HERMAN CAIN ON OBAMA’S SPEECH: “We waited thirty months for this?”
UPDATE: Headline of the day, in the L.A. Times: 961 days in, Obama becomes sick and tired of someone dawdling about jobs. Plus: “Seriously. Now that his Martha’s Vineyard vacation is over, this situation is urgent.”
MICKEY KAUS: Kos To Dems On Anthony Weiner’s Seat: Panic!
If the Dems lose Weiner’s seat, I think you’ll see a lot of senior Congressional Democrats wanting to get Obama off the 2012 ticket so he won’t drag them down with him.
THE HILL: Obama Speech Gets Cool Response From Republicans . . . and Democrats. “Democratic lawmakers in the chamber warmed up to the president’s speech as it rolled on but Obama did not get the same boisterous response from his party as at past State of the Union addresses. Democratic leaders including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (S.C.) refused to clap when Obama called on Congress to approve trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea, which elicited raucous applause from Republicans.”
ANN ALTHOUSE NOT IMPRESSED WITH JAMES FALLOWS’ TAKE ON GALILEO.
You know, when you’re calling somebody “a flat-out moron,” you’d better be sure you’re not missing something. It’s extremely common to portray environmentalism, as practiced in present-day America, as the equivalent of a religion. Just the other day, for example, I wrote: “enviromentalism is the religion taught in public schools, and it’s the kind of religion done with shaming young people.” Here’s a World Net Daily article from back in 2008 called “The Climate Change Religion.” The Freakonomics blog had an item in 2009: “Is Climate-Change Belief a Religion?”(“Actually, yes…”). Here’s a piece in Forbes from last April: “Climate Change As Religion: The Gospel According To Gore.”
In this context, Perry’s invocation of Galileo makes perfect sense, and if anybody’s a flat-out moron here, it’s Fallows.
Too many people think that, because they consider themselves scientific somehow, everything they believe in is science.
Plus, from the comments:
Besides the churchmen who repressed Galileo, there were also the scientists who upbraided him for going against Aristotle’s ideas on moving bodies: they insisted that the science was settled! — had been for 2 millennia! Some of these learned gentlemen even refused to look thru his telescope (in which he claimed to see moons circling Jupiter– how ridiculous!) So I agree, it’s Mr. Fallows who comes across as… well, kind of ignorant of the history of science.
Yes, Galileo’s colleagues were not any more interested in unorthodox ideas than was the Church.
In a 45 to 52 vote on Thursday night, the Senate failed to advance a resolution that would have disapproved of a pending $500 billion increase in the nation’s debt ceiling.
Under the debt-ceiling agreement reached in early August, the Obama administration was authorized to immediately raise the debt ceiling by $400 billion. Another $500 billion increase was authorized this month, although that could have been blocked if both the House and Senate approved resolutions expressing disapproval.
Earlier in the day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threatened to hold the Senate open for up to ten hours on Friday to “dispose” of the resolution if it moved forward.
Nice to see them serious about the debt. . . .
THE EVER EXPANDING LOOTER-AND-MOOCHER CLASS: Dan Mitchell: Shame on Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell for Trying to Mooch off the Food Stamp Program.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Obama’s Jobs Plan: Mostly More Of The Same. “So we’ve been standing by all week for Obama’s big jobs speech, promised in response to the awful jobs numbers last month. Here are the details, as outlined by the White House; I’ve added in the amounts on the major categories as best I can figure them. . . . All this will be paid for by asking the Supercommittee to find another $400 billion or so in new taxes and spending. . . . One gets the dreadful feeling that the more ambitious plan may consist of asking Congress to find another couple of trillion under the couch cushions.”
DANA LOESCH: The Gladney-ization of America: Trumka sits with First Lady After AFL-CIO Took Hostages. “Earlier this morning 500 or so members of the AFL-CIO stormed a port in Washington, vandalized the facility, reportedly cut the brake lines of train cars, and held six guards hostage. Shockingly, no one was arrested. Earlier that week a judge issued a restraining order against this same group after they clashed with police while brandishing bats and issuing death threats. Nineteen people were arrested for misdemeanors. While all of this was going on, the group’s head, Richard Trumka, was invited as a guest of the President to tonight’s jobs address.”
A TEA PARTY MAYOR in Ithaca? Prof. Jacobson thinks it can happen.
STANDING UP AGAINST demagoguery. Hey, just because it’s inept demagoguery doesn’t mean it isn’t demagoguery.
UPDATE: From the comments:
I’m so amused by this. I probably shouldn’t be.
Find something Perry actually played a direct role in, such as regulatory stability and vetoes against new taxes and other job friendly stuff, and Perry’s detractors claim he gets no credit. The governorship in Texas is weak, so Perry didn’t do that!
But find something they think is really bad in Texas, and suddenly Perry personally signed the warrants. Even if anyone informed knows Perry has very little power over executions. A board has to give him permission to decide on cases, and they usually don’t!
It’s usually legally out of Perry’s hands.
It’s amusing because Perry can’t get a break. IF he did it, and it’s good, they ignore it. If he didn’t do it and it’s bad, they hyperventilate.
Clearly Perry scares the shit out of democrats like Andrew Sullivan (who used to fake being a Republican, I realize). That debate looked like a coordinated effort to shut Perry down.
Ya think?
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Gibson CEO After Obama Speech: “He’s Done Untold Damage to Business.”
