Month: October 2010

On Hugh Hewitt's radio show, a segment with Victor Davis Hanson unearthed something revealing. Here's what the host said:

You spent a lot of time in the Oval Office with President Bush during the war years of President Bush. … as did some radio talk show hosts, of whom I was a number, [We] would go in and the President would talk to us …

Maybe this doesn't surprise you. But ponder its implications. George W. Bush could've called any man or woman in the United States to his office to get advice. Anyone in the military, any policy expert, the most knowledgeable American in any industry or field of knowledge. With whom did he apparently spend a lot of time conversing? Hanson, Hewitt, and some other talk radio hosts.

Radley Balko thinks we shouldn't vote on DAs:

We'd probably be better off if the position of district attorney were a civil service job and not an elected position …Voters are too easily manipulated by crime fearmongering and tend to reward, not punish, overly aggressive prosecutors, as well as punish judges who show the slightest hint of balance, mercy, or a better-than-narrow view of due process. … [M]aking DAs civil servants would least insulate them from the need to justify their job to voters by racking up convictions, which in turn might eventually attract more people to the position whose concept of justice is a bit more nuanced than filling up the prisons with bad guys.

A moment of awkward but apparently genuine contrition on AC360 from the Arkansas school board member who posted a shockingly hate-filled rant against bullied gay teens:

The rest of the episode here.

The Dish has a strict policy against rainbows in the VFYW feature. But, like any good rule, it should be broken when some rare circumstance, such as the sheer beauty of these shots below, forces our hand. Enjoy these six rainbows that were photographed in New York City at roughly the same moment on Wednesday. They take one's breath away:

John D. Rockefeller's old office suite on the 25th floor of 26 Broadway, 5.20 pm

Financial District, 5.30 pm

1 Liberty Plaza, Ground Zero, 5.28 pm.

Note: we will publish no more. So don't even try.

This strikes me as sensible: raising the early retirement age for eligibility for social security from 62 to 65. As this AEI study argues, such a move would do several things at once:

Increasing the EEA would extend the solvency of the Social Security trust fund by about five years, increase total annual retirement income as of age seventy for affected individuals by around 16 percent, and increase gross domestic product (GDP) by around 5 percent. Raising the EEA may be one of the most effective options available for improving retirement-income security and would improve the federal budget in one year nearly as much as the recent health reform bill was projected to do over ten years.

It makes even more sense looking at this graph:

As life-spans have gone progressively up, the average age of getting early social security benefits has gone in the opposite direction. There could be exceptions for those whose income comes from physical labor. But if we desperately need to tackle the long-term debt, if massive discretionary cuts in the short term might hurt the fragile recovery, a reform like this could help reassure global markets and Americans that we can avoid catastrophe and make some hard decisions.

Drum sketches the limits of interviewing:

Pretty much any big time politician — and Obama's as big time as they come — has heard every question before and knows exactly how to answer them. They filibuster, they distract, they offer up platitudes, and they move on. There's pretty much zero chance of anyone getting anything newsworthy out of a guy like Obama unless he feels like making news. This is just life in our modern media-saturated age.

Unless you're Rand Paul. But he won't make that mistake again, will he?

A new study out of Bath University shows many straight and gay men kissing asexually in Britain:

Based on in-depth interviews of 145 British university and high-school students, Anderson and his colleagues discovered that 89 percent had kissed a male heterosexual friend on the lips at some point. A total of 37 percent had engaged in "sustained" kissing with another man, Anderson said. The men all identified as straight, and they didn't see the kisses as sexual.

"These men have lost their homophobia," Anderson said. "They're no longer afraid to be thought gay by their behaviors, and they enjoy intimacy with their friends, just the same as women."

Also, contrary to stereotype, athletes were the most likely demographic for snogging.

They're pretty much in line with Bartlett's fears. There is no intent actually to govern responsibly, just to campaign for 2012 (since almost all of this will be vetoed or impossible – a constitutional amendment on spending as a percentage of GDP!). Anyway, if you're not fully aware yet of the nihilism and recklessness on the right, read on. Limbaugh will have infinitely more control over a Republican House than Boehner:

Act immediately on votes to repeal Obamacare. 

Act immediately on votes to deny the EPA the power to regulate carbon dioxide through cap and trade.

Move immediately to make permanent the Bush tax cuts. 

Move immediately to press for a single constitutional amendment that would limit the size of the federal government by limiting the percentage of GDP the federal government can spend in any given year.  (And what a wonderful debate that would be!  That is what's driving the Tea Party in large part is spending: Spending ourselves into generational debt and theft. Have a debate on just how much spending there can be, a certain percentage of GDP.) 

State openly they will not tolerate any more radicals on the federal bench, no more Sotomayor, no more Kagans, no more idiots, no more activists on the federal bench. 

If they do this, if the Republicans do this, they will go a long way toward restoring the republic.  Win, lose, or draw, they'll be fighting for the right things.

Of course, even if all these things were desirable, they're wildly implausible. But he knows that: "Obama's gonna veto all this," Limbaugh says.  "So be it!  Let him veto it!  That helps us.  We come back for it all again — and he vetoes it again, and he calls us mean-spirited, extreme."

I wonder if Limbaugh is aware of that the latest NYT poll revealed that massive majorities want the main parties to compromise in the new Congress rather than stick to their positions. But when asked who would be more likely to compromise, 72 percent said that Obama, while only 46 percent said the Republicans. Limbaugh's nihilism and talk-radio conservatism is one sure way to bring independents back to the president. Advantage: Obama.

Bruce Bartlett, another sane conservative, sees Republican over-reach and indiscipline in the next two years leading to both a real danger of national default, a second government shut-down, and a House majority, unlike 1994, unable to be controlled by anyone:

I hope I am wrong, but I don’t see any prospect of meaningful action by a Republican Congress that would reduce the deficit, and much reason to think it will get worse if they have their way by enacting massive new tax cuts while protecting Medicare from cuts. And as I have previously warned, I am very fearful that it will be impossible to raise the debt limit, which would bring about a default and real, honest-to-God bankruptcy — something many Tea Party-types have openly called for in an insane belief that this will somehow or other impose fiscal discipline on out-of-control government spending without forcing them to vote either for spending cuts or tax increases.

Some Republicans delude themselves that they can enact legislation that will reduce the deficit on their terms — 100 percent spending cuts with no increase in taxes.

In particular, every Republican believes that the Affordable Care Act adds massively to the deficit, despite repeated statements from the Congressional Budget Office and Medicare’s actuaries to the contrary — which means that repeal would be scored by CBO as adding to the deficit.

In any case, repeal is impossible for two reasons. First, President Obama would surely veto such legislation and Republicans will not have anywhere close to the votes to override. (That would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.) Second, even if Democrats lose the Senate, they will unquestionably have enough votes to filibuster whatever Republicans hope to accomplish in this regard. (Republicans would need 60 votes to block a filibuster.)

""Between 1990 and 2007, there was a 420 percent increase in cannabis seizures," – from that NRO piece.