• GM Bailout Claims The Legal Rights Of Americans
  
• The Case Of Leland Yee
  
• Government Power Rests On Violence And Coercion
  
• Alan Grayson Has A Sad
  
• Did WaPo Coordinate With Congressional Dems?
  
• Harry Reid Quietly Reimburses Campaign Funds He Gave To Granddaughter
  
• WRM On Public Pensions
  
• Charlotte Mayor (Party Unknown) Charged With Corruption
  
• Former Top CA Educator Busting In Murder-For-Hire Plot, Blames Racism
  
• Putin Likely To Move On Eastern Ukraine
  
• Divorce: It's Way Bigger Than We Thought
  
• Obama Downplays Russia As A Regional Power
  
• Majority Of Texas Hispanics Have Unfavorable View Of Obamacare
  
• Thursday Edition Of Ace Of Spades Lifestyle
  
• Shark Gives Florida Student A Two Hour Ride
  

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:56 AM | Comments (211)
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Fox's Adam Shapiro interviews Walter Russell Mead about the coming public-pension meltdown. It's a fairly long video, but very worth your time if you're interested in this sort of thing.

Mead's point about yesterday's liberals becoming today's conservatives is a good one, and one that not enough people really appreciate. It's become au courant to refer to modern conservatism as "classical liberalism", and we are now encountering the spectacle of the radical New Left of the 1960's desperately trying to conserve (note the word) the status quo.

Mead is optimistic that America can re-invent itself yet again and take advantage of technology to make government at all levels work better and for less money. I doubt that this is the case -- a century's worth of untrammeled growth of government at all levels argues against it -- but we shall see.

As for the government's ability to leverage technology to improve delivery of services....

Posted by: Monty at 06:07 AM | Comments (574)
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Happy Thursday.

Democrats are having a banner week when it comes to being arrested and charged with corruption. See here for the cases just from yesterday. Here's the one from Sunday's papers. The case against Leland Yee sounds like it was stolen from a Hollywood blockbuster.

Fallout from the Washington Post's now-debunked hit piece on the Koch brothers' Alberta oil sands investment continues, with two Democratic mouth breathers on the Hill using the false report to demand that Koch Industries explain its plans for Keystone XL. Even the hacktastic Washington Post piece noted that the Kochs haven't reserved space in the pipeline and that industry folks think the pipeline will conflict with the Kochs' other energy business.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (296)
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Okay okay I promise tonight's ONT really will kinda suck...

Jim Geraghty: Why It's So Hard to Out-Alinsky the Left

Because the left isn't bothered by hypocrisy. And because their Weltanschauung is fundamentally different from that of conservatives.

Shortly after Barack Obama rose to the presidency, the Right became fascinated by Saul Alinsky, and in particular by the philosopher and community organizer's "Rules for Radicals." Many on the right focused their attention on Alinsky's Fourth Rule: "Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."

The strategy of "making them live up to their own book of rules" is frequently mentioned and discussed these days at Breitbart.com, Instapundit, Ace of Spades, and just about every other conservative website and blog.

...Not to take away from O'Keefe's work, which generates must-watch videos and scandal-inspired resignations with metronomic regularity, but there may be a flaw in this strategy. Ultimately, not that many liberals care whether their brethren are following their own book of rules. They've demonstrated a remarkable acceptance for one another's hypocrisy.

Many progressives organize their worldview in the reverse order: They pick the good people - themselves - and everything else is negotiable. And as it's currently practiced, liberalism doesn't really require much of anything. Or, when liberalism starts asking sacrifices and commitments of its adherents beyond liking and sharing on Facebook, the energy and enthusiasm disappear. Close observers of Obamacare have noticed that the Millennials and other young people who voted for Obama in droves aren't willing to pay several hundred dollars a month for health insurance.

The currency of progressivism isn't policies, and it certainly isn't results. It's emotions.

Read the whole thing here.

Of Course: Anti-Gun CA Senator Leland Yee Charged With Gun Running

And we're talking Archer-level running of guns here.

