My Echo Chamber

The Corner - National Review Online

2010-09-23T08:55:00.000-04:00

The Corner - National Review Online: "“Christie is a guy who appeals to Reagan Democrats,” King says. “We need more of that. He doesn’t look like a Hollywood star. He comes across like your neighbor down the street — smart and tough . . . He was a successful lawyer, a successful U.S. attorney, and he was elected governor in a blue state against a well-financed opponent.”"

America is fat. Christie is fat. Why not have a President who looks like Americans?

Add in Mike And Molly, a sitcom about two fatties, and you have the environment set for the public to get used to seeing fatsos.

2010-03-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

Republicans use violence to protect individual rights. Democrats use violence to take them away.

Stimulus: The Good News, and the Bad - BusinessWeek

2009-10-31T21:27:00.000-04:00

Stimulus: The Good News, and the Bad - BusinessWeek: "...people who are hired with stimulus funds tend to spend their pay and create secondary employment."

That is the crux of the argument. I wonder why not sending the checks directly to everyone wouldn't do the same? Give me $25,000 and I'll hire a contractor to put in a new front door. I'll spend, spend spend on electronics and clothes for the family. Then i'll save some in my local bank who can then lend ten times that amount to small businesses.

Economic View - How an Insurance Mandate Could Leave Many Worse Off - NYTimes.com

2009-10-25T10:32:00.000-04:00

Economic View - How an Insurance Mandate Could Leave Many Worse Off - NYTimes.com:

"A further problem is “mandate creep,” which we’ve seen at the state level, as groups lobby for various types of coverage — whether for acupuncture, alcoholism and fertility treatments, for example, or for chiropractor services or marriage counseling."

This is probably the biggest concern.

Fair Game - Wall Street Follies - The Next Act - NYTimes.com

2009-10-25T10:24:00.000-04:00

Fair Game - Wall Street Follies - The Next Act - NYTimes.com:

“I think actually what’s changed is in the other direction,” the refreshingly candid Mr. Barofsky said. “These banks that were too big to fail, are now bigger. Government has sponsored and supported several mergers that made them larger. And that guaranteed that implicit guarantee of moral hazard. The idea that the government is not going to let these banks fail, which was implicit a year ago, its now explicit.”

Elect someone whose social theory beliefs seemd to have stopped in the early 70s....

How Michael Osinski Helped Build the Bomb That Blew Up Wall Street -- New York Magazine

2009-03-30T11:58:00.000-04:00

How Michael Osinski Helped Build the Bomb That Blew Up Wall Street -- New York Magazine:
"Default models were the rage. Throw some epsilons and thetas on a paper, hoist a few Ph.D.’s behind your name, and now you’re an expert in divining the future."

2008-11-02T20:18:00.000-05:00

U.S. Rejects G.M.’s Call for Help in a Merger - NYTimes.com:

"The Detroit companies employ more than 200,000 workers in the United States and provide health care and pensions to more than one million Americans. The companies are also a lifeline to thousands of dealers and countless suppliers."

The U.S. automakers are dead men walking.

2008-10-31T08:56:00.000-04:00

The End of Journalism by Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online: "The media has succeeded in shielding Barack Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan coverage of presidential candidates.

Worse still, the suicide of both print and electronic journalism has ensured that, should Barack Obama be elected president, the public will only then learn what they should have known far earlier about their commander-in-chief — but in circumstances and from sources they may well regret."

2008-10-24T08:26:00.000-04:00

Kausfiles : Obama Rides a See-Saw?: "M's point would be that this year their numbers are augmented--more people will be vertical ticket splitters because of the presence of Obama, who is not only an African American candidate--whom you might feel guilty about not picking--but a relatively unknown candidate whom you might want to hedge against, especially if you voted for him to avoid feeling guilty about not picking him (and then felt guilty about that).**"

To extend it somewhat, expect the number of people who say they voted for Barack Obama to be much higher than the percent who actually do. Hey, don't exit polls fall into that category?

2008-10-19T12:32:00.000-04:00

Just as McCain closes within three, Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama. This is it. The first African American President is here.

2008-10-09T08:01:00.000-04:00

Barack Obama, non-socialist since 1996!

Roger L. Simon » Why the press hides Obama’s lies:
"The inescapable conclusion is that Barack Obama is a highly deceptive, often dishonest individual. Again, many would say this is standard operating procedure for politicians in our culture (and most others too). But Obama presents himself as something different, a new kind of post-modern politician above the conventional dirty dealings of backroom politics."

2008-10-08T10:15:00.000-04:00

Barack Obama was a member of a Socialist Party in the 1990s, and nobody bothered publicizing this piece of information?

Obama is Hiding a Radical Past! : NO QUARTER#more-5300#more-5300#more-5300:

"Did you know that Barack Obama was affiliated with a leading national socialist party? Barack Obama didn’t include in his 2008 resume that he entered politics in the mid-1990s endorsed by Chicago’s leading socialists. This just keeps getting better and better. Barack Obama was an active participant in the 1990s, and a direct political beneficiary, of the Chicago New Party and, importantly, the Chicago DSA, a group of socialists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America."

2008-09-26T16:27:00.002-04:00

What Caused The Economic Crisis? Watch This!

Posted using ShareThis

2008-09-24T08:47:00.000-04:00

JohnMcCain.com - McCain-Palin 2008:
"In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis -- weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual -- since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006."

2008-08-28T08:40:00.001-04:00

Fire in the Night by John M. Murtagh, City Journal 30 April 2008:

"Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night."

Why did Ayers support Obama?

2008-06-25T14:45:00.000-04:00

This is what America will look like if the Environmentalists get there way?

