -- has jurisdiction over actions committed by American officials here in the United States, and can prosecute them for "crimes" that are not even recognized here, then we have crossed a line from which we can never retreat: The United States will cease to be a sovereign power.

If Eric Holder and Barack Obama accept this idea, they will actually have brought about what used to be a paranoid fantasy among the John Birch Society and other lunatics -- "one-world government," run according to European, not American rules.

Even if we do not actually arrest and extradite suspects in a European crimes-against-humanity witch hunt, by acquiescing and even cooperating with such unconstitutional probes of American citizens, we could make it impossible for former Bush-administration officials ever to travel outside the United States: By accepting the jurisdiction of such "world courts" and blessing their proceedings, President Obama signals that he will stand by and do nothing if, say, Dick Cheney or George Bush is seized abroad and sent to some star-chamber tribunal for prosecution. (What would the former president's Secret Service contingent do -- shoot it out with Italian or German police?)

Note in this WaPo article that the administration has already cooperated with Garzón's kangaroo court, albeit with boatloads of plausible deniability:

In Madrid, a Spanish investigating magistrate announced Wednesday that he has opened a wide-ranging criminal investigation into what he called "a systemic plan of torture" at Guantanamo and other places where the U.S. government held terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Judge Baltasar Garzón said his probe was based largely on complaints filed by four former prisoners at Guantanamo who were transferred to Spain. But in court papers, he also said his investigation was prompted by the release of secret U.S. legal opinions authorizing the CIA to subject terrorism suspects to waterboarding and other tactics.

Spain and some other European countries have adopted laws giving themselves authority to investigate torture, genocide and other human rights crimes anywhere in the world. Although it is rare for prosecutors to win such cases, those targeted can face arrest if they travel abroad.

It's possible that Obama, Holder, and everyone else involved in the bizarre decision to release highly classified memos detailing our interrogation techniques into the wide world, were so naive and feckless that they literally had no idea that a Spanish court (and others) would rake over such a treasure-trove of intel for anything they could use against the United States. But it's equally plausible that the administration knew exactly what would eventuate from the release... and they did it anyway, consciously and deliberately. It is, after all, a wonderful way to push forward the criminal prosecution of the former administration without Obama himself, or his deputies, getting blood on their own hands: Garzón is willing (eager!) to do it for them.

But they cannot escape their own complicity so easily. I strongly believe that even most rank and file liberals will rise up in disgust at the idea that any cockamamie court anywhere in the world can announce that it has awarded itself "authority to investigate torture, genocide and other human rights crimes anywhere in the world" -- then demand the arrest and extradition of Americans for actions committed in some third-party country (or in America itself!) that are not crimes here... but are crimes in the country housing the court.

Should we hand over American government officials to sharia courts in Iran, to be prosecuted for the "crime" of insulting Islam? Well, don't we want to improve relations with that country, hoping they wil promise, crescent their hearts, to stop building nuclear bombs? Or should we extradite a president for refusing to join in some EU-enforced policy to cut carbon use by 80%?

Just how far is the Obama administration willing to go to impose "change we can believe in" upon the American people. More to the point, just how far are we willing to let them go?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 30, 2009, at the time of 2:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

April 24, 2009

U.N. Orders Obama to Prosecute Bush Officials for "Torture"

All right, not quite exactly the United Nations itself; but the U.N. special rapporteur on torture issues, Manfred Nowak, announced that the United Nations Convention against Torture obliges us to prosecute those attorneys who opined that the harsh interrogation techniques used against terrorist detainees at the Guanatanamo Bay Detention Facility -- making them stand up for a long time, shouting at them, occasionally slapping them, and in the case of three specific terrorists, waterboarding -- were legal under U.S. law, including all international law that we specifically incorporated by treaty or international agreement:

Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was legal.

"That's exactly what I call complicity or participation" to torture as defined by the convention, Nowak said at a news conference. "At that time, every reasonable person would know that waterboarding, for instance, is torture."

(Of course! Because anybody who didn't believe that pouring water in the face of a terrorist constituted "torture" was, by definition, unreasonable. No circular logic here...)

I expecially love the unbiased and non-argumentative adjectival phrase, "U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it." Another way to put that is: U.S. Justice Department officials who wrote memos analyzing the specific interrogation techniques vis-a-vis the United States criminal code on torture -- 18 U.S.C. § § 2340-2340A -- and all common-law precedents came to the conclusion that the techniques did not meet the legal definition of "torture" -- which is now and has been for decades illegal in the United States, even for the CIA. (But of course, that phrase isn't quite as useful in damning George W. Bush as torturer in chief, is it?)

Even though this decision is not a legally binding U.N. resolution, the opinion by the relevant U.N. authority may well supply President Barack H. Obama -- who I believe is actively looking for an excuse to prosecute those Bush administration officials the Democrats hate most -- with the fig leaf he needs to cover his animus with a facade of international law. In fact, I'm not even sure he would veto such a resolution were the UN Security Council to enact it.

Besides waterboarding, what techniques is Nowak talking about? What "gruesome" tortures do we stand accused of perpetrating on innocent beheaders? Read the following, and see if a shiver of guilt-driven terror runs up and down your spine:

The memos authorized keeping detainees naked, in painful standing positions and in cold cells for long periods of time. Other techniques included depriving them of solid food and slapping them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's family also were used.

I wonder a bit about that last one; threats of what sort? Where does this charge come from? I don't recall any memo specifically authorizing, for example, the threat to kill a detainee's wife, mother, or children, or any such a thing. The closest I can find is a memo sent February 12th, 2002, by the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, responding to "a request by the Commander of Joint Task Force 170 (now JTF GTMO) for approval of counter-resistance techniques to aid in the interrogatin of detainees at Guantanamo Bay."

In the original request, JTF Guantanamo Bay requested permission to use various harsh interrogation techniques (none of which amount to being "gruesome," in my understanding of that word) divided into three categories of increasing severity. Category three included the following request:

(1) The use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences are imminent for him and/or his family.

This would certainly qualify as the "threats to a detainee's family" mentioned above except that -- in response, the General Counsel approved everything in categories I and II but withheld blanket approval of techniques in category III:

While all Category III techniques may be legally available, we believe that, as a matter of policy, a blanket approval of Category III techniques is not warranted at this time. Our Armed Forces are trained to a standard of interrogation that reflects a tradition of restraint.

In other words, the Office of the General Counsel of the Department of Defense denied permission to Gitmo interrogators to threaten either the detainee or his family with "[imminent] death or severely painful consequences."

This conclusion was agreed to after consultation with General Counsel William J. Haynes II, Deputy Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers... the first two of whom would top the list of lawyers that Obama's friends want to see prosecuted (along with Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the OLC John Yoo).

It's passing odd that these attorneys (and Gen. Myers) are now routinely accused of having authorized such threats to (presumably innocent) family members of detainees when in fact they denied the request; but of course, accusers needed some crime that sounds more "gruesome" than chest-poking, yelling, making detainees stand at attention, and pouring water in their faces. Or putting a detainee (Abu Zubaydah), believed to have entomophobia (fear of insects), into a box with a caterpillar. Accusing the U.S. of approving threats to kill, rape, or torture detainees wives, children, and mothers is conveniently horrific... even if it suffers from the minor drawback of being provably false.

I think I see where Nowak's problem emanates: In the United States, we have rule of law; that means that people can only be convicted of, hence prosecuted for, specific crimes; those crimes must meet the specific definitions enacted by legislation and fall under the interpretation of that legislation by courts in previous cases (case law or common law).

Unlike most countries in Europe and elsewhere, we do not allow defendants to be prosecuted under the catchall crime of "every reasonable person knows" that he's guilty... which appears to be the standard modus operandi of putative "international courts," such as the International Court of Justice at the Hague, the International Criminal Court (also at the Hague), and any of the various European countries that claim "universal jurisdiction" over any crime they decide has been committed anywhere, regardless of the alleged perpetrator, the alleged victim, and the alleged country in which the alleged crime allegedly occurred.

I believe that Special Rapporteur Nowak has simply confused the normal activity of lawyers in the United States -- parsing the actual meaning of the actual words of a criminal statute and the actual decisions handed down by courts -- with "defin[ing] torture in the narrowest way in order to justify and legitimize it;" or as the New York Times puts it, "devising arguments to avoid constraints against mistreatment and torture of detainees."

I imagine this private conversation Nowak is probably having with his little buddies:

(At least until the next time we're hit, if we have the audacity to hit back again.)

I suspect that this attitude -- deriding the absurdity of actually analyzing the law before offering an opinion, rather than operating from pure politics -- is far more widespread than just a few officials at the U.N. and the elite media pundits here and abroad; sadly, I suspect that more than half of all Democrats would agree with Manny Nowak.

When exactly did "rule of law" become a suspect philosophy? It must have been sometime before George W. Bush came along -- but when?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 24, 2009, at the time of 3:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 16, 2009

Sarah Palin and Guilt by Disassociation

Ah, the distinctly noisome bouquet tells me that the 2012 presidential campaign has been uncorked early this year...

The attacks on Sarah Palin have begun again; and as before, since none of Palin's enemies can find anything troubling or disturbing about the woman herself, they're targeting her family, especially her children, once more:

Teen pregnancy, drug charges, burglary arrests. Appearances on the "Tyra Banks Show" that resembled a Jerry Springer segment. Charges of being publicity hounds and not paying for the diapers.

The family foibles continue to play out in tabloid fashion for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, adding unwelcome public drama for the former vice-presidential nominee as she seeks to solidify her clout within a Republican Party that is smarting from the November election and sorely in need of a leader.

But wait... before proceeding further, let's get a little mroe specific on exactly what charges Palin's opponents within the GOP and her enemies among Democrats have leveled:

• We all agree that Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol got knocked up; but that's last year's news, and it wouldn't cause a stir today, let alone in three more years.
• What's this about drug charges? Oh yes, "somebody" in Bristol's former boyfriend's family -- not Palin's family -- was arrested for something involving drugs. That somebody was Levi Johnson's mother, Sherry Johnson.
• "Appearances on the 'Tyra Banks Show',"charges of being publicity hounds and not paying for the diapers" all refer to the aforementioned Levi Johnson, Bristol's ex; he and his mother and sister decided -- without the blessing of Todd, Sarah, Bristol, or the infant Tripp Palin -- to appear on the tabloid show, goodness only knows why. (I have my suspicions, and they do, in fact, include the Johnson family being publicity hounds.)
• After the appearance, during which Levi retailed lurid accounts of his sexual exploits that are hotly denied by his former girlfriend Bristol, Sarah Palin's father accused Johnson of not supporting Tripp Palin -- his legal obligation -- and suggested that he should take some of the money he's now making off of his former association with Alaska's first family and use it to "buy some diapers."
• And burglary? That appears to be the half-sister of Sarah Palin's husband Todd. Diana Palin is married and has her own two children; she does not live with Todd and Sarah Palin.

So out of all the smoke of the allegations -- both the Democratic Party and Republican Party spokesmen puckishly decline to comment -- only one charge actually involves Sarah Palin's family. The rest involve Bristol's former boyfriend, his family, and Palin's husband's married sister.

Yes, I can see how the foibles of people distantly connected to Sarah Palin logically should damage her candidacy; after all, the bad behavior of her daughter's ex-boyfriend's mother certainly demonstrates that Sarah Palin is the hillbilly so many sources (on both sides the aisle) have insisted she is. And we certainly never see any relatives or family members of Democrats having problems... especially not the Democrat current occupying the White House; this situation is something utterly unique to Palin.

When Democrats (with GOP complicity) finish off Palin, they will surely start in on Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana. Did you know that he's a hillbubba? And he has a funny name... what's up with that?

I will certainly admit one solid slam against Palin: She clearly was not firm enough in teaching her daughter the sort of boys to avoid. If that's enough to turn you away from her future candidacy, so be it.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 16, 2009, at the time of 3:57 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

April 10, 2009

Obamunism II - the Infection Spreads

On Monday, in Obamunism - Through the Eyes of a Child, we lit into President Barack H. Obama for enunciating a very juvenile and immature philosophy, one based upon four pillars:

• Dividing world actors into either heroes or villains (based on whether they're considered generally Left or Right, respectively), as in the comic books of earlier generations (oddly, many comics have a more sophisticated worldview today than does the president);
• Misapprehending current events in a very superficial, childish way;
• Rewriting the chaos of history to make it a more exciting and melodramatic story -- complete with plot, conflict, climax, and dénouement (resolution of the climax)... they remember things not the way they happened but the way they should have happened;
• And magical thinking, in which deep, non-logical or paralogical connections exist between seemingly disconnected events or people, such that doing some apparently irrelevent thing (throwing the ring of power into a volcano) results in some vital consequence (the evil Sauron is destroyed).

Today, Friday -- bookending the week -- I have a perfect example of such pre-pubescent behavior; but this time, it's not just on the part of the president... it has spread through Western civilization at least as far as Merrie Olde England, as the Times (of London) joins in the juvenalia. Thus Obama does not merely enunciate a philosophy of childishness, he exemplifies what is rapidly becoming a movement of childishness.

In a straight-reporting article on Gen. Ray Odierno's fight in Iraq, primarily in the cities of Mosul and Diyala, we read the following description of the so-called "surge," which I prefer to call the counterinsurgency:

Despite the rise in the number of attacks, overall violence is still far below levels of two years ago when the surge of an extra 30,000 US forces -- a strategy created and implemented by General Odierno and his boss, General Petraeus -- was just getting started. That risk paid off, subduing a civil war that was killing thousands of Iraqi civilians and scores of American soldiers every month.

Let's take a look at that one paragraph. First of all, the definition of civil war is not "kills thousands of civilians and scores of soldiers every month." A civil war requires opposing armies -- each drawn from and led by citizens or subjects of the same country -- engaging in actual combat operations.

Neither of these was true in Iraq. There were initially two armies, that of Saddam Hussein and the one fielded by the American-led coalition. After the former collapsed and up until today, there has been only one army: the latter. In addition, there have been various home-staffed but generally foreign-led terrorist groups... and there is even a small force of militants fielded by a foreign power, Iran. But there is not now, nor has there ever been (during the third millennium) a "civil war" in Iraq.

This is story-telling as described above. It's very dramatic to describe the violent conflict from 2004 through 2007 as a "civil war;" the term conjures up images (in America) of horrific battles like Antietam (Sharpsburg) and Gettysburg and hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers on both sides. In Great Britain, readers envision the English Civil War in the mid-seventeenth century, between "cavaliers" (royalists) and "roundheads" (parliamentarians), in which King Charles I was executed by Parliament, his son driven into exile, the monarchy temporarily abolished, and a new government "Protectorate" established under Oliver Cromwell. Man, that's exciting!

By contrast, the reality in Iraq was nothing like that. The government was never in danger of being overthrown by al-Qaeda, which fielded no real army; the terrorists never really governed territory, though they held sway in some areas (e.g., Anbar province); all they could ever do was kill people, more or less at random.

In addition to the storytelling, the paragraph quoted above demonstrates the oversimplification and superficiality of Obamunism, despite coming from across the Atlantic ocean. Note the claimed provenance of the counterinsurgency: "a strategy created and implemented by General Odierno and his boss, General Petraeus."

This puts all the praise squarely upon the military itself, a safe and politically neutral repository... and it denies credit to the civilians (some former military) who actually crafted the plan, particularly the authors of the American Enterprise Institute's report: Fred Kagen and retired Gen. John "Jack" Keane.

Why should the Times want to deny credit to the AEI? Because it is a preeminent politically conservative organization. To grant the AEI its due entails admitting that the conservative approach to the Iraq crisis was correct; while the liberal view of withdrawal from the cities, handing everything over to the Iraqis, and quickly withdrawing from Iraq altogether -- as enunciated by, e.g., Gen. William Casey and retired Gen. Eric Shinseki, along with nearly every liberal Democrat especially including then-Sen. Barack Obama -- was dead wrong, failed, and nearly cost us the war.

(Even worse would have been the madcap scheme pushed by then-Sen. Joe Biden, among many others, to "partition" Iraq into threes, Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. Within a few months, the Sunni regions would all be controlled by al-Qaeda with support from Pakistan; the Shiite regions would all be controlled by Muqtada Sadr and his puppetmasters in Teheran; and Kurdistan would have managed to provoke a war with Turkey.)

Thank goodness the AEI made such a good counter-case.

Finally, note the truly glaring omission among those who should receive credit for the counterinsurgency, which seized victory from a battlefield where the Left had already declared defeat. Who was the one person most responsible for what the press enjoys calling "the surge?" Who was the actual decider? Who took the political heat? Who was called everything from a moron to a Nazi for pushing it?

The Times has surgically removed President George W. Bush from the story; it's as if he wasn't even there. Evidently, these two generals, Petraeus and Odierno, just got it into their heads to totally change the war-fighting strategy in Iraq. They invented the counterinsurgency out of whole cloth and somehow found a way to increase the forces on the ground as well... and all without any input or decision-making by the Commander in Chief!

Imagine how terrible it would be to have to admit, in one of the most respected organs of the elite media, that George W. Bush was right, and Barack H. Obama was catastrophically wrong on the Iraq war... that if we had followed the Obama-Biden-Reid-Pelosi-Kerry recommendation to declare defeat and go home, we would have lost the war; but because Bush instead implemented a strategy of victory, we have won it. If the Left confessed that, how could it ever hold up its head again?

Far better to praise a couple of more or less apolitical generals, pat the troops on the head, and cut all the political actors out of the picture, like a deranged divorcée cutting her ex-husband's head out of all the wedding photos. Or perhaps more appropriately, the Soviet habit of making former heroes of the revolution "vanish" from official photographs when they fall from power.

But the Times only takes its cue from President Obama himself; during his surprise trip to Baghdad Wednesday, he lavished praise on the American military presence there, crediting them with the "surge of troops;" but he pointedly refrained from mentioning President Bush's courageous decision to implement the counterinsurgency strategy in the first place. This has been Obama's modus operandi from the days of the campaign (which still hasn't ended) through the first months of his presidency: Everything bad that happens in America he blames on Bush; but he shifts credit for all the successes of the Bush administration -- and there were many -- to other entities, either liberal (Congress) or neutral (the military).

This is typically juvenile behavior, now being copied by leftists across America and even in supposedly sophisticated Europe. The childishness of our Childe President is spreading like a virulent malaise through an unsanitary grade school. Heaven only knows how long the epidemic will rage.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 10, 2009, at the time of 2:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 7, 2009

The Party of Conditional Compassion

Riddle me this...

Liberals have a mad desire to cram same-sex marriage -- let's just say gay marriage for the moment, since that's how they think of it -- down our throats. They demand it willy-nilly, generally by court order (Vermont notwithstanding) and regardless of the desires of the citizens of the state in question. They seem terribly urgent about it, as if it's the most important "civil rights" battle in America today (they mean civil liberties, not civil rights, but let that slide).

Yet very few gays would get married, were the option available, according to the polls I've seen -- and in the real-life states that have enacted it: Massachusetts, Connecticut, California briefly, and so forth.

But lo! There is a much more blatant and much less defensible example of anti-gay discrimination in American society: The federal policy barring openly gay men or women from serving in the United States military... at all, in any capacity.

It's virtually impossible to justify on grounds of military necessity, since it's been many decades since anyone seriously believed that homosexuals are weaker or less aggressive than heteros; and the claims that a policy of inclusion would damage morale are no more defensible than the same arguments made in the 40s against racially integrating the military (the argument is essentially that the morale of gay-haters would drop).

At a guess, I believe that at least a hundred times as many gays serve (more or less secretly) in the military as want to get married to members of the same gender, and an even larger number are veterans or would like to serve in the future. At a guess, if about five million legal American residents are homosexual (loosely defined -- say 2% of men and 1% of women), easily as many as a million could be directly adversely affected by the policy. (I cannot imagine that anywhere near ten thousand gays and lesbians seriously intend to get married.)

And Congress or the president could enact that change right this very minute; I don't think Republicans could possibly muster 41 votes to filibuster a bill to lift the restriction, even if they wanted to -- and assuming congressional action is even required; it's possible that all it would take is an Executive Order from the Commander in Chief.

The Left could do it in a snap, even against unified Republican opposition (which I doubt could be mustered anyway). So why don't they?

Well, I didn't plan to leave that hanging as a rhetorical question. As anybody who has read more of this blog than just the seven paragraphs above knows, I ask because I think I know the answer -- which is simply this...

Democrats and liberals couldn't care less about gays, lesbians, transsexuals, transvestites, or any other such subgroup. They only champion the gay (or blacktivist, or feminist) agenda when a particular policy serves the larger agenda of the hard Left: the destruction of traditional Western culture and its replacement by secular humanism.

Simply and brutally put, destroying traditional marriage advances that liberal agenda, so liberal Democrats pursue it with a passion; but allowing gays to serve openly in the military does not advance that vile agenda -- so liberal Democrats truly could not care less.

The only thing that might shake the Left from its apathy on gays in the military is if Democrats start to worry about the 2010 elections; they may decide that they can disguise their larger socialist agenda with the "beard" of civil liberties. They still don't care about gays -- they'll vote Democratic by 75% to 80% anyway; the campaign would be aimed at Independents, who may be won over by the question of fairness.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the GOP would not seriously resist lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the military. In that case, pursuing the change wouldn't benefit the Left anyway; they couldn't point to Republicans and believably scream "homophobe!" So if the GOP is at least split on the issue, Democrats probably won't waste their time pursuing it, as there is no electoral payoff.

I realize I am sounding more and more cynical about the patriotism of the Left, but is it any wonder? All I read, day after day, tells me that they cannot stand America as we are; the only America they love is Sweden.

In any event, if you are gay, and if you're more interested in serving in the military than in marrying a person of your same gender, then please consider joining the GOP. At the least, you will find yourself among a group of people who honestly respect and applaud your service to the country, however much they may disagree with your positions on a few issues. I think a gay or lesbian soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine would have a much more pleasant time at a convention or fund-raiser headed by Romney or McCain or Palin than one headed by Reid, Pelosi, or Obama.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 7, 2009, at the time of 8:45 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 2, 2009

Triumph at the Summit of Mount Obamarama

A summit just concluded in London among the G-20, the group of 20 richest nations; the heads of state spoke to each other without visible brandishing of weaponry. This much we can all agree upon.

But that's about all we can agree upon. Here is AP's take on the outcome:

At his summit debut, President Barack Obama failed to persuade foreign counterparts to commit to fresh and lavish spending to boost economic revival. And the success he did achieve in finding common ground was as much the result of modified goals as swaying other countries to bend to U.S. priorities.

Still, he emerged with much of what he wanted from allies on the flailing global economy. And he helped thwart a French-backed attempt to set up an international financial regulator.

And here is the assessment by the New York Times:

After more than 11 hours of meetings, Mr. Obama emerged Thursday from his first summit meeting with a handful of modest concrete commitments. He did not get much of what American officials had been hoping for, notably failing to persuade other countries to commit to more fiscal stimulus spending.

Oh, yes; they're clearly singing from the same hymnal.

So what exactly does AP see as emerging with "much of what he wanted from allies on the flailing global economy?" Oh, that's as clear as crystal:

Thursday's daylong gathering of the G-20 nations pledged $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to struggling countries, agreed to crack down on tax havens, large hedge funds and other risky financial products, rejected protectionism that hampers foreign trade and committed to upgrading an existing financial forum to flag problems early in the global financial system. Those were all elements Obama was seeking.

And, as he hoped, the leaders also rejected a push by French and German politicians for a global financial super-regulator, a proposal that had been expected to go down in defeat. The emphasis, instead, was on cooperation among nations to each choose it own way to enact "a stronger, more globally consistent, supervisory and regulatory framework...."

Still, the leaders, many wary of piling up debt, did not sign off on large new stimulus packages for their own countries. Obama's administration had initially pushed for such a commitment, but backed off in recent days as European opposition solidified.

So Barack H. Obama elicited a few trivial, generalized noises from the other members about markets and trade; he managed to "thwart" a French demand for one-world government (at least on financial issues) that everybody knew going in was "expected to go down in defeat" anyway... and he bowed to the rest of the wealthy nations on a world-wide stimulus package, dropping it the moment it met the slightest resistance. Or skepticism.

Obama's "agreement" comprised caving to Europe; there will be no such global stimulus, as the One had long insisted was vital to preventing complete economic meltdown.

Mind, I'm very glad he caved; it's a craven admission by the president that his earlier sepulchral warnings and nigh-biblical denunciations were just so much hot air (no offence to Captain Ed, et al)... and the confession that, in the end, doing nothing is preferable to doing Obamunism -- even to the Euroleft! Still, it's always easy to come to agreement when One is willing to jettison all of One's demands; it rarely takes much diplomatic genius to persuade people to accept their own position instead of yours.

Oh, wait; there was one other signal triumph by the Childe President: According to AP, Obama somehow got the developed nations to "agree[] to crack down on tax havens."

Bully! So no longer will China allow companies to incorporate in Macao or Hong Kong and thereby skate on paying their "fair share" of taxes. But how did he do it?

Sayeth the Times, the big disagreement was between President Nicolas Sarkozy of France -- who wanted the nations to commit to a "name and shame" policy anent tax havens -- and President Hu Jintao of Red China, who did not want any such naming and/or shaming of the two biggest tax havens in Asia, to wit, those very same Chinese provinces of Macao and Hong Kong.

Here is how it all played out:

Mr. Sarkozy wanted the big communiqué produced by the Group of 20 to endorse naming and shaming global tax havens, maybe even including Hong Kong and Macao, which are under China’s sovereignty. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Hu was having none of it. He appeared angry that Mr. Sarkozy was effectively accusing China of lax regulation, and that the French leader was asking China to endorse sanctions issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of wealthy nations that Beijing has yet to join.

According to accounts provided by White House officials and corroborated by European and other officials also in the room, Mr. Obama escorted both men, one at a time, to a corner of the room, to judge the dispute. How about replacing the word “recognize,” Mr. Obama suggested, with the word “note?”

The result: “The era of banking secrecy is over,” the final communiqué said. “We note that the O.E.C.D. has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information.” Hong Kong and Macao did not appear on the list.

And there we have it. In a stunning tour de force, Barack Obama has achieved the trifecta:

• He grabbed credit for "thwarting" a French plan that was already doomed before Obama set foot in Londontown;
• He obtained a broad agreement with the other nations by taking the signal policy he has claimed for months was the only thing which could save the world economy -- and consigning to the dustbin of non-history;
• And he resolved a conflict between Europe and China over the latter's tax dodgers by kow-towing to the Chinese, ensuring that Macao and Hong Kong can continue to operate without any fear of being outed, named, isolated, or shamed.

Well now! See how much can be accomplished if America really sets its mind on diplomacy, rather than the Cowboy-George, go-it-alone policy of dictating to the rest of the world? The Times sums up what our man in London has taught us about our proper place in the world:

Gone are the days, from Pax Britannica to Pax Americana, when Britain and the United States made the rules that others followed.

“If there’s just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy, that’s an easier negotiation,” Mr. Obama said during his hourlong meeting with the international news media, during which he called on reporters from India and China to ask him questions. “But that’s not the world we live in, and it shouldn’t be the world that we live in.”

Yes, he has certainly proved that those days (of two years ago) are gone. Forgive me if I don't caper and frolic in glee; I've been feeling a bit enervated for the last two-plus months.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 2, 2009, at the time of 11:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Great Dictator, part (C)

If you want a picture of the future, imagine an iron fist clutching a smiley face -- forever.

The first two posts of this miniseries were:

• The Great Dictator
• The Great Dictator, part Deux

We ended the last segment with a tease:

The final step of a liberal fascist takeover of the industry would be to control the wages of all employees, to be able to set them however they want.

So let's leap straight into the maw of that final eldritch horror of state capitalism, corporate socialism, or as I prefer, the Jonah Goldberg formulation: liberal fascism:

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The author of the article, Byron York, is the former White House correspondent for the National Review; he now writes for the Washington D.C. Examiner. York describes the legislation that Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA, 100%) has approved:

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

There really is no other way to describe this than a fascistic economic policy, where by "fascistic" I mean corporate socialism, similar to that developed most extensively by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. (Adolf Hitler did not invent it; he admired the economics of "Il Duce" so much, he copied them in his "Third Reich".)

Before moving further, it's important to note that fascism, while it has the stench of racism, antisemitism, and warmongering for conquest, is not strictly defined that way. An administration can be fascistic even if it has not the slightest whiff of any of those qualities. That said, however, the current administration is an open and unapologetic fan of race-based preferences; is packed to the gills with ardent foes of Israel who too often slop over into naked Jew hatred (using the code phrase "the Israel lobby"); and fecklessly threatened to invade Pakistan even before Barack H. Obama was elected; it can hardly be said to be anti-racist, philosemitic, or pacific.

