Just Barely Inside the Beltway

Quote of the Day 06/01/2009

2009-06-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

"You never want to have the government involved in your business. They're not businessmen; they're bureaucrats. They don't understand capitalism, they don't understand the profit motive and they don't understand the financial industry."

-Philip Orlando, chief equity strategist of Federated Investors Inc.

Quote of the Day 05/29/2009

2009-05-29T20:26:00.000-04:00

"A single individual can vanish much more easily than a Wal-Mart."

(Source)

Behold the Power of Crises

2009-03-06T19:51:00.001-05:00

We have a new motto for the reign of Barack Hussein Obama, Peace be Upon Him. It's not Hope, Change, or Yes He Can, it's Behold the Power of Crises:

(Reuters) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience on Friday "never waste a good crisis," as she highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy intensive model.

(WSJ) "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's new chief of staff, told a Wall Street Journal conference of top corporate chief executives [in November].

It is good to know that His Administration has learned from history.

Fear Will Save Us

2009-03-04T19:56:00.002-05:00

From Big Hollywood:

Taking the oldest trick out of the tyrant's manual, Obama ran on "Hope" to seize power. Then once he had it, he changed the message to "Fear" to keep expectations low and the masses in line. Maybe that strategy was necessary, since between the unpaid taxes, failed cabinet appointments, the Blago scandal, raging debate over the "spend-u-lous" package and the continued decline of the markets, World War I had a more inspiring first 100 days.

This ignores of course that World War I ended a mere four years later with a death toll almost certainly less than World War II. In our fear, we can find Hope.

Barack Hussein Obama, Pray for Us

2008-11-01T21:22:00.005-04:00

El Paso, Tx - 2,000 miles outside the Beltway

The El Paso Times reports:

EL PASO -- A man who jumped 60 feet to his death from the Spaghetti Bowl on Thursday left a note with a message for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
A note to "Obama" was found in the man's car, which was parked on the top ramp of the Spaghetti Bowl.
...
Police confirmed that the man left behind a note that read, "Obama take care of my family."

No word yet on whether the "man" is a relative of The Obama. As Mark Steyn writes:

The Senator is a wealthy man, mainly on the strength of two bestselling books offering his biography in lieu of policy and accomplishments. Many lively members of his Kenyan family occur as supporting characters in his story and provide the vivid color in it. But they too are not merely two-dimensional cartoons. His Aunt Zeituni, a memorable figure in Obama's writing, turned up for real last week, when the dogged James Bone of the London Times tracked her down. She lives in a rundown housing project in Boston.
In his Wednesday night infomercial, Obama declared that his "fundamental belief" was that "I am my brother's keeper." Back in Kenya, his brother lives in a shack on 12 bucks a year. If Barack is his brother's keeper, why couldn't he send him a $10 bill and nearly double the guy's income? The reality is that Barack Obama assumes the government should be his brother's keeper, and his aunt's keeper. Why be surprised by that? For 20 years in Illinois, Obama has marinated in the swamps of the Chicago political machine and the campus radicalism of William Ayers and Rashid Khalidi. In such a world, the redistributive urge is more or less a minimum entry qualification.

GOP Convention in Four and a Half Quotes

2008-09-05T20:36:00.005-04:00

Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN - 1,100 miles outside the Beltway

For those who missed it, a few selections from the 2008 Republican National Convention - the most watched political convention ever.

Mike Huckabee's speech to the RNC:

Let me make something clear tonight: I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich. I'm a Republican because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me.

Rudy Giuliani's keynote address:

"Change" is not a destination ... just as "hope" is not a strategy.

Sarah Palin's introduction:

Crowd cheers continuously for three minutes, is interrupted by the governor, and starts cheering again.
...
I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment.
And I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.

John McCain's Acceptance Speech:

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

Washington State University Snubs Idaho-Born Candidate

2008-09-03T21:02:00.003-04:00

Recycled News from Spokane, Washington - 2,500 miles outside the Beltway

Washington State University and the City of Spokane rejected an offer to host the only vice-presidential debate in 2008 because the vice-presidency just isn't important enough for America's 110th largest city. Now, we have a Republican nominee born in Sandpoint, ID (a mere 75 miles from Spokane), attended North Idaho College (a mere 30 miles away), and attended the University of Idaho (7 miles from WSU). As the Spokesman-Review notes:

On Friday, Sarah Louise Heath Palin -- the current governor of Alaska -- became John McCain’s surprise vice presidential pick.
It's only the second time in history that a former Pacific Northwest resident has made a presidential ticket. Charles McNary of Oregon was Republican Wendell Wilkie's running mate in 1940.
If elected, Palin would be the first Northwest resident to serve as either vice president or president.

Ooops.

Sometimes Votes Matter

2008-08-05T19:29:00.000-04:00

From the National Review:

At a televised debate July 28, Colorado congressmen and Democratic senatorial candidate Mark Udall said he would not vote to adjourn congress until they had an energy bill.
Udall then skipped the vote, which passed 213-212 without a single Republican voting in favor. Had Udall been there and lived up to his campaign promise, the motion to adjourn would not have passed.

The Pope Inside the Beltway

2008-04-16T21:05:00.002-04:00

The AP reports:

The festive White House visit was the highlight of the first full day of [Pope Benedict XVI]'s first trip to the United States as leader of the world's Roman Catholics. A South Lawn arrival ceremony — which also turned into a celebration for Benedict's 81st birthday, complete with energetic singing and a several-tiered cake prepared by the White House pastry chef — was followed by 45 minutes of private talks between Bush and Benedict, alone in the Oval Office.

It was the 25th meeting between a Roman Catholic pope and a U.S. president, sessions that have spanned 89 years, five pontiffs and 11 American leaders.

...

It was only the second White House visit by a pope — the first was 29 years ago — and Bush elected to honor it with a level of pageantry rarely seen, even on grounds accustomed to routinely welcoming the world's most important leaders.

Lampposts fluttered with flags in the red-white-and-blue of America and yellow-and-white of the Holy See. The sun-drenched South Lawn was filled to bursting with the largest crowd of Bush's presidency, requiring a large television screen for those in the back...

In Washington's streets, thousands who were unable to get tickets played music and waved banners as they waited for any glimpse of the pontiff. Benedict didn't disappoint, leaving the White House in his glass-walled Mercedes popemobile for a slow cruise along Pennsylvania Avenue, accompanied by a long motorcade and the pontiff waving from his perch inside.

...

The president kicked off the unprecedented series of papal festivities on Tuesday, by motoring to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington to meet Benedict's plane, something he's never done for any leader. While the pontiff received a rock-star reception on the tarmac, Bush stood back in the unusual role of second fiddle.

And here are some pictures, since the Popemobile route was fairly close to my office:

The Best Thing to Happen to Me All Week:

2008-03-01T18:34:00.003-05:00

The Best Thing to Happen to Me All Week:

Not the stormtroopers, not the bagpipes, not the Delorean, but when a girl smiled at me as I was wandering through la République populaire d'Alexandrie with a Quiznos sandwich clutched to my chest as if it was the most important thing to me in the world... because it was... and I didn't want it to get cold. Then, I got home and was greeted by a puppy. And then I ate it. The sandwich, not the puppy.

AP: Unnecessary Bridge Work Would Be Expensive

2008-02-21T19:05:00.000-05:00

Replacing Va. Bridges Could Cost $3.5B
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- The Virginia Department of Transportation could spend nearly its entire annual budget to replace every bridge in the state with structural problems.
Virginia has roughly 20,000 bridges, and 1,746 are considered structurally deficient. It would cost $3.5 billion to replace them.
VDOT's budget this fiscal year is $4 billion.
On the plus side, a bridge considered structurally deficient does not mean it is unsafe.
Kendal Walus, VDOT's top bridge engineer, says the state monitors deteriorating bridges, sometimes limiting the weight of the traffic they are allowed to carry. Ultimately, the department fixes them.
He says VDOT will spend about $150 million this year to maintain and repair bridges.

This report is about as useful as telling us what it would cost to destroy and rebuild every street that has a pothole.

Could Washington State Demand Nationwide Recounts?

2008-02-19T19:58:00.002-05:00

Olympia, WA - 2,800 miles outside the Beltway

The Spokesman-Review reports:

Lawmakers clashed today over a plan to award all of Washington's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the nationwide popular vote.
Proponents say it's a way of doing away with the winner-take-all Electoral College system under which someone - such as Al Gore in 2000 - can win more total votes yet still lose the election.
...
Republicans and one conservative Democrat called it a bad idea, saying it could award Washington's electoral-college votes to a candidate most Washington voters oppose.
"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life," said state Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver.
Opponents also argued that the bill would reduce the likelihood of presidential candidates stopping here to campaign. Instead, they'd likely focus their efforts on a handful of large cities and states, said state Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield. He calculated that a candidate could get enough votes from just the 12 most-populous states to win if the race was decided on popular vote only.
"I think if you want to disenfranchise the voter, then you vote for this bill," he said.

It is interesting that they cite 2000 as a great example of when this would work, but ignore the fact that the reported nationwide popular vote was so close enough to require a recount under many state laws - as well as nationwide lawsuits trying to change the numbers. 50 Floridas. Hundreds or thousands of lawsuits. The Electoral College keeps looking better.

Settle

2008-02-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

The Atlantic has a mildly amusing article about unhappy perfectionist women. The best excerpt crosses generations:

Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there's supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn't feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it's unlikely.

PG County Residents Apply for Darwin Awards

2008-02-17T22:06:00.003-05:00

The Washington Times reports:

Eight persons were killed and five were injured early yesterday when a car plowed into a crowd gathered to watch an illegal street race in Accokeek.
Prince George's County police said a white Ford Crown Victoria that came down the road after the racers had started off plowed into a crowd of spectators who had been standing along Route 210 at about 3:40 a.m. to watch the contest.
...
Police said the race began on Route 210, also known as Indian Head Highway, near the intersection with Pine Drive. Witness accounts of the number of spectators varied from 50 to 300. The cars involved in the race spun their tires, kicking up smoke before they headed northbound on the four-lane road, which is divided by a grassy median.
Cpl. Copeland said that when the race began, many of the spectators stepped into the street to get a better view as the cars pulled away.
The Crown Victoria came up from behind, speeding northbound when it ran into the spectators, crossed over a small embankment off the right shoulder and came to rest on a road that runs parallel to the highway.
The impact left the bodies of the victims strewn over 50 feet.
One of the victims who had been standing in the crowd became lodged in the windshield of the Crown Victoria, leading police initially to say that a passenger in the car was killed. Another victim was dragged in the undercarriage of the car.
Police said one of the victims appeared to have been struck by a tractor-trailer traveling in the opposite lanes as people scattered away from the accident scene. Police could not confirm the report, and later said the tractor-trailer may have struck a body that had been thrown across the median by the impact of the accident.
Seven persons were declared dead at the scene and an eighth died at an area hospital.
The driver of the Crown Victoria suffered only minor injuries, was interviewed by police and was not charged in connection with the incident. Police were still searching for the cars that were involved in the race.
Police said the tire smoke and the darkness contributed to the accident. The area of Indian Head Highway where the accident occurred is about 20 miles south of the District, near the line with Charles County and is not illuminated by streetlights. The speed limit on the flat stretch of road is 55 miles per hour.

