October 1, 2008

Web Reconnaissance for 10/01/2008

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

On the Web:
Lawhawk: Larding Up the Senate Bailout Rescue Bill - Can you say pork? I knew you could. This bill is even worse than the one rejected by the House in a bipartisan fashion. I have no reason to believe that this version will solve the problems in the financial markets any better than the last version, but it is more likely to pass Congress precisely because of all the pork included. Instead offering up a plan that deals with the crisis in a well reasoned and clear manner, Congress instead uses the situation to lard up and bring home more bacon for their constituents. For example, you've got the following from Rich Lowry on specific items included: (READ MORE)

Augean Stables: Matthew Sheffield on The Washington Post’s Cartoon Double-Standard - Matthew Sheffield, writing on his blog at Newsbusters, has an insightful examination of the Washington Post’s double-standard regarding political cartoons. At the heart of the issue is the Washington Post’s decision to run a cartoon mocking Palin’s church, which lies in stark contrast with the Post’s refusal to run the Danish Muhammad cartoons for fear of offending Muslims. The cartoon is clearly quite offensive to Pentecostals. But in the rules of politically-correct discourse, conservative Christians somehow fall in the “unprotected” category. Mormons do as well, as evidenced by the treatment of Mitt Romney during his run for the presidency. (READ MORE)

Baldilocks: Consequences of Enforced Equality - Are we screwed? And, if so, how did we get here? Let’s see if an amateur can get the facts straight (mostly) off the top of the head. The government “encourages” banks and loan organizations to grant mortgage loans to persons whose incomes would normally be judged as too low to afford the house-note. Many (most?) of these persons are not required to make a down payment. Quasi-governmental mortgage guarantors Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae buy up the loans—the goods ones and the bad ones—bundle them into securities, and sell them back to the banks. As a result of the housing boom of early this year going bust and an economy gone rocky due to the energy crisis, many of these home-owners found themselves unable to pay their notes and lost their houses. (READ MORE)

The Belmont Club: It’s now or never - The conventional wisdom is that Obama is the man of the future. It’s argued that he represents what the younger generation desires. But what if, on the contrary, Obama actually represented the last gasp of the past? When Thomas Sowell writes about Obama’s “worn-out economic ideas” can he really be serious? Michael Ledeen argues in dead earnest that BHO’s ideas are mostly obsolete.
“Paradoxically, Obama is in some ways more a victim of age than McCain, although of a different sort. Obama is an advocate of ideas that have aged to the point of dementia. He’s an old-fashioned radical, and the leftist ideas that inspire him are no longer relevant to our world.” (READ MORE)

Big Dog: Insider Confirms MSM Bias - This has been around for a day or so but it will not get much attention from the MSM (go figure). Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit received an email from a reader who works in a mainstream media newsroom: “‘Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in Arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddie Mac. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into Obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.’ I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.” This is as obvious as flatulence in an elevator. (READ MORE)

Dafydd: The Pearlstein Option Reconsidered - Clearly, we need a new proposal for the credit catastrophe... a proposal that is both workable and passable in the current 110th Congress (the 111th will almost certainly be worse). But allow me to start by looking at one that is obviously un-workable and un-passable. Read this war statement by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN, 100%) "explaining" her Nay vote on the Paulson rescue plan; she first exults in her triumph, then enunciates her putatively new proposal. The statement was quoted rather approvingly by John Hinderaker as a good example of the "conservative case" that could be made against the plan: “‘…There is universal agreement that this plan was bad, but its supporters claimed it was the only option. There were alternatives available, but Speaker Pelosi and the Administration chose to ignore them and used every parliamentary trick in the book to stifle debate.’” (READ MORE)

Crazy Politico: What Killed It? - So, what killed the $700 billion dollar bail out for the second time in 4 days? The same thing that shot it down last week. Too much government control of the markets in the plan. Toss in a healthy dose of voter sentiment against the plan and it was ripe to die. The Republicans who wanted less government buying of bad debt, and more government insuring of companies who would buy it won again. At this moment a lot of folks are saying it's a losing day for everyone, I disagree. I think that the American taxpayer came out ahead by this getting defeated. A great sidenote to this, the folks who've been commenting on my other bailout posts who claimed the GOP couldn't have tried to fix this in 2003 and 2005, because they controlled Congress should be taking note. (READ MORE)

Confederate Yankee: The Peter Principle Goes To Washington - Nancy Pelosi could have passed this bill simply whipping Democratic votes into line, but she didn't. The conventional wisdom is that Democrats up for re-election voted against the bill in order to placate angry constituents that didn't want to be stuck with a $700 billion bailout. Speaker Pelosi, no doubt, didn't want the blame if there was backlash over the bill, and pulled a "Sir Robin, " and allowed her fellow Democrats to "bravely run away." This doesn't let Congressional Republicans off the hook. Many were hearing the same sort of howling from their constituents (and conservative bloggers) to kill the bill, and so they did. Later blaming Pelosi for her heated partisan rhetoric as a convenient excuse for the lack of Republican support was just as bad as Pelosi's idiotic and nonsensical rant assigning blame for the meltdown on the Bush Administration when the problems began during the Clinton Administration and were enabled by Congress. (READ MORE)

