Over at Reason, Nick Gillespie has a mostly insightful and important rumination on the very American people who descended on Washington, D.C. for Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally. His take on the role of religion, however, is a little off. Okay, maybe a lot off.
Gillespie notes that Beck "is channeling a very strong tradition in American with regards to religion and the public square." He describes the objective of that tradition as "'embracing' God and putting him back in the center of our lives, both private and public." But Gillespie thinks that any "anxiety" about "turning God [...] out of the public square" is misplaced, because "politicians are far more publicly pious than they used to be." He admits "that may be less important than the feeling" -- but can't identify any rational source for that feeling. This is a mistake.
But the truth is hiding in plain sight, between the lines of Gillespie's otherwise clear-eyed synopsis. ...
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At the Washington Examiner, Mark Tapscott reports that "one of President Obama's earliest policy moves on the energy and environment front has been shut down by a federal judge."
U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ruled Thursday that Ken Salazar, Obama's Secretary of the Interior, exceeded his lawful authority in March 2009 when he suspended 77 oil and gas leases on western federal lands that had been awarded to high bidders. [...] "'the secretary exceeded his statutory authority by withdrawing leases after determining which parcels were to be leased and after holding a competitive lease during which the BLM named the plaintiffs high responsible bidders," said Benson' [...].
This case is more important as a political precedent than as a legal one, for it indicates that at least one judge has decided to enforce the letter of the law in case that involves oil and gas leases on federal lands. The issue here is of massive importance because the United States owns huge chunks of western lands over which it has well-nigh complete discretion to lease, or not to lease (to paraphrase Hamlet) these lands. ...
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Our extra-special star Guest Contributor Harry Shearer had to wish us a fond adieu a bit ahead of schedule, but that won't stop us from looking back on his wit and wisdom, as we are wont to do, today -- the day before our next Guest Contributor makes his debut.
So reckon once again with the strange spectacle of the 5th anniversary coverage of Katrina... revisit the uncanny way the media tells itself -- and you -- what it wants to hear... and thrill to the speech of a President just in from planet Zarg.
All told, a very fine show indeed, Mr. Shearer. Thanks a million for dropping in. Here's a cheer for your docu, and a tip of the hat to you!
Here at Ricochet, we’ve been paying close attention to the race in Michigan’s 15th congressional district, where Dr. Rob Steele is waging a brave campaign against Democratic Congressman John Dingell. Dingell has served in the House since 1955. John Dingell has been causing trouble in Washington, in other words, for four years longer than Fidel Castro has been causing trouble in Havana.
The Steele campaign just conducted a new poll. The results? Remarkably good.
- Although Dingell leads by nine points, Steele wins among Independents
- Among voters who have heard of Dr. Steele--still only 39 percent of the district--Dr. Steele leads by ten points
- When voters learn that Dr. Steele is a first-time candidate whose top priority will be to stop the out-of-control spending in Washington, he moves into a five point overall lead
You don’t have be Karl Rove or James Carville to see what this means. To win, Dr. Steele needs to do only one thing: get his message out.
To help, click here.
I walked past the news agent at the airport in San Francisco last night and nearly dropped my coffee on the ground when I saw the cover of Time. Blue background, Star of David fashioned out of daisies on the cover, and the headline, in the center: "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace." No sub-headline.
The article itself is by Karl Vick, whom I know vaguely--he was in my introductory Turkish class about five years ago--and it's actually well-written and well-observed. He makes some good points. Judith would agree with some of them, I think. But I dare say few people are going to buy the magazine and read the article or think through the points he's making or, particularly, read through to the last paragraphs, which reveal that his slant is ironic and that of course Israelis are desperate for peace--every last one of them has a kid who is either in the army or going to be soon!--but despairing of the prospect and doing the best they can to get on with things anyway, because that's the only way they can get through their days without going mad. ...
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Politico reports on the latest Dem tactic to throw off a heavy whiff of desperation:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s attorneys sent Simon & Schuster a letter Thursday, hinting that the publisher may have violated several campaign finance laws that prohibit in-kind contributions by corporations by posting on its website a promotional video for a book penned by three top House Republicans.
At issue: the publishing house’s promotion of “Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders” by Reps. Eric Cantor of Virginia, Kevin McCarthy of California and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The DCCC’s attorneys at Perkins Coie sent the New York-based publisher a letter saying it’s improper for a corporation to host a video on its website that directs viewers to a website that solicits contributions for Republican candidates for Congress.
...
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Cosmologist Steven Hawking and physicist Leonard Mlodinow publish an excerpt from their upcoming atheist apologetic “The Grand Design” in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Ignorance of nature's ways led people in ancient times to postulate many myths in an effort to make sense of their world. But eventually, people turned to philosophy, that is, to the use of reason—with a good dose of intuition—to decipher their universe. Today we use reason, mathematics and experimental test—in other words, modern science.