50-300 people wearing dark clothing standing in a highway at 3:40am. Too many survived.

Perhaps the Darwin Awards will consider a group application.

Read the full story here.

Voting Ourselves into Debt

2008-02-11T20:30:00.000-05:00

Kevin Hassett writes for Bloomberg:

...a president could always demand that spending be capped and that discretionary spending be reduced to offset unexpected increases in mandatory outlays. Social Security might be the third rail of American politics, but it might not be. It has been changed before. Why couldn't it be changed again? Families do that all the time. If Johnny needs braces, then you take fewer trips to the restaurant.

Because Johnny votes, and Johnny wants both.

Senate Democrats Continue to Impede Governance

2008-02-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

...President Bush pressed the Senate yesterday to break a political impasse and confirm more than 180 judicial and agency nominees whose appointments in many cases have been stalled for months.
Bush said the backlog strains the government's ability to respond to economic troubles, to ensure national security and to dispense justice. But Senate Democrats... are playing for time in the hope that their party captures the White House this fall...
Among those in limbo are three would-be Federal Reserve governors, four members of the Federal Election Commission, the chief of the Federal Aviation Administration, the head of the Internal Revenue Service, the deputy attorney general and 17 ambassadors. Perhaps most important to the White House are 28 designated judges who, if confirmed, would have lifetime tenure to shape the courts long after Bush leaves office.
"The confirmation process has turned into a never-ending political game where everyone loses," Bush said in the East Room, flanked by nominees whose confirmations have been delayed. He said more than half the nominees have been waiting for longer than 100 days and that more than 30 have been held up for a year or longer. "These are real folks, making real sacrifices, and they should not be treated like political pawns."
...
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) chastised Bush for sticking with nominees who have no chance of confirmation. One example is Steven G. Bradbury, whose nomination as assistant attorney general is opposed by many senators because he signed memos authorizing especially harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects.

If a nominee truly has "no chance of confirmation," the Senate vote to reject him.

The six-member FEC, for instance, is down to two members, short of the four needed to take official action such as launching investigations into campaign finance violations. Similarly, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission cannot decide cases or penalize mines that commit safety violations because it has more vacancies than members.
The confirmation process has stretched out so long that even with the threat of recession, a Bush-nominated economist recently withdrew because he tired of waiting. "The three-member Council of Economic Advisers is down to one person," Bush noted, "which makes for lonely council meetings."

If a Democrat is elected in November, Senate Republicans should vow to block every confirmation vote until 2013.

Fuzzier Red Tape

2008-02-09T18:21:00.000-05:00

Stephen Barr writes:

A regulatory relic may finally fade away.
The Office of Personnel Management has called for the elimination of the time-in-grade restriction, which dates to 1952. It requires that federal employees in General Schedule grades 5 and above serve 52 weeks in a grade before becoming eligible for promotion to the next grade.
The restriction was put in place by the late Mississippi congressman Jamie L. Whitten to prevent a big buildup of the civil service and excessive rapid promotions during the Korean War. Cutting red tape is never easy, however. The Clinton administration tried to get rid of the Whitten requirement in 1995 and 1996, and Bush administration officials targeted the restriction in 2003.
In a Federal Register notice Wednesday, the OPM said the time-in-grade restriction is no longer necessary because the government has developed standards for experience and education that employees must meet to get promoted. Employees also will be able to use experience from jobs other than their current position when competing for promotions.
...
"Elimination of the 52-week time-in-grade waiting period reinforces the principle that promotions are based on an individual's ability to perform the requirements of the position," the OPM said. Dropping the requirement also "will help dispel the myth" that federal employees benefit from automatic promotions because they spent a set amount of time in a grade.

The problem is that OPM is trying to dispel a myth that is actually true. No doubt most "standards for experience" (or other hidden requirements) will simply duplicate the time-in-grade requirements.

The Popemobile is Coming!

2008-02-08T20:29:00.000-05:00

From WJLA:

When Pope Benedict XVI visits Washington in April he will make two trips through Washington in his popemobile.
The Washington Archdiocese says the decision means people who can't get to the pope's Mass at the new Washington Nationals ballpark will be able to see him travel the streets in his specially-designed vehicle. The original itinerary did not call for the pope to make any public appearances other than the Mass, but the archdiocese says the Vatican has changed its mind.
The routes for the popemobile trips have not been finalized. The Mass is scheduled for April 17.

Too Stupid to Vote

2008-02-05T19:35:00.000-05:00

WTOP reports:

People are showing up at polling places across Virginia expecting to vote in presidential primaries that are still a week away.
By noon Tuesday, the State Board of Elections received about 400 calls, and many callers wanted to know why their polling places were closed.

Virginia has two good options here:

1. Take their names and revoke their voter registrations.
2. Tell them the election was last week and they missed it.

Even scarier: the thousands and thousands of people who probably showed up but didn't bother to go look up the phone number for the State Board of Elections, call it, and complain about polls not being open.

A Frightening View of Washington DC

2008-01-31T18:15:00.000-05:00

I'm spending the week studying arms control, proliferation, and weapons of mass destruction. Yet this is the most disturbing thing I've read all week (from Der Spiegel):

...Washington is the most vital capital city in the West today...

That's "vital" as in dynamic, not a description of its importance.

Later, there is a much more reassuring observation on "unity" and partisanship:

Democracy thrives on differences of opinion, which translate into differences between parties. Promising to put an end to this ongoing dispute makes about as much sense as a supermarket manager announcing plans to combine the meat and produce departments -- and justifying his decision by saying that the management wants to overcome the decades-long polarization between steak-lovers and vegetarians.
Citizens would be well-advised to demand disagreement and harsh words. The parties must remain partisan if voters are to have a real choice. In the country ruled by consensus that the candidates are now touting, voters would end up feeling like the shoppers in the imaginary supermarket with its combined meat-and-produce department: Vegetarians and meat-eaters would be equally unhappy.

Yet Another Plurality

2008-01-29T21:22:00.000-05:00

Florida 2000:

George W. Bush won the primary with 73.8 percent; John McCain came in second with 19.9 percent.

Florida 2008:

McCain wins Florida, CNN projects
With 55 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain held a 36-32 percent lead over Romney. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani trailed with 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who held 13 percent.

Winner-take-all does not work with this many candidates.

In related news, the AP reports:

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who nearly won the vice presidency as a Democrat in 2000, says there's no way he'll be Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate should McCain become the party's presidential nominee.

This should never have been seriously considered. The Senate does not need to be driven further to the left.

You Can Pay Higher Taxes!

2008-01-29T20:17:00.001-05:00

From President George W. Bush's State of the Union Address last night:

We have other work to do on taxes. Unless Congress acts, most of the tax relief we've delivered over the past seven years will be taken away. Some in Washington argue that letting tax relief expire is not a tax increase. Try explaining that to 116 million American taxpayers who would see their taxes rise by an average of $1,800. Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm. I'm pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders.

For those who want higher taxes:

Citizens who wish to make a general donation to the U.S. government may send contributions to a specific account called "Gifts to the United States." This account was established in 1843 to accept gifts, such as bequests, from individuals wishing to express their patriotism to the United States. Money deposited into this account is for general use by the federal government and can be available for budget needs. These contributions are considered an unconditional gift to the government. Financial gifts can be made by check or money order payable to the United States Treasury and mailed to the address below.
Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 6D17
Hyattsville, MD 20782

Needed: A Problem-Solver

2008-01-28T17:37:00.001-05:00

David Frum writes for National Review:

How can we hold the line on government while addressing America’s genuine health-care needs? How can we sustain the competitiveness of the American economy against a Democratic Congress quivering to impose new taxes and new regulations? How can we win a war on terror that the congressional majority seems already to have written off as lost?
Rudy Giuliani is the answer to these challenges.
No living elected official has solved more public problems with more outstanding success than Rudy Giuliani. If there is one person Americans associate with competence in government, it is Rudy. As the primary race has warmed up, some have tried to diminish the mayor’s accomplishments. But in fact, the closer you look, the more amazing they become.
Yes, the crime rate for the whole country declined in the 1990s. But New York, with a little less than 3 percent of the nation’s population, accounted for 15 percent of the nation’s decline in homicides. Much of the improvement in former high-crime zones like Chicago, Washington, and Miami occurred precisely because New York’s success inspired other mayors to follow where Giuliani had led.
It is not just crime. Giuliani restored civility to New York’s public spaces, reformed welfare, broke the grip of organized crime on trash collection and food wholesaling, restored academic standards in the city university system, chased the sex industry off the streets, held the line on taxes, and set in motion one of the greatest property booms in city history.
In 1963, President Kennedy challenged those who suggested that Communism could out-compete freedom: “Let them come to Berlin.” Today, Republicans can challenge those who assert that liberals can out-manage conservatives: “Let them come to New York.”
Giuliani achieved his success by combining a fierce commitment to core values with an impressive flexibility in his methods. He listened to advice, tried experiments, built on what worked, discarded what did not work. He showed that a leader can be strong without being rigid.
...
Most Republicans agree with most of these positive assessments of Giuliani. Yet many continue to hold back, for reasons like those forcefully articulated by Hadley Arkes in an influential recent article: “The nomination and election of Rudy Giuliani would mark the end of the Republican party as the pro-life party in our politics.”
This is exactly wrong. Yes, there are Republicans who want to chase pro-lifers and other social conservatives out of the party. But Giuliani has emphatically taken a very different view. He has extended welcome to pro-life conservatives in almost every way a candidate for president can. He has promised to appoint federal judges who take the Scalia-Thomas-Roberts-Alito view of the Constitution. He has pledged that as president he would do his utmost to persuade Americans to turn away from abortion and toward adoption. He has declared his personal revulsion at abortion. He has stated over and over that pro-life conservatives will have his respect and attention.
Giuliani may not speak about life issues with the fervor and eloquence of a George W. Bush. But for all practical purposes, what he would actually do would look very similar to what George W. Bush actually has done. Maybe even better: Remember, Giuliani will be taking advice on judges from Theodore Olson — whereas Bush’s first choice for the Alito seat was Harriet Miers.
...
This is a wartime election. It is an election that will decide between a free, competitive health system and a government monopoly. It will decide whether taxes rise, whether the swing seat on the Supreme Court goes to a liberal or a conservative, whether illegal aliens get enforcement or amnesty. This is not an election that conservatives can afford to lose. But it is an election we will lose if we refuse to face realities.
We must avoid the mistake we made in 1996, when we picked a candidate because he made us feel comfortable — with little regard to how the majority of Americans would feel about him. When Americans look at our array of candidates on the stage, they see only one president up there. That’s the president we should offer them.

Read it all here.

