D-Day in one sentence

by Rossputin | 1:44 am, June 6, 2009

As we remember those who suffered and died on D-Day for the liberation of nations which now offer insufferable anti-Americanism, it offers a chance for reflection not only on the valor of those soldiers but on the repugnant state of our society and electorate that the nation could (for some voters proudly) elect as president a man whose views seem more in tune with our competitors or enemies than with the heroic spirit of D-Day heroes and the American founding.

Tom Lucero to Hold Monthly Coffee Club

by wesley | 12:07 pm, June 5, 2009

Tom Lucero, candidate for Colorado’s US Congressional District 4, is now holding monthly coffee discussions at Penguin’s Ice Cream & Coffee (at 1518 North Madison, Loveland, CO) on the 2nd Tuesday of every month.  Tom invites Coloradans to come out and tell him what’s on their minds, what issues are most important to them, and how they [...]

Friday Funny – Steven Crowder and Keith Olbermann

by Mr. Bob | 9:45 am, June 5, 2009

#tcot #hhrs #pjtv #gop #olbermann
priceless must see PJTV.

Is Bill Ritter’s SB 180 Veto a Dare to Big Labor to Challenge His Office?

by Ben DeGrow | 8:05 am, June 5, 2009

Update, 9:30 AM: AFL-CIO press release in response to Ritter’s SB 180 veto pasted below the fold. Also, Amy Oliver notes that several legislators from northern Colorado went against the will of the people in voting for SB 180 — having benefited from thousands in labor campaign contributions.
Yesterday I gave Governor Bill Ritter kudos for [...]

US employment situation even worse than headlines

by Rossputin | 7:40 am, June 5, 2009

From the AP: “The unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in more than 25 years. But the pace of layoffs eased, with employers cutting 345,000 jobs, the fewest since September.”

The first paragraph of the NY Times’ article on today’s employment report said “The United States economy lost 345,000 jobs in May, the government reported on Friday, a sharp slowing in the pace of job losses that fueled hopes that the economy was on its way toward a recovery.” They didn’t mention the 9.4% unemployment rate, the highest since 1983, until the second paragraph.

Can you imagine the dominant liberal media trying to put the best face on such bleak news during the Bush Administration? Of course not.

A loss of 345,000 jobs, while the smallest number since last September is, prior to this recession, the largest one-month job loss since 1980. (To be fair, since the employment base grows continually, on a percentage basis you can find one month nearly as bad as May, 2009 in February, 1991, prior to which you have to go back to 1983 to find job losses about equal to 0.3% of the workforce.)

What neither of these articles from liberal media sources tells you, at least not in any direct way, is that the job loss numbers mask an arguably worse picture. Yes, they note that the unemployment rate has risen to 9.4% but they leave the implication hanging that the difference between the prior rate and the current rate is the 345,000 jobs lost. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show that there were 787,000 more unemployed people in May than in April, with the difference between the employment number and the unemployment number being an increase of 300,000 “reentrants” into the job market.

In other words, the difficult economy is forcing more people to look for jobs. They could be people whose spouse is no longer employed or who took a pay cut and where the family needs the additional income, or they could be people who thought they were retired only to see their nest eggs wiped out by the stock market collapse.

In either case, the additional job seekers do not bode well for the job market overall, nor for the likelihood of those who have lost jobs recently to get another job, particularly to get one without a pay cut since employers obviously know there is more demand (even desperation) for any given job they might have to offer. Oddly, that’s one of the few situations in which one might say more demand leads to a lower price, but remember that the real transaction is the employee selling his time so more demand is really more supply.)

To make matters worse for job-seekers is the path that our current government is on, nationalizing industries, spending money in ways that makes the Bush Administration look like a model of fiscal responsibility, and focusing on populist nonsense over solid economics.

President Obama’s new New Deal will be at least the economic disaster that the original New Deal was. Liberals don’t learn anything from lessons of history other than that the people in charge of the prior failure just didn’t quite do it right. Indeed, it is the absolute foundation of Progressivism which posits that smart technocrats should essentially be in charge of everything because they know better than the market – and there’s no doubt that Obama fully believes that.

The original New Deal made the Great Depression longer and deeper than it otherwise would have been. It attacked capitalism and entrepreneurship and, much like today, focused the public ire of government against particular people or groups whom the President just didn’t like very much. (Like the Chrysler bondholders, for example.)

