Archive for 2009
July 14, 2009
THIS WEEK’S Blawg Review is up!
BIZZYBLOG ON TREASURY RECEIPTS: This Is What ‘Going Galt,’ and Obama’s Induced Uncertainly and Fear, Have Led To. More the latter than the former, probably, but the two go together . . . .
POLLING: CBS: Obama dropped six points in a month. Why? “Growing skepticism about his handling of the economy and questions about the impact of the stimulus package.”
Plenty of skepticism in Detroit. The Detroit News comments: “President Barack Obama’s plan to attack the recession through massive deficit spending is not producing the results the president promised in February when he convinced the American people to go deep into hock in the name of creating jobs and boosting economic growth. . . . Administration economists projected that the huge influx of borrowed federal dollars would keep the national unemployment rate from breaking through the 8 percent mark. It stands at 9.5 percent today and is still rising.”
And the Detroit Free Press editorializes: “So President Barack Obama makes his first return to Michigan since the 2008 election and plans to put on a big push for community colleges and the kind of training they offer. Not a bad idea on its face. But Michigan has emphasized job retraining for months, if not years now — and yet people keep losing their jobs, even in supposedly hot fields such as health care.” Maybe reducing taxes and regulation would help. Michigan hasn’t tried that — and neither has Obama . . . .
JOHN HINDERAKER on the “wise Latina” explanation.
UPDATE: Sotomayor on the Second Amendment. More here. She’s not that into it.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Still more on Sotomayor and Heller. “Fundamentally, we have to realize that she’s replacing Souter. He wouldn’t be with us anyway. Not to mention, she’s hardly an intellectual leader. Listening to her answer other questions made that plenty clear.” Be careful. She might just be lulling you into a false sense of security. . . .
STILL MORE here.
MORE STILL: Randy Barnett: “One of the things we hope to learn during confirmation hearings is a nominee’s approach to the constitutional protection of liberty. But in her exchange with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) about the second amendment and its potential application to the states, Sonia Sotomayor revealed remarkably little about her understanding of how the Supreme Court protects liberty under the fourteenth amendment. For example, more than once she said a right was ‘fundamental’ if it was ‘incorporated’ into the fourteenth amendment. But this gets it backwards. The Supreme Court incorporates a right BECAUSE it finds it to be fundamental. When asked how she understands the criteria by which the court concludes that a right is fundamental, she did not give a substantive response. Then, when Hatch asked her about the difference between nineteenth century precedent involving the privileges or immunities clause and the twentieth century cases involving the due process clause, she said she did not recall the cases well enough to address the difference.”
If her politics were different, this would be clear evidence that she is unfit.
Plus, Ilya Somin: Sotomayor’s Misstatement of Kelo. Like I said . . . .
IN THE MAIL: From Warren Fahy, Fragment: A Novel.
A BIT SENSITIVE: Turkish PM Told To Take Back Xinjiang Genocide Remark. “An official Chinese newspaper has urged Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to take back remarks that genocide was being committed in China’s Muslim region of Xinjiang, where rioting left at least 184 dead.” How can it be genocide? No Israelis are involved.
BILL WHITTLE: A Soldier’s Story: The Battle of Tarawa.
SWAT GONE WILD IN MARYLAND: “A botched raid on a small-town Maryland mayor exposes widespread abuse by the state’s SWAT teams.”
POLITICO: Some economists warn Barack Obama’s economic predictions too optimistic. “President Barack Obama’s economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.”
I LIKE HER BETTER ALREADY! “Imagine Martha Stewart as a gun-toting Libertarian.”
THE STATISTICS THAT COLLEGES hate to share.
PUTTING THE MILITARY TO WORK to promote Government Motors?
X PLANES is a photoblog about experimental aircraft. (Via Mark Frauenfelder).
MARK LEVIN’S LIBERTY AND TYRANNY is still at #2 on the NYT Bestsellers List.
THE ECONOMY IS EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK: “The average length of unemployment is higher than it’s been since government began tracking the data in 1948.” But at least we’re not living through those awful Bush years, when every man was Tom Joad.
BIG PRIVATE-SPACE NEWS: A successful launch for SpaceX’s Falcon One.
ESCAPE FROM THE “RETRO JAIL:” Test-Driving the new Jaguar XJ sedan.
THE SMALL BUSINESS SURTAX? That’s a good idea: “A new study by the Kaufman Foundation finds that small business entrepreneurs have led America out of its last seven post-World War II recessions. They also generate about two of every three new jobs during a recovery.”
NEARLY ALL MY PROFESSORS ARE DEMOCRATS. “After I posed that question, two faculty railed against me. That’s a sure sign that universities should address the lack of ideological diversity.”
PJTV UNDERCOVER: Steven Crowder investigates the Canadian healthcare system.
GEITHNER IN SAUDI ARABIA: Tim Cavanaugh translates.
FABIUS MAXIMUS: Why has the worst recession since the 1930’s had such a mild effect on America? A sunny analysis.
INSPECTOR-GENERAL-GATE: The Little Scandal That Could. It certainly seems . . . emblematic. “In the span of barely a week, beginning with the White House’s quit-or-be-fired ultimatum to Walpin on June 10, two other inspectors general left their posts in what appears to be a pattern of administration pressure against IGs.”