It turns out that many donors gave multiple small amounts that added up to the legal maximum. Plus, we should remember that the Obama campaign disabled the normal checks on credit card donations, which makes it easier to evade campaign finance limits.Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama's amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.
Except, it turns out, that's not really true.
In fact, Obama's base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush's in 2004 -- Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Obama's small donor base image is a myth, new study reveals
Friday, November 28, 2008
What the Obama Kids Will Miss Out On at Private School
It was reported last week that the Obamas have chosen the elite, $30,000 per year Sidwell Friends School for their daughters. [...] Public school officials, however, should be perplexed as to why the Obamas, like nearly all politicians, have discarded Washington D.C.'s public schools for the "private sector."
An important question then becomes why the Obamas chose Sidwell Friends, a school bereft of so many elements public educators and the media tell us are required for academic "growth and excellence." Since it would be a shame for Sasha and Malia to miss out on all the "benefits" of public schooling, here are some recommendations I have for Sidwell Friends, which will help mold it into the type of school "the experts" desire.
That National Education Association believes "the attainment and exercise of collective bargaining rights are essential to the promotion of education employee and student needs in society." How can the Obama kids have the complete educational experience without early release time for "professional development," empty parking lots at 2:40pm for salary protests, strikes, and pilfered paychecks?
Charles Krauthammer - From Market Economy to Political Economy
In the old days -- from the Venetian Republic to, oh, the Bear Stearns rescue -- if you wanted to get rich, you did it the Warren Buffett way: You learned to read balance sheets. Today you learn to read political tea leaves. [...] Today's extreme stock market volatility is not just a symptom of fear -- fear cannot account for days of wild market swings upward -- but a reaction to meta-economic events: political decisions that have vast economic effects. As economist Irwin Stelzer argues, we have gone from a market-driven economy to a politically driven economy.
Robert Mundell’s New Wisdom by Larry Kudlow on NRO Financial
Putting it all together, Mundell's anti-recession program is a reduction of the high marginal tax rate on business to reignite growth along with a stable dollar to contain inflation.
Question to Ponder [Andy McCarthy]
Would Barack Obama have gotten the Democratic nomination if he had told the party he would retain George Bush's Defense Secretary?
Karl Rove: Thanksgiving Cheer From Obama
Karl Rove approves of Obama's economic team. How will that sit with the Democrats in the Senate? Geithner might have a hard time getting confirmed. (Just kidding, but it's kind of fun to imagine how this endorsement will drive a few lefties crazy.)
Mr. Obama's announcement of his economic team on Monday provided surprisingly positive clarity. He picked as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the respected, soft-spoken New York Fed president. Mr. Geithner has been a key player with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in confronting the financial crisis. Every major decision in the rescue effort came only after the three agreed.
The National Economic Council director-designee, Larry Summers, is another solid pick. Mr. Summers has been an advocate for trade liberalization, he was the Clinton administration's negotiator for the financial deregulation known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and he even attempted to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the 1990s.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Charles Rangel Looks Like a Tax Cheat
First there is the Washington Post's revelation that Rangel inappropriately claimed a tax break on his D.C. townhouse by claiming it was his primary residence. The five-year charade only netted the congressman from Harlem about $1,500, which is relatively small potatoes. But it nicely dovetails with two other Rangel escapades of late: That he failed to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income from his luxury beach villa in the Caribbean because he—ahem—didn't know it was income; and that he scored several rent-stabilized apartments in New York, each of which he must claim as his primary residence. Taken all together, it looks like the top tax-writer in Congress is a tax cheat.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Opposed to Holder without Apology by Andrew C. McCarth
Let's be blunt here: The Marc Rich pardon was one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the Justice Department. Not the modern history, the entire history. Rich was accused of mega-crimes: millions in fraud, tax-evasion, and trading with the America's enemies. In 2000, he was a fugitive. He had been one for nearly two decades, during which the government had expended immense resources in a futile attempt to apprehend him.