Here are Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers for unemployment during that time. Keep in mind that the New Deal began in 1933:

1930 8.9
1931 15.9
1932 23.6
1933 24.9
1934 21.7
1935 20.1
1936 17.0
1937 14.3
1938 19.0
1939 17.2
1940 14.6
1941 9.9
1942 4.7

Despite all that Roosevelt did, unemployment stayed persistently and painfully high until the 1940’s and didn’t come down to an acceptable level until the build-up for WWII. Actually, and this is important, that prior sentence is (intentionally) poorly worded – it’s worded the way a Progressive might try to defend Roosevelt, by saying “despite” what Roosevelt did when the truth is “Because of what Roosevelt did”.

Given President Obama’s economic cluelessness (and remember Roosevelt had no idea about economics either – he just wanted persistent “experimentation”), I believe that even if the economy technically comes out of recession in coming quarters, any recovery in employment will lag substantially.

While that’s terrible news for Americans who need jobs, it could end up being decent news politically because employment is certainly the most visible part of the economy to the electorate and persistently high unemployment may cause voters not simply to replace some Democrats with Republicans but to begin to realize, in an Atlas Shrugged sort of way that redistributionist, anti-capitalist economic policies, even if disguised as “soak the rich”, end up hurting the middle class the most. After all, it’s the middle and lower classes that need the jobs. The rich, even without jobs, will still be rich, even if not quite as rich.

Tony Blankley: Roman empire lessons for the US

by Rossputin | 6:31 am, June 5, 2009

Here’s a must-read article by Tony Blankley (H/T Greg Staff):

see “Death by Deficit“, Tony Blankley, Rasmussen Reports, 6/3/09

Cutting Colorado fiscal knot – or digging a deeper hole? Ritter, Legislature eliminate spending limit that protected taxpayers

by CTBC Director | 11:55 pm, June 4, 2009

Today’s Denver Post headline trumpets the “loosening” of “Colorado’s fiscal knot” with the governor signing into law the repeal of the 1991 Arveschoug-Bird statute that had limited out-of-control legislative spending by capping the growth of the general fund at a reasonable rate of 6%/year.
However, political reporter Lynn Bartels (formerly of the late and lamented journalistic counterweight [...]

The Republicans who cried “principle”?

by Jimmy Sengenberger | 6:30 pm, June 4, 2009

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A handful of Republican
governors—including Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Mark Sanford of South
Carolina—have been doing what they can to take a courageous stand against the
stimulus package passed in February. 
Time has gone by, but as the funding is now being dispersed and more
legislation is being considered, that we bear in mind the valiant efforts of
these leaders given the stakes.

 

Pressed with the threat of
amending welfare laws in their states for years to come and violating the principles
of good governance that made this nation great, these governors are refusing to
accept funding for new unemployment benefits, much to the chagrin of their
Democratic counterparts.

 

“This to me is not
about philosophical theory, [but] about real people who through no fault of
their own, are laid off because of a recession,” argued Michigan Governor
Jennifer Granhold in February.

 

Apparently Republican
stances, based largely on core beliefs but transcending into the realm of good
governance, are inappropriate in a time of “crisis.”

 

But this isn’t just about
philosophical theory, though that is certainly a component.  It is also about the people—“real people.” 
Consider: Three years from now, when federal funding dries up and the
states are stuck with these laws, how are higher taxes to make up the
difference going to help the people? 
When Dick and Jane decide to stay on welfare for five years instead of
two, how is that helping to get them moving and making better lives for
themselves, their family and their community?

 

The answer is, it’s
not.  Principles may be driving these
stands, but underlying that is justified concern for the future.  These governors are doing what leaders should
be doing: looking toward the impact of their present decisions on the future,
not just the effect of those decisions on the now.

 

Of course, while America’s
greatest national interest has been at stake—its security—the Democrats had no
problem crying “principle,” putting “philosophical theory” over effective
interrogation procedures.  But when their
own political interests in appearing to be strong, firm leaders are being
threatened, and their own agendas to expand government in unprecedented ways are
on the line, they have no problem throwing principle out the window.

