Week in Review
Some Headlines You May Have Missed
*Ronald McDonald Slays Last Living Cow: We Are Liberated From Bovine Tyranny, Says Clown Savior
*Corporate-Backed Product of Western Technology Rails Against Corporations, Technology
*Muslim Comedian Bombs
*Republican Senators Form “GOP Hip Hop Dance Crew”
*Lifeless Husk of Brad Pitt found; Youthful-looking Angelina Jolie Denies Involvement
*Don’t Worry, Neighbor Didn’t See That
*Obama Stubs Toe, Blames Bush: I Inherited This Poorly Placed Coffee Table, Says Prez
*Iraq Now Better At Elections Than America
*Woman Not Angry; Was Just Worried, That’s All
*Chimp Scientists Successfully Split Banana
*Last Living Duran Duran Fan Former Duran Duran Member
*KSM To Be Tried By Judge Joe Brown: Eric Holder Promises Swift, Sassy Justice
*Exhausted America Gives in to Socialism, Hits Bar
Monsters in the House
“If you pass the Stupak amendment more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing.” Rep. Stupak to the Corner. Unbelievable.
Daily Right 3/10/10
*Presidential approval: -21 and falling.
RELATED: 68% now oppose passing ObamaCare without Republican support.
*Obama and the L-Word: The President’s habit of telling untruths, by Matt Welch.
“Obama’s dishonesty, by contrast, seems to spring from a different place. As a man who has spent most of his career wowing people with his words and very little of it converting those words into deeds, he has an activist’s gap between rhetoric and reality and a radio broadcaster’s promiscuous carelessness with cutting rhetorical corners.”
*Today’s whip count on ObamaCare. Still shy, thank God.
*Chief Justice Roberts gives Obama the rhetorical middle finger.
*Artificial Stupidity, by Thomas Sowell.
“People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid. Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities. In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.”
*The Obama Budget: Spend, Entitle, Borrow, by James C. Capretta.
*What Happened to Obama’s Middle Path on Health Reform? By Michael Gerson.
*An American Obsession With Freedom, by Tony Blankley.
“The Obama administration and the Democrats crossed a line and touched a nerve in America’s body politic. We sense our fundamental freedom endangered. And the response will be as remorseless as was our revolution against the British.”
*Repeal ObamaCare? Unlikely. By David Harsanyi.
*Obama’s New Poverty Measurement, by Robert Rector.
“Another paradox of the new poverty measure is that countries such as Bangladesh and Albania will have lower poverty rates than the United States, even though the actual living conditions in those countries are extremely bad. Haiti would probably have a very low poverty rate when measured by the Obama system because the earthquake reduced much of the population to a uniform penniless squalor.”
*Where Feminists Get it Right, by Jonah Goldberg.
*O’Krugman’s Keynesian Blarney, at IBD.
*Weak Tea or Strong Tea? By Lee Harris.
“But too many of those currently involved in “analyzing” the Tea Party movement seem to have no genuine interest in grappling with its potential historical significance. They are content to ridicule and scoff at it. They are delighted to draw analogies between the Tea Partiers and various inconsequential fringe movements of the past, such as hippies or the New Left. But no approach could possibly be more counterproductive than a policy of conspicuous disdain. There is no surer way of convincing the Wal-Mart crowd that America really has fallen into the hands of arrogant elitists than to show contempt for working people like themselves. It is one thing to preach to the choir. It is another thing to spit at the congregation.”
I urge you to read the whole thing.
Daily Left 3-10-10
Cash for Clunkers might not have been as bad as all that. Apparently nearly 90% of all of the 542,000 buyers were hesitant if not unwilling to buy a car without the governmental incentive, and did a better then expected job at targeting habitual used car owners.
In other good news that people will still be upset to hear, President Obamas economic plans are working. Some of the highlights- the S&P is up 41%, GDP grew 5.9%, and most of the losses from last months jobs report are due to weather related issues.
The Internet is up for a Nobel prize. Yes, the entire Internet.
Think the filibuster is a nuisance? Chuck Schumers working on it. Because what do you do if you can’t win the game? Change the rules!
