Swingin’ Kennedy - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

Swingin’ Kennedy - Mark Steyn - National Review Online: "John Conyers (a congressman for 47 years) didn’t bother reading the 2,700-page health-care bill he voted for. As he said with disarming honesty, he wouldn’t understand it even if he did: “They get up and say, ‘Read the bill.’ What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”"

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Swingin’ Kennedy - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

Swingin’ Kennedy - Mark Steyn - National Review Online: "“I’ve argued for years in these pages that governmentalized health care fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizen and state in ways that” — and here’s the bit Justice Kennedy isn’t quite on board with yet — “make it all but impossible to have genuinely conservative government ever again.”"

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It's the Kennedy Court - PointOfLaw Featured Discussion

It's the Kennedy Court - PointOfLaw Featured Discussion: " The framers could not have anticipated a country with 50 million people without health insurance or the enormous costs that imposes on the economy."

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Right. Instead of small fraction of people going without health insurance, none of the framing generation had health insurance. They could not have anticipated so many of us would have insurance to cover something that should not require insurance.

Bench Memos - National Review Online

Bench Memos - National Review Online: "Former Solicitor General Paul Clement’s sterling performance in the Obamacare oral arguments this week provides an encouraging reminder of the extraordinary depth of legal talent among relatively young conservatives who are serious prospects for a Supreme Court nomination if a Republican is elected president this November."

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I've only listened to his argument on Tuesday, but I agree. He was totally stellar.

Althouse: "Tony Scalia's Retirement Has Started Early."

Althouse: "Tony Scalia's Retirement Has Started Early.": "That would mean that if we struck down nothing in this legislation but the -- what's it called, the Cornhusker kickback, okay, we find that to violate the constitutional proscription of venality, okay? (Laughter.)"

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Ouch! Ben Nelson must have a headache.

The Volokh Conspiracy

The Volokh Conspiracy: "Rick has also been the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking a database from the State Bar of California; experts on both sides of the affirmative action debate agree that the California Bar data would provide uniquely powerful tests of Rick’s “mismatch” hypothesis. He and his co-plaintiffs won before the California Court of Appeals last summer; a petition for review in that case is now pending before the California Supreme Court."

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Funny how liberals are always telling us that they are the reality-based community, and that conservatives hate science and data, and facts. And yet liberals do not want a UCLA professor even looking at the bar data to test whether affirmative action might be hurting black students.

TaxProf Blog: The Most Popular Law Schools (Schools with the Highest Yields)

TaxProf Blog: The Most Popular Law Schools (Schools with the Highest Yields): "These are the 10 ranked law schools with the highest yield rates for the 2011-2012 school year. Due to a tie, there are 11 schools on this list.
Law School        
Accepted   
Enrolled   
Yield        
US News Rank   
Yale 252 205 81.3% 1
BYU 207 145 70.0% 39
Harvard 842 559 66.4% 3
Southern 403 258 64.0% RNP
North Carolina        462 248 53.7% 38
Georgia State 423 223 52.7% 58
Virginia 688 357 51.9% 7
Liberty 200 99 49.5% RNP
Stanford 372 180 48.4% 2
Memphis 302 144 47.7% RNP
New Mexico 237 113 47.7% 69"

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Bench Memos - National Review Online

Bench Memos - National Review Online: "Verrilli had to admit that there was no other statute that the Court has ever said was an exercise of the taxing power but didn’t fall under the Anti-Injunction Act’s definition of a tax. "

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JustOneMinute: Great Insights From Statistical Analysis

JustOneMinute: Great Insights From Statistical Analysis: " But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show."

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This betrays a profound lack of economic understanding.

Bubble Babies Dream of Unicorns and Rainbows - By David French - The Corner - National Review Online

Bubble Babies Dream of Unicorns and Rainbows - By David French - The Corner - National Review Online: "When I see the overwhelming pride and sense of importance of so many members of the new creative class, I see delusion. No, you do not “incite change” when you’re a cog in a vast technological machine. You have an interesting job, certainly. And you experience prosperity, definitely. But changing the world? Hardly. There’s not an app for that."

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Santorum: Might As Well Have Obama Over Romney « CBS DC

Santorum: Might As Well Have Obama Over Romney « CBS DC: "Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday said Republicans should give President Barack Obama another term if Santorum isn’t the GOP nominee and for a second day compared rival Mitt Romney to an Etch A Sketch toy."

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Rick, please. This is one of the reasons people don't support you. You're not cool-headed.

