The Obama/Democratic financial plan in a nutshell

MORNING LINKS — apparently, Monday’s also a snowy day

ITEM: I went to bed with rain falling outside and woke up to about an inch of snow on the ground, with more falling. And apparently we could get more on Friday Morning (May 1st).

ITEM: For about two years before things collapsed, my co-blogger, Bruce Henderson, was pointing out the profound financial risks of the housing collapse and subprime crisis — backed with data gathered automatically from multiple listing services all over the country. He wasn’t alone; it’s just that nobody wanted the good times to end.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: A Russian politician sets an example for the US Democrats — “Winning Candidate From Ruling Party Renounces Fraudulent Victory“. Now, if Al Franken could just take inspiration from this man. . . .

ITEM: On the other hand, the Labour Party in Merry Olde England just seems determined to beclown and befoul itself with idiocy that I can scarce believe:

They were ready to lay down their lives for Britain  -  and have been rewarded with an act of treachery.

Thousands of Gurkhas were yesterday shut out of the UK in what was described as ‘shameful betrayal’ by the Government.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas claimed changes in the rules would allow 4,300 more former Gurkhas to settle here out of the 36,000 who served in the British Army before July 1997.

But lawyers battling for the Gurkhas said they believed only around 100 would benefit. Hundreds of former rank-and-file soldiers will face deportation while thousands more will be barred from entering the country. . . .

Lawyer David Enright said: ‘It’s an absolute betrayal of the Gurkhas, who have been told they are not welcome in this country.

‘It is shameful. This Government has welcomed 600,000 Eastern Europeans, and tens of thousands of asylum seekers every year.

‘But these men, who have fought for us in our darkest hour and in the worst parts of the world, are not welcome. It is a scandal and an outrage.’

Miss Lumley, whose father fought alongside the Gurkhas, said: ‘These men do not want charity. They want this Government to recognise our moral debt of honour.’

Hat tip to Stoaty Weasel.

ITEM: Ya think?

In an interview with FOX News, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday ahead of elections there, said Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons makes it extra important for the government to keep a lid on the Taliban there.

ITEM: As has been the case for nearly a century now, the rest of the world looks to the United States to save them — this time, financially:

While much of the world blames the United States for triggering the global financial crisis and recession, most nations also are looking to America to start pulling the rest of the world out of the slump.

A parade of foreign financial leaders in town for this weekend’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank denounced the financial excesses on Wall Street that have cost millions of jobs and caused trillions of dollars in lost output from Detroit to New Delhi. Yet they also hailed some tentative signs of stabilization in the U.S. economy after a winter of free fall that led the world economy into its worst downturn in modern times

Because, you know, the rest of the world was doing so well before financial troubles hit the United States.

ITEM: The US Supreme Court’s decision regarding the “reverse discrimination” case involving white and Hispanic firemen in New Haven (CT)  should be interesting:

Wednesday morning, a lawyer defending in the Supreme Court what the city of New Haven, Conn., did to Frank Ricci and 17 other white firemen (including one Hispanic) was not 20 seconds into his argument when Chief Justice John Roberts interrupted to ask: Would it have been lawful if the city had decided to disregard the results of the exam to select firemen for promotion because it selected too many black and too few white candidates? . . .

Racial spoils systems must involve incessant mischief because they require a rhetorical fog of euphemisms and blurry categories (e.g., “race-conscious” measures that somehow do not constitute racial discrimination) to obscure stark facts, such as: If Ricci and half a dozen others who earned high scores were not white, the city would have proceeded with the promotions.

Read the whole thing.

ITEM: Speaking of the Supremes, wondering what that student strip search case is all about? Debra Saunders lays it out, and it isn’t pretty:

[Savana] Redding was an honor student with no disciplinary marks against her when another student was caught in class with prescription ibuprofen, small knives and a cigarette. That girl falsely told Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson that she got the pills from Redding.

Redding denied the charge. Wilson searched her backpack and found nothing. So he asked a female assistant and school nurse to strip-search Redding. The two women took Redding down the hall and instructed her to remove her socks, shoes and jacket, then shirt and pants, and finally, when she was down to her underwear, they asked her to pull and twist her underwear — exposing herself — to see if any pills fell out. Redding later described the episode as “the most humiliating experience” of her life.

