Rise Again: What About Southern Heritage?

This excerpt from a book titled "The Mind Of the South" by Tracy Thompson (hint: the thesis of the book is that the South has no mind) recently passed through my Facebook timeline. The idea is that the South "still lies" about the Civil War, denying the War was about slavery, and playing up the states' rights angle. She tells this tale as an example of how things work in the Dear Ol' Southland:

In the course of our conversation, Yacine Kout mentioned something else—an incident that had happened the previous spring at Eastern Randolph High School just outside Asheboro. On Cinco de Mayo, the annual celebration of Mexico’s defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, a lot of Hispanic students brought Mexican flags to school. The next day, Kout said, white students brought Confederate flags to school as a message: This is our heritage.

Now, first I have to say that, if you Google "East Randolph High School Cinco De Mayo" or some other combination, the only results you get are the above excerpt and commentary thereon. I can't find anything about this supposed racist incident independent of Tracy Thompson's tendentious tract. 

Second, memo to prideful southern high school students: here in Amurrica, we got this here thing called the "American Flag" AKA the "Stars & Stripes." It looks like this:

Try waving that next time, guys. That's what kids do here in California in response to displays of the Mexican flag. 

Third, don't want to hurt any feelings, but if you're going to choose "Southern Heritage" versus "Mexican Heritage" (I know this is one of those "would you rather be blind or deaf?" kind of questions), wouldn't Southern heritage be the better choice? The Confederates, after all, considered themselves Americans. I don't know what message Mexican kids are trying to send by waving around the "Eagle & Snake," but it doesn't strike me as being "pro-American."  

Whatever southern heritage meant 50 or 100 or 150 years ago, today - ca. 2013 - it's a combination  of regional pride, bread pudding, and cussedness. It's about admiring the gallantry and bravery of the doomed southern armies who fought to the end for a cause that everyone now agrees was an awful one. One of history's ambiguous after-effects is the grudging admiration we can have for history's losers - I'm thinking of Napoleon's Grand Armee' or the Japanese in the Pacific War - who, whatever you might say, fought like hell, even if for the wrong reasons. 

If southern heritage means high school students in 2013 are going to saddled with the full panoply of southern sins, then the same should apply to the yokels displaying the Mexican flag. There's the massacre and enslavement of the Aztecs; a feudal agrarian system that keeps Mexican peasants in peonage to this day; a third world political system that overlays a corrupt crony capitalist oligarchy onto a huddled mass of poor kept in the thrall of pseudo-socialist slogans; and so on. The Mexican War with the US ended with Santa Ana and his cronies taking bribes in exchange for signing away the American Southwest. If southern heritage is problematic, so is Mexican. 

Then there's Mexico's frankly bizarre approach to race relations, as this graphic illustrates:

Wow! Where's a Mexican flag for me to wave? 

Call me old fashioned, but Confederate history is part of American history. Mexican history? It's about as important to America as Cuban or Canadian history. One clearly outranks the other. 

]I'm not going to go waving the Stars & Bars, but I won't begrudge someone else doing so; so long as they behave themselves. But the kids waving Mexican flags are just as obnoxious as any modern day neo-Confederate. 

Ten Years After: A Decade Of The Iraq War

Lots of commentary on the 10th Anniversary of the start of "major combat operations" in Iraq, most of which can be summarized thus:

1. Sure we got rid of Saddam, but

2. It wasn't worth the effort and

3. War weariness + the Crash of '08 gave us Obama et al.

Well, as far as conventional wisdom goes, that's not good enough because I have yet to see anyone grapple with one incontrovertible fact: without 9/11 there would have been no Iraq War, and further that 9/11 made war inevitable (tell me Pres. Gore wouldn't have had Saddam in his sights, too).

Now, Americans, especially the leadership class, are famously ahistorical so maybe a brief history lesson is necessary. You see, a crazy thing happened one day in the past (the exact date escapes me): 19 Islamist terrorists high-jacked 4 passenger jets, killed their crews, and flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Thousands of innocents died (and the death toll would have been greater had the planes crashed into the Twin Towers a couple hours later). The destruction in NYC was so great, the ruins were still smoldering two months later. It was a shocking event that briefly made the world's only superpower look vulnerable and helpless. It doesn't matter who was president on that day. Dennis Kucinich himself would have looked at the world map and asked, "who else on here can do this to us?" Asked that way, in the aftermath of 9/11, Saddam Hussein's Iraq raced to the top of the list.

Now, does that make the Iraq War some kind of triumph? Hell no! The Bush Administration hobbled itself repeatedly, starting with Colin Powell's invoking the previously unheard of "Pottery Barn Rule" as part of the invasion protocol. There were the fruitless months seeking permissions from the UN. There were the crazily restrictive rules of engagement. The quisling acts of supplication towards Muslim "sensibilities." There was Abu Ghraib. There was the absolute failure of communication as the liberal establishment attacked the war in the basest terms and the Bush Administration responded with Scott McLlellan. Worst of all were the seemingly endless years of drift under Gens. Sanchez, Casey & Abizaid (all of whom turned out to be liberal Democrats, for God's sake). Despite the presence of unsentimental Cold Warriors like Cheney and Rumsfeld, the Bush Administration tried to fight a politically correct war -- and only managed to engender the contempt of the politically correct types who voted for the war and then rode war opposition to power in Congress and the White House.

The Bush Administration was right to invade Iraq and depose Saddam. But, to win a war, you actually have to try to win, even if that means wrecking some minarets, or whatever, along the way. That's the real lesson of the Iraq War.

Bain de Soda: What Was The Point Of Mayor Bloomberg's Soda Ban

I know Michael Bloomberg's "32 oz. soda ban" is last week's news - hey! I was recovering from a grave illness! - but, I feel like all of the commentary the proposed ban inspired failed to grapple with two fundamental issues.

1. what the hell was this supposed to accomplish?

2. what, if anything, can the government do to make fatties slim down?

Now, as a threshold matter, I have to say I don't buy this idea that "America is getting fatter," nor do I accept the sort of stats you see in the media (20% of Americans are obese! is one). We could all stand to lose a few pounds, maybe, but there isn't some great epidemic of  tens of millions of grotesquely overweight Americans waddling around. Instead, we have what looks like a typical media/political "problem" created via creative statistic reading and adjustments to statutory definitions of "overweight" and "obese" such that people who 20 years ago would have been fat are now treated as morbidly obese.

That's not to say, however, that there aren't more fat people out there. Go to the mall, or Target, or downtown S.F., and it's hard not to find yourself thinking America - or at least my slice of it - has a weight problem. There are some serious wide loads out there, many of them young or young-ish. As with the poor, we've always had the chubby among us, but dear God, the sheer morbid rotundity on display nowadays is ghastly. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I don't remember seeing 500 pound women riding around in carts in Safeway 20 years ago. I don't recall seeing eight year olds who look as if they weigh more than my wife. Etc. And, not to get all judgmental but many of the truly obese don't look particularly prosperous or intelligent. (I'm sure they have great personalities).

