The Volokh Conspiracy - -

The Volokh Conspiracy - -: "Where would the arguments in the New York Times editorial leave the New York Times itself? Shouldn't New York Times v. Sullivan (the landmark libel case) and New York Times v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case), for instance, have come out the opposite way under the Times' analysis? The corporation that owns the Times, like all corporations, has "limited liability, special rules for the accumulation of assets and the ability to live forever [in theory]." It is "in a privileged position in producing profits and aggregating wealth." It surely has tremendous "influence." It tries to participate in "politics," in its editorials and also, inevitably (whether intentionally or not) in its news coverage and choices of what to cover. It is a "legally created economic entit[y].""

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The Volokh Conspiracy - Constitutional Rights and Corporations:

The Volokh Conspiracy - Constitutional Rights and Corporations:: "Now some people might think this is the right result. Or perhaps if this happened, people would stop using the corporate form — newspapers, advocacy groups, and churches would somehow reorganize themselves as, say, partnerships or sole proprietorships. This might actually be hard, and from the perspective of people who disapprove of corporate rights, it might be counterproductive; what's the point of letting the Times have constitutional rights if it's run as a partnership but not if it's run as a corporation? But for now, my point is simply that we should clearly identify the consequences of denying constitutional rights to corporations — and those consequences hardly seem sensible."

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APNewsBreak: Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl - The Washington Post

APNewsBreak: Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl - The Washington Post: "WASHINGTON — To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.

The plan is the latest federal attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the passive one-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago."

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TODAY on the Trail - Caption contest: Mitt Romney has a close encounter with the Santorum car

TODAY on the Trail - Caption contest: Mitt Romney has a close encounter with the Santorum car: "Romney admitted to not following car racing very closely but saying he has "friends who are NASCAR team owners." "

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Inept NYT Op-Ed Defending HHS Mandate—Part 1 - By Ed Whelan - Bench Memos - National Review Online

Inept NYT Op-Ed Defending HHS Mandate—Part 1 - By Ed Whelan - Bench Memos - National Review Online: "3. Samuels also makes a superficial argument that the HHS mandate doesn’t violate the Free Exercise Clause, as interpreted in Employment Division v. Smith. (In fairness to Samuels, I will note that many of the assertions that the HHS mandate does violate the Free Exercise Clause are equally superficial and fail to take account of Smith.)

What Samuels fails to recognize is that the exclusion of a broad swath of employers from the mandate for secular reasons—e.g., the employers who have so-called “grandfathered plans” and small employers (see points developed here, in the context of RFRA’s “compelling interest” standard)—means that the mandate isn’t neutral and generally applicable. (As the Sixth Circuit recently explained, a law is not neutral and generally applicable if it “permit[s] secular exemptions but not religious ones.” See also the Third Circuit opinion by then-Judge Alito that I discuss here.) The mandate is therefore subject to the same test under the Free Exercise Clause that it faces under RFRA, and it flunks that test for the same reasons."

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The argument that the mandate to provide contraceptives is unconstitutional makes a lot more sense to me now.

'Right Wing Lice' - WSJ.com

'Right Wing Lice' - WSJ.com: " "Let me just tell you this Mitt 'Muddle Mouth': I'm a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear. #CNNdebate""

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2012 Michigan Republican Primary - Rasmussen Reports™

2012 Michigan Republican Primary - Rasmussen Reports™: "rue to a primary season already marked by sudden and surprising ups and downs, Mitt Romney has jumped back into the lead in Michigan’s Republican Primary race. The vote’s on Tuesday.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters in Michigan shows Romney with 40% of the vote and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum with 34%. The poll was conducted on Thursday night, following the last scheduled debate among the GOP candidates."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "If Specter’s father hadn’t emigrated from Russia after the Revolution, he would never have met Specter’s mother, and the cause of our woes would never have been born! A butterfly flaps its wings on the Steppes and nine decades later Harry Reid is federally subsidizing cowboy poetry festivals. Coincidence?"