The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver - WSJ.com: "Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include 'at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.' (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation."

2008-06-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

Charles Krauthammer on John McCain & Drilling on National Review Online:

"Our environmental imperialism does not just redistribute pollution to people who can least afford it. It generally increases the total overall damage because oil extraction in the wealthier and more technologically advanced U.S. is far more environmentally sensitive."

What a great phrase! Amazing how the tide is slowing turning against the Wiccans, druids, et al of the environmental movement!

2008-06-11T14:37:00.000-04:00

Absolutely chilling - the Canadian law and its advocacy. Not the free speech rights in the U.S>

American Exception - Out of Step With Allies, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend - Series - NYTimes.com:

"Mr. Steyn, the author of the Maclean’s article, said the proceeding here illustrated some important distinctions. “The problem with so-called hate speech laws is that they’re not about facts,” he said in a telephone interview. “They’re about feelings.”

“What we’re learning here is really the bedrock difference between the United States and the countries that are in a broad sense its legal cousins,” Mr. Steyn added. “Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world.”"

2008-06-05T13:23:00.001-04:00

Mr. Henninger is spot on.

Wonder Land - WSJ.com:

The irony too bitter to swallow is that Barack Obama's identity politics trumped Hillary Clinton's identity politics. Put differently, what goes around comes around.

'Identity politics,' something new, emerged from the dank vapors of the late 1960s and 1970s. The theory came hard-boiled and soft-boiled.

The hard version introduced people, mostly college students, to an America partitioned into categories of race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. The softer version has flown for 30 years under all sorts of euphemized banners – diversity, multiculturalism, celebrating our differences. Only one campaign is celebrating our differences this week.

2008-06-03T08:59:00.000-04:00

I have always preferred Barack obama to Hillary Clinton becuase I wanted the Clinton Machine and the priapetitic and money-grubbing themes out of soicietal influence. A policy debate minus the Clinton scum is what I wanted to see.

Here is Bill Bennett's take on Obama from The Corner at National Review.

"And thus the Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of George McGovern, albeit without McGovern’s military and political record. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far-left candidate in the tradition of Michael Dukakis, albeit without Dukakis’s executive experience as governor. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of John Kerry, albeit without Kerry’s record of years of service in the Senate. The Democratic party is about to nominate an unvetted candidate in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, albeit without Jimmy Carter’s religious integrity as he spoke about it in 1976. Questions about all these attributes (from foreign policy expertise to executive experience to senatorial experience to judgment about foreign leaders to the instructors he has had in his cultural values) surround Barack Obama. And the Democratic party has chosen him."

2008-05-29T09:22:00.000-04:00

Exactly why this is political news is beyond me, but am I the only one who wonders why Hillary keeps her so close?

2008-05-23T10:51:00.000-04:00

John Derbyshire on Election 2008 on National Review Online:

The people calling the shots now, and widely considered to be just the ticket for managing our national affairs, are Community Organizers and Diversity Consultants, people who do not merely retard and constrain productive work, but actually despise it.

2008-05-21T09:11:00.000-04:00

Cult of Personality?

I wonder how it will react if Obama fails? What is the democratic version of James Jones?

2008-05-19T09:52:00.001-04:00

AFP: Obama camp spies endgame in Oregon: "'We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,' Obama said."

Not so sure about the last part, but Obama is correct about the first two points. My fear is governement sanctions to get people to conserve. I have no doubt that "burdensome" will be understating what will be jackbooting of personal liberty.

2008-05-15T09:39:00.000-04:00

Roy Spencer on Polar Bears on National Review Online: "Quite frankly, I don’t believe the activists who have succeeded in getting the polar bear listed under the ESA really believe that the polar bear is threatened. This was just one more tool that will enable a gaggle of lawyers to go after the real object of the environmentalists’ disdain: Big Oil."

2008-05-14T17:41:00.000-04:00

Polar Bear Added to Protected Species List - New York Times: "But the long-delayed decision to list the bear as a threatened species may prove less of an impediment to industries along the Alaskan coast than many environmentalists had hoped."

So was this to save polar bears or to impede industry?

2008-05-13T11:04:00.000-04:00

John Derbyshire strikes again!

The Corner on National Review Online:

"If we give up tinkering, we might survive, but only as a bureaucratic empire of paper-pushers and lotus-eaters.

And this is the poison pill in the left-liberal cookie. Everybody must go to college! Never mind that tinkering stuff. It's not worthy of full-fledged Americans, who have grander destinies as lawyers, doctors, and … community organizers … hospital diversity consultants … professors of literary hermeneutics. That's where the future lies! Throw away that wrench — hit the books!

This cast of thought, utterly dominant among liberals, and by no means unknown among conservatives,"

2008-04-03T12:48:00.000-04:00

Solving the Hillary Problem - WSJ.com: "In her selfishness and grandiose sense of entitlement for the presidency, Mrs. Clinton's continued pursuit of the nomination threatens to tear asunder what could otherwise be a dream Democratic year."

But she is right. Obama can't beat McCain.

She just doesn't realize she can't either.

2008-04-01T09:38:00.000-04:00

The real harm Hillary Clinton inflicted on Bosnia. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine: "I can remember, second, a meeting with Clinton's then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin at the British Embassy. When I challenged him on the sellout of the Bosnians, he drew me aside and told me that he had asked the White House for permission to land his own plane at Sarajevo airport, if only as a gesture of reassurance that the United States had not forgotten its commitments. The response from the happy couple was unambiguous: He was to do no such thing, lest it distract attention from the first lady's health care 'initiative.'"

The world will be better when the Clintons no longer garner a national stage. Slink back to the trailer park where they belong.