Mind you, flitting from country to country to avoid prosecution, as Rich was doing, is itself a felony. When Eric Holder aided and abetted Rich's pardon effort, he was not only grossly violating the Justice Department policy it was his job to uphold; he was dealing with the agents of someone who was actively committing a serious federal crime. That's why, when prosecutors deal with a fugitive's representatives, the appropriate question is: "When is he going to turn himself in?" It's not, as Holder essentially asked, "What can I do to help?"
Holder, then Clinton administration deputy attorney general, steered the fugitive toward a friendly Clinton insider: former White House Counsel Jack Quinn. That enabled the most-wanted fugitive to lobby the President directly — and in violation of an executive order barring lobbying by recently departed White House staffers — without nettlesome interference from the Justice Department's long-established, procedurally rigorous pardon process. In order to protect the public, that process called for input from the case prosecutors and investigators. As Holder well knew, following it would have demonstrated beyond cavil that pardoning Rich would be an outrage, in violation of every DOJ guideline.
Moreover, Holder extended his helping hand with the crassest of motives: the careerist was hoping the influential Quinn would look favorably on Holder's quest to become attorney general in a Gore administration. That is, Holder was actively soliciting help from Quinn (Vice President Gore's former counsel and friend) at the very time he was providing invaluable help to Quinn's fugitive client — first in unsuccessfully pushing Rich's preposterous effort to settle the case without jail time with prosecutors in New York, then in overcoming the uniform objections of White House staffers to a Rich pardon.
And the cherry on top: The scenario in which Holder's sell-out of Justice Department principle took place was scummy in every particular; multi-millionaire Rich's ex-wife and staunchest supporter, Denise Rich, was making mega-bucks donations to Clinton causes (according to Time, $400,000 to the Clinton Library Fund, $10,000 to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund, and over $1 million to Democrat campaigns during the Clinton era — including $70,000 for the 2000 Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton, now Obama's pick for secretary of State).
Thomas Sowell : "Jolting" the Economy
Much as we may deplore partisanship in Washington, bipartisan disasters are often twice as bad as partisan disasters-- and this is a bipartisan disaster in the making.
Too many people who argue that there is a beneficial role for the government to play in the economy glide swiftly from that to the conclusion that the government will in fact confine itself to playing such a role.
In the light of history, this is a faith which passeth all understanding. Even in the case of the Great Depression of the 1930s, increasing numbers of economists and historians who have looked back at that era have concluded that, on net balance, government intervention prolonged the Great Depression.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Hillary and the Emoluments Clause
I very recently read an article by John O'Connor on the subject, The Emoluments Clause: An Anti-Federalist Intruder in a Federalist Constitution, 24 Hofstra L. Rev. 89 (1995), so I asked him what he thought. Here's his answer:
The Emoluments Clause provides that "[n]o Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time." As I understand it, 5 U.S.C. § 5303 provides for an automatic annual increase in certain federal salaries, including the salary of the Secretary of State, unless the President certifies that an increase in salaries is inappropriate. The salary of the Secretary of State has increased during Senator Clinton's current Senate term, which does not end until 2012. Therefore, under a straightforward application of the Emoluments Clause, Senator Clinton is ineligible for appointment as Secretary of State because the emoluments of that office "have been encreased" during Senator Clinton's current Senate term, and this disability continues until the end of "the time for which [she] was elected, or until January 2013.
I do not believe it affects the analysis that the salary increase occurred as a result of an Executive Order or that the statute creating these quasi-automatic salary increases was enacted prior to Senator Clinton's current term. By its plain language, the Emoluments Clause applies when the office's salary "shall have been encreased," without regard to exactly how it was increased. Indeed, an early proposed draft of the clause included language limiting it to an increase of emoluments "by the legislature of the U[nited] States," and was later revised to encompass any increase in emoluments. It is worth noting that several Framers thought, without much explication, that the clause was too lax as initially drafted. The clause also does not require that a Senator or Representative have voted for the increase.