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Open Letter to Bill O’Reilly

Open Letter to Bill O’Reilly: "You’re all lathered up because U.S. oil companies are exporting much of their refined gasoline and heating oil to other countries and thereby putting upward pressure on fuel prices here in America. You conclude that these companies have a moral obligation not to export so much."

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I bet there are a lot of people that feel this way, and ironically, most of them are probably the same people that are concerned about our trade deficit. So, it's both bad that we import too many goods, and also bad that we export too much oil. We can't win!

CNN.com - Transcripts

CNN.com - Transcripts: "That's good enough. As George Costanza would say, when they're applauding, stop. Right?"

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That line--that' I 'm sure is designed to help him connect with average joes-- seems pretty canned to me.

Ann Coulter - February 22, 2012 - WHAT'S THEIR PROBLEM WITH ROMNEY?

Ann Coulter - February 22, 2012 - WHAT'S THEIR PROBLEM WITH ROMNEY?: "You'll recall that Perry was the dream candidate until we saw him talk. "

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Greg Mankiw's Blog: Good Academic, Bad Human Being

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Good Academic, Bad Human Being: "But don't stop there. If you have this objective, then it is best not to have hobbies, or read novels, or go to the movies. Don't spend time teaching well or mentoring students, except the very best students who can help you with your research. Don't get married or have friends, unless your spouse and friends are PhD economists and can coauthor papers with you. Whatever you do, don't have children--boy, are they a time sink! And if you make the mistake of having children, make sure you spend as little time with them as you can.

In other words, if you want to be the best academic you can be, get ready to be a miserable human being. "

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JustOneMinute: When Is A Tie Not A Tie?

JustOneMinute: When Is A Tie Not A Tie?: "And for a real tiebreak, maybe we can look at both 2009 and 2010. The Romneys move up to 16% for the two years. And the Obamas? Ooops - GI was up a lot at $5.623 million, charitable giving was up a little at $329,100, and their donation rate was 5.9%. Totaling over the two years, the Obamas averaged 7.7%."

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JustOneMinute: When Is A Tie Not A Tie?

JustOneMinute: When Is A Tie Not A Tie?: "President Obama and his wife, Michelle, despite having the second-lowest income of the four candidate/spouse combos, gave the highest percentage of their $1.8 million income to charity in 2010, at 13.6 percent.
The wealthiest couple, Mitt Romney and wife Ann, finished slightly ahead, giving 13.8 percent to charity — most of it to the Mormon church. Of course, Romney also made far more than anyone else in 2010, at more than $21 million.

I know what you are thinking, even if you are a WaPo reporter - 13.8% is more than 13.6%. But we can move Obama to the front with a simple adjustment!"

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Greg Mankiw's Blog: Semantics at the Highest Level

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Semantics at the Highest Level: "Consider these two policies:

A. An employer is required to provide its employees health insurance that covers birth control.

B. An employer is required to provide its employees health insurance. The health insurance company is required to cover birth control."

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Obama touts S.C. Boeing plant that NLRB sued | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner

Obama touts S.C. Boeing plant that NLRB sued | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner: "President Obama rallied with union workers at a Boeing plant in Washington, but he praised the manufacturing conducted by Boeing in South Carolina, even though his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) tried to close the South Carolina plant at the behest of the Washington union workers."

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Rivkin and Whelan: Birth-Control Mandate—Unconstitutional and Illegal - WSJ.com

Rivkin and Whelan: Birth-Control Mandate—Unconstitutional and Illegal - WSJ.com: "The law also provides that any later statutory override of its protections must be explicit. But there is nothing in the ObamaCare legislation that explicitly or even implicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The birth-control mandate proposed by Health and Human Services is thus illegal."

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hmm. not so sure about this.

The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "Jonah Goldberg is right. He makes an excellent point in his piece this morning on President Obama’s abortion-pill mandate. Conservatives, libertarians, and others who believe in medical freedom should make this argument much more often when engaging liberals: What happens if “the bad guys,” namely we right-wingers, win the next election, and now we get to run Obamacare?"

