Do I ever miss President George W. Bush!

[4est_4est_Gump]

Two weeks like this and there wouldn't be a single porn thread on page one.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

A few years ago, after one corruption scandal too many, the then Liberal government in Canada announced that, to prevent further outbreaks of malfeasance, it would be hiring 300 new federal auditors plus a bunch of ethics czars, and mandating “integrity provisions” in government contracts, including “prohibitions against paying, offering, demanding or accepting bribes.” There were already plenty of laws against bribery, but one small additional sign on the desk should do the trick: “Please do not attempt to bribe the Minister of the Crown as a refusal may offend. Also: He’s not allowed to bribe you, whatever he says.” A government that requires “integrity provisions” is by definition past the stage where they will do any good.

I thought of those Canadian Liberal “integrity provisions” passing a TV screen the other day and catching hack bureaucrats from the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed Division reassuring Congress that systems had now been put in place to prevent them succumbing to the urge to put on Spock ears and moob-hugging blue polyester for the purposes of starring in a Star Trek government training video. The Small Business/Self-Employed Division had boldly gone where no IRS man had gone before — to a conference in Anaheim, where they were put up in $3,500-a-night hotel rooms and entertained by a man who was paid $27,500 to fly in and paint on stage a portrait of Bono. Bono is the veteran Irish rocker knighted by the Queen for his tireless campaign on behalf of debt forgiveness, which doesn’t sound the IRS’s bag at all. But don’t worry, debt forgiveness-wise Bono has Africa in mind, not New Jersey. And, as Matthew Cowart tweeted me the other day, he did have a big hit with “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” which I believe is now the official anthem of the IRS Cincinnati office.

Mark Steyn, NRO

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Here’s another congressional-subcommittee transcript highlight of the week. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois asks the attorney general if he’s spying on members of Congress and thereby giving the executive branch leverage over the legislative branch. Eric Holder answers:

“With all due respect, senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue.”

Senator Kirk responded that “the correct answer would be, ‘No, we stayed within our lane and I’m assuring you we did not spy on members of Congress.’” For some reason, the attorney general felt unable to say that. So I think we all know what the answer to the original question really is.

Holder had another great contribution to the epitaph of the Republic this week. He went on TV to explain that he didn’t really regard Fox News’s James Rosen as a “co-conspirator” but had to pretend he did to the judge in order to get the judge to cough up the warrant. So rest easy, America! Your chief law officer was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t lied to Congress because in fact he’d been lying when he said he told the truth to the judge.

Mark Steyn

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

This, incidentally, is at the heart of the revelation (in a non-U.S. newspaper, naturally) that hundreds of millions of Americans’ phone records have been subpoenaed by the United States government. In 2011, Eric Holder’s assistant attorney general Todd Hinen testified to the House Judiciary Committee that “on average, we seek and obtain Section 215 orders less than 40 times per year.” Forty times per year doesn’t sound very high, does it? What is that — the cell phones of a few Massachusetts Chechens and some Yemeni pen-pals? No. The Verizon order will eventually be included as just another individual Section 215 order, even though it covers over a hundred million Americans. Ongoing universal monitoring of mass populations is being passed off to Congress and the public as a few dozen narrowly targeted surveillance operations. Mr. Hinen chose his words more carefully than his boss, but both men are in the business of deceiving the citizenry, their elected representatives, and maybe the judges, too.

Perhaps this is just the way it is in the panopticon state. Tocqueville foresaw this, as he did most things. Although absolute monarchy “clothed kings with a power almost without limits” in practice “the details of social life and of individual existence ordinarily escaped his control.” What would happen, Tocqueville wondered, if administrative capability were to evolve to bring “the details of social life and of individual existence” within the King’s oversight? Eric Holder and Lois Lerner now have that power. My comrade John Podhoretz, doughty warrior of the New York Post, says relax, there’s nothing to worry about. But how do I know he’s not just saying that because Eric Holder’s monitoring his OnStar account and knows that when he lost his car keys last Tuesday he was in the parking lot of Madam Whiplash’s Bondage Dungeon?

When the state has the power to know everything about everyone, the integrity of the civil service is the only bulwark against men like Holder. Instead, the ruling party and the non-partisan bureaucracy seem to be converging. In August 2010, President Obama began railing publicly against “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity” (August 9th, a speech in Texas) and “shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names” (August 21st, radio address). And whaddayaknow, that self-same month the IRS obligingly issued its first BOLO (Be On the Look-Out) for groups with harmless-sounding names, like “tea party,” “patriot,” and “constitution.”

It may be that the strange synchronicity between the president and the permanent bureaucracy is mere happenstance and not, as it might sound to the casual ear, the sinister merging of party and state. Either way, they need to be pried apart. When the state has the capability to know everything except the difference between right and wrong, it won’t end well.

Mark Steyn

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The issue of judicial nominations causes an outbreak of hypocrisy in both political parties, and President Obama isn't immune. In fact, he seems to have come down with a particularly bad case lately.

