Rules are here. Possible comment fodder will follow later. Other topics are also fair game.

___________________________________

Michelle Malkin: “Before 9/11, there was 10/12. The USS Cole bombing, eleven years ago today, should have taught us all that the jihadists’ war on the infidel West started a long, long time ago.” Obviously, it took almost a year before the nation appreciated the scope of that war. Do we still?

At the Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel has a very good question for Rick Perry — “How, exactly, is his state’s vaunted “Emerging Technology Fund”—which has dumped some 200 million taxpayer dollars into private companies—any different from Obama programs that subsidized the likes of Solyndra?”

“Stupid Party” Update: “The GOP is set, yet again, to have a debate on MSNBC. Seriously.”

Mona Charen at Townhall (“Obama’s Weakness Invited Iran’s Plot”) — “If it wasn’t for a lucky break, Washington D.C., this autumn, would have been the scene of a massive explosion detonated at a high-end restaurant, with scores and perhaps hundreds killed and maimed.”

John Ransom, also at Townhall — “Republican US Senator from Indiana Richard Lugar resigned from the board of a radical left activism group called the Campus Network after the Tea Party endorsed challenger in the GOP Senate primary, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, accused Lugar of supporting the big government agenda of the group, including support of the Occupy Wall Street movement.” The scary thing is that this wouldn’t even have come up if Mourdock wasn’t challenging Lugar. Dick Lugar really, really needs to be defeated in next year’s primary. But if form holds, at least if they’re like their Buckeye State brethren at ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only), the Indiana Republican Party establishment will circle the wagons.

Wesley Pruden, the retired take-no-prisoners editor of the Washington Times (“An Evil Wind In The Arab Spring”) — “We’ve ‘enjoyed’ the Arab spring, celebrated by one and nearly all. But if you’re a Christian under the wheels of an Egyptian army truck, it looks a lot like winter.” Anderson Cooper was apparently unavailable for comment.

At Heritage (“Morning Bell: Why Obamacare Might Cost You a Job”) – ”Back in February 2010, when Congress was still debating the Obamacare legislation, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proclaimed to America that the law “will create 400,000 jobs almost immediately.” But according to a new report by Heritage’s James Sherk, Obamacare will have the opposite effect, pricing many unskilled workers out of full-time employment due to the law’s requirement that employers offer health benefits to full-time employees.”

Nancy Pelosi, via the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso — If you don’t think taxpayers should subsidize abortions through Obamacare (something which has never been allowed and which, by the way, would constitute the de facto end of the Hyde Amendment which prohibited the practice and was upheld by the Supreme Court), you “want women to die on the floor.”

Poignant humor from Peggy Noonan (who, it must not be forgotten, fell under the hopey-changey Obama spell when it mattered) — “Ten years ago, Steve Jobs was alive, Bob Hope was alive, Johnny Cash was alive. Now we’re outta jobs, outta hope and outta cash.”

It’s here.

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

The topic: “Hank Paulson’s ‘gun to the head‘ hijacking of TARP, and the sickening silence which followed.”

What follows is a “cutting-room floor item” and a tie-in to the current presidential campaign.

___________________________________________

Left on the cutting room floor: There was no space to address a critical question which honest historical inquiry will hopefully someday answer — “Was what happened on October 14, 2008, when then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson almost certainly illegally betrayed the Troubled Relief Program original intent and forced the nation’s largest banks to take preferred equity ‘investments’ done as a result of being blindsided by the scope of the problem and the need to immediately get liquidity into the banking system, as claimed — or was it something he knew he was going to do all along?

Evidence of the latter follows.

First, the amount of money involved in TARP as originally intended — to have Treasury buy up “toxic” mortgages — was literally made up, with no attempt to relate the amount of money in the legislation to the possible size of scope of the problem. On September 23, 2008, Josh ZumBrum at Forbes noted the following:

… some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is quoted with something which should be remembered next fall: “Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says his office has gotten ‘close to zero’ calls in support of the $700 billion plan proposed by the administration. He doubts it’ll happen immediately either. ‘I don’t think it has to be a week” he says. ‘If we do it right, then we need to take as long as it needs.’”

Second, in hindsight, the “really large number” claim looks like deliberate misdirection. CNN’s tracking of all bailouts, which may not be current, shows $11 trillion in commitments and $3 trillion “invested.” At the time, the American people weren’t used to hearing the word “trillion” thrown around as casually as it is today.

