Cruising the Web

Happy New Year to all my readers. My best wishes for everyone to have a happy, healthy 2012. And don't fret the Mayans.

George Will thinks that 2012 could be a good year if the GOP takes the Senate. Plus he's encouraged by the signs of common sense among the electorate on energy issues.

Ron Paul, for all his rhetoric about shrinking the government, doesn't have a plan for how to deal with entitlements. He has no proposal to deal with the rising spending on entitlements that will soon eat up the entire federal budget. His only stab at a plan is to cut spending on defense. That won't do it. And oh yes, he wants to have an "adult conversation" on the topic. Big whoopty-doo.

Gretchen Morgenson observes that Wall Street and Washington teamed up to make some of the same sorts of mistakes that we were supposed to have learned from after the Great Recession.

Kyle Smith wonders why feminists hated Margaret Thatcher so much. It turns out that they didn't care about any of the stylistic complaints about women making it on their own. What they really care about is left-wing politics. And Rich Lowry feels that we could use a Margaret Thatcher today.

Obama's plan for reelection: celebrate his inability to get along with Congress and then try to go around them as much as possible. He will embody the imperial presidency.

Newt's Super PAC is attacking Charles Krauthammer for his criticisms of Newt. I don't think they'll get very far with the idea that Krauthammer is "a bit jealous of Newt's intellect." Please.

The RNC has some New Years' resolutions for Obama and other Democrats.

Ugly dog breeds are surging in popularity. Now, if only that would happen for ugly people.

Mark Steyn contemplates Seasonal Stockholm Syndrome felt by those who suffer by having to go back to work on January 2.

Cruising the Web

So Michele Bachmann reportedly refrained from attacking Mitt Romney because she and her husband thought that she might have a chance to end up as a vice-presidential candidate on a Romney ticket. What kind of dream world was she inhabiting? I guess it's the same one that thought she might have a chance in a run for the presidency.

Jonah Goldberg explains why Charlie Sheen was the Man of the Year. It seems that 2011 was the year in which those who are losers pretended to be winners.

Speaking of protest, consider the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not since the Hebrews killed themselves at Masada has there been a group that more obviously won by losing. Of course, the Jews at Masada were freedom fighters battling Roman imperialism. The Occupy Wall Streeters think they’re fighting imperialism when they throw a tantrum about having to pay their debts.

The Occupy movement’s meager tangible accomplishments (We recycled our own urine!) are inversely correlated with their lavish press coverage. The protesters were named Time magazine’s person of the year. Though in fairness, Time diluted its sycophancy by including the Arab Spring protesters who’ve (so far) ushered in a glorious new era of Islamism in places such as Egypt. Winning!

(Though perhaps not as clear cut a “win” as President Obama’s decision to declare political victory and pull our troops out of Iraq prematurely, so we can lose a war we sacrificed so much to win.)

Peggy Noonan makes several good points today such as that the rise of Newt Gingrich worked out to make Romney a better candidate. And she deplores the trend of people, like Herman Cain or maybe Michele Bachmann and others, who run for the presidency not because they think they have a serious shot at it but who are seeking an increase in their name recognition or getting a cable TV contract or sell a book. Now with the debates and TV appearances becoming the primary tool in running for office, it takes a lot less money to get your name out there. Expect to see more of this.

The Hill reports that, despite GOP efforts to block funding for the enforcement of the ban on regular incandescent light bulbs, experts think that the companies will still obey the law.

Barney Frank is still lying about his role in blocking regulation of Fannie and Freddie.

Here is Politico's top ten list of pundit mistakes this past year.

Cruising the Web

Hans von Spakovsky rips Eric Holder's politically-motivated actions on blocking South Carolina's new voter ID law. When the facts and data are not in Holder's way, he just resorts to racial demagoguery.

Here's a moment that I wish I hadn't learned about: Arlen Specter doing a stand-up comedy routine where some of the jokes were not printable in a family newspaper. Ugh. The ones that were printable were not that funny. I'd say he should stick to his day job, but he doesn't have that one any more. Oh, and here is the video of his routine.

Jeff Jacoby speaks up for the crass commercialism of the season.

This tells you all that you need to know about the Arab League's condemnation of government violence in Syria: the man they chose to monitor the situation was the Sudanese general who led the janjaweed groups that were behind the genocide in Darfur.

The irony of sending a war criminal to try and stop the commission of war crimes is lost on the Arab League. It is also lost on Syria’s dissidents who continue to be killed and harassed by the government with the so-called monitors doing nothing.

It says it all right there. The Arab League doesn't give a flip about massacring civilians and they don't care who knows it.

What a surprise: Economists don't give Obama and his administration very high marks.

Several bloggers are coming out with their endorsements for the GOP primaries, or at least their positions on Romney. John Hinderaker of Powerline endorses Mitt Romney. His co-blogger, Scott Johnson, resists the bandwagon for Romney. John Hawkins explains his seven reasons to oppose Romney. Face it, we're left with choosing the least bad candidate. They all have problems. Hawkins makes a good argument about why Romney won't be as electable as people think; he's going to get hammered by his experience at Bain Capital. That's all very true, but this may be the one election when Romney wouldn't be as damaged by that as he would be in other years.