Romney, McCain Argue for Giuliani Nomination

2008-01-27T19:04:00.000-05:00

From the AP:

Mitt Romney and John McCain are in an increasingly bitter and personal struggle to control the campaign conversation before Florida's primary on Tuesday - and the Republican presidential nomination itself may go to the one who succeeds.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, casts himself as a business-savvy economic turnaround artist amid recession anxiety, while McCain, the Arizona senator and former Vietnam veteran, portrays himself as a courageous wartime commander in chief in a dangerous world.
"He has an enormous disadvantage when it comes to the topics of changing Washington or fixing our economy," Romney said Sunday, arguing that he is far stronger than McCain on both issues.
Countered McCain: "Even if the economy is the, quote, No. 1 issue, the real issue will remain America's security" - and, unlike him, Romney is deficient in that area.
...
Rudy Giuliani... is hoping to benefit in Florida from the Romney and McCain squabbling by staying above the fray. "What we should be talking about is not negative criticisms of each other," he scolded Sunday. He has been arguing that he offers a perfect combination - strength on the economy and on security - and says: "If you choose me, you have both."

Both Romney and McCain have been spending much of the campaign making arguments that ultimately support Giuliani. It's kind of fun to watch.

Dennis Prager on Rudy Giuliani

2008-01-27T17:45:00.001-05:00

Dennis Prager writes:

To the extent that I understand how most Republicans think, it would seem that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani comes closer to the Republican ideal than any of the other viable Republican candidates. They are all good and decent men who would be better for America than either of the Democratic front-runners. But it is difficult to see, from a conservative- and Republican-values perspective, what major shortcoming Giuliani brings as compared to the other candidates. And given the obsession of liberal news media with publishing negative reports about Giuliani and frequent praise of John McCain, it would appear that it is Giuliani whom Democrats most fear as the Republican presidential nominee.
...when it comes to being strong on both domestic and international issues, it seems that no presently viable Republican candidate matches Rudy Giuliani.
...
Ronald Reagan was pro-life, and it mattered little to the pro-life cause. Concerning abortion, what matters most in a president is the type of judges he appoints to the Supreme Court. As George Will wrote on behalf of Giuliani, "The way to change abortion law is to change courts by means of judicial nominations of the sort Giuliani promises to make." It is extremely unlikely that John McCain would appoint similarly conservative judges. After all, why would he appoint judges like Scalia and Alito who apparently differ with him on the constitutionality of McCain's own "campaign finance reform" laws?
Pro-life Republicans need to ask themselves: Will a Democrat or Giuliani as president render abortion less common in America? The best is the enemy of the better. And Giuliani is far better on abortion than any Democratic nominee.
Giuliani is for school vouchers, against bilingual education, for reducing taxes further, for reducing government spending. And he has well-thought-out positions on how to achieve these things. He also has the experience of cleaning up the most liberal major city in America.

Click here for the full article, including a significant critique of John McCain's record and judgment.

The unstated question seems to be whether voters are interested in thinking, or if they instead prefer the latest media bandwagon. The question they should be asking is: which man would be the best president?

Stimulus?

2008-01-27T17:33:00.000-05:00

Steve Chapman writes:

Washington, D.C. is a place where delusions go to thrive. That explains why Congress and the president are now agreed on remedies that will not work, expending money they do not have, to fix a problem that may not exist.

Read the details here.

Who Would Want a New York Times Endorsement?

2008-01-25T12:55:00.000-05:00

From last night's MSNBC Presidential Debate in Florida:

MR. WILLIAMS: ...Mayor Giuliani, we're going to begin with you. In tomorrow's -- tomorrow morning's editions of The New York Times, they are out with their endorsements in the New York primary: Senator Clinton on the Democratic side, Senator McCain on the Republican side. In tonight's lead editorial, they say, quote, "The real Mr. Giuliani, who many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man."
MR. GIULIANI: (Laughs.)
MR. WILLIAMS: "His arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking."
How can you defend against that in your hometown paper? How have you changed as a man since this portrait?
MR. GIULIANI: Because I probably never did anything The New York Times suggested I do in eight years as mayor of New York City. (Laughter.) And if I did, I wouldn't be considered a conservative Republican. (Applause.) I changed welfare, I changed quality of life, I took on homelessness, I did all the things that they thought make you mean, and I believe show rue compassion and true love for people. I moved people from welfare to work. When I did that, when I set up workfare, the New York Times wrote nasty editorials about how mean I was, how cruel I was.
I think there's a serious ideological difference. And I worked for Ronald Reagan. And I remember once, when I was in the Justice Department, The New York Times wrote a very laudatory editorial about my boss, Bill Smith, the attorney general. And Bill was very nervous that Ronald Reagan would get upset that we were off agenda, because of the good New York Times editorial. (Chuckles.)
So the reality is that I think there is serious ideological differences. That probably was some of the nicest language they've written about me in the last six months.

A New York Times endorsement should be taken as a liability, at least on the Republican side. Giuliani's anecdote about Bill Smith shows why.

Fraudulently Promoted Gun Control Bill Fails

2008-01-24T21:31:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

A bill that would have restricted certain gun sales [at gun shows] in Virginia and that had received passionate support from survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre was defeated by a Senate committee Wednesday, ending the major gun control effort of this year's General Assembly session.
...
Gun rights groups had opposed the bill, saying that Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech student who shot and killed 32 people and then himself, did not buy the two semiautomatic weapons he used in the shootings at a gun show...

That's all you need to know.

Straight Talk on Drug Reimportation

2008-01-23T20:54:00.000-05:00

George Will writes:

...was it unreasonable for Kerry to think McCain might be comfortable on a Democratic ticket? Not really.
In ABC's New Hampshire debate, McCain said: "Why shouldn't we be able to reimport drugs from Canada?" A conservative's answer is:
That amounts to importing Canada's price controls, a large step toward a system in which some medicines would be inexpensive but many others -- new pain-relieving, life-extending pharmaceuticals -- would be unavailable. Setting drug prices by government fiat rather than market forces results in huge reductions of funding for research and development of new drugs. McCain's evident aim is to reduce pharmaceutical companies' profits. But if all those profits were subtracted from the nation's health care bill, the pharmaceutical component of that bill would be reduced only from 10 percent to 8 percent -- and innovation would stop, taking a terrible toll in unnecessary suffering and premature death. When McCain explains that trade-off to voters, he will actually have engaged in straight talk.
There are decent, intelligent people who believe that equity or efficiency or both are often served by government setting prices. In America, such people are called Democrats.

I would replace "intelligent" with "misguided" or "short-sighted", but the point stands.

Numbers Can Be Interesting

2008-01-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

South Carolina, 2008:

McCain - 143,224 - 33%
Huckabee - 128,908 - 30%
Others - 158,787 - 37%

The story? McCain Wins.

South Carolina, 2000:

George W. Bush - 301,050 - 53%
John McCain - 237,888 - 42%
Others - 26,766 - 5%

The story? McCain Loses.

The difference? A decrease of 9 points and about 100,000 votes to go from losing to winning.

Nevadans Vote Forgainst Clinton, Obama

2008-01-19T21:51:00.000-05:00

CBS claims:

Clinton Wins Nevada Democratic Caucuses
Sen. Hillary Clinton has won the Nevada Democratic caucuses.
"I guess this is how the West was won," Clinton told cheering supporters in Las Vegas. The victory was her second straight, coming after an upset win in the New Hampshire primary.
With 98 percent of the state's precincts reporting, Clinton had 51 percent support. Barack Obama had 45 percent and John Edwards had 4 percent.
CBS News estimates that Obama won 13 delegates and Clinton 12. Obama was able to take more delegates despite getting fewer overall votes because of the proportional manner in which Nevada awards delegates.

No wonder the drive by media can't understand basic concepts like the Electoral College.

The Candidates on Taxes

2008-01-19T12:21:00.000-05:00

Robert Novak writes:

Rudy Giuliani gets the highest rating from Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) of all Republican candidates, with a perfect score on his tax-cut intentions.
Sen. John McCain gets the worst marks of GOP candidates by refusing to take a no-tax-increase pledge, advocating a 15 percent estate tax rather than total repeal and failing to advocate an alternative system of taxation, new capital gains tax cuts and a cut in the corporate rate. Mitt Romney also fails on the alternative system and capital gains cuts, as well as not advocating total repeal of the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Mike Huckabee falls short on the AMT and capital gains and corporate rates.
A footnote: The three leading Democratic candidates -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards -- all get a goose egg from the ATR by failing on all its issues.

Virginia May Make Car-Buying More Difficult

2008-01-18T19:06:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Northern Virginia residents could face long lines at the DMV after action by lawmakers Thursday that would force car buyers to pay auto sales taxes directly to the state instead of through dealers.
The House Transportation Committee passed a bill Thursday that would tweak last year's landmark transportation package by repealing the costly, unpopular abusive-driver fees and adding another step to the car-buying process for residents of Northern Virginia.
Instead of paying sales taxes through dealers, buyers would have to pay them at the DMV in person or possibly endure a lengthier process by mail or online. The proposal would make it impossible to finance the new 1 percent tax that is assessed on car sales in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

So they want to bail out the state's worst drivers and make it harder than it already is to buy a car.

Barbara Reese, deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation, said she has "serious concerns" about the proposal, which she said would be a burden to the DMV and car buyers.
...
Despite the objections of the Department of Transportation, the House Transportation Committee voted in favor of the bill repealing the driver fees and changing the tax collection method with little discussion.

The Executives

2008-01-17T20:16:00.000-05:00

David Broder writes:

It was fascinating to watch the three top contenders for the Democratic nomination discuss their concept of the presidency during Tuesday night's MSNBC debate in Las Vegas. But it was also stunning to realize that the three current and former senators who have survived the shakeout process -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have not a day of chief executive experience behind them.
By contrast, the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomed to being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were governors of their home states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani served as the mayor of New York City, and John McCain, as he likes to remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.
In the past, voters have preferred to entrust the White House to those with executive credentials. John Kennedy was the last sitting senator to be elevated into the presidency. Since then, the former governors of Georgia, California, Arkansas and Texas have dominated the list of successful candidates.
...
[Romney] began to regain his footing after Iowa, when he subordinated his ideological claim to being the conservative champion in favor of portraying himself as a tough-minded executive who could reform both laggard private businesses and swollen, ineffective government bureaucracies.
He drew a useful contrast to "broken" Washington, the home base of Senator McCain and two of his three Democratic colleagues -- Obama and Clinton. Edwards is a former senator.
Huckabee had made a similar case for himself, citing his decade of leadership in Arkansas. And Giuliani had asserted a record of accomplishment in rescuing New York from fiscal crisis and reducing the city's crime and welfare rates.
All of this places an unusually heavy burden on the three Senate Democrats to show they can do more than talk a good game of leadership -- and actually lead.

This is especially notable since the Democrats have driven their one executive candidate from the race. We are electing a President, not a Prime Minister.

Read the full article here.

Virginia Democrats Afraid of Voting

2008-01-16T19:07:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

In every session of the Virginia General Assembly, legislators introduce thousands of bills, many of which are so controversial that they die in a committee.
But this year, in a change that has angered Democrats, the Republican leaders who control the House have decided to allow bills to bypass the usual committees, potentially sending them straight to the House floor for a vote.
In this way, the GOP leaders are attempting to force Democrats to vote on controversial issues that could make them vulnerable in future elections. Already, dozens of bills about abortion, taxes, capital punishment, collective bargaining and illegal immigration have been referred to the Republican-controlled Rules Committee, which can send bills to the full House.
Democrats say they are worried that they will have to vote on the bills, even those that have no chance of passing in the full House or later in the Senate, producing a record of votes that will show up in campaign ads in the next election.