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Farage On Greek Chaos: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" | ZeroHedge

Farage On Greek Chaos: "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" | ZeroHedge: "Outspoken and oracular MEP Nigel Farage bombards his fellow unelected officials with 'you can't handle the truth' comments"

The Volokh Conspiracy

The Volokh Conspiracy: "Note, though, that the prosecution was not simply for trespassing on school property, but was based on the content and viewpoint expressed in the leaflets. My question: Under Swedish law, just what sorts of discussions of the propriety of homosexuality are legally safe? Recall, these aren’t express calls for killing or physical attack or even execution, which on its face seems to suggest a change in the law to make the execution lawful (see this recent English case). These are simply arguments condemning homosexuality on moral and pragmatic grounds."

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Experts say Iran has "neutralized" Stuxnet virus - Yahoo! News

Experts say Iran has "neutralized" Stuxnet virus - Yahoo! News: "Some officials said they believe that the Iranians were helped in their efforts by Western cybersecurity experts, whose detailed technical analyses of Stuxnet's computer code have circulated widely on the Internet."

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Republicans Send Valentine's Day Cards To Obama And Democrats

Republicans Send Valentine's Day Cards To Obama And Democrats:

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I like these.

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge: "The great economist Frank Knight’s lament on this matter remains as true and germane today as it was when he first issued it in 1928: “The man from Mars reading the typical pronouncements of our best financial writers or statesmen could hardly avoid the conclusion that a nation’s prosperity depends upon getting rid of the greatest possible amount of goods and avoiding the receipt of anything tangible in payment for them.”*"

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: " But we are struck by its class-warfare components first and foremost because we have come to take for granted what really ought to be the most glaring and astonishing fact about this budget: its sheer, incredible, and utter fiscal irresponsibility. It completely fails to budget."

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Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge: "Noting that “New York is an expensive place to live,” you call upon the legislature there to raise New York’s hourly minimum-wage from $7.25 to $8.50 (“Raise New York’s Minimum Wage,” Feb. 13).

In the same spirit of demanding that government improve people’s economic well-being simply by ordering that people be paid more, allow me to make a similar plea on your behalf.

The newspaper business today is in difficult straits. So I hereby call upon the legislature in Albany to force you and other newspapers in New York to raise your subscription and advertising rates by 17.2 percent (the same percentage raise that you want to force low-skilled workers to demand from their employers). Voila! If your economic theory is correct, your profits will rise. And the magnitude of these higher profits, we can assume (just as you assume in the case of low-skilled workers), will be greater than any negative consequences that might be unleashed by such legislative interference in your ability to determine the terms on which you sell your services."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "The voters of Maine have sent a clear message that it is past time to send an outsider to the White House, a conservative with a lifetime of experience in the private sector, who can uproot Washington’s culture of taxing and spending and borrowing and endless bureaucracy,” said Romney in a statement."

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What do I know about campaign strategy? very little. But--for me at least--this is the wrong message. I don't care so much about whether a person has worked in Washington. What I like about Romney is that he's got executive experience. He's run lots of organizations, private and governmental, and I suspect, based on his fortune, he's pretty good at it. No one else in the field can lay claim to that skill.

The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "David Gregory asked Lew why Democrats in the Senate hadn’t passed a budget in 1,019 days. Lew offered an entirely incorrect explanation, arguing that the Senate requires 60 votes to pass a budget, and Democrats had been held back by the 41 Republicans’ intransigence. He explained, “there has been Republican opposition to anything that Senate Democrats have tried to do. So it, it is a challenge in the United States Senate to pass legislation when there’s not that willingness to work together.” Unfortunately, Lew is wrong — a Senate budget only requires 51 votes to pass. "

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Samuel L. Jackson -- I Voted for Barack Obama Because He's Black | TMZ.com

Samuel L. Jackson -- I Voted for Barack Obama Because He's Black | TMZ.com: " "I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them ... That's American politics, pure and simple. [Obama's] message didn't mean [bleep] to me." "

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Generally, I would say that race is a horrible way to pick a president. But Here's the thing. Part of Romney's appeal to me is that he's Mormon. Isn't that kind of the same thing?