 

Terrorism is a different
issue; most of the actions that were taken on the part of U.S. interrogators
were not, in actuality, torture.  And contrary
to popular misconception, waterboarding has only been used three times—and in
each of those three times it worked, and innumerable lives were saved.  Early on some cases were questionable, such
as Abu Graihb and early Guantanamo Bay practices, but by and large principle did guide the nation’s interrogation
policy.

 

On warrantless
wiretapping, the government was not wiretapping every phone in America without
a warrant, converse to ACLU misinformation. 
Rather, if Abdul’s conversations are being monitored in Pakistan and he
calls Ahmed in the United States, is the government supposed to put down the
phone and say, “Oops, American citizen?” 
Of course not, and that’s what the policy ensured.  Yet the Democrats made a big fuss about how
this violated the “rights of the citizen.”  They cried “principle,” yet none were actually
violated.

 

But now the tide has
turned and the Democrats are the one whose policies are being challenged.  Their reckless willingness to throw up their
hands and truly abandon our ideals is troublesome at best.  If we can just casually say, whenever a new
crisis arises, that principle is irrelevant, what will we have left?  Can we pick and choose when to let core beliefs
be our guide and when to ignore them?

 

Far too many leaders have
given the same argument—we’re in a crisis, so let’s set aside our core beliefs.  Such is the true test of leadership.  Will our leaders stand by those convictions
in troubled times, or will they set them aside because of the perceived ease in
doing so?

 

If we refuse to allow our
conscience of principle to be our guide in crisis, instead only permitting its
surface in pleasant times, our ideals are rendered meaningless.

 

“The spirit of resistance
to government,” Jefferson once said, “is so valuable on certain occasions that
I wish it to be always kept alive.”

 

One can only hope that
more governors, and other politicians at every level, will have the courage to
stand up and resist the temptation to cede more power and authority to
government.  The future of this country
may depend on it.

 

Comments are more than welcome!  E-mail Jimmy at Jimmy@SengCenter.com or post on the site!  As always, please be respectful in your remarks.

Kudos to Bill Ritter for SB 180 Veto: Good Public Policy Beats Out Politics

by Ben DeGrow | 4:39 pm, June 4, 2009

It’s not often I laud Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, but he is to be commended today for choosing good public policy over political pressures by vetoing Senate Bill 180 — the firefighter collective bargaining legislation.
While Ritter’s official statement put the matter more diplomatically than I have, he didn’t buy the phony argument about firefighter safety:
Third, [...]

We Want Less California, More Colorado

by Jon Caldara | 3:38 pm, June 4, 2009

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news about Senate Bill 228 – the bill that makes us in Colorado a bit more like bankrupt California. What the bill does is repeal the Bird-Arveschoug 6% spending limit that we’ve been living and growing under since 1992. Governor Ritter of course signed the bill, [...]

Transparency is the law

by Amy Oliver | 1:51 pm, June 4, 2009

Just minutes ago, Governor Bill Ritter quietly signed HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act.

Media appearance

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 11:02 am, June 4, 2009

http://www.cctv54.org/index.html

Independence Institute’s Pre-ATF Party Nanny State Panel

by elpresidente | 10:58 am, June 4, 2009

Via PPC contributing blog Rocky Mountain Right: An upcoming event from the Independence Institute with an impressive array of speakers: David Martosko, Center for Consumer Freedom Radley Balko, TheAgitator.com and Reason Magazine David Harsanyi, author of the Nanny State and syndicated columnist David Kopel, Independence Institute Research Director Terry Gallagher, President of Smoker Friendly Jordan [...]

Happy Tienanmen square day

by Mr. Bob | 10:38 am, June 4, 2009

#marxism #china #tcot

China celebrates the massacre at Tienanmen square this week by making Twitter illegal. (no free expression for citizens) And by tightening down security using plain clothes officers.

As America runs headlong down the path to socialism (state controlled everything) and fascism
(government controlled business), I am reminded of my favorite quote by Gary North.

Buy this T-shirt and others like it HERE

Judge Sotomayor’s Relativism

by Ari Armstrong | 10:34 am, June 4, 2009

While I usually write about regional issues here, today’s national issues are so crucially important that I’ll devote substantial space to the views of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated for the Supreme Court.

