Libertarian Leanings

Proof of the Pudding...

Proof of the pudding is in the eating so they say.  Proof of the recent dramatic drop in Obama's Disapproval Index is in his message.  My Presidential Disapproval Index is merely the negative of Rasmussen's Presidential Approval Index, which today stands at -15.  A few short days ago the index stood at -4, at which time pundits explained that the president's rise from the depths in the opinion polls was in response to that impeccable delivery of his State to the Union address.

I don't think so.  The State of the Union gave us nothing new.  In fact pundits on both sides were in agreement.  Obama "doubled down" on his health care plan in spite of a crystal clear message from the voters of Massachusetts. 

No, the bounce came about because the president accepted an invitation from House Republicans to address them at their annual retreat.  In fact it was the only thing in recent months that Obama appeared to do right.  That is, he did a much better job on that occasion of pretending to be bipartisan.  So much so, that he offered to try it again, this time with Senate Republicans.

The White House has suggested that it would like Obama to address the Senate GOP Conference, with TV cameras present. Obama administration officials are eager for voters to see Obama operate in a format he relishes — and handle his former Senate colleagues the same way he did last week to House Republicans at their annual retreat. 

Asked about the White House invitation to Senate Republicans, Cornyn said: “For what purpose? Was it for photo op or is it serious? The president can invite Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or anybody he wants for a serious talk about issues.”

Does anybody really think Obama is interested in a serious policy discussion?   Only if the discussion involves everybody agreeing with Obama.

Andrew Cuomo Demonstrates The Liberal Way

The Wall Street Journal outlines New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's impact on the financial crisis through his role in the housing market bubble.  Remember, it was those mortgage backed securities, whose value had eroded in successive waves of foreclosures, that clogged the credit markets precipitating our unprecedented bailout mania.

HUD's Web visitors learn that in 1999 "Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families. The historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42 percent of their total purchases to a new high of 50 percent - a 19 percent increase—in the year 2001."

Fannie and Freddie's purchases of subprime loans skyrocketed. The problem wasn't merely that the Cuomo HUD was raising the volume of loans for which taxpayers would be on the hook. It was also encouraging a dangerous decline in underwriting standards at these government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Says former Fannie Mae chief credit officer Edward Pinto, "HUD commissioned much research aimed at forcing the adoption of more flexible lending standards by the GSEs."

In 1999, the Urban Institute published a HUD-commissioned study of Fannie and Freddie's credit guidelines. Among its findings: "Almost all the informants said their opinion of the GSEs has changed for the better since both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made substantive alterations to their guidelines and developed new affordable loan products with more flexible underwriting guidelines."

Mr. Cuomo's drive to pump up the volume on taxpayer-backed mortgages didn't stop at Fannie and Freddie. In 2008, Wayne Barrett wrote in the leftist Village Voice about the changes Mr. Cuomo wrought at the Federal Housing Administration, encouraging bigger loans with smaller down payments.

In American liberalism it's common for politicians like Cuomo to create a crisis through misguided liberal policies and then ride to the supposed rescue, often proposing and implementing more misguided liberal policies.  Back in September of 2008 Charles W. Calomiris and Peter J. Wallison explained that the housing bubble was a created crisis.

How did we get here? Let's review: In order to curry congressional support after their accounting scandals in 2003 and 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of "affordable housing." They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and substantially magnified the costs of its collapse.

It is important to understand that, as GSEs, Fannie and Freddie were viewed in the capital markets as government-backed buyers (a belief that has now been reduced to fact). Thus they were able to borrow as much as they wanted for the purpose of buying mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Their buying patterns and interests were followed closely in the markets. If Fannie and Freddie wanted subprime or Alt-A loans, the mortgage markets would produce them. By late 2004, Fannie and Freddie very much wanted subprime and Alt-A loans. Their accounting had just been revealed as fraudulent, and they were under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that they deserved their considerable privileges. Among other problems, economists at the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office had begun to study them in detail, and found that -- despite their subsidized borrowing rates -- they did not significantly reduce mortgage interest rates. In the wake of Freddie's 2003 accounting scandal, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, and began to call for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their highly profitable, but risky, retained portfolios.

If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and the economy, what value were they providing? The answer was their affordable-housing mission. So it was that, beginning in 2004, their portfolios of subprime and Alt-A loans and securities began to grow. Subprime and Alt-A originations in the U.S. rose from less than 8% of all mortgages in 2003 to over 20% in 2006. During this period the quality of subprime loans also declined, going from fixed rate, long-term amortizing loans to loans with low down payments and low (but adjustable) initial rates, indicating that originators were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find product for buyers like the GSEs.

