Filed under: Economy, Law, National Security, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Leadership, liberalism, Obama, The Far Left
Michelle Obama remarked recently that the Obamas were gaining a newfound respect for their predecessors, as they learned how hard the job of the presidency was. This is the job he ran for. Didn’t he have some idea?
Some political analysts have looked at Obama’s failed agenda and suggested that America has become “ungovernable. ” Ezra Klein argued in the Washington Post that the filibuster was preventing government from functioning. Tom Friedman claimed America’s “political instability” was making people abroad nervous. Newsweek’s Michael Cohen blamed “obstructionist Republicans,” “spineless Democrats,” and an “incoherent public” for the problems.
Gosh. I thought the public was pretty coherent, and making themselves very clear. We don’t like the burgeoning deficit and the massive debt. We don’t like the runaway spending. And we really don’t like the Health-Care Reform plan that solves no problems at all. We don’t like the idea of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court , and we don’t like giving Umar Adbulmuttalab domestic civil rights and Mirandizing him before we can even find out who those 25 others waiting to attack us are.
That’s what the polls show. That’s what people are writing on their homemade signs at Tea Parties, that’s what they are asking their representatives about, that’s what bloggers are writing about, and those were the issues that Scott Brown won with in Massachusetts. How very odd that neither political analysts nor Democrats in Congress can hear us or grasp what we are talking about.
Jay Cost, a political analyst who writes at Real Clear Politics, said: (and I’d urge you to read the whole thing)
This country is most certainly divided, but not deeply so. Consider, for instance, the enormous good will that greeted Mr. Obama upon his inauguration. It is not tenable to suggest that there was no way to turn that into a broad consensus for policy solutions.
The responsibility for the government’s failure in the last year rests with President Obama. Two significant blunders stand out.
First, President Obama has installed Nancy Pelosi as de facto Prime Minister — giving her leave to dominate not only the house, but also the entire domestic policy agenda. …
[T]he problem is the House. It has consistently passed legislation that is too far to the left for the Senate and the country….
The President’s second major failing has been his stubborn insistence on comprehensive reforms. Perhaps this is due to his inexperience in the federal lawmaking process, or his extraordinary vanity, or both. Still this has been a grave mistake….
He has been narrow, not broad. He has been partial, not post-partisan. He has been ideological, not pragmatic. No number of “eloquent” speeches can alter these facts. This is why his major initiatives have failed, by his net job approval has dropped 50 points in 12 months, and why he is substantially weaker now than he was a year ago.
The country, Cost says, is not in the midst of a “liberal moment.” While the President won decisively in 2008, ” his congressional majority in both chambers depends entirely upon members whose constituents voted for John McCain.”
“America is not ungovernable. Barack Obama has so far failed to govern it.”
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Freedom, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Debunking Liberal Lies, Economy, The Federal Reserve, The Finincial Crisis
I am an enormous fan of the Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowledge programs. This last week, Peter Robinson interviewed Richard A. Epstein and John Taylor. Peter Robinson’s question: Are we all Keynesians Now? After introducing the opposing approaches to economics of John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, economists Richard Epstein and John Taylor discuss U.S. monetary policy from the 1970s onward.
Richard A. Epstein, on the left above, is a founder of the field of law and economics. He is director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago and a fellow at the Hoover Institution. John Taylor is a former undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs. He is a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of economics at Stanford University.
The controversy in the world of economics and finance today is between the Keynesian economics that the Obama administration follows and the free market ideas of Milton Friedman that the Republicans believe are proven to be more effective.
This interview is like sitting in on a conversation with three brilliant friends. Each segment in about 6 minutes long, so you can watch at your pleasure. What’s neat is that you can go back and review any part that you didn’t understand. Unlike those college seminars, if you didn’t take good notes, all you have to do is play them over again.
The previous interviews are all available at the same link above. They range from Thomas Sowell, to Dambisa Moyo, Charles Kesler, Antonin Scalia and John Bolton to mention only a few of the many guests. I recommend them highly.