Can we just cut to the chase and have a greedy politicians section at our local bookstores? Scott Brown just inked (see, that’s a pun) a deal for a memoir. And it’ll be out next year. Shouldn’t he be busy, oh, I don’t know, being a fucking senator and not trying to sell a hardbound version of his diary for 30$ a pop?
In some of the first intelligent work to fix the credit system in the states, Bank of America is cutting the overdraft fees on it’s debit cards.
Can you judge a lawyer by his client? This has been a big question lately, as taking any case with a Gitmo detainee makes you a terrorist sympathizer. I mean, everyone deserves legal defense, but what’s the incentive to take the case? I’m staying out of this one for now, but comment away. I’m curious what everyone has to say on this.
Alternate Health Care Plans
Via The Onion.
In response to President Obama’s call for compromise, several lawmakers have concocted their own health care reform bills. Here are some provisions of the top contenders:
* Hoyer-Larson Bill: All 45 million uninsured Americans would be guaranteed medical care, all of it provided by Dr. Tom Janicak of Houston, TX
* Melancon-Cooper Bill: Would create a low-cost government-administered health insurance plan, but would prohibit anyone from buying into it
* Griffith-Cantor Bill: Low-income families would be allowed to huddle outside hospital windows in the cold and look at wealthier families receiving care
* Hutchinson-Snowe Bill: Children insured on a cuteness scale
* Murray-Menendez Bill: Doctors only allowed to mention giving birth as a viable alternative after providing counseling on the many different ways one can have an abortion.
* Luetkemeyer-Fortenberry Bill: They just liked the way their names looked together, and this seemed like the most high-profile opportunity to put it out there
* Grayson Bill: Rep. Alan Grayson will personally punch in the face any insurance executive who turns down a valid claim
* Blookross-Feiser Bill: Although no one is exactly sure who these two shadowy congressmen are, their bill would mandate a twofold increase in insurance premiums and force patients to buy name-brand drugs
Stupak is Holding Strong
“If I didn’t” cave in November, “why would I do it now after all the crap I’ve been through?”
This from an interview with John McCormach at The Weekly Standard. (H/T The Corner)
Daily Right 3/9/10
ObamaCare
*Sigh. Stupak “more optimistic” on the bills passing then he was a week ago. But remember, the House has to pass the Senate bill as is before the abortion issue can be addressed, and it must be addressed in a separate bill that must pass both the House and the Senate. Does Stupak and the other (allegedly) pro-life dems believe the President and the Senate will actually address this? Do they even care, or do they just need a fig leaf?
*ObamaCare Means a Two-Tier Health-Care System, by James Lewis.
*Today in Health-Care Reform, by Mathew Continetti.
“Three outcomes spring to mind. One, Nancy Pelosi finds 216 votes for a pre-Easter Recess vote and health care reform becomes law. Two, the grinding stasis continues until the November elections and nothing passes. Or three, a major and unexpected event along the lines of Scott Brown’s election occurs and the process is scrambled once again. So the odds are still slightly against health care reform — and will be until the Democrats find a majority.”
Keep in mind, Intrade.com has the odds of ObamaCare passing by June at 64%.
*The Case for Repeal, by Rich Lowry.
*The WSJ warns that Health-Care won’t be the only thing included in reconciliation.
“Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.”
Misc.
*Will Millennials Become the Chump Generation? By Robert Samuelson.
“Millennials could become the chump generation. They could suffer for their elders’ economic sins, particularly the failure to confront the predictable costs of baby boomers’ retirement.”
*Stimulus or Sedative? By Thomas Sowell.
“The theory is that, if one thing doesn’t work, it is just a matter of trying another. But, in an atmosphere where nobody knows what the federal government is going to come up with next, people tend to hang on to their money until they have some idea of what the rules of the game are going to be.”
*My Race is American, by Michelle Malkin.