So, using “reason, mathematics and experimental test” we get all the benefits of modern life, including proof that the order we see around us arose spontaneously due to random chance. A problem with this argument, highlighted in recent years by sophisticated computer simulations, is that our universe seems custom-tuned for our existence, making chance evolution highly improbable. The slightest variation of one of many fundamental physical laws would make impossible, in Douglas Adams’ words, “life, the universe and everything." But there’s no need to consider agnosticism. Our intrepid cosmologists ride to the rescue:
That is not the answer of modern science. ...
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Like a lot of Americans, I’m spending more and more time on job-search sites. I’m really, really hoping I don’t have to go back to work, but it’s sort of looking that I’ll have to. We’ve already cut down our grocery list to the barest essentials (no more US Magazine or wine), and I’m giving up my beloved 2% Greek yogurt for 0% Greek yogurt because, for some reason, only the 0% kind is sold at Costco. My husband is dropping his cell phone line. We’re probably going to get rid of our cable TV.
Even with these cuts, I still may have to return to work. So, I’ve been hitting JournalismJobs.com a couple of times a day. The chances of finding a part-time job, near our house Connecticut, which has me only working the evening and weekend hours when my husband is home, and which suits my unique (limited) skills are probably slim.
But lookee here! This morning, I see something I’m perfectly qualified for. It’s for a people person who is interested in promoting sports. That’s got “me” all over it. Wait, what’s this? ...
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In China, demand for official publications is booming. In fact, one public restroom had to post the following notice:
Which, translated, means: Use of propaganda as toilet paper is strictly forbidden. ...
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Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum laments that monetarists have “followed Milton Friedman to the grave.” Monetarist, of course, is a term used to identify those who agree with the ideas of the great free-market economist who died in 2006. But I see neither those ideas nor their adherents going to the grave. Indeed, the experience of the economic crisis is proving that Milton Friedman’s ideas were right all along, and they are gaining favor.
Two of Friedman’s most famous ideas in the macroeconomic sphere were (1) that monetary policy should follow a simple policy rule and (2) that discretionary fiscal policy is not useful for combating recessions, and indeed could make things worse. Both ideas have been reinforced by the facts during the recent crisis.
The first idea is reinforced by the evidence that the crisis was brought on by the failure of the Fed to follow the rules-based monetary policy that had worked well for 20 years before the crisis. Instead, it deviated from such a policy by keeping interest rates too low for too long from 2002 to 2005. ...
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If necessity is mother of invention, then adversity is the wellspring of salty language. So while negotiating through a thick fog of government and labor union ineptitude today, I lit my way through the darkness with fiery descriptions.
One of the government's responses to the 9/11 attacks was to beef up security at our ports. I’m not sure what ordeal ships must endure at port, but for the landlocked, it is a nightmare. My delivery today was to the Georgia Ports Authority, in Savannah, GA. Knowing that the port is a big place, and not having any directions on where exactly in that big place I was to go, I called the number provided.
Port Lady: “Georgia Ports Authority.”
Me: Yes Ma’am, I have a delivery to your location this afternoon, and need directions please. I’ll be traveling north from Jacksonville….
Port Lady: “Do you have a Twick?”
Me: Do I have a what?
Port Lady: Do you have a Twick?
Me: What’s a twick? I have Special Dark candy bars in the truck, if you…
Port Lady: A Twick card. You must have a Twick card to get in the port. ...
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"Summer's almost gone," Jim Morrison sings on my laptop. "When summer's gone, where will be be?" Tell us, Mr. President!
Asked to what degree he regrets his administration's decision to call this Recovery Summer, the president stammered then said, “I don't regret the notion that we are moving forward, but because of the steps that we've taken. And I'm going to have a press conference next week, where, after you guys are able to hear where we're at, we'll be able to answer some specific questions.”
He emphasized: “the key point I'm making right now is that the economy is moving in a positive direction, jobs are being created; they're just not being created as fast as they need to, given the big hole that we experienced…We're moving in the right direction. We just have to speed it up.”
Given the big hole that we experienced? The size of unemployment isn't the rate of re-employment. We're not moving quickly enough in the right direction because -- well, the President would tell you, but he's too busy stammering. So I'll tell you. ...
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It's been a couple of weeks since news came out that 18% of Americans think Obama is Muslim. Even more shocking, to me, was that 43% didn't have a clue what his religion was. Just over a third identified Obama as Christian.
Ann Coulter jokingly suggested Obama was an atheist in her recent column. The last line of her piece made me laugh out loud:
There's only one true Christian liberal in the country and that's Mike Huckabee.
