Internet Scofflaw

President Obama yesterday received an award for transparency, in a secret ceremony. I swear I am not making this up.

It’s funny, with all the outrages committed by our government, that something as petty as this could make me so angry. And yet it does.

(Via the Corner.)

The most astonishing story I’ve seen in some time:

Not looking for sympathy here, but the life of a political reporter isn’t all champagne and canapes. Consider our man Scott Powers, who was sent over to the Winter Park home of Alan Ginsburg this morning as the designated “pool reporter” — aka scribe — for the fundraiser where Vice President Joe Biden is appearing on behalf of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Turns out the veep hadn’t arrived, but about 150 guests (minimum donation $500) were already in the house. So to prevent Scott from mingling with the crowd, a member of Biden’s advance team consigned him to a storage closet — and then stood outside the door to make sure he didn’t walk out without permission.

This is so bizarre that I was skeptical at first, but it’s been confirmed from a variety of sources. The Biden staff apologized for the incident, but Powers found the apology quite inadequate:

“Scott – You have our sincere apologies for the lack of a better hold room today,” wrote Vice President Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander last Wednesday to Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers. . .

Continued Alexander in her email to Powers: “I am told, once the Vice President and Senator Nelson arrived, the situation was quickly rectified – and hopefully you weren’t waiting too long.”

Powers says the situation was never “rectified.” Any time he stuck his head out he’d been shooed back inside. He said he was held for more than an hour in the closet, was allowed out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Nelson, after which it was back into the closet until the VP left.

Alexander’s note to him thus didn’t quite satisfy him, Powers said. Especially compared with that of Ginsburg who called Powers Friday and apologized, saying Biden’s advance team made all the decisions about the event, Powers said. The wealthy Democratic fundraiser told the reporter he hadn’t even been aware that Powers was there, much less shoved into his closet.

One can’t help wondering whether the Biden staff broke the law. Probably not. It sounds as though Powers meekly accepted the situation, and they didn’t have to force him.

(Via Reason.)

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) says we “don’t deserve the freedoms that are in the Constitution.” But he will graciously allow us to keep them anyway.

Er, thanks. I appreciate that.

Remember all that talk early this year about civility in politics?

Remember how the legacy media said that union thugs shouldn’t be ripping up recall petitions. Remember how they said it was wrong to shoot out the windows of the GOP headquarters in DC? Remember how they said that threats against bloggers for exposing the activities of Wisconsin’s unions were completely out of bounds? Remember how they condemned the vandalism and death threats targeting Wisconsin GOP lawmakers? Remember how they criticized Joe Biden for likening Republican fiscal policy to rape?

And remember all that talk about how martial rhetoric in politics could be dangerous?

Remember how they swore off such things as describing a Media Matters training session as “partisan boot camp where rebel forces were trained for combat on Fox News”. Remember how they criticized violent metaphors such as describing ideological debate  as “gut[ting] everyone”? Remember how they tut-tutted Michael Moore for likening the Wisconsin public-sector union debate to “war”?

Remember the new focus on civility?

Me either.

America’s worst-governed big city, Detroit, lost one-quarter of its remaining population during the last decade. I don’t see any floor short of zero.

Story here. They also look at why they aren’t seeing the improvement that the government is reporting.

The Washington Post reports:

Gifts of bogus statistics for the health-care law’s birthday

House Democrats held a birthday party last week for passage of the health-care law. Just as we looked at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s floor speech noting the milestone, we will now examine some of the claims made by Democrats.

McConnell framed his speech in negative terms, citing data to back up his language. Both Democrats and Republicans can pick and choose numbers and studies to make their case, but we found that generally McConnell did not exaggerate or use bogus figures. . .

By contrast, House Democrats appear to show little hesitation about repeating claims that previously have found to be false or exaggerated. So let’s take a tour through the numbers.

(Emphasis mine, other than the headline.)

The Post story then goes on to look at three big lies told by the Democratic proponents of the health care act: (1) it’s about jobs, (2) it’s about reducing the deficit, and (3) it’s working.

California’s public-sector unions don’t care about keeping/making their pensions solvent; they just want to hide the insolvency from the public.

It’s about time.

The prominent British environmentalist and leftist writes in the Guardian:

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Exactly right. The safety margins are so wide that when an old plant using an obsolete design is hit by as bad a natural disaster as is ever going to happen, nothing really bad happens.

He also cites the XKCD chart.

(Via Instapundit.)

When Paul Krugman said that he didn’t read any commentary coming from the right, I though it was unsurprising and not worthy of note. But it is worthwhile to note his rank hypocrisy when he comes back, just two weeks later, to write this:

If you’ve reached the point where you don’t pay attention to anything that might disturb your orthodoxy, you’re not doing science, you’re not even pursuing a discipline. All you’re doing is perpetuating a smug, closed-minded sect.

I know of no one more smug than Paul Krugman.

(Via Instapundit.)

AP reports:

President Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.

Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama’s health insurance expansion.