W and campaign finance reform

<Grumble>

 

To commemorate the president denouncing this past week the "527" organizations that inevitably arose as a way around the McCain-Feingold Free Speech Strangulation Act (also known as campaign finance reform), Ramesh Ponnuru gives a quick history of Bush's evolving position on campaign finance:

1) I'm against it, and you should vote for me over John McCain on this basis.

 

2) Some campaign-finance reforms amount to a restriction on free speech, and I'll veto them on that basis.

 

3) I'll sign the bill, let the judges sort it out.

 

4) The bill I just signed bans all those George Soros ads.

 

5) I'm going to sue to get those ads all banned.

 

6) I'm going to support legislation to ban those ads that I already banned, even though they used to be free speech.

 

I think (5) and (6) are new this week.

McCain-Feingold stinks, the president knew it when he signed it, but he signed it anyway (in the mistaken assumption that the Supremes would strike it down -- as if it were the sole prerogative of the courts to determine the constitutionality of laws). 

 

Absent the war, we would likely have seen a much greater conservative rebellion against Bush because of 'accomplishments' like this.

 

</Grumble>

 

P.S. He still has my vote.  I just had to get that off my chest.

Census insensibility

The Census Bureau announced Thursday that the nation's poverty rate has been increasing in the past three years (in a case of life imitating e-mail jokes, the Washington Post's account actually includes a variation on the phrase "women and children hardest hit" in its story on the subject).

At first glance, the numbers seem pretty solid. Using the standard by which the government measures poverty, the numbers do seem to be going up. But how good is that measure? Bravo to Neal Boortz for pointing out that the government's standard for poverty is rather meaningless, because it is based on income alone. Middle and upper-class families that choose to live off of existing savings for a time can easily meet the government's definition of poverty.

Sure enough, the Census Bureau's website confirms that poverty is measured in this way. They say that the standard was established by a 1978 OMB directive, but the directive itself states that it was codifying a practice reaching back to the Johnson administration.

Given this definition of poverty, there is no way to attach any significant meaning to the data. So why announce them at all? It is not intended as a tool for the government to use to determine eligibility for handouts. Quoting the Census Bureau site:

Government aid programs do not have to use the official poverty measure as eligibility criteria.

The answer, then, likely rests in how the statistics have actually been used over the past forty years -- as a political tool for increasing government spending. Period.

I thought Scrappleface was supposed to be satire

This is actually good advice for the president, although it is presented as satire:

"It's hard to mount an entire campaign against an opponent who has no record, no bedrock values, no consistent positions, no new ideas and only wants to talk about something he hasn't done for 35 years," said Mr. Bush. "So far, the fight has been between me and anti-me...Bush against hate-Bush. From now on, we're looking at a one-man race for the presidency."

Campaign insiders said TV and radio ads will no longer mention the Democrat candidate, but will simply focus on the president's record and his vision for the future.

"I can't change people whose hearts overflow with hatred," said the president. "So I'll just focus on rallying those whose minds are still open. We're going to target what you call your sentient beings."

Alice Cooper gets it

Cool quote of the day from Alice Cooper regarding the Kerry-backing rock tour currently underway:

If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.

(Credit: Boortz)

Hollywood's new McCarthyism

The absolute, no-exceptions worst slander that a Hollywood actor or actress will ever be subjected to (emphasis added):

Singer and actress Mandy Moore is furious at being "outed" as a secret Republican in the new issue of America's Details magazine. The publication's upcoming September edition lists Adam Sandler, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jessica Simpson, Shannen Doherty and Moore as silent supporters of current US President George W. Bush who don't join the campaign trail and make their political views known, unlike loud and proud Democrats Ben Affleck and Barbra Streisand. However, the A Walk To Remember beauty has angrily denied she supports Bush and his party. Her publicist tells American website Pagesix.Com, "Mandy is not, nor has she ever been, a Republican."

David Limbaugh joins the blogosphere

David Limbaugh, succumbing to the inevitable, has finally added a blog to his website. We need more high-profile voices like his championing the Right point of view on the great moral issues of the day. Welcome, David!

The management apologizes for the sarcasm in this post

HollywoodThink: "Wow, a lot of people went to see The Passion of the Christ. People must really be interested in spiritual issues. Hey, I know! Let's remake 'Oh, God!'. And let's cast a lesbian in the title role! That'll show the public that we're interested in spiritual issues too!"

Ellen DeGeneres is getting a promotion — to supreme being. DeGeneres will star as God in a remake of the 1977 comedy "Oh, God!" The original starred George Burns as the creator and John Denver as a supermarket manager tapped as a new prophet by the deity.

"Ellen is a strong comedienne and she has always done material about God and questions about God," said Jerry Weintraub, who produced the original movie and also will oversee the remake.

