Quickies: the scandals edition

A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.



Gun Runner/Fast and Furious, Solyndra and now did a four star Air Force General get pressure from the White House to change his testimony regarding the owner of a defense contracting firm and Democratic party donor?


It would appear Team O is having to deal with more than unemployment and the economy in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election.

Oh, and how about that AttackWatch website where you get to turn in people who you think may be spreading false information about Team O? Above and beyond anything else... petty. So, so petty.

Sir Charles of DooDoo Economics thinks he may have uncovered a stunt by Twitter to cover up opposition to Obama in "Trending Reports".

But what is the cause for all this?

Is it sinister, stupid or just naive?


Where B-Daddy sees a darker side to many of the President's actions, KT counters with more of a simpler perspective on the matter:

Here's my take on what happened. The Obama Administration is filled with True Believers in two propositions:

•Government investments can lead to wondrous growth in certain industries.

•Global Warming / Climate Change is an existential threat to our way of life.

Solyndra bundled these two things together in a beautiful way. How could it lose?

So, sinister, stupid or just incredibly naive? Possibly a combination of all the above especially if an amalgam of those causes is in any way synonymous with "power-craving, micro-managing statist who thinks the normal constitutionally-recognized rules of governing a republic just don't apply to him.



Terrific.

The U.S. is coming to Europe's financial rescue.

So far, America's role is fairly limited. But if the crisis continues to grow and the U.S. takes on a wider role, U.S. consumers and taxpayers could feel a bigger impact. The biggest exposure could come from America's status as the single largest source of money for the International Monetary Fund.

The latest round of American financial assistance came Thursday with a promise by the Federal Reserve to swap as many dollars for euros as European bankers need. In the short run, those transactions won't have much impact because the central banks are simply swapping currencies of equal value. If the move helps avert a wider crisis, it could help spare the global economy from another recession.

But over the long term, consumers could feel the impact of central bankers flooding the financial system with cash, according to John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics.

Hey, who's up for some more class warfare?

President Barack Obama, in a populist step designed to appeal to voters, will propose a "Buffett Tax" on people making more than $1 million a year as part of his deficit recommendations to Congress on Monday.

Such a proposal, among suggestions to a congressional supercommittee expected to seek up to $3 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years, would appeal to his Democratic base ahead of the 2012 election but likely not raise much in revenues.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a tweet on Saturday the tax would act as "a kind of AMT" (Alternative Minimum Tax) aimed at ensuring millionaires pay at least as much tax as middle-class families.

(italics, ours)
Don't we already have an AMT? And what was that about putting country above party... or in this case, re-election?




Did we mention we were big fans of this guy? Here's Mark Steyn on the (P)resident's "jobs" plan:

This $447 billion does not exist, and even foreigners don't want to lend it to us. A majority of it will be "electronically created" by the Federal Reserve buying U.S. Treasury debt. Don't worry, it's not like "printing money": we leave that to primitive basket-cases like Zimbabwe. This is more like one of those Nigerian email schemes, in which a prominent public official promises you a large sum of money in return for your bank account details. In the case of Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner, one prominent public official is promising to wire a large sum of money into the account of another prominent public official, which is a wrinkle even the Nigerians might have difficulty selling.

Happy Constitution Day, everyone!

One of the greatest successes of the tea party movement has been to restore a discussion of constitutionality to our national political discourse. The constitution is both a conservative and a libertarian document. It is conservative in that it preserves our political structure through separation of powers and a difficult amendment process. It is libertarian in that it constrains the power and authority of the federal government, guarantees individual rights and in turn constrains the states as well. A political alliance of conservatives and libertarians, fighting socialism and progressives would of course turn to the plain meaning of such a document as the first line of defense against the forced march down the "road to serfdom" that the statists desire for our citizens. (I don't mean to impugn all liberals here; but those that are true believers in leftism have shown their colors over the years.)

That's probably it for today, gang. We'll be back tomorrow.