I went searching for reviews of Amity Shlaes’ 2007 book “The Forgotten Man” for her take on the government-induced uncertainty of the Depression Era 1930s. I had to leave references to the book on the cutting-room floor when I wrote my latest Pajamas Media column (“It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid”).

I got what I was looking for and so much more at a Mises.org review by C.J. Maloney.

Maloney’s September 2009 review went much further in making Shlaes’ academic points, as he imparted an important insight and relentlessly built on it.

Anyone watching what has happened during 2009 and 2010 without ideological blinders will see eerie and frightening parallels:

As one of the book’s central themes, Amity Shlaes condemns them (the FDR administration) for introducing “regime uncertainty” into the economy, thereby exacerbating the Great Depression. Keep in mind that “regime uncertainty” is but a euphemism for “utter lawlessness.”

This “regime uncertainty” was a direct result of the ideological underpinnings of FDR and his Brain Trust.

… In one of the book’s most devastating chapters (“The Junket”) Mrs. Shlaes gives a brief intellectual history of those men and their ideas. Suffice to say that during the 1920s and 1930s, the chatterers at Ivy League cocktail parties — and around FDR’s dinner table — were decidedly smitten with Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini.

One of the men Schlaes profiles is Rex Tugwell, a future prominent member of FDR’s Brain Trust. While in Stalin’s Russia, Tugwell looked about with open admiration. “I knew from then on how determined dictators come to manage a people” (p. 73). His admiration for raw power was par for the course among FDR and his cronies. Roosevelt himself declared during his 1936 campaign, “we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power” (p. 299).

Throughout the book, Shlaes demonstrates that FDR considered the law not as something to be respected and adhered to, but as something to be cynically manipulated or ignored at leisure. In his hands, the law became a weapon to be used against his enemies and other, arbitrarily chosen targets. During his first year of rule alone, “10,000 pages of law had been created” (p. 202), and an army of bureaucrats and police had been raised to enforce them.

America in the Great Depression became a land covered by innumerable laws while sliding into the lawlessness of the NRA (National Recovery Administration). The NRA was FDR’s favorite legislative pet. In it, he put his admiration of Mussolini’s fascist model into action. Mrs. Shlaes pointedly notes that FDR’s economic interventions were “often inspired by socialist or fascist models abroad” (p. 6).

By 1940, America had learned about FDR & Friends that “unpredictability was the only thing you could be sure of” (p. 374). While FDR would repeatedly announce that “we are bringing order out of chaos” (p. 208), Mrs. Shlaes shows unequivocally that his blasé attitude towards the rule of law was doing quite the opposite. How could the economy recover when FDR’s own attorney general went into a court of law and sneered at “the supposed sanctity and inviolability of contractual obligations” (p. 233)?

Team Obama is savvy enough not to sneer. Otherwise, what’s the difference?

Lest I overdo it on excerpting, I’ll stop at this point, and say “read the whole thing.”

When you do, you’ll find that one of the only things that saved the country from the worst of FDR’s lawless, statist excesses was the judicial branch (another, not cited by Maloney, was the “Tea Party” of 1937-1938). Does anyone believe that the courts as currently constituted can save us now?

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RELATED: Van Helsing at Moonbattery (“BHO the Next FDR? We’d Better Hope Not”) says that Team Obama doesn’t really want a recovery —

Maybe FDR and the Ivy League geniuses in his cabinet were not malevolent, but merely clueless fools. However, having put us through one Great Depression, Democrats cannot use cluelessness as an excuse for imposing another. They know what they’re doing, and we know why they’re doing it.

The argument becomes more convincing with each passing day of the same-old, same-old.

It’s here.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

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Post-column Update: I suspect that I’m going to get some grief for one segment of the column, so I’ll head it off here.

Here’s the segment:

Getting back to Ben Bernanke, it’s important to remember that the Fed chairman has extensively studied the Great Depression and understands its monetary lessons. He agrees with the late Milton Friedman that serious Fed policy blunders added to its depth, telling the Nobel laureate in 2002: “You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”

But there’s only so much Ben and the Fed can do. In Congressional testimony, Bernanke essentially admitted that he has done virtually all he can:

[E}ven as the Federal Reserve continues prudent planning for the ultimate withdrawal of extraordinary monetary policy accommodation, we also recognize that the economic outlook remains unusually uncertain.