So whaddya gonna do about it, if anything?

Well, Mike Bloomberg obviously thinks things have gotten out of control and wants to keep large portions out of people's hands, but shrinking the range of available soda sizes is just pathetic. It won't do sh*t! Not when so many obese people are clearly overeating and living lives that are either indolent (the welfare fat) or sedentary (the working fat). That extra 10 oz. of soda is, what, a couple hundred calories? Out of how many thousands a day you have to pack away to maintain a 300 lb. frame? It's a joke.

No, if Bloomberg were really serious about slimming New Yorkers down, he'd go out into the neighborhoods and tell all those people on food stamps and welfare that the free ride is over and that they would need to start eating right, exercising, and going to some kind of job during the day. Instead of banning soda cups, he'd stop bodegas from selling junk food to someone flashing an EBT card. He'd have roving press gangs out there rounding up unemployed fat people and putting them to work mowing lawns in Central Park, or some such. But, of course, he is not/never going to do this because people like Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel (both of whom, it must be said, have noticeably slimmed down the last couple years) would say it was racist or some thing.

So, instead, Bloomberg bans some freakin' cups - while leaving intact high calorie latte cups at Starbuck, btw. wake me up when this starts to make sense - because it's always easier to hassle a few thousand businessmen than it is to tell several hundreds of thousands of poor people to stop treating their bodies like garbage cans.

Really, though, why should the government do anything about this in the first place? The crippling cost of providing health care to the obese is always at the top of the list of rationalizations for this sort of thing, but how can that be? Have you seen any 80 year olds on life support in the ICU weighing in at 350+ pounds? Not me. All of that weight is a down payment on an early grave. I haven't run the numbers, but intuitively it seems like the early death of the typical fat person would ultimately leave a lot of health care spending on their behalf "on the table," so to speak. If we're going broke paying for health care, it's not so we can save the lives of the morbidly obese.

Even if there was some budget conscious reason to ban this or that food or food container, what's the point? Fat people aren't fat because of a conspiracy by McDonald's and 7-11 to "super-size" Americans. They're fat because of what inside their hearts. There's some physical or psychological need inside them that keeps them in a constant state of (1) eating and (2) not moving. Are they lazy? Depressed? Big boned? victims of abuse? Sure, probably. Or they might not know how to eat right and can't imagine that eating at Burger King everyday for 20 years is not the only food option available to them. (a lot of large men I know eat out for literally every meal. Someone would have done them some good teaching them how to pack a freakin' brown bag for lunch).

What law could you pass that could possibly cope with all of this? There isn't one.

America isn't getting fat, but some Americans are getting fatter. Unless Michael Bloomberg and his ilk are willing to confront the poverty and poor education at the root of many obese people's problems, all of their feel-good bans and smarmy speeches won't amount to a hill of (delicious) beans.

Among The Living: the Return of Free Will

Yes, in answer to your question, I am alive! But, for the past month, I felt more dead than alive, as I struggled with a relentless illness that sucked the life out of me. Seriously, all I wanted to do was lie in bed and mutter things like "I'm dying" and "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee." It wasn't walking pneumonia, but it was close. Now...I'm back (God willing).

Folklore Implosion: The Chris Dorner Saga

We're finally getting some clear-headed reporting about the Chris Dorner - uh, spree? saga? rampage? - as a counter-point to the nutty "He's like Denzel Washington" commentary we were hearing from the left. According to Dorner's enthusiastic supporters, he declared war on the "racist" "troubled" LAPD in an effort to clear his name. Let's see how the modern day folk hero did:

1.) Dorner claimed his first victims on Feb. 3. 

Monica Quan, 28, was an assistant women's basketball coach at California State University, Fullerton. She was also the daughter of retired LAPD Capt. Randal Quan — the man who had represented Dorner in his disciplinary hearings. 

She lived in an Irvine condominium with boyfriend Keith Lawrence — a former basketball player and University of Southern California cop whose shoes and buckles she had stayed up until the wee hours polishing when he was at the police academy. On Jan. 26, Lawrence, 27, had strewn the apartment floor with rose petals, gotten down on one knee and proposed, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Just over a week later, at 9:10 p.m., Quan and Lawrence were found slumped in their car in the parking lot of their condo complex. They were fatally shot. 

2.) The next day, Feb. 7, Dorner struck again. 

Around 1:30 a.m. two LAPD officers assigned to protect one of the people named in Dorner's manifesto spotted him in the Riverside County community of Corona. During a shootout, one officer was grazed on the forehead. 

A short while later in nearby Riverside, SWAT team Officer Michael Crain and trainee Andrew Tachias were in the middle of a graveyard shift. 

The 34-year-old former Marine had served two tours of duty in Kuwait before joining the Riverside force in 2001. As a Marine, Crain had once taught urban warfare tactics, but on this day he had no time to react. 

The two were waiting at a stoplight when someone — believed to be Dorner — raced up and opened fire on them. Tachias, 27, was critically wounded; Crain was pronounced dead at a hospital. 

3.) Jim and Karen Reynolds were in the process of refurbishing their condo near Big Bear, working on it off and on through the winter season. They had last been there on Feb. 6 and weren't planning to come back until Valentine's Day, but decided to check in early after learning that Dorner's truck had been abandoned nearby. 

When they walked into the upstairs living room Tuesday morning, Dorner was waiting for them with his gun drawn. He had been there at least five days — within shouting distance of a command post set up by the people hunting him. 

"Stay calm," he shouted. When Karen Reynolds turned to run out, he grabbed her from behind. 

Karen Reynolds said Dorner was calm and "very methodical" as he instructed them to sit, then tied their hands and legs. 

"I don't have a problem with you," he told the couple. "I just want to clear my name." (just like in a movie!) Dorner moved the couple to a bedroom and shut the door. 

When they felt he had gone, Karen Reynolds managed to get to her feet and, with her hands still tied behind her back, open the door. To her amazement, Dorner had left her cellphone on the living room table. 

She picked it up and dialed 911. It was 12:22 p.m. Tuesday. 

4.) Rick Heltebrake was driving the perimeter of a Boy Scout camp he watches over when Dorner — his bulletproof vest bristling with rifle magazines — emerged from the tree line. 

"I don't want to hurt you," Dorner said in a calm, businesslike voice as he pointed his rifle at the 51-year-old Heltebrake. "Start walking and take your dog." 

Heltebrake sensed that Dorner, who stole his truck, was on a mission, and that he wasn't part of the agenda. Suni took his 3-year-old Dalmatian and walked away.
Heltebrake had just called police when he heard gunfire. 

5.) Not far up the road from where Dorner had left Heltebrake, some game wardens spotted the white truck speeding erratically. Dorner opened the window and fired. 

According to sheriff's department officials, MacKay and his partner followed where they believed the truck had gone. They were unaware that Dorner had crashed it. They spotted tracks in the snow leading to a cabin and got out of their cruiser. 

