Imagine the (justifiable) media and other outcry that would result if a previous presidential administration and congressional leadership had convinced gullible House and Senate members to pass a law which they weren’t given time to read specifying the following about a new Military Spending Board.

First, the Board appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate) sets a predetermined (by the Board) target for military spending growth. If the Board determines that the growth of military spending will not match this predetermined target, it has the power to enact a remedy through “fast track” legislation, which will work like this:

• By January 15 each year, the Board must submit a proposal to Congress and the president for reaching military spending targets in the coming year. The majority leaders in the House and Senate must introduce bills incorporating the board’s proposal the day they receive it.
• Congress cannot “consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report  …  that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the Board” if such changes fail to meet the board’s budgetary target.
• By April 1, the committees of jurisdiction must complete their consideration of the proposal. Any committee that fails to meet the deadline is barred from further considering the bill.
• The defense secretary must implement the Board’s proposal, as passed by Congress and signed by the president, on August 15 of the year in which the proposal is submitted.
• If Congress does not pass the proposal or a substitute plan meeting the Board’s financial target before August  15, or if the president vetoes the proposal passed by Congress, the original Board recommendations automatically take effect.

Additionally, Congress cannot consider any bill or amendment that would repeal or change this fast-track congressional consideration process without a three-fifths vote (60) in the Senate. Not only that, but the implementation of the Board’s budget is exempted from administrative or judicial review.

To be clear, based on the second bulleted item above, what the Board says about the military spending would be what goes, even if Congress jumped through the hoops described above. All Congress could possibly do is reallocate funds, say, between branches of the military or among weapons programs.

As I noted at the beginning, the establishment media outcry would be fierce — and justified.

Well, as described by Wesley Smith at the Weekly Standard (“Our New ObamaCare Masters”), what I’ve described above concerning a mythical Military Spending Board is what is really in ObamaCare, and it will have a virtually iron grip over Medicare spending. Here is Smith’s description:

(If) the 15 “expert” members of the Independent Payment Advisory Board … (determine) that the growth of Medicare costs will exceed a predetermined target, it (the Board) has the power to enact a remedy through “fast track” legislation, which works like this:

• By January 15 each year, the Independent Payment Advisory Board must submit a proposal to Congress and the president for reaching Medicare savings targets in the coming year. The majority leaders in the House and Senate must introduce bills incorporating the board’s proposal the day they receive it.

• Congress cannot “consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report  …  that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the board” if such changes fail to meet the board’s budgetary target.

• By April 1, the committees of jurisdiction must complete their consideration of the proposal. Any committee that fails to meet the deadline is barred from further considering the bill.

• The secretary of health and human services must implement the Independent Payment Advisory Board’s proposal, as passed by Congress and signed by the president, on August 15 of the year in which the proposal is submitted.

• If Congress does not pass the proposal or a substitute plan meeting the Independent Payment Advisory Board’s financial target before August  15, or if the president vetoes the proposal passed by Congress, the original Independent Payment Advisory Board recommendations automatically take effect.

Further demonstrating the Star Chamber-like powers of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, Congress cannot consider any bill or amendment that would repeal or change this fast-track congressional consideration process without a three-fifths vote (60) in the Senate. Not only that, but the implementation of the board’s remedy is exempted from administrative or judicial review.

So … where’s the media outrage over this clearly antidemocratic creation and its related mechanisms?

Answer: The establishment press’s democratic impulses are selective. Effectively taking control over military spending away from Congress through heavy-handed means? Bad. Taking control over and judicial review of the amount of money spent by Medicare? Apparently, that’s no problem — oh, and let’s make sure we never describe how it will really work to news readers and watchers, lest they get some kind of crazy notion that it isn’t the greatest thing in the world.

One example: Here’s longtime alleged money-smart maven Jane Bryant Quinn’s description of the Independent Payment Advisory Board published on the day after the midterm elections. Quinn, in objecting to anticipated antiObamaCare efforts by the new Republican House majority, wrote:

[L]egislators have vowed to get rid of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, set up to study ways to save money on Medicare. That’s right, it’s a board created to try to slow down the increase in future federal spending. And yes, the “conservatives” are against it.

