Reason Magazine - Staff > Nick Gillespie > Hit & Run Posts

You Know The Real Reason Why Time Mag Is Going Down the Drain? The Content!

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:30:00 EDT

For all the tears that get shed over the beginning of the middle of the end for Mr. Luce's mag and newsweeklies in general, one obvious explanation generally gets glossed over: They are mostly written by conventional-wisdom mongerers who can barely finish shipping an issue of "Why Dinosaurs Believed in God" and "The Mother Mary Holy Water Diet" before rushing out something like this time-waster by esteemed historian David M. Kennedy.

Sample verbiage:

It's old news that F.D.R.'s New Deal did not end the Depression....F.D.R. appreciated the irony that it was the Depression that made it possible for him to realize those larger objectives. It would be too much to say that he deliberately prolonged the crisis to preserve the possibilities for reform. But he candidly acknowledged the relationship between peril and progress in his second Inaugural Address, on Jan. 20, 1937....
President Obama knows this. Asked by PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer in February if he did not feel burdened by the several crises now besetting the country, Obama noted that the moment "is full of peril but full of possibility" and that such times are "when the political system starts to move effectively."
Roosevelt could not have said it better. F.D.R. championed a long-deferred reform agenda that put security at its core. Obama wants to advance another set of reforms that have long been stalled.

Whole rendezvous with declining circulation here.

Hat tip: Roger L. Simon.

Given that it's such old news that the New Deal was an economic flopperoo and that President Obama is pushing a New Dealish-like economic stimulus package, you'd think that maybe Time would be interested in engaging the whys and wherefores of such things. Or in anything like a critical analysis of FDR and BHO. It needn't be negative or libertarian, but something other than idle idol worship might actually pull some eyeballs.

Check out Radley Balko and Jeff Winkler's great social-panic stories from the past four decades of Time here. But don't try satanism at home, kids!

In any case, what can Obama learn from FDR? Plenty. Especially what not to do during an economic downturn. Just watch below.

Peter Bagge's Everybody Is Stupid Except For Me (And Other Astute Observations)

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:45:00 EDT

As Brian Doherty noted yesterday, Reason's own beloved Peter Bagge has a fantastic collection of a near-decade's worth of political cartooning coming out from Fantagraphics. The content is king but the actual production is nothing short of stunning, filled with the bright, bright colors than Paul Simon used to sing about back when Kodak was still making film.

Pre-order Everybody is Stupid Except for Me And Other Astute Observations now from Amazon for the stunningly low price of $11.55.

Or (writes Peter hisself!): "If you want a copy RIGHT NOW, you can order it by phone directly from Fantagraphics Books. If you dial (800-657-1100) between now and the end of July they won't charge you postage, so it'll cost you about the same that Amazon charges. DEAL!"

And check out the reviews so far (the last one included to be fair and balanced):

How to describe Peter Bagge? Cartoonist? Cynic? Little ball of human rage? All of the above. Also satirist, raconteur, concerned citizen, and critic. And finally, Libertarian. But one from the realist branch of that political tree.
For the past eight years, Bagge has been producing regular strips and features for Reason, the scathingly brilliant libertarian journal that's the secret guilty favorite of Washington insiders Left and Right. Now the best of that work has been collected by Fantagraphics. Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me is as combative, iconoclastic, and embittered as its title suggests it would be. It is also smart, thought-provoking, and funny as hell. Disconcertingly, you'll agree with at least half of what Bagge says. Then, gratifyingly, you'll realize that everybody is stupid except for you, too.—Tim Heffernan, Esquire
Everybody Is Stupid, overt political concerns aside, is pleasingly consistent with Bagge's earlier work: As mass-population stupidity (tax-dollar boondoggles, sports-arena and shopping-mall mania and so forth) escalates, so do Bagge's abilities to hold it up to razor-edged ridicule.
Bagge cartoons himself as a confused Everyman, perpetually attempting to make sense of a society-gone-senseless. If Bagge is a curmudgeon, he tempers the attitude with a willingness to laugh at everything—even himself. If a documentarian, he is an interpretive and exaggerative one. If a social critic or polemicist, he brings to the table a rare combination of backhanded affection and rambunctious humor. No "ifs" as to the matter of his being one terrific cartoonist, with a keen constancy of purpose.—Michael H. Price, Fort Worth Business Press
First of all, sorry to bury the lead, I'm getting to the point. Second of all, Iggy Pop wouldn't suffer shit like this from smug, vodka-swilling liberal arts majors at a bar. Third of all, is it all right if I draw from this isolated incident with a moron, that all libertarians are idiots?
If Everyone is Stupid is any indication, that's totally fine. This bloated collection of Peter Bagge's work is just a series of similar encounters, through the lens of libertarianism. The book would have you believe that the world is comprised of bleeding-heart pinko Democrats who want to tax you to death and take away your assault rifles, and the GOP's flock of sexually-repressed bible-thumping rednecks.—Ashley Cardiff, CC2K

Bubbles Jackson: Alive, Well, But Too Violent to Go to Jacko's Funeral (Wherever it will be)

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:14:00 EDT

Just as Wham!'s George Michael had his Andrew Ridgely, Michael Jackson had a mostly silent and apparently useless pal during his superstar heyday: Bubbles the Chimp, immortalized by Jeff Koons and beloved by fans.

