21 October 2009

21 October 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

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mean military intervention to change those conditions. But neither does it mean remaining silent, as the Obama administration too often has. Countless victims of abuse, from Cuba to China and far beyond, have written about how important it was that they knew that the world knew about them: When America speaks, the world listens. But equally important, history demonstrates that regimes that respect their own people respect other people as well. It’s time for

‘Is Obama Punting on Human Rights?’ [‘Cato at Liberty] OCT 20, 2009 04:46P.M. That’s today’s Arena question over at Politico.

Obama to speak out. My response: This morning, both Bret Stephens, in the Wall Street Journal, and Mona Charen, at Real Clear Politics, catalogue Obama’s silence on human rights — China, Tibet, Sudan, Iran, Burma, Honduras — and his backpedaling from his campaign rhetoric. Meanwhile, Eric Posner, at the Volokh Conspiracy, rightly credits Obama for, among other things, not backing the Goldstone Report and pressuring Spain to water down its undemocratic “universal jurisdiction” statute, even as he condemns the administration, again rightly, for its decision to join “the comically named U.N. Human Rights Council,” bastion of some of the world’s worst human rights abusers.

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ATR May Rate a Vote Against “Doc-Fix” Without Spending Cuts [Americans for Tax Reform] OCT 20, 2009 04:00P.M.

What’s missing, it seems, is any coherent and systematic approach to those matters. During the Reagan administration I served for a time at State as director of policy for the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs — now called, interestingly, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Things were simpler during the Cold War. We focused on totalitarian regimes, somewhat less on authoritarian regimes, since people were allowed to leave those. And, yes, realpolitik played at least a part in our thinking, as inevitably it must. But the basic principles were clear: If human rights were to be respected, not simply behavioral but systematic change would be required. And Reagan kept the pressure on, publicly. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, millions saw that kind of change, in varying degrees. But the contrast between totalitarianism and democratic capitalism is less clear today than it was then, and the Obama administration, in both its foreign and domestic policies, is doing little to clarify it.

Americans for Tax Reform sent the following keyvote alert to the U.S. Senate this afternoon. Click here to read the full letter: Americans for Tax Reform MAY RATE a vote against a doc-fix mea...

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Fight the Bag Tax [Americans for Tax Reform] OCT 20, 2009 03:53P.M. Floridians have a chance to stop an increase in their taxes. A plan released by the state would have added a tax to a simple, everyday item: shopping bags. Some legislators wanted to make Fl...

The promotion of human rights starts at home, with allowing people to plan and live their own lives, not with vast public programs that compel people to live under government planning. And in foreign affairs it requires both private and public diplomacy, quiet and not-so-quiet attention to the conditions that give rise to human rights abuses. That doesn’t

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21 October 2009

provided to them by Arizona Director of School Finance, Yousef Awwad. On the other hand, their correction is incomplete — acknowledging only the bad data and not the mistaken assumption explained in my op-ed.

Baucus Finances Health Overhaul by Raiding Social Security [Cato at Liberty]

So while the Republic has now raised its savings estimate from their originally reported $3 million to a corrected $8.3 million, they have yet to explain that this figure could actually understate the total savings.

OCT 20, 2009 03:45P.M. Still, their response is better than I expected. Most newspapers, in my experience, do absolutely nothing when factual and reasoning errors in their education stories are brought to their attention, and in fact go on to repeat those same errors in subsequent stories.

Andrew Biggs, FTW.

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And they wonder why two thirds of the public now doubt their

“The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever” (AKA We Told You So) [Americans for Tax Reform]

credibility….

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9/11: All the PSA We Needed [Cato at Liberty]

OCT 20, 2009 03:13P.M. Do I even need to comment on this chart? Do I even need to remind people how President Obama promised his so-called Stimulus would

OCT 20, 2009 03:11P.M.

create millions of jobs? And that Vice-Presid... Right on the heels of my post the other day discussing the error in inviting terrorism reporting, here’s another video (and suspiciousactivity-reporting Web site) produced by the Los Angeles Police Department.

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Arizona Republic Corrects its Tax Credit Savings Estimate in Response to Cato Input [Cato at Liberty]

The production values in this video are hipper, and L.A. appears to have its share of actors willing to look concerned about terrorism. But really, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were all the Public Service Announcement we needed to encourage reporting of genuine suspicions. Asking amateurs for tips about terrorism will have many wasteful and harmful results, like racial and ethnic discrimination, angry neighbors turning each other in, and—given the rarity of terrorism—lots and lots of folks just plain getting it wrong. People with expertise—even in very limited domains—can discover suspicious circumstances in their worlds almost automatically when they find things “hinky.”

