Well you know what, when [unintelligible] said at camp, you can’t get any money because one guy blocked it. That’s bollocks, that’s not f–king democracy. You can’t have one guy block a democratic f–king vote. That’s not democracy… Or…or beat the c–t up that just said I’m not going to give the camp any money. [Evil laugh] Bash him, just bash him up… It’s a peaceful protest…but it’s not a peaceful camp. And it’s not. And there is violence here, and I’ve had to deal with it…and I’m not enjoying having to deal with all these violent f–kers.
You know Monty Python has made a fortune here in the U.S. because just about everything sounds funnier with an English accent…but there isn’t much to laugh about here. (Except maybe the latest in occupy fashion.) These defenders of democracy are actually right about one thing though: consensus-based decision making where one objector can block an entire motion is bollocks, a recipe for anarchy in fact. But then I suppose that’s the whole point isn’t it?
At least that’s what the Secret Service agents under scrutiny for the Colombian hooker scandal are claiming, according to the Washington Post. Three more agents have been discharged, bringing the total to nine, but some may end up fighting to get their jobs back. First, Politico reports on the latest terminations:
Three more Secret Service employees were forced out of their jobs Tuesday, bringing the total number of agency employees to lose their jobs in the Colombia prostitution scandal to nine. Two of the employees are resigning, while a third is having his security clearance revoked and will leave the agency, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House homeland security committee, told POLITICO. Two more agency employees have been cleared of any wrongdoing. Paul Morrissey [no relation -- Ed], the Secret Service’s assistant director, confirmed the personnel changes in a statement. With the latest departures, all 12 Secret Service employees suspected of misconduct in Cartagena ahead of the president’s trip there for the Summit of the Americas have been dealt with by the agency. Six resigned or were fired last week, while another employee was cleared. “At this point, all twelve have either been cleared of serious misconduct, resigned, retired, been notified of personnel actions to permanently revoke their security clearances, or have been proposed for permanent removal for cause,” Morrissey said. “The Secret Service is committed to conducting a full, thorough and fair investigation in this matter, and will not hesitate to take appropriate action should any additional information come to light.”
The additional information might come from the employees themselves, and might result in the need for a much wider investigation into Secret Service activities:
Some Secret Service employees accused of misconduct in the Colombian prostitution scandal are privately contending that their conduct didn’t warrant dismissal because senior managers tolerated similar behavior during official trips, according to people familiar with the employees’ thinking. Several of the men who agreed to resign under pressure last week are also considering reversing their decisions and fighting to keep their jobs, according to the people knowledgeable about the case. … Those close to the accused employees said that in an effort to fight for their jobs they could opt to divulge details of how colleagues spent some of their downtime on presidential trips — drinking heavily, visiting strip clubs and cavorting with women for hire. “Of course it has happened before” said one agent not implicated in the matter, remarking on the Secret Service’s history of occasionally licentious partying. “This is not the first time. It really only blew up in this case because the [U.S. Embassy] was alerted.”.
The first hints that this might be true come from the scorecard of the people involved. The debauchery in Cartagena didn’t just involve a couple of low-level rookies; more than one supervisor took part, one of whom offered indiscreet commentary about Sarah Palin on his Facebook page. The scope of the revelry and the inclusion of members of the military makes this look even more routine than aberrant. And perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. My good friend Paul Mirengoff has returned to Power Line this month after a lengthy hiatus, and he reminded us last night that people in high-stress jobs are often risk-takers who need to party as hard as they work:
I don’t wish to put up any strong defense of the Secret Service employees in question, or to argue that they should not be sacked. But I don’t believe we should be very surprised by the misconduct of agents who put their life on the line to protect the president and his family against danger from sources that may not reveal themselves until the last second. There may be a more stressful job, but I can’t think of one. Given the stress inherent in this work, it is normal that more than a few agents blow off steam by drinking, carousing, and in some cases whoring. This doesn’t mean that those who engage in the latter activity shouldn’t be fired; a job like this should be reserved for those who can transcend “normal.” But one might still have sympathy for the agents who failed to do so.
I agree — to a point. One could understand how an individual agent or two might exercise poor judgment and get caught up in the atmosphere of an exotic locale. However, they aren’t supposed to be on vacation; they were there to identify potential threats and focus on providing a secure environment for the President of the United States. Even more to the point, the involvement of supervisors shows that this was likely not an aberration, but simply one instance where it got so out of hand that they were caught in the act. Congress needs to keep looking into the Secret Service to ensure that the culture of the agency provides focus to the job at hand.
How do you know you’ve had a bad day at the Supreme Court — or in Donald Verilli’s case, another bad day? When a justice who is presumably sympathetic to your case tells you your argument “isn’t selling very well” and you might want to try coming up with another, you’re probably having a bad day. Once again, the rough treatment of the Solicitor General in a case brought by the Obama administration seems to signal that the White House will suffer a big loss:
The “show me your papers” provision of Arizona’s tough immigration enforcement law is most familiar to the public. It is also likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. … In Wednesday’s oral arguments, Supreme Court justices showed little sympathy for the federal government’s complaint that state police officers would violate federal immigration jurisdiction if they check the status of someone they pull over. That argument is seen by legal analysts as the weakest in the government’s case against the Arizona statute. Justice Antonin Scalia all but laughed the federal government’s lawyer out of the courtroom when he suggested that Arizona police officers would somehow deter the federal government from enforcing immigration by calling federal officials to ask about a person they stop. “Arizona isn’t trying to kick out anybody that the federal government hasn’t already said doesn’t belong here,” he said. “The Constitution recognizes that there is such a thing as state borders and a state can police their borders.”
