Senate passes unconstitutional bill granting House voting rights to D.C.

A new poll from World Public Opinion pretty much confirms everything we thought we knew about the Muslim world: that while not directly supporting al Qaeda, large majorities of Muslims around the world support many of al Qaeda's goals, hate the US, are clamoring to replace secular repression with religious repression, are paranoid conspiracy theorists, and have no problem with killing US soldiers.

The full report is here.

The good news, of course is that large majorities in Muslim countries reject killing American civilians. But that's about where the good news begins and ends.

The worst news? Support by Muslims for attacks against American civilians has actually increased over the past two years.

Your taxes are going up.

They will probably go up in the coming decade, and the increase will be permanent. For a half-century, federal taxes have remained fairly constant relative to the size of the American economy — equal to about 18 percent of gross domestic product. But the 18 percent era has to end soon.

It won’t end because President Obama is some radical tax and spender, either. It will end because of a basic economic reality.

Video: Reason TV salutes noted moron turned stimulus czar

A palate cleanser to put you in the right frame of mind for tonight’s pep talk from Zeus. It’s not even the humor that impresses me; it’s the efficiency of it. How did they shoehorn so many of Greasy Joe’s embarrassments into 60 seconds? It’s nearly miraculous.

Stay tuned for the director’s cut after the stimulus rollout gets going. Content warning for one stray profanity.

Buzz up!

Democrats push to add voting House seat for DC

Now that they control both elective branches of government, Democrats have quietly pushed through one of their long-held goals, a voting seat for DC in the House of Representatives.  In order to gain Republican support, they have drafted a bill that would also add another voting seat for Utah to maintain the partisan balance.  However, as Hugh Hewitt points out, the method of adding two seats to the House fails Constitutional muster:

Debate opened Monday on a bill to give the 600,000 people of Washington D.C. a full vote in the House. A new Democratic president, Barack Obama, and heftier Democratic majorities in Congress have improved the prospects for the decades-long effort that would certainly ensure another Democrat lawmaker in Congress.

Democrats outnumber Republicans by some 4-to-1 in the capital.

In a bit of horsetrading to offset the Democratic pickup, the bill would award a fourth House seat to Republican-leaning Utah, which narrowly missed getting that extra seat after the 2000 national census. With the two new seats, the House would have 437 representatives.

But can the House add seats without a Constitutional amendment, and separate from a census?

Opponents argue that the constitutional amendment route is still the only legitimate way to go, pointing to Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, which says members of the House should be chosen “by the people of the several states.” The District of Columbia, of course, is not a state.

On the other side, supporters cite language in the Constitution that gives Congress legislative authority over the District “in all cases whatsoever.” They contend that for 200 years federal courts have framed the District’s laws in terms of those that apply to the states.

Congress has authority over DC “in all cases whatsoever” — in managing the District.  It does not have the unilateral authority to enlarge itself, especially at the expense of other states.  Any addition of representatives to one or two states acts to dilute the voting power of the rest, which is why the Constitution ties representation to the Census.  If Congress wants to change that calculation, it has to come through the amendment process and get the approval of three-quarters of the states.

Why don’t the Democrats simply push for a Constitutional amendment?  They don’t have the votes, not in Congress and not in the states.  They tried that thirty-one years ago, when Democrats had larger majorities in both chambers of Congress than they do now, and they couldn’t get enough states to approve it.

Hugh wonders who would have standing to haul Congress into court to challenge the constitutionality of this bill, which will almost surely sail through Congress and get signed by Barack Obama.  I’d guess that one of the states would have to sue, claiming damage to its voting power in Congress with the addition of the two seats.  Perhaps that challenge would come first from Texas, but I’d prefer that a few states jumped in together to make the point even more clear.

Auto bailout team no fans of American cars

The people tasked to rehabilitate the American auto industry and convince Americans to fund that rehabilitation largely avoid their products.  That certainly sends an interesting message, although one in consonance with the buying public.  It underscores the reason Detroit is in trouble — people with the funds to choose buy other products.  They can’t solve their economic problems without solving that problem first.

But this could be a stroke of genius, rather than a disaster on the optics.  Would we trust people who bought Detroit’s product to tell both the automakers and labor the truth about their predicament?  A panel of skeptics sounds like a better idea than a panel of true believers.

