Spencerblog

Dick Cheney Was Right...

2010-02-09T07:49:00.003-05:00

... and now President Obama knows it, which is why he is breaking promise after promise when it comes to national security issues.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Dumbest Question of the Century...

2010-02-09T07:24:00.003-05:00

Will 80 million baby boomers bankrupt Social Security?

Umm, yeah. Where have these people been? If this the first they've heard of demographics and actuarial charts?

Green a Bad Bookkeeper, No Thief

2010-02-09T06:59:00.004-05:00

The theft case against former Penn-Delco school board member John Green evaporates.

Defense attorney Michael F.X. Gillin acknowledged that his client “may have been a lousy bookkeeper.” But the attorney provided a report from a defense accountant that Green used his own money to help fund the sports booster club that was financially hurting, and when the dues came in, he would reimburse his accounts.

He was charged with stealing a little more than $16,000 from the club which he started. According to an audit, he paid more than $19,000 of his own money to keep it going.

The DAs office says the investigation is "ongoing." What the hell is that supposed to mean? It's been more than two years since Green was charged. If the charges have been dropped what sort of case can be going on?

Go Mommy.com

2010-02-08T07:52:00.005-05:00

Here's the Super Bowl ad the National Organization for Woman and NARAL didn't want you to see because it is soooooooooo offensive.

Public Unions v. Private Taxpayers

2010-02-08T07:41:00.003-05:00

Michael Barone notices how much public employee unions bleed taxpayers. The time is coming when taxpayers will say enough.

Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. Or they may move, as so many have already done, to states like Texas.

A Man With A Plan

2010-02-08T07:35:00.002-05:00

George Will likes Gov. (President?) Mitch Daniels' and (Vice President?) Paul Ryan's plan for the future of America: lower taxes with a simpler tax code, medical savings accounts, etc. These things have been proposed before, maybe, come 2012, people are ready to listen and act.

Suicide Note on a Scandal

2010-02-08T07:14:00.001-05:00

Headline: I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones"

Well that would significantly reduce his carbon footprint.

On the Brink, Time to Rethink Government

2010-02-08T07:00:00.003-05:00

It's time to get serious about the future. Robert Samuelson says the time for procrastination on entitlement reform is long past. Both political parties are guilty and so are the American people.

Time to extend the SS retirement age to 70 and tax the wealthy more for their social security. Spencerblog's generation is going to bankrupt Spencerblog daughter's generation if Medicare spending is brought under control.

Dig Dig Dig

2010-02-07T11:33:00.001-05:00

One thing Spencerblog is not sorry is not being in Pennsylvania right now. In any case, my print column is up.

Econ Rap War

2010-02-06T19:04:00.002-05:00

Hayek v. Keynes. I want to party with these guys. But now more than ever, there ain't no such thing as a hang-over free stimulus lunch.

Grab by Ankles and Shake

2010-02-05T20:46:00.002-05:00

"Editorial: Rose Tree Media taxpayers deserve break"

And the rest of us?

Who Do You Trust?

2010-02-05T13:42:00.003-05:00

Trial lawyers? Used car salesmen? Climate scientists? Michael Barone says none of the above.

"The global warming movement as we have known it is dead," writes Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations in The American Interest. "The movement died from two causes: bad science and bad politics."

Out of the Frying Pan...

2010-02-05T13:35:00.002-05:00

Here it comes. Here I be.

Don't Yak and Drive

2010-02-04T10:09:00.002-05:00

For some reason cell phone laws don't seem to be effective. Pass them anyway, is the attitude of some legislators. My print column is up.

How NOW Brow (beats) Tebow

2010-02-02T16:02:00.005-05:00

WaPo's Sally Jenkins weighs in on the pro-life ad to air during the Super Bowl.

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Wow! Read the whole thing.

McCarthy v. Holder et al

2010-02-02T12:53:00.007-05:00

With the help of former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden, Andrew McCarthy explains the amazing buffoonery of the Obama Administration when it comes to protecting America from terrorists.

Right this minute, President Obama could designate Abdulmutallab an unlawful enemy combatant (or, as they now call it, an “unprivileged belligerent”) and proceed with his interrogation, unimpeded by a defense lawyer or Miranda restrictions. It is a power he has had every minute since Abdulmutallab’s capture five weeks ago. The case would still be there, and it would still be a slam-dunk, whether it were tried two, three, or five years from now. The only potential downside for the case is no downside at all: Prosecutors would not be able to use any statements he makes.

People can blame the attorney general, and there certainly is plenty for which he should answer. But Holder is a sideshow. These decisions are presidential decisions. The fact that Obama evidently delegates them to Holder does not change that. The policy of surrendering enemy combatants to the civilian-justice system and giving them all the rights of the American citizens whom they are trying to kill is an Obama policy being implemented by Holder; it’s not a Holder policy.

Obama-Style Naivete

2010-02-02T08:52:00.004-05:00

Not even Richard Cohen is made to "feel safer" by Obama's handling of terrorists.

The announced closing of Guantanamo has also suffered from a peculiar Obama-style naivete. It is now apparent that there are some bad hombres there who should be detained way past the time they are eligible for AARP membership. It's true that the world does not like Guantanamo, but then it's also true that the world is not an al-Qaeda target.

Apparently, some on the left are finally getting it when it comes to national security.

Shadowland

2010-02-02T08:09:00.003-05:00

For some reason this story seems awfully familiar.

