Bacon, ham and sausages can cause early death. Especially if you're a pig.
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From a dear friend and fellow memo reader. (See 2 below.)
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From a friend and fellow memo reader: "Dick:, please use your wonderful memo to promote a fabulous book for Americans: "Still the Best Hope: Why The World Needs American Values to Triumph" by Dennis Prager.
It's a must read for where America is. Prager nails it as no one has!
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Wilson"s "Music Man" versus serious work. (See 3 below.)
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LTE: regarding cruise ships visiting our charming and unique historic city:
"I willingly admit to being an unabashed capitalist but I also hope, when it comes to matters between unbridled economics and its impact on ecology and charm, I am willing to be discerning.
LTE: regarding cruise ships visiting our charming and unique historic city:
"I willingly admit to being an unabashed capitalist but I also hope, when it comes to matters between unbridled economics and its impact on ecology and charm, I am willing to be discerning.
My wife and I have taken many cruises, on small and large ships. Yes, at times we have made significant art and artifact purchases during our travels but except for tours we seldom spend much that directly impacts a visiting country's economy and its people.
It may be politically inevitable, Savannah will succumb to cruise ships but if so, the impact will be an unwarranted and unmitigated intrusion on the unique charm and beauty of our city if we allow larger ships to belch/vomit their thousands of passengers onto our cobbled streets.
Keep the size to one a day cruise ships in the 600 passenger and under category if at all possible and we will avoid the cruise ship scourge.
I just returned from a DC conference and when two Californians saw I was from Savannah they volunteered what a magnificent city Savannah was, how much they loved their visit and cannot wait to return.
I hope Savannah can/will avoid the risk of cruising for a bruising!
I rest my case.
Dick
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Subject: Fwd: Meet the average American
AHHHH, finally, the last one tells the truth!!
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The South is no more racist than the rest of the nation and except for a tragic past it dealt with the issue more openly than the north which professed to being democratic but was not. (See 4 below.)
Speaking for myself, a few more years of Obama and I even might be driven to becoming racially insensitive . You can only take so much divisiveness and race baiting by the leader of our nation before it begins to create a counter reaction.
Keep pushing me Obama, and even I can be forced to rethink my racial egalitarianism!
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Politico takes on the Senate race in Georgia and warns do not let it turn into an Akins matter. (See 5 below.)
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No sooner had I posted comments from the Conference I attended than this appears! (See 6 below.)
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I finally finished David Brinkley's biography of Walter Cronkite. When a book changes and/or modifies my views I consider, at the very least, that it is a good read.
Brinkley wrote about Cronkite and laid out the warts and all. Some who have read the book told me they thought Brinkley came away not liking Cronkite. I did not get that impression. I believe Bronkley presented an exhaustive well researched picture of a complex man who was idolized and how he handled being idolized. My view of Cronkite softened in the sense that he truly sought facts and truth and thus became one of our nation's most revered broadcasters.
Boy have we sunk !
Perhaps it is because large corporations own the media and need to entertain in order to make a handsome return on their investment. For whatever reason, there are no more Mudds. Severrieds Murrows, Cronkites etc. and we are less well off as a result. How sad.
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Finally, off to Winter Park to spend weekend with granddaughter, Dagny ,who turns one, Saturday.
But before I go, I thought I would update you on the economic indices I began several years ago.
It is based on money I find lying in the street and my premise is that when times were better, during the Bush years, I found a lot more money. Why? I assume people were flush , had more money and thus dropped more and also did not care to bend to pick it up.
During the Obama years the paucity of 'street change' is stark. I guess either people do not have money and/or can't afford not to bend down.
Well in D.C. this turned out to be a 52 cent trip. That is far above the usual change I find so I guess DC citizens are flush with all our tax dollars and, like in the Bush years, feel they do not have to bend down.
I would be delighted to hear the thinking of any august economist! Paul Krugman are you listening?
Have a great weekend and if you find some change in the street remember Obama promised - lots of change!
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Dick
The South is no more racist than the rest of the nation and except for a tragic past it dealt with the issue more openly than the north which professed to being democratic but was not. (See 4 below.)
Speaking for myself, a few more years of Obama and I even might be driven to becoming racially insensitive . You can only take so much divisiveness and race baiting by the leader of our nation before it begins to create a counter reaction.
