New Fox News Op-ed: Stimulus Spending Is Making Things Worse Not Better

My new Fox News piece starts this way:

It isn't that President Obama's policies aren't working. It is just that the economy was so much worse off than anyone realized. -- Or so the Obama administration claims.

Vice President Joe Biden repeated the mantra again this past Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Host George Stephanopoulos asked him how the 9.5 percent unemployment rate in June squared with the administration's prediction that if the stimulus package was passed, "unemployment will peak at about 8 percent." Biden replied: "we and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there."

Translation? The economy being much worse than ever predicted isn't Obama's fault, the Bush administration supposedly left us a worse economy than anyone realized. Even to Stephanopoulos, the alternatives were only two: "either you misread the economy [that the economy was worse than they realized], the stimulus package is too slow and to small." A headline in today's Wall Street Journal reports "Calls Grow to Increase Stimulus Spending." . . . .

Where are the media comparisons over Obama trusting Medvedev

President Bush was strongly criticized for his statement about Putin:

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue," Bush said. "I was able to get a sense of his soul."

Where is the media discussion about Obama's statement:

"I trust President Medvedev to not only listen and to negotiate constructively, but also to follow -- follow through on the agreements that are contained here today."

Obama's statement goes at least as far as Bush's, though outside of Fox News I am not sure that a comparison has been made.

Exaggerating the risks of acetaminophen?

The WSJ claims:

Whether or not the Food and Drug Administration decides to limit sales of acetaminophen, consumers should know this: It’s easy to take more than the recommended daily dose without realizing it. . . . .

The latest Slone Survey report (June 2009) shows that 48 million Americans took acetaminophen weekly during 2006. With 298 million Americans in the US that year and 450 fatalities from acetaminophen poisonings, this means that 1 out of every 5.6 million people who take one or more doses during a week die. That is something that the government should spend a lot of time worrying about?

Strange emission goals for G8 countries

From the BBC:

The G8 leaders are set this week to deliver their strongest statement so far on global warming.

They are likely to agree that the world ought to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 - with rich nations reducing them by 80%.

The group will probably also say that any human-induced temperature rise should be held to 2C - a level considered to be a danger threshold . . . . .

Why you might not be using Social Security numbers on all the forms that you fill out much longer

MSNBC has this story:

There’s a new reason to worry about the security of your Social Security number. Turns out, they can be guessed with relative ease.

A group of researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University say they’ve discovered patterns in the issuance of numbers that make it relatively easy to deduce the personal information using publicly available information and some basic statistical analysis.

The research could have far-ranging implications for financial institutions and other firms that rely on Social Security numbers to ward off identity theft. It could also unleash a wave of criminal imitators who will try to duplicate the research.

Details of the research were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal and will be explained at the annual Black Hat computer hacker convention in Las Vegas later this month.

The report means companies and other agencies should once and for all stop using Social Security numbers as passwords or unique identifiers, said Professor Alessandro Acquisti, who authored the report.

"We keep living as if they are secure, a secret," he said. "They're not a secret." . . . . .

Anti-trust enforcement is going after everything

Airlines upset that DOJ won't let them work together on sharing passenger miles.

Nine airlines in the global Star Alliance and aspiring member Continental Airlines Inc. on Monday criticized the Justice Department's objections to their plans to cooperate more closely on international routes, fares and capacity.

The airlines' application for antitrust immunity for such cooperation was provisionally granted in April by the Department of Transportation, which has sole authority over such pacts. But on June 26, the Justice Department weighed in with a belated broadside against the airlines' plans. Justice said the cooperation would lead to higher fares, hinder competition and hurt consumers. . . . .

Now they are looking into AT&T's deal with Apple on the iPhone.

The Department of Justice has begun an initial review to determine whether large U.S. telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have abused the market power they've amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.

The review of potential anti-competitive practices is in its very early stages, and it isn't a formal investigation of any specific company at this point, the people said. It isn't clear whether the agency intends to launch an official inquiry. . . . .

More on the iPhone related investigation see here. Some critics of the investigation can be seen here.

Let me get this straight. DOJ is upset with the airlines because they all miles to be shared (thus preventing some type of "lock in"), but they are upset that a model telephone is available for only one carrier.

