Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

The announcement that General Motors would sell shares in an initial public offering was greeted as vindication for the federal government bailout of GM.  The IPO would be a way to pay back taxpayers and even to generate a profit for the government.

But it is not looking that way.

First, GM will not even begin its "road show," the time when it starts trying to convince major institutions about the IPO, until after the November elections.  How convenient.

Second, although the issue will not be priced until right before the offering is effective, current indications are that the price will be below the per share investment of the government, meaning that if the government sells shares to the public as part of the offering the government will realize a loss on those shares.

As reported by Reuters:

The U.S. government is likely to take a loss on General Motors Co in the first offering of the automaker's stock, six people familiar with preparations for the landmark IPO said.

Subsequent offerings of the government's holdings may be profitable depending on how investors trade the newly listed stock, the sources said.

But the question of whether taxpayers are ultimately made whole on GM's $50 billion bailout could be left open for years, the people said.

It could take more than three years for the Treasury to sell down its remaining stake in GM after the IPO, one person said. That would push a final accounting into the next presidential term.

This reminds me of the joke about the businessman who loses money on every sale, but makes it up on volume.

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There is no other reasonable interpretation.

Here is how Obama described the end of combat operations in Iraq in his speech Tuesday night:

Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home....

So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office....

Here is a memo AP passed along to its staff in response to Obama's address and statements by administration officials echoing Obama:

To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and al-Qaida insurgents. Many Iraqis remain very concerned for their country's future despite a dramatic improvement in security, the economy and living conditions in many areas.

As for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in the conflict in Iraq is over. President Obama said Monday night that "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country."

However, 50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on.

I guess it depends on what the meaning of "combat" is.  Or "mission."

If Obama had qualified his description, for example referring to the end of "major combat operations" and specifically mentioning the continuing need to "secure" the country, there is no doubt the press would have left him alone and praised his accuracy.

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Today is al-Quds Day, the day on which the anti-Israel rejectionist front hopes for the destruction of Israel and the liberation of Jerusalem.  On this day, Mahmood Ahmadinejad gave a speech in celebration of al-Quds Day declaring that "the Zionists are groups of hypocrite racists who have been operating under the pretext of following Jewish religion principles."

I wonder if The Washington Post realized the significance of this day, because today The Post ran a column by Professor George Bisharat also calling Israelis hypocrite racists and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.

While everyone recognizes Ahmadinejad for who he is, few WaPo readers likely recognized Bisharat.

I have addressed Bisharat before. 

Bisharat is a law professor who has built a career around demonizing and seeking to delegitimize Israel.  Bisharat frequently uses a grossly exaggerated narrative of the loss of his family home in Jerusalem as part of his presentations.  (Bisharat's father was a Christian Arab whose family was not indigenous to any part of what now is Israel.)

Now Bisharat is at it again today, falsely comparing majority Jewish rule in Israel to minority white rule in South Africa as a justification for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

Bisharat and others in the Islamist-Leftist coalition understand that bombs and missiles will not destroy Israel (although an Iranian nuke could change that), so ostracizing Israel as an apartheid state is the weapon of choice.  Here is how Bisharat presents the problem in his column:

"Where is the Palestinian Mandela?" pundits occasionally ask. But after these latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington fail -- as they inevitably will -- the more pressing question may be: "Where is the Israeli de Klerk?" Will an Israeli leader emerge with the former South African president's moral courage and foresight to dismantle a discriminatory regime and foster democracy based on equal rights?

Bisharat's column reads like the usual tired screed against Israel, seeking to blame the Jews for everything that has gone wrong in the Middle East, and painting a false picture of a bright and happy future for the Jews in a new Palestine:

I suppose that Bisharat will next seek to end Islamic rule throughout the Middle East. 

How about this, the day after the Arab world and Iran do away with Islamic rule, Israel does away with Jewish rule?

Bisharat is not hopelessly idealistic.  Bisharat is ruthless in his hostility towards Israel, and should be recognized as such.

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Tipping point approaching.  From The NY Times, Fewer Young Voters See Themselves as Democrats

The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.

Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.

The Times attributes the decline mostly to the poor job market, but I think it runs deeper, as two of the students interviewed indicated:

Philip Stricker, 21, a biology major who voted for Mr. Obama but says he has not been paying much attention to politics lately, uses a nontechnical term to describe the phenomenon.

