'Nuff Said

Sotomayor: A Case Study in Liberal Agitprop

Boy, there were a LOT of "interesting" stories following the announcement of the nomination of liberal activist judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Just reading the headlines of stories showed how well liberals have their game down.

Step 1 was to find a sufficiently liberal and activist judge to nominate.

Step 2 was to find one that conservatives might be hard-pressed to criticize. In this case, they chose one who is both a woman and a minority.

Step 3 is to have your willing accomplises in the media frame the narrative of news coverage in such a way that any less than fawning commentary will be construed as a vicious racist and sexist attack on a humble, up-by-her-bootstraps minority woman.

Here's a sampling of some story headlines I noticed this week:

• An Easy Choice: Souter with a Salsa Beat - Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
• Attacking Sotomayor as Too Darn Human - Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
• GOP Risks Losing Hispanics - Adam Nagourney, New York Times
• Sonia Sotomayor: A Justice Like No Other - Richard Lacayo, Time
• Diversity Helps Ensure Justice - William Marshall, Kansas City Star

I particularly like the warning: oppose Sotomayor and "risk" losing Hispanic voters. Guess what? There are hardly any Hispanic voters to lose!

Notwithstanding the fact that Pres. Bush had a number of high-level Hispanics in his administration (Alberto Gonzalez White House Counsel, and later Attorney General, Sect. of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, HUD Sect. Mel Martinez), 67% of Hispanics - 2/3rds -- voted for Obama. This I suspect is due to successful efforts by liberals and the media to caste Republicans as anti-minorty and anti-immigrant. Notwithstanding the fact that this is another untruth, the fact is that it is widely accepted.

However, it begs the question: Republicans don't "risk" losing Hispanics by leveling legitimate criticism of Sotomayor. They don't have them to lose.

It's Not About the Climate -- It's About
Cash; It's About Control

The Climate-Industrial Complex

Some businesses see nothing but profits in the green movement.

By BJORN LOMBORG

Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.

The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."

This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.

This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council -- hope to push political leaders into more drastic promises when they negotiate the Kyoto Protocol's replacement in December.

The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.

Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is "rent-seeking."

The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon.

Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations.

American electricity utility Duke Energy, a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has long promoted a U.S. cap-and-trade scheme. Yet the company bitterly opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill in the U.S. Senate that would have created such a scheme because it did not include European-style handouts to coal companies. The Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives promises to bring back the free lunch.

U.S. companies and interest groups involved with climate change hired 2,430 lobbyists just last year, up 300% from five years ago. Fifty of the biggest U.S. electric utilities -- including Duke -- spent $51 million on lobbyists in just six months.

The massive transfer of wealth that many businesses seek is not necessarily good for the rest of the economy. Spain has been proclaimed a global example in providing financial aid to renewable energy companies to create green jobs. But research shows that each new job cost Spain 571,138 euros, with subsidies of more than one million euros required to create each new job in the uncompetitive wind industry. Moreover, the programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs for every job created.

The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, "If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory business."

The World Business Summit will hear from "science and public policy leaders" seemingly selected for their scary views of global warming. They include James Lovelock, who believes that much of Europe will be Saharan and London will be underwater within 30 years; Sir Crispin Tickell, who believes that the United Kingdom's population needs to be cut by two-thirds so the country can cope with global warming; and Timothy Flannery, who warns of sea level rises as high as "an eight-story building."

Free speech is important. But these visions of catastrophe are a long way outside of mainstream scientific opinion, and they go much further than the careful findings of the United Nations panel of climate change scientists. When it comes to sea-level rise, for example, the United Nations expects a rise of between seven and 23 inches by 2100 -- considerably less than a one-story building.

There would be an outcry -- and rightfully so -- if big oil organized a climate change conference and invited only climate-change deniers.

The partnership among self-interested businesses, grandstanding politicians and alarmist campaigners truly is an unholy alliance. The climate-industrial complex does not promote discussion on how to overcome this challenge in a way that will be best for everybody. We should not be surprised or impressed that those who stand to make a profit are among the loudest calling for politicians to act. Spending a fortune on global carbon regulations will benefit a few, but dearly cost everybody else.

Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007).

Basic Economics: Higher Taxes = Less Prosperity

Great Journal op-ed on what should be plain old common sense in a rational country:

Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich

Americans know how to use the moving van to escape high taxes.

By ARTHUR LAFFER and STEPHEN MOORE

With states facing nearly $100 billion in combined budget deficits this year, we're seeing more governors than ever proposing the Barack Obama solution to balancing the budget: Soak the rich. Lawmakers in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Oregon want to raise income tax rates on the top 1% or 2% or 5% of their citizens. New Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn wants a 50% increase in the income tax rate on the wealthy because this is the "fair" way to close his state's gaping deficit.

Chad Crowe

Mr. Quinn and other tax-raising governors have been emboldened by recent studies by left-wing groups like the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities that suggest that "tax increases, particularly tax increases on higher-income families, may be the best available option." A recent letter to New York Gov. David Paterson signed by 100 economists advises the Empire State to "raise tax rates for high income families right away."

Here's the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.

And the evidence that we discovered in our new study for the American Legislative Exchange Council, "Rich States, Poor States," published in March, shows that Americans are more sensitive to high taxes than ever before. The tax differential between low-tax and high-tax states is widening, meaning that a relocation from high-tax California or Ohio, to no-income tax Texas or Tennessee, is all the more financially profitable both in terms of lower tax bills and more job opportunities.

Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.