So what's up with Bubbles these days? We report, you decide:

There have been many rumours regarding Bubbles's whereabouts, the most recent being that he had been plastinated a number of years ago and was being exhibited at The Body Worlds & Mirror Of Time exhibition at the O2 Centre in London.
Jackson rescued Bubbles from a cancer research centre and in the late Eighties, the pair travelled everywhere together.
He sat in for the recording sessions of the smash-hit Bad album and during the ensuing world tour he and the singer shared a two bedroom hotel suite.
At Neverland, he slept in a crib in Jackson's bedroom and was allowed to use the star's private toilet.

That last, btw, is a privilege denied former Jacksonian Corey Feldman.

The 26-year-old chimpanzee has been discovered alive and well at an animal sanctuary in Florida.
Now bosses at the Centre for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida, have allowed TV cameras to film Bubbles to prove he was still alive.

Jackson banished the monkey not for telling tales out of school but because he reportedly became violent around the singer's children.

For Bubbles fans only, go here.

InstaVision Talks With Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Who Makes a Lot of Economic Sense

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:21:00 EDT

Over at PJTV, Glenn "InstaVision" Reynolds interviews Texas Gov. Rick Perry on why the Lone Star State is doing relatively well compared to other giga-states such as California, which is in full-on breakdown mode. The secret, says Perry, is low taxes, predictable and minimal business reg climate, keeping spending low, and the like. About the best-kept secret: Texas's legislature meets for only 140 days every other year.

As a former resident of both California and Texas, I can attest to the many differences in the states (especially the weather). I don't think Texas is any sort of paradise, but when you stack the place up compared to virtually every other state in the U.S., it's got a helluva lot going for it.

Watch the interview below. It's about 15 minutes long and while Perry is pure politician (and I mean that in a bad way!), he makes pretty damn good economic sense (while being awful on any number of other issues, such as border enforcement, social freedoms, the drug war, and more).

Should States Tax Online Affiliate Programs? Overstock and Amazon Say No Way

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:23:00 EDT

Last year, New York and a few other states started taxing online affiliate programs, in which website operators link to retailers and then get a commission on any business generated from their site. The logic behind it was that online affiliates constituted a "physical presence," akin to having a plant, warehouse, retail store, etc.

While the Supreme Court ruled in the early '90s that it was too onerous to expect catalog and online retailers to collect sales tax in the 7,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S., everyone involved agrees that if you have a bricks-and-mortar operation somewhere, you must collect the relevant sales tax. Hence, Utah-based Overstock collects tax on sales within the Beehive State. But in the wake of the New York law, Amazon and Overstock pulled their affiliate programs for Empire-State-based websites and launched a still-pending suit to overturn the law. Thousands of websites were shut out of affiliate status as a result.

Due to similar laws, reports the Los Angeles Times, Overstock has just pulled its online affiliate program from California, Hawaii, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. Amazon has also pulled its program from Rhode Island and North Carolina.

"It's awful to have to terminate these relationships with affiliates simply because they live in states where unconstitutional laws are being passed," said Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com's chairman and chief executive. "However, politicians have to remember that a tax is a price that government charges for a service, and when they raise their prices, we're going to buy less of their services."

LA Times bit here.

Byrne and others argue that catalog and online retailers shouldn't have to pay the same type of tax because they don't put the same sort of stress on services and infrastructure that local businesses do. As he told Reason.tv in a recent interview, Overstock and its employees aren't using as much water, electricity, health and education services, you name it, in places where it simply ships in merchandise.

What do you think, Hit & Runners? Is that a good argument, persuasive even to those who disagree initially?

Here's Byrne talking it up at Reason.tv (go here for embed code, related vids, etc):

"An angry ex-girlfriend or wife is the best person in the world, the greatest source of information": ATF Agent on "hunt for guns, one house at a time"

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:03:00 EDT

The Houston Chronicle chronicles attempts by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the group that brought you the Branch Davidian standoff) to track down illegal gun purchases that end up down Mexico way. From Agent Tim Sloan comes this pearl of wisdom:

"An angry ex-girlfriend or wife is the best person in the world, the greatest source of information."