From Sears to Britannica, creative destruction rewards change - The Washington Post

From Sears to Britannica, creative destruction rewards change - The Washington Post: "America now is divided between those who find this social churning unnerving and those who find it exhilarating. What Virginia Postrel postulated in 1998 in “The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress” — the best book for rescuing the country from a ruinous itch for tidiness — is even more true now. Today’s primary political and cultural conflict is, Postrel says, between people, mislabeled “progressives,” who crave social stasis, and those, paradoxically called conservatives, who welcome the perpetual churning of society by dynamism."

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What Happens When A 35-Year-Old Man Retakes The SAT? — deadspin.com — Readability

What Happens When A 35-Year-Old Man Retakes The SAT? — deadspin.com — Readability:

Stupid SAT. Hip hop is the genre. Rapping is the vocal style performed WITHIN that genre. This is the whitest question ever.

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John Edwards is First Name Uncovered in 'Millionaire Madam' Investigation - DNAinfo.com

John Edwards is First Name Uncovered in 'Millionaire Madam' Investigation - DNAinfo.com: "Edwards is the first big name to surface in connection to Gristina's alleged prostitution scheme run out of an Upper East Side apartment.

Edwards' lawyer declined to comment when reached Wednesday.  On Thursday morning, his attorneys issued a statement to Politico and other news outlets saying their client "categorically" denied the allegation. "

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This seems familiar.

Controversial Painter Depicts Obama With Burning Constitution « CBS DC

Controversial Painter Depicts Obama With Burning Constitution « CBS DC: "When asked for an opinion, Saltz said that the painting contained “bad academic derivative realism,” calling it “typical propaganda art, drop-dead obvious in message” and “visually dead as a doornail.”"

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A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not "Crazy" - The Huffington Post

A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not "Crazy" - The Huffington Post: "But gaslighting can be as simple as someone smiling and saying something like, "You're so sensitive," to somebody else. Such a comment may seem innocuous enough, but in that moment, the speaker is making a judgment about how someone else should feel."

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But sometimes feelings aren't justified.

Finally, Romney gets tea party support - Washington Times

Finally, Romney gets tea party support - Washington Times: "“It is a statistical fact that the numbers favor Mitt Romney,” FreedomWorks Vice President Russ Walker told The Times on Tuesday. “We are dedicated to defeating Obama and electing a conservative Senate that will help Romney repeal Obamacare and address the nation’s economic and spending challenges.”"

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I always thought the "inevitable" argument was pretty condescending. But I guess it works!

New World Apocalypse, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

New World Apocalypse, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty: " Lastly, they burned the precious books salvaged by surviving Aztec priests, and then fed the priests to Spanish dogs of war."

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BOOM'S DUNGEON: And you thought you like Dostoevsky ....

BOOM'S DUNGEON: And you thought you like Dostoevsky ....: "The Russian language has plenty of regional dialects, professional and criminal jargons, slang expressions, and other sources of phonetic, syntactic, and semantic deviations from the linguistic mainstream.   But using any of them would give the readers a thoroughly misleading and faintly surreal impression that under the skin of a Southern plantation Negro hides a Siberian peasant, a Chechen gangster, or an old Jew from Odessa."

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Ideas: Nordhaus on Global Warming

Ideas: Nordhaus on Global Warming: "Even if one takes seriously the output of that sort of procedure, there is a striking asymmetry in their approach. They do not appear to have asked any experts what the chance is that preventing global warming would cause a catastrophe—or, to put it differently, that global warming will prevent one. Yet, as I keep pointing out, earth's climate was not designed for us, hence there is no a priori reason to assume that large negative results due to a few degrees of warming are more likely than large positive ones."

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Obama campaign says ‘white first lady’ joke was ‘inappropriate’ - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Obama campaign says ‘white first lady’ joke was ‘inappropriate’ - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room: "Now, do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?” De Niro said, to laughter from the crowd. When someone in the audience yelled, “No!” De Niro continued, “Too soon, right?”"

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The left is obsessed with race.

Republican budget draws election contrast with Obama | Reuters

Republican budget draws election contrast with Obama | Reuters: "The budget proposes sweeping changes to the popular government-run Medicare healthcare program for the elderly, a politically risky gambit for Republicans who faced a voter backlash last year when they offered a similar plan.

It also seeks to cap discretionary federal spending on education, transportation and other government programs at $1.029 trillion, roughly $18 billion less than Democrats want. That sets up a battle over spending that, if unresolved, could lead to a government shutdown later this year."

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I doubt this will happen. But when the U.S looks like Greece in 20 years, we will look back at Paul Ryan as a wise oracle.

The Volokh Conspiracy

The Volokh Conspiracy: "A recent Washington Post/ABC poll shows that 68% of the public want the Supreme Court to strike down the individual health insurance mandate. That includes 42% who want the Court to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act and 26% who want it to strike down the mandate alone. If forced to choose, 52% of those who want the Court to strike down only the mandate would prefer for the Court to get rid of the entire law, if that is the only way to rule the mandate unconstitutional. That means that some 55% would rather have the Court invalidate the entire law than leave the mandate in place. By a 52-41 margin, respondents in the WP/ABC poll also say that they disapprove of the health care law overall."

