Libertarian Leanings

A Constitutional Tipping Point

In testimony before Congress yesterday, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School warned that America has reached a constitutional tipping point.

We are now at the constitutional tipping point for our system. If balance is to be reestablished, it must begin before this President leaves office and that will likely require every possible means to reassert legislative authority. No one in our system can “go it alone” – not Congress, not the courts, and not the President. We are stuck with each other in a system of shared powers—for better or worse. We may deadlock or even despise each other. The Framers clearly foresaw such periods. They lived in such a period. Whatever problems we are facing today in politics, they are problems of our own making. They should not be used to take from future generations a system that has safeguarded our freedoms for over 250 years.

Mr. Turley believes that President Obama has exceeded his authority and that our system of government with its checks and balances is threatened, and that means our freedoms and our childrens' freedoms are threatened.  These are not the ravings of a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, but the concerns of a constitutional scholar with very liberal tendencies.  As he said in his testimony,

As someone who voted for President Obama and agrees with many of his policies, it is often hard to separate the ends from the means of presidential action.  Indeed, despite decades of thinking and writing about the separation of powers, I have had momentary lapses where I privately rejoiced in seeing actions on goals that I share, even though they were done in the circumvention of Congress.  For example, when President Obama unilaterally acted on greenhouse gas pollutants, I was initially relieved. I agree entirely with the priority that he has given this issue.  However, it takes an act of willful blindness to ignore that the greenhouse regulations were implemented only after Congress rejected such measures and that a new sweeping regulatory scheme is now being promulgated solely upon the authority of the President.  We are often so committed to a course of action that we conveniently dismiss the means as a minor issue in light of the goals of the Administration. Many have embraced the notion that all is fair in love and politics. However, as I have said too many times before Congress, in our system it is often more important how we do something than what we do. Priorities and policies (and presidents) change. What cannot change is the system upon which we all depend for our rights and representation.

Unlike Mr. Turley, I do not believe that the accrual of power in the executive branch is a side effects of Obama's good faith effort to bring about policy change.  It's the other way around.  Policy prescriptions chosen by this president are calculated to enhance progressive power.  It was always his plan to transform America, and so to accomplish that goal everything he proposes, from health care reform to action on climate change, requires enhanced regulatory power in government and reduced economic power for private citizens.  The power of Congress, and of the people, is diminishing by design.

Piers Morgan Puffery

So, Piers Morgan gets canned, and David Carr of the New York Times thinks it's the accent.

There have been times when the CNN host Piers Morgan didn’t seem to like America very much — and American audiences have been more than willing to return the favor. Three years after taking over for Larry King, Mr. Morgan has seen the ratings for “Piers Morgan Live” hit some new lows, drawing a fraction of viewers compared with competitors at Fox News and MSNBC.

It’s been an unhappy collision between a British television personality who refuses to assimilate — the only football he cares about is round and his lectures on guns were rife with contempt — and a CNN audience that is intrinsically provincial. After all, the people who tune into a cable news network are, by their nature, deeply interested in America.

Oh, those provincial Americans.  What's a brilliant, sophisticated Brit to do, asks the brilliant and sophisticated David Carr?

Old hands in the television news business suggest that there are two things a presenter cannot have: an accent or a beard. Mr. Morgan is clean shaven and handsome enough, but there are tells in his speech — the way he says the president’s name for one thing (Ob-AA-ma) — that suggest that he is not from around here.

Oh, If only we could get over that accent.  Clearly, his departure from CNN is an opportunity lost for us American clods, but any hope that Piers would nudge us away from our provincial ways is gone now.  And it's only because he's a foreigner!  With an accent!  According to David Carr, anyway.

While I may share his feelings about the need for additional strictures on guns, having grown up in the Midwest, I know that many people come by their guns honestly and hold onto them dearly for sincere reasons.

Mr. Morgan’s approach to gun regulation was more akin to King George III, peering down his nose at the unruly colonies and wondering how to bring the savages to heel. He might have wanted to recall that part of the reason the right to bear arms is codified in the Constitution is that Britain was trying to disarm the citizenry at the time.

He regrets none of it, but clearly understands his scolding of “stupid” opponents of gun laws was not everyone’s cup of tea.