That, friends, is a de facto admission of impotence.

Here’s a similar though more diplomatic interpretation from another source:

“There is an implicit message from various Fed speakers that monetary policy is less useful now than most times,” said Tom Gallagher, senior managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group in Washington.

That’s especially true, because it’s hard to see how monetary policy could be get much easier than it is already.

Further Corroboration: “Monetary Policy Cannot Solve Current Economic Weakness”

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Post-column Update 2: Something I came across today relating to a point I mentioned on Thursday (last item at link) also ties into the first update –

The Fed chief reiterated three central bank options for further steps, including giving more information on the Fed’s commitment to low interest rates, reducing the rate paid on banks’ reserves held at the Fed and buying more securities.

Option 1, while useful, doesn’t actually change interest rates.

As to Option 2, the Fed discount rate and the Fed funds rate are 0.75% and 0.25%, respectively.

The specific rate mentioned in the excerpt, the interest rate on reserves held, “is set at the lowest federal funds rate during the reserve maintenance period of an institution, less 75 basis points. As of October 23, 2008, the Fed has lowered the spread to a mere 35 basis points.” The Fed’s explanation is here. The rate paid at the latest auction appears to have been 1.96%.

There’s not a lot of maneuvering room available when rates are already so low.

If by “securities” Ben means “stocks,” I find Option 3 very problematic. He has tacitly admitted that the Fed is already buying “securities.” If by that he only means “government securities, that’s nothing new, as it is part of its “open market operations.” But a radio report I heard on Wednesday and noted on Thursday used the word “stocks.” The Fed should not be buying “stocks,” as I fail to see how this has anything remotely to do with “monetary policy.” But for now, I’m leaning towards concluding that this was an interpretive error by the reporter involved.

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Post-column Update 3: Ben thinks that taxes should be cut in 2011.

He didn’t use those words, of course, but since everyone is currently assuming a specific rate structure for 2011 that is higher than 2010, that’s what this statement amounts to:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke dropped a major bombshell on Democrats seeking massive new revenues to narrow the deficit, announcing Thursday that he favors preserving the Bush administration tax cuts to help a faltering U.S. economy.

“In the short term I would believe that we ought to maintain a reasonable degree of fiscal support, stimulus for the economy,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. “There are many ways to do that. This is one way.”

As noted in the column, the “other way” — alleged stimulus via government spending — has once again, as was the case with FDR in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s, failed to create a sufficiently robust “recovery” to allow for significant job growth.

From Denver:

Jul 24, 2010 / 08:02 pm

A documentary on the life of Archbishop Fulton Sheen is being shown in pre-release screenings across the country, as part of an effort to raise awareness of the late archbishop, whose cause for sainthood is currently underway.

The hour-long documentary, entitled, “Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Servant of All,” offers both entertainment and a powerful message of evangelization as it follows the life of the famous archbishop (1895-1979). The video includes the testimonies of dozens of individuals who were touched by the life of the archbishop. It also shows footage from his popular television program, “Life is Worth Living.”

Gaining a reputation as both a scholar and a man of God from a young age, Archbishop Sheen committed to praying a daily Holy Hour before the Eucharist after he was ordained a priest in 1919. It was a practice that he maintained for the remaining 60 years of his life, and it was to this daily Holy Hour that he attributed his success in spreading the Gospel.

By age 30, Archbishop Sheen was a well-recognized Catholic scholar, with degrees from multiple universities in America and Europe. He taught at Catholic University of America, where students would flood his classroom, even sitting on radiators to hear his lectures.

Gaining recognition as a speaker, the archbishop traveled the globe, drawing crowds of up to 10,000 with his charismatic personality and powerful message. “You felt that one of the Apostles was right there in front of you speaking,” said one listener.

In 1930, Archbishop Sheen was asked to take part in a weekly radio broadcast called “The Catholic Hour.” His popularity soared, and shortly after being appointed Auxiliary Bishop of New York in 1951, he began his “Life is Worth Living” television program.

Soon, 30 million Americans were tuning in weekly to see Archbishop Sheen, who presented his message with a charming combination of humor and wit. He was awarded an Emmy after his first season on the air, becoming the only religious broadcaster ever to do so.