The Chron titles its story "Federal agents hunt for guns, one house at a time," and is clearly sympathetic to the feds (it's 102 degrees out! there's pit bulls at every corner!), but gives details that makes law enforcement look less than knightly:

On this day, agents weren't wearing raid jackets or combat boots and weren't armed with warrants.
Guns were hidden under civilian shirts.
Another tip took agents on a 30-minute drive from the shack to a sprawling home with a pool in the back and an American flag out front.
It turned out two handguns, of a type drug gangsters prefer, were bought by a pastor for target practice.
Some stories, they say, are hard to believe.
The lamest so far came from a police officer: He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and—on the same night—forgot to lock a door. He couldn't explain why he didn't file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft.

Those warrants can really ruin the cut of a sports jacket, that's for sure.

Whole story here.

Here's something to throw in the mix: Why not reduce the amount of violence and gun play, both here and in Mexico, but, I don't know, ending the war on drugs? Seriously, to the extent that Mexico (and by extension, the U.S.) has a drug-violence problem, it is clearly related to the illegal status of intoxicants, not the bang-bang potential of guns. Read this on that.

Hat tip: Dan Gifford, who blogs at Big Hollywood and was nominated for an Academy Award for his production of Waco: Rules of Engagment, one of the most disturbing documentaries of the past quarter-century.

What Does Al Franken's Belated Senate Win Mean? Not Much, Says Wash Post

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:22:00 EDT

Incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) has burned through millions of dollars in Republican Party cash in a losing bid to challenge and reverse last fall's election. He has now officially conceded, with all the grace of a fox chasing sour grapes. Thus, funnyman Al Franken will now take the stage as a senator from the Land of 10,000 Lakes and ~~no NHL team~~.[*]

What does adding another Dem to the World's Greatest Blah Blah Blah Body? Not much, says the Wash Post:

First, it definitely does not mean that Democrats have a filibuster-proof ticket to passing whatever they want. Though technically Democrats have now reached the magic number of 60 senators, it's worth remembering that for practical purposes, the majority may have just 58. Edward Kennedy is still receiving cancer treatments in Massachusetts, and Robert Byrd is now home from the hospital but with no timeframe for returning to the Senate. When the major procedural votes happen on health care and other issues, will either of those aging legends be able to get to the Senate floor? The question may sound indelicate, but as David Espo writes, "Neither man has been in the Capitol for weeks, and it is not known when, or even whether, they will return."
Second, even if Democrats do have 60 votes, there's no guarantee of unanimity, as the ongoing intraparty disputes over health care illustrate.... Beyond health care, unions are also touting Franken's win as another step toward passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, or "card check" bill. But that measure isn't at the finish line yet either, with multiple Democrats still opposed or at least hedging on it. Climate change is also a long ways from consensus in the chamber.

That said, if having a full-time job keeps Franken from imitating Mick Jagger ever again, then it's all good.

Back in May, I puzzled over what the extended battle between Franken and Coleman, which meant Minnesota had but one vote in the Senate, taught America. The short version: The U.S. Senate is a carrying more dead weight than an Uruguayan rugby team.

Correction: As several readers point out in the comments, Minnesota does indeed have a post-North (pronounced No) Stars hockey squad, the Minnesota Wild. I regret the mistake and my face is as red as Gump Worsley's after taking a puck to his maskless mush.

Bon Jovi: "Stand By Me" with Farsi Intro

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:52:00 EDT

On June 24, Iranian Superstar Andy Madadian went into an LA recording studio with Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and American record producers Don Was and John Shanks to record a musical message of worldwide solidarity with the people of Iran.

This version of the old Ben E. King classic is not for sale - it was not meant to be on the Billboard charts or even manufactured as a CD.....it's intended to be downloaded and shared by the Iranian people...to give voice to the sentiment that all people of the world stand together....the handwritten Farsi sign in the video translates to "we are one".

If you know someone in Iran - or someone who knows someone in Iran - please share this link:

http://www.MyDamnChannel.com/DonWas

Hat tip: NRO

It's not surprising in the least, but something about Islamic fundamentalism has always pressed the rock 'n' roll buttons. Deceased Dead Boys front man Stiv Bators, for instance, was known for telling the Ayatollah Khomeini to go fuck himself during concerts in the late '70s and early '80s. That Bators ended up sharing a death date (June 3) with the supreme oppressor somehow makes sense.

In a 2002 feature that's as or more relevant than ever, Reason's Charles Paul Freund explained how commercial culture liberates Islam—and the West. Read "In Praise of Vulgarity."

And The Award for the Most Tax-Oppressive Developed Country in the OECD Goes to...

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:07:00 EDT

Via Glenn Reynolds via TaxProf Blog via Cato, from the OECD comes this ranking of "tax oppressiveness." The higher the ranking, the more oppressive the jurisdiction. Switzerland and Luxembourg are 30 and 29.

The tax oppression index is based on 18 representative criteria measuring fiscal attractiveness, public governance and financial privacy in the 30 member states of the OECD.
Italy
Turkey
Poland
Mexico
Germany
Netherlands
Belgium
Hungary
France
Greece
United Kingdon
United States

Whole study here.