Additional examples:

Airlines

The Department of Transportation gave final approval for Continental Airlines Inc. to enter a cooperative agreement with nine other airlines for international routes, largely brushing aside concerns from the Justice Department.

The DOT order came two weeks after the Justice Department blasted the plan as harmful to consumers and competition. The order gave the Star Alliance airlines nearly everything they wanted and imposed only modest concessions.

UPDATE: Making investments riskier.

As if investors needed more to worry about. The outlook for corporate profits already is clouded by an uncertain economy, and markets remain skittish. Now there is a burst of antitrust activism.

The Justice Department is conducting a review of the telecom industry. Last week, it toughened its line on payments paid by drug makers to avoid defending patents in court. It also convinced the Department of Transportation to put restrictions on a route-sharing pact between Continental Airlines and the Star Alliance. . . .

UPDATE 2: Something to put these concerns into perspective.

Yesterday Apple (AAPL) finally made good on threats and blocked the ability of Palm Pre owners to synch their devices with Apple's iTunes software. And that's just fine.

Expectations that Apple should open up its software to let other devices use it are unreasonable. Yes, in a perfect world of perfect interoperability, all devices should play nice with each other. But we don't live in that world and most of the technology companies I know of don't either. So why should Apple?

Here's Apple's statement: "iTunes 8.2.1 is a free software update that provides a number of important bug fixes. It also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. As we've said before, newer versions of Apple's iTunes software may no longer provide synching functionality with unsupported media players," said Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris. Translation? Yes, we blocked Pre synching. Are you surprised?

Apparently, the masses were shocked, shocked! As reports filtered out over the internet that Apple had blocked Palm Pre owners from synching to iTunes, howls of outrage filled the blogosphere. Pre owners screamed bloody murder. The free information crowd went crazy. "Apple's iPhone and iPod Monopolies Must Go!" thundered one headline. It was as if there were no other options to Apple in music-playing and smartphones.
Naturally, no one seemed to be protesting that iPhone owners couldn't synch their devices with Windows-based music-playing devices or that Pre owners couldn't synch their devices with Blackberry software systems.

In a nutshell, it sure looks like Apple is being held to an extremely unreasonable standard. You can't play Wii games on an Xbox 360. But I have yet to hear complaints that video game packages are not compatible. The principle is the same. Makers of proprietary hardware devices allow software from competitors to run on those devices at their discretion. Period. If Apple doesn't want to support Palm, that's its prerogative.

This issue is not only confined to the technology sector. Honda doesn't feel compelled to support Toyota owners who would like to use Honda's superior airbag control systems, for example. . . . .

UPDATE 3: Verizon responds to this political pressure and says that it will limit new exclusive handset deals to six months

Applies to carriers with less than 500,000 customers

* Could also apply to other "small" carriers

* Offer open to Cellular South, not U.S. Cellular (Adds analyst, consumer group comment)

By Diane Bartz and Sinead Carew

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, July 17 (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless is dialing back on its exclusivity agreements with handset makers after pressure from U.S. lawmakers and smaller carriers.

The biggest U.S. mobile service said on Friday it will limit exclusivity periods with cellphone makers to six months and then allow the country's smallest wireless service providers to sell the devices.

The move comes after reports that the U.S. Department of Justice was taking a preliminary look into whether U.S. operators had violated antitrust laws by obtaining exclusive deals to sell specific phones.

Exclusivity deals are common among the biggest U.S. carriers but have recently faced strong opposition from small, rural carriers, which say they lack the clout to make deals to carry the most popular advanced phones.

The iPhone has drawn such deals into the spotlight because AT&T Inc (T.N), the second biggest U.S. wireless service, has had exclusive U.S. rights with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) since 2007. . . .

A story for those who don't think that concern about profits motivates firms to be efficient

Compare this discussion to how the government operates. The UK Telegraph has this:

Airlines are reducing the size of spoons and dropping in-flight magazines to make planes lighter and save fuel during the recession, according to the International Air Transport Association.

In the United States, Northwest Airlines has excluded spoons from its cutlery pack if the in-flight meal does not require one.
It is not alone, according to Paul Steele, director of the environment at IATA.

