A NEW TRAILER FOR Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Archive for 2009
April 17, 2009
ENVIRONMENTALISTS SQUABBLING OVER RENEWABLE ENERGY. “Renewable-energy development, which the Obama administration has made a priority, is posing conflicts between economic interests and environmental concerns, not entirely unlike the way offshore oil and gas development pits economics against environment. But because of concerns about climate, many environmentalists and government agencies could find themselves straddling both sides, especially in Western states where the federal government is a major landowner.”
MURTHA SCANDAL UPDATE: 3 Linked to Lobby Firm See Donations Drop.
Three senior House Democrats revealed sharp declines in donations for the first quarter of 2009 after the shuttering of a lobbying firm that in previous election cycles helped steer millions of dollars in donations to their political committees from its lobbyists and earmark-seeking clients.
Reps. John P. Murtha (Pa.), Peter J. Visclosky (Ind.) and James P. Moran Jr. (Va.) have taken in 58 percent less in combined campaign contributions this year compared with the first quarter of 2007, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
I guess people figure why donate to a guy who might be in jail before the next election anyway?
RANGEL SCANDAL UPDATE: Rep. Rangel Pays $450,000 To Combat Ethics Allegations. “According to campaign records filed Wednesday with the Federal Elections Commission, Rangel (D-N.Y.) paid Zuckerman Spaeder nearly $350,000 and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe $100,000 in January. Rangel is under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegedly failing to pay taxes and misusing office letterhead for fund raising.”
BOB KRUMM: What the Tea Parties and Susan Boyle have in common. And why Oprah Winfrey is like the Republican Party.
JOSHUA STANTON: Christopher Hill: Deep Kimchee for Iraq:
Of the many things that will be written about North Korea this week, the least likely of these is, “Now there’s the kind of diplomacy we need more of.” Consider just the events of the last few days: the missile test itself, which may have hit closer to home than originally thought; the failure of the United Nations to enforce two of its violated resolutions; the broader failure of deterrence and counter-proliferation; and North Korea’s final repudiation of a February 2007 agreement in which it had agreed to verifiably dismantle all of its nuclear programs. North Korea now says that it will restart an dilapidated old 5-megawatt reactor that it took limited steps toward disabling in 2008. It will also boycott six-party disarmament talks again — this time for good, it says.
It’s hard to pursue effective diplomacy with someone who knows you won’t hurt them, and who doesn’t care what you think.
ANGER AT TAX DOUBLE STANDARDS:
We’ve been wondering all morning why this year, of all years, Americans from coast to coast are choosing to mobilize in these Tax Day “tea parties” marches, described by Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds in an opinion piece in Wedneday’s Journal as “rallies . . . to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending.”
Part of it, as Reynolds outlines, has to do with technology and its ability to bring big groups of people together fairly quickly. And part of it likely has to do with the state of the economy and a broader objections by swaths of the populace to President Obama’s policies. But might part of it also reflect an anger on the part of the people over the willingness of some of the nation’s leaders to play fast and loose with (or at least show carelessness in regard to) the tax laws?
Somebody should ask Rep. Jane Schakowsky. Plus this:
IRS compliance employees have reported that taxpayers occasionally are citing the Geithner case when asked to pay their tax bills. “It’s making the compliance conversation harder,” she said.
Just explain that taxes are for the little people — and they’re the little people. That should do it.
KIDS TODAY don’t know how good they have it.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION (CONT’D): PREZ AIDE TIED TO NY PENSION ‘GRAFT’. (Via Lawhawk). Plus this: ‘Keep in mind the time frame here as well. The allegations span the period from 2000 through 2005. Eliot Spitzer was the Attorney General of New York during that relevant period (he was AG from 1999 until 2006, when he became Governor). During that time, Spitzer repeatedly attacked Wall Street for graft and pressured Wall Street executives to cut deals with his office. Yet, he never once bothered to look into the actions of those within the NYS government who were trusted with overseeing the $122 billion pension plan and whether any irregularities were involved.” The Andrew Cuomo angle is interesting, too.
CUTTING UP the Congressional credit card. Dave Ramsey would approve.
ON TAXES, dueling opinion polls.
GOOD POINT: Who’s laughing at the “Axis of Evil” today? Yeah, that one pretty much hit the nail on the head.