Filed under: Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child | Tags: ClimateGate, Lord Christopher Monckton, The Fraud of Global Warming
Lord Christopher Monckton has been on a speaking tour in Australia, and wowing audiences. He has the facts at the tip of his fingers and can document everything he says. He’s an entertaining speaker.
Christopher Monckton recently appeared in Melbourne, Australia before an enthusiastic audience to explain, once again, the fraud of the global warming scam. The IPCC has a lot to answer for, as does the profession of journalism. England has been far more invested in the panic over climate change, but even there, reality is beginning to penetrate.
The newspapers in the United Kingdom have been much more ready to expose the University of East Anglia’s CRU and the scandal of ClimateGate, than American papers. Committed warmists don’t intend to give up without a fight. And with the exposure of ClimateGate, more cases of fraud and suppression of evidence have appeared. Enjoy.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Politics, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: President Obama, Spending Freeze, The Budget, The Stimulus
The talk is all about millions and billions and trillions, and it gets really confusing. President Obama, in his State of the Union speech proposed a domestic “spending freeze” which sounded good. The question is — does it mean anything? The answer seems to be — No, not much. From the mathematician at Political Math.
(h/t: Jonah Goldberg, The Corner)
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Law, Liberalism, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Statism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: ACORN, CDBG Funding, Democrat Demagogues, Liberal lies
You will be delighted to know that ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups may be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget that President Obama unveiled yesterday.
All this money comes from a congressional slush-fund called the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, a part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) $48.5 billion fiscal 2011 budget. CDBG grants, which are awarded to states and localities, pass indirectly to ACORN.
BUT — Didn’t Congress pass a ban on funding the group and its affiliates just this last year?
Congress hinted that it might restore funding. On December 8, the House Appropriations Committee rejected, on a party-line vote of 9-5, an amendment that would have blocked federal funding of ACORN.
Then in December, Federal Judge Nina Gershon restored federal funding by issuing a temporary injunction against the congressional funding ban, ruling that depriving ACORN of taxpayer funds was an unconstitutional “bill of attainder” that singled out ACORN for punishment without trial. That injunction expired, but Acorn asked that the order be modified to cover 2010.
This is all up in the air, as both sides are filing motions and documents with the court, and the issue may not proceed to trial.
Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute calls CDBG “America’s worst urban program” pointing out that the money that the program has given to poor neighborhoods has had little impact, because nothing in the funding requires those who receive grants to show that they are actually improving anything. ACORN has been receiving funding under the Great Society-era program since at least 1996.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, Pop Culture, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Barack Obama, Jakarta Indonesia, Pre-Accomplishment
There was a great wave of enthusiasm across the world when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, for various and sundry reasons, for few knew much about him. After a year, the bloom, so-to-speak, is off the rose. Probably most damaging was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the new President after only a few days in office, and his acceptance of it. That called the attention of the world to the premature nature of Obama worship, and the need to wait to see what he accomplishes.
Much of Europe has lost its enthusiasm, Massachusetts definitely did, the polls are way down, but now Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo has authorized the removal of a recently erected statue of Barack Obama as a child, from its current spot in a park in the city’s classy old Menteng neighborhood to the nearby school that he attended.
The order followed the creation of a Facebook group of Indonesians campaigning for the statue to be torn down. Newspapers and TV stations picked up on it, newswires picked it up, and the group’s membership has soared to over 50,000. Well, easy come, easy go.
Filed under: Cool Site of the Day, History, News, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Antarctic Expedition 1908, Scotch Whisky, Sir Earnest Shackleton
Back in November we wrote about a cache of whisky left behind by explorer Sir Earnest Shackleton, in the hut built as a base for the Shackleton expedition, in 1908. The expedition was to reach the South Pole, but failed in their quest.
Three crates of Scotch whisky and two crates of brandy left beneath the floorboards of the hut have been unearthed by a team from the Antarctic Heritage Trust. They expected to find two crates of Scotch, but the brandy was a complete and welcome surprise.