The experience should have been among the most humiliating for Wilson, the assistant and the nurse: They didn’t find any pills.

Yeah, I’d sue their butts off, too.  Hope Redding wins.

ITEM: Speaking of hope, how’s that Hope and Change™ working out? Not so well, it turns out:

Across the dark living room, one of Childs’s favorite pictures is displayed on a worn coffee table. It shows Childs with her arms wrapped around Barack Obama, his hand on her back, her eyes glowing. They met at a rally attended by 37 supporters on a rainy day in 2007, when Childs responded to Obama’s sluggishness on stage with an impromptu chant: “Fired up! Ready to go!” She repeated it, shouting louder each time, until Obama laughed and dipped his shoulders to the rhythm. The chant caught on. “Fired up!” people began saying at rallies. “Ready to go,” Obama chanted back. He told audiences about Childs, “a spirited little lady,” and invited her onstage at campaign appearances. By the day of his inauguration, when Childs led a busload of strangers bound for the Mall in her now-iconic chant, her transformation was complete. She was Edith Childs, fired up and ready to go.

But now, as Obama nears the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Childs suffers from constant exhaustion. In a conservative Southern state that bolstered Obama’s candidacy by supporting him early in the Democratic primaries, she awakens at 2:30 a.m. with stress headaches and remains awake mulling all that’s befallen Greenwood since Obama’s swearing-in.

ITEM: And, of course, there’s all that transparency that Obama promised during the campaign:

The Obama administration, which has boasted about its efforts to make government more transparent, is rolling back rules requiring labor unions and their leaders to report information about their finances and compensation.

The Labor Department noted in a recent disclosure that “it would not be a good use of resources” to bring enforcement actions against union officials who do not comply with conflict of interest reporting rules passed in 2007. Instead, union officials will now be allowed to file older, less detailed conflict reports.

Because, you know, the Obama Administration will not be beholden to special interests.

ITEM: Speaking of unions, it looks as though the Union of Auto Workers (UAW) blinked in the face of Chrysler’s possible bankruptcy:

It’s crunch time for Chrysler: The automaker has until Friday to slash billions of dollars in debt off its books and partner with Italian automaker Fiat.

Huge hurdles, no doubt. But this weekend it cleared two big ones: It successfully negotiated new deals with the United Auto Workers union and Canadian Auto Workers. The government had been leaning on the UAW to cut wages, making them on par with those of the transplant auto plants in the U.S. In a statement late Sunday, the UAW said the changes meet the requirements set forth by the Treasury Department.

Funny how the prospect of total disaster tends to focus one’s mind.

ITEM: Speaking of economic disaster, Robert Samuelson takes on the utter silliness that surrounds “green economics”:

The trouble is that these models embody wildly unrealistic assumptions: There are no business cycles; the economy is always at “full employment”; strong growth is assumed, based on past growth rates; the economy automatically accommodates major changes — if fossil fuel prices rise (as they would under anti-global-warming laws), consumers quickly use less and new supplies of “clean energy” magically materialize.

There’s no problem and costs are low, because the models say so. But the real world, of course, is different. Half the nation’s electricity comes from coal. The costs of “carbon capture and sequestration” — storing CO2 underground — are uncertain, and if the technology can’t be commercialized, coal plants will continue to emit or might need to be replaced by nuclear plants. Will Americans support a doubling or tripling of nuclear power? Could technical and construction obstacles be overcome in a timely way? Paralysis might lead to power brownouts or blackouts, which would penalize economic growth.

This sounds remarkably like the problems with the actual anthropogenic global warming models.

ITEM: And the Washington Post (God bless ‘em) points out what Obama and the Congressional Democrats are trying very hard to hide: that Obama’s proposed tax increases would fall squarely on the back of small businesses:

Since last year’s campaign, President Obama has vowed repeatedly not to increase taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year. That pledge, while politically popular, has left him with just two primary sources of funding for his ambitious social agenda: about 3 million high-earning families and the nation’s businesses.