The pair stopped about 30 yards from the cabin to devise a plan when shots were fired. Neither deputy had a chance to return fire. Both were hit multiple times. A doctor told Loftis death for MacKay came instantly or in "just seconds." 

Collins survived but has undergone multiple surgeries. A SWAT team arrived quickly and laid down covering fire to allow the officers to be airlifted.

Anyone see anything unusual in that narrative? Namely that he didn't kill, or even come within 20 miles of, a single member of the LAPD?! Instead, he shot a young woman and her black (take that Darrell Gates!) fiancee, killed a suburban officer, killed a rural county sheriff, kidnapped a late middle-aged couple, and terrorized a guy walking his dog. He wasn't even operating in LA! His victims were in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties.* It's no wonder the LAPD is re-opening the Dorner termination. A guy this wily and cunning should have been promoted to chief!

You also have to love the "controversy" that developed after the cabin he died in caught fire. The San Bernardino Sheriff had to practically apologize and announce that, no, his department did not set fire to the cabin. Dorner was the guy with the problem, but everyone else, especially the heads of the various jurisdictions where Dorner committed his murderous acts, had to crawl before the TV cameras. 

And, once again, leftists were able to pick the scab of the "racist" LAPD and its "troubled" history, even though the department looks to have been fully justified in firing this jerk. Makes you think that maybe the LAPD is "racist" only because they go to where the criminals are: namely the ghettos and barrios in the City of Angels. 

That Dorner had a reasonable political justification for his crimes is, of course, silly. But, that doesn't mean there wasn't a political element at work. The man was clearly not insane. He was acting too methodically and pragmatically to be crazy. Instead, he was angry, and the roots of his rage - as expressed in his manifesto - were the imagined "racist" slights he had endured. But, he didn't suffer from any institutional racism keeping him down. He was brought down by his own lies, caught making up a self-aggrandizing "whistleblower" story about LAPD brutality (by a lady cop!) Still, a guy can take himself pretty far telling himself that he lives in a racist society; just ask Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, whose politics inform every page of Dorner's manifesto. 

The fact is that the people on the left live to whip up the sort of frenzied anger that Dorner exhibited. If you've got the president of the United States railing against the 1%, don't be surprised if some of his more excitable followers take up arms in that spirit.

The final word properly belongs to one of the few who survived a direct encounter with Dorner:

Loftis is having trouble imagining life without his friend. Coming to grips with the depth of Dorner's betrayal is even harder. 

"He got the best of us. He took one of the best that we have," he said ruefully. "He lost a job because he didn't deserve it, and he takes these officers' lives, really, for nothing. It was stupid and senseless."

Amen. 

* even the notorious incident where some cops shot two women delivering papers happened in Orange County. 

Off The Mat: Marco Rubio's Turn In The Spotlight

I can't say I think much of Marco Rubio - not being personal, but this "savior" stuff seems a little premature - but the following from his SOTU rebuttal is worth a highlight

But his favorite attack of all is that those who don’t agree with him – they only care about rich people. 

Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy. 

The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. 

And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security.
So Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.

It's one of the great ironies of of modern politics that the "party of the rich" is filled with politicians who come from modest backgrounds. Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, John Boehner, Ronald Reagan, Dennis Hastert, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, the dread Karl Rove, and on and on all came from marginal or modest families. It's Democrat (and "moderate" Republican) politicians who are much more like to come from wealth, often ludicrous wealth. 

Of course, the news media that never stopped talking about Mitt Romney's car elevator also plays along with the fiction that billionaires like John Kerry - who, btw, appears to have had plastic surgery - is a reg'lar guy, the same sort of fiction that props up the careers of so many left-liberals. But, what's stopping Republicans from pointing out this reality? Got me, but I'm glad Rubio took his moment in the spotlight - it's a rare moment indeed when a conservative can speak unimpeded or unedited - to make this basic point. 

Jerry Brown vs. Orange County

Jerry Brown has been on something of a victory lap, having declared the state budget to be balanced after years of red ink - and if you look at the numbers the right way, and assume he will collect all of the new taxes "we" (don't look at me, paleface) have have just levied on ourselves, he might be technically right. But, question him about how spending actually increases under his "austere" budget, and it's bash-the-GOP time:

Something has changed, even as our society has become wealthier. Sure businesses have to comply with regulations and millionaires need to pay taxes, but somewhere we’ve shifted from honoring success to envying it, from viewing government as a limited tool to achieve a few necessary things (infrastructure, enforcing the rule of law) to seeing it as the be-all and end-all of our society. 

Why is it assumed by these moralistic Affluence Police that the rich are mainly greedy people who spend their money on luxury goods? Charities and non-profits are funded by wealthy people. Real capitalists invest millions of dollars into ideas and often create good jobs in the process. I have no idea what Mickelson does with his money, but it isn’t any of my business. Given California governmental attitudes, one can’t blame him for looking elsewhere. 

For instance, during a recent Capitol press conference, the Orange County Register’s Sacramento reporter asked Gov. Jerry Brown about the spending increases in his supposedly austere budget. Brown joked about there being no hope for Orange County readers, according to a Register editorial. Then he mocked “this doctrine that government is the problem,” which he said is promoted by the “Orange County Register or whoever all these people are.”

Har! Har! Look, "Jerry" (first name Edmund), I know state liberals have been dumping on Orange County and the Orange County Register for decades. That's not surprising, as O.C. has long been a conservative enclave and the OCR one of the few reliably right-leaning newspapers of any note. And, certainly the California GOP has not covered itself in electoral glory over the past 15 years, but there's something about Orange County, and similar right-leaning communities in California that you might not want to hear about:

They work a hell of a lot better than the rest of the state, which has been in the hands of Democrats and Democrat-lite Republicans for the better part of two decades.

Now, it may be I know more about Orange County than you do, "Jerry." The Free Will grandparents lived there for decades. The Free Will Father lived there Richard Nixon-style; meaning he grew up in a house his father built. Heck, for all I know, I've visited Anaheim/Orange County more times than the current governor of the California. As far as I'm concerned, the Republican hellhole of Orange County has always been orderly, clean, and decent; the proto-typical suburban community where you would want to raise kids. Not only that, it was always more reflective of the Republican Party as the party of hard-working strivers than the cartoon image of the GOP as a plutocracy riding snake handlers and bigots to election day victory.

I hadn't been down there in several years until this past summer when the family made a pilgrimage to Disneyland. I was curious how Orange was doing after so many years of state-wide economic distress. Well, I shouldn't have worried. De-plane at John Wayne Airport, get in your rental car, head out to the highway, and what do you find? Some of the smoothest, most sophisticated highways in the world. We're talking 12-lane highways with elaborate lane markings, no doubt developed by some of the most forward thinking traffic engineers in the world. "Green" Bay Area highways have car pool lanes that are restricted during rush hour. "Evil polluter"  Orange County has car pool exits with miles long off ramps. The car pool lanes are permanent, of course, set off by special lane markings. And the traffic flows smoothly. I drove into morning rush hour traffic heading to LA, and moved quickly towards my destination.

