TEA PARTIERS’ SECRET WEAPON: Cookies?

MORE EVIDENCE of a legal-education bubble? “Earning a law degree takes three years and costs around $150,000. Law-school costs have been going up steadily, while ‘good’ legal jobs are now very scarce for new graduates.”

FIRST GREECE, NOW SPAIN: Who Could Be Next?

J.P. FREIRE: Obama made $5m in 2009 and tells us we’ve made enough?

PERRY DE HAVILLAND:

The economy in Britain and much of the world is in dire straits and it would not be an exaggeration to say we have entered a period of history that far from being a ‘crisis of capitalism’, historians looking back may well call it the ‘crisis of regulatory statism’.

Indeed.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON THE LATEST RACIAL FLAP AT HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: “One question is: Why does the dean even get involved with something one student said in private email? If the answer is because the Black Law Students Association came to her and demanded a response, then maybe the question should be why did the Black Law Students Association go to the dean for help? Why didn’t the students all just argue and debate and express themselves to each other? These are Harvard students. Law students. Why not dig in and have it out and show your stuff? Why go to the nearest, biggest authority figure? Stephanie hurt me! . . . Law school is a community with shared ideals. One of the ideals could be: When a student makes a point that contains what you think is an outrageous statement, unless she’s been actively insulting to you, you should engage her in debate and not not expose her to a public trashing. And don’t bring the dean into the fray as your champion. “

ONE-DAY MARKDOWNS on fitness equipment. They end in 18 hours, so whether that’s “today” or not depends where you are, I guess. . . .

CAN SOMEBODY EXPLAIN THIS TO ME? “Mr. Obama said SWAT teams were being dispatched to the Gulf to investigate oil rigs and said his administration is now working to determine the cause of the disaster.” Does this mean they suspect foul play, or what?

UPDATE: Or lousy reporting. At least this report says:

The US Interior Department said it had assembled a “swat team” of inspectors to review safety at offshore drilling rigs across the US.

So it’s a metaphorical SWAT team, not a real one. Good thing, as we need the real ones to deal with blue-haired Tea Party grandmas. . . .

WELL, THAT’S CHEERFUL: “Speaking of Superbugs, it looks like we’re on our way to incurable, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. This article also brings up a point I didn’t mention in the book review yesterday: Part of the problem is that nobody is developing new antibiotics. Once an old drug becomes ineffective, there’s nothing to replace it with.”

That’s a problem that’s likely to get worse.

QUINCY, ILL. POLICE busted by an army of videographers. This is why I’m always pushing those pocket camcorders. (Bumped).

TOM BLUMER: Fun with Numbers: GM ‘Payback’ of Taxpayer Loans. “Taking money from one bailout kitty to pay back another bailout fund.”

When I talked with Mark Tapscott yesterday, he called those GM bailout-payback commercials the most dishonest claims he’s seen in 30 years of covering politics and the auto industry. “It is a lie.”

JAMES TARANTO: ‘Racially Resentful:’ Dissecting the latest bogus tea-party poll.

More thoughts from John Hinderaker: The Smear Continues.

CORRECTING CHARLES BLOW: Conor Friedersdorf goes to the video. And, unlike Blow, even interviews the people Blow wrote about. Blow’s a troll at best — I say “at best” because that at least suggests some independence on his part.

MICKEY KAUS: “Wouldn’t the surest way to take immigration reform off Congress’ agenda be for Republicans to say, ‘Great! Let’s vote!’?”

MATT WELCH: DRIVING WHILE WHITE:

I have sympathy for people who are freaked out by desperate immigrants and ruthless smugglers trampling over their property in southern Arizona, and as I’ve said elsewhere, us pro-immigrant types too easily skate over rule-of-law objections. Federal immigration policy is a failure, and poses real public policy challenges that no amount of righteous indignation and/or handwaving makes disappear.

But anti-illegal immigration crackdowns almost always end up restricting freedom for the rest of us. And giving cops more power is almost always felt more on the receiving end by people–including people just as law-abiding as you and I–who don’t look like the norm.

This is a good argument for focusing border security at . . . the border, where it doesn’t impact ordinary citizens day-to-day. Shifting from border security to internal security is both an admission of failure at the borders, and a much more far-reaching and intrusive approach.

UPDATE: A reader who requests anonymity says that I’m wrong here:

I love your blog. But I must object to your recent statement: “Shifting from border security to internal security is both an admission of failure at the borders, and a much more far-reaching and intrusive approach.”

