Reprise

Expectations
America’s employers added 162,000 jobs in July, less than expected, as the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.4 percent. (NYT, 8/2/2013)

Unemployment falls to 7.4%. Previously it was 7.4%. More proof that Obama's economic plan is working.


Granted
President Obama is even less likely to go through with a visit to Moscow this fall after Russia’s decision on Thursday to grant Edward J. Snowden temporary asylum. For Mr. Obama, though, the Snowden affair is only one of myriad reasons to beg off the scheduled meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin. (NYT, 8/1/2013)

Putin gives asylum to Snowden. More proof that Obama's "reset" strategy with Russia is working.


Lapped
The overlapping lines that characterize the Clinton world set off questions, at times, about whose interests are being represented: For example, Ms. Abedin was permitted, while working at the State Department, to also work as a private consultant for a company linked to former President Clinton, for Mrs. Clinton in a privately paid role, and for the family’s foundation. (NYT, 8/1/2013)

So Danger Bird Weiner's wife - a federal government employee - also moonlighted at (if we have counted correctly) three other jobs. Nothing to see here folks....


R for Funny
“2 Guns” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Violence throughout, including a disturbing scene involving live chickens that’s both played for laughs and comes with a sharp, ethical jab. (NYT, 8/1/2013)

From the New York Times movie review of the hilarious new buddy movie "2 Guns." Those wacky Hollywood moviemakers are at it again! Of course, none of this will have an impact on society....

(RedStateVT note: Jared Loughner was 22; James Holmes are 24; Adam Lanza was 20.)

Beneath the Tree of Enlightenment

Danger Bird
Mr. Weiner, appearing solemn and a bit worn as he faced more than 100 journalists at a hastily arranged news conference, acknowledged that his habit of sending sexual images and text messages to female fans had continued for more than a year after he left Congress vowing to seek treatment and change his behavior. (NYT, 7/23/2013)

Never doubt RedStateVT. Ever. Many scoffed when we welcomed Weiner into the NYC mayoral race. Now you know why. We predicted that he would provide an unending series of yucks. A new prediction. Weiner will be the next mayor. Bad behavior and poor performance are no longer deterrents to a long political career. As we wrote after the re-election of Obama, accountability is dead. 


War Games
Working out of war rooms in the West Wing basement, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the Department of Health and Human Services, the team is first trying to find in the next year 2.7 million uninsured people between 18 and 35, most of whom are healthy. Just as Mr. Obama’s electoral success hinged on the turnout machine he created in Chicago, the fate of the health care law rests on whether his administration can turn out and enroll the uninsured. (NYT, 7/23/2013)

Government to healthy uninsured person: We're from the government and we are here to help you.

Healthy Uninsured Person (HUP): Help me with what?

Government: Your health insurance.

HUP: I don't have health insurance.

Government: You do now!

HUP: No I don't!

Government: You do, otherwise you will pay a fine.

HUP: How much is health insurance?

Government: For you, probably about a hundred dollars a month.

HUP: I thought you were here to help me.

Government: The truth is that we need your money to pay for the unhealthy....


Viva
In a speech to the National Assembly, Mr. Castro said that Cubans’ behavior — from urinating in the street and raising pigs in cities to taking bribes — had led him to conclude that, despite five decades of universal education, the island had “regressed in culture and civility.” (NYT, 7/23/2013)

What will Sean Penn say?

Dear Diary

More the Pity
Safely re-elected, President Obama at long last spoke bluntly about the Faustian deals struck by his predecessor, some of them cravenly continued by his own administration. (Maureen Dowd, NYT, 5/25/2013)

Maureen Dowd writes perhaps her most despicable column yet on the Bush family. Considering that she has now written over 10,000 columns on the same topic that is saying something. Drawing on her doctorate in psychology, she once again recycles the Freudian father-son themes that she has written about ad nauseum. We also get Cheney and Rumsfeld redux. Then 'Mission Accomplished.' Then 'The Decider.' We are reminded that Obama, not Bush, killed bin Laden (who knew?) And finally, the snarky description of the gracious former First Lady as 'Laura the Librarian.' 

This is beyond obsession. This is journalistic mental illness. And so we move from despising Dowd to feeling sorry for her. Hopefully her employer can get her the help that she so desperately needs. 


Why Indeed
A reporter asked on Thursday, Why exactly was he running now? “It was a process of figuring out what felt right for the city, what felt right for me,” he said. “I apologize if I inconvenienced you with the scheduling.” (NYT, 5/23/2013)

And now we learn the truth from Weiner-Dog. He had to be sure that running for mayor was the best thing for New York City. Fortunately, it was and no doubt all of NYC breathes a sigh of relief. 


Tip Top
Does the IRS scandal go all the way up to the top? As of now, doubtful. It’s nearly inconceivable that anyone would be stupid enough to have given such a politically fatal directive from the White House (although admittedly the bar is rapidly falling).