Scalia wasn’t the only justice to scoff, either:
Chief Justice John Roberts noted the Arizona law only allows legal status checks if the police officer has pulled over a person for some other reason. The Arizona officer is simply alerting the federal government to an illegal alien’s presence. “It seems to me the federal government just doesn’t want to know who’s here or not,” Roberts said. Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who offered the most sympathy for the government’s position, pointed out to Verrilli that his argument “isn’t selling very well”—namely that a systematic system of status checks is somehow different from the current ad hoc one.
Nor did Sotomayor buy it herself:
Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said the federal governmenthas limited resources and should have the right to determine the extent of calls it gets about possible illegal immigrants. “These decisions have to be made at the national level,” he said. But even Democratic-appointed justices were uncertain of that. “I’m terribly confused by your answer,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who went on to say that the federal government can always decline to pick up illegal immigrants when Arizona officials call.
That’s not to say that the White House lost on all fronts today, and it’s good to bear in mind that questions during oral arguments are not a flawless predictor of eventual decisions. The administration did better when arguing that the provision of the law that imposes criminal penalties for illegal immigrants treads on federal jurisdiction, and on associated ID and work issues. National Journal called these “almost a side note to the conversation,” with attention focused on the issue of whether a state can require law enforcement to check on legal residency when detaining suspects for other reasons. Their report does include one exchange that might indicate that Justice Anthony Kennedy might still have some reservations:
However, Justice Anthony Kennedy pursued a line of questioning that could potentially lead the justices to invalidate the status check provision. He asked whether a person would be detained longer than they otherwise would have been because of the immigration status check. Clement was unable to assure Kennedy that the detention time would not be lengthened.
That’s interesting, but probably not all that relevant. There are already limitations on how long suspects can be held without filing charges, usually 48-72 hours, and a question of legal residency would not override those limitations. At the end of the time limit, the state or locality would have to either file some sort of criminal charges and have a judge determine whether to continue holding a suspect or offer bail, or release the suspect without charges. If states and localities don’t have the ability to charge a detainee with illegal residency, and it seems likely that the justices will rule that way, then either the suspect would get arraigned on other charges or released. If the White House loses their challenge to the most controversial part of the law, expect the Left to go after Verrilli again as they did after his difficult day defending ObamaCare. He may have performed better this time, though, at least on the secondary issues. And once again, the problem was less with Verrilli and more with the administration’s positions that Verrilli had to defend.
Yes, really. Believe it or not, those endless video clips of this guy droning on about the cheap gimmick you and I know as the Buffett Rule were technically “presidential events,” even though there’s no serious policy reason to spend more than five minutes talking about it. It’s a populist pander aimed at peeling working-class voters away from Romney by building class resentment. And yet, supposedly, it’s sufficiently important to justify using your tax dollars to fly O around the country to make the pitch. If that’s a “presidential event,” I can’t wait to see what the campaign events look like A telling detail from the NYT’s recent piece about presidents campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime:
Since Mr. Obama filed for re-election a year ago, he has taken 60 domestic trips, of which 26 included fund-raisers, according to Mark Knoller, a White House correspondent for CBS News who for years has compiled such data. Mr. Knoller’s count shows that since Mr. Obama took office, his most frequent destinations besides Maryland, Virginia and Illinois, his home state, have been fund-raising centers and swing states: New York (23 visits), Ohio (20), Florida (16), Pennsylvania (15), Michigan (11), California and North Carolina (10 each), Massachusetts (9), Wisconsin (8), Iowa and Nevada (7 each), and Colorado (6).
Even reporters don’t take this phony distinction seriously anymore. The Washington Free Beacon’s been compiling tweets from journalists scoffing openly at the idea that these visits to purple states and big blue piggy banks are anything more than campaign stops in the guise of Matters of National Importance. Presumably, by the White House’s logic, last night’s slow jam of the news wasn’t a dumb goof aimed at charming young voters but a “presidential forum on current events.” Time for the RNC to apply a little pressure by calling for a GAO investigation:
Today he will hold another similar event in Iowa. Ostensibly these campaign stops were meant to support student loan legislation (which ironically President Obama didn’t even take the time to vote on during his short tenure in the U.S. Senate). Please note that President Obama traveled to three states largely considered to be electoral battlegrounds to promote this legislation. One might imagine that if this were genuinely a government event he might have stopped in a non-battleground state like Texas or Vermont. The same can be said of the president’s trip to Florida two weeks ago. President Obama scheduled three fundraisers in the state and added one short “official event” on his Buffett Tax to his itinerary, once again allowing his reelection campaign to save on fuel for Air Force One. This speech was high on class warfare, slogans, and divisive campaign-style rhetoric. It was low on substance that would benefit the populace at large. One incident of this might be an error that is easily remedied. But it is a pattern of behavior that is worsening. In fact in three and a half years, President Obama has held dozens of events that benefitted OFA on the taxpayer dime.