On Tuesday, the president went to the Rose Garden to deliver a peevish and lecturing speech announcing three candidates for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Noting that it is the president's constitutional duty to nominate judges and the Senate's duty to provide advice and consent, a clearly frustrated Obama said, "Time and again, congressional Republicans cynically used Senate rules and procedures to delay and even block qualified nominees from coming to a full vote."

"As a result," Obama continued, "my judicial nominees have waited three times longer to receive confirmation votes than those of my Republican predecessor. Let me repeat that: My nominees have taken three times longer to receive confirmation votes than those of my Republican predecessor."

Obama's claim seemed heartfelt, but it wasn't anywhere near true. As it happens, the Congressional Research Service has just done a study comparing judicial nominations in the first terms of several recent presidents. Among other things, the study noted how long each president's nominees waited from the day they were nominated to the day they were confirmed.

When it comes to the circuit courts of appeals, the level just below the Supreme Court, Obama's nominees have actually moved through the Senate faster than those of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. The CRS study found that Bush's first-term nominees waited an average of 277 days for confirmation, while Obama's waited 240 days. So not only did Obama's nominees not wait three times longer than Bush's, they actually made it to the bench faster.

As for the U.S. district courts, which have far more seats than the circuit courts, the study found that Obama's nominees have waited an average of 222 days, while Bush's waited 156. So Obama's picks have waited longer before confirmation -- but nowhere near three times as long.

But what about the final results? As it turns out, Obama has had a higher percentage of his circuit court nominees confirmed during his first term than Bush did. The CRS report notes that 71.4 percent of Obama's circuit court nominees were confirmed in his first term, compared with 67.3 percent in Bush's first term.

...

But of course, it's true that Senate Republicans are sometimes acting out of partisanship in delaying Obama's nominations. And in his Rose Garden speech, the president conceded that his party has been guilty of that, too. "I recognize that neither party has a perfect track record here," Obama said. "Democrats weren't completely blameless when I was in the Senate."

But it's not just Democrats. It's Barack Obama himself. In the four years he served in the Senate, Obama was an enthusiastic obstructer of Bush judicial nominations.

According to Senate Judiciary Committee records, there were a total of 122 confirmations during Obama's time in the Senate. Sixty of them were approved by voice vote or unanimous consent. That left 62 roll call votes for confirmation. Sen. Obama missed 13 of them -- busy running for president. But of the 49 confirmation votes he participated in, he cast a "no" vote in eight: two Supreme Court nominations and six circuit court nominations.

In addition, Obama voted to filibuster one of the Supreme Court nominations, for Samuel Alito, and also tried to derail circuit court nominees William Pryor, Leslie Southwick and Janice Rogers Brown. And he certainly didn't spend his time exhorting colleagues to confirm Bush nominees more quickly.

So now that he's president, no matter what he says, Obama hasn't had it any worse than his Republican predecessor. Indeed, when one takes away all the umbrage and unsubstantiated statistics, Obama's Rose Garden message to Senate Republicans was very simple: Don't do unto me as I did unto you.

Byron York

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The irony of the whole thing is, if you put Dubyas nominees and Obamas nominees in a sack and shook it up, when you empty the bag you cant tell them apart.

 

[bobnyc49]

This is so breathtaking on so many levels it's beyond incredible.

"We're The Government, Trust us!"

 

[Wat_Tyler]

What, what are you saying?


Oh yes, yes, of course . . . .

Carry on then.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Looks like Chief Homonomo has outsourced his outrage once again.....

Mark Steyn, NRO

Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn

Hey Chief, since you've obviously got a man-crush on Mark Steyn (better schedule some more reparative therapy, stat!)....would you also agree with him that Michele Bachmann is "America's Margaret Thatcher"?

 

[kbate]

For the most part, Obama's nominations have been reasonable and have passed confirmation without problem.

Only 6 or 7 have been challenged on any serious level by the republicans; John McConnell who basically bought his bench with huge contributions and a few who had done work with the ACLU, which is turning out to be strange, as the ACLU has turned against Obama and the democrats who not only embraced the Patriot Act police state mechanisms, but expanded it and redirected it at US citizens.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

What's for lunch???

http://wpc.556e.edgecastcdn.net/80556E/img*****/PHOEKoGbVWRtTO_1_m.jpg

 

[Ramone45]

Meet the new boss...same as the old boss. We were bamboozled.

 

[ChinaBandit]

Meet the new boss...same as the old boss.

but fools like Throb will be fooled again.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

It's an Eminence Front.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If you examine history, and most folks don't, every revolution re-creates the tyranny it replaces. The first thing Washington did was hire tax collectors and jailers. The very first thing Lenin did was outlaw communism; he and Stalin wanted to be Czars.

So the GOP and Obamasites fuss and quarrel but advance the elite's agenda together.

 

[phrodeau]

This thread needs more Bono.