There's a further discussion about the "Saxbe Fix" such that the salary is reduced to a lower level, which in theory would allow the Senator to be appointed without the emoluments having been "encreased during such time." The Saxbe Fix has been used before, but never tested in court. However, by my plain reading of the Constitution, the Saxbe Fix is unconstitutional. (Professor O'Conner agrees.) Therefore, it follows that my opinion will be ignored and the Hillary will get a Saxbe fix with little controversy. It's unclear who would have standing to challenge the Saxbe Fix, anyway. It seems ironic that our first constitutional law professor President would so casually ignore the issue, but he's got a world to save and less than four years before his re-election.
Flake's New Appropriations Bid
Conservatives are once again lining up their support to put Flake on Appropriations. The anti-tax advocacy group FreedomWorks has renewed their 2008 "Make it Flake" campaign at www.makeitflake.com. "There are 59 members of the House Appropriations Committee," the site says. "We think it is time to have at least one Committee member who doesn't take earmarks and who doesn't support pork barrel spending."
The Club for Growth's Pat Toomey made the case for Flake in the pages of the National Review writing, "[House Minority Leader] John Boehner should use his influence and leadership position to appoint Rep. Jeff Flake to the Appropriations Committee."
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Hillary plays hardball - Americas, World - The Independent
[...]The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady's foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.
Mr Craig's crime was not so much that he enthusiastically backed Mr Obama for President and helped run his foreign policy advisory panel, it was his lacerating attacks on the putative Secretary of State's claims that she passed the "Commander-in-Chief test" as a foreign policy expert in the Clinton Administration. In a devastating memo of 11 March last, which he addressed "to interested parties," Mr Craig said: There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff."
"She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis."
The memo went on to say that Mrs Clinton "never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day." Earlier this week Mr Craig was tapped to become White House counsel, a totally anonymous position, and shunted him out of the line of fire from the Secretary of State.
Sarah and the Vegan Weenies - Byron York - The Corner on National Review Online
"The Corner" at NRO has some reader responses to the great turkey massacre...
She should tell the media that she apologizes and she'll do her next interview inside an abortion clinic.
My fowl lady - Mark Steyn
And, while you're right that "it would have been funny whichever pol stood there", ask yourself whether the media would even have noticed had Joe Biden done such a thing. That's what upgraded it from mildly infelicitous to side-splitting hilarious - not the footage, but the po-faced huffing of the shrieking nancies at MSNBC and the portentous plonkers at The New York Times:
You don't have to be a huge animal lover to question why Governor Palin chose to be interviewed — while issuing a traditional seasonal pardon of a turkey — while turkeys were being executed in the background.And that's Sarah Palin's real stroke of genius in these difficult times for the global economy. For, in an age when the government picks which banks to nationalize and which banks to fail, and guarantees mortgages that should never have been issued, and prepares to demand that those taxpayers with responsible and affordable pension plans prop up the lavish and unsustainable pension programs of Detroit, Governor Palin has given us a great teaching moment and a perfect snapshot of what my Brit reader would recognize as pre-Thatcher "industrial policy":
When the government decides it can "pick winners" and spare them from the realities of the market, everyone else gets bled to death.
Thank you, Sarah. It's the first election ad of Campaign '12.
George Will : The Hyperbole of a Conservative
Just a few highlights from George Will. Read the whole thing.
Either markets allocate resources, or government -- meaning politics -- allocates them. Now that distrust of markets is high, Americans are supposed to believe that the institution they trust least -- Congress -- will pony up $1 trillion and then passively recede, never putting its 10 thumbs, like a manic Jack Horner, into the pie? Surely Congress will direct the executive branch to show compassion for this, that and the other industry. And it will mandate "socially responsible" spending -- an infinitely elastic term -- by the favored companies.
Conservatives rightly think, or once did, that much, indeed most, government spreading of wealth is economically destructive and morally dubious -- destructive because, by directing capital to suboptimum uses, it slows wealth creation; morally dubious because the wealth being spread belongs to those who created it, not government.