AT AMAZON, it’s the Kitchen & Dining Outlet.
KYLE-ANN SHIVER: The Five Biggest Reasons Republicans Keep Losing the Propaganda War. “Ask yourself: when was the last time you freely discussed any conservative view with friends at work, or on campus, or in public — without hedging your every word?”
WISCONSIN CRACKUP: 40 Policemen Needed To Control Wisconsin Democrats. So much for that civility crap they were preaching after Tucson.
IN SAN DIEGO, a massive power outage.
MICKEY KAUS ON OBAMA’S SPEECH:
More effective than expected. Would have been even more effective if he’d stopped about halfway through.
a) His speaking style has deteriorated since taking office. He’s phonier than in 2008, reading with forced emphasis. At times he achieved the rare, magical combination of seeming desperate and condescending at the same time.
b) The ”people who sent us here – the people who hired us to work for them – they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months.” Why not just “we” don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months? Why assume the disconnect–e.g. that he and the others in the room aren’t “living week to week; paycheck to paycheck; even day to day”? It puts distance (condescending distance!) between Obama and the TV audience. It’s not even true. I would venture to say that most of the people in this room, and Obama himself, know someone who is living “week to to week, paycheck to paycheck.” Some of them know me, for instance.
c) “[C]ompanies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job.” The problem with such tax credits, of course, is that they act as a red flag telling employers that a job applicant isn’t exactly top of the barrel.
Kinda like this Administration. Call it the CETA Presidency.
Related: AP Factcheck: Yeah, Obama Said His Plan Will Be Paid For, But It Really Won’t. “Nobody but nobody is buying the president’s speech. The AP just ran it through a shredder.”
More: Obama: Pass It Now, Pay For It Later. “His great idea: Cobble together a mish-mash of old ideas (infrastructure spending, a payroll tax cut) and pay for it later, by asking the debt commission to come up with additional deficit reductions later, preferably by hiking taxes on the rich. The second half of the speech was a heated campaign rally aimed at a cartoon version of his future opponent. . . . What was remarkable was the whiff of desperation conveyed by Obama, and the utter lack of interest by the Republicans. The speaker of the House looked bored. The Republicans neither booed nor applauded. No one thinks this grab bag, a mini son of the Stimulus Plan, is going to work. But Republicans must be relieved: Obama said nothing that would either win over independents or exert any pressure on them to pass it.”
Plus, from Ira Stoll: “President Obama has gotten to the point with me that by merely giving a speech in favor of something, he can turn me against policies that I believe in and support.” Maybe that was his secret plan all along! . . .
SPACE JUNK: Huge Defunct Satellite to Plunge to Earth Soon, NASA Says. “The huge Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled fall in late September or early October. Much of the spacecraft is expected to burn up during re-entry, but some pieces are expected to make it intact to the ground, NASA officials said.”
OBAMA PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE.
At some level it is comical. We have a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, have spent trillions (between the Bush and Obama administrations) in stimulus money, have near-zero interest rates, and he wants to spend another $300 billion in money we don’t have to “create” jobs.
In a real sense he comes across as less on top of it than either of the two GOP front-runners. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Mitt Romney both have a coherent vision (pretty much the same one, actually): Lower taxes, reduce spending, lighten regulation, open up trade and encourage rather than bash the private sector.
By contrast, the defining characteristic of Obama’s approach is now confusion. What he has tried hasn’t worked, so he’ll do more of the same? . . . He’s not really fooling anyone. This is a political speech intended to lay the foundation for “Congress won’t cooperate with me” excuse- mongering. But frankly, the public doesn’t want more boondoggle spending either. They have lost confidence in his ability to manage the economy, and telling us his hands are tied by those ornery Republicans is hardly going to boost confidence that he can get things done.
Indeed.
BROKEN RECORD: A preview of Obama’s jobs speech. Yeah, more of the same is the most likely thing. But hey, maybe he’ll propose a regulatory moratorium, or something that might really help. It could happen!
Meanwhile, here’s Arnold Kling’s jobs speech.
MICHAEL LEAHY LOOKS FOR a President Who Will Just Get Out Of The Way.
GEORGE WILL PRAISES DAVID BERNSTEIN’S book on the Lochner case.
Here’s my review in Commentary.
GOING GREEN BUT GETTING NOWHERE: This in the New York Times contains the following claim: “Every ton of carbon dioxide pollution causes around $20 of damage to economies, ecosystems and human health.” There’s no source given. Maybe one reason greens are getting nowhere is that their endless apocalyptic factoids are seeming a bit unbelievable to the general public. Particularly when top spokespeople like Al Gore and Tom Friedman have carbon footprints that would make Louis XIV blush. Perhaps people won’t be prepared to believe it’s a crisis until the people who keep telling them it’s a crisis start, you know, acting like it’s a crisis.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Economist: Angst for the educated: A university degree no longer confers financial security. “There are good reasons for thinking that old patterns are about to change—and that the current recession-driven downturn in the demand for Western graduates will morph into something structural. The gale of creative destruction that has shaken so many blue-collar workers over the past few decades is beginning to shake the cognitive elite as well. . . . A university education is still a prerequisite for entering some of the great guilds, such as medicine, law and academia, that provide secure and well-paying jobs. Over the 20th century these guilds did a wonderful job of raising barriers to entry—sometimes for good reasons (nobody wants to be operated on by a barber) and sometimes for self-interested ones. But these guilds are beginning to buckle.”
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