Ezra Klein, Leftist Tool

Ezra Klein on the proposed reading of the Constitution on the House floor:



Let's watch him palm that card and not-so-subtly shift the subject to the leftist worldview of the infinitely malleable Constitution. Money quote in whole, with no Dowdification:

"Yes, it's^[1] a gimmick. I mean, you can say two things about it^[2]. One is that it^[2] has no binding power on anything. And two, the issue of the Constitution is not that people don't read the text and think they're following, the issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it^[2] was written more than a hundred years ago, and what people believe it^[2] says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done, so I wouldn't expect too much coming out of this^[1]."

It's odd how the language of the Constitution only becomes all that terribly confusing and incomprehensible when people try to read into it things that aren't there. For the things that are certainly there, it's not nearly as ambiguous as Klein would like it to be.

[1]: The reading aloud of the Constitution on the House floor. It's a "gimmick" only in the vague sense of the first noun defn., while Klein obviously means to present it as the second noun defn., namely as a devious trick.

[2]: "It" in this case being the Constitution itself, not the reading aloud of same.

Update: Have I mentioned lately that I ♥ IowaHawk? Here's why!

More Update: Don Surber nails it:

Ezra Klein made the biggest mistake that can be made by a liberal — progressive — socialist — communist — no labelist — whatever the heck they call themselves on the 31st of the month.

He was being honest.

He does not believe in the Constitution.

He is cynical about it and he projects that same cynicism onto those who disagree with him.

I ♥ Iowahawk

...in a non-gay admire & respect sort of way.

Best. Unemployment. Advisor. EVAH.

The hits just keep on comin'. I look forward to the inevitable Best Of anthology.

A Present For you!

Why? Because I'm evil.

Whoda Thunk It?

The New York Times discovers the Law of Unintended Consequences:

Consumer Risks Feared as Health Law Spurs Mergers

When Congress passed the health care law, it envisioned doctors and hospitals joining forces, coordinating care and holding down costs, with the prospect of earning government bonuses for controlling costs ...

... Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve — by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses.

Yeah, nobody could have seen that coming ... except, you know, pretty much everyone who declined to buy into the Sparkly Flying Unicorn Rainbow Farts School of Magic Wand Waving. This falls squarely under the "perverse results" category of unintended consquences, and not the "unexpected" categories.

Not unexpected, that is, unless you're the New York Times, in which case you're completely flabbergasted at this "unexpected" turn of events.

Everything Looks Like A Hammer!

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz almost but not quite notices Tully's Corollary in action:

The Keynesian idea of stimulus has no empirical basis, but the only active tool the government has in a time of economic downturn is its ability to borrow and spend. Surprise, surprise: during the Great Depression, governments fell all over themselves to embrace Keynes’s idea of borrowing and spending to “stimulate” the economy. They did so not because it was proven to work (then or since) but because it justified the one action that would make the government larger and more powerful and the political class larger and more powerful as well.

The Fed is now doing the same thing with inflation “Quantitative Easing”. There is no particular reason to believe that inflating the money supply will produce more real economic activity, indeed the history of the 20th century proves exactly the opposite. However, it is all the Fed can do right now so it is going to grab a convenient theory to justify inflating the currency.

The nail is growth-driven employment. Tully's Corollary applies because their first tool didn't work despite enthusiastic application, so they've moved on to another tool. First they tried using the drill press of borrow-and-spend, now it's the blowtorch of quantitative easing.

One hopes they find that hammer soon, but in the meantime they've screwed up both the nail and the receiving surface with the drill press and the blowtorch.

Election Reflections

My initial predictions for Congress over the last few weeks were GOP gains of 62-68 seats in the House and 6-8 seats in the Senate. As I write this, known GOP gains are 61 seats in the House with 12 seats still unreported, and 6 seats in the Senate with 3 still unreported.

One of those unreported Senate seats (Alaska) is somewhat problematic from the "GOP gain" standpoint, as it's down to Republican nominee Joe Miller versus incumbent GOP senator Lisa Murkowski running as an independent write-in. If Murkowski should win as an independent, no one is quite sure how she would caucus. I would suspect that she would continue to fall along the Snowe/Collins/Brown GOP moderate axis unless the GOP picked up both WA and CO, which would give the Dems incentive to offer heavy rewards to bring her into the fold.

WA and CO are both still out. In CO, the unreported precincts are in Arapahoe and Boulder counties, which to me would indicate a solid-if-slim Bennet (D) win when the dust settles. But there are a huge number of provisional ballots still to be counted, and if the margin is close we can expect that to drag on for a while, even head into court contests. Buck was definitely hurt by his constant veering from moderate-Republican-in-public to red-meat-rightie-in-private, as well-documented by a Bennet-friendly media. (Hey Buck? You do your re-positioning BEFORE the race, not DURING. Word.) This race drew the most outside money of any Senate race this year.

In WA, Murray slightly leads Rossi on the strength of the (somewhat infamous) King County vote, with nearly a million votes still to be counted. Roughly a third of those uncounted ballots are from King County. Once again, if the margin stays close, expect litigation. In any case, Rossi finds himself once again fighting uphill within the "margin of cheat." If I had to bet, I'd bet on Murray keeping her seat, though I would not offer odds on doing so without a recount at this point.