Keep pushing me Obama, and even I can be forced to rethink my racial egalitarianism!
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Politico takes on the Senate race in Georgia and warns do not let it turn into an Akins matter. (See 5 below.)
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No sooner had I posted comments from the Conference I attended than this appears! (See 6 below.)
---
I finally finished David Brinkley's biography of Walter Cronkite. When a book changes and/or modifies my views I consider, at the very least, that it is a good read.
Brinkley wrote about Cronkite and laid out the warts and all. Some who have read the book told me they thought Brinkley came away not liking Cronkite. I did not get that impression. I believe Bronkley presented an exhaustive well researched picture of a complex man who was idolized and how he handled being idolized. My view of Cronkite softened in the sense that he truly sought facts and truth and thus became one of our nation's most revered broadcasters.
Boy have we sunk !
Perhaps it is because large corporations own the media and need to entertain in order to make a handsome return on their investment. For whatever reason, there are no more Mudds. Severrieds Murrows, Cronkites etc. and we are less well off as a result. How sad.
---
Finally, off to Winter Park to spend weekend with granddaughter, Dagny ,who turns one, Saturday.
But before I go, I thought I would update you on the economic indices I began several years ago.
It is based on money I find lying in the street and my premise is that when times were better, during the Bush years, I found a lot more money. Why? I assume people were flush , had more money and thus dropped more and also did not care to bend to pick it up.
During the Obama years the paucity of 'street change' is stark. I guess either people do not have money and/or can't afford not to bend down.
Well in D.C. this turned out to be a 52 cent trip. That is far above the usual change I find so I guess DC citizens are flush with all our tax dollars and, like in the Bush years, feel they do not have to bend down.
I would be delighted to hear the thinking of any august economist! Paul Krugman are you listening?
Have a great weekend and if you find some change in the street remember Obama promised - lots of change!
---
Dick
1)
Budget Politics
Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this: Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agency's budget were cut, what would it do?
The answer, of course, is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would be what was most likely to get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.
The example was deliberately extreme as an illustration. But, in the real world, the same general pattern can be seen in local, state and national government responses to budget cuts.
At the local level, the first response to budget cuts is often to cut the police department and the fire department. There may be all sorts of wasteful boondoggles that could have been cut instead, but that would not produce the public alarm that reducing police protection and fire protection can produce. And public alarm is what can get budget cuts restored.
The Obama administration is following the same pattern. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, released thousands of illegal aliens from prisons to save money -- and create alarm.
The Federal Aviation Administration says it is planning to cut back on the number of air traffic controllers, which would, at a minimum, create delays for airline passengers, in addition to fears for safety that can create more public alarm.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have offered to pass legislation giving President Obama the authority to pick and choose what gets cut -- anywhere in the trillions of dollars of federal spending -- rather than being hemmed in by the arbitrary provisions of the sequester.
This would minimize the damage done by budget cuts concentrated in limited areas, such as the Defense Department. But it serves Obama's interest to maximize the damage and the public alarm, which he can direct against Republicans.
President Obama has said that he would veto legislation to let him choose what to cut. That should tell us everything we need to know about the utter cynicism of this glib man.
The sequester creates more visible damage and more public alarm than if the president were given the authority to trim a little here and a little there in the vast trillions of dollars spent by the government, in order to make a relatively small "cut" that still leaves total federal spending higher than last year.
Only in Washington is a reduction in the rate of growth of spending called a "cut." Moreover, costly boondoggles not covered by the sequester can continue and grow.
Obviously Obama wants public alarm, which he can use to help defeat the Republicans in the 2014 elections, so that Democrats can take back control of the House of Representatives.
When Obama was offered the authority to make the spending cuts wherever he chooses, anywhere in the government's multi-trillion dollar budget, it was the only power that this power-grabbing president has rejected.
Why? Because with this new power would go responsibility for the consequences of his choices. And responsibility for consequences is precisely what both the Obama administration and the Senate Democrats have been avoiding for years, by refusing to pass a federal budget, as required by the Constitution of the United States.
Democrats prefer to get the political benefits from handing out goodies, while Republicans can be blamed for not subsequently raising enough taxes to pay for the Democrats' spending spree.