Perhaps "brilliant" and "Piers Morgan" don't really go together after all.  But then you knew I was kidding about the "brilliant, sophisticated Brit" part.  Come to think of it, the words don't really go that well with "David Carr" either.  He agrees with Pier's attitude towards guns, but seems only dimly aware — in hindsight of course — that Piers might have made a mistake when he labeled a segment of his CNN audience "'stupid' opponents of gun laws."  Sure, it sounded so good when he said it, but maybe it didn't help in the ratings war.

We don’t look for moral leadership from CNN, or from a British host on a rampage. Guns, along with many other great and horrible things, are knit into the fabric of this country,

No, "we" don't look for moral leadership from a British host on the rampage, but I'd be willing to bet that David Carr does.  And he seems to wish we would, too.  Tough luck, Carr.  We ain't listenin' to no damn foreigner!

Another Dem Retiring

Michigan Democrat John Dingell is retiring after 58 years in congress, and he doesn't have kind words for congress on his way out the door. 

In the speech, he had harsh words for Congress, calling it a "great disappointment to everyone." And he said the blame was with lawmakers and voters. "There will be much blaming and finger pointing back and forth, but the members share fault, much fault; the people share much fault, for encouraging a disregard of our country, our Congress, and our governmental system," he said.

Well, I'll go along with that.  The voters share much of the blame, and as the longest serving congressman in history, he is the strongest evidence yet of voter culpability in the matter. 

His wife, Debbie Dingell, 60, is said to be considering a bid for the seat, which is likely to stay in Democratic hands. Ms. Dingell is chairwoman of the Wayne State University board of governors and previously served as a senior executive at General Motors for more than 30 years. President Barack Obama won the district with about two-thirds of the vote in 2012.

So, there's not much hope that voters will rectify the situation anytime soon.

It's An Election Year

Still wondering why Jay Leno left the Tonight Show in favor of Jimmy Fallon?  Leno was forced out.  Here is a little snippet about it from an April, 2013 Washington Post column.  

“We are purposefully making this change when Jay is #1, just as Jay replaced Johnny Carson when he was #1,” Burke said in Wednesday’s news.

There’s one big difference: Carson shocked NBC suits in May of 1991 when he announced his retirement at an affiliate conference in New York. (That, following  press reports NBC was concerned that Carson (who was in his mid-60’s) was losing younger viewers, and that NBC had guaranteed Leno the gig when Carson retired.

Leno, 62, on the other hand, is being told when to step down — again. Leno’s contract expires in ’14.

Leno didn't want to leave, but NBC forced him out.  Leno's final broadcast was an emotional farewell.  So, why did NBC want Jay Leno out?  He was an equal opportunity joker.  He was one of a very few in Hollywood who was willing to poke fun at Obama.  On the other hand, in Jimmy Fallon Democrats have an activist ally.

The Obamas have had few more obsequious media allies than NBC's Jimmy Fallon. Now that he's taking over the hallowed ground of "The Tonight Show," Fallon's proven ability to spread his reach into viral videos on YouTube promises to become even more politically potent.

Fallon's Obama-friendly sketches and interviews have become immediate "news" grist for the Comcast corps at NBC and MSNBC. The same sensation happens when Fallon is ripping into a Republican.

Just as NBC and MSNBC were tearing Gov. Chris Christie apart over "Bridgegate," Fallon joined this political crusade by bringing on liberal rock star Bruce Springsteen for a jokey version of the hit "Born to Run."

Fallon and Springsteen sang clumsy lyrics that Christie was "killing the working man who is stuck in Governor Chris Christie's Fort Lee, New Jersey traffic jam." The YouTube video went viral, while the media played it up as another nail in the coffin they were building for Christie's career.

The NBC press agents are trying to paper over Fallon's political tilt. 

Well, it's an election year.  Timing is everything. 

The Astonishing Influence of Barack Obama

Dateline: February 19, 2014.  Barack Obama issues a stern warning to Ukrainian President Yanukovich

President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged Ukraine to avoid violence against peaceful protesters or face consequences, as the United States considered joining European partners to impose sanctions aimed at ending deadly street clashes that are sparking fears of civil war.

“There will be consequences if people step over the line,” Obama said shortly after landing in Mexico for a summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, as fires burned in central Kiev. “And that includes making sure that the Ukrainian military does not step in to what should be a set of issues that can be resolved by civilians.”

Dateline: February 20, 2014.  Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich responds to Barack Obama's empty threat.

