Everything I Know Is Wrong

"Global Dimming" is back!

In 2005 I blogged about a trial balloon released by the formerly esteemed, but now very in-the-tank pro global warming magazine Science. They called their new idea "global dimming." The idea was that pollution, rather than causing global warming—as they had always asserted—both caused and reduced it. Their contention was that the particles of pollution in the air blocked some of the Sun's light from reaching the Earth, thereby reducing the warming effect and reducing the effects of Global Warming.

Draw your own conclusions from the fact that the post has been removed from their site.

Now we have a new approach to the same "dim" idea. From the AFP:

Through photosynthesis, vegetation transforms sunlight, CO2 and water into sugar nutrients.

Common sense would suggest that air pollution in the form of microscopic particles that obstruct the Sun's rays -- a phenomenon called "global dimming" -- would hamper this process, but the new study shows the opposite is true.

"Surprisingly, the effects of atmospheric pollution seem to have enhanced global plant productivity by as much as a quarter from 1960 to 1999," said Linda Mercado, a researcher at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Britain, and the study's lead author.

"This resulted in a net ten percent increase in the amount of carbon stored by the land," she said in a statement.

What does this mean?

The findings underline a cruel dilemma: to the extent we succeed in reducing aerosol pollution in coming decades, we will need to slash global carbon dioxide emissions even more than we would have otherwise.

"Aerosols offset approximately 50 percent of the greenhouse gas warming," Knut Alfsen, research director at the Centre for International Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, said by phone.

Without this particle pollution, he said, average global surface temperatures would have increased by 1.0 to 1.1 Celsius (1.8 to 2.0 Fahrenheit) since the start of industrialisation, rather than 0.7 C (1.25 F).

Let's recap. Pollution, which is bad, causes global warming, which is reduced by pollution, which is bad. And aerosols, which are so bad that we banned a whole bunch of them, are reducing greenhouse gas warming (bad) by 50% (good?).

This self-contradictory mess is typical of the mental gymnastics required by those who would have you believe that carbon dioxide, which you are breathing out right now, is a pollutant that is causing the world to heat up and become uninhabitable. Despite the fact that their hypothesized connection between carbon and global temperature is contradicted by the the temperature record itself.

Don't think about it too much, you'll sprain something.

Crackpots Calling the Kettle Black

Jonah Goldberg, fed up with the ignorance of leftist crackpots calling the kettle black, knocks down the top five complaints he hears from liberals. As for me, after hearing from ignorant authoritarian statists all of my life that conservatives are fascists, Jonah's answer number five is my favorite.

NRO
5. The populist anger out there is the real face of America's homegrown fascism.

Sigh. While I think Rick Perry's secession talk is idiotic and unfortunate (even accounting for Texas's unique history), I am at a loss as to how any of this stuff smacks of fascism. Even Perry is talking in the context of the federal government doing too much, taking away too much liberty, getting too involved in local communities, and interfering too much with the individual.

How do I say this so people will understand? Fascism isn't a libertarian doctrine! It just isn't, never will be, and it can't be cast as one. Anarchism, secessionism, extreme localism, or rampant individualism may be bad, evil, wrong, stupid, selfish, and all sorts of other things (though not by my lights). But they have nothing to do with a totalitarian vision of the state where individuals and institutions alike must march in step and take orders from the government.

If you think shrinking government and getting it less involved in your life is a hallmark of tyranny it is only because you are either grotesquely ignorant or because you subscribe to a statist ideology that believes the expansion of the state is the expansion of liberty.

Hallelujah, Brother Jonah!

St. Paul Minnesota Tea Party Photos

I went to the Tea Party in St. Paul yesterday. They estimated that there were about 10,000 people in attendance. Capitol police estimated that there were about 2000. The Pioneer Press said, "hundreds." I would have guessed about 6,000. Local news outlets emphasized the lower figure and went out of their way to show pictures that made the crowd look small and freaky. Here are some shots I took in Saint Paul, knowing that the MSM would do their thing as they always do.