Empathy

First recall what President Obama offered in 2007 as a guideline for his nominee: “We need somebody who’s got the heart to recognize — the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”

Richard Epstein replies:

Rather than targeting his favorite groups, Obama should follow the most time-honored image of justice: the blind goddess, Iustitia, carrying the scales of justice.

Iustitia is not blind to the general principles of human nature. Rather her conception of blindness follows Aristotle’s articulation of corrective justice in his Nicomachean ethics. In looking at a dispute between an injurer and an injured party, or between a creditor and debtor, the judge ignores personal features of the litigant that bear no relationship to the merits of the case.

In other words, it shouldn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, or whatever: if you commit a crime, you deserve the same punishment as everybody else. If you are involved in a civil dispute, you deserve to have your rights protected. A judge’s job is not to “empathize” with one party over the other, but to achieve justice, regardless of the individual characteristics of the parties.

‘Gender and National Origins’

Before delving into some of Sotomayor’s judicial opinions, we might look in more detail at her 2001 Berkeley speech, as reproduced by the New York Times.

Sotomayor delivered the Judge Mario G. Olmos lecture; she praised Olmos for “promoting equality and justice for all people.” (I don’t know what views Olmos actually endorsed.) Notice the “and:” equality and justice are two distinct goals. Sotomayor is not advocating equality under the law, the sort of impartiality that Iustitia represents. She is advocating equality as a goal above and beyond justice. But equality in the egalitarian sense and justice are contradictory goals.

One who has not earned wealth does not deserve a portion of it equal to the one who has earned it. The criminal is not equal in stature to his victim, nor does he deserve equal treatment. A person who strives to improve his character is not the moral equal of one who does not.

For a frightening look at what egalitarianism means in practice, see the preview for the film 2081, or read the short story by Kurt Vonnegut on which it is based. (My only complaint with the story is that it emphasizes physical differences, when the important issue is the greatness of mind and character that people can achieve by their own effort.) Or read Aristophanes’s classic, “Assembly of Women.”

Sotomayor is skeptical that “we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way.”

On a positive note, she says her parents taught her “to love America and value its lesson that great things could be achieved if one works hard for it.” This signals that Sotomayor is not dedicated to strict egalitarianism, yet a pragmatic, partial egalitarianism remains troublesome.

Sotomayor devotes considerable space to outlining the advancement of women and minorities in the judicial system. Her entire analysis focuses on numbers, not attributes. She urges “Latino and Latina organizations and community groups throughout the country… to continue their efforts of promoting women and men of all colors in their pursuit for equality in the judicial system.” In other words, racial equality — i.e., quotas — is for her a primary goal, not merely a coincidental consequence of promoting the most qualified people for the positions.

Sotomayor distinguishes her views from those of Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, which she summarizes:

Now Judge Cedarbaum expresses concern with any analysis of women and presumably again people of color on the bench, which begins and presumably ends with the conclusion that women or minorities are different from men generally. She sees danger in presuming that judging should be gender or anything else based. … While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law.

Sotomayor views this as a quaint and unrealistic ideal: “Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum’s aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases.”

To rephrase, Sotomayor thinks it is usually not possible for judges to fully “transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law.”

She continues, “And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”

Sotomayor is confusing physical distinctions with equality under the law. Equality before the law does not imply that we ignore all differences between different people. Good judges need not give equal consideration to both males and females as potential romantic partners, for instance. Yet, when it comes to applying the law, it is precisely the setting aside of legally irrelevant differences that is the key to justice.

Sotomayor then considers two possible causes of racially “different perspectives.” The first is a difference in “cultural experiences.” No problem there. But the second is the “postulate” that “we have basic differences in logic and reasoning.” In other words, Sotomayor seriously entertains the notion that logic is different for people of different skin colors.

And here Sotomayor entertains a blatantly racist doctrine. The notion that logic — and therefore the truth — is different depending on the color of your skin constitutes a vicious doctrine at odds with the view set out by the Declaration of Independence and echoed by Martin Luther King that all people are created equal in their essential humanity, which is their capacity to use their reasoning mind to discover the facts of reality.

Some people are better at reasoning than others, generally because they have worked harder at it, but reason is the most essentially human capacity that we all share, and in its fundamental functioning it is the same for everybody. It is in this sense that we are all created equal, and this is the foundation of our equality under the law (rather than in abilities or in wealth).