… The cause for Archbishop Sheen’s beatification and canonization was opened in 2002. The archbishop currently holds the title of Servant of God, while the Church continues to examine his life and works, including the 66 books he wrote during his life.

Go here for the full story.

Here’s the White House’s latest deficit projection, as illustrated at the Corner (HT Instapundit):

As explained in two previous posts, FY 2010 is worse than it appears by about $115 billion:

• July 9 — “CBO Notes YTD Deficit Tops $1 Trillion; Reality Is Much Worse”
• April 13 — “AP Cites ‘Dramatic’ March Deficit Reduction Due to $115 Billion Non-Cash Item; Out-of-Control Spending Continues”

The essence of the adjustment, as explained at each post:

… the administration pushed as much “bad news” (TARP “asset” writedowns) as it could into last year’s financial reporting, since last year was going to be a disaster no matter what. But since they overdid it with the writedowns last year (”Gosh, how did that happen?”), they can make this year look better than it really has been.

So here’s the cash-based reality:

• Pushing the $115 billion non-cash adjustment back into FY 2009 where it belongs reduces the reported deficit from $1.416 trillion to $1.301 trillion, and reduces spending for that year from $3.520 trillion to $3.405 trillion.
• After doing that, the projected deficit for this fiscal year is really $1.587 trillion ($1.472 trillion above plus $115 billion), and projected spending (in the large PDF White House report at Page 18) goes from $3.603 trillion to $3.718 trillion.

Here’s how the White House’s projected FY 2010 situation really compares to FY 2009 after removing the effect of the non-cash adjustment:

• The FY 2010 deficit will be almost 22% higher than FY 2009 ($1.587 trillion divided by $1.301 trillion is 1.2198).
• In a nearly zero-inflation environment, FY 2010 spending will exceed FY 2009 by over 9% ($3.718 trillion divided by $3.405 trillion is 1.092).

All of this is before any other non-cash adjustments that might be dreamed up to push reported deficits into or out of 2010. Yours truly will be watching, the apparatchik press mostly won’t.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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Related: For those who need the nitty-gritty of the “logic” behind the non-cash adjustments, go here (“The Federal Deficit Gets Nearly Indecipherable”).

From Bangalore, India:

Jul 22, 2010 / 05:31 am

Sr. Nancy Pereira, foundress of a Fund for the Poor bank to help impoverished clients in Bangalore, India, died on July 14 at the age of 86. Her fellow sisters remembered her for her service to the poor with “joy” and “creative solidarity.”

Sr. Nancy was born at Pudukkruruchy in the state of Kerala on August 14, 1923. She made her first profession as a member of the Daughters of Maria Auxiliatrix (FMA) on January 6, 1945.

She became well-known in the early 1990s when she started the Fund for the Poor, following the example of the Nobel Peace Prize awardee the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. According to CBCI News, clients of Sr. Nancy’s bank had to be poor people from slums or villages who lacked the opportunity to improve their livelihoods.

To obtain credit, a prospective applicant had to prove that he or she had saved a small sum for a year and had taken part in meetings of a small credit management group. The bank’s annual interest rate on its loans only covered management expenses.

The Bank for the Poor’s credit projects involved the whole family and helped improved living conditions both for many families and whole villages.

The FMA Sisters described Sr. Nancy in a short biography, saying she was convinced her vocation was “to be with the poor and to devote herself to serving them.”

“She loved all of them and tried to make them aware of their rights as well as their duties and to live their dignity as children of God. She did this with joy, involving many people in her projects for doing good. Forgetful of self, she lived a life of poverty to enrich the poor,” the sisters wrote. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Previous NewsBusters posts Friday afternnoon provided readers with a list of 65 known participants in the now-infamous Journolist (via Melissa Clouthier) and the special case of Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s Economic Adviser (via Lachian Markey).

(Aside: Does the fact that Biden has his own econ adviser explain why what the Vice President says in public about the economy is so often of sync with the rest of the President’s peeps?)

Here’s another very special name that could (emphasis: could) be added to the (Journo)List: the soon-departing White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.

An Investors Business Daily editorial Friday identified the existence of Orszag’s involvement as a given without providing any specifics:

As it turns out, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag also was a participant in the online group.

Nothing wrong with talking to government officials — unless you’re doing so with a secret agenda, selling partisan views as objective media coverage to an unsuspecting public.