Maslow vs. the Headlines
Anyone who’s watched television in the last decade has noticed the advent of the “ticker”. The ticker is the small scrolling bar that pans right to left, giving you the most time to read the summarized tidbits of news, sports scores or stock prices. The desire to know as much about as many things as possible is a fairly new advent for humans, as even a hundred years ago the resources to be well educated in world news were outlandish. Moreover, the idea of celebrity didn’t really exist outside world leaders and religious figures until Charles Limburg, so our fascination with the private lives of public people seems to have brought us to a new level of obsession with mundane trivia. So why is it that most Americans have no idea what’s going on in the world, outside of which former senator is on this seasons “Dancing with the Stars”?
The answer comes in first year business school. When we think about what we need in life to be happy, the most scientific model we have is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It tells us that people have, in order, physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization needs that must be met to allow the next to address. The dumbed down version is you need food and water before you need a safe house to sleep in, and you need that before you need a mate or family, and you need that before you can really worry about mental image, and so on. This theory has been rammed down the throat of everyone who’s gone to school for business or psychology for the last 70 years, but it’s still irrefutably true. We all have very simple needs, and they need addressing before you can worry about anyone but yourself. So what shifted that lets people dwell on the least important issues, if not completely ignore the things that have the most impact on them?
I think the ticker was the start. And we’re all complacent in this. When I go to work (I work in a bar), I stare off into the television during sports games I have no interest in, and watch the scores other games I have no interest in. I do the same thing when watching business news (watching the values of stocks I don’t invest in). Now why is it that I don’t spend a fraction of that same time going all Descartes and thinking about the world around me in a meaningful way? Don’t get me wrong, I try, but I might spend half as much time thinking about how to really change health care as I do thinking about “Lost” or watching Nostalgia Chick again.
So then I get depressed thinking on this. Ratings for network news shows are sky high, but the viewers consistently show that they have no idea why pundit x is saying what they’re saying. The barrage of news flow leads to being reactionary as opposed to delegated in our response. We’re so well off that we feel free to sit back on our laurels and let someone else think for us. This is not a good sign for where people are headed as technology allows for even easier access to media, and as we become more Boolean in our thinking. A generation of “if/then” thinkers probably won’t have the attention span to balance a budget, unless it can be dropped into excel.
So how do you fix this? Really, it’s such a positive statement about the quality of life in America that is almost sounds silly to try and adjust it. But if we aren’t willing to think hard on the big problems, they’re going to get a whole hell of a lot worse, and complacency will just become another issue to fret about. So, if you’re reading this (and you aren’t my mother checking in to see what I’m all worked up about this week), you seem to have the free time, or possibly the headline news drive that I’m trying to address. When you’re done, turn off your computer, and go read something more then five pages long. Hell, this essay is less then two. If we ever hope to fix anything, knowing more about why it’s a problem seems like a good first step.
Levi Starbird is a retired punk rocker living under the guise of a college student in western Colorado. He is a chain smoking, often overdressed twenty-something of an ogre-ish persuasion. He is just as confused as you are as to how he got this job.
Daily Left 3-9-10
In by miles the best news of the day, Rush Limbaugh might be moving to Costa Rica! If health care reform passes, Limbaugh will be so offended that he will just have to leave the country. Let’s hope for a solar flare to muck up radio transmission the day he moves.
Rham-bo isn’t going anywhere (thank god), and he’s still on the warpath. I’ll Let Peter Baker describe Emanuel’s take on his career-
(If health care passes) “Emanuel will be hailed as a savior. If not, well, he does not even allow for that possibility.”
In what is one of the hardest to tolerate examples of free speech, The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case involving the Westboro Baptist Church. If you’ve had the good fortune of being able to forget these bastards, they’re the ones who go to the funerals of American soldiers to protest because, apparently, god killed them for the US being “tolerant” of gays. I’m not sure what’s worse about this- that these people think this is the proper way to express their lunacy or that they think the US is tolerant of gays (let’s look to our over 1,000 laws that only apply to straight couples.) But the father of a Marine who lost his life in Iraq has opted to sue the church, which survived their last legal battle under defense of the First Amendment. The father wants damages for the anguish he suffered, and the exploitation of his sons last hours alive.