No ma’am. It’s a board that will virtually dictate spending, regardless of the consequences for quality care, up to and including rationing. Of course sensible, constitutional conservatives are against it.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the third quarter of 2010, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 1.7 percent.

… The increase in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), private inventory investment, nonresidential fixed investment, exports, and federal government spending that were partly offset by a negative contribution from residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

The acceleration in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected a sharp deceleration in imports and accelerations in private inventory investment and in PCE that were partly offset by a downturn in residential fixed investment and decelerations in nonresidential fixed investment and in exports.

That’s nice.

As you can see from the graphic in the far right column (or click here to see a larger version), annualized growth in Quarter 5 of the Reagan Recovery was an annualized 8.5%. What a difference applying supply-side econ policy could have made.

That’s why, though it beats the alternative, I won’t go beyond “nice” in describing today’s news.

Wow, this guy was a crass political opportunist when he ran for president 10 years ago:

(This presidential candidate) said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was ‘not a good policy,’ weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.”

… “It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol.”

… He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.

… I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

… The U.S. ethanol industry will consume about 41 percent of the U.S. corn crop this year, or 15 percent of the global corn crop, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.

The presidential candidate involved is Al Gore, essentially saying that he staked out an issue position based on craven, brazen self-interest.

Over 40% of our corn crop goes to something that is inefficient, totally unnecessary (see next item), and heavily subsidized. What the article doesn’t tell you is that the vast majority of the 60% remainder goes to feeding farm animals, not humans, so the displacement effect, and the impact on many other prices at the consumer level, has been pervasive.

We are incalculably fortunate, for reasons that go well beyond corn, that Al Gore did not prevail in 2000.

________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in the real world, even the New York Times seems to be working on jumping off the human-caused global warming — known around here as “globaloney” — bandwagon:

Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. In addition, the United States has increased domestic oil production for the first time in a generation.

… Energy experts now predict decades of residential and commercial power at reasonable prices. Simply put, the world of energy has once again been turned upside down.

Even though the item went up at the paper’s “Green” blog, the term “climate change” doesn’t appear in the article, nor does any other reference to global temperatures, ocean levels, Arctic ice, glacier melts, or any of the other nonsense globaloney proponents — known around here as “globalarmists” — have dishonestly promoted for about two decades. The word “climate” only appears in a sentence noting concerns about shale oil and groundwater supplies.

The browser window title at the Times is “Energy, and Plenty of It, for Decades to Come.” You can almost hear the Peak Oilers scream. Peak Oil, Schmeak Oil.

Even though they won’t acknowledge it, what a difference a year of Climategate makes.

Let’s also note that this is a “See I told ya” moment going back to 2006 — “We’ve Always Been ‘Running Out’ of Energy Sources; We’re Always Finding More”).

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I stumbled across this in doing work on the story that four Alabama legislators switched parties to become Republicans, leavining Democrats there in a non-influential minority:

Under Article IV, Section 46, all seats of the Alabama Legislature were filled by election on November 2, 2010, and all Members elected to seats in the Legislature took office the day after the general election, that being November 3, 2010.

In other words, there cannot be lame-duck legislative sessions.

That’s a good thing; it should be imitated elsewhere.

_____________________________________________

Another one for the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” file — The guys trying to build the Ground Zero Mosque, who have said they will to need to make eight more quarterly payments to take care of about $270,000 in back taxes, have applied for a $5 million federal grant (HT Kyle-Ann Shiver at PJM via the Weekly Standard):

The application was submitted under a “community and cultural enhancement” grant program administered by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation (LMDC), which oversaw the $20 billion in federal aid allocated in the wake of 9/11 and is currently doling out millions in remaining taxpayer funds for community development. The redevelopment board declined to comment on the application (as did officials from Park51), citing the continuing and confidential process of determining the grant winners.

… “If Imam Feisal and his retinue want know why they’re not trusted, here’s yet another reason,” says Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble with Islam and director of the Moral Courage Project at NYU, when I asked her about the grant proposal. “The New Yorkers I speak with have questions about Park51. Requesting money from public coffers without engaging the public shows a staggering lack of empathy—especially from a man who says he’s all about dialogue.”

I’d say it’s really an application for a $4.73 million grant and a $270,000 bailout.