The bill was actually authored by freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL, not yet rated), most famous until now for filing lawsuits against Halliburton; the fair-minded and non-prejudicial Grayson offered this unique reason for House members to vote for the bill:

"This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they're willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable," Grayson said. "We'll find out who are the people who understand that the public's money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street."

These are not the words of a man who has any love of the free market, individualism, limited government, or Capitalism whatsoever. I venture to say that Mr. Grayson veers perilously close to totalitarianism... and he might not even mind the label.

In a recent post, Patterico quoted Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics; Sowell hit it right on the money, as usual:

Too often a false contrast is made between the impersonal marketplace and the compassionate policies of various government programs. But both systems face the same scarcity of resources and both systems make choices within the constraints of that scarcity. The difference is that one system involves each individual making choices for himself or herself, while the other system involves a smaller number of people making choices for others.

It may be fashionable for journalists to refer to “the whim of the marketplace,” as if that were something different from the desires of people, just as it was once fashionable to refer to “production for use, rather than for profit” -- as if profits could be made by producing things that people cannot use or do not want to use. The real contrast is between choices made by individuals for themselves and choices made for them by others who presume to define what these individuals “really” need.

We must contrast the clarity, logical development, and true love of freedom found in Sowell's argument with the crabbed, self-serving, power-mad, authoritarian, arrogant, condescending, ill-informed, adolescent wish-fulfillment of Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, Barney Frank, Alan Grayson, Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%), Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 70%), and every other member of the liberal cabal that wants to hijack our country and turn it into Sweden. Or into fascist Italy of the 1920s, 30s, and early 40s.

Thomas Sowell is above all an American man who loves the American experiment... while the Obamunists are from Venus, I think. Barack Obama despises everything that the United States is right now; he will only love his country when it's no longer our country, but just an extension of the EU and the UN.

But always with a smiley face. Never forget the smiley face... that's the distinction that makes one a compassionate liberal fascist, which makes all the difference.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 2, 2009, at the time of 5:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 31, 2009

The Great Dictator, part Deux

In the Great Dictator -- which won the Watcher's Council award for non-members, only the second time we've ever managed that! -- we wrote:

But the Great Dictator of 2009 may turn out to be glib huckster from Hawaii by way of Chicago named Barack H. Obama; for the administration appears poised to enact rules that could end up completely controlling all executive compensation for every major company that has anything to do with financial matters, or is publicly held, or has any sort of requirement to report anything at all to the SEC -- even including companies that never took a dime of TARP or stimulus money.

Today, we read the following chilling report of our Childe President finding he has some new powers, hitherto unknown to be in the Constitution:

President Barack Obama asserted unprecedented government control over the auto industry Monday, rejecting turnaround plans from General Motors and Chrysler and raising the prospect of controlled bankruptcy for either ailing auto giant. Eager to reassure consumers, Obama also announced the federal government would immediately begin backing the warranties that new car buyers receive -- a step designed to signal that it is safe to purchase U.S.-made autos and trucks despite the distress of the industry.

In a statement read at the White House, Obama said he was "absolutely committed" to the survival of a domestic auto industry that can compete internationally. And yet, "our auto industry is not moving in the right direction fast enough," he added.

With his words, Obama underscored the extent to which the government is now dictating terms to two of the country's iconic corporations, much as it has already taken an ownership stake in banks, the insurance giant AIG and housing titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In an extraordinary move, the administration forced the departure of Rick Wagoner as CEO of General Motors Corp. over the weekend, and implicit in Obama's remarks was that the government holds the ability to pull the plug on that company or Chrysler.

The New York Times gives a little more detail about the detailed level of the terms that Barack H. Obama is now "dictating" to a private company:

“And so today, I am announcing that my administration will offer G.M. and Chrysler a limited period of time to work with creditors, unions and other stakeholders to fundamentally restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional tax dollars; a period during which they must produce plans that would give the American people confidence in their long-term prospects for success,” Mr. Obama said.

Speaking a day after the White House pushed out the chairman of G.M., Mr. Obama said Chrysler has been instructed to form a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as conditions for receiving more government aid.

Now it's certainly true that GM did, in fact, suckle from the federal teat; and that of course lends at least a little legitimacy to the White House's demand for some oversight. We all know that above everything, Obama is concerned about keeping a gimlet eye on expenditures of public funds... hence his repeated tongue-lashings of George W. Bush during the 2008 campaign for having run up deficits of $100 billion, $200 billion -- once even $400 billion!

But the new Obama plan goes far beyond ensuring that GM is using its corporate welfare wisely; Barack Obama evidently believes he knows how to build and sell cars better than do GM executives. He dictates not only how much they can pay their top brass, he wants to control who that top brass will be. What's next -- will the president assert the authority to select the next CEO directly? Does the government post of GM CEO require Senate confirmation?

(Perhaps he'll pick Chas Freeman; I understand he's between jobs right now. And realistically, Freeman is no more an ignoramus about the automobile industry than he is about intelligence, his previous and now withdrawn appointment.)

Will the president begin setting prices for various models? Choosing what color options will be available? Taking over the service contract? Oh, wait, he already did that.

The final step of a liberal fascist takeover of the industry would be to control the wages of all employees, to be able to set them however they want... thus funneling workers into favored industries or even particular companies and away from others: Imagine an earmark, inserted in the dead of night during the reconciliation phase of legislation, raising auto-worker wages at plants in one state and lowered them in an adjoining state. What effect might that have on the labor market and government control of the economy? (And what a fearsome weapon to wield against Obama's political enemies! But I'm certain that aspect of wage controls has never occurred to the One.)

By a bizarre coincidence, that scheme is exactly the subject of the Great Dictator, part (C). Stay tuned...

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 31, 2009, at the time of 5:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 29, 2009

The Fourth Mythical Monkey

I'm sure you're familiar with the three mythical monkeys: One has his hands over his eyes ("See no evil"), the next over his ears ("Hear no evil"), and the last covering his mouth ("Speak no evil"). But our government school model, coupled with an insane "zero tolerance" drug policy that only accepts perfection as success, have created a fourth mythical monkey: He has his arms wrapped tightly around his body as he hides in a corner, for this monkey represents "Touch no one. Ever!"

Submitted for your ridicule and pity:

Connecticut School Bans Physical Contact

A Connecticut middle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone -- anyone -- in any way, you're going to pay.

A violent incident [a student was kicked in the groin] that put one student in the hospital has officials at the Milford school implementing a "no touching" policy, according to a letter written by the school's principal.

What exactly does the principal mean by "no physical contact" and "no touching?"

"Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment," [Principal Catherine] Williams wrote. [If it saves the testicles of just one child....]

"Potential consequences and disciplinary action may include parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school," Williams wrote.

Let's, ah, put our heads together (banned!) on this. The following behaviors are now absolutely forbidden at East Shore Middle School:

• Shaking hands;
• Arm wrestling;
• A pat on the back;
• Any gym class other than Self-Pleasuring 101 (I presume that touching oneself is still permitted);
• Two little girls walking along holding hands;
• A kiss (a kiss may be just a kiss as time goes by; but at East Shore, it's a one-way ticket to the streets);
• A hug;
• Standing in line (contact is unavoidable);
• Sitting too close to your friend, allowing your elbow to touch;
• Stretching when tired (if you bump someone else, you could be expelled from school);

• Trying to help another child who has gotten hurt.

  (I assume this means you can't use compression to stop bleeding, hold an injured student steady to prevent him from thrashing around and hurting himself further, using the Heimlich maneuver if your friend is choking to death, or God forbid, giving some kid CPR if he has a serious accident. Far better he die or be seriously injured than allow one person to touch another!)

• Any "horseplay" -- by which I suppose Ms. Williams means to ban any behavior other than shuffling along slowly, eyes on the ground, wary of getting too close to another human being.

Great Scott. What a living hell Principal Catherine Williams must have grown up in, to promulgate such a rule for children as young as ten, as old as fourteen. But it does point up the sheer evil of liberal "lightswitch" reasoning: The light is either On or Off; either some broad category of behavior is 100% good... or else it must be 100% bad:

• Some touching is inappropriate; therefore, nobody can touch anybody for any reason.
• Some drugs are inappropriate to bring to school; therefore girls having severe menstrual cramps cannot take Mydol, not even with their doctor's permission.
• It's bad for kids to take weapons to school; therefore, if an eight year old is caught at school with a bright green plastic squirt gun, he must be expelled and the police summoned.
• Child pornography is a great evil; therefore, if an adolescent takes a naked cell-phone picture of herself and foolishly sends it to her friends, she must be arrested for distribution of child pornography -- and must register as a "sex offender" for the rest of her life (this is how we save her, you see).
• Some kids are allergic to peanuts; therefore no child can eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Presumably, the allergic child is inherently mentally defective; he will be so overwhelmed with ungovernable desire for a PB&J that he will grab it away from his friend and shovel it into his mouth, even knowing it means possible death.)
• Some kids cannot handle losing; therefore there will be no competition of any kind allowed at the school.
• Some kids will score badly on tests and suffer diminshed self esteem; therefore all children will receive the same grade, regardless of the quality of their work.

I think I even know the underlying ideology that generates such utter madness: It's the core liberal doctrine that Equality of opportunity yields equality of results; therefore, if success is unequally distributed, the losers must necessarily have been denied their right to equality under the law. If one person succeeds more than the others, he must have cheated; there is no other explanation.

Liberals consider this a universal axiom; they apply it not just to schools but to job salaries, arrest rates, retirement savings, and even to entire cultures, where it becomes the Boasian ideal of cultural relativism. All cultures must only be judged by their own standards; thus every culture, from the Aztecs to the North Koreans to the Taliban to modern Americans, is equally as good as every other culture. We cannot discriminate, because everyone knows that discrimination is bad!

As the barber sings in Man of La Mancha, "I can hear the cuckoo singing in the cuckooberry tree..."

How does this work in the microcosm of the East Shore Middle School? Well, if it's wrong for a boy to kick another boy in the groin, then it must be equally wrong for two girls to hug each other: We cannot discriminate between A and B. Ever!

I read a wondeful book some years ago titled the Death of Common Sense. It was written by Philip K. Howard, a self-described liberal Democrat, and was first published fifteen years ago. Things have only deteriorated since 1994.

God, how I wish liberals were literate.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 29, 2009, at the time of 4:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 25, 2009

More Obamunism: Who Controls the Newspapers Controls the Present

Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD, 100%) has ridden in on his white horse with a wonderful suggestion for newspapers that are in financial trouble (which is pretty much all of them): Reincorporate as 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit educational institutions, which would exempt them from most income tax (except for "unrelated business income").

Of course, the move would also absolutely prohibit political advocacy, lobbying, or electioneering... which as I read it would even preclude publishing editorials critical of, e.g., the administration of Barack H. Obama. Or of individual Democratic senators, such as Benjamin Cardin. But that ought to be a good thing, no? Surely we all want newspapers to be politically neutral gatherers of fact and disseminators of the truth!

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin....

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

The comparison to PBS is apt; as we have all seen, PBS is forbidden from any political editorializing, politicking, electioneering, or advocacy. But of course, if they're merely reporting on issues -- straight "reporting," such as:

• That the Iraq war was a disastrous defeat for America;
• That rampant, unregulated, laissez-faire Capitalism is what got us into the financial crisis;
• That the only thing that will save us now is complete nationalization of the economy;
• That Israel is the cause of all problems in the Middle East;
• That without government-run health care, we'll all die of cancer by age 60;
• That anthropogenic global climate change is universally accepted by "science;" thus the time for denial by denying deniers (i.e., "high crimes against humanity and nature" or "intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years") has ended once and for all;

...That sort of straight, unbiased, apolitical news reporting will naturally still be allowed. You can't prohibit educational institutions such as the New York Times and the Washington Post from educating, can you?

But biased, divisive, obstructionist, obsolete, disloyal, and partisan politicking will no longer be legally allowed in newspapers. After all, they have a duty (as tax-exempt organizations) to educate, which means to tell the truth... "the truth" to be determined by the unbiased, professional, expert auditors at the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Who else?

Ergo, newspapers would have to cease publishing any future columns or opinion pieces by such talking-point, robot-army soldiers as Douglas Feith, David Freddoso, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn, or John Hinderaker. But the papers wouldn't suffer from a lack of content, as they would be perfectly free to publish nonpartisan disseminators of pure truthful information, free from slant and politics, including Molly Ivins, Markos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann, Jim Lehrer, and Bill Moyers.

What I cannot fathom, however, is why a Democrat, a member of the ADA's "100%-er" club, would push for the elite newspaper medium to switch from publishing such ardently tilted and mendacious flummery (such as opinion pieces by atmospheric physicists or meteorologists disputing Algore's 95 theses on globaloney) to the calm, measured, unemotional, multilateral, fact-based pronouncements of Nobel Prize winners such as, well, such as Algore. And Paul Krugman.

All this time, I've wrongly accused Democrats like Cardin of being mindless, vermin-infested, screeching blue monkeys, swooping overhead and hurling their feces down on the rest of us, then hauling us off to the Wicked Rodham of the West. And the little dog we rode in on, too.

I'm stunned that such a senator would abandon faction and ideology for the cold, unadorned, reality-based solution of turning profitless newspapers into non-profit ones, in effect, nationalizing the entire news-gathering industry. (To promote greater freedom of speech, of course.)

Go figure!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 25, 2009, at the time of 9:44 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 23, 2009

Déjà Vu About Vujà Dé

I once crafted a neologism, vujà dé, bouncing off of the psychological term déjà vu -- the false feeling that something you are now experiencing happened before. My new word vujà dé means -- the false feeling that something that actually happened before is really brand, spanking new!

I woke up this morning -- well, this afternoon -- and read the following new financial-rescue plan from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:

The Obama administration formally presented the latest step in its financial rescue package on Monday, an attempt to draw private investors into partnership with a new federal entity that could eventually buy up to $1 trillion in troubled assets that are weighing down banks and clogging up the credit markets....

Initially, a new Public-Private Investment Program will provide financing for $500 billion in purchasing power to buy those troubled or toxic assets -- which the government refers to more diplomatically as legacy assets -- with the potential of expanding later to as much as $1 trillion, according to a fact sheet issued by the Treasury Department.

At the core of the financing package will be $75 billion to $100 billion in capital from the existing financial bailout known as TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, along with the share provided by private investors, which the government hopes will come to 5 percent or more. By leveraging this program through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve, huge amounts of bad loans can be acquired.

The private investors would be subsidized but could stand to lose their investments, while the taxpayers could share in prospective profits as the assets are eventually sold, the Treasury said. The administration said that it expected participation from pension funds, insurance companies and other long-term investors.

This gave me an intense feeling of déjà vu (not vujà dé); didn't... we... see something like this sometime before? Not very long ago? Something... something... it's all coming back to me now....

Oh, wait. This may be it:

As proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, the putative "$700 billion" "bailout" is actually neither: It will neither cost that much, nor will it bail out those financial institutions that wrote bad loans for people they knew were not likely to be able to pay them off.

As I understand it, here is the basic plan. Note that I'm drawing this from many sources, it's not yet written in stone -- or even in ink -- and I can't give you sources. If you want more information, you're on your own! But here is what I've been able to glean:

1. The Treasury is given authority to spend up to $700 billion (outstanding at any particular moment) to buy MBSs, CDOs, and related instruments that have become "illiquid." These "toxic assets" will be purchased from their current owners at a huge discount... meaning the banks and other investors who purchased these pigs in pokes will, in fact, take a significant financial hit... they're not being "bailed out."

So the Treasury can buy up these toxic assets; what do they do with them?

2. I believe the plan (which has not yet been formalized in legislation) is to create a Treasury owned and managed resolution corporation that will take ownership of these toxic assets. Analysts will then pore through each MBS, determining the status of all the underlying mortgages and making a report publicly available. This will make the opaque assets completely transparent. All the financial fundamentals will be visible, so analysts at private companies can examine all of the securities and decide how much they would pay for each.
3. The resolution corporation will then auction off each of the the now-transparent MBSs, selling it to the highest bidder; that very action allows the market to reset the value of the security.

That is why I characterize this rescue operation as "pressing the reset button."

Once some corporation has examined the fundamentals of the security and offered the winning bid for it, the MBS becomes (by definition) liquid; it is no longer a toxic asset. Its value has been reset... and it can go up or down after that point based upon subsequent, well-understood events (defaults, repayments, prepayments) in the underlying mortgages and reevaluations based upon other, market-based criteria. In other words, it becomes just like a mutual fund.

The crisis was the inability to value MBSs; the solution is to reset their values. The beauty of the Paulson-Bernanke plan is that this resetting is done by the free market, not by government decree.

Finally, note this point:

4. When the Treasury-owned resolution corporation auctions off the now-transparent MBSs, it can use that money as income. Since the asset is now much more valuable than before (having been scrubbed into transparency), if it becomes saleable, then it will certainly sell for more than the discounted rate at which the corporation bought it. In other words, the resolution corporation will make a profit on every security it resells -- so the program will not actually cost $700 billion... it may even end up completely in the black.

That's why the Paulson-Bernanke plan is neither a bailout -- the so-called beneficiaries in fact must pay dearly for their folly -- nor massively expensive, since it resells most of the securities it bought, and at a profit. It could still end up costing money, depending on how many of the MBSs end up still toxic even after the complete report (if too many of the underlying mortgages are in default, for example); but the losses won't be anywhere near $700 billion, and they may be less than the profits.

That was a Big Lizards post from September 22nd, 2008; the differences between the old plan, from almost exactly six months ago -- developed by George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke -- and the new plan just proposed today by Barack H. Obama's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke are... well, subtle:

• The Paulson-Bernanke plan wasn't quite as expensive as the Geither-Bernanke plan;
• It didn't have the patina of private investors coming along for the ride (heavily subsidized by the federal government and leveraged by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC) that we see in today's version;
• In the original version, the government would buy the toxic assets from their current owners at a discount; Treasury (or a Treasury-owned resolution corporation) would investigate and "valuate" them (determine the actual value of the underlying mortgages that make up each mortgage-backed security, MBS, and related debt instrument); and then private investors would buy the formerly toxic, now liquid assets from the government at an auction. In the new version, the government will partner with private and corporate investors, leveraged by the FDIC, to buy the assets; then they would be auctioned to other private and corporate investors.

I don't know about you all, but the distinction between the two plans doesn't leap off the screen for me. The Times doesn't report whether the feds will undertake the intermediate step of investigating and reporting the details of these toxic assets, but I think it must be so; I can't see how else could they be turned from illiquid to liquid, except by injection of what I called in a later post, "timely, honest, accurate, and believable information," or THABI.

It seems I wasn't suffering from déjà vu after all. As the great sage Bert the one-man band, sidewalk chalk artist, and chimney sweep said, "Can't put me finger on what lies in store, but I feel what's to happen all happened before."

The current plan even includes the reset-by-auction of toxic assets that I gleaned from the original plan; from the Times story above:

An attractive feature of the program is that it will allow the marketplace to establish values for the assets -- based, of course, on the auction mechanism that will signal what someone is willing to pay for them -- and thus might ease the virtual paralysis that has surrounded those assets up to now.

For a relatively small equity exposure, the private investor thus stands to make a considerable return if prices recover. The government will make a gain as well. In the worst case, the bulk of the risk would fall on the government. The presumption, of course, is that the auction will lead to realistic purchase prices.

So where does vujà dé (not déjà vu) enter into it? Simply this: I haven't seen a single elite-media commenter point out that this is the very same plan we started with... lo these many months ago; the same plan that was quickly derided by congressional Democrats, railed against by presidential-candidate Barack Obama, dismissed as nonsense by voters (and by Wall Street), and derailed in favor of direct investments in -- that is, nationalization of -- banks, savings and loans, insurance companies like AIG, and so forth.

Everyone writes and speaks as though this is a brilliant innovation -- imagine, buying up toxic assets and using public auctions to establish a "realistic purchase price" for them! Who but Geithner could possibly have thought of such a corker of a solution? He's finally demonstrated the mental superiority with which he was hailed when he was nominated (so brilliant, we simply had to overlook that little kerfuffle about evading income taxes when he worked at the International Monetary Fund).

I still have a few questions:

• How long will the elite media continue to heap scorn upon that fool, Henry Paulson, and his ludicrous plan to buy up toxic assets -- while lavishing praise upon that genius, Tim Geithner, for his fantabulous plan to buy up toxic assets?
• And what about the hundreds of billions (or is it over a trillion? I can't remember) already spent or pledged by the federal government to buy "equity interests" in hundreds of financial corporations? Do we perpetuate the mass nationalization program even as Treasury crows that the wonderful thing about the new rescue plan is that it privatizes the bailout?
• Does the Obama White House suffer from Multiple Ideology Syndrome?

Everything old is new again, the wheel has come full circle, and what a long, strange trip it's been!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 23, 2009, at the time of 3:30 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

March 21, 2009

The Great Dictator

In 1940, socialist Charlie Chaplin -- acting as screenwriter, director, producer, and of course star -- released the Great Dictator, which parodied Adolf Hitler in particular and fascism in general. Chaplin played both Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania, and also a Jewish barber who happens to look exactly like Hynkel.

But the Great Dictator of 2009 may turn out to be glib huckster from Hawaii by way of Chicago named Barack H. Obama; for the administration appears poised to enact rules that could end up completely controlling all executive compensation for every major company that has anything to do with financial matters, or is publicly held, or has any sort of requirement to report anything at all to the SEC -- even including companies that never took a dime of TARP or stimulus money:

One proposal could impose greater requirements on the boards of companies to tie executive compensation more closely to corporate performance and to take other steps to assure that outsize bonuses are not paid before meeting financial goals.

The new rules will cover all financial institutions, including those not now covered by any pay rules because they are not receiving federal bailout money. Officials say the rules could also be applied more broadly to publicly traded companies, which already report about some executive pay practices to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last month, as part of the stimulus package, Congress barred top executives at large banks getting rescue money from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual pay.

Beyond the pay rules, officials said the regulatory plan is expected to call for a broad new role for the Federal Reserve to oversee large companies, including major hedge funds, whose problems could pose risks to the entire financial system.

Of course, there is virtually no chance that any scheme this radical could get through Congress, where Republicans still have at least some say in enacting legislation -- if only to filibuster something this grandiose, anti-capitalist, and authoritarian. But Obama has an answer for that minor roadblock as well; if the Times is to be believed, he intends to impose wage controls by direct decree, bypassing Congress entirely:

The officials said that the administration was still debating the details of its plan, including how broadly it should be applied and how far it could range beyond simple reporting requirements. Depending on the outcome of the discussions, the administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation.

The plan is certainly audacious. I would rather say breathtaking, stunning, shocking, jaw-dropping, mind-boggling -- and of course, quite mad. But when the president of the United States believes he can simply dictate (by executive order) how much everybody working in any publicly traded company is paid, I don't think it can be called anything less than a form of socialism.

But what kind? Certainly not Marxism, because he is not abolishing corporations or private capital. Rather, this sort of corporate socialism was invented in the 1920s by a fellow in Italy named Benito, who called it "fascism." Barack Obama evidently plans to go the "full Jonah," returning liberal fascism to America for the first time since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," and following in the footsteps of such liberal-fascist/populist luminaries as Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt.

To the list of reactions above, let me also add -- ominous.

So how much executive power would Obama seize to himself? How about this:

A central aspect of the plan, which has already been announced by the administration, would give the government greater authority to take over and resolve problems at large, troubled companies that are not now regulated by Washington, like insurance companies and hedge funds.

That proposal would, for instance, make it easier for the government to cancel bonus contracts like those given to executives at the American International Group, which have stoked a political furor. Under the proposal, the Treasury secretary would have the authority to seize and wind down a struggling institution after consulting with the president and upon the recommendation of two-thirds of the Federal Reserve board.

So a contract is a contract -- unless the president doesn't like it, in which case he will be able to rewrite it (or void it) at will. When contracts between third parties stand only as long as the head of government allows them to stand, then there is no stability and no predictability: In short, there is no more rule of law, and capital pulls up stakes and moves to a sunnier clime. Then, of course, there will be a great many more "struggling institutions."

Who decides which institutions are struggling? Perhaps that too will be decided by the same deciders: the Secretary of the Treasury, the president, and five out of the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. If so, then the president can point to any corporation, family business, or not-for-profit organization, declare it to be "struggling," and then take it over, rewriting contracts, compensation packages, benefit plans, retirement funds, and (one presumes) prices and wages.

At that point, there truly is no limit to the president's power to personally dictate and direct the nation's economy. We will no longer have a capitalist or even quasi-capitalist state but direct fascism, without even the liberal "smiley face" to adorn the invisible foot of government.

So what sort of dictator would Mr. Obama be?

In unveiling the regulatory plan this week, President Obama would signal to Europe that he intended to crack down on the risk-taking and other free-wheeling practices by the financial industry that resulted in the global economic meltdown.

...And that also resulted in the greatest creation of wealth in all of human history. We'll have none of that, buster!

And who is behind the move? It appears to be Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke more than Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:

From the outset of the Obama administration, officials and European leaders have disagreed over how much to limit pay. And Mr. Geithner has discouraged the administration from imposing across-the-board limits on compensation of all employees at troubled companies receiving federal assistance and more burdensome pay restrictions at healthy institutions that the administration is trying to encourage to take government money so they can increase lending.

Last week, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, also called on regulators to supervise executive pay at banks more closely to avoid “compensation practices that can create mismatches between the rewards and risks borne by institutions or their managers.”

Presented with a choice between two top advisors, one of whom cautions against a radical nationalization of the entire corporate world, the other of which urges just that approach -- Obama opts for the latter. Surprise, surprise, on the Jungle Boat ride tonight. So if the Times report is accurate, then the Executive branch will determine what risks are acceptable for businesses to take; what rewards they are allowed to bestow upon their employees; and presumably every phase of the transaction in between. Can wage and price controls be far behind?

So what do Republicans have to say about this plan? I don't know -- because the New York Times elects not to inform us. They neither quite nor even paraphrase any response by anybody other than members of the administration and Democratic leaders in Congress. Evidently, the rest of us have become invisible.

But I make no doubt that Arlen and the gals from Maine will, with "great reluctance," throw their weight behind the necessary step of putting capitalism under state control... "just for the duration," of course.

So how long, exactly, does the duration endure? Until we're as prosperous as we were during most of the Bush administration? I fear that with the advent of liberal fascism, and the resulting destruction of the economy that will provoke, that new golden age could be a lang, lang time a-growin'.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 21, 2009, at the time of 9:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 19, 2009

Obama's State-Ownership Society

Back in the precambrian era -- in fall of 2008, I of course mean -- we warned in several posts that when the federal government takes an "equity interest" (ownership in whole or in significant part) in private companies, it creates a grave threat to the capitalist system:

• Democrats Channel Hugo Chavez in Rescue Demands
• While Washington Wilts, Soros Schemes
• Is It Adios to Capitalism - or Only Au Revoir?

When government buys a significant stake in private companies, it creates a terrible conflict of interest; decisions that should be made entirely on economic grounds -- attempting to maximize the long-term profit for the owners of the company, whether stockholders or private consortia -- are made instead by politicians pushing a particular political ideology, or else trying to benefit big campaign donors.

Corporate management is ultimately accountable to the owners (though owners can be derelict in their fiduciary duties), while politicians are accountable only to voters and donors, neither of which may have any particular concern about the financial viability of particular private companies in the government's stock portfolio.

This is how we explained it in the first post linked above:

The latter especially is a key element of Woodrow Wilson, Benito Mussolini style fascism; it invariably leads to the State, as the $700 billion gorilla on the board of directors, exerting overwhelming control over corporate decisions... which it will exercise on the basis of politics, not profits.

When people read "fascism," they immediately tend to envision concentration camps, jackboots, and Nazis goosestepping at mass rallies; but the real danger of fascism, especially liberal fascism (fascism with a smiley face, as depicted -- against author Jonah Goldberg's wishes -- on the cover of his book Liberal Fascism), is government control of corporations. The more control is handed over to politicians and bureaucrats who have no hand in actually producing the product (loans and securities, in this case), the more critical decisions will be made on irrelevant political considerations, often leading to financial disaster... and another bailout, leading to even more government control. Eventually, the State completely hijacks the corporation for political purposes... and we're well on our way to Hugo Chavez-land.