Richard Paterson, a master blender for Whyte and Mackay, the firm that supplied the Shackleton expedition with 25 crates of Mackinlay’s “Rare and Old” whisky, described the unearthing of the bottles as “a gift from the heavens for whisky lovers,” since the recipe for that blend has been lost. “If the contents can be confirmed, safely extracted and analyzed, the original blend may be able to be replicated.”
Mr. Patterson wrote about what the whisky might taste like on his blog, when it was first announced.
[W]hiskies back then — a harder age — were all quite heavy and peaty as that was the style. And depending on the storage conditions, it may still have that heaviness. For example, it may taste the same as it did back then if the cork has stayed in the bottle and kept it airtight.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust website has a detailed history of the failed expedition on its website.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Freedom, Middle East, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Congress, Iran, Protests
Here’s a very interesting conversation led by Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-Nebraska) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. Nice to see some serious discussion in Congress about the serious matters we send them there to discuss.
(h/t: The Corner, NRO)
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Energy, Environment, Junk Science, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Believing in Bunk, Biofuels, Congressional Mandates
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) said on Wednesday that it expects the biofuels industry to produce 6.5 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol this year.
Um, In 2007, Congress mandated that 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol — an additive to gasoline made from switchgrass, sugar cane bagasse and other plants — be blended into the nation’s fuels this year.
Perhaps government goals for turning inedible crops into transportation fuel have been a little optimistic and unrealistic. Devising a lot of mandates in the halls of Congress by a bunch of congressmen who have undoubtedly never seen either switchgrass or sugar cane bagasse, whatever that is, is possibly the wrong approach.
Biofuel advocates blame Bush, the Recession, and tight credit for freezing development. Alabama-based Cello Energy revised their forecast to 2 million gallons, but a federal jury ruled last summer that the company had defrauded investors. Range Fuel’s Georgia wood-to-ethanol plant received $150 million in federal grants and loan guarantees, but would produce 2.5 million gallons instead of the expected 10 million gallons.
Next year’s mandate is for 250 million gallons. Well, ethanol doesn’t contain as much energy as gasoline — a gallon won’t take you as far, it requires big subsidies, and apparently some new technology that hasn’t appeared yet.
The late Daniel Boorstin, historian and Librarian of Congress said; “Never was there a more outrageous or more unscrupulous or ill-informed advertising campaign than that by which the promoters for the American colonies brought settlers here. Brochures published in England in the seventeenth century, some even earlier, were full of hopeful overstatements, half-truths and downright lies. Gold and silver, fountains of youth, plenty of fish, venison without limit. How long might it have taken to settle this continent if there had not been such promotion. How has American civilization been shaped by the fact that there was a kind of natural selection here of those people who were willing to believe in advertising?”
And so Congress carries on a tradition from the earliest days of our nation. Ever willing to believe in the hopeful overstatements of promoters.
Filed under: Economy, Energy, Taxes, The Elephant's Child, United Kingdom | Tags: ClimateGate? What ClimateGate?, Energy Supplies, EU Regulation, Meaningless CO2 Rationing
Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute points out the disaster currently in the works in Europe. European Greens have pushed for carbon-dioxide (energy) rationing to — of course — “save the planet.” This is a climatically meaningless, job and competitiveness destroying, silly feel-good gesture.
The Times (London) reports that energy regulator Ofgem has warned of power blackouts and spiraling consumer prices, and raised the prospect of partial renationalisation of the industry in order to maintain the U.K.’s energy security.
The Chief Executive of Ofgem, said that the crisis has been exacerbated by the impact of the recession on energy industry investment, Britain’s growing reliance on imported gas as North Sea supplies are depleted, and the closure of 9 aging coal-fired and oil-fired power stations by 2015 in order to meet EU pollution laws. That move will scrap nearly a third of Britain’s generating capacity.
EU targets for cutting “greenhouse gas emissions” and developing “renewable” energy will create a huge demand for investment over the next decade. The most ambitious plans call for £200 billion for renewable energy, and would mean doubling the size of investment over the past decade.