I am a Federal Agent who works the line in Arizona. While I cannot speak officially for my agency, and risk considerable discipline for speaking out otherwise, the MAJOR failure we have regarding immigration security and control is with internal security. While we are failing at the borders, and I am there on the ground, there is no way in hell we will EVER hope to achieve border security while internal security (meaning enforcement) remains virtually nonexistent. I am not impugning ICE Agents who are focusing on criminal aliens; they are simply overwhelmed with manpower issues not to mention overloads on the docket, among other things.

Illegals know they are home free once away from the border. Achieving even a fairly shallow degree of internal enforcement will discourage border crossers from illegally entering the country if they believe their chances of being caught and returned to their native country will be high even if they successfully evade capture at the border. We must remove or at least ameliorate the magnet that draws them here.

Moreover, I believe you will find, upon examination, the Immigration and Nationality Act (particularly after the last amnesty of 1986) specifically calls for this “far reaching and intrusive approach” of internal enforcement, which was meant to “get tough” with immigration as a result of the amnesty deal. The laws have been on the books for decades; the problem, of course, is that political interests on both the right and the left have forced public officials with immigration enforcement agencies, namely Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to virtually abandon the interior enforcement of laws already on the books (policy vs. law). You would not imagine the hell I’d be subjected to for enforcing things against policy that by statute I have authority to do. The intrusive approach is only so intrusive to those who squeal the loudest about which is already lawful and, more important, effective. The political interests on both the right and the left most certainly have the most to gain (at all of our expense) with the status quo. The real underlying issues of prohibitive taxes on businesses, voting blocs, welfare, and revenues for religious organizations will remain unexamined.

I still think better border security would help. It is true, though, that even modest enforcement aimed at employers can make a difference.

MOE LANE ON A CRIST INDEPENDENT RUN: “Sen. Cornyn of the NRSC will wind up looking foolish, true. Only thing is, Sen Menendez of the DSCC is going to end up looking even worse. He’s the one who recruited a candidate that Rasmussen has in third in a GOP split and who PPP reports is less popular than Crist. And now the DSCC actually has to go all-in on a bad fundraiser and an uninspiring candidate.”

JONAH GOLDBERG: “Obama gave a lovely eulogy to a lovely woman.”

HMM: Obama Takes Immigration Reform Off Agenda. “Immigration reform has become the first of President Barack Obama’s major priorities dropped from the agenda of an election-year Congress facing voter disillusionment. Sounding the death knell was Obama himself.”

I wonder if it had anything to do with this: Poll: Most support Arizona immigration law. “Seven in 10 U.S. adults support arresting people who can’t prove they’re in the United States legally, a poll about Arizona’s new immigration law indicated.” Apparently, their own polls must have showed something similar. And with blue-collar dems facing layoffs and recession, and black dems not so hot on amnesty, there wasn’t any percentage in bucking the sentiment, I guess, even in terms of shoring up their own base.

LIMBAUGH ON ARIZONA: The Time For Talk Is Over. Leading to some interesting analysis from Allahpundit.

NEW JERSEY COURT: BLOGGERS ARE NOT JOURNALISTS. “Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media.” Troubling and, I think, just wrong.

UPDATE: Various readers send variations on “the justice system should not be confused with ‘justice.'” Sigh. Indeed.

WANT TO GET RICH? WORK FOR THE FEDS. “As of 2008, the average federal salary was $119,982, compared with $59,909 for the average private sector employee. In other words, the average federal bureaucrat makes twice as much as the average working taxpayer. Add the value of benefits like health care and pensions, and the gap grows even bigger. The average federal employee’s benefits add $40,785 to his annual total compensation, whereas the average working taxpayer’s benefits increase his total compensation by only $9,881. In other words, federal workers are paid on average salaries that are twice as generous as those in the private sector, and they receive benefits that are four times greater.”

President Obama: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

DITHERING, AS USUAL: As Greek Drama Plays Out, Where Is Europe?

ROUSING THE RABBLE? Well, the goons, anyway. If Tea-Partiers did this it would generate lots of concerns about violence.

UPDATE: Obama Zombies Invade Wall Street. Like the real kind, they need brains. “Of course as we predicted earlier today nowhere is it mentioned this ‘diverse mixture’ was organized primarily by an Obama ‘economic adviser’ and assorted Obama-supporting groups.”

ENVIRONMENTAL HYPOCRISY? $8,875,000 for “an ocean-view villa… with a swimming pool, spa and fountains… 6 fireplaces, 5 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms.” “It’s nothing but jealousy and pure peevishness to mock and complain when this delightful, public-spirited man takes another modest step to find some little comfort for himself and his wife.”

FROM NIMBYS TO NIMBLYS.