This is where it gets hard. In my mind, picketing gay funerals is as (pardon the pun) hellworthy a trespass as ever really happens in America. Using the loss of human life to frame a point based in nothing but hate is as disgusting, ignorant, and most of all ineffective an approach to making your claim as burning a cross in someones front yard. Sadly. this IS America. We have the right to say whatever we want to whoever we want. It keeps us free above anything else. You can have more guns then Ted Nugent in your police proof bunker, but the inability to speak your mind and rationally fix problems is the absolute most integral key to the life we are so privileged to lead. So I have to defend the Westboro church. If there is a more embarrassing group of Americans out there, please let me know to put some comedy in the piece, but no matter what they say, they have the right to say it. Regardless of the courts decision, I will be angry. I want these people silenced, but fear so dramatically the repercussions if they are. I’ll be posting on this in the near future.
Nancy Pelosi might just be losing her choke hold on the house, and it really couldn’t be at a worse time. Democrats, weak willed to begin, had her as the only strong voice for party unity. Rham Emanuel has his hands full, you know, running the White House, and President Obama is apparently really worked up in playing WOW or something, because it looks like he’s got free time, yet Pelosi has stayed firm. In the face of not just opposition, instead downright hatred from the right, with an insurrection from within to boot (both the Black Caucus and the Blue Dogs), she has the unenviable position of getting an agenda across that her constituents DO want while trying to help the nation as a whole. Here’s hoping she doesn’t crack, because someone needs to be in charge.
Daily Right 3/8/10
*Obama’s Dereliction of Duty, by Matt Patterson.
“I cannot bring myself to believe that any president would manipulate the economy in such a manner for his own political purposes. But I do know this: while Obama continues to fiddle his atonal health care tune, the flames of war and recession and fiscal collapse rage all around him.
Does he care? Does he even understand the precipice upon which we stand?”
ALSO by Patterson: Obama Plays High Stakes Poker on Health-Care
“The summit and subsequent events have revealed two distinct philosophies that are like oil and water, and are likely to mix just about as well. Democrats obsess over the uninsured; the Republicans over cost. Democrats believe it’s the business of the government to dictate coverage; the Republicans that government’s role must be limited and encourage competition. What we’re talking about here is two vastly different views of the nature and rationale of federal authority in our lives, a difference between top down and bottom up, between centralized or diffused power, between government that knows best and liberty that comes first.”
ALSO by Patterson: Fix Medicare First
*Veganism joins Environmentalism as a protected religious group in the UK.
“The legislation also covers “any religious belief or philosophical belief” and even “a lack of belief”.
*Sean Penn believes in jailing people who call Hugo Chavez a dictator.
*SURPRISE! National debt to be higher than The White House predicted.
*Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, ObamaCare, at the WSJ.
“Last week President Obama sanctioned “reconciliation,” a complex tactic that would jam ObamaCare into law on sheer power politics. But what if this gambit is really a false-flag operation, meant to lure House Democrats into voting for a bill that they would otherwise oppose? That’s the question many rank-and-file Members are now asking themselves, and they’re right to be worried.”
The wages of bad policy
In my inbox this morning:
Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.
We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.
Let me send a big ‘fuck you’ to the legislature for aborting our efforts to monetize QC with this ill conceived piece of intrusive nonsense. I’m going to keep the search box up, for my own convenience if nothing else, but I’ll be taking down the banner up top. Expect shittier, more obnoxious advertising to follow.
Week in Review
Some Headlines You May Have Missed
*Health Care Summit Agreement: Prostate Exams Suck; Barney Frank dissents
*John Boehner Now Blacker Than Obama
*Scientists Warn: Amy Adams “Adorable” in Leap Year
*Dem Blue Dog Coalition Renames Itself ‘Blue Balls’ Coalition: We haven’t been laid since the 70’s, say legislators
*John Edwards Sweeps ‘Dickies:’ Edges out Charlie Sheen, Tiger Woods as “Nation’s Biggest Tool”
*Pelosi Travels To Canada For Operation; I want shitty, universal care, says Speaker
*Association of American Men: Fat Chicks Give Great Handjobs
The Association of American Men Approves This Message
*Lady Gaga Shocks Awards Ceremony With Tasteful, Low Key Gown
*Wal-Mart Defeats Al-Qaeda: Bin-Laden Surrenders To ‘Big Savings’
Save money, live better...or else.