Martin Feldstein, Harvard economist and former president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, co-authored a famous study in 1998 called "Can State Taxes Redistribute Income?" This should be required reading for today's state legislators. It concludes: "Since individuals can avoid unfavorable taxes by migrating to jurisdictions that offer more favorable tax conditions, a relatively unfavorable tax will cause gross wages to adjust. . . . A more progressive tax thus induces firms to hire fewer high skilled employees and to hire more low skilled employees."

More recently, Barry W. Poulson of the University of Colorado last year examined many factors that explain why some states grew richer than others from 1964 to 2004 and found "a significant negative impact of higher marginal tax rates on state economic growth." In other words, soaking the rich doesn't work. To the contrary, middle-class workers end up taking the hit.

Finally, there is the issue of whether high-income people move away from states that have high income-tax rates. Examining IRS tax return data by state, E.J. McMahon, a fiscal expert at the Manhattan Institute, measured the impact of large income-tax rate increases on the rich ($200,000 income or more) in Connecticut, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 5% from 4.5%; in New Jersey, which raised its rate in 2004 to 8.97% from 6.35%; and in New York, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 7.7% from 6.85%. Over the period 2002-2005, in each of these states the "soak the rich" tax hike was followed by a significant reduction in the number of rich people paying taxes in these states relative to the national average. Amazingly, these three states ranked 46th, 49th and 50th among all states in the percentage increase in wealthy tax filers in the years after they tried to soak the rich.

This result was all the more remarkable given that these were years when the stock market boomed and Wall Street gains were in the trillions of dollars. Examining data from a 2008 Princeton study on the New Jersey tax hike on the wealthy, we found that there were 4,000 missing half-millionaires in New Jersey after that tax took effect. New Jersey now has one of the largest budget deficits in the nation.

We believe there are three unintended consequences from states raising tax rates on the rich. First, some rich residents sell their homes and leave the state; second, those who stay in the state report less taxable income on their tax returns; and third, some rich people choose not to locate in a high-tax state. Since many rich people also tend to be successful business owners, jobs leave with them or they never arrive in the first place. This is why high income-tax states have such a tough time creating net new jobs for low-income residents and college graduates.

Those who disapprove of tax competition complain that lower state taxes only create a zero-sum competition where states "race to the bottom" and cut services to the poor as taxes fall to zero. They say that tax cutting inevitably means lower quality schools and police protection as lower tax rates mean starvation of public services.

They're wrong, and New Hampshire is our favorite illustration. The Live Free or Die State has no income or sales tax, yet it has high-quality schools and excellent public services. Students in New Hampshire public schools achieve the fourth-highest test scores in the nation -- even though the state spends about $1,000 a year less per resident on state and local government than the average state and, incredibly, $5,000 less per person than New York. And on the other side of the ledger, California in 2007 had the highest-paid classroom teachers in the nation, and yet the Golden State had the second-lowest test scores.

Or consider the fiasco of New Jersey. In the early 1960s, the state had no state income tax and no state sales tax. It was a rapidly growing state attracting people from everywhere and running budget surpluses. Today its income and sales taxes are among the highest in the nation yet it suffers from perpetual deficits and its schools rank among the worst in the nation -- much worse than those in New Hampshire. Most of the massive infusion of tax dollars over the past 40 years has simply enriched the public-employee unions in the Garden State. People are fleeing the state in droves.

One last point: States aren't simply competing with each other. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently told us, "Our state is competing with Germany, France, Japan and China for business. We'd better have a pro-growth tax system or those American jobs will be out-sourced." Gov. Perry and Texas have the jobs and prosperity model exactly right. Texas created more new jobs in 2008 than all other 49 states combined. And Texas is the only state other than Georgia and North Dakota that is cutting taxes this year.

The Texas economic model makes a whole lot more sense than the New Jersey model, and we hope the politicians in California, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota and New York realize this before it's too late.

Mr. Laffer is president of Laffer Associates. Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal. They are co-authors of "Rich States, Poor States" (American Legislative Exchange Council, 2009).

AlGore Rushed to Hospital -- Mugged by Reality

Cut and paste from the Wizbang blog:

News Flash: Polar Ice Caps Not Melting

Posted by Kim Priestap
Published: May 16, 2009 - 9:04 PM

James Delingpole brings us the news that a team of global warming explorers headed up to the North Pole to bring attention to all the damage global warming is wreaking on the polar ice caps. Sadly, they ran into a variety of problems that subfreezing temperatures tend to cause, one of which was they found that the ice caps are not melting but - shock!- are freezing.

They set out to the high arctic 73 days ago full of high hopes. They were going to tramp all the way to the North Pole. (But were frustrated by the unseasonal cold.) They were going to march 1000 km (they managed 434). Above all, they were going to raise awareness of "climate change" by drilling lots of holes in the polar ice cap so as to show how worryingly thin it is, and in how imminent danger of doom. (But their equipment broke in the freezing temperatures and anyway, as Christopher Booker reported the other day, there are US Army buoys which already do this job perfectly well and have found that since last March the ice has thickened by "at least half a metre").

And now to cap it all (ho ho), comes the still more tragic news that the Arctic isn't warming up dramatically after all. According to figures from the Danish Meteorological Institute - as posted by Steven Goddard on the inestimable Watts Up With That site - Arctic mean temperatures have barely changed since the start of their records in 1958. The Arctic was in fact warmer in the 1940s than it is now, but cooled between 1940 and 1980.

This is not the first time global warming explorers conducted farces like this one and ended up looking foolish.