How to Convert Your Car to Natural Gas - CNG Conversion - Popular Mechanics

How to Convert Your Car to Natural Gas - CNG Conversion - Popular Mechanics: " High gasoline prices historically have caused furious investment in cheaper, cleaner fuels, followed by a collapse in demand when gas prices fall. "

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How to Convert Your Car to Natural Gas - CNG Conversion - Popular Mechanics

How to Convert Your Car to Natural Gas - CNG Conversion - Popular Mechanics: "As it turns out, there are very few technological barriers to overcome. In fact, converting existing vehicles to burn natural gas isn't particularly challenging. Unfortunately, if you tried to do it yourself, you'd more than likely run afoul of the Clean Air Act's rules against modifying fuel systems--a violation that could cost you up to $5000 in fines for every day you drive the converted vehicle."

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Five myths about white people - The Washington Post

Five myths about white people - The Washington Post: "The share of upper-middle-class whites ages 30 to 49 who are married has been steady since 1984, hovering around 84 percent. During that same period, marriage for working-class whites in the same age group has fallen from 70 percent to 48 percent. This is not a statistical artifact that can be explained by class differences in the age of marriage or the frequency of remarriage, nor by hard economic times for the working class. Marriage now constitutes a cultural fault line dividing the socioeconomic classes among white Americans."

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U.S. Taxes Really Are Unusually Progressive - Clive Crook - Business - The Atlantic

U.S. Taxes Really Are Unusually Progressive - Clive Crook - Business - The Atlantic: "If you ask me, Jonathan Chait, a writer I respect, has made an ass of himself in a fight he picked with Veronique de Rugy over taxes and progressivity. She offended him by saying that America's income taxes are more progressive than those of other rich countries. Chait assailed her "completely idiotic" reasoning, called her an "inequality denier", "a ubiquitous right-wing misinformation recirculator" and asked if it was really any wonder he cast insults now and then at such "lesser lights of the intellectual world". (Paul Krugman said he sympathises. With Chait, obviously. The only danger here is in being too forgiving, Krugman advises. Chait may think the de Rugys of this world are only lazy and incompetent, but we know them to be liars as well.)

Just one problem. On the topic in question, De Rugy is right and Chait is wrong."

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The Never-Ending War - Jonah Goldberg - National Review Online

The Never-Ending War - Jonah Goldberg - National Review Online: "The irony is that few worldviews better describe the general liberal orientation to public policy and the culture war. The Left often complains about the culture war as if it’s a war they don’t want to fight. They insist they just want to follow “sound science” or “what works” when it comes to public policy, but those crazy knuckle-dragging right-wingers constantly want to talk about gays and abortion and other hot-button issues."

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Watch Ann Coulter Serve Up Jokes And ‘Red Meat’ During Her CPAC Speech | Mediaite

Watch Ann Coulter Serve Up Jokes And ‘Red Meat’ During Her CPAC Speech | Mediaite: "But hey, she said, politically correct Americans love the idea of having elected our first black President, “even if we did get Flavor Flav instead of Thomas Sowell.”"

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Watch Ann Coulter Serve Up Jokes And ‘Red Meat’ During Her CPAC Speech | Mediaite

Watch Ann Coulter Serve Up Jokes And ‘Red Meat’ During Her CPAC Speech | Mediaite: "“He’d probably make a lovely next-door neighbor,” she added. “As long as you’re not Chinese. Then he’d be constantly borrowing stuff.”"

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McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor.: "I maintain that the trash compactor onboard the Death Star in Star Wars is implausible, unworkable, and moreover, inefficient."