If Obama succeeds in maneuvering the Republicans into positions that cause them to lose control of the House of Representatives in the 2014 elections, then as a president who never has to face the voters again, he would be in an ideal position to create a big spending liberals' heaven.
But it will be far from heaven for the economy, with Obama-appointed bureaucrats burying businesses in red tape and job-killing costs, while expanding the size and arbitrary powers of government. We could become the world's largest banana republic.
1a)
Economic Mobility
Most people are not even surprised any more when they hear about someone who came here from Korea or Vietnam with very little money, and very little knowledge of English, who nevertheless persevered and rose in American society. Nor are we surprised when their children excel in school and go on to professional careers.
Yet, in utter disregard of such plain facts, so-called "social scientists" do studies which conclude that America is no longer a land of opportunity, and that upward mobility is a "myth." Even when these studies have lots of numbers in tables and equations that mimic the appearance of science, too often their conclusions depend on wholly arbitrary assumptions.
Even people regarded as serious academic scholars often measure social mobility by how many people from families in the lower part of the income distribution end up in higher income brackets. But social mobility -- the opportunity to move up -- cannot be measured solely by how much movement takes place.
Opportunity is just one factor in economic advancement. How well a given individual or group takes advantage of existing opportunities is another. Only by implicitly (and arbitrarily) assuming that a failure to rise must be due to society's barriers can we say that American society no longer has opportunity for upward social mobility.
The very same attitudes and behavior that landed a father in a lower income bracket can land the son in that same bracket. But someone with a different set of attitudes and behavior may rise dramatically in the same society. Sometimes even a member of the same family may rise while a sibling stagnates or falls by the wayside.
Ironically, many of the very people who are promoting the idea that the "unfairness" of American society is the reason why some individuals and groups are not advancing are themselves a big part of the reason for the stagnation that occurs.
The welfare state promoted by those who insist that it is society that is keeping some people down makes it unnecessary for many low-income people to exert themselves -- and therefore makes it unnecessary for them to develop their own potential to the fullest.
The multiculturalist dogma that says one culture is just as good as another paints people into the cultural corner where they happened to have been born, even if other cultures around them have features that offer better prospects of rising.
Just speaking standard English in an English-speaking country can improve the odds of rising. But multiculturalists' celebration of foreign languages or ethnic dialects, and of counterproductive cultural patterns exemplified by such things as gangsta rap, can promote the very social stagnation that they blame on "society."
Meanwhile, Asian immigrants or refugees who arrive here are not handicapped or distracted by a counterproductive social vision full of envy, resentment and paranoia, and so can rise in the very same society where opportunity is said to be absent.
Those "social scientists," journalists and others who are committed to the theory that social barriers keep people down often cite statistics showing that the top income brackets receive a disproportionate and growing share of the country's income.
But the very opposite conclusion arises in studies that follow actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time, most of whom move up across the various income brackets with the passing years. Most working Americans who were initially in the bottom 20 percent of income-earners, rise out of that bottom 20 percent. More of them end up in the top 20 percent than remain in the bottom 20 percent.
People who were initially in the bottom 20 percent in income have had the highest rate of increase in their incomes, while those who were initially in the top 20 percent have had the lowest. This is the direct opposite of the pattern found when following income brackets over time, rather than following individual people.
Most of the media publicize what is happening to the statistical brackets -- especially that "top one percent" -- rather than what is happening to individual people.
We should be concerned with the economic fate of flesh-and-blood human beings, not waxing indignant over the fate of abstract statistical brackets. Unless, of course, we are hustling for an expansion of the welfare state.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Many assume the language of the 2011 bill, that references the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, requires automatic across-the-board cuts as defined in that 1985 law. The way in which sequestration was to work in 1985 involved the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) providing an accounting of suggested cuts to the Comptroller General of the United States, who is also the director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is an agency within the legislative branch. Therefore, under the original sequester rules of the 1985 law, final authority for executing the spending cuts rested with the legislative branch.
In Bowsher v. Synar (1986), the United States Supreme Court ruled the 1985 law unconstitutional because it violated the separation of powers: "The powers vested in the Comptroller General under" the law "violate the Constitution's command that Congress play no direct role in the execution of the laws." Moreover, "the Comptroller General” within the legislative branch “has been improperly assigned executive powers..."