"A Bureaucracy-Beclotted Nightmare,
Riven With Waste and Fraud"

John Steele Gordon is an economic historian who wrote a great book on the development of the American economy entitled "Empire of Wealth". Today, he writes a great op-ed in the Journal on government's lousy track record of running businesses.

Why Government Can't Run a Business

Politicians need headlines. Executives need profits. By John Steele Gordon

The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible.

In 1913, for instance, thinking it was being overcharged by the steel companies for armor plate for warships, the federal government decided to build its own plant. It estimated that a plant with a 10,000-ton annual capacity could produce armor plate for only 70% of what the steel companies charged.

When the plant was finally finished, however -- three years after World War I had ended -- it was millions over budget and able to produce armor plate only at twice what the steel companies charged. It produced one batch and then shut down, never to reopen.

Or take Medicare. Other than the source of its premiums, Medicare is no different, economically, than a regular health-insurance company. But unlike, say, UnitedHealthcare, it is a bureaucracy-beclotted nightmare, riven with waste and fraud. Last year the Government Accountability Office estimated that no less than one-third of all Medicare disbursements for durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and hospital beds, were improper or fraudulent. Medicare was so lax in its oversight that it was approving orthopedic shoes for amputees.

These examples are not aberrations; they are typical of how governments run enterprises. There are a number of reasons why this is inherently so. Among them are:

1) Governments are run by politicians, not businessmen. Politicians can only make political decisions, not economic ones. They are, after all, first and foremost in the re-election business. Because of the need to be re-elected, politicians are always likely to have a short-term bias. What looks good right now is more important to politicians than long-term consequences even when those consequences can be easily foreseen. The gathering disaster of Social Security has been obvious for years, but politics has prevented needed reforms.

And politicians tend to favor parochial interests over sound economic sense. Consider a thought experiment. There is a national widget crisis and Sen. Wiley Snoot is chairman of the Senate Widget Committee. There are two technologies that are possible solutions to the problem, with Technology A widely thought to be the more promising of the two. But the company that has been developing Technology B is headquartered in Sen. Snoot's state and employs 40,000 workers there. Which technology is Sen. Snoot going to use his vast legislative influence to push?

2) Politicians need headlines. And this means they have a deep need to do something ("Sen. Snoot Moves on Widget Crisis!"), even when doing nothing would be the better option. Markets will always deal efficiently with gluts and shortages, but letting the market work doesn't produce favorable headlines and, indeed, often produces the opposite ("Sen. Snoot Fails to Move on Widget Crisis!").

3) Governments use other people's money. Corporations play with their own money. They are wealth-creating machines in which various people (investors, managers and labor) come together under a defined set of rules in hopes of creating more wealth collectively than they can create separately.

So a labor negotiation in a corporation is a negotiation over how to divide the wealth that is created between stockholders and workers. Each side knows that if they drive too hard a bargain they risk killing the goose that lays golden eggs for both sides. Just ask General Motors and the United Auto Workers.

But when, say, a school board sits down to negotiate with a teachers union or decide how many administrators are needed, the goose is the taxpayer. That's why public-service employees now often have much more generous benefits than their private-sector counterparts. And that's why the New York City public school system had an administrator-to-student ratio 10 times as high as the city's Catholic school system, at least until Mayor Michael Bloomberg (a more than competent businessman before he entered politics) took charge of the system.

4) Government does not tolerate competition. The Obama administration is talking about creating a "public option" that would compete in the health-insurance marketplace with profit-seeking companies. But has a government entity ever competed successfully on a level playing field with private companies? I don't know of one.

5) Government enterprises are almost always monopolies and thus do not face competition at all. But competition is exactly what makes capitalism so successful an economic system. The lack of it has always doomed socialist economies.

When the federal government nationalized the phone system in 1917, justifying it as a wartime measure that would lower costs, it turned it over to the Post Office to run. (The process was called "postalization," a word that should send shivers down the back of any believer in free markets.) But despite the promise of lower prices, practically the first thing the Post Office did when it took over was . . . raise prices.

Cost cutting is alien to the culture of all bureaucracies. Indeed, when cost cutting is inescapable, bureaucracies often make cuts that will produce maximum public inconvenience, generating political pressure to reverse the cuts.

6) Successful corporations are run by benevolent despots. The CEO of a corporation has the power to manage effectively. He decides company policy, organizes the corporate structure, and allocates resources pretty much as he thinks best. The board of directors ordinarily does nothing more than ratify his moves (or, of course, fire him). This allows a company to act quickly when needed.

But American government was designed by the Founding Fathers to be inefficient, and inefficient it most certainly is. The president is the government's CEO, but except for trivial matters he can't do anything without the permission of two separate, very large committees (the House and Senate) whose members have their own political agendas. Government always has many cooks, which is why the government's broth is so often spoiled.

7) Government is regulated by government. When "postalization" of the nation's phone system appeared imminent in 1917, Theodore Vail, the president of AT&T, admitted that his company was, effectively, a monopoly. But he noted that "all monopolies should be regulated. Government ownership would be an unregulated monopoly."

It is government's job to make and enforce the rules that allow a civilized society to flourish. But it has a dismal record of regulating itself. Imagine, for instance, if a corporation, seeking to make its bottom line look better, transferred employee contributions from the company pension fund to its own accounts, replaced the money with general obligation corporate bonds, and called the money it expropriated income. We all know what would happen: The company accountants would refuse to certify the books and management would likely -- and rightly -- end up in jail.