If different people have a different logic and a different truth, then universal standards of justice are impossible. Justice becomes merely the system that one group sets up and enforces over other groups, which have inherently different conceptions of justice. This explains Sotomayor’s obsession with judicial racial quotas; the judicial system cannot be fair to different racial groups unless those racial groups share the authority.

Of course, often a lack of representation by some group in the legal system stems from entrenched bigotry against that group, and then the judicial makeup reflects that injustice. But the solution to this problem is to end the entrenched bigotry and promote people according to their individual merits in order to enforce the universal standards of justice. Sotomayor’s approach promises only to replace one racist approach with another.

Sotomayor’s views quickly collapse to personal subjectivism. If different races have different logics and different truths, then perhaps individuals within those groups also have different truths. Sotomayor continues that there is “not a feminist approach but many,” though all of them “are distinct from those structured in a world dominated by the power and words of men. Thus, feminist theories of judging are in the midst of creation” and will never be fully “solidified.” Presumably the same analysis applies to race-based “logic.”

Sotomayor agrees with Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard, who said “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.”

Sotomayor indeed praises the use of the judicial system to achieve egalitarian outcomes (with no noted consideration of individual rights), pointing out that “Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.” In other words, employers and employees must not be left free to agree to terms of labor; employers have no right to control their resources; the federal government must step in and decide what constitutes “equal” work, pay, and conditions.

Not only do different people have different “logics,” by Sotomayor’s account, they may have different inborn psychologies, too, leading to her most controversial lines:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. … I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

As has been noted, the following variation of Sotomayor’s line would be roundly and correctly condemned as racist: “A wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.” Yet for some reason we are expected to give Sotomayor a pass, and indeed place her on the highest court in the land to decide fundamental law.

Sotomayor does grant that “others of different experiences or backgrounds are [capable] of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group.” The notion that varied experience in the courts is a good thing is defensible and not racist. The problem is that Sotomayor blends this view with the racist view that different people have inborn and inherently different logics (and therefore truths), as well as psychological dispositions. It is true that our experiences help make us who we are. Yet people of all experiences can come to understand the facts of a particular case and evaluate those facts by universal standards of justice. Thus, what truly matters is not diversity of experience, but the self-generated qualifications of the individuals under consideration.

Sotomayor does not fully commit herself to the racist, relativist view that she sometimes adopts. Instead, she mixes this view with the suppositions of universal justice. She promises “constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives.”

It is precisely this mixing of incompatible views that poses a problem. If Sotomayor consistently upheld the racist strains of her ideas, she would be dismissed by everyone and never would have progressed in the judicial system. The problem is that, by allowing herself room to judge based on race and gender, rather than on the universal standards of justice, she threatens to sometimes rewrite the law as she sees fit, based on her own prejudices.

Sotomayor recognizes that “there is always a danger embedded in relative morality.” We should take her seriously on this point and hesitate to send an avowed moral relativist to the Supreme Court.

Didden v. Village of Port Chester

How does Sotomayor’s judicial relativism play out in practice? Here I’ll mention three cases reviewed by others.

Richard Epstein takes issue with Sotomayor’s reasoning in Didden v. Village of Port Chester of 2006:

Judge Sotomayor was on the panel that issued the unsigned opinion–one that makes Justice Stevens look like a paradigmatic defender of strong property rights.

I have written about Didden in Forbes. The case involved about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined. Bart Didden came up with an idea to build a pharmacy on land he owned in a redevelopment district in Port Chester over which the town of Port Chester had given Greg Wasser control. Wasser told Didden that he would approve the project only if Didden paid him $800,000 or gave him a partnership interest. The “or else” was that the land would be promptly condemned by the village, and Wasser would put up a pharmacy himself. Just that came to pass. But the Second Circuit panel on which Sotomayor sat did not raise an eyebrow. Its entire analysis reads as follows: “We agree with the district court that [Wasser's] voluntary attempt to resolve appellants’ demands was neither an unconstitutional exaction in the form of extortion nor an equal protection violation.” …

Justice Stevens wrote that the public deliberations over a comprehensive land use plan is what saved the condemnation of Ms. Kelo’s home from constitutional attack. Just that element was missing in the Village of Port Chester fiasco.