Michael Jackson, Transhumanist

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:02:00 EDT

RU Sirius, the coordinating intelligence behind the excellent journal h+, has offered up the most truly original interpretation of Michael Jackson's importance:

Michael Jackson is obviously not an example of transhumanism to be followed. But he is a signpost on the road to post-humanity. I believe the future will study him from that perspective, and in some odd way, it will learn from his many mistakes.

In a tightly argued piece, Sirius manages to make sense of virtually every aspect of Jackson, from the constant physical changes to his Peter Pan syndrome. And he does it with humor, irony, and heart. And, not surprisingly for a guy whose latest book is subtitled Rock Stars on Drugs, with an in-depth understanding of pop music big and small.

Read the whole piece.

Just How Much Will the GM Bailout Cost Taxpayers?

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:32:00 EDT

From the Wash Post, a warning not to count on cashing out that government-owned GM stock any time soon:

For the United States to fully recover its investment, the value of General Motors stock will have to reach levels it has never before attained....
"I don't know how much we're going to recover," a senior Obama administration official said as the company headed into bankruptcy last month.
This uncertainty stems from the difficulty in valuing the 60 percent GM stake that the United States will receive in exchange for the public investment. The government also gets preferred shares and other compensation.
The stake will be worth enough to fully cover the government's direct investment only if GM's stock rises above $68 billion. Even at its recent 2000 peak, GM's stock was worth only $56 billion.

And just so we're clear: "These calculations do not include the billions of dollars that the United States has put into GMAC, GM's financing arm, and into aiding auto suppliers." And just so we're even clearer about the visionary thinking that continues apace related to the producer of the mighty Aztek:

In announcing the government's intention to put another $30 billion into the company earlier this month, President Obama said, "We're making these investments not because I want to spend the American people's tax dollars, but because I want to protect them."

Whole story here.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Astray, Especially in a New Jersey New Deal Settlement Named for FDR

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:59:00 EDT

USA Today has an interesting story (with video) of Roosevelt, New Jersey, a town which got its start in 1936 as a New Deal-financed cooperative. Though the story is ostensibly positive ("New Jersey community offers lessons for today's economy") and stresses the not-insignificant fact that the place still exists, the lessons it gives seem pretty dreary from a government perspective:

[New Deal officials] constructed a town for 200 garment-worker families (selected from a pool of about 800 applicants). Each family paid $500 - about a year's rent in New York—to become a member of the cooperative.
Proponents included Albert Einstein; detractors included William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal, which called the project "Boondoggle Manor."
Almost immediately, [resident] Ticktin says, "the dream collided with reality."
There were many problems, including opposition by the New York-based garment workers union and a recession in 1937.
Above all, photographer and local resident Edwin Rosskam observed in a 1972 memoir that the workers were inexperienced in managing a factory in such a cutthroat industry and more concerned about their own wages and working conditions than the factory's success.
Each worker thought he knew best, Rosskam wrote, and "idealist cooperators were few. You didn't think people would strike against themselves. But they did."
The farm was no better. Most of the factory workers were unwilling to till the soil for a lower wage, according to a 1942 federal study. Many weren't good at it. "My father used to say that most of them didn't know which end of an onion to put in the ground," says Shirley Marcus, 75.

After the town's original vision collapsed (and, apparently, the government stopped funding it directly), people did stick around. Long enough for what one former mayor considers some sort of public-sector karma:

Like many municipalities, Roosevelt (the town's name was changed after the president's death in 1945) has put in a request for some federal stimulus money: $540,000 to paint and shore up its 75-year-old water tower, and $1.3 million to reline the water pipes. With a population of about 950, that would come to about $2,000 per resident.
"Things are coming full circle," says Mike Hamilton, a former mayor. "This town was created as part of a government stimulus package."

It's an interesting slice of American history, and one that underscores the inefficiency (if not always total ineffectiveness) of government action.

Jesse Walker looked at the utopian roots of select suburbs here. And Amity Shlaes discussed failed agricultural collectives during the New Deal here.

Can The Farmers and Cap-And-Trade Be Friends?

