Month: May 2012

How else to interpret this graph?

One key fact: the author attributes the fiscal year of 2009 to Bush (while assigning the stimulus extras to Obama). Why?

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress. Like a relief pitcher who comes into the game with the bases loaded, Obama came in with a budget in place that called for spending to increase by hundreds of billions of dollars in response to the worst economic and financial calamity in generations.

Seems reasonable to me, even though Obama did not try to ratchet any of it back. And in the kind of recession of 2009, he was right not to. Here's another way of looking at it:

Remember that Romney has promised to slash all taxes, and massively increase defense spending. Well: you do the math. But if you want another spending binge, just look at the first chart. It explains why a fiscal conservative like me has a hard time backing Republicans. Either they have completely switched their core DNA, or they're bullshitters. And the only way to prove they're not bullshitters is to show us the precise math: how deep must Medicare and Medicaid and core government services be cut to afford more defense spending and more tax cuts?

We await an answer.

They were once key allies and colleagues. But Loury has had second thoughts:

Unlike most tabloid scribblers, Wilson’s writings had a massive effect. The broken windows argument—by cracking down on minor offenses, the police can prevent the perception of disorder that leads to more serious crimes—has influenced urban law enforcement strategists throughout the nation. Even so, as scholarly critics across the ideological spectrum have noted, there is little evidence beyond the anecdotal to show that such “quality of life” policing actually leads to lower crime rates. When I consider the impact of his ideas, I can’t help but think about the millions of folks being hassled even as we speak by coercive state agents who are acting on some Wilsonian theory recommending stop-and-frisk policing.

Neither can I overlook the reinforcement of subliminal racial stigmata associated with the institutions of confinement, surveillance, and patrol that Americans have embraced over the past two generations under the watchful and approving gaze of Professor Wilson.

I don’t think Jim Wilson had a racist bone in his body. Neither do I doubt his sincerity when he expressed regret, as he often did, that blacks are overrepresented among those being punished for having committed crimes. But intent is one thing; results are another.

Cannonville, Utah, 7.01 pm

A depressing peek behind how world leaders talk about climate change in private.

It can happen. More fun here.

Is the comparison fair? Misleading? Too crude? Over to you, black lesbian comic.

Another way to make beautiful music together:

(Hat tip: Buzzfeed)

Glenn Greenwald examines John Brennan's new powers of life and death for anyone on the planet. Unlike Glenn, I can see the need for killing al Qaeda operatives from the sky if they present a threat to the United States. But this process desperately needs oversight, checks, and more transparency. To corrall all this power in on man in the executive branch is, well, what Americans voted against in 2008.

Steven White and P.J. Dermer blast the administration's approach:

The achievements of the USSC [US Security Coordinator], which began operations in 2005 and commenced training Palestinian security forces in 2007, have formed the foundation of every claim of progress made by successive U.S. administrations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The mission has been integral to the re-establishment of stability and security in the West Bank for Palestinians and Israelis alike — militias are off the streets, crime is down, and basic order has largely returned…

While the accomplishments of [the USSC] were recognized and celebrated by Europeans, Israelis, Palestinians, and our regional partners alike, its significance seems largely lost on those in Washington. President Barack Obama's Middle East team has particularly failed to grasp the importance of this effort: It has not only failed to exploit the progress for political gains, but has in fact scaled back the mission's key role as an interlocutor between the parties. It's a fact well understood, and at times lamented, by our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts.

(Photo: A Palestinian protester faces off with an Israeli soldier as Israeli settlers from the Yitzhar Jewish settelment attacked the Palestinian village of Asira al Qibliya, according to the villagers on May 19, 2012, near the northern town of Nablus in the Israeli occupied Palestinian West Bank. According to Palestinian eyewitnesses and security forces, fifty settlers attacked Palestinians there with stones. The Israeli army fired tear gas to disperse the clashes, and two Palestinians were wounded by stones, the Palestinian sources said. By Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/GettyImages.)

"We cannot turn around the fiscal picture (and consequently our long-term economic prospects) without cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and defense. We do not have to cut them all in the same way or by the same amount, obviously, but to take any 20-percent slice of federal spending and declare it sacrosanct is the mark of fiscal unseriousness — and putting four such slices off limits is unseriousness times four. Sure, that’s going to be hard to run on. But if there is such a thing as a Romney administration, there is still going to be a Congress. Maybe it will be a strongly Republican Congress. Maybe not. But it is not as though any of this gets easier after the election. I am increasingly of the opinion that if you won’t run on it you won’t do it," – Kevin Williamson, NRO.