Category Archives: National Review Online

I waded into the debate a couple of days ago.

This is awesome: "Hey Ayatollah, leave those kids alone!"

Hat tip: Kyle Smith.

After a two-week surge by Democrats, Republicans have regained their lead on Gallup’s generic congressional ballot. According to Gallup, registered voters now favor the GOP by a five-point margin, 48 percent to 43 percent.

Gallup points out in its analysis that the five-point edge is “not statistically significant,” but it does represent a “return to the prevailing 2010 pattern, seen since mid-March, whereby Republicans were tied or held a slight advantage over Democrats in most Gallup Daily tracking weekly averages.”

Republicans' resurgence this past week could simply represent a return to the prior norm, but may also have been spurred by the Afghanistan war documents leak, the federal judge's ruling that blocked the implementation of certain aspects of the Arizona immigration law, and perhaps ethics investigations into two powerful senior Democratic members of the House, Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters.

If Republicans can keep up these numbers among registered voters, Gallup predicts that there could be “major seat gains” for the party in November. President Obama’s approval rating, it adds, remains flat at 45 percent.

In Byron’s piece on the Gore stuff, we read this: “Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her ‘to just suck it up; otherwise, the world’s going to be destroyed from global warming.’”

That reminded me of a great hit from the Lewinsky era. Time magazine’s Nina Burleigh said, “I would be happy to give him” -- Bill Clinton -- “[oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”

And let me also remember Gus Savage, the Chicago congressman who set himself on a Peace Corps volunteer -- black, like the congressman himself -- in Zaire. He said, “Oh, come on, baby, when you help the shepherd, you help the whole flock.” He also said, if she submitted to him, she would be helping “the movement.” Later, when the young woman reported the congressman’s actions, he called her “a traitor to the black movement.”

Savage was voted out of office -- in favor of Mel Reynolds, who was later arrested for preying on underage girls. Oh, well. America the Beautiful. America the Screwed Up.

As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic  world. But I found myself making certain claims about Republicans that I didn't know if they could be backed up. So I thought, "why don't we ask them directly?" And so, this massive poll, by non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000 of over 2,000 self-identified Republicans, was born.

The results are nothing short of startling.

It's a long poll, so the results are summarized below the fold. For a direct link to the poll's crosstabs, click here.

Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country. Their base are conspiracy mongers who don't believe Obama was born in the United States, that he is the second coming of Lenin, and that he is racist against white people. They already want to impeach him despite the glaringly obvious lack of high crimes or misdemeanors. If any Republican strays and decides to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks. Even the Maine twins have quit cooperating out of fear of their homegrown teabaggers.  

Given what their base demands, and this poll illustrates them perfectly, it's no wonder the GOP is the party of no.

Daily Kos To Sue Former Pollster

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas announced today he will file a lawsuit against MD-based pollster Research 2000, alleging that polls Research 2000 was conducting for the liberal blog were fabricated.
Moulitsas today published a report by three readers he describes as "statistics wizards" that he says shows "quite convincingly" that Research 2000 was manufacturing the results of weekly national polls.
"Based on the report of the statisticians, it's clear that we did not get what we paid for," Moulitsas wrote on his website today.
"We were defrauded by Research 2000, and while we don't know if some or all of the data was fabricated or manipulated beyond recognition, we know we can't trust it. Meanwhile, Research 2000 has refused to offer any explanation."

I have just published a report by three statistics wizards showing, quite convincingly, that the weekly Research 2000 State of the Nation poll we ran the past year and a half was likely bunk.

Since the moment Mark Grebner, Michael Weissman, and Jonathan Weissman approached me, I took their concerns seriously and cooperated fully with their investigation. I also offered to run the results on Daily Kos provided that they 1) fully documented each claim in detail, 2) got that documentation peer reviewed by disinterested third parties, and 3) gave Research 2000 an opportunity to respond. By the end of last week, they had accomplished the first two items on that list. I held publication of the report until today, because I didn't want to partake in a cliche Friday Bad News Dump. This is serious business, and I wasn't going to bury it over a weekend.

We contracted with Research 2000 to conduct polling and to provide us with the results of their surveys. Based on the report of the statisticians, it's clear that we did not get what we paid for. We were defrauded by Research 2000, and while we don't know if some or all of the data was fabricated or manipulated beyond recognition, we know we can't trust it. Meanwhile, Research 2000 has refused to offer any explanation. Early in this process, I asked for and they offered to provide us with their raw data for independent analysis -- which could potentially exculpate them. That was two weeks ago, and despite repeated promises to provide us that data, Research 2000 ultimately refused to do so. At one point, they claimed they couldn't deliver them because their computers were down and they had to work out of a Kinkos office. Research 2000 was delivered a copy of the report early Monday morning, and though they quickly responded and promised a full response, once again the authors of the report heard nothing more.

While the investigation didn't look at all of Research 2000 polling conducted for us, fact is I no longer have any confidence in any of it, and neither should anyone else. I ask that all poll tracking sites remove any Research 2000 polls commissioned by us from their databases. I hereby renounce any post we've written based exclusively on Research 2000 polling. 

By the way, based on a quick search of the site, the term "Research 2000" appears in a total of 716 DailyKos posts.

FWIW, the best outcome would be if this issue were tabled and left for the next Congress, where Republicans will presumably have stronger numbers, at which point the relevant committees can go back to the drawing board. There's a good bill in there somewhere. But I think the Democrats will find a way to pass this one. After the way the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act, no bit of parliamentary prestidigitation would surprise me.

John Carney has more on the provision that has everyone bailing.

Update: Back to conference -- see Dan's update below.

Dear Chairman Dodd and Chairman Frank,

I am writing you to express my strong opposition to the $19 billion bank tax that was included in the financial reform bill during the conference committee. This tax was not in the Senate version of the bill, which I supported. If the final version of this bill contains these higher taxes, I will not support it.

It is especially troubling that this provision was inserted in the conference report in the dead of night without hearings or economic analysis. While some will try to argue this isn't a tax, this new provision takes real money away from the economy, making it unavailable for lending on Main Street, and gives it to Washington. That sounds like a tax to me.

I have always strongly opposed a bank tax because, as the non-partisan CBO has said, costs would be passed onto the millions of American consumers and small businesses who rely on major U.S. financial institutions for their checking, ATM, loans or other services. This tax will be paid by consumers who will have to pay higher fees and the small businesses that won't get the funding they need to invest and create jobs.

Imposing this new tax is the wrong option. Our economy is still struggling. It is wrong to impose higher taxes and ignore the impact it will have on our economy without considering other ways we might offset the costs of the measure. I am asking that the conference committee find a way to offset the cost of the bill by cutting unnecessary federal spending. There are hundreds of billions in unspent federal funds sitting around, some authorized years ago for long-dead initiatives. Congress needs to start to looking there first, and I stand ready to help.

Sincerely,

Senator Scott P. Brown

Post-conference committee, this is a BFD, since the conference report is unamendable. To satisfy Brown, they'd have to go back to conference. It doesn't doom the bill by any measure, but is certainly a wrench in the works. The Democrats have already lost two votes with Byrd's death and Feingold's opposition. We'll have to stay tuned for the positions of the usual suspects: The Maine Ladies, Ben Nelson, even Chuck Grassley.

UPDATE: A senior Senate staffer writes me that the conference committee will be reconvened.

It appears the conference will be reopened, possibly as early as this afternoon, to look at an “alternative” funding mechanism.

I finally got around to reading Matt Continetti’s piece on the tea parties. I’ve got to say I find it pretty flawed. First of all, it’s not really a piece on the tea parties. It’s a hit piece on Glenn Beck. And that’s fine. Conservatism is big enough and Beck is controversial enough, for people to take different sides on a vast range of topics. But I think Matt’s analysis simply comes up short.

(Warning: Long post ahead)

My chief complaint is that he desperately wants to force a Manichean critique of the tea parties (Santelli = good, Beck = bad) by lambasting Beck for being too conspiratorial and Manichean. The title of the essay says a lot: “The Two Faces of the Tea Parties.” Note, Continetti  isn’t being hypocritical. One could argue that the chief flaw of, say, Stalin was his us-vs.-them worldview while at the same rightly arguing that we should have an us-vs.-them attitude toward Stalin and Stalinists.

But, that’s really not all that analogous to what we’re talking about with Beck and what Continetti calls the Beckian "face" of the tea-party movement. It's interesting that Matt never explicitly says that the tea party movement has a "Beck wing," preferring instead for the more literary and ill-defined concept of a "face." Still, Matt repeatedly and at length tries to hammer home this idea that there are two distinct "faces" to the tea party and conservative populism generally. For instance:

One imagines the Santelli face could be easily integrated into a conservative Republican party, with an affirmative agenda of spending cuts, low taxes, entitlement reform, and free trade. Some Tea Party groups, such as the Contract From America, are working toward this goal, even if they do not state it so baldly …It is harder to integrate the Beck face into mainstream politics. It is harder to imagine even a unified Republican government being tempted by the Beck program. Entitlements are not about to be abolished. The Federal Reserve is not going away. A flat tax is a long-term goal not a short-term fix. The budget will not be balanced by cutting pork-barrel spending alone. America is not about to renege on her international commitments.

The tensions within conservative populism are durable and longstanding. Consider two other faces. The first is Ronald Reagan’s: sunny, cheerful, conservative. Yet it is often forgotten that Reagan was the first Republican president to identify with FDR. He drew support from unions and other parts of the New Deal coalition. He left Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid intact. He was less concerned with undoing the work of his predecessors than he was with implementing reforms that promoted competition, investment, and growth. Not coincidentally, he was the most successful Republican president of the 20th century.

