It’s looking like the House will vote tomorrow, but it needs two thirds to pass the Senate bill. The emphasis up until now has been on killing the House bill. Now we’re trying to get the Senate bill passed and signed. Clark Lindsey has details.
[Update, early evening in CA]
Jeff Foust says that the vote may be close. Call your Congressperson.
…and would be, if the press did its job properly:
Fortunately for Schumer, that article ran on page A3 of a Saturday edition, and did not become a big story. The New York press never seriously examined why a New York senator was so focused on the health of a California bank, why Schumer aired his fearful comments so publicly, or how the collapse of IndyMac aligned with the financial interests of donors to Schumer and the DSCC.
…There’s a great deal of disembodied anger at Wall Street in the public today. It is interesting how little of that anger or scrutiny is directed at the senator closest to Wall Street, whose actions, in this case, were strangely fortuitous to the bottom line of his donors.
Interesting, and infuriating.
…from an Iranian president at Yale.
Ronald Reagan was castigated by the bien pensant for calling the evil empire what it was. When the Iranian people attempted to cast off their brutal and tyrannical government, Barack Obama acted as though it was inconveniencing his futile diplomatic efforts.
…is education. Actually I disagree. I’d say that, in terms of advancing the “progressive” agenda, it has been a massive success.
[Update a few minutes]
The president’s hypocritical lip service on school choice, and the reason for it:
Perhaps the president is feeling pressure to adopt reform language because of the attention being paid to the new documentary Waiting for Superman, which charges education unions with the poor state of American education. But the plight of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program falls squarely with certain members of Congress and the Obama administration, which has continually acquiesced to union demands.
These unions are, by a long shot, the largest contributors to members of Congress. The two major education unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), make 95 percent of their political contributions to Democrats. And with a budget of more than $355 million, the NEA spends more on campaign contributions than ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Walmart, and the AFL-CIO combined.
I think this is criminal, at least morally.
An interesting interview with Claire Berlinski (the second of five running this week).
The Pueblo apparently weren’t as peaceful as the multi-cultis want us to believe. One of the many annoying things about political correctness is its whitewashing of the brutality of many aboriginal American cultures, and false history of their supposed environmental sensitivity.
Michael Lotus is optimistic:
My prediction is that we are in for a rough ride, but a happy outcome. The country is making a course correction, reinventing itself. No one else can do this like Americans can, once they decide it has to be done. We are carrying out a once-in-a-century creative destruction of our whole politico-economic structure, and we are going to leave the rest of the world gasping in amazement. These are exciting times, and we are lucky to be here for them.
Hope he’s right.
Thoughts from Megan McArdle, on philosophical straw men.
Moe Lane apologizes to the KGB and the Mafia:
Recently, I compared Alan Grayson to an ex-KGB agent who was now engaged in a second career as a Mafia pimp. I don’t know what I was thinking: the KGB tried not to hire babbling fools, and neither does the Mafia.
Yes, it really was uncalled for. On the other hand, no apology necessary for this question: is Alan Grayson the most loathesome member of Congress? Could be, though the competition is pretty stiff. Hopefully not for long, though.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Wow. How bad is Grayson? So bad that even MSNBC says that he’s gone too far.
As I’ve been pointing out for months, space policy is one of the few areas in which the Obama administration isn’t socialist by inclination.