United States v. Toner

Dave Kopel takes a look at Sotomayor’s language in a Second Amendment case. The details are more complex than I want to review here (see Kopel’s complete write-up), but the upshot is that Sotomayor held that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”

Kopel argues that this claim is without foundation, summarizing, “Judges Sotomayor, Pooler, and Katzman simply presumed–with no legal reasoning–that the right to arms is not a fundamental right.”

Race-Based Promotions

Thomas Sowell summarizes a third case:

Looked at in the context of Judge Sotomayor’s voting to dismiss the appeal of white firefighters who were denied the promotions they had earned by passing an exam, because not enough minorities passed that exam to create “diversity,” her words in Berkeley seem to match her actions on the judicial bench in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals all too well.

As is obvious from her own words and from her judicial decisions, Judge Sotomayor uses her race-based relativism as a pretext to promote her leftist agenda in court. We should expect her to continue that tactic if she rises to the Supreme Court.

20th Anniversary Of Tiananmen Square Massacre June 4, 1989

by elpresidente | 10:26 am, June 4, 2009

The NYTimes has an extended feature on the “Tank Man” photos from June 4, 1989–including a never before published photograph of the unknown hero just before his encounter with the tanks near Tiananmen Square.

Here is the video:

---

Blog post from June 4, 2007–just after I returned from China:

A lone hero thwarts tanks deployed by the Chinese government, 1989.

Gateway Pundit has more photos and a roundup on the 18th anniversary.

A replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue erected in 1989 by protestors in Tiananmen Square and destroyed by the Chinese government June 4, 1989.

Ritter, Kennedy, and Morse Loosening Fiscal Knot for Taxpayers’ Necks

by Ben DeGrow | 8:14 am, June 4, 2009

Today’s Denver Post news story on Governor Bill Ritter’s signing of Senate Bill 228 offers the generous headline: “Colorado’s fiscal knot loosens”.
I’ve taken the liberty to complete the thought with my own sub-headline: “Noose nearly large enough to fit around taxpayers’ necks”.
The article is correct insofar as it points out that the impact [...]

Ritter to sign transparency in the dark or will he?

by Amy Oliver | 8:10 am, June 4, 2009

According to Face the State, Governor Bill Ritter today plans to sign HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, which creates a state expenditure and revenue database, in private.  Or will he?  Sources tell COST that the Governor still is struggling with this legislation – apparently not enough to veto it.  Despite his embrace of transpareny in his [...]

“Public” health plan: force is not competition

by Brian Schwartz | 1:23 am, June 4, 2009

This is a title of an excellent essay by Jared Rhodes about how people think it’s OK for a government-run insurance plan to compete with commercial insurers.  An excerpt:
Private insurers compete with each other to provide the best product they can on the market. Their costs are based on the payments that they can negotiate [...]

The Freak: Bush vs. Obama

by Rossputin | 1:21 am, June 4, 2009

Thanks to my friend “The Freak” for this guest article…

Recently, a friend of mine who’s an Obama supporter, made some comment about how much better things are than under Bush. Now, this is a smart guy, so I was surprised to hear him say this. So I sent him a quick reference guide in table form, showing Bush and Obama or, put another way, dumb and dumber. Obama was a change from Bush, but as far as I can tell, it was a change in quantity, not quality. Mostly, he’s making the same mistakes, just making them bigger and in a more articulate way.

Sure makes me hope I might live to see Ron Paul leading the country.

George W. Bush vs. Barack Obama

Bush: Spends like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Budget deficit soars to more than $300B.
Obama: Makes drunken sailors look meek. Within 100 days of office manages to quadruple previous deficit estimates.

Bush: Leads contentious foreign policy which alienate allies and fails to deliver international results around his most important projects.
Obama: Focuses on “dialog” with foreign nations to create consensus. Leaves for Europe with clear objectives of securing more allied troops for Afghanistan and greater international “stimulus” investments. Obtains neither, but gets criticized by all for lack of regulation. Sheepishly agrees, gets hugged by Sarkozy and declares success.

Bush: Scandalously meddles with justice department independence. Allows his AG Gonzalez to be slandered.
Obama: Scandalously meddles with justice department independence by allowing career employees to get censured by political appointees and forced to drop charges against New Black Panther gang members who intimidated voters with billy clubs at polling places.

