MARTIN FELDSTEIN: “The barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.”
Plus, this: “You cannot spread wealth that has not been created in the first place.”
SCOTT JOHNSON: The meaning of Chrysler.
SWINE FLU: More infectious than ordinary flu. “Ferguson and his collaborators, part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Rapid Pandemic Potential Assessment Collaboration, determined that 6,000–32,000 individuals had been infected in Mexico by late April. The team also used epidemiological data and information about the virus’ genetic diversity to determine that the swine flu virus has a basic reproductive rate of 1.2-1.6, a number that shows how easily the virus spreads within a population. The seasonal flu, which hits countries, typically hovers around 1.2, whereas the second, more severe wave of the 1918 flu reached about 2.” But there’s good news: “The swine flu has a fatality rate of around 0.4%, the researchers say, nowhere near the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which claimed over 50 million lives between 1918 and 1920, but closer to the milder 1957 influenza pandemic, which claimed nearly 1 million.” Well, sort of good news.
GUNS ON CAMPUS: Rand Simberg comments.
ADVICE TO NORM AUGUSTINE, FROM RAND SIMBERG: It’s Make-or-Break Time For NASA.
BAD NEWS FOR AVIATION, as corporate jets go out of style. Except with Oprah! And Nancy Pelosi.
SHOCKER: Political reporters aware of blogs on the right but follow blogs on the left. That way they can be sure of sticking to the narrative.
TOP UNIVERSITIES ARE shrinking their Ph.D programs. (Via TaxProf).
HARRY REID: Dawn Johnsen Doesn’t Have Votes for DOJ Post. I’m surprised, and I think that opposing her is a mistake. It’s Democrats — Ben Nelson and Arlen Specter, chiefly — who are the problem. Earlier: Why I think Johnsen should be confirmed.
OKAY, A READER SENT ME AN EMAIL WITH THE CAPTION “JON STEWART TURNS ON NANCY PELOSI,” and I thought, well, he’s not a bad-looking guy. But actually that’s not what it was about.
IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Woman fights off home invaders with chili.
EARMARK TRANSPARENCY takes a step backward. Worst. Congress. Ever.
IN THE MAIL: Lincoln’s Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels, and a President’s Mission to Destroy the Press. Not sure why the publisher sent this now. Hard to imagine a present-day President displaying such thuggishness toward his opponents.
PJTV: Atheist no more. Roger Simon: How Ahmadinejad Made Me A Believer. (Bumped).
STIMULUS: Retail sales fall for second straight month in April, raising doubts about recovery.
UPDATE: More worries:
The “green shoots” theory of economic recovery is starting to look a bit like the herbs in my back yard–the ones I forgot to tell Peter to water while I was in Omaha. Retail sales fell again, despite confident proclamations that consumers had rethought their overreaction last fall. And foreclosures hit another record, which was oddly described as a “levelling off” by a lot of papers. The March numbers showed a big spike, because legislative and corporate moratoriums expired. In that context, a 1% increase in April isn’t a “levelling off”–it’s extraordinarily worrying.
Read the whole thing. Plus, How’s Obama’s foreclosure policy working out? Not so well. What we need is a steady hand on the tiller; what we’re getting is reckless spending and a sharp increase in “regime uncertainty,” which discourages investment and hiring.
And there’s this confidence-inspiring headline from the Post: Fannie Loses $23 Billion, Prompting Even Bigger Bailout: Chance of Repaying Taxpayers Is Slim. So how’re we doing?
MORE: Daniel Harrison thinks retail sales are better than they sound.
JOHN MURTHA UPDATE: The Hill: GOPers target Dems’ earmarks to clients of firm probed by FBI: “Republicans are planning new attacks on a vulnerable Democratic front: earmarks senior Democrats, including Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), directed to clients of a now-defunct lobbying firm under FBI investigation. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, plans to offer an amendment that would freeze millions of dollars directed to PMA clients as earmarks in the 2009 omnibus spending bill. The money would be on hold until the FBI investigation into the lobbying firm is concluded and Congress and the public can determine whether any wrongdoing occurred.”
Plus, Democrats stop GOP effort to start ethics inquiry. “House Democrats on Tuesday stopped a Republican plan to force a campaign finance inquiry that likely would have investigated several influential Democrats. It was the eighth time since late February that the Republican move was halted. One of the biggest recipients has been the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania. The vote was 215-182 to stop consideration of a GOP resolution to initiate a House ethics committee inquiry. It called for an investigation into campaign contributions to House lawmakers by recipients of pet project money and their lobbyists. . . . In 2007 and 2008, Murtha, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va. and Rep. Peter Visclosky. D-Ind., directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business.”
Way to “drain the swamp” there, Nancy.
Also, Murtha’s Caring Corruption:
Guess what? Two different nephews. They’re brothers, though, each blessed with the same, beneficent and no doubt beloved uncle – Pennsylvania Congressman John P. Murtha, Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee – friend of the military-industrial complex; a man who’s generous to family and constituents, always ready to lend an ear – or, rather, earmark.
His nephew Colonel Brian Murtha, a Marine helicopter pilot, has been transferred to the Marines’ legislative liaison office – which deals with Congress and Murtha’s subcommittee — and has even moved into the same Virginia condo building as his Uncle Jack. . . . The other nephew – Robert C. Murtha, Jr. – a former Marine, runs a company in Glen Burnie, Maryland, called Murtech Inc. According to The Washington Post, “Last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services.”
Murtha, Jr., denied that his uncle had anything to do with his business success, but on Monday, the Post revealed documents that “show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power in his dealings with the military.”
Good thing we left that “culture of corruption” behind when the Democrats took over Congress.
SENATE BACKS ALLOWING GUNS IN NATIONAL PARKS 67-29, but Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is the lone Republican to vote no. Not a good move for Lamar.
THE PELOSI STORY CONTINUES TO UNRAVEL: “A source close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now confirms that Pelosi was told in February 2003 by her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, that waterboarding was actually used on CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah.”
ANN ALTHOUSE BET EMILY BAZELON THAT OBAMA WOULDN’T CLOSE GUANTANAMO, and that bet’s looking pretty good so far.
THE CINCINNATI TEA PARTY FOLKS ARE PLANNING ANOTHER EVENT. My advice — go after Congressmembers and Senators on spending. Show up at their offices and make your points. They’ll notice.
MERCHANDISING THE TEA PARTY: Advice to organizers from Robert Mayer.
SOME AUTO BAILOUT QUESTIONS, including this one: “How can the government fairly and impartially regulate the same company (or companies) it now owns?” Plus, what’s the exit strategy?
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