Yeah, shocker.

"It was just guilt by innuendo, nothing else," Lt. Dave Parker told the Daily News on Wednesday. "ThereÂ’s not one scintilla of evidence that Todd Palin had anything to do with this."

Right, obviously so. And so why was it picked up, despite being evidence-free, by Forbes and the New York Dail News?

Because their bloggers are all, of course, liberals, and they can't resist pressing a bogus story against the Palins.

But sure, MFM, keep hiring nothing but committed liberals. Only hire a conservative in a specific "conservative slot" (with a liberal to provide counterpoint). But for the supposedly non-partisan journalistic blogs? Liberals only; you can't hire a conservative. Hell, conservatives might bring a political agenda with them and deliberately compromise journalistic ethics to achieve it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (84)
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Worth a read.

I don't have anything to say except the stupefyingly obvious: If he's doing good work I support him, but I worry he has an agenda. But that last thing -- worry over an agenda -- is a concern I also have about Obama and the C.I.A. itself.

Posted by: Ace at 11:19 AM | Comments (95)
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Mark Salter, a McCain aide, wrote that "O" novel. He recently offered a complete non-denial when asked -- stating the publisher asked him not to comment either way, and he was doing as they asked (why would they ask him to not comment if he wasn't the writer?) -- and now Time claims they have sources that confirm this.

Having not read the book, I don't know if it's any good. I assume it's not, because 90% of everything is crap and we can up that to 95% for political fictions.

But I found the NYT's hyper-liberal reviewer's review sort of funny in how obvious it was that the reviewer didn't like the book because it said bad stuff about Lord God King Obama.

Well, now we know why the author of this much gossiped about, heavily marketed new book wanted to remain anonymous: “O: A Presidential Novel” is a thoroughly lackadaisical performance — trite, implausible and decidedly unfunny.

There has been plenty of online speculation that the author of “O” may be a political reporter, blogger or onetime member of President Obama’s staff, but while he or she clearly has a feel for what it’s like to be on the campaign trail, much of what passes for inside knowledge in these pages would be known to anyone who’s read a bunch of campaign accounts, subscribed to Mike Allen’s “Playbook” or watched “Morning Joe.”

The novel — set during the 2012 campaign — wants us to think we’re learning something about the real-life White House and the real-life mediasphere. But the characters who are meant to sound familiar — including a news-aggregating Web site’s founder, who speaks in “heavily accented English,” and a rumpled White House adviser, charged with “protecting the president’s brand” — are clumsily drawn caricatures. And while an executive at the book’s publisher says, in an online note, that he hopes this book may “offer some resonant truths about what President Obama is really thinking,” the title character turns out to be a snarkily drawn cartoon too: a conceited narcissist whose inner life consists of gripes about his opponents, frustration with his job, daydreams about golf, and self-congratulatory pats on his own back, combined with put-downs of the country at large.

This is a good example of media nothing's belief that simple membership in the media makes them all-around all-purpose experts without portfolio.

Notice this book reviewer claims that the book authentically depicts life on the campaign trail. Other reviewers gushed about how authentic Primary Colors was, and how that proved it must be someone on Clinton's staff, etc. This reviewer notes:

uch of what passes for inside knowledge in these pages would be known to anyone who’s read a bunch of campaign accounts, subscribed to Mike Allen’s “Playbook” or watched “Morning Joe.”

Right, exactly, but that's the limit of your knowledge, too, Hoss.

In other words, book reviewers are claiming that this book authentically describes life on the campaign trail and in the White House despite themselves having absolutely no actual experience with such things... apart from watching the West Wing. Or subscribing to Mike Allen's "Playbook." Or watching Morning Joe.

See?

A reviewer can say a book creates an impression of versimilitude in the mind of a layman who really doesn't know what "real" would look like, but how can this jackass say it "clearly" demonstrates an insider's familiarity with the campaign trail?

I see nothing in this Wikipedia bio indicating that she has any experience in anything except criticizing books.

But, you know, she's a New York Times critic, so she knows what the campaign trail must be like and can authoritatively say when an author has nailed it.

I presume when she reviews books set in hospitals she can also authoritatively state whether or not the author has captured the feel of a real hospital, too.

Because: Critic. Works in the media. Must know everything.

I noticed all these dummies in the media saying stuff like that. That this O book was "realistic." Um, dudes? How would you know?

The most you can say is that it has the feel of authenticity, at least as regards an inexpert outsider. And of course that's an important virtue of a book -- I have no idea if Tom Clancy was getting the details of submarine warfare right in Hunt for Red October or not, but I can say he successfully bullshitted me if he wasn't.

But that's all I can say. I am not a submariner and I cannot then claim he "clearly" understood submarine warfare.

But these guys all can, apparently.