Bush: Does not believe in science.
Obama: Affirms belief in science and announces that his administration would make policy decisions based on hard scientific facts. Then supports cap and trade legislation that is unsupported by the EPA’s very findings.

Bush: His administration is criticized by independent bodies for procurement process that appears to focus on companies with ties to his vice president.
Obama: Bullies bond holders and rigs bankruptcy process to that honest investors are screwed. Cuts sweetheart deals with unions.

Bush: Breaks up separation between private and public interests by funding bailout of some financial companies.
Obama: Continues bailout program, expands it, and prohibits financial companies from giving bailout money back. Invests money to buy GM (what, 60%? 70% public ownership?) thereby assuring that the only viable American auto maker, Ford, must compete against unfairly subsidized GM.

Bush: Stands idly by (perhaps fiddling) while congress gives FreddieMac and FannyMae tons of money to create artificial liquidity to fund dodgy mortgages. This creates the RE bubble that leads to the financial meltdown. [Ed: This characterization of Bush is overly critical, given the efforts, even if not as strong as they could have been, by Bush and some Republicans to rein in the GSEs, and the pushback from Democrats.]
Obama: Figures that the best way to undo the meltdown is to increase artificial liquidity even further, drives interest rates to ridiculously low levels and pushes dodgy mortgages and refinances.

Bush: Establishes military tribunals to try accused terrorists without the normal due process protections and procedures normally afforded to criminals in the American Justice system.
Obama: Promises to shut down tribunals and restore due process protections to accused terrorists, and to stop holding dangerous persons without trial…but…wait…no, he changes his mind.

Bush: Talks tough, but in the end allows Iranians and North Koreans to continue pursuing their nuclear weapon capability.
Obama: Speaks softly and calls for dialog. When North Koreans demonstrate their commitment to dialog by exploding underground nuclear device, by demonstrating sophisticated delivery systems, and by pulling out of treaty, refers the matter to the UN Security Council (in a stern, stern voice!)

Bush: Makes no progress in the Middle East, in spite of attempts.
Obama: Makes no progress in the Middle East, in spite of attempts (so far).

Bush: Appoints white, male, competent, strict constructionist judges to the supreme court.
Obama: Nominates Latino, female, empathetic judge to Supreme Court who’s been reversed about 66% of the time, and criticized 78% of the time on appeal.

Judicial Attacks on individual Property Rights in the spotlight – from Kelo to Telluride, with Sotomayor in between

by CTBC Director | 10:10 pm, June 3, 2009

The recent nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to succeed retiring justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court has generated increased scrutiny on the power of the judiciary to endorse and validate government seizures of private property.  Joining the notorious 2005 Kelo vs. New London case at the Federal level, and the outrageous Telluride Land Grab case [...]

Judge Sotomayor on property rights

by Brian T. Schwartz | 8:37 pm, June 3, 2009

Judge Sotomayor’s respect for property rights disturbs me. In Didden v. Village of Port Chester she ruled against a private citizen and in favor of a local government. “The case involved about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined,” wrote law professor Richard Epstein in his …

Harry Reid flaunts his ingorance on Sotomayor

by Mr. Bob | 4:28 pm, June 3, 2009

#tcot #gop #judges #reid

Hat tip Holy Coast

2081

by RMR | 2:30 pm, June 3, 2009

Here’s something worth taking a look at, a short film just premiered based on Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. From the film’s website:

Based on the short story Harrison Bergeron by celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut, 2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is finally equal… The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything.

If it’s well done, this could be very interesting.

Wednesday Wrap-Up

by Jon Caldara | 11:32 am, June 3, 2009

***Ari Armstrong puts the smack down on Senator Mark Udall over controlling the credit market. It’s simple Mark, READ the contract BEFORE you sign it! Duh.
***Exploited intern Luke Jackson, between clipping my toe nails and mowing my lawn, somehow had time to research and write about public debt (amazing creatures these interns are). [...]

Kim Pleasant: Whiner of the Day

by Ari Armstrong | 11:14 am, June 3, 2009

I’ve decided to start issuing periodic “Whiner of the Day” awards. The first goes to Kim Pleasant, who shouted down Governor Bill Ritter yesterday. (I don’t get many chances to defend Bill Ritter.)