*Fox News Reveals Secret Of Broadcast Success: Babes, Assholes
Great Speech from George Will at CPAC
Best Speech from CPAC.
Click the Image to Watch
Enjoy
-TF
Daily Right 3/4/10
ObamaCare
*Why Democrats Believe They Must Pass Health Reform: Holy Grail, by Gary Andres.
*The President’s Imaginary Health Plan, at NRO.
*AWOL in the Bunning Battle: The GOP shows why ObamaCare is a good bet for the left, by Andrew C. McCarthy.
“In sum, Bunning’s battle gave Republicans a chance to make points about runaway deficit spending, the fraudulence of PAYGO posturing, the foolish redistribution of wealth to create expensive and unproductive government jobs, unemployment-benefit extensions that Democrats refuse to pay for and that actually increase unemployment, and the monstrous rationing that would be wrought by Obamacare. So, did Republicans rally behind Bunning? Not a chance…
…As it turns out, Republicans didn’t have the stomach for a fight over wealth transfers that plainly exacerbate the problem of unemployment. Why would anyone think they’d take on a far more demanding war, in which Democrats and the legacy media would relentlessly indict them for “denying health insurance to millions of Americans”?
Depressing, but important. Read the whole thing.
*Stupak says the 12 pro-life democrats will not pass the Senate bill.
*Deaf to America, by Dan Gerstein.
“The Democrats are going for broke (in more ways than one). The more salient question is when will the Democrats start connecting the dots–and recognize that the American people are not going to accept a government that is not willing to heed their doubts.”
This is from a Democrat, mind you.
*President Obama now bribing undecided House Democrats with Judgeships for family members. No, really:
“Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit…”
Oh that Chicago machine.
*Unhealthy Hype, by Thomas Sowell.
*Paul Ryan vs. the President, at the WSJ.
Misc.
*No Allies, but Plenty of Enemies, by Victor Davis Hanson.
“If Britain is not considered an ally, then America no longer has real allies.
And perhaps that is the point after all. The Obama administration does not wish to see the world so divided between allies and the rest.”
ALSO by Hanson: Dronism
*The RNC continues to prove its stupidity and tone-deafness.
Daily Right 3/3/10
ObamaCare
*Abuse of Power, at the WSJ.
“The goal is to permanently expand the American entitlement state with a vast apparatus of subsidies and regulations while the political window is still (barely) open, regardless of the consequences or the overwhelming popular condemnation. As Mr. Obama fatalistically said after his health summit, if voters don’t like it, “then that’s what elections are for.”
In other words, he’s volunteering Democrats in Congress to march into the fixed bayonets so he can claim an LBJ-level legacy like the Great Society that will be nearly impossible to repeal. This would be an unprecedented act of partisan arrogance that would further mark Democrats as the party of liberal extremism. If they think political passions are bitter now, wait until they pass ObamaCare.”
I urge you to read the whole thing.
*Pelosi’s Suicide Squad, by Jim Geraughty.
*Twenty-One Key Democrats, and Three Things for Them to Consider, by Jeffrey H. Anderson.
*Stupak: It’s Not Just Abortion, by Janet Adamy.
*Irreconcilable Differences, by Daniel Foster.
“If the Democrats try to use reconciliation to finish a bill as unwieldy, unpopular, and unprecedented as this one, it will set off a parliamentary battle that could make the maneuvers in advance of Christmas Eve look like a study of legislative efficiency.”
*The Democrats Contorted and Implausible End Game, by James C. Capretta.
ClimateGate
*Why the IPCC Must Be Investigated, by Andrew Wheeler.
“The UN IPCC has blurred the lines between science and advocacy to the point where they are unable to separate situational awareness from proposed remedies. They have been advocating for specific policy actions and ignoring the original charter of informing the public on the state of science.”
Misc.
*Decentralize the Government, by Joel Kotkin.
“Obama seems to possess a desire not so much to fix the basic infrastructure of the country but to re-engineer our entire society into the model championed by liberal academia.”