Another carrier, JAL of Japan, took everything it loaded from a 747 and put it on the floor of a school gym to see what it really needed.

As a result it shaved a fraction of a centimetre off all its cutlery to cut weight.

"When you are talking about a jumbo jet with 400 people on board, being served two to three meals, this can save a few kilos," he said.

"You work out how much fuel that consumes over a year, and you can be talking about a considerable amount of money".
Other carriers have come up with all sorts of ingenious initiatives to shift the flab off their aircraft.

In-flight magazines are going and carriers are even putting their duty-free catalogues onto the seat-back televisions.
"Airlines are going through what they put on a plane. They are now saying that if we are only carrying 100 passengers, then only load what they need," said Mr Steele.

Catering trolleys are becoming lighter and less water - both bottled and in the tank - is being loaded.

The next generation of aircraft seats are likely to be up to 30 per cent lighter than the current generation, with composite replacing aluminium. . . . .

Venezuela's Chavez moves to take control of country's banking system

How many banks say that they "favor" certain sectors of the economy? Possibly banks could say that they have expertise in certain sectors, but saying that they "favor" sectors is quite different.

President Hugo Chavez's government assumed control of Venezuela's third-largest bank on Friday - making the state the largest player in the nation's banking system. . . .
The acquisition will "strengthen the public banking system," which favors sectors including agriculture, energy, housing and tourism, Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said in a statement. . . . .

The Wife of the UK's MI6 chief put personal family details up on Facebook

This is pretty bizarre. From the BBC:

Details about the personal life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from Facebook.

The Mail on Sunday says his wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, put details about their children and the location of their flat on the social networking site.

The details, which also included holiday photographs, were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office.

MP Patrick Mercer, counter-terrorism sub-committee chairman, said he was disappointed by the couple's actions. . . .

NY Times distorts what Boehner did with the Cap & Trade bill

The New York Times has an amazingly biased analysis of Representative John Boehner's recent speech on the Carbon Cap legislation. Boehner gave an hour long talk, it was hardly a filibuster. But worse all Boehner did was read part of the bill just so some congressmen would know part of what was in the amendment that was only filed at 3 AM that same morning. The NY Times piece starts off this way:

Representative John A. Boehner came to Washington in 1991 as a rabble-rousing Republican willing to disrupt the House to score points against powerful Democrats. Now, as the House Republican leader in a town again dominated by Democrats, the Ohioan is back to his old tricks.

Trying to build opposition to a climate change measure being considered as the Fourth of July recess loomed, Mr. Boehner commandeered the floor for an hour to mount an unofficial filibuster and ridicule the legislation. He has sanctioned efforts by rank-and-file Republicans to tie up the House with dozens of procedural votes. During the debate on the economic stimulus, he threw the huge bill to the floor with a theatrical thump.

“There are times when the majority just does such outrageous things that you have to find a way to make your point to the American people,” said Mr. Boehner, who began his House career as one of the so-called Gang of Seven, a group of Republican upstarts that confronted Democrats over the House banking scandal and other institutional abuses. . . . .

"Biden Says Violence May Cause Disengagement From"

Is this really the message that you want to send to the other side? The article entitled "Biden Says Violence May Cause Disengagement From" is from Bloomberg.

Ohio had 159,000 concealed handgun permit holders in March

There is apparently a big increase in the number of permit holders this year in Ohio. From LimaOhio.com:

Through March, Ohio reported 159,000 residents with concealed carry licenses, which represents about 1 percent of the population. Of that number, 16,323 were new licenses issued in the first three months of the year, a number that continues to climb at a high rate.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates 25 percent of the U.S. population owns a gun of some type, and half the households in the country have at least one gun inside. . . . .

Farmer, a former police chief who is also a police firearms trainer, said people with concealed carry licenses are among the most law-abiding. He said he rarely came across people with their concealed carry licenses during traffic stops, saying it's because they follow the law to begin with.

Allen County Sheriff Crish said people with their concealed carry licenses typically are the most law-abiding citizens. Otherwise, they would not have been issued a license.

"We're not worried about those individuals," he said. . . . .

Congress is having trouble making expense accounts public

The WSJ has this.