I'm sure there are "crappy" parts of Orange County, and LA sophisticates will be happy to point them out to you, but I went through a number of towns - Torrance, Long Beach, Newport Beach, & Anaheim to name a few. Each one looked safe, clean and well-organized. There is a certain sterile quality at work, which generally means (1) no gaudy "landmarks" or public art and (2) no hipster neighborhoods* with their attendant restaurants, and drunks. Frankly, I know where to go if I want to find either of the above

But, here's the best part:

When you cross the border from Orange County to LA County - that's glamorous, progressive LA County, mind - everything changes. The six-lane highway immediately narrowed to four. Traffic came to a complete standstill. The bright, shining communities suddenly turned gray and cluttered. Smoke seemed to belch all around me. The radio switched from "Fun, Fun, Fun" to "Hell's Bells." And, the traffic didn't let up for one minute of the day. It's no wonder so many Hollywood types are convinced that global warming will destroy the world. They are living in a hellhole.

LA County, in other words, doesn't "work" as well as the dread Orange. I could say the same for Santa Barbara and the Central Coast, which are also filled with Republicans, and which are also orderly and prosperous. I'm not even going to discuss the Bay Area, whose highways and public services are simply pitiful compared to what they do in "you didn't build that" Orange County.

Orange County certainly isn't perfect, and it's not nearly as Republican as it used to be, but it's clear that right-leaning governance - or at least governance that operates efficiently and economically - can work better than the grim, re-distributionist liberal model. Maybe you can gin up a crowd in the ghetto/barrio/trailer park, and get them p***ed at "the rich," but those poor people would be better off in Anaheim working at a McDonalds than they would be in LA collecting a check.

Jerry Brown and other liberals can make all the snotty comments they want about the market, the OC Register and "Tricky Dick from Yorba Linda," but they can't get away from the fact that they can't do their jobs as well as the people they disparage.

* I was amused to drive by the Vans corporate HQ, complete with checkboard facade and Warped Tour bus parked out front. Do they play the Circle Jerks over the PA system?

Anything Going On Today?

I'm embarrassed to ask but...isn't the Obama Inauguration coming up?

Absent the historic nature of electing the nation’s first black president and amid a slow economic recovery, expectations and planning for President Barack Obama’s 2013 inaugural aren’t near the historic levels of 2009. 

But with stars such as Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Stevie Wonder lined up to perform, plenty of celebrations on tap, and tickets being auctioned off at 50 times their value, public interest remains high and planners are prepared to deliver a major celebration. 

Four years ago, a record-breaking 1.8 million people lined the mall for Obama's swearing in and attended other inaugural events in Washington. This year, expectations are lower-- some D.C. officials place crowd estimates at 600,000-800,000—but still promise a heavy influx of visitors to witness the swearing-in, parade, the inaugural balls and a wealth of unofficial parties, events and festivities in around the city. 

The official group behind the inauguration, the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC), say that overall their scope has decreased in comparison to 2009. 

“In keeping with the precedent set by previous second inaugurals and in recognition of the ongoing economic recovery, this Inauguration will be smaller in scale than the historic ceremony four years ago," PIC spokeswoman Aoife McCarthy told Yahoo News in a statement. "We expect the 57th Inaugural to capture the same excitement that we saw throughout this campaign and to reflect the values that the President will continue to bring to his second term." 

The ten inaugural balls the president and First Lady attended in 2009 have been condensed to two. There is no inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Planners are organizing fewer official events overall.
But the scope remains grand.

OK, so we're not having a Grand Immaculation as happened the first time out. Still, there's a noticeable lack of interest here that deserves some note.

One thing I keep hearing is that Republicans are more "depressed" with the imminence of the Obama second term than Dems were at the prospect of the second Bush term. Looking back, here are the main complaints I recall from the glory days of the compassionate conservative hegemon:

1. The Iraq War
2. The PATRIOT Act
3. The suppression of gay marriage
4. Oil companies manipulating gas prices
5. the "jobless" recovery - when we had virtually full employment

Other complaints - Hurricane Katrina, Cindy Sheehan's dead son, Global Warming, the spendthrift GOP Congress - were to come later, but looking at that list I am struck by two thoughts:

(1) that most, if not all of these problems were not problems that directly affected querulous liberals. I mean, you can complain about the Iraq War all you want, but the war resolutions passed with large numbers of Democrat votes. Not only that, the war had no bearing on your life unless you were in Iraq proper. Similary, no American (excluding bogus "Americans" like al-Alwaki) was inconvenienced by the PATRIOT Act. Hurricane Katrina was a fiasco, but it wasn't Bush's fault that the Pelican State's Democrat establishment was so biblically corrupt and incompetent. And so on.

(2)  gas prices, unemployment, and gov't debt - in other words, the things that do affect most people - have gotten worse under Obama to no discernible complaint from the loudmouths who used to excoriate Bushitler.

On the other hand, what are the issues that bother Republicans about Obama?

1. $5 trillion in debt with another $5 trillion on tap
2. the prospect of endless trillion dollar annual deficits
3. a trillion dollar stimulus that was a classic pay-off, and which is being renewed annually thanks to base-line budgeting
4. Obamacare with its attendant fines, tax increases, and premium increases
5. the pathological desire to raise taxes
6. and so on

Then there's Obama's repeated personal attacks on Republicans and their ideas. Say what you will about George Bush, but you never heard him use the sort of rhetoric - "bitter clingers," "you didn't build that" - that Obama routinely uses against conservatives.

The difference is that anti-Bush libs were upset about things that either did not affect them directly or have gotten worse under Obama. Anti-Obama conservatives are upset that Obama policies are aimed directly at them, and are often crafted specifically to weaken, if not destroy them. And no one seems to care. Not only that, Obama is the "likeable" one!

A depressing prospect all around.

Bringing The Bitter: Calling Out the Socially Liberal Fiscal Conservatives

There's more than a trace of bitterness in Jonah Goldberg's column calling out the sort of "socially liberal fiscally conservative" type who likes to make a big show of their reasonable ways, but vote and advocate for politicians who are pursuing a fiscally suicidal course

Bob, I’m going to be straight with you. I never had much respect for your political acumen before, but you’re a sucker. 

You’re still spouting this nonsense about being fiscally conservative while insisting that the GOP is the problem. You buy into the media’s anti-Republican hysteria no matter what the facts are. Heck, you even believe it when Obama suggests he’s like an Eisenhower Republican. 

Well, let’s talk about Eisenhower, your kind of Republican. Did you know that in his famous farewell address he warned about the debt? “We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage,” he said. “We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” 

Bob, we are that insolvent phantom, you feckless, gormless clod. The year Eisenhower delivered that speech, U.S. debt was roughly half our GDP. But that was when we were still paying off WWII (not to mention things like the Marshall Plan), and the defense budget constituted more than half the U.S. budget (today it’s a fifth and falling). Now, the debt is bigger than our GDP. Gross Domestic Product is barely $15 trillion. The national debt is over $16 trillion and climbing — fast. The country isn’t going broke, Bob, it is broke. 