My apologies to the good people of trailer parks whose names are besmirched by an association with the Couple Avarice.

2008-03-28T11:14:00.000-04:00

Charles Krauthammer on The "100-Year " Lie on National Review Online: "The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: “It’s a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage ‘endless war’ based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea.”"

2008-03-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

US: Saddam Paid for Lawmakers' Iraq Trip

Who says Democrats are traitors?

2008-03-20T10:45:00.000-04:00

2008-03-14T09:57:00.000-04:00

Recession Is Inevitable - WSJ.com: "Moreover, the Fed's readiness to accept almost any asset at just below face value as collateral will prevent price discovery. That means the U.S. financial system will remain burdened with uncleansed balance sheets that penalize future lending and economic growth"

Which is the key source of this crisis.

2008-03-12T13:26:00.000-04:00

Good riddance, you hypocritical prick! Hopefully, there is jail time in your future.

2008-03-10T14:45:00.002-04:00

Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring - New York Times

LOL. I expect to see the Republicans accused of some identity politics no-no or for Spitzer to champion some far-left special interests issue. Don't know if he has any left though - drivers licences for illegal immigrants and gay marriage have already been played.

I can't adequately express how hilarious I think this is. Spitzer has been a sanctimonious bully for most of this decade. How frickin' stupid can you be, Icarus.

2008-03-10T09:17:00.000-04:00

The Inequality Myth - WSJ.com

In baseball, there are park-adjusted statistics and various other measures to allow apples-to-apples comparisons between players. Think Coors Field versus Petco Park.

This article by Prof. Schiller attempts to do the same thing with income stats. Unfortunately, the Sabre community took a decade plus to get their thinking into the baseball mainstream.

Will a Hillary or Oback Administration retard or accelerate Prof. Schiller's data?

2008-03-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay - New York Times

$125K for the teacher and $90K for the principal. Any surprises a principal thought it was silly?

My initial reaction is there are not enough quality teacher candidates to fill the jobs and not create a crappy situation at the school they leave.

2008-03-04T11:26:00.000-05:00

Top of the Ticket : Los Angeles Times : Hillary Clinton's anti-Obama zinger of the day: "But before leaving, to insert herself into the day's news coverage, she held a quick media availability at the Hilton and provided this unusually concise capsule comment for reporters, including The Times' Louise Roug:

'I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he'd bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.'"

This may be the best line of the campaign. She can't leave gracefully, but at least she got an excellent singer in.

2008-02-28T16:55:00.001-05:00

Obama victory will prolong US racial divide, says British equality chief - Times Online: "'If Obama can succeed, then maybe they can imagine that [Martin Luther] King's post-racial nirvana has arrived. A vote for Obama is a pain-free negation of their own racism. So long as they don't have to live next door to him; Obama has yet to win convincingly in white districts adjacent to black communities,' he wrote."

Negation of their racism? Maybe. I wonder what would be a valid negation of their racism for Mr. Phillips.

2008-02-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is juvenille, but I wonder how the campaign didn't recognize the political danger in doing this? I guess only violations of sensitivity made by Republicans is worthy of concern.

2008-02-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Who Will Tell Hillary?: "Who will tell her that it's over, that she cannot win the presidential nomination and that the sooner she leaves the race, the more it will improve the party's chances of defeating Sen. John McCain in November?"

No one because she surrounds herself with sycophants and people as blinded to her unattractiveness and venality as she is.

2008-02-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

Declarations - WSJ.com: "I wonder if she knows that some people look at her and think 'Man, she got it all.' Intelligent, strong, tall, beautiful, Princeton, Harvard, black at a time when America was trying to make up for its sins and be helpful, and from a working-class family with two functioning parents who made sure she got to school.
That's the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family, and she apparently came from the privileged part of that divide. A lot of white working-class Americans didn't come up with those things. Some of them were raised by a TV and a microwave and love our country anyway, every day.
Does Mrs. Obama know this? I don't know. If she does, love and gratitude for the place that tries to give everyone an equal shot would seem to be in order."

2008-02-21T06:33:00.000-05:00

Am I the only one who thought a 71-year-old man seeing a younger version of his the wife he loves?

2008-02-20T16:51:00.000-05:00

Use of Private Care Tests British Health System - New York Times: "Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients an unfair advantage over poorer ones."

Who thinks this is America's path forward with compulsory health coverage put forth by The Entitled One?

2008-02-15T14:18:00.000-05:00

This is funny.

2008-02-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

MichaelCrichton.com | Complexity Theory and Environmental Management: "And for that matter, who believes that the complex system of our atmosphere behaves in such a simple and predictable way that if we reduce one component, carbon dioxide, we will therefore reliably reduce temperature? CO2 is not like an accelerator on a car. It’s not linear (and by the way, neither is a car accelerator.) And furthermore, who believes that the climate can be stabilized when it has never been stable throughout the earth’s history? We can only entertain such an idea if we don’t really understand what a complex system is."

2008-02-13T08:37:00.000-05:00

Camille Paglia on Hillary, Obama and one weird old coot | Salon.com: "Hillary's gonads must be sending out sci-fi rays that paralyze the paleo-feminist mind -- because her career, attached to her husband's flapping coattails, has sure been heavy on striking pious attitudes but ultra-light on concrete achievements."

Why not three disparaging comments on the self-annointed Queen?

Another comment: Am I the only one who thought Hillary got crushed in her real home state of Virginia/DC?

2008-02-13T08:33:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why Hillary Will Lose: "But too many of her votes come from Hispanics who fear blacks and from older whites who harbor residual racial feelings."

Dick Morris is far from a objective observer of all things Clinton, but he is right on with that statement.