Follow the link for the obligatory GSA reference. Question: When was the last time O spoke publicly about a policy matter and wasn’t obviously trying to score campaign points in doing so? It’s one small-ball matter after another: The Buffett Rule to position himself as the champion of blue-collar voters, regulations on oil speculators to show that he cares about gas prices, extending the student-loan interest rate to get young voters excited to volunteer for Generation O again, etc. Those are all campaign events, by and large, as of course was his speech tearing into Paul Ryan after his own phony budget went straight down the crapper in Congress. When was the last actual presidential address?
Or perhaps it is how I learned to start being concerned about “manufactured” outrage. It depends on how you look at it, I suppose.
After all, when I read generally conservative columnists like Matt K. Lewis or John Podhoretz disdaining “manufactured” outrages from different angles — even when the GOP may enjoy some temporary advantage from the kerfuffles of the current campaign — I am not entirely unsympathetic. Indeed, I am already on record arguing that institutionally, the GOP should not engage in these controversies, but note that Democrats have been generating them to distract from the anemic economy and the Obama administration’s record on the issues Americans care most about. I think that’s pretty close to Podhoretz’s position, if I’m reading him correctly.
On the other hand, I recognize at least two problems inherent in the position of disdaining these distractions entirely.
First, there is at least a whiff of condescension involved. I do not think those upset by the Obama administration’s plans to infringe on religious liberty as part of Obamacare are just pretending to be upset. I doubt the progressives who seem so passionate about increasing access to abortion and birth control are playing make-believe (beyond the notion that such access is “free” in terms of money or overall liberty). People who denounce a Democratic honcho who let her mask slip to suggest stay-at-home mothers don’t really work are not entirely engaged in hype. I may think economic growth, exploding public debt and the entirety of Obamacare to be bigger issues, but it would be elitist to deny there are real issues at the heart of most of the supposed sideshows of the campaign so far.
This is even arguably true about this campaign’s dog tales. Admittedly, whether Mitt Romney once transported his family dog atop his car or Obama ate dog as a child in Indonesia (with little apparent regret as an adult) has no direct policy consequences. On the other hand, Podhoretz admits Democrats became interested in the Romney dog tale because of the effect it had on Mitt’s favorability in focus groups. Moreover, the intersection of moral psychology and politics is a hot topic these past months. And in this regard, it is notable that when asked whether it would be wrong for a family to eat the family dog after it was killed by a car, it turns out that the only group that thinks it alright is college-educated liberals. The swingiest of swing voters are almost by definition not particularly moved by policy arguments, or they would be partisans. America is still a free enough country that we get to tell this key bloc that dog tales are unimportant, but they don’t have to listen.
The second major problem with ignoring campaign sideshows is Utopianism. As Podhoretz notes, opposition research is democratized in the Internet Age. And Lewis concedes that ceding the field to Democrats on these issues may be necessary to win elections (and thereby address those “real” issues). There is nothing in American history, let alone the history of the Internet Age, suggesting that a handful of pundits — or even concerted efforts by candidates and their teams — are going to stop these controversies. To rhetorically shovel against this tide is in one sense noble, but also unconservative to the degree that it pretends human nature is so easily molded by the political realm.
In short, while I still think it helps the GOP to use these kerfuffles to say Democrats want to avoid discussing the economy and Obama’s record, there is probably a role for those who want neutralize or reverse their effect.
This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com. To see the comments on the original post, look here.
The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries.
“The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.”“In a typical year, the young men in this agricultural region of western Mexico would have made the journey north to America. But not this year or for this generation: a better future across the border is a promise they no longer trust.
“‘For years, we dreamed of America, but now that dream is no good,’ says 18-year-old Pedro Morales, sitting in the elegant Spanish colonial square of Comala under the shadow of the spectacular Volcan de Fuego. ‘There are no jobs and too many problems. We don’t want to go.’…
“‘The reason they’re coming home is because they have no options, no papers, and the laws are more aggressive,’ says Fernando Morett, a shopkeeper in the coastal town of Chiutlan. ‘It’s complicated, and people are debating it. If they don’t have friends in the US and they have to pay to cross the line, it’s not worth it.’”
***
“First of all, there’s no reason to think that pressure for illegal immigration from Mexico won’t increase again; in fact, the total illegal population has already stopped declining and may have begun to grow again. The U.S. economy is bound to pick up at some point and the newfound middle-class status of so many Mexicans, often cited as a reason for the drop in departures northward, is tenuous. As the Washington Post put it, the country’s new middle class is ‘fearful that recent gains could be lost in a financial crisis or social upheaval.’
“What’s more, the decline in Mexico’s birth rate, which is also cited as a mark of the permanence of the drop-off in emigration, isn’t necessarily connected. The change is real enough; as recently as 1970, the average Mexican woman had nearly seven children, whereas today the number is barely over two. But emigration isn’t just a matter of excess people overflowing into another country. South Korea, for instance, has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, not to mention a First World level of development, and yet emigration to the U.S. (mostly legal) continues apace. Immigration from Japan and China seems to have actually increased as fertility declined. And immigration from Russia isn’t stopping even though Russia’s total population is actually declining. Sure, if fertility is low enough for long enough, eventually you’ll just run out of people. But in the meantime, immigration is driven by networks of friends and relatives and employers rather than by population math.
“And finally, some part of the decline in new illegal immigrants, and the departure of those already here, was caused by the very enforcement measures the anti-borders crowd wants to dismantle in light of the new numbers.”