As protests go this was more like a jazz concert than a rock concert. The atmosphere was festive and determined. No cars were burned.

It was fun.

10,000 or "hundreds," you decide.

The Limbaugh Challenge

Over the lunch table yesterday afternoon my friend Tim and I talked about how liberals say they hate Rush Limbaugh even though they have never heard his show. Then, in the LA Times of all places, there is this:

LA Times

If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration's recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That's the likelihood; here's the certainty: You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Oh no, you haven't. Whenever I interrupt a liberal's anti-Limbaugh rant to point out that the ranter has never actually listened to the man, he always says the same thing: "I've heard him!"

On further questioning, it always turns out that by "heard him," he means he's heard the selected excerpts spoon-fed him by the distortion-mongers of the mainstream media. These excerpts are specifically designed to accomplish one thing: to make sure you never actually listen to Limbaugh's show, never actually give him a fair chance to speak his piece to you directly.

By lifting some typically Rushian piece of outrageous hilarity completely out of context, the distortion gang knows full well it can get you to widen your eyes and open your mouth in the universal sign of Liberal Outrage. Your scrawny chest swelling with a warm sense of completely unearned righteousness, you will turn to your second spouse and say, "I'm not a liberal, I'm a moderate, and I'm tolerant of a wide range of differing views -- but this goes too far!"

There is more untruthfulness in that statement than in a speech by President Obama. Even the commas are self-deceiving. You're not a moderate or you wouldn't be reading this newspaper. You're not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven't listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Which leads to a question: Why not?

{...}

Let me guess at your answer. You don't need to listen to him. You've heard enough to know he's a) racist, b) hateful, c) stupid, d) merely an outrageous entertainer not to be taken seriously or e) all of the above.

Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.

This is a brilliant Op-Ed, and it's printed in exactly the right place—arguably the most liberal major newspaper in the country. Read the whole thing, and e-mail it to your liberal friends.

Update: Patterico notes this article, too, and takes the opportunity to clarify his record regarding El Rushbo. After Rush's CPAC speech this year, Pat criticized his formulation of the "I want Obama to fail" meme. Pat defended the point that Rush was trying to make (Rush wanted Obama to fail in implementing his radial policies, so that America would succeed) while lamenting the choice of words he used to express it. It was fair criticism, though I'm not sure I entirely agree with it (controversy has its palce, after all), and it was presented in the well reasoned manner that is the hallmark of Patterico's Pontifications.

Unfortunately, there are as many on the right as on the left who want their leaders to go unquestioned. Pat has experienced a backlash from these people, who think he doesn't show enough love for the big guy. They couldn't be more wrong.

Putting aside any quibbles about the meaning of Rush’s recent comments, I agree with Klavan that, if you’re going to criticize someone, you should do them the favor of listening to their actual words.

I thought about this recently when a reader wrote me and asked:

Patrick: Just what is it about Rush that you dislike? . . . [T]here seems to be something in his personae that just has gotten under your skin?

Not at all. How could someone ask me that, when I have a long history of defending this man on my site?

If you’re going to criticize my attitude towards Rush, maybe you should do me the favor of looking at my actual words.

As someone who loves both Rush and Patterico, I encourage you to listen carefully to both of them. They agree on almost everything, you know. And I have heard Rush, on his radio show, sharing the love with Patterico.

Whatever happened to "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism?"

 Alan Colmes is irrelevant. And a lightweight. And peevish. But he has a "great idea":

Clomes - Leave My President Alone
Leave Obama alone. Stop it. Stop it now. We’re not headed toward communism. We’re not becoming a socialist nation. (We already became one under Bush). The middle class is not disappearing. (That, too happened during the last 8 years and the stimulus will hopefully bring that back.) Leave him alone. The next election will be here soon enough. Leave him alone. Go about your business. And have a nice day.