They just know everygoddamnthing, don't they? Same reason news reader Brian Williams can go on a talk show and offer me key geopolitical insights.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (86)
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Chris Christie being awesome as usual.

Here's a plus: He is more understanding here, more conciliatory, and less aggressively combative, as he explains, really explains, to a cop what "economic reality" looks like.

He goes down a list of horrible effects of union-controlled spending. For example, in Parsippany, cops are paid for their unused sick days. I guess there's nothing wrong with that per se, but I'd sure like to see 1) the number of credited sick days on the low end and 2) not full payment for an unused sick day, just a fraction of it, a bonus for good work.

Well they didn't have that system in Parsippany, NJ. Upshot: Four retiring cops in Parsiappany just cashed out their unused sick days throughout their working lives; one cop's payment? Nine hundred thousand dollars. The town had to take a bond just to pay these unused-sick-day bonanzas.

Fair? Um... Obviously not but trying telling them that.

Ah: Mitchell also points out a deliberate bit of hard-to-catch overgenerousness in these schemes. A deliberately hidden, stealth overpayment:

The nice thing about cashing out unpaid sick leave is that a lot of that time was accumulated when you were paid less than what you are getting paid at retirement, but you get to cash out at the highest rate you ever made.

See, that wouldn't have occurred to me (and it didn't), and that, I suppose, is the whole reason for it. Because the outsiders won't notice.

As they say, every profession is a conspiracy against the laity, and the public employees are like a crime syndicate.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (185)
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It's an annoying credentialist argument in the first place.

But, in the second place, it's also completely untrue, as this Harvard Crimson article notes (but then spins that she has "some connection" to Harvard).

In fact Mosely Braun never attended Harvard as a student in any capacity and holds no degrees from there, advanced or basic. She was a "visiting fellow at HarvardÂ’s Institute of Politics in 2007." Which means, um, nothing.

This story came out last week; no one in the MFM noted it. Compare and contrast to Christine O'Donnell's erroneous LinkedIn page.

A page, it was noted at the time, that required users to select from only a small number of pull-down menu options and so could not differentiate between this sort of thing -- visiting as some kind of celebrity "fellow" -- and actual enrollment at the school.

Mosely Braun wasn't so hampered by limited technology when speaking. She claimed she had advanced degrees plural from a school she never attended. And then, later in a show, when a caller specifically praised her Harvard education, she just thanked the man for the compliment.

But no interest from the MFM. Gee, you'd almost think they were employing some kind of double-standard or something.

Thanks to Brother Bewapitis.

Posted by: Ace at 09:38 AM | Comments (77)
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The meme gains steam.

During the 2008 financial crisis, the federal government reacted in a frantic, ad hoc fashion, tapping taxpayers for bailouts galore, running roughshod over the rights of bondholders and catching the American people unaware and unprepared. In contrast, we still have time to prepare for the looming crisis threatening to engulf California, Illinois, New York and other state governments.

The new Congress has the opportunity to prepare a fair, orderly, predictable and lawful approach to help struggling state governments address their financial challenges without resorting to wasteful bailouts. This approach begins with a new chapter in the federal Bankruptcy Code that provides for voluntary bankruptcy by states, a proven option already available to all cities and towns across America.

The figures for next year's budgets are staggering. California, which faces a $25.4-billion budget shortfall, will pay $100,000+ pensions to more than 12,000 state and municipal retirees this year. A Stanford study puts the state's unfunded pension obligations at more than half a trillion dollars. Illinois has a $15-billion budget deficit, prompting its governor and lame-duck Legislature to hike its personal income tax rate by 66%. New York, where 73% of the government workforce is unionized, is staring at a $10-billion deficit.

I have a feeling this one is already won. Which isn't to say we should act as if it's won; but I think this train has left the station.

The states will go bankrupt. There doesn't seem to be many other good alternatives. True, just forcing them to raise taxes to deleterious levels and cut spending in an abrupt and disruptive way is on the table, but that doesn't do anything about these massive public sector pensions and such.

In terms of pure politics: These states are still controlled by Democrats and will be for the foreseeable future. So let the Democrats explain to their union stooges why they're reneging on all those promises they never should have made.

Win, win, win.

Posted by: Ace at 08:57 AM | Comments (127)
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Many people will be happy to see so many departments and agencies simply abolished here.

In many cases he's just returning spending to 2008 levels.

It's my personal pet meme (which I got from someone else) that 1998 should be the goal. There is a good reason for this: Clinton, a Democrat in good standing, was president. Further, the economy was doing gangbusters business (except when it slipped into a small recession at the end of his term, but economies do that, even basically sound ones).

