Sommers: Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship

http://www.aei.org/article/100695

Zorza also informs readers that "between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence." Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent.

...

My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.

Kinsley - Rationing Health Care Is Our Choice

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062503360.html

Here is a handy-dandy way to determine whether the failure to order some exam or treatment constitutes rationing: If the patient were the president, would he get it? If he'd get it and you wouldn't, it's rationing.

Here's my test to see if Congress and the President are being honest about their health care reforms plans:  Are congressmen and their families required to use the least expensive (to the government) health plans?  If they get a special option, or get all of it paid for by the taxpayers, then the rest of us are getting taken.

Ledeen: Refusing to See Evil Clearly in Iran

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWZkMDhmMDAzNWNkMjExNzQ0M2I3YTA2YWM0NTEzODk=

The brutality in Iran today foreshadows what the mullahs intend for us. It is what the world will look like if they prevail. Iran's Middle East neighbors know this, and dread it (with the exception of Syria, which is playing Mussolini's Italy to Khamenei's Nazi Germany). Yet every American president from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama has convinced himself that we can reach a workable, long-term modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic. They refused to see the mullahs' Iran for what it is: a ruthless and determined enemy, at war with the United States.

It is an old story. Franklin Roosevelt and most Western European countries refused to see that Hitler's treatment of the German Jews and other minorities foreshadowed his global intentions, just as we deliberately blinded ourselves to the fact that Stalin's mass murders of his own people, whether landowners or Ukrainians, showed what Soviet expansion would bring to the captive nations after the Second World War.  Indeed, America has almost always refused to see evil clearly, recognize that it would inevitably be directed against us, and act early enough to prevent an even greater disaster.

To our great shame, we were unprepared for the uprising of the Iranian people, which had become highly likely in the runup to the "election," and which, we should have been aiding for years with better communications, strike funds for workers, open calls for freedom, and insistence that political prisoners be freed. Worse yet, in the first days following the explosion, our leaders seemed annoyed that the Iranian people had interrupted efforts to strike a bargain. The president first took credit for the "robust debate," then suggested there was no real difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad, warned that it would be counterproductive for him to be seen "meddling," and then, when the dimensions of the street massacres were too large to ignore, criticized the repression and finally spoke warmly of Mousavi.

Kudlow: Madoff Sentenced, but He Didn’t Sing

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzhiOWNmZWMxMWMyNjAxNDgzNWZkN2VjMjZiNzgwNTM=

The point is, it's been six months since Madoff was first arrested, and the actual case against him has progressed very little from his own self-confession right at the start. Neither his wife nor his two sons have been deposed. Nor have these other characters who probabl[y] looted the funds.

The thing about a Ponzi scheme is others besides Ponzi can get rich. And there are names in circulation of people who may also have gotten rich. But where's the money? When will these people be brought in to testify under oath? The thousands of other smaller investors and charities who were totally ripped off by Madoff could recover a lot more if these big shots are finally hammered.

Madoff will die in jail. And he deserves it. But the justice system has much more work to do following today's sentencing.

Honduras Defends Its Democracy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Castro and Chavez want their buddy back in charge of Honduras.  Obama and Hillary agree.  That makes it pretty easy to side with the Honduran Supreme Court and military.

Cap and Trade, not Read and Debate

There's no use denying that the bill exists just because it's not on paper yet.  Our models predict that a disastrous bill will emerge in the near future due to unregulated Congressional emissions.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/wheres-the-bill-49208987.html

Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers' amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk's desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.

But they cannot be simply combined, because the amendment contains 300 pages of items like this: "Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)..." How many members of Congress do you suppose have gone through it all to see how it changes the bill?

Global Warming is apparently so urgent that we can't even wait until members of Congress know what they're voting on.

Polar bear expert barred by global warmists

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5664069/Polar-bear-expert-barred-by-global-warmists.html

But one of the world's leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with those of the rest of the group.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 – as is dictated by the computer models of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues – but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.