But that is exactly what the federal government (which, unlike corporations, decides how to keep its own books) does with Social Security. In the late 1990s, the government was running what it -- and a largely unquestioning Washington press corps -- called budget "surpluses." But the national debt still increased in every single one of those years because the government was borrowing money to create the "surpluses."

Capitalism isn't perfect. Indeed, to paraphrase Winston Churchill's famous description of democracy, it's the worst economic system except for all the others. But the inescapable fact is that only the profit motive and competition keep enterprises lean, efficient, innovative and customer-oriented.

Mr. Gordon is the author of "An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power" (HarperCollins, 2004).

A Man With A Real Sense Of Honor

Unlike the hypocrtical empty suit currently trespassing in the Oval Office, here's a story of a man with a real sense of honor.  I picked up this story from James Taranto's Best of the Web blog:

Chesley Sullenberger has a problem. He borrowed a book from the Danville Library--and it's overdue. To complicate matters, the book was an interlibrary loan from Fresno State.

Sullenberger contacted librarians and asked for an extension on the loan and a waiver on the overdue fine. The reason? The book is in the cargo hold of the US Airways plane that made an emergency landing last month in New York's Hudson River. Sullenberger is the pilot who made that landing. No one was seriously injured.

Fresno State library officials were impressed with Sullenberger's sense of responsibility . . . and waived all fines and fees, even the one for losing the book. The library's going one step further: when the replacement book goes up on the shelf, it will have a special template in front, dedicating it to Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.

"what can he do, switch back?"

A bit of schadenfreude here. That treasonous lizard, Arlen Specter of Penn., cut and ran over to the Democrats because his RINO credentials were finally catching up with him.

As part of the Benedict Arnold deal he cut with the Demo leaders, Specter was supposed to have kept his Senate leadership. This would enable him to be chairman of one or more Senate committees. Unfortunately, when a lying snake deals with lying snakes, he finds out that maybe they were lying to him too.

And so, according to this article on the RealClearPolitics blog, it appears Specter is not, in fact, going to keep his senior status. Not only is this a slap in the face to Specter, it could spell disaster if he gets challenged in the 2010 Demo primary.

Aw, gee, wouldn't that be just too bad.

Democrat But Not Liberal?

There's an interesting poll being dissected in today's Capitol Journal column in the Wall Street Journal. The graphic particularly caught my eye:

The focus of the article is on Republicans and the problems they are having trying to attract / retain conservatives. But look at the Democrat / Liberal numbers.

42% of Americans identify themselves as 'Democrats', but only 24% identify themselves as 'Liberal'.

Democrats would likely cheerfully respond that they are the party of the "center" attracting moderates and independents. And, based on the last election, there's merit in that viewpoint.

However, I believe there's an alternative explanation. The "dirty little secret" I think Democrats would like to avoid is that the Democrats, with a big assist from the media, portray themselves and their policies as "moderate" and "centrist" even though they're not.

Conservatives have done a good job at giving the liberal brand a bad connotation. There's not too many folks who want to be branded as a "liberal" these days. But, instead of making substantive changes to their policies, the liberals in the Democrat party have simply "rebranded" their policies. They now call them"moderate" and "centrist" policies; and, anything really radical is labeled "progressive".

This way, they can trot out the same old liberal policies and people embrace them because they aren't called "liberal". The policies have changed, only the labels are different.

So, even though the Democrats have been quite successful, the success isn't with substantive ideas but with the effort to fool the electorate that the new labels represent something different.

"I'm Scared"

"You Should Be"

I'll bet this fellow will be very popular in prison.

Zachary Goldak, 19, of the 3200 block of North Broadway in Chicago, allegedly snatched a purse from an elderly woman on March 3, 2009, dislocating her shoulder in the struggle. Authorities said Goldak was having a bad day and wanted someone else to share his misery.

A witness who chased down the suspect and held him for police said he was glad he stopped "a pretty cowardly thing."

At about 5 p.m. on March 3, Goldak came up behind the 78-year-old victim on the sidewalk near his home and grabbed her purse, a Cook County Asst. State's Atty. Erin Antonietti said that. The two struggled and he pushed her to the ground, dislocating her shoulder.

As he fled, the witness yelled for someone to call the police and chased Goldak to the entrance of his apartment building, recovered the purse and held Goldak until police arrived, Antonietti said.

"When officers arrived, the defendant told them that he was having a bad day and [expletive] that woman, she could have a bad day, too," she said.

The witness who chased the suspect, criminal defense attorney Jake Howard, had just parked his car at a meter on Broadway, south of Melrose Street, when he saw the robbery unfold.

At first, he thought the two people just stumbled and fell together. But then he realized there was no ice on the sidewalk, he said.

"When he hopped up and picked up the bag I knew something was wrong," Howard said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "If someone grabs a bag and starts running, they're up to no good as far as I'm concerned."

Another man ran to the woman's side, so Howard quickly decided to try to apprehend the alleged suspect, he said.

Howard, who plays rugby in his spare time, said he knew he could catch the guy.

At first the suspect was just walking in a fast pace, Howard said. "I told him, you better run (expletive)."

The suspect took off to a nearby apartment building and began to fish for his keys, Howard said.

"It seems like a dumb idea to snatch a purse in front of your apartment," Howard said.

Howard said he couldn't allow the suspect to get inside or he would lose him, so he jumped in the doorway and closed the door on the suspect's left hand. The suspect didn't put up much resistance and only said, " 'Dude, let my hand out of the door,' " Howard said. "I said no."