How lame is this: Newt Gingrich is now explaining away his vacation in Greece at the start of his campaign as his need to investigate the Greek fiscal crisis up close. Sure. It's taken him six months to come up with that excuse. Please. Pull another one, Newt.

Karl Rove is out with his political predictions for next year. He doesn't predict who the GOP nominee will be, though he predicts that Obama will lose. Also intriguingly, he predicts that Pelosi or Reid, or both, will leave their leadership positions.

Ron Paul volunteers are told to behave according to the standard, WWRPD. In other words, no tatoos, drinking, drugs, or tweeting.

Timothy Carney exposes the lies behind Obama's claim not to take money from lobbyists.

In the District of Columbia, the police union is claiming that policemen have been shifted from their normal neighborhood beats in order to patrol Occupy DC protesters. And they also claim that violent crime has increased in the past month.

Why have caucuses in the first place?

Here's a primer on how the Iowa GOP caucuses work. One difference from the way the Democratic caucuses operate is that everyone can cast a ballot for whomever they want by writing the name down and putting it in the ballot box. For Democrats, they have the two...-step process wherein you form groups for each candidate and only those groups that have above the minimum get voted on. So if your preferred candidate doesn't get enough minimum support, you have to go join another preference group. They're allowed to entice you with hot chocolate and cookies to join their group. It's a strange system. If a state has to have a caucus, I prefer the GOP system where you have a secret ballot and can vote for your choice without having to worry if there are a minimum number of other voters for that choice at your particular precinct. But overall, I find the caucus system very unappealing. It discriminates against those who don't have the time to spend a couple of hours showing up to vote at a specific vote and time. What about people who work the night shift or have small children and no sitter.

We're usually told that the benefit to Iowa going first is that these voters will spend the time meeting the candidates and judging them. But this year, it is the televised debates that seem to have been the main factor in determining who is up or down in the Iowa polls. The candidates who have spent the most time and effort in Iowa, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, are having a hard time cracking into the top tier so personal encounters don't seem to be playing the role that they usually do. Last time, John McCain won the caucuses without spending any effort to win in Iowa. As Michael Barone pointed out, the Iowa caucuses aren't predicative of much at all, at least not for the GOP. And if Ron Paul wins here next week, it will be one more bit of evidence of how unreasonable it is to attach any sort of electoral importance to the whole Iowa caucus system.

The funny thing is that it is the media who have created this monster. If they paid little attention to the results, we would all be better off. And their reporters wouldn't have to be spending their holiday season in Iowa. It would be a win-win, but the media just can't help themselves and so we'll probably be pooh-poohing Iowa caucuses for decades to come. It's a glum prospect.

Cruising the Web

Gosh, those GOP delegate allocation rules are so complicated. Even though supposedly only state contests after March are supposed to have winner-take-all awarding of delegates, some states have enacted rules whereby a candidate who wins over 50% of the vote would get all or almost all the delegates. As more candidates will drop out after losses in the early states, it will be easier for a candidate to score over 50%.

The Obama administration has been ignoring due diligence in how it has enacted new regulations. Despite Obama's pretense, they're not studying the costs and benefits of new regulations.

David Brooks outlines the reasons why the progressive era is not the model for today's economy. A lot as changed in the past century.

Jeff Jacoby reminds us of a theme I've long advocated - our Founding Fathers intended us to have gridlock in the federal government.

The Framers of the Constitution never expected Congress to clear the decks for sweeping presidential action. They weren’t troubled by fears that America would be rendered “ungovernable’’ by the ease with which new laws or major policy changes could be delayed or derailed. What the smart set bewails today as “gridlock’’ or “brinksmanship’’ or an “agenda of pure nihilism,’’ the architects of the American system regarded as indispensable checks and balances. They knew how flawed human beings can be, and how ardently propelled by their passions and ideals.

Justice Scalia was singing this tune earlier this year when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that we should learn to love the gridlock.

Mark Titus inaugurates a great sportswriting gimmick: give three possible scenarios and have people guess which one was the actual Dick Vitale digression to jump from an Indiana Hoosiers game to talking about Andrew Luck. He calls it "Dick's Degrees of Separation" as he challenges readers to distinguish fake Dickie V tangential digressions from the real one. I can't do it.

Another strike against Ron Paul: a commenter led me to this post at Red State reminding us that, after losing the nomination fight in 2008, Ron Paul endorsed the eternally noxious Cynthia McKinney. And he also endorsed Ralph Nader. Yeah, as if they're such big libertarians. How does that fit in with his claim to be so consistent?

David Allott finds eerie similarities between Newt Gingrich and Alan Keyes.

What a shame: New York Times employees are angry at management. One complaint is that outgoing executives are getting extremely generous severance packages while other employees have experienced pay cuts and layoffs. Oh, the irony.