Members of Congress said Thursday that details of their expense claims wouldn't be posted online before mid-November at the earliest -- two and a half months later than the deadline previously set for publishing them in an electronic format for the first time.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the House Chief Administrative Officer to put information about expenses claimed by members of the House on the Internet "at the earliest date," in an announcement reversing a longstanding policy of providing the information only in books totaling about 12,000 pages a year. The chief administrative officer, a congressional employee, set an Aug. 31 deadline. The Senate hasn't announced any plans to put its expenses claims online.

The announcement last month followed a series of Wall Street Journal articles on bonus payments and expense claims for luxury cars and high-end technology made by congressional offices. . . .

According to another article in the WSJ, the costs that are being report are much lower than the true costs.

The travel-disclosure form the Pennsylvania Democrat filed for the trip reported the seven-country tour with his wife, an aide and two military officials on a private military jet cost $571 a person, or a total of about $2,800.

The real cost was far higher, in excess of $70,000, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Mr. Specter's travel report is one of scores of examples of the gap between the expenditures congressional delegations are required to report and what the trips actually cost taxpayers.

A Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records shows that lawmakers disclosed spending about $13 million in 2008 on overseas congressional delegations, or codels. That is nearly a tenfold increase since 1995, the analysis shows.

But the total tab disclosed by Congress is only a fraction of the true cost to taxpayers, according to the Journal's analysis.

Under a 1970s law that authorizes taxpayer-funded codels, lawmakers only must disclose how much they spent on lodging, meals, ground transportation and other incidental expenses. Members of Congress also must make public their spending on commercial airfare, though most lawmakers fly on military planes, which don't have to be disclosed.

Mr. Specter's disclosure form reports that he spent $1,103 for food and accommodations. The aide that accompanied him spent $1,750, according to the disclosure form. The cost of food, hotels and transportation for the two military officials was not disclosed.

Kate Kelly, a spokeswoman for Mr. Specter, said her boss "meticulously complies with Senate reporting requirements, reimburses the Treasury with unused per diem, and customarily files an extensive trip report describing the substance of his meetings with foreign officials." She added that the cost of codels is a "good investment considering the insights gained on billions of dollars of foreign aid." . . .

Is there a pattern here?

The WSJ has this:

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON - A civil rights group advised by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in the 1980s brought several discrimination lawsuits that sought to scrap the results of job tests because too few Hispanics scored well, according to new documents that are fueling GOP criticism of the judge.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund represented Hispanic sanitation workers in New York City who wanted to stop white employees from getting promotions because, they argued, the qualifying exam unfairly disadvantaged minorities. The case unfolded as Sotomayor chaired the organization's board of directors' litigation committee, although there is no evidence that she had any role in the group's decision to participate in the lawsuits, or in formulating or drafting any of their legal arguments.

Still, the case bears strong similarities to a much-discussed case Judge Sotomayor ruled on last year as a federal appeals court judge, which involved the reverse discrimination claims of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who sued after the city threw out its promotion test because too few minorities qualified. A panel she joined ruled against the white firefighters in the case, Ricci v. DeStefano. The Supreme Court reversed the decision last Monday.

The sanitation workers' case and similar ones -- including a series of lawsuits against the New York City Police Department that ultimately resulted in the department consulting with a PRLDEF expert in drafting its job tests -- are detailed in hundreds of pages of new material the group sent the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday. The documents were placed on the committee's Web site. . . . .

White House won't give Republicans Sotomayor documents claiming that they are irrelevant

So why isn't this getting really any attention in the news? If Sotomayor hadn't already made so many controversial statements, I might think that the WH had a point here, but Sotomayor is already over the top. The AP has this:

A top Republican pressed for more information Thursday about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's ties to a Puerto Rican civil rights group he said took extreme positions on race, as the White House argued that the material was irrelevant to the judge's nomination.
White House Counsel Greg Craig told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., in a letter that board meeting minutes and other papers detailing the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund's activities while Sotomayor was an outside adviser shouldn't impact her nomination because she had no role in writing or approving them. But Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate committee that will consider her nomination, said the papers could shed light on Sotomayor's judicial approach, particularly her view of racial preferences in hiring. . . . .