Contrary to claims now being made, JournoList wasn’t an innocent Web tool, a harmless forum for discussion. It was an organized effort by one party and its sympathizers in the liberal press to secretly influence public debate and policy.

Orszag’s association with Klein’s effort was noted seventeen months ago — by head Journolister Ezra Klein himself at the American Prospect (HT Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom). Retrospective comic relief in the excerpt that follows is included at no extra charge.

But carefully note that in terms of the matter at hand, Klein does not definitively describe Orszag as a list participant, and most of the others Klein identifies as having “helped” are not on Clouthier’s list as it currently exists (number tags correspond to the person’s presence on Ms. Clouthier’s list):

… The work of this site has always been to illuminate standard political reporting with expert policy commentary. In that, I’ve been helped by the many experts who have adopted the medium as their own: Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong (15), Paul Krugman (8), Matthew Holt, Peter Orszag, Andrew Gelman, Larry Bartels, Dani Rodrik, John Sides, among others. As a journalist, it’s hard to always know who to call or which questions to ask. The joy of those blogs is that I don’t have to guess what experts think is important: They simply explain what they think is important and I can use, or follow-up on, the information.

As for sinister implications, is it “secret?” No. Is it off-the-record? Yes. The point is to create a space where experts feel comfortable offering informal analysis and testing out ideas. Is it an ornate temple where liberals get together to work out “talking points?” Of course not. Half the membership would instantly quit if anything like that emerged. There are no government or campaign employees on the list.

22%, or two of Klein’s nine “helpers,” are known Journolist members. We don’t know about the other seven. Clouthier’s list of 65 only constitutes about 16% of the listserv’s estimated 400 total participants.

In an open tweet to Pajamas Media’s Ed Driscoll at about noon on Friday, Klein claimed that that “Orszag was never a member. That list of expert bloggers I liked wasn’t a list of Jlist members.”

Driscoll’s pointed response:

So release the full list of members, and let us know who was. Shouldn’t President Obama’s “Non-Official Campaign” staff be even more open and transparent than the administration that it continues to serve?

Indeed.

The possibility also clearly remains that IBD is in possession of information I’m not aware of.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

A revealing look at a 2007 report by a “community” organization with which Sherrod had a long affiliation.

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It would be easy to leave this alone, but I shouldn’t, and won’t.

The media narrative is supposedly settled: Poor, put-upon black woman gets accused of racism, is “vindicated,” gets job back. Andrew Breitbart bad, Shirley Sherrod angelic.

Dan Riehl at Human Events correctly says: “Horse manure” (bolds are mine) –

Breitbart’s web-posting of the speech showed more racism at one NAACP event than those charging Republicans and Tea Parties with racism have yet to produce after making accusations for months on end.

But it is Breitbart who should be convicted for false charges in the court of public opinion? That is totally absurd given the actual facts.

Sherrod twice decried present-day racism, as if it was 400 years ago. That suggests a person whose views on race have not truly changed at all. But she doesn’t stop there. Sherrod says, “I haven’t seen such mean-spirited people as I have seen lately over this issue, healthcare. Some of the racism we thought was buried, didn’t it surface.”

In Sherrod’s world, no one is allowed to object to a significant Obama-supported policy change impacting the healthcare of all Americans without being labeled a racist. Clearly Sherrod sees everything through the lens of color or race. If her view is not racist, it is supremely ignorant and unfit for a public official. It is meant to marginalize any and all legitimate opposition to a political act. Sherrod is merely projecting her own racism into a perfectly rational, legitimate political debate so as to avoid it. That is not democracy; it is race-based demagogy commonly employed by racists everywhere. And still she was not done.

During the Bush years, says Sherrod, “We didn’t do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black President.” Gone is any valid argument over actual policy, fiscal restraint, government growth, or control of healthcare—supported or opposed by entire national political parties. In Sherrod’s world, everything is all and only about race. If that isn’t a tenet of racism, then what is? Without ignorant race-based presumptions, otherwise known as racism, Sherrod’s entire scope of political argument falls apart.

Now the woman has bared her statist, Stalinist fangs:

She agreed with the (CNN) hosts that it would be a “great thing” if (Breitbart’s web site) Big Government was shut down. “I don’t see how that advances us in this country.”