The threat posed by the government taking an equity interest in private companies can be minimized by making it a matter of law that the holdings are fully divested as soon as buyers can be found at market prices -- either the company buying back its own stock or private third parties taking it off government's hands; in the third Big Lizards post linked up top, "Is It Adios to Capitalism - or Only Au Revoir?", we discussed this possibility:

With the long-expected decision today by President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke that Treasury will spend $250 billion of the $700 billion buying equity stakes in nine top banks, thus injecting "liquidity" directly into the industry, we stand at a crossroads. The question is whether this is "goodbye" to Capitalism or just "see you soon"... whether this is a permanent break from free markets or just a necessary but temporary bank holiday....

The direct injection of liquidity by Treasury buying equity is also outside the market, because that money is extracted from people by force, in the form of taxes. But at the core, even this direct investment is an attempt to buy time to complete the "transparentizing" (horrible neologism, I know) of the toxic assets -- the recreation of the information that was lost by multiple unregulated securitizations of massive collections of mortgages.

Once the [timely, honest, accurate, and believable information] has been restored to the mortgage-backed securities and other instruments, the market can reboot itself...

With the restoration of the missing THABI information, the market can reboot, and the catastrophe will be averted. So long as partial-nationalization of the banking industry lasts only long enough to retransparentize the toxic assets, thus allowing the market to begin functioning again, it will be an acceptable, even necessary intervention.

Alas, there is nothing in the Obama administration's bailout that implies they will, in fact, consider this a temporary expedient; from everything I've read, they see it as a permanent "reform."

There are two classic anti-capitalist examples of divesting funds for political reasons; together, they point out the very real danger when government becomes a part owner of the private sector through enforced or distressed nationalization (we have seen both in the present crisis):

1. When universities, big corporations, and of course government programs in the 1970s dumped all their investments in companies based in South Africa or doing business in South Africa, even if they were based elsewhere, to protest Apartheid; this was in response to purely political pressure from black activist groups here in the United States.
2. And when the usual suspects more recently dumped all investment in Israel, Israeli companies, or companies that did not ritually denounce Israel, in response to purely political pressure from antisemitic, anti-Israel, and generally pro-Palestinian and Islamist activist groups.

Both are examples of government trying to use equity ownership to bully the private sector into purely political actions that have nothing whatsoever to do with the companies in question.

When the government is a significant investor in a company, it cannot help running those companies; government funds never come "string free." Worse, the State runs those companies not to make profits, but to score political points.

In fact, that is exactly what is happening in the case of American International Group (AIG): We have such a huge investment in that company now, $80 billion, that how much they pay employees in retention "bonuses" (inducements to continue working for AIG, rather than jumping ship to some less shaky company) has become a political football.

In fact, the U.S. House of Representatives has just voted overwhelmingly, 328 to 93, to enact a confiscatory tax on AIG employees -- almost by name! -- if AIG fulfills its contractual obligations by paying the employees who stayed on for the work they did (reducing AIG's liability from $2.7 trillion to $1.6 trillion):

Spurred on by a tidal wave of public anger over bonuses paid to executives of the foundering American International Group, the House voted 328 to 93 on Thursday to get back most of the money by levying a 90 percent tax on it....

But there was no doubt after the House vote that the lawmakers were keenly aware of their constituents’ anger, which was focused on A.I.G., although the House measure would apply to executives of any company getting more than $5 billion in federal bailout money.

Hours after the vote, the office of Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York attorney general, said A.I.G. had turned over the names of employees who received bonuses, in response to a subpoena.

Before releasing the list, the attorney general’s office plans to review it and assess whether individuals on it might have reason to fear for their safety.

“We are aware of the security concerns of A.I.G. employees, and we will be sensitive to those issues by doing a risk assessment before releasing any individual’s name,” Mr. Cuomo’s office said in a statement.

Well that's mighty decent of them.

So the bill was openly and unabashedly driven by constituent anger -- anger that cannot possibly be based upon a sober and detailed consideration of whether those particular employees deserved those particular bonuses; in fact, the most likely culprit in ginning up such rage and fury is Congress itself, along with the president, who have been demonizing AIG and its employees for months now. It happened again in the debate on this very bill:

“The people have said ‘no,’ ” Representative Earl Pomeroy, Democrat of North Dakota, shouted on the House floor. “In fact, they said ‘hell no, and give us our money back.’ ”

“Have the recipients of these checks no shame at all?” Mr. Pomeroy continued. Summing up his personal view of the so-far anonymous A.I.G. executives, he said: “You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money back.”

Great leaping horny toads. I had to wipe spittle-spray off my face after just reading it! "Disgraced professional losers?" Is Earl "Elmer Gantry" Pomeroy (D-ND, 85%) under the impression that these bonuses are going to the actual folks in the credit default swap area, who are the ones who brought AIG down? Or is Pomeroy just blindly striking out against anyone who makes more money than he?

And while we're on the subject, I think there is not a single Democrat in Congress to whom I could not say, “You are disgraced professional losers; and by the way, give us our money back.” And with a damn sight more justification, Earl.

Contrariwise, John Hinderaker -- my favorite blogger on my favorite blogsite, Power Line -- makes a compelling case that the bonuses were in fact perfectly proper:

• They were retention bonuses, not performance bonuses.
• They were paid, not to the employees responsible for the collapse, but to other employees who have worked hard for months after the collapse to rescue AIG... rather than jumping ship with their expert knowledge of AIG's exact portfolio problems, taking jobs with other companies that had better futures.
• As John writes, "[the employees] satisfied the terms of the bonus by wrapping up a portfolio for which they were responsible and/or staying on the job until now. As a result of the efforts of this group, AIG's financial products exposure is down from $2.7 trillion to $1.6 trillion.
• They stayed at AIG precisely because of those bonuses; but now the government, having eaten the fruit of that labor as an equity holder, wants those bonuses to go, not to the people who earned it, but to the government itself!

But note how carefully the Times dances around the question of who exactly is getting the bonuses, and what those people's roles were in the collapse:

The $165 million in bonuses has spawned rage in part because it was paid to executives in the very unit of A.I.G. that arguably turned a stable, prosperous insurance company into a dice-rolling financial firm in search of quick profits.

But there must have been hundreds of employees working in the financial products division! Does the Times think that every employee, from vice president down to secretary, was personally responsible for the foolish decisions that nearly killed AIG? Do liberals fantasize even that every executive in that division was responsible?

If new (post-collapse) AIG CEO Edward Liddy is telling the truth, and so far no current or former employee has come forth to contradict him, then the bonuses are going to people who were not responsible for the collapse, but are responsible for helping AIG deal with the collapse after the fact.

These are the people that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA, 100%) calls corrupt:

Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the House Financial Services Committee and has been among A.I.G.’s fiercest critics, spoke contemptuously of the bonus recipients as people “who had to be bribed not to abandon the company” they had nearly ruined.

Wouldn't that same language, "bribed not to abandon the company," apply to every employee who ever demanded a raise?

It's another example of liberals' inability to deal with complexity; for all their protestations of having more subtle minds, they are really quite simplistic: The poor (and the rich who "represent" them) are always good; the productive core are always bad; and every moral question is the same shade of neutral gray.

John makes the same point as we anent this ridiculous 90% "tax," which is actually a deliberate attempt at confiscation, as the president made clear yesterday in Orange County. John writes:

The legislation introduced by the Democrats today to tax these bonuses (and possibly a few others, although it isn't clear that any others have been or will be paid that are covered by the statute) at a 90 percent rate is an outrage. It is, in my legal opinion, obviously unconstitutional. It is evidently intended to calm the current political firestorm and not to achieve any real objective.

John refers to the legislation as "introduced by the Democrats;" while that's technically true, it's only a half-truth: Democrats may have proposed it, but the House GOP split almost 50-50 on what Hinderaker (a lawyer) and I (a "sea-lawyer") see as an obvious bill of attainder.

In fact, the AP version of the Times article demonstrates Republican cowardice in the House: 87 Republicans voted against the "tax"; but 85 Republicans voted with the Democrats, blaming those retained employees for all of our woes... most switching at the last minute:

Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the bill was "a political circus" diverting attention from why the administration hadn't done more to block the bonuses before they were paid.

However, although a number of Republicans cast "no" votes against the measure at first, there was a heavy GOP migration to the "yes" side in the closing moments.

This is out and out pandering by the GOP... and it's vile. If we cannot even count on the House Republicans to stand up to liberal demagoguery, to stand up for Capitalism, then what is the point?

It's time for Minority Leader Boehner (R-OH, 100%) to fish or get off the pot: Does he lead a party that is distinct from the liberal Democratic majority, that is center-right, and that still believes in Capitalism, the rule of law, and conservative principles of governance? Has he learned the lessons of 2006 and 2008? Or does Boehner believe that the GOP's best shot at returning to power is to morph into a quieter, gentler version of the Democratic Party, pushing a slightly more restrained version of Obamunism?

I'd really like to know the answer to that conundrum before the next election.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 19, 2009, at the time of 6:59 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

February 24, 2009

Michael Medved: Still Liberal After All These Years

(But of course, I think most of us already knew that.)

I was listening to Mr. M. today; in his first segment, he examined the phenomenon of blacks as monkeys... well, to be fair, the phenomenon of blacks claiming that any reference to monkeys or apes -- no matter how far removed from racial considerations -- is actually a racist reference to blacks as monkeys, and therefore requires an abject, belly-crawling apology, contrition, and a healthy financial donation to Al Sharpton.

All right; fair topic. But in the middle of his intro, he noted that Charles Darwin, "who we honored the same day as Lincoln's birthday" -- possibly because they were, in fact, born on exactly the same day: February 12th, 1809 -- was a racist who believed that blacks were closer to monkeys and apes than were whites.

Again, fair point: But the proper conclusion to draw is that, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many great men and women were flaming racists... not that Darwin in particular was a more egregious racist than his peers (he wasn't).

The second time Medved noted that point, I was a bit puzzled; why harp on poor Charles Darwin? Literature from this period is replete with such casually racist observations and portrayals, from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Rudyard Kipling to Booth Tarkington... and they're even found in such notably anti-racist works as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn: The character of "Nigger Jim," while depicted as the most kind and decent person in the work, is nevertheless painted as a shuffling Stepin Fetchit, not a visionary like Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington (throughout the book, until the very end, Jim thoroughly accepts his inferiority compared to whites, for example).

So why Darwin specifically?

I didn't realize Medved's real purpose, however, until the third time in the same hour that Medved brought out that "startling" fact (in case anyone had missed all but he final ten minutes of the segment) -- this time in response to a black caller who said the New York Post cartoon of the bullet-riddled corpse of Travis the Chimp, with the caption "They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," clearly played to the latent racism of American society: Medved believes the nineteenth-century racism of Darwin completely discredits evolutionary theory.

How could he think that? What would Darwin's racism have to do with the validity of modern evolutionary theory? We all agree that William Shockley supported eugenics (he doesn't appear to have been a racist, but eugenics is bad enough); does that mean transistors don't really work?

I believe the problem is that Medved either doesn't understand the scientific method, or more dastardly, understands it but hopes to confuse his listeners for purely tendentious reasons. He never discusses "evolutionary theory," "biological evolution," or even just evolution; he invariably refers to that entire subject as "Darwinism," and he conflates biological evolution with "social Darwinism," generally, though somewhat inaccurately, identified with eugenics. Medved doesn't see "Darwinism" as a scientific theory but rather a cult of personality, like Scientology, the Branch Davidians, or Jim Jones' People's Temple in Guyana. Thus to Medved, the best way to "discredit" evolutionary theory is to smear Charles Darwin. There, that'll put paid to all this nonsense!

This tactic is a dangerous tendency alike of conservatives like Ben Stein and pseudoconservative former leftist radicals such as Michael Medved; we've discussed it a number of times before, going all the way back to the dim mists of antiquity (2005):

• Evolution, ID, and Science
• I appear to have become a Nazi...
• Expelled: No Intelligence Offered - part 1 (Win Ben Stein's Monkey Trial!)
• Expelled: No Intelligence Offered - part 2 (Ben in the Dock)
• Semi-Intelligent Design

(The last is a rare post by Big Lizards co-founder Brad Linaweaver.)

This particular rhetorical trick is quintessentially liberal, though sadly, it's used by all sides: It's "Fruit of the Forbidden Tree" Reductionism (FFTR). The Left uses it almost to the exclusion of all other arguments. It consists in first reducing an entire argument, school of thought, philosophy, or movement to a single "founding" individual... then personally smearing that individual, thus "discrediting" the entire movement. Thus:

• American Democracy was invented by Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence; but Jefferson the hypocrite clearly did not believe that "all men are created equal" or were "endowed" with "liberty," because he himself kept slaves; therefore, Jeffersonianism is irretrievably racist, regressive, and belongs in the dustbin of history.
• Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who started the anti-Communist hysteria, was a bigot, a racist, and a drunkard; it's no wonder that many decades of McCarthyism have failed to uncover any Commies hiding under our beds.
• Ronald Reagan was one of those rich and privileged Hollywood elites who betrayed their own fellow union members by denouncing them to McCarthyite witch-hunts; this explains Reaganism's later betrayal of the whole country by slashing taxes on the rich and crushing the poor.

And here's another one from the other side, besides "Darwinism":

• In 1938, the cowardly, pacifist appeaser Neville Chamberlain gave Adolf Hitler everything he wanted as part of the European "peace process," imagining this would satisfy Hitler and prevent war; now, seventy years later, we're supposed to give Mahmoud Ahmadijejad everything he wants in the new Iranian "peace process"... which will have the same effect as last time.

Let's dissect that last. First, note that it's not necessary actually to use an eponym like "Chamberlainism;" the sin is in the identification itself, however expressed. Second, I agree with the underlying conclusion... but finally, FFTR is not about the conclusion, it's about the rhetorical road by which one arrives there. Its essence is:

1. Identify the enemy philosophy with a single individual;
2. Villify that individual, especially if one does so unfairly;
3. Conclude, by the mother of all non-sequiturs, that the enemy philosophy is thereby refuted.

In the last example above, (a) the philosophy of appeasement is identified with Neville Chamberlain, as if he had invented it; (b) Chamberlain is ludicrously caricatured as a coward, a pacifist, and a blind fool who believed that the Munich Agreement would permanently prevent war with Nazi Germany, none of which is accurate; and (c) the arguer uses the identification and denunciation to shortcut the heavy lifting of really analyzing appeasement to see where it works and where it doesn't.

In fact, appeasement does sometimes work. For one example, in 1978, Israel returned the Sinai back to Egypt in exchange for the promise that Egypt -- which had taken the lead in all three previous major wars against Israel, in 1948, 1967, and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, just five years before the Accords -- would normalize relations with Israel. This is classic appeasement... land for the promise of peace. But in fact, it has worked. Since 1978, and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of the next year, Egypt has kept the peace with Israel and even fought against Hamas in Gaza (to some extent). Hey, appeasement worked for more than half of Israel's existence; we can't deny that stubborn fact.

Thus, those of us who oppose appeasement anent Iran (which is a horse for another day) must analyze and explain why it wouldn't work and would be a catastrophe, despite the positive example of Egypt. That complicates the argument, though not unduly; it is, however, an argument of some subtlety and the polar opposite of FFTR.

FFTR flattens all distinction, subtlety, and nuance into one big smear of fire-engine red. A good analogy increases understanding of an issue by removing the structure of an argument from the emotion-laden specifics; but a rhetorical trick like FFTR reduces understanding of the issue by conflating unlike things as if they were one and the same.

And that surely is true with Medved's and Stein's full-throated employment of FFTR to "refute" modern evolutionary theory (ET): They flatten all distinctions between ET and religion, between ET and "social Darwinism," between logic and sincerity, and between legitimate and ideological personnel decisions; they leave behind only a raw, "four legs good, two legs bad" bleat designed to prevent rational discussion, trying to silence science.

And in yet another rhetorical trick filtched from liberals, Medved and Stein then project their own thuggishness onto their victims -- Expelled is the poster-child of such role reversal!

It's disgusting when a former left-liberal radical war protester, like Michael Medved or David Horowitz, reverts to form, seizing upon the rhetorical tricks familiar to his misspent youth; but it's utterly vile when a lifelong conservative like Ben Stein appropriates alien, leftist tactics to his own cause. Buckley never did this, nor did Goldwater; in fact, not even liberal-turned-conservative-icon Ronald Reagan did it.

When those identified as conservative use Carville-like tricks to bamboozle the audience, they discredit not only themselves but the rest of us as well, handing open leftists the perfect ammunition to use for their own adventures in "Fruit of the Forbidden Tree" Reductionism.

Thanks again, guys. I truly enjoy being forced to swim upstream through your rhetorical sewers, undoing the damage you cause, before I can even get to my actual point.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 24, 2009, at the time of 3:31 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

February 18, 2009

Eric Holder's "Race" to the Bottom

According to the Black Attorney General -- I would have simply written Attorney General, but every story in the elite media makes a big point of his blackitude, so I presume we're under orders to take note -- the biggest problem facing America today is that we just don't talk enough about race.

Ergo, we're all cowards on this bus:

In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

I suppose Mr. Holder (did you know he is a black man?) hasn't considered the possibility that we average Americans don't talk much about race because we don't think about race... because we are not racists.

(Or even "racialists," which I'll temporarily define in this post as being obsessed with race to the point that virtually every issue, from the economy to globaloney to opposition to the "stimulus" porkapalooza, is fundamentally about race.)

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

When President Barack H. Obama (the first African-American president) unveils his race initiative, I suppose it's inevitable that he will lean heavily on Gen. Holder... and that means we'll likely have a stunningly new and innovative project: a nation-wide conversation about race!

I know, I know; Bill Clinton (the first African-American president) already had a national conversation about race. But this one will be totally different, because this one will be conducted by an actual African-American black man, rather than a lilly-white "black" man who only got that appellation because he grew up in a broken home, his father deserted him, and he grew up poor and on welfare.

(Is it just me -- or does it seem a little, well, racist to imply that anyone from a socially deprived background is therefore an honorary African American?)

So we'll have yet another national conversation about race, this one focusing on affirmative action for weekends and personal friendships. If that doesn't work, Congress will just have to pass a law, a new "title" for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that makes it an offense to socialize with overly homogenous groups that do not include the correct quota of blacks, Mexicans, Native Americans, Hmong, and other federally protected (that is, reliably Democratic) ethnic groups. (Japanese, overly religious South Americans, Poles, and especially those Cuban "hystericos" in Miami don't count as minorities.)

I've annotated this next bit from the black Mr. H.; one of those "what he said" vs. "what he's thinking" pieces that makes it easier to understand the new way and what's expected of us in future:

Race, Holder said, "is an issue we have never been at ease with [except, of course, in the South, where everyone has a much higher NTF than in Manhattan, New England, San Francisco, and Hollywood, none of which allow blacks to live there] and, given our nation's history [as the most viciously racist country on the planet], this is in some ways understandable... If we are to make progress [enact racial quotas that reach into every nook and cranny of human interaction, from friendship to dating to marriage to mindless one-night stands] in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other [except for conservatives, of course, and anybody else who insists who insists upon judging people by the content of their character, rather than by the color of their skin] to have frank conversations [finger-wagging lectures] about the racial matters that continue to divide us [Democrat from Republican]."

So all you white people (who aren't black), and all you black and Hispanic conservatives (who aren't authentic), should begin practicing your public self-criticism confessions; you're going to need them. Probably by law.

In a country founded by slave owners, race has bedeviled the nation throughout its history, with blacks denied the right to vote just a few decades ago. Obama's triumph last November as well as the nomination of Holder stand as historic achievements of two black Americans.

Did I neglect to mention that Obama and Holder are black? My bad.

Even when people mix at the workplace or afterwork social events, Holder argued, many Americans in their free time are still segregated inside what he called "race-protected cocoons."

Gen. Holder is bemoaning the lack of mixed-race marriages, I suppose. I'll have to ask Sachi about it.

"Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not in some ways differ significantly from the country that existed almost 50 years ago. This is truly sad," said Holder.

You know, I think Eric Holder (he's black, you know) has a point here: I've noticed that all the restaurants in my neighborhood segregate their bathrooms on the week-end; and on Saturday and Sunday, non-whites must sit at the back of the bus.

I suppose the new new national conversation about race is just the extension of Obamic diplomacy to the domestic sphere: All it takes is a nice talking out, and everything will be all right. And now, having resolved America's festering race problem -- on week-ends, we're just like the South under Jim Crow! -- he's off to Gitmo to resolve that dilemma will equal facility:

Holder is headed to Guantanamo Bay early next week to inspect the terrorist detention facility there. Obama has assigned Holder to lead a special task force aimed at closing the site within a year.

Holder's Justice Department will have to decide which suspects to bring to U.S. courts for trial, which to prosecute through the military justice system, and which to send back to their home countries.

See, there's this really simple solution that Republicans are just too blind to see; a few well-spoken words in the right ears will cause Egypt and Jordan and China and Saudi Arabia to take back their al-Qaeda prisoners, talk with them, sing and laugh, and persuade them that it's wrong to take out their understandable and righteous anger by beheading random Western men, women and children.

And Holder -- after holding a national conversation about classified intelligence information -- will then be able to proceed to trials of terrorist detainees in ordinary civilian courts, without fear of technical acquittals because the intelligence community refuses produce all its top-secret intel in court for the al-Qaeda lawyers to pore over. (Of course, CIA Director Leon Panetta -- he's not black, unless he has become black recently -- will probably just hand it all over anyway. Without preconditions.)

Golly, but I'm glad we elected a change-agent lightbringer who brings new hope for a world without conflict, war, or totalitarianism... or at least no totalitarianism of the Right.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 18, 2009, at the time of 11:31 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

February 11, 2009

Climate Change Derangement Syndrome

A new malady has presented itself to the medical community. They haven't yet taken the obvious step of dubbing it "Climate Change Derangement Syndrome," but surely that's mere oversight.

By CCDS, I don't mean the increasing delusion that anthropogenic global climate change (AGCG) has been proven beyond all doubt and beyond all permitted debate, though that is an essential element of CCDS. Rather, I mean the increasing number of cases of anxiety, paranoia, and hysteria verging on psychosis in people who have become convinced that AGCC is going to destroy the world. Viz.:

Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of "climate change delusion."

Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters.

This can be considered "collateral damage" in the war against science waged by the politicians -- both inside and outside the scientific community (I include NASA scientist James Hansen) -- pushing the leftist agenda implicit in the "consensus view" of AGCC. ("Can't make an omlet without breaking a few legs.") But the victims of such hypnotic hypochondria could also be considered "useful idiots" in the socialist march towards totalitarianism; in this view, AGCC is simply one more tool to dismantle the sovereignty of the United States and institute an international regime in its place.

Whatever their motivation, AGCC hoaxsters have busied themselves raising terror of global warming to a fever pitch:

• By dismissing all questions about the validity of those predictions (based, as they are, entirely on general circulation climate models that do not, in fact, model anything in the real world);
• By using political power within the government and the academy to squash any dissent and ruin the lives of dissenters;
• By floating nightmare scenarios that even the hoaxters themselves know are cartoonish and overblown;

• By mocking the very idea that increased CO₂ in the atmosphere might have some positive effect on, e.g., plant growth and resistance to pests;

• By attaching supposedly scientific conclusions to bills in parliaments, legislatures, and congresses, thus "legislating" science (as Adolf Hitler did by mandating so-called "race science," and as Josef Stalin did by mandating Lamarckian theories under Trofim Denisovich Lysenko);
• And by signalling that governments will look very favorably on any evidence of AGCC -- even the "evidence" that the fear of AGCC is already wreaking havoc -- and will reward such "evidence" with money and prestige.

I call that last point the AIDS Inflation Theory: In Africa, if a person is diagnosed with cholera or syphilis or meningitis, he's more or less on his own; but if he is diagnosed with AIDS, a vast network of international aid pours resources onto the patient and into the village whence he came. Thus, compassionate doctors, seeing the unalleviated suffering throughout the "dark continent," tend to report any serious illness in Africa as AIDS: AIDS-related cholera, AIDS-related meningitis, AIDS-related machete wounds, and so forth. Thus the number of reported cases of AIDS in Africa is many, many times higher than the reality.

I believe the same thing happens with AGCC: Every unpleasant weather event, from hurricanes to monsoons to icy chills to hot weather in August, is declared to be due to global climate change. This causes the ponderous machinery of international aid to chug into motion; it causes papers to be accepted at prestigious scientific journals; it causes grant money to gush from the government teat.

Now that "climate change delusion" (or as I call it, Climate Change Derangement Syndrome) has been discovered (or fabricated), is there any doubt that millions of dollars will flood the grant empires of psychiatrists and scientists who study it?

Such anxiety over current events is not a new phenomenon. Worries about contemporary threats, such as nuclear war or AIDS, have historically been woven into the mental illnesses of each generation. But global warming could have a broader and deeper effect on mental health, even if indirectly.

"Climate change could have a real impact on our psyches," says Paul Epstein, the associate director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

...As well as a real impact on the bottom line of the Center for Health and the Global Environment. The Center was created in 1996 -- eight years after the U.N. birthed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 and a scant four years after the infamous Rio conference, from which the Kyoto Accord or Protocol eventually flowed the year after the Harvard Center was established.

The Boston Globe includes the obligatory prognostications of what the climate future holds, offered by the anonymous experts who are the greatest prognosticators since Nostradamus:

Over this century, the average global temperature is expected to rise between 1 degrees [sic] and 6 degrees Celsius. Glaciers will melt, seas will rise, extremes in precipitation will occur, according to scientists' predictions....

Climate change is expected to create about 200 million environmental refugees [!] by 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body established within the United Nations to evaluate causes and consequences of global warming.

They can't show any such correlation in the past; but as they say about the stock market, past performance does not predict future results. Clearly the lack of previous examples of an uncontrolled greenhouse effect on this plant is proof positive that just such a catastrophe looms, complete with an entire nation of "environmental refugees," who will, quite naturally, be the target population for a pandemic of Climate Change Derangement Syndrome.

Do something, quick! Perhaps Democrats in Congress can roll a few tens of billions of dollars for funding CCDS research into the "stimulus" bill.

The Globe admits that there really is no evidence for any part of this theory:

The links between mental illness and the weather can be tenuous or even downright contradictory. Depending on which studies you read, suicide is more common, less common, or equally common in hot weather. Ditto dry weather.

But it instantly follows with a tenuous, link-laden litany of woes that will sear our psyches:

Indeed, climate change may eventually deplete natural resources, make it more difficult for people to live off the land, and disrupt the global food supply.

"That will mean declining socioeconomic status and quality of life across the world," North said, and "depression, demoralization, disillusionment...."

On the other side of the globe, the changing Arctic climate is expected to make hunting and fishing far more difficult for the people who live there....

"Climate change is a massive driver of change in people's home environment," Albrecht said. "These changes become sources of chronic stress."

Fortunately, we needn't strain our brains trying to figure out what to do; the "anointed" will tell us:

In the long term, we may also derive some psychological benefit from banding together with other citizens to mitigate the effects of global warming. Taking action might not only give us back a sense of our own sense of efficacy [sic] against a powerful outside force, but also help us build community and social ties that offset stress, said Epstein and other specialists.

"Getting involved can be an antidote to the depression that can come from the overwhelming realizations that we have to face...," Epstein said. "It can be empowering to realize that what you do is effective."

Break out another package of community organizers! I suppose it's not very likely that Paul Epstein would accept "advocating free-market solutions to environmental problems" as an example of an "empowering" method of "getting involved." The position -- and I believe the underlying purpose -- of AGCC advocacy from the beginning has been creeping socialism and the destruction of Capitalism, the market, and national sovereignty, each of which would be swallowed up by the internationalist environmental treaty-archy (now there's a mouthful!)

Climate Change Derangement Syndrome is just the latest manifestation of the medicalization of public policy: People are going crazy from fear of global warming, so smash the looms! Other examples include:

• Anti-smoking zealots abusing research on "second-hand smoke" to force a total ban on smoking;
• Attempts by vegan activists to ban all trans fats, which turn polyunsaturated vegetable fats into the equivalent of saturated fats found in animal products like butter;
• Leftist-feminists banning breast implants for ideological reasons by citing nonexistent illnesses (e.g. "silicone disease" or "connective tissue disorder") or real illnesses or conditions whose causes are unrelated to silicone breast implants (breast cancer, miscarriage, fibromyalgia);
• Attempts to ban power lines (no offence, John, Paul, and Scott!) by claiming they cause cancer;
• Anti-punishment hysterics trying to classify all crimes as "mental disorders" in order to shut down the prisons;
• The use of bogus claims of toxic threats to prohibit military training, and so forth.

