Salt Marsh Harvest Pork

I've read about this a bit. I have to laugh at the Dems ingenuity of denying that they did anything for the Harvest Mouse and then fund it none the less. It's a bit of prestidigitation on their part no doubt. Smoke and mirrors are probably in there as well.

Remember the salt marsh harvest mouse? We wrote about the mouse here and elsewhere. When the "stimulus" bill was being debated, Republicans charged that among the absurd pork that the bill would fund was a pet project of Nancy Pelosi's: protecting the habitat of the salt marsh harvest mice in the San Francisco Bay area. At the time, Democrats vigorously denied the charge and pointed out that the mouse was not named in the bill.

True enough: that was one of the major problems with the bill. It allocated enormous amounts of money to be spend on a department by department basis without specifying what the money was to be spent on. The real intent was mostly sub rosa. Thus, Republicans have been reduced to using Google to try to identify local government units and others that have received "stimulus" money.

Now, notwithstanding the Democrats' outraged denials that the mouse was one of the objects of their largesse, it turns out that the Republicans' suspicions were correct after all:

Frankly, I don't mind some funding for pet projects and no doubt it will be stimulative for a short period. But the stimulus money really should have been used for more long term employment. All these pay-and-pave projects are blips on the economy. They do nothing more than FDR did with his CCC, WPA or PWA. Temporary stimulus will not cause recovery.

The unfortunate side effect is that you can't make long term employment from this type of stimulus. So maybe we really should just stop throwing money at things and denying that they aren't stimulative. But then, you have to watch out, because big brother doesn't like you when you question his methods.

A Republican proposal to halt spending on federal stimulus projects has prompted a partisan dustup this week in Arizona, where defeated GOP presidential candidate John McCain has waded into the fight with his old Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

The conflict began after Arizona's junior senator, Republican Jon Kyl, who has called President Obama's economic recovery plan ineffective, wrote on his Senate website last week that the government should "cancel the rest of the stimulus spending." Kyl repeated the suggestion during a talk show appearance Sunday.

The Obama administration responded Monday with letters from four Cabinet secretaries to the state's GOP governor, Jan Brewer, outlining the transportation, housing, education and other projects that would be canceled in Arizona if stimulus spending came to a halt.

"If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, please let us know," wrote Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a fellow Republican and former House member.

If that isn't a threat to a state to force conformance of a political opposition member, I'd really like to know what it is. Four separate letters from four cabinet secretaries is a definitive threat.
[Oh and just because LaHood is a Repug doesn't mean he isn't a shill for the Administration. ]

The flap underscores the dangers for both sides in the debate over the $787 billion stimulus package, which has come under increasing attack from Republicans as the unemployment rate continues to climb. But many Republicans who voted against the package have also sought to take credit for projects in their own states, and the White House has become increasingly aggressive in pressing its case.

Hmm. Why should there be any threat at all? Each state should be entitled to stimulus at least based on what they put into the pot originally. Kyl's proposal struck me more as a call for a stop to what the administration themselves state isn't working. So how is it reasonable to call for shutting down a state because their political representative is calling for a reasonable end to a disfunctional program?

Health Care Public Option

A glimpse at the Mitt Romney abomination in The Peoples Republic of Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts law, which was championed by former GOP Governor Mitt Romney, imposed an individual mandate, requiring nearly all residents to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty. (The exceptions are those who qualify for the state's public program.) This was supposed to cover everybody and save money too. We've written before about how costs have exploded, but it also turns out that consumers have other ideas.

For 15 years Massachusetts has also imposed mandates known as guaranteed issue and community rating -- meaning that insurers must cover anyone who applies, regardless of health or pre-existing conditions, and also charge everyone the same premium (or close to it). Yet these mandates allow people to wait until they're sick, or just before they're about to incur major medical expenses, to buy insurance. This drives up costs for everyone else, which helps explain why small-group coverage in Massachusetts is so much more expensive than in most of the country. Mr. Romney argued -- as Democrats are arguing now -- that the individual mandate would make that problem disappear, since everyone is always supposed to be covered.

Well, the returns are rolling in, and a useful case study comes from the community-based health plan Harvard-Pilgrim. CEO Charlie Baker reports that his company has seen an "astonishing" uptick in people buying coverage for a few months at a time, running up high medical bills, and then dumping the policy after treatment is completed and paid for. Harvard-Pilgrim estimates that between April 2008 and March 2009, about 40% of its new enrollees stayed with it for fewer than five months and on average incurred about $2,400 per person in monthly medical expenses. That's about 600% higher than Harvard-Pilgrim would have otherwise expected.

The individual mandate penalty for not having coverage is only about $900, so people seem to be gaming the Massachusetts system. "This is a problem," Mr. Baker writes on his blog, in the understatement of the year. "It is raising the prices paid by individuals and small businesses who are doing the right thing by purchasing twelve months of health insurance, and it's turning the whole notion of shared responsibility on its ear."

Nice. Makes you wonder what federal laws exist that will pile on the mess that the Dems are presently proposing in the US system. The MA system is frankly insane. I wonder how the insurance companies share those costs out. Sooner or later this will end up with insurance companies refusing to do business in MA. And no doubt businesses will start dumping their employees on the public option because it will be cheaper than paying insurance fees to support people who are allowed to play the system and get a free ride.

