Verbosities

Matthew Yglesias (December 20, 2007) - Working for the (Expensive) Clampdown (Domestic Policy)

Ryan Avent points out that Prince William County is finding that big crackdowns on illegal immigration cost a lot of money, remarking "Prince William would be far better off identifying the people who claim to be harmed by immigration and figuring out how much money it would take to shut them up."

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Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com::Blog

Would It Kill...

Time or Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi or any on the left to say: "Well done, American soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine?"

The turnaround in Iraq in 2007 is remarkable. It will be the subject of study and praise a hundred years from now. (If the West endures.) What is wrong with the analysts (and the Dems) that they cannot see this very obvious thing?

Wait, if we're "winning" Hugh, doesn't that mean that the West shall live on? Doesn't that mean that we're winning the Existential War On Brown People over there, so all we need is a fifty foot wall from Texas to San Diego to finish the job over here? I'm confused... what happens if "the West" disappears? Will I be able to get my money back from REI on the compass I bought for camping?

(By the way, it's obvious in retrospect what Hewitt (and others) were trying to do by "making the case" that Petraeus was the only choice for Time's Man Of The Year. They were gearing up to rend their garments over Al Gore getting the nod. When the choice was Putin instead, they were totally robbed of their whining jag, much to the chagrin of everyone who was paying attention.)

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Hot Air » Blog Archive » Another candidate question from the AP yields more comedy gold from Fred

The AP has rolled out the answers to one more of its silly candidate questions, this one about who is the candidate’s favorite 20th century president.

[snip]

Which brings us to teh Fred, recipient of Rep. Steve King’s endorsement yesterday.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson: “Martin Sheen.” The fellow actor played two Democratic presidents on TV, the fictional Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing” and John Kennedy in a miniseries.

He must have chuckled to himself all the way through filling out this questionnaire, much as a mischievous 6th grader filling in joke answers to questions on a test that won’t count to his final grade (yeah, I used to do that all the time, all the way through college).

Alright StB, does this show...

(a) A humorous side to the candidate, apropos of no larger agenda
(b) A light-hearted jab at the ridiculousness of answering the same questions over and over again on the campaign trail
(c) Contempt for the so-called "Liberal Media" by refusing to play their reindeer games
(d) An attempt to inject some of that down-home charisma that's been missing in his appearances into the campaign
(e) Something else entirely that I'm missing

I find it kinda goofy and endearing, although it's hard not to picture an angry elitist Thompson at his keyboard seething with contempt over being made part of the same dog-and-pony show the damned Librul Meedya is running everyone else through.

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Power Line: Another Arizona Republican throws in with Russ Feingold on "ethics" legislation

John Fund reports on an effort by certain Senators, including the normally sensible John Kyl, to restrict the ability of federal judges to obtain continuing legal education and to appear at private law schools where they might educate others. The effort takes the form of an amendment to legislation raising the pay of federal judges. The amendment would ban federal judges from attending non-government or bar association-sponsored seminars and educational programs. It would also cap at $5,000 the amount judges may receive annually in reimbursement for travel, meals etc. for speaking engagements, and at $1,500 the amount they may receive per speaking engagement unless the funding comes from the federal or State government or a bar association.

The general effect of the amendment would be to make it difficult for anyone other than bar associations to have programs at which judges appear. One specific effect would likely be to shut down George Mason’s highly respected programs for training judges in, among other areas, the intersection of law and economics.

Though the left has been railing against the George Mason programs for years, Fund points out that judges of all persuasions have found them invaluable. For example, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who attended two such programs, wrote: “For lifting the veil on such mysteries as regression analysis, and for advancing both learning and collegial relationships among federal judges, my enduring appreciation." And, though critics like Russ Feingold, who is sponsoring the amendment along with Kyl, argue that the George Mason programs represent "a way for corporations to reach out to judges," Fund notes that corporate sponsors account for less than 10 percent of the budget for George Mason's seminars, and lecturers address only general principles of how the law intersects with economics, not specific controversial issues.

There’s no mystery as to why liberal Senators like Feingold wish to hand a monopoly on judge’s appearances and judge's continuing legal education to the public sector and, above all, to liberal bar groups. Feingold well understands that the less judges know, especially about economics, the more likely they are to issue knee-jerk decisions informed more by emotion than by sound reasoning.

Why Senator Kyl has thrown in with Feingold is less clear. Perhaps he believes that judges should have to give up “junkets” as a condition of receiving their pay increase. But under the amendment, judges won’t have to give up junkets; they will only have to give up non-bar-Association-sponsored junkets, thus leaving themselves at the mercy of the official Judicial Conference programs, which tilt left.

This issue isn't really all that hard to understand. Judges are nominated to the federal bench by a (presumably) ideologically-compatible administration. They already come pre-packaged with their own legal theories through which they interpret the cases they are asked to adjudicate. We all understand this, and the vetting/confirmation process is what puts this all on the table up front.

So there are lefty judges, middle-of-the-road judges and righty judges. We all get that.

Now, the problem isn't that the judges are merely "obtain(ing) continuing legal education." It's that there have been cases where federal judges have been sent on junkets by corporations with cases pending in federal courts. Whether or not there's any sort of influence being peddled - from subtle ideological shifts to outright bribery - we can all agree that when a judge gives the appearance of conflicted interest, that is reason enough for attorneys representing either side to request a mistrial or recusal.