Rather than rein in Fanni Mae and Freddie Mac, Obama has given them each a blank check in order that they can continue pumping money into risky mortgage loans.  Meanwhile, he and Cuomo demonize the banking industry for what?  Trying to satisfy the appetites of Fannie and Freddie?  Obama will regulate.  Cuomo will prosecute.

The Housing and Urban Development web page to which The Journal refers is here.

A Lesson In Socialism

I got an email with a story in it.  The sender introduced the story this way:

Got this from a friend and wanted to pass it on.  I wish they would teach this lesson in our public schools, real eye opener.

Here's the story:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's spread-the-wealth socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.  After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.  The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. 

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. 

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

It's interesting and a little depressing that that we seem to have a growing number of people can find this story to be an “eye opener”.  But then, I suppose it's an indictment of our system of higher education which manages to churn out hoards of working adults who have no idea what socialism does to incentives and what that costs society.

The lesson applies to taxes.  It's a lesson Obama and the Democrats haven't learned as they push for higher taxes on the rich and on the banks and on anything or anybody that they’ve decided is getting more than their “fair share”.  Doing this at a time when the economy is in the toilet and unemployment is high will slow our recovery and keep unemployment high, because it discourages risk taking and investment.  Jobs and the economy rely on investment.

Obama and the Democrats will continue trying to blame everything on George W. Bush, and the legacy media will pull out all the stops trying to promote that message, but too many people get their news elsewhere.  Autumn 2010 in America may turn out to be just as exciting as January 2010 was in Massachusetts.  They're still smiling in Massachusetts.

Talking to Republicans Pays Off

President Obama's disapproval index has fallen to single digits after spending months in double digit territory.  The percentage of voters who strongly approve of the president has risen 10 points in the last 7 days, while the percentage of those who strongly disapprove has dropped 2 points.  This computes to a -4 Approval Index according to Rasmussen.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 35% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.  That’s the highest level of strong approval for the President in more than seven months and reflects a significant bounce following the State-of-the-Union address. Before the speech, just 27% voiced strong approval.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now Strongly Disapprove down from 42% before the speech.  Putting it all together gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -4.  That’s the President’s best Approval Index rating in months.

Although this significant bounce does follow the State of the Union address, I'd be willing to bet it is a chronological relationship rather than a causal one.  I suspect the real cause of Obama's jump in voter approval was accepting the invitation from House Republicans to speak at their retreat.  It can't have hurt that he appeared to listen, as well.  After all, he campaigned as the post-partisan candidate.  Too bad it wasn't until Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts took away his filibuster-proof majority that he thought about living up to those promises.

Blair's Proper Perspective On Iraq

From the Wall Street Journal:

We're not sure what real purpose the so-called Chilcot Commission—named for its chairman, retired civil servant John Chilcot—is supposed to serve. Ostensibly, its remit is to examine how the decision to invade Iraq was made and consider the lessons learned, rather than the merits of deposing Saddam. But as with the previous two inquiries into the war, it is also political theater designed to shame Mr. Blair and other policy makers who allied Britain with America in March 2003. Judging from his six hours of testimony, it failed to achieve its end.

Instead, Mr. Blair offered a ringing defense of the decision to invade Iraq, and a very different set of lessons for the present. "This isn't about a lie, or a conspiracy, or a deceit, or a deception. It is a decision," Mr. Blair told a packed room that included relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq. "And the decision I had to take was, given [Saddam's] history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons program?"

That's a point worth remembering over all the Monday-morning recriminations about "dodgy dossiers" and missing WMD. We have never for a moment believed that the British or U.S. governments deliberately misled their publics over what they thought they knew about Saddam's weapons. Every Western country, including those opposed to the war, believed Saddam had WMD.

But the important point was never so much about what Saddam did or did not possess so much as it was about what he intended. And as Mr. Blair pointed out Friday, "What we now know is that he [Saddam] retained the intent and the intellectual know-how to restart a nuclear and a chemical weapons program when the inspectors were out and the sanctions changed, which they were going to do. . . .

In the Ideological Battle of the Last Decade MSM Won Out

My article on it is up on Pajamas Media.

With the rise of the Internet as a resource for news and information, skepticism over the accuracy and reliability of mainstream reporting grew, and by the middle of the decade bloggers and Internet news websites had cut significantly into the MSM’s influence. But from the perspective of January 2010 it’s clear. At the end of the decade the MSM had won out, successfully imposing its political will on the country.  Read more...