Karl Rove had an interesting article a month ago on the arguments against a public option.

The first is it's unnecessary. Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That's competition enough. The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this. When it was approved, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $74 billion a year by 2008. Nearly 100 providers deliver the drug benefit, competing on better benefits, more choices, and lower prices. So the actual cost was $44 billion in 2008 -- nearly 41% less than predicted. No government plan was needed to guarantee competition's benefits.

That's an interesting bit that isn't seen often in the MSM. I would have thought it would have cost more than was estimated, but it is fascinating that it actually cost substantially less.

There are four other reasons that you can read for yourself.

Rule 1: Would You Give this Power to the Opposition Party?

Apparently Alcee Haystings is up to more vague legislation that would hand the present administration sole power to define who is a terroroist. Mark Tapscott from the original article discussed at HotAir.

Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: "This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as 'extremists.'"

This obviously doesn't pass the basic sniff test. Just think in the simplest terms, would you want your opposition party having these powers? What would have been said if Bush and the Repugs had provided this bit of legislation?

And don't forget the most basic of considerations, should anyone be given the sole ability to make these definitions without oversight? Should any bureaucrat be given this level of discretion or is it more intelligent to have those voted in by the people be the ones to make those definitions? At least you can hold the politicians liable for their actions.

There are a couple other interesting, it illegitimate bills discussed in the article. Please read.

Critiques of the Obamateur in Russia

I think from what I've read he's gotten a failing grade. No shock there.

In his Moscow speech, Obama delivered what is by now familiar as his trademark mix of historical omissions and revisions, sweeping statements about the "arc of history" and phrases of hope, change and moral equivalency. He brought up, yet again, America's "imperfections," dismissed as outdated the brand of American moral certitude and leadership that brought victory in World War II and called for collaboration, convergence and partnerships forged on common ground and progress toward a shared future. Call it Brotherhood 2.0.

Were it not for such obstacles as history, vast vested interests and human nature, it's a vision that just might work. But in the real world, as a basis for state policy, this is a time-tested recipe for disaster. There may be no venue better suited to underscore that lesson than Russia, home during most of the last century to a colossal and devastating experiment that began with fraternal ideals of communism and led to the gulag, mass deprivation and aggressive expansion. To this day, the ruinous inheritance of Soviet communism lingers on, from Cuba to China to North Korea, to the Soviet-tutored terrorist incubators of the Middle East, to the despotic currents running deep within Russia itself.

In Obama's version of history, Soviet communism (which he referred to not by name but as "old political and economic restrictions") came to an end through some sort of brotherly mass movement: "The change did not come from any one nation," he told an audience of Russian students. "The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful."

Whew, talk about missing the realities of the recent past. It wasn't because the people of Russia wanted it to be peaceful, it's the fact that their socio-political and economic solution failed dramatically, not to mention devastatingly. Far too much of it came from a weapons race that bankrupted the country that demanded that communism worked better than capitalism.

Then there is this article about the retreat of the Obamateur.

Obama had a chance to redeem himself with a speech to the New Economic School, a college funded by Westerners to teach Russians something real about business policy. But the speech positively dripped with equivocation and weakness. Here’s how he chose to warn Russia not to invade Georgia for a second time this summer, as many worry Putin plans to do:

State sovereignty must be a cornerstone of international order. Just as all states should have the right to choose their leaders, states must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies. That is true for Russia, just as it is true for the United States. Any system that cedes those rights will lead to anarchy. That’s why we must apply this principle to all nations — and that includes nations like Georgia and Ukraine. America will never impose a security arrangement on another country. For any country to become a member of an organization like NATO, for example, a majority of its people must choose to; they must undertake reforms; they must be able to contribute to the Alliance’s mission. And let me be clear: NATO should be seeking collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.

An extraordinary amount of doubletalk, surmounted by the ominous use of the term “collaboration.” Not simply cooperation but collaboration, Mr. President? Are we going to collaborate with Russian if it moves soldiers back into Georgia, or into Ukraine, or launches another brutal cyber war against them or against Estonia? If Georgia has the “right to borders that are secure,” then doesn’t that mean Abkhazia and Ossetia must be returned from Russian annexation? Obama’s equivocation makes it very difficult to say.

Yike. I'm fascinated that he honestly wants NATO to collaborate with Russia. Maybe we could collaborate on more is they would start collaborating on some things of importance, say Iran. But since they are selling so much technology into Iran I doubt they have any interest in harming those sales for a country who doesn't appear to have Moscow as a primary target.

Well, I'm just cynical in thinking that you should be wary of the Russian bear. No doubt Obama is much more full of hope and change than I could be.

TSA Loses Mission Creep Lawsuits

Schneier has this on his blog. After reading his entry all I could think of was how TSA is showing the usual mission creep. Then I read the WSJ linked article and got a chuckle in that is what they discuss.

But two court cases in the past month question whether TSA searches—which the agency says have broadened to allow screeners to use more judgment—have been going too far.

A federal judge in June threw out seizure of three fake passports from a traveler, saying that TSA screeners violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. Congress authorizes TSA to search travelers for weapons and explosives; beyond that, the agency is overstepping its bounds, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley said.