Famously anti-gun California state Senator Leland Yee has been charged with, in addition to bribery and public corruption.yes.gun running. Specifically conspiring with known organized crime lord Kwok Cheung "Shrimp Boy" Chow to illegally import firearms and sell them without a license . . .

The affidavit charges that the $2 million worth of weapons to have been secreted into the country from the Philippines included rocket launchers and machine guns, some of which Yee himself had fired while on Mindanao. A portion of the weapons Yee conspired to bring into the U.S. through New Jersey were to have been forwarded on to North Africa via Sicily.

And just in the past year Yee has sponsored bills to ban the 3-D printing of guns and the use of bullet-buttons on rifles like the AR-15 along with several other bills all designed to make life miserable for gun-owners in California. Because guns are bad, m'kay?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:03 PM | Comments (1024)
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Just clearing out the browser tabs of links that I really should write up more fully, but don't have time for.

First up, Michelle Malkin has a long, personal piece at National Review about medical marijuana.

Molly Ball has a piece at the Atlantic on how Republicans are driving the current momentum for gay marriage.

Sean Davis has a piece at the Federalist on six absurd arguments made at the Hobby Lobby argument.

Nate Silver has a post at FiveThirtyEight taking a shot at former colleague Paul Krugman.

Patterico has a post at his site about Vox stumbling right out of the gate.

Maybe I'll come back to these tomorrow.

Bonus Videos [Ace]: A Chicago subway train's driver fell asleep while conducting the vehicle. The train jumped the tracks and... well, you'll see. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:48 PM | Comments (283)
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If you don't remember, these cases concern the language of Obamacare, which states that federal tax credits and subsidies are available to those who purchase insurance in a health insurance exchange "established by a state under section 1311" of Obamacare.

But most states have not established state exchanges. In most states, Obamacare exists (to the extent it exists at all) as a federal insurance market. So tax credits and subsidies should not be available for such plans.

And further, section 1311 concerns the state exchanges. So the law does seem to restrict the subsidies/credits boondoggle only to state exchanges -- if we care about the law anymore, which Obama, like, doesn't.

A district court already ruled on this point in Obama's favor, back in January. Then, a Clinton appointee stated that the words of Obamacare were "clear" and "unambiguous" -- and clearly and unambiguously meant something other than they said. The lower court ruled that, get this, when Congress said subsidies would be available for polices bought on the state exchanges, they "clearly" and "unambiguously" meant "the state and/or federal exchanges."

Powerline links a digest of oral arguments on this point in the DC Circuit of Appeals (and there are, I think, three other identical challenges in other federal courts). In the DC circuit, at least, the judges (two Republican appointees and one Democratic one) seem skeptical of the government's argument that words are stupid things.

The Democratic judge (a Carter appointee) resorted to very weak arguments to justify letting the Obama Administration "interpret" the law to mean something other than the words actually say:

At one point, Judge Edwards claimed that because the statute was entitled the “Affordable” Care Act, the court should construe it so care would be affordable.

Apparently the government's arguments boiled down to these:

1) Come on, you can't strike this down, "everyone knows" what they meant, even if they didn't actually write it

2) No seriously "everyone knows" what they meant

Now, NRO's Bench Memos thinks (based on the judges' questioning) that we'll win here. However...

A 2-1 panel decision seems likely, with Judges Griffith and Randolph firmly in favor of applying the plain meaning, and with Judge Edwards against the plain meaning. If the appellants win and the court declares the regulation ultra vires, the government would likely petition for en banc rehearing to the newly-packed D.C. Circuit to delay or reverse the effect of the panelÂ’s decision.

Yes, now that the DC Circuit is packed with Obama appointees, an en banc review would probably go against us.

And then on to the Supreme Court.

If you're interested in this case, the DC Circuit has posted audio of the oral arguments.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (181)
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Tasty.

Full poll data here.

Some points: His approval is 41%. Usually you don't get these numbers adding up to 100%, but here you do (59% + 41%). In addition, they say 1% are undecided.

Of the 59% who disapprove of Obama, 36% strongly disapprove.

On the other hand, his positive rating, such as it is, has fewer people strongly approving of him -- only 14%.

He's also underwater on personal favorability, 42% favorable, 51% unfavorable.

