Call It A Comeback
Ryan needs to get a clue. While the entire system has problems and Devine and Daley should be taken to task, Ryan’s abuses in the Cruz case are horrific. In general, I see Ryan as a not-to bad guy, but that case was a travesty of justice and it was his fault.
I love the Chicago Tribune, but this vendetta against the Madigans is a bit much. Birkett isn’t any cleaner and the more reasonable media outlets have covered his problems with taking money from lawyers in DuPage that regularly do business with him.
Vader encourages the circular firing squad with this tidbit:
Privatized Social Security?
The party leadership’s advice to Republican House candidates to avoid the issue of Social Security privatization has angered conservative theoreticians who fear a long delay in changing the system.
Rep. Tom Davis, the House Republican campaign chairman, has called on the party’s candidates to stay away from the issue, and especially the word ”privatize.” Steven Moore, chairman of the supply-side Club for Growth, said in a memo to Davis, ”Republicans must run ON the issue of creating Social Security private investment account options, not AWAY from it.”
A footnote: The latest Republican candidate to avoid the issue is Elizabeth Dole, who forced the withdrawal of a Democratic ad putting her on record for private accounts. Dole enjoys a big lead over former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles for the open Senate seat in North Carolina.
Darth Vader suggest Harbour could run for Mississippi. Let me remind everyone of one of the funniest Congressional Hearings ever:
SEN. FRED THOMPSON: But when you?re sitting on a boat in the Hong Kong harbor, talking to a gentleman, who?s a citizen of Taiwan, I mean, that does raise certain other potential implications in terms of appearances, but it?s an appearance business that we?re both in, isn?t it?
Instapundit has nice words for Counterspin Central’s Hesiod. The question I have is about this comment:
“That puts him head and shoulders above most of the anti-war critics. And most of the anti-war Democrats in Congress.”
But what serious critics is Glen talking about? Chomsky and gang can hardly be called serious. Congress has been largely avoiding the issue and I’m always confused by the strange notion that those opposed to the war are a monolith. I’m for the war, but most of the discussions I see breakdown into several categories; the looney left of people like Cockburn, skeptics of the truthfullness and timing of the administration, deterrence advocates, and multilateralists who aren’t even necessarily anti-war, but for going slow getting there. Of the four categories, Cockburn, Chomsky and the other fruitcakes are the smallest group and the least influential.
It seems many of the warbloggers are arguing against boogeymen most of the time that aren’t the real resistance out there. Zell Miller has voiced this the best by describing the discussions he had at home with some generally pretty conservative folks who are skeptical of this upcoming war. The real resistance isn’t the loony left, but people in the heartland who need to be convinced it is necessary. They are maybe not the best informed of us, but their skepticism is the same skepticism that the Founders had regarding overseas entanglements. The evidence of this is those who are voicing concerns. Jim Leach, Mark Kirk and other moderate Republicans are concerned about what is going on and not because they are wimps or leftist fruitcakes, but because their constituents are concerned.
Kaus has officially lost it. Not only is the article inane, it specifically distorts the debate over immigrants and welfare. The defect in the reform was that permanent residents were denied benefits. As Alan Sympson, no flaming liberal put it, these people are practically citizens and the fruitcakes in Congress who tried to limit their benefits are stupid if they didn’t undersand that.
Kaus, who does not have the excuse of stupidity, knows that is what the debate was over, but apparently doesn’t care. For a guy who used to be interesting, he is increasingly becoming a crank. Perhaps editing is what helped him and Sullivan be interesting.
Let’s stipulate that I need to get a life right off the bat. It is after midnight and I found a very interesting article while randomly going through blogs. Via Virginia Postrel I found this very good article on the evalution of different species under the Endangered Species Act.
Fellow environmentalists hate me when I bring up these subjects because, generally, they don’t have much of a grounding in economics. Ultimately though we do place values on all life. I actually think that if we force a valuation to be stated, most folks would be appalled by the amount we spend protecting children or endangered species. Opposition is very strong often for the reasons that Coursey ably mentions. Many refuse to put a dollar amount explicitly on life. The problem is we do put a value on it by how much we spend to protect it and explicitly stating that cost is essential in a society of scarce resources (for those less economically inclinded–all societies have scarce resources).
I’ll stop on the points because Coursey has obviously taken more time to develop the argument and you might as well read him.
There is anotehr interesting point in the article. In discussing his research, the reporter’s efforts to get a good story got in the way of reporting the findings. From Coursey’s description she kept trying to draw a conclusion that wasn’t necessarily warranted regarding the value of the Florida Panther. Even despite his best efforts she couldnt’ grasp the work was preliminary and it wasn’t necessarily normative. Certainly, we want to use social science to draw normative conclusions, but a positivist paper in itself is not adequate to make such conclusions.
Much of what we read in the press is dumbed down and interpreted far beyond what the work says. Often, this leads to Limbaugh and others ridiculing real research because, not only do they not understand it, it was even presented in context of the question.
Roesser fires, aims ready into the circlular fire squad that is the Illinois Republican Party. Actually, the most recent numbers suggest the Dems aren’t going to sweep. Topinka is leading Dart and Madigan is in a tight race with Birkett. Then again, more talk like this and Rs aren’t going to turnout. This seems to be driving the most recent results in the 19th where Phelps surprisingly has a slight lead.
Roesser than makes some rather telling comments about homosexuality.
“School sports teams objecting to homosexual or transsexual behavior may be barred from participating in the state’s interscholastic sports. State workers with homosexual partners can receive equivalent benefits for partners at state expense; nonprofit groups such as the Boy Scouts of America may be fined up to $150,000 for refusal to hire homosexuals. ”
The first sentence is hard to figure–I’m guessing it means a school’s sports team can’t discriminate based on sexual orientation. I see no problem with this as long as there is some flexibility on religious ground. Anyone know if California allows for thisl?
I see no reason why state workers with same sex partners shouldn’t get the same rights as I have with my wife. And in Illinois, G-Ry has suggested he is open to such rules even. That is a moderate position. I’m guessing the fines are related to if the non-profits are working with state agencies and then we have long held that states may enforce non-discrimination with partnering organizations.
More importantly, Roesser demonstrates the circling fire squad isn’t learning a lesson from this year. Why have the Republicans controlled the Governorship for 26 years? Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar, and G-Ry are moderates of sorts. Thompson (with questions about his orientation rampant) never race or gay baited. Neither did Edgar. G-Ry did back in the good ‘ole days when he was shooting down the ERA, but has since turned into a social moderate on everything, but abortion. The Republicans haven’t won because they are pure conservatives. They have won because they aren’t Chris Lauzen, CPA, O’Malley, Al Salvi or Gary Bauer.
Who is going to win this year? Topinka–a moderate Republican woman from the ‘burbs. Who should be the future of the R’s if they want to win? Topinka and those like her. Who are the R’s likely to turn to? O’Malley and the jihad wing. Who is going to win state elections for a long time if that happens? The Dems.
The Illinois Republican Party can be right squared (meaning ideologically pure and conservative) or they can choose to be competitve. The most successful Rs in the last 26 years are telling them how, but will they listen to Thompson, Edgar, and G-Ry? Or will they delude themselves into believing ideological purity will somehow win over an increasingly liberal state?
This is an interesting view of what starting it means. First, no one but hoosier 1 and hoosier 2 saw anything of the sort. Second, generally one doesn’t ‘start it’ by having one’s back turned, doing one’s job, and being tackled in front of 10,000 fans.
History vs. Development and unfortunately it appears that that development may win. What exactly does a nation do when it loses its history?
ArchPundit