“The extent of the search went beyond the permissible purpose of detecting weapons and explosives and was instead motivated by a desire to uncover contraband evidencing ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” Judge Marbley wrote.

In the second case, Steven Bierfeldt, treasurer for the Campaign for Liberty, a political organization launched from Ron Paul’s presidential run, was detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying $4,700 in a lock box from the sale of tickets, T-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign paraphernalia. TSA screeners quizzed him about the cash, his employment and the purpose of his trip to St. Louis, then summoned local police and threatened him with arrest because he responded to their questions with a question of his own: What were his rights and could TSA legally require him to answer?

Mr. Bierfeldt recorded the encounter on his iPhone and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in June against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, claiming in part that Mr. Bierfeldt’s experience at the airport was not an anomaly.

“Whether as a matter of formal policy or widespread practice, TSA now operates on the belief that airport security screening provides a convenient opportunity to fish for evidence of criminal conduct far removed from the agency’s mandate of ensuring flight safety,” the ACLU said in its suit.

Nice to hear the ACLU actually doing something worthwhile.

I'd read about Bierfeldt's issue when it happened. I was surprised the TSA took such a antagonistic reaction to his question. I doubt I would have asked it, but it wasn't an unreasonable question.

“TSA agents don’t get to play cops,” says Ben Wizner, an attorney who filed Mr. Bierfeldt’s suit. The ACLU has heard an increasing number of reports of TSA agents involved in what he called “mission creep,” he says.

TSA spokesman Greg Soule says airport screeners are trained to “look for threats to aviation security” and discrepancies in a passenger’s identity. TSA says verifying someone’s identity, or exposing false identity, is a security issue so that names can be checked against terrorism watch lists. Large amounts of cash can be evidence of criminal activity, Mr. Soule says, and so screeners look at the “quantity, packaging, circumstances of discovery or method by which the cash is carried.”

Questioning travelers is part of TSA’s standard procedures, and the agency gives its employees discretion. “TSA security officers are trained to ask questions and assess passenger reactions,” Mr. Soule says. “TSA security officers may use their professional judgment and experience to determine what questions to ask passengers during screening.”

I would really like to know how much training TSA officers get on law and policing. Do they get as much training as a street police officer in a regular town? It doesn't sound like it, but it would be something to look up.

Schneier made a very good point about searches performed by TSA.

The Constitution provides us, both Americans and visitors to America, with strong protections against invasive police searches. Two exceptions come into play at airport security checkpoints. The first is "implied consent," which means that you cannot refuse to be searched; your consent is implied when you purchased your ticket. And the second is "plain view," which means that if the TSA officer happens to see something unrelated to airport security while screening you, he is allowed to act on that.

Both of these principles are well established and make sense, but it's their combination that turns airport security checkpoints into police-state-like checkpoints.

The TSA should limit its searches to bombs and weapons and leave general policing to the police - where we know courts and the Constitution still apply.

I have a bit of snark related to the last sentence that I'll keep to myself, but the rest is very important. You can't mix the two exceptions without making such a search an unreasonable act in the spirit of the fourth amendment.

The Constitution is Obviously Just Words

This is fascinating.

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

"The most ideal situation would be to finish it in time that it could be submitted to the Senate so that it can be ratified," said White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control Gary Samore. "If we're not able to do that, we'll have to look at arrangements to continue some of the inspection provisions, keep them enforced in a provisional basis, while the Senate considers the treaty."

Samore said administration lawyers are exploring the "different options that are available. One option is that both sides could agree to continue the inspections by executive agreement; that would work on our side. On the Russian side, as I understand it, that would require Duma approval."

The fact that the administration is preparing for such an extraordinary measure shows just how much pressure the two administrations are under to arrive at an agreement before the 18-year-old treaty expires. While resident Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are expected to announce progress tomorrow on a nuclear arms reduction treaty – nicknamed “New START” -- to take effect in just five short months, many sticking points that remain unresolved.

I'm sure this political appointee just mispoke. I'm amazed that this report is still on line. No doubt it will be clarified and neutralized shortly.

It appears that Obama is living up to the FDR comparison. No doubt he'll be willfully bypassing more and more of the Constitution and being cheered on by the Ministry of Truth.

Obama's Honduran Adventures

I caught this Bloomberg article from a commentary at Legal Insurrection.

I still don't understand why this isn't getting more play in the MSM. (Better known as the Ministry or Truth depending on your choice of realities.)

Honduras’s military acted under judicial orders in deposing President Manuel Zelaya, Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz said, rejecting the view of President Barack Obama and other leaders that he was toppled in a coup.

“The only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order,” Cruz, 55, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Tegucigalpa. “There’s no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts.”

Cruz said the court issued a sealed arrest order for Zelaya on June 26, charging him with treason and abuse of power, among other offenses. Zelaya had repeatedly breached the constitution by pushing ahead with a vote about rewriting the nation’s charter that the court ruled illegal, and which opponents contend would have paved the way for a prohibited second term.

She compared Zelaya’s tactics, including his dismissal of the armed forces chief for obeying a court order to impound ballots to be used in the vote, with those of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“Some say it was not Zelaya but Chavez governing,” she said.