Look, if it were at all humanly possible to seal federal judges in a protective bubble free from any and all outside influence from the moment they are seated on the bench, that'd be the optimal solution. In the absence of that, it is absolutely crucial to prevent the appearance that the judges could conceivably be in anyone's pocket. The Power Line article does mention that there are current regulations on the books that mandate the disclosure of "gifts" (which includes travel and lodging, presumably) and all "education programs" which they attend, but if a Pinko Commie like Feingold and a Rabid Wingnut like Kyl both agree that disclosure doesn't go far enough, I'd like to think this is the type of bipartisan solution that makes sense to all involved.

Judges shouldn't be in anyone's pocket, nor should there ever be a shadow of a doubt about that fact.

(And by the way, when a Power Line blogger accuses the Bar Association of providing programs that "tilt left," what he generally means is that they don't uniformly tilt right. If there's a concern over the quality of the ideology being peddled, some of these conservative-leaning college programs should aim for Bar Association sponsorship. I'm sure that would be a better answer than to continue to allow Monsanto to put fifteen federal judges from the heartland up on Marco Island for three nights of prime rib and gimlets [not that that's happened, it's just a hypothetical].)

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Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com::Blog

"Man of the Year" is right around the corner, and it is so obvious that General David Petraeus and the men and women of the American military are right choice that not even Time will screw this one up.

Victory is a wonderful thing, and they have brought Iraq and its allies victory.

Okay, great. Can we end the war now?

If I were a betting man, I'd put a hundred down on Al Gore right about now. Good luck with the Petraeus prediction there Hugh.

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Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com::Blog

I don't resort to boycotts often. In seven years on the radio, I have urged exactly one: Against Target, for throwing the Salvation Army from its doorways. I still maintain my refusal to enter Target, and hope you do as well.

Looks like Boycott #2 is on the horizon. I thought the Human Rights Commission complaint against columnist-to-the-world Mark Steyn was a joke, or a nuisance filing that would be rejected by the Canadian bureaucrats in a nanosecond.

But it isn't turning out that way.

If Canada can't defend the free speech of its most talented native son, then it shouldn't be getting even our devalued tourist dollars.

According to statistics I just made up, Canada's largest exports to the US are mullets and salmon, both of which can still be found in quantifiable amounts up in the Pacific Northwest. If Hugh Hewitt isn't willing to spend his money buying the NHL League Pass on Dish Network and keeping his refrigerator stocked full of Nova Scotia lox, I think it's safe to predict the Canadian economy will be brought to its knees in relatively short order.

Just so those Frenchy bastards don't misunderstand good ol' Hugh, lemme put it in terms they can understand: Viva Le Boycotte!

By the way, just so we're clear I'm not opining on the reason behind the "boycott" being somehow illegitimate. This is what happens when you take the theory of hate crime legislation and apply it in reality. It's all well and good to support the idea that we should all hate one another for the content of our hearts and not the color of our skin, but it's entirely another to have a referee standing in the middle who is supposed to approve your opinion on someone else as legitimate or illegitimate. That being said, so long as the strip clubs in Canada continue to feature TOTALLY ALL-NUDE performers and alcohol under the same roof, I'd find a boycott to be a difficult proposition, at best, to support.

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As an end-of-year gimmick, The Politico is running profiles on freshman Senators (and, hopefully, Congressmen - coughPatrickMurphycough [although he gets an "honorable mention" blurb here]). Anyway, a pretty glowing profile overall. Here's a clip:


Anti-war Webb was talk of Senate from Day 1 - Daniel W. Reilly - Politico.com

In the NBA, Sen. Jim Webb would have been a can’t-miss, No. 1 draft pick.

A decorated Vietnam veteran and a former secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, the freshman Virginia Democrat, who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, was seen early on as the leader of a new vanguard of populist, anti-war Democrats.

Given plum posts on the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees and tapped to give the response to President Bush’s State of the Union address just 19 days after he was sworn in, Webb quickly lived up to expectations, emerging this year as a leading Democratic voice in the Iraq war debate.
“He is a unique and weird combination of street-brawler and professor,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of Webb’s closest friends.

“Intellectually, he is probably as smart, or smarter, than most folks around here,” she said.

“But he’s got an instinct. He knows when to go for the kill.”

Here's Webb from January, giving the aforementioned Democratic response to the State of the Union address. Excellent speech.

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If you're a conservative, this has to fall within the realm of "Scariest Things Imaginable," right?


Justice Clinton? - WSJ.com

Hillary Clinton's commanding lead in the polls has diminished, and with Oprah Winfrey stumping for Barack Obama, she's called increasingly on the "star power" of husband Bill. But the ubiquitous presence of the former president on the campaign prompts a question: What will Hillary do with Bill if she is elected?

[snip]

So if neither a Senate nor executive position will do, what does work? While it's probably not something the Hillary campaign would want us to contemplate, we should remember that there are three branches of government, and that it is widely anticipated that there will be one or more vacancies on the Supreme Court during the next presidential term.

Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton? Really? Talk about creating your own fearmongering propaganda out of whole cloth. At least Mr. Kmiec had the manners to write his op-ed without mentioning Bill's penis.

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