Colin Powell worries that Obama is expanding government too much

From the Washington Times:

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

Mr. Powell, a retired U.S. army general who rose to political prominence after a long and accomplished military career, said that health care reform and many of Mr. Obama's other initiatives are "important" to Americans.

But, he said, "one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."

"And we can't pay for it all," said Mr. Powell, who was the first African-American to serve as secretary of state, under former President George W. Bush. He was also national security adviser to President Reagan, and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. . . . .

A craigslist.org for guns?

Zach Terhark, the Gunlistings.org Owner and Operator, sent me this link.

How do they count "saved" jobs from stimulus?

A transcript from the Rush Limbaugh show:

RUSH: Dick, Maple Valley, Washington. Nice to have you with us. Hello. . . . . .

CALLER: Okay. Well, I found out yesterday one way the Obamas may be keeping score on jobs created or saved, my wife and I own a manufacturing company, and one of our customers received stimulus money. So they send us a form from the Department of Administrative Services, about 50 questions to go through and two of them were how many jobs were created or how many jobs were sustained. So I put zero because there really wasn't any, and sent it in. They called back and said, "Well, didn't anyone..."

RUSH: Well, now, wait, I'm confused. You didn't get the stimulus money, somebody else did. Why are you filling out the form?

CALLER: They bought our product.

RUSH: Oh. So stimulus money bought your product and then you had to report back to Washington?

CALLER: Correct. Yeah. And so they said, "Well, how can it be zero, didn't someone process our order or make the product?" And I said, "Well, to me a job sustained is if I didn't have to lay-off or fire someone because you ordered something and that's not the case." And he had a guide that the government provided that explains their logic on each line item, and they said, "No, sustained would mean that someone actually worked on the product and made it and so that counts as a job sustained." And so I said, "So the person that answers the phone would be one, the person that boxed it up would be two," and I said I can't do that.

RUSH: What happens if a machine answers like if you call 211?

CALLER: Yeah. So I gave 'em one, but, you know, that's one too many, and, you know, I'm sure that's what they're going to use --

Regarding Oregon, here is a discussion about counting the jobs.

The testimony from the heads of a dozen state agencies was much more positive than a report released last week by the Department of Administrative Services. That report, based on information almost a month old, said less than one-third of the projects had begun. . . . .

The terms "created" and "saved" have fairly loose definitions. According to the agency keeping track, for someone to be employed -- and thus counted -- they must be paid to help complete one of the stimulus projects. There is no differentiating between a job that employs someone for hours and one that employs someone for months. . . . .

Here is an example of the type of reporting form that the caller appears to be referring to.

Some information on the New Hampshire job counting process is here.

Obama appoints a lot of donors to be Ambassador Corps

Another broken promise from Obama. From the WSJ:

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has seen its share of luminaries in the ambassador's suite. Former Vice President Walter Mondale, former Senate Majority Leaders Mike Mansfield and Howard Baker and former House Speaker Tom Foley are among those who have brokered relations with a complex and critical ally in a region bristling with military and trade tensions.

President Barack Obama's pick for the post is from a different mold: John Roos, a San Francisco Bay area lawyer, was the president's chief Silicon Valley fundraiser and contributions "bundler." He has no diplomatic experience.

Mr. Obama's choice of Mr. Roos, along with other political boosters -- from former investment banker Louis B. Susman, known as the "vacuum cleaner" for his fundraising prowess, to Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney -- has raised eyebrows among some who thought the president would extend his mantra of change to the diplomatic corps.

"We're not only insulting nations [that] we're appointing these bundlers to, we're risking U.S. diplomatic efforts in these key countries," said Craig Holman, a government-affairs lobbyist at watchdog group Public Citizen.

This tension can be traced back to Mr. Obama's claim during last year's campaign that President George W. Bush engaged in an "extraordinary politicization of foreign policy." Mr. Obama said he instead would ensure that hires are based on merit, rather than party or ideology. The American Academy of Diplomacy, an association of former diplomats, seized on the comments in lobbying him to lower the portion of ambassadors drawn from outside the foreign-service establishment to as little as 10% from the 30% average since President John F. Kennedy's tenure. (Mr. Bush's score was 33%.)