“There’s a vibe,” he said on a recent afternoon, while pumping weights at the gym. “Right now it seems like Republicans just care a lot more than Democrats.”

A spokeswoman for the university’s chapter of College Democrats, Mandi Asay, 22, said her group battled apathy on one hand and anger on the other.

“People are angry — about the budget deficit, health care plan, angry about this and that,” she said. “I feel like Republicans definitely, definitely have a chance of getting back on their feet.”

The yutes should be angry.  Under Obamacare, they will be subsiding their parents' health care coverage at a time when they should be saving; the mountains of debt run up by Obama will be repaid by them; and for the first time they have a future less bright than their parents.
 
Obama has forced the yutes to grow up fast.  Who'da thunk?
 
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...

That Vanity Fair still exists.

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Mike Stopa is running in the Republican primary for Congress in the 3rd District of Massachusetts.

Stopa is not your typical candidate.  Stopa is a Physicist specializing in computation and nanoscience in the Physics Department at Harvard University, and director of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network Computation Project.  So let's just say the guy pays attention to details.

One of the details on which Stopa has focused is the repeal of Obamacare, using Massachusetts' experience with Dukakiscare as a model. 

Stopa explained his position, and the history in Massachusetts, in this video at his YouTube channel:



Now Stopa has released a position paper, The Massachusetts Model For Dismantling Obamacare (embedded below):

It is widely believed ... that entitlement programs are like a ratchet and can only increase in size rather than decrease. This conclusion is at odds with the experience of Massachusetts in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s during which the administration of Governor Michael Dukakis signed into law the nation’s first Universal Healthcare bill.

This bill, with its onerous provisions that established universal coverage on the backs of the small business community, was vigorously opposed even after it was enacted into law by Massachusetts. The ensuing battle by a few dedicated State Legislators serves as a model in our current situation for a strategy and tactics to delay, defund and ultimately repeal Obamacare.

Stopa is one of the few politicians actually thinking through, and going on record as to, the steps needed to unwind Obamacare.  In an age of sound bites and talking points, it is nice to have someone running for office who is willing to study an issue and take a stand.

Massachusetts Model for Dismantling Obamacare - Mike Stopa

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Please bookmark this post and Tweet for use in the next political emergency, when some criminal act by a nut is used by Media Matters and its progeny to tar and feather the entire Tea Party and conservative movements:

(h/t @JammieWF)

Update 1-8-2011 - This tweet takes on special significance in light of the crude attempts by left-wing bloggers to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Parties for the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriell Giffords by a mentally deranged shooter.

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Sam Stein writes at HuffPo today that increasingly libertarian social attitudes in the Republican Party combined with the failure of Democrats to live up to campaign promises, has led Democratic Party insiders to worry that "the Obama administration risks losing the gay rights community (or at least depressing their votes) with its tepid embrace of their priorities."

I thought about this point this past weekend, but in the context of the Democratic Party stranglehold on the black vote, and to a lesser extent, the Latino vote. 

The ferocious reaction among Democratic Party elites and the left-wing blogosphere to the Restoring Honor rally was in part personal (they hate Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin), but also driven by fear that core constituencies may be drawn to a race-neutral movement. 

Nothing worries Democrats more than a movement which actually practices the philosophy of judging people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The Democratic Party thrives on group politics, in which trumped up claims of racism or homophobia are used to keep the electoral troops in line.  These group politics are all the Democrats have left, and if that political bubble bursts, the Democrats will need to go through a major reincarnation in personnel and spirit.

The current political atmosphere reminds me of the scene in Doctor Zhivago when the crusty old Czarist General leads his young soldiers through a crowd of army deserters near the war front during the First World War. 

The deserters beseech the soldiers to come over to their side, which does happen, as the soldiers pull the General off his horse and beat him to death.

Yes, I see the irony of using a movie scene about the Russian Revolution in the current context, but I think we are witnessing something similar in the upcoming elections, at least if recent polling is accurate. 

Core Democratic groups either are switching sides or staying out of the battle, as attempts to portray the Tea Party movement as racist fall flat.  The Democrats are at risk of being left with all Generals, and no troops.