The Massachusetts Pilot Program

When John Fund interviewed Scott Brown after his win over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts special election for the seat once occupied by Ted kennedy, he touched upon an apparent contradiction.  Brown campaigned for and won the U.S. Senate seat by promising to be the 41st vote against the health care reform bill currently before congress.  As a Republican state senator he voted in favor of then Governor Romney's universal health care plan for Massachusetts.

Mr. Brown says he designed his campaign to revolve around four issues: taxes, excessive spending, terrorism and health care. But it's clear that voter angst over ObamaCare was the rocket fuel propelling him to victory. "People got where I was," he says. He was often asked to sign his autograph with the number "41" next to it, meaning he was running to be the key vote to block health-care legislation from final passage.

Nonetheless, Mr. Brown is clearly sensitive—and a tad defensive—about his state's own universal health-care system. It now covers about 95% of the population; but it has also led to the nation's highest insurance premiums. It is driving hospitals towards bankruptcy and making it more difficult for people to see a doctor. Mr. Brown voted for the system in 2006 when it was proposed by then-GOP Gov. Mitt Romney. "Of course, it can be made better," Mr. Brown says today. "But it was bipartisan and it fit our local needs. We were being eaten alive by health-care costs." Universal coverage hasn't changed that, however.

All of those things are what we can expect from the Democrats' national health care plan – higher insurance costs, higher health care costs, reduced access, and in the end it won't really cover everybody.  It is obvious though, that Obama has not gotten the message that was delivered by the voters of Massachusetts.  He has repeatedly promised to push ahead with ObamaCare anyway. 

By implementing its universal coverage plan, Massachusetts has done one of the things state governments are supposed to do – provide pilot programs from which the federal government can learn.  Scott Brown knows he won the special election by promising to vote against ObamaCare, but having voted for universal coverage in Massachusetts it's clear he will be willing, as U.S. Senator, to vote for some kind of national health care reform.  That reform should not be modeled on the Massachusetts plan.

But The Worst Of It Is...

He was wrong.  I'm talking about President Obama and his utterly classless attack on the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address.  He said,

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

What has it come to when the reliably liberal Linda Greenhouse explains in the New York Times, a century of law was not overturned.

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election.

Obama indulged himself in a bit of fake populist demagoguery that was immediately applauded by the rest of the political hacks in his party who were on hand to listen, including his Attorney General Eric Holder.  Of course, this sort of attack is just we expect from our Community-Organizer-In-Chief, unfortunately it is unbecoming of a president. 

It also calls his competence into question, yet again.  Here's a guy who called himself a professor of constitutional law while on the presidential campaign trail.  He graduated from Harvard Law School and spent 12 years teaching at the University of Chicago, eventually achieving the title of senior lecturer. But wouldn't you expect a senior lecturer to get it right?

But could a graduate of Harvard Law School at least get his facts right? "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections," Mr. Obama averred. "Well, I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

Let's unpack the falsehoods. The Court didn't reverse "a century of law," but merely two more recent precedents, one from 1990 and part of another from 2003. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce in 1990 had set the Court in a markedly new direction in limiting independent corporate campaign expenditures. This is the outlier case that needed to be overturned.

Mr. Obama is also a sudden convert to stare decisis. Does he now believe that all Court precedents of a certain duration are sacrosanct, such as Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal, 1896), which was overturned by Brown v. Board (1954)? Or Bowers v. Hardwick (a ban on sodomy, 1986), which was overturned by Lawrence v. Texas (2003)?

The President's claim about "foreign entities" bankrolling U.S. political campaigns is also false, since the Court did not overrule laws limiting such contributions. His use of "foreign" was a conscious attempt to inflame public and Congressional opinion against the Court.

I think that last sentence captures Obama and his purpose.  Community Organizer Obama intended to inflame resentments, stoke public opinion, and smooth the way should his opportunity to nominate a radically leftist ideologue to the Court materialize.

But I wonder if it's going to work for him.  No doubt there will be some who will be suitably outraged, but there is a growing number of people who notice Obama's mistakes.  He panders and it's obvious.  But he's not even good at that anymore.

This Is The Health Care Reform I Want

Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin briefly outlines his plan for health care reform in his Wall Street Journal column entitled A GOP Road Map for America's Future.