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:37:00 EDT

The Wash Post's Steven Pearlstein lays into the ways in which the ag industry boondoggled cap-and-trade:

Farmers demanded that they be allowed to earn some extra cash by reducing the carbon footprint on their farms and selling these "offsets" to the factories and power plants unlucky enough to be subject to the carbon-cap regime. They want to be paid extra if they change the feedstock to cut down on cow burps and farts. Or if they use the no-till method for planting seeds, which doesn't release the carbon trapped in the soil. Or if they put in devices to trap the methane released from animal poop.
And they demanded to be paid not just if they do these things in the future, but also if they did them last year or the year before. They demanded the payments even if they are already getting a check from the government to do the same things as part of some other conservation program. And perhaps most notably, they demanded that the job of supervising this offset program be shifted from the Environmental Protection Agency, whose focus would actually be ensuring that the reductions are real, to the Department of Agriculture, which sees its mission as preserving, protecting and defending American farm subsidies....
There was also an ethanol boondoggle to protect.
It seems those pesky scientists over at the EPA had done a preliminary analysis showing that if you considered the indirect effects of producing a lot of additional corn-based ethanol -- like the need to make up for the lost food production somewhere else -- then ethanol might not qualify as a carbon-reducing "renewable fuel" under the 2007 energy bill, potentially jeopardizing ethanol's guaranteed market of 15 billion gallons a year. To rectify this gross injustice, Elmer demanded—and won —a five-year moratorium on any final determination while a study is conducted on how the EPA was conducting its study.

Pearlstein notes that even with more sweeteners than a gallon of high-fructose corn syrup dumped into the mix, farm lobbyists were still urging a "no" vote on cap-and-trade because it would still cost farmers a plugged nickel or something. Pearlstein, like Paul Krugman (who declaimed congressmen voting "no" as guilty of planetary treason), is in favor of cap-and-trade. Which strikes me as weird coming from a guy who has just detailed what a load of sweetheart deals and compromises the legislation is larded up with. By every account, this bill is so filled with deals to buy off any possible disagreement that it is simply one more taxpayer-funded giveaway at a time when we can afford as little largess as possible.

Reason.tv called bullshit on ethanol in this memorable video:

Hat tip: Alan Vanneman

NY Times Op-Ed Page of Climate Change & Dirty Coal

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:18:00 EDT

Paul Krugman praises the cap-and-trade bill just passed in the House of Representatives as "a remarkable achievement" and convicts anyone (but especially the 212 nay voters) who doesn't want to get with the program (which is fat with corporate welfare, among other nauseating details) guilty of planetary treason:

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking that I was watching a form of treason—treason against the planet....
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an "existential threat" to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole—but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it's in their political interest to pretend that there's nothing to worry about. If that's not betrayal, I don't know what is.

Whole bit here.

To its credit, on the same page, the Times ran a really interesting piece by environmental writer Gregg Easterbrook about how super-pure green thinking and classic governmental screwups are holding up implementation of proven technologies that could reduce carbon emissions from coal-generated electricity by two-thirds. Rather than go ahead with "'integrated gasification combined cycle' power," pols and others are pushing a phoney-baloney and sure-to-be-useless boondoggle called FutureGen:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he opposes integrated gasification plants—only new solar, wind and geothermal facilities should be allowed. Environmentalists who correctly point out there can never be absolutely "clean coal" thus end up in the position of opposing coal that's far cleaner than what we are using.
Yet coal use is a future certainty. Half of our power comes from coal, versus about 2 percent from solar and wind: in the next few decades, green power simply cannot grow quickly enough to eliminate the need for coal. We have two choices: do nothing and wait for FutureGen while coal-caused carbon emissions continue unabated; or start building improved coal-fired plants that reduce the problem. Which seems more forward-thinking?

The Easterbrook piece is well worth reading.

I wonder if Krugman judges Easterbrook guilty of planetary treason?

Recently at Reason.tv: What If Gov't Ran Health Care?; Overstock.com's Libertarian CEO, Patrick Byrnes; Is the U.S. Economy Turning Japanese?

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:40:00 EDT

Obama, Bush, & FDR: Together Again

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:04:00 EDT

Writing in the Wash Post, Brookings' Benjamin Wittes and Harvard's Jack Goldsmith are disappointed with President Barack Obama's unilateralist view on detaining suspected terrorists. They worry that he is simply following George W. Bush's bad precedent:

Obama, to put it bluntly, seems poised for a nearly wholesale adoption of the Bush administration's unilateral approach to detention. The attraction is simple, seductive and familiar. The legal arguments for unilateralism are strong in theory; past presidents in shorter, traditional wars did not seek specific congressional input on detention. Securing such input for our current war, it turns out, is still hard. The unilateral approach, by contrast, lets the president define the rules in ways that are convenient for him and then dares the courts to say no.

The authors suggest that Obama follow FDR's lead by getting congressional input instead:

When Franklin D. Roosevelt sought congressional authorization for the Lend-Lease program in January 1941, the isolationist-leaning nation was evenly split over the proposal. After two months of sharp congressional argument and national debate, almost two-thirds of the country supported Lend-Lease, and Congress passed the program by large margins. "We have just now engaged in a great debate," Roosevelt proclaimed. "It was not limited to the halls of Congress. It was argued in every newspaper, on every wavelength, over every cracker barrel in all the land; and it was finally settled and decided by the American people themselves. Yes, the decisions of our democracy may be slowly arrived at. But when that decision is made, it is proclaimed not with the voice of any one man but with the voice of one hundred and thirty millions. It is binding on us all. And the world is no longer left in doubt."