OCT 20, 2009 03:13P.M. Last Wednesday, the Arizona Republic published a fiscal impact assessment of the state’s education tax credit programs for k-12 private school choice. While the story itself was a good faith effort, there were errors in both its data and assumptions. I wrote an op-ed intended for the Republic correcting those errors and e-mailed a copy to the story’s author, Ron Hansen, the same day his story was published.

My impressions of the LAPD were formed up in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I lived in southern California. To encourage reporting, what that department needs most is to make the community confident of its own fairness and competence. Reporting of meritorious suspicions will naturally follow that. There’s no need for it to artificially gin up crime or

While the paper’s editorial page expressed no interest in printing my submission, the Republic published a correction today based on the accurate spending and savings figures I provided. In a phone call, Hansen indicated that the correction was precipitated by my e-mail, though he opted not to mention that in his story, saying that he didn’t think the source of the correction was important.

terrorism reporting.

On the one hand, Hansen and the Republic are to be commended for publishing a correction, and it should be noted that the bad data were

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

21 October 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FED AND THE MARKET -Is this a liquidity driven market or is it profits/economic driven? -Is the market rally being driven by easy money from the Fed?

Ryan Ellis on CNBC Debating Bank Windfall Profits Tax [Americans for Tax Reform]

*Jim Lacamp, portfolio manager and advisor at Macroportfolio Advisors *Ned Riley, founder and CEO of Riley Asset Management

OCT 20, 2009 02:30P.M. Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC. ...

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Bernanke Is Playing with Fire [Larry Kudlow’s Money Politic$]

On Tonight’s Kudlow Report [Larry Kudlow’s Money Politic$]

OCT 20, 2009 01:04P.M.

OCT 20, 2009 01:12P.M. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a big speech yesterday and never mentioned the beleaguered dollar. Not once. This is just incredible — beyond the pale. And so for now, the story remains the same: Gold and commodities continue to boom, while the greenback plunges further. Let’s be clear here: Mr. Bernanke is playing with fire. He is creating and fueling yet another speculative bubble that could spell doom for the bullmarket recovery. This is why I’ve been calling it a storm cloud. One last point here. The dollar’s demise is a sign of global declinism for America. This could be the worst part of the whole story. If the Obama administration wants to undermine American leadership and exceptionalism, and treat this country like all the other C-students around the world, they are sorely mistaken.

This evening at 7pm ET: WHAT WOULD PRESIDENT PAWLENTY DO ABOUT THE DOLLAR? Plus a look at healthcare, deficits and more.

When the U.S. leads, the world prospers. When the U.S. declines — as in the 1970s — the world falls apart. The dollar therefore becomes a symbol,

Joining us will be Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.

as well as a reality.

DOLLAR: POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS Guests: *Peter Morici, economist and University of Maryland Business Professor *Brian Carney, member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board *Robert Lenzner, National Editor of Forbes magazine WILL CALIFORNIA BE SAVED BY A SUPPLY-SIDER? California Insurance Commissioner & candidate for CA Governor Steve Poizner will be aboard. THE STOCK MARKET CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera reports on CAT, YHOO and more.

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

21 October 2009

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College Prices Aren’t So Bad When Other People Are Paying [Cato at Liberty]

Bernanke Criticizes Trade Deficit, but Not Trade [Cato at Liberty]

OCT 20, 2009 12:42P.M.

OCT 20, 2009 12:06P.M.

Today the College Board — maker of such fine products as the SAT and Advanced Placement exams — released its annual reports on college prices and student aid. College prices, it seems, have gone up significantly over the last year. However, if the following statement from the reports’ author, economist Sandy Baum, is accurate — I haven’t been able to see the reports myself yet — student aid largely offset the price increases. And do you know what that might mean? Colleges were able to charge students more without greatly affecting access by pawning much of the new charges off on donors and taxpayers:

In a speech on the West Coast this morning, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke at first glance appears to be agreeing with the critics of trade who blame the trade deficit for much of our economic ills. “Bernanke Calls for Action on Trade Gap,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “Bernanke warns against trade imbalances,” chimes in the French news agency, AFP. Underneath the headlines, however, Bernanke’s comments offer no comfort for the critics. The real culprit is not “unfair trade” or “currency manipulation,” but misguided tax and spending policies in the United States and other major trading countries.