Johnson, with her company, falls into both categories. If Obama’s tax plans are enacted, her accountant estimates that her federal tax bill — typically, around $120,000 a year — would rise by at least $23,000, a 19 percent increase.

“You hear ‘tax the rich,’ and you think, ‘I don’t make that much money,’ ” said Johnson, whose Rainbow Station programs are headquartered near Richmond. “But then you realize: ‘Oh, if I put my business income with my wages, then, suddenly, I’m there.’ “

Guess where almost all of the job growth in the US over the past decade has come from? And guess what will happen to job growth if and when those taxes hit?

ITEM: Speaking of deception from the Obama Administration, FactCheck.org finds that Obama has “fudged” or “spun” on a number of items, though their list looks like outright mistakes or lies:

– He told a joint session of Congress on Feb. 24 that “we import more oil today than ever before.” That’s untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are lower today.

– He claimed in the same speech that his mortgage aid plan would help “responsible” buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program in his administration concede that foolish borrowers will be aided, too.

– He said in an address on March 10 that the high school dropout rate has “tripled in the past 30 years.” But according to the Department of Education, it actually has declined by a third.

– Obama also got it wrong when he claimed in his March 24 speech that “we are reducing nondefense discretionary spending to its lowest level since the ’60s.” His own forecast puts this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or either Bush.

Let’s say it all together: What if Bush (0r McCain) had made these same ‘errors’? How would the press deal with it?

ITEM: Finally, have you wondered what Newt Gingrich and Fidel Castro might have in common? Hint: it involves President Obama.

More links in the morning, maybe.  ..bruce w..

We're from the Government, and we're here to help!

[Here are Wednesday's links as well]

MORNING LINKS

ITEM: USA Today has an outstanding article debunking the various myths about the Columbine shooters who killed just over a dozen of their fellow students 10 years ago:

They weren’t goths or loners.

The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver’s Columbine High School 10 years ago next week weren’t in the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” disaffected videogamers who wore cowboy dusters. The killings ignited a national debate over bullying, but the record now shows Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold hadn’t been bullied — in fact, they had bragged in diaries about picking on freshmen and “fags.” . . .

“These are not ordinary kids who were bullied into retaliation,” psychologist Peter Langman writes in his new book, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. “These are not ordinary kids who played too many video games. These are not ordinary kids who just wanted to be famous. These are simply not ordinary kids. These are kids with serious psychological problems.”

How many TV shows and movies in the last decade have reinforced the stereotype of the “goth/loser/excluded” student shooter? Read the whole thing.

ITEM: Oopsie! You know those evil Wall Street executives who took “shameful” bonuses while receiving federal bailout money? Well, one of them is working in the Obama Administration — as a Deputy Secretary of State, no less.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: The grandstanding out of Congress and the Obama Administration continues to have consequences:

Businesses, already struggling to survive the perils of an economic downturn, are starting to push back against a growing public perception that business travel is wasteful and unethical.

Government efforts to curtail corporate travel by companies that receive federal bailout funds have demonized the meeting business and harmed the nation’s hotel and travel trade, industry leaders say.

As with the brain drain on Wall Street, it is unclear whether these consequences are desired or unintended. The classic dictum, of course, is “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity.” The problem is that with Congress, it’s really hard to separate the two.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism alert: Faced with piracy, an unstable and dangerous border with Mexico, and a direct threat of a White House attack by the Taliban, the Department of Homeland Security has zeroed in on — “rightwing extremist activity” within the United States:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

And just in time for the Tea Parties on Wednesday, too. I will cheerfully bet $1000 that during the Obama Administration, we will never see a report out of the DHS that uses the adjective “leftwing”, much less “leftwing extremist.” Any takers?

ITEM: From the New York Times, more details on the Navy’s rescue of Captain Phillips. Initial reports indicated that Phillips had jumped from the lifeboat just before the SEALs fired, but that was not the case; he was “tightly bound” and in the lifeboat at the time.