But when some bureaucrat is looking for cues from above, it matters when the president of the United States denounces the Supreme Court decision that allowed the proliferation of 501(c)(4)s and specifically calls the resulting “special interest groups” running ads to help Republicans “not just a threat to Democrats — that’s a threat to our democracy.” It’s especially telling when it comes amid letters from Democratic senators to the IRS urging aggressive scrutiny of 501(c)(4) applications. (Charles Krauthammer, 5/23/2013)

Krauthammer's excellent point is a variation of one that we have heard from Peggy Noonan. Namely, Obama did not have to explicitly order the IRS to do anything. They merely listened to his speeches. 

And more from Noonan:

We know the IRS commissioner wasn't telling the truth in March 2012, when he testified: "There's absolutely no targeting." We have learned that Lois Lerner lied when she claimed she had spontaneously admitted the targeting in a Q-and-A at a Washington meeting. It was part of a spin operation in which she'd planted the question with a friend. We know the tax-exempt bureau Ms. Lerner ran did not simply make mistakes because it was overwhelmed with requests—the targeting began before a surge in applications. And Ms. Lerner did not learn about the targeting in 2012—the IRS audit timeline shows she was briefed in June 2011. She said the targeting was the work of rogue agents in the Cincinnati office. But the Washington Post spoke to an IRS worker there, who said: "Everything comes from the top." (Peggy Noonan, WSJ, 5/23/2013)


Just Next Door
On Monday, the terminators gained a victory when Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law the "Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act." The bill had been passed by the state legislature the week before without consulting the electorate, possibly because the lawmakers had seen what happened last fall next door in Massachusetts, where voters rejected a similar initiative. Now Vermont doctors will be able to prescribe lethal medication to patients as the state joins Oregon, Washington and Montana in supporting the practice. (WSJ, 5/24/2013)

Key phrase above, of course, is "without consulting the electorate."


Change of Fortune
After years of grueling battles over state budget deficits and spending cuts, California has a new challenge on its hand: too much money. An unexpected surplus is fueling an argument over how the state should respond to its turn of good fortune.
...
Instead, the surplus has set off a debate about the durability of new revenues, and whether the money should be used to reverse some of the spending cuts or set aside to guard against the inevitable next economic downturn. (NYT, 5/25/2013)

It will be fascinating to watch what the Democrat majority in California does with the budget surplus (if it is even real). Will they learn from history and set up that rainy day fund? Somehow we doubt it, but here's hoping.

Things Change

Spin This
Administering the nearly four-million-word federal tax code involves so many arcane legalities, and is so fraught with potential to ignite Washington’s partisan skirmishes or infuriate taxpayers, that much of the I.R.S. is run by lawyers. (NYT, 5/18/2013)

Yes, the same IRS that will now be responsible for enforcing Obamacare!

Writing on the IRS scandal, the New York Times gives us an inside look at the Cincinnati office where the trouble began. The scandal involves more than this office, but the intent of the Times is to attempt to convince that it was a localized problem, did not reach up high in the organization and was not part of a larger effort to target conservative groups. And so we get lots of details about just how disorganized things were, we hear that liberal advocacy groups were also targeted, and - our favorite - the terms "low level" and "mid level" referring to IRS employees repeated THREE TIMES EACH. 


Impressionism
More troubling for the current crew is that news outlets are starting to pivot to broader questions about whether Obama is competent at the business of government or a passive bystander in his own administration. That impression, if it takes hold, cannot be Etch-a-Sketched away. (Howard Kurtz, CNN.com, 5/17/2013)

A key issue for RedStateVT. Never mind black or white, Democrat or Republican, big government or small government or a hundred other demarcation points. Or deepest fear has always been this: competence or incompetence. There is little that Obama has done in five years that speaks to his competence to hold the office he holds. Be it leading an economic recovery or projecting American strength, he has been a dismal failure. Democrats who point to Obamacare are reminded that Obama's signature achievement was passed by a Democrat super-majority led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, that Obama was often a bystander in the process, and that the road to implementation has to date been rocky. 

Electing a junior Senator with scant experience and no legislative accomplishments, almost solely on the premise that it would assuage racial wounds of the past, has proven to be a disastrous idea.


Compensatory
Obama would never pull what Hillary pulled with her longtime aide Huma Abedin. Abedin was allowed, after the birth of her and Anthony Weiner’s son, to work part time as a top adviser in the State Department for $135,000 while also working as a consultant for private clients, some of whom had to be interested in her influence in the government.

As Politico reported, the arrangement was similar to the way many of Hillary’s aides were paid while she was a senator: “They were compensated partly through work on her government staff, and partly through her political action committee.” And others would later land lucrative gigs at Clinton-friendly organizations.

Hillary has a blind spot on ethics, not minding if things look terrible if they’re technically legit. And she has a tight grip on money, so she didn’t choose to simply shift Huma to her personal payroll. (Maureen Dowd, NYT, 5/18/2013)

Well look at what a Liberal columnist has revealed! One possible benefit to the Obama Scandals(tm)? The Obama - Clinton rivalry - always just below the surface - now comes out into the open. Here's hoping!

The Fog of War

If the Boston Marathon Bombings Had Taken Place During the Bush Presidency

Vermont's Colonel Bernie Sanders would have issued a thirty word statement in which he used the phrase "the failed policies of the Bush administration" three times.