Sandy Baum, the College Board senior policy analyst who wrote both reports, said it was important to focus on the net price students actually paid, after subtracting grants and tax benefits, rather than the published tuition, or sticker price. And in that regard, Ms. Baum said, the situation looks far less dire. “Over all, it could have been worse,” she said.

That is a point I hammer home in Chapter 5 of the new Cato book, Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization: If our politicians are determined to do something about the trade deficit, the most constructive step they could take would be to promote a higher level of national savings. More domestic savings would reduce the need for foreign funds to finance domestic investment. … The most direct approach would be to reduce or eliminate the federal budget deficit. If the federal government were to borrow a few hundred billion dollars less each year, the pool of domestic savings would rise and more domestic funds would be available for investment. …Ironically, many members of Congress who complain loudest about the trade deficit have voted in the name of economic “stimulus” to plunge us ever deeper in debt.

So could it actually be, as I and others have argued repeatedly, that student aid helps fuel tuition increases by having third parties cover so much of the new costs? Here’s yet more evidence saying that yes, it could.

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All patients are equal, but some patients are more equal than others [Americans for Tax Reform]

Chairman Bernanke agrees. His policy prescription was not to raise barriers against imports, but to cut the federal government’s appetite for debt.

OCT 20, 2009 12:38P.M. Government run healthcare - the promise of equality for all! Everyone is equal, universality for all! In reality, of course, it doesn’t work like that. Like in George Orwell’s masterpiece Anim...

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

21 October 2009

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Tuesday’s Daily News [The Club for Growth]

Flex Your Rights [Cato at Liberty]

OCT 20, 2009 11:50A.M.

OCT 20, 2009 11:29A.M.

Pete du Pont suggests that Congress consider the costs before passing “cap and trade.” Good advice, but it hasn’t stopped them before.

Friends of the Cato Institute who closely follow the news about search and seizure and other civil liberties issues will probably know that there are simple, practical steps one can take to exercise our constitutionally guaranteed liberties, even when confronted by the police.

Amity Shlaes writes about the payoff to “grumpy grannies.” The White House could learn a thing or two about health care from Singapore, says WSJ’s William McGurn.

For everyone else, there’s Flex Your Rights. Founded by former Cato intern Steven Silverman, Flex Your Rights aims to teach ordinary citizens how to make good use of their civil liberties:

Great line by Richard Rahn: “[the] tendency to enact destructive, rather than constructive, solutions for problems (most often created by government) has now gone into hyper-drive.”

The vast majority of people are mystified by the basic rules of search and seizure and due process of law. Consequentially, they’re likely to be tricked or intimidated by police into waiving their constitutional rights, resulting in a greater likelihood of regrettable outcomes.

The public option is getting a new life in the Senate. China is imposing new tariffs on nylon imports from the United States.

The sum of these outcomes flow into all major criminal justice problems — including racial and class disparities in search, arrest, sentencing and incarceration rates.

IBD Editorial: Graham Joins Kerry on Cap-and-Trade. A Dismal Prediction: 20 reasons America has lost its soul and collapse is inevitable.

In order to ensure that constitutional rights and equal justice are upheld by law enforcement, we must build a constitutionally literate citizenry.

The Politico: “Has Rep. Shea-Porter ‘gone native’?”

“Regrettable outcomes” aren’t limited to time behind bars for breaking the drug laws. Consider also damage to property during searches, loss of dignity and privacy, wasted law enforcement time, and police violence during what’s sure to be a nerve-wracking encounter. All of this can happen even when you’re not violating any laws at all, and that’s reason enough to refuse a search.

NY-23: Scozzafava calls the cops.

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7 Obama Lies in Under 2 Minutes [The Club for Growth]

The police, and the laws themselves, should work for us, and if we don’t require their help, then that should usually be for us to decide. Flex Your Rights is here to help you do so. They’ve just launched a revamped website, which looks great, and they also have a new film in production

OCT 20, 2009 11:32A.M.

titled 10 Rules for Dealing with Police. I look forward to seeing it!

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

21 October 2009

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An Overdue Acknowledgement that Stuff Costs Money [Cato at Liberty]

Department of Bias [Cato at Liberty]

OCT 20, 2009 11:27A.M.