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Steve Jobs' FBI file: Drug use, bomb threats and bits o' gossip - latimes.com

Steve Jobs' FBI file: Drug use, bomb threats and bits o' gossip - latimes.com: ""Strongwilled, stubborn, hardworking, and driven, which they believe is why he is so successful. And that Mr. Jobs possesses integrity as long as he gets his way; however they did not elaborate on this.""

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A Handsome Lie - Rich Lowry - National Review Online

A Handsome Lie - Rich Lowry - National Review Online: "Ultimately, though, she was a plaything at the sultan’s court. He never kissed her. Once, as she was smuggled along on a trip with JFK, Dave Powers made her sit on the floor of his car to hide from the White House staff — unsuccessfully. During a White House swim, she says, JFK commanded her to perform oral sex on Powers, and, to her humiliation, she complied. Later, he prodded her to do the same for his “baby brother,” Teddy."

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Althouse: "Hey, I heard that there was a Supweem Court Justice on 'Sesame Street.'"

Althouse: "Hey, I heard that there was a Supweem Court Justice on 'Sesame Street.'": "Notice the emphasis on conflict resolution and building community. Fine. But I'm not satisfied with the observation that Goldilocks didn't intentionally break the chair. Goldilocks intentionally broke into a private home. Why is there no attention to that? If somebody broke into my house when I was away, I would be outraged, even if nothing were broken. I would also not accept a glued-together chair as an adequate replacement for an unbroken chair. "

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The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision | Mediaite

The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision | Mediaite: "There are two media myths and inventions that are most commonly cited.

Myth 1: The Court invalidated disclosure requirements in political advertising, thereby allowing donors to remain anonymous.

Wrong. The Court ruled just the opposite and upheld, by an 8-1 vote, the McCain-Feingold requirement of identifying donors.

Myth 2: That the Court’s ruling in Citizens United opened the door to wealthy individuals like Sheldon Adelson to pour millions of dollars into PACs."

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The making of gay marriage's top foe - Gay Marriage - Salon.com

The making of gay marriage's top foe - Gay Marriage - Salon.com: "Those would seem to be the hard facts, the evidence on which pure thought would operate. But for Gallagher these facts are temporal, contingent and ultimately meaningless. They just appear to be facts. In an email two months after our first conversation, she explains why her opponents are mistaken: “One of the lessons I learned as a young woman from the collapse of Communism is this: Trying to build a society around a fundamental lie about human nature can be done, for a while, with intense energy (and often at great cost); but it cannot hold.” "

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The making of gay marriage's top foe - Gay Marriage - Salon.com

The making of gay marriage's top foe - Gay Marriage - Salon.com: "All the smartest people in the world, draped in all their Ph.D.s, were saying that sex and procreation were separate things, and of course that was just completely not true. The Catholic Church was the only institution that was saying that was not true. On the big issues, I began to realize that on all the issues I thought most deeply about, the church was right.”"

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The making of gay marriage's top foe - Gay Marriage - Salon.com

The making of gay marriage's top foe - Gay Marriage - Salon.com: "The organization she founded in 2007, the National Organization for Marriage, helped organize the successful effort in 2008 to pass Proposition 8 in California, overturning that state’s same-sex-marriage statute. (A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that it violated the Constitution, setting up a likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.) In 2009, her organization contributed over 60 percent of the entire budget of Stand for Marriage Maine, the primary organization behind Proposition 1, the referendum that overturned Maine’s same-sex marriage law. In 2010, National Organization for Marriage money helped determine the election that ousted three Iowa Supreme Court justices who had upheld same-sex marriage."

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Occupy Wall Street’s latest challenge—Frank J. Fleming - NYPOST.com

Occupy Wall Street’s latest challenge—Frank J. Fleming - NYPOST.com: "What’s made OWS so successful? That’s easy to see when you look at less successful movements — like the civil-rights movement, which was huge in the 1960s but then lost momentum. Why did it falter? Because it had goals and met them."

