Megan McArdle is a good writer that makes a whole bunch more money writing than I do.
She writes a very good blog entry about the President’s State of the Union address. In it, she writes the following, that I feel the need to comment about:
The harsh way to put it is that the speech was an extended whine about how all the rich bankers and George Bush have screwed everything up. That was fine campaign rhetoric when he was a Senator. But it’s pretty weak when he’s been in charge for most of a full term–two years of that with a majority in congress.
You see this is the entire problem; the Democrats lead by President Obama, continue to perpetuate the outright lie that the President George W. Bush and the cabal of rich bankers caused the Wall Street crisis and that drove our economy into the ground. This is nothing more than outright historic revisionism. The truth is the so-called “bankers” took advantage of the situation. As I have written on this blog and my previous blog, in 1973, the Democrats passed the community reinvestment act. In 1993, the Democrats added the subprime clause to that act, which created the ability for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack to sell high-risk, adjustable rate mortgages to those who, under normal circumstances could not even remotely be qualified to get them.
There was one thing that did exacerbate the situation, that was the removal by Congress and not by Bush; the regulation that was supposed to prevent predatory lending conditions. Furthermore, The Republicans in Congress at the time, can be blamed for backing off an investigation, when the then President of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played the race card in response to a warning from the Bush White House that the housing market was about to crash.
Now the question as to the morality of the bankers is another story entirely. However, the very idea that somehow a cabal of banks actually brought the economy down is weapons grade conspiracy theory nonsense. The only thing that “The Bankers” and Wall Street did was take advantage of a situation created by the very socialists who are blaming the banks for the situation in the first place.
In an interview on CNBC, Gingrich recently emphasized his close identification with the nation’s 40th president: “I’ve done a movie on Ronald Reagan called ‘Rendezvous With Destiny.’ Callista and I did.
We’ve done a book on Ronald Reagan. You know I campaigned with Reagan. I first met Reagan in ’74. I’m very happy to talk about Ronald Reagan.”
Just like when Newt went to the House floor during the Gipper’s second White House term and declared the president’s Soviet policy a “failure.” Here is what Gingrich said: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing and without a dramatic, fundamental change in strategy will continue to fail. … The burden of the failure frankly must be placed first upon President Reagan.”
This was after Gingrich, as reported in the Congressional Record, had found Reagan responsible for our national “decay”: “Beyond the obvious indicators of decay, the fact is that President Reagan has lost control of the national agenda.” Students of Newt-speak will recognize that by “decay,”Gingrich was generally referring to factors such as crime, illegitimate births and illiteracy.
These blatant contradictions between what Congressman Gingrich actually said at the time about President Reagan and what Candidate Gingrich now offers as fictitious reminiscences of his unwavering allegiance to Reagan remind me of one of the former speaker’s own broadsides against Washington, D.C. “In this cold and ruthless city,” he once said, “the center of hypocrisy is Capitol Hill.” Newt Gingrich is quite obviously an expert on both subjects.
****
Presidents should not get automatic support, not even from members of their own party, but they have a right to that support when they are under a vicious partisan assault. Today it is fair to look back and ask who had it right: Gingrich, who backed away from and criticized Republican presidents, or those chief executives, who were making difficult and consequential decisions on national security. Bush on the surge and Reagan on the Soviet empire were tough, courageous — and right. Newt Gingrich in retrospect seems less the visionary than the politician who refused the party’s leader loyal support on grounds that history has proved were simply wrong.
A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico’s Dona Ana County Jail.
Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night.
“[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate,” Slevin said. “Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help.”
Slevin’s medical problems extended beyond his dental issues, he said. His toenails started curling around his foot because they were so long, he told KOB.com. And his countless requests to see a doctor for depression medication were ignored, he said.
He said his lawsuit “has never been about the money. I’ve always wanted this to make a statement.”
The $22 million settlement, awarded by a federal jury Tuesday, is one of the largest prisoner civil rights settlements in U.S. history, according to KOB.com.
A very good question, how does that happen? Of course, the Ron Paul people think he is only answer to such things. Something I find to be very humorous; seeing Paul is all about “States Rights.”