The Department of Justice just invalidated a move by the residents of Kinston, North Carolina, to have non-partisan local elections. Rationale?

OCT 20, 2009 11:15A.M.

The Institute of Medicine issued a report today calling on whole scale changes to the National School Lunch and National School Breakfast programs (although nowhere does it question why we even have national nutrition programs, which surely properly belong to the states and/or school districts. But I digress). The changes all sound sensible enough: setting calorie limits for meals, increasing the amount of whole grains, fruit and vegetables in school meals, and reducing fat and sodium.

The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black. The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

But here’s the clincher: the recommendations would cost money! The panel acknowledged that its recommendations would increase costs and called for a higher federal reimbursement to school districts, capital investments and money to train cafeteria workers to make the changes. Food costs for breakfasts could rise as much as 9%, and for lunches as much as 25%, if all the recommendations were enacted, the committee said. (source: LA Times)

This, coming from the same Department of Justice officials that wouldn’t know a civil rights violation if it picked up a club and barred them access to a polling place.

We should be grateful that the authors at least acknowledge the budgetary impacts of their recommendations. So often it is assumed that school nutrition programs can and should be changed regardless of the costs to taxpayers. Last week I taped a television debate show called Two Way Street (the show is scheduled to air in January, so check your local listings!) with a woman called Ann Cooper, the “Renegade Lunch Lady” (here’s Ann’s website). Ann is on a mission to “change the way our children are eating”. Her intentions are good, and I certainly agree with her that our woeful agriculture policies are skewing incentives towards certain food groups and away from fruit and vegetables.

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Internet Companies’ Bogus Plea for Regulation [Cato at Liberty] OCT 20, 2009 11:14A.M. Some of the most prominent Internet companies sent a letter yesterday asking for protection from market forces. Among them: Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Twitter.

Having said that, Ann’s experience with school cafeterias was, from what I can gather, gained in East Hampton, NY and Berkeley, CA. Hardly representative samples of consumers across America (although she has reportedly worked in Harlem and New York City, also). So often “success” in these sorts of places is seen as a scalable blueprint for the rest of the country. Indeed, Ann used her time on the show to encourage viewers to contact their member of Congress and urge increased Federal funding for nutrition programs.

A Washington Post story summarizes their concerns: “[W]ithout a strong anti-discrimination policy, companies like theirs may not get a fair shot on the Internet because carriers could decide to block them from ever reaching consumers.” No ISP could block access to these popular services and survive, of course. What they could do is try to charge the most popular services a higher tariff to get their services through. Thus, weep the helpless, multibillion-dollar Internet behemoths, we need a “fair shot”!

On the contrary, I would argue that people instead encourage their congresscritters to devolve their ill-gotten power over school nutrition programs back to the local school districts, where they can make the best assessment of the costs and benefits of different plans, given local needs

Plain and simple, these companies want regulation to ensure that ISPs can’t capture a larger share of the profits that the Internet generates. They want it all for themselves. Phrased another way, the goal is to create a subsidy for content creators by blocking ISPs from getting a piece of the action.

and resources.

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It’s all very reminiscent of disputes between coal mines and railroads. The coal mines “produced the coal” and believed that the profitability of the coal-energy ecosystem should accrue only to themselves, with railroads earning the barest minimum. But where is it written that digging coal out of the ground is what creates the value, and getting it where it’s used creates none? Transport may be as valuable as “production” of both commodities and content. The market should decide, not the industry with the best lobbyists.

21 October 2009

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Coverage From Our TV Ad [The Club for Growth] OCT 20, 2009 11:08A.M. From The Politico:

What happens if ISPs can’t capture the value of providing transport? Of course, less investment flows to transport and we have less of it. Consumers will have to pay more of their dollars out of pocket for broadband, while Facebook’s boy CEO draws an excessive salary from atop a pile of overpriced stock holdings. The irony is thick when opponents of high executive compensation support “net neutrality” regulation.

The Club spent $300,000 to air the advertisement, which is up in all three media markets in the sprawling upstate New York district. That means the Club for Growth has spent over $550,000 in the race in ads attacking Republican Dede Scozzafava and backing Hoffman. For context, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has poured in $386,000 in independent expenditures, according to the latest FEC filings, while the National Republican Congressional Committee has spent $567,000 on behalf of Scozzafava.