2008-02-13T08:30:00.000-05:00

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Clinton: Still no congratulations for Obama « - Blogs from CNN.com

What a classy, classy lady. Too bad Sore Loserman is already taken.

2007-11-02T10:16:00.000-04:00

Here is Jonah Goldberg's list of questions Hillary should answer. Some of them demonstrate why the country is better if she weren't the nominee. Click here

2007-07-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

Medicare Costs Higher for the Once-Uninsured - New York Times: "For example, instead of just paying for doctor visits and leaving it to patients to find doctors and seek care, it may be better to also provide case managers who will contact patients and prompt them to take medications like drugs for high blood pressure or to report on their "

And this costs money, too.

2007-07-11T22:26:00.000-04:00

Medicare Costs Higher for the Once-Uninsured - New York Times: "“You might expect that if you fall into habits of not using much health care, you might continue not to use it,” Dr. Skinner said. Instead, the study found a sort of pent-up demand among the uninsured."

Isn't this the obvious consequence? Never mind the cost of medical technology that needs to be paid for.

2007-06-30T07:16:00.000-04:00

London Finds Linked Bombs, a Qaeda Tactic - New York Times

ABC News reported that British security officials said they had seen a “crystal clear” image on a security tape of the driver jumping from the green Mercedes, and that he bore “a close resemblance” to a man arrested in an earlier bomb plot but released for lack of evidence.

Let's close Gitmo because all those guys held there are just victims of a cruel America.

Yeah.

2007-06-15T07:51:00.000-04:00

Jonah Goldberg on Media on National Review Online

"Even the vocabulary of media coverage is biased. Whenever government passes new legislation, we are told that America has taken a major step “forward.” When it repeals legislation, we moved “backward.” And when Washington doesn’t churn out the latest “reform,” it fails to make “progress.” Indeed, the word “reform” is itself loaded, because it means both to change shape and to improve. But the press doesn’t bother with these distinctions, so every “reform” is portrayed as an improvement."

2007-06-04T08:08:00.000-04:00

Iraq Is the Flash Point as 8 Democratic Rivals Clash - New York Times: "But Mrs. Clinton shot back that she disagreed. “I’m a senator from New York. I have lived with the aftermath of 9/11,” she said. “I believe we are safer than we were. We are not yet safe enough.”"

I don't like her, but that was a very smart answer. I have doubts whether the Democrat voters know this.

2007-05-27T16:47:00.000-04:00

Strife Foreseen in Iraq Exit, but Experts Split on Degree - New York Times: "The somewhat surprising verdict of most Iraqis was clear. For all their distaste for the American occupation, many of them fear that a pullback any time soon would lead to a violent chain reaction that would jeopardize the fitful attempts at political dialogue and risk the collapse of the Iraqi government"

Surprising to whom? Those whose ideology has blinded them to the fact they believe terrorist points-of-view?

2007-05-24T06:44:00.000-04:00

George F. Will - A Bill That Earned Its Doubters - washingtonpost.com: " But the sundering has happened; it was done by illegal immigrants who left family members behind and are free to reunite with their families where they left them."

Racist!

2007-04-04T06:41:00.000-04:00

New Jersey Diverts Billions and Endangers Pension Fund - New York Times: "Under its Constitution, New Jersey cannot reduce earned pension benefits."

So the tax consumers have a lien on the assets of the tax payers.

2007-04-04T06:38:00.000-04:00

New Jersey Diverts Billions and Endangers Pension Fund - New York Times: "The phantom contribution is just one indication that New Jersey has been diverting billions of dollars from its pension fund for state and local workers into other government purposes over the last 15 years"

Bend over private sector and say, "Please."

2007-02-21T06:23:00.000-05:00

Tougher Tactics Deter Migrants at U.S. Border - New York Times: "Border Patrol commanders say they see no explanation for the drop-off across the entire 2,000-mile border other than stiffer enforcement deterring migrants. The slackening flow, they argue, belies the conventional wisdom that it is impossible to stem illegal migration. Many veteran officers in the force are now beginning to believe it can be controlled with enough resources.
The new measures range from simply putting more officers out on patrol to erecting stadium lights, secondary fences and barriers of thick steel poles to stop smugglers from racing across the desert in all-wheel-drive trucks. The Border Patrol has deployed hundreds of new guards to watch rivers, monitor surveillance cameras and guard fences. "

2007-02-13T15:02:00.000-05:00

Jay Nordlinger on Impromptus on National Review Online: "I rather liked something Obama said — found it rhetorically, or lexically, smart: Instead of saying “my opponents,” or “my rivals,” he said, “my fellow candidates.” He did so in this sentence: “At least two of my fellow candidates have been campaigning nationally for years.”

Classy-ish."

2007-02-12T08:56:00.000-05:00

OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail: "History should teach us to take such claims with more than a grain of salt. While pundits will constantly remind us when they were right, they fall strangely silent when it comes to recalling their missed calls. Let's look at how the presidential field looked some 21 months before the general election, the equivalent point where we are in this cycle, in three previous campaigns. "

2007-02-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

Bloggers on the Bus -- Wednesday, Feb. 07, 2007 -- Printout -- TIME: "Marcotte's pre-Edwards blogging oeuvre may have been provocative and profanity laced, but it was still not far from the mainstream of the blood sport that is political blogging. And there is a welcome wonkishness to Marcotte, who, unlike some star bloggers, is not afraid to parse policy with her readers. Those qualities helped earn Pandagon, which will continue in the care of other bloggers while she's gone, a dedicated and sizable fan base. Marcotte has made it clear to her fans that working for a campaign requires a change in tone. 'I know how the game works,' she wrote in a recent post. 'I'm more interested in helping my candidate win than anything—luckily we see eye to eye on most issues.' "

2007-02-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

Jonah Goldberg on 2008 & Race on National Review Online: "Again, I think complaints from elite blacks about the overuse of the word “articulate” are well-taken, to a point. However, not only is it not the code word some are making it out to be, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and even Biden himself are routinely described as “articulate,” and President Bush is relentlessly dubbed “inarticulate,” yet nobody thinks that means he’s being called “black.”"