When George W. Bush added nearly $5 trillion in national debt in two terms you were scandalized. When Obama added more than that in one term, you yawned. When, in 2006, then-senator Obama condemned Bush’s failure of leadership and vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling, you thought him a statesman. Obama, who wants to borrow trillions more, now admits that was purely a “political vote.” 

Yet when Republicans actually have the courage of Obama’s own convictions, you condemn them.

The epitome of fiscal recklessness has been the Democrat Senate's obdurate refusal to draft and enact a budget, which has lead to the sort of crisis mongering and dark-of-night budgeting that have been the true hallmarks of the Obama presidency. This, of course, provokes shrugs, but let Republicans try such a stunt and we would never hear the end of it re: radical Republican recklessness.

What's really exasperating about these folks is their seeming blindness whether about themselves or about liberals. We've all met Republicans who were furious with the Bush deficits, so they voted for Obama back in 2008. Even back then, this made no sense. Democrats tax and spend. That's what they do, even when they pose as moderates. If you're PO'd about deficits, you don't vote for the people who invented deficit spending! Bob Barr was on the Libertarian ticket that year; why not vote for him? Or, do what I did and tell yourself that you are voting for Sarah Palin.

Actually, Sarah Palin - or rather, the fate of Sarah - perfectly encapsulates the BS of the social liberal/fiscal con. A big part of her appeal back then was that she had been a real budget cutter. Remember her story about selling the governor's plane? But, she was pro-life, not obnoxiously so, I might add, but pro-life nonetheless. Can't have that! Moderates apparently prefer to have abortion on demand over their professed goal of a balanced budget. Makes sense!*

Republicans have a lot of problems, but the phenomenon of politicially unsophisticated liberals publicly masquerading as pragmatic moderates is surely in the Top 5.

*(especially when you consider how upset these moderates professed to have been by the Sandy Hook massacre. We Republicans may be crazy, but at least we think all life is precious, and don't sit around fine-tuning arguments about when it should or should not be legal to kill babies.)

Trillion Dollar Bash: Paul Krugman & the Coin That Will Rule Us All

It's amazing to think that there are large numbers of Serious People on the sophisticated left (these are the ones who always chortle over the Republican "war on science") who see a way out of the debt ceiling via the minting a trillion-dollar coin that the gov't could deposit - TA DA! - with the Federal Reserve. Paul Krugman - who won a Nobel Prize and is widely viewed as the leading apostle of Keynsean economics ca. now - thinks this is just what the doctor ordered.

Enter the platinum coin. There’s a legal loophole allowing the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any denomination the secretary chooses. Yes, it was intended to allow commemorative collector’s items — but that’s not what the letter of the law says. And by minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Fed, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling — while doing no economic harm at all.

Krugman et al. have sort of thought this through except for one detail: it's completely crazy, not to mention a mockery of the law and the Constitution. I mean, you have to love the idea of a "loophole" that allows you to mint a trillion-dollar anything. After a deafening round of mockery from the right, Krugman doubles down with a rousing defense of the concept:

What the hysterics see is a terrible, outrageous attempt to pay the government’s bills out of thin air. This is utterly wrong, and in fact is wrong on two levels. 

The first level is that in practice minting the coin would be nothing but an accounting fiction, enabling the government to continue doing exactly what it would have done if the debt limit were raised. 

Remember that the coin is supposed to be deposited at the Fed, which is effectively just a semi-autonomous government agency. As the federal government proper drew on its new Fed account, the Fed would probably respond by selling off some of its $3 trillion balance sheet. In effect, the consolidated federal government, including the Fed, would be financing its operations by selling debt instruments, just as always. 

But what if the Fed decided not to shrink its outside balance sheet? Even so, under current conditions it would make no difference — because we’re in a liquidity trap, with market interest rates on short-term federal debt near zero. Under these conditions, issuing short-term debt and just “printing money” (actually, crediting banks with additional reserves that they can convert into paper cash if they choose) are completely equivalent in their effect, so even huge increases in the monetary base (reserves plus cash) aren’t inflationary at all.

Krugman has an out for any blame that may come the left's way should this inflationary coin come to light: the Republicans made me do it!

For those new to this, here’s the story. First of all, we have the weird and destructive institution of the debt ceiling; this lets Congress approve tax and spending bills that imply a large budget deficit — tax and spending bills the president is legally required to implement — and then lets Congress refuse to grant the president authority to borrow, preventing him from carrying out his legal duties and provoking a possibly catastrophic default. 

And Republicans are openly threatening to use that potential for catastrophe to blackmail the president into implementing policies they can’t pass through normal constitutional processes.

...
This still leaves the question of whose face goes on the coin — but that’s easy: John Boehner. Because without him and his colleagues, this wouldn’t be necessary.

John Boehner's mind control is so total he is planting ideas that are literally out of a Simpson's episode (one featuring Fidel Castro!) in the minds of the brilliant among us.

Happy Free Will Fiscal Cliff New Years Eve

Sorry for the light blogging, but the holidays and a family trip to Santa Barbara took precedence over blogging about the fiscal cliff and other Beltway Kabuki matters.

Still, I want to go on the record (again) by repeating my belief that we should just go over the cliff and deal with what comes after as best we can. The GOP has made its point, I think, that they really really don't want to raise taxes without spending cuts. If you want my opinion, I think the Dems' "plan" to raise taxes and cut defense and then blame both outcomes on intransigent Republicans will not work as well as they think for the simple reason that there is a long paper and video trail of various liberals demanding those very outcomes.

Many on the right worry that a tax increase will split the GOP a la the Bush 1990 budget deal, but I don't see how that will work for the simple reason that the 1990 situation is not the same as that of 2012. Back in 1990, Bush 41 had won re-election* and still entered into a RINO-esque budget compromise that predictably angered the base. Now? Unless I missed something, we don't have any Republican president-elects strutting around negotiating any deals with anybody. Quite the opposite. Obama won on very little, except for his repeated demand that "the rich" pay just "a little bit more" in taxes to make things "fair." That apparently was a winning message ca. 2012 A.D. Why is the GOP going to be blamed for that?

Rather than negotiating another round of secret deals, the House and Senate Republicans should simply let the cliff approach and then pass by, and then begin to treat the Dems as an enemy to be defeated, rather than  lovable opponents who need to be appeased.

*it was Ronald Reagan's third term, remember.

Merry Free Will Christmas!

Truth be told, it's hard to be merry this year. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this. The malls and markets have been noticeably less crowded this holiday season. The senseless deaths of so many children in Connecticut weigh on the mind, as does the grotesque reaction by our supposed betters. (If there's a reason to be thankful, I guess that I'm thankful I'm not the sort of person who reacts to an awful tragedy by blaming the freakin' NRA).

Still, Christmas is supposed to be a time when you remember that your problems are not what's important. There is a broader world out there, and others who are counting on us to help them get through it.