Once the false charges of racism are cast aside, these core groups will realize that the modern Democratic Party has nothing to offer other than crushing deficits and national debt, high unemployment, and a ravenous desire to control individual lives. 

We are not there yet, but I sense we are approaching that tipping point.

Update:  In this post at ChicagoBoyz (linked by Ben Smith as reflecting Glenn Beck's view), the strategy is to undermine the Democratic Party's use of race as a perpetual weapon:

Beck is attacking the enemy at the foundations of their power, their claim to race as a permanent trump card, their claim to the Civil Rights movement as a permanent model to constantly be transforming a perpetually unjust society.

He is nuking out the foundations of the opposition’s moral preeminence...

Like I said.

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I knew groups like Think Progress would be out there trying to paint the mentally deranged environmental activist who took hostages as a right-winger (because all extreme environmentalists are right -wingers, after all), and it did.

But not even Think Progress sunk to the level of PhilipWeiss, who used the incident to continue his anti-"Israel Lobby" jihad, The Israel lobby will be televised. 

How could Weiss possibly drag the evil Israel Lobby into this?  Well, when you are used to putting two and two together and getting five, anything is possible:

For the better part of an hour this afternoon, during the hostage crisis at the Discovery channel HQ in Silver Spring, MD, CNN featured commentary by Aaron Cohen, who was described as a trainer of Israeli commandoes.  Cohen repeatedly explained how Israel handles such situations. When the anchor asked whether the police could just wait till the guy wears down, Cohen said that in "terrorist" situations people don't just wear down. So an advocate for one side in a terrible cycle of violence is given a platform on American television.

A nut takes people hostage, and all Weiss can think to do is use it for Israel and Israel-supporter bashing just because an Israeli appeared on television? Max Fisher very charitably called Weiss "work[ing] hard for this."

I have to admit, I never saw the Israel Lobby angle to the story.  What exactly would have been the opposing viewpoint to the Israeli anti-terrorism expert?

Now I get it.  CNN should have had a terrorist on the show to balance the Israeli anti-terrorist expert.

Or maybe Philip Weiss could have filled in until a terrorist could be found and brought to the studio, with live field reports from Walt and Mearsheimer.

Oh, by the way, the answer to the headline question is "nothing."

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A gunman has taken hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters.  According to reliable reports, the guy is an environmental activist motivated by fears for the planet, and spouting rhetoric about how the planet doesn't need people.

Guess what it is I will not do?

(Hint - rub their faces in their hypocrisy and intellectual shallowness). 

Because someone already is doing that:



(Hint No. 2 - Because I'm busy, so I'll get to it later.)

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The much ballyhooed mini-Stimulus passed in August to help avoid teacher layoffs already was in trouble because many school districts were sitting on the money rather than hiring teachers.

Now the Republican Governor of Rhode Island, Donald Carcieri, has gone one step further, using the funds to plug a budget gap, as reported by The Providence Journal:

A new law aimed at saving millions of teaching jobs and protecting school programs across the country may not accomplish either goal here in Rhode Island.

Instead, Governor Carcieri intends to use the $32.9 million Rhode Island is eligible to receive to plug an estimated $38-million deficit in this year’s budget.

His plan drew a strong protest from Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, Congressman James R. Langevin and representatives of teachers unions and the state’s school committees.

Don't think Carcieri is doing this just as a money grab.  Carcieri has fought a valiant, and somewhat futile, multi-year battle to reign in state union contracts and pensions in the face of a Democratic legislature not only favorable to the unions, but actually comprised of many union members and state pensioners.

So, Carcieri basically is saying, thanks for the money the Democrats intended for unionized teachers, but we'll use to help everyone by solving a general budget problem.

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'nuff said.


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Yes!  Finally an ad from Sharron Angle hoisting Harry Reid's "extremist" campaign by its own petard.

The Vaporizer must be "extremely" upset.



(h/t @MattKLewis)

Update: Nevada Journalists Defend Angle Against Unfair Attack
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Media Matters wants to prove that is can take on Fox News. 

Media Matters wants to run an advertisement on Fox News criticizing the parent of Fox News for donating $1 million to the Republican Governors Association.  Politico has the background.

Here is the ad, after some back and forth between Media Matters and Fox News, which will run.



Am I missing something here? This sounds like a Republican ad.

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