Third, with GM and Chrysler on the brink of collapse, the Washington wheels were already turning on how to “save” them. Buying up mortgages as the TARP legislation intended wouldn’t help that cause. “Investing” hundreds of billions in banks would, by creating the cry of “If the banks and Wall Street get bailouts, why not Main Street?”

If one concludes or learns that this is what Paulson planned to do all along, then the question becomes: “Who else was in on it?” Again, it’s an “if” question, but here’s my take on who the candidates would be and the likelihood that they knew:

• New York Fed Chairman Tim Geithner — almost certainly;
• Ben Bernanke — just short of almost certainly (at the very latest, the day after the legislation passed;
• President George W. Bush — probably not, at least at the time TARP passed. He probably learned what Paulson wanted to do a few days after the original TARP passed, and didn’t find the courage to stop it, fire Paulson, or call out the deception;
• Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — probably;
• Barack Obama and his Democratic presidential campaign chief David Axelrod — probably;
• GOP presidential nominee John McCain, the candidate who infamously suspended his campaign to look like a statesman and ended up looking like a fool — almost definitely not;
• House Republican Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — almost definitely not.
• Key members of the press, particularly at the New York Times and the Associated Press, who both tried to make what Paulson did look like a matter over which he had no real choice — 50-50.

_______________________________________________

TARP and the 2012 campaign: No honest discussion of “TARP” is possible without an understanding of the difference between the law Congress passed and what Hank Paulson (probably illegally) did.

The presidential candidates need to answer two questions.

First, what was your original position on the TARP legislation? Barack Obama supported it. Most GOP candidates with the exception of Ron Paul and probably Michele Bachmann opposed supported it.

I totally get the idea that you can criticize candidates on the basis of principle over their support of the TARP legislation. I also get the idea that if you believed that it was a one-time fixable problem like the early 1990s savings and loan debacle, you might grit your teeth and say, “okay” (I would not be among them).

But you can’t criticize anyone who originally supported TARP based on what actually transpired, because the TARP which passed isn’t the TARP which was implemented. You can argue that support of the original TARP gave Hank Paulson the cover to do what he illegally did; but you can’t track actual results of what people voted on against what actually happened, because what was intended never actually happened.

That leads to the next question: Where were you when Hank Paulson hijacked TARP?

My takes:

• Barack Obama — almost definitely celebrated.
• Mitt Romney — He should have objected strenuously. He almost definitely didn’t. Defense: If he thought about it, John McCain probably talked him out of it. (Given his connections, though, it would be worth knowing if Romney was aware of Paulson’s possible intention, as discussed above, to hijack TARP from the get-go.)
• Herman Cain — was in private life, but probably had an active radio talk show. Cain’s current position is that he supported the original TARP legislation but opposes how it was implemented. In other words, what he’s saying, using terms which are in my opinion far too polite, is that he opposed Paulson’s hijacking. I think it would be very important to go back to his shows to see what he was saying on October 14 and 15, 2008. But even if he was wrong in principle for supporting the original TARP (and in my opinion, he was), Cain is the only candidate who is publicly recognizing the difference between what Congress passed and what Paulson did.
• Rick Perry — as a state governor not contemplating a presidential run, he’s arguably off the hook for not saying anything at the time, which he probably didn’t.
• Michele Bachmann — should have spoken out. Did she?
• Newt Gingrich — perceived as a policy wonk extraordinaire. Should have been out there. Almost definitely wasn’t.
• Rick Santorum — was in private life.

RIP, or I guess we could say, “C” you in the afterlife — from the Associated Press in San Francisco:

Oct 13, 2:58 PM EDT

Dennis Ritchie, a pioneer in computer programming, has died at age 70, according to his longtime employer.

Ritchie created the popular C programming language and helped create the Unix operating software. He died a month after his birthday, according to his biography on a webpage of Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs. Ritchie joined Bell Labs in the late 1960s.

The company confirmed his death to The Associated Press but would not disclose the cause of death or when Ritchie died. A spokeswoman said the company was trying to contact his family.

Ritchie is best known for his contributions to computer programming and software. The C programming language, which Ritchie developed in the early 1970′s, is still popular. It has gone through a number of upgrades, and it is commonly used for website development and other computer tasks. The Unix operating software also surged in popularity. It and its offshoots, including the open-source Linux, are widely used today, in corporate servers and even cellphones.

Ritchie’s biography on the Bell Labs site says that he was born on Sept. 9, 1941 in Bronxville, N.Y., and studied physics and math at Harvard University.

