Month: October 2011

"Others will say that people like Abdulmutallab should only been tried in a military commission. That opinion, too, has fortunately been rejected by the Bush and Obama administrations. What we have learned, if anything, in the last 10 years it is that the president–any president–must have all lawful tools available to him during wartime. He must have the flexibility to use the most appropriate tool at any given time. In this case, the defendant was tried in the right venue, with a just result," – Heritage fellow Charles Stimson, on FoxNews.com.

A further escalation:

U.S. attorneys announced [yesterday] that they will begin to prosecute media outlets that publish advertisements for medical marijuana! It seems that when it comes to medical marijuana users, or the states in which they live for that matter, the Bill of Rights means practically nothing. … [It's interesting] that pharmaceutical companies that sell drugs for billions in profits (the very reason the DOJ claims the marijuana industry is so evil) are allowed to advertise freely in all mediums.

Balko is incredulous, adding: "[L]aw enforcement officials in Los Angeles have pressured the RAND Corporation to remove from its website a study showing no link between medical marijuana dispensaries and crime."

(Hat tip: Libby Jacobson)

Their requests are not always coherent, as this cringe-inducing interview proves:

Matt Taibbi's list of demands is more considered. Number one:

The so-called “Too Big to Fail” financial companies – now sometimes called by the more accurate term “Systemically Dangerous Institutions” – are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.

Reihan calls Taibbi's list "surprisingly measured" and goes through his demands point by point.

Michele Yulo reflects on the impact of finding out about her father's philandering:

All those years I suspected my father had been unfaithful during the marriage, but nothing prepared me for the truth. The fact that he couldn’t tell me himself made it worse especially because we were so close. I am now 46 years old, a wife and mother, but am still learning the hard lessons of what it is to be human. One of those lessons is the often difficult realization that parents are human with separate lives that include their own misfortunes and mistakes. My father lived a life in which he could not escape his past, nor could he live with it. And I knew that. But, as adults, how much do we really want to know about our parents’ past? And when we discover their indiscretions, how do we fit that into our already fixed version of our youth? These are questions that inevitably and often get answered by default—in a sense, we have no choice but to allow our parents’ mistakes to become part of understanding who we are, as well as the realities of the world we were not exposed to as children.

"I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ," – US President William Howard Taft.

Via David Kopel, who notes:

Americans today tend to congratulate themselves for being more tolerant and open-minded than their ancestors of a century or two ago. Yet those earlier Americans elected the great Jefferson twice, and elected Taft once. … I find it disgusting that a Gallup Poll found 22% of Americans (18% of Republicans, 19% of Independents, and 27% of Democrats) say that they would not vote for a well-qualified candidate of their party who happened to be a Mormon. That’s actually an increase compared to 17% who gave the same answer in 1967.

Gizmodo asks, "Is This the Most Amazing Time Lapse Video Yet? (Spoiler: It Is)":

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Peter J. Wallison tries to revive the claim that the government alone caused the financial crisis, which seemed to be the consensus in the Bloomberg debate as well. Jeff Madrick and Frank Partnoy smack it down:

The [Government Sponsored Entities, meaning Fannie and Freddie] did generate large losses, but their bad investments in housing loans followed rather than led the crisis; most of those investments involved purchases or guarantees made well after the subprime and housing bubbles had been expanded by private loans and were almost about to burst. Even then, the GSEs’ overall purchases and guarantees were much less risky than Wall Street’s: their default rates were one fourth to one fifth those of Wall Street and other private financial firms.

I don't think Fannie and Freddie and the paternalist mindset behind them should be left off the hook. But perspective matters. Like our healthcare crisis, this one was largely caused by an incompetent private sector. I know that violates GOP dogma; but it's true nonetheless, as even Alan Greenspan himself has conceded.

Hurukabra, Guyana, 12 pm

Scott Galupo lambastes the movement's lack of principles with respect to "crony capitalism:"

In her Iowa speech last month, former Gov. Sarah Palin offered a fleeting glimpse of what the Tea Party was supposed to represent—a transpartisan attack on the bosom buddies Big Government and Big Business. More recently, Conor Friedersdorf muses quixotically about what a potential Tea Party-Occupy Wall Street alliance would look like.  The problem is Tea Partyers, as conventional conservatives, were never intellectually prepared to deliver on this threat. There'd been talk about ending corporate welfare in Republican circles for years. The TARP bailouts added a powerful new ingredient to this critique. But when it came down to it, what did Wall Street and corporate America ever have to fear from the Tea Party? Lower corporate taxes and regulatory rollback? Seriously?

Avik Roy lists reasons. His final point:

Health care policy is not a classical conservative concern. Romney, having made health-care reform the top priority of his governorship, knows the ins and outs of the issue in a way that no one else in the field does. The prominent Republicans who could have given Romney a run for his money — Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, and Bobby Jindal — aren’t running. Newt Gingrich comes closest to Romney’s health policy heft, but Gingrich has his own checkered history on the issue, and has generally stayed away from attacking the other candidates.

It’s hard to see how this dynamic changes between now and January. And given Romney’s strengths in most other policy areas, it’s hard to see how the race changes if Romney’s rivals can’t make health care an issue.

Pete Spiliakos agrees.