The second face is Barry Goldwater’s, circa 1964: tart, dyspeptic, radical. For Goldwater, “Extremism in the defense of liberty [was] no vice.” For Goldwater, the aim was “not to pass laws, but to repeal them.” It is no wonder that conservatives are attracted to such a message. But they are often the only ones who feel this way. Goldwater lost in a landslide.

There are a lot of stolen bases here. For starters, the notion that Reagan and Goldwater represented two distinct and irreconcilable factions would come as a shock to nearly every conservative and liberal commentator from, say, 1960 to 1990. Heck,  it would have come as a shock to both Reagan and Goldwater. The Goldwater forces inside the conservative movement in large part became the Reagan forces. (Matt also does a grave disservice to Goldwater by comparing him to Beck, given what Continetti thinks of Beck). So I have no idea how Matt thinks this historical analogy supports his argument that the Santelli and Beck faces are irreconcilable with mainstream conservative politics.

But then again, I largely think he’s wrong to divide the movement this way. And it is telling that he has to offer a literary interpretation to support this claim. If there were true wings to the movment, he would deploy  polling data, and speech excerpts from Beckians denouncing Santellians. Where are the primary fights manifesting these supposedly durable and longstanding schisms? We aren't seeing any because, I suspect, the more radical tea partiers do not define themselves in terms of their opposition to the Santelli wing of the movement at all. That's why the Beckians supported Scott Brown, and why the Santellians supported Nikki Haley -- because this schizophrenia that Matt ascribes to the tea parties isn't all that pronounced according to the tea partiers themselves. In other words, Matt is simply taking a journalistic short cut to get to the Beck-Bashing.  

This is a big problem for Matt's analysis given that he says Beck can't be integrated into the conservative movement.   Again, he offers little to no empirical data on this point. Rather, he lambasts Beck’s conspiratorial streak -- and I think Matt is right that Beck has one, even if he might overstate his case. But how are we supposed to read this passage?

Beck is not simply an entertainer. He and his audience love American history. They are hungry for new ways to interpret current events. And Beck is creating, in Amity Shlaes’s words, “a competing canon” of texts and authorities. This competing canon is not content to assault contemporary liberalism, but rather deconstructs the very foundations of the New Deal and the Progressive Era. Among the books Beck regularly cites on his programs are Shlaes’s Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweickart and Michael Allen’s Patriot’s History of the United States, and Burt Folsom Jr.’s New Deal or Raw Deal? And books like Matthew Spalding’s We Still Hold These Truths, Seth Lipsky’s Citizen’s Constitution, and William J. Bennett and John Cribb’s American Patriot’s Almanac all belong on the list as well.

This intellectual journey has led Beck to some disturbing conclusions. Whereas Rick Santelli says the housing plan and the stimulus aren’t sensible, Beck says the Obama administration is the culmination of 100 years of unconstitutional governance. On the “We Surround Them” episode, Beck said, “The system has been perverted and it has to be restored.” In between bouts of weeping, he asked, “What happened to the country that loved the underdog and stood up for the little guy?” That country, he implied, is vanishing before our eyes. In Beck’s world, politics is less about issues than it is about “us” versus “them.” We may have them surrounded. But “we can’t trust anyone.”

Again, Matt is free to dispute Beck’s “disturbing conclusions” all he likes. But at times he seems to be trying -- and trying very hard -- to use Beck to discredit the entire conservative argument against the progressive revolution in politics. That’s an odd thing for a conservative writer, particularly one at the Standard, to do, given that so many of its contributors and editors have shown sympathy or support for that project in the past. I don’t have time to look up each one, but I suspect that nearly all of these books were well reviewed by the Weekly Standard (if they were reviewed at all) -- including my book, which is arguably the most “radical” of  the bunch and yet doesn’t endorse anything like the conspiratorial politics Continetti describes. 

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Continetti is right when he says that Beck’s intellectual journey has led him into troubled waters. Why can’t Matt give Beck’s fans in the tea party the benefit of the doubt? Surely if they read Hayek, Shlaes, Bennett, Spalding, yours truly and others, they won’t go to the dark side too? I sincerely doubt that Continetti believes that they would. But he’s sort of forced to go there because the real point of his essay is to denounce Beck which means he must denounce all of Beck’s project as well (Thus I disagree with Dan Foster, who seems to think Continetti is celebrating Beck’s bibliophile proselytizing).

I could go on. But I'll just leave it here: A more fair-minded treatment of Beck would at least acknowledge that Beck is right about a lot of things, that he gets people to read worthwhile and mainstream conservative and libertarian books, and that a good number of his fans and followers are perfectly capable of making up their own minds. And a more fair-minded treatment of the tea parties wouldn't use them as a Trojan Horse for an attack on Beck.

President Obama is wary of promoting human rights abroad, but he's much more forceful in pushing deficit spending. My column on this theme today here.

Other housing data confirm the large impact, and likely near-future pullback, of the federal program. Recently released data for May 2010 show sharp declines in existing and new home sales and housing starts. Inventory data and foreclosure activity have not shown any signs of improvement. Consistent and sustained boosts to economic growth from housing may have to wait to next year.

The Homebuyers Tax Credit was a subsidy for sellers, not buyers, and a ripoff for taxpayers. Howard Gleckman writes:

Total amount of permanent job creation from this timing change: pretty close to zero. Cost to taxpayers: $12.6 billion just through last February—even before the latest buying frenzy. What a deal!

As my Tax Policy Center colleague Ted Gayer has been warning, at least 85 percent of those buyers would likely have purchased a home anyway. For them, the credit was a pure gift--courtesy of a government running a $1.4 trillion deficit.

But that’s not all. Yesterday, the Treasury Department’s inspector general issued its second report on homebuyer credit fraud. And the scams are worthy of a Carl Hiasson novel. Among the lowlights: 1,295 prisoners received $9.1 million in credits for houses they claimed to buy while incarcerated. Two hundred forty-one were serving life sentences at the time. Hiasson—the bard of two-bit Florida hustlers-- will be pleased to learn that almost two-thirds of these frauds occurred in his home state, where ripping off federal taxpayers appears to be about as common as shuffleboard.

And it wasn’t just cons running the hustle. Sixty-seven different people claimed the tax break for one house. More than 2,500 got almost $18 million for homes they bought before the credit was effective. In all, the IG unearthed 14,132 people who received erroneous credits of $17.6 million.

But of course, what we really need is more deficit-financed stimulus spending. We have so much empirical evidence -- more every day, really -- that pulling forward so much future demand by spending tomorrow's income today is really a good idea.

10:56 A.M.: Kagan won't answer whether she personally believes aspects of the Citizens United decision, especially whether restrictions on free speech based on the identity of one party (corporations, and unions) are often designed to restrict the content of that speech.

Kagan says campaign finance laws were "selfless" act of Congress, because all empirical evidence suggests union and corporate money protects incumbents.

"Tell that to Blanche Lincoln," Hatch says. "Lincoln is one of the nicest people around here who had ten million spent against her by the unions, just because they disagreed with her."

That's because there was no federal bombing conspiracy statute. Therefore, a bomb plot (as opposed to a bombing) had to be charged under the "catch-all" federal conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. Sec. 371) which makes a conspiracy to commit "any offense against the United States" punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.* By contrast, many statutes targeting specific, serious crimes -- e.g., racketeering and narcotics trafficking -- have their own conspiracy provisions which punish agreements to violate the law just as harshly as substantive violations of the law. When a prosecutor doesn't have that, he is stuck with charging Section 371.

Now, if we look at what's being called the Russian "spy ring" we see in the charges an ironic absence of espionage accusations. I'm not talking here about what we might colloquially call "espionage." I'm speaking strictly about "espionage" the statutory legal offense. Under federal law, espionage offenses (18 U.S.C. Sec. 792, et seq.) involve purloining classified information -- and, to be even more narrow, national defense information. Like other serious offenses, espionage crimes have conspiracy provisions that punish plots as the equivalent of completed acts of espionage.

Espionage is the most serious crime that can be committed by a foreign agent, but it is not the only one. Obviously, we want to know everyone in our country who is acting on behalf of a foreign country, even if what they are doing is totally benign. Thus, diplomats and consular officials present their credentials to the President and the State Department, while foreign agents of lesser status are required to register with the Justice Department. If you are acting on behalf of a foreign country in any way -- even if you are not stealing our classified information -- and you fail to register, that is a crime, punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment under Section 951 of the federal penal code (i.e., Title 18).

Section 951 does not have its own conspiracy provision. Therefore, if a group of people conspire to act as agents of a foreign power, and their conduct does not rise to the level of espionage, their conspiracy can be charged only under the catch-all conspiracy provision, Sec. 371 -- potential penalty zero-to-five years.

That's why the penalties seem so out of whack here. Money laundering has been considered a serious crime since the 1980s because it is basic to any successful narcotics or organized crime enterprise, so it has harsh penalties, including its own very severe conspiracy provision. So, even though the sexy thing for the media about this Russian case is the spying, the money laundering is where the penalties are ... at least for now.

I say that because, so far, we only have the arrest complaint. As I've previously explained, in connection with the arrest of Faisal Shahzad (the would-be Times Square bomber), complaint-affidavits are not formal charging instruments to which pleas of guilty or not-guilty are entered. They just explain to the court why there is enough probable cause of some crime(s) to justify making arrests. The next step in the case will likely be the filing of a grand-jury indictment. That is a formal charging instrument, and in it I would expect that, in addition to foreign-agent conspiracy, the Justice Department will accuse defendants of lots of substantive offenses, including substantive acts committed as unregistered foreign agents. And if enough evidence is developed from confessions and other investigation to warrant espionage charges, you'll see those counts at that point, too. We're at least a couple of weeks away from that.