Among the other Senate races, it's somewhat notable that (enormously popular) Democratic Governor Joe Manchin saved the Robert Byrd Memorial Seat for the Democrats in West Virginia for two more years by running on his strong center-right track record as Governor and his late reversal on ObamaCare ("I wuz tricked!" ). Raese's well-publicized missteps and Manchin's long-standing social conservatism carried Manchin through the rough spots for a solid win. Liberals rejoicing at a Manchin win for sheerly partisan purposes should be aware that this was actually a strengthening of the centrist faction in the Senate. And the GOP should note that the Dems managed to not throw away a seat by insisting on ideological purity. (Mike Castle, anyone?) Lesson: All other things being equal, fit the candidate to the constituency.

I'll skip the individual House races still unresolved, save to note that my months-ago wager on the "over" of GOP +38 was well-covered, and my 62-68 predictive spread looks pretty darn safe. I didn't wager on the Senate -- IMHO it looked entirely too uncertain for wagering, and events seem to have borne that out. My 6-8 spread is valid at 6 for the moment, but if CO and WA stay Dem (highly likely) a Murkowski flip to the Dem caucus would leave the technical seat gain at 5, with a new spread of 54-46 (counting indies by caucus). Even without a Murkowski defection, a 53-47 balance would not be close enough to strongly encourage Dem defections to the GOP at this point. Either balance still gives extra weight to the indie caucus and the party moderates on both sides, regardless of the outcome in Alaska. In any case, if I end up hitting that prediction, it's only by a micron or two.

In other results, the people of California voted to remove one of their most effective checks on taxation, passing Prop 25. In a state already plagued with capital flight (both human and business), massive debt, high taxes, high cost of living, and absolutely enormous unfunded pension liabilities, this does not bode well.

I spent the evening at an election watch party for some local Democratic candidates, and probably saw as much joy as was possible for any such party in my (very red) area. Some good "D" state legislators held onto their seats, a few others didn't, and those D's running uphill against the Tea Party wave seeking previously-"R" seats were disappointed.

[Subnote: Barack baby? Even though you got my phone number at that party you threw a coupla years back, there was no action and absolutely no magnetism, and we were never destined to make out. It ain't happenin', guy. You're pretty and all, but you're definitely not my type. SO QUIT CALLING AND TEXTING AND EMAILING ME. Nine texts yesterday on my cell phone alone, and God knows how many calls I didn't answer and emails caught by my filters. Double Cheezus on a stalker-burger! Do I have to get a restraining order?]

The People Are Revolting!

They certainly are.



French strike to save 'birthright' of privileges

"We want to stop working at 60 because it's something our parents, our grandparents and even our great-grandparents fought for," says Gilly, 50, a union representative at Saint-Pierre Cemetery, the largest in this bustling Mediterranean port city.

"And over the years ... you can see that we're losing everything they fought for. And that's unacceptable."

You know, once upon a time a Frenchman* stood (figuratively) knee-deep in de Nile, and could see the pyramids from where he stood ... that didn't end well for him.

[*--Yes, yes, I know he was really an upstart Corsican. It's an allegory, dammit!]

Geithner's Kevin Bacon Moment

Geithner vows U.S. will not devalue dollar

"It is not going to happen in this country." Geithner told Silicon Valley business leaders of devaluing the dollar...

...On Friday, the dollar index hit a 10-month low against a basket of major currencies, while the greenback has been plumbing fresh 15-year lows against Japan's yen.

Do not buy a used car from this man.

Because I Don't Have Time For Serious Posting

One-Legged Goose Wins Ass-Kicking Contest

Good News, Everyone!

OK, I couldn't resist the title & pic combo. But it IS nice to finally see a small suggestion of a bright spot in the employment situation. Below is a chart from the Mercatus Center at George Mason U. regarding temp staffing contrasted with payroll employment.



While the short text implies the fall in temp staffing is a bad sign, I have a somewhat different take seeing the two stats together*. The fall-off in temps staffing coincides with a positive uptick in payroll hiring, which strongly suggests that an equilibrium is being reached in payroll staffing. To wit, it suggests that employers have reached a point where they have quit downsizing and insuring against further decline, and for the moment are feeling comfortable with fully staffing at their current levels of production.

That's a far cry from actual growth, mind you, but given the very expensive mandates already shoved down their throats (ObamaCare, new taxes and regs), the threat of more to come (more tax hikes and even more burdensome regs), the weak economy and ongoing workout of bad assets from the real estate and fnancial bubble-bursts, amd the enormous uncertainties associated with all of the above, it's a positive indicator of equilibrial stabilization, perhaps due to watchful waiting ahead of the elections. Which beats the hell out of further decline and IMHO is a positive indicator of reduced "double-dip" potentials.

If the "watchful waiting" hypothesis is correct, evidence of it will be found in market trends tracking the polls the closer we get to the elections, and in the election-reaction market movements the first week of November, as election results are confirmed.

[*--Pay attention to the somewhat different scales so as to not get the two levels confused as being the same. Also, for those not used to reading such things, please note that positive/negative is where the lines cross their respective 0.0% lines, not where the trend direction changes. Payroll jobs did not start upticking in early-'09, for example, that's where the rate of losses started reducing. But increases in payroll employment do not begin until the 0.0% point was reached in the uptick of the trend, roughly May '10. And temp staffing did not hit 0.0% until July '10.]