In response to the Supreme Court decision, Congress revised the sequestration procedures to bring the original law in line with the Supreme Court ruling in Bowsher v. Synar. The subsequent 1987 law, signed by President Reagan on September 29, 1987, moved sequestration authority from the office of the Comptroller General (legislative branch) to the White House OMB (executive branch), appropriately assigning the power to execute the law to the executive branch. (Later superseded by the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, but too much detail.)
Bottom line, the President, and not the Congress, controls how to execute the law. There is flexibility in the interpretation of the sequester language and the President has authority to execute the intent of the law. Much of the law would be impossible to implement if taken literally. For example, if the Navy is buying 10 ships, each a separate line item in the budget, a 10% sequester cut would require a 10% reduction in each ship’s construction and would not allow for the cancelation of one of the ten ships. Ten ships only 90% complete are worthless; nine complete ships are preferable and no one would argue cutting one ship violated the intent of the Sequestration language.
Besides, Obama has broadly interpreted his executive powers and, in fact, ignores laws regularly. For example, he does not enforce immigration laws he doesn't like and has not submitted a budget on time, as required by law. Exactly how would the Congress enforce its own laws if the President was executing the intent in good faith? Therefore, the President has broad authority to execute the Sequestration law. As proof, some agencies are not taking line-by-line, across-the-board cuts. You have already read that several agencies will not furlough despite payroll being their primary line of appropriation. How is that possible if the law requires equal, line-by-line, across-the-board cuts? And so, the President cannot take exception to the across-the-board cuts in the SBA, GAO, and Government Printing Office, and not cut payroll in those agencies, but the then claim he is helpless to do likewise in the DoD, FBI, Homeland Security, FAA, etc.
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3)
Proponents didn't argue the point so much as overcome it with the simple reality that the GOP needs this—for both defense and offense.
3)
The GOP Takes Back Tax Reform
Republicans are not only doing a tax rewrite this year, but making it their signature policy initiative.
By Kim Strassel
In Virginia Tuesday, President Obama stood before roaring crowds and clicking cameras to act out his latest sequester melodrama. About the time he finished, a lone Michigan congressman sat down in a quieter Capitol Hill conference room to unveil the real news of the week.
The politico: Dave Camp, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. His subject: tax reform. The news—which by rights overshadows sequester, the Oscars, maybe even the pope's resignation—is that Republicans are not only doing a tax rewrite this year, but making it their signature policy initiative. Maybe the GOP is tired of losing after all.
House Speaker John Boehner's confirmation that the vaunted title of H.R. 1 will go to comprehensive tax reform is notable because it wasn't assured. As the GOP has publicly waged a sequester fight, it has privately spent the past months in an intense internal debate over tax reform. Mr. Camp, who has been pushing the tax-reform rock up the GOP hill for years, claimed victory—but not before one last heave.
Those who warned against rushing ahead, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor, advised that tax reform holds political risk. A simple code sounds pleasant, but getting there means tough votes on dangerous topics. Want to lose friends fast? Chop the charitable deduction, squeeze mortgages, take away that tax perk for the biggest job creator in your district. Business will howl. Voters might freak. Democrats will pounce. Indeed, the White House may turn those votes into a central plank of its campaign to take back the House.
Proponents didn't argue the point so much as overcome it with the simple reality that the GOP needs this—for both defense and offense.
The defensive point is wrapped in today's budget fight. The White House knows that another straight-up tax-rate increase is impossible. The only way it can sate its desire to spend is to cadge further revenue under the guise of tax reform. Thus has the president become a tax-reform evangelical, using his pulpit to daily call for "closing loopholes."
To remain silent on tax reform was for the GOP to cede a signature issue, even as it gave Mr. Obama leverage in the budget fight. How long could the party hold out for the president's call for "reform" without a plan of its own?
Speaking of signature issues, Republicans also had a pressing need to reset the terms of the debate. Mr. Boehner's November offer to use tax reform to give Mr. Obama revenue was a legitimate attempt to avoid rate increases. But it also opened the floodgates to the Democratic argument that tax reform is about raising funds for government coffers.
Those pushing for a grand deficit deal now envision a process by which Republicans and Democrats split the tax-reform difference, with some revenues going to government and some to lower rates. Even some Republicans—those worried by sequestration cuts to defense—have been lulled by this idea. Others have similarly bought into the Democratic argument that "tax reform" consists of revamping only the corporate code (since that piece allows Mr. Obama to rage about Big Oil and corporate jets and capital gains).
