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Peter Robinson says hats off to the Tea Partiers.
…In short, our forty-fourth chief executive sought to end America’s two-and-a-third centuries as a truly exceptional nation—more patriotic, more dynamic, more enterprising and freer than any other—to turn the republic into a kind of enervated satellite of Western Europe. Barack Obama’s America, a supersized Belgium.
And but for one vote in the Senate—one vote—Obama would have succeeded. …
…To whom, then, do we owe our gratitude? Broadly speaking: the unstylish, the unschooled and the uncool. In other words, the tea partyers.
If you had to choose one moment as the inception of the tea party movement, you’d select February 19, when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli suddenly and gloriously lost his temper on the air. On the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli, reporting an Obama housing measure, began ranting about the unfairness of penalizing ordinary Americans in order to bail out mortgage deadbeats. What the country needed, Santelli announced, was a “Chicago tea party.” Within hours, tea party Web sites had sprouted online. Meeting one another through Facebook and Twitter, tea partyers began organizing protests. On Tax Day, April 15, more than half a million tea partyers participated in protests at 800 locations around the nation. The soccer mom in Maine, the truck driver in Canton, the schoolteacher in Orlando, the farmer in Chico—all had found their voice. …
…Will Barack Obama follow the example of Bill Clinton, who, after the electorate rebuked him in 1994 by handing control of the House back to the GOP, moved to the center? Or will Obama instead remain on the left and fight, turning the remainder of 2010 into a raw struggle for power? Beats me. But I do know this—and by now Obama knows it, too: The most potent political force in America is still an ordinary citizen who has finally had enough.
David Bernstein blogs in Volokh Conspiracy about one disadvantage to Scott Brown’s victory.
Like others who oppose much of President Obama’s legislative agenda, I’m pleased that Scott Brown won, and even more pleased that he won relying on generally libertarian themes. There is a downside, however. From what I can tell, the swing vote for Brown, and more generally against Obama these days, is senior citizens who want to protect Medicare in its current, bloated form; Brown himself argued that he wanted to defend Medicare from Obama.
In a sense, this serves the Democrats right. For decades, any time a Republican suggested any sensible Medicare reform, the Democrats responded with a barrage of (very effective) political propaganda accusing the Republicans of wanting to eviscerate Medicare. As a result, Medicare became politically sacrosanct; the only major Republican-led reform of recent years was a massive Medicare expansion under President Bush. …
…The problem, of course, is that Medicare is utterly unsustainable in it present form. One hopes that a bipartisan solution, that will be blamed on both (or neither) party can be achieved. More likely, I’m afraid, politicians will have learned that even liberal Democrats dare not mess with Medicare, and the program will gradually (further) bankrupt the country.
In the Washington Examiner, Byron York reports that key national security departments were not consulted on the decision to give the pantybomber constitutional rights. It appears that Attorney General Eric Holder has a lot to answer for.
…So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer — giving him the right to remain silent and denying the United States potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?
This week that simple question — Who? — became more complicated after several of the administration’s top anti-terrorism officials testified on Capitol Hill. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said he wasn’t consulted before the decision was made. The director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said he wasn’t consulted, either. The secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said she wasn’t consulted. And the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, said he wasn’t consulted. …
…So on Thursday all seven Republicans on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Holder asking for a full explanation: Who made the decision and why, and whether the administration now has “a protocol or policy in place for handling al Qaeda terrorists captured in the United States.” …
The WaPo editors originally backed the Obami decision to give terrorist Abdulmutallab the constitutional rights of the US citizens that he was seeking to murder. Now that it has come to light that many departments and agencies were left out of the loop, the editors are questioning the decision. Some liberals believe that if there is a thorough discussion or summit of some kind, the decision must be a good one. Such logic gives further creedence to the conservative belief that liberals do not know how to keep Americans safe.
UMAR FAROUK Abdulmutallab was nabbed in Detroit on board Northwest Flight 253 after trying unsuccessfully to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear. The Obama administration had three options: It could charge him in federal court. It could detain him as an enemy belligerent. Or it could hold him for prolonged questioning and later indict him, ensuring that nothing Mr. Abdulmutallab said during questioning was used against him in court.