***
“Pearce is not a Romney adviser, but he is the embodiment of the law that Romney embraced — and the baggage Romney now carries for seeking far-right support in the primary. On Tuesday, Pearce sat at the witness table, shaking his head in disagreement as others spoke about how the law encourages racial profiling and hurts legal Latino residents…
“Does he support Arizona authorities using ‘dress’ as a way to identify illegal immigrants? ‘You have to respond to reasonable suspicion to do your job,’ he said.
“Why didn’t the law simply require that everybody stopped by the police would be checked for immigration status, to avoid racial profiling? ‘I don’t want a police state,’ he said.
“No, he only wants that for people who don’t look like him.”
***
“‘I think we have in Arizona an overreach where the Republicans have really overplayed their hand,’ said Luis Heredia, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, citing the immigration bill and Arpaio’s antics…
“One recent Saturday, Democratic state senate candidate Raquel Teran paced the streets of her strongly Hispanic Phoenix district, armed with a map, a list of registered Democratic voters and a sheaf of voter registration papers. She signed up one new voter at the first house she called at.
“Sitting out in the shady yard of her in-laws’ home, young mother Yvette Sierra, 22, shared an experience about her husband being pulled over by Arpaio’s deputies, who she said let him go only after he produced their young son’s U.S. birth certificate.
“‘He’s stopping people and I just don’t think it’s right,’ she says, filling out a voter registration form. ‘I never (voted), never thought about it . . . but I’m glad.’”
***
“‘He’s already said that immigration reform is something that he’s committed to,’ McCain told reporters, in response to a question about whether Romney should make the issue a bigger focus of his campaign…
“The Arizona senator became agitated when asked about Romney having said he supports a self-deportation policy, whereby illegal immigrants would voluntarily go back to their country of origin and then apply for U.S. citizenship.
“No he hasn’t. He’s said that’s one of the options he’s looked at,’ McCain said. ‘So don’t put words in his mouth.’
“Romney has explicitly said he supports such a policy, however.”
***
“Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), an informal adviser to the Romney campaign who co-wrote Arizona’s controversial immigration law, predicted Romney would stick with his previous positions on border control.
“‘Governor Romney and the Romney team remain firmly opposed to amnesty,’ he told The Hill earlier this week. ‘I’m not getting any sense he’s changing his positions. He’s staked them out in the [presidential] debates with considerable specificity. He said the Arizona bill should be a model. He said the concept of self-deportation should be one that’s used. I hadn’t heard at all he’s moving and I doubt he will.’…
“Tancredo expressed hope that Kobach could convince Romney to hold his position on the DREAM Act and keep up the rhetoric he used during the primary, but doubted he would.”
***
“In other words, attrition works. But if illegal immigrants are going home on their own, why do we need an amnesty? The argument for it is that the illegal immigrants are firmly rooted here and aren’t going anywhere. While that’s probably true for some illegals, it’s obviously not true for lots of them. So why not wait and see how much more the illegal population can be reduced through attrition before we surrender and declare an amnesty?”
Looks like the RNC has tired of waiting for other candidates to take the hint. RNC chair Reince Priebus and Mitt Romney have begun working this morning to merge their efforts and start working on the general election with Romney as the leader of the party:
Less than 24 hours after sweeping five primaries and declaring the Republican presidential nomination fight officially over, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee are moving quickly to coordinate their efforts. “Governor Romney’s strong performance and delegate count at this stage of the primary process has made him our party’s presumptive nominee,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “In order to maximize our efforts I have directed my staff at the RNC to open lines of communication with the Romney campaign.”
This involves some personnel moves from the Romney primary campaign to the RNC:
The leading edge of the synchronization will be four liaisons between the two organizations. Brian Jones, who has been serving as an adviser to Romney since late last year, will lead that effort. Kevin Madden, who served as the press secretary for Romney’s 2008 presidential bid, will advise the communications operation and serve as a DC-based television surrogate for the Romney/RNC effort. Ward Baker, a veteran Tennessee-based GOP strategist, will help coordinate the political and field teams. Ron Kaufman, a veteran RNC member, and Ben Ginsberg, who served as national counsel to Romney’s 2008 race, will also facilitate interaction between the two groups.
Priebus will remain in his position, and Romney won’t name a deputy chair, which presidential nominees will sometimes do to flex their muscle or keep tabs on the organization. Chris Cillizza writes that this is a vote of confidence in Priebus from Romney. And why not? Priebus has done a very good job as a turn-around specialist at the RNC, and perhaps only a fellow turn-around specialist like Romney can appreciate the effort and the improvements made from the Michael Steele era. The new partnership will allow the Romney campaign to raise money in the same manner that the Obama campaign has done for the past year. Romney and Priebus will hold big-ticket joint fundraisers that will score eye-popping donation totals, presumably immediately. Romney and the GOP needed to get started on that as soon as possible; Obama has $100 million in the bank, even if the donations to his campaign trail his pace from 2008 rather significantly, while Romney has $10 million banked at the moment. The GOP has all summer to catch up, but the earlier reality sets in and they get started, the better off they are. Update: Romney and the RNC have added at least 20 fundraising events through May, according to Politico:
Mitt Romney’s campaign has set a breathtaking schedule for finance events for him over the next month, according to a schedule obtained by POLITICO – with at least fifteen different cities put on his calendar between April 30 and the last day of May. At least three of those stops are expected to be multi-event trips, simply listed on the schedule right now as “Florida” or “California,” without the type of event described next to it – indicating a number of fundraisers will be put on the schedule. That will mean at least 20 events, in addition to keeping up with public campaign stops. And the fifteen different cities are in addition to the six fundraising events Romney is holding in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut this week. … The schedule warns that the events are subject to change. But the pace of the fundraising is breakneck, as the campaign has moved to fill the coffers of the “Victory Fund” it’s set up jointly with the Republican National Committee and other local committees.
