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Archive for 2009
September 17, 2009
HOUSE VOTES TO DEFUND ACORN. So the Senate and House have both voted. Will Obama sign?
UPDATE: Reader Kevin O’Brien smells a rat:
It’s a typical these-voters-are-such-rubes stunt; the House and Senate voted to defund ACORN on different bills.
The Senate bill is a housing bill, the House bill the federal takeover of student loans. Each bill will wind up in conference committee where the ACORN ban can be quietly stripped out, behind closed doors and secure from prying eyes. Then the org can keep on doing its important work of voter fraud and pandering to presumed pedophiles.
The most useful principle to hold close when considering members of Congress: they’re all crooks.
We’ll have to keep paying attention then.
CAR LUST: The joys of the 1991 Honda Accord. Those were good cars.
SAVING DARFUR REFUGEE LIVES with a new, efficient cookstove design. Not as satisfying as wiping out the Janjaweed, but something.
STUDY: Teen birth rates highest in most religious states. The researchers suggest that attitudes toward sex may play a role, which is plausible. I also wonder, though, whether the “most religious states” have higher fertility rates among non-teens, and whether it’s not partly just a more positive attitude toward having children in general that’s involved here. Can’t tell from the story.
Related: Are some women “superbreeders?”
THIS IS KIND OF COOL: “At the age of 92, Dame Vera Lynn does not quite qualify for the term ‘rock chick,’ yet this week she topped the British music album charts. A compilation of her greatest hits, including the World War II song ‘We’ll Meet Again,’ outsold the competition. Modernists are baffled, and Dame Vera herself is more than a little surprised.”
222 YEARS AGO TODAY: The Constitution Was Signed.
SPACE SHUTTLE UNLEASHES “Magnificent Plume of Pee.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blind Monkeys.
IN THE MAIL: From James Pierson, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism.
MICKEY KAUS: “Rasmussen’s robo-poll, which discerned a big bounce in Obama’s favor on health care after his speech last week–a bounce that soon dissipated–now reports opposition to health care reform has risen to a new high of 55%, with only 42% in favor. Yikes.”
SENATOR ROLAND BURRIS flees TV reporter asking why he supports ACORN. I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Sen. Burris.
TENNESSEE’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR PHIL BREDESEN criticizes Obama’s Health Care plan.
Bredesen, co-chair for health care policy for the National Governor’s Association, is objecting to a provision in House and Senate bills to expand Medicaid to cover anyone with incomes less than 133 percent of the poverty level, or $29,327 for a family of four.
Since states pay roughly one third of Medicaid, the provision could add billions of dollars in costs to state governments. Bredesen calls it “the mother of all unfunded mandates,” and he’s been making his case to reporters for weeks now at every opportunity.
“We can’t print money,” he says. “We can’t borrow money. A lot of staffers in Congress really don’t understand this idea of a balanced budget.”
It’s not just the staffers. And stuff like this is why I’d have liked to see Bredesen as Health Czar. Or, for that matter, President . . . .
ARTHUR CHRENKOFF: Still Dis-Putin’ History After All These Years. “September 17 reminds us that Russia refuses a proper reckoning with its bloody past.”
EUGENE VOLOKH RESPONDS to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on appropriate nomenclature:
As between “illegal alien” and “undocumented immigrant,” it strikes me that the former is more reflective of what is actually going on, for better or worse, and the latter is an attempt to hide what is actually going on. If one is writing political advocacy, one may deliberately choose the latter term (though even then one risks losing credibility). But if one is trying to be an objective journalist, I think “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” is the more objective and more candid way of putting things.
But they’re not trying to be objective journalists. They’re trying to be Hispanic journalists, which they clearly see as something different.
CHOP AND CROP: Photographer David Kennerly calls out Newsweek for abusing his work. “This radical alteration is photo fakery. Newsweek’s choice to run my picture as a political cartoon not only embarrassed and humiliated me and ridiculed the subject of the picture, but it ultimately denigrated my profession.”
ANOTHER ACORN VIDEO: Prostitution Scandal Reaches San Diego.
UPDATE: There are more videos to come.
STEVE CHAPMAN: The Revenge Of Ross Perot: Obama’s Policies Are Making Americans Worry About The National Debt. And with good reason.
DOG BITES MAN: Nancy Pelosi “Clueless” About Legislation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.
“I don’t even know what they passed,” Pelosi told The Post yesterday. “What did they do? They defunded it?”
The amendment to suspend housing grants was a stunning blow to the community-activist group — and came as some Democrats and the White House have been backing away from the group.
The country’s in the very best of hands. (Via JWF, who has more thoughts).
UNION TRIBUNE: Bogus degree at the California Air Quality Board?
OH, GOODY: Barack Obama surrenders to Russia on Missile Defence. It really is like Jimmy Carter all over again. Well, actually that’s looking like a best-case scenario these days . . . .