Extraordinary advice considering how the left—often given voice by Colmes himself—blamed Bush for every little thing, whether it was under his control or not.

The whining is growing in shrillness.

Gore leaves the lights on...

...during Earth Hour.

Nashville Post
President of the Tennessee Center For Policy Research Drew Johnson takes a Saturday drive by Al Gore’s during the time most environmentalists went dark:

I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.

In fact, most of the windows were lit by the familiar blue-ish hue indicating that floor lamps and ceiling fixtures were off, but TV screens and computer monitors were hard at work. (In other words, his house looked the way most houses look about 1:45am when their inhabitants are distractedly watching “Cheaters” or “Chelsea Lately” reruns.)

The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.

I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.

Ah, the sweet smell of green hypocrisy. How many more times do you suppose Al Gore will have to show how little credence he gives to his own words before no one at all will listen to him?

Update: Gore responds.

Update: Drew Johnson stands by his story. Includes time-stamped photos.

US Government Argues it has Right to Ban Books and Films.

The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act is bearing more poison fruit. Not that that comes as a big surprise to anyone who has paid the least attention to the legislation. Before it was passed its opponents, of whose number I have always been a member, cried loud and long that it was an assault on our freedom of speech. But its provisions banning political speech by certain groups during the period leading up to an election were seen by Congress as a protection—against their own voting records—for incumbent politicians. Against that the First Amendment didn't stand a chance. Congress passed it. Bush signed it.

Now the CFRA, which is I think the primary reason many conservatives had a hard time supporting John McCain's bid for the Presidency, is being stretched beyond the realm of paid political ads, to the banning of books and films. For the Government, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart is arguing, in front of the Supreme Court, that it has the right.

NRO
At issue is a film called Hillary: The Movie, a documentary produced by the nonprofit group Citizens United, which did not wish to see Senator Clinton elected president. Because McCain-Feingold prohibits so much as mentioning a candidate’s name in pre-election communications paid for by certain disfavored groups — unions and “corporations” — the filmmakers were informed by a federal judge that showing their work would constitute a crime. The filmmakers sued, and the case is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Mr. Stewart is defending the government’s ban on this film; the same rules that apply to a campaign commercial apply to a documentary film, his reasoning goes. Justice Alito alertly pressed Mr. Stewart on that issue: If commercials and films are covered, how about books? How about campaign biographies? Yes, Mr. Stewart answered, the U.S. government is prepared to ban books, under certain circumstances, and is legally empowered by McCain-Feingold to do so. Jaws dropped, black robes fluttered.

Under the law, it depends on who is paying for those communications, and here the government has two targets, one well defined and one less so. The first group whose speech is suppressed under McCain-Feingold is labor unions. We rarely find ourselves on the same side politically, but we would not see them stripped of their First Amendment rights. The second group is “corporations,” a word that has practically become a term of abuse — good guys are businessmen, employers, or entrepreneurs, bad guys are corporations — but is in fact a common form of legal organization employed by a myriad of enterprises, including nonprofit advocacy groups, of which Citizens United is one. Let that sink in: The First Amendment was intended to protect political speech, the right to advocate causes and criticize government officials, and McCain-Feingold holds that organizations incorporated for the express purpose of engaging in political speech are to be burdened with special restrictions. Put another way, a stripper pole-dancing in Vegas has more robust First Amendment protections under current practice than does a political-advocacy group organized as a nonprofit corporation.

Hard to believe? Not at all. A couple of years ago the FCC "decided" that it would—for the time being—not apply the rules imposed by CFRA to blogs like this one. It was a good decision, but was not codified into law and they can "decide" the other way simply by changing their minds.

The string of outrageous assaults based on the CFRA's rules, upon Constitutionally protected rights, has proved beyond any doubt that McCain-Feingold is an abject failure. It must be repealed.