Messrs. Boehner and Camp used this week's announcement to reapply the most basic conservative tax-reform principles. One: Any House bill will be "revenue-neutral," meaning money raised gets plowed back into lowering rates. Two: Any House bill will simultaneously reform both the individual and corporate codes. "This is real tax reform," one Republican staffer notes. "We needed to remind the public, Democrats—and ourselves—of that."
But the better argument, and the one Mr. Camp has been doggedly making to his caucus, is that this is a way for the GOP to get back on economic offense. There is a glum GOP awareness that the party's role of late has been that of responsible bearer of bad news. It has had to warn about deficits, advocate cuts, tackle entitlements. Somewhere along the way it lost its tax punch, and it has been outflanked by a president who has used class warfare to position himself as protector of the middle class.
H.R. 1 is a path to a bold and rejuvenated message on taxes—one that links simplicity and lower rates to economic revival. Done right, it's a GOP response to Mr. Obama's "fairness" line, allowing the party to stand with the millions of average Americans who can't afford tax lawyers or lobbyists to carve out shelters. It's a means for the GOP to make a growth argument that clicks. Tax cuts and new jobs aside, tax reform is a path to higher wages and more money for the weekly budget, the college fund and the retirement account.
"There is no better way to recapture the party's core issues of taxes, the middle class and the economy" than tax reform, says one senior GOP aide. "It is the one silver bullet that hits all of those pieces."
Far from being debilitating, this was an internal GOP debate worth having. Tax reform done right will be hard; Republicans needed to know that. Yet in knowledge can come wisdom. Having committed, the party's task is now to do it big, do it bold, but mostly do it smart.
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4)
Democrats acknowledge that Georgia’s rightward tilt gives Republicans the edge in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. But they’re hopeful that a candidate in the mold of Missouri’s Akin or Indiana’s Richard Mourdock emerges from a bare-knuckled Southern brawl.
Rep. Jack Kingston is also almost certain to run. But some activists grumble that, as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, he is a symbol of spiraling federal spending. Rep. Austin Scott and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle also have not closed the door.
That aside, he has tried to become more disciplined lately about staying on message.
Georgia has a history of not electing overly ideological Republicans statewide. The last truly ideological, moderate vs. conservative battle in a Republican Senate primary was in 1996. Johnny Isakson, who had supported abortion rights, lost that contest. But he came back and won a three-way Senate primary in 2004. Gov. Deal was a Democrat until 1995.
“Our nominees for governor have been center-right — they’re not moderate by any means. They’re center-right. They’re not the fringe,” said Georgia Republican political strategist Joel McElhannon. “If Paul Broun is our nominee, then suddenly I think the general election is in play.”
It was left to a private monitoring group, Geneva-based U.N. Watch, to blow the whistle on Erdogan’s remarks. U.N. Watch, noting that Zionism is a movement founded in 1897 for Jewish self-determination, called on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other prominent participants in this U.N. Alliance to repudiate Erdogan’s slander.”
—Claudia Rosett, National Review, March 1
The Geneva-based UN Watch, which first flagged and circulated the Turkish leader’s speech, expressed shock at the comments. The group also urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – who was present on the stage when Erdogan made the remarks, and stayed silent – 'to speak out and condemn the speech.' It also called on Erdogan to apologize. The group said the Turkish leader had misused a global podium to 'incite hatred” and issue 'Ahmadinejad-style pronouncements.'”
—The Jerusalem Post, March 1
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
“This is a dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world.”
“We reject Prime Minister Erdogan’s characterization of Zionism as a crime against humanity, which is offensive and wrong... We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times.”
Mr. Erdogan's comment was “not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based... The Secretary-General believes is it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership.”
“This was particularly offensive, frankly, to call Zionism a crime against humanity...” The pattern of Turkish denunciations of Israel is having a “corrosive effect” on American-Turkish relations.
Mr. Erdogan's remarks are "hurtful and unacceptable."
"We deplore them."
4)
Henninger: Is the South Still Racist?
A Supreme Court case reveals the divide between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.