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EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty: "7. Goldberg made at least two other points that I appreciated. The first one is that "the libertarian in the room asks the right question: Why is this a job for government?" Without the libertarian in the room, I would say that the question does not get asked.* The second one is that politicians always are disappointment. If nothing else, the pressure to win votes limits their ability to stick to principles."

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hear hear.

Rod Dreher » The real Maggie Gallagher

Rod Dreher » The real Maggie Gallagher: ": it is not an occasion of happiness to see people taking pleasure in things that are ultimately disordered. One can certainly understand why same-sex couples would be happy — I certainly do, and wish no one any ill — and at the same time think that the thing that pleases them will, in the long run, be bad for all of us."

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Social Security Fund Is Fast Going Bankrupt, So Why Are We Sticking With A Broken Model? - Investors.com

Social Security Fund Is Fast Going Bankrupt, So Why Are We Sticking With A Broken Model? - Investors.com: "That means the trust fund runs dry sooner than its projected 2036 bankruptcy date. When that happens, workers can expect a legally mandated 22% cut in Social Security benefits when they retire.

So, after forking over 12.4% of their earnings — both directly and through their employers — for 35 or 40 years, they can look forward to receiving a less-than-zero-percent return while continuing to spend their working lives paying 100% of the promised benefits to current retirees."

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John F Kennedy bought 1,200 Cuban cigars hours before he ordered US trade embargo | Mail Online

John F Kennedy bought 1,200 Cuban cigars hours before he ordered US trade embargo | Mail Online: "President John F Kennedy ordered an aide to buy him as many Cuban cigars as he could just hours before he authorised the U.S. trade embargo - which subsequently made them illegal.

Kennedy asked his head of press and fellow cigar smoker Pierre Salinger to obtain '1,000 Petit Upmanns' on February 6, 1962, so he could have them in his hands before they were deemed contraband."

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obama-super-pac-flip-flops.jpg (1024×680)

obama-super-pac-flip-flops.jpg (1024×680):

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Hah. It's almost like he has no moral core.

The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "Elsewhere in her post, Maggie says that Romney is “everything except authentic.” I hear this a lot, from pundits. But I wonder whether we’re qualified to judge another person’s authenticity. It is a very big psychological claim, to say that another person is inauthentic. This goes double for a person we know only from a distance.

If Romney shouted more, à la Santorum, or created personal dramas, à la Newt — would that make him more authentic? An even temperament can be perfectly authentic. I’ve always thought I should have more of one."

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Calif. same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional - The Washington Post

Calif. same-sex marriage ban ruled unconstitutional - The Washington Post: "A federal appeals panel in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that California’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional right to equal protection.

The panel overturned Proposition 8, which was approved by 52 percent of the state’s voters in 2008 and amended the state’s constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "If we keep adding jobs at roughly the pace we added them in December and January, then the United States will return to full employment some time in 2024."

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Tom Brady in postgame daze of disappointment after another Super Bowl loss to the Giants - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

Tom Brady in postgame daze of disappointment after another Super Bowl loss to the Giants - NFL - Yahoo! Sports: "The minutes ticked by and Brady didn’t move. Across the Patriots’ locker room there was dejection and depression, hushed whispers and thousand-yard stares. This is the pain of almost having everything. This was the hurt of winding up with nothing. All the money these guys make, all the glory they receive, it does nothing in times like this, the losing locker room after the biggest of games."

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‘For a Blunder, That’s Too Big’ - By Jason Lee Steorts - The Corner - National Review Online

‘For a Blunder, That’s Too Big’ - By Jason Lee Steorts - The Corner - National Review Online: "By the evidence, we can say with some confidence that dead people do not come back to life, but this does not stop Christians from believing that, on a certain occasion, one did. The claim is so spectacularly at odds with the empirical evidence that it is hard to see a Christian as applying an evidentiary standard at all."