If Obama and his ilk are so concerned about the rule of law, why does he continue to ignore what appears to have been the lawful removal of a treasonous president?

And why does he put such effort into tampering with a country that is much less significant than say Iran, where rule of law appears to have been completely ignored?

What is his reasoning? I wish someone would ask him. But then you'd have to get past his crafted and controlled press conferences.

ABC's ObamaCare Informercial

Caught this linked at Wizbang. It's the Cato Institute speaking to the infomercial that ABC provided for our entertainment.


Takes about 5 minutes and cuts to the points that should have been made.

I wonder how well this snake oil sale went.

Forbes has a list of Obama's Top Five Healthcare Lies. Pretty much a digest of what I've heard commented on in separate discussions.

Obama's Selective Tampering

Funny how Obama was so very very sensitive to the Iranian elections not to tamper, yet when it comes to Honduras it's a completely different thing. Maybe he is more nuanced than I am. No doubt he'll talk them into giving their president his job back, or maybe he'll hold hands with Chavez as he invades their country.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a "terrible precedent" of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup on Sunday after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

Strange thing is, I found in the WSJ a piece that makes it sound like it's not a coup:

Honduras's Supreme Court gave the order for the military to detain the president, according to a former Supreme Court official who is in touch with the court.

Later, Honduras's Congress formally removed Mr. Zelaya from the presidency and named congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as his successor until the end of Mr. Zelaya's term in January. Mr. Micheletti and others said they were the defenders, not opponents, of democratic rule.

I would have sworn that usually a coup doesn't include official actions of the other branches of government against the president. Make one wonder what exactly he was up to.

"What was done here was a democratic act," Mr. Micheletti, who was sworn in as president Sunday afternoon, said to an ovation. "Our constitution continues to be valid, our democracy continues to live."

Mr. Micheletti is a member of Mr. Zelaya's Liberal party. But he had opposed his plans for a referendum that could have led to overturning the constitution's ban on re-election, allowing Mr. Zelaya to potentially stay in power past January, when his term ends.

Mr. Zelaya, a frequent critic of the U.S., has been locked in a growing confrontation with his country's Congress, courts, and military over his plans for the referendum -- planned for Sunday -- that would have asked voters whether they want to scrap the constitution, which the president says benefits the country's elites.

The Supreme Court had ruled the vote was illegal because it flouted the constitution's own ban on such referendums within six months of elections. The military had refused to take its usual role of distributing ballots. But Mr. Zelaya fired the chief of the army last week and pledged to press ahead.

I wonder why this hasn't gotten much press coverage.

The Telegraph has a quote:

"Today's events originate from a court order by a competent judge. The armed forces, in charge of supporting the constitution, acted to defend the state of law and have been forced to apply legal dispositions against those who have expressed themselves publicly and acted against the dispositions of the basic law," the country's highest court said.

I'm wondering how exactly this removal was illegal when, as reported, the courts and congress had him replaced because of his own disregard for the law.

Conyers in the News

Well first there is Senator Corruption himself:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has backed off his plan to investigate wrongdoing by the liberal activist group ACORN, saying "powers that be" put the kibosh on the idea.

Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket.

I'd like the list of who is the "powers that be" so we can taken them out behind the woodshed for a little discussion on ethics. No doubt we never will.

Then there is Mrs Corruption.

Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers pleaded guilty this morning to conspiring to commit bribery and is free on personal bond.

U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said, "The defendant now stands convicted."

The one count of conspiring to commit bribery is punishable for up to five years in prison.

No sentencing date has been set and it is not immediately clear if the plea deal requires Conyers to cooperate with the feds in the ongoing probe of city corruption.

Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman U.S. Rep. John Conyers, appeared before Cohn to answer charges in connection with the wide-ranging probe of wrongdoing at Detroit city hall.

I find it highly improbable that there is any connection, but you can bet that she'll never see a day of prison time. Not to mention if it were you or I we'd be in jail right now not on personal bond.

Nice to see that they both reached the news together.

Americorps IG Firing Causing a Stir

No doubt the reader has seen the reports on the Americorps IG who was fired by Obama due to a "Loss of Confidence" which no doubt stems from his investigating one of Obama's big supporters. It is refreshing to see that the Congress is calling for more information and not just giving Obama a pass.

In a statement, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) says, "The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service. The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal. ‘Loss of confidence’ is not a sufficient reason. I’m hopeful the White House will provide a more substantive rationale, in writing, as quickly as possible."

McCaskill was the lead Senate sponsor on the Inspectors General Act of 2008 and is a loyal supporter and friend of President Obama. Her statement is the first significant sign of Democratic concern with this matter.

Well, McCaskill is showing concern. At least her concern is based on law, unlike the outrage over the Bush AG firings which was completely baseless.

Just Not Thinking

So Insty links to an article related to a wheat fungus and then remarks:

Read the whole thing. It’ll probably hit America right after the “supervolcano” under Mt. St. Helens erupts (”These enormous eruptions can spew enough sunlight-blocking ash into the atmosphere to cool the climate by several degrees Celsius”), or something, in the middle of a Swine Flu pandemic. Oh, wait . . . .