He has also observed, however, how the melting of Arctic ice, supposedly threatening the survival of the bears, has rocketed to the top of the warmists' agenda as their most iconic single cause. The famous photograph of two bears standing forlornly on a melting iceberg was produced thousands of times by Al Gore, the WWF and others as an emblem of how the bears faced extinction – until last year the photographer, Amanda Byrd, revealed that the bears, just off the Alaska coast, were in no danger. Her picture had nothing to do with global warming and was only taken because the wind-sculpted ice they were standing on made such a striking image.

15 Reasons to Oppose Climate Bill

http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2009/06/15_reasons_to_oppose_climate_b.php

Stifling Science to 'Fight Warming'

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06262009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/stifling_science_to_fight_warming_176156.htm

The free market-based Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington has obtained a set of internal e-mails exposing Team Obama's willful and reckless disregard for data that undermine the illusion of "consensus."

In March, Alan Carlin, a senior research analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, asked agency officials to distribute his analysis on the health effects of greenhouse gases. EPA has proposed a public health "endangerment finding" covering CO2 and five other gases that would trigger costly, extensive new regulations of motor vehicles. The open comment period on the ruling ended this week. But Carlin's study didn't fit the blame-human-activity narrative, so it didn't make the cut.

On March 12, Carlin's director, Al McGartland, forbade him from having "any direct communication" with anyone outside his office about his study. "There should be no meetings, e-mails, written statements, phone calls, etc."

Scrappleface: EPA to monitor eBay sales of personal carbon emissions

Satire (mostly):

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/EPA-to-monitor-eBay-sales-of-personal-carbon-emissions-7882682-49117952.html

"Once the carbon dioxide emissions cap is in place," said the EPA official, "then those citizens whose exertions, or sheer immensity, generate outputs above federally-permitted levels, must purchase offsets from less hazardous citizens. Craigslist and eBay provide the ideal platform for this exchange, since most carbon-offset sellers already spend most of their time online."

"This could be a real goldmine for shallow breathers, you know, couch potatoes," the EPA source said. "And for those who over-exert, spewing out earth-threatening gas at an alarming rate, the penalty of paying for these offsets may induce them to reconsider the cost to humanity of all of that breathing."

The strange, heartless glee at Sanford's downfall

http://www.slate.com/id/2221255/

What Mark Sanford seemed to be trying to say is that he screwed up, in the biggest possible way, because he lost his bearings. He lost his self-control. He was indulgent. He forgot that there were other humans in the world. Yet in the constant flow of abuse, joke-making, and grand conclusions about his failings, it seemed everyone having a good time pointing at his self-indulgence was also engaging in a form of it.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yjc2MDgwYmE1N2ViOGQ2N2E3ODg3ZjI5NDJmMjUxZDY=

Governor Sanford has done a bad thing and he's going to pay dearly for it. But I'm not writing him off because of it. If we end up learning that it's part of a pattern or that he systematically used the privileges of his office to obstruct legitimate inquiry into his conduct, that's another story. But I doubt it's going to happen. I think we're going to end up with a reasonably good human being who made some bad mistakes and caused his family a lot of pain.

I expect that Sanford will resign.  He clearly doesn't care about his political future.  If he spends a couple of years working in a think tank, he'll have a chance of a comeback, like Newt.  If he needs money, he can write a book.

Goldberg: Et Tu, Big Business?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTdjODk3ZDE1MDdiNWQ1ZTc0NWQ4NTU3ZWIwZjJhNjI=

Everywhere we look we see the great and once-great beneficiaries of free markets running to the state for protection from the cruel bullying of competition. On health care, insurance companies and others repeat the mantra that they want to be "at the table rather than on the menu," all the better to be positioned as a tax collector of the welfare state. General Motors and Chrysler have gone from being pimped-out prostitutes of the state to outright chattel more akin to the leather-bound gimp in Pulp Fiction, eager to do the bidding of the president and the UAW.

Once-proud companies like GE have become seduced by global-warming schemes because they recognize that there's more money to be made selling white elephants to Uncle Sam than there is selling competitive products consumers want. Indeed, cap-and-trade taxes promise to deliver precisely the protectionist industrial policies the Left has dreamed of for decades, only under a "progressive" label.

