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.

Illinois has instituted a sales tax on Amazon purchases, so Amazon is severing its relationship with Illinois affiliates. As a result, those Illinois affiliates lose their business, and the state ends up with less tax revenue than before.

This idiocy is doubly inexcusable because the same thing has happened in several other states already. It always plays out the same way.

Studies show that Medicaid is so bad, it is often worse than having no health coverage at all.

This underlines one of the main misconceptions that underly the health care nationalization act: the failure to understand the difference between health coverage and access to health care. Obamacare emphasizes the former, to the detriment of the latter.

Sue Schardt, an NPR board member, speaks:

What happened as a result is that we unwittingly cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite.

Unwittingly? That hardly seems possible.

“Super-serve the core” — that was the mantra, for many, many years. This focus has, in large part, brought us to our success today. It was never anyone’s intention to exclude anyone.

Exclude? Perhaps not. Mock us, slander us, show absolute contempt for us, yes. That doesn’t mean we’re “excluded”; we’re still welcome to listen.

And, of course, we always get to participate through our taxes.

POSTSCRIPT: To be fair, Schardt’s comments are somewhat thoughtful. But ultimately NPR did not become what it is by accident, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

(Via Instapundit.) (Previous post.)

President Obama says that opposition to his administration is really all about race:

But Obama, in his most candid moments, acknowledged that race was still a problem. In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent “Tea Party” movement that was then surging across the country. Many middle-class and working-class whites felt aggrieved and resentful that the federal government was helping other groups, including bankers, automakers, irresponsible people who had defaulted on their mortgages, and the poor, but wasn’t helping them nearly enough, he said.

A guest suggested that when Tea Party activists said they wanted to “take back” their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn’t dispute the idea. He agreed that there was a “subterranean agenda” in the anti-Obama movement—a racially biased one—that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it.

A lot of Americans thought that, by electing a black president, they were proving that America has put race behind her. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened; any opposition to any of the president’s policies is smeared as racist.

Another small way in which health care nationalization increases health care costs.

Not always true, but evidently true for Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL). The corrupt, impeached ex-judge is in legal trouble again.

President Obama says it’s “irresponsible” to fund the government using short-term continuing resolutions. Well, maybe the Democrats should have passed a budget when they were in charge.

Also, the administration is suggesting that Obama might veto any further CRs. I doubt it. What we learned in 1994 is when the government gets shut down, it’s of paramount importance not to be blamed for it. If Obama vetoes an unencumbered CR, I don’t see how he can avoid blame, even with the media’s assistance.

It’s interesting how quickly the talk about civil discourse faded away once the left became angry about something. All of the sudden, Hitler analogies and death threats are just part of healthy democratic debate.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse:

My tag for the “new civility” has always been “civility bullshit.” It was always, obviously, a strategy to control conservatives (while liberals regrouped after the drubbing in the 2010 elections). Now that the Wisconsin protesters have gone so far beyond anything that could be attributed to Tea Partiers or to Sarah Palin maps-with-crosshairs, I suppose the MSM will act as if there never was a new civility movement at all. Suddenly, virulent dissent will be portrayed as noble.

Reports Althouse, who has been doing a much better job reporting this story than anyone else, especially the legacy media.

Mickey Kaus observes that point on which it was impossible for the Wisconsin Democrats to compromise wasn’t collective bargaining, but the provision that allows public workers to decline to pay union dues. In Governor Walker’s proposed compromise, he offered to allow public-sector unions to retain most collective bargaining rights (which the unions said was the issue), but retained the union-dues provision (which was the real issue).

James O’Keefe says he has more material on NPR still to come. And a New York Times report suggests that O’Keefe may have material on PBS as well.

(Previous post.)

The Wisconsin Assembly will take up the bill tomorrow morning. It should be interesting; on-the-scene reports suggest that the union protesters may be planning a riot.

Senate Republican accomplished the action by amending the bill to remove items that required a three-fifths quorum. Governor Walker had already rejected passing the collective bargaining provision by itself, but a ruling from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau (Wisconsin’s CBO) enabled them to pass the bill largely intact. The Bureau found that several items in the bill, although fiscal, were not “appropriations”, and therefore did not trigger the larger quorum. The main provision that had to be deleted was a debt refinancing, which presumably will later be passed alone (unless the Democrats decide to play sore loser).

UPDATE: The Democrats have already begun to complain that the action violated Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law. Republicans apparently believe that an exception in the law allows them to give only two hours notice, rather than 24. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this.

UPDATE: Wisconsin’s Senate Majority Leader explains why they decided to resort to this.

UPDATE: Jim Lindgren has more on the legislative maneuver.

UPDATE: It doesn’t look as though the Open Meetings Law thing is going to fly. The Wisconsin Senate Rules state that the 24-hours notice can be set aside whenever the Committee on Senate Organization determines it is necessary. Another rule might say (it isn’t clear) that even 2-hours notice isn’t necessary, but the Republicans wisely decided not to rely on that. Moreover, the Open Meetings Law contains an exception for when it conflicts with Senate rules. So I think they are in the clear.