_________________________________________________________

Wesley Smith, on yet another tyrannical aspect of ObamaCare:

The creators of Obamacare saw the ability of constituents to influence their representatives as a problem. Saying, in effect, “Stop us before we spend again,” Democrats transferred most of Congress and the president’s policy-making authority to the 15 “expert” members of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. If this board determines that the growth of Medicare costs will exceed a predetermined target, it has the power to enact a remedy through “fast track” legislation, which works like this:

• By January 15 each year, the Independent Payment Advisory Board must submit a proposal to Congress and the president for reaching Medicare savings targets in the coming year. The majority leaders in the House and Senate must introduce bills incorporating the board’s proposal the day they receive it.

• Congress cannot “consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report  …  that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the board” if such changes fail to meet the board’s budgetary target. [1]

• By April 1, the committees of jurisdiction must complete their consideration of the proposal. Any committee that fails to meet the deadline is barred from further considering the bill.

• The secretary of health and human services must implement the Independent Payment Advisory Board’s proposal, as passed by Congress and signed by the president, on August 15 of the year in which the proposal is submitted.

• If Congress does not pass the proposal or a substitute plan meeting the Independent Payment Advisory Board’s financial target before August  15, or if the president vetoes the proposal passed by Congress, the original Independent Payment Advisory Board recommendations automatically take effect. [2]

Further demonstrating the Star Chamber-like powers of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, Congress cannot consider any bill or amendment that would repeal or change this fast-track congressional consideration process without a three-fifths vote (60) in the Senate. Not only that, but the implementation of the board’s remedy is exempted from administrative or judicial review. [3]

Points:

• [1] — An “independent” board determines the budget, not Congress.
• [2] — The board gets its way unless Congress, which as noted in [1], can only pass legislation affecting the allocation of the budget, not its size, doesn’t act.
• [3] — The board doesn’t have to worry about what the courts think. Exempting from judicial review could be a good idea for actual legislation actually passed by Congress. It’s an antidemocratic outrage when such an exemption is not based in duly passed legislation.

The Independent Payment Advisory Board’s described powers, like so many other things in ObamaCare, fit the dictionary definition of “tyranny” (“arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority”).

This is especially noteworthy, in my opinion, because of this quote:

“When I was in high school, I was never the best player,” he said earlier this season. “When I was in the minor leagues, I was never the best player. Even when I was called up, I didn’t get a lot of attention. Nothing was given to me. I’ve always earned it. I’ve always worked hard since I was very young.

“I learned that from my parents. I learned that from trial and error. I tried to get by before, and that didn’t work well for me. I’m driven. I want to be the best. I want to reach my potential. The times when I feel myself giving in, getting sluggish or lazy, that’s when I know I’m not doing the right thing.”

Words to live by.

At Zero Hedge (the original analysis apparently comes from a gentleman named Walter Emmerich at the Cleveland, Mississippi Current, but I’m not aware of any available direct link):

In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year

Zero Hedge should have picked a better term than “disposable income”; Mr. Emmerich’s “Total Economic Benefit” is better.

The places where Mr. Emmerich falls down include at least these:

• The Medicaid benefit may cost $16,500, but it doesn’t deliver that much in value to recipients. From a taxpayer’s standpoint the figure is correct. From the recipient’s standpoint, it’s at least a few thousand less because of waste, fraud, abuse, and excessive bureaucracy.
• The same issue is there with the School Lunch program, but in much smaller amounts. If 2 kids are getting 200 meals each per year at school while school is in session, the $1,800 would represent a ridiculous $4.50 per lunch ($1,800 divided by 400 meals). Again, it may cost that much, but that’s not what’s getting delivered. The pure food cost per meal is probably the neighborhood of $1.00 – $1.50.
• If (emphasis if) the $60K per year family has employer-paid health insurance, the net value of what is provided (after subtracting out the employee portion of all premiums, all deductibles, and copays) should be added. I believe that net number would be in the neighborhood of +$10,000 for the $60K family.