ITEM: Meanwhile, the “Barry and the Pirates” meme continues to spread, while others speculate that the Somali pirates will become the Left’s newest useful idiots. However, people elsewhere in the world are taking note — in some cases, favorably — that the US did what no one else has to date: intervened with force rather than succumb to ransom.

ITEM: And while Obama keeps talking about the “inherited Bush deficits” (which aren’t Bush’s at all — they are from the Democratic Congress that’s controlled spending for the last two years), he hasn’t said anything about the inherited Bush military, other than he plans to change it.

ITEM: Obama is losing “the legal Left“:

A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror.

“Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,” a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

ITEM:  Obama is also losing India, mostly for claiming the existence of something called “the moderate Taliban”. Yeah, where are those folks? Meanwhile, losing India is not a good thing at all.

ITEM: Obama continues to lose the American public, with his Rasmussen Presidential Approval index down to just +2 (after being as high as +8 just last week). I wonder if the approach of Tax Day has anything to do with that?

ITEM: Meanwhile, the global warming menace continues and will only get worse.

ITEM: This New York Times article, “Last Voyage for the Keeper of the Hubble“, reads like something out of a Heinlein short story.  It’s a great article and a great story; go read it.

ITEM: Yep, that stern letter from the UN Security Council to North Korea about its failed missile launch had a real impact, all right. Peace and security are just around the corner!

ITEM: Asinine opening paragraphs of the week:

Drivers have long wondered how size affects safety in car crashes. Many small cars perform well in safety tests but appear, intuitively at least, to be at a disadvantage in collision with larger vehicles.

Now a series of crash tests indicate the disadvantage is substantial, even when small cars collide with vehicles that don’t seem that much larger.

The only drivers who have ever “wondered how size affects safety in car crashes” are the stupid ones. One does not even need high school physics to know that a larger car is safer than a smaller car, especially if the two collide. Commentators have been noting for decades that the push for greater fuel efficiency through smaller, lighter car designs comes with an increased risk of injury and death. This “new study” is a bit like confirming that snow is cold or rain is wet, or that the sun comes up in the morning.

ITEM: Expect to see a lot more of these — “Oregon Sues [Oppenheimer Funds Inc.] Over Risks Taken In Its ’529′ Fund“.  Key grafs:

Oregon charges that Oppenheimer Core Bond fund, which was in the state’s 529-plan options billed as “conservative,” became significantly more risky starting in late 2007 or early 2008. The fund lost 36% of its value in 2008, but its benchmark index, the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index, rose 5.2%.

“The Core Bond Fund was no longer a plain bond fund,” the complaint says. “It had become a hedge-fund like investment fund that took extreme risks.”

The complaint says the fund veered into credit-default swaps and other derivatives, which the state called “high-risk bets that were plainly inappropriate for those saving for college.”

ITEM: Headline redundancy award: “Distracted Congress Loses Focus on Credit Freeze“. Collectively, Congress has about a 5-day attention span.

ITEM: Howard Jacobson talks about the rise of public anti-Semitism in Britain. I fear that may be a precursor to a similar rise here in the United States, especially given the Left’s constant ranting about “neocons” and “the Israeli lobby”.

ITEM: In local news, the Colorado Legislature is draining $500 million from the state’s workers comp insurance fund — paid by state businesses over the years — so they won’t have to cut the budget elsewhere. That, of course, leaves the question of just how Colorado is going to pay workers compensation claims. Expect to see more acts like this around the country.

That’s it for today; in the meantime, here are Monday’s links.

P.S. For those of you who moused over the poster image above, here’s what “the Spanish Prisoner” refers to.

Dawn is a feeling...

AFTERNOON LINKS! Yes, there are actual afternoon links!

ITEM: Maybe it’s because he paid all his taxes — actor Kal Penn (of the “House” TV series and the “Harold and Kumar” movies) joins the White House staff.

ITEM: President Obama visits Baghdad. Good for him, and I mean that in all sincerity. My son Jon (CPL Webster, USMC)  just finished his tour of duty in Iraq in February, and he’s likely to be in Afghanistan by the end of the year. And I’m glad  — and again I mean this sincerely — that Pres. Obama was given as warm a welcome by the troops there as was President Bush on each of his visits to Iraq.