2007-02-06T12:25:00.000-05:00

A Second Hand Conjecture » AP: Spinning for the Democrats- Updated Again and Again: "Actually this is just spin. The Democrats actually want to end debate and vote on the resolution. What the Republicans are arguing for is keeping debate open and considering other resolutions. That of course might make passing the proposed resolution less likely, which is what they are trying to avoid."

2007-02-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

The Hillary Spot on National Review Online: "Aw, heck, why don't they just introduce a resolution declaring, 'We, the Senate, like all the good parts of the war and disapprove of all the bad parts. We demand all credit for anything that goes right, and reject any blame for anything that goes wrong'?"

2007-02-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

Instapundit.com -

"THE BIG GLOBAL WARMING PUSH IS UNDERWAY: I won't take it seriously until they ban private jets and stretch limos.

No, seriously. A Gulfstream III releases 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide an hour. How can we demand "sacrifice" from ordinary Americans when our leaders -- including those who call for the sacrifice -- are flying in jets like this? If commercial first-class isn't good enough, they should stay home."

2007-02-01T12:54:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Ugly American: "But, mostly, it is intellectual laziness. It is always easier to cite America's flaws to applause than to take the time to explain the nature of its rare morality to catcalls. In truth, the United States has never been richer or more generous. Its military is preeminent, protects vulnerable allies and fights extremism worldwide. Immigrants risk their lives to reach our shores.

But we are in a deep spiritual crisis when a recent candidate for our presidency either cannot, or will not, patiently explain that to the world. Instead, Sen. Kerry, the new ugly American abroad, glibly misleads a global audience that his own America is a 'pariah' -- a verdict that is as embarrassing to us as it is stupid for him."

2007-02-01T10:25:00.001-05:00

State aid may end for tony towns: "While most Westchester and Putnam municipalities would see at least slight increases in their state aid, 13 communities in wealthier areas would have their funding eliminated.

'I don't like it,' said Mamaroneck Supervisor Valerie Moore O'Keeffe. The town's state aid would drop from $145,567 in 2006-2007 to zero in the upcoming fiscal year.

'It is inequitable,' O'Keeffe said. 'People in each municipality, especially in Mamaroneck, send a lot of money to the state in income taxes and other taxes. To be left out seems inequitable.'

State budget officials said a total of 81 municipalities outside of New York City were eliminated from the AIM program because the money represented less than 1 percent of their budgets and their average per-capita property values exceeded the state average by 250 percent.

Other local communities that saw their funding eliminated include Bedford, Bronxville, Harrison, Larchmont, Lewisboro, New Castle, North Castle, North Salem, Pelham Manor, Pound Ridge, Rye Brook and Scarsdale."

2007-02-01T10:25:00.000-05:00

2007-01-31T10:29:00.000-05:00

Jonah Goldberg on Hillary Clinton & 2008 on National Review Online: "It was such an awkward moment, much of the commentariat hasn’t figured out exactly what to say about it, starting with Clinton herself. At first she tried to explain that she was thinking of Osama bin Laden and Bush’s inability to capture him. Later, she claimed she was making a joke — just not about her husband.

From my own viewing of the video — you can find it on YouTube and elsewhere — Hillary wasn’t making any joke at all. She was merely the butt of one and laughed along with the crowd — without getting the joke — in an excruciating “I meant to do that” sort of way. "

2007-01-30T07:45:00.000-05:00

'I REALLY RESENT' By JOHN PODHORETZ - Opedcolumnists - New York Post Online Edition: "There's a lot of talk on the Left these days about how inauthentic Hillary is as a candidate. But there's nothing inauthentic about her expression of resentment against Bush. After all, if he hadn't asked her and other senators to vote for a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, she wouldn't have had to make a choice that she now regrets.
That original choice was almost certainly inauthentic: Hillary became a hawk, in all likelihood, because she wanted (as her husband once said during another war) 'to maintain my political viability.'
You want the real Hillary? The real Hillary is the Really Resenting one. Enjoy. "

2007-01-29T12:57:00.000-05:00

The Corner on National Review Online: "Another way to read Hillary Clinton's demand that the US be out of Iraq by 2009 is that were she President she would not be able to handle it. So she'd rather it just go away. It does not bode well for her ability to cut it with other crises that will undoubtedly face us in the future. If she has nothing substantive to say with respect to Iraq then how can she justify running for President at all, other than as a servant of her own ambition?"

2007-01-29T07:53:00.000-05:00

Charles Krauthammer on Energy on National Review Online: "Even worse, the happy talk displaces any discussion about here-and-now measures that would have a rapid and revolutionary effect on oil consumption and dependence. No one talks about them because they have unhidden costs. Politicians hate unhidden costs.

There are three serious things we can do now: Tax gas. Drill in the Arctic. Go nuclear."