“Shut down”? Who would do this? Why, the real big government.

Since she’s going on the offensive, she’s still fair game.

So just for the heck of it, let’s look at a June 2007 report (large PDF) called “The Status of Human Rights For Southern Rural Black Women,” by The Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice (SRBWI). In 2007, Sherrod was identified in the report as the group’s “State Lead” for Georgia and a member of its Regional Advisory Board.

The SRBWI, which has dutifully placed a “we support Shirley” narrative on its home page, has acknowledged administrative support from the Children’s Defense Fund, whose Maria Wright Edelman wrote a brief foreword to the 2007 report.

This bunch seems to think that it’s still 1948 (bolds are mine):

(Page 8 of PDF) “About this report”

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, guarantees the rights of all people to economic, social, cultural, political and civil rights. Many of the rights outlined in the global declaration exist only as empty promises for some citizens across the United States.”

(Page 53 of PDF, Page 46 of report) “Call to action”

“Since 1948, violations of human rights have been addressed in countries across the world, but seldom in the United States.”

It’s as if the 1964 Civil Rights Act (passed thanks to Republicans) never happened. It’s as if there was no War on Poverty (it wasn’t effective, but that’s not the point here; these people act as if there wasn’t even any effort).

The group’s “Call to Action” (Page 53 of PDF, Page 46 of actual report) is right out of the radical playbook, and is really a “gimme” list (bolds are mine):

Everyone who works should have the right to jobs that pay enough to ensure an existence worthy of human dignity.

… Children should be provided after-school and summer educational supports to help them make up for lost time and overcome previous continuing school disparities.

… Every person should have the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of families, including food, clothing, housing, transportation and medical care and necessary social services …

… decent housing in America should be a given.

No one is disputing that there aren’t serious problems in the rural south. What should be obvious by now, but clearly isn’t, is that passive “solutions” involving presumptive “rights” that don’t exist which require the government to provide (i.e., to take money from other people and give it to the politically aggrieved) aren’t solutions at all. But in the SRBWI’s grievance-obsessed world, which is Shirley Sherrod’s world, that’s all there is.

Hers is a mindset that should have no place in government administration. Sadly, it’s a mindset that is has gained dominance in the Obama administration.

At the nation’s universities and in government bureaucracies, “Chokepoint Charlies” have the power to end careers and control people’s lives — and they do abuse it.

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Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday.

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In the days of the Berlin Wall during the Cold War, “Checkpoint Charlie” was a border crossing point between East and West Berlin. Its obvious purpose was to prevent those who wished to escape the Communist tyranny of East Germany from doing so. In the roughly 2-1/2 years before the Wall’s construction choked off the flow, roughly 550,000 East Germans fled to the West.

The communists had their checkpoints. Leftists have their chokepoints. Those who occupy positions in university systems, government bureaucracies, and unions, often with the active assistance of the courts, serve as the system’s “Chokepoint Charlies.” You can’t get through or move on unless you comply with their demands or behave according to their established norms. This column will focus on the first two sets of Chokepoint Charlies.

In university systems, the most obvious chokepoint is tenure. If you achieve it, you have a position for life; if you don’t, your career is essentially over. Not surprisingly, leftist-dominated universities have used denial of tenure as a principal means of culling promising conservative professors, or even usually reliable liberals who utter occasional center-right thoughts, from their faculties’ ranks.

Other university chokepoints are in the classroom. For the most part, it’s still true that if you’re bright enough, apply yourself, keep your head down, and avoid making too many waves, you’ll get through. But if you happen to incur the wrath of an intolerant radical prof by expressing a dissenting view, no matter how well-supported, you may find yourself with a failing grade, a lengthy redress or appeals process with less than assured results, and perhaps the inability, at least at that university, to go on to the next step in your desired major.

Perhaps the most dangerous chokepoint at universities is in research. If your line of inquiry leads to conclusions that are contrary to established beliefs — say, just for the heck of it, if you find evidence that the earth really hasn’t been warming, or even if it is warming that it’s not significantly influenced by human activity — there’s more than a slight chance that your “peer reviewers” won’t be impressed, and that your next funding request may not be granted. Just like that, you’re on the outside looking in. As seen in the ClimateGate e-mails, you’ll also be the recipient of major grief, up to and including active attempts to prevent your work’s publication, from agenda-driven ideologues who are secondarily and not primarily scientists.

