HMM: Surging traffic at most law-professor blogs.
Archive for 2009
October 13, 2009
BILL WHITTLE: THROW THE BUMS OUT. “We already pay farmers not to farm. Why can’t we pay legislators not to legislate?”
THIS IS ENCOURAGING: Two European Nuclear Scientists Arrested as Al-Qaeda Suspects.
And note this:
“Why do you think that story wasn’t more widely reported?” I asked.
He said something to the effect of: there are some things the public finds easier to ignore.
That seems to be the current political mood.
THE WRONG WAY TO pass a class. Maybe this worked in 1978.
TAXING THE MIDDLE CLASS: “There is a jumbo fight brewing among Democrats over just how much they’re going to tax the middle class in the name of health-care reform. Senate Democrats want to tax so-called Cadillac health-care plans to pay for the gargantuan health-care bill, while House Democrats don’t think it’s a good idea to whack middle-class voters, and especially union members.” I don’t know why there’s even an argument over this. President Obama has promised no tax increases on people making less than $250K a year.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BAUCUS BILL: Part Two.
INSTANT POPULARITY BOOST! Schwarzenegger Vetoes Limits on Administrators’ Pay. “California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday vetoed a bill that would have barred most salary increases and bonuses for executives at the University of California and California State University systems in bad budget years, such as this one.”
Some related thoughts at The Economist:
Many working-class men have lost their jobs. Those who are still employed have seen their wages stagnate and their pensions shrivel in the stockmarket crash. Their health insurance is insecure, but they don’t trust Congress not to make it worse.
Meanwhile, they can see that one group of Americans has been practically unaffected by the recession: government employees. Their hours have not been cut, their benefits are gold-plated and they are almost impossible to sack. In good times, few Americans notice these things, but in bad times, the disparity grates. Cops and firefighters can retire in their 40s and draw defined-benefit pensions for life. With overtime, one tenth of the police in Massachusetts made more than the governor’s annual salary in 2006, according to the Boston Globe. Including benefits, the average employee of New York City makes more than $100,000, according to Forbes, while some Californian prison guards “sock away $300,000 a year”.
And what do taxpayers get for their generosity? The bad bargains get all the publicity. Union contracts force the postal service to pay thousands of unneeded workers to do nothing. In New York, public-school teachers who can’t be trusted to teach but can’t be sacked either are paid to sit and do crosswords.
This is the sleeper issue of 2010 at the state level.
BRUCE JENNER: “He’s done nothing. He’s done absolutely nothing.”
BOMBING THE MOON: In Forbes, Kenneth Anderson and I write about law and war in outer space. And support an Obama Administration arms control initiative.
ROGER KIMBALL: Crunch Time For Health Care: Now It’s Up To Us.
BRITISH GAG ORDER FAILS. And note all the Twitter traffic. Jim Meigs emails: “The lesson: If you want the whole world to see your dirty laundry, hire lawyers to help you hide it.” Heh. Indeed.
WHY STOP WITH BUNNIES? Throw another dog on the fire. . .
GOLD HITS another record high.
Related: Oil up above $74 in Europe as dollar weakens.
UPDATE: Still more: Obama Dollar Retreats Most Against Commodities in Wealth Shift. “President Barack Obama’s effort to lead the world economic recovery by spending the U.S. out of its recession is undermining the dollar, triggering record commodities rallies as investors scour the globe for hard assets.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Indeed:
Honeywell Chief Executive David Cote, a Republican who supported Mr. Obama in the election, says he was taken aback by the president’s rhetoric on the tax issue. “You can’t love jobs and hate those who create them,” he says.
Another rube catches on . . . .
IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Well, when Fox News’s audience is skyrocketing, and The Nation (!) is calling you “Whiner in Chief,” maybe it’s time to recalibrate the media strategy. . . .
UPDATE: More here.
THE FREEWHEELIN’ ALAN GRAYSON: “What I did is like a Bob Dylan protest song; what Joe Wilson did is like a belch.”
JOEL KOTKIN: Our Euro President. “Barack Obama’s seemingly inexplicable winning of the Nobel Peace Prize says less about him than about the current mentality of Europe’s leadership class. Lacking any strong, compelling voices of their own, the Europeans are now trying to hijack our president as their spokesman.”
WINDOWS 7, as viewed by the Mac faithful.
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: The Next Big Political Issue? The U.S. Dollar. “The greenback’s continuing slide makes it a handy metric that neatly encapsulates America’s current economic troubles and possible long-term decline. . . . And that’s the political problem for the Obama administration. Its benign neglect of the dollar is another example of an economic policy — along with TARP and the $787 billion stimulus — that the White House thinks is helping the economy, but many Americans find wrongheaded.”
HMM: Protesters Rally Against Obama Song at New Jersey School.
About 70 protesters stood on a sidewalk across the street from the B. Bernice Young School waving flags and homemade placards, singing “God Bless America” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and chanting slogans such as “No indoctrination” and “Free children, free minds.”
One of the great accomplishments of the Obama Presidency is the newfound ability of people on the right to put together a successful protest on short notice.
ROBERT REICH TO THE ELDERLY: “We’re Going To Let You Die.” Well, these are his views of what an honest President would say from 2007. Are they in context? Seem to be.
October 12, 2009
MICHAEL YON: Market Garden: A Remembrance During Time Of War. Plus, a conversation with General Petraeus. (Bumped).