My back of the envelope adjustments would end up showing the following “Economic Benefits”:

• For the $3,625 family, about $5,000 less, or $26,630.
• For the $14,500 family, again about $5,000 less, or $32,777.
• I’d shave a bit less from the Medicaid number for the $30K family, leaving them at about $25,000.
• The $60,000 family, assuming health care coverage, would be at about $45,000.

There’s a whole host of other factors to consider, especially at the 60K two-income level, not the least of which relate to the financial stresses and requirements of having a higher-paid job, which evidence themselves in higher commuting (which could include tolls, fares, and/or parking), clothing, meals at home and meals away from home costs, even extending to the legitimate need for two cars vs. one in at least the two lowest scenarios. It wouldn’t be tough to build an argument that these extra costs could be as high as $10,000 per year, especially if you compare two cars to one.

Look at the chart that follows developed by Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation. ObamaCare’s subsidy structure is such that the sum of additional costs incurred and government benefits given up in some cases end up being more than increased income earned — even before considering the factors brought up by Mr. Emmerich:

The orange boxes represent income breaks where the amount of the lost health care subsidy alone — again, before considering any of the other factors noted by Emmericah — is over 80% of the additional reported income earned.

The maroon boxes represent income breaks where the lost health care subsidy is over 100% of the additional reported income earned.

The blue boxes show how much extra a married couple who are both 60 years old and who earn identical reported incomes give up in health care subsidies by remaining married.

Disincentives to work are bad enough now. If ObamaCare is allowed to kick in, they’ll become positively stifling.

Addendum: I added “reported” before “incomes” in the final few paragraphs because the incentive to earn money under the table will be self-evidently huge. Not reporting a few grand in income, in addition to avoiding existing income and Social Security taxes, will be rewarded with literally thousands in health care subsidies.

It’s here.

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

_________________________________

Left on the cutting room floor: A lot.

Here are links to selected other BizzyBlog posts from the past several years dealing with matters I could not address or fully vet in the space available at PJM.

“Who Do You Believe, Mitt Romney or His Lying Spokesman?” (April 19, 2010)

Mitt Romney doubled down on his position that he only wants to repeal the ‘worst aspects’ of Obamacare. When asked if that includes “the repeal of the individual mandate and pre-existing exclusion,” he says “No.” Today’s PJM column notes that in March, Romney “called … (Commonwealth Care’s) imposition of an individual mandate to purchase insurance ‘the ultimate conservative plan.’”

“Dean of Harvard Medical Gives Romney/ObamaCare an ‘F’” (Nov. 20, 2009)

Among other things, Dean Jeffrey S. Flier notes the move in Massachusetts towards “capitated payments,” involving “(annually) limited dollars per patient for all of their care.” That is, rationing. Here are a couple of other RomneyCare-related posts:

• July 29, 2008 – ”Romney Defends RomneyCare Crackup; WSJ Strikes Back”
• Jan. 31, 2008 – ”WSJ Op-Ed: RomneyCare Is Life-Threatening CoerciveCare.”

“Mitt Romney, the GOP’s Bridge to Oblivion” (July 20, 2009)

This is a guest post by Gregg Jackson and John Haskins about the perils of a Romney GOP nomination. Best sentence: “Conservatives will not turn out in large enough numbers to defeat Obama to vote for a Republican-branded liberal with no allegiance to the Constitution, no convictions about infanticide or defending natural marriage or the right of every child to a natural human family who lies brazenly and morphs into a ‘conservative’ before elections.” Haskins has assembled several lengthy lists of socially conservative Romney opponents, including “attorneys, law professors and other holders of advanced degrees in law or constitutional theory” who make this key assertion:

Romney’s claim that judges somehow changed Massachusetts’ marriage laws and he was ‘forced’ or had legal authority to bypass the Legislature and violate the marriage statutes with his orders imposing homosexual ‘marriage’ in Massachusetts, is legally absurd and false.

“Look at What Well-Known Investment Firm Contributed to the DNC and Democrats and NOT Republicans in 2006 and 2008″ (March 13, 2009)

Why, it’s Mitt Romney’s “former” firm, Bain Capital. Imagine that.