It's really great to argue for more input when it comes to all aspects of war, especially the waging of it in the first place. Wittes and Goldsmith seem incredibly naive, however, in presuming that Congress is champing at the bit to make any hard decisions. Recall that Congress did vote on an authorization of force; recall also that Congress has shied away from actually declaring war for many decades now. They might not like some aspects of the Imperial Presidency, but they are also cowards when it comes to the sort of decisions that they might actually be held accountable for.

In any case, citing FDR in this context strikes me a tin-eared to the extreme. Didn't he use an executive order to intern what, 100,000 Japanese Americans during World War II? That was a unilateralist action that had moral support in Congress, sure, but was far worse than anything Bush or Obama dreamed up, much less acted on. The order was also refused by Mountain State governors, to their credit. Read Eric Muller's great Reason piece on that racially driven hysterical legacy of FDR.

And watch Reason.tv on Obama's bad rendition and detention policies, which have roots not only in the Bush admin but in Bill Clinton's:

Will Reform Help Health Care?

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:26:00 EDT

A Washington Post-ABC News poll from a couple of days ago has some pretty interesting findings about attitudes toward health care reform.

Among them:

Sixteen percent assume their care will get better if the system is changed while 31 percent figure it'll get worse. Half think it will stay the same.
Roughly 80 percent of respondents (plus or minus a few points depending on the specific questions) are very or somewhat concerned that health care reform will reduce quality of care and range of coverage while increasing costs and adding to the federal deficit. They think reform will limit choices of doctors and increase government bureaucracy.
About 45 percent of people are somewhat or very satisfied with the overall system, but over 80 percent are very or somewhat satisfied with their own care.

Much more here.

And in case you missed last night's ABC News health care confab with President Barack Obama, here's the sort of hardball questions and answers that were on display:

Orrin Devinsky of the NYU School of Medicine wondered if Obama would stick within the limits of government-issue insurance if his wife or one of his daughters was seriously ill and the plan didn't cover every possible treatment. Obama replied that he would want the "very best care"—but insisted the real issue was that the system is broken. "Understand that the status quo is untenable," he said.
One woman asked if someone like her 105-year-old mom would have care cut simply because of age limits. Obama said he didn't want that, but that "those decisions are already being made" based on costs and private insurance policies.
He also didn't answer directly who would set limits to care in a new system, or who would enforce them.
"If we are smart, we should be able to design a system in which people still have choices" and waste is reduced, he said.

More here.

My god, what's taken us so long to get such a brilliant solutionizer in the White House! He wants not just the best care for his family, but the "very best care." We can get choice and cut waste, if we are smart. Why hasn't anyone else thought of this? Courage and steel, Obama, courage and steel.

Ron Hart: Soak The Rich and Watch Them Move to Another State

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:20:00 EDT

Columnist Ron Hart on states with high tax burdens:

If you wonder how "soak the rich" liberalism will play out with the New Left regime in D.C., just look at California. As Ronald Reagan said, "People vote with their feet." The reason Texas, Tennessee and Florida (all zero-income-tax-states) grow is because entrepreneurs flee high-tax states, and bring their businesses and jobs with them. I joke that my home state, Tennessee, is called "The Volunteer State" because they can't make you live there. Yet few leave.

Whole thing here.

Population growth stats here.

Gov. Mark Sanford Presser: Live Apology Coming for Argentine Trip...and Marital Infidelity

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:26:00 EDT

GOP Gov. of South Carolina Mark Sanford is apologizing live on TV for going to Argentina and for something else that he is stringing out in a press conference right now...

Continuous updates:...

... is now talking roundabout about sin and God's laws, but with no specifics yet...

..."the bottom line is that I've been unfaithful to my wife..."

...now asking for a zone of privacy...

...he will tender his resignation as head of the Republican Governors Association...

...will stay on as governor of South Carolina.

Now taking questions...

To the extent that this all destroys Sanford's awesome credibility on the need to cut spending and government intervention, it's a real loss for the limited-government side.

Reason on Sanford.