*A Knife in Obama’s Back? By Jonah Goldberg.
*The Five Varieties of Bad Political Thinking, by Michael Weiss.
*Politically Correct Killing? By Victor Davis Hanson.
“I wholeheartedly support the president’s expanded use of Predators against suspected terrorists in Pakistan and its environs — if we agree that we are in a global war on radical Islamic terrorism, and are also consistent in seeing our adversaries as non-uniformed enemy combatants not subject to the normal rules of war. But the expansion of targeted assassinations does not square with the administration’s past rhetoric and its present interest in seeing anti-terrorism as more akin to criminal justice than war.”
Daily Right 3/2/10
*Pelosi’s Challenge: Hold the Line, by Patrick O’Connor.
*Unprecedented, by Michael G. Franc. This is a great rundown of when, and how, reconciliation has been used in the past.
*For Obama and Pelosi, Health Care is Ego Trip, by Byron York.
*The Democrats on Reconciliation, by Jeffrey H. Anderson.
“You know, the Founders designed this system, as frustrating [as] it is, to make sure that there’s a broad consensus before the country moves forward. . . . And what we have now is a president who . . . [h]asn’t gotten his way. And that is now prompting, you know, a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate forever. . . . And what I worry about would be you essentially have still two chambers — the House and the Senate — but you have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side, and that’s just not what the founders intended” (Sen. Barack Obama, Ill., remarks at the National Press Club, 4/26/05).”
Not that such hypocrisy will stop them, mind you.
*Alice In HealthCare, by Thomas Sowell.
*Your Daily Dose of “Holy Shit!
You progressives out there still want to double-down on unfunded entitlement programs?
*Hillary Clinton Slaps Britain in the Face Over Falklands, by Nile Gardiner.
“Clinton has demonstrated, not the first time, strikingly poor judgment as Secretary of State. While currying favour with a third rate kleptocracy in Latin America, she is alienating America’s most loyal and valuable friend at a critically important time. She also underestimates the resolve of the British people, who will never negotiate the future of the Falkland Islands.”
*Another American Media Failure, by Ed Morrissey.
“Curiously, the American media has been almost entirely AWOL on the collapse of the IPCC and anthropogenic global-warming hysteria as its intelligence has been proven not just wrong, as the WMD intel from multiple Western nations was in Iraq, but blatantly fraudulent.”
RELATED: A Blizzard of Lies From Al Gore, at IBD.
Your Daily Dose of Awesome
Think you couldn’t possibly pay more for a high-def television? Think again suckers. Marvel Comics is now in the television business.
Daily Right 3/1/10
The round-up is fairly longish today, since we didn’t have anything up yesterday.
Our Own Greek Tragedy, by Mark Steyn.
“The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate.”
If you haven’t Steyn’s book America Alone, what are you waiting for?
*The megalomania of Al Gore was on display this weekend at the NYT. A sample:
“Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.
From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.”
Ugh.
RELATED: The Naked Progressive, by Darleen Click.
“Again, like Rule of Law, redemption for the Progressive is a top-down, collective set of behavioral rules. Progressives would have Americans believe that the religious community, with no power but voluntary persuasion, is oppressive and should be abandoned, even legislated against. But the Progressive would have Government step into the void and enact behavioral rules through law, enforced by guns.”
*If you can’t win, change the rules.
*Obama Fatigue, by Victor Davis Hanson.
*Frank Rich: An Embarrassment to the New York Times, by Rod Radosh.
*Challenges of the Two Bill Strategy, by Keith Hennessy. It’s a lengthy post, but well worth the read.
*Congress Tries to Break Hawaii in Two, by Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow.
“First, the Akaka bill privileges what is in fact a race, not a tribe. The very act of transforming a racial group into a tribal group confers a privilege on one race and not others and is thus unconstitutional. Second, while the Constitution implicitly gives the federal government the power to recognize tribes with a long and continuous history of separate self-governance, it does not give the power to confer sovereignty on new tribes, or to reconstitute a tribe whose members have long since become part of the mainstream culture.
