Newsweek has been reduced to cheap stunts: Stephen Colbert will guest-edit the June 8 issue.
Updates from June, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Jehuda
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Karl Rove: It’s the Economy Stupid. Unfortunately, we won’t need any such reminding for much longer, the way the White House is handling things.
Heck, even Bernanke sounds like he’s ready for a Tea Party.
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Is this the Jesse Jackson or some new guy who goes by the same name?
Jesse Jackson: Sotomayor critics just race-baiting.
I just have to tag this under “Entertainment”. It’s just too rich and can’t possibly be taken seriously.
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Dick Morris: What’s Keeping Obama Up?
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As Congress does away with a key accounting rule:
The rule change angered some investor advocates. “This is political interference on a major issue, and it raises questions about whether accounting standards going forward will have the quality and integrity that the market needs,” says Patrick Finnegan, director of financial-reporting policy for CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity, an investor trade group.
Backers of the change say it was necessary because existing accounting rules never contemplated the kind of market turmoil that unfolded last year.
The rules had required banks, securities firms and insurers to use market prices to help assign values to mortgage securities and other assets that don’t trade on exchanges — to “mark to market.” But when markets went haywire last fall, financial firms complained that the rules forced them to slash the value of many assets based on fire-sale prices. That contributed to big losses that depleted their capital and left several of the nation’s largest firms on the brink of failure.
I guess Barney Frank is a friend of the banking industry, after all…
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NYT: Recent studies suggest that they might.
(Thanks to Dr. Fiancee for the tip)
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In case you haven’t seen it yet:
The movie opens tomorrow in wide release. I’m partial to the TV show
, which I enjoyed as a kid.
UPDATE: I owned the lunch pail, too.
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Counterterrorism is hard enough. Why make it harder?
STRATFOR on the alleged Little Rock shooter, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad:
The fact that the FBI was investigating Muhammad but was unable to stop this attack illustrates the difficulties that lone wolf militants present to law enforcement and security personnel, and also highlights some of the vulnerabilities associated with using law enforcement as the primary counterterrorism tool.
Doug Ross has more: “A disturbing aspect of the attack is that Muhammad had been brought to the FBI’s attention months ago, according to ABC News. But U.S. counterterror teams may have been intentionally prevented from investigating radicalized converts to Islam”.
As I’ve said before, with this White House it’s politics above everything. We know for a fact that includes the administration of justice. And as the Doug Ross post suggests, it also includes national security.
UPDATE: Related content from Michelle Malkin: compare the White House’s official reaction to the Little Rock tragedy and its official reaction to the murder of abortionist George Tiller. How lame!
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Hmm. Does the WSJ‘s Holman Jenkins, Jr. read The Rhetorican?
I doubt it. But he seems to be picking up on a point I made some weeks ago: “If Obama Had Carter’s Courage…“:
Barack Obama is no Jimmy Carter. The latter really did face the unraveling of an indispensable industry. Mr. Obama faces not a collapse of the domestic auto industry, but collapse of two companies…
In Mr. Carter’s day, bankruptcies were scything through the railroad sector, hurtling toward a rendezvous with nationalization.
In 1980, Congress passed the Staggers Act, ending a century of federal regulation and leading to the railroad industry’s renaissance. Leo Mullin, then a young Conrail veep, would later look back and praise all involved for having the fortitude to recognize that salvaging the taxpayer’s investment in Conrail meant more than fixing a single broken company — it meant fixing a defective regulatory environment.
That fortitude is exactly what’s missing today, as it was missing from Mr. Obama’s statement on Monday, which attributed GM’s failure to sins by everyone but Washington.
UPDATE: Related content from Ed Driscoll, here.
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At NTC, Robert S. McCain wants to see heads roll at Playboy:
Obscene insults and raw hatred are not new in the online world. What made Guy Cimbalo’s article about “hate-f***” fantasies so shocking was that it was published by Playboy. Did no one in the editorial process at Playboy.com think twice before hitting the “publish” button…?
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Two is a pattern. At The Plum Line, much ado about Judge Sotomayor having made her now-famous controversial statement about “wisdom” once before, in 1994, without objection from Republicans during her confirmation for the 2nd Circuit.
Except that saying a “wise woman” can “reach better conclusions” is analogous to – but not “virtually identical to” – talking about “a wise Latina woman” vis a vis “a white male”. Not by a long shot.
The first statement is innocuous feminist pride (i.e., the sort of sexism that our Political Class finds acceptable). The second statement is racist AND sexist. And Sargent’s flawed analysis doesn’t quite do Sotomayor any favors. It only makes the racism stand out more.
UPDATE: Legal Insurrection: Sotomayor’s supporters may spin her out of a job.
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life -
Jehuda
It’s true. It is a cliché; and it’s about time someone made fun of it. And if that means a cameo by Will Ferrell and J.J. Abrams, so much the better:
posted with vodpod(From a reader’s tip)
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While I’m on the topic of bows and Muslimhood, what’s up with NBC News’ Brian Williams bowing like this?