I know some people don't like the idea of giving credit to Clinton in this way, and want to say it was the Republican Congress that restrained spending. Fine, but I don't really care about the credit/blame thing; I'm looking at rhetorical effectiveness. Most Americans appreciate that the economy boomed under Clinton (or Clinton/Gingrich, if you will); and that message was hammered home for 8 years under Bush by a media determined to compare the two, as of course Bush lost most comparisons.

Have you noticed? Since Obama took office the media is no longer interested in comparing the current president's economy to Clinton's. See, Clinton set a high standard, so the comparison tends to be a punitive one; so the comparison was made endlessly for Bush, but not at all for Obama.

I think that needs to be remedied. We need to start holding Obama to the standard established by the media and the Democrats for success, and that's Clinton's (or Clinton/Gingrich's) booming economy.

Democrats like Obama love to say "I just want to raise taxes to the Clinton level; the economy did well with that level of taxation, didn't it?"

Ah... Yes, well, the GOP's new slogan should be "I just want to cut spending to the Clinton level; the economy did well with that level of spending, didn't it?"

Why should they be permitted to endlessly crow that Clinton-levels of taxation didn't significantly wound the economy without having it pointed out, vigorously, that Clinton-levels of spending seem to be a far more likely reason for the economy's success in this era?

Some might not like this idea, since, they'd say, that the implication becomes we should return to both Clinton tax levels and Clinton spending levels. I don't think that's a strong objection, because, first of all, the other side is already making the case for Clinton levels of taxation (as a start-- if you think Obama's grand plan of changing the nation stops there, you're on crack). So, really, we're not fighting that meme, we're just not showing up for the fight at all.

Secondly, people don't want to be taxed at higher rates, period. You almost don't even have to make this argument. We should make anti-tax arguments, but this point is sort of already 80% won for us already, just because no one wants to pay the high taxes associated with a European socialist state.

So I think the meme really will not hurt us in those terms, in terms of suggesting we need Clinton levels of taxation.

Seriously, I know some political professionals read this site; can anyone tell me why this sort of idea -- Return to 1998's level of spending burden if you want to return to 1998's level of growth -- isn't a good one? Why isn't anyone pursuing this?

The Democrats made a lot of hay establishing 1998 as the proper baseline of comparison for economic success during the Bush years. Let's bring that back, eh?

Other Benefits: One thing Michele Bachmann did that I thought was weak as hell was suggest that almost all of our problems are attributable to Barack Obama.

Paul Ryan, on the other hand, admitted almost immediately that the GOP had failed too and needed to do better.

Just as a rhetorical exercise, Paul Ryan seemed far less partisan and therefore far more persuasive on this point. People like hearing that their leaders are examining themselves for error, trying to improve themselves, and not just blaming it on a convenient scapegoat.

Further, I thought Bachmann's suggestion (she didn't actually say it, just implied it) is actually way off message for the Tea Party -- the Tea Party is ostensibly non-partisan and blames both parties, not just the Democrats. So Bachmann's suggestion there is actually more like "Old style GOP politics" and Ryan's confession of shared guilt is more like the Tea Party spirit, that both parties have grown the government and both parties need to get serious about limited government and lower spending.

Finally, of course: Ryan's statement is true whereas Bachmann's suggestion was false. Bush grew the government hugely -- he'd be the biggest Big Government president in a generation if it weren't for his successor.

It was actually Clinton -- checkmated by Gingrich, true, but still, his name was on top of the government -- who kept spending somewhat in check. True, he did so by cutting the military (the peace dividend that wasn't), and grew the bureaucracy and spent more on the social safety net and so on, but still, his rate of government growth was fairly low compared to Bush's.

Republicans like to hearken back, constantly, to Reagan. That's understandable, but it sounds partisan, and besides, many people weren't even adults during Reagan's economy, whereas far more remember Clinton's economy.

Calling for a return to 1998 rates of spending -- and implicitly crediting Clinton (and Gingrich) -- sounds nonpartisan, repudiates Bush's spending (which almost all conservatives wish to repudiate), and is more effective, as more people can remember how well the country did then.

Plus, again, rhetorically, it's devastating: How can liberals who have made their hay off Clinton's economy for going on 13 years now argue that 1998's spending levels were harmful to the economy and "evil" in punishing the "most vulnerable" (as Obama now likes to call everyone getting a government check)?

Well, they can do that, as they must do that, but you have to admit, it's a tricky argument for them to make.

I think the public will be on board with this, really. This isn't pride of authorship because I didn't suggest this. I forget who did. But this whole line of argument was immediately appealing to me; I have to imagine a lot of other people will find it appealing too.

How can Democrats claim that 1998's spending -- their beloved Clinton's spending -- was inhumane and heartless? They can't, really, at least not without admitting that they're committed tax-and-spend liberals who never, ever really supported these policies in the first place. In which case, they can also not claim credit for the 1990's red-hot economy.