Don Surber: Bailout excuse - The press: You people are too stupid to understand. The fault lies not in the message, but in the messenger, our moral and intellectual superiors at the Los Angeles Time sand Time magazine insist. David Colker and Tom Hamburger of the LAT wrote: “Even folks who might have supported the proposal as a way to get the economy back on track were alienated by how it was presented.” Yes, you dummies are too stupid to know what is good for you. “Wall Street, for its part, was happy to hear that as much as $700 billion in toxic investments was going to be taken away,” they wrote. “But much of the rest of the country didn’t feel empathy for high-living Wall Street bankers, and that helped spawn use of the word experts say may have helped doom the plan in early consideration: bailout. (READ MORE)

GayPatriotWest: Palin Takes on the Media, Keeps Her Cool - It seems whenever Sarah Palin performs poorly in an interview (as she did with Katie Couric) or says something off-putting or simplistic to the ears of those in the news media, they’ll make a huge case about it and wonder about her qualifications. But, if Joe Biden says something silly, they’ll ignore it as not being newsworthy, given how legion his gaffes have become. Now, given how often they go after Palin, you’d think then by their definition, her gaffes are as legion as those of Biden, so shouldn’t we then pay them little heed? Byron York may be right that the McCain campaign erred in first sending Palin to the major broadcast networks who would be all to eager to curry favor with the pundits for the major dailies by “proving” the Republican vice presidential nominee is a lightweight. Hence, the gotcha questions of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. (READ MORE)

Allahpundit: Must read: Ken Timmerman on Obama’s unreported campaign donations - Via Andy McCarthy, who sets an example I’ll follow by keeping his own commentary short to get you to read the whole thing. To be clear: Obama’s not required by law to identify contributions of less than $200. But given that (a) McCain does it voluntarily, (b) The One claims to be all about a new, transparent politics in Washington, and (c) his campaign is famously powered by small donors, it’s a tad curious that most of the names of people who’ve dropped a little north of $222 million on him in small contributions remain known only to him and his campaign. Especially when some of the ones who have been identified look like this: “In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as ‘Will, Good’ from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as ‘Loving’ and his profession as ‘You.’” (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: McKinney: DoD shot 5,000 prisoners during Katrina - It wouldn’t be an election cycle without Cynthia McKinney’s lunacy, and fortunately she hasn’t shied away from providing it. Here, we watch as the Green Party’s endorsed presidential candidate accuses National Guard soldiers of committing 5,000 murders of prisoners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: If you think that this is the kind of insanity one normally hears from Alex Jones, well … you’d be right. The conspiracy theorists on the Left and the Right tend to embrace each other at a certain point, just south of rationality. For these people, little points like evidence and common sense provide no obstacles at all to paranoia and fantasy. For instance, let’s skip past the extremely weak sourcing McKinney uses to make her charges and go right to some obvious points. (READ MORE)

Jules Crittenden: Sustainable Absurdity - Important new report counsels rationing of meat, booze and other good stuff to combat global warming. But this half-measure of a recommendation really doesn’t go far enough. UK Guardian: “People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns. The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially ‘low nutritional value’ treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.” Bread and water for everyone spreading doom and gloom based on half-baked science and herd-mentality panic. Starting with Cap’n. Al. (READ MORE)

Mountain Runner: Reconstruction and Stabilization Corps to be Enacted - Military operations may neutralize immediate kinetic threats and strategic communications may make promises, but enduring change comes from systemic overhauls that stabilize unstable regions. Security, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, and development are critical for stability and denial of sanctuary for violent extremism, terrorism, and insurgency. These are the real propaganda of deeds but without competent and comprehensive action in these areas, military and diplomatic actions are simply a waste of time, money, and life. Bullets and bombs represent short-term tactical responses to a much larger strategic dilemma. Any text worth reading on insurgency or counterinsurgency recognizes and emphasizes the operational and strategic center of gravity is the people. Failing to address grinding poverty and disillusionment in regions creates fertile breeding grounds for extremists: (READ MORE)

neo-neocon: Capitalism: the worst system except for all the others - Most of us are knowledgeable about the sort of financial information we need to get along in life okay. For example, how to balance a checkbook. We know what Social Security benefits we might be receiving someday, as well as the basics of the stock market and investments. We know we’re supposed to plan for our retirement because pensions are rare these days, and that we can use credit cards to put ourselves in hock up to a point but that if we get too deeply in debt we may have to declare bankruptcy. Sometimes even prudent people run into trouble. Illness may strike and unexpected expenses mount, or people lose their jobs and can’t sustain what they used to be able to afford. (READ MORE)