It is now clear that the administration did not give serious thought to anything but Door No. 1. This was myopic, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
…In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, all said they were not asked to weigh in on how best to deal with Mr. Abdulmutallab. Some intelligence officials, including personnel from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, were included in briefings by the Justice Department before Mr. Abdulmutallab was charged. These sessions did provide an opportunity for those attending to debate the merits of detention vs. prosecution. According to sources with knowledge of the discussions, no one questioned the approach or raised the possibility of taking more time to question the suspect. This makes the administration’s approach even more worrisome than it would have been had intelligence personnel been cut out of the process altogether. …
Stephen Spruiell takes exception to Paul Krugman’s assessment of the economy. There’s a Krugman quote here from 2002 when he was suggesting the Fed should create a housing bubble. So, how’d that work out?
…And who could forget this gem from 2002?
To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
(Important note: I did not make that one up.)
Can we please stop taking recession-fighting advice from Paul Krugman? Really. Any day now.
Sabrina Eaton in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer writes about an Obama fan/activist using deception to get letters to the editor published.
Ellie Light sure gets around.
In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers. Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.
“It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.
…Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses. …
Seems the pajamas news media-types are helping root out another liberal deception. Patterico is compiling the newspapers and websites that published the Ellie Light letter. Can we get some Russian hackers to track “Ellie Light” down?
…Like Ben Smith at Politico.
And the Washington Times.
And a blog at USA Today.
And the Sheboygan Press in Wisconsin. And the Stevens Point Journal in Wisconsin — listing an address of Algoma, Wisconsin.
…And in TheUnion.com, listing an address of Grass Valley, CA.
…On an unrelated note, recall that recently, Glenn Greenwald flagged the fact that Obama’s pal (and head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) Cass Sunstein recently wrote this paper suggesting something sounding a lot like Astroturfing:
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).
…P.S. If you find other examples, please leave them in comments with a link. Many more updates in the extended entry.
…And my current favorite so far, The Bangkok Post — the “World’s Window to Thailand.” No hometown provided.
Eric at Classical Values has a little fun with “Ellie Light”. You’ll have to see the photo to get the joke.
Chris Hafner at Car Lust Blog celebrates the internal combustion engine and the gasoline-powered car.
…Think of a one-gallon container of liquid–a typical milk container, for example. With only that much gasoline, depending on conditions and driving style, a brand new Honda Fit will drive 40 miles, possibly more, before it runs out of fuel. …
In absolute terms, 40 miles is a significant amount of distance. Think of the most common means of transportation before cars became common. Forty miles represents six hours of travel from a sailing ship traveling at a steady six knots. It represents five hours of travel from a horse trotting at a steady eight mph. It represents two days of travel from a cross-country wagon train. A late 19th-century train could cover 40 miles distance nearly as quickly as the Fit, but it would would need 1,000-4,000 pounds of coal to do so.
Let’s take a look at the other side of the equation. The Fit is capable of covering those 40 miles on one gallon of fuel, within 40 minutes or less, without drama, and in comfort. The driver would be swaddled in an environment that includes a comfortably upholstered chair, a high-quality sound system with decent acoustics, and with filtered and climate-controlled air. And while we consider the Fit a relatively small and efficient car, it is capable of remarkable utility–it is a 2,500-pound car with a modern safety cage, seating for a family of five, and room for gear. It only takes eight fill-ups and 80 gallons of gas, costing the driver roughly $240, to propel this 2,500-pound object from one side of this continent to the other. That’s an amazing accomplishment for a relatively small amount of fuel. …
Rob Long in the WSJ tells of the passing of a pioneer in the field of hypnotism.
…Dr. Herbert Spiegel—a Freudian analyst who became a trailblazing hypnotist—had died at 95.
Dr. Spiegel treated anxiety, smoking, posttraumatic stress syndrome—and a host of other disorders that I probably also have—with hypnosis. In the 19th century, doctors had experimented with the method—Franz Mesmer more or less invented hypnosis, and Sigmund Freud practiced it in his early days. …
…And there was something disturbing about Dr. Spiegel, too: his efficiency. He put you under, you had a therapeutic conversation, he snapped his fingers, and . . . done. Pay the lady on the way out.
Actors came to him for help with stage fright. People afraid to fly found themselves, after treatment, happily boarding planes. Smokers were cured. In other words, people got better.
And Dr. Spiegel got famous. Well, not famous famous, but known in Manhattan media and political circles as an interesting, effective and fast-acting healer. He even had a regular table at Elaine’s, the Upper East Side hangout with its heyday in the ’60s and ’70s. The names of his clients are confidential, yet when one recalls a few of the more notorious Elaine’s regulars—Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote and George Steinbrenner among them—it’s clear he could have had a lot to work with. …