Of the Obama administration's 55 ambassadorial nominees so far, 33 -- or 60% -- have gone to people outside the foreign-service ranks, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That ratio is almost certain to tilt back toward career diplomats as dozens of the remaining posts are filled. . . . .

Regulating fireworks: "Not having the freedom to celebrate freedom"

Regulation gone out of control. From the Washington Times:

Americans will celebrate their freedom on Independence Day with a certain irony tomorrow. Not all Americans have the freedom to celebrate the holiday with the traditional festive bang. That's because many places ban fireworks.

Although about 94 million of us live in states that allow all sorts of fireworks and firecracker use, 43 million Americans live in six states - including New York and New Jersey - where you need a permit to even light a sparkler. California bans some types of fireworks and allows cities to expand what is prohibited. Safety is supposedly the major concern of those who ban our celebratory backyard light-and-noise shows, but their fears are overblown.

Banning personal use of fireworks may actually result in more accidental fires because some of those who try to avoid getting caught set them off in remote fields, causing fires that take longer to discover.

This issue is badly distorted by the media. . . . .

Finally an air safety movie worth watching

This one actually got me to watch it, and I had stopped watching these years ago when I flew on planes. Possibly it was that the flight attendants and pilot just worn body paint in addition to their shoes and possible hat.

IBD: "Al Franken — Democrat From Acorn"

IBD has this:

Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman conceded defeat in the mother of all recounts in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race after the state's Supreme Court unanimously rejected his lawsuit.
Arguably, his seat may have been lost the day in 2006 when Democrat Mark Ritchie defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer to become Minnesota secretary of state.
It was Ritchie who orchestrated the recount that gave Democratic challenger Franken a lead some six weeks after Coleman appeared to win by 725 votes on Election Day. Ritchie has extensive ties to the Acorn organization now under federal investigation for vote fraud and was endorsed by the community activist group in 2006.
In 2006, the Minnesota Acorn Political Committee endorsed Ritchie and contributed to his campaign. Other contributors to his campaign included George Soros, along with the likes of Deborah Rappaport, a Saul Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical Acorn clone.
"Mark Ritchie as we all know is a hard-core liberal who was endorsed by Acorn and funded by Acorn," Matthew Vadum, senior editor of CapitolResearch.org, a nonprofit think tank, recently told NewsMax. "It is not surprising that he has a permissive attitude toward the recount process."
Also contributing to Ritchie was James Rucker, the former director of grass-roots mobilization at MoveOn.org and reportedly a co-founder of the Secretary of State Project that played a critical role in this and other elections and will do so in the future.
Ritchie gave partial credit for his 2006 election to the liberal 527 political organization, the stated goal of which is to replace conservative secretaries of state with liberal Democrats.

Congressional travel expenditures have risen by 50 percent in two years

There hae been a huge increase in other things such as franking privileges over the last two years as well. From the WSJ:

Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That's a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as "codels," has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data. . . .

After the Huffington Post incident, the administration might finally have hit a raw nerve with the press.

NY state Senate Democrats sitting through the Pledge of Allegiance

The crazy part of this news segment is at the end of it. It is difficult for me to understand why the Democrats refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance. Why pull down the one Democratic state Senator who tried to stand to say the pledge?

Obama opposes tort reform in health care

From the Washington Times:

President Obama can't fix health care without taking on trial lawyers. David Axelrod, the president's chief strategist, warned about "punishing health care costs" again on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "That's something that we have to deal with," he said. In a June 15 speech to the American Medical Association, Mr. Obama complained about how excessive defensive medicine drives up costs. This is a regular theme in White House talking points.

We agree there's a problem, but at heart and by training, Mr. Obama is a lawyer. That's why he won't address one major cause of the high costs of medical care: There are too many lawsuits, and they are too lucrative.

Mr. Obama is against capping malpractice awards to reflect actual damage done to patients. He is against doing away with strict liability rules, which means a vaccine maker or a doctor can be held liable for a bad outcome even if the doctor or manufacturer did not create the problem. . . . .

A generally amusing piece about what one needs to know about Canada

Admittedly there is nothing that many will already know here, but it is still amusing.