Karl @ Patterico's Pontifications: MSM starts throwing its ethics under the bus to cover for Gwen Ifill - The blogosphere is abuzz with the story that Vice-Presidential debate “moderator” Gwen Ifill has a book on “The Age of Obama” due for publication on Inauguration Day. It is a story that goes beyond mere questions of bias, raising the issue of a financial conflict of interest. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics provides that journos should “[a]void conflicts of interest, real or perceived.” The Radio-Television News Directors Association Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct states that “Professional electronic journalists should present the news with integrity and decency, avoiding real or perceived conflicts of interest.” PBS, which employs Ms. Ifill, has in place Editorial Standards and Policies listing “real or perceived conflicts of interest” as unprofessional conduct. (READ MORE)

John Hinderaker: Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down? - It looks as though the Senate will enact the same bill that failed in the House on Monday, but with sweeteners added in the form of tax credits and with the FDIC insurance limit raised from $100,000 to $250,000. The theory is that these additions, especially the tax incentives for renewable energy, will sway 12 or more Congressmen to switch their votes. Perhaps they will, but should they? I've said that if I were voting on Monday, I would have voted for the bailout package. This was based on the many predictions of doom that were coming from credible sources--Steve Forbes, to name just one--if such action were not taken. But a few days have now passed, and the roof has not fallen in. Yesterday the SEC took what I think will be very helpful action by revising (or, as they said, clarifying) the mark-to-market rule. This should help to free up liquidity. (READ MORE)

The Redhunter: A Childlike View of the World - David Gelernter knocks it out of the park with a piece in The Weekly Standard that will leave youngish yuppie liberal types seething. His thesis is that the generation who grew up after the 60s Cultural Revolution know little about recent history, and most of what they do know is wrong. Recall Obama actually using the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit as a reason why he should meet with Ahmadinejad. He calls them "gen-CR", and his indictment is stinging: “We know what to expect of gen-CR. Unless they have grown up in regions or families with an unusually strong grasp of tradition, patriotism, and reality, gen-CR'ers tend to have a fuzzy view of history, an unconditional belief in tolerance and diplomacy, and contempt for the military and war-making. Their patriotism (such as it is) tends to focus on the ‘global community’ or ‘the planet’ or some other large, meaningless object. (Beyond a certain point, patriotic devotion spread too thin simply evaporates-which is a good way to get rid of it if you are, say, an English intellectual trusting to the European Union to eradicate this primitive emotion.)” (READ MORE)

Right Truth: Washington Terrorizes Americans, Again - For terrorists, any time is a good time to attack Western nations. We are being told that now is an especially appealing time for an attack on the United States, while we are perceived to be 'down'. Like the financial problems with organizations like Fannie and Freddie, where warning signs and pleas to take precautions to fix the problem before it exploded went unheeded -- Brigitte Gabriel, an expert on terrorism, is warning that for Americans not to pay attention to the threat [of impending terrorist attacks] – and act now – the future will include a price tag no one wants to pay. I have not heard about threats if some form of bail out bill is not passed, but we are hearing about race riots if Barack Obama does not win the election -- and even if he does. (READ MORE)

Cassandra: Why Pelosi Couldn't Muster the Votes - Try political expediency. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Take a look at the graphic below. The meme rapidly gaining hold is that this was a failure of Republican leadership. It's an interesting idea, but an examination of the voting patterns suggests that the decisive factor, at least for Democrats, was whether their seat was up for grabs in November. I took the liberty of charting the information found here to make it more easily digestible: Notice that a comfortable majority of House Republicans (curse their guts and livers) voted against the bailout regardless of whether their seats were considered to be hotly contested or not (65% vs. 85% voting against). The Democrats, on the other hand, literally flipped their voting position based upon whether they were likely to face voter wrath come November (38% vs. 72% voting against the bailout). (READ MORE)

DJ Drummond: State Polls and the Shadow States - Many readers have observed that the election of our next president will be decided not by a national popular vote, but by the states and the District of Columbia in the Electoral tally. The problem with the states as they relate to opinion polling, is that while the national polls have some points of concern, the state polls are relatively even less certain. The folks at Real Clear Politics show forty-nine different polling groups which have published results for states since the end of August, and few of these have publicly-released verification of their methodology, let alone access to their internal data. Caveat Emptor indeed , in these waters! Even so, such information as has been presented can serve a purpose, to address curiosity if nothing else. (READ MORE)