2007-01-29T07:51:00.000-05:00

Jonah Goldberg on Democrats & War on National Review Online: "One wonders if the untold millions of North Koreans who've starved, bled, and died since then would similarly applaud Eisenhower's courage and wisdom. For more than half a century, North Korea has been a prison-camp society beyond the imagining of George Orwell, where public executions for stealing food are familiar events. "

2007-01-24T12:16:00.000-05:00

Jonah Goldberg on Democrats & Children on National Review Online: "Hillary Clinton’s entire approach to public policy, from her earliest days as a “children’s rights advocate,” has been grounded in the idea that political differences need to be put aside for the sake of The Children. In 1996 she proclaimed, “As adults we have to start thinking and believing that there isn’t really any such thing as someone else’s child. ... For that reason, we cannot permit discussions of children and families to be subverted by political or ideological debate.” "

2007-01-23T13:59:00.000-05:00

Rich Lowry on Hillary Clinton & 2008 on National Review Online: "But no one likes naked calculation, and Clinton worries Democrats traumatized by the experience of their last few presidential candidates. Because liberalism typically doesn’t sell in American presidential politics, liberal candidates tend to run as culturally conservative centrists — i.e., phonies. It sank both John Kerry, who couldn’t even order a Philly cheesesteak properly, and Al Gore, who adopted three such utterly different personas in three national presidential debates that his performances could be a case study in abnormal-psychology classes."

2007-01-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Joe Biden, Carl Levin, Newt Gingrich, Roundtable: "HUME: I think race is an asset to Barack Obama. If Barack Obama was a white guy, he would be kind of an ordinary newcomer to the U.S. Senate. I think people are fascinated by and inspired by his story, and it's one of the things that's propelling him.
And I think most Americans, the overwhelming majority of Americans, deeply want to see African Americans get ahead in this country and they are proud of those that do.
And for Barack Obama, a lot of people would be impelled, I think, to vote for him for president, all other things being equal, in part because he's black. I think it's an asset. "

2007-01-22T08:25:00.000-05:00

Facing the Islamist Menace by Christopher Hitchens, City Journal Winter 2007: "Two things, in my experience, disable many liberals at the onset of this conversation. First, they cannot shake their subliminal identification of the Muslim religion with the wretched of the earth: the black- and brown-skinned denizens of what we once called the “Third World.” You can see this identification in the way that the Palestinians (about 20 percent of whom were Christian until their numbers began to decline) have become an “Islamic” cause and in the amazing ignorance that most leftists display about India, a multiethnic secular democracy under attack from al-Qaida and its surrogates long before the United States was. And you can see it, too, in the stupid neologism “Islamophobia,” which aims to promote criticism of Islam to the gallery of special offenses associated with racism.
The second liberal disability concerns numbers. Any emphasis on the relative birthrates of Muslim and non-Muslim populations falls on the liberal ear like an echo of eugenics. It also upsets one of the most valued achievements of the liberal consensus: the right if not indeed the duty to limit family size to (at most) two children."

2007-01-20T17:05:00.000-05:00

New Orleans of Future May Stay Half Its Old Size - New York Times: "The new doubts, surprisingly, are largely not based on the widespread damage caused by the flood. Rather, crippling problems that existed long before Hurricane Katrina are mostly being blamed for the city�s failure to thrive.
In this view, the storm was merely a grim exclamation point to conditions decades in the making. Before the storm, some economists say, New Orleans may have had more people than its economy could support, and the stalled repopulation is merely reflecting that."

2007-01-19T10:56:00.000-05:00

Charles Krauthammer on Iraq on National Review Online: "We need to find a redeployment strategy that maintains as much latent American strength as possible, but with minimal exposure. We say to Maliki: you let us down and we dismantle the Green Zone, leave Baghdad, and let you fend for yourself; we keep the airport and certain strategic bases in the area; we redeploy most of our forces to Kurdistan; we maintain a significant presence in Anbar province where we are having success in our one-front war against al Qaeda and the Baathists. Then we watch. You can have your Baghdad civil war without us. We will be around to pick up the pieces as best we can."

2007-01-18T11:08:00.000-05:00

OpinionJournal - Extra: "For a few occupations, a college degree still certifies a qualification. For example, employers appropriately treat a bachelor's degree in engineering as a requirement for hiring engineers. But a bachelor's degree in a field such as sociology, psychology, economics, history or literature certifies nothing. It is a screening device for employers. The college you got into says a lot about your ability, and that you stuck it out for four years says something about your perseverance. But the degree itself does not qualify the graduate for anything. There are better, faster and more efficient ways for young people to acquire credentials to provide to employers. "

2007-01-17T08:49:00.000-05:00

Thomas Sowell on Iraq on National Review Online: "President Bush was right to listen to the military as regards the conduct of the war. But perhaps he should have sought the advice of police chiefs as regards maintaining law and order.

For that we did not have enough troops in Iraq and — more important — the troops we did have were under too many politically imposed restrictions. Put bluntly, they needed to tell the many private militias in Iraq to drop their guns or get killed.

Far fewer people would have died if they had. Of course, hand-wringers around the world, beginning with the American media, would have denounced such “brutality” and claimed that “negotiations” could have prevented such bloodshed."