Merry Christmas!

Now It All Makes Sense: Romney Didn't Really Want To Run For President

That, at least, is the word from Tagg Romney, who told the Boston Globe that he and Ann Romney had to work hard to persuade Mitt to run for the 2012 nomination. It was "his turn" after all!

No one wanted to be president less than Mitt Romney, his son said in an interview out Sunday that raises new questions about the candidacy of the losing Republican nominee. 

In an interview with the Boston Globe examining what went wrong with the Romney campaign, his eldest son Tagg explains that his father had been a reluctant candidate from the start. 

After failing to win the 2008 Republican nomination, Romney told his family he would not run again and had to be persuaded to enter the 2012 White House race by his wife Ann and son Tagg. 

"He wanted to be president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire... to run," Tagg Romney said. "If he could have found someone else to take his place... he would have been ecstatic to step aside." 

Mitt Romney "is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them. He loves his country, but he doesn't love the attention," his son said.

To paraphrase Johnny Rotten, "Ever had the feeling you've just been ripped off?"

I guess now it makes sense how Romney essentially took a dive in the third debate and eased noticeably off of the throttle during the last three weeks of the campaign. He came dangerously close to winning the election - remember how everyone on the left was relieved when Hurricane Sandy hoved into view? - which would not have been an optimal outcome for someone who didn't act like he really wanted the job to begin with.

In a way, we averted disaster of a sort. (trying hard not to diminish the disaster we're living through right now). If Romney couldn't bother to campaign, he certainly wasn't ready to govern in the manner he promised. There would have been no major spending cuts, no tax reform, and, of course, no repeal of Obamacare. It would have been Bush 41 all over again, only without the preceding 8 years of real conservative governance to build on.

Of course, "thanks" to Romney, we had no viable conservative candidate to put up against Obama. While he was not enthusiastic about waging political war against Democrats, he was quite happy to let it rip against his fellow Republicans. Funny how the guy who violated the 11th Commandment didn't really want the job to begin with.

Just What The Hell Is Going On?

I have been going back and forth over how much or how little to write about the horrible events in Connecticut. My reaction has been similar to that during the days after 9/11, and I don't say that lightly. Just as on that day, I keep going back to the same thought, "how could anyone do that?" Maybe the event is too much for a blog post, but I do need to say something about the political reaction, such as it has been.

We are being ruled by fools on both sides of the aisle.

Within an hour of the true scale of that maniac's rampage becoming clear, you began to hear talk about how we would need to Do Something about guns. Those poor children, and the brave handful of women who sacrificed their lives to save so many others, were lying still where they died, and here came Michael Bloomburg, who should rightly be concerned about what's going on in the Five Boroughs, and no further, intoning that "we" must get guns off the street. The words of this former alleged Republican have been repeated ad nauseum, so much so that it is clear that liberal politicians and their media allies saw this awful tragedy - just imagine the last panicked seconds of those children's lives - as a once-in-a-decade chance to "win" a political argument they lost years ago.

Michael Bloomberg? Diane Feinstein? Michael Moore? Everyone on CNN & MSNBC? Go to Hell. Please.

And, they're the compassionate ones, don't you know.

Banning guns may have a certain visceral appeal, especially with its biblical incantations of beating swords into plowshares, but that's not going to solve anything. For one thing, gun bans are unconstitutional. For another, facts and experience tell us that gun bans ultimately result in more guns deaths, not fewer. And, finally, there is not a law you could draft respecting guns that would have stopped that monster from carrying out his evil deeds.

Of course, the fact that liberals can't ban guns doesn't mean they can't do the next best thing, which  it to wave the bloody shirt in the face of those conservative politicians reckless enough to go on cable TV to be hectored about the 2nd Amendment, as if the NRA relishes mass killings.

That doesn't mean the right hasn't had its own moments of jack-assery. You know what's just as pointless as calling for banning guns? How about calls to censor violent movies and video games? That's just as unconstitutional as banning guns, and about as effective. Same with calls to bring back school prayer.

You know what I haven't heard from any of our conservative "leaders?" An idea of how to deal with the actual problems that you readily identify as common to all of these mass shootings:

1. a troubled loner who was obviously a ticking time bomb, and whose dangerous proclivities were undoubtedly well known to those around him, but who could not get him off the streets.  

2. readily available guns that they practically picked up off of the floor  

3. a "soft target" filled with defenseless victims

We knew all of this before last Friday, but everyone's acting like the sun just rose in the East for the first time.

Now I know House Republicans have been very busy watching John Boehner tramp up to the White House to "negotiate," but, in the meantime, don't they have jobs? Aren't they, like, legislators? Hasn't Congress been known to produce legislation on occasion?

Say what you will about Dianne Feinstein, but 48 hours after the massacre began, she was in front of a microphone with draft legislation ready to go. Do you think she and her staff wrote this stuff in a fever pitch on Saturday? Of course not! They had it sitting in a drawer somewhere, ready to go for just this moment when the public could perhaps be railroaded into supporting gun restrictions it would otherwise oppose.

You get the feeling Republicans have draft legislation sitting in a drawer (or on a hard drive)? Me neither.

Where's the federal law making a parent criminally negligent when they leave a god-damned weapon lying around the house, and their kid uses it to kill someone?

Where's the federal concealed-carry legislation?

Where's federal equivalent of the Tarasoff rule?

And where's the federal law making it a lot easier to institutionalize people with dangerous, violent psychoses?

(that last one, btw, would pass with wide majorities while the ostensibly "common sense" guns bans will languish in committee. Let liberals explain why the likes of Seung Cho should be able to just wander the world until they decide it's time to go out in a blaze of infamy.)

Where is all this proposed legislation? You got me. All I see are Republican politicians like Louis Golmert auditioning for the James Watt Memorial Clueless Right-Wing Gaffe Award by, say, going on teevee and saying we should "arm the teachers." Maybe we should, but wouldn't it be better to try and actually pass laws that could address the very real gaps in our laws? And, Rep. Golmert, with all due respect, isn't that your job?

The Adam Lanzas of the world have civil rights that allow them the freedom to plot, and carry out, mass murder. I guarantee that somewhere in Connecticut there is a psychologist who knew exactly what was wrong with his patient and didn't or couldn't do anything about it. Lanza's civil rights trumped the right those children had to be able to go to school and then come home alive. Society has bent over backwards for Adam Lanza and his ilk, offering them freedom where, 50 years ago, they would have been institutionalized. In coddling Lanza, society utterly failed to do anything for those beautiful children, and the women who tried desperately to save them. Arm the teachers? Sure, but why not get the nation's Adam Lanzas - their neighbors and teachers know who they are, more or less - off the streets?

But no, the dread "right wing" would rather gas on about Call of Duty II or school prayer, in between stuttering defenses of the 2nd Amendment under the kleig lights of the cable shows that constitute our god-forsaken public forum.

We've had school shootings before, but this one is historically awful.