Jay Tea: More Devils, More Details - Earlier today, I talked about how I tend to be a bit more convinced by detailed explanations that vague generalities and empty statistics. While I was preparing that piece, I had one big example in mind -- but then didn't include it. It slipped my mind, but I'm going to pretend that I was actually setting up this followup piece. Namely, the current economic crisis we might or might not be having. There's been a lot of finger-pointing going on over just who ought to get tarred and feathered over this, and so far it's been a whole lot of smoke and very little fire. Everyone wants to say it was the other people's fault, and if we'd only listened to them, we'd be OK. (READ MORE)

Harmless Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Senator Obama is "Loving You" - Andy McCarthy has a post on The Corner at NRO.com that's really scary! The post summarizes another article by Ken Timmerman on Newsmax discussing Senator Obama's money raising campaign. It seems that Senator Obama has received a lot of money from foreign sources, in violation of Federal law, and there is also indication that he's received a lot of money from contributors who are structuring their contributions deliberately to avoid the requirement that the campaign disclose anyone with contributions totaling over $200, as well as the $4,600 limit for individual campaign contributions. Unlike Senator McCain, who discloses all of his campaign contributors, Senator Obama has refused to dislose the names of most of his donors even though election law requires that the campaign track them. Senator Obama has raised almost a half of a billion dollars ($429.6 million), so far. (READ MORE)

Information Dissemination: More Somalian Piracy Discussion - Eagle1, the must read place online for the piracy off Somalia, and who makes everyone else (including me) look like a rookie, found another brilliant gem to add to the discussion. Below is the September 25, 2008 report from the NATO Shipping Centre. “During the past week there were 7 new incidents reported including 3 hijackings. This slide shows the last known position for the hijacked vessels, the majority of which remain IVO Eyl. IMB reports they are still awaiting confirmation of the release of MV IRENE, this vessel has, as a consequence, been put back on the list of currently hijacked vessels.” (READ MORE)

Kings of War: Justice and Global COIN: The Hamdan Trial - Michael Innes at the Complex Terrain Laboratory has played host over the last week to a virtual symposium on the trial of Salim Hamdan aka ‘bin Laden’s driver’. The exercise is based on a lengthy and fascinating first-person account by Brian Glyn Williams who contributed to Hamdan’s defence as an expert witness on Al Qaeda’s structure. A number of distinguished scholars and bloggers have been invited to contribute to discussion. I have also been invited. Typically, I am practically the last to arrive to debate on account of a bunch of obligations which have piled up all at once. At this point my fellow contributors have done the bulk of the intellectual heavy-lifting—which is good because I find the topic of justice and counterinsurgency in the age of the global insurgent mind-bendingly complicated. (READ MORE)

Classical Values: Stop making women look bad! - Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press does not like Sarah Palin very much. She not only disagrees with her, but she thinks she is stupid, and above all is making women look bad: “As our economy teeters on the brink of disaster, Gov. Sarah Palin has spent the past two days cramming for a debate she cannot win and complaining that divulging her position on Pakistan, which mirrors Sen. Barack Obama's -- and is in direct conflict with that of her running mate, Sen. John McCain -- was in response to a ‘gotcha’ question from a voter. She was asked a question Saturday about sending troops into Pakistan. Instead of following the strategy that McCain explained during Friday's debate about not expressing such sentiments aloud, she said: ‘If that's what we have to do to stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should.’” (READ MORE)

J. D. Pendry: Get back to the fundamentals… - "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense and shows everyone how stupid he is." – Ecclesiastes 10:2-3 (NIV) - I took a short break from politics. It wasn’t a planned break, at least not my plan, but it did clear my mind some. I needed the break to mentally cut through the spin. I watched football in lieu of the first debate. I do not need a debate to help me decide. I pondered how it is that you and I will once again have to save, with our hard earned income, the careers of incompetent politicians. The collection of pandering boobs who are solely responsible for the economic and energy problems our country faces. If things work out, you and I will not receive credit for our contributions, nor will we see any return on yet another bad investment – in politicians and policy. We have strayed far from some of the fundamentals on which our country was built. (READ MORE)

Jammie Wearing Fool: Nancy and The House Spend $630B - While you weren't watching and while most of congress was busy with other things Nancy and her cronies in the Democrat party threw together a budget bill for $630B, which contains $19.1B in earmarks into a budget bill that had to be approved or else government would have ground to a halt. At this point what is the downside of our government grinding to a halt? “The 2008 budget year ended yesterday, but Congress hasn't approved a single one of a dozen annual appropriations bills needed to keep the federal government functioning on a day-to-day basis. Hence the $630 billion stop-gap measure, nearly the size of the failed Wall Street bailout. It passed the House on a 370-68 vote even though, as Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., candidly admitted, ‘very few people have any idea what's in it.’” (READ MORE)

Have an interesting post or know of a "must read?" Then send a trackback here and let us all know about it. Or you can send me an email with a link to the post and I'll update the Recon.

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