Another person on the street called police while Howard held the man. Three other "big guys" came to Howard's aid to wait for the police so the suspect wouldn't try to get away, he said.

Howard had no idea at first that the victim was an elderly woman. This angered him, he said. But what angered him even more was the suspect's excuse for committing the crime, he said.

"It's a pretty cowardly thing to snatch someone's purse anyway," Howard said. "But to do it just to spread misery is even worse."

Even though Howard wasn't sure if the suspect had a weapon or friends lingering nearby, he said he would do it again.

"When criminals realize that people aren't going to take it, maybe they'll think twice," Howard said. "I'd do it again. I don't want that stuff going on in this neighborhood."

Goldak, who is listed at 6 feet tall, 125 pounds in his arrest report, appeared terrified as he stood in court awaiting his bond hearing. After court, a Cook County sheriff's deputy who saw him before the hearing said Goldak seemed to be having yet another bad day.

"'He looks at me and says, 'I'm scared,' " the deputy said. "I said, 'You ought to be.' "

"Good job, Stupid"

Island Lake is a small community near my home.  I'm glad to see one of my local elected officials are passionate about serving the community!

Island Lake Trustee Rich Garling was arrested on Feb. 10, 2009, at the suburb's Village Hall after he apparently was offended by a rude comment directed his way during a meeting and allegedly punched a resident.

The meeting was held to discuss challenges to the nominating petitions of candidates in the April 7 municipal elections.

Resident Gina Meeks, whose husband, David, is running for a trustee seat, reported that Garling struck her on the back "as hard as he could" after he overheard her comment as he walked past her, Police Chief Anthony Sciarrone said.

"He passed me and I said, 'Good job, stupid.'  He took his hand and hit me on my back as hard as he could," Sciarrone said, quoting from a police report.  Meeks told police that Garling struck her so hard she stumbled forward in front of several witnesses, Sciarrone said.

Garling posted $100 bail at Island Lake's police station after his arrest on the misdemeanor charge.

Garling, who serves as chairman of the Village Board's Police and Public Safety Committee, ran unsuccessfully last fall for the Illinois House.  He has two years remaining on his four-year term on the board.

Village trustees typically sit on the local electoral boards that make decisions when challenges are filed to the nominating petitions of would-be candidates.

Government Gone Wild

Great article on Forbes.com today:

Government Gone Wild
Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein 03.31.09, 12:01 AM ET

Back in February, the government said that its $787 billion stimulus bill would create 3.5 million new jobs. This was at the very highest end of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) estimate of 1.2 to 3.6 million new jobs.

But even this high-end estimate of U.S. job creation is penny ante, when compared to a leaked memo from Gordon Brown, the British prime minister. He proposed a $2 trillion European stimulus plan that was supposedly going to create 19 million jobs. In other words, Europe can create a new job with just $105,000 of government spending per job, while the U.S. needs $219,000.

But all of this is just a pipe dream. Government spending does not cause a net increase in jobs over the long run; it costs jobs. Every dollar the government spends is either taxed or borrowed from the private sector, which means it "crowds out" private sector job creation. And because government spending is less efficient than private sector spending, the economy actually grows more slowly in the long run as the government gets bigger.

What's interesting is how all these numbers are being bandied about with very little pushback from the press. In recent years, the press has complained loudly about $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see. And almost everyone in the media suggested that budget deficits lifted interest rates and hurt the economy. But in recent weeks, the press seems to have forgotten its old argument.

The new massive government spending plans are especially frightening with the U.S. now facing $1 trillion deficits. President Obama says that this is all OK, and that he is cutting the deficit in half (to $533 billion using administration math, or $672 billion according to the CBO) in just four years. What he doesn't say, and what no one seems willing to say, is that without his new budget the deficit would have been cut by 75% in four years to about $250 billion. The budget deficit and the size of the government are exploding and no one seems to care.

But it doesn't end there. Americans are the most generous people on the face of the earth, when measured in dollars donated to charities. At the same time, private charity does a great deal of good and often does it more effectively than government. But now the government wants to limit deductions for charitable contributions.

Some conservatives have argued that this might be a good trade-off if marginal tax rates were lowered. They argue that the benefits of higher GDP (resulting from lower tax rates) would outweigh the losses from slimmer donations (as a share of income). That is an economic argument that reasonable people can disagree about.

But this time around, the government wants to limit the charitable deductions and raise tax rates to make way for more spending. What government is really saying is that it doesn't like the competition from private charities. It wants more people to depend on government.

Another area where the government has gone wild is in bailouts for failed companies. Ultimately, in order to assist "losing" companies, government has to collect more resources (meaning taxes) from "winning" companies and individuals.

With bailouts, jobs will be saved in certain sectors, like autos, and politicians will be able to easily count the number of jobs they have saved. Meanwhile, many other sectors will face higher taxes and a higher cost of capital, resulting in slower job gains and some outright job losses in industries across the country. The problem is that no one will be able to identify with any certainty those who are worse off because the government bailed out someone else.

Brian S. Wesbury is chief economist and Robert Stein senior economist at First Trust Advisors in Wheaton, Ill. They write a weekly column for Forbes.

Hello-My-Name-Is-Prime-Minister-Cowen
(Hey, I Thought My Name Was Barack Obama!)

Did you hear about Obama misreading his teleprompter and thanking himself for hosting the Irish Prime Minister? Probably not as the "objective" mainstream media dutifully hushed it up to avoid embarrasing The One. Not all is rosy however. In recent days, I've noted a couple of journalists not only take note of Obama's dependence on the device, but a couple have even poked fun at him for it. First, Politico commented:

Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter

Carol E. Lee Carol E. Lee Thu Mar 5, 1:04 pm ET

President Barack Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter.