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Althouse

Althouse: "But the ability to blog these things in real time is something that we now see as an essential check on liberal media. It's frightening in retrospect to think of the one-sided manipulations we simply endured back then."

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Health care reform: Four inconvenient truths - POLITICO.com

Health care reform: Four inconvenient truths - POLITICO.com: "2) Costs aren’t going to go down.

The video released by the Obama campaign Thursday has a graph that shows health insurance premiums climbing and climbing — way above general inflation. Giving families and businesses relief was a big part of Obama’s sales pitch for health care reform."

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Health care reform: Four inconvenient truths - POLITICO.com

Health care reform: Four inconvenient truths - POLITICO.com: "“President Obama repeatedly promised during the health care debate, ‘if you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it,’” House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans said in a statement Friday. “Even under CBO’s ‘best estimate,’ President Obama will have broken his promise to 3 million to 5 million Americans each year, but unfortunately, that number could be much higher.”"

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Blagojevich statement: Blago to address the media - POLITICO.com

Blagojevich statement: Blago to address the media - POLITICO.com: "Blagojevich is just the latest Illinois governor to serve time: Four of the last nine have been convicted of crimes. Blagojevich’s predecessor, former Gov. George Ryan, is currently serving a six-and-a-half year corruption sentence in the federal prison at Terre Haute, Ind."

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Obama’s Stimulus Helped Grow Debt, Not Economy: Ramesh Ponnuru - Bloomberg

Obama’s Stimulus Helped Grow Debt, Not Economy: Ramesh Ponnuru - Bloomberg: "In other words: If you assume that stimulus works, it must have worked."

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Obama’s Stimulus Helped Grow Debt, Not Economy: Ramesh Ponnuru - Bloomberg

Obama’s Stimulus Helped Grow Debt, Not Economy: Ramesh Ponnuru - Bloomberg: "Factcheck.org says it’s “just false” to deny that the stimulus has created jobs. It cites the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the stimulus had saved or created millions of jobs. But the CBO, as its director has explained, hasn’t really checked the effect of the stimulus. It has merely reported what the results of additional federal spending and tax credits would be if you assume that spending and tax credits are stimulative."

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The Fluke Charade - Mark Steyn - National Review Online

The Fluke Charade - Mark Steyn - National Review Online: "When even casual sex requires a state welfare program, you’re pretty much done for."

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The Corner - National Review Online

The Corner - National Review Online: " “If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him. It will forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.” The situation seemed to her familiar, and her essay was a blistering indictment of the failures of the largely white faculty of her school: “When I find myself sitting in a crowded classroom where no real instruction is taking place I can say history does repeat itself.”"

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The Party of Hate | Power Line

The Party of Hate | Power Line: "Obama has been the most divisive president in our modern history, unabashedly stirring up hate against not only his political enemies, but against private citizens who exercise their right to participate in our democracy. "

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Saddest Twitter Bio Ever

Saddest Twitter Bio Ever:

I thought so too. Then I read her twitter feed:

"happy about the press from buzz feed. I fail to see how it's sad. I choose to work even tho I make $ off residuals/trust #ImGrounded"

Pretty cool.

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Matt Ridley: The Beginning Of The End Of Wind

Matt Ridley: The Beginning Of The End Of Wind: "To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine — despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide."

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Will Someone Send Me a PDF of Matt Yglesias’ New Book?

Will Someone Send Me a PDF of Matt Yglesias’ New Book?: " I’ll be honest, it’s not the sort of thing I would pay to download ($4 for what amounts to an extended blog post? Are you kidding me? Who does he think he is? He deserves to have people steal his work for his hubris alone, am I right? You’re telling me it’ll be published later this week and it’s not available to me THIS VERY INSTANT?"

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Into the BlackBxx: Chasing Andrew

Into the BlackBxx: Chasing Andrew: "Like every American that morning, I was greeted by coworkers in various states of shock, portable TVs turned to the news in all the offices. Like every American, I was approached by a number of colleagues who wished to vent and commiserate.

But unlike every American, my coworkers expressed little or no anger toward the terrorists who had committed this atrocity. Rather, they directed their vitriol towards American Imperialism, American foreign policy, American arrogance, American warmongering, American racism and, most of all, our American President, the evil, unfathomably stupid, idiot-Christian, bumbling Texan oaf, George W. Bush."

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Into the BlackBxx: Chasing Andrew

Into the BlackBxx: Chasing Andrew: ""Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.""