ITEM: So, how is the economic upheaval affecting law firms? Pretty harshly, by all accounts (emphasis mine):

Look, with minor exceptions, the reality is that M&A work is dead. Real estate work is non-existent. Putting aside bankruptcy, in every historic bust, litigation was the work that saved the day. But when we talk to law firms about litigation even in the patent world, I’m being told clients are cutting back. They’ve decided to cut back on the volume of prosecution work and are postponing any litigation they can. You can bring a lawsuit and prevail at trial but still not be assured of winning because today you don’t know whether you will be able to collect on the judgment.

One of our clients – a leading and successful IP boutique – told me that one of their very best long-term patent clients has decided to put off all their outside legal work except what is absolutely necessary to preserve the asset value of the corporation.

Let me summarize this way: Clients are pushing the reset button. They are insisting on smaller teams for their litigation and corporate work. We’ve heard a lot about this in the last few weeks. Clients are redesigning the value paradigm.

Much of the work that went outside they no longer deem to be of the same value. Work once viewed as essential is now viewed as elective. Work once viewed as high in value is no longer needed or is viewed as much less in value and warranting a much lower price. Commoditization is spreading to more and more work. It may well retreat some in the long run but in the short run it will operate with force.

FRESH MORNING LINKS! Now with less pork!

ITEM: Best headline of the day: “New Media vs. Gnostic Bureaucracies”. It also happens to be an outstanding article; here’s a key passage:

News media enterprises today are subject to market forces and are facing consequences – the destruction of many recently prosperous enterprises and types of enterprises.

But the modern nation-states – and the supranational organizations like the United Nations — are stiflingly bureaucratic. They are less subject to market forces than are businesses, and in reaction to the current economic panic – a crisis of abundance, not of scarcity – the big governmental and intergovernmental bureaucracies are opportunistically seizing more power.

The bureaucracies have a shifting parasite-host relationship with the social engineer, the “international development professional,” and the other types of soulless technocrat whom the late Samuel Huntington called “Davos Man” and Frederick Wilhelmsen called “the egomaniac, lusting gnostically to dominate all existence.” Just contemplate what has taken place in Washington the past two months, and at the Group of 20 Summit in London last week, where Chinese totalitarians, Russian authoritarians, cosmopolitan eugenicists, and Western “democratic” socialists strained to stitch together a Frankenstein monster from the jumble of formaldehyde jars holding the maimed remains of capitalism.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

ITEM: Robert Avrech, over at Big Hollywood, recounts his encounter with a stalked woman in a gun shop in Culver City (CA):

“I can’t believe I’m here. I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”

I let this pass. Now is not the time for a self-righteous lecture.

ITEM: Defense Sec’y Robert Gates seeks to expand the government payroll by 39,000 while reducing private sector defense contractors. He’s cutting some key weapons programs as well:

Gates also proposed canceling some of Boeing’s missile defense programs, including one to equip a modified 747 aircraft with a laser that can shoot down missiles soon after they’re launched, saying the program “has significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable.”

Boeing would also be hurt because it makes one-third of the F-22 fighter jet and the Pentagon plans to stop ordering additional aircraft. Gates would also cancel the Air Force’s program to build a new search-and-rescue helicopter, which had been awarded to Boeing. And it would not order more of Boeing’s C-17 cargo planes. Boeing could also see a military satellite program, known as TSAT, end.

Didn’t we go through this with Clinton? And didn’t we really, really regret it when 9/11 happened? I already quoted Santayana a few days ago, so I’ll quote Benjamin Franklin instead: “Experience is a dear school, but fools will learn at no other.”

ITEM: And if Obama appears to be repeating Clinton’s mistakes with the military, he likewise seems to be repeating Jimmy Carter’s mistakes with geopolitics:

Rarely has a Presidential speech been so immediately and transparently divorced from reality as Mr. Obama’s in Prague. The President delivered a stirring call to banish nuclear weapons at the very moment that North Korea and Iran are bidding to trigger the greatest proliferation breakout in the nuclear age. Mr. Obama also proposed an elaborate new arms-control regime to reduce nuclear weapons, even as both Pyongyang and Tehran are proving that the world’s great powers lack the will to enforce current arms-control treaties.