Cowards.

Spendthrift Congress Goes Gourmet

2008-01-15T18:47:00.000-05:00

From the Politico:

The processed cheese has been replaced with brie. The Jell-O has made way for raspberry kiwi tarts and mini-lemon blueberry trifles. Meatloaf has moved over for mahi mahi and buns have been shunted aside in favor of baguettes.
A revolution is afoot at the deli counters, grills and salad bars of the U.S. House of Representatives.
...
One House Republican aide lobbed attacks at the Democrats over e-mail.
"I really don't like Nanny Nancy telling me what I can and cannot eat for lunch. If I want to eat unhealthy, I should have that choice!" the aide fumed.
Republican aides have raised questions about why the cafeterias now stock Stonyfield Farm yogurt, speculating that the move would line the pockets of the company's CEO, Gary Hirshberg, a significant player in Democratic politics.
...
Grumbling aside, the menu choices now available present a whole new world of congressional culinary adventures.
There is pan-roasted Chesapeake rockfish with sweet potato fennel hash and yellow pepper relish. Pears with Stilton cheese and watercress. Cumin-scented leg of lamb with almond couscous. There are vegetables with funny names, like bok choy, arugula and jicama. There are baked goods with Italian names, like biscotti, focaccia and frittati.
There are foods in funny colors, like yellow tomatoes and purple Peruvian potatoes. There are things that are free of other things, like "cage-free shell eggs," "rBGH-free milk" and "free-range chicken." And things that we don't know what they mean, like turkey escabeche (salad), red pepper coulis (sauce) and seared barramundi (fish).
A vending machine sells coffee from famed chef Wolfgang Puck, offering brews such as "Vive la Crème Caramel" and "Tropic of Chocolate."

This is the food of those who claim to represent ordinary Americans.

Arlington Considers Streetcars

2008-01-15T18:30:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Plans to build a Northern Virginia streetcar network, once considered fanciful, received a major boost last week, when officials unanimously voted to give the project its first big infusion of funding.
The project was among the top dollar winners in the funding package passed Thursday by the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, the body instituting new regional transportation taxes put in place last year.
It also was the focus of sparring in the long-running philosophical contest between advocates of mass transit and those who emphasize the need for major road construction to address the Washington region's snarled traffic.
Backers hope the initial 4.7-mile Columbia Pike line, which will connect Pentagon City in Arlington County to the Skyline area of Fairfax County, will seed a much broader streetcar network, which eventually could stretch from Alexandria to Tysons Corner.

I was intrigued when I first saw the story. Although I live just barely inside the Beltway, I do all of my shopping in much more accessible Fairfax County. I would rather drive 10 miles south to a store than 3 miles north. Few destinations are Metro accessible - and those that are become crowded with refugees from DC. However, this proposal has one giant looming problem:

In the Columbia Pike plan, the line will generally run along the outside lane of traffic, beside the curb. Streetcars share the lanes with other cars and can get caught in traffic snarls just like other vehicles...

Ultimately, road capacity will be reduced. Streetcars will get stuck behind cars. Cars will get stuck behind streetcars. Unlike buses, streetcars won't be able to get around vehicles that are "blocking the box."

Skeptics, such as Arlington Republican activist Wayne Kubicki, worry that the streetcar project will cost more than current projections and might not have the advertised development and congestion-alleviation benefits. "It sounds half-cooked," Kubicki said.

Big problems need big solutions. The remote possibility that it "could stretch from Alexandria to Tysons Corner" isn't very reassuring.

Instead of big solutions, we get small, overpriced, and unnecessary projects like this:

Installation of escalator canopy at Huntington south entrance to provide sheltered customer access to the station.
Total Funding Required = $2,000,000

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Policy

2008-01-14T19:23:00.000-05:00

From Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: But, Mayor, let me just say that even if you passed -- even if you were president now and you put all of those in with the state of the union later this month, those wouldn't help in the short run. Those wouldn't help for a couple of years.
Senator Hillary Clinton, for -- let me just say Senator Hillary Clinton has just proposed a $70 billion package which would send money to the states to help stop foreclosures, help with heating oil, extend unemployment benefits.
She and some people at the White House are talking about tax rebates right now. I mean, that's the kind of short-term stimulus you need, isn't it?
GIULIANI: No. The kind of short-term stimulus you need is to present the picture, realistic picture, of an economy that's going to grow.
And then the private sector and the investment from the private sector -- the multiples of money that that would involve dwarfs anything that you're talking about.
Here, look at it this way. You're a business. You're making a decision about where to place your business, a business that you're going to have there for the next 20 years to 30 years.
You're looking at a picture of the United States of, you know, Democrats possibly getting elected, talking about raising taxes 20 percent or 30 percent, talking about building the central government, regulating more.
You look at another country where the corporate tax rate is considerably less than the United States. The other tax rates are going down. And they're talking about putting more back into the private sector. Where do you put your business? Where do you make your long-term investment? Where do you put your money? How do you evaluate the currencies? If the government in Washington presents the picture of immediately moving toward pro-growth policies, you have growth right away.
A lot of the movement of money, as you know, not just in markets but in general is a prediction of not just where the economy is today, but where the economy is going to be next year, the year after, the year after that.
So by announcing strong pro-growth policies, you can affect that decision, and that brings more liquidity. It brings more money. It brings more investment into your economy.
That's why the Club for Growth pointed out that my tax program would be one of the best things that you could do to strengthen the economy right now and create growth.

It's always good to see that there's someone out there more concerned with long-term growth than short-term micromanagement of policy.

Mitt Romney's Bizarre Hospital

2008-01-14T18:22:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney said something odd at one of the recent Republican presidential debates (at St. Anselm College, NH). I wondered if I had imagined it, but there's a transcript.

Challenged by Fred Thompson on his health insurance mandates in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney had this to say:

Yes, we said, look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way; don't be free-riders and pass on the cost to your health care to everybody else...
If somebody is making, let's say $100,000 a year, and doesn't have health insurance, and they show up at the hospital, and they need a $1,000 repair of some kind for something that's gone wrong. And they say, "Look, I'm not insured, I'm not going to pay." Do you think they should pay or not?

Is this a problem in Massachusetts? Do people making $100,000 a year go into hospitals, receive treatment, refuse to pay, and get bailed out by the state? No wonder Massachusetts is in such bad shape. They're going to have problems funding health care if they don't bother to send a bill or pursue non-payers with the wide range of available remedies.

His hypothetical $100k free-rider doesn't pass the laugh test, suggesting, oddly enough, that multi-millionaire Mitt Romney tried to "out-poor" Fred Thompson.

Metro's Service Decline Continues

2008-01-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Metrorail Reports 17-Month Slide in On-Time Service
Metro's latest performance data confirm what subway riders have been saying for months: Train service is getting worse.
On-time performance has been declining for the past 17 months; not once did the agency meet its performance benchmark of having 95 percent of all trains run on schedule. On-time performance was worst during the evening rush, when it hovered in the 80 percent range. The steepest drop occurred between July and November, when service disruptions increased 30 percent from the same period the previous year.

Declining service now affects more people:

Despite the drop in performance, ridership is growing. Average weekday ridership in October was 739,000 trips, up 6 percent from the year before, according to the most recent budget figures.
...
From July to November 2007, almost 60 percent of the 1,825 service disruptions were caused by mechanical and door problems, according to Metro data.

That also suggests that riders are causing a significant number of the problems themselves by jamming doors out of fear of having to wait an entire minute for the next train.

Plans vs. Leadership

2008-01-10T19:55:00.000-05:00

From the Indianapolis Star:

When it comes to shaping domestic policy, the president is just one voice of many. In the process of a bill becoming a law, the end product can often look quite different from what was originally proposed.
During the three-hour debate marathon on ABC Saturday night, the Democratic presidential candidates spent a lot of time arguing over which of their health-care proposals will cover the most Americans, and the Republicans debated the minutiae of their respective immigration policies. But voters, and the media, should not put too much stock in the details of such policy debates.
Once the next president submits his or her proposals to Congress, the bills will be revised by various House and Senate committees and will be affected by lobbyists from all sides. In the end, the president's leadership skills and ability to persuade others (including members of the opposition party) will prove to be of far more importance than the specific policy details articulated on the campaign trail.

This is why each candidate's executive experience is so important. Giuliani, and to a lesser extent Huckabee and Romney, has a record of success facing a hostile opposition. The other candidates (on both sides) do not.

A Divided America?

2008-01-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

Bret Stephens writes in the Wall Street Journal:

A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true meaning of poverty. A nation in which obesity is largely a problem of the poor (and anorexia of the upper-middle class) does not understand the word "hunger." A nation in which the most celebrated recent cases of racism, at Duke University or in Jena, La., are wholly or mostly contrived is not a racist nation. A nation in which our "division" is defined by the vitriol of Ann Coulter or James Carville is not a truly divided one--at least while Mr. Carville is married to Republican operative Mary Matalin and Ms. Coulter is romantically linked with New York City Democrat Andrew Stein.

Just Don't Buy an iPod

2008-01-04T19:15:00.000-05:00

From Yahoo News:

A class-action suit filed against Apple alleges the company unfairly uses technological restrictions with its iPod line and iTunes Music Store to beat out competitors.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is the latest one to accuse Apple of unfair business practices. Apple is facing similar legal actions and scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe.
The suit was filed Dec. 31 by Stacie Somers, a resident of San Diego County, California, who bought a 30GB iPod from Target, a retail store. Others who bought an iPod or content from Apple's iTunes store after Dec. 31, 2003, may join the suit.
...
The suit contends iPod-owning consumers can only buy music from iTunes, an unlawful tie-in that violates U.S. antitrust laws. Apple could license the WMA format for as little as $0.03 per iPod, or for a total of $800,000 based on Apple's 2005 iPod sales, the suit reads.

There is no indication of how Apple forced anyone to buy iPods, with their well-known relationship with iTunes and multitude of competitors (including my choice, the SanDisk Sansa).

Time: Ummm, Yeah, You Suck

2007-12-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

Time's James Peniewozik writes:

Hey there, you! It's been, what, a year? I don't think I've seen You since we named You Person of the Year 2006. What did we praise You for again? Oh, right: "for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game." Remember? You wrote about it on Your blog! We cornered the world market in reflective film for all those mirror covers! Good times, those. Hey, You've lost weight, haven't You?
So I see You've been flipping through this issue. Ahem. This is a little awkward. Well, as You can see, we ... we went in another direction this year. Please don't take it personally. We still love You. But let's face it: You had kind of an off year. It's not like You ran for President or anything. O.K., a few of You did, but to be fair, Rudy was already Person of the Year once...

Today's Dumbest Headlines

2007-12-19T19:18:00.000-05:00

Or at least the dumbest headlines that I saw:

"Non-believing US voters feel demonized"

So they believe in demons?

"FDA: Spermicide Does Not Protect Against STDs, AIDS"

Neither does Tylenol.

