JACK DUNPHY on the officer’s arrest in the BART subway shooting.
Archive for 2009
January 14, 2009
IN THE MAIL: From Matt Miller, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity. Judging from the jacket copy, his “new” ideas don’t seem any fresher than those he describes as “dead.”
MICKEY KAUS: “A veto seems like a terrific way for Obama to start out his presidency, by showing Congressional Democrats that he won’t be pushed around. George W. Bush didn’t veto anything in his first five years in office–is his success at controlling his own party’s Congressional majority’s excess something Obama wants to emulate?”
LORD MAKE US THRIFTY, but not yet.
MORE EMBARRASSMENT FOR ERIC HOLDER: “Senate Republicans have invited the son of a man killed in a 1975 Puerto Rican nationalist bombing as well as a former FBI agent who investigated two violent groups supporting Puerto Rican independence to appear at Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings.” Plus, is Obama backtracking on NAFTA?
PROBLEMS AT the Army War College?
I LOVE THIS CORRECTION FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: “A Jan. 7 Page One article incorrectly described current and former intelligence officials as believing that the CIA suffers from incompetent leadership and low morale. The sentence should have said that the officials expressed resentment about such suggestions.”
Good thing they were professional journalists and not untrained Joe-the-Plumber types or they might have really screwed up the reporting! (Via Sam Dealey.)
DEREK LOWE ON Chopra, Roy and Weil. “My hopes for this piece were not high – Deepak Chopra, for one, I consider to be an absolute firehose of nonsense. . . . No, this is noble-sounding stuff, but there’s nothing behind it.”
L.A. TIMES: Obama’s Treasury secretary owed $26G’s in taxes, but it’s O.K. I don’t think this is that big a deal, but I can’t help but feel that if he were a Republican nominee it would be treated as a bigger one . . . .
But, as I’ve noted before, isn’t this — together with Charlie Rangel’s problems — an argument for tax simplification? I mean, if the Chairman of Ways and Means, and the Treasury Secretary nominee — who’s head of a Federal Reserve Bank — can’t keep their taxes straight, how can the government expect the rest of us to?
UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “They don’t want you to be able to keep up with that stuff, hoss. They want you a little scared. Just a little. You’re easier to control that way.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Treacher comments:
A plumber owed $1,000 in taxes that he didn’t even know about… …and it was headline news!
Good point!
CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARES. “There’s already plenty of documentation about the collapse of California and how its citizens legislated it from a land of opportunity to a hell hole that punishes anyone with ambition and a dream. In the annals of its decline, this small item will surely pass unnoticed but it’s emblematic of what happened. In fact, I think it sums up the whole sorry saga quite neatly.”
HURRAY FOR CANADA.
SECOND AMENDMENT UPDATE: A civil rights settlement: “The San Francisco Housing Authority has agreed to allow its residents to own guns in a settlement of a National Rifle Association lawsuit that followed last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the right to bear arms.”
UPDATE: Bill Quick has more, and comments: “It’s going to take a while, but here is another response to those who contend that Heller did not have any effect.”
CONFLICT OF INTEREST? Obama’s Climate Czar Is Board Member of Major Carbon Offset Company.
PETER KIRSANOW: “Many Republican politicians seem to begin the day apologizing for being Republicans. And they appear to have a perverse, desperate desire to befriend and seek favor from those who regularly malign conservatives. . . . No surprise that the caricatures hold sway when those expected to protest remain silent. Until Republicans start responding to each and every falsehood with vigor and conviction, the slanders will continue. That’s not good for Republicans, conservatives, or the country.”
January 13, 2009
AT CBS, A $35 HOME-COOKED MEAL is “on a shoestring.” Funny, the dinner I made tonight was a lot cheaper than that. Most of mine are. Guess I’ve been cooking on a “recession-busting budget” all along! I notice that many commenters are also expressing incredulity at the mindset here. Best line: “‘Chef on a Shoestring’? What kind of shoes? Christian Louboutins?” Heh.
BARACK OBAMA dines with Bill Kristol and David Brooks. At George Will’s house.
DON’T COUNT ON IT: Hamas Steals Aid From Palestinians; Outrage to Follow?
NOT ENTIRELY SURPRISING: U.S. loses ground in 2009 index of economic freedom.
J.D. JOHANNES: Underwhelmed with Joe the Reporter. Two words: Ashleigh Banfield.
UPDATE: Reader Dave Stoll writes: “At least with Joe there is a chance he will learn from a mistake…Who else has taken the time to show what Israeli school children go thru? I actually learned something from Joe’s reporting…”
TALK ABOUT UNDERFUNDED: State Pensions’ $865 Billion Loss Affects New Workers :
State governments from Rhode Island to California have run up estimated pension-fund losses of $865.1 billion, forcing some to cut benefits for new hires.
Assets for 109 state funds declined 37 percent to $1.46 trillion over the 14 months ended Dec. 16, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of stocks fell 41 percent in the period.
“Not a whole lot of people get too excited about pension funds,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said in an interview. “But if you have to pay those costs, they do grab your attention.”
After Philadelphia’s fund lost $650 million in the first nine months of last year, Nutter joined the mayors of Atlanta and Phoenix in writing a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson seeking financial help for U.S. cities. Their November letter cited investment deficits and rising pension costs.
Don’t bail ’em out — make ’em cut their costs and live with their mistakes.
EUROPE REIMPORTS JEW-HATRED. Well, it’s not as if that represents a big break with the past or anything . . . .