Ukraine suffered its bloodiest day since Soviet times on Thursday with a gun battle in central Kiev as President Viktor Yanukovich faced conflicting pressures from visiting European Union ministers and his Russian paymasters.

Three hours of fierce fighting in Independence Square, which was recaptured by anti-government protesters, left the bodies of over 20 civilians strewn on the ground, a few hundred meters from where the president met the EU delegation.

Riot police were captured on video shooting from a rooftop at demonstrators in the plaza, known as the Maidan or "Euro-Maidan". Protesters hurled petrol bombs and paving stones to drive the security forces off a corner of the square the police had captured in battles that began on two days earlier.

Kiev's city health department said 67 people had been killed since Tuesday, which meant at least 39 died in Thursday's clashes. That was by far the worst violence since Ukraine emerged from the crumbling Soviet Union 22 years ago.

Obama opens his mouth, Yanukovich is a good to go with the riot police.  Another Red Line that begged to be crossed — and in only one day. 

Via Instapundit.

Leveraging The Lack of Economic Education

Casey Mulligan, professor of economics at University of Chicago, studies the impact of government decisions on the incentives and disincentives for work.  It so happens that Professor Mulligan's work had some influence on the recent CBO study that said the impact of ObamaCare would be the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs lost.

In response to the study Democrats, leftists, and their friends in the media are now claiming that job losses like this are a good thing.

Thanks to ObamaCare, we're told, Americans can finally quit the salt mines and blacking factories and retire early, or spend more time with the children, or become artists.

Funny, they didn't always think that way.  As a matter of fact, ObamaCare was projected to create jobs, not destroy them.  In 2011 David Cutler of Harvard and Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago put together a letter that was signed by dozens of left-wing economists.  The letter said that ObamaCare would boost the economy, creating 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually.  Oopsies.

Well, maybe jobs don't matter after all.  Especially the upside is a bumper crop of new artists!  Whatever.

No matter the fallout from ObamaCare, we know one thing.  Democrats and other lefties will say it's all good.  OK, it hasn't fueled America's economic engine as advertised.  So what if economy has been in the tank for Obama's entire administration?  That's a good thing.  And if it's not good it's George Bush's fault.

Mr. Mulligan reserves particular scorn for the economists making this "eliminated from the drudgery of labor market" argument, which he views as a form of trahison des clercs. "I don't know what their intentions are," he says, choosing his words carefully, "but it looks like they're trying to leverage the lack of economic education in their audience by making these sorts of points."

Let's see how that leverage works out come November.  Sooner or later you might expect even low information voters to begin wondering about all the contradictions surrounding ObamaCare.  Maybe not.

Advice for Republicans -- From James Carville

Well actually, his advice is for Democrats and it goes like this:

Oh, by the way, go negative, early and often.

But going negative is bad, isn't it?  Nah.  Democrats only say it is, and they that say so that Republicans won't do it.  It tends to work.  When Republicans point out Democratic failures in leadership, the mainstream media wring their collective hands and lament about the sad state of politics these days.  Why, they wonder, can't candidates talk about the issues that matter to the American people?  Haven't we talked about Benghazi enough? 

Candy Crowley sure thought so back in 2012 when she dove out onto the Obama/Romney presidential debate stage to cut of any discussion about Benghazi when Romney was about to deliver a haymaker. 

On the other hand, when Harry Reid accused Mitt Romney of not paying any income tax, that was just Harry talking about the issues.  In support, the media jumped in to complain that Romney hadn't turned over his income tax returns for the last 50 years.  Investigative reporters pondered, what is Romney hiding?

At any rate, the point of Carville's article was to say that as bad as things look for Democrats, it's worse for Republicans who are viewed negatively by a majority of Americans.

According to the Pollster average, two-thirds now disapprove of the Republican Party. We are not talking about Congress or even the Republicans in Congress. The party itself, the Republican Party, has a net -40 approval rating. With just a quarter of the country approving of the GOP, that means not even all of the party’s own members are giving it a positive rating.

There's a reason for that negative view, and it's not because of negative campaigning by Republicans.  Democrats and the media have been waging a relentless and successful campaign to smear the Republican brand.  It's been going on at least since Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, and it really heated up when Newt Gingrich orchestrated a Republican takeover in the House of Representatives in 1994.