• Health Care. The plan ensures universal access to affordable health insurance by restructuring the tax code, allowing all Americans to secure an affordable health plan that best suits their needs, and shifting the control and ownership of health coverage away from the government and employers to individuals.

It provides a refundable tax credit—$2,300 for individuals and $5,700 for families—to purchase coverage (from another state if they so choose) and keep it with them if they move or change jobs. It establishes transparency in health-care price and quality data, so this critical information is readily available before someone needs health services.

State-based high risk pools will make affordable care available to those with pre-existing conditions. In addition to the tax credit, Medicaid will provide supplemental payments to low-income recipients so they too can obtain the health coverage of their choice and no longer be consigned to the stigmatized, sclerotic care that Medicaid has come to represent.

• Medicare. The Road Map secures Medicare for current beneficiaries, while making common-sense reforms to save this critical program. It preserves the existing Medicare program for Americans currently 55 or older so they can receive the benefits they planned for throughout their working lives.

For those under 55—as they become Medicare-eligible—it creates a Medicare payment, initially averaging $11,000, to be used to purchase a Medicare certified plan. The payment is adjusted to reflect medical inflation, and pegged to income, with low-income individuals receiving greater support. The plan also provides risk adjustment, so those with greater medical needs receive a higher payment.

The proposal also fully funds Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) for low-income beneficiaries, while continuing to allow all beneficiaries, regardless of income, to set up tax-free MSAs. Enacted together, these reforms will help keep Medicare solvent for generations to come.

The bill Ryan is sponsoring is called the Patients' Choice Act.  The full text of it can be found here.

An Out Of Touch Press

In yesterday's Media Notes the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz explained how the "mainstream media were lulled into complacency by Coakley's big lead in the polls."  Under the headline, Media Notes: Howard Kurtz on the Scott Brown story, he wrote.

Media outlets had some fun with the story, noting that Coakley didn't know Curt Schilling had played for the Red Sox and that Brown had posed nude for Cosmopolitan in 1982. But much as journalists were slow to recognize the significance of the "tea party" movement last summer, most didn't treat this race as a serious contest until the final 10 days.

Even the Boston Globe seemed caught by surprise. To the paper's credit, it asked on Dec. 17: "Can Scott Brown actually win this thing?," while quickly adding that he was still "considered a long shot."

The press had not taken the Tea Party seriously and was caught napping.  They say the first step on the road to recovery is recognizing that you have a problem.  In his very next piece, "Honeymoon is History", Kurtz unintentionally demonstrates that the mainstream media still don't get it.  My emphasis below.

It's hardly a news flash that President Obama's media coverage has turned sour. But he still outshines his recent predecessors.

Obama still outshines his recent predecessors?  What a stunning claim, coming as it does right after Massachusetts voters delivered an historic smackdown in the special election that took away his filibuster-proof senate majority.  Could there be a more accurate gauge of his performance than that?

But Kurtz is really talking about something else.  It's not Obama's performance that shines.  It's press coverage of Obama's performance that shines as it works tirelessly to polish him up for an increasingly skeptical public. 

Obama wound up 2009 with balanced coverage -- 49 percent positive, 51 percent negative -- according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which studied the network newscasts, Time, Newsweek and the New York Times front page. But he swooned from 59 percent positive in the first four months of the year to 39 percent positive from August through December.

The researchers, from George Mason and Chapman universities, found the president drawing 46 percent positive evaluations on the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts. By comparison, those networks were harder on George W. Bush (23 percent positive), Bill Clinton (28 percent) and Ronald Reagan (26 percent) in the first year of their terms.

"Media coverage has turned sour," said Kurtz, and by "sour" he meant balanced.  Still out of touch.  The sad part is this.  When the mainstream media begin to take the Tea Party seriously, they won't give it objective coverage, but instead will continue to actively oppose it.  Kurtz's unspoken complaint is the same one as Obama's.  Had they been quicker to see the massive voter discontent, they might have been able to counter it and get Coakley elected.  It would have been historic.  The first female senator from Massachusetts.  Too bad.

Boy, Are We Dumb

As Mark Steyn points out, we're still just too stupid to understand the magnificence of Obama.

So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is he overestimated you dumb rubes’ ability to appreciate what he’s been doing for you. “That I do think is a mistake of mine,” the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we’re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it.”

But you schlubs aren’t that smart. You didn’t get it. And Barack Obama is determined to see that you do. So the president has decided that he needs to start “speaking directly to the American people.”