ITEM: Speaking of not learning from experience or history, the Associated Press now wants to go after “content pirates”. Good luck with that; after all, the RIAA has been so successful in its efforts to date.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update: Investor’s Business Daily raises the on-going issue as to why the Obama Administration won’t let banks give back TARP funds — is it to maintain control over these institutions?

ITEM: I considered embedding this Onion video, but I thought it might be a bit too, ah, graphic for some of our readers: “Hot new video game consists solely of shooting people point-blank in the face.“ I did find it hilarious, though, particularly in its skewering of the more pretentious side of the video game industry.

ITEM YOU PROBABLY WON’T SEE ELSEWHERE IN THE MSM: The Washington Times reports that the Bush Administration’s African AIDS effort saved 1.1 million lives.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: Creeping socialism/facism alert: Remember the Phoenix police? The ones who seized the computer of a blogger critical of them? Well, now they’re detaining photographers for allegedly violating Homeland Security statutes by allegedly taking photographs of a Federal building (the photographers stated they were actually shooting in the opposite direction).  When the photographers asked what statute they were violating, the policeman said, “Google it.” Hat tip to the Drunk Report.

ITEM: From various accounts, the US is planning to send Italy far more than the $50,000 reported on wire services as emergency aid in the aftermath of the major earthquake outside of Rome. But a reader over at the Corner at NRO e-mailed Jonah Goldberg with an interesting question:

If Italy accepts their bailout money, will Obama have the power to remove [Italian Prime Minister] Berlusconi?

Good question.

ITEM: Speaking of Obama and Europe, some of the commentators over there are less than impressed with his oratorical prowess:

… am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled – his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn’t he go on a bit? The crowd in Prague was huge, and initially wildly enthusiastic, but what he served up was not any more impressive than his damp squib in Berlin last year. Is there a computer which churns this stuff out for him? . . .

Empires rising and falling, destinies being defined and a Golden City standing as a monument to unconquerable spirit… goodness, what a ham. When he really gets going he’s worse than Tony Blair.

But Obama was only warming up. “When I was born,” (Everything usually leads back to him, you’ll notice)… “the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become an American President.” (Him again)…

“Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. And few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, and a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams”. (Not by Ronald Reagan they wouldn’t have been, when most of Obama’s Democrat friends thought the then US President’s robust approach to the Cold War made him a loony on the loose).

ITEM: As for the continuing crisis, this graph apparently is quite popular all over the net:

The key take-away from the graph above is to note the series of “bounces” in each bear market, where the stock prices rise for weeks or even months before declining again and to an even lower level. The big dispute right now is whether the market has hit bottom or whether it’s just going through a temporary rise. I have no clue, but then, I have no stocks. Or bonds.

As for the overall historical trends, this chart — covering 140 years — shows the ups and down over time:

The takeway here is: stocks go up and stocks go down. The overall trend is up, but that trend is measured in decades.

Ain’t we got fun? ..bruce w..

As expected the US Supreme court has declined to further entertain the “Donofrio v. Wells” case, which sought to have the court better define the portion of Article 1 of the US Constitution that defines the requirement for the President to be a “Natural Born Citizen”.

From Legal Line News:

Although Donofrio concedes Obama was born in Hawaii, he contends that Obama is a British citizen because to his father’s British citizenship. For the case to have been placed on the high court’s docket, four of the nine justices had to agree to hear the case. The Donofrio case was just one of a handful of lawsuit challenging Obama’s citizenship.

Sadly for the US, I am guessing this one won’t go away. President-Elect Obama has placed tight seals over a large section of his past, and that presents a puzzle that some will find irresistible. Even if he only serves one term, 4 years is an eternity with persistent, motivated researchers working at internet speed, sifting for that “smoking gun” they all think they might find. For the people who won’t let it go, there is the notion that they could be the next internet blog breakthrough like what burned down Dan Rather and CBS News.

Already there is news that a handful of lawyers intend to begin contesting every executive order or law he signs on the basis that he is not legitimately able to hold the office.

