Politics, Government & Public Policy: June 2009 Archives
Dana Perino points out the bizarre nature of Mark Sanford's affair.
Now we have a real doozy — another promising politician, he, too, with a full head of hair, white smile, and nice family, in the most bizarre scandal to date. Ditching his detail, flying to the southern hemisphere for an assignation, while his staff told reporters that he was . . . hiking . . . the Appalachian trail? Say what? I’d like to have been in the room when the spokesperson drew straws to determine who was going to go out an explain that whopper. Had they not seen the e-mails the media now has posted for all to see? Do any of these characters — and I use the term loosely — think of what their wives and children are going to go through? Do they really think they’re going to get away with all of this?
It's so bizarre that it's almost inconceivable to me that a sitting governor could expect to get away with this. The wife and I were talking last night, and we're both convinced that there's more to this story than has so far been revealed. The details thus far simply don't make sense. Something is being covered up that's worse than the supposed affair.
In a fascinating confluence of political threads, it looks like Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor once served on a government agency that pressed for more home loans for un-creditworthy borrowers.
Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama's nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court, served on the board of a New York State agency charged with providing discounted mortgages to middle and low income homebuyers from 1987 to 1992. During the time, she was a consistent advocate of pushing the agency to provide more mortgages to low-income home buyers. In short, she advocated the kind of aggressive lending practices that helped create the mortgage meltdown.
Of course 1992 was a long time ago, but what does this history say about the quality of her judgment?
(HT: DD.)
Is it shocking that Senator Durbin used secret information to rip off ordinary investors right before the market collapsed in October, 2008? Well, it's a cruel abuse of power, but to tell the truth it isn't that shocking. Studies have shown that Senators' investments regularly beat the market by 12%!
The study found that during the boom years of 1993-98, a majority of US Senators were trading stocks - and beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. By comparison, corporate insiders beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent.Financial experts interviewed for this story say the senators' collective achievement is a statistical stunner, too big to be a mere coincidence.
In order to achieve these results, crooked dealings like Senator Durbin's must be common among our political class. So by all means lets tar and feather Durbin, but we're fooling ourselves if we stop with him.
Sonia Sotomayor was already wiser than any white male thanks to her genitalia and skin color, but just recently her judicial-y wisdom has skyrocketed thanks to yet another obstacle she is overcoming: a broken ankle!
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor hobbled through a packed day of meetings on Capitol Hill Monday after breaking her ankle in an early morning airport stumble, then boarding a flight from New York to Washington to visit senators who will vote on her confirmation. ...Sotomayor made the meetings with senators despite her injury. She entered the Capitol for a meeting with Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, on crutches, wearing a white cast covered at the foot with a black soft bootie. Asked how she was feeling, Sotomayor said, "I feel fine, thank you."
How brave! Sotomayor is an inspiration to everyone with a light brown vagina. Fortunately she's getting the gentle, affirmative treatment she deserves due to her tragically victimized condition.
The injury changed the tone slightly on an otherwise high-intensity round of meetings that are part job interview for Sotomayor, part preview of a pressure-filled set of confirmation hearings.Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., signed Sotomayor's cast during their session. Her fellow Louisianan, Republican Sen. David Vitter, had a bag of ice and a pillow on hand when the judge arrived at his office, telling her to "please be seated and relax."
Although I was personally skeptical before, Sotomayor's broken ankle has converted me: I'm now tingling in anticipation to see her wisely limp into the Supreme Court and wisely seat her Latina genitals behind the bench.
I'm so sick of hearing about how the "stimulus" spending is going to "create or save jobs". The phrase is rhetorical hand-waving the Obama Administration made up to give themselves cover when the stimulus plan didn't have any visible beneficial effects.
Obama admitted his own dissatisfaction with the progress but said his administration would ramp up stimulus spending in the coming months. The White House acknowledged it has spent only $44 billion, or 5 percent, of the $787 billion stimulus, but that total has always been expected to rise sharply this summer."Now we're in a position to really accelerate," Obama said.
He also repeated an earlier promise to create or save 600,000 jobs by the end of the summer.
"You're fired. Just kidding!" Times 600,000,000! I just "created or saved" 600,000,000 jobs! Considering how many jobs have been lost in the past few months, how are we supposed to measure "saved" jobs? It's absurd, and yet the media keeps reporting the "create or save" claim as if it has any meaning at all.
The economy has shed 1.6 million jobs since the stimulus measure was signed in February, far overshadowing White House announcements estimating the effort has saved 150,000 jobs. Public opinion of Obama's handling of the economy has declined along with the jobs data.
Estimating! The White House "estimates" the level of success of its programs, but because the whole thing is so ephemeral there's no way for anyone else to verify anything! And yet this is reported as "news". Why don't we just cut out the middle man, kill off the media, and broadcast Obama's press releases directly?
Victor Davis Hanson writes about Obama the body-snatcher:
In any case, we are happier waking up as alien duplicates. At least no one is dying in Iraq that we know of. Our Predator drones no longer kill anyone besides terrorists. Military tribunals, renditions, and wiretaps are a-okay. GM and Chrysler are finally "readjusting." The Muslim world likes us now. If $2 trillion deficits are okay, why not $3 trillion? Terrorists are unmentioned and so no longer exist. Europeans ask why can't they have their own Obama. Even the likes of Pravda and Hugo Chávez swear that we are more leftist and PC than they they ever were. No more silly movies like Rendition or Redacted, since both protocols are now approved. Everyone is proud of the U.S. again. We've got a president who finally cares enough to remind us to inflate our tires and wash our hands. Only a few problems remain — mostly those red-eyed hold-outs who won't go to sleep and so swear that Justice Sotomayor said more than twice that Latinas are wiser than white men, when we know she really didn't, or at least didn't mean it.
There's absolutely no way that the Obama date night cost a mere $70,000.
The romantic jaunt is estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £45,000 in transport and security costs - because the date was in New York.The President used three planes, one to carry the couple and two to ferry aides and reporters all the way from Washington.
The cost of each flight was thought to be nearly £15,000.
The bill was pushed even higher with the use of two helicopters, one to take the Obamas to catch their plane in Washington and another to zip the party into Manhattan from JFK airport.
Police also shut down New York streets for the motorcade to pass through so they could get to their date on time.
The £45,000/$70,000 number doesn't include the standard expenses the President incurs every time he leaves the White House: additional Secret Service agents, the motorcade itself (plus getting it to NYC), additional communication needs, and lots more.
The $70,000 must just be above and beyond what it would have cost him to go see a show in Washington, DC. In actuality, it costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars every time the President goes out rather than staying at the White House. There's no doubt that some excursions are necessary for the good of the country, but if Obama were really serious about shared sacrifice he would stay home with a DVD instead of going out for non-business reasons.
(HT: Gateway Pundit.)