In short, AGCC in general, and Climate Change Derangement Syndrome in particular, is just another front in the global war against the individual, the family, and the nation-state. Couple that with the Democratic Congress' and the Obama administration's staggering economic assault on the market, and I believe our way of life and our freedom is under greater threat than anytime since the peak years of the Cold War.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 11, 2009, at the time of 4:32 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 9, 2009

Yet Another Obama "Sovereignty" Test

A federal lawsuit filed by sixteen illegal immigrants, seeking damages from a rancher for the "tort" of keeping them off his land by making a citizen's arrest and handing them over to the Border Patrol, offers a determinative test for our new president: Will the Justice Department file a friend of the court brief? And if so, which side will President Barack H. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder support?

An Arizona man [rancher and former sheriff's deputy Roger Barnett] who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

(Violating their civil rights? They must have meant violating their civil liberties. Either that, or sixteen illegal aliens are suing Barnett for preventing them from voting in the next Arizona election.)

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million [!] in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress [oh please] and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett's wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

I don't know for sure whether Arizona has citizen's arrest, but I believe it does. If so, then what exactly is Barnett accused of doing? Does the act of citizen's arrest violate the "right" of foreign nationals to cross into the United States illegally? What other rights could they mean?

The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.

Attorneys for the immigrants - five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States - have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

Well, yeah; that's why it's called a citizen's "arrest," not a citizen's polite request to stay and wait for the peelers. This sounds pretty normal to me; if the Border Patrol, rather than a private citizen, had done exactly this, would any federal judge allow such a lawsuit to go forward?

Plaintiffs do not accuse Barnett of shooting anyone or even firing a shot, of siccing his dog on anyone (though he warned them that the dog can bite). The illegals retained MALDEF to press their case -- or more likely, MALDEF recruited them to sue Barnett, hoping to get a federal court ruling that Mexican nationals have the "civil right" to:

• Enter the United States without documentation;
• Trespass on private property;
• Rustle cattle;
• Burglarize houses;
• And threaten American citizens who resist any of the above.

MALDEF does claim that Barnett kicked one woman, but I suspect that's an embelishment. In any event, I find it passing strange that a group called the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund is now representing sixteen Mexican Mexicans suing an American American; but I suppose they know which side of the bed is buttered. Evidently, even MALDEF is really all about "la raza."

I have a big question in mind to ask; but before I get to that, I must answer the big question that I know is in the minds of many of you: Has the lizard flipped? Am I reversing myself and turning into a Tancredoite?

Not guilty on both charges. First, my position today is exactly the same as it was a year, even two years ago. I never argued that anyone has the "right" to trespass, commit crimes, or evade arrest, even arrest for illegal entry. What I did argue is twofold: First, that the crime of illegal entry, all by itself, is a minor offense; even buying fraudulent documentation is, in and of itself, a minor crime.

But there are other crimes often committed by illegals that are much more serious, and I have no quarrel with punishing those more severely. Such other crimes include identity theft of a living person (as opposed to getting a false birth certificate in the name of a person who died in infancy), burglary, car theft, and yes, trespassing. I have always agreed that illegals who are convicted of such crimes should be deported -- but only after serving their sentences.

Second, I argued that a fine and payment of back taxes (plus interest and penalties), plus having to start the residency paperwork all over from the beginning, is an acceptable plea bargain (not "amnesty") for illegals who turn themselves in; they shouldn't need to return to their former country. You may disagree; I'm not arguing the point. But it doesn't contradict anything I said above. (And of course I argue we need to fundamentally reform our legal immigration system to make it more rational, predictable, and just; but that's a different topic.)

So no, I haven't joined the ranks of those who savaged the comprehensive immigration bill; neither have I changed my position on what to do about immigration, "guest" workers, and those already here illegally.

Now to the question that interests me: Barack Obama did not campaign on a promise to throw open the borders, nor on the supposition that illegals have any "right" to enter or trespass. In fact, he reassured us that he opposed illegal immigration. And of course he never said he favored eliminating the right of citizens to arrest criminals apprehended in the act and hold them until the police arrive and take the prisoners into custody. So if Obama comes out now in favor of MALDEF and their patsies, it would be a stunning betrayal of the American people -- and catastrophic to his presidency.

But on the other hand, suppose the plaintiffs prevail at this stage on the theory enunciated by MALDEF; and supposed that, although Obama and Holder don't file an amicus curae brief supporting the MALDEF position, the administration also fails to file a brief in defense of an American citizen (and former cop) who has done nothing more than protect his own property and family by apprehending (so he claims) more than 12,000 (!!) illegal aliens and turning them over to the Border Patrol. Even if the administration doesn't throw in with the illegals, if Obama nevertheless abandons Barnett to his fate, I believe the president would have willfully failed to discharge his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

If the trial results in a defense verdict and MALDEF does not appeal (unlikely), then Obama is off the hook. But if this ends up in federal circuit court -- as I'm certain it will, no matter what the verdict in district court -- and if Obama (a) ducks the issue or (b) backs MALDEF and the illegals, then the GOP should ride this issue into the 2010 election.

And I would then predict they would, in event (a) -- Obama administration ducks the issue -- recapture one or the other chamber of Congress. And in event (b) -- Obama administration sides with the illegal aliens against they American citizen they tried to victimize -- the GOP will win the whole ruddy thing.

Even if Obama arrives at the same calculation, I just don't know whether he has the cojones to buck the open-borders statelessness of the New Left.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 9, 2009, at the time of 6:39 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 2, 2009

Nanny's in Your Kitchen: the Spice Wars Begin

"Republican" Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City -- he was a Democrat until he decided the Democratic ticket was too crowded for his mayoral run, so he switched to have the nomination to himself -- now presides over a staggering budget deficit:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially announced Friday the city's $4 billion budget gap and unveiled a new budget filled with painful cutbacks that will impact every New Yorker.

Wall Street got sick and now New York City residents have to take their medicine, and Bloomberg's budget solution will probably be hard for most of us to swallow. New taxes, a smaller workforce, and reduced city services -- all the ingredients of Friday's "Doomsday" budget plan.

"This is a very tough time for our city and nation," Bloomberg said. "We have a $4 billion budget gap. It is serious, I think it is manageable."

Facing this Bloomsday budget plan, Mr. Mayor has thought and thought and thought and thought... and all that ratiocination has done to him what too much reading of chivalric fiction did to Alonso Quixano, about whom Cervantes wrote in the Quixote:

In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it.

And a few days ago, Michael, Princeps of Novus York, had a divine revelation: The specific enchantment that would serve to rescue his beloved principality from the economic fiery furnace is "sal salis deleda est!" Now we know how he'll "manage" the $4 billion deficit; sic semper tyrannis.

Clearly, the rabble are simply too ignorant to know how much salt they're eating. They cannot be trusted to make such urgent decisions, which affect the principality as a whole, all by themselves, the selfish villains.

So he has decided to do something about it: He is gearing up to order food manufacturers to "voluntarily" cut the amount of salt in the food they prepare by 50%; and if they don't voluntarily comply, the next step will be to ban any dissenters from selling their food products in New York City.

As New York is America's largest urban market, and it's too expensive to have two different versions of every product -- one for New York, the other for Everywhere Else -- the upshot will be that manufacturers will be forced to undersalt their food across the entire United States. Even the Pace Picante Sauce sold in Amarillo and Taos will have to conform to the tastes of "New York City!"

"Salt, when it's high in the diet, increases the blood pressure and high blood pressure is a major factor for heart disease and stroke," said Dr. Sonia Angell of NYC's Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Program.

This is just Mayor Bloomberg's latest health initiative, following on the heels of a smoking ban, a ban on trans fats and forcing restaurants to post the calorie contents.

But many New Yorkers peppered the mayor with boos for his latest idea.

Anyone who wants to reduce salt in his diet has a plethora of options available; there are health-food stores in nearly every reasonably large city, and probably hundreds in America's largest city. These stores carry many products that are low-sodium or even sodium-free. You can also simply make food from fresh, non-processed ingredients, thereby controlling how much salt your dishes contain.

With a city teetering on the edge of financial ruin, should Mr. Mayor be frittering away his energy and his budget forcing everyone to conform to an NYC "health Nazi" committee? (Adolf Hitler was a fanatic vegetarian and anti-smoking zealot, making Hitler the world's first "health Nazi.") It's hard not to suspect that Bloomberg's real objection to salt is not that it damages some people's health but that it makes food taste good, when we should be tightening our belts. (The mayor's political allies in the Center for Science in the Public Interest are even more overt, verging on brazen, in their war on flavor.)

This knee-jerk wildly inapropos response proves (if that were still needed) that Michael Bloomberg is still a liberal Democrat at core, no matter what letter he puts after his name now. A liberal is never more than two hysterias away from reverting to liberal fascism, in which every problem is a social problem -- and every social problem requires a collectivist, totalitarian solution. If some people's poor health is exacerbated by excess salt, then nobody should be allowed to eat too much salt... where "too much" is of course coterminous with "more than Mayor Bloomberg likes."

Liberals simply become impatient when one raises the liberty issue; in their hearts, no matter the rhetoric they espouse or claim to accept, right back to the days of the Progressive Party and the Fabian Society, they have always believed that liberty is overrated... that there are only two kinds of men: those who are meant to drive -- the "vanguard," or as Thomas Sowell dubbed them, the "Anointed" who have "the Vision" -- and those who are fit only to be driven (the lumpenproletariat).

The line of totalitarian succession stretches unbroken from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson to Jimmy "the Sweater" Carter -- to the Pelosi, Reid, Obama axis today, thence to all the little Obamoids orbiting the One like teeny, tiny moons. This includes Mr. Mayor of the cosmic center, New York City -- Bloomberg, rationer of prandial pleasure and arbiter of the new American asceticism... We the People sacrifice all so that They the Anointed may feast, swill, chain-smoke, and wallow in hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars (tax-free for cabinet appointees!) showered upon them because they are who they are.

Meet the new nanny; same as the old nanny. (Pass the salt, please.)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 2, 2009, at the time of 6:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 27, 2009

Second Epistle of St. John the Empowered

John Hinderaker has (yet another) excellent piece up on Power Line; this one views more-in-sadness-than-in-anger the not so recent phenomenon of the wanton and tendentious politicization of ostensibly party-neutral cultural congregations, such as classical concerts and sporting events. He concludes the post thus:

My only contribution to the discussion is to note that this is nothing new. Years ago, I attended many more cultural events than I do now. During the 1980s, I was a season ticket holder at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater. Over time, I became deeply offended by the fact that no matter what the play, whoever put the program together would find a way to work in an attack on the Reagan administration. The last straw was when I went to King Lear at the Guthrie. It was an excellent production, but my enjoyment of it was ruined by the fact that the program was turned into an anti-Reagan tirade. I wasn't even much of a conservative at the time, but the inappropriateness of the whole thing was too much for me.

I didn't "boo loudly," as Glenn [Reynolds] suggests; I just quit going. I wonder how many millions of conservative and mainstream Americans have stopped supporting cultural organizations because of this sort of wanton left-wing politicization.

I don't know whether John feigns naïveté here for dramatic purposes, but it's perfectly clear to me that driving conservatives and other antiliberals out of the arts and other cultural events is precisely the goal at which the Left aims with great deliberation.

The strategy is straight out of Uncle Joe's playbook, and they have done it for generations in other arenas -- such as the Civil Rights Congress, which began its life right after World War II as a perfectly legitimate, albeit labor-liberal, civil-rights organization. The Communists (e.g., Stalinists) infiltrated enough people into the group to get themselves elected to the important offices -- and turned it into a Soviet-Communist front group. One element of the strategy is to drive as many dissenting views out the door by aggressively boorish, even thuggish behavior.

How is what happened with King Lear, or what happened to Jay Nordlinger at a string-quartet performance upstairs of Carnegie Hall (see John's post), any different? It should be clear that when people with a history of thuggishly politicizing non-partisan political events or organizations are caught thuggishly politicizing non-political cultural events, we can safely conclude it's neither astonishing coincidence nor puzzling happenstance. It is, as Ian Fleming wrote, enemy action.

I have my own dreadful experience of just such a phenomenon, which I thought I had written about here at some length but can't seem to find. Some years ago, I attended the retirement party for my favorite teacher, whom I will simply call Fitz, at my old junior high school. Fitz was a math and science teacher, shaggy-haired and reliably absent-minded, and nearly everybody who had him as a teacher loved him.

His retirement party was held in a public park and attended by at least 1,500 people, including current and former students and their families. Lots of what is now called middle-school age children in attendance.

The other teachers in the special program in which Fitz taught got up to deliver encomiums, including one teacher from long after I matriculated on to high school and eventually university. This teacher -- I never met him and cannot now remember his name (nor would I want to do) -- allegly taught history and politics; but this was a simple retirement party for a math and science teacher. Nothing prepared me and a number of other attendees for what was to come.

Touching only momentarily on things related to Fitz, this other fellow chose not to linger. Instead, amidst what should have been a Fitz speech, he launched into, I rib you not, an obscenity-laced tirade against George W. Bush and his administration, the Iraq war, Republicans in general, conservatives in particular, and specifically, religious conservatives in a string of venomous personal attacks, using language more suited to a muleteer or a dockwalloper. It went on and on, occasionally punctuated by the lemming-like applause from similarly slope-browed products of consanguineous marriage who thought the venue perfectly appropriate for Democratic demagoguery of the brass-knuckle variety.

I rose from my front-row seat and strode angrily up the aisle and away, abandoning the field -- because the only alternative I could envision was to walk the other direction, up to the speaker's lectern, and see if I could refute him with a right cross... a course of action I was perilously close to undertaking.

I am still enraged at that fat, Franken-like buffoon for ruining a simple party in appreciation for a quarter-century of teaching high-level math and science to junior-high kids; at the liberals in the audience for not only tolerating but cheering on the hijacking; and at the LAUSD for hiring such a scumpuddle to berate and bitch-slap pre-pubescent 12 year olds into aping the Communist agitprop with which I'm certain he fills their "history" hours.

And don't think for two consecutive seconds that his rant was spontaneous; if you're anxious to give that bipedal toadie the benefit of the doubt, first buttonhole David Horowitz and ask him what he thinks (not Horowitz the consumer advocate but Horowitz the former editor of Ramparts and leftist agitator turned conservative agitator). This is deliberate. This is planned. This is the visible wake of a subaqueous leviathon conspiracy to drive antiliberals out of every sphere of public life, until we can speak our minds, or even exist, only in caverns and catacombs, like the Jews and early Christians in ancient Israel under the bootheel of the Roman Empire.

And a seredipitous advantage to the Left is that it sounds so fantastic that anybody stepping forward to tell you that lefties politicize the non-political precisely in order to drive out traditional Americans sounds like a raving madman with delusions of persecution and grandeur. (Believe me, I've seen the glances askance.)

I think the only viable solution is to continually and loudly call them on their impropriety, insensitivity, politicization, and tribal partisanship... but we should only do so in appropriate venues, or we risk falling into the very trap they set for us.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 27, 2009, at the time of 1:17 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 19, 2009

But in Theory... part Deux: the Virtue of Hypocrisy

Thursday, we explored the psychotic nature of Argument of the Irresistable Theoretical Construct, wherein liberals reject all facts, observations, and measurements that conflict with the liberal "theory" about something. (Here "theory" is one component of what Saint Thomas Sowell refers to as "the vision of the anointed;" the latter is the collection of all the liberal theories, a liberal "Theory of Everything.")

Today we see a perfect example of how this theoretical construct turns into a policy prescription, to the catastrophic endangerment of our country.

Let's dress the stage: Just before his inauguration, President-elect Barack H. Obama announced that he was poised to ban all "harsh interrogation" of terrorist detainees, based upon the liberal theory that clever interrogation that stays within the bounds of ordinary criminal investigation will uncover all the same information as harsh interrogation -- and do so even quicker!

President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans.

The proposal Obama is considering would require all CIA interrogators to follow conduct outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the officials said. The plans would also have the effect of shutting down secret "black site" prisons around the world where the CIA has questioned terror suspects -- with all future interrogations taking place inside American military facilities.

This is utter madness; why would any terrorist detainee talk if he knew there was nothing the interrogator could do to him if he refused? How does a smart man like Obama justify grafting naive theoretical idiocy onto the necessary hard policy of defending the United States from terrorist attack?

Simple: He doesn't! Instead, in perhaps the most breathtakingly exercise of sanctimonious doubletalk of my lifetime, the incoming administration punctuates their absolute exclamation point with a question mark:

However, Obama's changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said.

Obama vehemently rejects the "harsh" interrogations of the Bush regime; this gives the incoming administration the cheers and jubiliation from the international community to which the One believes himself to be entitled by birth. And then, on the other shoe, he lets his aides announce publicly that he will actually continue the exact, same techniques that he just condemned.

What an operator! If Niccolo Machiavelli (or P.T. Barnum) were alive today, he would be rolling in his grave.

I was partway through writing this post when I suddenly found myself in a quandry (or if you prefer, a quagmire): Paul of Tarsus Power Line put up his own post, saying more or less what I had been in the process of writing; later that same day (Saturday), John followed with another that enunciated the rest of what I'd been about to say. I was about to delete my post unpublished.

But something wasn't quite right about the two Power Line posts; something was missing.

It took me a couple of days, but I think I have it: John noted the "hypocrisy" of Barack Obama, making a cause celebre of saying that he will "end harsh interrogations," thus garnering a verbal jamboree and hootenanny from the internationalists in Europe and Asia... while at the same time hinting that of course he will be willing to use those techniques if ordinary interrogation doesn't work.

But I think John is wrong to call it hypocrisy: It's not even honest hypocrisy; it's something cruder and viler.

Honest hypocrisy ("the tribute vice pays to virtue") is itself a cultural virtue, in that it reinforces our cultural norms. Hypocrisy arises from a sense of one's own guilt; a senator knows he shouldn't, e.g., favor political donors with earmarks; so he goes to great lengths to conceal what he's done. It may not be illegal, but it looks bad; he feels that he has done something wrong (guilt), so he loudly protests his innocence -- and points a finger at some other senator.

But what has Barack Obama done here? He condemns George W. Bush, who always stated up front that he was willing to engage in "harsh interrogation techniques" if that's what it took to gain the intel that would keep the nation safe; Obama thus advertises himself as nobler and more moral than Bush, because Obama believes in international law and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

This is 99 44/100% pure sanctimony. But then Obama compounds the felony -- by allowing his advisors to openly state, in the name of the One We Have Been Waiting For, that he has every intention of violating his own prohibition whenever keeping it would inconvenience him.

He makes no attempt to conceal the dichotomy between what he says and what he does; hence Obama does not even have the consciousness of guilt: He sees nothing contradictory or wrong about attacking Bush's morals and character for doing something Obama calls a crime against humanity (torture), but then turning about and doing the exact same thing himself, and quite brazenly.

At least one of the following conclusions must be true; all may be true simultaneously:

1. Barack Obama, and every liberal who fails to denounce him for it, is guilty of situational ethics, a game of moral "conjugation" -- "I am an ethical pragmatist; you cut ethical corners; he or she is a war criminal!"
2. Obama understands that Bush only did what he had to do to protect the country; yet Obama sees nothing wrong with trashing his predecessor's character, reputation, and legacy for transient political advantage.
3. Obama has utter contempt for the intelligence of the American people and thinks they'll never figure out his verbal judo move; in fact, he's laughing up his sleeve at his rhetorical end-run around the truth.

(3) is especially troubling, because if true, it would make Obama akin to the megalomaniacal supervillains of comic books, at least in the way he mocks the ability of the average Joe or Jane to understand the rare ratiocination of the Obamic oracle. Like the Riddler, Obama delights in dropping little clues to his own villainy that he believes will be utterly opaque to the American voter, giving him further proof (as if any were needed) of his own genius compared to everyone around him.

This is not a good quality to have in a President of the United States. But what do people expect when well over half the country voted for a man with no experience to prepare him for the presidency, no background in the great issues of the day, and who refused to enunciate a single principled policy, treating the election as a rolling coronation?

The danger to the country is very real. First, without clear guidance of when to use such harsh interrogation techniques, I doubt that military or CIA interrogators will be willing to bet their jobs and their freedom on the loyalty of a man with a needle-less moral compass.

Second, to the extent to which our captured militant-Islamist enemies believe Obama, they will be emboldened to laugh in the faces of their interrogators... and to the extent to which they disbelieve Obama, they will see him as weak and spineless, afraid to "own" the very methods that might actually work to gain the intelligence we need. Either way, they drink Obama's milkshake.

Finally, it will give our fainthearted "allies" ammunition to use against the Obama administration when (inevitably) they find themselves still less willing to fight and more willing to appease than even a Democratic America; and considering how devastating such a charge would be to a man who has already billed himself as holier than any number of thous, Obama would, I think, be more inclined than was President Bush to bow to the wishes of the defeatists and make his ersatz prohibition genuinely absolute. He will have painted himself into a hole for which he has no key.

Such is what we, the people, reap when Barack Obama sows mendacity and character assassination from the bully pulpit.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 19, 2009, at the time of 11:42 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 15, 2009

But in Theory...

Of all the crazy memes flogged by Democrats and liberals, this one is, I believe, the most psychotic:

Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder forcefully broke from the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies Thursday, declaring that waterboarding is torture and pledging to prosecute some Guantanamo Bay detainees in U.S. courts.

It was the latest signal that President-elect Barack Obama will chart a new course in combatting terrorism. As recently as last week, Vice President Dick Cheney defended waterboarding, a harsh interrogation tactic that simulates drowning, saying it provided valuable intelligence.

The CIA has used the tactic on at least three terrorism suspects, included alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In past hearings, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, frustrated senators by repeatedly sidestepping questions about waterboarding.

It was the first topic discussed at Holder's confirmation hearing, and he made an unambiguous statement about its nature: "Waterboarding is torture."

As a practical matter, Holder said torture does not lead to reliable intelligence. And on principle, he said the United States needs to live up to its own high standards, even in the face of fear and terrorism.

Let's walk it through; what exactly is Holder saying? Many members of President George W. Bush's administration have testified -- from those interrogators who were directly involved in the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, each in 2003 (the only time evidence indicates we ever used waterboarding), to experienced military and intelligence experts, to high officials (including, op.cit., Vice President Dick Cheney) -- that waterboarding those three top terrorists in fact yielded a wealth of intelligence; that intel directly led to hundreds of arrests and the disrupting and interdicting of scores of follow-on terrorist attacks against the United States, saving thousands upon thousands of American civilian lives.

Numerous people are in custody in Guantanamo Bay today because we caught them red-handed in the midst of plotting terrorist attacks -- with ample physical evidence to back up the charges -- on the basis of searches and investigations sparked by the intelligence gained from waterboarding Mohammed, Zubayday, and Nashiri.

But no... the Left considers waterboarding to be "torture," and the Left's theory about torture states unequivocally and without exception that "torture does not lead to reliable intelligence."

Ergo, none of the foregoing ever really happened: We didn't actually get intelligence from waterboarding the Three Amigos; we didn't really disrupt any terrorist plots; we didn't actually arrest anyone (or if we did, they were necessarily innocent bystanders); and in fact, we didn't stop further attacks on the country; thus, by a simple deduction, we actually were hit again and again by the terrorists -- and the Bush regime just covered it all up, yet another Bush war crime!

Sure, physical observation appears to indicate that waterboarding, the putative "torture," in fact yielded reliable and even vital intelligence; but appearances can be deceiving. Theory proves this cannot be, so logic dictates we must throw out the observations as obviously flawed.

Oddly, this is the same argumentative technique used in the globaloney debate; perhaps it needs its own name: How about Argument of the Irresistable Theoretical Construct?

• Your so-called "measurements" claim that the Earth's temperature rise since 1900 correlates almost exactly with solar activity, and there has been no global temperature increase since 1998 (in fact, a decrease). But the theory of anthropogenic ("human created") global warming -- which every legitimate scientist accepts -- belies that claim. Therefore, your measurements must be in error... go and fix them, and don't come back for more funding until you do!
• According to all supposed observers in Iraq, including those vehemently opposed to the war from the beginning, since the Bush regime implemented the surge, military and civilian deaths have plummeted to the normal base-level of violence found in Arab countries. But as we told you repeatedly, the "surge" could not possibly work, because there is no military solution to military defeat. So who are you going to believe -- the considered weight of expert opinion from nearly all foreign-policy professionals, including some who have won the Nobel Peace Prize... or your own lyin' eyes?
• All those revisionist historians and economists have been busy tarnishing the reputation of the greatest president of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, producing fact after evidence after measurement indicating that none of his New Deal programs did anything to end the Great Depression, that it continued unabated until the beginning of World War II; but it's utterly impossible in theory that programs with such good intentions -- implemented by a brilliant president who was not only the darling of liberal, compassionate professors and socialist progressives and reformers but even of the masses -- could possibly fail. Clearly then, FDR's NRA and other programs restored the American economy and ended the depression... and any claims to the contrary are just mean-spirited attacks by frustrated conservative Republican robber-barons.
• John Lott and other eggheads have published numerous books purporting to show that increasing civilian ownership of guns decreases, not increases, the homicide and other violent crime rates; but this is absurd on its face: The only purpose of a gun is to kill; and everybody knows that guns are useless in self-defense because the criminal will simply take it away from the victim (and get very angry). So the only explanation for the spate of pro-gun books is... Lott, et al, are being paid off by the NRA! (The other NRA, the bad NRA -- not the good one of the previous example. Nitpicker.)

Argument of the Irresistable Theoretical Construct: Add that one to the list; it will crop up again and again.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 15, 2009, at the time of 3:01 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

December 15, 2008

Standing Tall Against Standards

(I feel a bit like I'm poaching on the home turf of Power Line and Captain's Quarters Ed Morrissey's Hot Air posts; but it is a national story. Honest!)

In the drawn-out Senate race still crawling along in Minnesota, the battle lines have at last become clear: Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN, 64%) wants clear statewide standards before considering rejected absentee ballots -- while failed comedian Al Franken has gone to court to reject all standards and allow local Democrats to decide which absentee ballots to accept and which to reject.

From the first story:

Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R) campaign has asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to issue a stay in a decision Friday by the state’s Board of Canvassers that could significantly sway the razor-thin margin in Minnesota’s still-undecided Senate race.

The Board recommended that Minnesota’s 87 counties open and count absentee ballots that were disqualified for no stated, legal reason. The Coleman campaign said Monday it had asked the state’s highest court to put a halt to that count until it could determine uniform standards for counting the ballots, estimated to number more than 1,000.

"The Supreme Court ought to direct the local officials to step back, take a breath, and allow the Court to set a uniform standard," Coleman campaign attorney Fritz Knaak said Monday in a conference call.

And here is the response from the Franken campaign to Coleman's call for uniform standards, as reported in Politico's second article:

Democrat Al Franken’s campaign on Monday accused Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R) campaign of trying to halt the recount in the state's contested Senate race and disenfranchise Minnesota voters whose absentee ballots were improperly disqualified.

"The Coleman campaign went to the state’s highest court to stop the counting and overrule a unanimous decision by the canvassing board," Franken campaign attorney Marc Elias said in a conference call Monday.

The state's Board of Canvassers recommended on Friday that counties to open and count more than 1,000 absentee ballots they said were disqualified for no stated, legal reason. The Coleman campaign filed a suit with the Minnesota Supreme Court asking the court to stop counties from tallying the ballots until the Court can establish a uniform standard for reviewing the uncounted ballots....

Franken’s campaign accused Coleman’s suit of really trying to overturn the board’s decision last week, and prevent the votes from being counted. Elias said that a clear, uniform standard for counting the ballots already exists in the Minnesota election code.

"Norm Coleman didn't get his way on Friday, so he's suing to stop the counting of lawful ballots and disenfranchise voters who did nothing wrong," Franken spokesman Andy Barr said. "That may be characteristic of his approach to this entire process, but it's entirely un-Minnesotan."

(How long before Franken's charge that Sen. Coleman is "un-Minnesotan" metastisizes into accusing Coleman of being unAmerican?)

The contrast could not be clearer... and it exactly mirrors the central argument in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 Supreme Court case about counting, recounting, and revoting the votes in Florida: The very reason that seven out of the nine Justices voted to stop the chad-count was that there were no uniform statewide standards; the precincts simply made ad-hoc rulings higgledy-piggledy. (Which meant in practice that conservative precincts tried to be unbiased and neutral, counting every legitimate vote; while liberal precincts decided their mandate was to count every Al Gore vote, legitimate, illegitimate, or imaginary.)

As Dennis Prager frequently notes, clarity is often more important that agreement; now at least everyone in the country clearly knows where Franken and the Democrats stand!

