WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Clarence Thomas And The Amendment Of Doom: “This is one of the most startling reappraisals to appear in The New Yorker for many years. It is hard to think of other revisions as radical as the declownification of Clarence Thomas: Herbert Hoover as the First Keynesian? Henry Kissinger as the Great Humanitarian? . . . If Toobin’s revionist take is correct, (and I defer to his knowledge of the direction of modern constitutional thought) it means that liberal America has spent a generation mocking a Black man as an ignorant fool, even as constitutional scholars stand in growing amazement at the intellectual audacity, philosophical coherence and historical reflection embedded in his judicial work.” Yeah, that’s pretty much the story.
Archive for 2011
August 29, 2011
HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: At Law Schools, Age Bias Co-exists with Outdated Practices.
SALENA ZITO: Battleground States Of Resentment: “Whether it is called General Lee Highway, as in Virginia, or Molly Pitcher Highway, as in Pennsylvania, the lives and economic strain along U.S. Route 11 tell of a country’s disappointment with Washington – specifically, with President Obama. . . . Not so long ago, populist-Democrat rhetoric was popular here and farther up the road, in West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Americans along such roads all across the country are struggling economically. They are consumed with uncertainty. And they have tuned-out the president.”
Plus this: “Obama took to pointing fingers when his poll numbers started to slip last fall. So far, he has blamed the stagnant economy on ATMs, ditches, Slurpees, corporate-jet owners, the Tea Party, Republicans, Japan’s earthquake, the Arab Spring, the Arab Summer, George Bush, and ‘fat-cat’ Wall Street something-or-others. The kitchen sink may be next. His numbers are tumbling in the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire – states he must win in 2012.”
WHY OBAMA Can’t Support A Real Jobs Program. “President Obama will not announce a real jobs program. His constituents would launch a primary challenge. Some might even call for his impeachment. For these reasons, we can expect pabulum and platitudes in his jobs speech, despite projections that high unemployment is about to become our ‘new normal.'”
Plus, Warren Buffett and the other rich anti-capitalists. Hey, once you’re on top you pull up the ladder — because then, crony-capitalism works better for you than the real thing, which has risks.
CORPORATE TOOLS: Masked Anonymous Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Bottom Line.
When members appear in public to protest censorship and what they view as corruption, they don a plastic mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century Englishman who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
Stark white, with blushed pink cheeks, a wide grin and a thin black mustache and goatee, the mask resonates with the hackers because it was worn by a rogue anarchist challenging an authoritarian government in “V for Vendetta,” the movie produced in 2006 by Warner Brothers.
What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask.
Anarchists have pretty much always been tools, though. (Well, the big-mouthed variety. As Robert Heinlein noted, the small-mouthed variety of anarchist is a very different breed). I love it that “anonymity” is misspelled in the photo, too.
THE GREAT POLITICAL MIGRATION: “Millions of people are, for good reason, abandoning big-government blue states for low-tax red ones. Michael Medved on the demographic shift shaking up the electoral map.” The bad news, of course, is that many of these immigrants are bringing with them the very same political attitudes that ruined the states they’re leaving, without appreciating the connection. We really need an education program for these people.
AT AMAZON, bestselling World War II history.
INLAND FLOODING DWARFS DIRECT EFFECTS OF IRENE: “So… who had Vermont in the ‘State Hardest Hit By Irene’ pool?”
THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND, if you were out, you know, having a life or something:
New book on civic education is out. I’ve got a chapter in it, along with Sandra Day O’Connor, Alan Dershowitz, and other luminaries.
Arresting Uncle Omar. Obama’s answer to Billy Carter?
18 Seconds Of Raw Class Warfare. Not actually all that much class involved.
Feds sign off on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.
Dubious about “gunpowder lust.”
More on that shady Gibson Guitar raid.
The slow disappearance of the American working man.
How Steve Jobs made business cool again.
Operation “Fast and Fretless:” New Scandal at DoJ as Illegal Guitars End Up In Hands of Mexican Drug Lords. And somebody slipped auto-tune to the Colombians.
Court says charging people who record police with wiretapping is unconstitutional, and blocks qualified immunity.
THE HILL: For President Obama, More Storms On The Horizon. He’d better hope they turn out to be no worse than Irene. Plus, this shocker: “The president’s vacation turned out to be a political liability as he attracted criticism for relaxing in ritzy Martha’s Vineyard amid the economic downturn.” Yeah, who could have seen that coming?
REGIME UNCERTAINTY: Washington Examiner: Obama’s regulatory flood is drowning economic growth. “One doesn’t have to look far for an explanation of why the economy grew at an anemic 1 percent rate during the last quarter. Businesses large and small face more uncertainty today about the federal regulatory environment than at any point since the New Deal radically increased the role of the government in the nation’s economy.”
BUG TURNS NEWSPAPER into fuel.
GRETCHEN MORGENSON: The Rescue That Missed Main Street. It was never aimed at Main Street, of course.
Consider reading her book, Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. And note this take, by Walter Russell Mead.
Related: Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal. When they’re saying that in Rolling Stone, I think the era of Hope And Change is definitely over.
Also: Gallup: Obama’s Disapproval Rating Hits An All-Time High. So far.
TODAY ONLY, Panasonic Lumix ZS10 14.1 MP Digital Camera with 16x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and Built-In GPS for $249.99. I’ve had several Lumix cameras and they’ve been uniformly excellent.
TIM CARNEY: Is Barack’s Buddy Buffett Betting on Bank Bailout? Can crony capitalism conquer commonplace concerns about campaign closeness? “Buffett, who recently won plaudits for advocating higher taxes, has spent four years betting on bailouts and big government — and tilting the playing field in that direction by putting his money and prestige at the service of Barack Obama.”
CHRIS CHRISTIE: ‘No regrets’ on evacuations.
CHANGE: Space Station Could Be Abandoned In November: “Astronauts may need to temporarily withdraw from the International Space Station before the end of this year if Russia is unable to resume manned flights of its Soyuz rocket after a failed cargo launch last week, according to the NASA official in charge of the outpost. Despite a delivery of important logistics by the final space shuttle mission in July, safety concerns with landing Soyuz capsules in the middle of winter could force the space station to fly unmanned beginning in November, according to Michael Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager.”
TRUTH-TELLING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL:
One thing about the Republican presidential race: it promises to upgrade the quality of our public discourse. GOP candidates are saying things that need to be said, but usually aren’t; not only that, they are being picked up in the press, if only to be denounced.
The beauty is, they have to pick them up to denounce them. And they can’t resist denouncing them.
WEATHERVANE: Colin Powell Not So Hot On Obama Anymore.