The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.

******

Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.

******

Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke

from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.

The president’s teleprompter also elicited some uncomfortable laughter after he announced Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his choice for Health and Human Services secretary. “Kathy,” Obama said, turning the podium over to Sebelius, who waited at the microphone for an awkward few seconds while the teleprompters were lowered to the floor and the television cameras rolled.

Obama has relied on a teleprompter through even the shortest announcements and when repeating the same lines on his economic stimulus plan that he's been saying for months — whereas past presidents have mostly worked off of notes on the podium except during major speeches, such as the State of the Union.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post virtually snickered about it in a recent story:

As the president read from his teleprompter yesterday about "this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat," he developed a tickle in his throat and tried to clear it. "Excuse me," he joked. "I'm choked up with anger here."

The best so far was in today's New York Times in a column with uber-lib Maureen Dowd mocking The One:

Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad.

Wow! Now that the New York Times has taken a shot, look for *lesser* liberal lights to feel free to take their shots.

"How Was Work Today, Dear?"
"Anything interesting happen?"

The Hits Just Keep On Comin'

I don't mean to pile on the Legionaries (notwithstanding the vacuousness of their response thus far), but some very prominent and very articulate Catholics have weighed in on this scandal and some of their commentary is just too good not to post. So, I'm posting it (bolding and italicizing by moi).

From Diogenes via Catholic Culture:

The Legion of Christ & its founder Posted Feb. 17, 2009 8:47 AM || by Diogenes

What do we know about the misbehavior of Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, deceased founder of the Legion of Christ? In strict terms: nothing. In part this is the fault of the Holy See, whose 2006 communiqué did not specify the wrongs in response to which it "invited" Maciel to "a reserved life of prayer and penance." In part it is the fault of the Legion of Christ, which issues assertions about Maciel while withholding the evidence on which the assertions are grounded. In place of publicly verifiable data -- such as checkable documents and signed testimony -- we have coy and ambiguous declarations based on informal confidential investigations. This is not knowledge.

In early February the Legion's spokesman Fr. Paolo Scarafoni announced that Maciel had sired an illegitimate daughter, now in her twenties. The CNS story reports, "Asked how the Legionaries came to know about her, Father Scarafoni said, 'Frankly, I cannot say and it is not opportune to discuss this further, also because there are people involved' who deserve privacy." This is a transparent falsehood. Scarafoni was in reality communicating "Frankly, I cannot be frank about this matter." Tactical mendacity of this kind is beloved of Roman churchmen (think of the Jesuit General's claim that there is no conflict between the Society and the Holy See); it is not intended to be credible, but it serves as a kind of No Trespassing sign, warning outsiders that further inquiry along a given line will not be tolerated. Granted, however, that we don't and can't know whether Maciel's paternity is better founded than any other claim the Legion has made about him, the remarks that follow will assume that this minimal admission is true.

Maciel deserves to be reviled by the Legionaries of Christ. By "deserves" I mean his revilement is a debt of justice owed all Catholics by the Legion. This is not on account of Maciel's sin of sexual weakness, nor even on account of the sin of denying his sexual weakness. The fact of the matter is that Maciel was publicly accused of specific sexual crimes, and that out of moral cowardice he enlisted honorable men and women to mortgage their own reputations in defense of his lie. The lie was the lie of Maciel's personal sanctity, which Maciel knew to be a myth, and which the fact of his bastard child (putting aside the more squalid accusations) proves that he knew. To the villainy of sacrificing the reputations of others, Maciel added the grotesque and blasphemous claim that the Holy See's sanctions were an answer to his own prayer to share more deeply in the passion of Christ, as an innocent victim made to bear the burden of false judgment in reparation for the sins of mankind. The Legion cannot share Catholic reverence for the Passion and fail to repudiate Maciel's cynicism in portraying himself as the Suffering Servant.

Yet the LC leadership persists in allotting Maciel a role of (somewhat tarnished) honor: praising with faint damns, and suggesting that his spiritual patrimony remains valuable in spite of his personal life. This won't work.

Many of the greatest saints were repentant sinners. Yet not only did Maciel (as far as is known) go to his death without repenting, but he used wholesome Christian spirituality as a tool in the deception of others. Think of the Soviet mole Kim Philby: while he worked in the UK's SIS and Foreign Office, his articulate patriotism may have inspired those he duped to a deeper love of country. Yet once he was unmasked as a spy, and after his patriotism was revealed as a contrived distraction from his real treachery, even those who were moved to genuine loyalty by his speeches would not continue to feed on them. And note: Philby's patriotic words would provoke the most shame and disgust precisely in the persons who found those words truest.

Or consider a woman whose husband ingeniously hid his infidelities from her for many years. Once she realized she had been deceived, the gifts he brought back from his business trips would be understood to have been instruments in that deception. Far from cherishing the jewelry he gave her, she'd feel that the diamonds now mocked the affection and fidelity they symbolized. By the same token, Maciel's addresses will be spiritually kosher -- he was after all a highly successful deceiver. But those addresses dishonor the very truths they expound, and it's impossible that they can cause anything but distress and confusion in those who attempt to nourish themselves on them.