_________

* [UPDATE:] Sorry to add to this already too long post, but I should have noted that this anomaly was fixed in 1996 when Congress and the Clinton administration dramatically overhauled counterterrorism law.

Thomas Sowell supports yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on the right to bear arms.

Mona Charen says that Obama owes Bush an apology for his antiwar attacks.

The editors praise the heroism of Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of Son of Hamas, and argue that the U.S. should grant him asylum.

Dennis Prager explains how the media distorts its reporting on health-care quality.

Nina Shea and Bonnie Alldredge write about the hatred found in Saudi textbooks.

Raymond Keating supports the economic policies of David Malpass, a New York Senate candidate.

Robert VerBruggen reviews The Beauty Bias by Deborah Rhode, a book which argues for new civil-rights laws to counter appearance discrimination.

Jeffrey Anderson analyzes the health-care options that cover pre-existing conditions.

For too long, the immigration debate has been bogged down in accusations about ultimate motives. Pro-immigration people accuse the anti-immigration folks of racism, while the anti's accuse the pro's of shilling for big business by importing cheap labor. If we can suck this poison out of the air—by showing the American people a secure border—it's hard to believe a healthier debate won't follow.

But it's the "pro-immigration people" -- both right and left -- who are the reason we don't have a secure border in the first place. It's not an "accusation about ultimate motives" to observe that if pro-immigration Republicans like McGurn and his employer had been vigorously supporting immigration enforcement all along (and not just at the border), we might already have a healthier debate and, who knows, might even have amnestied some of the more sympathetic illegal aliens by now.

I for one don't doubt the purity of McGurn's motives, but if he wants to understand the politics of immigration, he needs to accept that much of the rest of the high-immigration right is as opposed to immigration enforcement as their comrades on the left.

One of the comments following the column sums up the dominant perspective of the high-immigration folks: "Americans are the problem. Majority of them are simply wrong on the immigration issue." That being the case, non-enforcement of immigration law is the second-best option to ensure a continued flow of foreign workers, at least until the public changes its mind and the illegal flow created by non-enforcement can finally be formalized through changes in the law.

The New York Times story about it contains several highly amusing lines. For example, Jessie Gugig, 15, said she could not believe the charges against Richard and Cynthia Murphy, because Mrs. Murphy “was an accomplished gardener”:

“They couldn’t have been spies,” she said. “Look what she did with the hydrangeas.”

Then there’s this:

The alleged agents were spotted in a bookstore in Lower Manhattan, a bench near the entrance to Central Park and a restaurant in Sunnyside, Queens.

Yep, those are definitely the places to

gather information on nuclear weapons, American policy toward Iran, C.I.A. leadership, Congressional politics and many other topics . . .  

And here’s a lesson for everyone:

Lila Hexner, who lives in the building next door, said Ms. Foley told her she was in the real estate business. “She said they were from Canada,” Ms. Hexner said.

Counterespionage 101: Never trust anyone who claims to have come from Canada!

Sharron Angle, Nevada’s GOP Senate nominee and a tea-party favorite, is shunning local reporters. The horror. Call it the Rand Paul effect. Or maybe the McChrystal. Regardless, it seems the more she’s mum, the more she’s covered. Her keep-quiet strategy gets a spread in today’s New York Times:

In her silence, Ms. Angle has exposed a fault line in political journalism. Candidates typically live and die by television exposure, with interviews supplementing the usual barrage of advertisements. But in local races across the country, there are fewer reporters asking questions on behalf of voters, and there are more media alternatives than ever, including talk radio and Facebook.

Still, Ms. Angle is quickly discovering that there is no better way to wake up a sleepy TV news crew than to refuse an interview request — or 10 requests, or 20.

“I can’t remember a time that we’ve ever had trouble with interviews,” said Mary Beth Farrell, the news director at KRNV, the local NBC affiliate. “Especially with people running for office — they usually beat our door down.”

Later today, Angle will answer questions from journalist Jon Ralston on Face to Face, Nevada’s own version of Meet the Press. You can watch the interview live, online, at 9:30 p.m. EST, here.

DAVID WEIGEL: Well, I can rule out a bunch of people on the list. It’s reported that the list is about 400 people, but really 100 or so contributed to discussions and the rest are what were called lurkers. And it became more lurky after the first leaked e-mails from Mickey Kaus [who, in March 2009, leaked a JournoList thread about The New Republic’s editor-in-chief Marty Peretz]. I only want to know because it’s somebody in journalism or at a think tank that I know I can never talk to again.


FOSTER: Do you wonder about motives? Was it professional rivalry? Perhaps someone you had a relationship with and there was animosity there?

WEIGEL: I don’t know anybody on the list that fits that description. I’m pretty blunt and caustic (though I’m trying to become less so), and I would call people out a lot. But the level of digging into those things is so heavy and malicious, that it’s hard to imagine somebody who got on the list that would do that. Originally I thought it was somebody who just sent the first e-mail I wrote about Matt Drudge.


FOSTER: But after the Daily Caller piece . . .

WEIGEL: Yeah, that required someone searching the archives for my name and for a bunch of phrases.

The list was not really heterodox, there were people who were not liberals, but there were no real conservatives, and not really people who carried grudges. I’ve never really beaten anybody for a job that they were up for. Sometimes I would beat somebody for an interview. But, no, I can’t really figure that out.


FOSTER: Do you think Ezra Klein did the right thing in shutting down the list?

WEIGEL: Oh, yeah. There is somebody who knows a lot of these people, who is using it to attack people who probably thought they were friends. If you step aside from all the ideology, unless you think we have a fundamental right to all of this off-the-record information, then he did the right thing. I don’t know if there will be a new list. Probably not, actually. By the end, people got super paranoid about even talking about its existence. That’s probably silly.


FOSTER: You’ve discussed this before, but to what extent were you catering your comments to your audience in those e-mails.

WEIGEL: I definitely was. I catered to people who were liberal. I was just talking to a congressional candidate -- Rick Barber, the “gather your armies” guy. I was just talking to him, and I was not misrepresenting myself, but I was kind of going back and forth about how he was being made fun of by Rachel Maddow.


FOSTER: To establish a rapport.

WEIGEL: Yes, and sometimes it was as simple as me telling liberals, ‘no, this is stupid. This is what you need to do.’

It’s as if, when you tell Democrats what they’re doing wrong, then you are colluding with Democrats. But an important point to make about this is that it was just a bunch of reporters. I do analysis. When I talk to liberals I tell them “this is what you should do.” When I talk to conservatives I tell them “this is what you should do.”


FOSTER: One of the leaked e-mails is about the special election in Massachusetts, where you suggest that the Democrats shouldn’t let their health-care reform efforts be derailed by Martha Coakley’s missteps and Scott Brown’s victory. It’s easy to construe that as you showing support for the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Do you like that bill?

WEIGEL: Does anybody like the bill? I’ve got a weakness for horserace stuff, so the more interesting story to me was the Democrats finding a way to get out from under the steamroller. I was more interested in this dramatic story of the passage. That’s a flaw in itself, I know. It’s horserace reporting.

It’s not a good bill. This came across as me rooting for Democrats, but none of the Democrats I wrote about were going to be on my ballot, so it was more like -- here was me talking to liberals about how wimpy Democrats are.

I did think it was silly that if you lose one special election than you’re not allowed to do this bill anymore. It was like in 2005, some poll goes down and George W. Bush is supposed to abandon Social Security? I don’t like stupid politics. It might turn out that the smart politics would have been to just not pass the health-care bill because people didn’t want it. But I just thought that if Democrats thought they were going to duck out of this by abandoning health-care, they were wrong. Just like if Republicans thought they were going to duck out of it in 2005 by abandoning Social Security privatization they were wrong. No, you can’t go into the trenches and then just not charge the field.


FOSTER: Well, what are your politics? You’ve said in print that you’ve been through a number of political phases. How do you narrate that evolution?

WEIGEL: If you got back and read Brink Lindsey’s “liberal-tarians” article The New Republic -- I think it was in 2006 -- then you kind of get a sense that during the Bush presidency libertarians of all stripes were allied with conservatives of many stripes at being really irritated by what the Republicans were up to. Now, with Republicans in opposition, I am pretty happy. Though I don’t think earmark reform is that important, I’m pretty happy with how everybody got on board with that really quickly. I wrote about the YouCut thing pretty positively.

I do think though in terms of pragmatic economics -- when the stimulus was being presented, I thought a Keynesian stimulus made sense at that time. When the bailout was presented, I thought that made sense at that time. The thing was that everything collapsed around it.


FOSTER: That’s pretty un-libertarian.

WEIGEL: You know, in that instance you could either follow [Austrian economist Joseph] Schumpeter or you could follow Keynes, and I didn’t follow Schumpeter. I felt like this was not the time for “creative destruction” -- that we had several extraordinary circumstances.

A lot of people said at the time, when I was at Reason, that if you even have questions about the right course of action, you’re not a real libertarian. Well, you can fill out political charts however you want, but people should be able to define their beliefs in their own terms. I know I’m not a liberal. On issue after issue I oppose the Democratic coalition.


FOSTER: But you generally support Obama.

WEIGEL: On some of the big Obama initiatives, I was like, “eww, this is awful” -- but I still thought we needed to get together and do this.