2007-01-16T07:38:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Sic Semper Tyrannis: "But most importantly, by any measure of fairness, Saddam's fate was singular in the annals of recent murderous dictators. The world seems to forget that usually such killers are either given statues, villas in exile, or, even when tried, rarely convicted and punished. "

2007-01-16T07:35:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics - Articles - What America Doesn't Know About Iraq: "I wonder when politicians and commentators detail all that the Bush administration did wrong, whether any of it really matters? Would things have turned out differently if we had done everything right? Was Iraq so 'broken'' we never could have fixed it? "

2007-01-15T09:32:00.000-05:00

James C. Capretta on Balanced Budgets on National Review Online: "While in the minority, it has been relatively easy for Democrats to attack Bush as a big spender even as they themselves proposed to expand government well beyond the Republican proposals (see, for instance, the 2003 Medicare drug-bill debate). "

2007-01-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today: "Despite having taken over Congress, Democrats may find it difficult to obstruct President Bush's plans for Iraq. One reason, as the New York Times notes:
While Democrats control both houses of Congress, their margin in the Senate is so slender that Republican supporters there can fight back, using their chamber's arcane rules to frustrate Democrats on other issues.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, hinted in morning television appearances that any legislation expressing disapproval of the president's plan might be blocked by a filibuster, the stalling move that requires 60 votes to overcome, well short of Democratic strength.
OK, how about a little flashback--to a May 24, 2005 Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg:
In the end, it was the language of the Constitution itself and two old bulls of the Senate--Robert C. Byrd and John W. Warner--that averted a grim showdown over federal judicial nominees that had threatened to wreak lasting damage on Capitol Hill. . . .
The sticking points were always the same, [Sen. Ben] Nelson said. Democrats wanted assurances that they would not lose the right to filibuster judges, particularly a Supreme Court nominee, and that Republicans would not invoke the nuclear option. Republicans wanted assurances that they were not giving up the right to the nuclear option, and that Democrats would use the filibuster only rarely. . . .
Mr. Warner said Mr. Byrd, who is the longest-serving senator, opened every meeting with a reminder: 'Country, institution, and next, us.'
Less than two years ago, preserving the filibuster was a high-minded matter of serving 'country' and 'institution.' Now the filibuster is an 'arcane' 'stalling move.' Disputes about process are seldom really about process."

2007-01-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

Charles Krauthammer on Embryonic-Stem-Cell Research on National Review Online: " it is proved that these are the Goldilocks of stem cells, history will record the amniotic breakthrough as the turning point in the evolution of stem cell research from a narrow, difficult, delicate and morally dubious enterprise into an uncontroversial one with raw material produced unproblematically every day.

It will have turned out that Bush’s unpopular policy held the line, however arbitrary and temporary, against the wanton trampling of the human embryo just long enough for a morally neutral alternative to emerge.

And it did force the country to at least ponder the moral cost of turning one potential human being into replacement parts for another. Who will be holding the line next time, when another Faustus promises medical nirvana if he is permitted to transgress just one moral boundary?"

2007-01-11T10:22:00.000-05:00

The Blog | Greg Gutfeld: PREDICT WHEN AND HOW JOHN SEERY WILL DIE THIS YEAR! | The Huffington Post: "But is it a victory if Seery dies? I think so. I mean, it makes me feel better. And, you know, at least
I'm honest about it. See, assholes like Seery, and the people who agree with him - pretend to feel bad about the death of our troops. But they don't give a fuck. No. They need people to die to make their point. It makes them feel smart, and makes their political enemies feel bad. But by saying troop deaths bother them personally - well, that's just a lie. Seery wants as many troops to die as possible. Because without it, what does he have? Cleary, it's not grace."

2006-11-02T13:51:00.000-05:00

Flubbed Joke Makes Kerry a Political Punching Bag, Again - New York Times:

From Ms. Zernike's article in this morning's NYT:

"Mr. Kerry's prepared remarks to California students on Monday called for him to say, "Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush." In his delivery, he dropped the word "us."

That is not what Kerry said.

Why would the NYT allow an obvious mistake?

2006-11-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." - Senator John Kerry.

I have been spending months trying to erase the effects of the hyper-partisanship of the past ten years from my political thinking.

I am still solidly Republican but have been trying to keep an open mind on the issues Democrats hold dear - a sort of re-examining of positions I cast judgment upon many years ago.

The estate tax and the cap on Social Security taxes are two issues I have been willing to admit have nothing to do with me and mine and are "painless" ways to raise the taxes necessary to pay for the largess promised by irresponsible politicians and their political parties.

The medicine is coming, so adjusting for it makes good common sense.

However, Senator Kerry's original comment has me in a barely contained rage.

I know his comments only reflect what the liberal elite already believe and have since setting the country on a socially-destructive path 40 years ago. (I'd have said two generations but that would mean 20 years was a generation. The aforementioned path has made one generation closer to 40 years - at least amongst the bone-headed Euro-American classes. )

What bothers me more than Kerry's statement of the obvious is the fact I grew-up in low-income housing where the wise post-high school course of action was college or the military.

Not I'm-smart-and-go-to-college or you're-not-and-go-to-the-military rationing of 18-year-olds as Kerry comment clearly suggests.

As children of those purported constituents of the Democratic PArty, the working class, we accepted these as the wise choices. I was college-bound, as any lower-income class child who shows scholastic aptitude is.

My parents were proud of the ease with which I understood the three RRRs. And they were equally proud of my brother's decision to enlist in the Air Force. And of my friend's decisions to enlist in the Army and the Marines. My mom shed tears as her babies went of to become men.

Never did they believe my brother and our friends were "conscripted" because they didn't "get smart enough" to avoid the military

Of those friends, two have gone on to obtain not only undergraduate degrees but graduate ones too.

Condescension is not what I feel towards my childhood friends.

Maybe when some lefty writes a follow-up to why people in Kansas are so stupid, he'll read this post and feel ashamed.

I am not sure I could ever vote for a party who holds the military in such disdain. To think, 50 years ago, this country was proud of the discipline the armed services provided and the willingness of some to risk their lives to let the rest of us sleep easy.

And some of us lower-class "victims" owe a debt of gratitude to the military for shaping some of our fathers who had much, much rougher lifes than anything our Oprah-ized touchy-feely society can imagine and did not perpetuate the difficulties of their childhood upon the next generation.

2006-10-29T18:41:00.000-05:00

Future Tax Shock - New York Times

Is the Times changing its tune?

