Thoughts on American exceptionalism (though he doesn’t use that phrase) from Walter Russell Mead.
[Update a few minutes later]
Peripherally related: the new American revolution. This time, it’s against our self-appointed masters in the media. And the people are winning.
Thoughts on the useful idiots in the media and (more importantly and unfortunately) in the voting booths who really believed that electing a socialist law professor with zero business experience would actually result in an improved economy. He needs to get the return key repaired on his keyboard, though.
…is a relic of history. And a dangerous one.
A call to arms from Paul Hsieh. These people don’t realize what totalitarians they’re becoming.
[Update a few minutes later]
A ranking of the fifty states for freedom. As expected, California is among the worst. I was a little surprised to see South Dakota come out so well. I’m also surprised to see that Alaska is so bad.
…when Bill Clinton didn’t? I ask the question over at PJM.
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, maybe this is why the Dems are so mad at Weiner — he lied to the president.
I say big deal. It’s not like the president doesn’t lie to us all the time.
Some lengthy thoughts and suggestions from Steve Hayward. I particularly liked this:
The climate campaign’s monomania for near-term suppression of greenhouse gas emissions through cap and trade or carbon taxes or similar means is the single largest environmental policy mistake of the last generation. The way to reduce carbon emissions is not to make carbon-based energy more expensive, but rather make low- and non-carbon energy cheaper at a large scale, so the whole world can adopt it, not just rich nations. This is a massive innovation problem, but you can’t promote energy innovation by economically ruinous taxes and regulation. We didn’t get the railroad by making horse-drawn wagons more expensive; we didn’t get the automobile by taxing the railroads; we didn’t get the desktop computer revolution by taxing typewriters, slide-rules, and file cabinets. It is time to stop ending the charade that we can enact shell game policies like cap and trade that will do nothing to actually solve the problem, but only increase the price of energy and slow down our already strangled economy. I support sensible efforts for government to promote energy technology breakthroughs, but am against subsidizing uncompetitive technologies.
Bjorn Lombog’s Cool It is a good source of common sense on this as well.
…and the men they love. They probably swooned over Alan Grayson, too.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Beware of feminist men. And “liberal” “men” who don’t get it.
Journalism is back:
MSM political leanings and friendships take precedent over news and news coverage — they simply balked at the idea of covering the “Weinergate” scandal. Rather than investigate, they went on the offensive! Surely the story can’t be trusted, since the source was Breitbart. They mocked those who even discussed it.
How many times will they call a story DOA, only to have Breitbart drop one more thing in their lap? How many times will they ignore a story, just to have New Media show how important it is to the future of the republic?
The MSM reacts to New Media in the same manner they have reacted to Sarah Palin’s bus tour. They mock her every step of the way, then have the gall to be infuriated that they — the press! — are not given her itinerary. They complained about being “forced” to relieve themselves on the side of the road, as if Palin forced them to get in their cars and vans and follow her a la The Beatles arriving in America. The MSM believes that they have — and deserve — a monopoly on the stories we read, and when someone doesn’t fall in line with the old guard attitude, they become petulant.
Well, it was a huge vacuum that something had to fill.
…continues. You’d think that with Adam Gadahn as a source, they’d want to double check, but I guess the story is too good to check for them.
The strangest thing about this is the source. Even the WaPo says that he’s full of it on the auto bailout
We take no view on whether the administration’s efforts on behalf of the automobile industry were a good or bad thing; that’s a matter for the editorial pages and eventually the historians. But we are interested in the facts the president cited to make his case.
What we found is one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan.
Of course, if the Times did it, it would mean the End Times.