Archive for 2013
February 1, 2013
MEGAN MCARDLE: What If Stimulus Works, But Only In Theory: “After almost five years, real per-capita GDP is still well below its pre-crisis level. And this is not a distributional issue, where the median is dropping because the rich are hoarding too much. The amount of money available per person has actually fallen. . . . Since the financial crisis hit, we have borrowed and spent $5.7 trillion, or 41% of 2008 GDP (7.8% of total GDP over the period). That is an enormous sum. Presumably, it has raised output somewhat higher than it otherwise would have been–just as an accounting identity, it would almost have to–and yet it has left us with unemployment in the range of 8%, and per-capita GDP that is still below the pre-crisis trend.”
INSTAVISION: I talk with John McGinnis about his new book, Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology.
PEW POLL: Majority of Americans see Washington as a threat to their “personal rights and freedoms.” You’d think the GOP could do something with that . . . .
AIRBRUSH: State Dept. Publicized Names, Photos of Stevens’ Benghazi Security Detail Before 9/11/12; Suppressed Their Identities Afterward. “All U.S. government personnel who were in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012 and survived remain unnamed.” They don’t want anyone asking questions.
ROGER SIMON: Chuck Hagel Humiliates Chuck Schumer: Obama’s ‘Good Jews’ Revisited.
Not to mince words, the former Nebraska senator is an uninformed nitwit. He’s confused about practically every issue and doesn’t even know what the administration’s policies are. (Didn’t he study for the hearing? If he did, it’s even worse.) They had to send him a note in the middle of the proceedings to remind him of the administration’s position on Iran and “containment” and even then Hagel got it wrong. Carl Levin had to explain it to him.
I have never seen a nomination hearing so humiliating. (I see why people like Hagel though. He’s kind of an affable dope. But a secretary of Defense? Better for bartender at the golf club.)
More on Schumer’s loss of face here: “Really, have we ever seen a prominent senator so abused by a president of his own party?”
NRA 1, OBAMA 0: Armed Guard Stops School Shooting in Atlanta.
A SUICIDE BOMBING at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Obama Recovery Going So Well That Two-Thirds Are Delaying Retirement.
Just part of the Obama Senior Squeeze.
ROLL CALL: Ethics Watchdog Believes Menendez Is Probe Target.
Melanie Sloan, the head of a government watchdog group, said Thursday she believes federal investigators are probing Sen. Robert Menendez’s involvement in an alleged travel and prostitution scandal, but predicted that the New Jersey Democrat would not be subjected to internal Senate discipline.
Meanwhile, at a Thursday news conference, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined to comment on Menendez when pressed by reporters about what he knew about the senator reimbursing a political donor for travel on a private aircraft. Reid encouraged reporters to discuss the matter directly with Menendez.
Hmm.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE AS DEMOGRAPHIC DISASTER: Behind the falling US birthrate: too much student debt to afford kids?
DER SPIEGEL: The Global Leadership Vacuum: Europe Incapable, America Unwilling. “Rather than making progress, it is much more likely that the world will shift into reverse. Europe isn’t in a position to provide decisive leadership. And the US doesn’t want to anymore.”
ROGER KIMBALL: Ed Koch, 1924-2013.
THE HILL: Wyden wants hearing on hacking law in wake of Swartz’s death. “Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he’s engaged in talks with members on both sides of the aisle about how they can update an anti-hacking law that was used to press charges against Internet activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide this month. Wyden said he’s talking to members of the Judiciary Committee and other relevant panels about how they can modify the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.”
HE PERFORMED POORLY: Chuck Hagel’s Disastrous Day.
LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Meet The World’s Most Idiotic Teacher, Carly McKinney (NSFW). “Carly McKinney, a 10th grade math teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado, has been placed on administrative leave after a local news station found half-naked pics, photos of the 23-year-old smoking pot and inappropriate Tweets under the handle @CarlyCrunkBear on the internet. Even though pot is legal for personal use in the state of Colorado, the school is investigating whether McKinney brought pot on campus.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Student loan debts are ‘unsustainable’: Easy money led to tuition hikes, which has created a debt chasm. “What happened should not be a surprise. To make college more accessible, Congress made student loans more available, just as it had encouraged home ownership for everyone.”
January 31, 2013
THE HILL: Hagel delivers shaky performance.
Hagel stumbled over some answers — describing Iran as having a “legitimate, elected government” at one point — and did little to convert critics who have deemed him unfit to serve as Defense secretary because of his past statements and positions. . . . Hagel was frequently forced during a hearing that ran on for more than eight hours to say that he “regretted” his past statements, such as when Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) brought up Hagel’s statement that Israel kept Palestinians “caged up like animals.”
“If I had an opportunity to edit that, like many things I’ve said, I would like to go back and change the words and the meaning,” Hagel said. “I regret that I used those words.”
The Republican National Committee touted a clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pressing Hagel to name one lawmaker that was intimidated by the “Jewish lobby.”
“Name one,” Graham said.
“I do not know,” Hagel responded.
Graham said after the hearing that was “shocked” that Hagel didn’t have responses to many of the questions coming from the GOP.
It’s not like they came out of the blue.
ANOTHER STATEMENT HITS ITS EXPIRATION DATE: Obama Chickens Out, Says A Million EVs By 2015 Not Important.
DOE backpedals furiously from a goal set out in a 2011 State of the Union speech, where President Barack Obama announced what he called “Apollo projects of our times.” One of them was the goal for the United States to be “the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.”
“Whether we meet that goal in 2015 or 2016, that’s less important than that we’re on the right path to get many millions of these vehicles on the road,” an unnamed Energy Department official told Reuters.
Reuters notes that “demand for hybrids and electric vehicles has been weaker than expected.” Government money was poured into black holes.
Actually, supporters’ pockets. And that’s racist.
REVIEW: “I’m inclined to think the President deserves the Cabinet he chooses, and I don’t approve of destroying a guy just because there’s blood in the water. But honestly, don’t we need a stronger Secretary of Defense than Chuck Hagel?”
GUN CULTURE: A reader emails:
May I suggest a hidden rationale for the apparently irrational objections to modern sporting rifles: the AR-15 family of weapons has become the armaments equivalent of the Volkswagen or the Ford model T, it has become the gun for everyone. It is dangerous because it is popular, rather than the other way around. It is a cultural game-changer, just as mass-market automobiles were, and the forces of regression would rather not have their game changed.
Of course, before the Model T and the Volkswagen there were the Equalizer and the Peacemaker, revolutionary firearms that were just as controversial in their day as the AR-15 is today, and for much the same reason. They weren’t the first revolvers, but they made the revolver a mass-market item, the People’s handgun. The forces of regression of old were not pleased that the people should have handguns, they were opposed to equalization and peacemaking!
Yes, the highly adaptable and customizable nature of the AR-15 has helped to make it especially popular. Indeed, although gun-controllers claim they can ban “assault weapons” because the Supreme Court left open the possibility of banning dangerous or unusual weapons, the AR-15, as the most popular rifle in America, is clearly not “unusual.” Nor is it particularly dangerous.
CIA OFFICIALS give the case for enhanced interrogations. “All three panelists trashed the Obama-era conceit that we’re a better country because we’ve scrapped the interrogation program. What we’ve really done, they argued, is replace interrogations with drone strikes.”