Posted by Richard on February 12, 2010
The other day, I mentioned in passing Big Journalism contributor Retracto, the Correction Alpaca. I really like that alpaca — great picture! Thanks to Gary Eaton, Shelli Eaton, and Michael Broderick, Retracto has a theme song, and it's pretty catchy. Check it out!
And for those of you who don't care for rock 'n roll, but like cartoons, there's this version with just the lyrics. Weird. Personally, I much prefer the song.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: humor, journalism, music | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 12, 2010
This story cries out for one Instapundit's trademark "They warned me that if I voted Republican…" posts, but I haven't seen one yet — aha, there it is! CNET reported:
Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.
In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their–or at least their cell phones'–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.
I thought it might be fun to see what the lefties (who for the entire eight Bush years cried "police state!" at the drop of a hat) were saying about this. At Daily Kos, nextstep fretted about what some administration other than this one might do (emphasis added):
This may be more incideous that one would first imagine. How do you feel about attending a protest against a Republican administration, where the government can record that you attended the protest, when you arrived, when you left and where did you go after the event.
But nextstep was quick to give Obama the benefit of the doubt regarding such an "incideous" policy (emphasis in original):
While the article refers to the government as the Obama adinistration, to my knowledge President Obama has not spoken on this issue. The press needs to follow up with the Justice Deprtment and the White House to get them on the record as supporting or opposing this policy.
And nextstep closed with this quintessential example of moral relativism (emphasis added):
Remember even if one believes the Obama administration would not use these powers against people like us – and may even use this power against the worst of the Tea Party activists, it is just a matter of time for the administration to change to a party that we don't trust.
See, even though it would be a good thing to use warrantless tracking to go after our enemies, we have to consider how wrong it would be if our enemies did the same thing to "people like us."
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: privacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 12, 2010
On countless occasions before and since his election, President Obama has repeatedly and forcefully made statements like this one:
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 per year, will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." – Candidate Barack Obama, Sept. 12, 2008, Dover, N.H.
Of course, he broke that pledge early in his presidency, as the Heritage Foundation among others pointed out. And he spent most of his first year fighting for a government takeover of health care that, in both the House and Senate versions, would impose a plethora of indirect taxes (such as on medical devices like crutches) in addition to a massive middle-class mandate that some would argue amounts to a tax.
But now Obama has officially embraced tax agnosticism. Which means, I suppose, that the President is going to vote "present" on tax increases.
Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform had these comments:
You might have seen today that President Obama is now officially "agnostic" about whether a bi-partisan tax increase/deficit commission should raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. A few things here:
- This would directly contravene his campaign promise (repeated again and again throughout the campaign and during his first year in office) to not raise "any form" of taxes on these families, "not one dime." ATR has maintained a full database of this tax promise
- As Jim Pethokoukis of Reuters has pointed out, this could be a subtle signal that Obama is paving the way for a value-added tax (VAT). ATR maintains an Anti-VAT Congressional Caucus
- An agnostic is someone who lacks the conviction of either an atheist, or a believer. It seems pretty clear that President Obama is actually rather zealous in his faith that higher taxes across the board (including for non-affluent households) is the correct public policy goal.
Yeah, the Obama administration is about as agnostic about higher taxes and bigger government as the average New Orleans resident is about the Saints.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: obama, taxes | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on February 12, 2010
In an exercise of historical revisionism that takes my breath away, on the Larry King show Wednesday night, Vice President Joe Biden took credit for the victory in Iraq (emphasis by The Weekly Standard):
I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer.
You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government. I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society.
It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.
Unbe-frickin-lievable. This is the administration whose mantra is "we inherited that."
Upon returning from Iraq in 2007, Biden told Tim Russert:
… There was a big disconnect between the truth of the matter and the reality. I mean, the truth of the matter is that, that the-America's-this administration's policy and the surge are a failure, and that the surge, which was supposed to stop sectarian violence and-long enough to give political reconciliation, there's been no political reconciliation. …
…
The fact of the matter is that there is—that this idea of these security gains we’ve made have had no impact on the underlying sectarian dynamic. None. None whatsoever… And can anybody envision a central government made up of Sunni, Shia and Kurds that’s going to gain the trust and respect of 27 million Iraqis? It’s not going to happen.
…
There’ve been some tactical gains, but they have no ultimate bearing, at this point, on the prospect of there being a political settlement in Iraq that would allow American troops to come home without leaving chaos behind… The central problem is a sectarian war. If every jihadist in Iraq was killed tomorrow, we’d still have a major civil war killing thousands—wounding thousands of Americans and killing hundreds of Americans just since the surge began.
It took less than a minute to find the above and scores of others about Obama, Biden, and associates insisting in 2007 that "Iraq is lost" and opposing the surge that ultimately won the war. Here are some examples from this post:
“I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed the war in 2003. I opposed it in 2004, and 2005 and 2006. I introduced the plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades out of Iraq by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now – not tomorrow, not the next day, not six months from now, but now.”
–Barack Obama, September 12 2007“It’s time to turn the corner in my view, gentlemen. We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home. We should end a political strategy in Iraq that cannot succeed and begin one that can.”
–Joe Biden, September 11 2007…
Petraeus’ report, and the notion that the surge was working, was attacked throughout the day by a Murderer’s Row of Democrats: Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel and the Democrat presidential ticket of 2008, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
…
Harry Reid also led the charge to the rear for the Democrats, beginning in April.
“Now, I believe myself that the secretary of State, the secretary of Defense – and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows – that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.”
–Harry Reid, April 19, 2007 press conference.
Despite the Democrats' denials, declarations of defeat, and determination to derail the Petraeus plan, the surge worked and we won the war in Iraq.
And now this poltroon and his pals are prepared to pat themselves on the back for their "great achievements" in Iraq? Mr. Vice President, have you no shame, sir?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: biden, chutzpah, democrats, iraq | Leave a Comment »