I am personally worried that those highly motivated folks may find what they want to find, and that it would cause incalculable damage to this country. The best thing for everything would be for the President-Elect to simply release these records and shut them all down.

Word is that tomorrow, the US Supreme Court will discuss in private a suit brought by Leo Donofrio, that asks a very interesting and possibly explosive question.

What does it mean to be a “Natural Born Citizen”?

This is of crucial importance, because the US Constitution clearly states that in order to run for President, the candidate must be a Natural Born Citizen. Mr. Donofrio’s case against the New Jersey Secretary of State argues that none of the candidates were validated by the Secretary’s office as “Natural Born Citizens”, and therefore it is unknown if any of the candidates on the 2008 Presidential ballot were eligible to run.

This is a crucial constitutional issue that has never been aired out before (as far as I know) – what does it take to meet this qualification to be elected as President? Who has the power to make that determination? Congress does not, neither does the Electoral College. I don’t think the current President is empowered to do so either. This seems to be a case where there is a constitutional authority missing, and the Donofrio case clearly points it out.

Should the court take this case up it could have far reaching effects on immigration, military service and elected office. In fact, this might even impact me, as my father was a citizen of the UK when I was born.

Secondary to this whole issue of constitutional law is the question about the President Elect’s eligibility to hold the office. This is a potentially explosive question that would cause chaotic disruptions in America’s social harmony, but is a very interesting question indeed.

President Elect Obama has gone to great lengths to sequester large sections of his personal history, from his college records to his medical records to his birth certificate. While in the past that would not have raised much concern, in the information age people seem to expect to know or have access to such things. I personally think that Senator Obama should be able to keep his medical and birth records private, I think his college records should be open.

Meanwhile some people are getting very excited about a conspiracy to hide information about the President Elect, and are likely letting their imaginations go a bit far. But if you contrast the public will to ignore this withholding of information to President Bush’s Air National Guard service, it seems that a much different standard is being applied this time around.

Clearly the constitutional question is the important one here, but Mr. Obama could put all of the conspiracy theorists in their place by simply directing the State of Hawaii to post his actual birth certificate on the web.

Sadly for this troubled little dweeb he has committed a federal crime. I am certain his powerful family will try to get him off, but there is a real chance that he made this high enough profile through his childish actions that they will have to make an example out of him.

This was not so much a hack as it was exploiting the weakness of Yahoo. If you have sufficent personal information on a person (thanks AP!) you can go through a password reset, which David Kernell did.

Memphis Democrat Rep. Confirms Son Is Subject Of Speculation In Connection With Palin Hack

Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Tennessee has acknowledged that his 20-year son, David Kernell, is the subject of Internet postings alleging he is the person who hacked into Sarah Palin’s e-mail, according to The Tennesseean.
“The person they’re talking about is my son,” said Kernell. “But we know of no investigation. I have not been contacted. He has not been contacted,” Kernell told a Memphis TV station.

The FBI and Secret Service have not confirmed that David Kernell is a suspect. However, the TV station said the FBI in Anchorage, Alaska has contacted the Memphis FBI bureau in the investigation.

So I hope you enjoy federal prison, moron. Suggestion to every other free-lancer out there: don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time – or if you don’t have the skill to get away without leaving tracks. Part of that is leaving out the 8th grade style gloating on the web. Yes, in case you did not hear about this, he successfully incriminated himself in his gloating web postings by supplying sufficient information to allow the FBI to find him.

Think about it – they did not even have to use the NSA or the Information Warfare guys to find him. Fox Mulder’s computer buddies sorted this one out.

I am sure there is going to be a stink as folks try to say that some larger dark Democrat force put him up to this, but this has “freelance amateur” written all over it. I would think the Dems would use a professional.

JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

We consider whether a District of Columbia prohibition on the possession of usable handguns in the home violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

We turn first to the meaning of the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The two sides in this case have set out very different interpretations of the Amendment. Petitioners and today’s dissenting Justices believe that it protects only the right to possess and carry a firearm in connection with militia service. See Brief for Petitioners 11–12; post, at 1 (STEVENS, J., FLAMING HOMO, dissenting). Respondent argues that it protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. See Brief for Respondent 2–4.