Shooting-Free Weekend Celebrated in Gun-Free DC

2007-12-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Although many neighborhoods have been dealing with increases in homicides and other crimes, there were no slayings or shootings in the city over the weekend, said Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes, who oversees patrol operations. There were two serious stabbings, but neither was fatal, she said.
"It's been a while since we had no shootings," Groomes said, crediting the extra police presence for curtailing the usual weekend gunfire.
Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier began All Hands on Deck in June, increasing police presence in concentrated time periods in hopes of deterring crime and improving community relations. Most officers worked a pair of eight-hour shifts between Friday and Sunday mornings, including many who usually are assigned to desk duties.
...
So far this year, homicides across the city have increased 14 percent, armed robberies are up 25 percent and shootings and other assaults with guns have risen 9 percent, according to preliminary figures. Lanier has cautioned that the department's record-keeping could be off by as much as 10 percent because of continuing problems with databases.

Six Degrees of Bad Reporting

2007-12-10T20:15:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post has a bizarre article on the dealings of Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm, including this most quotable paragraph:

But many of the firm's clients have never been listed on its Web site or identified publicly by associates, and two of the most controversial arrangements among them surfaced only in recent weeks. One involved a 2005 agreement to provide security advice to the government of Qatar. The second stemmed from a deal to assist a partnership proposing a Southeast Asian gambling venture. Among the partners were relatives of a Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the government of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime, according to a Chicago Tribune report.

The first one... well, we've seen that before. The second needs a bit of restatement:

Giuliani (has interest in) Firm (does business with) Partnership (which includes) Relatives (of) Billionaire (has ties to) DPRK (controlled by) Kim Jong Il.

Noting that the "has ties to" link could represent another series of connections as well, anybody can probably have closer "links" by eating lunch at the Panda Express.

Six degrees of separation may be a fuzzy concept, but it is certainly a good starting point.

A Budgetary Lie of Omission

2007-12-10T19:10:00.000-05:00

From the Christian Science Monitor, David R. Francis writes:

The latest tussle concerns a fiscal 2008 appropriations bill for three departments: Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services. The difference between Congress and the White House on this is $21 billion, figures the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a Washington think tank. That's about 5 percent of all domestic appropriations, 1.8 percent of all federal discretionary spending ($1.14 trillion, a sum that includes defense spending), and far less than 1 percent of the $2.9 trillion total budget...

That's a lot of numbers. Here's what's missing: the actual size of the bill itself. You can compare the dispute to a lot of things: GDP, tax revenues, or the market capitalization of Coca-Cola - but that still omits the single most relevant percentage in the debate: 15%.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cited by the author), the President proposed $140.9 billion in spending. The disputed $21 billion represents a 15 percent increase over that proposal - far beyond any measure of U.S. inflation. Especially with the federal government operating at a deficit, a 15 percent increase in any area should be cause for concern. Anywhere outside of government, it would be outrageous.

Oddly enough, at $146.19 billion today, Coca-Cola's market capitalization is roughly equivalent to the appropriations bill discussed above.

DC Government to Preserve Blight

2007-12-07T19:12:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

The District government conferred landmark status on a 36-year-old downtown church today despite impassioned opposition from congregants and community leaders who dismiss the building as an architectural blight.
The Historic Preservation Review Board's 7-0 ruling bars the Third Church of Christ Scientist from redeveloping their fortress-like sanctuary on 16th Street NW, two blocks north of the White House.
While several preservation board members expressed reservations about the church's modernist appearance, they said the building is among the city's most significant examples of Brutalism, an architectural movement of the 1950's and 1960's that espoused the use of roughly cast concrete.
...
"Preservation isn't always about whether we like and not like buildings," board member Denise Johnson told the audience at the hearing before voting. "You can learn enough to have an appreciation for it."

So if I have some moldy food in my refrigerator, but only one container, I should preserve it too?

Congregants said they were unsure whether they would appeal the ruling to preserve their home, an octagonal concrete structure, with high, windowless walls, standing on a spare, unadorned plaza.
But they also said that it may be too costly to repair a 400-seat sanctuary that's no longer suitable for a church that typically draws 40-60 Sunday worshipers.

If the District government finds this eyesore so valuable, it should be purchased outright, not regulated into uselessness.

Click here for a photo.

Prince William County Turns a Blind Eye to Common Criminals

2007-12-04T19:14:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

The Prince William County public school system yesterday rolled out a computerized security system to check for sex offenders at campus entry points and keep tabs on when visitors come and go, the latest sign that pen-and-paper visitor logs at front offices may be on the way out.
The debut of V-soft (for "visitor, student or faculty tracking"), also known as the Raptor, on 86 Prince William campuses comes as other schools in the Washington region are taking similar steps. The Raptor, devised by a Texas company, scans government-issued identification cards and checks them against a database of listings of 460,000 sex offenders from across the country.
School systems in Fairfax and Montgomery counties are piloting similar security programs or have made proposals to install them in coming years. Many Anne Arundel County schools use the Raptor, which so far has alerted officials to three sex offenders and led to one arrest.
...
Some immigrant-rights advocates worry that a move to check IDs in Prince William will be linked to the county government's recent crackdown on illegal immigrants, even though the Raptor is not plugged into any immigration database.
"Some people already spoke to me saying that they feared that their immigration status will be checked," said Ricardo Juarez, general coordinator of the D.C.-based Mexicanos sin Fronteras, or Mexicans Without Borders.
School officials stress that the only government databases being checked are sex-offender registries...
Even if the Raptor identifies a visitor as a sex offender, the person might be allowed to stay on school property depending on the state and the offense but must be chaperoned at all times by school officials.

Every visitor should be chaperoned. That would make it virtually impossible for a sex offender to commit a sex offense (or for anyone to commit any offense). You don't need special technology - you need eyes.

[Some parents] questioned whether the system was worth the $130,000 cost.
"I'd rather give my teachers more money in their paycheck," said Ellsworth Brown, whose daughter attends Enterprise Elementary School in Woodbridge. "Is there a credible enough threat of sex offenders trying to enter the schools to warrant this deployment?"

The article makes no reference to any credible threat. In fact, the system makes no effort to counter obvious credible threats. By only checking against sex offender lists, the system will miss known thieves, robbers, and other thugs. Theft is immeasurably more likely than the panic-inducing sex offense (purse snatchings vastly outnumbered rapes at my grade school).

If enabling arrests is a selling point, how about checking against outstanding warrants? Unpaid parking tickets? Overdue library books? There's a lot of potential here, but using computers to create such a false and limited sense of security isn't living up to it.

My recommendation to Prince William County: stop watching Law and Order SVU.

Lowered Expectations

2007-12-04T19:05:00.000-05:00

The Politico reports:

A 2008 calendar distributed to congressional offices Monday shows the House holding five-day weeks only three times next year, exposing Democrats to charges that they are backing away from a pledge to work harder than Republicans did when they ruled the House.
"You have to hand it to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for... rewarding themselves with another broken promise," said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "With a record low approval rating... you would think they would start getting to work instead of planning extra vacation days."
...
Next year's planned schedule... shows the House holding four-day weeks most of the time, arriving on Monday night and leaving Thursday, or arriving Tuesday night and leaving Friday.

The whole federal government should follow the Congressional calendar. America would be better for it.

Washington State University Snubs Vice Presidential Debate

2007-12-02T10:02:00.000-05:00

Eastern Washington - 2,500 miles outside the Beltway

The Spokesman Review reports:

Washington State University's push to host a national political debate in Spokane wasn't snuffed out... by a search committee. The snub was self-inflicted.
Michael Tate, vice president of equity and diversity at WSU, announced... that Spokane had been passed over in its bid to host one of three presidential debates next fall.
But he failed to mention that WSU had been offered the chance to entertain the only vice presidential debate of the 2008 election, which attracted more than 43 million viewers in 2004 when Dick Cheney squared off against John Edwards.
"We had an offer to host the vice presidential debate," Tate confirmed, "but we decided, with the focus we had right from the beginning of getting one of the three presidential debates, that we were just not in the position to accept the vice presidential debate."
...officials in St. Louis, which got the vice presidential debate after WSU turned it down, were elated to receive the national attention by default.
"Spokane turned it down, great. St. Louis will take that business," said Donna Andrews, public relations director of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission.
...
[After being defeated in his election bid] Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession said... he was aware of WSU's decision and supported the call.

WSU is located in Pullman, Washington - 75 miles south of Spokane in Whitman County. The article never addresses why WSU would have hosted the event when at least three universities are actually located in Spokane County. (And at least one recognized the importance of Vice Presidents when it endorsed Al Gore in 2000.)

Tom Keefe, a former Spokane County Democratic Chairman [and failed candidate for Congress], called Tate's decision a "blunder."
"I think beginning with the Clinton-Gore relationship, and clearly with the Bush-Cheney relationship … the vice president in the modern term is an important player," Keefe said. "For Washington State University to turn that down tends to confirm Washington State University's own self image as a second-rate place."
Curt Fackler, Spokane County Republican Chairman, called it "the wrong decision."
"Anytime you can be on the national stage and show off your area, that's a good opportunity," Fackler said.
...
Harry Sladich, director of the Spokane Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, worked with Tate to research the potential impacts and benefits of Spokane hosting a debate. He learned from a reporter Tuesday of WSU's decision.
...
Sladich said his organization focused its research on the impact the presidential debates. It never talked to city officials who previously hosted vice presidential debates.
"I'll bet the cities who hosted the vice presidential debates didn't have near the impact," he said. "We would rather save ourselves for another day when we can get a presidential debate."

Because of this laziness, WSU and Spokane should be forever barred from holding such events.

A member of Sladich's own staff indicated seven months ago that the bureau was considering the chance of landing the vice presidential debate. Tim Rhodes, a convention sales manager for the bureau who worked with WSU on the application, told The Spokesman-Review in April that Spokane has a track record of success hosting such events.
"It doesn't get much bigger than a presidential debate or a vice presidential debate," Rhodes said at the time. "I don't think we will ever host a Super bowl, so next to that, this is big."

Instead, no debate will held at a location noticeably west of the Mississippi.

Lingering Leaves Hobble Metro

2007-11-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

From the WMATA:

Speed restrictions that were put in place this morning, Friday, November 30, for safety reasons were lifted at 8:10 a.m. The fall leaves combined with the morning dew caused unusually slippery conditions on Metrorail tracks, so trains were operating at slower-than-usual speeds during the morning rush hour from 5 until 8:10 a.m.
Customers experienced only minor delays of between three and five minutes as a result of the slower-moving trains.
Trains, which operate at speeds in the 55 mph range in some areas of the Metrorail system, were temporarily restricted to a maximum of 30 mph in several segments of the rail system. This directly impacted 27 of the system's 86 stations.
The leaves have lingered on trees longer than usual this season, and this year as they continue to fall, they get crushed onto the tracks by train wheels. The combination of the crushed leaves and morning dew has resulted in difficult braking and accelerating conditions for trains. Metro officials, who have been carefully monitoring morning weather conditions, slowed down the vehicles to improve safety conditions.

Leaves.