Robert Kagan - Obama's Conundrum: Shunning Iran's Opposition

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061601753.html

Obama's policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations with the reelected Ahmadinejad government. This will be difficult as long as opposition protests continue and the government appears to be either unsettled or too brutal to do business with. What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what he has been doing.

If you find all this disturbing, you should. The worst thing is that this approach will probably not prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. But this is what "realism" is all about. It is what sent Brent Scowcroft to raise a champagne toast to China's leaders in the wake of Tiananmen Square.

Why is it that Democrats prefer to deal with bosses rather than support individual liberty?  It's as if "making the deal" is more important than freedom.

Letterman apologizes

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/06/letterman-readdresses-palin.html

Letterman quote:

It doesn't make any difference what my intent was, it's the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it's not a very good joke.  ... Well, my responsibility – I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault that it was misunderstood. ... So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much.

It took a while, but Dave did the right thing to apologize.

Steyn: Retreat into Apathy

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWVkNTBjM2M1NzFhZmY0ZWNjODc5ZWY3YWIwYzE0ZWQ=

More important, there is a cost to governmentalizing every responsibility of adulthood — and it is, in Lord Whitelaw's phrase, the stirring up of apathy. If you wander round Liverpool or Antwerp, Hamburg or Lyons, the fatalism is palpable. In Britain, once the crucible of freedom, civic life is all but dead: In Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, some three-quarters of the economy is government spending; a malign alliance between state bureaucrats and state dependents has corroded democracy, perhaps irreparably. In England, the ground ceded to the worst sociopathic pathologies advances every day — and the latest report on "the seven evils" afflicting an ever more unlovely land blames "poverty" and "individualism," failing to understand that if you remove the burdens of individual responsibility while loosening all restraint on individual hedonism the vaporization of the public space is all but inevitable.

Derbyshire: End of an Extravaganza (The Space Shuttle program)

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nzc2NTYxMzVjNWRkMzc0YzQ0Y2VhNGI1ZGRkMTc2N2I=

Today, after 126 shuttle flights across 28 years and an expenditure of several hundred billion dollars, not one American in ten could give you an answer, and the occasional exception would be unable to explain why the work might not have been done as well by robots at one-tenth the cost. Probably most people who had any clue at all would mention servicing the International Space Station, or, with last month's mission in mind, keeping the Hubble Space Telescope in operation. But then, your respondent could not tell you the point of the station, or give you a comparative-cost analysis of servicing Hubble with shuttles at half a billion per mission versus just sending up a replacement Hubble on an unmanned launcher. Still less could he explain why any of this was government business.

In fact, the main purpose of the International Space Station is to give the shuttle something to do. So far as Hubble is concerned, most of the construction costs were in planning, design, and development. We could have built half a dozen copies for little more than it cost to build the first, and put a replacement in orbit on an unmanned rocket whenever one conked out, saving ourselves billions in shuttle costs.

Bolton: Obama continues Bush's 2nd term -- badly

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/10/obama-administration-continuation-of-second-bush-t/

Conservative foreign policy is unabashedly pro-American, unashamed of American exceptionalism, unwilling to bend its knee to international organizations, and unapologetic about the need for the fullest range of dominant military capabilities. Its diplomacy is neither unilateralist nor multilateralist, but chooses its strategies, tactics, means and methods based on a hard-headed assessment of U.S. national interests, not on theologies about process. Most especially, conservatives understand that allies are different from adversaries, and that each should be treated accordingly.

These sentiments bear repeating because the fundamental principles underlying conservative foreign and national-security policy have never been stronger, and the consequences of deviating from them have rarely been so clear. The Obama administration's first few months already provide compelling evidence of the enormous costs of embracing the alternative worldview of the European and American left. Of course, that was equally true when the Bush administration all-too-frequently deviated from conservative precepts, especially in its failure-ridden second-term. In many ways, unfortunately, the Obama administration is a continuation of the second Bush term, only worse.