We’re just a couple of days away from the Commerce Department Q1 GDP report, and the indicators continue to turn sour. Today’s bad news comes from the manufacturing sector, where durable-goods orders had their worst month in three years:
New orders for manufactured durable goods in March decreased $8.8 billion or 4.2 percent to $202.6 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This decrease, down two of the last three months, followed a 1.9 percent February increase. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 1.1 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 4.6 percent. Transportation equipment, also down two of the last three months, had the largest decrease, $7.1 billion or 12.5 percent to $49.7 billion. This was due to nondefense aircraft and parts, which decreased $7.7 billion.
And in even worse news, inventories continued to rise even though demand fell significantly:
Inventories of manufactured durable goods in March, up twenty-seven consecutive months, increased $1.7 billion or 0.4 percent to $375.1 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis and followed a 0.3 percent February increase. Transportation equipment, also up twenty-seven consecutive months, had the largest increase, $0.8 billion or 0.7 percent to $118.0 billion. This was also at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis.
The dropoff in transportation orders was expected, although perhaps not to this extent; that sector dropped more than 12%. However, durable orders fell in non-transportation categories as well, which was not expected. February’s previously-announced increase was revised downward as well:
Demand for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods dropped by the most in three years in March and a gauge of business spending plans fell, suggesting factory activity lost momentum as the first quarter ended. Durable goods orders tumbled 4.2 percent, the largest decline since January 2009, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday after a downwardly revised 1.9 percent increase in February. Economists had forecast orders for durable goods, which range from toasters to aircraft, falling 1.7 percent after a previously reported 2.4 percent rise in February. Orders were dragged down by a 12.5 percent plunge in bookings for transportation equipment — the most since November 2010. Excluding transportation, orders fell 1.1 percent after a 1.9 percent rise in February. Economists had forecast this category rising 0.5 percent.
The 2011Q4 GDP report came in at a respectable but hardly potent 3.0% after a decent run in the manufacturing sector and some stability in gas prices. However, in 2012Q1, we have had two very bad months (January and March) for durable goods, a bad January for overall factory orders which will likely get repeated in March, and a hiring slowdown that’s hardly coincidental. Don’t be surprised to see something significantly bad for a GDP report in a couple of days.
Via RCP and Twitchy, how embarrassing is it when a news anchor on any channel has to explain the conference committee process to a member of Congress? DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) appeared on Fox News last night with Bret Baier, who asked the simple question: why haven’t Senate Democrats passed a budget? Wasserman Schultz wanted to gripe about the House-passed Paul Ryan budget, but when Baier asked why the Senate hadn’t passed a budget resolution in 1,092 days, Wasserman Schultz scolded him for talking about “process.” She did try to argue at one point that Democrats have proposed a budget — the White House budget from Barack Obama — but Baier forced her to change direction when he asked why the Senate hadn’t bothered to vote on it. This is a pretty simple “process.” Each chamber passes a version of the budget, and it goes into conference committee. That’s simpler in the Senate than most other legislation, since filibusters cannot be used on budgets; a simple majority is all that’s needed to pass it. In order to get a budget into conference committee, though, both chambers have to actually pass a budget in the first place, and it’s been three years and counting since the Senate bothered to comply with the law and produce an annual budget resolution. This is a failure of leadership. And last night, the Democrats’ leader failed miserably to defend a three-year-plus record of cowardice on budgeting.
Via Greg Hengler, I’m … kind of torn on this one. On one hand, it plays into every fear among the conservative base of the GOP about Mitt Romney. On the other hand, the statement from the man formerly known as the worst American President in modern times makes it very, very difficult for Team Obama to succeed in using the advice given by the only other Democratic President in the last 40+ years to paint Romney as The Mostest Radicalist Scariest Right-Winger Since Barry Goldwater Nearly Nuked The Nation. I’d bet, under the circumstances, that Mitt Romney will be happier than Barack Obama with Jimmy Carter’s assessment of the general election in 2012, or at least less unhappy:I had to laugh out loud at Carter’s assertion that politics has gotten more polarized since his term in office. Democrats in 1980 tried using the same strategy Bill Clinton gave to Obama, only they used it against Ronald Reagan. It didn’t work, since the nation wanted a significant change from Carter’s fecklessness and economic malaise more than they feared Reagan’s commitment to conservative principles. The polarization continued all through Reagan’s two terms in office, perhaps hitting a peak in the awful Robert Bork confirmation hearings and vote in 1987. The difference was that there were fewer counterweights to liberal media outlets that fueled it.
The question that Greg asks is still a good one: If Jimmy Carter is comfortable with a Romney presidency, it’s a safe bet that a lot more Democrats will be, too.