The EU’s emissions trading scheme (cap-and-trade) is not working. It is not actually designed to reduce emissions, and when you add on the offset schemes that politicians cannot resist, the opposite will occur.
Ann Robinson of the price-comparison website said energy bills could reach around £5,000 by 2020 in order to cover the required investment.
Members of Congress suggest that “We’ll just avoid Europe’s problems.” Chris Horner says that if you know how to avoid Europe’s mistakes, please phone Europe. They have no idea what to do.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Energy, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Corruption, Environmental Extremism, Hating Humanity
California is in trouble. Broke. Businesses leaving the state. Taxes too high. Too much “green nonsense.” The great Central Valley suffering drought and sky-high unemployment for the sake of a supposedly endangered minnow.
Those of the green persuasion are determined to get people out of their cars. They use traffic gridlock as an excuse, but the truth is they just don’t want people to have cars or the freedom to use them. People who have cars are free. People who are forced to use public transportation can be controlled. They just don’t like people much.
“California Dems Want To End Free Parking” read the headline in the Los Angeles Times.
There is too much of it, the legislators say, and it encourages people to drive instead of taking the bus, walking or riding a bike.
All that motoring is contributing to traffic jams and pollution, according to state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), and on Thursday he won Senate approval of a proposal he hopes will prompt cities and businesses to reduce the availability of free parking.
“Free parking has significant social, economic and environmental costs,” Lowenthal said. “It increases congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.’’ …
The bill, supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, provides financial incentives for cities and counties to stop providing free parking on the street and at government offices and to reduce the amount they require businesses to provide.
Why am I not surprised that the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club are behind this nuttiness?
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Education, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, FAIL, liberalism, statism
Obama’s budget looks for $2 trillion more in spending and deficits than last year. Apparently the memo about fiscal discipline went astray. After he once again criticized President Bush for running $3.3 trillion in deficits over eight years, President Obama’s budget would run $7.6 trillion over what would be his eight years in the Oval Office. He would run up more debt over his eight years than all other presidents in American history from George Washington through George W. Bush combined.
Obama apparently believes that an economy in recession can be magically improved simply by spending lots and lots of money through something called “the multiplier effect,” which has never been known to work.
The frustrating thing is that there are studies that suggest that much of this huge budget will be wasted. For example, there is $9.3 billion to create the federal government’s 70th preschool and child-care program. Head Start has been studied extensively, and every study has shown that it simply does not benefit students. The latest study shows zero lasting benefits by the end of first grade.
The big increases for student aid comes in the wake of a 99 percent increase over the past decade. College costs continue to climb at four times the rate of inflation — more than 400 percent since 1982. Economists have argues that generous subsidies have contributed to the college cost problem. We need strategies that can lower college costs rather than raise them. Giving generous aid to students in the form of loans they can’t pay back makes no sense.
One of the most successful programs of all is the Opportunity Scholarship program in Washington D.C. which gives poor children vouchers to attend the school of their choice. The teachers’ union doesn’t like vouchers, which they find threatening. Naturally, that program is canceled in the budget; those already in the program are allowed to graduate, but there will be no more opportunity.
ClimateGate, GlacierGate, AmazonGate and all the rest of the extensive fudging of figures and exposure of the whole “global warming fraud has not penetrated to the White House. The President is still talking about “Overwhelming Scientific Evidence” with no inkling that it’s all over— exposed.
The globe is not warming. Warming is not caused by carbon dioxide. There is no reason to control or prevent emissions of CO2. Oil and natural gas are in plentiful supply. They are not “dirty” and so-called “clean energy” such as wind (only produces energy in small amounts when the wind actually blows at the right speed) and solar (only produces energy when the sun shines) does not exist at all, without massive government subsidy. Everywhere in the world, when subsidies are removed, solar and wind energy end.