“My undergraduate experience convinced me that I was not smart enough to be a physicist, and that computers were quite neat,” Ritchie wrote. “My graduate school experience convinced me that I was not smart enough to be an expert in the theory of algorithms and also that I liked procedural languages better than functional ones.”

Jeong Kim, president of Bell Labs, wrote in a blog post Thursday that Ritchie was “truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man.”

The referenced blog post is here.

First let’s look at this Cato post by Michael F. Cannon with a great title:

RomneyCare: Making a Fool of Every Republican It Touches Since 2006

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) hearts former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), so much that Christie says it is ”completely intellectually dishonest” to compare RomneyCare to ObamaCare.

The internal link is to a YouTube containing part of Christie’s announcement that he supports Mitt Romney for President — or, as a NewsBusters commenter aptly described it earlier today: “RINO endorsed by Hippo.”

Avik Roy at Forbes calls (obvious) BS on Christie’s contention:

There’s simply no other way to put this, I’m afraid, but to say that it’s Chris Christie who is being intellectually dishonest. There isn’t a single person, left or right, who follows health policy seriously who disagrees with the assertion that Romneycare was the model for Obamacare. And Massachusetts has had to raise taxes, after Romney left office, to pay for the law’s significant cost overruns.

Back to Cannon at Cato, who addresses how Romney was able (very initially) to avoid raising taxes (as noted, taxes have since been raised). BizzyBlog commenter dscott deserves props for catching the treachery noted in Point 2 several years ago, which is that Romney got everyone else in the country to pay for RomneyCare’s early year or so (bolds are mine):

1. Mitt Romney increased taxes the moment he signed RomneyCare. RomneyCare increased net government spending. That in itself is an increase in the tax burden. All that remains to be determined is who will pay for that added spending and when they will pay it. The fact that the incidence of that added tax burden fell after Romney left office does not mean that’s when the added tax burden was created.
2. Mitt Romney has raised taxes on as many people as Barack Obama has. Half of RomneyCare’s new spending was financed by the federal government through the Medicaid program, which is financed through federal taxes, which fall on taxpayers in all 50 states. That means that when Romney financed half of RomneyCare’s new spending by pulling down more federal Medicaid dollars, he increased taxes on residents of all 50 states.
3. RomneyCare was born of, and expanded, a corrupt scheme by Massachusetts politicians to tax residents of all 50 states. What motivated Romney to enact RomneyCare, as former Romney/Obama adviser Jonathan Gruber explains here, was the widespread desire (within Massachusetts) to hang on to $385 million of federal Medicaid money that Massachusetts had secured using one of Medicaid’s notorious and fraudulent “provider tax” scams. In other words, the whole purpose of RomneyCare was to enable Massachusetts to hold on to $385 million that it received by defrauding and taxing residents of other states.

Wow. What a racket. And Mitt Romney, Republican establishment fave, defends this. Uh, if what we want is a continuation of this kind of corruption, the Democrats already have an app for that.

Now let’s get to the consultants, and for that, we go to one part of the transcript of Rush Limbaugh’s show today:

Romney Advisor Admits Romneycare was Blueprint for Obamacare

RUSH: … last night on PMSNBC’s Last Word hosted by Larry O’Donnell, an avowed socialist, he spoke with former Romney health care consultant and MIT professor of economics Jonathan Gruber about his having helped the regime craft health care reform. O’Donnell said, “Come on, come clean. You were in the room with Obama discussing health care reform and you did in fact work with the Romney administration in Massachusetts. Come on, Professor, you gotta tell us the truth here.”

GRUBER: The truth is that the Affordable Care Act is essentially based on what we accomplished in Massachusetts. It’s the same basic structure applied nationally. John McDonough, one of the other advisors who worked in both Massachusetts and advised the White House said it’s the Massachusetts bill with three more zeros, and that’s basically a good description of what the federal bill did.

RUSH: Well. Duh. John Gruber, Romney health care consultant: The truth is the Affordable Health Care Act is essentially based — that’s Obamacare — based on what we accomplished in Massachusetts. The same basic structure applied nationally. John McDonough, one of the other advisors, worked in both Massachusetts and advised the White House said it’s the Massachusetts bill with three more zeros and that’s basically a good description of what the federal bill did. So you got Romney’s own advisors out there undercutting him. Not through here. Larry O’Donnell: “So, obviously, the Massachusetts experience, with it was part of what moved him in the direction that — where he ended up?”