“Romney, Russia, Georgia, and Iran: The Last Straw” (August 21, 2008)

Cutting to the chase: Romney, his wife, and his “former” (not really) investment and management partnership Bain Capital were at the time and likely still are heavily invested in state-controlled Russian companies and their Iranian oil projects. The massive conflict of personal and national interest should be obvious. Related: Feb. 3, 2008 — “Duncan Hunter Has Raised the National Security Alarm Over Mitt Romney. So Where Is the Scrutiny?” That’s still a good question.

“Mitt Romney Calls Gregg Jackson ‘Delusional’; What Does That Make Romney?” (Jan. 10, 2008)

You want delusional? Here’s Romney’s response to Jackson when he raised questions as to why Romney changed marriage certificates to read “Partner A and Partner B” and ordered justices of the peace to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies when he was under no compulsion to do so until the legislature passed legislations legalizing same-sex “marriage” — a necessary step, according to the Goodridge ruling itself:

Everybody in the entire nation knows that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made same-sex marriage legal and that I fought it in every single way I could.

“Romney Was a Tax-Raiser in Massachusetts” (Jan. 1, 2008)

Money quote, from an Massachusetts journalist: “… he raised $500 million in fees, everything from home sales to marriage licenses. And then he raised corporate taxes.”

“Myth Romney: On Reagan, Hyde and Abortion, His History Rewrites Are Virtually Smears” (Dec. 17, 2007)

Ronald Reagan was never “adamantly pro-choice,” as Romney claims. This post proves it.

From Medford, Oregon:

November 19, 2010 5:33 PM

An employee at a Black Bear Diner is honored by Medford Fire and Rescue for helping save a woman’s life, last month.

John Lawson calls himself a cook, no more no less.

Medford Fire and Rescue call him a hero.

“She said, ‘John I need your help, apparently this lady had eaten and came back to the restaurant and was choking’,” said Lawson in recalling his co-worker’s request to aid a customer.

A diner customer left restaurant and returned asking for assistance. Lawson quickly stepped in. He performed the Heimlich Manuever, helping her breathe again, according to Medford Fire and Rescue.

“She went from not being able to breathe at all, to being able to breathe pretty well when responders got there,” said Deputy Chief Gordon Sletmoe from Medford Fire and Rescue.

Lawson doesn’t call himself a hero or a lifesaver, but that is what Medford Fire and Rescue honored him for, Friday.

“Its what anybody should do. Its not just me, I mean. If you see someone having problems you should stop and help. If you see someone with a flat tire on the side of the road, don’t you know abut stopping and helping? I do,” said Lawson.

They held a ceremony at the Black Bear Diner, presenting him with a certificate of appreciation.

“Mr. Lawson is an average citizen and he did what needed to be done and so in my book, he is a hero,” said Sletmoe.

Sletmoe said it was Lawson’s actions that helped save this woman’s life.

“If someone stops breaking for a very short period of time and they’re going to go unconcious, ultimately if they don’t breathe obviously that can lead to cardiac arrest.”

According to Sletmoe, 300,000 people in the United States have cardiac arrests outside of hospitals every year, less than eight percent survive. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

The seemingly endless variety of “name that party” stunts has yet another wrinkle.

In this case, Matt Drudge is currently linking to a Des Moines Register story (“Culver OKs state pay raises”; also saved here at host for future reference) about how outgoing Iowa Governor Chet Culver has decided to rush through union contracts granting thousands of state employees 3% raises (before considering “step” raises that occur with seniority) in each of the next two years before Republican Governor Terry Bransted takes over in January.

The headline for Drudge’s link is “Lame duck Dem governor in Iowa OKs $100 million in raises for state workers.” Actually, it’s $100 million a year for the next two years. But the linked Register article by Jason Clayworth never identifies Culver’s Democratic Party affiliation, even though he tags the governor’s opposition as Republican twice in the first two paragraphs. In other words, not that it was difficult to show that Culver is a Dem, but Drudge had to figure it out and tell his readers — and we thank him for that.

Here are excerpts from Clayworth’s clunker:

Gov. Chet Culver’s administration agreed Friday to offer pay increases for state employees that will cost taxpayers more than $200 million, despite Republican requests that the decisions be delayed until Terry Branstad becomes governor in January.

A Branstad spokesman called the deal “reckless,” and House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen said it would likely lead to layoffs.