It’s totally fair of people to say, “if you were a real libertarian then you wouldn’t do this.” Yes, if I was your kind of libertarian I wouldn’t. Fine. But it seemed to me that pretending that a couple of simple texts could solve the problem is not the way to go. So issue to issue, ideological fight to ideological fight, I re-examined it. And the case has been for a while, throughout the Obama presidency certainly, that nobody has a great idea how to get out of this, and I wasn’t convinced that traditional libertarian ideas were going to work.


FOSTER: Some have suggested that maybe the Washington Post thought they were hiring a conservative, or were otherwise confused about your political affiliations. Do you think that’s true?

WEIGEL: I don’t think so. I told this to Politico in a story that just ran: You can’t read my body of work and think I am a down-the-line conservative who roots for conservative causes. I support some conservative causes, others I don’t. I’m more interested in tracking the movement, and the Post is run by smart people who couldn’t possibly have believed otherwise.


FOSTER: Some of your e-mails were highly critical of elements of the Tea Party movement. Do you want to take this opportunity to give a little summation of your thoughts on the Tea Party?

WEIGEL: I think the basic motivation of the Tea Party is great. It basically is people who always believed in this stuff who never had a voice in the political system, and now do. But because I write stories and not just tributes to things I like, there have been elements of it that drive me crazy. But then again, there are elements of the Tea Party movement that drive Tea Party people crazy.

I have a zero tolerance policy for things I think are conspiracy theories, and I think this was borne out in the Van Jones thing. [Weigel argued on JournoList and elsewhere that Jones, an Obama official, should resign over his connection to 9/11 “Truthers.”] I think conspiracy theories are interesting, but if I see it affecting politics, I’m like, “this is horrible and needs to be called out.” 


FOSTER: Like the Birthers.

WEIGEL: People criticize me for covering Birther stuff. Honest to God, when I started covering Birther stuff, I thought it was a quirky subculture, like Kennedy assassination obsessives.  But the fact that it turned out to be this huge thing had me screaming and beating the walls.

Look, blogs are fundamentally negative mediums. Same thing with e-mail lists. You e-mailed the list because you vehemently disagreed with somebody, or because you really wanted or needed some information. Anything that you weren’t incredibly passionate about, you kind of kept to yourself. If you think, “eh, the Democrats are screwing this up, but whatever,” you didn’t send that out.

With the Van Jones thing, it really was me telling a lot of people, “You’re fools, this guy has to go.” And if you wanted to, you could say, “He’s only doing that because he thought it would be good for Obama.” No, I was just interested in litigating how this should end.


FOSTER: If you try to step outside yourself for a moment, do you think, on reflection, that you were the right guy to cover the Tea Parties?

WEIGEL: Me beating up conservatives in those e-mails, I apologize for that. I was an a**hole, basically. Quote that. It’s not the way I’d want people to treat me, so I broke a rule.

[But] if you’ve got to have somebody cover the Tea Party you could do worse than someone who’s read Atlas Shrugged and who’s read Constitution of Liberty; and who at Reason was editing articles about the Federal Reserve for years; and who knows the history of the conservative movement and its ideology.


FOSTER: What’s next for you?

WEIGEL: I’m doing a bunch of interviews, and they are more heartening than interviews I had at earlier stages in my career. I’ve done enough reporting now that I think people would know what they would get if they hired me.

The Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Army soldiers of the 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade from Fort Bliss, Texas, successfully conducted an intercept test for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense element of the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System today. A target missile was launched at approximately 9:32 p.m. Hawaii time, June 28 (3:32 a.m. EDT, June 29), and about five minutes later a THAAD interceptor missile was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) off the island of Kauai, Hawaii. Preliminary indications are that planned flight test objectives were achieved.

For deep background on THAAD, see my old article in NR.

Unionized public sector workers have much higher average wages and benefits than nonunionized public sector workers. Bureau of Labor Statistics data in Table 2 show that union members have a 31-percent advantage in wages and a 68-percent advantage in benefits.

This line bears repeating: "Union members have a 31-percent advantage in wages and a 68-percent advantage in benefits."

That's from Chris Edwards' work on Public Sector Unions here. He adds that even when one controls for the fact that states with generally higher wages tend to be more unionized, public-sector unions increase average pay levels by roughly 10 percent.

This information is interesting in the context of the following chart. It shows that in 2009, for the first time ever, more public-sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private-sector employees (7.4 million) despite there being five times more wage and salary workers in the private sector.

This helps explain some of the disparities between public- and private-sector compensation.

Second, Hayek highlighted the Fed's role in the business cycle. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's artificially low rates of 2002-2004 played a crucial role in inflating the housing bubble and distorting other investment decisions. Current monetary policy postpones the adjustments needed to heal the housing market.

[...]

The fourth timely idea of Hayek's is that order can emerge not just from the top down but from the bottom up. The American people are suffering from top-down fatigue. President Obama has expanded federal control of health care. He'd like to do the same with the energy market. Through Fannie and Freddie, the government is running the mortgage market. It now also owns shares in flagship American companies. The president flouts the rule of law by extracting promises from BP rather than letting the courts do their job. By increasing the size of government, he has left fewer resources for the rest of us to direct through our own decisions.

Meanwhile in the New York Times, Paul Krugman laments the lack of government intervention:

Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

Watch the devilishly insightful ex-prez argue for exploding the well and choking out the leak with rock debris:

Unfortunately, Clinton doesn't go far enough, saying "by the way, you don't need to use a nuclear weapon -- I've seen all that." I'd love for him to unpack that. Does he mean he's seen contingency plans for conventional and atomic detonations? Because nobody -- but nobody -- has satisfactorily made the case that a deliverable amount of conventional explosives could stop the leak, or even not make it worse. In fact, the best evidence the layman can have that a conventional blast is implausible is that it hasn't been attempted. Nor has anyone of prominence in the administration even discussed it publicly. I think they know it is likely to turn one big leak into a hundred small ones.

Clinton realizes this later in his remarks. "This is a geological monster," he says. "You can basically put in a huge amount of explosives down there. . . but what else would you do that might upset the eco-structure of the Gulf?" If you get to the right depth, and set up the blast below an impervious layer of rock, you choke off the wellhead and keep the fallout from reaching the ocean floor. Now, I am obviously not a nuclear engineer and I haven't seen the stratigraphy down there, so I don't know if all the technical pieces of the puzzle fit (do we have a credible delivery vehicle etc.).

But I know this: At those pressures and depths, you have to throw the rule book out the window. You can't bring C4 to a plutonium fight here. Thirty kilotons, dropped down one of the relief wells, blam-o.

Nuke the well.

Have you heard the latest news from the U.N. Human Rights Council -- the most exalted body within the most exalted body in all the world? Cuba, as a nation -- as a government, rather -- has been elected vice president of the council. In celebration, the Cuban government put out a statement:

“The election of Cuba to this important post recognizes the exemplary work of the Cuban Revolution in favor of the human rights of its people and the world. It also shows respect for Cuba’s active and committed work as a founding member of the U.N. Human Rights Council in defense of truth and justice and for its leadership in favor of the noblest causes.”

Bear in mind that Cuba is a one-party dictatorship with a gulag. (Therefore, it’s perfect for the U.N. Human Rights Council.)

Can you stand a little more news? Miguel d’Escoto, the old Sandinista foreign minister, and a classic anti-American and anti-Semite, has just been appointed to the council’s advisory panel. Of course.

And, in this article, Anne Bayefsky tells us this: “With the adoption of yet another resolution critical of Israel, the Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 UN member states combined.”

Our previous president, George W. Bush, thought that the United States should have nothing to do with this council -- that it was too disgraceful to join. Too contrary to the U.N.’s founding principles to dignify. His successor, President Obama, immediately had the U.S. join the council. The argument of Team Obama was that the U.S., by its presence, would improve the council.

Sure! Nice going, guys.

Robert VerBruggen writes about plagiarism accusations against Harvard professor Laurence Tribe.

Michael Barone explains why Obamacare is unpopular.

Deroy Murdock reports that Muslim extremists enter the country from the U.S.-Mexican border.

E.D. Kain argues that defense spending should be cut by $159 billion and the money should be returned to the taxpayers.

Kathryn Lopez looks at Bob Turner’s chances against the liberal incumbent Anthony Weiner.

Jane Clark explains how the debate over the Islamic headscarf is about the type of secularism that Turkey wants.

When I was growing up, the Israelis -- particularly their army, special forces, and intelligence service -- were thought of as supermen. They could do anything. They could find a Nazi in the obscurest beer hall in Bavaria, eliminate him, and never disturb the froth on his beer. They would bus some tables for the barmaids, on their way out.

Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas for four years now? Why can’t they go get him? Locate him and extract him? Those are naïve questions, of course. If they could, they would have. The real world is not James Bond. Moreover, they might be able to get Shalit dead, but it would be harder to get him alive. Still . . . the questions may occur to one.

In related news, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, based in Damascus, has made a statement on the occasion of the four-year anniversary of Shalit’s captivity: “We aren’t satisfied with Shalit only, and, God willing, the freedom fighters will succeed in kidnapping other soldiers.” You can find that gem in this article.

Just in case you forgot what Hamas was (and is) . . .

By the way, I’ve just done a piece for the magazine about the Progress party in Norway -- that country’s Reaganite, Thatcherite, Goldwaterian party. The “Progs” are strongly pro-Israel, unlike the other parties in Norway (to put it very mildly). Do you know that the Norwegian government was the first outside the Islamic world to recognize Hamas? Charming, huh?