Krauthammer - Barack Obama Surveys the World

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103129.html

For all of his philosophy, the philosopher-king protests too much. Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He's showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.

Distorting history is not truth-telling but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country.

Malone: The Obama Surprise

http://pajamasmedia.com/edgelings/2009/06/12/the-obama-surprise/

But President Obama has instead appeared to be almost exclusively interested in Big Business as the key to economy recovery.

By comparison, almost every move the new Administration has made regarding entrepreneurship seems to be targeting at destroying it in this country. It has left Sarbanes-Oxley intact, added ever-greater burdens on small business owners, called for increasing capital gains taxes, and is now preparing to pile on cap-and-trade, double taxation on offshore earnings, and a host of other new costs. Even Obamacare seems likely to land unfairly on small companies.

Entrepreneurship has been the single most important contributor to the economic health of this country for at least a century now - and if you were going to systematically destroy that vitality, you couldn't come up with a better strategy than the one Washington has put in place over the last six months.

What's behind Obama's sudden attempt to fire the AmeriCorps inspector general?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Whats-behind-Obamas-sudden-firing-of-the-AmeriCorps-inspector-general-47877797.html

This afternoon, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who is something of a guardian angel for inspectors general, fired off a letter to the White House about the affair.  

"I was troubled to learn that last night your staff reportedly issued an ultimatum to the AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin that he had one hour to resign or be terminated," Grassley wrote.  "As you know, Inspectors General were created by Congress as a means to combat waste, fraud, and abuse and to be independent watchdogs ensuring that federal agencies were held accountable for their actions.  Inspectors General were designed to have a dual role reporting to both the President and Congress so that they would be free from undue political pressure.  This independence is the hallmark of all Inspectors General and is essential so they may operate independently, without political pressure or interference from agencies attempting to keep their failings from public scrutiny."

The White House is going ahead with firing Walpin.  The firing apparently stems from Walpin's investigation of a non-profit group, St. HOPE Academy, run by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California (and a big Obama supporter).  "[Walpin] found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car," the AP reports.  In April, the U.S. attorney declined to file any criminal charges in the matter and criticized Walpin's investigation.  But at the same time Johnson and St. HOPE agreed to repay about half of the $850,000 it had received from AmeriCorps.

Bottom line: The AmeriCorps IG accuses prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money.  Prominent Obama supporter has to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money.  Obama fires AmeriCorps IG.

What's the point of winning an election if you can't take care of your friends?  It's the Chicago way, baby.

Letterman on Willow Palin

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/06/sarah-palin-david-letterman-cbs-rape.html

Noting that Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughter attended a New York Yankees game over the weekend with famous Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani, Letterman said: "One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

Personally, I've always like Letterman, but his hatred of Republicans brings out something ugly in him.  Willow Palin is 14 years old. I don't think we should be joking about her having sex, or a Yankee committing statutory rape.  Can you imagine a TV talk show host making a tasteless remark about the Obama girls?  Of course not.  

David, your mother would not approve.

Stimulus plan has been worse than doing nothing

As with most things, government intervention has made things worse.  A nice long vacation by Congress would have had a better effect on the economy.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/07/white-house-advisers-push-stimulus-criticism/

The Obama administration warned at the height of the stimulus debate that without the recovery package, the jobless rate would hit 8.8 percent in 2010 -- advisers had said the recovery package could hold unemployment to 7 percent. But that rate hit 8.9 percent in April, and then 9.4 percent last month. 

House Minority Leader John Boehner said Friday that the administration was "ripping off the American people." 

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, told "FOX News Sunday," the deficits the administration is producing represent the "most serious" the country has ever seen. 

"I can tell you if we get to a $20 trillion debt, this country -- and we're headed down that road -- our ability to pay and service that debt is going to be questioned all over the world," he said.