2008 Debate Locations Lean Southern - New Orleans Whines

2007-11-20T21:08:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports:

The Commission on Presidential Debates has picked Oxford, Miss.; St. Louis; Nashville; and Hempstead, N.Y., as the sites of the presidential and vice-presidential debates in the general election campaign next year.
New Orleans took offense at its omission, with a leader of one Louisiana advocacy group saying she had been told that the city had not recovered sufficiently from Hurricane Katrina to act as host of such an event. New Orleans was one of 16 finalists and has attracted major conventions since the hurricane devastated much of the city more than two years ago.
...
The debates have become a huge traveling road show, with a cast of 4,000 extras from the worlds of politics and the news media. In the case of Oxford, which has only 700 hotel rooms, overnight visitors will be bused to Tupelo, Miss., and Memphis.
In addition to Oxford, where the first presidential debate is to be held Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi, presidential debates are scheduled for Belmont University in Nashville on Oct. 7 and Hofstra University in Hempstead on Oct. 15. The vice-presidential debate is scheduled for Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 2.
The omission of New Orleans drew a sharp reaction from Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, who said the commission had "lost sight of the public interest it was chartered to serve."

It is general knowledge that Louisiana Democrats are corrupt, but after failing to attract their own convention, why would they think they own the Commission on Presidential Debates too?

More importantly, if geography is the big issue, why aren't there any debates in the West?

Three of the four locations, in three contiguous southern states, are no more than 370 miles apart - close enough to all be in the same state. The locations represent the deep interior of the Confederacy, plus a suburb of New York City.

Metro Public Hearing Not Accessible by Metro

2007-11-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Only four riders showed up to voice their opposition to the largest increases Metro has ever proposed in rail fares and parking fees.
One rider blamed the small turnout on the location, a conference center in Reston, that was not easily accessible by bus or rail. The rider said she could not even find it on MapQuest. Metro board member Catherine Hudgins, who represents Virginia, acknowledged that it was possible the location might have contributed to the small turnout.

It was only the first of six such hearings, but the choice of location (miles from any Metro station) is a bit bizarre.

First '08 Senate Bumper Sticker

2007-11-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

I saw my first bumper sticker for the 2008 Virginia Senate race... for Democrat candidate Mark Warner... on a car that had been ticketed for parking illegally.

Status Quo in Sleepy Alexandria

2007-11-07T19:53:00.000-05:00

The Alexandria Times reports:

Voter turnout in Alexandria was low - just over 20 percent - but Democrats voted in sufficient strength to send all five local incumbents back to Richmond.
The only truly contested race was in the 45th House District, where Democrat incumbent David Englin was challenged by Republican [and former Democrat] Mark Allen. Though Allen ran a well-funded, well-organized campaign, the results were the usual: Englin got 62 percent of the votes cast, and Allen received 38 percent of the votes cast. Allen won only one precinct, City Hall.
...
The only excitement came when Republicans and Democrats went to Circuit Court at just after 5 p.m. to ask for the polls to remain open after 7 p.m. because of a fire at the Pentagon Metro station.
"We were told that the Circuit Court had the authority to keep the polls open, but Judge John Kloch, who was on duty tonight, said he wasn't sure he had that authority," said Susan Kellom, chair of the Alexandria Democratic Committee.
According to [Tom Parkins, Alexandria's Voter Registrar], Virginia Code speaks about what a voter registrar is supposed to do if the polls are kept open by the Circuit Court, but, "apparently the lawyers couldn't find the Code section that gives the Circuit Court that implied authority."
"I didn't think they were going to keep the polls open for something like a fire in the Metro because that would be like keeping them open because there was an accident on I-395. The polls are usually kept open past regular closing time because someone in my position screws up and lots of voters are precluded from voting. That certainly wasn't the case here," Parkins said.

I was lucky enough to make it through the Pentagon and cast my vote and undervote before Virginia's polls closed shamefully early.

The real discovery of the night was that I was able to confirm that while Alexandria's voting machines don't allow undervotes in single-race elections, they are allowed in multiple-race elections.

Lethal Injection Opponent Finds Hanging Acceptable

2007-11-07T19:50:00.000-05:00

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - Defense attorney Lisa McCalmont was well-known nationally as an outspoken critic of lethal injection and amassed a trove of information about problems with the three-drug cocktail that is at the very center of a case the U.S. Supreme Court will hear early next year.
Colleagues say McCalmont, 49, was looking forward to the Supreme Court case as a momentous event in her career.
But then, last week, she hanged herself at her home in Norman - a suicide that stunned and baffled some of those who knew her.
...She left no suicide note.
At the time of her death, she was a consultant to the Death Penalty Clinic at the law school at the University of California at Berkeley, and worked passionately to save the lives of death row inmates. She advised attorneys across the country who were working on challenges to lethal injection.
McCalmont was not directly involved in the Kentucky case before the Supreme Court, in which two condemned men claim lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
But colleagues said she helped lay the groundwork for similar challenges in other jurisdictions. She argued that if the drugs were not properly administered, the condemned could suffer excruciating pain without being able to cry out.

Do Nothing Congress to Do Less

2007-10-28T21:39:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports:

The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, told fellow Democrats this week that the House would not be in session next year on Fridays, except in June for work on appropriations bills.
...
And on Friday, President Bush once again hammered Congressional Democrats, accusing them of failing to meet basic responsibilities like approving annual budget bills and confirming his nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey.
"This is not what Congressional leaders promised when they took control of Congress earlier this year,” Mr. Bush said. “Congress needs to keep their promise, to stop wasting time, and get essential work done on behalf of the American people."
...
On Wednesday, the House cast its one-thousandth roll-call vote of the year, the first time that it reached that mark since the Constitution was ratified. Democrats hailed the occasion, while Republicans sniped that only 106 of the votes were on bills ultimately signed into law, and that 45 of those bestowed names on post offices or other property.

The federal government continues to operate on a continuing resolution as the Democrat Congress has failed to pass any appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began October 1st.

Congressmen are also expressing disgust at the possibility that they may only get two and a half weeks off for Thanksgiving and three and a half weeks for Christmas.

Unexpected Upward Revision in Jobs Raises Risk of No Recession

2007-10-09T20:09:00.000-04:00

Gene Epstein writes at barrons.com:

Revision was the watchword in the September jobs report. For August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a statistically insignificant decline of 4,000 in non-farm payrolls, prompting the New York Times to run the headline, "Unexpected Loss of Jobs Raises Risk of Recession." Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, the loss of 4,000 has now been revised to a gain of 89,000. Imagine the corrected headline: "Unexpected Upward Revision in Jobs Raises Risk of No Recession."

Read the rest here.

Oh, Holy Congress, Defend Us From Popcorn

2007-10-09T20:04:00.000-04:00

The Macaca Post reports that Congressional Democrats are pressuring OSHA to regulate microwave popcorn:

Last month, the issue's visibility increased after a Colorado man, who ate two or more bags a day of microwave popcorn, was diagnosed with popcorn lung disease.

He ate two or more bags of popcorn a day and that's the only thing that's wrong with him?

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to operate on a continuing resolution after Congress failed to pass any of the basic appropriations bills for the fiscal year which began October 1st.

Moooooooose!

2007-10-05T21:07:00.000-04:00

Cannonball, ND - 1,600 miles outside the Beltway

From the AP:

When Beverly and Ernie Fischer gathered up their cattle this fall in Morton County, they rounded up a little more than they expected.
"We were moving some cattle, and we got a moose," Ernie Fischer said. "He thinks he is a cow," said his wife.
Ernie Fischer said it was difficult to get the young bull moose away from the cattle, and workers put it in a separate corral until it could be released. The moose also broke fences on the ranch 20 miles south of Mandan.
It's not the only such incident in south central North Dakota this year. Emmons County rancher Sam Gross recently reported a lone bull moose in his cattle herd, and a moose also was spotted in a cattle herd in McIntosh County.

New Law Discourages Loan Repayment

2007-10-05T21:06:00.000-04:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Public service employees -- federal workers, soldiers, nurses, firefighters and others -- will have an opportunity to qualify for student loan forgiveness under a law signed by President Bush yesterday.
The law forgives outstanding education debt for public service employees who have made 10 years of monthly payments on their loans while serving full-time in government, public education or other positions related to public service.
The loan-forgiveness provision of the law [took] effect Monday, which will start the clock ticking on when the government will take responsibility for paying outstanding debt...

There's no reason to pay off debt if someone else will do it for you.

Can You Say Kyrgyzstan?

2007-10-05T21:04:00.000-04:00

Al Kamen writes for the Macaca Post:

Bit of a slip-up at the United Nations... Someone posted a [draft] of President Bush's... address on the U.N. Web site... complete with helpful phonetic pronunciations for various countries and people.
"The United States, salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty," the draft said, "including Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan], Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a], Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Morocco."
"In Zimbabwe," the draft said, "the behavior of the Mugabe [moo-GAH-bee] regime is an assault on its people," and the U.N. "must insist on change in Harare [hah-RAR-ray]."

I would have misprounounced both Kyrgyzstan and Mauritania (and probably still will). Neither one comes up in conversation much, after all.

The Party of John Edwards

2007-09-24T21:40:00.000-04:00

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Florida Democrats might sue own party over seating of delegates
Florida Democratic party leaders on Sunday dared their national party to disenfranchise millions of voters next summer when their delegates meet in Denver to nominate their candidate for president.
Their dare, they added, might be bolstered by a lawsuit contending that "four rogue states" are conspiring to violate the civil rights of minorities in Florida by getting the Democratic National Committee to ignore the results of Florida's Jan. 29 party primary.

This is odd since the decision was made by the Democrats' own national committee. The state party had a choice and chose an early primary that would elect zero delegates. If anyone should be sued under this ridiculous premise, it should be the Florida Democrat Party (which should adopt the name "Florida Trial Lawyer Party"). These guys make the DNC look good.

Mark Steyn on the "Uninsured"

2007-09-23T21:28:00.001-04:00

Mark Steyn reminds us why reality and math guarantee that most politician-annointed crises aren't crises at all:

...out of 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million aren't American, 9 million are insured, 18 million are young and healthy. And the rest of these poor helpless waifs trapped in Uninsured Hell waiting for Hillary to rescue them are, in fact, wealthier than the general population.

Read it all here.

Cecilia Alvear's Inconvenient Statistics

2007-09-22T17:15:00.000-04:00

Complaining in the Macaca Post that the Ken Burns mini-series "The War" doesn't spend enough time pandering to her particular vaguely defined racial/ethnic/cultural group, Cecilia Alvear relies on these statistics with zero context:

As many as half a million Hispanics served in World War II and earned at least 13 Medals of Honor.

Missing context always bothers me, so I looked it up:

464 Medals of Honor were awarded in World War II.
13 is roughly 2.8% of 464.
Over 16 million Americans served in World War II.
Based on Alvear's statistics, about 3% of those were Hispanics.

And here's part of the official description of the series:

THE WAR, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four quintessentially American towns.

Why should we expect a handful of men and women from only four towns to represent every possible 3% subdivision of America?