$8 billion in stimulus funds has just gone to plan and build high-speed rail projects in California and Florida, and other routine passenger-rail projects that are pretending to be high-speed rail. The rationale seems to be that “other countries have bullet trains and we are falling behind.” Internationally only two segments have ever broken even — Tokyo to Osaka, and Paris to Lyon.
High-Speed Rail is a romantic notion, again of getting people out of their cars — ending congestion, except that congestion occurs in urban regions, high-speed rail happens between urban areas. Then they get off on the pointless tons of CO2 reduced. One project involves a line connecting Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Wash. For a projected $600 million they propose to shave about 10 minutes of a three-and-a-half hour trip by raising average speeds from 49 mph to 51 mph. Impressive.
This seems to fit right in with electric cars that will go 7 miles on a charge. The assumption is that wonderful American inventiveness will bail out goofy ideas financed by taxpayer money in the middle of a recession. It’s not so good now, but just you wait. Investing lots of government money will be just the ticket.
There are proven policies to help an economy out of recession. They involve eliminating uncertainty, cutting taxes on business to encourage investment in new employees and cutting government spending.
But Utopian dreamers aren’t interested in proven policies. Romantic dreams are more fun. All is possible with the “investment” of big sums of government money our grandchildren’s money.
Filed under: Freedom, Liberalism, Progressivism., The Constitution, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Imperial Congress, Statist Overreach, The United States of America
We thought it was out-of-line when Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded military jets assigned to her for her personal transportation. We thought it was out-of-line when the Democrats took a very expensive junket on three 747s to the Copenhagen Climate Conference.
Now it appears that Pelosi’s children and grandchildren are using military jets as a cross-country shuttle service from San Francisco so they don’t have to mix with ordinary folk.
Military flights cost between $5.000 and $20,000 an hour to operate. The Speaker and her passengers routinely reimburse the Air Force $120 to $400 for each flight.
She appears to have requisitioned flights for the use of her children, grandchildren and in-laws for their routine travel needs. Doug Ross sums up the evidence as is known so far, with manifests and travel requests.
I don’t believe in an imperial Congress. Nancy Pelosi is simply the Speaker of the House of Representatives, not some kind of royalty. The Founders would be horrified at the goodies the members of Congress have claimed for themselves. If regular air travel is crowded and inconvenient — that’s what the rest of us have to put up with too.
They have arranged automatic pay increases. The barber shop, the medical clinic and all sorts of services are arranged so that they do not have to mix with the public. Yet the most frequent complaint about Congress is that they are out-of-touch with their constituents.
The American people have made it clear that they do not want the government-run health care program that the Democratic Congress is pushing. The Los Angeles Times reports:
But in the coming weeks, Pelosi and Reid hope to rally House Democrats behind the healthcare bill passed by the Senate while simultaneously trying persuade Senate Democrats to approve a series of changes to the legislation using budget procedures that bar filibusters.
Almost all of the proponents of a healthcare overhaul are desperate to avoid a repeat of the contentious public debate and deal-making that consumed Capitol Hill last year.
“In a 24-hour news cycle, with the Internet and bloggers and cable news, sometimes a lot more can be accomplished, especially with healthcare, when it happens behind closed doors,” said Drew Altman, a healthcare policy expert who heads the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
A lot more can be accomplished in secret behind closed doors. Don’t want any “contentious” public debate. Can’t have the rubes interfering by offering their opinions.
This is America. We are supposed to have contentious public debate! The actions of the representatives of the people are supposed to take place in public. Congressional Democrats and their Speaker are not only out-of-touch, but have forgotten their place. We will have to remind them.
Filed under: Islam, Law, Military, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Dealing with Terrorists, General Mike Hayden, national security
The problem of treating a terrorist as a common criminal to be tried in open federal court is poorly understood, and confusing.
Andy McCarthy, author of Willful Blindness — an account of the trial of the first World Trade Center bombing in which he was a prosecutor, highly recommends this article by General Mike Hayden, former CIA Director, in Sunday’s Washington Post. General Hayden gets a lot into a short essay.
