A lawsuit has been filed on the basis that Dodd-Frank is unconstitutional.
[Friday morning update]
Category Archives: Media Criticism
The Gods Of Socialism
…and the worship of “change”:
“A man like me is born only once every five hundred years,” Ceausescu used to proclaim, over and over. The Romanian media did its part, nicknaming Ceausescu the “Most Beloved Son of the People,” the “Guarantor of the Nation’s Progress and Independence,” and the “Visionary Architect of the Nation’s Future.” In 1989, Ceausescu functioned as the head of state, leader of the Communist Party, commander of the armed forces, chairman of the Supreme Council for Economic and Social Development, president of the National Council of Working People, and chairman of the Socialist Democracy and Unity Front. By that time, the personality cult was extended to Ceausescu’s wife as well. Elena Ceausescu became the country’s first deputy prime minister, chair of the National Council on Science and Technology, and head of the National Council for Science and Education. Elena Ceausescu’s national prominence had grown to the point that her birthday was celebrated as a national holiday, as was her husband’s.
The U.S. Democratic Party also began constructing its own god. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” proclaimed Senator Barack Obama during his electoral campaign as the 2008 nominee for the White House. The leaders of the Democratic Party jumped in, calling him an “American Messiah.”
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” the senator assured the country in his acceptance speech.
After winning the 2008 elections, the Democratic Party’s agenda for “change” began changing the U.S. into a monument to its leader as well. Below is a partial list of projects and places already named after President Obama:
California: President Barack Obama Parkway, Orlando; Obama Way, Seaside; Barack Obama Charter School, Compton; Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy, Los Angeles; Barack Obama Academy, Oakland. Florida: Barack Obama Avenue, Opa-loka; Barack Obama Boulevard, West Park. Maryland: Barack Obama Elementary School, Upper Marlboro. Missouri: Barack Obama Elementary School, Pine Lawn. Minnesota: Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning Elementary, Saint Paul. New Jersey: Barack Obama Academy, Plainfield; Barack Obama Green Charter High School, Plainfield. New York: Barack Obama Elementary School, Hempstead. Pennsylvania: Obama High School, Pittsburgh. Texas: Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy, Dallas.
Change is still the Democratic Party’s theme for the 2012 elections. The current target for change is American capitalism, and this new crusade for change started with the article “Why isn’t capitalism working?” by Lawrence Summers, former head of President Obama’s National Economic Council. According to Summers’ essays, Americans are disillusioned with market capitalism: Only “50% of people had a positive opinion of capitalism, while 40 percent did not.” The reasoning:
[Capitalism produces] inequality and declining social mobility…The problem is real and profound and seems unlikely to correct itself untended. Unlike cyclical concerns, there is no obvious solution at hand.
Those who do not know history…
Obama’s Assertion Of Executive Privilege
Is it valid? More thoughts from Mark Levin:
The right way to proceed is to hold Holder in contempt by resolution of the House and seek authorization from the House for the Committee, by its Chairman, to proceed by civil action to compel production of the documents. (Holder will not enforce a holding of contempt against himself — and by the way, he should have authorized, say, the assistant attorney general for legal counsel, to handle the contempt matter once the House voted as at that point he is representing his own interests and not those of the nation generally). Chairman Issa should file suit in federal court in DC and seek expedited action. There is no need for Senate action. The use of this procedure has been acknowledged by the Congressional Research Service in a 2007 study. Further, a privilege log should be sought by Issa and ordered produced immediately by the court, in camera inspection done promptly by the judge, and a final order entered compelling production of all documents for which no legitimate reason justifies Executive Privilege.
Everyone who thinks the privilege log exists, raise your hands.
Me, neither.
[Update a few minutes later]
The executive privilege claim is frivolous:
Holder’s letter is a remarkable document. Viewed from a strictly technical standpoint, it is a terrible piece of legal work. Its arguments are weak at best; in some cases, they are so frivolous as to invite the imposition of sanctions if they were asserted in court. I will explain why momentarily, but first this observation: if an opposing party requests documents that plainly are protected by a privilege, a lawyer will routinely assert the privilege, on principle, even though there is nothing hurtful to his case in those documents. On the other hand, a lawyer will not assert a lousy claim of privilege unless he badly wants to keep the documents in question out of the opponent’s hands because of their damaging nature. If I am correct that the administration’s assertion of executive privilege is baseless, it is reasonable to infer that the documents, if made public, would be highly damaging to President Obama, Attorney General Holder, or other senior administration officials.
When you consider this, the awful performance of the Solicitor General before SCOTUS, the number of times that SCOTUS has slapped down this administration, has there ever been a more incompetent administration from a legal standpoint?
Well Now We Know For Sure
The White House has implicitly admitted that it knew about Fast&Furious. So what did the president know, and when did he know it?
Between this, and the enemies list, with the IRS going after conservative donors, I feel like I’ve been transported back to the Nixon administration. Except no one died in Watergate.
Anyway, now that executive privilege has been invoked, it’s going to be pretty hard for the media to ignore the story, as they have been for months.
[Update a few minutes later]
More from Andy McCarthy.
[Update a couple minutes later]
…and from (former DOJ prosecutor) Christian Adams as well.
[Update a few minutes later]
When We Created An Economic Boom
…by cutting government spending.
Keynesianism has always been a crock.
Three Fallacies
…in Obama’s public-sector “stimulus” strategy. Not surprising, since he’s demonstrated himself on multiple occasions to be an economic ignoramus.
A Crowdsourcing Request
I’d guess that all of Obama’s speeches are archived somewhere. Could someone do a search on them and compare the number of times he’s used the phrase “create jobs” compares to the number of times he’s used the phrase “create wealth”? I’m guessing the number of uses of the latter is approximately, or exactly zero. If so, it will be fodder for a rant on his Marxist tendencies. You can guess the theme. In fact, here’s the Twitter version: You can create jobs without creating wealth, but it’s very hard to do the latter.
The DREAM Decree
The maddening rhetoric versus reality.
V’ger And Nazis
Thoughts on the cosmos and other stuff from Lileks.
The Scandal Of Our Age
Victor Davis Hanson on the White House leaks. This is the biggest breach of national security since the Rosenbergs gave Stalin the bomb. And it was done deliberately for no reason other than to burnish a president’s reputation in an election year. It should have exactly the opposite effect, except the media remains complicit in it.
Speaking of which, did David Plouffe lie yesterday when Chris Wallace almost had to water board him to get a “yes or no” answer as to whether the president declassified this material so it could be fed to the press?
His answers on the administration’s handling of leaks of national security information were so rehearsed, clumsy and full of forced distractions and faux frustration that if this interview at the Fox studio had been conducted by law enforcement instead of Chris Wallace, Plouffe would have been told he was going for a ride downtown to the police station for further questioning. The administration has something to hide. Plouffe could not have been more parsed, poorly prepared or unconvincing.
So maybe some of the media will cover this properly.