Slight problem with his statement. This fungus is quite easily transportable, and could easily be brought and spread in the US by an enemy. Though more likely than not it will be brought here innocently and have major issues with the US wheat crop.

Or did Insty forget about little things like Dutch elm disease? It's not a matter of whether it will get into the US wheat crop as it is when.

DHS Support from McCarthyites

Some nutcase white supremacist goes out for a little killing spree and now the left is going nuts.

Greg Sargent's reaction to the murder at the Holocaust Museum yesterday -- "it's time to revisit criticism of 'right-wing extremists' report" -- wasn't atypical. You could hear the same insta-reaction around the Web, as confirmation bias did its work and two or three crimes by far-right figures were transformed into something larger. Here's Andrew Sullivan: "That DHS report doesn't look so iffy any more, does it?" Markos Moulitsas: "Attempt by Cons to justify their critique of prescient DHS report are an extra special dose of stupid." Benjamin Sarlin at The Daily Beast writes that "a much-maligned Department of Homeland Security memo on right-wing extremism is looking more accurate by the day." Doug J. at Balloon Juice says, "How many acts of right-wing terrorism have to occur before DHS is allowed to start keeping track of it?"

Nice. Wonder what these bastions of bullshit would be saying if it had been ELF or some "progressive" type that did something of the kind.

Similar crap coming out of the extreme Right on any Islamic nut job attacking people. Only a bit of difference being that the recruiting station that had a couple of military people killed got a minor note by the MSM (aka Ministry of Propaganda) while the abortionist and the Holocaust Museum attacker got major and repeated coverage.

But lets get to the point on DHS.

Why did the DHS report come under such fire? It wasn't because far-right cranks are incapable of committing crimes. It's because the paper blew the threat of right-wing terror out of proportion, just as the Clinton administration did in the '90s; because it treated "extremism" itself as a potential threat, while offering a definition of extremist so broad it seemed it include anyone who opposed abortion or immigration or excessive federal power; and because it fretted about the danger of "the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities." (Note that neither the killing in Kansas last month nor the shooting in Washington yesterday was committed by an Iraq or Afghanistan vet.) The effect isn't to make right-wing terror attacks less likely. It's to make it easier to smear nonviolent, noncriminal figures on the right, just as the most substantial effect of a red scare was to make it easier to smear nonviolent, noncriminal figures on the left. The fact that communist spies really existed didn't justify Joseph McCarthy's antics, and the fact that armed extremists really exist doesn't justify the Department of Homeland Security's report.

DHS isn't there for politics, though you'd think otherwise having read anything reported on Napolitano's watch. The issue erupting from all of this will likely cause more issues for people who have nothing to do with violent actions. And with the governments well understood ability to entice (read as "entrap") individuals into actions they would not take without that stimulus, can we doubt that people will be going to jail because someone believed they could be a threat and not that they actually were?

CNN Tubing while Fox Ascending

Ed Driscoll points out the Huffington Post entry from CNN's co-founder.

CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld tells the Huffington Post (huh, why would a CNN man go there to post?) that “seven months after Barack Obama’s victory, CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain”:

Nine years ago, when FoxNews sprinted past CNN to become America’s number one news network, I attributed its ratings gains to the election of George Bush and the triumph of Fox-watching conservatives. I figured conservatives would be savoring their victory while liberals were averting their eyes in disgust. For the next eight years, I measured political sentiment in the United States by comparing the size of the FoxNews audience with the combined size of the CNN/MSNBC audience. In this space, I even predicted, with reasonable accuracy, the percent by which Barack Obama won the election based on the split in the news audience.

Now, seven months after Barack Obama’s victory, CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain. From May of last year to May of this year, CNN lost 22% of its total primetime audience. MSNBC was down 2%, while FoxNews was up 24%. In the key advertising demographic (25-54), Fox was up 31%, CNN was down 37% and MSNBC was down 26%. In hard numbers, Fox had 109,000 more viewers than last year while CNN lost 113,000. CNN averaged fewer than 200,000 25-54 viewers in primetime. Even MSNBC averaged more viewers than that.

Total day was nearly as bad, with Fox up 24% and CNN down 7%. MSNBC was down 2% in total viewing. Fox is beating CNN almost two-to-one in most categories.

There’s no need to throw any more numbers at you–Fox is gaining, CNN is wilting. Why is this happening when the country still seems about 58-42 in favor of Obama? My best guess is the passion of those who detest Democrats, liberals, and in particular, Barack Obama.

You don’t think it could also have anything to do with moments such as this and this, do you? And as P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters asks, “Maybe the TV audience is growing weary of the MSM treating Barack Obama as Sort of God and want some realistic news coverage of his administration.”

It is odd that they always want to posture their losses as to being something wrong with Fox veiwers. Fox obviously gained many veiwers when they started because the conservative half of the country didn't want to listen to the propaganda the MSM or MoP if you like, was forcing down their throats. Now that Fox is gaining even more, would you think maybe the change is more complicated than the old "they hate the One" theme these companies have been pushing?

Maybe the public is tired of the slanted and irresponsible reporting. Or maybe they want reporting that doesn't just carry a party line. (I'm not saying Fox doesn't carry a party line, I'm saying they report less of the party line than the others do.)