A Letter From My Congressman

A form letter, and a little lukewarm toward the end ("I believe both parties..." , etc.), but he voted against it. Good on him.

Dear Sean:

Thank you for letting me know of your opposition to the so-called stimulus bill.  

I strongly share your opposition to this legislation, and you will be pleased to know that I voted against it when it was considered by the House.

As I said on the floor of the House during the debate on the original bill, we need a real stimulus that will put people back to work - that preserves, protects and most importantly creates jobs.  But this big government spending bill does not accomplish this.

An analysis by the nonpartisan CBO found that just 7-8 percent of the infrastructure spending in the plan would be delivered into the economy by the end of this year - and less than half is spent in the first 2 years.

In addition, an extremely low percentage of the plan is aimed at job creation.  Instead, the bill essentially turned into a supplemental spending bill and became a grab bag of special interest spending on unrelated items that will not save or create jobs.  The bill will fund requests such as $2 million for neon signs in Las Vegas, $4.5 million for an eco park featuring butterfly gardens and gopher tortoises, $500,000 for a dog park, $3 million for a municipal golf course clubhouse, $886,000 for a 36-hole disc golf course, $1.8 million for replacement tennis courts, $6 million for three aquatic centers with water slides .. the list goes on and on.  Clearly, we should not be spending more on these programs than on helping small businesses create jobs.

I supported an alternative stimulus plan that would provide relief for Minnesota families and create jobs.  The proposal contained a variety of incentives for small businesses to create jobs, including a 20 percent tax deduction for small businesses; a health insurance premium deduction for those who do not get health insurance from their employers; an improved homebuyer tax credit; an exemption to make unemployment benefits tax free; and a variety of other initiatives that would help jumpstart our economy.  In fact, analysis showed it would create twice the jobs at half the cost.

I believe both parties in Congress need to work together on real solutions to jumpstart the struggling economy and put people back to work.  Congress also needs a "new era of responsibility" in how it spends the taxpayers' money.  This stimulus package does not achieve those goals but only adds to the budget deficit.

You can be sure of my continued efforts to grow our economy, put people back to work and restore fiscal responsibility to Congress.

Thanks again for sharing your concerns, as I appreciate hearing from you.  Please let me know whenever I can be of assistance.
Sincerely,

Erik Paulsen
Member of Congress

Am I a Racist Coward?

Apparently.

Smirky McChimp

All of the hoopla about the New York Post's chimp cartoon being offensive makes me laugh. It brings the hypocrisy of liberals into high relief. Their outrage is manufactured. Crocodile tears. Anyone who has read a left-wing blog, or the comments from lefties just about anywhere, has seen the president called a chimp on countless occasions. Oh, not President Obama to be sure. President Bush. His unofficial nickname was "Smirky McChimp," or "Chimpy," or "The Smirking Chimp." Don't believe me? Click here. Click page after page. The chimp/Bush connection is so prevalent on the left that there is a well known blog named The Smirking Chimp. It is dedicated to, as they say under their masthead, the "dishonor of the worst president in U.S. history."

Personally, when I saw the cartoon I didn't think of President Obama at all. I thought of Washington Democrats as a whole. There was, for me, no racial component to the cartoon at all. It poked fun not at the race, but at the intelligence of the people who crafted (that's probably too generous a word) the "stimulus" bill. 

If conservatives look at a chimp and see a chimp, but liberals look at the same chimp and see the president, what does that say about them?

Update: The New Republic doesn't think it was racist. You can see the cartoon, too.

TNR
But, look, obviously the point is that the stimulus bill could have been written by a monkey. The monkey doesn't look like Obama and is in no way suposed to represent him. And it incorporated violence because the monkey in the news story was, in fact, shot -- and the punchline depends on the monkey being dead and thus unavailable to write further legislation. Again, while it's a mediocre joke at best, Obama supporters shouldn't be looking for racial slights around every corner. So far there have been very few of them.