CATHY YOUNG ON GAY MARRIAGE. I think the shift from courts to legislatures is a good thing.
HOW TO USE YOUR IPHONE as a portable hard drive.
MICHAEL GRAHAM: Janet Napolitano was right. There were hatemongers at the Tea Party rallies on Tax Day. They called themselves “reporters.” Remember when journalists sneered at those dumb bloggers with their obvious biases and potty-mouth approach? . . . .
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Not much home-state support:
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd appears to have looked everywhere but his home state to fuel what pundits anticipate will be one of the most hotly contested races in the nation in 2010.
The five-term incumbent reported raising just $4,250 from five Connecticut residents during the first three months of the year while raking in $604,745 from nearly 400 individuals living outside the state.
While incumbents often turn to special interests for early campaign fundraising, Dodd’s out-of-state total seems unusually high and comes at a time when he has been plagued by poor approval ratings among state voters.
Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks federal campaign contributions, said that Dodd’s low percentage of in-state funding strikes him as unusual.
Me, too. Plus this:
Gary Rose, a professor of politics at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said that the campaign statement and fundraising results reinforce the negative image of Dodd as a Washington insider.
“Once again there is a disconnect between the rhetoric of the senator and his political behavior. I think it helps explain why so many Connecticut residents are becoming increasingly disillusioned with him,” Rose said. “He is beginning to personify, in many ways, the establishment.”
Gee, do you think? (Via Political Wire.)
The upside — he’s still doing better than Roland Burris! Well, a bit.
A CAR CZAR KICKBACK SCANDAL? “Steven Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration’s auto task force, was one of the investment-firm executives involved with payments now under scrutiny in a state and federal investigation into an alleged kickback scheme at New York state’s pension fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
Hope and change!
TEA PARTY SIGNS OF THE TIMES, from Sissy Willis. Here’s one. I also like “Barney Lied, Our Equity Died.”
UPDATE: Wizbang:
Naturally liberals are branding the turnout of half a million Tea Party supporters on Wednesday as a “failure.” But so far, the nascent Tea Party movement has either matched or exceeded the turnouts reported for the first liberal “meet-ups” that were the precursors to the Netroots phenomenon of 2004 – 2008.
Of course those meetings garnered massive nationwide press coverage by a news media desperate to report anything that might damage the Bush Administration. The April 16 New York Times, by contrast, failed to publish a single word about the Tea Parties.
It’s all about the narrative.
ANOTHER UPDATE: “Obama’s rhetoric convinces me that tea parties have legs.”
I’LL BE ON BILL BENNETT’S “MORNING IN AMERICA” at about 7:30, talking about Tea Parties.
PENSION MANAGEMENT: “In the wreckage of the credit markets, investors are starting to look for opportunities. Count the Massachusetts state pension fund among them. The $36 billion retirement fund for state workers is nearly tripling its potential exposure to distressed debt investments this year – mainly in beaten-up corporate debt – to $800 million, The Boston Globe reported. That’s a small slice of the total portfolio, at 2 percent. But it’s a sign that large investors are looking for places where money can be made, after a crushing year in virtually every realm of the market.”
TEA PARTY EVENTS: Attendance, etc., for each ranked and collected.
UPDATE: Reader Marc Landers wonders if the Administration isn’t engaging in some news management this week:
DHS extreme right wing report released
NSA exceeds eavesdropping authority report
Torture memos released
Trying to bury the Tea Party protests?
Hmm.
April 16, 2009
NICK GILLESPIE UNLOADS: Ever Feel Like You’ve Been Cheated?
Question to the folks, including some of the libertarian persuasion (you fools!), who were bullish on Obama back when the alternative was John McCain, the Terri Schiavo of presidential candidates: When are you going to admit that Barry O stinks on ice? That for all his high-flying and studiously empty rhetoric he’s got the biggest presidential vision deficit since George H.W. Bush puked on a Japanese prime minister (finally, revenge for that long run of Little League World Series losses in the ’70s!). If you’re the president of the United States and you’re talking about goddamn traffic jams and you’re proposing high-speed rail as anything other than an unapologetic boondoggle that will a) never get built and b) never get built to the gee-whiz specs it’s supposed and c) be ridden by fewer people than commuted by zeppelin last year, you’ve got real problems, bub. And by extension, so do we all.
Read the whole thing.