ED MORRISSEY: The Pope’s Views on Inequality Test Obama’s Mettle. “Obama may end up being surprised that Francis really isn’t interested in offering policy endorsements as he is at changing hearts and saving souls. There will certainly be some correlation on messaging, but Francis and the Vatican’s teachings on economics as a subsidiary consideration to personal action for salvation can’t be pigeonholed into Obama’s plans to demonize the wealthy and hike taxes.”
Archive for 2014
January 23, 2014
IN THE MAIL: The Life of George Washington.
SURPRISE! Hollywood’s only conservative group is getting close IRS nonprofit scrutiny. “Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.”
TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: MN ObamaCare exchange failing, panel recommends scrapping system.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 259.
HOPEY-CHANGEY: How Revolving Door Lobbyists Are Taking Over K Street. “Between 1998 and 2012, total lobbying revenue associated with active contract lobbyists almost doubled in real dollars, from $703 million to $1.32 billion. This is consistent with the general increase in lobbying over this time. But all of that new revenue came in the form of revenues associated with revolving door lobbyists.”
Just another argument in favor of my Revolving-Door Surtax.
CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULTS: Grossly Overstated? “At the University of Pittsburgh, there are roughly 14,800 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 3,700 sexual assaults each year. In 2009, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, Pitt students reported 4. At Carnegie Mellon University, there are roughly 3,900 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 975 sexual assaults each year. In 2009, CMU reported 6. (That figure was a three-year high.) At Duquesne University, there are roughly 5,700 female students. If their chances of being sexually assaulted are 1-in-4, there should be about 1,425 sexual assaults each year. In 2009, Duquesne reported 3.”
UPDATE: Commenters note that the cited 1-in-4 figure is supposed to be a lifetime number, but these actual-rape numbers are still awfully small for something that’s supposed to be a national epidemic.
THAILAND INCHES TOWARD THE BRINK OF DISASTER:
The government of Thailand imposed a state of emergency in the capital as demonstrators and chaos on the streets continue to push Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration toward the brink of disaster. Only 11 days remain before snap elections on February 2. The question on everyone’s mind is: Can the country make it?
The turmoil on the streets of Bangkok has ebbed and flowed for many weeks now, but as elections loom the opposition protesters have become more aggressive and violent. The state of emergency has done nothing to quell street demonstrations. Ms. Yingluck was forced to flee a meeting at the Defense Ministry after protesters swarmed the building. In the government heartland in Thailand’s northeast, gunmen unleashed a hail of gunfire at Kwanchai Praipana, a leader of the government-supporting Red Shirts, wounding him in the shoulder and thigh.
Against this backdrop of mounting chaos, the Thai King, universally revered as a godlike figure, is slowly dying. King Bhumibol Adulyadej is 86 years old now and rarely appears in public. His name means ”strength of the land, incomparable power,” as Jonathan Head writes for the BBC: “In the minds of millions of Thais [he is] a repository of virtue and calm when all around they see greed and chaos.” When he last spoke to his people in December, he implored them to settle their differences for the sake of the country, for everyone: ”All Thais should realize this point a lot and behave and perform our duties accordingly, our duty for the sake of the public, for stability, security for our nation of Thailand.”
But the “Lord Above Our Heads” can no longer perform the duties of his office. He is weak and tired and has no answers to the questions his people are asking. To make matters worse, no institution or individual is poised to take his place.
I’ve been following this via Michael Yon’s tweets, and it doesn’t look pretty.
“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Future US envoy displays total ignorance of Norway. But he was a big Obama bundler, so we’ve got that going for us.
HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Fareed Zakaria: Iran Deal Is A Train Wreck. Obama has a lot of train wrecks. He’s like the Casey Jones of presidents.
HOPEY-CHANGEY: Gallup: Obama On Track To Be Most Polarizing President Ever.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With ‘Leadership’? What they call leadership is usually just a flashy form of followership, in my experience.
TODAY IS THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of Hillary’s “What difference at this point does it make?”
CNBC: A ‘tsunami’ of store closings expected to hit retail.