Another poll, the Morning Consult, which is a health care tracking poll, finds that undecided voters are slightly opposed to Obamacare... and when I say "slightly," I mean they oppose Obamacare more than they support it by a whopping 40% margin.

Among those who describe themselves as likely but undecided 2014 voters, Obamacare approval sits at a robust (25/65) ...

Overall, likely voters oppose Obamacare by 53 to 41.

It's a two-edged sword, though, this "40% underwater on Obamacare among the undecideds" stat.

If so many of them disapprove of Obamacare -- 65% disapprove, to only 25% approving -- what the hell makes them undecided as to which party they'll be voting for in November?

It's could that they disapprove of Obamacare but don't really care all that much about it, in the same way that your neighbor may disapprove of the way the zoning commission is treating you but he's also not going to lose sleep over it. It's not his problem. And a large chunk of the population may see Obamacare as a problem, but a problem, so far, affecting only other people -- people with employee health care plans may not have yet heard that Obamacare is gunning for them, too.

Of course that might be because Obama has delayed various parts of the law that affect those with employer-provided insurance, until after the elections, at least.

It could also be that people just don't like the GOP for other reasons.

Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (282)
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The old one was getting a bit musty.

Also, from the sidebar, this seems like a good punishment for Phil:

Punxsutawney Phil said 6 more weeks of winter.... I say Punxsutawney Phil is for dinner. pic.twitter.com/YDlFwWEURZ

— John Riggins (@riggo44) March 25, 2014

Posted by: Slublog at 11:37 AM | Comments (179)
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OUT: A healthy democracy requires a responsive government and a well-informed citizenry

IN: Go F*ck Yourself Peons

They claim that it will take too long to review and redact so many documents.

Apparently Republicans shot back that they should prioritize this, and assign more personnel to the task, if that's what it takes.

Democrats, meanwhile, chose to question the propriety of investigating alleged government harassment of citizens at all.

By Stephen Dinan, the Washington Times

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Wednesday that he wonÂ’t be able to produce all of former employee Lois G. LernerÂ’s emails and those of other key employees by the end of this year, pushing it beyond this yearÂ’s congressional elections.

In a heated exchange over whether he and his tax agency employees are cooperating in CongressÂ’s investigations into tea party targeting, Mr. Koskinen said the amount of time it will take to look through and redact private information from the documents could last years.

...

Some Democrats objected to the congressional investigation in the first place, saying it has cost millions of dollars for the IRS to upgrade its computers and to designate staff to review and reply to records requests.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (282)
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You guys know that I've been hard on Republicans in general and the House GOP in particular, from time to time. No, it's true.

But credit where it's due (hold on to that concept for a minute), they had a really clever graphic on Twitter today to mark the latest ObamaCare delay.

It was so clever a number of GOP members of Congress used it today in their twitter feeds.

As I said, credit where it's due, right?

Ok, here's where it's due.

Running out of room here... pic.twitter.com/f5HLESD8IB

— Slublog (@Slublog) March 26, 2014

Compare to the GOP's version (resized):

Hmmm, they look awful similar, no? Why, other than the font they are...exactly the same.

Now I'm not saying someone on the House GOP social media team just copied Slu's work and pretended it was their own. I'm just saying you'd have to be an idiot if you think anyone would believe you if you said it was just a coincidence that the House GOP social media folks had the same idea a few short hours after Slu's worked appeared.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, I'm not an idiot. Are you?

In the spirit of full disclosure, John Ekdahl tracked down the members who used the image (and it's not their fault) and that the source was the House GOP's Twitter feed.

Furthermore, Slu wanted me to make it clear the original idea for the image came from a group discussion and that he makes no claim to being the sole originator of the idea.

Related, Slu is a very nice guy who is far too modest.

We contacted the House GOP caucus asking for comment but they declined. The original tweet has been removed from their feed.

Hopefully we all can agree that that best way to handle these types of situations in the future is simple attribution.

Post Edited By Ace. I added a blow-up of the GOP's image, so people can see how similar it is to Slu's, and the sentence introducing that ("Compare...").

Posted by: DrewM at 10:15 AM | Comments (440)
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