Another reason why these Internet companies’ concerns are bogus is their size and popularity. They have a direct line to consumers and more than enough capability to convince consumers that any given ISP is wrongly degrading access to their services. As Tim Lee pointed out in his excellent paper, “The Durable Internet,” ownership of a network service does not equate to control. ISPs can be quickly reined in by the public, as has already happened.

PAID FOR BY CLUB FOR GROWTH PAC AND NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE’S COMMITTEE. 202-955-5500.

A “net neutrality” subsidy for small start-up services is also unnecessary: They have no profits to share with ISPs. What about mid-size services—heading to profitability, but not there yet? Can ISPs choke them off? Absolutely not.

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The Baucus Bill [The Club for Growth]

Large, established companies are not known for being ahead of trends, for one thing, and the anti-authoritarian culture of the Internet is the perfect place to play “beleaguered upstart” against the giant, evil ISP. There could be no greater PR gift than for a small service to have access to it degraded by an ISP.

OCT 20, 2009 10:27A.M. If you’re into self-torture, you can read the newly-released health care bill proposed by Senate Democrats. It’s only 1,502 pages (PDF). Remember HillaryCare back in 1993? That was a modest 1,342 pages.

The Internet companies’ plea for regulation is bogus, and these companies are losing their way. The leadership of these companies should fire their government relations staffs, disband their contrived advocacy organization, and get back to innovating and competing.

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21 October 2009

to a Joint Session of Congress, after endless coverage of legislative markups in the relevant congressional committees, what if the Senate began actual floor votes on the health care overhaul and the drive-by media refused to cover it? Couldn’t happen? It already is.

Cap and Tax Will Hurt Virginia [Americans for Tax Reform] OCT 20, 2009 10:19A.M.

Finally, here’s Senator John Thune on Fox News:

In our continuing, daily, state by state, look at the financial impact of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Tax Bill, we will show you the projected losses in Gross State Product, Personal Income, and N... FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Key Vote Alert - ‘Doc Fix’ [The Club for Growth]

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More on the ‘Doc Fix’ [The Club for Growth]

OCT 20, 2009 09:52A.M.

OCT 20, 2009 10:05A.M.

KEY VOTE ALERT

The Club signed a coalition letter with 19 other groups urging the Senate to vote down the “doc fix” bill. To learn the details about the bill, the letter is below the break.

“NO” to “Doc Fix” (S. 1776)

And if anybody thinks this isn’t a bribe by the Democrats to get doctors on board their nationalized health care scheme, there’s this report in The Hill [emphasis mine]:

The Club for Growth urges all Senators to vote “NO” on the so-called Medicare Physician Fairness Act of 2009, otherwise known as the “Doc Fix” bill (S. 1776). A vote on this proposal is expected later this week. This key vote will be part of our 2009 Congressional Scorecard.

At a meeting on Capitol Hill last week with nearly a dozen doctors groups, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the Senate would take up separate legislation to halt scheduled Medicare cuts in doctor payments over the next 10 years. In return, Reid made it clear that he expected their support for the broader healthcare bill, according to four sources in the meeting.

This bill is not offset with any spending cuts so the overall tab will recklessly add almost $250 billion over ten years to the national debt. This is also a deceptive attempt to hide the true cost of health care reform. Reasonable people can argue about the merits of a “doc fix”, but fiscal prudence demands that it not add one penny to the national debt. This bill needs to have a full offset of spending cuts to meet that requirement. Also, it’s clear that Senate leaders are stripping this bill out of comprehensive health care reform legislation in order to avoid the task of selling an expensive proposal to the public that breaks the President’s revenue neutral pledge. When it comes to overhauling onesixth of the national economy, the American people are entitled to honesty and transparency from their elected

[...]“They said they’re going to need our help in getting healthcare reform over the goal line and they expect our support,” said a participant who represents doctors. “Reid, Baucus and Dodd. All three said the same thing: They want and expect our support.” [...]Reid also asked that doctors ease up on demands for medical malpractice reform during the upcoming healthcare debate. Democrats have traditionally resisted calls for tort reform, which trial attorneys — a reliable base group — staunchly oppose.

leaders in Washington.

RedState’s Erick Erickson adds, “This week the Senate is considering its next payoff to a powerful lobbying group.” And Heritage’s Conn Carroll shares this ominous thought: After thousands of Americans attended hundreds of townhalls this summer, after the President of the United States delivered a rare speech

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