Never miss a chance to keep your mouth shut.
Robert Newton Peck
New Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives
Via Justin Amash:
House Republicans Form House Freedom CaucusCamden, NJ: A Case Study in Government Policy Failure
“The HFC will represent America's agenda in the House.”
Washington, DC – Members of the House Republican Conference have formed the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) to advance an agenda of limited, constitutional government in Congress. The HFC has adopted the following mission statement:
“The House Freedom Caucus gives a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them. We support open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law, and policies that promote the liberty, safety and prosperity of all Americans.”
The HFC's founding members are Rep. Scott Garrett, Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. John Fleming, Rep. Matt Salmon, Rep. Justin Amash, Rep. Raúl Labrador, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Rep. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Mark Meadows.
Byron York, As 2016 race begins, GOP faces its Palin problem: Thumbs UP!
Over the weekend I did a brief commentary on two prospective 2016 female Presidential candidates, Carly Fiorina and Sarah Palin, I should point out that when I wrote these comments (and quite frankly, I was mostly dismissive of their chances) that I was not aware of the recent Freedom Summit in Iowa where both ladies gave speeches; I have not viewed the speeches in question, but apparently Carly Fiorina got rave reviews for hers and I've seen at least a handful of columns (from National Review, the above piece and others) slamming Palin's performance.
This blog has not been a fan of Ms. Palin since around the time of her first disastrous one-on-one national interviews, when I came out and publicly called for McCain to dump Palin and replace her with Romney. I remember writing some speculative posts before McCain on who he might pick: I thought there was a historic opportunity to pick a woman in the aftermath of Obama's narrow victory over Clinton for the nomination and his appalling decision to name as a running mate Joe Biden over Clinton, who had made it clear she was willing to accept the VP slot. I liked someone like Kay Bailey Hutchison, then the senior senator from Texas. I had explicitly considered Palin but quickly dismissed her because of the Troopergate investigation--which was due to report in the middle of the general election campaign; I thought it was insane to risk political scandal in the middle of the campaign, which would drown out McCain's message heading down the home stretch. (The Troopergate incident involved whether Palin had abused her authority as governor in an unsuccessful attempt to get a despised former relative fired as a state trooper.) There were other reasons to question the selection of the first-term governor from a sparsely populated state, the most obvious of which was the fact that McCain was making his 3 decades in Washington (not to mention a 20-year military career) an experience argument against first-term Sen. Barack Obama. How could he use the experience argument when selecting an even less qualified candidate a 70-year-old's heart beat from the Presidency?
I must admit I enjoyed McCain swerving the press and the Democrats with his selection, and Palin's first 2 speeches (at her speech in accepting the selection in a joint appearance and at the convention) were superbly delivered. It was quite clear the young governor was charismatic, and the ludicrous overreaction to her by the Left had backfired; Obama seemed threatened, comparing his "running" a national campaign against her running Alaska. But then there was this bizarre gap before the campaign released her to do national interviews--and then it became clear. There was the Sarah Palin who argued she had a thick skin, but then she refused to respond to a query about what news sources she used to keep up on national issues. She would later argue that she thought the question was an implicit provocative accusation that Alaskans don't have news media sources, etc. In a world of small stuff, this doesn't even rate; it's far worse when you take offense at a softball question and refuse to answer. And some of the answers were quite defensive and rather dubious, e.g., military knowledge because of a military base in Alaska, trade experience because of a largely unstaffed trade mission. While Palin was very popular on the campaign trail--she often outdrew McCain's own rallies--she was mostly preaching to the choir and not drawing Democrats or independents to the ticket. I futilely pleaded with McCain to dump Palin and replace her with Romney. In part, and this wasn't Palin's fault, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The economic tsunami hit just after the GOP convention, and the economy wasn't McCain's strong suit. Palin was performing her 'drill, baby, drill' just as oil prices started correcting in the now accelerating recession.
Of course, the running mate is often sent out to do the red meat attacks on the opposition, and I recall news reports at the time that Palin, who once enjoyed high bipartisan approval ratings after taking on state corruption, was worried that she might lose her Democrat and independent support in her current role if and when McCain lost. To be fair to Palin, I thought McCain was done because in a change election, he wasn't representing the social welfare party. But he didn't help himself by unilaterally suspending his campaign and trying to delay the debates in order to pass TARP legislation. I probably didn't publish it at the time, but I thought he missed a golden opportunity to oppose TARP which would have clearly distanced himself from Bush. The sad thing is that McCain's impulsive decisions also cast doubts about his administrative competence.