Pawlenty on Porkulus: The Pizza Principle

In large part, the double standard exists because conservatives object to federal control over the spending in the first place.  Liberals don’t object to federal control over education and other extra-Constitutional duties, so accepting money for education spending in Porkulus even if they disagree with NCLB isn’t quite the same rhetorical leap.  The proper conservative response to the argument would be that the federal government should quit taking so much money from the states — and then we wouldn’t need to worry how much of it comes back, because it won’t have left in the first place.  Except for national defense, interstate commerce, and other explicitly federal functions, the money would get spent better and with more oversight if handled by the states.

I think it’s a little more complicated than that.  Minnesotans will pay for their portion of Porkulus, pending a hopeful repeal in 2011 if the Republicans can take charge of Congress.  Refusing the money on principle sounds noble, but in effect will amount to a double taxation on Minnesotans.  I don’t think that’s a winning argument, either; I think conservatives should refuse the money in an effort to reduce the spending and then demand a reduction in federal bureaucracy to return money to state control.  I just don’t think that Pawlenty’s argument is as bad as some might think.

In terms of the situation with other governors, Pawlenty makes a good point in their support, regardless of what he himself does:

All the governors are going to take almost all of the money. I’m not aware of any governor turning down a substantial amount. There’s some talk about not taking unemployment insurance — about 2 percent of the stimulus — because it expands obligations in unemployment insurance, and might require a tax increase later on down the road. But the point is moot to Minnesota, because our benefit level is already beyond what the federal government would require.

None of the governors are refusing the entire package in any case.  They’re looking line by line for unfunded mandates in the future and making decisions based on their own economic situation on each entry.  That’s just good fiscal management, but it’s not a refusenik movement by any means.  Since the cash involved in that particular line item doesn’t commit Minnesota to any more spending than already required by state law, Pawlenty makes a fair point that there’s not any reason to refuse it as Jindal has done in Louisiana, especially since Jindal and the rest will accept most of the monies from Porkulus anyway.

The whitewashing of Roman Polanski

Over thirty years ago, Roman Polanski fled the US after being charged with statutory rape.  The victim, a 13-year-old girl, accused the then-44 film director of forced sexual intercourse and sodomy.  After getting generous terms of release during the pretrial procedures, he fled to France in 1978 and has never returned.  A Los Angeles court convicted Polanski in absentia.

It’s equally a drag to include the fact that Mumia Abu Jamal shot and killed a Philadelphia policeman into the protests against his execution, but that’s also fairly relevant.  Hollywood has for decades championed the criminals over the victims when its politics coincide with the former rather than the latter.  That explains, for instance, the massively epic biopic that Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro are making about Che Guevara, the murderous revolutionary and terrorist.

But Polanski is more than just a sympathetic figure to Hollywood for his politics.  He was one of their stars, in the advent of independent directors, mentioned in the same breath as people like Scorcese, Frankenheimer, Malick, and others.  Unlike Mumia and Che, Polanski belonged to Hollywood — and Hollywood used its power of propaganda to turn Polanski into the victim, rather than the villain, in this play.

Read all of Wyman’s article; it’s definitely a keeper.

Rush to Obama: Declare yourself on free political speech

Rush Limbaugh throws down another challenge to Barack Obama on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, this time on the Fairness Doctrine — and any other attempts to limit political speech by government fiat.  Rush reminds Obama of his studies of the Constitution at Harvard Law and asks him to justify how the FCC can interfere with the exercise of political speech.  He also reminds Obama that interference in this case could result in the economic collapse of a significant part of the radio industry, and cost thousands of people their jobs:

As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, you are more familiar than most with the purpose of the Bill of Rights: to protect the citizen from the possible excesses of the federal government. The First Amendment says, in part, that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The government is explicitly prohibited from playing a role in refereeing among those who speak or seek to speak. We are, after all, dealing with political speech — which, as the Framers understood, cannot be left to the government to police.

When I began my national talk show in 1988, no one, including radio industry professionals, thought my syndication would work. There were only about 125 radio stations programming talk. And there were numerous news articles and opinion pieces predicting the fast death of the AM band, which was hemorrhaging audience and revenue to the FM band. Some blamed the lower-fidelity AM signals. But the big issue was broadcast content. It is no accident that the AM band was dying under the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which choked robust debate about important issues because of its onerous attempts at rationing the content of speech.