Jessica Fender and Allison Sherry of the Denver Post recount the story:

About two dozen members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 crashed the Capitol gathering, standing watch in the back and shouting challenges to Ritter regarding his recent veto of House Bill 1170.

The bill would have made it easier for them to receive unemployment benefits if grocery-chain management locked them out of their work sites and potentially improved their standing in ongoing contract negotiations.

Ritter spoke to the protesters from the podium, saying “certainly my heart is with the people who have to put food on the table,” but the state should not interfere with active labor disputes.

But his answers didn’t satisfy Commerce City resident and Safe way worker Kim Pleasant, who shouted, “That is a lie! That is a lie!”

Ritter’s veto of 1170 is one of the few things he’s done right. If you’re stupid enough to go on strike in the middle of a recession, when nearly one in ten people have lost their jobs and many more have taken pay cuts, the last thing you deserve is a tax subsidy for your stupidity. Just try to go on strike and see how much public sympathy you get.

The simple fact is that the typical job at the grocery store requires no special skills, training, or education. If you want a higher-paying job, then go back to school and work someplace else. But don’t shout down the governor for protecting taxpayers (for once). At least wait till Ritter lies before calling him a liar.

So, Kim Pleasant, I’m pleased to name you the recipient of the first “Whiner of the Day” award. Please e-mail me your mailing address and I’ll be happy to send you your award.

But don’t take this as any indication that I’m pleased with Ritter’s performance. While he did the right thing this one time, the general theme of his administration has been, “Screw the Taxpayer.” Ritter has helped increase taxes or fees on vehicles, hospital visits, properties, sales, and so on.

As Fender and Sherry write, at the same event Ritter signed bills interfering in mortgages and offering more tax dollars for people not to work. Because, you know, during a recession we want to punish people who are working in order to incentivize others not to work.

I can hardly believe the incompetent and anti-freedom Republican Party left me no choice other than to vote for this sham of a governor.

Obama Declares US a Muslim Nation

by Mr. Bob | 9:46 am, June 3, 2009

Via Wolf Howling
#tcot #gop #hhrs

Global pandering taken to a new level.

In Turkey, Obama declared that we are no longer a Christian nation. Now, in an interview with French media, Obama said that the U.S. could be considered a “Muslim nation.”
_______________________________________________________

We are, or were, the last repository of Western civilization – a civilization founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic. We were, until the left began their war on Christianity in America through activist courts, a Christian nation overlaid with freedom for all religions to be freely practiced. The left, through activist Courts, have made us into a radically secular nation, ripping Chrisitianity out of the public square with severe damage to the fabric of our society. For a detailed discussion of this, please see here.

Dennis Prager: The speech Obama should give in Cairo

by Rossputin | 3:28 am, June 3, 2009

Here’s a tremendous article by Dennis Prager, giving President Obama some suggestions for what he should say in his upcoming speech in Egypt.

Needless to say, Obama won’t utter anything like this. Having read Prager’s words will make Obama’s speech seem that much more pathetic, anti-American, hapless, weak, and forgettable.

See “The Speech President Obama Won’t Give in Egypt”, Dennis Prager, 6/2/09
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32096

Government Motors T-Shirt

by Rossputin | 2:11 am, June 3, 2009

The hilarious misanthropic demotivators over at Despair.com are selling a new Government Motors T-Shirt…

Michelle Malkin’s excellent reporting on ACORN

by Rossputin | 1:33 am, June 3, 2009

Although Michelle Malkin and I don’t agree on everything, on balance I think she’s one of the best – maybe the single best – political blogger out there.

In recent months, she’s done remarkable work digging up and reporting on the travesty that is ACORN, its criminal misbehavior, its illegal coordination with 501©3 organizations and the Obama campaign, and the media’s (especially the NY Times’) efforts to conceal everything.

For today’s reading, may I suggest to you several of Michele’s most recent and important articles on the subject…and I encourage you to keep checking her website for updates to this very important story (not to mention her other excellent and important work.)

I’ll only refer you to three of Michelle’s posts today because if you read more than that about what ACORN truly is and what our government is enabling (or encouraging) them to get away with, you might have an aneurysm.

See “Holder undermines Georgia’s voter verification rules; ACORN cheers“

and “The truth about ObamACORN“

and “The ObamACORN-Project Vote-NYTimes axis cont’d.“

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