In America, socialism is un-American. Instead, Americans merely do rent-seeking -- bending government for the benefit of private factions. The difference is in degree, including the degree of candor. The rehabilitation of conservatism cannot begin until conservatives are candid about their complicity in what government has become.
As for the president-elect, he promises to change Washington. He will, by making matters worse. He will intensify rent-seeking by finding new ways -- this will not be easy -- to expand, even more than the current administration has, government's influence on spreading the wealth around.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Clinton Is Said to Opt for Secretary of State Position
I'm surprised that Hillary would take the job, but I guess I underestimated the strength of the Democratic boys club in the Senate. I'm shocked that they wouldn't accept her in any kind of leadership position after she nearly won the nomination. I'm sure we'll have some fun with Bill Clinton as our roving ambassador for international relations with interns.
Driving Mrs. Clinton's deliberations in part, friends said, was a sense of disenchantment with the Senate, where despite her stature she remained low in the ranks of seniority that governs the body. She was particularly upset, they said, at the reception she felt she received when she returned from the campaign trail and sought a more significant leadership role in the expanding Democratic majority.
"Her experience in the Senate with some of her colleagues has not been the easiest time for her," said one longtime friend. "She's still a very junior senator. She doesn't have a committee. And she's had some disappointing times with her colleagues."
In particular, the friend said, Mrs. Clinton was upset when the Senate Democratic leadership rejected the possibility of her heading a special task force with a staff and a mandate to develop legislation expanding health care coverage. The idea of giving her an existing leadership post was also dismissed because the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, did not want to force out any senators currently holding those jobs.
Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office
On this symbolic date, it seems worthwhile to reflect that the planet has not only cooled since George W. Bush took office – pause and let the significance of that one sink in – but began to chill significantly at almost precisely the moment that we signed the Kyoto Protocol, exactly ten years ago today.
Director's checks on 'Joe' called unfounded
A slap on the wrist for government officials who violated Joe's privacy and misused their offices for political purposes. I guess that's OK as long as their motives were pure, and obviously anyone who contributed to the Obama campaign has the public's best interests at heart.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is standing by an agency director who OK'd improper computer checks for confidential information on "Joe the Plumber" and used state e-mails for political fundraising.
Strickland announced today that Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Department of Job and Family Services, will be placed on unpaid leave for one month in response to an inspector general's investigation.
The investigation found Jones-Kelley had no legitimate reasons to check on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who was popularized as "Joe the Plumber" by Republican presidential candidate John McCain. It also confirmed she improperly used her state e-mail account to raise campaign money for President-elect Barack Obama.
Some Republican leaders, who cited the report's findings to call on Democrat Strickland to fire Jones-Kelley, were stunned that she will remain on the job.
"The actions described in this report cross the line of what you can do and lead a state agency. She violated the public trust," said House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Obama Should Think Twice About This Clinton Retread
So to be clear, Holder helped steer the attorney for Rich, a fugitive whose pardon request would likely have been rejected through normal channels due to his status as a fugitive, to the man Holder wanted assistance with in getting his next job. Now there's a man who knows something about conflicts of interest.[...]
So returning to Holder's possible selection as Attorney General, the mind reels as to why this person, who participated in a notorious Clinton scandal and himself seemed so oblivious to his own conflict of interest, would be chosen. Is this the New Politics? Or is it a throwback to the Clinton years, the very years Obama is attempting to turn the page on, to put behind us all?
When one looks to the people Obama in turn has selected as mentors (e.g., Reverend Wright, Father Michael Pfleger), friends (e.g., Tony Rezko), and now key advisors (e.g., Eric Holder), voters may begin to question whether Obama possesses the judgment necessary to run an effective and scandal-free administration. If Holder is emblematic of Obama's personnel decisions and an example of what is to come, the answer is "no."
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Victory in Iraq Day, November 22, 2008
I declare November 22, 2008 to be "Victory in Iraq Day." (Hereafter known as "VI Day.")
By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