Perhaps things haven’t come all that far from the early days of hope and change, when this iconic photo captured the national mood.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, THE NUMBER OF UNINSURED WOULD CONTINUE TO GROW. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! So What Was The Point Of ObamaCare Again? “It created more uninsured people than it gave insurance to. And it promises to create even more.”
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: 10 Ways The IRS Lost Public Trust. “Poor judgment and bad management have severely damaged the public image and credibility of the IRS. One would certainly be hard-pressed to feel sorry for the beleaguered agency’s self-inflicted mess, and there is no doubt Commissioner Koskinen is facing an uphill battle to restore the IRS’ esteemed reputation.”
UKRAINE UPDATE: At Least 4 Killed.
JAMES TARANTO: These Boots Are Made for Harvard: Feminist mythology and the Wendy Davis tale.
Ehrenreich’s joke is a nod to the reality of female hypergamy, the drive to mate upward. “Marrying a $10-an-hour man gets you nowhere” may be a heartless thing to say, but that’s another way of saying it’s a coldly rational analysis. Achieving economic self-sufficiency is a challenging goal for someone without a privileged upbringing, but for many women it’s a more realistic one than finding a husband who’s a good provider. Men in turn have less incentive to be ambitious and conscientious when women no longer need or expect them to be providers.
Thus in an important sense “women’s liberation” is a myth, at least for nonaffluent women. A consequence of the past half-century’s massive social changes has been to burden these women with the role of provider and deprive them of much of the help their grandmothers got from men (as well as depriving children of the benefits of a stable family).
Which brings us to Wendy Davis, who turns out to be a personification of this feminist myth. Davis is the Fort Worth, Texas, state senator who became a feminist cause célèbre last year when she led a failed filibuster against a bill to impose modest restrictions on abortion. Now she is running for governor.
Davis’s campaign has leaned heavily on autobiography: “Mine is a story about a teenage single mother who struggled to keep her young family afloat,” she declares on her campaign website. “It’s a story about a young woman who was given a precious opportunity to work her way up in the world. It’s a story about resiliency, and sacrifice, and perseverance. And you’re damn right it’s a true story.”
Well, yes and no. She was a single mom, having married, given birth and divorced by age 21. But “in an extensive interview . . ., Davis acknowledged some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her aides have said about her life,” Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning news reported in a Saturday story that has roiled the campaign.
“My language should be tighter,” the candidate told the reporter. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.”
She’s damn right she does. Slater quotes Davis’s website bio: “With the help of academic scholarships and student loans, Wendy not only became the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree but graduated first in her class and was accepted to Harvard Law School.”
It turns out that in addition to “academic scholarships and student loans,” she benefited from a marriage to a high-status man. . . .
The details of the Davises’ marriage and divorce would be a purely private matter were they not so sharply at variance with the up-from-the-bootstraps tale she has been spinning. “My story of struggle and sacrifice is not unique,” she tweeted defiantly yesterday. “it is the story of millions of Texas women.”
That’s an example of feminism’s false promise. As it turns out, for Wendy Davis marriage really was the answer to poverty. But even in Texas, there aren’t millions of Jeff Davises to go around.
Read the whole thing.
WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Bob McDonnell’s Day of Reckoning. The corruption alleged here is so petty and venal, which almost makes it worse.
CHANGE: Nordic Countries Increasingly Giving Welfare State the Cold Shoulder.
Putatitively socialist Swedes are increasingly turning to private insurance to reduce long wait times and rationed health care services. It’s not simply in medicine that Sweden is moving toward market-based models. As Johnny Munkhammar detailed in 2005’s European Dawn: After the Social Model, the country started cutting government spending as a percentage of GDP in the 1990s and that has proceeded apace.
Nor is it only Sweden that is giving a cold shoulder to the welfare state. AFP reports that throughout the Nordic countries, the size and scope of government is being cut as “nations find themselves cash-strapped.”
Sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, RACE RELATIONS WOULD BE LOUSY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Poll: 33% of blacks say Americans are racist, 76% say race relations are bad.
WENDY DAVIS, the Democrats’ Christine O’Donnell.