I'm now in a position to predict that this race will not be settled by January 6th, when the Congress is seated, nor on January 20th, when we swear at the president-elect. I'm not even sure it will be settled by the 2010 election. Al Franken and the Democrats plan to drag this out "forever and a day," on the theory that a 58-41 majority is better than a 58-42 majority -- so they'd rather force the seat to remain open as long as possible.

Democrats: "Holding firm against the courage of any convictions whatsoever!"

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 15, 2008, at the time of 4:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

UnAmerican Inactivities

How long would any Republican governor (president, senator, representative, executive chef) have lasted -- after saying this?

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) said it was "un-American" for senators to have voted against approving a bailout of troubled automakers last night, saying their vote may cause a recession to become a depression.

"It is unacceptable for this un-American, frankly, behavior of these U.S. senators to cause this country to go from a recession into a depression," Granholm said during a radio interview Friday morning.

I have sat, sardonically amused, for several days now, listening for the fall of the hammer; it never fell, of course, for "no enemies to the left" is still the rule, not the exception. That which would have slain the career of anybody to the right of Senate Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 85%), when sounded by Ms. Granholm, was not even worth a finger wag.

Here's some more deep analysis from the junior demagogue of Michigan:

“It is such an unbelievable stab at workers across the country,” Granholm added. “You give this big bailout to these financial institutions -- don’t ask a single question, they can do what they want -- and then you lay the blame for the auto industry, which is a victim of this financial meltdown, on the backs of the people who are working on the line.”

I apologize for my mirth, but I find this sort of over-the-top McCarthyism frankly hilarious. Evidently, it's a red herring of the most colossal measurement to suggest that the "auto industry" itself (by which she means GM and Chrysler, not Nissan, Honda, or BMW) -- by its feckless devil-bargaining with the United Auto Workers union, its out of control pension and benefits plan, and its paucity of imagination or creativity in designing cars -- shares any of the blame in its own economic woe. Worse than a false accusation, the argument is proof of unAmericanism!

But I seem to recall this is a common leitmotif among lefties; they sling about that "anti-Americanism" or "unAmerican" charge like casting pearls before journalists. I wonder whether the real beef Democrats had with the original Joseph McCarthy was not demagoguery.. but violation of the Democrats' intellectual property rights to that particular false accusation.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 15, 2008, at the time of 4:11 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 3, 2008

Has Al Franken Snapped?

The campaign of failed comedian Al Franken has just made an astonishing announcement: They now claim that Franken is ahead of Norm Coleman (R-MN, 64%) in the recount:

Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken’s campaign said Wednesday that the comedian has taken the lead in his race against Sen. Norm Coleman (R).

Franken’s lawyer, Marc Elias, has been pressing for the media to focus on the campaign’s internal vote totals of the recount, which as of Wednesday showed Franken opening a lead of 22 votes.

Of course, nobody else sees Al Franken with a lead; he would have to use a very special metric to arrive at that conclusion... and of course, he does. This is the key:

The media have reported that Franken trails in the recount by around 300 votes, but that includes challenged ballots. Coleman’s campaign has challenged several hundred more ballots than Franken’s, but the vast majority of challenges are generally rejected.

Elias argues that, since most challenges will be invalidated, a more accurate count would not include those challenged ballots.

In other words, Politico reports that the Franken team is subtracting from the count all ballots that have been challenged by either side. Politico reports that the Franken campaign claims that when they do so, Franken picks up a net 320+ votes, putting him into the lead.

But there is a problem with the statement, and I don't know whether the mistake was Marc Elias's or Politico's: If it's true that "the vast majority of challenges are generally rejected," then what the Franken campaign means is that they want to count all the ballots... including the ones that are challenged, on the theory that the "vast majority" of challenges (not ballots) will be rejected.

Since the Coleman campaign has challenged more ballots than the Franken campaign, then if all the challenged ballots are added back in, Franken would pick up more votes than Coleman. That is the only calculation that makes sense (from the Franken point of view), so that must be what Elias said (or at least what he meant to say). Either Elias misspoke, or more likely, Politico miswrote.

But this opens up another can of monkeys; by suggesting this metric for determining who is ahead at any moment, Elias makes the hidden assumption that all challenges are equally invalid -- that the challenges made by Coleman against Franken votes) are no more likely to be found valid than the challenges made by Franken against Coleman votes. You follow?

This is the classic "split the difference" fallacy: You have two kids, John and Mary, and one pie. John wants to divide the pie into two equal pieces... but Mary thinks she should get the whole pie to herself. Seeing the impasse, Mary suggests she and her brother "split the difference" -- and give Mary 3/4ths of the pie.

The fallacy is the assumption that all claims are equally valid. In fact, facially, John's claim seems much more reasonable, while Mary's appears more frivolous. Further information can change this presumption: Perhaps Mary won the pie in a contest against John. In that case, Mary's claim is valid, and John's is frivolous or even mendacious. But in neither case is the proper answer to "split the difference;" the individual claims must be adjudicated.

In the present context, Coleman wants each challenge to be evaluated; but Al Franken simply wants all of them summarily rejected, thus giving him a huge chunk of votes. But what if Coleman has more challenges that are likely to be ruled valid than Franken? In that case, fewer of Coleman's claims would be rejected, so he would actually pick up votes, not lose them. It's irrelevant which side has filed more challenges; it only matters how many challenges on each side will be accepted.

Even if Al Franken has lost his mind, his campaign mangler has not. If they are calling for all challenges to be dropped, then they must believe they've made far more frivolous claims than has Coleman. Thus they expect to lose even more votes once the challenges are adjudicated, and they would be overjoyed to see all challenges wiped away, putting them on top. Simply put, the Franken campaign is not going to call for a remedy that would leave Franken in a worse position than he would be under the default remedy of deciding each individual claim on its merits.

The only fact situation that fits Franken's new metric is that far more Coleman challenges are valid than Franken challenges... and Al Franken (and Marc Elias) are well aware of it.

But every challenge on either side occurred with poll watchers from both campaigns present; Coleman's campaign watchers must know the character of all of Franken's challenges compared to their own.

This, then, is a wild "hail Mary" play; Franken has the audacity to hope that the Coleman campaign is so incompetent or so lazy, it agrees simply to hand the election to Franken, rather than go through all the fuss and bother of actually evaluating each challenge, case by case.

I ask whether Al Franken's mind has snapped because no rational person would expect his opponent to concede a race that he believes he has won, and in which he is ahead in the count. It would be like Gore demanding Bush agree to divide Florida absentee ballots equally between them; only a madman would make such a bizarre (and DOA) proposal. A sane candidate would want to preserve at least a shred of dignity, if not decency, and retain his viability for future campaigns.

Nor will this influence Senate Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 85%) to take up the progressive man's burden and try to put together a Senate majority to seat Franken, not Coleman, in January. Reid won't move on this plan; not unless he doesn't mind a seal-kill of Democrats in 2010. Nobody cares that much for Al Franken. Not even Harry Reid.

I believe the fat lady -- or in this case, the humor-impaired "comedian" -- is singing "uncle."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 3, 2008, at the time of 6:23 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

December 2, 2008

Lunatic "Indictments" of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales Rejected by Judge

In an unsurprising but still satisfying development in the latest sad chapter of criminalizing political differences, the bizarre and unbalanced floccillations of defeated Texas DA Juan Guerra have been rebuked and nullified:

A judge dismissed indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and told the southern Texas prosecutor who brought the case to exercise caution as his term in office ends.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra had accused Cheney and the other defendants of responsibility for prisoner abuse. The judge's order ended two weeks of sometimes-bizarre court proceedings.

Guerra is leaving office at the end of the month after soundly losing in his March primary election.

All of the indictments brought by Guerra's heavily manipulated grand jury were quashed; the reasons varied, but they all amounted to gross imbecility in pursuit of personal or partisan advantage.

Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, The GEO Group (which privately operates federal prisons in Texas under U.S. government contracts), and state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. had been indicted for abusing prisoners or allowing them to be abused. Gonzales was singled out because he halted a federal investigation that was going nowhere; Cheney was added ostensibly because he invested in the Vanguard Group, which in turn invested in GEO (I believe we all know why he was really indicted). These bills were all dismissed because Guerra was replacing grand jurors with alternates (possibly more pliant) without properly substituting them... I suppose he simply told the actual jurors to shut up and had the alternates vote in their place.

In addition, two state judges, a state prosecutor, and a district clerk were indicted for investigating Guerra's earlier antics; these indictments were dismissed because it turned out that in addition to being the prosecutor, Guerra was also the alleged victim and the lone witness. Evidently, this constitutes some slight conflict of interest under Texas law.

So one attempt to criminalize policy differences has collapsed utterly, while another -- the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for money laundering, of all things -- limps to its nigh inevitable conclusion, not with the bang of a gavel but the whimper of a charge simply allowed to lapse.

Has anyone else noticed how the DeLay case dropped off the elite-media radar the moment it served its purpose of forcing him out of Congress? It's almost as if that were all they ever intended.

I just did a Google News search on "Tom DeLay" + "Ronnie Earle". The latter, you will recall, is the thoroughly discredited Travis County District Attorney; his vendetta against DeLay stems ultimately from the latter's successful drive to break the Democratic gerrymander that had kept the congressional delegation of Texas strongly Democratic -- even as the state had become very reliably Republican. Earle, a Democrat, was evidently furious that his party lost its electoral advantage, allowing the citizens of Texas actually to vote for the delegation they wanted, rather than the delegation that the Democrats allowed them.

The Google search turned up one (1) hit: An article by someone writing for the Texas Observor, "a nonpartisan watchdog [organization] that has filed ethics complaints against TRMPAC, Justice Alan Waldrop, and Bill Ceverha"... in other words, by a leftist house organ for the Austin-based Democratic Party in Texas. And even this piece of, ah, journalism concludes that the only way DeLay could be convicted is if (they hope, they hope!) Jack Abramoff drops some hitherto unrevealed bombshell. This is the Hail Mary of all judicial Hail Marys: Maybe DeLay committed some other crime of which we were previously unaware -- and he gets nailed for that! Hey, it could happen.

Criminalizing normal political differences has been a specialty of the Left for better than three decades; during the campaign, the Obama mob drummed up votes by talking about "war-crimes trials" and impeachments for all of the top Bush-administration officials... though they appear to have backed away from these threats since he was elected. Just as they believe that "the personal is political," they likewise believe that "the political is judicial": They think nothing of either prosecuting someone for taking the wrong side of a political dispute or else shopping around for a leftist judge to force some "progressive" policy onto the masses (unrestricted abortion, same-sex marriage, property-tax hikes, gun control) that the democratic branches of government find themselves unable to enact legitimately.

Logically, one would guess that having now captured both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, the Democrats would be content to exert their power within the framework the Framers intended -- by voting for it. But I doubt it; I begin to believe the Left actually prefers enacting its agenda judicially (and punishing its political opponents with prison sentences): Judicial power is more easily controlled (it's not messy, like a vote), it has a longer reach, and best of all, it gives Progressives the joy of thwarting the will of the very polity they pretend to represent.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, December 2, 2008, at the time of 6:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 14, 2008

Is Obama Now Ready for "Preconditions" Before Summit Meeting?

Is President-in-Waiting Barack H. Obama finally agreeing to only hold a summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after serious and substantial preconditions are met? It would appear so from this story:

Medvedev said he had spoken with Obama by telephone and hoped to meet him in person soon.

"We hope to create frank and honest relations with the new administration and resolve problems that we were not able to resolve with the current administration," he said.

But what about that precondition? Oh yes, here it is:

In an interview with French daily newspaper Le Figaro published on Thursday, Medvedev said Moscow had no choice but to react to U.S. plans to set up a network of missiles and radar systems near its own frontiers.

"But we are ready to abandon this decision to deploy the missiles in Kaliningrad if the new American administration, after analyzing the real usefulness of a system to respond to 'rogue states', decides to abandon its anti-missile system," he said.

Thank goodness President-elect Obama finally realizes that we cannot have a summit between the President of the United States and the head of some hostile state without some major precondition... and it appears that Obama is now considering whether to agree to that concession.

I'm sure that once Obama meets Russia's pre-meeting demand, Medvedev will be more than happy to join him for some of that hopey-changey talk we can believe in.

Reliable sources who must remain anonymous (because they are making it up as they go) predict that next quarter, Obama will agree to reduce Israel to its 1948 borders and disarm the Jewish state, formally recognize Tibet, Nepal, and Japan as provinces of the People's Republic of China, install Iran as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and introduce sharia courts into Utah... following which, the Palestinians, Red Chinese, Hezbollah, and the Nation of Islam will each agree to bless Obama with a summit.

But at least no one can ever again accuse him of talking to other heads of state without preconditions!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 14, 2008, at the time of 5:51 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 13, 2008

The Democrats' First 1,461 Days: War Crimes, War Crimes, War Crimes!

...And crimes against humanity, history, the environment, and "international law."

Well, it's official: The incoming Democratic majority of the 111th Congress has announced it intends to "investigate" the Bush administration... for the next four years straight:

“The Bush administration overstepped in its exertion of executive privilege, and may very well try to continue to shield information from the American people after it leaves office,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, who sits on two committees, Judiciary and Intelligence, that are examining aspects of Mr. Bush’s policies.

Topics of open investigations include the harsh interrogation of detainees, the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, secret legal memorandums from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and the role of the former White House aides Karl Rove and Harriet E. Miers in the firing of federal prosecutors....

“I intend to ensure that our outstanding subpoenas and document requests relating to the U.S. attorneys matter are enforced,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “I am hopeful that progress can be made with the coming of the new administration.”

Actually, much of the article in the Times is devoted to examining the inconvenient truth that there is some precedent for President George W. Bush continuing to assert executive authority to withhold internal documents from Congress, and prevent former aides from testifying, even after he leaves office; the precedents flow from Harry Truman through Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan. But I find the comments from Democratic leaders like Rep. John Conyers (D-MI, 100%) more illuminating than the legal dithering.

This one, for example:

“If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” Mr. Obama said, but added, “I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.”

But even if his administration rejects the calls for investigations, Mr. Obama cannot control what the courts or Congress do. Several lawsuits are seeking information about Bush policies, including an Islamic charity’s claim that it was illegally spied on by Mr. Bush’s program on wiretapping without warrants.

And Congressional Democrats say that they are determined to pursue their investigations -- and that they expect career officials to disclose other issues after the Bush administration leaves. “We could spend the entire next four years investigating the Bush years,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI, 95%) is on both the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, well situated to make good his promise.

Democrats are obsessed with investigating the Bush administration for two reasons:

1. The Democratic rank and file -- and many (but not all) of the leaders themselves -- still suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome and will likely continue to show symptoms for as long as they suck air.

To many of them, especially unreconstructed Obamatons and Kossaks, "getting Bush" (and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove) is more important than America succeeding. In fact, some may be so overwhelmed by their psychosis that they actively want America to collapse, as punishment for having betrayed ourselves by allowing George W. Bush to "steal the election" -- twice!

2. But even those who are more sober and responsible, such as Reps. Conyers and Barney Frank (D-MA, 95%) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT, 93%), will support such investigations... because they realize they have no workable ideas how to solve those "many problems" that President Barack H. Obama mentioned. They need "investigations" both to distract voter attention and scapegoat the previous administration, thus taking the heat off of the incoming Obama nation.

What do they have on tap that any rational human being imagines will resolve the staggering unfunded liability of "entitlement" programs? What wonderful plan have they developed to take care of the millions of people who voluntarily reject health-care insurance because they don't expect to get sick or injured? Iraq and Afghanistan will take care of themselves, if Obama just leaves those policies alone; but what have Democrats proposed that will actually keep Iran in check, deal with Red China and Russia, or find a good compromise between civilized Israel and the primitive but militant Islamists in Hamas, Hezbollah, PIJ, and other such so-called "jihadi" groups?

By definition, this second group comprises those Democrats not infected by BDS: They may be corrupt, they may be concerned only with power, they may even be "evil" by some definitions; but they are by definition rational -- and they realize that they have nothing in their pockets but a pair of hands with some fingers on them.

But the good news is that ordinary voters have a much lower tolerance for investigations than do members of Congress; this is probably the "policy" where Democrats are most likely to overreach -- and the one that is most likely to infuriate voters, as Republicans found out in 1998. In fact, by 2010, after two solid years of investigate, investigate, investigate!, the GOP can surely use that itself as a major campaign issue: "The majority Democrats are wasting time and taxpayer money trying to 'get' a guy who isn't even in public office anymore, to cover up the fact that none of their policies is working!"

The recession will have mostly receded by then, but the underlying problems that caused it in the first place won't have. And all that "change" that Obama promised will have failed to materialized: The first two years of the Obama administration will look remarkably like the last two years of the Bush administration -- except the partisan rancor will be even worse, incubated by the mean-spirited and precedent-setting investigations themselves. The Democrats' own obsession will undercut everything voters thought they were getting by voting for B.O.

And that's good news for us. The "headwind" against Republicans will be nowhere near as intense in 2010 as it was in 2006 and 2008; in fact, the windsock may have swung around entirely by then, giving us the first tailwind we've had since 1994.

Maybe. Everything depends upon whether the pared-down GOP can finally clarify what it stands for, and whether it can make the case clearly to the American people. We must once again become the party of "hard America," not "soft America," to use Michael Barone's dichotomy. We cannot win the battle of airy-fairy hopey-changitude, where Democrats, as the party of vagueness, will always have an edge.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 13, 2008, at the time of 4:28 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

November 3, 2008

A Different Kind of Unity

As the country collectively gets ready to point a gun barrel into the roof of its mouth and pull the trigger, it’s interesting to reflect that for most of the two years that Barack Obama has been running for president, his main theme is that he is the kind of guy who can bring us all together in love and unity.

Increasingly it is becoming clear that the Obama formula for unity is to silence those who disagree with him as much as possible -- or else to make sure that those on a soapbox aren’t able to shout their messages very far.

It never was particularly believable to begin with, given that roughly half of the country is going to object to a straight socialistic program that isn’t really different in any signficant degree from the left-wing programs that the Demcoratic party has been banging the drum on for many decades.
It’s just that this time, the country as a whole is allowing its deep disgust with the Republicans to translate into turning over the reins to what will, at best, be an extremely liberal program.

There’s certainly going to be as many people on the right objecting to Obama’s left-wing program as there were vocal left-wingers who objected to George W. Bush’s programs. Remember, Bush was supposed to be the president who was going to bring us together and be bipartisan.

Or going back even farther in history, here’s a statement that Richard Nixon made right after his 1968 win over Hubert Humphrey: “I saw many signs in this campaign. Some of them were not friendly. Some were very friendly. But the one that touched me the most was -- a teenager held up the sign ‘bring us together.’ And that will be the great objective of this administration, at the outset, to bring the American people together.”

Bring us together might acquire a similar meaning under Obama. Bring us together -- forcefully, might be more what we’re talking about. Kind of makes you wonder what Obama is thinking when he calls for a “civilian national security force,” as he did in a recent speech.

Now, that could be something perfectly innocuous, like a beefed up CERT force, funded with federal dollars and ready to help with emergencies like Hurricane Katrina; but it does set the suspicious mind ruminating.

I’m not one of those people who, when Bill Clinton was president, predicted darkly, “when it comes time for his term to end, he’ll find some excuse not to have an election,” because I know that our republic is strong enough that if a president were fruity enough to try that, he would not be obeyed.
When Congress returns to do its work under the new president, it will be interesting to see just how many of the liberals in the chamber will be true to the liberal tradition of supporting freedom of speech.

Conservatives expect -- because liberals have been pretty open about it, that there will be a strong attempt to bring back the Orwellian “fairness doctrine,” which is about as fair as infanticide is “pro life.” The purpose of regulating the airwaves in this way is to return all major media to their proper orientation, i.e. towards the Left.

Talk radio will not go quietly into that good night. And given that talk radio hosts helped orchestrate the defeat of “comprehensive immigration reform” last year, the Democrats may wish that they had done something less painful, such as stepped naked into a nest of rattlesnakes.

Still, if they have the 60 seat majority in the senate, they may be able to force it through.

That wouldn’t shut down Rush Limbaugh and company, although it might force them into exile on Satellite and Internet radio.

Once again, is a battle of this kind what Obama has in mind when he talks about bringing us all together in unity and brotherhood?

This willingness to trash freedom of expression isn’t confined to the leaders of the Democratic party. The rank and file, when polled are quite comfortable with it, especially when it is pointed out that a reimposition of the doctrine will drive shows like Limbaugh and Sean Hannity off the air.

“Bring it on!” the Left seems to be saying.

Hatched by Dave Ross on this day, November 3, 2008, at the time of 7:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 30, 2008

Ex-patriot Liberal Intellectuals' Theocracy-Escape Plan

(Yes, I know it should be "expatriate," but a quote is a quote.)

Friend Lee sent this along; I don't know where he got it, but presumably it's all over the dextrosphere by now, because Big Lizards prides itself on always being the last to know.

Liberals, don't just talk about moving to Canada if McCain wins the White House... do it! Do it using the E.L.I.T.E. plan:

 

 

Democrats, don't be defeatists... be ELITE-ists!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 30, 2008, at the time of 12:43 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

September 11, 2008

Pigs Will Fly

Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics nails the Obama pig comment to the wall today. Here is his killer point:

Imagine for a moment if John McCain had used a similar shopworn phrase in reference to Barack Obama's policies. Suppose he said, "Obama says he's going to cut your taxes but he's really going to raise them. My friends, it's time for some straight talk about taxes, it's time to call a spade a spade."

Do you think for a second the Joe Kleins, Andrew Sullivans, and Josh Marshalls of the world wouldn't scream from the rooftops that McCain had used a racial slur against Obama? Of course they would -- and they'd scoff at the notion that McCain was somehow unaware of how that phrase would be interpreted. Anyone who tried to argue that McCain was simply using a well known phrase that predated the current presidential race would be tagged as an apologist for racism. Even if McCain hadn't meant it that way, it wouldn't matter.

However... Five bucks says that within a couple-three days, that "call a spade a spade" line will be circulating on lefty blogs as something McCain actually said, rather than as Tom Bevan's analogy!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 11, 2008, at the time of 2:41 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

August 27, 2008

That Ain't No "Temple"

The Weekly Standard published this photograph of the set for Barack H. Obama's grand speech Thursday night at Denver's Invesco Field:

Everybody, including the Standard, has described this set as "a miniature Greek temple;" the post above is titled "the Temple of Obama." Alas, everybody but me has it all wrong.

Here is a zoom on that section of the photograph showing the ersatz colonnade:

That's not a Greek temple at all. But it certainly seems quite familiar, doesn't it? Imagine viewing it from the grandstand... do you get it?

If you're still uncertain, take a look at this picture. See any similarities?

Yes sir, having previously designed his own Obamic presidential seal, B.O. now constructs his own, private White House. But like everything else in Obama's campaign, it's nought but a pretty facade with nothing behind it... half of a soap bubble.

There's a moral in here somewhere, but darned if I can suss it out. However, I do wonder what comes next. Starting next week, will Obama begin delivering his airy-fairy, canned speeches from his very own knock-off of the Oval Office?

I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer rescues the set from the old Merv Griffin Show from the dumpster, sets it up in his living room, and proceeds to create mock talk shows with Jerry, Elaine, and George, just as if he really were Griffin (a weird and bizarre Griffin). Eventually, Kramer becomes so consumed by the fantasy that he cannot stop.

Isn't there something more than a little creepy about one of the two major candidates spending hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars playing "dress-up" with the trappings of the presidency?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 27, 2008, at the time of 6:18 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

August 19, 2008

One Day in the Life of Barack Barackovitch

After the Saddleback fiasco for Barack H. Obama, the first meme floated by Obama surrogates (in particular by Andrea Mitchell) was that the only way John S. McCain could have sounded so prepared, so confident, and so well informed was that -- he must have cheated.

He was outside the "cone of silence;" he heard the questions beforehand; he had an unfair advantage because Obama had to go first. But that has been pretty definitively debunked; guest blogger DRJ, for one, at Patterico's Pontifications has a timeline that pretty much rules out that possibility.

So now the desperate Democrats have floated a new meme: McCain's "cross in the dirt" story is "hauntingly like" a story told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. McCain stole it! It never happened! Sure, John McCain may have done better answering the questions... but all that is negated because he's a serial plagiarist. After all -- didn't he also steal Jackson Brown's "Running on Empty," and didn't he insert a few words from a Wikipedia entry into some speech?

(Of course, if Barack Obama selects Joe Biden as his running mate, the accusation of plagiarism might be quietly dropped.)

Well. Let's take a look at this charge...

In the first place, when did this Solzhenitsyn story appear? It dates from a 1997 article, but it is not even a direct quotation from Solzhenitsyn; instead, it's a retelling by Fr. Luke Veronis, "an American priest serving in Albania," of a moment when Solzhenitsyn had hit a nadir during his long incarceration and had given up all hope:

Laying his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude work-site bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to many other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly, he lifted his eyes and saw a skinny, old prisoner squat down next to him. The man said nothing. Instead, he drew a stick through the ground at Solzhenitsyn’s feet, tracing the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the sign of the Cross, his entire perspective changed. He knew that he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet in that moment, he knew that there was something greater than the evil that he saw in the prison, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that the hope of all mankind was represented in that simple Cross. And through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.

Note the most significant difference: In the Solzhenitsyn story, it's not a guard but rather another prisoner who makes the sign of the cross. If McCain stole the story, why would he change the actor from prisoner to guard? After all, if he's trying to show the fortitude they all displayed, it makes more sense if the prisoners themselves keep each other alive and hopeful, as in his other story about his fellow prisoner who sewed a small American flag out of scraps of cloth.

Second, much is made (e.g., by Andrew Sullivan) that in McCain's first full account of his captivity, written in 1973, he doesn't mention this story. But of course, one could equally well note that in Solzhenitsyn's first full accounting of his story, the Gulag Archipelago, also first published in 1973 (in French; the first English version dates from 1974, I believe), he evidently neglects to tell his own "cross in the dirt" story as well. Lot of that going around.

The story does not come from the Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn's seminal work about his many years in the Soviet political prison system. If someone can find this story there, please let me know, and I will correct this post. I don't think the book is available online in a searchable format (it's probably still in copyright), and I have no intention of thumbing through each page of both volumes of the book to find a single short anecdote. But nobody so far has claimed that the account appears in that work... just in the Veronis article.

Various liberal commentators insist that McCain first told his own story in 1999, two years after the Veronis article. But what they mean is that 1999 was when he first used it publicly as part of a campaign stump speech. But we have a very different claim by one of McCain's fellow POWs, Orson Swindle, held in the Hanoi Hilton at the same time, sometimes in the same cell with McCain:

"I recall John telling that story when we first got together in 1971, when were talking about every conceivable thing that had ever happened to us when we were in prison" Swindle told me a few minutes ago. "Most of us had been kept apart or in small groups. Then, in 1970, they moved us into the big cell. And when we all got to see each other and talk to each other directly, instead of tapping through walls, we had 24 hours a day, seven days a week to talk to each other, and we shared stories. I vaguely recall that story being told, among other stories." [1971 would be 26 years before the Fr. Veronis story first appeared, and even three years before the Gulag Archipelago itself was published in English, just in case the new claim is that the story appears there. I find it unlikely that McCain would have obtained a review copy while in the Hanoi Hilton.]

"I remember it from prison," Swindle continued. "There were several stories similar to that in which guards -- a very few, I might add -- showed compassion to the prisoners. It was rare, and I never met one, but some of the guys did."

So now, for the Democrats to maintain this meme -- vital to proving that Obama really won the Saddleback non-debate, no matter what ignorant, uninformed voters may have thought -- they must pursue one of the following options:

• Orson Swindle, who is campaigning for McCain, is a big, fat liar. McCain never told him any such story. Swindle, like his name, is just lying to save McCain from the consequences of the senator's own serial prevarications, lies, slanders, and vicious Swift-Boating of the One, "the leader that God has blessed us with at this time," as Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 93%) said last Sunday.
• Swindle is simply addled and confused, probably dating to the days of his nightmarish confinement. He's just like Ronald Reagan, whom we now know began suffering the symptoms of his unusually slow-progressing Alzheimer's disease around 1947, when he became president of the Screen Actors Guild and developed an incomprehensible loathing of Communists. Swindle is senile and befuddled and, well, he's just a bundle of nerves. He can't help it... he probably really does hallucinate that McCain told him that story in 1971. But of course, we know that's impossible -- because Solzhenitsyn himself didn't recount the original until 1997. [The wheels on the bus go round and round...]
• All right, so maybe Swindle is right and McCain really did tell it to him and other prisoners in 1971. But all that proves is that McCain was a serial fabricator even back then. Look at all the other lies that he has told through the years: That the surge is a success, that an embryo is a person from the moment of conception, that we should lower taxes... the man is obviously a pathological liar, and you don't become one of those overnight. Therefore, the evidence is overwhelming that McCain was simply lying about that, air quotes, "cross in the dirt" story as long as 37 years ago. How can even Republicans possibly elect such a corrupt, Bible-thumping Nazi to the presidency?