Via Charlie Spiering at the Washington Examiner who says Obama “jumps the shark” with this performance. You be the judge: The President seemed just a little wooden in his delivery. We know he can sing, at least a little. I suppose he realized how ridiculous it would have sounded for him to really get his groove on crooning about student loans and interest rates. Well, mission accomplished I’d say, because this robotic performance wasn’t ridiculous at all. Hey, any day Obama doesn’t spend “slow-jamming” the economy is at least a small improvement.
Instantly one of my favorite Axelrod clips, partly because watching a senior advisor to the president field questions about dog-eating makes me proud to be an American and partly because his lame response tells you a lot about Team O’s approach to this campaign. There’s a serious, sensible answer available to him: “Why are we spending time on dogs instead of on hashing out policy differences?” But he can’t say that. If he does, he forfeits the Democrats’ right to make a stink about Romney’s dog later in the campaign, which he doesn’t want to do because they really believe they can win some votes by having their dumber surrogates push that attack line. So Ax retreats to the only position he can — it’s not that questions about dogs are fantastically stupid at a moment of $15 trillion debt and 8+ percent unemployment, it’s that questions about what Obama did as a child are fantastically stupid. Putting Seamus in the car-roof kennel as an adult is a serious matter worthy of national media discussion, but if Mitt had been a teenager when he’d done it — well, that would be a triviality not worthy of the country’s attention. (I think.) Exit question: Why does Ax seem to think that Obama hasn’t made any dogs disappear as an adult? I can think of a few.
Matt Lewis wrote this morning that Obama vs. Romney is starting to look a bit like a “Mac vs. PC” commercial. Here’s the RNC kinda sorta embracing that framework to make the point that what America has with The One is the policy equivalent of a Sad Mac. Lewis:
Republicans, of course, will claim the contrast favors them — that last night demonstrated a serious candidate talking about serious issues — versus someone “slow-jamming” with a comedian (while the economy crumbles). But it also reminds me that the Obama vs. Romney clash creates a PR/optics problem for Republicans: Policy aside, Obama seems cool — while Romney seems more like The Man. (This might not matter. Voters might decided they personally like Obama, but that they want a technocrat to fix the economy. Sometimes we need The Man!) Brand images, though, often outlast political campaigns. And from a purely superficial standpoint, the GOP — especially if Romney makes a milquetoast running mate pick — risks reinforcing its image as your father’s party.
Yeah, I’m not so sure that President Romney or even candidate Romney would turn down Fallon’s invitation to do a segment like this in order to pander to young adults and soften Mitt’s image as a patrician stiff. He sees enough opportunity to peel some young voters away from Obama that he was willing to break with congressional Republicans on extending the student-loan interest rate. Supposedly, he’s already considering an appearance on SNL. The only reason he might not do it is if, per this ad, he and his team decide to try to use Obama’s likability advantage against him by portraying him as frivolous and disengaged. That’s hard to do with an incumbent, though; voters see Obama at work in one format or another virtually every day. So the SNL guest shot is a fait accompli, I’d bet, although Team Romney will likely insist on a gag more dignified than this. Two clips here, one of the ad and the other, via Greg Hengler, of MSNBC gushing so profusely over the “slow jam” bit that they felt obliged to half-kiddingly acknowledge their bias. Exit question: Would O have agreed to do this if he was as strong among young voters this year as he was in 2008? Remember, the Fallon appearance was scheduled as part of his two-day panderfest to college students and other under-30 voters. He’s worried about his margin in that demographic this time, especially given how high unemployment is for recent graduates. If embarrassing himself by playing Abbott to Jimmy Fallon’s Costello for three minutes turns out a few extra kids in November, hey. Update: The logic of the ad in one line: “If voters think on election day that Obama is the cool one, but Romney is the competent one, Obama will lose.”
I owe you something cheery after yesterday’s descent into eeyorish madness.
On the one hand, the economy’s supposed to be our big advantage, right? Maybe … not so much:
That’s a nifty example of why Democrats are so keen to frame the election as a choice between two visions rather than as a referendum on The One. Viewed in isolation, his economic program is shinola and voters know it. The key for lefties is making sure they don’t view it in isolation. On the other hand, there’s this:
The second data set shows the results when voters are asked whether they’d definitely or never vote for Obama. The column for independents is eyepopping, especially when you consider that they split evenly at 37 when the same question is asked about Romney. Problem is, Fox used such a small sample of indies for this poll that the margin of error for the subgroup ended up being eight percent. That’s why Romney merely ties O overall at 46 percent even though he wins independents by 13 points — there simply aren’t enough of the latter in this sample to make up for Obama’s enormous lead among Democrats. (The sample splits 44D/38R.) Even so, it’s worth paying attention to this metric going forward. How many anti-Obama votes are already banked among independents? And how many of them who claim they’ll never, ever, evah vote for O will rethink if we end up with two or three straight months of solid job growth?
Speaking of which, go read Jay Cost on the perils of trusting polls in an era when 90 percent of the electorate is split between the parties and locked down on each side, leaving the fate of the country in the hands of 10 percent who don’t pay much attention to politics and maybe don’t know what they’re talking about a lot of the time. Quote: “They are at the least fickle and at the worst maddening, as they regularly tell pollsters they have settled opinions when in fact they do not!” Makes those “I’ll never vote for Obama” results a little harder to interpret, huh? Oh, and here’s the Virginia poll from Rasmussen showing Mitt up by a point. We’re expected to take that state this time, I think. It’s in the same group as Indiana and North Carolina, just purple enough to break for a Democrat when everything’s going their way but a mighty heavy lift under normal-ish circumstances. That’s the difference between 2008 and 2012, I hope.
