Some cheery thoughts from Marc Faber.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
It Depends
So Much For The “Wiretapping”
James O’Keefe has copped a misdemeanor plea. David Schuster (and Chris Gerrib) are in mourning.
Transparency
Or rather, opacity. The Department of (In)Justice is being sued to release the New Black Panther documents. As the article notes, if the Republicans take over one or both houses in November, they’ll have a lot tougher time stonewalling next year.
Just To Clarify
Citizens Against Government Waste has come out with a white paper opposing continuing Constellation, and to buttress their case, they cite the piece I wrote at National Review a few weeks ago:
An April 21, 2010 editorial in the National Review referred to Constellation as “a programmatic disaster,” while the Washington Post has referred to it as “ill-conceived” and “under-funded.” For the National Review and the Washington Post to agree, something must be seriously off-track.
This implies that it was an editorial position of the magazine, which it was not, though the WaPo’s was. National Review has taken no editorial stance on the issue, as far as I know (though it would be interesting to see what it would be if they did). It was just part of a give and take between me and Bob Costa.
[Update a few minutes later]
I should also note that the WaPo and I don’t really agree, other than that Constellation should end. They want to end human spaceflight entirely, at least if it’s funded by NASA. Of course, the hysterical opponents of the new plan, who apparently can’t read a budget document or the myriad RFIs that have been coming out recently, think that the two are synonymous.
I Can’t Wait For November
Jeff Foust tweets the latest idiotic comment from Alan Grayson:
Rep. Grayson: if Apollo 13 had been comm’l, all those 100s of engineers would have been replaced by a 20yr-old in Grateful Dead tshirt. (?!)
Was this supposed to be clever?
Can this guy possible win reelection? I wonder what the current polls say?
[Update]
Oh, barf:
Rep. Griffith calls Ares 5 “the soul of America” to the rest of the world.
I hope he loses his primary.
[Update a few minutes later]
Geez, it gets stupider by the minute:
Griffith: if we put space out to competitive bid, might as well walk off the court and hand it over to Russia and China.
That’s right, because allowing American free enterprise to deliver NASA astronauts to orbit is exactly like “handing it over to Russia and China.” You know, just like having Fedex and airliners deliver logistics and troops to the theater is just like handing it off to the commies.
You’d think that these people would pull their heads out at least once in a while, just so they could breathe.
Shocked
Only a Harvard professor could be surprised that when government grows, private enterprise shrinks. Well, OK, that’s not fair. Lots of schools could have professors who would be shocked at that. And at least the business school professor finds it concerning.
Taking The “New” Out Of News
But I’ll bet that Pinch Sulzberger still doesn’t know why his paper is going out of business.
And more thoughts from Matt Welch on the media narrative and its double standards:
Constituents Using a Forum to Register Displeasure With Representative: Spooky!* 700 Angry Protesters on a Bankster’s Front Lawn: “About damn time”
Can you imagine if DC police had escorted a mob to the house of a news exec during the Bush administration? See, that would be fascism. But Obama’s purple-shirted thugs? Not so much.
How A Regime Works
As the professor notes, imagine the White House press corps accepting a private lecture on what kinds of questions to ask from, say, Ari Fleischer. They’re supposed to be watchdogs, but when there’s a Democrat in the White House or running Congress, they’re lap dogs.
“Progressives”
Lileks finds an interesting quote from prohibition days:
There may be no clearer demonstration of the drys’ pragmatic acceptance of every variety of ally than a comment made by Mabel Willebrandt – a federal official, a feminist, a progressive – when she was asked about the faithfully dry Ku Klux Klan: “I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets, if they enjoy that sort of thing.”
I’m always amazed at how many “progressive” ideas (gun control, minimum wage, unionization) have their roots in racism (the fascist dictator Woodrow Wilson being a canonical example). People who want to call themselves “progressive” today (like Hillary Clinton) might be amazed too, if they knew their own intellectual history. Speaking of which, I loved this:
True story. A few years ago, when Katie first came to CBS News, I worked as the editor of her blog “Couric & Co.” One afternoon, I had a meeting with her in her office overlooking the CBS newsroom. Her suite of offices is gorgeous: white-on-white, with a marble desk and gorgeous black-and-white prints on the walls.
(Think “The Devil Wears Prada,” and you’ll get the picture. Staffers used to refer to it as “The White Palace” or, more derisively, “White Castle.”) On the back wall is a lovely, dramatic picture of Jackie Kennedy and her children. Other iconic women on the walls included Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Audrey Hepburn. When Katie arrived for our meeting, I was admiring the pictures, but noticed one woman who was unfamiliar to me. “Who’s that?,” I asked.
“Margaret Sanger,” she replied.
So is Katie into eugenics, too? Is she a fascist, or an historically ignorant dolt?