Having basic reading comprehension and not having our heads shoved up our asses, we agree with the latter. Furthermore, we have determined that anyone who agrees with the D.C. law is a little preening little nancy and should be beaten or shot for being a pinko. See Findings on the Tiny Penises of Gun Haters. More specifically, everyone in D.C. should immediately be given a gun, and anyone who protests should be shot in the groin, shot in the face, and then shot in the groin once more for good measure. Then their houses should be burned down. We’ll make a weekend of it. I’ll bring beer. See video from last year’s Supreme Kegger.

And now the immediate aftermath:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court today ruled against local laws banning handguns by declaring that the Second Amendment guarantees an “individual right” to firearm ownership, and not just a “right to a well-regulated militia”. Immediately after the decision, law-abiding gun-owners began using their legal guns to commit violent crimes.

“It’s like these guns are living objects, possessed by demons,” said gun-owner Mike Wazowski. “I was watching the Supreme Court ruling live on C-SPAN, and the next thing I remember, I was on the street, robbing people for crack money. Funny thing is, I don’t even know what crack LOOKS like, let alone ever smoked the stuff. It’s like the gun was forcing me to do it. These firearms are dangerous and out-of-control. I can’t believe the Supreme Court set free these weapons of malevolance incarnate on an unsuspecting nation.”

Heh.  ..bruce w..

I remained appalled at how poorly this program is administered. After I fixed all the problems and requested a review, Google insisted that my site still had ‘badware’, claiming to have done a scan of my website that very day. This continued for a week (with daily checks on my part — nope, still no badware — daily requests for review, and daily ‘Badware found’ designations from Google) until suddenly the ‘badware’ designation vanished yesterday (May 1st). I credit that largely to having posted a message in the Google Webmaster Groups forum the day before (Apr 30th), though no reply was made directly to that posting or to me via e-mail.

Given the disproportionate impact that Google can have on a website’s traffic — thus for sites with ads, the site’s income — and the difficulties that most people appear to encounter in getting Google to lift that badware designation even after fixing the problem (browse through these search results), I’m surprised that Google’s legal department hasn’t urged more caution and diligence on how this ‘Badware’ initiative is administered.  ..bruce w..

The officer stated the street I was on was a one way westbound street and I was turning onto an avenue that was at a two way street separated by a concrete divider. Only thing was, I was on a two way, not one.

So it came time for my testimony and I stated that I was in mid-turn when an oncoming vehicle was coming toward me very quickly and I had decided not to make the turn until that SUV passed me. The Judge stopped and asked me how could there be an oncoming vehicle if the street was only one way. I stated that it was indeed a two way street. The officer reiterated that it was only a one way. So who was the judge to believe? I was desperate for proof so I did the unthinkable: I whipped out my notebook. I was very lucky to find an extremely bad connection via Wi-Fi. I pulled up Firefox and when to maps.google.com. I typed up the intersection and zoomed in as close as possible…

Go read the whole thing. Of course, my first question was: was the WiFi connection that Soto found truly public or merely unsecured. ..bruce w..

Maybe people will hold up cigarette lighters during moving parts of oral argument.
– comment posted at the Volokh Conspiracy

Legal geeks everywhere are salivating over the fact that the US Supreme Court is doing what is in effect a major review of the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”). The excitement is underscored by the fact that people started waiting in line 40 hours before the doors were scheduled to open this morning in order to be present — and here are the photographs to prove it, while here is a summary of the case itself.

The core issue is whether the 2nd Amendment provides an individual right vs. a collective (militia) right to “bear arms”. Having lived in Washington DC for six years, I think this is a very important issue. DC has some of the strictest gun controls in the entire nation and yet has persistently had one of the highest homicide rates in the entire nation. I don’t own a gun — probably never will — and I’m certainly not a member of the NRA. But I definitely think that the District of Columbia is on the losing side in this matter. They already lost in the DC Court of Appeals(!), which is why this is before the Supreme Court now.

Should be interesting. ..bruce w..