At times even a chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court finds it useful, as the saying goes, to put the hay down where the goats can get it. And so it was last week in oral arguments over a big voting-rights case.
At issue in Shelby County v. Holder was whether some states in the American South, unlike many states in the North, must still submit any change in voting practices to the Justice Department for approval, as required by one section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, the practical enforcement of this provision is mainly directed at Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
After listening to his liberal colleagues argue that Alabama's election practices, as interpreted by various legal formulas four decades after the law's passage, still discriminate against blacks, Chief Justice John Roberts put the hay down in front of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
Chief Justice Roberts: General, is it the government's submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?
General Verrilli: It is not, and I do not know the answer to that, Your Honor. . . .
Chief Justice Roberts: Well, once you said it is not, and you don't know the answer to it?
General Verrilli: I—it's not our submission. As an objective matter, I don't know the answer to that question.
Shelby County was one of those moments when one wished the Supreme Court allowed its oral arguments to be televised. Some cases are crucial to the nation's sense of itself, and this is one of them. At its center lies Justice Roberts's blunt question: Is the American South irredeemably racist?
The answer should matter for a country that chose to call itself the United States of America and sacrificed much to preserve the idea. The common goal, one may assume, is to be united.
But the answer to that question, as suggested by the comments of the justices last week, reveals about as much as one needs to know about the enduring political divide between what are known in the U.S. as liberals and conservatives. Or for that matter of a reductionist view of America common in Europe, where I was told by a Brit recently that between the U.S.'s two sophisticated coasts, most people are what is known as "rednecks." One need not travel to Europe to hear this.
Justice Sotomayor to the lawyer representing Shelby County, Ala.: "You may be the wrong party bringing this."
Justice Kagan: "Under any formula that Congress could devise, it would capture Alabama."
Justice Sotomayor: "It's a real record as to what Alabama has done to earn its place on the list."
There is no one, Justice Ginsburg said, "who doesn't admit that huge progress has been made." The reason for keeping only the South answerable to federal lawyers, the liberal justices made clear, is that racial discrimination in these states might recur. Justice Breyer analogized the phenomenon of racism in the American South to a plant disease:
"Imagine a state has a plant disease, and in 1965 you can recognize the presence of that disease. . . . Now it's evolved. . . . But we know one thing: The disease is still there in the state."
If I'm a 40-year-old southerner, born in 1973 and raising a family in one of these states, this view by four justices on the Supreme Court in 2013 of what I might do is insulting and demeaning.
The liberal justices' remarks explain Solicitor General Verrilli's conflicted response to Chief Justice Roberts. He isn't saying the South is more racist than the North, but he doesn't know if it is. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But we can't trust them, so they must answer to Washington.
This is an impossible world defined by Alice's Queen of Hearts, and it may be one reason the South today is filled with red states. They stand charged with being the only people in the United States who are potentially racist because they reside in Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana.
Justice Breyer addressed that directly: "What do you think the Civil War was about? Of course it was directed at treating some states differently than others." In fairness, he then asks if this singling out must persist forever. "What is the standard for when it runs out? Never?"
On the evidence of the comments here, and by other liberal commentators on this case, the answer indeed is "never." Justice Kennedy, the court's great middle man, puckishly noted: "The Marshall Plan was very good, too, the Morrill Act, the Northwest Ordinance, but times change."
That times change and society can adapt to those changes for the better is an admired habit of the United States. But in the matter at the center of Section 5 of the Voting Rights act—racism—some segments of American liberalism won't let it go. In this liberal reading, there can be no forgiveness. Only the possibility of legal retribution. Forever.
Yes, a civil war was fought. It ended in 1865. The Voting Rights Act passed in 1965.Because this is the United States, it is time to move on.
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5)GOP's Georgia Senate race fear: Another Todd Akin
One likely candidate called Todd Akin “partially right” about “legitimate rape.” Another said evolution and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell.” A third accused the Obama administration of practicing “shakedown politics” after BP set aside $20 billion to compensate victims for damage from the Gulf oil spill.
The Republican primary for the open Senate seat in Georgia is shaping up to be a free-for-all, drawing interest from some of the most conservative members of the House and raising concerns that a race to the right could put in play what should be a safe seat. It comes as the party tries to head off the problem that cost it dearly in 2012: nominating candidates who say things so off-putting to mainstream voters that they blow the election.