Exit question: How’s everyone out there feeling about this strategy?
“There is a pretty broad view that President Obama is a good family man and decent guy, but may be in over his head,” said Mr. Gillespie, a former counselor to George W. Bush, who was brought into the Romney campaign this month. He said the argument against re-election would be built around the suggestion that Mr. Obama “has not displayed strong leadership, but failed leadership and weak leadership.”
Update: Just as I’m writing this, the “Purple Poll” is out with data from battleground states. Romney’s up two in Florida and is tied in Colorado but trails narrowly in Virginia and Ohio. His favorable rating in CO, VA, OH, and FL, respectively:
If one lesson in public life should have risen to the level of received wisdom, it’s this: Don’t publish naked or near-naked photos of yourself, ever. Not on Twitter, not on Craigslist, and certainly not to your employees, especially those with spouses. And yet … Judge Wade McCree of Detroit, Michigan, seems oddly proud of his picture — even after a television reporter shows up to ask him questions about it:Court Bailiff: Detroit Judge Wade McCree Sent a Nearly Nude Photo of Himself to My Cell Phone: MyFoxDETROIT.com
A husband is upset after finding a photo of a nearly nude man on his wife’s cell phone. She says the photo came from her boss? What does she do for a living? She’s a court bailiff. Who’s her boss? Detroit 3rd Circuit Judge Wade McCree.
Fox 2′s Charlie LeDuff shows the photo to Judge McCree. The Judge seems quite proud of it. “Hot dog, yep that’s me,” says McCree. Play the video to get the full report and to hear what the judge himself has to say about the photo.
LeDuff also talks to legal analyst Charlie Langton who says it’s possible McCree could lose his job over the photo.
Don’t miss the video, because what makes this story so special is the carefree enthusiasm of the judge over his own photo. That’s not to say that McCree concedes everything. He cross-examines reporter Charlie LeDuff as to whether his employee told him directly that McCree sent the photo to her. LeDuff concedes that he only spoke to the woman’s husband, and McCree pronounces it “hearsay,” a technical term that probably won’t matter much in the court of public opinion — or in the court of His Wife, unless McCree wants to claim that his own wife distributed the picture clearly taken with McCree’s cell phone, with which the distribution almost certainly took place.
Remember, folks, that this demonstration of personal judgment has the authority to judge the actions of Detroit residents. I’m sure they’re sleeping better at night in Motown after this. The best part comes at the end, when the WJBK anchor reminds viewers that McCree often lectures people on the need to make the right choices in life, and seems on the verge of laughing out loud throughout.
Allahpundit highlighted the latest government report on the looming insolvency of Medicare and Social Security yesterday, but not surprisingly Rep. Paul Ryan didn’t let the opportunity go to waste either.
In their latest report, the trustees of Medicare and Social Security warn that the health and retirement security of millions of seniors remains in jeopardy if these programs are left on their present course. Decades of empty promises from politicians refusing to be honest about the need for reform are threatening to become broken promises, with disastrous consequences for seniors. In the heart of their retirement, current seniors are scheduled to be hit with a 25 percent across-the-board benefit cut when Social Security’s trust funds are exhausted. Meanwhile, Medicare’s looming insolvency puts at risk the critical access to care that seniors have come to expect from this important program.
Rather than work together to advance solutions, the President has opted to play politics with seniors’ care. The President and his party’s leaders continue to distort efforts to save and strengthen Medicare in an effort to distract seniors from the consequences of their health care law. The massive health care law raids over $500 billion from Medicare to finance a new health care entitlement, and hands Medicare’s fate over to an unaccountable board of 15 unelected bureaucrats. This board of bureaucrats will be empowered to cut Medicare in ways that will result in restricted access and denied care for current seniors, while still leaving the program bankrupt for future generations.
Seniors deserve better from President Obama. To prevent the President’s empty promises from becoming broken promises, Medicare and Social Security – critical programs designed in the mid-20th century – must be strengthened for the 21st century. I remain committed to advancing principled, bipartisan reforms that fulfill the missions of these important programs.”
According to the latest calculations by the trustees, Medicare and Social Security are insolvent to the tune of $35.5 trillion between now and 2085. But according to the trustees own Chief Actuary, the actual picture is far worse (pdf) than this. My emphasis below:
Without unprecedented changes in health care delivery systems and payment mechanisms, the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. By the end of the long-range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicaid prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees, and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result. Overriding the productivity adjustments, as Congress has done repeatedly in the case of physician payment rates, would lead to substantially higher costs for Medicare in the long range than those projected under current law.
But don’t fear, the mouthpieces at the Public Affairs office of the CMS deem the situation: “stable“. Yeah, stable like the velocity of a comet plummeting towards Earth. How ridiculous.
Exit question: With Marco Rubio getting most of the buzz this week, how likely do you think it is that Romney will choose Ryan as his running mate? It’s not even clear whether entitlement reform will be a central plank of Romney’s campaign platform, and I know many Romney cynics expect him to straddle this issue as much as possible. But he’s already endorsed Ryan’s budget plan, and there is no avoiding the Mediscare campaign Democrats have waiting in the wings. If you’re going to be attacked on Ryan’s plan, who better to explain and defend it than Ryan himself.