Is this part of GE’s corporate protocol (what with that federal health records contract and all)? Or is it just MSM protocol, plain and simple? (yuk, yuk)
UPDATE: The video has been removed from YouTube! Oh, well. Drudge has posted a still frame of the bow.
I suppose the video was part of NBC’s White House special last night. So if anyone DVR’ed it, it might surface again on the web.
MORE: It’s back up!
ANOTHER ONE: Come to think of it, NBC’s relationship with Obama is quite a close one.
AND ANOTHER ONE: At Hot Air, Ed Morrisey dares speculate too much. The horror!
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Apropos of my link yesterday on the matter of “victims” of reality TV: Professor Althouse posts on recent developments in the Susan Boyle brouhaha.
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No longer hate. It is now politically correct to point out the President’s Muslim origins: ABC: The Emergence of President Obama’s Muslim Roots.
UPDATE: Gateway Pundit: Obama’s campaign website last year called any such allegations of a Muslim background “smears”. Figures.
MORE: Ha! Obama comes out of Muslim closet. Well, I’d say he outed himself when he bowed before King Abdullah.
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About time. Politico:
Sotomayor told several Democratic senators, in private meetings…that her comment that a “wise Latina woman” could render a better judgment than a white male judge was part of a much broader speech and that ultimately she was committed to following the rule of law above anything else.
Nice try. That still doesn’t address the racist aspects of her comment.
NTC has comprehensive coverage, with dozens of news and commentary links; and even video.
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TV Squad: Burn Notice staying in Miami. Hard to believe they almost got evicted.
Burn Notice
returns to USA Network for a third season on June 4.
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Anne Thompson on Susan Boyle and others whom Reality TV pushed over the edge.
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(In court) Dan Riehl: Clinton cybersquatting complaint against blogger dismissed.
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LAT: Obama goes for the personal touch in his Middle East diplomacy.
Let’s see how far that takes us. In the meantime, is it a good sign or a bad sign that in Egypt – a majority Muslim country – they are referring to Obama using the name of a pagan king?
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A cool game. Empire magazine’s The Cryptic Canvas.
(Via VSL)
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Nate Silver thinks the GOP can alienate Hispanics and still win in 2012. Interesting analysis, as usual from Nate.
I don’t do identity politics; but given that I’m Hispanic, I feel like I should comment. First, I don’t think the GOP should be doing identity politics either and try to “win” any one ethnic group. Instead, it should try to be the best political alternative for all Americans. That’s easier said than done; but in the context of the Sotomayor nomination, if it looks like she would ruin American jurisprudence for all Americans and for posterity, GOP senators should say so and act accordingly regardless of how Hispanic interest groups may or may not react.
But back to Nate’s piece. Nate suggests a scenario where the GOP campaigns in the Midwest and South on an anti-immigrant, anti-NAFTA platform. I must remind Nate that people who oppose illegal immigration – a position I believe most Americans embrace, regardless of their political leaning – are not anti-immigrant.
Now, as for going anti-NAFTA, the day the GOP starts campaigning on an anti-NAFTA platform is the day the GOP will become a clone of the Democratic party. Unfortunately, it is likely that this transformation has already begun, since it is often hard to think of the GOP as a conservative party anymore.
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South Texian on liberal elites and their prevailing agenda of intolerance.
This South Texian (by birth) couldn’t agree more, although I certainly don’t speak from similar experience (I’ve never been a member of academia or an object of MSM derision…not yet anyway). But living in L.A. – and working in the entertainment business – you learn how it is…
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Playboy crosses the line into rape fantasies, before backtracking; as a Politico blog – authored by a woman, no less – cheered on.
Ed Driscoll has an account of the brouhaha, here.
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Back at it in court, that is: AFP: Battle over Minnesota Senate seat back in court.
(Via Not Tucker Carlson)
That’s right. No bow tie required!
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Hot Air has details.
What a tragedy. May the recruiter rest in peace.
Shooter a Muslim convert? The plot thickens…
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Ralph Nader, unhappy with the birth of the new GM. Never thought I’d see the day when Nader and I would agree on anything…
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No Problem! NYT: The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.
Via Althouse. Surreal seems not quite appropriate…
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Mickey Kaus: “[I]s the Obama Administration really planning to cut off GM’s intravenous drip of federal billions, if when the $50 billion doesn’t put the company back on its feet? It doesn’t look that way…”
Yikes. Well – when you think about it – now that the UAW will own such a large chunk of GM, I suppose no Democrat in his right mind would ever allow it to go belly up. So GM will in fact be like – analogizing to the old SNL Shimmer skit – both an auto manufacturer and a redistribution of wealth.
UPDATE: I wish I could take comfort from this pie chart Megan McCardle generated (via her guest post here) but if anyone can throw billions of dollars down a tiny, little, itsy-bitsy bottomless pit – which is the way GM looks within the big picture of Corporate America – it’s Obama.
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Politico: The Obama flip-flops you don ‘t know.