Liberals think we must surrender our constitutional rights, and leave ourselves defenseless.

Republicans are willing to defend the 2nd Amendment, but are otherwise cowering in the usual defensive crouch, offering platitudes.

No one wants to take the lead and say what the majority of Americans are thinking: we have been too lenient for too long with the disturbed young men who walk our streets.

As I said, we are being ruled by damn fools.

Katrina v Sandy: Measuring The Dollars

I was listening to the radio this afternoon, hearing lots of talk about the big "Hurricane Sandy" concert last night. I wasn't surprised to learn that, so far, Americans have donated $250M to the cause, but I was surprised to learn that by the equivalent time in Sept. 2005, Americans had donated nearly a billion dollars to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Why might that be?

Back in 2005, in George Bush's America, people had a lot more money in their pockets, and were happily willing to donate some of that bounty to people they saw as being in genuine need.

The devastation in New Orleans was in our faces, thanks to relentless media hype.

Back in 2005, no one was trying to say that the gov't would do everything. My recollection is that the Bush Administration was actively encouraging people to donate money, and was working with private sector firms that could offer relevant services. Nowadays? All we're hearing is how Obama is getting out the Big Federal Checkbook.

This next bit is hard to explain, and may sound self-serving, but here it goes.  We have never stopped hearing about how the Bush Years were a cruel, laissez faire era, when people were "on their own." (pause for bitter, sarcastic laughter). That's as compared to now when, supposedly, Americans are expanding the safety net, providing "free" health care to all, and "spreading the wealth around." Yet, over and over again in the Bush years, we saw incredible bursts of charitable giving whether after 9/11, Katrina, the Asian Tsunami, and a dozen other lesser disasters. We just don't see that level of charitable giving -- whether of money, time or resources -- now, do we? I do think that was partially a reflection of better economic times, but it's also a reflection of the man at the top. George Bush may have had a lot of problems, but he was a genuinely good man with a true Christian conscience. Even if he and the gov't couldn't solve every problem that came howling into the Oval Office, he always made sure to make these heartful pleas for donations and was always full of praise for the first-responders and others who were cleaning up after disaster. It was infectious and, I think, made people want to contribute something, even if it was a little pocket money. Even though there wasn't a gov't organizing the $$, there was still a national communal feeling out there that sent donations pouring in. Now? Without getting into finger-pointing over who is or is not damned, I will simply say that the current president's professed Christianity is neither as deep or as charitable as that of his predecessors. And, for all his talk of post-partisan unity (more bitter sarcastic laughter), it's sadly obvious that Obama cannot inspire people to act out of the goodness of their hearts in the way his predecessors could. He's made it clear (as have NY & NJ's politicos) that the gov't is on the case and that's that. Perfunctory calls to donate to the Red Cross, are just that - perfunctory calls (and how appropriate that Dems prefer the semi-corrupt quasi-governmental Red Cross, to the thousands of churches that were active in the Bush days). The fact is that Obama's efforts to divide Americans by class, race, etc., and to castigate the sort of people who were opening their wallets for disaster relief efforts just a half-decade ago, have resulted in a society with less charity, less communal feeling, and less hope. Heckuva job.

Going Over The Fiscal Cliff: The Free Will Rationale

A few days after the election, I was grumbling to various Free Will Insiders that the then-incipient "fiscal cliff" negotiations were pointless, and we would be better off letting the Jan. 1 deadline expire without any further drama or delay. Naturally, I didn't write this down, so I can't literally claim to have anticipated the "walk away" position that Rush, Dr. K, and other hard-nosed conservatives have taken up. But, as they haven't expressed the Free Will Rationale, I can at least record that for posterity:

1. everyone involved in the 2011 deal that resulted in the fiscal cliff, except maybe Allen West, was returned to office.

2. When American voters elect a divided gov't, they must know that the results will be these sorts of tortured compromises.

3. the fiscal cliff does involve some (admittedly anodyne) spending cuts

4. To those national security hawks setting their pants on fire over defense spending cuts I will say this:

a. the Pentagon has enjoyed absurdly large budgets, as compared to the rest of the world.  

b. there is nothing oxymoronic about being cheap and being a hawk 

c. the Patraeus scandal has exposed, maybe indirectly, that our officer corps is maybe not living the Spartan life-style that we have all imagined, and that the military could stand to go on a diet.  

d. Ronaldus showed us that defense spending can be increased, and military readiness restored, in very short order

5. To the tax hawks, I will say this:

a. As we have learned over and over again, Democrat tax rates can be cut, and revenues increased, in very short order.  

b. we shouldn't be focusing exclusively on income tax rates. If you want to start a real class war, look to the myriad tax shelters that wealthy liberals like the Kennedies and Warren Buffet use to perpetuate not just their wealth, but also their wealth-destroying causes. 

This is not to say the GOP should simply fold. Republican fingerprints don't need to be on middle class tax increases (you know, all those "rich" people who benefited from the Bush tax rates). Retain the Bush rates for 99%* and let 'em go up for the 1% who (1) mostly live in Blue-states anyway and (2) haven't exactly been loyal GOP voters lately.

This is all unpleasant stuff, but the real problem is spending, and we are not going to solve America's spending problem in two weeks with John Boehner at the helm. Defense cuts and tax hikes have happened before and the GOP has tended to dial these back in relatively short order. But, reducing spending requires a level of commitment and solidarity that the GOP simply cannot rely on in the next three weeks. There is nothing dishonorable in a strategic retreat, so long as we know the commitment is there to fight again another day.

(* isn't it funny how Obama's 1%, which we heard about all through the election, has magically morphed, without comment, into 2%? Fair Warning: I am already hearing the 2% elided into "2 or 3%." We'll be up to 5% by the end of the year.)

Right Wing Book Club: Post-Election Reading

Here's my gloomy post-election reading. Try to see if you discern a pattern:

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday. a very good biography that brings together every rotten story about the Great Helmsman in one convenient place. Life under Mao's thumb, whether in CCP controlled territory during the civil war, or in Red China proper, was alternately miserable and terrifying. Too bad when Mao was actually alive there were so many westerners who bought the line about Mao being an "agrarian reformer."

Thaddeus Stevens and the Fight For Negro Rights by Milton Meltzer. we used to have some bad-a** Republicans out there.

The Amateur by Edward Klein: the book that was supposed to turn the electorate off of the Obama Administration, and obviously did not. The best parts are when Michelle dumps on the Kennedies for having tatty furniture.

What You Should Know About Inflation by Henry Hazlitt. written in 1960 (and relying on data from 1930 - 1959), but still depressingly relevant. Quantitative easing, deficit spending and "stimulous" each take their turns under Hazlitt's microscope. As with Hazlitt's other books, the writing is clear and concise. Should (but never will) be required reading in college, if not high school.

Popular Crime by Bill James: an amazing book about infamous crimes from the master of sabremetrics. James is a relentless quantifier, creating 18 types of crimes, assigning percentages to the levels of evidence necessary to convict, etc; while also offering his take on famous murders and murderers. You could literally learn something new on every page. Shock stat: the great American crime wave really started in the 1850's and has remained at elevated levels ever since.