After the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine in the mid-1980s, Congress passed legislation to reinstitute it. When President Reagan vetoed it, he declared that “This doctrine . . . requires Federal officials to supervise the editorial practices of broadcasters in an effort to ensure that they provide coverage of controversial issues and a reasonable opportunity for the airing of contrasting viewpoints of those issues. This type of content-based regulation by the Federal Government is . . . antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. . . . History has shown that the dangers of an overly timid or biased press cannot be averted through bureaucratic regulation, but only through the freedom and competition that the First Amendment sought to guarantee.”

Today the number of radio stations programming talk is well over 2,000. In fact, there are thousands of stations that air tens of thousands of programs covering virtually every conceivable topic and in various languages. The explosion of talk radio has created legions of jobs and billions in economic value. Not bad for an industry that only 20 years ago was moribund. Content, content, content, Mr. President, is the reason for the huge turnaround of the past 20 years, not “funding” or “big money,” as Mr. Clinton stated. And not only has the AM band been revitalized, but there is competition from other venues, such as Internet and satellite broadcasting. It is not an exaggeration to say that today, more than ever, anyone with a microphone and a computer can broadcast their views. And thousands do.

I certainly do, as do many of my friends, from both sides of the aisle. In fact, it has never been easier to make yourself and your political opinions heard, as this blog and millions of others attest.  Just as with the radio market, some succeed in drawing large audiences and monetizing their efforts, while some fail to do so.

In the blogosphere, though, only a fortunate few of us make this our jobs.  In radio, as Rush reminds Obama, thousands of people depend on the revenue that talk radio generates.  It generates that revenue because advertisers gravitate towards those shows that gain listeners.  Government intervention will force radio stations to carry shows that listeners don’t want, leading them to tune out — and for advertisers to flee.  Radio stations, which work on small margins now, will go out of business and send their employees into unemployment lines — and that’s if the stations decide to even bother working within the Fairness Doctrine boundaries in the first place.  The FD gives critics plenty of ammunition for licensing mischief that puts too much risk on investors, which is the reason that prior to the repeal of the FD, only 125 stations nationwide even bothered with political talk.

Obama just said that he opposes a reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine, but wants to impose diversity through other means, such as new ownership rules and the like.  What will that mean?  Radio stations will shut down, and when new owners pick up libtalkers, they will find the same success as Obama 1260 in the hardly-conservative Washington DC market.  The AM band will once again drift towards the moribund, and people will lose jobs across the nation.

Does Obama support free political speech and the marketplace?  Or does he support the notion of government dictating political content of broadcasts?  That’s the real question.

And please note which of these two men sounds reasonable and rational, and which relies on sloganeering.  Hint: The latter isn’t the pundit.

UN: Iran has enough uranium for one bomb

The only thing more predictable than a story every few weeks about Iran’s nuclear progress are the caveats that it’s not time to worry just yet. I guarantee that the very last news article written before the announcement that they’ve got the bomb will end with reassurances that it could be months or even years before the west has to act.

So relax! Nothing to fret about.

In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.

They said Iran had now accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz. If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material – enough for a bomb…

However, UN officials emphasise that in order to produce fissile material Iran would have to reconfigure its Natanz plant to produce high enriched uranium rather than low enriched uranium – a highly visible step that would take months – or to shift its stockpile to another clandestine site…

A senior UN official added that countries usually waited until they had an enriched uranium stockpile sufficient for several bombs before proceeding to develop fissile material. But he conceded that Iran now had enough enriched uranium for one bomb.

How long would it take to turn their stockpile into 20kg of weaponized uranium? Depends on how many centrifuges they’re using to enrich it. Could be six months — or it could be much, much sooner. Of course, like the story says, that depends in turn on whether they have any clandestine enrichment sites set up. Could be that they don’t — or it could be that they have 10 to 15 of them. No wonder Ahmadinejad considers the matter of Iranian nukes “closed.” Exit question one: Er, didn’t the NYT already break this story in November? Exit question two: Is The One still planning to move full speed ahead on negotiations with Iran after they have the bomb? Offhand, I can’t recall anyone putting that question to him, but given our North Korea policy, I can only assume the answer’s yes. That’ll make for a lovely incentive for other countries weighing their proliferation options.

All I need is the air that I breathe …

Smelling a RAT