COVERUP: Congressman: CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended. “The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.”
Archive for 2013
September 17, 2013
BRYAN PRESTON: U.S. History Textbook Guts The Second Amendment. “As the book stands, it teaches a wildly incorrect reading of one of the most important civil rights that the Constitution guarantees. I have reached out to AMSCO School Publications for comment, and will publish their reaction if and when they provide one.”
IN THE MAIL: From John Durant, The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 131.
BRADLEY MANNING, EDWARD SNOWDEN, AND NOW THIS: Suspected Shooter Had ‘Secret’ Clearance, Employer Says. Maybe our background checks aren’t so good?
EPIC FAIL: New York Daily News Devotes Cover to Evils of AR-15 Used in Navy Yard Shootings.
And then: FBI: No AR-15 Used In Navy Yard Shootings.
What happens with agenda journalism. But give the Daily News some credit — every once in a while they run a decent piece on guns and mass shootings.
UPDATE: Last link was bad. Fixed now. Sorry!
A NEW FINANCIAL HISTORY OF DETROIT:
The story of Detroit’s decline has been told and retold so many times now that you’d be forgiven for assuming there’s nothing more to say. But the Detroit Free Press has put together a new, comprehensive financial history of the city from 1950 to the present, gleaned from tens of thousands of pages of archival data on the city’s finances. It provides a much clearer picture of the city’s collapse than anything we’d seen before.
It appears that the city took all of the hallmarks of blue governance to extremes. For years, it tried to address its revenue shortfall by raising taxes, which drove residents out of the city and shrunk the tax base in the process. Detroit lost 61 percent of its residents between 1950 and 2010, and the total value of its property fell from a peak of $45 billion to $9.6 billion in 2012. Meanwhile, even as the city’s revenue base was imploding, public employee benefits remained generous and in some cases even expanded.
The Free Press notes that there were a few periods of hope during thee postwar period when the city’s finances were relatively strong, but each time the city squandered these opportunities and used its good standing to borrow more rather than address the core problems that got it in the mess in the first place. . . . The city has paid a heavy price. Today, Detroit has more pensioners than employees, and a debt that is more than twice what it had in 1960. It spends considerably more on police and fire retirees than active workers. And despite the fact that the city has the highest income and property taxes in Michigan—by a wide margin—the state’s inflation-adjusted revenue is lower than it was in 1960.
Arthur Laffer, call your office.
JOURNALISM: ‘AR-15 shotgun’: Did CNN let noted gun expert Piers Morgan write its chyron text? There are such things, sort of, but they’re awfully rare. Chance that the shooter used one? Vanishingly small. Chance that CNN knew what it was writing? Even smaller.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN THE #WARONMEN: “As a growing body of evidence makes clear, both female poverty and family decline are directly connected to the falling fortunes of young men.”
ED DRISCOLL NOT IMPRESSED WITH DAVID BROOKS’ BIRTHERISM: Roll Over Ol’ David, and Tell Trudeaupia the News. That line about “his natural home turf of PBS” is cruelly accurate. . . .
JAMES TARANTO: About That Other Debacle: For ObamaCare, it’s only the end of the beginning.
If you’re the kind of driver who can’t help but gawk at the wreckage when you pass an accident–and honestly, who isn’t?–you’ll enjoy today’s lengthy account in The Wall Street Journal of the runup to last week’s Putin-Assad triumph.
Right off the bat we learn, which is to say our suspicion is confirmed, that this was a case of a willful president with atrocious political instincts. When Obama consulted his cabinet and top staffers about the idea of seeking congressional approval for a strike in Syria, “senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer pegged the chances of Congress balking at 40%. . . . Mr. Obama took the gamble anyway and set aside the impending strikes to try to build domestic and international support for such action.”
In retrospect, it seems clear that while Pfeiffer was on the right track in warning that Congress might scuttle the plan, he underestimated the probability of that outcome. . . .
Which brings us to the Affordable Care Act. Three and a half years after the springtime enactment of what was touted as Obama’s signature legislative achievement, it’s autumn for ObamaCare, with many of the law’s provisions taking effect Oct. 1, two weeks from tomorrow.
ObamaCare was another case in which the president asked Congress to act. That time, lawmakers granted his request, although for a time the odds seemed very much against their doing so. Unlike in 2013, in 2009-10 Republicans did not control the House. Unlike the idea of military intervention in Syria, ObamaCare did not go against the Democrats’ ideological grain.
But like the prospective Syria strike, ObamaCare lacked broad public support. It still does, as illustrated by a pair of polls out today, from The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. . . . Quite apart from the law’s merits, what Page has described is an enormous political miscalculation. Unlike in the Syria case, Obama had the political strength to push this legislation through Congress (if barely). But while it’s easy to imagine he was and remains disdainful of public opinion on the matter, it’s almost certain that he expected it to turn around by now.
Yet it’s actually more unpopular than when it passed.
MICKEY KAUS ON JOURNALISTIC, IF NOT MEDICAL, MALPRACTICE: NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman goes to bat for the health care cost-curve-benders, taking sides against a new study suggesting that mammograms for women under 50 have a significant payoff. “Am I suggesting that the CDC may have been politicized as part of the Obamacare cost-saving push? Don’t be silly. That would be like suggesting … I dunno, that the IRS had been politicized.”
I’ve noticed that since pretty much the exact instant ObamaCare passed, all the people — and you, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, are among them — who were pushing early detection before suddenly started pushing avoidance of unnecessary tests instead. Pardon me if I diagnose you as infected with the apparat.
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Government Executive: IRS’ Former Tax Exempt Organizations Leader Re-Enters Spotlight. Key quote: “There is increasing and overwhelming evidence that Lois Lerner and high-level IRS employees in Washington were abusing their power to prevent conservative groups from organizing and carrying out their missions. There are still mountains of documents to go through, but it is clear the IRS is out of control and there will be consequences.”
Related: Inside the White House, an inability to select a narrative.
GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE ONE PERCENT: Terry McAuliffe’s endorsement strategy: Peddle access to business lobbies. “Rarely has a candidate so clearly campaigned on crony capitalism.”
HOW’S THAT “BOOMING RECOVERY” GOING? Amid slow economic recovery, more Americans identify as ‘lower class.’
STEVE CHAPMAN: The Misery of Obama’s Second Term: The president is now at odds with Congress and the public.
The numbers reflect a couple of facts that are largely beyond his control. The first is that after 12 years of nonstop fighting in distant lands, Americans are sick of war. The second is that after nearly five years of watching him in the White House, many are also tired of Obama.
This is a common consequence of protracted exposure. Most TV series don’t last more than five years — and TV series don’t air seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. There have been several new iPhone models since Obama was first elected. If you bought a suit or a dress five years ago, it’s no longer the epitome of fashion.
Facing the aftermath of re-election is a challenge for the people in the administration, as well as the people they serve. Top aides burn out or cash in, leaving the White House to find replacements, who may not enjoy the same trust or access. Presidents run out of ideas. If they have any left over, they’re even less likely to be able to get them through the second time around.
Scandals also have a tendency to erupt in the second term, and the IRS targeting of tea party groups arrived this year right on schedule. All this comes before the midterm congressional elections, which typically bring losses to the party in the White House. Republicans are expected to enlarge their House majority and could capture the Senate.
However miserable his second term is for Obama, the real misery is for the country.
YEAH, THAT’S DONE A LOT FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE: The Celebrification Of The White House Staff.
HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOK rewrites the Second Amendment. As Horace Mann said, men are cast iron, but children are wax.
Anybody know which textbook this is? I’d like to publicize the names of the authors and publisher.