One more bit of news, to go with Meshaal in Damascus: The dictator of Syria, Bashar Assad, has been visiting Hugo Chávez in Caracas. In honor of the visit, Chávez made a statement: “Arab civilization and our civilization, the Latin American one, are being summoned in this new century to play the fundamental role of liberating the world, saving the world from the imperialism and capitalist hegemony that threaten the human species. Syria and Venezuela are at the vanguard of this struggle.” (For an Associated Press report, go here.)

When I think of Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and others in their band, I think of a phrase that has been thought of before: “axis of evil.” Hard to improve on.

I leave it to others to square that with this nonsense.

There may also have been an institutional factor in Truman’s reversal of the roles (putting the House speaker before the president pro tempore). Between the 1886 removal of the president pro tempore from the order of succession and 1947, some entirely new leadership posts had evolved in the Senate: the majority and minority leaders and the party whips. . . By 1945, most Washington observers regarded the majority leader as the Senate’s functional equivalent of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, while the president pro tempore had become more of a ceremonial office. Had Truman drawn a list of men, rather than offices, he would certainly have included Alben Barkley (the majority leader) in the line of succession — indeed, in 1948, Truman chose Senator Barkley as his vice presidential running mate. But, for the purposes of legislation, the president recommended inclusion of a constitutionally created office, the president pro tempore, rather than a party-designated officer, the majority leader.

Today, a lot of people are passing around a very interesting column by Jackson Diehl, on Anwar Ibrahim. He is the Malaysian politician who is the symbol of democracy and sanity in that increasingly oppressive country. The government has imprisoned him in the past, and is poised to imprison him again. One of the government’s tricks is to call him a Jew, a Zionist, and so on. If you want to slime someone in that part of the world, you play the Jew card, early, often, and persistently.

Ibrahim mentioned the government’s attacks on him as a Zionist agent, etc., at the Oslo Freedom Forum earlier this year. I did a journal from this forum, here on NRO. Ibrahim said, “Of course, I’m against the crimes against the Palestinians.” He did not mean crimes committed by Hamas, Fatah, and others who rule the Palestinians, in the usual cruel ways. I muttered under my breath, “To heck with you, Anwar.” (I am cleaning up that thought.)

Lately, as Diehl records in his column, Ibrahim has been playing the Jew card himself, warning of Zionist conspiracies and the like. “Everybody wants to get into the act,” as Jimmy Durante said. Diehl quotes Paul Wolfowitz, who told him, “What Anwar did was wrong” -- his playing of that common card -- “but considering that he’s literally fighting for his life -- physically as well as politically -- against a government that attacks him as being ‘a puppet of the Jews,’ one should cut him some slack.”

This comment has not sat well with everybody, and I can understand that not-sitting-well. But I can understand Wolfowitz, too. Plus, it helps that Ibrahim has been repentant, at least in talking to Americans. And, in Malaysia, he is about as good as it gets. We shouldn’t hold our breath for anyone better.

In that journal from Oslo, I noted Ibrahim’s extreme charm, polish, and pluck. Among the memorable things he said was that, in Malaysia, “we had freedom of speech -- but we never had freedom after speech.” A crucial distinction.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

Politico reports:

Patrick Gaspard, who served as the political director for the Service Employees International Union local 1199, received $37,071.46 in “carried over leave and vacation” from the union in 2009, but he did not disclose the agreement to receive the payment on his financial disclosure forms filed with the White House. 

In a section on his financial disclosure where agreements or arrangements for payment by a former employer must be disclosed, Gaspard checked a box indicating that he had nothing to report.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told POLITICO Monday that Gaspard was in the process of correcting his disclosure form to reflect that he did in fact have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payment to Patrick reflected their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199 of SEIU,” Burton wrote POLITICO in an e-mailed statement.

Such financial disclosures are governed by federal law, but Stan Brand, a former House general counsel and ethics expert, said the Justice Department is unlikely to pursue an investigation unless they suspected a “knowing or willful” intent to deceive.

Gaspard’s omission is a potentially embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, which has made a high priority of ethics.

“They’ve made ethics a fetish and they have all kinds of people over there with experience, so I don’t know how they missed this one,” Brand said.

Gaspard spent nine years at 1199 SEIU, a major labor union in New York. Gaspard also worked for Obama’s campaign, and later worked for the transition team, where he earned $11,500, according to the financial disclosure form he filed this year. He was pulling a salary from SEIU until Jan. 16, 2009, shortly before Obama was inaugurated.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

For a decade, Robert Byrd enrolled in night law-school classes, first as a congressman, and then as a senator. Finally, in 1963, he received his law degree, cum laude, from American University. President Kennedy, his “old colleague,” was there to congratulate him, as AU’s commencement speaker. Watch the first 30 seconds — it’s a little joke, nothing big, but you can’t help but smile.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Byrd was the only member of Congress to put himself through law school while in office. R.I.P.

Should we rethink this? The President Pro Tempore is by its nature as much a ceremonial role as a substantive one, and its occupant is almost certain to be of advancing years.

Should we put put the Senate majority leader in that slot instead? I know, I know: President Harry Reid. The mind boggles.

Here’s a snippet from the tapes, via the Chicago Sun-Times:

Blagojevich is increasingly out of breath while he's talking; the sound of weights clanging is audible in the background. It sounds like he is working out at home while discussing the appointment.

Rod: "She made Obama ... she's a Democrat."
Harris: "You're looking for a celebrity to be your friend?"
Rod: "She's so up there, so high ..."

Later, Rod keeps brainstorming: "Maybe a black Albert Einstein," he suggests. At that, one African American juror gently shakes her head.

Blagojevich is insistent that they "bolster the list" of potential candidates -- even if it means looking outside of Illinois.

"Who outside of Illinois might fit the bill?" he is heard asking Harris. He mentions Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an example.

Harris tries to talk him out of it.

"Picking somebody outside of Illinois has a whole host of problems," Harris tells him. "(They'll say), 'There are 13 million residents (in Illinois), Rod hates them all.'"

So, after all of this, he ends up tapping Roland Burris?

I have written a lot about the radical ideology that infects the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, but now you can hear it from someone else: Here are two not-to-be-missed articles by former Voting Section career lawyer Christian Adams over at the Washington Times and Pajamas Media. He confirms the absolute worst you can imagine about how politics shamelessly drives the law-enforcement agenda in this administration.

Okay, it isn't. Not yet anyway.

Buy them from the new National Review Book Service, sign up for the cruise, and get them autographed by the author.

The vast majority of e-mails came from fans of Beck who were nevertheless worried about his tendency to drift into the conspiratorial. But some readers came after me -- more or less thoughtfully -- for picking a fight with an ally. From one of the more thoughtful e-mails:

Let's not inflame our differences with pointless accusations describing our political imperfections.  What is the point, except to divide us from those who agree with ourselves most of the time?  For example, I could mope over how I disagree with Chamber's [sic] (and Buckley's) snobby critique of Atlas Shrugged, vow to never read NR, and forever hold a scent of disdain for the journal.  But then I would have missed such greatness and insight in NR over the years.

Well said. It is important to consider our occasional disagreements against the background of our shared convictions. Indeed, that is what I was trying to do with the post.

One other note. Many readers and a few famous conservatives (forgive me, I still geek out when I get e-mails like that) wrote me in defense of Skousen's 5,000 Year Leap, which by their accounts is a worthy love letter to the Founders and free of the paranoia that marked much of his other work. I have not read it -- yet. But I will.

UPDATE: To respond to some new e-mails, I do not agree with the reader that Chambers' critique of Ayn Rand was "snobby" (and indeed, can't imagine a review snobby enough to out-snobby Rand), but that was not the point of my printing that excerpt.

Lidless: Fifteen years after being released from Guantanamo Bay, Bashir walks into the shop of Alice, his former U.S. interrogator. He's tracked Alice down and wants her to know the emotional and spiritual pain she inflicted upon him. With her past brought to light, how does she explain her actions to her teenage daughter? Can Alice protect her from the truth? Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig delivers an extraordinary portrayal of one woman's experience with the "War on Terror" and her struggle to find peace and healing.

Iana: On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad, one man, an Iraqi museum curator, plots to save the statue of Inana, Goddess of War, from destruction by the invaders. Fleeing to London with his young bride, he makes a life-altering deal to ensure the statue's preservation. Michele Lowe opens a window of hope and healing with her poignant love story amidst a background of international, and personal, intrigue.

White People: What does it mean to be a white American? What does it mean for any American to live in a country that is not the one you were promised?

Okay, thanks very much. I think I’ll play golf instead.

After admitting that the chances for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) were remote in the current session of Congress - "there are only 25 to 30 legislative days left, and there are the budgets, the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice, and perhaps some energy legislation," Ms. Butterfield said, "but maybe we can get a piece or two, the Dream Act and/or the AgJobs bill."

"What we do not want is a symbolic vote in the Senate [for comprehensive reform] that lets the White House say 'see, we tried, and the Republicans blocked it'," she continued.

This reminds of something Mickey Kaus wrote a few months back:

Wouldn't the surest way to take immigration reform off Congress' agenda be for Republicans to say, "Great! Let's vote!"?

So I'm adopting a new position on this -- I think it's the height of irresponsibility for our elected representatives not to vote on the vital issue of amnesty for illegal aliens. We need a vote on this urgent matter forthwith!

In 2008's Heller decision, the Court held that a ban on handgun ownership in the District of Columbia violated the Second Amendment, but remained agnostic about whether similar statutes in the states could pass constitutional muster. Writing for the 5-4 majority in McDonald v. City of Chicago, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said today "The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States.”

In so ruling, the majority overturned several lower federal court rulings that were bound to previous precedent.