But Culver defended the decision, noting that most state employees took at least five unpaid days in the past year along with suspension of employer deferred compensation contributions.

… Union members will formally meet to accept or reject the state’s offer later this month, but Danny Homan, president of Council 61 for AFSCME, said: “In my mind, this is done.”

The wage hike plan would give members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, better known as AFSCME, two raises in each of the next two fiscal years.

Those employees would receive a 2 percent wage increase on July 1, 2011, and another 1 percent the following Jan. 1. They would receive identical raises in the following year.

In addition, many union members who are not at the top of their pay grade would receive an additional 4.5 percent raise, known as a step increase, for certain professional milestones or for job longevity and other career advancements.

The total cost of the contract is estimated at around $200 million over two years, based on previous data released by the state department of management.

“The state accepted the union’s proposal,” said Homan. “I believe that probably ends this process.”

How nice.

Clayworth goes on to note that some employees will see raises as high as 15% in the next two years, and that “Iowa is one of only six states to offer free health insurance to state government employees and their families.” He also failed to give readers a picture of Iowa’s fiscal situation, which is not as good it first appears, according to this report two weeks ago from Rod Boshart, reporting from Des Moines for the Mason City (IA) Globe Gazette:

Newly named Iowa House Republican leaders said Monday they plan to reopen the current state budget when they take power in January with an eye on cutting “several hundred million dollars” slated to be spent by June 30.

“We’re going to look for opportunities to reduce spending in the current year’s budget and we’ll be doing that on day one,” said Rep. Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, who was elected to be the next House speaker by the incoming 60-member GOP majority. “I think there is several hundred million dollars in the current year’s budget of marginal or no value to Iowans.”

… Paulsen said the message his caucus received from voters in the Nov. 2 election was that Democrats who held full control of state government spent too much money and its time to scale back government. He said the list probably would include ongoing Gov. Chet Culver’s Power Fund initiative and a number of other proposed cuts that GOP legislators previously offered but were rejected by majority Democrats.

… Last month Paulsen requested Culver instruct state department directors to freeze all discretionary state spending pending a budget review by lawmakers when they convene Jan. 10. Paulsen said he was concerned the current budget is built on more than $700 million in one-time funding sources, but Culver administration officials said the governor did not have the authority to impose a freeze on program funding unless the state had a budget deficit and current projections call for the state to end the fiscal year June 30 with a sizable surplus.

Paulsen said he was disappointed by the response, saying “I took it as a signal that Gov. Culver wanted to continue spending money at the same rate.”

Boshart also didn’t directly tag Culver as a Democrat, but he made it clear that Democrats “had full control of state government” until the November 2 elections occurred, which is good enough in the circumstances.

The same can’t be said for Jason Clayworth and the Register, who were too busy making sure readers know that meanie Republicans don’t want to hand out raises to bother telling readers that the lame-duck governor who is spending money the state won’t have is a Democrat. If Bransted is forced into layoffs, does anyone think that the Register will fail to remind readers that he’s a Republican?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From a Saturday Wall Street Journal editorial:

Science and the Drilling Ban
An inspector general’s report shows science played little role in the moratorium.

President Obama famously declared in 2009 that under his Administration the “days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over.” Except, apparently, when the Administration wanted to justify its Gulf of Mexico drilling ban this summer.

The White House dropped its deep water drilling ban last month, ending months of government-imposed pain on a Gulf region hit by the BP oil spill. But only last week did the Department of Interior’s acting inspector general, Mary Kendall, issue her findings on the moratorium’s controversial beginnings. Lackluster though her investigation was, the report confirms that the moratorium never had any basis in science or safety. It was pure politics.

The IG report examines Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s May 27 claim that “The recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” Those experts soon claimed the Interior draft they had reviewed did not include a moratorium and that Mr. Salazar had inappropriately used their names “to justify his political decisions.”

Ms. Kendall—who is waiting to see if the White House nominates her as official IG—contented herself with stating that White House energy czar Carol Browner’s office had edited the report in a way that “led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed by the experts.” All officials had denied it was “their intention to imply” the moratorium had been peer-reviewed. They had merely meant to say the peer-reviewers had signed off on other safety measures, and the problem was, er, “rushed editing.” Uh-huh.

the IG says they still wonder why they weren’t consulted on the drilling ban. For example, Bob Bea of the University of California “questioned why [Interior] would not peer review such an important, far-reaching decision,” given the attention paid to more minor recommendations.