New front in the war against low self esteem

Coming on the heels of the news of California schools' efforts to eradicate psychologically harmful free play, we find that a new front has opened in the war against low self esteem.

The Boston Globe reports that teachers are coming to the horrifying realization that they themselves have been terrorizing their students by grading papers with red ink. Many are switching to purple.

"If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. "Purple stands out, but it doesn't look as scary as red."

Color psychologists are quick to endorse the idea:

A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students.

"The concept of purple as a replacement for red is a pretty good idea," said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute in Carlstadt, N.J., and author of five books on color. "You soften the blow of red. Red is a bit over-the-top in its aggression."

...they said with a straight face.

Yes, I know they're dead serious about this. But I also am dead serious in my conviction that the public schools are becoming more and more preoccupied with producing emotionally-shielded wimps who are completely unprepared to face life in the real world. If unregulated free play and red ink on papers are so harmful, how did any of us survive grade school psychologically intact?

A peek into the recesses of the liberal mind

The Sacramento Bee has a lengthy article on the measures taken by various northern California school districts to make elementary-school recess as boring as possible. The districts vary in their regulations, but it seems that in general they frown upon any activity that might result in physical contact -- either person-to-person or ball-to-person -- or verbal conflict. This eliminates just about everything I did on the playground when I was a kid (many, many years ago).

Concerned about safety and injuries and worried about bullying, violence, self-esteem and lawsuits, school officials have clamped down on the traditional games from years past.

Gone from many blacktops are tag, dodgeball and any game involving bodily contact. In are organized relay races and adult-supervised activities.

Do these schools see a difference between recess and a P.E. class?

The restrictions trouble some early-childhood experts and parents. Recess is usually the only part of the school day where kids can do what they want. Experts say free play helps kids learn how to cooperate, socialize and work out conflicts.

But no...in such an unregulated environment we might see the eruption of such unhealthy things as competition, which everyone knows leads to hurt feelings and low self-esteem. We all know that there's nothing like that in the real world, so what's the point in allowing kids to learn about it?

Christians: No retreat, no surrender

In his August 19 column, Chuck Colson reaches back to Augustine as he seeks to persuade Christians not to stay at home this November on Election Day.

As we enter this election season, the struggle for our culture's soul has simultaneously produced passivity and defeatism in some evangelical quarters and a shrill triumphalism in others. Neither response, as Augustine teaches, is the proper Christian response.

We can never retreat into our sanctuaries and neglect our civic responsibility to help set the moral tone of our culture. Leaving your neighbor in ignorance of his folly is inconsistent with the command to love him, and so political and cultural engagement are required for faithful believers. We are, I like to put it, to bring the influence of the City of God into the City of Man, working for justice and righteousness.

Well said!

The Swift Boat Vets have definitely drawn blood

Michelle Malkin's encounter with Chris Matthews last night should convince the convinceable that the allegations made in Unfit For Command have more than a grain of truth to them. Kerry's defenders in the media have gone completely hysterical.

UPDATE: The reaction of the Kerry campaign itself provides further evidence.

Hug a bureaucrat today

Federal employees are sure to get a boost in their self-esteem as a result of a study released this week.

"Despite long-standing negative stereotypes about government work, the research shows that Americans have a favorable impression of the federal government," according to the report, A New Call to Service in an Age of Savvy Altruism. "Our research found that more than 62 percent of the American people we surveyed view the federal government favorably, and 91 percent say that the jobs and duties of federal government workers are 'important' in their lives."

How far we've come from the early decades of our republic, when citizens had little or no interaction with the central government.

 

At a news conference announcing the study, Max Stier lamented:

"People often look to the nonprofit sector when they want to make a difference, and not to the federal government."

Huh.  I guess that if the federal government's mission is "to make a difference", then it would be really cruel and heartless to make it conform to the boundaries of the Constitution.

Kerry and troop redeployments

The saga of Sen. Kerry's knee-jerk reaction against President Bush's announced troop redeployment plan continues. Neal Boortz noticed that the junior senator from Massachusetts is in fact both for and against redeployment of troops currently in Europe and South Korea.

Dizzy yet?

The foundational purpose of government

Preach it, Madison!

It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and
that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
These rights cannot well be separated."

 

--James Madison

(Courtesy of The Federalist's "Founders Quote Daily")

Trolling for the Vietnam-era draft dodger vote

Dateline, Calgary:

U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign veered north into Canada on Tuesday as his sister appealed to expatriate Americans to register for their absentee ballots.

With all expectations of a tight election fight this November, the Democrats are looking everywhere for votes, Diana Kerry said during a stop in Calgary.

"We do know that there's going to be battlegrounds in lots of places and we're fighting on every front," said Ms. Kerry, who chairs a group called Americans Overseas for Kerry.

I double-dog dare the Kerry campaign to make a similar appeal to overseas military personnel and their families.