If it’s necessary to exempt entire states from the health care “reform” act, do you think maybe it ought not be a federal law?

Ha ha: James O’Keefe’e sting comes on the heels of NPR’s CEO challenging critics to find any evidence of bias at NPR.

(Previous post.)

The recent incendiary remarks by Ron Schiller, head of the NPR foundation, are just the latest reason for us, the taxpayers, to object to financing NPR. Their “tea bag” cartoon, their firing of Juan Williams, the George Soros grant, etc. are all good reasons as well. (ASIDE: NPR’s president admitted yesterday that they handled the Juan Williams controversy badly. Ya think?)

But let’s set aside all the bias and bigotry. The bottom line is there’s no good reason for the taxpayers to fund a domestic radio network. No one ever tries to defend it on the grounds that we don’t have enough domestic radio. Occasionally some will say it’s good to have commercial-free radio, but most people recognize that NPR’s “enhanced underwriting messages” are no different from commercials. Instead, most NPR supporters say that NPR provides a “different perspective”.  In short, NPR’s supporters like it for its content, and they are afraid that its content won’t survive in the free market of ideas.

Who is NPR’s audience? They are wealthier and more educated than the average American. NPR doesn’t report political affiliation, but it’s fair to assume its audience is more liberal and more Democratic than average. Thus, NPR is a regressive institution, a transfer payment from the masses to the gentry.

I think that NPR will survive being cut loose. After all, it’s audience is a privileged elite. But if I prove to be wrong, I think I’ll be able to manage my sorrow.

(Previous post.)

In a new James O’Keefe video, we learn what NPR executives say about us when they are among friends. Ron Schiller, the head of the NPR foundation, described the Tea Party as

. . . not just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

He also showed that he is not only prejudiced against the Tea Party but actually has no idea whatsoever what they are about by asserting:

The current Republican party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian — and I wouldn’t even call it Christian; it’s this weird Evangelical kind of move.

(The Tea Party is interested in taxes, government spending, and personal liberty; not religion, and the exact opposite of involvement in people’s personal lives.)

He also said that NPR would be better off without federal funding (which might be the only true thing he said), lauded NPR’s handling of the Juan Williams debacle, and failed to object to the statement that “the Jews do kind of control the media”.

NPR is distancing itself from Schiller’s comments, and said that Schiller announced his departure from NPR last week for unrelated reasons. Despite that, NPR’s record makes pretty clear where they stand on the Tea Party.

UPDATE: I think Juan Williams has earned this. Also, Schiller is on “administrative leave” until he leaves for his new job.

UPDATE: Ron Schiller will not be taking his new job at the Aspen Institute.

Also, the NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation), is leaving NPR. According to NPR’s media reporter, she didn’t quit; she was forced out by the board. (Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: Hah: “Video Kills the Radio Czar“. Nice. (Via Ricochet.)

Senate Democrats have reportedly decided not to move on President Obama’s re-nomination of Donald Berwick to run Medicare and Medicaid. I don’t find this surprising, Obama gave Berwick a recess appointment in the first place purely to avoid airing Berwick’s radical views in a public hearing. There’s no reason they’d be any more eager for it now than last year.

Could Pittsburgh’s finances be any more scandalously opaque? Yes!

Last year’s pension battle between Pittsburgh City Council and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s office has evolved into a $25 million mystery over how much money is available to buy police cars, pave roads and demolish old homes. . .

[City finance director Scott Kunka] said council’s 2011 budget — which diverted about $13.4 million in parking tax revenue to the foundering pension fund, the first installment in a controversial 30-year, $735.7 million bailout plan — provided no money for the capital fund.

He said the only capital money on hand is about $27 million earmarked for projects in past years but not yet spent. He said he’ll study the list of projects to see how much money might be redirected to meet this year’s needs. . .

Council’s budget director, Bill Urbanic, provided a different account.

In addition to the $27 million remaining from previously authorized projects, Mr. Urbanic said, the capital fund should hold about $25 million that’s not spoken for. He said the money was part of a large capital fund infusion the city made a few years ago and has been tapping annually since.

Mr. Kunka said that $25 million doesn’t exist and hinted that council might have to give up special projects . . . for more pressing initiatives. . .

Councilman William Peduto said council adopted a 2011 capital budget and that various documents reflect the money’s existence. He said the confusion highlights the urgent need for a new financial management system.

“When members of council can’t get information, then the public is kept in the dark, and it’s their money, not the mayor’s money,” Mr. Peduto said, suggesting the mayor’s office is hiding funds to give residents a skewed impression of the city’s finances and embarrass council members in an election year.

(Via That’s Church.)

In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act created a commission to study the problem of prison rape and issue draft regulations to deal with it. The Justice Department would then have a year to review them and issue regulations. The commission issued its report in June 2009, but the Obama Justice Department is slow-walking its review and scaling back the commission’s recommendations.