Tinkle-Down Economics

President Obama, if his recent comments are to be credited, would have us believe that any government spending at all can be called "stimulus" providing only that it is sufficiently large.

NYT Transcript of Obama Press Conference
And so when I hear people just saying we don't need to do anything; this is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill, without acknowledging that by definition part of any stimulus package would include spending -- that's the point -- then what I get a sense of is that there is some ideological blockage there that needs to be cleared up.

Spending is most certainly not, as Obama says, "the point." Random spending, culled from decades of frustrated liberal wish-lists, won't accomplish anything but gargantuan debt. I don't "hear people just saying we don't need to do anything," I hear people saying that we need to do something, but doing nothing would be preferable to doing what the Democrats have planned.

Let's say that every week you are required to give me ten dollars. I use it to buy some ice cream cones for my kids and go see a movie with my wife. Then—because I desperately want to stimulate our economy—I want to give you one dollar back. Well, the cones and the movie cost fifteen dollars so I'm going to have to borrow the dollar (not to mention the five dollars extra that my irresponsible spending cost), and I don't have any way of earning money for myself so I use your credit to get it. Now I give you the dollar. Are you ahead or behind? Don't forget that you have to repay the loan I took out for you.

That, in a nutshell, is the Democrat plan. Except that they aren't going to give you the dollar. They're going to give the dollar to someone else, who probably doesn't pay taxes to begin with, or to a pet project involving condoms in some way, and they are going to hope (there's that word again) that some of it trickles down to you. Or tinkles down to you.

Government cannot spend us out of a recession. Any money the Government gets, it gets from us. It then takes out enough to finance itself and all of the extra-Constitutional projects enacted by the majority party of the moment, and takes out loans to cover shortfalls. So when it finally gets around to giving us back our money, do you think it's a net gain? Not on your life.

Now let's say that instead of having to give me ten dollars every week—because I desperately want to stimulate our economy—that for the next year you only have to give me five dollars a week. I still take my wife to the movies, but I don't buy ice cream cones for the kids and I don't have to take out a loan with your credit. Are you money ahead? Without a doubt. And that is how tax cuts and responsible spending stimulate the economy.

Yes, we are going to have to do some spending (and just for the record tax cuts are not spending), but it should be focused on actually creating revenue and jobs, not on every Democrat's Christmas list. The yellow rain of tinkle-down economics won't get us anything but a huge bill that our children are going to have to pay.

Update: Ed Morrissey points out a plan to spend $800 million on golf carts.

Update: Ed Whelan at The Corner.

Today’s Washington Post has an article exposing President Obama’s repeated demagogic assertion that those who oppose his so-called stimulus plan favor doing nothing:

But in truth, few of those involved in the stimulus debate are suggesting that the government should not take action to aid the cratering economy.

Many of the president's fiercest congressional critics support a stimulus package of similar size but think it should be built around a much higher proportion of tax cuts than new spending. Others have called for a plan that is half the size of the one headed for a House-Senate conference — still massive by historical standards.

Even those who think that no new government spending is necessary do not advocate a stand-still approach. A newspaper ad by the Cato Institute, signed by 250 economists, argued for removing "impediments to work, saving, investment and production" and said that "lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."

"I don't know of a single Republican in the House or Senate who thinks Congress should do nothing in the wake of this recession," Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said Tuesday. "We want to do something that will work."

Too bad the article is buried on page A6, bears the unhelpful title “Obama Paints America’s Choice as His Plan or Nothing”, and unconvincingly contends that President Bush set up similarly empty straw-man arguments.

Update: Patterico has a photo of Hillary in one of the NEV golf carts. Looking silly.

The Path Less Traveled

Newt Gingrich has penned a brief instruction manual for the conservative movement, "Where does the conservative movement go from here?"