More updates/first reactions from around the Web:

From National Review's The Corner:

Romney by Elimination? [Rich Lowry]
First Ensign, then the "Crying in Argentina" press conference. If Republicans want a presidential candidate who lives clean and whose family hasn't been involved in tabloid scandals, it might soon be Mitt Romney by process of elimination.
06/24 03:04 PM
Sanford [Mike Potemra]
This dramatic news conference was the first time I had ever watched him, and he came across as a very sincere, humble, and impressive person. If you come across this well on the worst day of your life, you must be doing something right. Is his political career "over"? I frankly don't care about that. I'm just glad to have seen somebody standing up and doing the right thing, being honest about sin and responsibility.
06/24 02:57 PM

The New Republic:

I still say it shouldn't be nearly as disqualifying as turning down badly needed stimulus money. An affair is wrong but understandable. Turning down the money is wrong and bats**t crazy.
--Noam Scheiber

The American Spectator:

Based on what we know right now, there is absolutely no reason that this situation needed to be a political disaster for Sanford. If he simply could have provided any kind of excuse or shown any of the forethought with which politicians usually plot their dalliances, he still would be a 2012 contender for the Republican nomination. Either he really is that clueless, or there's even more to the story that we don't know right now. (Joseph Lawler)

Andrew Sullivan:

Dog Bites Man
Another far-right Republican confesses to an extra-marital affair. Not the most effective way to keep it under wraps: disappearing for days with no notice. But it's important to remember at these moments that we're all human. I just wish the GOP leadership would apply that lesson to everyone else.

Michelle Malkin:

Bastard
By Michelle Malkin • June 24, 2009 02:54 PM
It's the only fitting word for a man who abandons his wife and four sons on Father's Day weekend to indulge his "overdrive" on an Argentinian fling.
Mark Sanford: Bastard.

Sundown on the Unions and What's Made In the USA, Chapter XXVII: Even Union Organizers Prefer Non-Union Hardhats as Props

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:16:00 EDT

The Politico reports that representatives of the AFL-CIO hit Capitol Hill yesterday to push the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act and more generally, a "made in the USA" kind of vibe. To drive home its protectionist message, the AFL-CIO handed out construction-site hard hats, long a symbol of blue-collar chic. The problem? Take a look below at the country of origin of said symbol.

Past chapters in pro-union stunts gone wrong:

"Hired Feet" Protest Low Wages—For Low Wages: Unions hire homeless to walk protest lines; pay $8 an hour, no benefits.

Protesters Paid Less to Picket Wal-Mart Than They Made When They Worked There. In 2005, Las Vegas Weekly reported on a protest in which picketers made less walking in 100+ degree heat outside the superstore than they used to make while working there.

A quick rundown of pro-union Obama actions so far, courtesy of Investor's Business Daily.

And a bonus link to Bob Dylan's '80s classic "Union Sundown," whose meaning is inscrutable but somehow directly on point as always.

Inflation Fears Hover on the Horizon Like So Many Massing War Ships From a Crappy Transformers Movie...

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:31:00 EDT

If your full faith and credit in Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve has not yet hit the Jell-o phase, consider this ringing declaration courtesy of Bloomberg.com:

Federal Reserve officials will probably seek today to reassure investors they can keep short- term interest rates at a record low without igniting inflation.
The Fed's Open Market Committee, concluding a two-day meeting, may stress that increasing slack in the economy will contain consumer prices into next year, analysts said. Policy makers also will likely discuss how to avoid a jump in longer- term Treasury yields once they fulfill their commitment to buy $300 billion in Treasuries as soon as August.

Please tell me that the "slack" referenced above is an economic term and not the linchpin concept in the Church of the SubGenius. It's getting harder to tell. More here.

Last year, Reason.tv talked with the Washington Post's Robert Samuelson, whose recent book The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, is an indispensable guide not only to post-war America but to the self-delusions that regularly overtake economists and public policy pros. Watch below or go here for downloadable versions and more links, etc.

If Your Heroes Have Always Been Naked Cowboys, Then Read This Blog Post...

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:10:00 EDT

Dateline: Greenhills, Ohio, where hometown boy Robert Burck, a.k.a. The Naked Cowboy, who is famous for performing guitar songs in naught by a pair of tighty-whities (you may have seen him in New Yawk City's Times Square) and a cowboy hat, is scheduled to appear at an outdoor festival.

The Naked Cowboy['s]...scheduled performance Friday...has sparked more resentment than he expected, setting off a digital war between his booking agent, Todd Rubenstein, and Greenhills mayoral candidate Pat Andwan.
Andwan sent an e-mail to community leaders urging them to protest the Naked Cowboy's performance at the festival, calling his behavior "deviant" and tighty-whities "indecent."...
Andwan said the Naked Cowboy is welcome to perform at bowling alleys and local saloons but she finds the festival an inappropriate setting for a man who wears nothing but underwear.
"It just shows what some parts of society have stooped down to," she said. "I just think it is totally insensitive and an insult to the families in the community. There should be some dialogue about what's appropriate and what's not."

Whole story, well-covered, here.

National Review and Obama Agree on Nationalizing Financial Sector?

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:34:00 EDT

Writing at The American Spectator, John Berlau says that National Review and President Obama are peas in a pod when it comes to giving the government the power to seize financial holding companies.