If there’s a solution that will lead to the elimination of higher education’s chokepoints, the relentless college cost bubble, where tuition and fees are entering at least their fifth decade of rising faster than general inflation by a substantial margin, may present the opportunity. The past year’s increases, in the presence of nearly zero inflation, have been particularly offensive. I believe the entire mechanism of higher education needs a comprehensive re-think. If you don’t, ask yourself this question: Given today’s technology, if the buildings, dorms, and stadiums weren’t already there, would you organize a university system as it is organized today? I didn’t think so.

Then there are the far more pervasive chokepoints that come courtesy of government. Almost inevitably, the left takes something that started out as something desirable and develops it into a political or statist tool to assert control.

For an extreme example, take the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the early 1970s, the idea of doing something about legitimately problematic pollution was a good one. But going after law-breaking polluters and protecting the air and water supplies was hardly enough for the radical environmentalist movement. Their minions have worked tirelessly and relentlessly during the EPA’s 40-year existence to morph it into the $10 billion command-and-control center it is today. Along the way, they received substantial help from Congress, which conferred automatic “standing” to their “public interest” groups in litigation, and the courts, which ultimately and incredibly decided that what humans and other living things exhale is a pollutant. Now, if Congress is able to pass cap and trade, the agency will be well on its way to possessing its Holy Grail of chokepoints: the ability to dictate financial consequences for virtually any human action that is somehow seen in their eyes to have some potential to negatively impact Dear Mother Earth.

The nation’s healthcare system is another key weapon in the statists’ chokepoint arsenal. Of course, the idea of protecting seniors from catastrophic health care costs had considerable appeal in the mid-1960s. Too bad that this is only a small portion of what Congress passed. Medicare led instead to government dominance of over-65 health care. How interesting, and unsurprising, that Medicare has the worst record in the key chokepoint area of rejected medical claims.

Decades later, having gained additional beachheads in children’s health care and prescription drugs (one of the saddest examples of opportunistic capitulation by alleged conservatives in our history), health care’s Chokepoint Charlies are on the cusp of achieving control over the entire sector. If the recess-appointed radical whom President Obama has placed in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid get his way — a man who believes that spending 8% of GDP on healthcare is quite enough (currently it’s about 17%) — the term “chokepoint” may take on a whole new meaning for seniors and others needing life-saving or life-improving treatment.

In the two examples cited and in so many other areas, the government’s Chokepoint Charlies have taken decades to build up their powers, and will of course fiercely resist relinquishing it. Reining them in will more than likely also require decades. A prerequisite to reversing their constantly hardening tyranny is getting enough voters to wake up to what has happened already, and to how recognize much worse it could really get. Despite all the premature end-zone dancing, I’m not at all convinced that we’re there yet.

From the Virginia Democratic Senator’s op-ed today:

Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege

… Forty years ago, as the United States experienced the civil rights movement, the supposed monolith of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America. After a full generation of such debate, WASP elites have fallen by the wayside and a plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future.

… Contrary to assumptions in the law, white America is hardly a monolith. And the journey of white American cultures is so diverse (yes) that one strains to find the logic that could lump them together for the purpose of public policy.

… The old South was a three-tiered society, with blacks and hard-put whites both dominated by white elites who manipulated racial tensions in order to retain power. At the height of slavery, in 1860, less than 5% of whites in the South owned slaves. The eminent black historian John Hope Franklin wrote that “fully three-fourths of the white people in the South had neither slaves nor an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of slavery.”

… Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.

Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.

Truly noble sentiments, but you’ll excuse me if I have a problem with Mr. Webb’s sincerity.

That’s because of three obvious questions which Mr. Webb must confront:

• Where were you when your 2006 election opponent was being mercilessly smeared by an agenda-driven press over totally bogus charges of racism?
• Who did you vote for in the 2008 presidential election?
• How many white privilege myth-assuming minority set-aside and reverse-discriminating provisions contained in Barack Obama’s bogus stimulus plan, statist health care plan, and so-called financial services plan have you enabled with your three “yes” votes, the third of which occurred mere days ago?

The answers, I believe, are:

• “I did nothing, or almost nothing.”
• “Racial Greivance Monger in Chief Barack Obama.”
• “Lots and lots,” clearly totaling “dozens.” One example: The financial services bill ” creates the Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion in at least 20 federal financial services agencies.”