The Washington Times
The conservative movement has a simple and almost certainly successful future if it does three things:

1. Advocate first principles with courage, clarity, persistence and cheerfulness.

2. Insist on developing solutions based on those principles and insist on measuring other proposals against those principles.

3. Be prepared to oppose Republicans when they are wrong and side with Democrats when they are right, but always make the decision to support or oppose a matter of first principles and the application of those principles.

Now if we could only find some conservative politicians...

Slap on wrist deemed to harsh for Joe the Plumber snoop

Ohio Capitol Connection

Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) Director Helen Jones-Kelley was found to have acted improperly both in her authorization to use ODJFS confidential databases to search for information on "Joe the Plumber" and in her use of state resources to engage in political activity in a report issued Thursday by the state’s Inspector General (IG) Thomas Charles.

In response, Gov. Ted Strickland late on Thursday announced that he was suspending Jones-Kelley for one month without pay, saying that he values “her contributions to the state and her local community” but that he accepts the IG’s judgment “that there was not an adequate business purpose for the searches in question.

A month vacation without pay, boy that guy is strict.

With family like this...

...Who needs enemies?

Huffington Post
Newt Gingriche's sister, Candice, in a HuffPo, um, well, editorial? leaves civility at home and excoriates her brother for not embracing California's Prop 8. Using tried and true left wing practice, she attacks her brother not his ideas.

I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

The truth is that you're living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as -- and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Misrepresenting the conservative idea that marriage should be between a man and a woman as hatred of homosexuals is standard leftist-Orwellian procedure. She even uses Christianity as an argument against defending traditional marriage.

Most chilling line: "You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it."

Global Warming traps over 200 whales in ice.

Perhaps those poor, poor polar bears stranded without ice to walk on can cross the sea on the backs of the over 200 whales trapped in the Canadian Arctic by winter ice.

AFP
At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice that is setting in around them and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials said Friday.

Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) from Pond Inlet, on November 15, and checked on them periodically.

The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans.

But department spokesman Keith Pelley told AFP: "It's unlikely the animals are going to survive the winter, so the hunters have been given authorization to cull them."

Global Warming alarmists love to cherry-pick a micro-climate and build a world spanning calamity from it.  This example, though no more valid in terms of global climate prediction than any other micro-climate, must shoot at least a small hole in their "science."

Slicker than Teflon

No, not a politician. New Scientist is reporting that a new material has been discovered by accident.

New Scientist
A superhard substance that is more slippery than Teflon could protect mechanical parts from wear and tear, and boost energy efficiency by reducing friction.

The "ceramic alloy" is created by combining a metal alloy of boron, aluminium and magnesium (AlMgB14) with titanium boride (TiB2). It is the hardest material after diamond and cubic boron nitride.

BAM, as the material is called, was discovered at the US Department of Energy Ames Laboratory in Iowa in 199, during attempts to develop a substance to generate electricity when heated.

This has great potential. It doesn't react with steel—and degrade—the way diamond does. Think of all the applications: coatings for drill bits, gears, internal engine parts. The list is nearly endless.

Nearly as hard as diamonds, slipperier than teflon. Wow.

Coleman's lead rebounds to 167

Ten minutes ago the Star-Tribune updated their estimate of the state of the Coleman-Franken re-count from 115 to 167.

Star-Tribune
The incumbent Coleman entered the recount with a 215-vote edge over Franken, a comedian and author. That lead had dropped in the first three days of the recount, but Coleman rebounded some in the latest results and is 167 votes in front when comparing totals in precincts where the new count is complete. But the figure doesn't include ballot challenges, which have caused vote tallies for both candidates to drop.

According to state numbers, there have been 1,893 challenges between the campaigns, although some could be withdrawn before the Canvassing Board's Dec. 16 meeting. The two are running about even in challenges.

The count goes on.

And on...