The method of “incorporating” the protections of the Constitution to the states is liable to draw grief from some strict constructionists -- and cries of hypocrisy from some liberals. In a concurring opinion, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas held with the majority that the 14th Amendment extends the right to bear arms to the states, but not via the Due Process clause route favored by Alito.

“[The] Due Process Clause, which speaks only to “process,” cannot impose the type of substantive restraint on state legislation that the Court asserts,” Thomas argued. “Rather, the right to keep and bear arms is enforceable against the States because it is a privilege of American citizenship recognized by §1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides, inter alia: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge theprivileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.””

Thomas joined Alito, Chief Justice Roberts, and Associate Justices Scalia and Kennedy in the decision. Associate Justices Stevens and Breyer each filed dissenting opinions.

In 2008's Heller decision, the Court held that a ban on handgun ownership in the District of Columbia violated the Second Amendment, but remained agnostic about whether similar statutes in the states could pass constitutional muster. Writing for the 5-4 majority in McDonald v. City of Chicago, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said today "The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States.”

In so ruling, the majority overturned several lower federal court rulings that were bound to previous precedent.

The method of “incorporating” the protections of the Constitution to the states is liable to draw grief from some strict constructionists -- and cries of hypocrisy from some liberals. In a concurring opinion, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas held with the majority that the 14th Amendment extends the right to bear arms to the states, but not via the Due Process clause route favored by Alito.

“[The] Due Process Clause, which speaks only to “process,” cannot impose the type of substantive restraint on state legislation that the Court asserts,” Thomas argued. “Rather, the right to keep and bear arms is enforceable against the States because it is a privilege of American citizenship recognized by §1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides, inter alia: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge theprivileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.””

Thomas joined Alito, Chief Justice Roberts, and Associate Justices Scalia and Kennedy in the decision. Associate Justices Stevens and Breyer each filed dissenting opinions.

Republicans do a pretty good job at making the counterargument, i.e. that letting people keep their own money is in reality a different thing from spending money, that Americans' money is their own, not something that they keep a peasant's share of at the sufferance of Their Lordships in Washington. But here's what I don't understand: With Obama out there talking about "calling their bluff" when it comes to his fiscal critics, why not call the Democrats' bluff first? Why not offer up a dollar-for-dollar spending-cut agenda to match the tax cuts?

Republicans don't have to concede the rhetorical point to say, Fine, we'll identify  some spending cuts to go along with our tax cuts. Federal spending is a target-rich environment, and identifying a couple hundred billion in cuts should not be that hard, even for members of Congress. Spending hawks have the momentum on their side -- it's hard to imagine a better political environment for them.

More thoughts here.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, although 44 states have bullying statutes, fewer than half offer guidance about whether schools may intervene in bullying involving “electronic communication,” which almost always occurs outside of school and most severely on weekends, when children have more free time to socialize online.

So we work to get rid of the free time . . .

Did I mention Che below? Guevara? Over the years, I have written about many, many versions of his T-shirt -- satirical ones, and so on. Readers have sent me thousands -- okay, scores -- of examples. Some have even made their own. The other day, I saw a new one -- a new one on me. It was at a stand, in Union Square (Manhattan). I snapped a photo -- here. It’s not Che, but Cher. She looks a lot better than that old, murdering skunk.

Below, I referred to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as “KSM” -- and I always feel a little guilty when I do. The initials are a little cutesy, a little rock-star-ish. You know? “Live from Karachi, with a chainsaw in his hand, it’s K-S-M!!!” Years ago, when I was doing a fair amount of reporting among Cuban exiles, I discovered that they really, really dislike our habit of referring to Castro as “Fidel.” And our habit of referring to his late henchman as “Che.” We don’t call Hitler “’dolf,” do we? (Although we used to refer to Stalin as “Uncle Joe.”) These Cubans knew what Castro and Guevara were about; they could never get cutesy about them; they could not be as breezy and blasé as we.

They also really, really disliked it when we referred to Castro as Cuba’s “president.” Anyone can call himself a president, a prime minister, or something like that: but a dictator is a dictator. (The New York Times used to refer to Castro as “Dr. Castro,” because he had a law degree.)

In Impromptus today, I talk about the International Committee of the Red Cross, Guantanamo Bay, the War on Terror (as it used to be known), and other such stuff. Over the weekend, I read an article by the great Claudia Rosett -- an article from 2002. And part of it made me a little bit sad -- because it showed how the general American attitude has changed over the last several years.

In the 2002 article, Claudia cited a joke -- a joke made by Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live. He was talking about how the ICRC was fixated on the living conditions of our terror detainees. (These Genevans are not so fixated on other prisoners’ living conditions.) Fallon said, “They’re suicide bombers. They hate living conditions.” Do you think such a joke could be, would be, made today? Did we have a better understanding of the jihad then, or now?

In Impromptus, I relate a story told by Judge Mukasey, George W. Bush’s last attorney general. He was down at Guantanamo in February 2008. He looked at “high-value” detainees -- the worst of the worst -- on video monitors. He did not see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, however. (Remember that “KSM” is the guy who “masterminded” the 9/11 attacks, which killed 3,000 people. He’s also the beauty who beheaded the Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl. Etc.) KSM was not in his cell; he was off having his Red Cross visit.

Mukasey did see the exercise room adjacent to KSM’s cell, however. And he remarked something: KSM had the same elliptical machine that he, the attorney general, did, back in Washington -- at his apartment building, the Lansburgh. Only there was this difference: Mukasey had to share that elliptical machine with the other residents of the building; there was a scramble in the morning to get to it. KSM had an elliptical machine all to himself.

As I say in my column, how much more tenderly do America’s critics expect us to treat these people? Are we to administer abdominal massages, the kind that recently made ex-vice-presidential news? (Wouldn’t the “world community” call that “torture”?)

And I think the White House now has an escape hatch:

A trio of U.S. House Democrats from Arizona is making a last-ditch effort to discourage President Barack Obama's administration from suing the state over its controversial new illegal-immigration law.

Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords support a comprehensive approach to border security and immigration reform, something Congress has failed to pass despite years of trying. All three, who could find themselves in difficult re-election battles this year, want the administration to focus on practical steps to repair the broken U.S. immigration system and shore up border security instead of suing Arizona.

See, it'll be for the good of "comprehensive immigration reform" that they'll decide, reluctantly and with a heavy heart, to forego a legal challenge to the law; and besides, there are already five other lawsuits in the works by private parties.

An administration lawsuit against SB 1070 would only push immigration further in this direction. It would enrage the 60%. It would inject immigration into midterm campaigns from coast to coast. Worst of all, it would alienate key lawmakers, from Arizona and elsewhere, without whose help the administration will have no hope of advancing comprehensive reform.

Sounds good to me!

Brown outpolls Kerry, Obama
Most popular official in survey

That's right: the most popular elected official in Massachusetts is a Republican. Load up on ammo and tinned meats, my survivalist friends -- if that's not a sign of the approaching Apocalypse, I don't know what is.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced Israel as a "genocidal" government on Sunday as he hosted Syrian President Bashar Assad on his first visit to Latin America.

Chavez has drawn close to Syria and Iran, and cut ties with Israel last year to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"We have common enemies," Chavez said, describing them as "the Yankee empire, the genocidal state of Israel."

Chavez had particularly strong words for Israel throughout Assad's visit. He reiterated his view Saturday that the Golan Heights - captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war - should one day be returned to Syria.

"Someday the genocidal state of Israel will be put in its place, in the proper place and hopefully a real democratic state will be born," Chavez said Saturday. "But it has become the murderous arm of the Yankee empire - who can doubt it? - which threatens all of us."

Assad on Sunday called Israel a state "based on crime, slaughter."

It's not a stretch to say that he wrote the book on the Senate — he authored a four-volume history of the upper chamber — which is why so many of his younger, more energetic colleagues continued to defer to him when it came to Senate rules and procedures. 

"We will remember him for his fighter's spirit, his abiding faith, and for the many times he recalled the Senate to its purposes," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday morning. "Generations of Americans will read the masterful history of the Senate he leaves behind, and they will also read about the remarkable life of Robert Carlyle Byrd."

Indeed, you could say Byrd used the Senate floor to test out his galley proofs, since the volumes all more or less started as addresses on Senate history to his fellow members. He also wrote a volume on the history of the Roman Senate.

US Senator Scott Brown, who only months ago was a little-known figure even within the tiny band of Republicans in the state Senate, not only catapulted to national stature with his upset US Senate victory, but is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll.

“In West Virginia, people look to see where you stand on life, marriage, and guns,” says Joe Manchin, the newly elected governor of that state, a Democrat with conservative views on social issues. “If you’re on the wrong side of just one or two of those issues, you’ve got a problem. If you’re on the wrong side of all three, you’re mortally wounded.”

Also, asking for ice cream at a custard shop?

People are sometimes caught off guard by Huckabee's intellectual competence because of his rural Arkansas habits (he and his wife lived in a trailer while the governor's mansion was being renovated) and his outspoken evangelical views.

Somehow people say, why are you doing that, I'm not sure that's good politics. I'm doing it because I said I was going to do it and I think it's the right thing to do. People should learn that lesson about me because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step-up because I'm calling their bluff. We'll see how much of that, how much of the political arguments that they're making right now are real and how much of it was just politics.

To me, the indirect reference to the Republican party signals that the "difficult choices" Obama plans to present to the country will mostly involve broad-based tax increases, and that he plans to lob accusations of hypocrisy at any Republican who criticizes him for breaking his pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000.