Allow us to guess: White House aides knew a moratorium was unjustifiable, and they didn’t want to disclose their plans to peer-reviewers whom they knew would object. The Administration was by late May already taking political heat for its handling of the spill and perhaps it felt a moratorium would help make it look tough on the oil industry. In other words, thousands of Gulf Coast jobs may have been sacrificed as a way to deflect political blame from the White House and onto industry.

I think the Journal would have been perfectly fine deleting the word “may” from the final excerpted sentence.

Political manipulation on this level during Bush 43′s admin would have brought calls for impeachment. At a minimum, this conduct should cause Ken Salazar’s and Carol Browner’s involvement with the government in any way, shape, or form to end. Sadly, it probably won’t.

From Vatican City:

Nov 20, 2010 / 07:39 pm

Excerpts of Pope Benedict XVI’s new book are already causing a stir. Though some media reports claim he offers a change in papal teaching about condom use, Pope Benedict in fact says that a humanized sexuality, not condoms, is the right response to HIV.

The Nov. 21 edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano (LOR) will release excerpts of the pontiff’s book “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.”

The book contains the Pope’s responses to questions from Peter Seewald, a German reporter who spoke with him over a week last summer about the most sensitive and important questions in Church life today.

The themes treated in the book are edgy and the reception of the Pope’s words is likely to be varied, but his answers offer a unique look into his teachings and his perspective on the Church and the world.

In the excerpts offered in LOR, just two brief paragraphs provide the Pope’s response to a question on sexuality in the world today. He says that concentrating on the use of the condom only serves to trivialize sexuality.

This trivialization leads many people to no longer see sex as an expression of love, but as a self-administered drug. The fight against the banalization of sexuality is part of a great effort to change this view to a more positive one.

According to one much-commented excerpt printed in L’Osservatore Romano, the Pope concedes that there can be single cases in which the use of a condom may be justified.

He uses the example of prostitutes who might use prophylactics as a first step toward moralization, that is, becoming moral. In such a case, condom use might be their first act of responsibility to redevelop their consciousness of the fact that not everything is permitted and that one cannot do everything one wants.

While secular outlets such as Time Magazine (actually, an Associated Press report carried at Time — Ed.) characterized this remark as “a stunning turnaround” for the Church, Pope Benedict goes on to explain that this is not the true and proper way to defeat HIV. Instead what is necessary is the humanization of sexuality.

Elsewhere in the excerpts from the forthcoming book, the pontiff speaks of the footprint of Judaism, Islam and Christianity in the modern world.

He also expresses his shock at the extent of the sexual abuse of minors in the Church and the evident wish of mass media to discredit the Church for these abuses rather than purely to investigate the truth. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

A couple of NewsBusters posts during the past week — one from yours truly and another courtesy of Ken Shepherd — have pointed to the press’s reluctance to identify the Democratic Party affiliations of indicted Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson (pictured at right) and his also-indicted wife Leslie, who is a County Council member.

Today, the Associated Press’s Brian Witte “>kept up the wire service’s tradition of either not naming the party of an indicted Democrat or deferring that identification until very late in the report (in the apparent hope that subscribing outlets picking up the story won’t use it). Jack Johnson’s party affiliation was saved for the 19th paragraph; Witte never identified his wife’s party affiliation. Witte further quoted a Republican who commented on the situation in Paragraph 10, and noted that said Republican “ran against Johnson in 2002″ in Paragraph 11, leaving it vague as to whether it was a primary or general election contest.

Finally, Witte gave voice to someone who believes that the Johnsons and ultimately other county officials are being targeted based on their African-American ethnicity — in county where two-thirds of its residents are African-American.

Here are selected paragraphs from Witte’s report:

Corruption charges disturb residents in Md. county

In two years, Prince George’s County residents have seen a former schools superintendent sent to prison and corruption charges brought against a senior state senator and the county executive and his wife.