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 AM | Comments (144)
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Robert Samuelson is my favorite economics commentator, mostly because he doesn't appear to have any particular ideological axe to grind. Instead, he reminds me of a patient but implacable science teacher explaining for the tenth time that it does not matter how much faith or how many magic feathers you have, if you step off that cliff, you will plummet and die.

In his op-ed in today's WaPo, Samuelson regrets -- but is not surprised by -- Pres. Obama's failure to use the SOTU speech to "dispel some common budgetary myths":

Myth: The problem is the deficit. The real issue isn't the deficit. It's the exploding spending on the elderly - for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - which automatically expands the size of government. If we ended deficits with tax increases, we would simply exchange one problem (high deficits) for another (high taxes). Either would weaken the economy, and sharply higher taxes would represent an undesirable transfer to retirees from younger taxpayers.

Myth: Eliminating wasteful or ineffective programs will close deficits. The Republican Study Committee - 176 House members - recently proposed $2.5 trillion of cuts over a decade in non-defense, non-elderly programs. . . . But this budget category covers only a sixth of federal spending, and squeezing it harshly would penalize many vital government functions (research, transportation, the FBI). The Republicans' cuts are huge, about 35 percent. Even so, they would reduce projected deficits by at most a third. . . .

Myth: The elderly have "earned" their Social Security and Medicare by their lifelong payroll taxes, which were put aside for their retirement. Not so. Both programs are pay-as-you-go. Today's taxes pay today's benefits; little is "saved." Even if all were saved, most retirees receive benefits that far exceed their payroll taxes.

In the meantime, being a good Mormon (or, at least, a believing one), I continue to work on my emergency preparedness checklist. ..fritz..

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:00 AM | Comments (74)
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Politics, not reality, continues to drive the entitlement debate or rather the lack of one.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he "made a mistake" when he suggested raising the retirement age to 70 last year.

The Speaker indicated he was premature in suggesting raising the legal age at which retirees are eligible for full Social Security benefits, since he didn't want to pre-judge a debate over how to fix the entitlement program. He said he wouldn't rule out raising the retirement age, however.

"I made a mistake when I did that, because I think having the conversation about how big the problem is is the first step," Boehner said Wednesday evening on CNN. "And once the American people understand how big the problem is, then you can begin to outline an array of possible solutions."

He can say he doesn't want to pre-judge the debate but the fact is, you can say you're going to debate how much 2+2 is but everyone can "pre-judge" that the final answer is going to be 4. That's just a fact. Also a fact: a program established to provide retirement benefits at age 65 when the average life expectancy in this country was 61 years old for men and 65 years old for women, doesn't work when the current life expectancy is over 78 years. Math might be hard but it can also be obvious.

I get the politics of this, I really do. There's no point politically in Boehner or the GOP going first on this. The Democrats will do what they always do when anyone dares to bring reality into the world of Social Security...lie to get old people to vote for them.

The reality is the GOP can't do any entitlement reform with just control of the House, so why give the Democrats 2 years of free shots at them and maybe prevent the GOP from getting enough votes to eventually do something?

The problem with that strategy is unless the GOP starts laying the ground work with the public about the facts of life, they'll never get a mandate to actually do what has to be done (which probably suits plenty of old school Republicans just fine).

There's simply no good answer that works politically and economically.

My one disappointment with the Ryan speech is that he didn't use the opportunity to introduce the Roadmap he's been working on. Again, I get the politics of it but I thought when the GOP picked him to do it they were biting the bullet and launching a trial balloon. Other than introducing the Roadmap, what's the point of having a relatively unknown Congressman do that speech? If you're just going to give a "GOP is different than Obama" speech, why not pick a freshman tea party type like Kristi Noem of South Dakota?

As always though, as much as politicians of both parties want to kick the can down the road, reality always gets a vote...Social Security is running a permanent deficit now, not 2016 as previously forecast.

Bernie Madoff is in jail for running pretty much the exact same system. He just ran out of people willing to put money into his system.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:39 AM | Comments (143)
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Punk, Cardigans, inept presidents, and a Disco revival are inexorably in our future. Well, we already got the inept president mojo working, so all you need to do is dig through the back of your closet for those old cloths and LP's.

...Expectation of 405,000... Print: 454,000! Worst print in forever (well, October). The BLS calls it a "weather related backlog." Read - snow. Call it what it is - Stagflation, baby.

Non-seasonally adjusted number came at 482,399, as 161,913 people fell off extended benefits.

Continuing claims: 3,991K on expectations of 3,873K.

And just to complete the stagflationary picture, durable goods decreased by 2.5% on expectations of plus 1.5%, down from -0.1%. "This decrease, down four of the last five months, followed a 0.1 percent November decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.5 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 2.5 percent."...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 06:11 AM | Comments (87)
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