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Rush Limbaugh Isn’t the Only Media Misogynist - The Daily Beast

Rush Limbaugh Isn’t the Only Media Misogynist - The Daily Beast: "Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened."

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Romney's quest for White House began years ago, costing $200 million | McClatchy

Romney's quest for White House began years ago, costing $200 million | McClatchy: "Fred Wertheimer, the dean of Washington campaign finance watchdogs as president of the nonpartisan group Democracy 21. "

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LOL!

Romney's quest for White House began years ago, costing $200 million | McClatchy

Romney's quest for White House began years ago, costing $200 million | McClatchy: "A look back shows the depth of Romney's investment in trying to win the nation's highest office, how his supporters circumvented federal campaign laws with huge, back-channel donations years before he declared his candidacy and who the benefactors are whom he might owe favors if he wins."

Is this an advocacy piece. "Circumvented"--meaning complied with? "Back channel" -- meaning legal?

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We're More Than Political Animals - WSJ.com

We're More Than Political Animals - WSJ.com: "Afterward I thought again of something that has been on my mind the past five years or so. Longer, actually, but more so with time. In a way the argument between conservatives and progressives is that for the left, everything is about politics. Because they seek to harness government and the law in pursuit of what they see as just and desirable ends, everything becomes a political fight. Conservatives fought that narrow, constricted, soulless view of life: "We are not only political, we have other spheres, we are human beings.""

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The Vetting, Part I: Barack's Love Song To Alinsky

The Vetting, Part I: Barack's Love Song To Alinsky: "The play finishes with Alinsky announcing he’d rather go to Hell than Heaven. Why? “More comfortable there. You see, all my life I’ve been with the Have-Nots: here you’re a Have-Not if you’re short of money, there you’re a Have-Not if you’re short of virtue. I’d be asking more questions, organizing them. They’re my kind of people – Hell would be Heaven for me.”"

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Classical Values » What Would Breitbart Do?

Classical Values » What Would Breitbart Do?: "So, she goes in front of Congress and lies, and the President of the United States personally telephones her and tells her how brave she was. For lying. (Some people the President hasn’t called to praise for bravery: the families of Brian Terry and others killed by the Fast and Furious gunrunning program, Joe the Plumber, Syrian pro-democracy activists)."

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News from The Associated Press

News from The Associated Press: ""I'm a Christian and he's a Mormon," said Tamara McGhee, 45, a teacher from Douglasville, Ga., who remains undecided between Gingrich and Santorum. "That may create some bias with me because we have very different religions.""

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Andrew Breitbart

I feel sad at Andrew Breitbart's passing, and that surprises me. Part of the feeling is due to the fact that he was young and leaves behind a young family. But more than that, I feel that the loss of Breitbart is the loss of a very effective warrior for conservatism.

He was always pretty indignant about liberals, so it always somewhat concerned me that his media appearances might do more harm that good. The Sherrod incident was also a big mistake. The way that video was edited definitely left a different impression of what Sherrod was saying than the full video gave. Breitbart said he received the video edited,and I believe that. As Mickey Kaus points out, Breitbart took steps to correct the record, when he felt it needed to be corrected, even if the correction wasn't in his interests. Still it was probably a mistake not to vet the Sherrod video more thoroughly. The editing obscured the point the video still tended to proved. Sherrod told a story of redemption. But the NAACP crowd's reactions to the parts of the tape that Sherrod later repudiates, showing their agreement with the racist (anti-white, if that "counts") sentiment.

But I think I'm most sad because I'm not sure anyone will do what Breitbart did. He was a great counterbalance to the MSM's gotcha journalism and a very effective warrior against what I guess you could call the liberal establishment. He and James O'Keeffe took down ACORN. The bounty he offered for the jounolist archives and emails went a long way to showing that there was something untoward about it. The reward he offered for any video showing tea partiers shouting racist the n-word did a great deal to discredit that story. He took down Wiener. He did all this with such savvy. He'd never show his full hand, let the target twist in the wind and deny, deny, deny. Only after they'd thoroughly denied, would he completely expose them. He was basically conservative's prosecutor of the liberal establishment and he had a great flair for cross examination. Even in death, he's exposing liberal intolerance. So I am sad, because Breitbart's death is a big loss for conservatives.

Super PACs can’t crown a king - The Washington Post

Super PACs can’t crown a king - The Washington Post: "Notice that the fellow with the most muscular super PAC, Mitt Romney, has failed to vanquish a singularly weak set of rivals. Might the power of political dollars be finite, and utility of the last dollar be less than that of the first?"

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To call a spade a spade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To call a spade a spade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The phrase predates the use of the word "spade" as an ethnic slur against African Americans, which was not recorded until 1928; however, in contemporary U.S. society, the idiom is often avoided due to potential confusion with the slur.[1]"

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