Because, as we've learned by watching the debates over the stimulus bill, the health-care bill, the financial-regulation bill, etc. unfold, if you oppose the way Obama wants to fix the problem, then he will say you must be opposed to fixing the problem, even if you've put forward your own competing solution or solutions to the problem.

(via @EricCantor)

Having stood by watching as a mob trashed downtown businesses (and their own cruisers), the peculiarly insecure dweebs of the Toronto police are now threatening law-abiding passers-by (that would be Cop#3478) and beating up Guardian reporters:

Steve Paikin, a prominent Toronto journalist said that he was escorted away by two police officers who saw his government-issued summit media credentials. He was advised that if he stayed he would be arrested.

As he was being taken away, Mr. Paikin said he saw another journalist, Jesse Rosenfeld, a contributor to the Guardian website, showing his identification to two police officers. At that point, according to Mr. Paikin, each of them took one of Mr. Rosenfeld’s arm as a third police officer, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, punched the reporter in the stomach. After Mr. Rosenfeld fell to the ground, the third officer jabbed an elbow into his back. Mr. Paikin said.

Memo to al-Qa'eda: This would be a really great night to blow up the CN Tower. The billion-dollar security presence will be too busy clubbing the BBC correspondent and working over the gal from Le Monde to notice.

Old Canadian police motto: The Mounties always get their man.

New Canadian police motto: The Mounties always get their Guardian reporter. Frankly, it's a lot easier.

John Hinderaker asks a good question.

[UPDATE: Five officers use their superb training and exciting Robocop get-ups to tackle a photographer from The National Post.]

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's efforts to win final approval of a historic financial regulatory reform bill looked more complicated on Saturday after a Republican senator threatened to oppose it.

"I was surprised and extremely disappointed to hear that $18 billion in new assessments and fees were added in the wee hours of the morning by the conference committee," Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown said. [...]

In May Brown was only one of four Republicans who voted for the Senate's financial regulatory reform package, which was approved, 59-39, with two members not voting.

Before that vote, Democrats had to overcome a Republican filibuster aimed at killing the bill and did that by the narrowest margin possible, 60-40.

Brown's possible defection from the bill increases the chance of a successful Republican filibuster this time unless Democratic leaders can find another vote.

Our editorial on the bill went live this weekend. The editors opposed the bill, but noted:

This is not to strike a defeatist tone and say that no regulatory changes could have improved the financial sector. Limits on leverage, for instance, might have put limits in fact on bank size, reducing the damage they could inflict on the economy if they failed. Changes to the bankruptcy code could have made bank failures more orderly when they occurred. Breaking up the rating agencies’ oligopoly would have encouraged smarter risk assessment on Wall Street. Most important, a new approach to housing policy — starting with a plan for dealing with Fannie and Freddie — would have removed an enormous distortion in the economy that contributed to the crisis.

But the bill that Congress has produced, which President Obama is eager to sign, did not include any of these measures. Instead, it doubled down on an approach to regulation that has failed in the past and added a number of extraneous provisions besides — such as new price controls on debit-card fees — because the Democrats “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” We’re very glad that negotiators named this bill the Dodd-Frank Act. When the next crisis hits, it will be much easier to hold these men accountable.

Bishop Kallistos Ware, a convert from Anglicanism to Eastern Orthodoxy, devotes a chapter in his book The Inner Kingdom to the question, “Dare We Hope for the Salvation of All?” This is one of the most fascinating debates in theology, involving as it does the apparently irreconcilable contradiction between God’s omnibenevolence and man’s freedom. Bishop Ware cites the famous texts from Paul that seem to point toward universal salvation. (I Cor. 15:22: “As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” Rom. 5:18: “Just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” I Cor. 15:28: “God will be all in all.”) He represents the opposing view as well, with great fairness: “If the triumph of God’s love is inevitable and there is ultimately nothing for us to choose between, does this not make our present acts of moral decision trivial and meaningless?”

The third-century theologian Origen, one of the key historical proponents of the notion of universal restoration, advocated that the doctrine be kept secret, lest it lead people into spiritual laziness. Ware writes:

No doubt it is for this reason that the 19th-century Pietist theologian Christian Gottlieb Barth remarks, “Anyone who does not believe in the universal restoration is an ox, but anyone who teaches it is an ass.”

To this Ware appends a footnote that is, for me, worth the price of the book:

Professor Donald Paul Burgo of Fontbonne College, St. Louis, . . . rightly adds that the ox and the ass were already at the stable in Bethlehem before the wise men had found their way to it.

One of the best examples of theological charity I’ve ever come across. These are matters far above the mind of man; but we are reliably told that man is destined for matters far above the mind of man.

As it happens, I wrote about the increasing indifference of the northern constabulary to the Queen's peace at the time of the Ann Coulter riot a few weeks ago:

As for Ottawa’s coppers, they certainly demonstrated that famously Canadian “restraint.” Faced with a law-abiding group engaging in legal activity and a bunch of thugs trying to prevent it, the police declined to maintain order. As George Jonas wrote, “Ottawa’s finest exemplified Canada’s definition of moral leadership by observing neutrality between lawful and lawless...”

There's a lot of that about. I referenced the bizarre incident in which the Finance Minister of Ontario was attacked during a public television taping:

As in Ottawa, law enforcement declined to enforce the law, the OPP remaining in the wings as thugs rushed the stage. “The police, I’m told, were urged not to intervene,” Paikin explained, “lest pictures of demonstrators being hauled off by the cops show up all over YouTube.”

True. You might haul off a Muslim or a lesbian and find yourself in “human rights” hell. Better just to linger nonchalantly by the side until it’s all over: O Canada, we stand around for thee. Her Majesty’s Constabulary seem to be sending the message that violence pays—at least for approved identity groups. That doesn’t seem a prudent strategy.

As we see. The Toronto PD are your go-to guys if you want a fetching police escort for the Queers Against Israeli Apartheid float in the Pride Parade, but they don't otherwise seem to perform any useful function. David Miller, the city's brain-dead mayor, can usually be relied upon for a fatuous soundbite. In this case, he offered:

This isn't our Toronto.

Er, actually, it is. Try looking out the window. This wasn't quite as hilarious as his response to NPR's Renee Montagne after 18 Toronto Muslims were arrested for plotting to behead the Prime Minister and blow up Parliament:

"More than half of the people who live in Toronto, including myself, were not born in Canada. And I think that's why Canada works."

"Although it didn't work in this case," Ms. Montagne pointed out, somewhat maliciously.

And now it hasn't worked again. This comment seems more relevant than any of Hizzoner's:

Any city that stands aside to photograph itself burning - deserves to.

Many years ago, someone of my acquaintance recounted what might be called a mystical experience in D.C.’s Maryland suburbs: “In the parking lot at my apartment complex, among all the identical 1990s gray Hondas and Toyotas, someone had parked an impossibly long, tailfinned bright crimson 1960s antique. Despite the splendid paint job, it was obviously in an advanced state of rust and dilapidation; nonetheless, its color, size, and strangeness made it the glory of the parking lot. As I gazed upon it, though, I had the weird sense that despite its tonnage, it had a great lightness and thinness; I felt that if I were to poke it, impossibly, with a pin, I would reach not a carburetor or seat vinyl, but the terrible Heart of Being Itself -- it, like the rest of phenomenal reality, was a translucent skin behind which lies the truth that is God.”

It turns out that a famous American mystic, the monk Thomas Merton, had a similar experience, with an even more decrepit vehicle. This is from his poem “Elias -- Variations on a Theme”:

My old trailer; faster and faster it stands still,
Behind the felled oaks, faster, burning nothing.
Broken and perfect, facing south . . .

Where the woods are cut down the punished
Trailer stands alone and becomes
(Against all the better intentions of the owners)
The House of God
The Gate of Heaven.
(“My chariot of fire”)

“Faster and faster it stands still” is a wonderful phrase, capturing as it does the Thomistic understanding that being itself is primarily Act. In its act of being, every substance proclaims the active energy of its eternal source; the Psalmist says that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (19:1) - but this is also true of the most prosaic substance. I can imagine an unsympathetic sociologist pointing to these two instances as examples of 20th-century America’s idolization of the automobile, and perhaps even extending it into a critique of Americans’ atomistic individualism - “See, they worship the machine that enables them to flee from others.” But I think there’s something much more fundamental going on here, and it has to do with the fact that man has an innate capability for transcendence. The place you transcend is precisely the place where you are; and that, in America’s last century, is a freeway or a parking lot.

On the plus side, the refs didn't hate us today!

Weigel used JournoList for exactly the purpose its critics suspected it would be used, i.e., to attempt to shape media coverage for the benefit of the Left. And he did it more than once. . . .

. . .the people whining the loudest about “epistemic closure” on the Right find themselves utterly blinded when Weigel advocated it for the Left, and had to resign due to the “epistemic closure” that was inherent in JournoList itself. I think there’s a hip term for that…

Heh.

I'm deeply, deeply honored to be here with you today. 

I know the program says I'm here to accept an award.  But really, it isn't my work we should be celebrating here today; it's YOUR work we should be celebrating.  It's the collective energy of the National Right to Life Committee and its state affiliates throughout America that has made the real difference. 

I want to thank each and every person in this room for the leadership and sacrifice you've demonstrated in your communities.

To be recognized by those who have devoted their lives to defending life is a true badge of honor.  Truly awe-inspiring.  I'm humbled, and inspired, by your confidence in me. 

Respect for life has never been a political position for me.  It just came naturally.  It's me.  It's what I believe.  It's what my parents instilled in me as I grew up in America.  I think millions of Americans had a similar experience.