Does it now consider incomes up to $500,00 OK not to tax?

The real probelm are the communists from the 60s who wanted the AMT to catch, what, 10 people who paid no taxes?

40 years later, the AMT is going to snag millions times more than that?

Can we call fools "fools"?

2006-10-26T12:08:00.000-04:00

Who Cares About the Issues: Is That Botox? - New York Times

"A new attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton was superficial."

Up is down and down is up.

The person who got the plastic surgery is no longer the superficial one (and the irony she is a feminist concerned about her looks and not the depth of her character is not lost on me.)

The superficial one is the person who points out the cosmetic surgery.

2006-10-12T12:55:00.000-04:00

Raj and Elephants on Parade

"The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up," said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show "The Apprentice," who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.

In Brownsville, he witnessed half a dozen men swim under one of the international bridges "with complete immunity" which in turn prompted him to take the immigration issue to the next level.

Bhakta decided to see if he could get an elephant accompanied by a six-piece mariachi band across the river.

"To my surprise, the band played on, the elephants splashed away, and nobody showed up," Bhakta said of the stunt. "I'm astounded."

[James] Plunkett said he and his crew were hired for a "photo shoot" and entered the Boca Chica beach area without any notice from the Border Patrol. However, when it became clear that the elephants were in a quarantined area, the Border Patrol alerted the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the elephants had to be detained.

The animals needed to be sprayed for ticks.

"If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country," Bhakta said.

2006-10-11T13:05:00.000-04:00

From George Orwell:

"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."

This sounds like liberalism as practiced by the American Left, doesn't it?

Sort of like thinking one's accident of genetics regarding skin color makes one morally superior.

Or associating with those "superiors" conveys superiority upon oneself.

2006-09-29T10:49:00.000-04:00

Frist finds feck, funds fence? By Mickey Kaus - Slate Magazine:

The following blurb recalls the days of the NYT SwiftBoat debunking using Kevin Bacon's Six Degrees of Separation.

Whatever the Dems need, the NYT will do their best to help.

"Here's the second paragraph from Raymond Hernandez' Wednesday NYT story on Hillary:

In unusually blunt terms, Senator Clinton questioned the current administration's response to an intelligence briefing President Bush received about a month before the 9/11 attacks. It mentioned that Al Qaeda was intent on striking the United States using hijacked planes.

Doesn't that sound as if the presidential briefing had warned Bush that Al Qaeda would use planes as weapons? It does to me....the briefing itself, which mentions 'hijackings' but only in the traditonal context--i.e. taking over a plane 'to gain the release of 'Blind Shaykh' 'Umar' Abd-al-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.'

An old controversy, I know--but that's why it's so astonishing to find this casual, loaded distortion in the lede of an important story. Hernandez--or whatever anonymous Times editor decided to goose up his second graf--had to have known that the sentence was deceptive, no? Or if they didn't know they didn't care. ... We're a month away from an election! They're manning the battle stations at the NYT."

2006-09-29T08:25:00.000-04:00

OpinionJournal - Wonder Land:

"...Iraq-as-failure has become the central narrative in the Democrats' strategy. A memo sent out to Democrats last week by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a strategy group led by former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg, discusses Mr. Bush's "failure in Iraq, which energized Democrats and dispirited Republicans." It urges Democrats: "On Iraq, stress Bush/GOP 'mismanagement' and need for a 'new direction.' "

Mr. Henninger's conclusion:

"The Democrats' problem is this: They are trying to beat policy with politics and weaken belief with polls. This may work for Social Security. I don't think it works with war. Don't be surprised if come November, Democrats are still on message--Iraq as failure--and still in the minority. "

Speaking with my wife the other night, we discussed whether the Democrats really want to remind the country of the Clinton days i.e depends on what the defintiion of "is" is.

The megalomaniacal Clintons, surrounded by their sycophants, have miscalculated.

To win, the Democrats need to throw all the secular-progressives under the bus.

Culture Warrior

2006-09-28T08:27:00.000-04:00

courant.com Poll Shows Lieberman With 10-Point Lead

Incumbent Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman continues to stave-off the takeover of the Democratic Party by its lunatic fringe.

The most recent Quinnipiac poll has him leading McGovenite Ned Lamont 49-39.

I am not surprised. (A part of me fear a Lamont win, but those are my more primitive brain functions interfering with my higher ones.)

What is amusing is the opening line of the AP wire report:

"Democrat Ned Lamont continues to struggle to find support among Republican and unaffiliated voters..."

"Struggle" is an understatement applied to support amongst Republican voters.

It is appropraite for the unaffiliated though.

What kind of intellectual laziness went into that quote?

Maybe the writer thinks Lamont should be gaining traction with Republicans?

2006-09-27T10:36:00.000-04:00

New York City Plans Limits on Restaurants� Use of Trans Fats - New York Times:

"Lynne D. Richardson, a member of the Board of Health and a professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said yesterday that restaurant owners might still see an advantage in the long shelf life of trans fat products.

"But human life is much more important than shelf life," she said. "I would expect to see fewer people showing up in the emergency room with heart attacks if this policy is enacted."

Wow, that is a bold, bold statement. A statement that makes me doubt Dr. Richardson's ability to interpret statistical data.

This is as good a blurb from the article:

"...the trans fat plan is the latest in a series of regulations that have placed New York City in the forefront of regulating behavior..."

2006-09-27T10:25:00.000-04:00

Backing Policy, President Issues Terror Estimate - New York Times:

"Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said that what the White House released Tuesday was broadly consistent with the classified portion of the report. "

Is there more that needs to be read in order to stop the tit-for-tat of partisan taint?