So, Democrats, what's it to be then, eh? Which explanation do you pick to keep the Meme Team alive?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 19, 2008, at the time of 3:46 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

August 18, 2008

Obama's "No Child Left Alive" Policy

I rarely do this, as you know -- publish a post that simply repeats the reasoning of somebody else's article. But David Freddoso on National Review Online has an article that is so powerful and urgent that I'm inclined to emphasize it here, following the lead of Scott Johnson at Power Line.

According to Freddoso's research (along with that of the Springfield, Illinois chapter of the National Right to Life Committee), Obama voted against a bill that came before his committee in the Illinois state senate in 2003 that would simply have declared that any baby who survived an abortion attempt, and was accidentally born alive instead, shall be considered a human person with all the rights of any other baby born alive. The bill was in response to Chicago hospitals that were taking second shots at such improperly born children, making sure the "procedure" was successful, no matter how many times it took -- and no matter whether the abortion was finished before or after live birth.

But now he has realized that this vote may come back to haunt him in his quest for the presidency... so he's brazenly lying, claiming the bill was instead an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.

What makes this even more flagrant (and vile) is that the bill included language -- which Obama and every state senator on the committee, unanimously inserted -- explicitly avowing that it only affected the rights of babies that had actually been born alive and would have no impact whatsoever on foetuses still in the womb.

It would not even have forbidden partial-birth abortion, since the body of the bill explicitly defined a live birth as "the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member [of the species homo sapiens];" as partial-birth abortion means an incomplete extraction (as the name implies), its legality would not have been affected by this bill.

(What it would have affected is a botched partial-birth abortion, where the doctor accidentally delivers the entire baby, rather than everything but the head. It would have prevented hospitals from picking up the fully born baby and continuing with the "procedure" -- prying open the infant's skull and sucking out her brains with a vacuum.)

I really want John S. McCain and the GOP to jump on this: It's so obviously mendacious a denial, about an issue that is so fundamentally repulsive to real Americans -- letting living, born babies die of exposure in order to punish them for surviving an abortion attempt -- that I cannot see how he can weasel his way out of it.

And please bear in mind... I am pro-choice on abortion up to about two-thirds of the way through pregnancy. Nevertheless, I am not pro-choice on infanticide, which is what this bill was designed to prevent. And there is no way anybody living in a civilized culture (anybody but a lunatic liberal) can justify killing a post-born infant by deliberate neglect (starvation, dehydration, cold)... just because the mother originally wanted it removed from her womb.

All right; it's out. Why must they slay it as well?

Obama's policy itself is murderous, and his vain attempt to lie his way out of it deeply offends my intelligence and shocks my conscience.

(I have put the full text of the law in the "slither on," along with the modifying amendment unanimously adopted by the committee.)

Here is the complete text of SB1082, introduced on February 19th, 2003, into the Illinois state senate; the unanimous "neutrality language" amendment is shown in blue at the end, replacing the crossed-out section immediately above it.

AN ACT concerning infants who are born alive.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Statute on Statutes is amended by adding Section 1.36 as follows:

(5 ILCS 70/1.36 new)

Sec. 1.36. Born-alive infant.

(a) In determining the meaning of any statute or of any rule, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative agencies of this State, the words "person", "human being", "child", and "individual" include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.

(b) As used in this Section, the term "born alive", with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after that expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.

(c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.

(c) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section.

Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon becoming law.

Here is the history of the bill. "Session Sine Die" at the end means that Illinois state senate term expired without any further action on the bill (meaning it was killed in committee).

And here is a list of the members of the senate Health and Human Services committee in the 93rd General Assembly; note that Barack Obama is the "chairperson."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 18, 2008, at the time of 3:12 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

August 11, 2008

The "Virtue" of Suffering

I was just unceremoniously kicked out of a diet topic on a Japanese-language Yahoo bulletin board, where I'd been posting for the last couple of months. "How the heck can you be kicked out of a topic so benign?", you might ask. Well, I made an unforgivable mistake: I suggested that maybe the goal should be to lose weight without suffering.

That did it.

If you want to read this silly, sorry tale and learn why (liberal) dieters generally intend to fail, then follow the "slither on" to the rest of this post...

People as a rule tend to think that in order to gain something, they need to give up something. This concept is ancient and universal: "No pain, no gain;" "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch;" "good medicine tastes bitter." Such proverbs exit in every culture, and they reflect a common belief: If a story sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

A healthy suspicion is a good thing. We don’t want to be gullible, do we? However, some stories really are as good as they sound.

Who says losing weight has to be an act of self-flagellation? Why can't there be a way to eat anything you want and still lose weight? Plenty of people do; we all know someone who eats anything he wants but never gains an ounce. What's his secret? (Trick question; there isn't one.)

But what if someone invented a magical diet pill that would solve all your weight problems; would you take it? I suspect that an awful lot of people would not, even if believed it would really work. In fact, some of them would become violently angry: The very concept of easy and craving-free weight loss offends them, just as some people are outraged by the idea that we might somebody be able to solve our energy needs without any conservation ("making do with less") at all, or cure smoking-related diseases without forcing the entire country to quit smoking.

There is no such magic diet pill (yet!) But there really is a weight-loss system that works remarkably well for most people who try it; and it doesn't require buying special food, attending support groups, embarassing yourself on national TV, or spending any money at all. I made the mistake of alluding to it in the Yahoo topic -- and the reaction of the other posters was exactly as I said above; they were irate.

Recently, Dafydd and I both lost a lot of weight using a system promoted by British motivational speaker and hypnotherapist Paul McKenna. We first saw his four lectures on the Learning Channel (for free); we were skeptical, but we tried it... and without depriving ourselves or having any "forbidden foods," we lost a lot of weight.

For serious food lovers like us, this was an incredible solution. But McKenna didn't invent the program; all he did was observe the eating habits of NTPs and generalize to four basic rules. His real talent is actually getting people enthusiastic enough to give it an honest try.

I'm not an agent of McKenna, paid or volunteer; forgive me if I don't go into the details. If you're interested, I recommend you go to his web site and investigate it yourself. If you want to buy the book or DVD set, buy it. If not, then don't. (We bought a copy of the latter just to lend to friends and family who noticed we were suddenly much thinner and wanted to know how.)

But let me at least explain the four basic rules of McKenna system:

1. When you are hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should eat.
3. Eat consciously, savoring every bite.
4. When you even think you might be full, stop eating.

That's it. Too simple to work, right?

There are reasons why each rule supports the others; you need to practice them all, but that shouldn't be too hard. Anyway, since we weren't risking anything, we gave it a shot; and for us, the results were both quick and dramatic.

All right, enough about the program. Here's the point that leads to the story of the diet topic: The most refreshing thing about McKenna's program is that you don't have to suffer. You never go hungry; in fact, if you let yourself get too hungry, you're violating rule number one.

Since you know you can eat when you feel hungry and you're not stuck eating nothing but celery sticks and seaweed, you're under no pressure. You can easily do this for rest of your life; and that's the key.

For the past ten or fifteen years, I'd been battling ever-increasing body weight. I tried the Atkins diet, the 1000-calorie-a-day diet, the Slim Fast diet; you name it, I tried it. I always lost some weight, a few pounds, while I was dieting; once I even lost 25 pounds. But as soon as I went off the diet, the weight came back and then some. That's typical of most people's experience, as anyone who has ever dieted can tell you.

Most of the time, a diet fails because you think of it as a diet, something you're going to do until you get down to your "target weight;" and then you'll stop. It's too hard to maintain a diet forever; you're depriving yourself of everything you like to eat. So your diet is always temporary; when you lose X pounds (or get tired of dieting), you start eating like a ravenous wolverine again... and it starts all over.

But the problem isn't what you eat, it's how much you eat. There are no foods that are inherently bad; there are only bad eating habits. In fact, we eat the same food we always used to eat -- Chinese, Italian, sushi, pork chops, steak, pasta, tiramisu -- but we eat a whole lot less of it... literally half to a third of what we used to eat. What McKenna's program does is teach you how to eat what you want without eating more of it than you really need.

It worked amazingly well (along with exercising, which was never our problem; we always exercised). As my weight loss progressed, as I lost ten, twenty, thirty, forty pounds, I naturally wanted to talk about it with other people. But I understood that nothing is more boring than listening to someone else's weight loss story, unless you're also trying to lose weight. So I figured the best place to talk to others would be a (Japanese language) weight loss bulletin board. There, I figured, I could discuss various weight loss experiences with like-minded people, without boring everybody else.

There are many such boards. I tried a couple and immediately ran into a problem: Nobody had any interest in hearing about my experience. As soon as I said, "You can eat anything you want...” they tuned out. If they said anything at all, it was, “There's no such thing” or “It never works.” The fact I lost over 40 pounds didn't seem to impress them; some even called me a liar.

After b-board hopping for a while, I finally settled in a topic run by a woman who lost over 100 lbs in one year. Her handle name translated to “Three Digit,” because she used to weigh over 100 kilograms (220 pounds).

3D runs a blog called "Stoic Diet;" her method is the polar opposite of McKenna's. 3D was a huge eater as well as a heavy drinker; she used to eat an entire chicken for dinner and drink an entire bottle of sake. Her weight-loss method was to give up every food she liked -- and all alcohol.

I didn't agree with her system, but I was impressed by her effort. In any event, I thought it would be interesting to talk about various weight-loss techniques. We're all aiming for the same goal, right? Surely it would be beneficial to exchange information.

But I was careful this time. Remembering how some people are not comfortable listening to my experience, I tried not to sound too preachy or like an advertisement. I was respectful to others and never denounced or criticized anybody's diet.

But even that wasn't enough. On Stoic Diet, everyone is supposed to report what she ate and what exercise she did that day. Since I don't have any forbidden foods, my menu naturally looks very different from the others', which is usually some variant on tofu, bean sprouts, brown rice, a diet shake, alfalfa (what Dafydd calls a "grass sandwich"), and so on. My list contained pasta, steak, pizza, fried chicken, tapas, dim sum, salmon -- whatever we happened to make or order in a restaurant that day.

I could tell 3D was getting increasingly agitated by my posts. I knew she never liked me; ever since I told her that I do not give up any food, she made her dislike plain. But since I was not violating the topic’s rules, she grudgingly tolerated me.

The fit hit the shan a few days ago, when another poster complained about not being able to control her appetite; her post sounded like she was in tears when she wrote it. Although I'd been careful not to discuss the McKenna system in any detail, I couldn't let this woman just suffer: I made the mistake of giving her few possible solutions from McKenna's lectures; in particular, I told her to try close her eyes while she ate.

(Medical dietary researchers have found that if you eat while blindfolded, you feel full after eating significantly less food than if you can see your food while you eat. The visual stimulus of food makes you feel hungrier and overwhelms your stomach's signal that it's full. McKenna suggests trying it a few times if you're having trouble stopping, until you learn to detect your stomach's "full" signal.)

That advice set off one of the other posters -- not even the person I was talking to, but a different woman. She told me my "stupid advice" to the other woman was a distraction, like an annoying noise. Also, she told me that she had been really irritated by my food list. She was especially ticked off by my lox and bagel with cream cheese breakfast. "This is too much!" She said. "How can you eat such a high fat, high calorie, and high carbohydrate food combination when you're trying to lose weight? Your posts create a hostile environment, and you make me sick!"

Her violent reaction shocked me; but I was even more astonished when 3D, the moderator, sided with the complainer and handed me a "red card" for violating one of her topic rules: I had dared to mention a different weight-loss method than her “stoic diet.” I was never even aware of such a rule, which was not written down anywhere.

When I told Dafydd about this, he immediately said, "With that absolute passion for freedom of speech, she must a liberal."

I told 3D I was merely conveying a simple trick to supplement her method. She tells people to eat less; if there's a simple, easy way to control appetite, why shouldn't people discuss it? Our mutual goal is to lose weight and keep it off, so what difference does it make how we achieve that goal?

"No!" she wrote; "that's not my goal. That's not this topic's objective at all. I am not simply trying to lose weight and maintain it: The goal is to change one's lifestyle forever. Your goal and my goal are completely incompatible. Don't think even for a second that we're heading toward the same place." (I'm translating from Japanese, obviously.)

What does she mean by “changing one’s life style?” Obviously not simply maintaining ideal weight and staying healthy; she can only mean something simultaneously more spiritual and more ominous.

As I read her past blogposts, I realized she has a lot of what my sister-in-law, the MFCC, would call "issues." She used to be an emotional eater, someone who eats to feel better after some emotional upset: You don't get a promotion, you eat a box of doughnuts; you break up with your boyfriend, you go to KFC and eat an entire family-sized bucket of chicken.

She talked about how her mother was an alcoholic and often drunk; then Mom was diagnosed as a diabetic; she ignored the doctor’s advice and kept eating sweets and drinking sake -- and (surprise) eventually she lost a leg and is now bedridden. 3D and other family members take turns caring for this selfish, self-indulgent woman in her final days... I can feel the anger in her blogging about her mother.

3D often emphasized that we must figure out why we got fat in the first place, she decided it was "over-indulgence." Therefore, she concluded, the only way to lose weight was to deny herself all foods she actually desired.

She seems to have taken a single quotation from the Stoic philosopher Epictetus and turned it into a dieting program:

Of course, she hasn't removed desire... she just denies herself any food she desires. I don't think she really understands the point of Stoicism. Instead, 3D is like a Buddhist monk who deprives himself of every earthly desire in order to achieve spiritual "nothingness" (what a goal!) For her, the hardship of dieting is more important than losing weight.

If I can use some psychobabble I don't really understand, I don’t think she ever really faced her inner demons at all. It's true she used to be over indulgent, a fanatic about eating and drinking; now she's a fanatic about dieting. But as the playwright Eugene Ionesco once said in an interview (about twenty-five years ago in World Press Review), "A fanatic can never be convinced but only converted."

Extreme eater to extreme dieter; same car, different plastic. She should have gone one step further; she should have figured out why she was over-indulging herself with food. It's obvious she was an emotional eater. But why, what vacuum was she trying to fill? Probably the emotional hole left by her drunken mother.

She often analogized that diet is like a mountain climbing; each step is important. But on her climb up that mountain, she only allows one route -- the hardest one. My mistake was thinking that her goal was to summit; so I pointed out an easier route. This infuriated her. "How dare you introduce an easier route! Don’t you understand ‘suffering’ is the only noble path?"

Or to slightly misquote Ring Lardner (the sportswriter father, not the Commie screenwriter son) -- "Shut up, she explained."

3D claims she understands there are many different ways to lose weight. She even respects my way (so she says). It's just that she doesn't want me to talk about it; she doesn't want me to tell anybody about it; and most especially, she doesn't want "her" dieters to hear anything about it. When I "insisted" on talking about it (once), she suggested I should go somewhere else. She's all for freedom of speech, except when the speech is "just plain wrong."

I think Dafydd has it right: She is a liberal.

If you think anyone on that board would side with me, you're sadly mistaken. Nobody said a word except one woman, who wrote: “Please erase all the things you wrote about easy appetite control. They make me feel uncomfortable.” Isn't that what liberals like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi said about the things that Gen. David Petraeus was trying to tell them about how we could (and finally did) achieve victory in Iraq?

I think most people really don't want to succeed in life; they want to fail, then wallow in their misery. It's so much easier; once you've embraced failure and accepted suffering as your lot in life, you never have to struggle again. (Of course, it's never the leaders like Barack H. Obama who suffer; they tell you to suffer for their sins.)

If that's where the posters on Stoic Diet are headed, I absolutely refuse to follow; if I see someone drowning, I'll throw her a rope; I won't jump in and drown alongside her.

I think this must be one of the biggest distinctions between liberals and conservatives:

• Conservatives understand there are no "solutions," only trade-offs; so they cut the best deal they can, a trade-off that actually makes things better. Even if some trade-off sounds "too good to be true," they will at least investigate before rejecting it.
• Liberals see "solutions" to every problem everywhere; but they will only accept perfection. Any solution that falls short is not even worth the bother; they'd rather do nothing.

What a miserable world this is for anyone who follows the latter philosophy.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, August 11, 2008, at the time of 4:46 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

August 1, 2008

Democrats to Drivers (Bus Riders, Truckers, etc): Drop Dead

A most extraordinary exchange occurred yesterday in the august halls (thought it was still July) of the United States Senate. (Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt, who played this on his show today.)

It shows the Democrat in his natural environment: Complete disdain for working Americans, and utter indifference to their problems... but slavishly doting upon the various interlocking special interests that prop up the Democratic Party, like creeping vines holding a crumbling facade in precarious balance.

Just take a look-see:

 

 

Sen. Ken Salazar's (D-CO, 85%) message is stark: There is no gasoline price level, no matter how dear, beyond which Democrats will actually support drilling for more domestic oil. None. It could go to $100 a gallon, and they would still fold their arms and, like Khrushchev at the U.N., bark "Nyet!

Current projections from the "pundants" (as President George W. Bush calls them) are that Republicans will be slaughtered in November. Democrats are still talking about a "filibuster-proof majority" in the Senate, or even "veto-proof" majorities in one or both houses.

I say that's nonsense: If we can focus like a laser beam on issues like energy, taxes, the economy, jobs, winning the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, reforming immigration (including legal immigration), and confirming judges who won't rewrite the Constitution to fit the current fashion trend... then I say we can reduce the loses to negligible -- and maybe even nab a net seat in the Senate, if we can hold our own and pick off Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA, 80%). So far, the GOP is running a terrific campaign for the congressional races, and John S. McCain is running a pretty good campaign for president (still room for improvement there).

It's time, time for conservatives to come back and put country ahead of their own power within the party; it's time to come together, fight to take back Congress and retain la Casa Blanca -- then all Republicans must make reparations for their complete meltdown from 2004-2006, when they became as corrupt as the Democrats.

A good start would be for the GOP, either overtly or covertly, to support some other candidate other than incrumbent Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK, 64% -- poster-boy for the corruption of the flesh of swine) in the Alaska primary later this month.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 1, 2008, at the time of 8:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 30, 2008

Congressional Dems: Some Branches Are More Equal Than Others

For months now, Democratic congressional leaders, such as Rep. John Conyers (D-MI, 100%) and Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT, 95%), have declared Karl Rove to be in contempt of Congress. Now, had they accused him of having contempt for Congress, they might have a case; but if that is the standard, they will have to refer 82.7% of adult Americans to the U.S. Attorney (USA) for prosecution.

Apart from the laughability of Congress demanding that a USA appointed by President George W. Bush prosecute the chief advisor to George W. Bush, merely because Mr. Rove tweaked the Democrats' beards (Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Haight-Ashbury, shaves hers off), there is actually a serious question here. According to our constitution, our government comprises three branches: the Legislature (Congress), the Executive (President of the United States), and the Judiciary (Supreme Court and all inferior federal courts).

As the Founders designed it, all branches are created equal. But since the 2006 elections, the Democrats -- mimicking the pigs in the George Orwell book Animal Farm (which bears just as striking a similarity to the Democratic Party as to the Communist Party) -- have appended the clause, "but some are more equal than others." Viz.:

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 20 to 14, to cite Mr. Rove for defying its subpoena to testify in an inquiry into improper political meddling in the department.

“Mr. Rove has left us no option,” said Representative John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the committee. Mr. Conyers expressed regret that the committee had been forced to use its subpoena power.

“Today’s vote was an important statement by this Committee that no person -- not even Karl Rove -- is above the law,” Mr. Conyers said.

But there is no "law" that says the president's most private counselors can be hauled into an open congressional hearing and forced to spill every bit of advice or counsel they gave the Chief Executive... anymore than la Casa Blanca can order the Secret Service to put the bag on John Conyers' top congressional aide, drag him into the antechamber off the Oval Office, and interrogate him, under oath, on what advice he has given his boss on, say, impeachment hearings.

If the legislative branch could do that to the others, backed by the power to throw people into jail if they don't testify when and how Congress wants to hear it -- perhaps even if they don't offer up the very testimony that Congress needs to make its political case -- then that branch would be the supreme branch, and the other two would simply be subordinate to it.

That, of course, is just how the Democrats see things... today. But a few short years ago, when they were in the White House and the GOP controlled both chambers on Capitol Hill, they had a very different idea: They believed that the Executive should be supreme, and the Legislature and Judiciary subservient. President Bill Clinton repeatedly invoked "executive privilege" to shield his administration and especially himself from congressional scrutiny.

The unbroken thread that connects these two positions is that Democrats believe they, as a party, should always command all power in the United States, while their "enemies" (the Republicans) should be utterly impotent. By contrast, Republicans have consistently argued that no branch should be superior to the others; that the Founders were right to make the branches coequal... and they should stay that way.

The elite media reckons this demonstrates moral parity between the two parties: Hey, some folks believe the Founders were right; some believe today's politicians should completely rewrite the Constitution to lock themselves permanently into power and nullify all future elections... it's he said, she said!

Perhaps the way Conyers and Leahy are acting is part of the Obamic "change" that Democrats, at least, can believe in; but I cannot imagine that Barack H. Obama would still believe in the supremacy of Congress if the worst happened, and he were actually elected president.

If that happens, the Fourth of July might start in January in the nation's capital.

As postscript, it's also striking how loony the Left sounds lately. For example, here is one of the questions that most vexes Conyers, and which he is dying to put to Rove under oath:

As part of its inquiry, the committee headed by Mr. Conyers wants to question Mr. Rove about his knowledge, if any, of the decision to prosecute former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat, who was convicted of bribery two years ago. Several Democrats have asserted that the charges were trumped up and politically motivated....

Mr. Rove has repeatedly stated -- tho7ugh [sic -- I th1nk] not before Congress and not under oath -- that he had no involvement in the Siegelman case, but Mr. Conyers said he is not convinced. “The questions about his role in the Siegelman case only continue to mount,” he said.

By saying questions "continue to mount," I assume he means that he, personally, keeps asking them -- perhaps in slightly different ways, so he can legitimately say they're distinct. Thus, "So, Rove, how did you manage to plant that evidence in Siegelman's home? And on another point, what method did you use to introduce fake evidence into the domicile in which Siegelman lived?"

If they managed to wrestle Rove into the chair in the hearing room and strapped him down, I have no doubt they would also interrogate him intently on who he hired to bring down the World Trade Centers via controlled demolition, and whether he was on the grassy knoll in Dallas or was the man with the umbrella.

I suppose the Democrats really don't know what jackasses they make of themselves virtually every time someone mistakenly gives them a chairmanship; I think they call it Gavel Fever. But the donkey party itself will be our secret weapon come November.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, July 30, 2008, at the time of 9:17 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

June 26, 2008

An Immodest Proposition, or the Last Prejudice

Today, Spain's parliament took a historic first step in righting a wrong that has persisted for decades. Nay, centuries. Nay, millennia. Nay, decamillennia. Nay, ever since the ancestors of homo sapiens (sapiens) first branched away from our hairy brothers and sisters, cruelly pushing them back into the primordial soup with all the generosity and altruism of Bill Clinton rifling the tin cup of a blind beggar.

But yesterday, at long last, the Socialist government of Spain broke the fur ceiling, granting full legal rights of life and liberty to apes:

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

Presumably, this would include habeas corpus.

Every since this blog was created, we have championed the rights of cerebrally challenged species to enjoy the same level of civilization to which we have become accustomed. While it may be true that apes cannot build buildings, design electrical power plants and canals, or mass-produce Priuses, it is no less true that we have only done so on the backs of other species.

Where would public transportation have been, without the hard-working horse? Which great scientific breakthroughs would have been hatched, absent the loyal dog? And what great monuments to modern architecture could we have built, were it not for the stalwart and sturdy rhinoceros?

"This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project.

But as tremendous an ethical breakthrough as this was -- I believe I read that Barack H. Obama has already begun rehearsing his spontaneous support for the Project -- still, it doesn't go far enough. As it stands, Spain still does not extend full rights to our arboreal chums.

Protecting life and liberty is fine and good; but that still leaves our simian siblings at the mercy of the to-ing and fro-ing of politics, adrift in a sea of uncertainty, unable to affect the most basic parliamentary decisions that affect the quality of apish life. Like gay caballeros in the 1950s (or Sephardic Jews in the 1450s), even under the new law of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and fun-loving baboons still remain merely second-class citizens. It's a step, but still only a first step.

What is missing? What would these simians need to fully realize the glory of their being? Clearly, they lack what finally makes Spanish citizenship full and complete, besides a goodly supply of Amontillado: I can only be referring to the franchise: Spain must begin registering Great Apes as legal voters. (If I'm actually referring to something else, please let me know before I make a fool of myself.)

Now the fuse is lit; there is a new ministry in the Spanish government that compels just such a great (ape) leap forward:

Spain did not legalize divorce until the 1980s, but Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government has legalized gay marriage, reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education and set up an Equality Ministry.

Full equality! I should think the new Equality Ministry will have an unenviable task justifying why gays, illegal immigrants, and even Catholics are allowed to vote for members of parliament; but that same right is brutally denied to primates (I mean the simian kind, not the Catholic heirarchy). This despite the well-accepted fact that baboons are evolutionary closer to members of the government than any other group of the electorate.

The joyous progression of multi-species, transcendental rights is inevitable, immutable:

• Gay marriage leads directly to reducing the influence of the Church;
• Reducing the influence of that reactionary body points like a laser beam to the understanding that there truly is no difference between animals and humans; if there is a soul, then a gorilla's is every bit as fine as Howard Dean's. Believing anything less would be discriminatory and unconscionable;
• This non-specist consciousness inevitably begets a Ministry of Equality (and of Peace, Truth, and Love);
• The "Equality Ministry" ineluctably leads to monkey manumission;
• But to fully embrace such animal liberty, how can the Equality Ministry fail to offer full equality -- gibbon government, bonobo-ballots, and all?

Of course, the inability to read poses something of a challenge; but we long ago cast aside the outmoded, proto-fascist prejudice against illiterate or stupid voters. As Michelle Obama noted, those in power constantly try to set the bar higher and higher -- you can't vote unless you're rich, unless you can read, unless you're human -- for no reason than to keep themselves on top and everyone else thrashing about in the evolutionary muck.

Creative technology shows us the way around the problem of inability to understand any form of language: For example, neutral, unbiased members of Prime Minister Zapatero's Socialist government could put bits of banana or other yummies into the voting booth to lure the non-human constituent inside. As primates have very acute visual-recognition skills, the booth could contain fair likenesses of the heads of each party; whichever one the baboon or chimpanzee paws or kisses would indicate a vote for that slate.

The world's greatest and deepest international thinkers agree with Spain's political revelation:

Philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri founded the Great Ape Project in 1993, arguing that "non-human hominids" like chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured.

Peter Singer is an especially valuable charter member of the Project, for you certainly cannot dismiss him as "ideologically wedded" to the idea of rights. As an ethicist, he has proven his independence of thought by arguing that newborn babies do not yet have the right to life.

Singer writes that the babies' mothers or other proxies (such as university ethicists) should be allowed to retroactively abort them up to a year after birth. This supposed contradiction only lends credence to his current position, placing the rights of simians higher up the ethical food chain than the rights of year-old humans. After all, somebody must be on top; and what refreshing altruism that a expert on ethics is willing to allow another species to assume the apex of the pyramid! Kudos to the good professor. (I'm not sure, but I think "kudos" means a kind of shirt or walk-in closet, rather like a water fountain.)

But if we cannot draw a moral distinction between Man and Ape, how much more difficult is it to draw one between primates and other mammals? There is no logical reason to deny such vital voting rights to the rest of Gaea's creatures... even those without hands.

There is always a way: Dogs can bark their preferences; horses can stamp; porpoises can whistle; cats can stare blankly. And why should having breasts and giving birth to live young determine whether a living creature is to be allowed its inherent rights? Rights are universal... even under the current oppressive American regime, we extend them willy-nilly to bums on the street, unconvicted felons, game-show hosts, butchers, bakers, bloggers, terrorists and other rapscallions, oil executives, panderers, liars, drunkards, candlestick-makers, lawyers, and even actors.