If it did, all manner of mischief could be accomplished, as ethnic Hawaiians will not be the last group to demand special status. Some activists argue that Southern California should be set aside as a homeland for Mexican Americans of Indian descent. Right now, that idea looks like pure fantasy. If the Akaka bill becomes law, it will suddenly become more plausible.”
Your Daily Dose of Awesome
Photo Emerges of Murderous Killer Whale at Tea Party Rally.
“Some quick investigate reporting by the folks at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground has unearthed a photo of Tilikum, the killer whale who yesterday killed a trainer at Sea World, at a Tea Party event in Omaha, Nebraska.”
(H/T Instapundit)
Daily Left 2-26-10
To all of our readers (and really the staff, too), I’m starting today with an apology. For the last few weeks, I’ve been absent on the site, and that’s not what I was brought in to do. The Daily series is the staple of the site, and my falling behind is an all to often nuisance. That said, job changes, helping open a new magazine and family health issues have kept me aside, but that will no longer be the case.
In election news, it turns out that having lower opinion polling then Elliot Spitzer isn’t the kind of thing you can recover from, as David Patterson drops out of the race in New York.
Well, after the health care summit, there is one thing we can all agree on- President Obama is in charge of the Democrats for a reason.
In the category of things that would have been great ideas in 2008-9, the Treasury is considering a ban on foreclosures. The Treasury openly stated it was considering such an option, and would most likely be in the form of requiring 60 days of discussion over a modification program to keep the home.
In your occasional dose of Bat Shit Crazy, we have a frequent contributor, our old friend Mommar Gadhafi. This time, he’s calling for a jihad against the Swiss, for their recent banning of minarets, thus halting productions of any mosque in Switzerland. The law is vile, and whether you like it or not, everyone deserves religious freedom. Or it could be his grudge match with the Swiss over arresting that son of his a while back. Who can tell. But since it hasn’t aroused anger anywhere but Libya, I think we can focus on more important things, like suing people who don’t serve pork in their burgers, which is clearly a bigger deal.
I honestly just follow the guy for the sake of comedy.
Look out, you spoiled Tea Party folk! Prepare for your ultimate match, the the Coffee Party! With the generally ignorant liberal bias against corporatism looming in the background, the Coffee Party is posed to be of literally no threat to the Tea Party, because anyone with enough knowledge of corporate activity to take one down has taken a job with one to pay off at least that nasty college debt. Come on people. We have a party. Don’t think it’s progressive enough? Then don’t force through a guy who votes right of Hillary Clinton on most issues and blatantly avoids what his hardcore constituents want.
On ObamaCare and Kabuki Theater
*Paul Ryan, GOP Superstar:
If you didn’t catch his article in Newsweak, remedy the situation (I don’t think I posted it, I’ve got a larger article on Ryan and his Roadmap dropping next week).
“One frequent charge against these reforms is, however, correct: the Roadmap does shift power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects the merits and sustainability of a cradle-to-grave welfare state, which drains individuals of their self-reliance. The plan unapologetically applies our nation’s founding principles—individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise—to the challenges of today. And the Roadmap does this in a way that honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.”
*The Best Freak-Show Moments From the Health-Care Freak Show, by Allahpundit.
*Why Obama Defies the Public on Health-Care, by Byron York.
“Ever since Inauguration Day, the White House has acted on the assumption that, because voters elected Barack Obama, they want “Bold Obama.” All the evidence suggests that is wrong.”
*What Was Obama Thinking? By Tunku Varadarajan.
“What became clear in the long hours through which the summit meandered was that Obama was the best Democrat on display, a president surrounded by pygmies and paint-by-number partisans. Without his presence, the summit would have been a fiasco for the Democrats.”
*The Sham Summit, at IBD.
*Thoughts on the Health Care Summit, by Megan McArdle.
*The Verdict on ObamaCare, at NRO.
“Americans rendered their verdict on Obamacare a long time ago. They don’t want any part of it. And the more they see Democrats pushing for passage over their clear objections, the more outraged voters become. If the president and his allies now think that, post-summit, they have new latitude to jam their plan through, they are sorely mistaken. Such a move would more than backfire: It would invite a public backlash of epic proportions.”