GRUBER: You know when I was advising both the Obama administration and Congress throughout 2009, the number of times I got asked, “How did you do it in Massachusetts? What made it work in Massachusetts?” the administration and the Congress were taking a big leap into unknown territory, and the fact that they had that example to lean on was so, I think, comforting to them in taking that step.

RUSH: Uh, the pile here just gets larger and larger. … Larry O’Donnell says, “Romney makes a very strong point about the Obama bill is full of taxes to pay for it, and the Romney bill did not have tax increases in it to pay for it.”

GRUBER: Yeah, that’s technically true, but intellectually not really straightforward. Basically in Massachusetts the financing for our bill came half from the federal government and half from an existing tax that former governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis had put in 1988 to finance care for the uninsured. So we didn’t have to raise tax in Massachusetts ’cause the money was already there. At the federal level we didn’t have that luxury.

RUSH: … So the regime didn’t have another government to come in and fund his health care bill like Romney had the federal government to come in and fund his, which means you and me, so we had to raise taxes for it.

… Chris Christie said the other day that any comparison between Obamacare and Romneycare would be dishonest. And now here’s Romney’s advisor bragging about it.

… I’ve just put this out there for you, folks. This issue is not gonna go away. I do not believe that it is going to go away.

Folks, besides his statement a couple of weeks ago that any GOP nominee would be better than Obama — “even Romney” — that last excerpted trio of sentences is probably as close as you’ll hear Rush get to saying: “Romney is toxic. For heaven’s sake, don’t let him get the nomination.”

Finally, let’s replay Cato’s video from 18 months ago pointing out, in essence, that, as noted above, “ObamaCare = RomneyCare with three more zeros”:

Logically (and Rush made this point too), if you think the incumbent can easily be beaten (being watchful for overconfidence), you get the guy or gal who has the most consistent, truest set of conservative principles who can govern effectively. That’s not Objectively Unfit Mitt.

Or in this case, I guess it’s “former constituent,” after Ohio’s ridiculous congressional redistricting exercise, which I believe is final.

Anyway, Ms. Schmidt does an excellent job of calling out President Obama’s hypocrisy in calling for all kinds of new infrastructure spending while overregulating the cement industry into possible oblivion (reproduced in full after the jump; bolds are mine):
(more…)

B-B-B-B … But I thought he “has suspended his campaign” and is doing nothing but signing books for the rest of the month. (/sarc)

From Howard Wilkinson at the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Politics Extra blog:

… Both Cain and Romney are former corporate executives, but Cain said the difference between he and his rival from Massachusetts is simple.

“He’s more of a Wall Street guy,” Cain said. “I’m more of a Main Street guy.”

Cain said that as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, “I actually made some pizzas myself.”

The GOP presidential candidate – who was making his first visit to Cincinnati – said he is “catching on with Republican voters because of my enthusiasm and positive attitude.”

… The media, Cain said, was “trying to make this a two-man race” between Romney and former Texas governor Rick Perry.

“But people are not going to be told what to do by the media,” Cain said. “They make their own decisions. And I think I can win this.”

Cain lags far behind Romney in campaign fundraising, but said “message is more important than money.”

But today’s trip to Cincinnati was all about money – introducing himself to GOP campaign donors who routinely spend large sums of money in presidential contests.

‘Of course, I need to raise money,” Cain said. “And I hope to do that here.”

He should. He can beat Barack Obama. Mitt Romney can’t. More on that tonight.

Early this morning, I noted how two AP writers seemed to be hoping that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, in the process ignoring inconvenient facts like his failure to get over 25% in any poll covered at Real Clear Politics since mid-July while failing to even mention Herman Cain’s name until the report’s eleventh paragraph (a Rasmussen poll today breaks Romney’s three-month dry spell, showing him at 29%, tied with Herman Cain). Sadly, what the AP writes is important for readers to know, because the wire service’s copy is read and relayed without question by most of its thousands of subscribing outlets.