Should we not demand even more democracy from the land of Don Quixote, paella, madeira (my dear), Generalissimo Francisco Franco, and flamenco? There should be no animal on the face of the earth -- except perhaps the snake, which has no legs and is inferior to the lizard -- that is denied the most fundamental right guaranteed by the European Constitution to all who creepeth or crawlith or swimeth or flyeth upon, under, within, or above the face of the earth. (I believe the exact formulation can be found in section 98, subsection 217, clause 84, enumeration 3, explanatory footnote 809 of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, in the footnote-continuation on the next page. But don't quote me.)

Civilization has not yet worked out a way for trees to signal their electoral choices, but Al Gore has recently joined the team, so there is hope for progress on that front. Still, that is an argument for another post.

Howsomever, with courage, vigor, and a genetic sense of what is too serious to be joked about, we will cross this penultimate hurdle... and stand at the threshold of the final interspecies barrier. What is the use of allowing animals to vote if they cannot likewise stand for election?

There will, there must, come a day when we can proudly rise and hail the new EU Minister of Forestry... the divine being, Ms. Koko.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 26, 2008, at the time of 5:34 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

June 23, 2008

Obama Hints That "Somebody" Will Mention That "He's Black" - But Which Somebody?

Everybody is reporting this little racist meme worm that slithered from the lips of Barack H. Obama on Friday:

We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?"

Hm... let's see if we can guess what Obama implies here: He darkly hints that John S. McCain, well-known racist and xenophobe -- just look how he's always attacking immigrants! -- will (not "might" but "will") base his campaign against Obama on reminding voters that Obama has "a funny name" (he's not one of us)... and is black.

Fortunately, Obama is "above black and white" and "beyond race."

So how long will it be before a series of thuggish, racist e-mails, street-mailings, and YouTubes crudely attacking Barack Obama really does materialize? My guess is that it will wait until the election itself looms; possibly one week beforehand, just like the DUI hit on George W. Bush in 2000.

Why wait? For a very good reason: The perpetrators of that series of attacks do not want there to be enough time to discover the actual source of the "attacks"... which will originate from some radical leftist group hoping for a "backlash" against McCain.

Obama as much as begs for a "false-flag" operation by his phraseology: "They're going to try to make you afraid. They're going to try to make you afraid of me." Translation: If you see any racist or xenophobic ads, you will know that they put them up. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain... blame McCain, blame McConnell, blame the racist, fascist Republicans!

I am about 70% convinced that somebody on the Left will attempt just such a dirty trick. If it happens, I only hope that McCain and the Republicans will (a) categorically denounce such attacks (that takes no courage at all); but also (b) have the guts to immediately raise the strong likelihood that the real author is an Obama supporter trying to smear McCain and the GOP.

I don't know if he will have the nerve; no GOP nominee in the last two decades would have done so: Republicans are too skittish about grabbing a live wire with their bare hands. Let's hope that McCain has learned enough from his rather eventful life to understand a critical fact: The charge of racism is so heinous, not even innocence is a defense.

The only defense is an immediate credible counter-accusation that if Democrats want to find the real racists, they should look in a mirror. After all, so far in this election cycle, the only candidate to raise the point of Obama's race has been -- Hillary Clinton, who noted (correctly) that the only reason Obama was ahead of her in the delegate count was his overwhelming support by black voters.

In fact, to even raise an unsupported, fabricated accusation of racism trivializes real racism -- and it hurts blacks; just as Tawana Brawley's and Crystal Gail Mangum's false charges of racism and rape trivialized both evils, thus hurting both blacks and women who have been vicimized by real racism or actual rape.

McCain's rapid-response team had better get those counter-accusation ads ready now, so he'll be prepared to hit back before the first slime has a chance to settle and change voters' perceptions.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 23, 2008, at the time of 4:06 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

June 19, 2008

Oogo Fever: After Big Oil, Can Big Food and Big Gun Be Far Behind?

Nothing much happened this week. Oh, yes, I almost forgot: A plurality of likely Democratic voters said the federal government should nationalize the entire oil industry. (By the end of next week, I expect George Will to join them, preening all the way.)

According to Rasmussen Reports:

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 29% of voters favor nationalizing the oil industry. Just 47% are opposed and 24% are not sure.

The survey found that a plurality of Democrats (37%) believe the oil industry should be nationalized. Just 32% of voters in Barack Obama’s party disagree with that approach. Republicans oppose nationalizing the oil industry by a 66% to 16% margin [16% of Republicans think we should follow the lead of Oogo Chavez? Great leaping horny toads.] Unaffiliated voters are opposed by a 47% to 33% margin.

I blame public schools.

Meanwhile, marginal Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA, 85%) called for "socializing" the oil industry on a House panel in May:

John Hoffmeister from Shell Oil: I can guarantee to the American people because of the inaction of the United States Congress ever increasing prices unless the demand comes down and the five dollars will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves and new opportunities to increase supplies.

Rep. Maxine Waters: And, guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing... uh, will be about, basically taking over and the government running all of your companies.

Then last Monday, another Democrat in Congress, this time a much bigger fish, has joined the call... at least to nationalize the nation's oil refineries. From a video clip shown during the "all-star" panel on Special Report With Brit Hume last night:

REP. MAURICE HINCHEY, (D) NEW YORK: Do we own refineries? No. The oil companies own refineries. Should the people of the United States own refineries? Maybe so. Frankly, I think that's a good idea.

Just in case the above seems vague, here is Hinchey (D-NY, 100%), who sits on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies and the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, clarifying his position... this time on a video played on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News:

If there’s any seriousness about what some of our Republican colleages are saying here in the House and elsewhere about improving the number of refineries, then maybe they’d be willing to have these refineries owned publicly, owned by the people of the United States, so that the people of the United States can determine how much of the product is refined and put out on the market. To me that sounds like a good idea.

The dirty, little secret is that Democrats really do believe that there's no connection between supply and price... because they sincerely believe in a secret oil-company Illuminati-like conspiracy to keep prices high. Thus, they "reason," it doesn't matter even if we triple or quadruple the world oil supply: Somehow, Big Oil will conspire to hide the oil and raise the price even more.

An article in yesterday's Investor's Business Daily makes the point:

Others have found a new culprit: speculation in oil markets.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a close ally of Obama, held an Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday into just that.

"Increasing evidence shows that the run-up in crude oil prices and gasoline is being driven by larger trader banks, pension and hedge funds. Speculation may have as much, if not more, to do with high gas prices than any Saudi sheik."

Well, yes: The oil futures market has a huge influence on the current price of oil and gasoline. But that doesn't mean it's all controlled via illegal manipulation by a cartel of speculators and oil companies... it just means that investors consider future supply when they decide how much they're willing to value a barrel of oil today.

When you combine a deeply conspiratorial mindset with a propensity to believe in State control over private control, it's no wonder that the Democratic mind tends to see Capitalism itself as a giant pyramid scheme: They don't trust markets, they don't trust the profit motive, they don't trust Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Food, Big Gun, or Big Garment. Heck, they don't even trust the very people they claim to speak for... which is why they must speak for them, of course.

Democrats as a collective (how apt) trust only one "big" on the planet: Big Government. What does that profound difference in worldview mean? Slither on to read more...

The further from the apex of power you look, the more blatant Democrats are about wanting a "progressivist" tyranny of the proletariat, guided by the invisible fist of the Party. Thus Maxine Waters, lower on the DNC totem pole, is willing to come out and say "This liberal will be about... basically taking over and the government running all of your companies;" but the much more powerful Maurice Hinchey only suggests nationalizing refineries, not the entire industry.

And even further down the progressivism food chain, 37% of Democratic voters answer Yes to the question, "Should the government nationalize all the oil companies and run them on a non-profit basis?", while they're evenly divided on the following question: "Suppose a major oil company discovered an alternative energy source that would dramatically reduce the price of gas and other energy sources. If that new energy source would make a lot of money for the oil company, should the company be allowed to keep those profits?"

They don't stop to ask themselves, if this "major oil company" isn't going to be allowed to keep the profits of their invention that would "dramatically reduce the price of gas and other energy sources," why would they bother inventing "an alternative energy source" in the first place?

When you begin shuffling down the Socialist superhighway, you are quickly faced by two reality-based questions that have bedeviled progressivists for more than a century:

• If you remove the profit motive, with what incentive do you replace it? Why should people work hard if they won't personally benefit? We're not angels in the forms of proles.
• Once you nationalize an industry, you also "own" the consequences: You can no longer blame the opposition, impersonal forces, or external enemies. What do you do if things get worse, not better?

To resolve the first question, many Democrats now call for a "Manhattan Project-like" crash program to completely substitute "alternative energy sources" for fossil fuels (geothermal cars, windmill-powered airplanes, whatever). They believe that virtually all great inventions and innovations come from government, not the private sector -- which merely hijacks what belongs to "the people" and exploits it to line their own pockets.

But the reality is that aside from very limited and special circumstances such as the pressures of world war, government almost never innovates anything anywhere. It can fund, it can organize, it can certainly help secure exploitation rights of the private developer. But it, itself, does little to bring new products onto the shelves.

Even enormously valuable federal projects, like the nuclear labs, NASA, and DARPA, generally work to demonstrate broad, fundamental engineering principles and concepts; they leave the process of actually making those concepts workable and bringing them to market to the private sector. (And even for basic research, private companies give the government stiff competition: Who has developed more useful inventions, DARPA or Bell Labs?)

The second question is more devastating to the progressivist theory: If the State "owns" energy produciton, in all senses of the verb, then when things begin going badly, everybody will necessarily blame the State. What does a progressivist lawmaker do then?

We see this Catch-22 playing out today: To placate the environmentalist lobby, Democrats have prevented us obtaining oil offshore, from shale, along the outer continental shelf (OCS), in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and in ANWR. But now we have premium gas approaching $5 a gallon here in California.

For some unfathomable reason, voters are pointing the finger at the Democrats who actually caused the problem, rather than accepting the Democratic mantras that it's all the fault of the "failed policies of the Bush-McCain administration" and that "We can't drill our way out of an oil shortage."

Democrats are going to have to do something; something other than haul oil-company executives before congress and harangue them for three hours. But that "something" will probably be to double-down: They will pull drilling bills from the Congressional docket and not let them be voted; they will push an extension of the drilling ban through the House and will try to do so in the Senate (where Republicans will stop them by filibuster); and they will attach ludicrous environmentalist riders to bills that have nothing to do with energy or the economy.

Each of these somethings will be to the same effect: To drive up the price of gasoline higher and higher, because the anointed ones simply know better. They have the vision, and they deserve to rule.

Democrats clearly take their cue from the Marxist machinations of Venezuelan President Oogo Chavez, who nationalized the Venezuelan oil industry starting in May, 2006. So how well did that work out?

In fact, it appears to have been about as successful as Robert Mugabe nationalizing all the farmland in Zimbabwe (where in this case, "nationalizing" means butchering the white owners, their wives, and their children, seizing the land, and handing it over to tribal Mugabe supporters... remarkably similar, if rather more thuggish, than the mass land-snatch committed by the Sandinistas the last time they ran Nicaragua).

Chavez first ordered all oil companies operating in Venezuela to pay a huge chunk of their revenues to the government, unilaterally rewriting longstanding contracts... in the name of the People, naturally. Democrats defended this as "social justice;" real Americans saw it as State extortion.

When that didn't get Oogo enough cash, he went ahead and nationalized the entire industry... and then he fired all of the geologists, engineers, and other professionals at the State-run oil company, PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.), and replaced them with Oogo cronies:

The Venezuelan government claims that between 2006 and 2012 it will reinvest $76 billion of its earnings to increase production, but analysts canvassed by the three reporters who wrote the story think that the figure comes closer to between $2 and $5 billion a year--a drastic short-fall. Moreover, many of PDVSA's activities are now unrelated to oil--it has hatched subsidiaries to distribute powdered milk, or to mill corn, or even to build boats. (Anyone who knows Venezuela can imagine the lush opportunities this offers for illicit enrichment by the agency officials or the military who work with them.) Meanwhile, as oil production falters, the state company has decided to take on more employees. When Chavez took office PDVSA had 48,000 workers. It now has nearly 75,000, and the president-dictator has announced plans to hire an additional 30,000 by the end of next year. (One cannot help recalling the case of the Argentine YPF, which was the only oil company in the world that lost money in the go-go 1970s!)

This kind of crony capitalism is pushing Venezuela to the edge. Under these circumstances it won't take much of a decline in oil prices to destabilize Chavez's regime.

Meanwhile, Venezuela is experiencing a collapse of its (national) health-care industry to respond to epidemics of infectious disease, a collapse of its food industry, and a sweeping crisis of confidence by its people -- even the poor -- in the Venezuelan strongman:

But for each minor policy shift or good economic statistic from the government, Mr. Chávez has stirred deeper anxiety by intensifying threats to expand state control of the economy and society. For instance, Mr. Chávez warned Monday that he would nationalize large food distributors caught hoarding groceries.

Pedro E. Piñate, an agricultural consultant in the city of Maracay, said: “We live in two countries, one inhabited by officials who think they can alter reality by sending soldiers to intimidate citizens. The other country is where the rest of us live in fear of being killed or kidnapped or of our businesses being seized.”

But how can these trivial setbacks dampen the enthusiastic support of Democrats who still think that Fidel Castro is the savior of Cuba, the Sandinistas were a revolution of poets, and who still wear their faded, tie-dyed Che t-shirts? They are far more apt to follow Oogo even farther down that road, because the alternative is for Democrats to admit that they have been wrong all this time -- and to spit in the face of the special-interest lobbyists that maintain them in power. (That is, they would have to commit political suicide.)

The Great Dictator has now begun to nationalize other industries and threatens to nationalize the entire economy. He even tried to give himself full dictatorial powers last December, via a new constitution -- including the power to remain president-for-life. How long before Democrats seize upon a weak-tea version of that "solution" to the second problem?

All it requires is to identify some sector of the economy, no matter how small, which is not yet under direct control of progressives... and nationalize that, too. When that fails, find another. And another. And yet another. Thus they can stave off complete collapse until the current crop of Reids, Pelosis, Obamas, and Murthas retire.

But Democrats are unwise to rely upon the unwisdom and lack of intelligence of the people; the people have a refreshing tendency to be smarter than the Left thinks them. For example, Oogo himself was resoundingly defeated in his attempt to become the Supreme Tyrant of South America six months ago... and now, per the New York Times article above, there is for the first time in years a very strong political opposition building in Venezuela for the regional elections this November, in response to Oogo's overreaching.

And I believe we're going to see the same dynamic here as well: The overreach by Barack H. Obama and the Don't-Drill, Windfall, Nationalizing Surrendercrats is at least as egregious, relatively speaking, as that by Chavez: We expect more sanity from our leaders than they do in South America. (For example, Chavez was overwhelmingly elected in 1998 even though, just six years earlier, he had attempted to seize power in a coup d'état.)

I believe Obama's risible pandering to every nutty theme and meme of the New Left will finally drag him down, ensuring John McCain's election; and I believe the Democrats will not do anywhere near as well as they hope in the Congressional elections. They might even lose some seats, which could mean losing one or both houses of Congress.

I never bet against the wisdom of the American people; but Democrats stake their party's entire future doing just that every two years. They filled a gut-shot straight on the river in 2006, but the odds are against them doing it twice in a row.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 19, 2008, at the time of 6:16 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Pooh on the Presidency

Note that one of the categories for this post is "Liberal Lunacy"... and in this case, I really do mean lunacy. As in mental derangement.

I know others have already discussed this. I tried to resist; really, I did. But in the end, I couldn't stop myself from looking at the train wreck. And now I must say something.

I think we all should.

America is poised (perhaps) to elect a man whose pick for National Security Advisor gets his national-security gestalt from -- yes, you already heard, so you know I'm not ribbing you -- from Winnie the Pooh.

There, I said it. I'm not proud, but I said it: The stuffed bear which doesn't actually exist (it's a fictional stuffed bear). Here's the full monty:

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: "Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security...."

Mr Obama’s candidacy was given an early boost by his opposition to the Iraq war and he has repeatedly said the US needs to rethink its approach to the Middle East.

Mr Danzig spelt out the need to change by reading a paragraph from chapter one of the children’s classic, which says: "Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it."

And this is from the senior national-security advisor to the Democratic nominee who just said:

"I refuse to be lectured on national security by people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States," Obama said in opening remarks that in part referred to the Iraq war.

He was standing before 17 American flags and a sign that said "Judgment to Lead." He was surrounded by national security experts who had formerly served in Congress and the Clinton administration and will be advising his campaign -- an effort to bring foreign policy experience to a candidate who has served just three years in Congress.

"Oh bother," said Pooh; "Piglet's out stumping for votes."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 19, 2008, at the time of 4:55 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

June 18, 2008

The American Military: Threat... or Menace?

An illuminating argument has erupted between Democratic (de facto) nominee, Barack H. Obama, and Republican (de facto) nominee, John S. McCain. Simply put, Obama said in an interview that we should go back to the Bill Clinton policy of only going after terrorists in the courts, with writs and subpoenas, and not by force and violence; McCain said this was naive, that we had already tried this approach -- and it brought us 9/11; and Obama has ripped him for engaging in the "politics of fear."

Fear. This reminds me... in a BBS discussion I was just involved in, one very leftist participant sneered something (I don't rememeber the precise wording) to the effect that, "I'm not afraid of old men in turbans living in caves," and accused me of being a frightened, sniveling coward.

I asked him whether he had ever wondered why they're now living in caves, instead of Afghan training camps and Iraqi palaces... but he didn't respond, of course; having run rings around me logically, he had already moved on.

The answer should be clear with a little thought: Because military action by President George W. Bush drove them out of those camps and palaces, harried them up and down the land, until finally the only place they could find to hide -- was in a hole, whence they can no longer direct terrorist campaigns against the United States or our allies.

Keep this in mind as you read the following:

At issue were Obama's comments Monday in an interview with ABC News. Obama was asked how he could be sure the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies are not crucial to protecting U.S. citizens.

Obama said the government can crack down on terrorists "within the constraints of our Constitution." He mentioned the indefinite detention of Guantanamo Bay detainees, contrasting their treatment with the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

"And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo," Obama said. "What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks - for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center - we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

"And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims....

"We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws," Obama said.

What conclusions can we draw from this unguarded admission by Sen. Obama?

• Obama as much as admits that under his presidency, America will no longer go after terrorists militarily, but only through the courts.
• He thinks that 1990s policy worked out much better than the current one. Evidently, he is completely ignorant of the numerous terrorist attacks on United States interests during that period... and he has even forgotten 9/11 itself.

(Or perhaps Obama thinks that 9/11 only happened because terrorists thought Bush was weak; had Algore been president, they would have been quaking in their boots so that they would never have attacked us! But that's a bit hard to swallow, considering how comfortable they had become with the Clinton policy -- which allowed for one major terrorist strike against the Great Satan every 2-3 years.)

• As well, Obama has never even heard of any of the terrorist prosecutions conducted by the Bush administration -- including those of "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, "failed shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, and "twentieth hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui

John McCain finds the Obama/Clinton/Carter "law enforcement" policy dangerously naive and unworkable:

The McCain campaign responded with a call in which McCain's senior foreign policy adviser Randy Schuenemann said, "Once again we have seen that Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset. He brings the attitude, the failures of judgment, the weakness and the misunderstanding of the nature of our adversaries, and the dangers posed by them to a series of policy positions."

He added, "I have no doubt that we will hear in the course of the day that the Obama campaign will say we're practicing the, quote, politics of fear, and the reality is what Senator Obama's statement reflects last night is that he's advocating a policy of delusion that ignores what happened in the failed approach of the 1990's which allowed al Qaeda to thrive and prosper unmolested and that policy clearly made America less safe and more vulnerable."

For this attitude -- treating mass Islamist terrorism as war, not a criminal conspiracy -- Obama accuses McCain of just reiterating the "failed policies" of President Bush; failed presidential nominee John Kerry charges McCain with "defending a policy that is indefensible;" and Bush hater and presumed National Security Advisor under the Obama administration, Richard Clarke, called McCain's anti-terrorism policy the "big lie technique." Clarke thus directly compares John McCain to Josef Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

Obama continued his tirade:

"These are the same guys who helped engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," Obama said on his campaign plane.

Presumably, Obama was referring to how some of the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing were prosecuted during the Clinton administration... but was not referring to, or even recalling, the utter failure ever to arrest anybody for any of the other mass Islamist terrorist attacks against the United States during the 1990s and into 2000.

It is true that some terrorists were prosecuted under Clinton; but in fact, Obama appears completely ignorant of the fact that far more terrorists have been criminally prosecuted -- in civilian courts -- during the Bush administration than during Clinton's tenure. The three high-profile cases mentioned above, Padilla, Reed, and Moussasoui, are just the tip of the ice cube.

In fact, according to a report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) out of Syracuse University, there have been 579 terrorism prosecutions from September 11th, 2001, through August, 2006, or 116 per year... compared to only 115 in the previous five years under Bill Clinton, or 23 per year. The rate of criminal-court terrorist prosecutions more than quintupled under Bush from what it was under Clinton.

Sure, maybe Clinton didn't go after the terrorists by force of arms; but don't forget, he didn't prosecute them, either! Does Obama really want to go back to the that failed policy?

Even more important, there are far more failed terrorist prosecutions than there are successful ones. The TRAC study, released in 2006, found that only 1% of defendants actually convicted in terrorism cases received sentences of 20 years or longer; and more than half of convicted defendants received only time already served -- or no prison time at all.

And this doesn't even include terrorists who cannot be tried because, as an integral part of the attack, they killed themselves: Not a single person who carried out the actual hijackings on September 11th, 2001, was ever tried, because all 19 of them died in the bestial orgy of murder.

Why are criminal prosecutions so dicey? The point is that the government's most important task is to prevent terrorist attacks... not sit around, wait for them to happen, and then prosecute the perpetrators (those who happen to survive). Thus lawn-forcement officers try to arrest the terrorists before they commit the attack; and this necessarily weakens the legal case. From the International Herald Tribune:

"There are many flaws in the report," said Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra. "It is irresponsible to attempt to measure success in the war on terror without the necessary details about the government's strategy and tactics."

For instance, Sierra said, prison sentences are "not the proper measure of the success of the department's overall counterterrorism efforts. The primary goal ... is to detect, disrupt and deter terrorist activities."

Because prosecutors try to charge potential terrorists before they act, they often allege fraud, false statements or immigration violations that carry lesser penalties than the offenses that could be charged after an attack, Sierra said. This "allows us to engage the enemy earlier than if we waited for them to act first."

But wait; maybe it's just the Bush administration that incompetently handles terrorism cases. Perhaps the Clinton administration was just much better at it. But that's not what the evidence appears to show:

TRAC totaled the cases that prosecutors labeled as terrorism or antiterrorism no matter what charge was brought. It found only 14 prosecutions in fiscal 2000. That rose to 57 in fiscal 2001, which ended three weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks [and which included the last four months of the Clinton administration]. The figure then soared to 355 in fiscal 2002. But by fiscal 2005 it dropped to 46. And in the first eight months of fiscal 2006, through last May, there were only 19 such prosecutions.

Even in FY 2006, the year in which the IHT sniffs that the Bush administration failed to prosecute enough terrorist cases, there were more prosecutions in the first eight months than in all of FY 2000.

But surely such prosecutions are the best method of preventing terrorist attacks... right? Hardly. During the last administration, there were several major Islamist terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda and affiliates: The first World Trade Center bombing in 1993; the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996; the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and the USS Cole bombing in 2000. In addition, you have to count 9/11 itself in 2001, because the Bush administration had not yet shifted from the Clinton-era "law enforcement" response to terrorism to the more robust policy of military interdiction and of law enforcement driven by intelligence gathering (such collaborations were forbidden by "Gorelick's Wall" until after 9/11).

After we did shift strategy, however, from December 2001 to today, there have been exactly zero successful Islamist terrorist attacks on us, except for attacks on our military in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of "asymmetrical combat operations" in those wars. From five major successful attacks by radical Islamist terrorists to none at all... that's a pretty good argument for the McCain approach, rather than the Obama approach.

And here is yet another: Yesterday in the U.K., the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ordered the Ministry of Justice to release on bail Abu Qatada, the highest ranking al-Qaeda affiliate they currently hold -- and a direct clerical counsel to Osama bin Laden himself.

So why are they releasing him? As near as I can make out, Qatada was being held on an immigration charge:

• He is a Jordanian, and he was tried and convicted in absentia (twice!) in a Jordanian court for "conspiracy to carry out bomb attacks on two hotels in Amman in 1998, and providing finance and advice for a series of bomb attacks in Jordan planned to coincide with the Millennium."
• But because he had these two convictions pending, which presumably could result in a sentence of death in Jordan, he could not be deported back to that country... because the U.K. refuses to recognize the validity of executions.
• Therefore, reasoned the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, since he could not be deported, that meant the entire immigration case against him collapsed.
• Therefore, he could not be held indefinitely without a criminal charge.
• But the moment Qatada was charged with a regular civilian crime, the judges told the Ministry that they had to offer Abu Qatada bail;

It seems that in the U.K., this is an even more fundamental right than here. For one difference, we do not set bail for a prisoner deemed a flight risk; and evidently, the U.K. does.

Therefore, Qatada walks tomorrow. I wonder how long it will be before he is spirited out the U.K. by his al-Qaeda friends? But in any event, that is another reason why America is much better off treating mortal combat as "warfare," rather than a mere "crime" that needs to be investigated, and a flurry of papers that need to fly out in response to the next 9/11.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 18, 2008, at the time of 4:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 15, 2008

More Boumediene Bothers and Bewilderments...

Those ghastly Tribunals...

Here's a thought that should bring you up short:

As Beldar wrote:

These commenters [on Beldar Blog] seem to be unaware that, in direct response to earlier suggestions from the Supreme Court, a bipartisan majority of Congress carefully crafted a system that balanced national security concerns against the need to provide fair, just hearings for these detainees. By no means did Congress rubber-stamp what the Bush-43 Administration suggested.

The resulting system closely resembled, and explicitly drew heavily from, the legal system already in place via the Uniform Code of Military Justice for our own servicemen and -women who are accused of crimes. The resulting statutes thus represented the will of the people as expressed through both of the elected branches of government, which -- not coincidentally -- are also the two branches of government given substantial responsibility by the Constitution with the declaring and conduct of war.

Beldar refers to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which created a set of procedures for a fair hearing for each and every detainee in the Guantanamo Bay military prison; it provided for legal representation for every detainee, rules of evidence, and a standard of probable cause to hold the captured enemy combatant "for the duration."

That is what five justices of the Supreme Court -- the four ultra-liberals plus Anthony Kennedy -- ruled "unconstitutional"... for foreign terrorists captured on foreign soil during a war, that is. But the same procedure is evidently perfectly constitutional when it's merely our own soldiers, airmen, seamen, and Marines on trial.

Goose, no gander...

Why are the Democrats uniformly cheering and lauding this decision, which seemingly ties the hands of the president and Congress for all time... even during a Democratic administration? Don't they expect to win big in November?

Yes they do, but...

I cannot imagine any other reason -- except a case of Bush Derangement Syndrome so overpowering that it even drives out their own self-interest -- why Democrats would be so united in applauding this wretched opinion, which is likely the worst Supreme Court decision of my lifetime.

Two, four, six, eight...

Finally, I wonder why Republicans and John McCain haven't jumped on a slogan as simple and obvious as this for the election:

I think that succinctly sums up the difference between the two parties... don't you?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 15, 2008, at the time of 8:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 8, 2008

Jimmy Obama, Meet Barack Carter

Thanks to long-time caller, first-time listener KarmiCommunist -- wait, I think I mean long-time reader and commenter -- we have a thought-provoking window into the heart of Barack H. Obama. Who would have guessed that he turns out to loath the military and dismiss the necessity of defense?

On Friday, the Investor's Business Daily published an editorial that recalled this pledge that Obama made, way back before the Iowa caucus propelled him into the front ranks of the Democratic nomination army... and began the long, slow, humiliating collapse of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Before reading further, please watch this video; it's about a minute and a half long:

 

 

Here is how the IBD responds:

The Obamatons of the mainstream media have failed to report one of the most chilling campaign promises thus far uttered by the presumptive Democrat nominee for president.

He made it before the Iowa caucus to a left-wing pacifist group that seeks to reallocate defense dollars to welfare programs. The lobbying group, Caucus for Priorities, was so impressed by Obama's anti-military offering that it steered its 10,000 devotees his way.

In a 132-word videotaped pledge (still viewable on YouTube [but maybe not for long! -- the Mgt.]), Obama agreed to hollow out the U.S. military by slashing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The scope of his planned defense cuts, combined with his angry tone, is breathtaking. He sounds as if the military is the enemy, not the bad guys it's fighting.