*A Hidden Cost of Health Care Summit, by Jonah Goldberg.
ALSO by Goldberg: Health-Care Humdrum
*Ducking and Dodging, by Stephen Spruill.
Week in Review
Some headlines you may have missed:
Michelle Obama: “My Mom’s Fat Too.”
E.P.A. Classifies Alec Baldwin Semen “Pollutant”, Imposes Restrictions
Flighty America Changes Mind On Change: Obama Doesn’t count cause I was drunk, says giggly electorate
Colonel Sanders leads 3rd Poultry Brigade into Battle Against Taliban: Chicken warriors fight bravely; cook up tenderly
Man Dressed Identically To Every Other Man On Commuter Train Thinks He’s Special
Obama Cancels Return To Moon; Plots Return To ’30’s Instead
Canada Perfect Place To Showcase America’s Superior Atheletes: We don’t have to travel very far to humilate other nations, say U.S. Olympians
Dick Cheney 5; Heart Disease 0
Bill O’Reilley Names Son “Talking Points Jr.”
Creationists Lambaste Climate Scientists For Using Flimsy Data
Greece Explains Fiscal Collapse: “We’re Greece, For God’s Sake!
Daily Right 2/24/10
*Medicare Doctor Shortage Endangers Seniors’ Access to Care, by Matt Patterson.
*New Rasmussen poll shows that 10% of the American people are insane:
“Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job…
…Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.”
*Too Many Apologies, by Thomas Sowell.
*Better Here Than There, by Jonah Goldberg.
“Tom Friedman has gone so far as to wish America could be “China for a day” and to suggest that its “enlightened” regime is preferable to our own. It’s not that Friedman wants to abolish democracy, jail dissidents, or force abortions. He’s more like a drunk looking for his car keys where the light is good. He sees a nation doing things he thinks America should be doing, but doesn’t look for what he doesn’t want to see: the pollution, the cruelty, the lies and basic evil that are just as central to China’s methods as its “enlightened” investments in this or that.”
*Fearing Obama Agenda, States Push to Loosen Gun Laws, by Ian Urbina.
*My Gift to the Obama Presidency, by John Yoo.
“Barack Obama may not realize it, but I may have just helped save his presidency. How? By winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as commander in chief to wage war and keep Americans safe.”
*The “I Am Not George Bush” Policy, by Victor Davis Hanson.
*The Silence of the Lamb, by Rick Richman.
“Obama’s obsessive “reaching out to the Iranian leadership,” starting in his inauguration speech and continuing month after month in spite of no Iranian response, sent an unmistakable signal — one confirmed when he stood mute after the fraudulent Iranian election; confirmed again after he offered a muffled response to the secret nuclear facility in Qom; confirmed yet again when he remained silent as each of his “deadlines” passed; and confirmed even now by his continuing silence on the subject as he devotes his speeches and attention to ObamaCare. Lions know a lamb when they see one.”
Update on Hawaii’s Segregationist Bill
First, a brief reminder from yesterdays Daily Right:
*Aloha Segregation, at NRO.
“A bill expected to pass the House today with overwhelming Democratic support would accomplish something peculiar for a liberal republic in the 21st century: It would partly disenfranchise a portion of one state’s residents, create a parallel government for those meeting a legislated criterion of ethnic purity, and would portend the transfer of public assets, land, and political power from those who fail to satisfy the standard of ethnic purity to those who do. For these reasons and many more, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act richly deserves opposition.”
Emphasis mine. Just thought you’d like to know which Colorado Representatives voted to create a segregated state based on racial purity:
DeGette, Diana, Colorado, 1st – Yea
Lamborn, Doug, Colorado, 5th – Nay
Markey, Betsy, Colorado, 4th - Yea
Perlmutter, Ed, Colorado, 7th – Yea
Polis, Jared, Colorado, 2nd – Yea
Salazar, John T., Colorado, 3rd – Yea
Coffman, Mike, Colorado, 6th – Nay
In honor of our representatives votes on this issue, I think our state needs a new motto, don’t you?