Democrats acknowledge that Georgia’s rightward tilt gives Republicans the edge in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. But they’re hopeful that a candidate in the mold of Missouri’s Akin or Indiana’s Richard Mourdock emerges from a bare-knuckled Southern brawl.
Republican-minded business leaders in the state are clamoring for a more establishment-friendly alternative to enter the race.
National outside groups such as American Crossroads and the Club for Growth, meanwhile, are watching to see how the field shakes out before deciding if and how they get involved. It’s unlikely that any candidate will win a majority in the primary, in which case the top two finishers would square off in a runoff. The real fireworks might not start until then.
Facing the high probability of a serious primary challenge from the right, Chambliss announced last month he would not seek a third term next year. Within hours, the jockeying was under way.
Rep. Paul Broun, the only officially declared candidate, has a history of incendiary comments that could plague a statewide bid.
“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell,” he told a church group last September. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”
Rep. Phil Gingrey, a doctor seen as very likely to run, offered medical justification for Akin’s claim that the body has ways of preventing pregnancy after the trauma of rape.
“We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate,’” Gingrey said in January.
After initially claiming he was misconstrued, Gingrey has since said he deeply regrets the comments.
Mitt Romney carried Georgia with only 53 percent of the vote. As points of comparison, the Republican presidential candidate won both Indiana and Missouri — where GOP candidates blew Senate races — with 54 percent.
So while it’s clearly a tall order for Democrats, it’s not impossible.
Georgia’s large African-American community and growing Latino population give Democrats confidence that the state will become increasingly competitive over the next few years. That’s a big part of why Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has already passed on this Senate race, settings his sights on the Senate in 2016 or governor in 2018.
On the Republican side, everyone is watching the potentially formidable Rep. Tom Price. The former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee has promised to make a decision in May. But many, including a former adviser, say Price is reluctant to relinquish his perch in the House.
Price also earned the enmity of Republican Gov. Nathan Deal when he withdrew his endorsement ahead of the 2010 GOP primary to back former Secretary of State Karen Handel instead. Other members of the House delegation hope the bad blood will spur the governor to work against Price behind the scenes.
Handel is likely to run for Price’s House seat if he runs for Senate. If Price passes, chances are higher that Handel will throw her hat into the Senate race
Rep. Jack Kingston is also almost certain to run. But some activists grumble that, as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, he is a symbol of spiraling federal spending. Rep. Austin Scott and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle also have not closed the door.
Public Policy Polling called the contest “a complete tossup” after a recent survey by the Democratic firm found seven possible candidates all polling under 20 percent.
The conventional wisdom in GOP circles, based on more than a dozen interviews with operatives in the state, is that Broun is the only contender who would give Democrats a chance to win the seat.
“There’s no way that national Republicans — at the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] or any other PAC — would let him claim the nomination because it would be devastating for the national Republican brand,” said James Richardson, a Republican who edits the Georgia Tipsheet blog. “I don’t think anyone apart from Broun would put the seat in jeopardy.”
Richardson, a vice president at Hynes Communications, predicted the race will come down to Broun capturing the far right and Kingston being the center-right candidate, with Price in the mix.
Broun recently claimed, incorrectly it turned out, that he was the first member of Congress to call the president a socialist.
That aside, he has tried to become more disciplined lately about staying on message.
In an interview, he repeated his core message of cutting spending and reining in the debt, and dismissed criticism from within his party about his past comments.
I’m not concerned about that,” he said. “I’m going to take my message of what I’ve been doing here in Washington … What I have that they don’t have is name recognition with the grass-roots activists across the state because I’ve been working with them for many years in many sectors.”
Georgia has a history of not electing overly ideological Republicans statewide. The last truly ideological, moderate vs. conservative battle in a Republican Senate primary was in 1996. Johnny Isakson, who had supported abortion rights, lost that contest. But he came back and won a three-way Senate primary in 2004. Gov. Deal was a Democrat until 1995.
“Our nominees for governor have been center-right — they’re not moderate by any means. They’re center-right. They’re not the fringe,” said Georgia Republican political strategist Joel McElhannon. “If Paul Broun is our nominee, then suddenly I think the general election is in play.”