Some rifts in the campaign got exposed late in the game, and Palin did a good job playing the victim card, which alienated me further; the Palin camp accused other staffers of trying to pin the election loss on Palin, which was nonsense. I do believe the Palin selection was a bad decision, but McCain was responsible for that and other bad decisions. Nevertheless, the next incident that annoyed me about Palin involved, of all things, Letterman, a typical "progressive" comedian who had told his fair share of Palin jokes. In this case, Letterman used the occasion of Palin with her daughter attending a Yankee game to make a poor taste joke about a promiscuous major league ballplayer having an affair with the Palin daughter. (Sarah's oldest daughter is and was an unwed mother.) The problem was the daughter who attended the game was not oldest daughter, but a barely teen daughter, and Sarah quickly and ludicrously accused Letterman of joking about statutory rape. There's no question whoever wrote the joke hadn't done due diligence in researching the news story. Don't get me wrong--it was in poor taste to make slut jokes about any Palin daughter. Letterman, realizing what had happened, wanted Palin to come on the show so he could apologize in person, but Palin was having none of it. He finally cut an unconditional apology on the air, and she responded with politically correct rhetoric, still suggesting the joke was about her underage daughter. This bothered me for 2 reasons: first, I don't like a conservative engaging in politically correct rhetoric; second, she should have responded gracefully to the provocation. Implying that Letterman was a sexual pervert because of a badly written joke by himself or staffers was totally unnecessary. It seems to me in her place, the last thing I would have wanted is to give undue attention to a bad joke. I should note that others don't agree with me: they liked Palin putting Letterman on the defensive. As a politician, you expose yourself to ridicule; it comes with the territory. Now personally, I don't republish every Obama joke I see or come up with. My humor is more tongue-in-cheek, plays on words or a touch of mockery. But I would not be picking a fight for 2 weeks over a bad joke. If anything, I might have tried to ad lib about Letterman's premature joking, that the only thing shorter than his audience's applause is his wife's orgasms, etc.
Now one thing I've never doubted is that Sarah Palin is undoubtedly charismatic and has a gift for one-liners and pithy phrases, e.g., the "death panels" for IPAB. I still don't quite understand how she got linked to the Tea Party, given her tax-and-spend record. But moving on to the Iowa speech, you would think that given one of the early forums where many GOP Presidential hopefuls were making an appearance, she would have done her due diligence and crafted a well-drafted, cohesive speech like most of the others. Instead it came across as unfocused, indulgent, anecdotal, meandering stream-of-consciousness ranting about Obama, Clinton, Hollywood, Big Energy, the mainstream media (sometimes in coarse language), and her family. Like I wrote above, I haven't heard it, but apparently the few people who did like the speech were hardcore Palin supporters. I, of course, could never even win an election as dogcatcher (no doubt the fact I've never owned a dog in my adult life would probably work against me), but if I had had a spot at the Summit, I would have talked about the decline of economic freedom under Obama, over $100T in debt and unfunded liabilities, erosion of privacy rights, delegating authority and funding to the states, nonstop military interventions, etc. And I would have given a positively-toned pro-liberty agenda.
Palin is populist, not a conservative, and probably more charismatic than any 2 or 3 other potential candidates put together. But she hasn't quite figured out what to do with her considerable political gifts.
Facebook Corner
(IPI). If state legislation that saved two of four city employee pension funds is overturned, a “catastrophic outcome” awaits retirees and Chicago taxpayers alike.
the stealing int he middle of the night has destroyed these penions by the corrupt p oliticians. increasing taxes and land taxes on the middle classes to support an already bankrupt and broken system is not the answer. Let it all crumble and default.
Of course, I have no use for the political whores, but the idea that the politicians looted the pensions is absurd populist nonsense. I've repeatedly pointed out that the Illinois pension funds have a spending/distribution problem, and that to sustain these payouts, the employees and the public sector needed to have contributed far more than they have FOR DECADES so the burden didn't fall principally on the shoulders of future taxpayers. Obviously the pension holidays didn't help, but it doesn't address the real causes of why some municipalities have seen pension-related expenses quadruple over the past decade--and that has more to do with an aging government workforce, early retirement eligibility for decades up to a significant percentage of active duty pay, even up to the high 5 or 6 figures (while social security recipients max out at about 30K and have to wait until 62 to be eligible for smaller distributions).
Also, I dislike the "middle class" being singled out. All taxpayers share the pain. There aren't enough rich people to pay off these claims, even if you stole all their income.
I hope you are not serious. [Not a response to my comments.] My grandfather had a pension for 40 years from Walgreens. Pension need to be invested soundly and contributions need to exceed the money paid out over the life of the pension. It is not that difficult to manage, but it needs to be MANAGED!
As for the private sector: "The percentage of workers in the private sector whose only retirement account is a defined benefit pension plan is now 10%, down from 60% in the early 1980s. About 30% of companies offer a combination of both types.
"Meanwhile, the few employers that still offer traditional pensions - typically industries with a strong union presence, such as the airline and auto sectors - are working overtime to cut deals to either reduce or eliminate their plans.."
One major problem is that public sector actuaries were late to the game of realizing longer retirement lifetimes; another is that private companies have to recognize a far more conservative 4.3% vs. 7-8% pension fund return in the public sector; more conservative returns force employers to kick in more. Furthermore, the PBGC is critically underfunded, and the last time I checked the Teamsters pension fund was only 60% funded.
Remember, a pension fund needs better than 100% funding during boom periods, because pension funds get killed during recessions. If you are only 40-50% funded years after the recession technically ended in June 2009, you are looking at a potential disaster, because more and more people are joining the retirement pool.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall |
Céline Dion, "I Drove All Night"