You'd think that the MSM would learn from trends and maybe do a better job at analysis rather than falling for these moronic whines.

Under the Bus, but Never Got on Board

Amazing.

Mr. Mudd is a well-regarded career intelligence officer who has worked in senior positions at the FBI and CIA, including deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Mr. Obama nominated him on May 4 amid fulsome praise from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. But in a statement issued by the White House on the eve of a late spring weekend, Mr. Mudd said he was withdrawing so as not to become "a distraction to the president and his vital agenda."

The truth is that he risked being a distraction to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democrats, who suddenly don't want to talk about what they knew about the interrogation techniques they once endorsed and long funded but now denounce. So Ms. Pelosi doesn't have to answer any questions about her changing claims about her CIA briefings, but a foot soldier like Mr. Mudd who did what his country asked him to do to keep the country safe is blackballed.

Another wonderful start. Makes you wonder what Obama is willing to do to get his act together when he has to continue to solve conflicts with the liars in his own party.

Political Favors for Poll Place Intimidators

Thanks Barry. Politics gets Black Panther poll intimidators off the hook. Wonder how he and Holder line this up with actually enforcing laws.

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

The incident - which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube - had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.

Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.

Just makes you thankful that the post-partisan post-racial president can over look partisan and racist acts. Oh wait, that's right, these guys were black so they couldn't possibly have been racist. Silly me.

Ethics of the Lawyers

Well, I don't have much nice to say about lawyer's ethics, but in this case the discussion gives some perspective on the "torture" memos. (h/t Powerline)

Government lawyers in the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) appear to have leaked to the press parts of a confidential--and classified--draft report concerning the actions of Bush administration lawyers. The report calls for state bar associations to investigate, and perhaps discipline, attorneys who provided sensitive legal advice to President Bush's administration concerning the legal limits of coercive interrogation methods against high-level al Qaeda terrorists. That advice was, of course, controversial. It is now, in the current political climate, highly unpopular in certain circles. OPR has determined, apparently, that it was "unethical" to give it and that the lawyers involved should be punished.

How many things are wrong with this picture? From the perspective of legal ethics, constitutional law, and good government, I count at least five big problems.

You can read the rest for yourself.

Deflection or Perspective

Apparently the Dems don't like the CIA releasing facts on their culpability with respect to the use or enhanced interrogation methods. I find this curiously funny.

Democrats charged Tuesday that the CIA has released documents about congressional briefings on harsh interrogation techniques in order to deflect attention and blame away from itself.

“I think there is so much embarrassment in some quarters [of the CIA] that people are going to try to shift some of the responsibility to others — that’s what I think,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was briefed on interrogation techniques five times between 2006 and 2007.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said he finds it “interesting” that a document detailing congressional briefings was released just as “some of the groups that have been responsible for these interrogation techniques were taking the most criticism.”

Asked whether the CIA was seeking political cover by releasing the documents, Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said: “Sure it is.”

Well, let's see, you are trying to get these people jail time for things they were told were legal, and you don't think they should have any right to defend themselves? How fascinating. Funny that these politicos are now trying to deflect this information as being for political purposes when in fact their initial attacks on these people were for political purposes. Irony?

Of course the article has a bunch of quotes as to who really requested the release, but no real facts. Just politicians and unnamed sources pointing fingers. Frankly, I wouldn't blame the CIA personnel involved for releasing this. Better now than when the congress starts their McCarthy-esque fact finding committees that can't seem to figure out that all information, including that of their own involvement, is relevant to the public opinion.

Maybe She Just Misremembered

Guess she's been having repeated senior moments.

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

I think I'm more interested in the committee investigations now. Maybe we'll find out just how big a liar the Dems who are screaming for heads really are.

Paté or Dog Food

Came by this from QandO. Had to agree with Billy Hollis on just how funny this is.

Considering the similarity of its ingredients, canned dog food could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pâté or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst. However, the social stigma associated with the human consumption of pet food makes an unbiased comparison challenging. To prevent bias, Newman's Own dog food was prepared with a food processor to have the texture and appearance of a liver mousse. In a double-blind test, subjects were presented with five unlabeled blended meat products, one of which was the prepared dog food. After ranking the samples on the basis of taste, subjects were challenged to identify which of the five was dog food. Although 72% of subjects ranked the dog food as the worst of the five samples in terms of taste (Newell and MacFarlane multiple comparison, P<0.05),>

Damn. I don't have much of an opinion on Paté but I doubt I'll be having any based on this.

Bill Whittle Giving Stewart a Little History Lesson

Nice piece this. Bill goes into quite a bit of details on why John Stewart is clueless.

Just go to the link.

Obama's GITMO Military Tribunals Rethought

The NTtimes give us this fairly well hidden report on Obama's rethinking the Military Tribunals at GITMO.

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.

Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration’s system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects.

Continuing the military commissions in any form would probably prompt sharp criticism from human rights groups as well as some of Mr. Obama’s political allies because the troubled system became an emblem of the effort to use Guantánamo to avoid the American legal system.

Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.

Looks like reality has set in on the political meanderings of the Obamateur. I wonder if Soros gave him permission.