There’s some concern that Price, Kingston and Gingrey will all appeal to the same crowd — which could make Broun more formidable and get him a spot in the runoff.
Democrats so far have not recruited a top-tier candidate. Blue Dog Rep. John Barrow, perennially one of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s top targets, is taking a close look but will wait to see how the Republican field shakes out before making a decision.
At this point, some in the Republican establishment are seeking out someone fresh who could run as an outsider without ties to D.C.
“There are people that I talk to, particularly in the business community, that are not at the present time happy with the options out there,” said Eric Tannenblatt, a major GOP donor from Atlanta who was chief of staff to former Gov. Sonny Perdue. “If you have someone who is either a self-funder or has a lot of business support, they could be formidable.”
Tannenblatt floated state House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey as a potentially formidable candidate.
Martha Zoller, a conservative radio host who lost a House race last year, said that there’s a real desire among party activists to nominate someone who they know will win.
“The big loss in 2012 was not the presidency. The big loss was the Senate,” she said. “The way Republicans go after each other in these safe states, the fight is in the primary. And that’s where you rip each other to shreds.”
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6)
Rare Justice in Two U.N. Reversals: Turkey Condemned, Sudan Shamed
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In the past week, thanks to UN Watch action, two wrongdoers at the U.N. suffered a reversal of fortune: World leaders denounced Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's U.N. speech calling Zionism a "crime against humanity"; and the genocidal regime of Sudan's Omar al-Bashir was removed from a U.N. humanitarian post. Full story below.
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Sudan Removed from U.N. Humanitarian Post
Following a pressure campaign led by UN Watch together with film star Mia Farrow, Western democracies finally spoke out against the ever-growing role of Sudan—whose leader is wanted by the ICC for the crime of genocide—within the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, a top human rights body. The result: Sudan's nomination as chair of the humanitarian affairs segment of ECOSOC has now been rejected. This was the first setback for Sudan in many months: in November it was elected a member of ECOSOC with the support of at least 10 EU states; in January it was made a vice-president.
World Leaders Censure Turkey's Erdogan for Bigotry
After UN Watch was the first to expose and condemn Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s speech calling Zionism a “crime against humanity”—which he delivered at a U.N. "Alliance of Civilizations" summit supposedly dedicated to tolerance—leaders from around the world have now spoken out and condemned his bigotry:
 Erdogan’s barbaric poison obviously passed for civilized discourse to the many U.N. functionaries there since there wasn’t a peep of protest until his speech was reported by the ever-valuable U.N. Watch, the Geneva-based human-rights monitoring group.”—Steve Huntley, Chicago-Sun Times, March 4  The remarks received a barrage of criticism from the White House, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israel after a video recording of the speech was published by a Geneva-based non-governmental organization, UN Watch.”—Turkey's TODAY'S ZAMAN, March 1 |
It was left to a private monitoring group, Geneva-based U.N. Watch, to blow the whistle on Erdogan’s remarks. U.N. Watch, noting that Zionism is a movement founded in 1897 for Jewish self-determination, called on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other prominent participants in this U.N. Alliance to repudiate Erdogan’s slander.”—Claudia Rosett, National Review, March 1
The Geneva-based UN Watch, which first flagged and circulated the Turkish leader’s speech, expressed shock at the comments. The group also urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – who was present on the stage when Erdogan made the remarks, and stayed silent – 'to speak out and condemn the speech.' It also called on Erdogan to apologize. The group said the Turkish leader had misused a global podium to 'incite hatred” and issue 'Ahmadinejad-style pronouncements.'”—The Jerusalem Post, March 1
“This is a dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world.”“We reject Prime Minister Erdogan’s characterization of Zionism as a crime against humanity, which is offensive and wrong... We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times.”Mr. Erdogan's comment was “not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based... The Secretary-General believes is it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership.”
“We not only disagree with it. We found it objectionable.”
“This was particularly offensive, frankly, to call Zionism a crime against humanity...” The pattern of Turkish denunciations of Israel is having a “corrosive effect” on American-Turkish relations.Mr. Erdogan's remarks are "hurtful and unacceptable.""We deplore them."
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UN Watch continues to call on Prime Minister Erdogan to apologize. European Union leaders, including EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, must also speak. Many EU representatives were present at the Vienna speech yet stayed
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