One Is A Crowd; Out of Step by Frank Chodorov. essays from an OG paleo-con who was present at the creation of Human Events, and fought the good fight during the Thirties and Forties. Chodorov was an isolationist who thought Democrats were socialists, and believed people were crazy to buy gov't bonds, positions that probably didn't do much to enhance his popularity at the time.

Machinery Of Freedom by David Friedman. this anrcho-capitalist classic looks more and more like science fiction everyday.

(free pdf.s of the Hazlitt and Chodorov books are available at the Mises Institute website. Friedman has a link to downloads to his books at his very good blog)

A Little Perspective:

Did you know that 182 years passed from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to the drafting of the US Constitution in 1789? 182 years from 1789 is --- 1971!

Shakespere was still writing and producing plays when Englishmen sailed up the James River. The colonists couldn't bring the King James Bible with them because it was still in development. And so on.

All of which is to say we've been here for quite a bit longer than most of us realize, and that we've survived worse than arrogant community organizers playing at socialism.

Pressure Point: Revving Up To "Turn" Justice Roberts During The Coming Supreme Court Term

Ann Althouse takes note of the inevitable effort to repeat last year's successful effort to mau-mau Chief Justice Roberts into declaring Obamacare to be constitutional.

if you want to say Roberts is a hypocrite because his writing is equally disingenuous or worse, that's another matter. It's what Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic is doing in an item titled "The Nerve of John Roberts": 

Disappeared the scope? That's Cohen's way of referring to the identification of some limit on the scope of the commerce power, so that it didn't reach a private citizen's failure to purchase insurance. Congress has power under the Commerce Clause to regulate nearly everything else, which to Cohen's eye is no power at all. Unless it's everything, it's nothing. Disappeared! 

Yes, yes, roll out your list of Supreme Court decisions you wish went the other way. That's not in the same category as deceptively stating the facts of a case, which is simply not acceptable in lawyers' briefs. The Solicitor General's office disserved us. The Chief Justice called the lawyer on a deception and — with restraint — said he "found it a little disingenuous." 

What I find disingenuous is the criticism of the Chief Justice. And after all he did for you upholding Obamacare! (He used the tax power instead of the commerce power).
But no thanks will be forthcoming. Pressure must be kept up. This is a big term for the Supreme Court — gay marriage (probably), affirmative action, the Voting Rights Act — and Roberts's vote may be required to reach what the media know are the right results. Roberts needs to know that any love for him is purely contingent. He's being watched.

A little disingenuous. This from a judge who disappeared the scope of the Commerce Clause in the Affordable Care Act case.

This from a judge who gutted decades of First Amendment precedent in the Citizens United case after reaching out, unilaterally, to expand the scope of that campaign finance case.....

All I can say is I hope (but doubt) it's true that Roberts is playing a long-game whereby upholding Obamacare as a tax was actually a poison pill, and that he is trading his Obamcare vote for three decades of hard-nosed conservative opinion writing. Reality is that Roberts has shown weakness in a manner that Renquist never displayed, even when he was dying from cancer.

(as an aside, isn't it it depressing how W's "best" appointments - those being Roberts and Petraeus - have failed us so badly? Republican problems go far beyond SuperPACs, consultants, and moderate presidential candidates).


But still, forget Roberts. What are we supposed to think of the President and his minions aggressively demanding, directly and through their sympathizers in the media, that the Chief Justice vote the "correct" way? What happens if Roberts does uphold Prop. 8? Or strikes down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act? Remember how the media focused so intently on Roberts's young children and his wife during his confirmation hearings? I'll bet he does.

Obama et al. can get away with smilingly threatening the Supreme Court - a supposedly co-equal branch of the federal gov't, believe it or not - because they must know the 50.9% of voters who supported them in November approve of this sort of behavior. Further proof that these are people who must be beaten, not just defeated in an election.

The Broken Chain: What Happens When The Police Stop Arresting Criminals

You'd think the "More Arrests = Less Crime" would be one of those self-evident public policy formulas that resist all but the most blockheaded "cop watch" activist, but you'd be wrong. Witness Oakland, CA, where the City Fathers are expressing bafflement over that city's inexorable rise in crime despite a steep drop-off in arrests.

Oakland police officers made 44 percent fewer arrests last year than they had just three years before, city records show, a plunge in enforcement that extended from armed robbery cases to drug busts to minor crimes like public drunkenness. 

That's 6,410 fewer arrests - an average of 18 fewer per day - in a city that has the highest crime rate in the state and, this year, is grappling with a 23 percent spike in murders, muggings and other major offenses. 

The drop is so steep it has eased a backlog of cases in Alameda County Superior Court and may be contributing to a shrinking county jail population, officials said. 

The arrest figures, obtained under the state's Public Records Act, raise questions about the effectiveness and assertiveness of the Police Department, which is struggling under the weight of job cuts, low morale and the demands of federal court oversight.
... 

Sgt. Chris Bolton, chief of staff to Police Chief Howard Jordan, who took his post in October 2011 following the resignation of Anthony Batts, said arrests were an important tool in crime-fighting but "not the sole answer." 

Bolton said a lot of the proactive work that yields arrests - operations that target gangs and drug dealers, for instance - has fallen off as a result of job cuts. More than ever, he said, officers spend their time hustling from one emergency call to the next. 

Due to layoffs and attrition, the force has 626 officers, a 25 percent decline from a high of 837 in December 2008. By comparison, San Francisco - which has twice the population of Oakland but 20 percent less violent crime - has 2,164 officers. 

"In 2010, we said we needed at least 900 cops to be effective," Bolton said. "The first units to go when we faced staffing reductions were squads that were not tied to calls for service and were designed to address gangs, drugs and guns through proactive enforcement." 

In a written statement, Mayor Jean Quan said, "We need to be taking more criminals off the streets, and tackling the problem requires both immediate and long-term solutions," including partnerships with outside agencies.

All I can say is, thank God I am a stoopid right-winger and not a liberal. Not that I am calling liberal politicians stupid. They know exactly what kind of line they can peddle to try to explain why it is that crime, which has been quiescent since the Willie Horton days, has come rocketing back. OTH, anyone who believes this stuff deserving of the patenting Free Will Glance of Pitying Scorn.


What liberals are desperate that no one notices is that they are the root cause of rising urban crime, and not because of the culture of dependency bred by the welfare state. Oakland started firing cops because the budget got out of control, and city progressives would rather pay pensions to retired bureaucrats, and pay "grants" to dubious non-profits, rather than police the streets. Add to that the state's determined effort to empty the prisons for the same reasons, and it's not hard to make the connection between an influx of criminals meeting a winnowed police force.


"Luckily" for Oakland's politicos, people would rather march in an anti-cop rally, and bitch about the decade-old "Riders" case, instead of giving the police the minimal resources to do their jobs.