What the NR editors might be expressing is a form of "buyers remorse" on the original Bush-Paulson financial bailout they forcefully supported last fall. And not only did they strongly back that bailout, they berated GOP members of Congress who dared oppose it. In a September 29 Corner entry entitled "I'm Stunned" posted immediately after GOP conservatives and populist Democrats combined to vote down the bailout in the House (before a second package was approved there four days later), NR editor Rich Lowry exclaimed, "House Republicans will get blamed, and the likes of Mike Pence [R-Ind.] indeed played an extremely irresponsible role."
Now, National Review tells us that Obama's resolution authority, "done right, would at least put us back on the road to a rule-based system." Its editorialists lecture sanctimoniously that "in post-bailout America, we have bad and less-bad options to choose from and we've seen the alternative: a series of ad hoc and largely lawless bailouts jerry-rigged by the Treasury and the Fed."
But there is every reason to believe that nationalization, or resolution, or whatever NR and the Obama administration wish to call this new authority, would be just as "ad hoc" and "lawless" as the previous bailouts and nationalizations.
Both NR and Obama justify the ability to seize firms based on the fact that the government already has similar powers regarding commercial banks. A government takeover "is essentially what the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation does when it determines that a depository bank is on the brink of failing," NR intones in its editorial. Similarly, Obama argued in his speech: "If a bank fails, we have a process through the FDIC that protects depositors and maintains confidence in the banking system. ... And it works. Yet we don't have any effective system in place to contain the failure of an AIG [American International Group]."
It should be noted that contrary to Obama and NR's assertions, the FDIC process of seizing banks is far from perfect. FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair, whom Obama held over because of the liberal policies she pursued in the latter half of the Bush administration (such as strong backing of the Community Reinvestment Act, as Matt Vadum reported in TAS yesterday), disregarded taxpayer interests upon seizing the large thrift Indymac and other banks and created a "model" mortgage modifcation program for thousands of borrowers that wrote off principlal on the loans and reduced interest payments to well below market rates. Initial results show a redefault rate in programs like these of more than 50 percent, but Bair and Obama show no signs of stopping this flawed experiment with taxpayer dollars.

Whole piece here.

Reason.tv: Turning Japanese—Is America creating its own "Lost Decade" of economic stagnation?

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:00:00 EDT

It wasn't that long ago that everyone in America believed that Japan would soon overtake the United States as the dominant economic force on the planet. When the Japanese stock market rallied to historic heights in late 1989 and Japanese investors even bought Rockefeller Center in New York, it all seemed like a done deal.

But then...the Nikkei Index tanked, the nation's economy collapsed, the government responded with an ever-changing mix of tax hike and tax cuts, stimulus spending on infrastructure, massive bailouts of businesses, and more. None of it worked and Japan entered what's been called its "Lost Decade," a seemingly endless period of economic stagnation.

What are the lessons for the U.S. from Japan's experience? Reason Foundation policy analyst Anthony Randazzo is the co-author of the recent study "Avoiding an American Lost Decade: Lessons from Japan's bubble and recession" and a July 2009 cover story for Reason magazine, "Turning Japanese: Japan's post-bubble policies produced a 'lost decade.' So why is President Obama emulating them?"

As Randazzo explains, both the causes of and official responses to Japan's bubble and economic slump eerily anticipate exactly what the U.S. government is doing. Worse still, the Obama administration and Congress seem dead-set against the sorts of policies-across-the-board taxes on personal and business income, reductions in long-term and unsustainable government debt, and allowing damaged firms to go bankrupt-that would help revivify the American economy.

Is America on the verge of its own lost decade? Sadly, the government seems to be doing everything it can to make that happen.

Approximately 3.30 minutes long. Produced by Dan Hayes and Nick Gillespie; graphics by Meredith Bragg.

For embed code, audio podcast, iPod and HD versions, and more videos, go here.

City of Toronto, Already Multi-Ethnic, Ups Its Game Via Photoshop

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:29:00 EDT

Reader Paul points to the Boing Boing! post about how Toronto upped its multiculturality (?) for an offical publication. Seems you can't have Fun (the name of the mag) without just the right mix of skin colors.

"The policy doesn't say PhotoShop, the policy says 'show diversity' and that's of course what we try and do because we want all of our publications to reflect the community that we serve," explained Mr. Sack, who oversees city communications. "That's only fair. People should see themselves reflected in city services because it's everyone who uses them."
"When you're publishing something with the deadlines and you don't have the right photo, the objective is to communicate the service," Mr. Sack said.
"We're in one of the most diverse cities in the world. I hope that doesn't pose a problem for anybody. Capturing that diversity is not difficult. That's been our general experience."

More here.

In an age of municipal financial crises (in Canada as well as down here), let me sidestep the bizarro need and incompetent inability(!) to find a picture that "captures" (strange word!) Toronto's undeniable mosaic of different types of folks (including at least two sorts of white Canadians). Here's a question: Why do cities waste their money printing these sorts of guides?