Burns said at the screening I attended that some Latinos were reacting as if "The War" would be the definitive account of World War II. Others could produce documentaries on this subject, he noted. I doubt, however, that PBS or any commercial network would be willing to spend millions of dollars on another World War II project anytime soon. And no other filmmaker would receive the attention or editorial freedom Burns gets.
In discussing the criticism, Burns told the Los Angeles Times this month that he noticed that Hispanic groups hadn't pressured Latino filmmakers to tell the stories he omitted. "No, no, no -- it has to be Ken Burns," he said. "In a way all of this was an extraordinary compliment." Yes, it was. Latinos recognize that Burns is the country's preeminent documentary filmmaker. We want him to recognize us and our contributions to America.

So we should expect a handful of men and women from only four towns to represent every possible 3% subdivision of America because it's Ken Burns. With this kind of fanatical obsession, I half-expect Alvear to cry herself to sleep every night because Private Ryan and Oskar Schindler were too white.

Unions Worried About "Blue States"

2007-09-22T17:12:00.000-04:00

From the Boston Globe:

The AFL-CIO and its member unions said yesterday they will spend an estimated $200 million on the 2008 elections, including $53 million devoted to grass-roots mobilization.
In addition, the nation's largest labor federation said it would deploy more than 200,000 volunteers leading up to the election, focusing on battleground states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Four of those five states are routinely described in the media as irreversibly Democrat, and the fifth as having recently seen the light -- yet they will all be the focus of 2008's batch of union thugs.

Metro May Slash Blue Line Service

2007-09-19T20:56:00.000-04:00

From WMATA:

Contingent upon Board approval, we hope to run every other Blue Line train from Franconia-Springfield to Greenbelt via the Yellow Line bridge across the Potomac. This pattern will provide direct service from southern Fairfax County to the eastern portion of downtown.

All that does it slash service to the western and southeastern portions of downtown and cater to people who are too lazy to get their fat asses up and transfer to the yellow line at any one of the six shared stations between King Street and the Pentagon.

The Blue Line is already operating over-capacity trains that, according to this statement, will be reduced in number by 50%. Unless they are going to run every other Yellow train on the Blue line to make up for running every other Blue train on the Yellow line, this proposal is beyond stupid.

Congressional Approval Rating Continues Slide Towards Zero

2007-09-19T20:52:00.000-04:00

From Reuters:

...the U.S. Congress registered record-low approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday...
A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.
...
The national telephone survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The closer Congressional approval ratings get to zero, the more important those margins of error are going to be.

Don't Tase Me Bro!

2007-09-18T22:02:00.000-04:00

Via Drudge: If you need something to cheer you up, watch this! (More here.)

Who Cares About the Tree, I Just Hope They Don't Have Children

2007-09-18T21:33:00.001-04:00

From the WaPo:

"We kept fixing stuff, but the problems kept coming right back, because of the weight of the tree and the roots," said Michelle Cook-Walker-Fancher. "Sweet gum roots are very aggressive. They look like baseball bats, like those things that the cavemen in those Geico ads carry."

Cook-Walker-Fancher? Really? Keep this up and her grandchildren will each have twelve last names.

Community Colleges at War?

2007-09-17T21:12:00.000-04:00

From the Arizona Republic:

Hundreds of thousands of [illegal]-immigrant youths could become eligible to join the military to offset shortages of qualified recruits under a bill pending in Congress.
...
The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would allow [illegal immigrant] high-school graduates to gain citizenship if they either attend college for two years or serve two years in the military.

It is ridiculous to equate wasting two years in community college with no sign of a graduation requirement to actually serving in the military.

...supporters of the DREAM Act are playing up the bill's military provisions over its educational benefits. Unlike legal immigrants with permanent residency green cards, [illegal] immigrants are barred from enlisting in the military.

The military provisions merit consideration, but the unbalanced, undemanding "education" route is merely amnesty and should be debated as such.

Tri-Partisan Ignorance

2007-09-13T21:55:00.000-04:00

A handful of politicians write in the Macaca Post, insisting that the police power of Congress over the District gives it the power to unilaterally amend the Constitution:

We do not believe that the nation's Founders, fresh from fighting a war for representation, would have denied representation to the residents of the new capital they established.

Unfortunately, the actual Constitution (written by those pesky Founders) disagrees with them. Which is more credible?

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

Metro Looks Forward to 2006

2007-09-12T19:54:00.000-04:00

The Macaca Post reports:

Metro plans to run longer trains on the Blue Line by the end of the month to ease crowding on platforms and in cars on one of the least reliable routes in the system, officials said yesterday.
Because Metro deploys its trains based on ridership, the Blue Line... has been operating with some four-car trains during rush hour while higher-ridership lines run six- and eight-car trains. The Yellow Line has one four-car train during rush hour.
By the end of the month, all four-car trains will have six cars during peak periods as the transit agency adds 18 rail cars to its rush-hour service, bringing its total to 800 cars during the peak period. Metro is able to add cars because 106 of its new rail cars are now in service.

The four car trains, which are normally filled well beyond capacity leaving passengers on the platform unable to board, were officially scheduled to be upgraded to six cars by December 2006.

Last fiscal year, Blue Line riders experienced a 37 percent increase in delays from the previous year, the second-biggest jump of any of the five lines, according to Metro statistics.
...
The 225 delays on the Blue Line were caused by a host of problems, including malfunctioning train doors and track and mechanical problems. There were 164 such delays the previous year, according to Metro figures. Not included in those numbers were recent fire and smoke incidents, caused in part by a power outage near the station for Reagan National Airport on the Blue Line, that hobbled most of the system for two days late last month.

Perhaps Blue Line riders will soon have a bit more space around them when their trains are stranded in the middle of nowhere.

House Democrats Defend Widespread Corruption

2007-09-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

From the New York Times:

House leaders are beginning an investigation this week of the prosecution of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama who was imprisoned in June on federal corruption charges. The case could become the centerpiece of a Democratic effort to show that the Justice Department engaged in political prosecutions.

Note that the Democrats are disputing Siegelman's prosecution, not his guilt.

The case is considered unusual by many legal experts because actions like those Mr. Siegelman was accused of — exchanging a seat on the state hospital licensing board for a contribution to an education lottery campaign he was pushing — are hardly uncommon in state capitals around the country.
"It's unusual to see a bribery prosecution where the payment wasn't to the defendant," said David A. Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. "It seems to me the conduct in this case was similar to a lot of what we take as normal for politics."
...
"My sense is, there is a great unease with what has gone on here," said Jack Miller, former chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. "It's kind of, if it could happen to him, it could happen to anybody."
...
"My sole motivation for pushing the prosecution was a firmly held belief, supported by overwhelming evidence and the law, that former Governor Siegelman had broken the law and traded his public office for personal and political favors," Louis V. Franklin Sr., the acting United States attorney in Montgomery, said in one statement.
...
In June 2006 Mr. Siegelman was convicted by a federal jury in Montgomery of accepting $500,000 from Richard M. Scrushy, then the chief executive of the HealthSouth Corporation, in return for an appointment to the state hospital licensing board.

Recalling the comments of Alabama's Democrat party chair, "if it could happen to him, it could happen to anybody," I want my $500,000.

Time to Pick a Fight

2007-09-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

Considering the President's options for a new attorney general, Richard Viguerie writes:

Bush once promised to be a "compassionate conservative" who would work with the Democrats in Washington the way he had worked with the Democrats in Texas. He would be "a uniter, not a divider." He worked with Teddy Kennedy to create the No Child Left Behind Act, publicly praised the White House service of Bill and Hillary Clinton, squelched investigations of the Clinton pardons and the Sandy "Burglar" Berger case, and he and his father rehabilitated the reputation of former President Clinton by putting him at the forefront of international relief efforts. For all Bush's efforts to build goodwill, what did he get? He became the most vilified president since Richard Nixon.
The time to change course is now, or never. If the president picks a fight over this nomination by appointing a qualified conservative, the GOP base will stand with him. If he tries conciliation again, expecting a different result, he will become the lamest of lame ducks.

Wasting Time

2007-09-11T07:25:00.000-04:00

The Politico has a 753-word article on dogfighting, but only 29 are necessary to show how much time Congress wastes:

And thanks to... Michael Vick, at least three new bills to strengthen federal laws against... a felony in 48 states... have been introduced in the Senate and the House...

iChumps

2007-09-07T20:28:00.000-04:00

The Macaca Post's always-ignorant Eugene Robinson writes:

If I were an iPhone owner, I'd be hopping mad. I'd be iRate.
Just 10 weeks ago, otherwise sane individuals were camping overnight in long lines for the privilege of paying $599 for a mobile phone. These people were fully aware that most wireless companies will give you a basic phone for free, but the object of their ardor was anything but basic. It was a lifestyle choice. It was an advertisement for oneself. It was a shiny little slice of the future, a thin slab of cool. So what if it cost, gulp, 600 bucks? How could anyone get hung up over anything so prosaic as the price?
But when chief executive Steve Jobs announced Wednesday that Apple was slashing the iPhone's price by a third -- meaning that owning a slice of the future now sets you back only $399 -- the iPhone Internet forums lit up with buyers who felt they'd been taken for chumps.

That's because they are chumps. They spent $600 on a PHONE.

Jobs didn't go out of his way to make them feel any better. "That's technology," he told USA Today. "If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that's what happens in technology." Stung by the reaction, he did offer Thursday to give early buyers a $100 store credit -- but no cash refund.

Next up on the chump list: people who will pay $400 for a PHONE.

Leftist Vandals Arrested in DC

2007-09-07T20:25:00.000-04:00

The Macaca Post reports:

During a clash that drew a crowd during lunchtime, two demonstrators, including an Iraq war veteran and the mother of another veteran, were arrested on charges of defacing public property. Police charged a third protester with impeding an officer.
...
The demonstrators, members of the antiwar Answer Coalition, have been in an ongoing dispute with the District and Park Service over their right to post signs in public places.
The D.C. government has fined the coalition about $20,000 for posting signs, and the Park Service has asked the group to remove them.
...
After the officers took the protesters away, the crowd dispersed. The officers eventually left, but not before taking care of one last piece of business: removing the two signs.

Democrats' Experience Deficit

2007-09-05T21:50:00.000-04:00

From ABC News:

"I've been in elected office longer than John Edwards or Hillary Clinton," said [Barack Hussesin] Obama. "I've passed more bills I'm sure than either of them..."

AAA Takes Stand Against Asshole Drivers

2007-09-02T12:36:00.000-04:00

The Macaca Post reports:

AAA Mid-Atlantic has clarified its position on Virginia's controversial bad-driver fees, saying it supports them and does not believe a special session is needed to consider changes.
"As all parties involved have acknowledged, changes need to be made in order to improve the abusive driver fee legislation," the automobile, travel and financial organization said in a statement. "However, AAA believes the fees themselves, when properly and fairly applied, provide Virginia the opportunity to improve the safety of its roads while generating needed transportation funding."

Democrat Campaign Contributions at Work

2007-09-02T12:34:00.001-04:00

The Macaca Post reports:

In perhaps the most thorough and earnest letter ever written on the subject of a member of Congress's portrait, [Democrat Rep. Charles] Rangel's campaign attorney sent a letter to the Federal Election Commission asking permission to use either campaign or leadership political action committee money to pay for the chairman's grand portrait.
The lawyer, Phu Huynh, wrote, "The cost of commissioning the portrait of Representative Rangel is estimated by the artist to be $64,500, including the cost of a custom frame. . . . Portrait artists determine fees based largely upon reputation, but the size of the subject and detail required also factor heavily in the pricing."