And as Darren Hutchinson notes:

But Obama has embraced many of the same positions that liberals and Obama himself criticized. For example:

* Obama and members of his administration have embraced the use of rendition. Many of Obama's most ardent defenders blasted progressives who criticized Obama on rendition as jumping the gun. Today, their arguments look even more problematic than in the past.

* Obama has invoked the maligned "state secrets" defense as a complete bar to lawsuits challenging potential human rights and constitutional law violations.

* Obama has argued that detainees at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan do not qualify for habeas corpus rights, even though many of the detainees at the facility were not captured in the war or in Afghanistan.

* Even though it no longer uses the phrase "enemy combatants," the Obama administration has taken the position that the government can indefinitely detain individuals, whether or not they engaged in torture and whether or not they fought the United States on the "battlefield." This logic combined with the denial of habeas to detainees in Afghanistan could make Bagram the functional equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.

No doubt he'll be waffling over this. Who knows where this will end up.

Wonder how it makes him feel to find that Bush was actually doing the smart thing with all these issues.

Hitchen's and Hanson on Buchanan's WW2 Revisionism

I'm adding this so I can watch it later without losing the link. An Excellent piece from what I've seen so far.

Obamba's First 100 Days - Less Popular Than George W. Bush

You wouldn't think that is true from reading the MSM. But Gallup poll numbers in April show it.

According to Gallup's April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama's current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises.

As the attached chart shows, five presidents rated higher than Mr. Obama after 100 days in office. Ronald Reagan topped the charts in April 1981 with 67 percent approval. Following the Gipper, in order of popularity, were: Jimmy Carter with 63 percent in 1977; George W. Bush with 62 percent in 2001; Richard Nixon with 61 percent in 1969; and George H.W. Bush with 58 percent in 1989.

From watching CNN and the other "news" coverage, you'd think this was completely off. But then they haven't been actual journalists in quite some time.

Virtual Anthropologists

Interesting article from the Danger Room over at Wired.

Sounds like something I wouldn't approve of.

Given all the problems the Pentagon has faced recruiting anthropologists to work with the military, it may have finally hit upon an easier solution: create computerized virtual anthropologists to replace flesh and blood human beings. In a new request for research proposals aimed at small businesses, the Pentagon says it wants technology that would “enable accurate forecasting of a given populations’ potential responses to military relevant events…”

While not outright suggested as a replacement for the controversy-plagued Human Terrain System, which sends anthropologists into the field with the military, the new request for proposals does say this tool would be “used to facilitate or to replicate wholly or in part many of the tasks that a human anthropological consultation would provide such as, counter-insurgency, reconstruction or support operations, allowing faster and more accurate development of social-cultural behaviors.”

Not like we've never seen military devices used (abused) in use against the private citizenry. I'm sure when the ONE gets his national health-care database online and forces everyone into it, then they add the RealID data on top, and the terrorist watch list and any other number of databases into this mess that they won't end up with something so broken that we'll all be in jail.

Never happen. Nope. Couldn't happen.

NYC Flyover Heads Another Appointee Under the Bus

This is stunning in the level of stupidity. No doubt the ONE had nothing to do with it.

President Obama's White House was forced to issue an apology Monday after a photo opportunity gone badly wrong — an Air Force 747 plane did a low flyover over Lower Manhattan, prompting terrified citizens to flee from their offices and high-profile accusations of government insensitivity in the post 9/11 era.

White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera issued a brief statement saying he was too blame.

"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision," he said. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, its clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused."

The panic started Monday morning when a backup 747 known as Air Force One when the president is aboard flew by Lower Manhattan with a U.S. fighter jet closely following, rattling windows and causing some limited evacuations.

Astounding. This guy deserves to be under the bus, but it would be interesting to know who thought up this "mission."

All for a photo op. Damn. At least Bush's "mission accomplished" photo op didn't terrorize thousands of citizens.



Pretty strong proof that the terrorists have won on that basic level. Nice to have the present administration confirm it for the world to see.

UPDATE: I wonder why these people decided to do this instead of maybe using Photoshop.

Jemma's Assault on Assault Weapons

Some former president's should be reminded just how moronic they really sound. He just continues circling the bowl. Begin with "I'm a Gun Guy" statement.

I have used weapons since I was big enough to carry one, and now own two handguns, four shotguns and three rifles, two with scopes. I use them carefully, for hunting game from our family woods and fields, and occasionally for hunting with my family and friends in other places. We cherish the right to own a gun and some of my hunting companions like to collect rare weapons. One of them is a superb craftsman who makes muzzle-loading rifles, one of which I displayed for four years in my private White House office.

Then add really moronic contention that assault weapons are for killing police.

But none of us wants to own an assault weapon, because we have no desire to kill policemen or go to a school or workplace to see how many victims we can accumulate before we are finally shot or take our own lives. That’s why the White House and Congress must not give up on trying to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, even if it may be politically difficult.

Right, no other reason to want those nasty black things. I got my flintlock and that should be good enough for anyone. Moron.

He goes into his MSM and Brady bunch stats on how "most people want gun control and bans on assault weapons" of course ignoring the rather lively sale of those same rifles at the moment. Nothing like stats to make you forget what is actually happening in the world. But being out of touch is Jemma's MO.