Not that learning about the following is anywhere near as important, but in case you’re wondering about the GOP presidential nominee preferences and perceptions among several of the pundits at the Washington Post, wonder no more:

• Alexandra Petri: “Just nominate Mitt Romney, already”
• Richard Cohen: “The GOP debate as Animal Planet”
• EJ Dionne: “Mitt Romney returns to frontrunner status”
• Jennifer Rubin: “Romney laps the field”

Excerpts follow.
(more…)

From PPP (HT Hot Air) and NBC/Wall Street Journal:

UPDATE, 11:30 A.M.:
- Headlined at Drudge (actual link) — “RASMUSSEN POLL: Cain 29% Romney 29% Gingrich 10%”
- American Research Group Florida Poll — Cain 34%, Romney 28%, Gingrich 11%, no one else above 5%

From the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending October 8, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 404,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 405,000. The 4-week moving average was 408,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 415,000.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 398,836 in the week ending October 8, an increase of 66,442 from the previous week. There were 462,667 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

While the year-over-year dip in not seasonally adjusted claims is encouraging, very little else is:

• If form holds, after it gets revised next week, this week will top last week. 29 of the past 31 subsequent-week adjustments have been 2,000 or more.
• After spending most of February and March below 395,000, the single-week number has been 395,000 or more for 27 weeks in a row.
• The four-week moving average has been over 400,000 for 25 weeks in a row:

  

Rules are here. Possible comment fodder follows. Other topics are also fair game.

___________________________________

Zombie, at PJ Tatler: “Occupy L.A. Speaker: Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals”

As noted by Taranto at the Wall Street Journal, the nominee for stupidest debate question on Tuesday, via the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty: “… Do you think it’s right that no Wall Street executives have gone to jail for the damage they did to the economy?” What a realy good answer would have been, in my opinion: “That seems odd, but what don’t you ask the nation’s chief law enforcement officer Eric Holder and Obama Albatross that question? Or is he too letting those who practice race-based voter intimidation off the hook, and too preoccupied denying or defending his role in having thousands of guns disappear into Mexico, only to see them land in the hands of the drug cartels while 200 or so Mexicans and several Americans, including a Border Patrol agent, have died as a result? Oh, and have you reported on his being subpoenaed yet, Karen?”

They want this land to be their land — “under Barack Obama — whose administration has targeted 14 million acres in the American West, among other properties, as prime targets for Borg-like assimilation.” Uncle Sam already owns 30% of all U.S. land, while state and local governments own another 10%.

At the Washington Times (“Pelosi’s disclosure belated in husband’s land deal”) — “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband, a real estate developer and investment banker, stands to make millions of dollars in a previously undisclosed residential real estate project in California. … Despite his involvement in the project dating back to the late 1990s, Mrs. Pelosi first listed the investment in May 2010 on her federal financial-disclosure forms covering the couple’s finances during 2009.”

Ford’s tentative agreement with the UAW, which has vested interests in GM and Chrysler, may not get approved by the rank and file. $121K a year in wages and benefits apparently isn’t enough.

Michael Ledeen, at Pajamas Media: “Don’t Tell Me You Were Surprised at Iran’s Operation.” Here’s a historical parallel for consideration: Though he won’t dare admit it, Barack Obama, who as Ledeen notes “was so confident he could reach a good working relationship” with Iran, likely feels betrayed. Almost 32 years ago, Jimmy Carter felt the same way when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

From Washington, in her own words:

10/6/11

Today is year two. The second year since I walked away from Planned Parenthood. The anniversary of my new life. I am a better mother, a better wife, a better friend, and a new creation in Christ. These two years have been the best of my life. It hasn’t been without some heartache, but it has all been worth it.

I am filled with emotions today. I am happy because I never thought my life would turn out so beautiful. It is wonderful to follow God’s plan. I am blessed in a way that I don’t deserve. I have amazing friends…friends that I didn’t have just two years ago…friends that will be with me the rest of my life. My marriage is better than it has ever been.

I never realized how the evil of my job had crept into my life at home. Now we are free of that. I value my daughter more than I ever have. I never really saw motherhood as a gift; now I am able to see that it is the greatest gift we are given as women.
(more…)

Based on a report filed earlier today and time-stamped 8:16 p.m. as of when this post was prepared, it would appear that the last thing Associated Press writers Charles Babington and Kasie Hunt want is a competitive Republican primary season, and that they’ll twist reality and the numbers to fit their meme. Oh, and in case you haven’t gotten the establishment press memo, Rick Perry is still Mitt Romney’s only real competitor.

Funny, I don’t remember the AP or anyone else in the establishment press calling Hillary Clinton’s nomination “inevitable” in October 2007, when, according to Real Clear Politics (RCP), Ms. Clinton was outpolling Barack Obama by an average of 24 points in 18 polls (and by probably more over John Edwards, though that info wasn’t available at RCP).

(more…)