Chuck Schumer would have appeared on every network. Every one.

Barack Obama would have said "it is important to remember that we are not at war with Chechnya." And then he would have said "reset button."

Nancy Pelosi would have said something incomprehensible.

Hillary Clinton would first support Bush, then bump her head and be admitted to the hospital for observation. Upon her release she would be sporting a new hairdo.

Chris Matthews would have blamed Dick Cheney.

Piers Morgan would have interrupted his show about gun control to declare that the marathon bombing clearly demonstrated the need in America for more gun control.

Democrats would have called for a new government agency.

The newly minted "Cambridge Girls" would have appeared on Oprah (she's still on television somewhere, right?) and then in a glossy photo spread in Vanity Fair.


Out of Gas
Barring a last-minute rescue, Fisker is poised to become another DeLorean Motor Co. or Tucker Corp., a symbol of the difficulties of creating entirely new car companies. Unlike those others, it also represents one of the most prominent failures of the government's use of public funds to wean American industry from fossil fuels—and of how that government interest pushed Fisker to reach too far. 
...
Its biggest single investor was the U.S. In 2009, the Obama administration's interest in cultivating electric cars got the untested Fisker loans totalling $529 million, more than the company had initially requested, and an amount that encouraged private backers to chip in more funds. (WSJ, 4/24/2013)

Key phrase above: "the government's use of public funds."

We are also reminded of the comment: "never mind picking winners and losers, Obama seems to have picked only losers!"

And how about this one? No new taxes until Obama pays taxpayers back the money he wasted on failed green energy projects.


Branching Out
Their purchase offer won’t be buttressed by a record of involvement in or commitment to journalism on their part. But it will come complete with a commitment to journalism as a branch of right-wing ideology. (Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, 4/23/2013)

One of the most endearing traits of Liberals is their outrage whenever a conservative appears in places they consider their exclusive domain. 

A conservative in academia? Why that's an outrage! 

A conservative in Vermont? Also outrageous! 

Now the Koch Brothers want to buy a newspaper or two? It's Armageddon! 


Fast Foward
Dzhokhar was given everything America had to offer, and now he only has one thing in his future to look forward to ... a tenured professorship. (Ann Coulter, 4/24/2013)

Your Coulter-of-the-day!


Devil in the Details
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) dropped hints in an interview posted Wednesday that some details surrounding the Twitter scandal that led to his resignation in 2011 may not have been made public at the time. (Huffington Post.com, 4/24/2013)

We can only hope that Weiner is not teasing us....

Motionless

Stoner Shums
In the hamlet of Essex Junction, Vermont we hear of a backlash against the proposed opening of a smoking accessories shop wherein a variety of smoking-related paraphernalia would be sold. Some call these "head shops." So will Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin - who famously offered to be a spokesperson for NORML - support the beleaguered proprietor? If not, why not? This is what he has wrought after all. 


Laugh Track
Yes, we need to reform Social Security, but the reform should increase, not cut the income support that millions rely on. In an important political blueprint for sensible reform released by the New American Foundation, Michael Lind, Steven Hill, Robert Hiltonsmith and Joshua Freedman call for adding a supplement to Social Security that would guarantee all retirees about 60 percent of their average wage in retirement (similar to that of most other developed nations). (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post, 4/9/2013)

Why do we do it? We vow to ignore vanden Heuvel and we always break our promise. After considerable reflection (and therapy) we had an epiphany. We return for the yucks. Proving the old maxim about Liberals that if something is not working, double down, vanden Heuvel argues for MORE Social Security. How to pay for it? Tax the rich! We have many dear friends (and loyal readers) who are actuaries and quantitative analysts. We'll call upon them to do the math here. Not to pre-judge the conclusion, but our educated guess is that you could confiscate all the Buffet, Koch and Soros wealth and not fund a 60% social security benefit for more than one month. 

But thanks to vanden Heuvel for the laugh.


Valued
The first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993, al Qaeda attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the USS Cole in 2000, the 9/11 attacks, and those in the dozen years since—all were fueled by Islamist hatred for the U.S. and its values.

There are Muslim organizations in this country, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, headed by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, that speak out bravely against that totalitarian ideology. They receive no shout-out at presidential speeches; no outreach is extended to them. (Michael B. Mukasey, WSJ, 4/21/2013)

Follow-up to yesterday's post about Muslims who speak out against violence. Glad to hear of this organization. Why does Obama not host them at the White House?


Media Mash
Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant. (NYT, 4/20/2013)

Lots of interest in the Koch brothers media strategy. Next up: an investigative journalism piece from the Times about the media strategy of George Soros. Just kidding!


Twit
Anthony Weiner is back on Twitter. The former congressman and potential candidate for mayor  began posting messages Monday on a new account on the social networking site that played a key role in his high-profile downfall two years ago. (WSJ, 4/22/2013)

Weiner will apparently maintain two Twitter accounts. The new account will be geared toward his potential campaign for mayor of NYC. His original Twitter account will remain active and be the one on which he sends pictures of his private parts to women.