David Kopel defends Obama's Christianity over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Big thinker Roger Ebert, meanwhile, says that if George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh don't sign a statement vouching for President Obama's confession of faith, they will have committed -- and I'm serious here -- "a crime against America."
I had no idea Roger Ebert felt so strongly against Islam.
Public service announcement: campaign watcher Jay Cost has a new home at The Weekly Standard. When he's not writing what you need to know, he's linking to it.
Case in point: Jay points us to Politico's take on faltering union fortunes this election season:
Facing an angry and skeptical electorate, the AFL-CIO plans to scale back its political advertising budget for the midterm elections, convinced that its members can more effectively reach voters than the usual raft of TV spots in support of Democratic candidates.
I'm over the moon for face-to-face political arguments -- that's citizenship in action. I'm just not terribly certain that the unions mean quite what they're saying. After all, they'll "spend about $2.5 million on direct mail and $2 million more on phone banking." And how's this for outreach?
Making sure they’re maximizing turnout of their members and that they’re doing the important persuasion to make sure that 65 to 70 percent support the union candidate, that’s going to be vital. None of those candidates win without those votes,” Rosenthal said. ...
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A federal court has ruled that “Ladies Night” is all right. The Manhattan-based Second Court of Appeals rejected a claim by Den Hollander, a self-proclaimed "Men's Rights" lawyer, who insisted that “Ladies Night” promotions such as half-price drinks and cheaper admission were unconstitutional, a result of “40 years of lobbying and intimidation, [by] the special interest group called ‘Feminism.’ "
Hollander insisted that because nightclubs are licensed by the state, the special deals required them to adhere to the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Without court intervention, Hollander claimed “none other than what’s left of the Wall Street moguls” will be able to afford to attend nightclubs. [...] According to the New York Daily News, Hollander is planning to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. -- NBC Los Angeles
I would not lose sleep over this one. First off, there is no appeal to the United States Supreme Court as of right. Only a petition for certiorari, which in this case will be denied. The simple ground is indeed that bars are not, last I looked, state actors, even if they are political watering holes. ...
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Mark Steyn returns. Need we say more? Ok, we will: we cover GZM, Bridget Bardot, Obama's speech, expectations for this fall, The Dambusters, Michele Rhee, the Beck rally, and we try to get to the bottom of where Mark's been the past few months. You'll just have to listen to hear the answer.
Get your hot links here:
- The NYT GZM Poll is here
- The Dambusters on IMDB. View the trailer and the AMEX commercial (H/T Ed Driscoll).
- Shelby Steele's Ricochet post on The State of Black America
- Michelle Rhee's Wikipedia entry
- Emily Esfahani Smith's Ricochet post on the Glenn Beck rally
- Claire Berlinski's post on Ricochet and the ensuing debate on banning the burqa
Music from this week's episode:
Direct link to this week's show or better yet, subscribe and have the show delivered automagically each week.
Not long ago, David Brooks was churning out column after column trying to tell Obama how to accomplish successfully what he wanted to do. Now things have changed. The new theme? How Obama could have been a success. Today's alternate history:
Americans didn’t like all of it. But this wasn’t conventional big government liberalism. The Democrats seemed to be a serious party attending to serious things. When November 2010 rolled around, the unemployment rate was still high, but Democratic leaders had prepared voters for that. In the meantime, America was rebuilding its core, strengthening itself for better days ahead.
Dem silverback Pat Caddell can't be alone in having grown supremely frustrated by what's happened to his party under Obama's leadership. I'll leave the latest Hillary-in-'12 updates to Rob. Meanwhile, the question, which implicates Hillary but is much bigger than Hillary, remains: will the Clintonian Dems mount an insurrection? When? And how?
First the independents spurned him. Then the babies. Now, in a truly stunning development, Obama is losing the under-30 demographic:
The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama. Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.
It's almost as if libertarians and conservatives still stand on a vast swath of common ground. What an irony that it would take a generation of college students to remind us of this fact, and that it would be Barack Obama himself who would awaken them to it. The long night of the Obama Zombies might come to an end at last.
In this case, the California Constitution. Over at the WSJ's Law Blog, Ashby Jones reports that the Pacific Justice Institute has failed in its attempt to force Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to defend Prop 8.
Think about it: the voters of a state have lawfully amended their Constitution, and the executive branch responsible for upholding the State Constitution refuses to defend the voters' choice. Aren't they duty-bound to defend Prop 8, provided it is at least arguably consistent with the federal Constitution? Surely Prop 8 meets that minimum threshold, Judge Walker's activist ruling notwithstanding.
Should the executive branch (state or federal) treat the Constitution like a cafeteria plan -- picking and choosing the bits that they want to defend? Isn't that a dangerous precedent?