I grew up in a small house in Cincinnati with a big family - 11 brothers and sisters.

It wasn't easy for my mom to have 12 children.  But I'm glad she did.

My parents sent all 12 of us to Catholic schools.  It wasn't easy for them to do that; believe me, our family could have used the money for a lot of other things.  But it was important to them that we got a good education.  And for them, a good education meant more than just the ABCs and 1-2-3s.  It was also important that we learned about deeper values.  Respect for life was at the top of that list.

I've thought a lot about this speech and what I'm going to say here.  And as I went through that process, I realized a few things about who I am, and who I think we are as a people.

Americans love life, and we love freedom.  They're both intertwined, permanently, as part of the American character.  America is a nation built on freedom.  And without respect for life, freedom is in jeopardy.

When human life takes a back seat to other priorities - personal comforts, economics - freedom is diminished.  By contrast, when we affirm the dignity of life, we affirm our commitment to freedom.

These are fundamentals in the American experience.  And they have real implications for government and those who are entrusted with power.

For elected leaders, it means we should always err on the side of life.

It means we must always respect the dignity of life, at all stages - from conception and birth, to the end of life, and everything in between.

It means we have a moral obligation to defend the defenseless. And there is nothing more defenseless, or more innocent, or more pure, than an unborn baby.

The defense of life and the defense of freedom are necessarily linked.  We know this to be true.  And if we accept it, then the current political agenda in Washington is a threat to freedom.

As Governor Bob McDonnell, the new governor of Virginia, said in his response to President Obama's State of the Union address in January: "America must always be a land where liberty and property are valued and respected, and innocent human life is protected."

I never sought to be recognized as a leader of the movement.  Never wore my pro-life credentials on my sleeve. 

I was what you might call a quiet warrior.  I just voted for what I thought was right, and stood up for what I thought was right, like all of you do every day. 

But over the past few years, I've been compelled to raise my voice; to speak out a little more loudly. 

When you look at the agenda being pursued in Washington, if you believe in the right to life, being quiet isn't good enough.  We don't have the luxury of being "quiet." 

If you look at what's going on, there's a constant tearing down of walls - walls that have stood as the last line of defense for the unborn in the decades since Roe v. Wade.

In retrospect, no one should be surprised.  The warning signs were there all along. 

Before being elected as our 44th president, Senator Barack Obama spoke at the national convention of Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest provider of abortion.  He endorsed the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade, and promised to make its enactment a priority for his administration if elected president. 

During the president's first week in office, on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I and 114 other House Republicans sent the president a letter urging him to withdraw his pledge to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, or “FOCA,” into law.

Our tone was respectful.  Our message was one of hope.

The letter stated: “Americans from all walks of life have been touched by your pledge to govern from the center, and by your vow to be a president for all Americans. . .You've expressed a desire to be a president for all Americans, and to use your presidency to promote initiatives that bring Americans together, rather than drive them apart." 

 

And we asked him, respectfully, to withdraw his pledge to sign the Freedom of Choice Act.

 

We never got a response to that letter from the president - not in writing, anyway. 

But in the 18 months since the letter was sent, we've gotten our answer.  And tragically, the answer has come through the administration's own actions.  The FOCA agenda is being implemented, incrementally, step by tragic step.

In the first few months of his presidency, President Obama took at least three separate actions weakening American rules that were meant to safeguard the sanctity of human life.

He repealed the Mexico City Policy that prevents taxpayer dollars from going to international family planning organizations that promote - and sometimes provide - abortion overseas.    

He took it upon himself to create federal incentives to destroy human embryos - taking this action at a time when science is demonstrating that the true potential of stem cell research lies in the type of stem cell research that does not require the destruction of living human embryos.  

And he weakened conscience protections that protect doctors and nurses who decline to provide abortions for moral reasons.

Most of those actions were announced late on a Friday afternoon.  In Washington, a Friday afternoon announcement is code that you want to hide something.

These were the start of a pattern we've seen repeated throughout this administration.  In the latest instance, the Obama administration is moving to allow abortions on military bases. 

It's sadly ironic - and profoundly disturbing - that our government would endorse the destruction of innocent American lives on the same soil our men and women walk each and every day in defense of freedom and liberty. 

It undermines everything the fine men and women of our military are fighting for. 

And then, of course, there's the president's massive health care overhaul - ObamaCare. 

The overwhelming opposition of the American people to taxpayer funding of abortion almost kept it from becoming law.

The American people - and a bipartisan majority in the House - supported the Stupak amendment, which would have prohibited taxpayer funding of abortion through the health care bill. 

This presented a huge problem for the President and the Democratic leadership.  Because the health care overhaul wasn't being driven by the will of the people; it was being driven by the will of special interests - radical special interests who believe the destruction of unborn human life is "health care."

Ultimately it became apparent to the White House and Democratic leaders that they couldn't find the votes to kill the pro-life Stupak amendment.  So they came up with a little maneuver. 

Instead of heeding the will of the people and a bipartisan majority in the House, they crafted a disingenuous, last-minute Executive Order that they claimed eliminated the need for pro-life protections.  The president issued the order, and White House aides indicated its enforcement would be a priority. 

That, sadly, was good enough for a handful of legislators, including Rep. Stupak himself, who prior to that point had mounted a courageous fight. 

But pro-life America didn't buy it.  They doubted the administration's sincerity - and with good reason. 

We're three months into implementation of the new health care law - and as far as anyone can tell, the administration hasn't lifted a finger to enforce the president's Executive Order on abortion. 

Secretary Sebelius sent a cheery "progress report" on Obamacare's implementation to Congress in May that made no mention of the Executive Order.  When I questioned her about it, she said only that the administration is "working on it." 

Several more weeks went by after that, without any apparent action.  So two weeks ago, at the White House, I asked President Obama about it personally.  Everyone in the room heard me ask the question.  But we're all still waiting for an answer.

I say all this with great sadness.  Sadness for the unborn, absolutely.  But also sadness for our nation. 

These policies do not unite America.  They divide America.  And in the coming months, America must decide whether we're going to allow it to continue.

We recently launched an initiative called America Speaking Out, aimed at engaging the American people directly in the process of crafting new governing agenda for Congress.  One of the tools is a website, AmericaSpeakingOut.com, that allows every American to log on, submit ideas, and vote on ideas submitted by other Americans.

I encourage everyone in this room - go to AmericaSpeakingOut.com, and tell your neighbors about it.  Use it to get engaged in your government. 

One of my all-time heroes in the House is Congressman Henry Hyde, the late representative from Illinois. 

Part of Henry's legacy, as you know, is the Hyde amendment, which prohibits Congress from appropriating taxpayer funds for abortion. 

One of the many ideas being discussed right now on America Speaking Out is the idea of codifying the Hyde Amendment so that it applies to all federal funding, whether those funds are appropriated by Congress or authorized by Congress.

I believe this must be the next objective for pro-life America.  It’s clear from the health care debate that the American people don’t want their tax dollars paying for abortion, and a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives agrees.  It’s the will of the people, and it ought to be the law of the land - right now.

I'm pleased to announce today that Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey will be introducing legislation to accomplish this goal.  I intend to be an original cosponsor of the bill.  And once it is introduced, I will call on Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer to bring it to an immediate vote. 

It’s time for Washington to stop defying the will of the American people on this critical, common-sense issue.

I also believe we need to repeal the health care bill and start over on common sense reforms that will lower health care costs for families and protect the sanctity of all human life.

Our nation was built on ideas that came directly from the people - people who took an active interest in their government.

Americans today need to be engaged, because the people running our government haven't been listening.  And if the failure to listen continues, the consequences could be catastrophic.

It will mean two more years in which Planned Parenthood, EMILY's List and other radical groups determine the direction of our government, while the voices of pro-life Americans are shut out. 

It will mean two more years of Supreme Court appointments for activist judges who didn't think Roe v. Wade was radical enough.

It could set back the cause of life for decades.

As we look ahead to the future, we need to know who the defenders of life really are.  No one gets a pass when it comes to life. 

The thwarting of the Stupak amendment was a signal moment for pro-life America.  It reminded us that while any politician can say he or she is "pro-life," actions speak louder than words. 

The lesson: get involved in your government.  Speak out.  Find out where your legislators and would-be legislators stand. 

Is your Member of Congress committed to the defense of life?  Or is it negotiable? 

Is your Member of Congress truly dedicated to protecting the unborn?  Or can he or she be swayed by the offer of a pork-barrel project, or a new government program, or the promise of a plum committee assignment? 

This is the time to know the answer to these questions.  This is when it matters.

You invited me here to give me an award, and I gratefully accept it.  But let's be clear: the true leaders are sitting out there in the crowd right now.  What I do matters less than what you do.

I mentioned Henry Hyde earlier, and I want to close by mentioning him again, for a couple of reasons.

First, Henry was my friend, and probably the colleague I most admired during my two decades in the House. 

Second, the examples that Henry set, in the way conducted himself, and in the way he defended life, are examples WE must follow.

Henry was at peace in the presence of others - even those who disagreed with him most - because of his unshakeable faith in the sanctity of every human life.

And when Henry died a few years ago, I had the great honor of being asked to speak at his memorial service. 

I recall some of my words then: treating everyone with dignity and respect came naturally to Henry.  Not just because he was kind and full of decency, but because he truly believed all human life is precious.

Henry was right.  There is no cause more noble than the defense of human life.  There is no mission more critical.  No debate more urgent. 

You know this in your hearts, or you wouldn't be here today.  And from the bottom of my heart - thank you for this honor, and thanks for all you do to defend freedom, and defend life.