That will be the real question for Wisconsin voters in June, when recall elections take place. The state has balanced its books under Scott Walker and a Republican-led state legislature, which closed a big budget hole without raising taxes — and in some cases, lowering them. The effort saved Badger State taxpayers more than a billion dollars, Walker argues:
Gov. Scott Walker said Monday that his policies had saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $1 billion so far – savings largely achieved by the Republican governor and lawmakers repealing most public workers’ union bargaining and effectively lowering their compensation.
Much of those savings – more than three-quarters of a billion dollars – could be verified, such as state and local workers picking up more of the tab for their health care and pension. But the figures also included a significant amount of savings for local governments that could not be verified. …
When Walker took office last year, he faced a projected shortfall of more than $3 billion over the two-year budget starting in July 2011. Walker dealt with that by focusing largely on spending cuts rather than tax increases, with roughly $1.3 billion in cuts over two years for schools, local governments, universities and technical colleges. He and GOP lawmakers also put tight limits on local officials’ ability to raise property taxes.
One of Walker’s opponents isn’t that impressed:
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the other leading Democratic opponent to Walker, said the governor’s policies had led to nearly 1,500 teaching jobs being lost over the past year and the state still had a more than $140 million deficit.
“This isn’t a record to brag about – it’s a record that causes failed governors to be tossed from office,” Barrett said in a statement.
The passage of Walker’s PEU reforms kept the state and local governments from axing a lot more than 1500 positions, which the pending budget imbalance would have required. And Barrett’s criticism of the current budget gap may be resonant on its face, but not in context. Is Barrett really arguing that the party whose governance left the $3 billion hole in the first place that required the cuts was somehow more responsible than the party who whittled it down to $140 million and shrinking?
Well, Wisconsin voters … that’s the question you will have to answer in June. It’s not really a tough choice. I doubt if many will need a lifeline to answer it.
The bad news? Thanks in part to the Hopenchange economy, fully half of his target demographic will have no means of repaying their debt after they graduate, no matter how low the interest rate is. The “good” news? No paycheck means no FICA, so they’ll be spared temporarily from contributing to an unsustainable entitlement system that’s ripping them off by promising benefits it can’t hope to pay by the time they reach 65.
There’s nothing in O’s speech about Romney, as you’ll see — Mitt made sure of that yesterday — but Democrats are ready to force a tough vote on Senate Republicans sometime soon.
Senate Democrats and the White House have agreed to pay for a bill to freeze student loan interest rates for a year by raising payroll taxes on so-called S Corporations, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa., said on Tuesday…
Harkin spoke minutes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will introduce within the next day a bill to prevent interest rates from doubling to 6.8 percent on July 1. That sets up Senate action on the bill next month after senators return May 7 from a one-week recess…
Democrats note that Republicans on the Select Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction — the so-called super committee — claimed last fall they would consider raising a tax increase on S Corporations. Several GOP aides said the Democrats’ decision to attach the offset will ensure strong GOP opposition and the bill’s defeat in the Senate.
Having Republicans block the vote is fine with the White House, of course, as it’ll end up pitting the Senate GOP against the party’s nominee on this issue. According to exit polls in 2008, Obama beat McCain 66/32 among voters aged 18 to 29; according to a recent poll taken by Harvard, Obama leads Romney among the same group … 43/26. (His margin among 18-to-24 year olds, some of whom weren’t old enough to be part of Generation O four years ago, is just 12 points.) How far is he willing to go to pander to them? This far:
During a musical number, the students in the audience were on their feet, clapping and cheering.
After Fallon said he wanted to “slow-jam the news,” Obama came out from behind a curtain at 2:28 p.m., to wild cheers from the crowd.
“I’m president Barack Obama, and I, too, want to slow-jam the news,” the president said.
You earned your votes today, champ, I’ll give you that. When you’re done with the clip, spend a few minutes on this dispiriting WSJ piece from a few days ago about college grads who are so deep in debt they have to put off marriage and children to pay the bills. Private loans with variable interest rates are especially taxing, but even the lower-rate federal loans haven’t prevented many more defaults than the government officially recognizes. The bubble’s getting bigger. How much longer until it pops?
Update: Commenters are noting that our nominee has the very same position as O on this. Indeed. That’s my point in saying that Mitt made sure that Obama couldn’t attack him on this point — he played politics in order to pander to the youth vote himself. What happens now when the Senate GOP filibusters the Democrats’ bill?
I can’t tell if these guys are training to be genuine bad-asses…or the keystone cops. I suppose a little jujitsu may come in handy from time to time when you need to force-submit your local Taliban chief, and who needs a battering ram when you can just high-kick your way through any obstacle. But someone with real police or military training experience is going to have to enlighten me on the purpose of those slow-motion drop maneuvers about three-quarters of the way through. Is this some sort of synchronized surrender technique? Because sadly that may come in handy too. Or maybe it’s just intended to demonstrate fearlessness on the part of the graduating cadets. Because that they certainly are, with so many Afghan police bombed and murdered on a regular basis. In all seriousness we should be rooting for their success. Not just because of the blood and treasure we have invested in the country, but for the sake of regional stability and all the innocent people caught in the crossfire in the fight against extremism. Ultimately the Afghan people will have to sustain this fight on their own, and it will certainly require no shortage of bravery and skill on the part of their security forces. I hope they are up to the challenge.