If the three answers are as I believe they are, Mr. Webb has aided and abetted the very things he is criticizing today for almost four years.

No one should believe that a word of what Webb has written is sincere unless and until we see and hear at least three  heartfelt “I was wrong, I am sorry” statements.

From Oklahoma City:

Jul 23, 2010 / 05:35 am

The archdiocesan phase of Fr. Stanley Rother’s cause for canonization came to a close in a Mass this week at Our Lady’s Cathedral in Oklahoma City. The local archbishop expressed his conviction during the homily that the missionary is a martyr and a saint.

Fr. Rother spent 13 years in Guatemala as a parish priest in Santiago Atitlan, a small town caught up in the Guatemalan Civil War in the 1970s and 80s. Aware that his life was in danger he returned to Oklahoma in Jan. 1981, but, recognizing that his heart was with the people, he returned just months later.

He was assassinated on July 28 of that year by three men who broke into the mission rectory.

Fr. Rother’s cause for canonization was initiated in Oct. 2006 when Archbishop of Oklahoma City, Eusebius J. Beltran, commissioned a committee to collect information about his life and the circumstances that led to his death. He also contracted a canon lawyer, Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, to act as postulator in Rome.

Dr. Ambrosi’s law firm specializes in causes for beatification and canonization. Incidentally, they are also managing the cause Cardinal John Henry Newman, who will be beatified by the Pope on Sept. 19.

After the extensive documentation was compiled on the life and service of the Oklahoma priest and verified by an archdiocesan tribunal in a rigorous 33-month process, just this week it was consigned to Dr. Ambrosi, thus beginning the “Roman phase” of the cause.

Go here for the rest of the story. …

… with a big bag of detailed, analytical & critical truth about the train wreck that is RomneyCare.

Why it’s Christmas in July!

Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity are NOT going to be happy that their boy-toy (Sean’s man-crush) has been criticized in this forum.

Kudos to Michael Cannon, CATO’s healthcare policy scholar. He and senior fellow Michael D. Tanner have been banging this drum for years.

The piece is also cross-posted at CATO@Liberty.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
RomneyCare Advocates: We Swear, This Time Centralized Planning Will Work
Posted by : Townhall.com Staff at 4:16 PM
Guest blog post by Michael Cannon

You know things aren’t going well in Massachusetts when supporters of RomneyCare write “there’s some evidence that the reforms signed into law by Mitt Romney in 2006 are struggling.” That’s how The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein puts it in a post defending RomneyCare. The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn offers a similar defense.

Klein mentions only a few of the difficulties confronting Massachusetts. Here are a few more:

The Commonwealth Fund reports that even though Massachusetts already had the highest health insurance premiums in the nation, premiums rose faster post-RomneyCare than anywhere else; 21-46 percent faster than the national average.

A recent study estimates that RomneyCare has so far increased employer-sponsored health-insurance premiums by an average of 6 percent.

…Contrary to Klein’s post hoc spin that RomneyCare “was never an attempt to control costs,” Romney himself promised that “the costs of health care will be reduced.”

…Evidence is mounting that, despite stiffer penalties than ObamaCare will impose, increasing numbers of people are gaming the individual mandate by only purchasing health insurance when they need medical care. Such behavior could ultimately cause the “private” insurance market to collapse.

…RomneyCare and its progeny ObamaCare are attempts by the Left’s central planners to clean up their own mess. If Klein and Cohn want to defend those laws, pointing to the damage already caused by their economic policies won’t do the trick. They need to explain why government price & exchange controls, mandates, and subsidies will produce something other than what they have always produced.

Please read the entire piece here. Cannon explains that despite the rationalizations of RomneyCare (no pun intended), it merely tweaked – and made worse – a system that needed a complete overhaul. More band aids on gaping wounds…by a Republican no less, and no one but CATO has had the brass to call him out.

I’ll say it until every last deceived Romniac hears me, and there are good people who continue to be fooled by his slick, polished appearance; if Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney is your answer, then you’re still asking the wrong questions.

Note: This item went up at the Washington Examiner’s OpinionZone Blog and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday afternoon. It has garnered quite a bit of visible and behind-the-scenes attention.