Keith Hennessey: Understanding the Kennedy health care bill

Making all employers work for the government, for the benefit of all (insurance companies and unions)...

http://keithhennessey.com/2009/06/08/kennedy-health-bill/

Bottom line: Bad news

Limbaugh toyed with the idea of supporting Sonia Sotomayor

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/79500/

ON THE RADIO JUST NOW, RUSH LIMBAUGH toyed with the idea of supporting Sonia Sotomayor — on the theory that, raised as a Catholic, she might be secretly pro-life. Is it a risk Obama would have taken?

Call it: "Operación de Caos"

Rush is a wise-guy anglo.  Mega dittoes!

Nuclear Sites Posted Online Accidentally

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124400117312880465.html

So now they're posting nuclear secrets, but the Obama administration still can't figure out where all the stimulus money has gone.  We need to put that guy in charge of Recovery.gov.

Lott: Is the Stimulus Working?

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/06/02/lott_obama_stimulus-2/

Thus, what Romer was predicting would be the worst-case scenario if the stimulus was not quickly enacted is occurring with the stimulus plan in place.

Paul Evans, the editor of the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking and an economics professor at Ohio State University, agrees with this and tells FOX News: "Most likely the economic recovery would have been more rapid at this point without [the stimulus package]."

Sowell: Equal Rights or Special Rights?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjI0NGM0ODZkNGVjZDUxYzYzYTgwYzE5ODAzMjc5M2U=

Sonia Sotomayor has, in both her words and in her decision as a judge to dismiss out of hand the appeal of white firefighters who had been discriminated against, betrayed a racism that is no less racism because it is directed against different people than the old racism of the past.

The code word for the new racism is "diversity." The Constitution of the United States says nothing about diversity and the Constitution is what a judge is supposed to pay attention to, not the prevailing buzzwords of the times.

What the Constitution says is "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans — and that is not taken out of context. People have put their lives on the line to make those words a reality. Now all of that is to be made to vanish into thin air by saying the magic word "diversity."

The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, like the Constitution, proclaimed equal rights for all, not special rights for those for whom judges have "empathy."

Derbyshire on Ethnic Pride

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjg0ZmQzZmU2NGY4OGZmYTMxYTA2NjNjNzMwZGY2YzM=

The common, approved protocol on race this past few years has been that if you belong to one of the approved minority races or ethnicities, you are allowed to celebrate the fact, and to agitate for the advancement of your group. Allowed? You are supposed to. If you don't, you come in for much scorn from your co-ethnics: Uncle Tom, lawn jockey, Oreo, coconut (brown outside, white inside), banana (yellow ditto), and so on. If you do not belong to one of the approved minorities, however, then celebrating your group identity is regarded as unspeakably wicked, a sure sign that you are an evil person with a diseased mind.

Everybody can find some sort of minority group to belong to these days.  We're getting close to a time when being conservative might enough to be considered a minority. Or is it more of a crime?  Well, some criminals are semi-officially approved minorities (illegal aliens) so it might just work out.  The key is to not have any power, and to vote Democrat.

McCarthy: When the Justice Department Is REALLY Politicized

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzgzMjY2MzllNGUyZGY5M2FjOWJkNGVkNWU1MTE1Mzc=

Unbelievably (or, perhaps, entirely too believably), Holder has told Georgia that it may no longer verify identification in order to ensure that voting is done only by citizens eligible to vote. 

The Department of Justice thinks that Georgia is discriminating against minorities by requiring that only legal citizens vote in elections.

Here's my proposal:  make the citizenship verification voluntary, but keep track of the votes separately.  When the results are announced, we should get the totals of verified citizens' votes and unverified citizens' votes.  Legally, all the votes have to count the same (thanks to the Feds), but it would be interesting to see how the numbers work out.  My guess is that most voters will voluntarily submit to a citizenship verification if they understand it to be a rebuke of the Federal Government.  Also, any politician who wins without a majority of the the verified American vote will have a hard time claiming a mandate.  Politicians are likely to ask their supporters to go through the voluntary verification for the sake of legitimacy.

They give out little "I voted today" stickers at the polling places.  I think they should have a "Citizen voter" stickers for the people who volunteer for the citizenship verification, and a "I may not be legal, but I voted" stickers for the rest.

