Every time you think the government can’t do something dumber . . . they do. Banning books because of lead type? Yup.
Judd Gregg makes mincemeat out of the Obama budget and agenda. Would have been some interesting cabinet meetings if he hadn’t withdrawn himself from consideration as Commerce Secretary.
Rep. Paul Ryan previews the alternative House Republican budget. What’s to become of the White House talking point that the other side has no ideas when Ryan sets out a complete approach to the budget? (He seems optimistic on the death of cap-and-trade.)
Mitt Romney draws an interesting connection between card check and charter schools. Card check is dead for now (to the dismay of Democrats), while the latter is not exactly a favorite of theirs or of the Obama administration. It is interesting to note what people’s priorities are.
This raises a very troubling issue: what if we don’t know what’s behind all those securitized assets? In the jumble of electronic transactions and opaque instruments it may just be that “the real problem is not the bad loans, but the debasement of the paper they are printed on. “Uh oh.” Modern markets only work if the paper is reliable.” And if it’s not, we’re all in a heap of trouble.
Is the White House happy about the death of card check? I bet so — but their Big Labor patrons aren’t going to be pleased to hear that.
Meanwhile the AFL-CIO has money to burn (its members’) on ads to “win back” Specter. Seriously.
I agree with Bill Bennett — the media is sort of doing their job again, at least they did at Tuesday’s press conference.
One in fifty Americans is homeless? Not even close, Mickey Kaus explains. Is this the sort of data Washington uses — figures which you know that turn out to be nonsense? Yup.
Elaine Chao was indeed a fine labor secretary. If the Democrats want to reform federal labor law they could start with continuing the anti-corruption, full disclosure measures she put in place. They are in favor of that stuff, right?
What is wrong with this picture? “President Barack Obama last month handed his auto-industry team a seemingly impossible task: to engineer the most complicated industrial restructuring ever attempted by the federal government, and to do it fast. With almost no experience in the car business, the team’s dozen core members have undergone a crash course in the myriad woes plaguing the U.S. auto industry.” Sigh.
On Geithner’s currency gaffe yesterday: “Mr. Geithner is learning on the job, and yesterday’s lesson is that it isn’t smart to fool with currency markets when you are already tempting fate with a gigantic U.S. reflation. Treasury and the Federal Reserve are flooding the world with dollars to break the recession, and the world is rightly getting nervous.”
I must have missed the “Obama poll numbers are sagging” headlines. They are, you know. The media cheerleaders sure had the “Obama poll numbers still strong” pieces — back in February.
A “Jim McGreevy moment” coming up for Governor David Paterson? Seems so: “If it hasn’t already arrived, the moment is fast approaching when David Paterson, who now trails Andrew Cuomo by 50 points in a 2010 Democratic primary match-up, realizes that his dream of winning election to a full gubernatorial term is a lost cause. And, given the disastrous turn his stint as acting governor has taken, this recognition will almost certainly be coupled with a second epiphany – that there will be no other opportunities in the future to seek major office. With his exit from the governorship, Paterson’s political career will be over.” Ouch.