To repeat: the fact that he was a flawed priest is not the reason for repudiating Maciel. The Mexican priest-protagonist of Graham Greene's novel The Power and the Glory was enfeebled by lust and alcoholism and despised by those he served; yet, because of his concern for souls, he kept himself in the arena of danger and died a martyr. Maciel presents Greene's image flipped on its head: he was a Mexican priest with an internationally cultivated reputation for sanctity. He lived surrounded and cosseted by admirers, and yet in reality he held divine retribution so lightly that he went to his deathbed without undeceiving those he'd taken in, leaving behind him shattered consciences and wobbly faith.

When I speak of the Legion's duty of revilement, I do not mean they should issue so many pages of rhetorical denunciation of Maciel's sexual iniquities. What is required is an unambiguous admission that Maciel deceitfully made use of holy things and holy words in order to dupe honest and pious persons into taking false positions -- sometimes slandering others in the process -- in order to reinforce the legend of his own sanctity. Since Maciel's treachery was sacrilegious in its means and in its effect, he should posthumously be repudiated as a model of priesthood and of Christian life.

What is said above is predicated on the minimalist assumption that Maciel's siring of a bastard daughter is the only canonical lapse that can held against him. Yet he stood accused of sins much more serious, including the sin of absolutio complicis -- i.e., of sacramentally absolving one's own partner in sexual wrongdoing. The Legion's leadership professes improbably comprehensive ignorance of Maciel's misdeeds, but even if they are in fact in the dark about Maciel's guilt in this area, they surely must understand that abuse of the sacrament of confession moves the debate over Maciel's priesthood onto an entirely different level than a failure in sexual continence. True, we don't expect Newsweek or NPR to focus on the gravity of abusing a sacrament, because for them sacraments are simply ceremonies. But we would expect orthodox Catholic priests to grasp the importance of the charge. Knowing what they now claim to know about Maciel's sexual delinquency, can the Legion confidently dismiss the accusation of abuse of the confessional? And if they can't dismiss it out of hand, how can they fail to address it, even obliquely, in their statements? How can they keep up the public patter of his "flawed priesthood" without the certainty -- the certainty -- that there are not souls out there that need concrete sacramental help, souls whose access to the sacraments Maciel may have blocked by his villainy?

The Legion leadership's piecemeal public disclosure broadens rather than narrows the general speculation about the extent of Maciel's crimes. Today and for the foreseeable future they're in the "half of the lies they tell about me aren't true" position. They have only themselves to blame. Whereas St. Augustine said, "God does not need my lie," the Legion's officialdom appears to base its strategy of teaspoon by teaspoon revelations on the contrary conviction: "God needs our falsehood, and yours as well."

Yet what are we to make of the Legionaries who aren't superiors and who remain under a vow of obedience to those who are? Are they complicit in the actions of their superiors simply by remaining bound by their vows? If Maciel has real victims whose urgent spiritual needs are being ignored or dismissed by the leadership, can the Legionaries who would wish to address those needs act on their own to do so? If not, what is the course an honorable man would take, and how might the Holy See make it possible for him to act in conformity with a well-formed conscience while remaining a religious in good standing? Many persons of good will associated with the Legion and Regnum Christi have called for prayers for Maciel's victims. This is entirely proper. But if you were a victim of Maciel, and had been denounced as a slanderer for accusing him, and that denunciation had never been unsaid, would you feel spiritually buoyed by the promise of prayers offered on your behalf?

I Guess It Would Be A Waste of
Time To *Hope* for *Change* Here

Minister on trial for abortion clinic protest

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 1/26/2009 6:00:00 AM

A California pastor has been found guilty of violating a city ordinance related to abortion clinic demonstrations.

Reverend Walter Hoye is a Baptist, pro-life pastor form Berkeley. According to a California Catholic Daily article, he has been convicted of two counts of "unlawful approach" to women seeking abortions, as the new "bubble law" requires demonstrators to stay at least 100 yards from abortion clinics and anyone associated with them -- employees and patients.

Katie Short, an attorney with Life Legal Defense Foundation tells OneNewsNow that an abortion clinic got fed up with Hoye because he was so successful at convincing women not to abort their babies.

"They got the city council to pass a special ordinance saying that anyone seeking to give out information or counsel people entering abortion clinics had to ask permission from eight feet away before doing that," she explains.

Clinic personnel said he violated the law, but Short contends their testimony was false.

"There was someone who had been videotaping that day," she notes. "And if you look at what the escorts said and what actually happened, it was clear that they were just making up things when they said, 'Oh, he got within inches of a patient or another patient was holding up her hands to ward him off,' and all of that was totally fictional."

The article claims the tape proves Hoye was approached by clinic employees. Although several charges were dropped, Pastor Hoye faces up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine on two counts. However, Short plans to appeal the case.

In addition, Short has filed suit in federal court asking that the ordinance be declared unconstitutional.

I Love It When People Agree With Me

I'm not going to dwell on the Legion debacle; as I mention below, anyone interested can find comprehensive coverage over at Tom Peters' American Papist blog. However, I can't resist the opportunity to pat myself on the back (again) regarding how much eminent theologian Dr. Germain Grisez agreed with my take on how the Legion could move forward.

Here is the text of an e-mail I shared with some friends recently:

While I have been closely following the ongoing fallout over the latest revelations re Fr. Maciel on various blogs, forums, etc., I have been *trying* to stay on the sidelines and have avoided posting comments. That is, until last night.

While it's unfortunate, it is not surprising that a lot of LC/RC folks are still in denial about the situation or they still are willing to fiercely defend the Legion. Last night I was reading postings on the Catholic Answers forum and saw a fellow named "Marty" post this:

"Their main apostolates are FUNDRAISING and RECRUITING!"