Of course, this voluntary verification process might have a chilling effect on the voting rights of non-citizens so DOJ might rule against it, but I think it's worth a try.

Goldberg: Don't call it 'socialism'!

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/06/dont-call-it-socialism.html

No mainstream liberal actually wants government to completely seize the means of production, and no mainstream conservative believes that there's no room for any government regulation or social insurance. Both sides believe in a "mixed economy" but disagree profoundly about where to draw the line. One definition of social democracy is the peaceful, democratic transition to socialism. A second is simply a large European welfare state where the state owns some, and guides the rest, of the economy. Many liberals yearn for the latter and say so often — but fume when conservatives take them at their word.

Personally, I think socialism is the wrong word for all of this. "Corporatism" — the economic doctrine of fascism — fits better. Under corporatism, all the big players in the economy — big business, unions, interest groups — sit around the table with government at the head, hashing out what they think is best for everyone to the detriment of consumers, markets and entrepreneurs.

Racial ruling looms large for Sotomayor

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE55112V20090602?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Sotomayor's 2001 comment that a Latina judge "would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life" has also given ammunition to conservatives hoping to use race to derail her nomination.

The firefighters' case stems from a 2004 lawsuit filed by 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who said they would have been promoted had the city of New Haven not thrown out the results because no blacks had scored high enough to qualify.

The city argued that if it had gone ahead with the promotions based on the test results, it would have risked a lawsuit claiming that the exam hurt minorities in violation of the 1964 federal civil rights law.

Sotomayor sat on a three-judge panel that heard an appeal of the case and sided with the city, affirming a lower court's opinion.

The panel expressed sympathy for the plaintiffs but did not explain its reasoning behind the decision, prompting a fellow appeals court judge to criticize the decision as "perfunctory."

My questions for Judge Sotomayor:  If a wise Latina woman and her family were trapped in burning building, would she rather have the most qualified firefighters leading the rescue effort or affirmative action appointees who failed their exams?  Would you feel better about your loved ones dying in a fire if the unqualified firefighters were people of color?

The point is that it was not just the firefighters who were unfairly passed over for promotion who were hurt.  The whole community loses when unqualified people are promoted unjustly.  When it comes to government services, the poor are especially hurt by bad governmental decisions.

Steyn: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Teleprompter

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2NmZDNmYmIyNzk2ZTExNzQ1M2FiMWQ0Y2JmNDI5MzI=

The rest of the world doesn't observe Memorial Day. But it understands the crude symbolism of a rogue nuclear test staged on the day to honor American war dead and greeted with only half-hearted pro forma diplomatese from Washington. Pyongyang's actions were "a matter of . . . " Drumroll, please! " . . . grave concern," declared the president. Furthermore, if North Korea carries on like this, it will — wait for it — "not find international acceptance." As the comedian Andy Borowitz put it, "President Obama said that the United States was prepared to respond to the threat with 'the strongest possible adjectives . . . ' Later in the day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the North Korean nuclear test 'supercilious and jejune.' "

Basic facts on the General Motors bankruptcy

http://keithhennessey.com/2009/06/01/basic-facts-on-the-general-motors-bankruptcy/

The Anti-Stimulus, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

(via Instapundit.com)

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/05/the_anti-stimul.html

According to this standard analysis, the stimulus is going to hurt GDP now, when we could use the most help. Much of the spending will kick in a year or more from now, with multiplier effects following afterward, when the economy will need little, if any, stimulus.

This is the flaw with using spending rather than tax cuts as a stimulus. The lags are longer when you use spending.

Of course, if the real goal is to promote government at the expense of civil society and to create a one-party state in which business success is based on political favoritism, then the stimulus is working exactly as intended.

U.S. Debt $668,621 Per Household

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/05/us_debt_668621_per_household.php

I have a feeling that we're all going to need a Federal Bailout soon.  My suggestion is to split the government into two parts: the good side, slimmed down to the point where it can protect our rights, but not do much else for us, and the socialist, drunken-sailor spending part, which we can declare a toxic asset and give to the Chinese in lieu of foreclosure.