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My oh my, that happened quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

Until Monday, Shirley Sherrod was Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA. Earlier in the day at Big Government, Andrew Breitbart put up a video that exposed Ms. Sherrod as someone all too willing to discriminate based on race.

Within hours of the video’s release, USDA Director Tom Vilsack announced Sherrod’s recognition, and in the process issued an exceptionally strong condemnation (“We are appalled by her actions … Her actions were shameful … she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man”).

The NAACP, at whose Freedom Fund Banquet Sherrod spoke of her discriminatory posture, and at which the audience seemed to indicate approval of her outlook, followed a short time later, virtually echoing Vilsack.

So I guess we’re supposed to forget about Shirley Sherrod from this point forward.

Not just yet.

Luckily, she’s inviting further scrutiny by complaining about Fox News and the Tea Party leading to her dismissal. Keep it up, ma’am, because you and the USDA both deserve further scrutiny.

Ms. Sherrod’s previous background, the circumstances surrounding her hiring, and the USDA’s agenda may all play a part in explaining her sudden departure from the agency. These matters have not received much scrutiny to this point.

An announcement of Ms. Sherrod’s July 2009 appointment to her USDA position at ruraldevelopment.org gives off quite a few clues:

RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.

What?

The news that follows at the link, which appears to pre-date the announcement of Ms. Sherrod’s appointment, provides further details:

Minority Farm Settlement

Justice Achieved – Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod!

We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960′s. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country.

… Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

… The cash (settlement) award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. … New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

The Pigford matter goes back a long way, and to say the least has a checkered history, as this May 27, 2010 item at Agri-Pulse demonstrates (bolds are mine:

As part of a April 14, 1999 class action case settlement, commonly known as the Pigford case, U.S. taxpayers have already provided over $1 billion incash, non-credit awards and debt relief to almost 16,000 black farmers who claimed that they were discriminated against by USDA officials as they “farmed or attempted to farm.” In addition, USDA’s Farm Service Agency spent over $166 million on salaries and expenses on this case from 1999-2009, according to agency records.

Members of Congress may approve another $1.15 billion this week to settle cases from what some estimate may be an additional 80,000 African-Americans who have also claimed to have been discriminated against by USDA staff.

… Settling this case is clearly a priority for the White House and USDA. Secretary Vilsack described the funding agreement reached between the Administration and advocates for black farmers early this year as “an important milestone in putting these discriminatory claims behind us for good and in achieving finality for this group of farmers with longstanding grievances.”

However, confronted with the skyrocketing federal deficit, more officials are taking a critical look at the billion dollars spent thus far and wondering when these discrimination cases will ever end. Already, the number of people who have been paid and are still seeking payment will likely exceed the 26,785 black farmers who were considered to even be operating back in 1997, according to USDA. That’s the year the case initially began as Pigford v. (then Agriculture Secretary) Glickman and sources predicted that, at most, 3,000 might qualify.

At least one source who is extremely familiar with the issue and who asked to remain anonymous because of potential retribution, says there are a number of legitimate cases whohave long been denied their payments and will benefit from the additional funding. But many more appear to have been solicited in an attempt to “game” the Pigford system.

Here are just a few questions about Ms. Sherrod that deserve answers:

• Was Ms. Sherrod’s USDA appointment an unspoken condition of her organization’s settlement?
• How much “debt forgiveness” is involved in USDA’s settlement with New Communities?
• Why were the Sherrods so deserving of a combined $300,000 in “pain and suffering” payments — amounts that far exceed the average payout thus far to everyone else? ($1.15 billion divided by 16,000 is about $72,000)?
• Given that New Communities wound down its operations so long ago (it appears that this occurred sometime during the late 1980s), what is really being done with that $13 million in settlement money?

Here are a few bigger-picture questions:

• Did Shirley Sherrod resign so quickly because the circumstances of her hiring and the lawsuit settlement with her organization that preceded it might expose some unpleasant truths about her possible and possibly sanctioned conflicts of interest?
• Is USDA worried about the exposure of possible waste, fraud, and abuse in its handling of Pigford?
• Did USDA also dispatch Sherrod hastily because her continued presence, even for another day, might have gotten in the way of settling Pigford matters quickly?

The media and the blogosphere shouldn’t be so quick to forget about Shirley Sherrod.