Naturally, he was quickly attacked by other LC/RC defenders -- one named 'Toni" in particular. I felt compelled to then post (and this was my first comment on this subject):

No, Marty is right. I was involved with Regnum Christi for several years and, at the end of the day, that's what apostolates were all about: how many new members were you recruiting and how much money were you raising.

A few minutes later I added:

One final thought. Although the Legion's response so far has been pretty lame. (Ed Peters put it well when he said on his blog: "Is Legion leadership really going to continue talking to the Catholic world as if it were inhabited by idiot children?") While I largely agree with Dr. Peters' sentiments, I think the Legion really has no choice.

If the Legion was to say, "yeah, our founder was a pedophile and a womanizer", it would be over. They might as well shut down all their operations the same day.

As it is now, it may be the end for them anyway. Regardless of how one felt about the Legion before this latest development, the reality is that it will be very difficult -- probably impossible -- for the Legion to recover from this.

Face it. If you had a son or daughter considering a vocation and they said they were considering the Legionaries of Christ, someone -- a family member, a friend, an acquaintance at church -- is going to confront you and say something to the effect: "you're not seriously considering allowing your child to go to the Legion are you??"

As far as the Legion goes, the best response I've seen is Patrick Madrid's suggestion on his blog that the Legion dissolve the order and start over again. Personally, I think that is a great idea. While I had a negative experience with Regnum Christi, I still met many wonderful people during the time I was involved. I would like to think that all their time, effort, dedication and love for Christ and His Church could be salvaged if the organization was resurrected in a new form.

--
Of course, LC/RC defenders quickly trashed me too, but that's OK -- I expected it and ignored it. What is really interesting is this letter from Dr. Germain Grisez that Tom Peters posted on his blog today. (As you may or may not know Dr. Grisez is the pre-eminent moral theologian in the U.S., if not the world). He said:

You and all your good and faithful confreres share a common good ... . I do not think that good end can be realized by the juridical person, the Legionaries of Christ, and its present leadership.

**********

... [E]ven after the death of an institute's saintly founder, its members' service and life continue as cooperation with him or her. Regardless of Father Maciel's subjective moral responsibility—which only God knows—the evidence of his objective betrayal of his commitment makes it impossible for you and other good and faithful Legionaries any longer to carry on your service and life as cooperation with him. Unless you and your confreres proceed as quickly as possible to terminate the juridical person, the Legionaries of Christ, and reorganize yourselves into a new institute, the common good you now share will begin to decompose: very few new men will join you, many in formation will leave, some professed members will separate, and the collaboration and support of the lay faithful will shrink.

I'm not trying to make light of the serious situation the Legion finds itself in -- but I do think it's pretty cool that Dr. Grisez's thinking aligns so closely with mine. Maybe he read my post on Catholic Answers before writing his letter. Gee, it would have been nice if he would have at least quoted me.

"Face the Ugly Truth"

As a Catholic with some knowledge of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, I have been following the latest developments with morbid fascination. (Anyone wanting to know anything about this matter should check out the original and comprehensive coverage done by Tom Peters via his American Papist blog).

I saw this excerpt from Raymond Arroyo on American Papist and thought he very neatly summed things up:

"Now some say that the Legion should forget all of this and press forward: continue meditating on Father Maciel’s writings, enjoy the good he did and forgive the rest. But this misses the point. Continuing to build upon a foundation of deceit will not permit growth in the order. In light of the recent revelations, it seems Father Berg has it right. There is no way to mouth quaint pieties and expect that everything will be better in the morning. To attract new recruits to the order and for the health and welfare of those good clergy already in its ranks, the Legion must clean house, taking the time to reform its operations and to rediscover its true charism. Only by facing the ugly truth, reaching out to the wounded victims, and relying on the Holy See for guidance can the Legion be returned to strength and credibility. Adversity is sometimes God’s way of bringing cleansing and lasting change. May it be so for the good people within the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi."

It Takes More Than A Genius

A lot of people people have never heard of Tim Berners-Lee; even fewer have heard of Mike Sendall. I saw a piece in the Journal a couple of days which mentioned Berners-Lee and it made me think of Sendall even though I did not know who he was at the time.

You see, Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web. (Without going off on too much of a tangent, although most people think of them synonomously, the internet and the Web are not the same thing. It was Berners-Lee that came up with the idea of developing a common document code (hypertext) so that people could navigate among computers hooked up the internet.) Here's teh part of the Journal story I found interesting:

As a young computer scientist in 1989, he sent his manager a memo outlining the idea of hypertext and how it could help researchers share information. His manager scribbled "vague but exciting" and gave him the time to develop the idea.

Everyone takes the Internet/Web for granted now. But, as much as we depend on it now, it's only a few years old. Heck, some of our kids were even born before the Web was around. And for us more "seasoned" folks, we spent most of our lives getting by without it.

So, obviously, Berners-Lee is a genius -- right? But what about this un-named manager? What if he had responded: "quit wasting time on this nonsense and do something productive"? It's an interesting "what if?". Think about it. Think about all the different ways we use the internet. If it's hard, try unplugging your connection for one day and doing without it. But as much as we owe to Berners-Lee for developing the Web, we also owe a lot of his manager for seeing the potential and responding "vague but exciting".

Oh, by the way, Berners-Lee's manager was a fellow named Mike Sendall. It seems that this was not a fluke, but he had his genius of encouraging the people who worked for him, like Tim Berners-Lee, to take the time to explore new ideas. Unfortunately, Sendall died just a few years later in 1999.