Inhofe: Roll Back the Bailout

Senator James Inhofe has called for legislation requiring congressional approval of any further spending of the $700 billion bailout money. Language in the bailout bill, as passed, has given Secretary Paulson sole discretion over how the money is spent—with zero oversight. As I've reported before, the bill says he cannot be investigated, nor even officially asked where the money is going. He has said he won't tell congress who is getting the money.

KFOR
"It is just outrageous that the American people don't know that Congress doesn't know how much money he (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) has given away to anyone,'' the Oklahoma Republican told the Tulsa World.

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Saturday that Congress was not told the truth about the bailout of the nation's financial system and should take back what is left of the $700 billion "blank check'' it gave the Bush administration.

"It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don't know. There is no way of knowing.''

What Paulson has said is that he has changed course 180 degrees and will not be buying bad mortgage debt, but will instead be directly purchasing equity stakes in major financial institutions. Inhofe contends, and rightly so, that this indicates that even Paulson believes that the plan, as originally conceived, can not work.

Via Drudge:

Inhoffe.gov
November 15, 2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), in a letter to his Senate colleagues, laid out his plan to push for legislation that will require Secretary Paulson's plan for the remaining $350 billion in authorized Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to be ratified by an affirmative vote in the U.S. Congress. In the letter, Senator Inhofe writes that the lame duck session provides Congress a tremendous opportunity to change course. Below is the text of the letter.

Dear Colleague,

I write to inform you of the actions I will be taking during the lame duck session of Congress regarding the funding status of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Given the recent news about Secretary Paulson's execution of the TARP program, I firmly believe action is required by Congress. I plan to push for legislation that will require Secretary Paulson's plan for the remaining $350 billion in authorized TARP funds to be ratified by an affirmative vote in the U.S. Congress.

In my statement opposing the Paulson Plan last month, I laid out two primary reasons why I voted ‘no.' The first is that I wasn't convinced that asset-purchase program was the right way to do this, and the second is that it would lead to increased lobbying for handouts and bailouts by any industry facing financial trouble.  

I stated at the time that my vote was against the Paulson plan - not against taking extraordinary action to provide necessary confidence to financial markets. I stated that "The Paulson plan would have Washington take $700 billion worth of toxic Wall Street assets from financial firms' balance sheets and put them on the balance sheet of the federal government.... I'm not confident in its success."   

The critics were right. On October 14th, in a significant shift, Treasury outlined a plan to directly purchase equity stakes in of major financial institutions. The Wall Street Journal noted that "critics...say Treasury should have formulated a comprehensive plan earlier in the crisis." This past week, Secretary Paulson announced that he has completed a remarkable about face, as summarized by November 13^th Investor's Business Daily front page headline, which read, "In Major Reversal, Treasury Won't Buy Bad Mortgage Debt." This is a complete reversal. Why did Paulson reverse course? Thursday's Los Angeles Times provides the answer. "Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's decision to abandon plans to buy troubled bank assets shows that he has come to two conclusions about what was once the chief focus of the government's $700-billion bailout: The first is that it wouldn't work."

I know many of you have serious concerns about how Secretary Paulson has executed the financial rescue program and I share them with you. Congress abdicated its Constitutional responsibility by signing a truly blank check over to the Treasury Secretary. However, the lame duck session of Congress offers us a tremendous opportunity to change course. We should take it.

During the lame duck session, I will be taking the following actions. First and foremost, if Secretary Paulson submits his plan to Congress in order to access the remaining $350 billion while we are in session, a doubtful prospect, I plan to immediately introduce the disapproval resolution pursuant to Section 115 of the EESA and push for its enactment. I will also introduce and actively pursue enactment of legislation to do two things: First, it will amend Section 115 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) to require an affirmative vote on the part of Congress to approve Treasury's plan for the remaining $350 billion, instead of the current statutory process which gives Secretary Paulson far too much latitude. Second, it will require a freeze on any remaining funds of the first $350 billion. It is imperative that we not allow that amount of money to be added to a deficit approaching $1 trillion this year without any input from the legislative branch. 