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Frank Rich’s Mormon Problem — and Mitt’s - By Michael Walsh - The Corner - National Review Online

Frank Rich’s Mormon Problem — and Mitt’s - By Michael Walsh - The Corner - National Review Online: "Which is why Romney’s in for a rough, dirty, and ugly ride. The Left cannot abide a faith such as Mormonism, whose adherents by example give the lie to just about everything it stands for — moral relativism, abortion, sexual license, personal irresponsibility — and so it attempts to marginalize Mormons in the press and in pop culture (Big Love, The Book of Mormon) in a way that it would never dare to do with Muslims."

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Do Manufacturers Need Special Treatment? - Economic View - NYTimes.com

Do Manufacturers Need Special Treatment? - Economic View - NYTimes.com: "A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it’s better to produce “real things” than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers. And our earnings from exporting architectural plans for a building in Shanghai are as real as those from exporting cars to Canada."

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Obama: Jesus would back my tax-the-rich policy - Feb. 2, 2012

Obama: Jesus would back my tax-the-rich policy - Feb. 2, 2012: "Obama said that as a person who has been "extraordinarily blessed," he is willing to give up some of the tax breaks he enjoys because doing so makes economic, and religious sense.
"For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus's teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required," Obama said, quoting the Gospel of Luke."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: " to threatening the United States, Khamenei said this: “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and it will be removed.” While we don’t know how or why a mention of this element of the speech managed to get excised from the account in the Times, it’s a question worth pondering."

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Arnold Kling: Government Cannot Create Sustainable Jobs - WSJ.com

Arnold Kling: Government Cannot Create Sustainable Jobs - WSJ.com: " Smith famously described the advantages of specialization and division of labor. Ricardo pointed out the gains from trade that come from consuming goods that others produce more efficiently. From the perspective of Smith and Ricardo, real jobs emerge in the context of patterns of sustainable specialization and trade."

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The politics of fairness: Fairly confusing | The Economist

The politics of fairness: Fairly confusing | The Economist: " It may not be the case that fairness is, as Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, puts it, "a concept invented so dumb people could participate in arguments". But it cannot be denied that fairness is an idea both mutable and contested."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "The Romney-Paul alliance is more than a curious connection. It is a strategic partnership: for Paul, an opportunity to gain a seat at the table if his long-shot bid for the presidency fails; for Romney, a chance to gain support from one of the most vibrant subgroups within the Republican Party."

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I think I noted this, like, weeks if not months ago.

The "Mormon Mask"? - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

The "Mormon Mask"? - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast: "More visual examples of Mitt "overdoing it" here. I was chatting with a Mormon friend the other day and asking him what Mormons make of Mitt on this uncanny valley question. The phrase he came up with is "the Mormon mask." It's the kind of public presentation that a Mormon with real church authority deploys when dealing with less elevated believers, talking to them, and advising them. The cheery aw-shucks fake niceness in person is a function in part, some believe, of the role he has long played in the church: always a leader."

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Oh Andrew! Why does anyone take you seriously?

Theodore Olson: Obama's Enemies List - WSJ.com

Theodore Olson: Obama's Enemies List - WSJ.com: "What would you do if the White House engaged in derogatory speculative innuendo about the integrity of your tax returns? Suppose also that the president's surrogates and allies in the media regularly attacked you, sullied your reputation and questioned your integrity. On top of all of that, what if a leading member of the president's party in Congress demanded your appearance before a congressional committee this week so that you could be interrogated about the Keystone XL oil pipeline project in which you have repeatedly—and accurately—stated that you have no involvement?

Consider that all this is happening because you have been selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president's re-election team. This is precisely what has happened to Charles and David Koch, even though they are private citizens, and neither is a candidate for the president's or anyone else's office."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: "He won every age group, every region of the state (his biggest margins were in Miami-Dade, northeast Florida, and Tampa Bay), men as well as women, Latinos by a huge margin, Catholic voters (by 26 points over two Roman Catholic candidates), moderates, self-identified conservatives, and Tea Party voters."

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