Time to Grow Up on Obamacare

2010-02-02T07:47:00.010-05:00

On the healthcare debate Politico reports:

Lawrence O’Donnell, the Democratic Senate Finance Committee staff director during the ’93-’94 health care debate, said we’re now witnessing reform’s death throes – and Democrats know it. The party will not be able to pass another reform bill through the Senate, period.   “Pelosi said that, ‘We don’t have the votes for passing the Senate bill’ and that should have just ended it. Any discussion of another scenario is juvenile,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.” 

As late as yesterday, The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn claimed that healthcare is "At the two-yard line" and only needs to be pushed into the end zone. It's on the two-yard line alright, their OWN two-yard line. Democrats are just trying to avoid a sack for a safety.

Larry to Jonathan: Grow up and get real.

UPDATE: A week-old clip of Chris Matthews schooling liberal partisan Rep. Alan Grayson about how legislation is passed and chastising him for sticking to the same silly talking points.

The Real John Edwards

2010-02-01T08:40:00.003-05:00

A review of Andrew Young's "The Politician."

The politician, in question, John Edwards.

How can it miss?

The New Class Warfare: Public v. Private

2010-02-01T08:25:00.004-05:00

Haven't seen too many Republicans point out that the only jobs the Democratic stimulus have protected are government jobs.

It is understandable that the Democratic party would do this given that it is the "party of government" and therefore it is protecting one of its most important special interests. But you would think Repbulicans could make a little hay with this information.

Jeff Jacoby runs the numbers. Private sector workers and companies can be justifiably outraged at the disparity.

Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed. According to a recent analysis by USA Today, federal workers making six-figure salaries - not including overtime and bonuses - “jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months.’’ The surge has been especially pronounced among the highest-paid employees. At the Defense Department, for example, the number of civilian workers making $150,000 or more quintupled from 1,868 to 10,100. At the recession’s start, the Transportation Department was paying only one person a salary of $170,000. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees were drawing paychecks that size.

All the while, the federal government has been adding jobs at a 10,000-a-month clip. Between December 2007 and June 2009, federal payrolls exploded by nearly 10 percent. “Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring,’’ USA Today observes, “during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.’’ And to add public-sector insult to private-sector injury, data from the Office of Personnel Management show the average federal salary is now roughly $71,000 - about 76 percent higher than the average private salary.

Was this the hope and change you were looking for?

Which Are You?

2010-02-01T07:53:00.003-05:00

Harvey Mansfield ends his insightful piece on Obama's post-partisan presidency with a question:

What is it in human beings that makes some of them love progress more than liberty and makes others love liberty more than progress?

A Rich Argument for Bad Manners

2010-01-31T13:23:00.003-05:00

NYT's Frank Rich, theater critic turned left-wing, Republican-basher, offered up this gem of a column today. Here's the lead:

HANDS down, the State of the Union’s big moment was Barack Obama’s direct hit on the delicate sensibilities of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The president was right to blast the 5-to-4 decision giving corporate interests an even greater stranglehold over a government they already regard as a partially owned onshore subsidiary. How satisfying it was to watch him provoke Alito into a “You lie!” snit. Here was a fight we could believe in.

Rich is certainly no stickler for the truth or common manners when it comes to throwing red meat to his liberal readers.

First of all, Alito didn't say, "You lie." Having just heard the President of the United States mischaracterize the substance of the court's ruling in Citizens United v. the FEC in order to encourage pro-censorship Democrats jumped to their feet to applaud his attack on the court, Alito sadly shook his head. He is said to have mouthed the words, "Not true."

That Frank Rich thinks using the theater of the SOTU to launch a partisan attack on the Supreme Court is a brilliant political move, just goes to show the kind of tin-earred arrogance the New York Times is becoming well known for. The "we" in the "fight we can believe in" are, of course, Rich and his fellow New York liberals. If they think having the president publicly berate one of the few Washington institutions that the public still has a modicum of faith in, well they should certainly have at it.

The Supreme Court is hardly above criticism. But there is a time and a place for everything. And in this case not only was the president showing a case of very bad manners, he was flat-out wrong on the substance of his assertion.

The New York Times and its writers are on record as believing that some corporations (theirs, of course) deserve to have their First Amendment rights protected and respected by politicians and the government, while others not so much.

Ain't that Rich?

Scandal Schmandal

2010-01-31T08:52:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the world of the mini-scandal. They're bite-sized, low calorie, but plenty filling. My print column is up.

UPDATE: Meet Retracto: the Correction Alpaca. We all make mistakes. Getting asked for a correction by this polite and lovable character can take some of the sting out of them.

Pro-Choice Censors Against Life and Free Speech

2010-01-31T08:06:00.006-05:00

Pro-Choice Abortion activists want a Pro-life, Pro-family ad pulled from the Super Bowl. The ad tells the story of Pam Tebow's difficult pregnancy and how doctors recommended she have an abortion to protect her own life. She didn't and ended up with a son named Tim who went on to win the Heisman Trophy as quarterback for the Florida Gators.

Pro-Choice advocates are claiming the ad could lead to the killing of more late-term abortion providers.

CBS is correctly refusing to pull the ad. It is being paid millions to run it. The network says it has changed its policy when it comes to advocacy ads, accepting more of them instead of refusing them.

That Pro-Abortion activists want the Tebows pro-life message censored by CBS. Instead of trying to shut the Tebows up, Kim Gandy, NARAL and the rest should pay for their own ad to promote whatever message they want to sell. As of now the message they are sending is their desire to strangle the pro-life message in its crib. Not very attractive. But then neither are late-term abortions.

More on the controversy here.