And to no great surprise the evil villain is the NRA.
Heavily influenced and supported by the firearms industry, N.R.A. leaders have misled many gullible people into believing that our weapons are going to be taken away from us, and that homeowners will be deprived of the right to protect ourselves and our families. The N.R.A. would be justified in its efforts if there was a real threat to our constitutional right to bear arms. But that is not the case.

Instead, the N.R.A. is defending criminals’ access to assault weapons and use of ammunition that can penetrate protective clothing worn by police officers on duty. In addition, while the N.R.A. seems to have reluctantly accepted current law restricting sales by licensed gun dealers to convicted felons, it claims that only “law-abiding people” obey such restrictions — and it opposes applying them to private gun dealers or those who sell all kinds of weapons from the back of a van or pickup truck at gun shows.

Nothing outrageous there. Nice to see just because you were a president ensures you get voice to the public no matter how much an idiot you are.

What are the results of this profligate ownership and use of guns designed to kill people?

Wow. What planet is this guy from? Guns were designed originally for killing people. Probably their first actual use. But I suppose Jemma knows better. Or is just senile.

Across our border, Mexican drug cartels are being armed with advanced weaponry imported from the United States — a reality only the N.R.A. seems to dispute.

Didn't we all know that that was going to show up. Shock of Shocks, he continues that foolishness that the liberals keep throwing out there which completely denies reality.

Funny how Jemma perpetually opens his mouth and proves himself an idiot.

Hayden and Mukasey on the "Torture Memos"

This is a rather informative piece from Hayden and Mukasey with regards to the need and reasoning for the release of the memos. Some choice bits:

Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl, and have tortured and slain other American captives, are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens.

Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don't work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense. If coercive interrogation had been administered to obtain confessions, one might understand the argument. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, among others, and who has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl, could eventually have felt pressed to provide a false confession. But confessions aren't the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.

The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.

Agreed. This is politics as usual. The politicos had access to the info about the interrogation methods, just as they did about the Iraqi WMDs and the issues in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, yet they all didn't know it was that bad and as shocked to find this out now.

The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.

That basically follows the left's extreme view that torture doesn't work. Well, yes it does if you're smart enough to use it correctly. In fact the enhanced interrogation methods were all that was needed to gain the information and no real torture. I'll gladly parse any argument that what the US did in these cases was torture. The usual assumption from those screaming the loudest is that the interrogators are imbeciles and haven't an understanding of how the interrogated will resist or deflect. Well, you can't expect the left to actually reason through such a scenario.

Read through the rest of it. It does provide details that no one, especially the MSM are choosing to discuss.

UPDATE:

Apparently Peter Hoekstra points out how much involved and notified congress was back when these techniques were all started.

It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.

Shocked.

Members of Congress calling for an investigation of the enhanced interrogation program should remember that such an investigation can't be a selective review of information, or solely focus on the lawyers who wrote the memos, or the low-level employees who carried out this program. I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.

No no, they WILL focus on only what suits them, and the MSM WILL only report what supports Obambi's work.

Well, maybe someone will learn something from this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Obama's Spending Spree

Krauthammer puts it quite clearly.

Undaunted, Obama offered his New Foundation speech as the complete, contextual, canonical text for the domestic revolution he aims to enact. It had everything we have come to expect from Obama:

The Whopper: The boast that he had "identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade." It takes audacity to repeat this after it had been so widely exposed as transparently phony. Most of this $2 trillion is conjured up by refraining from spending $180 billion a year for 10 more years of surges in Iraq. Hell, why not make the "deficit reductions" $10 trillion -- the extra $8 trillion coming from refraining from repeating the $787 billion stimulus package annually through 2019.

The Puzzler: He further boasted of his frugality by saying that his budget would reduce domestic discretionary spending as a share of GDP to the lowest level ever recorded. Amazing. Squeezing discretionary domestic spending at a time of hugely expanding budgets is merely the baleful residue of out-of-control entitlements and debt service, which will increase astronomically under Obama. To claim these as achievements in fiscal responsibility is testament not to Obama's frugality but to his brazenness.

The Non Sequitur: "To make sure such a crisis [as we have today] never happens again," Obama proposes his radical health-care, energy and education reforms, the central pillars of his social democratic agenda. But Obama's own words contradict this assertion. Notes The Post: "But as his admirable summation of recent history made clear, these pursuits have little to do with the economic crisis, and they are not the key to economic recovery." Obama rarely fails to repeat this false connection. A crisis -- and the public's resulting pliability to liberal social engineering -- is a terrible thing to waste.

The Swindle: The Obama administration is spending money like none other in peacetime history. Obama is smart. He knows this is fiscally unsustainable. He has let it be known privately and publicly that he intends to cure the imbalance with entitlement reform.

An excellent strategy. If it takes throwing nearly $1 trillion of "porky" (to quote Sen. Charles Schumer) stimulus spending to soften up a Democratic Congress and make it amenable to real entitlement reform, then fine. Reforming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would save tens of trillions of dollars, and make the current money-from-helicopters spending almost trivial by comparison.

Wonderful!