Stuart Taylor explaining why the Supreme Court rejected Sotomayor's position by a 9-0 vote, not 5-4

Stuart Taylor's piece is available from the National Journal here:

What's more striking is that the court was unanimous in rejecting the Sotomayor panel's specific holding. Her holding was that New Haven's decision to spurn the test results must be upheld based solely on the fact that highly disproportionate numbers of blacks had done badly on the exam and might file a "disparate-impact" lawsuit -- regardless of whether the exam was valid or the lawsuit could succeed.

This position is so hard to defend, in my view, that I hazarded a prediction in my June 13 column: "Whichever way the Supreme Court rules in the case later this month, I will be surprised if a single justice explicitly approves the specific, quota-friendly logic of the Sotomayor-endorsed... opinion" by U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton.

Unlike some of my predictions, this one proved out. In fact, even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 39-page dissent for the four more liberal justices quietly but unmistakably rejected the Sotomayor-endorsed position that disparate racial results alone justified New Haven's decision to dump the promotional exam without even inquiring into whether it was fair and job-related.

Justice Ginsburg also suggested clearly -- as did the Obama Justice Department, in a friend-of-the-court brief -- that the Sotomayor panel erred in upholding summary judgment for the city. Ginsburg said that the lower courts should have ordered a jury trial to weigh the evidence that the city's claimed motive -- fear of losing a disparate impact suit by low-scoring black firefighters if it proceeded with the promotions -- was a pretext. The jury's job would have been to consider evidence that the city's main motive had been to placate black political leaders who were part of Mayor John DeStefano's political base.

Disparate-impact law, as codified by Congress in 1991, specifies that an employer whose qualifying exam or other selection criterion produces racially disparate results can be held liable for unintentional discrimination only if (1) the test is not "job-related... and consistent with business necessity," or (2) the employer is presented with and refuses to adopt another, similarly job-related test with less disparate impact.

Contrary to the Sotomayor-endorsed opinion, the Ginsburg dissent states (on page 19) that an employer's decision to jettison a promotional test under circumstances like this case would be legal only if the employer had "good cause to believe the [test] would not withstand examination for business necessity."

Ginsburg added (on page 26 and page 33) that "ordinarily, a remand for fresh consideration" would be proper because the lower courts (including Judge Sotomayor) had not carefully considered the evidence of "pretext" and racial politics. . . .

"89 Year-Old Lady With a PISTOL in her OLD Car!"

This older lady is ready to protect herself with her permitted concealed handgun. This is a very cute video.

Thanks very much to Peter Buxtun for this link.

So much for ending earmarks: What happened with the Cap & Trade Bill

From the Washington Times:

When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.

They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state's Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, included the Kaptur project in a 310-page amendment to the legislation unveiled at 3 a.m. Friday, just hours before the bill was to be debated on the House floor. The amendment was packed with other vote-getting provisions, both large and small, that had been sought by dozens of wavering Democrats. . . . .

Thanks to Tony Troglio for this link.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — As the most ambitious energy and climate-change legislation ever introduced in Congress made its way to a floor vote last Friday, it grew fat with compromises, carve-outs, concessions and out-and-out gifts intended to win the votes of wavering lawmakers and the support of powerful industries.

The deal making continued right up until the final minutes, with the bill’s co-author Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, doling out billions of dollars in promises on the House floor to secure the final votes needed for passage.

The bill was freighted with hundreds of pages of special-interest favors, even as environmentalists lamented that its greenhouse-gas reduction targets had been whittled down.

Some of the prizes were relatively small, like the $50 million hurricane research center for a freshman lawmaker from Florida.

Others were huge and threatened to undermine the environmental goals of the bill, like a series of compromises reached with rural and farm-state members that would funnel billions of dollars in payments to agriculture and forestry interests.

Automakers, steel companies, natural gas drillers, refiners, universities and real estate agents all got in on the fast-moving action.

The biggest concessions went to utilities, which wanted assurances that they could continue to operate and build coal-burning power plants without shouldering new costs. The utilities received not only tens of billions of dollars worth of free pollution permits, but also billions for work on technology to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from coal combustion to help meet future pollution targets.

That deal, negotiated by Representative Rick Boucher, a conservative Democrat from Virginia’s coal country, won the support of the Edison Electric Institute, the utility industry lobby, and lawmakers from regions dependent on coal for electricity. . . . .