Secretary Paulson stated in a CNBC interview at 2:00pm on Friday, November 14^th that "the financial markets have been stabilized." If that is the case, it is Congress's duty to have a say in what happens with the remaining authorized amount of $350 billion. It is clear that it was a mistake to sign a blank check to one man for such a tremendous amount of money. Though there are still significant challenges in financial markets, it appears that the threat of a catastrophic financial crisis, which was the justification for the grant of such sweeping authority, has subsided. Perhaps the additional $350 billion should not be added to the deficit. Congress should have a debate.

I appreciate your time and attention to this matter and look forward to working with you in the coming week.

Sincerely,

Senator Jim Inhofe

Whitman: Republican Party Prisoners of Social Fundamentalists

Christine Todd Whitman, co-chair of the Republican Leadership Council and former head of the EPA, in a Washington Post Editorial today says that the reason Republicans were swept out of office all across the country is that they are held hostage by social fundamentalists, unable to move to the left where they really ought to be.

WaPo
Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by "social fundamentalists," the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.

The only problem is that she is completely wrong. Her argument that Republicans must move more to the middle is easily refuted. John McCain is without a doubt the most moderate voter in the Senate, and he made no headway with the so-called middle. Whitman's assertion that he "tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party's social-fundamentalist wing" is laughable. McCain barely managed to hide his disdain for conservatives and conservatism. What really happened is that Republicans, when they had the power to act, didn't behave any differently that Democrats. Republican's "Contract with America" took a principled stance, which energized the electorate, but they didn't follow through with it. Spending was out of control, and entitlements abounded. The electorate decided that since the party in power was acting like Democrats, they might as well elect Democrats.

Whitman is recommending the same strategy liberals have been advocating for turning around our failing school system despite throwing unprecedented amounts of money at it: throw more money at it. Whitman suggests that since throwing the moderate Bush, and uber-moderate McCain at the electorate didn't work, we should go even farther to the left.

Whitman's philosophy is exactly what is already wrong with the Republican party. And she wants more. Instead of differentiating themselves from the left, she says they should join it. That way lies oblivion.  The Republicans will never out liberal the Democrats, and trying to will destroy their party. When the choice is between liberal Democrats and liberal Republicans there can be only one outcome. And it's not good for Republicans.

Republicans, indeed any party that deserves to exist, should take a principled stance and follow through with it. If two parties have the same stance then there is nothing at issue but power, and who holds it. That will never win an election. People have to believe in the principles that drive the party or they won't go along for the ride. In this case the electorate believed in the principles that the Republicans espoused, they just didn't believe they would follow through.

Who can blame them?

Update: Hot Air's Ed Morrissey comes to much the same conclusion, but wisely warns against excluding any part of the party in a rush to attain ideological purity.

Ed Morrissey
In order to regain the majority, we need to stop attacking each other and start focusing on those issues that unite us.  The only way to achieve real change is to combine our strengths and put ourselves back in position to change policy.  It may feel good to stand alone with our ideological purity, but in the end, it will never afford us the leverage to make real changes.  Only by agreeing to pursue what unites us can we forge an alliance that can achieve any positive change for America.

What unites us, then?  We need to get back to those First Principles of fiscal responsibility (which we blew when we had the opportunity), smaller government (which we betrayed with the K Street Project and other lobbyist pandering), national security, free market economics, federalism, and lower taxes.  If we can agree to pursue those as priorities, and if we can rebuild our credibility on those goals, then we can convince moderates to once again support Republicans, especially if the Democrats run off the rails in the next two years.

Well maybe not just a guy in the neighborhood

Bill Ayers has come out of whatever cave he has been hiding in.

Sun-Times
Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adds few new details about his relationship with Obama in the afterword to Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist. The book is being reissued this month.

“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

So, not just a guy... more of a family friend who hosted President-elect Obama's first fund raiser in his living room. Now where have I heard that before?