In other news, Rep. Scott Garrett explains why dog fighting shouldn't be federalized:

"Michael Vick has committed egregious acts towards animals and should get punished for his crimes," Garrett told us in an e-mail through his spokeswoman, adding: "My previous vote in regards to animal fighting was to keep federal law enforcement from taking over state crimes. Prosecutors and officers are already stretched thin. For instance, over the last 10 years, federal courts have dealt with a 172% increase in sexual offence cases, largely due to increases in prosecutions for sexually explicit materials such as child pornography. With almost 70,000 victims and families waiting for justice across the country (over 1,000 in New Jersey alone), it doesn't seem reasonable to prolong their suffering by creating a law that would make actions that are already illegal and prosecutable under state laws, a federal offense."

Not Everything Revolves Around New York

2007-09-02T12:19:00.000-04:00

From a New York Times article on September 11th commemorations (a shoddy bit of work that makes no reference to geography):

What might happen on Sept. 11 a hundred years from now? "It's conceivable that it could be virtually forgotten," said [Dr. John Bodnar, a professor of history at Indiana University]. "Does anyone go out on the streets of New York and commemorate the firing on Fort Sumter?"

No, they go to Fort Sumter.

Gallup: Congressional Approval Lowest in History

2007-08-26T22:09:00.000-04:00

A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.
That 18% job approval rating matches the low recorded in March 1992, when a check-bouncing scandal was one of several scandals besetting Congress, leading many states to pass term limits measures for U.S. representatives (which the Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional). Congress had a similarly low 19% approval rating during the energy crisis in the summer of 1979.

Only Ralph Nader could be envious.

Harris Poll Shows Democrats' Worst Fears

2007-08-15T19:56:00.002-04:00

The New York Post reports on a recent Harris Poll:

A surprising 94 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with their lives...

Leading Democrats are expected to blame the President for the number being less than 100% and call for a massive federal entitlement program: Your Neighbors' Money Will Buy You Happiness.

Jealousy

2007-08-13T22:43:00.000-04:00

From the AP:

"Karl Rove was an architect of a political strategy that has left the country more divided, the special interests more powerful, and the American people more shut out from their government than any time in memory," Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said.

Obama likely believes, but forgot to say, "My only wish is that he had worked for me."

William Jefferson's Food Bank

2007-08-07T20:50:00.000-04:00

From the Macaca Post:

According to recently unsealed documents in U.S. District Court in Washington, FBI agents who raided [Democrat Rep. William] Jefferson's Capitol Hill home in August of 2005 found $20,000 in cash inside a Boca Burger box in the freezer.
Previous court documents stated only that $90,000 in hard cold cash was found in foil and frozen food containers. But a newly unsealed itemized inventory by FBI agents shows $20,000 of the total was tucked inside a Boca Burger box, $30,000 in a "Yes! Organic Market" bag and $20,000 in a not-so-organic Pillsbury pie crust box. (The other $20,000 - found in two stacks of $10,000, bound by rubber bands - was just wrapped in foil, you know, the normal way to keep cash in one's freezer.)

Congressional Approval Approaches Margin of Error

2007-08-03T22:01:00.000-04:00

From Zogby International:

Survey shows just 3% of Americans approve of how Congress is handling the war in Iraq...
The online survey was conducted July 13–16, 2007, and included 7,590 respondents. It carries a margin of error of +/– 1.1 percentage points.

Sheep

2007-08-03T21:50:00.000-04:00

From the Politico:

A busted computer system hamstrung the House... for at least 45 minutes Friday on one of the tensest legislative days of the year.
The House electronic voting system malfunctioned at approximately 2 p.m.... Projectors that usually display how each member voted and show a tally of votes were not working, although votes were still being recorded on computers at various locations in the House chamber.
The mishap came during the final two days of legislative activity before a month-long recess, a time when tensions run high as lawmakers grind out last-minute agreements on a bevy of bills. Many lawmakers were already agitated from a rancorous episode last night when Rep. Michael R. McNulty (D-N.Y.) gaveled closed a vote before the tally was clear. McNulty apologized to his colleagues this morning.
The broken computers prompted protracted squabbles among lawmakers Friday afternoon. Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) questioned how they could vote if they were unable to see the usual tally. Lawmakers are accustomed to seeing how their colleagues are voting while they mull their own decision.

And yet they expect the rest of America to vote without real time election results. How can we ever make up our minds?

A Party of One

2007-07-27T20:15:00.000-04:00

The Star Ledger (NJ) notes:

The Clintons are Democratic Party nobility, associated with the economic boom of the 1990s and the most successful Democratic presidency in more than 20 years.

To be honest, "most successful" should be replaced with "only".

The U.S. Senate's Slumber Party

2007-07-19T19:21:00.000-04:00

A short excerpt from the Macaca Post pretty much sums up the U.S. Senate's recent slumber party:

In the wee hours, John McCain (R-Ariz.) walked alone toward the Senate chamber. "I'm going to speak all night," he vowed with determination.
"I'm going to bed," a reporter told the senator.
"You won't miss a thing," McCain assured.

What Your Congress is Doing

2007-06-20T20:55:00.000-04:00

Dick Morris writes:

Anyone who wonders why Congress has a job approval rating of 23 percent, seven points lower than even Bush’s, need only look at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) failure to change the ethics of the Congress. Having pledged to make Congress full-time and put the lackadaisical members to work, she then announced a schedule for 2007 in which House members will have 20 weeks off (and when they work, it’s Tuesday to Thursday most of the time).
Now Pelosi has come up with her own version of the No Child Left Behind program by asking the Defense Department to allow adult children of members of Congress to accompany them on their taxpayer-funded travel abroad if their spouses can’t make it. Such heartfelt concern for the lonely congressman on a publicly paid junket may be her version of family values, but it is a waste of tax money.

New York Democrat Leaves Republican Party

2007-06-20T20:50:00.000-04:00

The New York Observer reports:

A little past 6 p.m. on the evening of June 19, Michael Bloomberg’s press office sent out the following statement:
"I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party."

Newsweek adds:

When the billionaire and life-long Democrat ran as a Republican for mayor of New York City in 2001, his conversion had nothing to do with epiphany and everything to do with expediency (as the GOP candidate, he’d face an easier primary field and could spare himself the labyrinthine nominating process he'd face on the Democratic side)... Term-limited in New York... Today's news that Bloomberg was changing his party status from "Republican" to "unaffiliated" is hardly Earth-shattering.

Since he doesn't need the affiliation to get on the ballot anymore, it's hardly even news.

Congressional Approval Rating Headed Towards Zero

2007-06-14T19:14:00.000-04:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

Amid political gridlock on domestic issues and inconclusive debates over Iraq, the approval rating for Congress stands [much] lower than [President] Bush's, at 23%. Just 41% of Americans say their representative in Congress deserves re-election, comparable to levels before Democrats swept Republicans out of power in November.

The Candidates That Can’t Face Fox, Can’t Face Al Qaeda

2007-06-06T18:48:00.000-04:00

Via Drudge: "The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda"

Another Failure of "Higher Education"

2007-06-04T19:49:00.000-04:00

The Washington Times reports:

Commencement addresses at the nation's top colleges and universities this year mostly were given by [leftist] speakers with few conservatives snagging the honor, according to a report... by the Young America's Foundation.
The conservative group conducts the review each year using the U.S. News & World Report ranking of top schools. This year, it found left-leaning speakers outnumbered conservatives by a ratio of 8-to-1.
"It's not that there's a few cases here and there. It's that there's a consistent pattern where conservatives are shunned," said Jason Mattera, spokesman for YAF. "For 14 years, we've shown that college administrators are using commencement ceremonies to send their students off with one more predictable leftist lecture."
...With some schools yet to announce their speakers at the time of the review and some schools' speakers listed as neutral, YAF found 42 "blue" speakers and eight "red" speakers.
...
Among the eight speakers listed on the conservative side of the political spectrum were Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the College of William & Mary, first lady Laura Bush at Pepperdine University and conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks at Wake Forest University.

A Do-Nothing Senate

2007-06-04T12:13:00.000-04:00

Robert Novak writes:

Former Rep. Henry Bonilla, a Texas Republican defeated for re-election last year, remains unconfirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate two and one-half months after President Bush nominated him as U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States. He is one of 85 Bush nominees for substantive government positions who are stuck in the Senate.
They include presidential appointees for deputy secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, under secretary of energy for nuclear development, assistant secretary of agriculture, assistant secretary of commerce, deputy Social Security administrator and HHS general counsel.
Also unconfirmed are 24 judicial nominees, seven for appeals courts and 17 for district judgeships. All told, the Senate has not acted on 175 Bush nominations.

While many Americans had last Monday off for Memorial Day, the Senate spent the entire week on vacation.

In Colorado, Dog Shit is Free Speech

2007-05-29T20:14:00.000-04:00

From the Rocky Mountain News:

A former Democratic Party activist who left dog feces on the doorstep of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's Greeley office during last year's 4th Congressional District campaign was found not guilty Wednesday of criminal use of a noxious substance.
A Weld County jury deliberated about two hours before acquitting Kathleen Ensz of the misdemeanor count. Her trial began Tuesday.
Ensz's lawyers never denied that their client left a Musgrave campaign brochure full of feces at the front door of the congresswoman's office. But they argued that Ensz was making a statement protected by free speech...
Ensz had served as vice chairwoman of her party's state Senate District 13. Don Hoff, district chairman, said Ensz resigned from the post last fall.
Hoff defended Ensz's actions as protected free speech...

I think it's obvious what Ensz should receive every day on her doorstep and every day in the mail.

The Do-Nothing Democrats

2007-05-29T20:08:00.000-04:00

Ronald A. Cass writes:

After 140 days, however, congressional Democrats left town with no significant accomplishments, one long-delayed bill finally enacted into law, and lots to make fun of. There was no increase in morality, no magically bipartisan era, no sweeping enactment of a coherent agenda for change, akin to what Republicans promised in their Contract With America in 1994. Instead, the 110th Congress has been a combination of "now I'll get mine" and "now you'll get yours!"
It hasn't been pretty. And it isn't likely to get better. Only those who were paying very careful attention last fall saw this coming.
...
In place of legislation, we've had investigations. Lots of them. Into everything the Administration is doing - not so Congress can do something about it, but to make the point that Republicans are doing it wrong.
...
Just after the elections last fall, Senator Schumer warned that the Democrats' victory was less a mandate than a protest. He cautioned that if Democrats were merely obstructionist, opposing the President without actually trying to enact a positive legislative agenda, they would lose power quickly - and deservedly so.
The Democrats' leadership should have listened. President Bush, suffering abysmal poll numbers after six years in office, now has company - a Democratic Congress that in less than six months earned even lower poll numbers by showing more interest in posturing, payback, and pork than in coming to grips with real problems.
If Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Reid, and their colleagues decide to stay on the sidelines, second-guessing, shouting directions, and calling players over for a dressing down, they may well find themselves out of a job. After all, even Monday morning quarterbacks can be replaced.

Read it all here.