Latinos in East Haven, Conn. say they have lived in fear of local authorities for years. However, a feeling of shock and relief came Tuesday after the arrests of four alleged rogue police officers who are accused of systematically targeting Latinos with unlawful search and seizures, traffic stops and even physical abuse.
Despite the indictments for race-fueled attacks on the community, East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo added more fuel to the fire Tuesday by saying he “might have tacos” as his first step to repair relations with the Latino community.
On Wednesday, Conn. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy called Matruo’s comment racially insensitive.
“The comments by East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo are repugnant. They represent either a horrible lack of judgment or worse, an underlying insensitivity to our Latino community that is unacceptable. Being tired is no excuse. He owes an apology to the community, and more importantly, he needs to show what he’s going to do to repair the damage he’s done. And he needs to do it today.”
Whew, that’s weapons grade stupidity right there. 🙄
I find this to be mildly amusing; for the record, Pelosi did this about month ago and basically got told the same thing then, “Either put up or shut up.” So, this is just more of the saber-rattling from the left.
…and here is Newt telling Pelosi, “Spit it out” (nice nuanced sexual metaphor there Newt! 🙄 ) (via Taegan Goddard – H/T HotAir.com)
Money Quote:
She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies and very strange understandings of reality. I have no idea what’s in Nancy Pelosi’s head. If she knows something, I have a simple challenge: Spit it out.
Again, the nuanced sexual metaphor aside; I cannot honestly say that I really disagree with his assessment of Pelosi really. However, I do believe he just lost the San Francisco voters. Either way, I believe is Pelosi does actually have anything, that she should dish; because I would like to know what it truly is myself.
Also, Byron York reminds everyone that the IRS did investigate Newt and he came out looking rather nicely:
Nothing happened with the Justice Department and the FBI, but the IRS began an investigation that would stretch over three years. Unlike many in Congress — and journalists, too — IRS investigators obtained tapes and transcripts of each session during the two years the course was taught at Kennesaw State College in Georgia, as well as videotapes of the third year of the course, taught at nearby Reinhardt College. IRS officials examined every word Gingrich spoke in every class; before investigating the financing and administration of the course, they first sought to determine whether it was in fact educational and whether it served to the political benefit of Gingrich, his political organization, GOPAC, or the Republican Party as a whole. They then carefully examined the role of the Progress and Freedom Foundation and how it related to Gingrich’s political network.
In the end, in 1999, the IRS released a densely written, highly detailed 74-page report. The course was, in fact, educational, the IRS said. “The overwhelming number of positions advocated in the course were very broad in nature and often more applicable to individual behavior or behavioral changes in society as a whole than to any ‘political’ action,” investigators wrote. “For example, the lecture on quality was much more directly applicable to individual behavior than political action and would be difficult to attempt to categorize in political terms. Another example is the lecture on personal strength where again the focus was on individual behavior. In fact, this lecture placed some focus on the personal strength of individual Democrats who likely would not agree with Mr. Gingrich on his political views expressed in forums outside his Renewing American Civilization course teaching. Even in the lectures that had a partial focus on broadly defined changes in political activity, such as less government and government regulation, there was also a strong emphasis on changes in personal behavior and non-political changes in society as a whole.”
The IRS also checked out the evaluations written by students who completed the course. The overwhelming majority of students, according to the report, believed that Gingrich knew his material, was an interesting speaker, and was open to alternate points of view. None seemed to perceive a particular political message. “Most students,” the IRS noted, “said that they would apply the course material to improve their own lives in such areas as family, friendships, career, and citizenship.”
The IRS concluded the course simply was not political. “The central problem in arguing that the Progress and Freedom Foundation provided more than incidental private benefit to Mr. Gingrich, GOPAC, and other Republican entities,” the IRS wrote, “was that the content of the ‘Renewing American Civilization’ course was educational…and not biased toward any of those who were supposed to be benefited.”
The bottom line: Gingrich acted properly and violated no laws. There was no tax fraud scheme. Of course, by that time, Gingrich was out of office, widely presumed to be guilty of something, and his career in politics was (seemingly) over.
So, having said all of that; if Pelosi has something of moral or ethical interest, she should dish on it or otherwise, shut up.
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