In the speech, Obama pledged to...

• Slash "tens of billions of dollars" of "wasteful" defense spending;
• Eliminate "investments in unproven [!] missile defense systems;"

• Set a "goal" of "a world without nuclear weapons." He promises to first cease all development of nuclear weapons in this country, and then to go to Russia, hat in hand, to beg them to follow suit (presumably without preconditions). A strong bargaining position, Mr. O!

  Will he also then go to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il, Hu Jintao -- or even our nuclear-armed allies? Or does this unilateral disarmament apply only to the United States?

• He also wants a "global ban" on fissile materials. I wonder what President Obama will accept as evidence of such destruction... the Supreme Leader of Iran's absolute oral assurance?

I actually know somebody who works on ballistic missile defense (BMD); and I can tell you, without revealing any classified information, that missile defense is not only proven, it has already been implemented on many Navy cruisers and destroyers, and even on ships in the navies of our allies, such as Japan. Does President Obama plan to order all those ships to drydock to have their BMD and Aegis systems ripped out with a clawhammer?

Channeling Jimmy Carter's vice president, Obama made a solemn promise to the Caucus for Priorities -- which the Communist magazine the Nation awarded the title, "Most Valuable Progressive Activist Group of 2007," according to the Caucus' website. Obama swore, "I will not weaponize space." I guess by "space," he means he will remove all those weapons we have in Earth orbit.

Is Obama using cocaine again? There are no orbital weapons. We have done hardly any work outside the laboratory -- decades ago -- on orbital weapons.

I can only conclude that Barack H. Obama is so clueless, he thinks that our current BMD programs include orbital nukes. It's a sobering thought that the man who is only a vote away from becoming the Commander in Chief could display such an astonishing ignorance about basic defense policies that are not even classified.

Our Aegis systems (to defend against short-range missiles) and BMD systems (to defend against longer-range missiles, including ballistic missiles) comprise completely conventional missiles, not nuclear: SM-2 (Standard Missile) for Aegis, SM-3 for BMD. They're fired from ships floating (we hope) on the sea, not from Imperial Star Destoyers in deep space, as Obama evidently fantasizes.

If they "weaponize" anything, it's the ocean... on which, I am reliably informed, there may already have been some weapons, even before we deployed Aegis.

I hate to judge before all the facts are in, but it appears the Democrats have nominated Chance the gardener to be president.

Barack "Chance" Obama ends his spiel saying that his sole priority will be "protecting the American people." Unless, of course, such protection requires a weapons system to which he has taken a dislike (that would be all of them, it appears).

The IBD editorial ends its own, more considered offering with this chilling reminder:

Like the Ben & Jerry's crowd that supports him, Obama believes "real" national security is "humanitarian foreign aid" -- essentially using our troops as international meals-on-wheels in Africa.

We've been down that road before, too, in Somalia and elsewhere. Thanks, but we don't need a third Clinton, or a second Carter, term.

Or even a first Walter Mondale term.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 8, 2008, at the time of 1:09 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

June 2, 2008

Obamanomics 101

When the Democrats seized Congress in 2006, they promised, among the many promises they made -- among the seemingly millions of promises they made -- to move immediately to solve "global warming" (they hadn't yet gotten the memo about calling it "global climate change," so as to include global warming, global cooling, and global unusual stability). They swore they would reduce America's "carbon footprint." They vowed to cure the Earth's "fever" by any means necessary (a progressive term of art that means "no matter what you great unwashed, with your false consciousness, may think you want").

After two years of concerted action to surrender in Iraq, they have now turned to this particular promise. They have decided that the time for talk is over, and what we need now is action, action, action! Today, the Democrats in the Senate, having trampled underfoot a more moderate climate plan supported by John McCain and the Senate Republicans ("false consciousness!"), introduced their own draconian vision.

The proposal would cap carbon dioxide releases at 2005 levels by 2012. Additional reductions would follow annually so that by 2050, total U.S. greenhouse emissions would be about one-third of current levels.

The bill would create a pollution allowance trading system. That would generate billions of dollars a year to help people offset expected higher energy costs, promote low-carbon energy alternatives and help industries deal with the transition. Part of the $6.7 trillion projected to be collected from the allowances over 40 years would go toward $800 billion in tax breaks to offset people's higher energy costs.

These reductions "will not only enable us to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming, but will create millions of new jobs," contends Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

But this bill is only a pale shadow of what we will have if Barack H. Obama is elected; no piker he, Obama has proposed, as part of his own energy policy, a scheme to reduce carbon emissions by 80% over the next 41 years. This would not just cripple the economy; achieving such a cut in so little time would require us to paraplegicize our economy. (I don't care if there's no such word; there ought to be.) As Sen. O. puts it on his campaign web site:

Well, I don't believe that climate change is just an issue that's convenient to bring up during a campaign. I believe it's one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation.

(I wondered whether Obama considers Islamic terrorism another of the "greatest moral challenges" of our generation; but I can't tell, because, so far as I can tell, he doesn't actually mention terrorism or al-Qaeda on his website. But there's no search function either, so I can't be certain.)

Welcome to Obamanomics: You may think that you don't want to go back to the 1940s level of energy use, but that's just pesky, old false consciousness again. Just ask Barack; he'll tell you what to think. (If you don't understand what I mean, please buy and read Jonah Goldberg's tour de force, Liberal Fascism.)

But the Democrats have discovered, to their shock and anguish, that voters might actually be more concerned about their own bank accounts than the American carbon footprint. Not only that, but Republican senators and President Bush are not the irrelevancies that Democrats, in their hubris, imagine them. For now it appears nearly certain that this bill is D.O.A.... at least for this session:

With gasoline at $4 per gallon and home heating and cooling costs soaring, it is getting harder to sell a bill that would transform the country's energy industries and - as critics will argue - cause energy prices to rise even more....

The debate on global warming is viewed as a watershed in climate change politics. Yet both sides acknowledge the prospects for passage are slim this election year.

Several GOP senators are promising a filibuster; the bill's supporters are expressing doubt they can find the 60 votes to overcome the delaying tactic. [Not to mention having to find 67 votes to override a promised presidential veto.]

The problem, of course, is in the economic details hinted at by the quotation above; can any sane, sober person read the following without lurching back a bit and saying, "What the -- ?"

The bill would create a pollution allowance trading system. That would generate billions of dollars a year to help people offset expected higher energy costs, promote low-carbon energy alternatives and help industries deal with the transition. Part of the $6.7 trillion projected to be collected from the allowances over 40 years would go toward $800 billion in tax breaks to offset people's higher energy costs.

For the innumerate, a trillion is a thousand billion; so $6.7 trillion is the same as $6,700 billion. Divided by 41 years (2009 through 2050) gives us an annual collection of "allowances" (that is, a tax on businesses and on energy sales) of $163.4 billion per year... and even that assumes that the Democrats didn't lowball their own estimate; if it's business as usual, their own internal figures probably show twice that big a tax -- $326.8 billion per year -- which will also certainly be written in such a way that it grows much faster than inflation (every tax seems to do that).

By way of contrast, the estimated expenses of Medicare Part D -- the Medicare prescription-drug benefit enacted in 2003 -- which has elicited screams of anguish not only from conservatives but even many moderates of both parties -- is a mere $36 billion per year. This brand new, carbon-rationing bureaucracy will be more than 4.5 times as large as Medicare Part D, even by the Democrats' own tendentious estimate. Under the more realistic speculation, it will be nine times as big.

But wait, not all of that $6.7 trillion dollars collected will be kept by the federal government! Heaven forbid we accuse "progressives" of wanting to tax us into oblivion: They pledge to give us "tax breaks" of $800 billion. As Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA, 80% -- actually 89%, if we don't count her two skipped votes last year) said, that will "enable us to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming [and] create millions of new jobs" to boot.

Sorry, more math (arithmetic, actually): They squeeze $163.4 billion per year out of businesses -- who will pass the bill along to their customers (that's you!), of course, since the alternative is to go bankrupt; but then the same new bureaucracy will kick back $19.5 billion per year to favored clients. This will, of course, create "millions of new jobs."

Of course, they would never do this via earmarks to special interests, for Obama is an honorable man. So are Democrats all, all honorable men. And women.

(As a complete non-sequitur, did you all know that Obama earmarked $100,000 for a certain Catholic priest who has been much discussed in the news recently? According to the New York Times, "Typical of Mr. Obama’s earmarks was a $100,000 grant for a youth center at a Catholic church run by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a controversial priest who was one of the few South Side clergymen to back Mr. Obama against Mr. Rush." I'm not sure what made me think of this...)

So by all means, rejectionist Republicans: Go ahead and boycott the election, allowing Barack H. Obama to become president by default. I'm sure our nation will be able to weather:

• Declaring defeat and running home from Iraq;
• Coffee klatches with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (and his sock-puppet, Bashar Assad), Kim Jong-Il, Raul Castro, and Oogo Chavez -- all without any preconditions;
• The total government takeover of the health-care industry;
• A complete and mercilessly enforced ban on drilling for oil anywhere that isn't already tapped out, coupled with an energy policy that jacks gasoline prices up to $7 a gallon -- but which subsidizes windmills;
• A federal bench, including the Supreme Court, packed with lifetime appointments of clones of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, whom Obama himself said were his favorite justices and the model of his future appointments;
• Same-sex marriage nationwide, imposed by those judges;
• And staggering tax increases on everyone, not only via repealing the Bush tax cuts but also by raising capital-gains tax and business taxes.

Would we really easily survive as a world superpower with such radical U-turns in our national policy -- all at the same time? Would we then just pick ourselves up and elect Pat Buchanan or Tom Tancredo, and all would be right with the world?

Some appear to believe so. But for the rest of us, I think it's time not just to vote for John McCain ourselves, but for each of us to resolve to get our posteriors out into the streets and work for victory.

Remember, in war and politics, you don't win by losing... you win by winning. So unless you really, really like subsisting on yams and tofu, sweltering in the summer and freezing in winter, never going anywhere beyond walking distance, and living from welfare check to welfare check, it's time to get busy and make sure this particular liberal fascist from Chicago never has occasion to move his offices a mile west, across the National Mall to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 2, 2008, at the time of 9:14 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

May 29, 2008

McClellan's Losing Campaign - Part II

Scott McClellan's pathetic campaign against George W. Bush -- hence for the election of Barack Obama -- continues apace; he keeps talking about more snippets from the book in interviews.

Today, McClellan bores deep into the Plame name blame game, which he sees as a "turning point" in his relationship with the president. But here is an oddity: It was clear to everyone from at least October 28th, 2005 -- the day that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald indicted "Scooter" Libby -- that it was not true that Libby was uninvolved in the inadvertent leak of Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation; and it was also well known by then that Karl Rove had testified five times to Fitzgerald's grand jury, correcting some of his testimony. As I recall, we already knew at that time that the correction involved a conversation Rove had with Matt Cooper of Time Magazine... which clearly implied that Rove, too, had inadvertently revealed Plame's employment.

So by late October, 2005, Scott McClellan already knew that what he told reporters in 2003 was wrong. This was the moral "turning point," he now says.

Yet he continued in his White House employment, after Libby's indictment, for six more months; he did not resign until late April, 2006 -- when he was ousted by new White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. Some "turning point!"

And once again, not a single charge of McClellan's is backed up by any evidence so far released... and much of it is in fact contradicted by strong, available documentation. (And this complete lack of evidence does indeed make McClellan, as Rove put it, sound like a "liberal blogger!")

Not only that, but McClellan and his new allies in the elite media (didn't they used to despise him?) now stoop to deliberate obscurantism to hide the absurdity of what they're claiming. Viz:

[McClellan] was ordered to say from the press room podium that White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were not involved in leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press. Later a criminal investigation revealed that they were.

Revealed that they were "involved," yes; revealed that they were criminally culpable? No.

In fact, neither I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, nor Karl Rove, then Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy, was ever indicted for leaking Plame's name or CIA affiliation: Libby was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice, and Rove was never indicted for anything at all.

("Involved" -- what a weasel word! For that matter, Robert Novak, Matt Cooper, and Tim Russert were also "involved," weren't they?)

During the investigation, Richard Armitage, then Deputy Secretary of State to Secretary of State Colin Powell, admitted that he was the first to inadvertently leak to reporter Robert Novak the fact that Lyin' Joe Wilson's wife was in the CIA; Armitage was also never indicted on any charge. Had the leak been intentional, the leaker would almost certainly have been indicted; thus it's a pretty fair conclusion that the Special Counsel believed the leaks were unintentional and inadvertent. (Particularly so since Armitage, like his boss Colin Powell, opposed the Iraq war... so why would be try to "discredit" the guy who was trying to prevent it?)

So yes, Libby and Rove were "involved in leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press;" but AP (and McClellan, so far as they report) fail to mention that they were both exonerated of the accusation that they did so deliberately in order to discredit Wilson.

You would think that would be an important part of the story.

Here's another wonderful bit of half-truth misdirection from AP, which they save to the end as the supposed killer-anecdote that demonstrates, to everyone who already suffers from BDS, what a liar and hypocrite is George W. Bush:

And [McClellan] recalled a day in April 2006, when the unfolding perjury case against Libby had revealed that Bush secretly declassified portions of a 2002 intelligence report about Iraq's weapons capabilities to help deflect criticism of his case for war. High-profile criticism was coming from Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, in those days before the war. [Take note that AP doesn't reveal what this "declassified" intelligence report was; but I'll let the beans out of the bag in a moment.]

The president was leaving an event in North Carolina, McClellan recalled, and as they walked to Air Force One a reporter shouted a question: Had the president, who had repeatedly condemned the selective release of secret intelligence, enabled Libby to leak classified information to The New York Times back then to bolster the administration's arguments for war?

McClellan took the question to the president, telling Bush: "He's saying you yourself were the one that authorized the leaking of this information."

"And he said, 'Yeah, I did.' And I was kind of taken aback," McClellan said.

"For me I came to the decision that at that point I needed to look for a way to move on, because it had undermined, I think, a lot of what we had said."

Really? Let's stick a few particulars into that vague and smelly indictment...

First, anytime an administrative official speaks to a news source off the record -- even if fully authorized -- that could be called "leaking." As McClellan himself has done this many times (along with every other White House Press Secretary), he should not feign such horror.

Second, let's clarify what "intelligence report" Bush "declassified" in 2003 or 2004 (not 2006). There are only two possibilities that McClellan could be referencing, and the first is easily dismissed:

• The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate;
• Or the 2002 intelligence report on the debriefing of a certain former ambassador who was recommended by his CIA wife to be sent to a certain African country.

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate

President Bush relied upon this estimate, compiled by the CIA, in his decision to ask Congress for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force; an AUMF is the legal equivalent of a declaration of war.

By mid-2003, with the war in full swing, the elite media was abuzz with claims that the 2002 NIE had said that Iraq had no WMD and was not even trying to develop any. In particular, these many stories claimed that the idea that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain Uranium had been "debunked" by the CIA before the war -- and that the war was therefore entirely predicated on a lie.

It turns out that all these stories had a single source: Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had been sent to Niger by the CIA in response to his CIA wife's nagging of the Agency.

It was absurd that the CIA accepted Plame's suggestion of her husband for the trip. Its purpose was ostensibly to determine whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy Uranium yellowcake, yet Wilson had no expertise whatsoever in nuclear or WMD investigations. He did, however, have one indispensible qualification: He already believed the story was a fairy tale, even before he left for Africa.

When he returned, and after he was debriefed by his CIA handlers (see below), he covertly went to numerous elite-media sources and told them that he had found that the idea that Hussein was trying to acquire Uranium yellowcake was bunk. Later, he published an op-ed in the New York Times (July 6th, 2003) titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," in which he peddled the same claim.

As more and more people came to believe, because of this disinformation campaign, that the administration had "lied us into war" (a cherished Democratic mantra), the president decided to declassify parts of the NIE on which he had relied. Not the whole thing, as that would reveal sources and methods; just the "key judgments" that the CIA presented the White House. He did so with great fanfare on July 18th, 2003... the day after Scott McClellan was named White House Press Secretary. This is an important point: McClellan was already the presidential spokesman when Bush announced the declassification of parts of the NIE and distributed it to reporters; and even prior to his promotion, he was the Deputy Press Secretary to Ari Fleischer.

Therefore, I suggest that the NIE cannot be the "2002 intelligence report about Iraq's weapons capabilities" that Bush "declassified," which McClellan now says he first found out about in April of 2006. Obviously, McClellan knew about the declassification of portions of the 2002 NIE way back in 2003... when the rest of the civilized world found out about it.

So this cannot possibly be what AP means above, unless Scott McCellan is dumber than a box of Barbara's boxers. That leaves only one other reasonable possibility:

The 2002 intelligence report on Joe Wilson's debriefing by the CIA

On July 7th, 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a document titled Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq. In the section titled "Niger," there is a chapter tantalizingly called "the Former Ambassador." It includes the following summary of the previously classified CIA debriefing of "the former ambassador" -- that is, of Lyin' Joe Wilson -- when he returned from the trip to the African nation of Niger that his CIA wife, Valerlie Plame, wangled for him. The briefing was included in an intelligence report disseminated within intelligence-community circles on March 8, 2002.

When the Senate Intelligence Committee wanted to publish their report, they asked the president to declassify any intelligence in the report that was still classified. Bush complied; we don't know whether Wilson's debriefing was declassified at that point or before, but I don't recall anybody writing about it until after the report came out.

I strongly believe that this is what AP means when they write "Bush secretly declassified portions of a 2002 intelligence report about Iraq's weapons capabilities to help deflect criticism of his case for war." I can think of no other 2002 intelligence report that has made its way into the unclass information world besides these two... and it cannot possibly be the NIE for reasons elucidated above.

But why did this declassification so enrage the Left -- and so horrify Scott McClellan, becoming one of his "turning points?" Let's see what, exactly, former Ambassador Joe Wilson did tell his CIA handlers when he returned. In this case, speculation is unnecessary, because we know exactly what information Wilson gave them from his little Nigerien adventure. From that same chapter linked above:

The intelligence report based on the former ambassador's trip was disseminated on March 8, 2002. The report did not identify the former ambassador by name or as a former ambassador, but described him as "a contact with excellent access who does not have an established reporting record." The report also indicted that the "subsources of the following information knew their remarks could reach the U.S. government and may have intended to influence as well as inform." DO officials told Committee staff that this type of description was routine and was done in order to protect the former ambassador as the source of the information, which they had told him they would do. DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the "high priority of the issue." The report was widely distributed in routine channels.

(Redacted) The intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, (Redacted) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."

And there you have it: In setting straight the record of prewar intelligence on Iraq, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee had to note that former Ambassador Joe Wilson (husband of former CIA employee Valerie Plame) told his CIA handlers that the former prime minister of Niger revealed that an Iraqi delegation tried to meet with him to discuss "expanding commercial relations," which the former prime minister believed was an attempt to purchase Uranium.

Wilson then went to the elite media and lied through his teeth... covertly, at first; but when that failed to bring down the Bush regime, overtly in an op-ed in the NYT. Thus, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report exposed Lyin' Joe Wilson as exactly what he was; and for that, the Left will never forgive either the president who declassified the debriefing or the committee that revealed Joe Wilson to the world.

For reference, here is what President Bush said in his January, 2003 State of the Union address... the very "sixteen words" that Wilson flatly claimed in his op-ed "was not borne out by the facts as I understood them."

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Sounds like an excellent summary of what former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki told former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson.

Selective declassification vs. selective leaking

The elite media and its new sock puppet Scott McClellan make much to-do out of this final point, as if it were the synecdoche that encapsulates McClellan's entire charge:

Had the president, who had repeatedly condemned the selective release of secret intelligence, enabled Libby to leak classified information to The New York Times back then to bolster the administration's arguments for war?

Once again, vagueness to the rescue! There are two ways to "selective[ly] release" classified information; one is completely legal, the other criminal, despicable, and a gross and offensive betrayal of the United States of America:

1. The president or some Congressional committees can legally declassify specific information, in consultation with the agency that classified it, and release it to the general public, including the news media;
2. A disgruntled government employee, fighting against the express policy of the elected government, can criminally "leak" the classified information to individual elite reporters he believes are friendly to his cause, in an effort to destroy whatever legal intelligence program he dislikes.

AP is correct: The president has on many occasions decried a "selective release of secret intelligence" of Type 2, such as the leak of details about the Terrorist Surveillance Program (the NSA al-Qaeda telephone intercepts) or our perfectly legal -- nobody even denies this -- voluntary surveillance of the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system, part of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program to find and interdict terrorists' money transfers.

This sort of "selective release" does incalculable damage to our intelligence-gathering capabilities, puts human sources at risk, and alerts death-cult terrorists that they should change their modus operandi to avoid detection by intelligence and law-enforcement agents. Such leaks kill good people and aid and abet al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other evildoers.

But that's not what McClellan is whining about. He was so shocked and horrified that he "came to the decision that at that point [he] needed to look for a way to move on" because the president made no attempt to conceal the fact that he had engaged in a perfectly legal Type 1 "selective release of secret information": He formally declassified part of a CIA debriefing, after consultation with the CIA, possibly even at the request of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee.

Are you able to detect the subtle, miniscule difference between some low-level toady in the NSA leaking details of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, thus shutting off the flow of information about potential al-Qaeda cells in the United States -- and the president declassifying a summary of a debriefing that the Senate Intelligence Committee wanted to release as part of a report on pre-war intelligence, more than a year after the debriefing was conducted?

If so, then you're one up on both the former White House Press Secretary and the elite media!

What McClellan didn't prove in his book

I'm sorry that so many folks are shocked to learn that former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is a liar; but it's hardly the president's job to keep old intelligence documents classified -- even when the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to publish parts of them -- just to preserve Wilson's reputation... so he can continue to accuse President Bush of lying, when in fact the evidence indicates that all along, the liar was Wilson himself.

And I note, once again, that all of this was printed not only in the Senate report on July 7th, 2004; it was also discussed extensively -- and put into the context of debunking Joe Wilson's lies -- in a July 12th, 2004 column in the National Review by Clifford May. I myself was late to the game; I didn't start blogging (on Patterico's Pontifications) until May of 2005. But by October of that year, I was already posting about this on Big Lizards.

Where the hell was Scott McClellan that he wasn't already aware of this until sometime in April of 2006? The rest of us knew it eight months earlier.

More and more, the evidence indicates that McClellan's faux horror and his "turning points" are entirely fabricated after the fact... and the only two reasons I can imagine are (1) to sell more copies of his book, and (2) to set himself up for a position in the fantasized administration of President Barack Obama.

The saddest part is that even if Obama were elected, then just as with David Brock (anyone remember him?), he would no more give a job to a betrayer like Scott McClellan than he would pluck somebody else's used Kleenex out of the rubbish and blow his own nose into it.

McClellan is burning all his former friends and colleagues for nothing.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 29, 2008, at the time of 6:41 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

May 28, 2008

McClellan's Losing Campaign - Part I

I believe that McClellan's campaign will turn out to be a disaster, not for the president but for McClellan himself.

(And I assume you all realize I mean the campaign by Scott McClellan, White House Press Secretary until he was ousted by incoming Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten -- and not a minute too soon! -- to damage the GOP enough that Barack Obama wins the presidency in 2008... not the failed presidential campaign of ousted -- and not a minute too soon! -- Civil War Gen. George McClellan in 1864.)

Alas, I was scooped on the following observation by John Hinderaker at my favorite blogsite, Power Line; but I shall persevere, secure behind the lizardly firewall of "Never first, always final."

What has struck me is "the Case of the Missing Evidence": McClellan is quoted as leveling numerous charges against President Bush and members of his administration, from "misleading" us into the Iraq war by spreading "propaganda," to McClellan's accusation that Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby conspired together to out Valerie Plame and then lie about it to the grand jury, to -- this is truly bizarre -- McClellan's psychic claim that Bush lied about never having tried cocaine. Yet in not a single accusation in a single article I have read (I've read six) is there even a shred of evidence offered for the claim, other than the rather dubious word of a man hawking his new "tell-all" book.

Nothing. Nada. Bagel.

Here is a typical example from our ancient enemy, the Times:

Mr. McClellan writes that top White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. He says he did not know for almost two years that his statements from the press room that Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr. were not involved in the leak were a lie.

“Neither, I believe, did President Bush,” Mr. McClellan writes. “He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth -- including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney -- allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”

Of course, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald extensively investigated Karl Rove in that case, calling him back numerous times for more testimony. Rove even corrected some of his testimony, which almost certainly led to even more intense investigation by Fitzgerald. Yet after all that, Fitzgerald -- who was highly motivated to find some legal victim higher up the food chain than the chief of staff to the Vice President -- couldn't even gain an indictment from a grand jury... which hears only the prosecution's case.

But I'm sure McClellan knows better. I wonder whether he shared whatever evidence he has with Fitzgerald, who obviously considered it pretty unconvincing (or he would have used it) -- or whether McClellan only discovered this "evidence" of perjury and obstruction of justice after Fitzgerald failed to indict Rove.

Here's another good one:

[McClellan] is harsh about the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, saying it “spent most of the first week in a state of denial” and “allowed our institutional response to go on autopilot.”

Does anyone else detect a pattern here? Systematically, McClellan is working his way, one by one, through every anti-Bush fairy tale promulgated by the "reality-based community," the nutroots of Daily Kos. (I fully expect that somewhere in the book, which I will not waste time reading, McClellan will express his doubts that 9/11 was really carried out by al-Qaeda -- maybe it was Mossad! -- and will suggest that the Pentagon was hit by a U.S. missile and that the World Trade Centers were taken down by controlled demolition...)

Anent Katrina, I was going to make some scathing response about how effective President Bush really was, in contrast to the Demo-lib caricature; but then I remembered I already did -- two years ago. I'll stack my evidence up against McClellan's any day... or I would, if McClellan could find any.

Maybe McClellan should start reading Big Lizards before writing future books.

Although I did independently come up with this observation, I must confess that John beat me into print phosphor with this addendum to an excellent (if short) post by Paul Mirengoff:

JOHN adds: McClellan was a lousy press secretary. A much better spokesman, Tony Snow, once told me that the best thing about his job was the opportunity to follow President Bush around and observe his conduct of the Presidency. Tony said that he came away with a deep appreciation of President Bush's character, judgment and knowledge of the issues. Unless McClellan can come up with some facts to back up his claims--facts have been notably absent from the press accounts I've seen of his book--I think Tony's assessment is considerably more reliable.

I could not agree with John more... especially the part about McClellan's squirmy "talents" as a presidential press secretary; he always came across to me a lot less like Ari Fleischer, or even Clinton's Mike McCurry, and a lot more like Jon Lovitz's pathological liar character from Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s ("Yeah, yeah, the Queen of England... that's the ticket!")

But I also agree with Paul: McClellan's tabloid trash is going to get a full-court press of reviews, news articles, and free PR by the Democratic Party (both political and journalistic wings)... making the contrast all the more stark with the brilliant insider tome War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, by former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.

Feith's book received no reviews by any major elite-media source except for Bret Stephens' review at the Wall Street Journal... despite the fact that War and Decision was written by the man who actually made (in consultation with his direct boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) the important decisions he discusses; while What Happened -- say, if this is about McClellan's career, then didn't the printers accidentally leave off the question mark that should have been at the end of that title? -- is nothing but the ramblings of a man whose only function was to explain other people's decisions to the press.

Say, has anybody else ever noticed that life isn't fair? (Darn... I think I was scooped on that observation, too.)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 28, 2008, at the time of 5:12 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

May 21, 2008

Marriage, Money, and Ursus Maritimus

I have in my pocket three horrible court decisions: One is a state supreme-court decision from California; another is a decision by a panel of the D.C. Circus Court; and the third is an initial court order followed by further action now pending before U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, based in Oakland, California.

What do these three decisions have in common? Let's get you some particulars...

California Supreme Court to California Voters: Drop Dead

In a previous post here (Californichusetts), we discussed the demerits of the underlying policy of same-sex marriage. Today, we're more concerned with how the court reached its decision -- the process -- and the implications of such a process for the future of democracy.

A liberal on a bulletin-board I frequent chastised me; "a court would never" -- I paraphase him -- "pull a claim of unconstitutionality out of hat!"

Oh yes they did, sez I; this is easily seen by anyone who actually reads California Chief Justice Ronald George's appalling opinion. But it's even more obvious when reading the magnificent and stunning dissent by Justice Marvin Baxter, which begins on page 128 of the pdf linked above. Baxter wrote perhaps the most devastating dissenting opinion since Hugo Black's dissent on Griswold.

In this case, the court <