Here's a clue, Republicans.  Your approval rating is not going to go down if you engage in what the media calls negative campaigning.  It's going to go down because Democrats and their friends in the media are going to be waging negative campaigns against you. 

Wake up and smell the coffee.  Your campaign issue is the Democratic party.  Look what they've done to the country.

Institutional Dishonesty

The video speaks for itself. Via Hot Air:

 

 

The reaction from Jon Stewart is priceless, and who would ever have imagined Bill Maher complaining that Obama lied.  But somehow we accept blatant dishonesty from the people we elect to public office.  I suppose we've just grown accustomed to it over the years, but good lord!  Now it's getting ridiculous!

 

Our Casual Liar In Chief

Without batting an eye.  When asked by Bill O'Reilly in his Super Bowl interview about why he opposed school vouchers, the president just casually lied the way he always does.

Asked by Mr. O'Reilly why he opposed school vouchers that "level the playing field" and "give poor people a chance to go to better schools," the president replied, "Actually, every study that's been done on school vouchers, Bill, says that it has very limited impact if any."

Mr. Obama said that the means-tested voucher programs in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C, "didn't actually make that much of a difference," and added, "As a general proposition, vouchers have not significantly improved the performance of kids that are in these poorest communities."

In fact, study after study using gold-standard random-assignment methodology has shown that vouchers not only improve student outcomes but have the biggest impact on low-income minorities. Here's a sampling:

The article by Jason L. Riley went on to list six different studies in which students who participated in the voucher programs showed significant gains over control group students.  And the last of the six studies was one released by the Obama administration.

And the Obama administration itself released a report on the D.C. voucher program in 2010. "The students offered vouchers graduated from high school at a rate 12 percentage points higher (82 percent) than students in the control group (70 percent), an impact that was statistically significant at the highest level," according to a summary. "Students in three of six subgroups tested showed significant reading gains because of the voucher offer after four or more years."

It's about the money.  Obama's problem with voucher programs is the threat they pose to public education labor unions.  The unions are important to Obama because they funnel money to the Democratic party.  The income stream is what matters to Obama.

What benefits Obama is what qualifies as truth, to the point where his dishonesty is ordinary, routine, just his usual practice.  

Advice That Obama Would Never Take

Fay Vincent, former Commissioner of Major League Baseball, offers advice in the Wall Street Journal to new executives.  Let me just pick a few of Mr. Vincent's ten tips that Barack Obama might have done well to heed.

5. The wisecrack you believe is witty often is not. Your sense of humor is easily misread as patronizing and clumsy...

I wouldn't call it a misreading of Obama's humor to say he's patronizing and clumsy.  Sometimes he's downright offensive, never passing up an opportunity to impugn the motives of those who disagree with him.

7. Never complain; never explain. No one listens. Take the blame if something goes wrong. Do not blame mistakes on prior administrations, the weather, bad luck or your competitors. But don't appear defensive...

Barack Obama has never been at fault for anything, ever.  Five years into the disaster that has been the Obama presidency, he and his crony Democrats are still trying to blame George Bush for all of their own mistakes and their own misguided and corrupt policies.

10. It's a cliché, but true: Never do or say anything that you would be unhappy to see written about on a newspaper front page. In dealing with the media, avoid answering hypothetical questions, remember that the microphone is never really off, and never agree to speak "off the record." The only worthwhile public response to a crisis is honesty.

The concept of honesty in a crisis situation is foreign to Barack Obama, because there is only thing that qualifies as a crisis in the Obama administration.  That would be anything that threatens the Obama image.  All else pales to insignificance. 

Was the security situation in Benghazi a crisis?  It was for Ambassador Christopher Stevens, but not to Barack Obama.  Not nearly as important as maintaining the image of Obama as the scourge of al Qaeda.  Al Qaeda was decimated and on the run, according Obama's chosen narrative.  The Ambassador feared for his life, but his many requests for additional security were all denied.  And then he and three other Americans were murdered in a terrorist attack.

But did their deaths amount to a crisis that required an honest accounting to the America people?  Here again the crisis to Obama was the threat to the Obama image.  So rather than the truth, we got a song and dance from Susan Rice, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton about how an obscure YouTube video caused outrage and ignited a spontaneous protest, and that was to blame for four dead in Benghazi.

Fay Vincent offers advice worth reading, but it's advice intended for leaders.  We have none at the top of this Democratic administration.  There are only liars, parasites, and con artists.