The latest case is the stuff of movies or late-night TV jokes: Authorities say County Executive Jack Johnson and his wife were arrested Nov. 12 after he accepted $15,000 from a developer and federal investigators tapping his phone reportedly heard him tell her to flush a $100,000 check down the toilet and hide $79,600 in her bra.

The string of scandals has left residents angry, frustrated and wondering who will be next. Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein described their arrests as “the tip of the iceberg.”

… Prince George’s, a suburb of Washington, D.C., is the nation’s wealthiest majority-black county, according to the census. The county, which has about 834,000 residents, is 66 percent black with a median annual household income of $71,696.

(paragraphs 10 and 11)

… Audrey Scott, a former County Council member who chairs the Maryland Republican Party, said she used to hear about officials expecting developers to go beyond what was required to, say, build a playground or refurbish a senior citizens center.

“There were certain elected officials who felt that developers owed something more – above and beyond what was required in the zoning application process, in the permitting process,” said Scott, who ran unsuccessfully for county executive against Johnson in 2002.

(paragraphs 18 and 19)

… Some residents can only shake their heads when asked about the scandal, walking away and muttering words like “depressing” without saying anything more.

Johnson, a Democrat, now comes to work as the county’s chief executive near the end of his second term with an electronic monitoring device. His term ends Dec. 6, when he will be succeeded by a Democrat who had twice run against him unsuccessfully.

… Marva Henry, who lived in Prince George’s County for 29 years and only recently moved away, said she questions why prosecutors seem to focus on African-American officials. Her husband, Winston, also expressed frustration that prosecutors seem to be focusing more on Prince George’s County than other localities. But both said they were angry at Johnson over the allegations.

Well, if the Henrys have evidence that nearby counties also have serious corruption, they ought to present it (and Witte should have demanded they present it) before just putting a race bias charge out there with no support. One of the reason that there may be seem to be a bit of a focus on African-American officials is probably because roughly 2/3 of the County’s Council is African-American. The county’s Superintendent of Schools and about 2/3 of the Board of Education are also African-American. All other things being equal, the odds are that if corruption is occurring in Prince George’s County, there will be a good chance that African-Americans are involved, and racism on the part of investigators and/or prosecutors has nothing to do with it.

You can’t make this up: The county web site’s “welcome” page still features a message from the indicted Johnson, and another page contains a glowing bio of Johnson, which includes this sentence:

Mr. Johnson has transformed Prince George’s County into Gorgeous Prince George’s.

At this point, that assertion is highly debatable at best, and sick joke at worst.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Kaus criticizes as only Kaus can, so I don’t have to (with line breaks added by me):

1) Suckers: GM found a lot of them, even though —
a) by its own admission, it lacks “effective internal controls” over its finances;
b) it’s still saddled with the UAW, which is already pledging ‘no more concessions’ and even making some trouble;
c) its Opel subsidiary is hemorhaging money at a rate of billions a year;
d) a high Opel official declared the IPO “premature” while noting that “there is still too much red tape and inefficiency;”
e) it has surrendered a majority stake in its promising Chinese joint venture to its Chinese partner
f) its bailout plan assumes it will maintain a market share of 19 percent, but its share most recently fell to 18.3 percent, part of a decades-long decline;
g) who knows what accounting gimmickry was used to dress up the books;
h) the government has intervened in GM’s decisionmaking more than it’s let on;
i) we don’t know if GM’s new products (like the Chevrolet Cruze) will have traditional GM reliability–the company better hope not; and
j) the name “General Motors’ is now so tarnished that the company is removing it from auto show displays, hoping buyers will not associate “Buick” or “Chevrolet” with such a negative brand ….

… 2) It’s all about China: Even if GM is now a solid investment, that might have very little to do with its future North American operations and everything to do with Chinese operations. Simply put, the most obvious route to big profitability isn’t selling American-made Buicks to the Chinese, or even Chinese-made Buicks to the Chinese. It’s selling Chinese-made Buicks in the United States–and all over the globe. Let the UAW try to organize the workers in Shanghai.

Item g) was partially covered by yours truly earlier this week (“GM’s IPO: Uncle Sam’s Pump and Dump?”).

Item j) explains why Mr. Goodwrench, the GM brand’s repair guy, has gone the way of the Pontiac.

It’s still Government Motors.