I really do not understand it. Preventing brutality against prisoners would seem to be squarely within progressive ideology, so why is Eric Holder working against protecting prisoners? Why is President Obama letting him? This is not a rhetorical question; I wish I knew the answer. Are they responding to pressure from prison-guard unions?

One thing seems certain: of all the criticisms that can be leveled against progressive ideology, support for prison rape is not one of them, so they must be doing this for some political reason. I’ve written before that the Democratic party functions as an alliance of tribes, not as an ideological movement. This seems likely to be a prime example.

(Via Instapundit.)

Oh, I’m sure this won’t be abused:

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage “fake people” on social media sites. Private security firms employeed by the government have used the accounts to create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

(Via Instapundit.)

Here is a good example of what is wrong with our regulatory state:

[EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson] was questioned [by a House subcommittee] on a variety of topics, ranging from the effects of the agency’s proposed climate rules to whether the EPA would regulate spilled milk.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) made the spilled-milk allegation, asking: “How can the EPA promulgate new rules like this? What’s next — sippy-cups in the House cafeteria?”

Jackson said the agency moved to exempt milk storage from proposed regulations on inland oil containment facilities. “We made it clear in our rules that we were not going to apply the rules to spilled milk,” she said.

(Via Instapundit.)

So these people are writing regulations so broad that they cover spilled milk, but not to worry: they won’t apply them in that case!

How about some freakin’ rule of law, dammit?!

Write the regulation so it means what it says! If you have to institute arbitrary exceptions to avoid obviously absurd results, you’ve written the regulation too broadly. You are giving the power to determine our fate to people, rather than to the law.

And that brings us back, once again, to health care nationalization. Philip Hamburger explains that the myriad waivers that the Obama administration is issuing for the new health care regime violate the Constitution, because they give the president the power to decide who does and who does not have to follow the law. (More here.)

If we didn’t already know not to trust figures quoted by Paul Krugman, this would be an object lesson. Iowahawk breaks from his usual format and explains how Krugman’s latest attack on Texas education is full of crap. Alas, my beloved Economist is guilty as well.

Iowahawk debunks figures showing that Wisconsin education is superior to Texas education (Krugman uses dropout rates, the Economist uses standardized test scores), showing that they fail to control for a very important variable:

As a son of Iowa, I’m no stranger to bragging about my home state’s ranking on various standardized test. Like Wisconsin we Iowans usually rank near the top of the heap on average ACT/SAT scores. We are usually joined there by Minnesota, Nebraska, and the various Dakotas; Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire…

… beginning to see a pattern? Perhaps because a state’s “average ACT/SAT” is, for all intents and purposes, a proxy for the percent of white people who live there. In fact, the lion’s share of state-to-state variance in test scores is accounted for by differences in ethnic composition.

If you control for ethnicity in standardized tests, Iowahawk shows that Texas beats Wisconsin in 17 out of 18 categories. (Wisconsin won the last category by a statistically insignificant margin.)

If you control for ethnicity in dropout rates, Wisconsin does slightly better than Texas for white and hispanic students, but Wisconsin does much worse than Texas for black students. Texas beat the national average in all three categories; Wisconsin beat the national average in two, but did much worse for black students.

Paul Krugman is an economist. The Economist is presumably staffed by economists. As any economist knows, you need to control for hidden variables when analyzing data. Neither of them did that. Is that merely malpractice? Or dishonesty?

UPDATE: Iowahawk takes a few questions from people who don’t understand statistics.

When their own funds are at stake, unions behave the same as everyone else. When a union needs to hire picketers, it hires non-union labor. This leads to delicious irony:

The union’s Mr. Garcia sees no conflict in a union that insists on union labor hiring nonunion people to protest the hiring of nonunion labor.

High-level officials at the Department of Education that have been attacking for-profit colleges and threatening them with new regulations, have, at the same time, been colluding with short-sellers. (Via Instapundit.)

It’s good to remember that it’s not always about progressive ideology with this bunch; sometimes it’s simple corruption.

POSTSCRIPT: Congress and its staff are exempt from insider trading rules, wouldn’t you know. I’m not sure about the executive branch.

Union protesters outside the Wisconsin capitol mob Glenn Grothman, a Republican state senator, and follow him, screaming, as he tries to get into the capitol building. Eventually they pin him into a dead end and won’t let him leave. A Democratic legislator among the protesters eventually intervenes, but even then it takes him several minutes to calm the crowd enough to allow Grothman to leave.

Watch as much of that video as you can stand. Then contrast that with the incident outside the US Capitol that got the media so exercised. In that case, Democratic representatives chose to enter the capitol building through the protesters (they could have more easily taken an underground subway from their offices). The protesters allowed them to pass without any appreciable delay, and do not follow them. The protesters certainly do not pin them into a corner where they need rescue.

Can you imagine the media reaction had the Tea Party protesters done anything remotely like what these union thugs did here?