We don't get it.  That, you see, is why Scott Brown got elected in Massachusetts.  So in order to prevent any more such disruptions to his agenda Obama plans to to speak directly and more effectively to us, and to do that he's decided to make significant changes.

WASHINGTON—Coming off one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has beefed up his political staff and is expected to deliver an uncompromising State of the Union address. Aides said Sunday that the White House wasn't making any abrupt policy shifts, even as the message was retooled to focus more sharply on job creation.

No policy change? Retool the message to focus more sharply on job creation?  You know, I'm not sure we're smart enough to get that message.

The Campaign Finance Decision

Last week was a banner week for libertarians and conservatives.  The upset election of Scott Brown to the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy quite effectively put the brakes on Obama's takeover of the health care industry.  That it occurred in true blue Massachusetts was astonishing.  But the bigger story and the one that should have us cheering loudest was the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.  This video by the Cato Institute explains what was at stake.

Needless to say, the decision in favor of Citizens United was was not universally applauded.  In the view of New Jersey pundit John Farmer, Justices were blind to the corrupting influence of cash when they arrived at their decision. His is a very leftist view, couched in terms of redistribution. Few things are more fundamental to our notion of political liberty and equality than freedom of speech. We’re all supposed to enjoy it more or less equally. Ideally, no one’s supposed to have too much more of it than anyone else, or it isn’t very equal. We all know that’s not how it works, however. Some individuals or groups will, for one reason or another (usually money), always enjoy more of our constitutional freedoms. The Constitution, in its majesty, guarantees the pauper as well as the prince the right to a lawyer. But it’s better than even money that the prince is going to get Clarence Darrow while the pauper is likely to get the last guy in the class in law school. That’s why federal courts are there, to smooth out at least some of these inequities. Is that why the federal courts are there?  I never knew.  Farmer seems not so much opposed to the influence of money as much as the danger that such influence would fall to the wrong people.  He would prefer that party leaders handle all the money.  These things often have unintended consequences. Ben L. Ginsberg, a long-time lawyer for GOP conservative causes, counsels caution. "It’s going to be a wild, wild West" in future campaigns, he warned, "with a lot more voices and the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions." In the process, the power of both parties, Republicans as well as Democrats, could be diminished as corporations and unions run their own campaigns and give less cash to either party. Why run money through the parties — the middle men — when corporations are free now to spend all they want on their own more tightly targeted campaigns for issues and candidates? Conceivably, they could now spend enough to dominate party primaries, denying Democrat and Republican leaders the power to nominate preferred candidates. It sounds a vote for the good ol' boy network.  Funneling all the money through party bosses would more likely have the effect of further insulating them from donors and voters.  Let's not overlook the fact that government is itself a special interest.  By allowing corporations to bypass party poobahs we might actually limit the growth of that particular special interest.  And it's safe to say Farmer's own interests were curbed by this decision.  As a journalist Farmer was accorded special privilege by McCain-Feingold, which would have effectively silenced competing voices during the days immediately before an election.  As an individual Farmer was exempt from McCain-Feingold prohibitions, but unless he is independently wealthy his political speech would reach only a small audience.  However, as a member of his media corporation he was allowed unfettered political speech and the means to deliver it to a wide audience because of his corporation's special status as a member of our free press.  Other corporations were denied this right of speech.  That is, up to now. A justification of such denial rests on the definition of a "legal person".  A corporation is a legal person, as opposed to a natural person.  According to some opponents of the decision, our founding fathers intended that only a natural person be entitled to first amendment protections, but according to Professor Bainbridge, the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision reaffirmed corporate first amendment rights. The legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment suggests that Congress substituted the word ''person'' for the word ''citizen'' precisely so that the provisions so affected would protect not just natural persons but also legal persons, such as corporations, from oppressive legislation. We see this view further confirmed Roscoe Conkling's recounting of the relevant legislative history in Conkling's arguments in San Mateo County v. Southern Pac. R.R., 116 U.S. 138 (1885). Conkling had been a member of the Joint Congressional Committee that drafted the 14th amendment and in Southern Pacific argued to the Justices that it had been the intent of Congress for the word "person" to include "legal" persons (corporations) as well as "natural" persons within the protective scope of the due process and equal protection clauses of the amendment. The Court accepted Conkling's argument. As Larry Ribstein argues, this development made policy sense: ... corporations are people – the owners and others the corporation represents in litigation. These people have speech rights, rights not to be discriminated against, and so forth. I’ve written on this ...: The Constitutional Conception of the Corporation, 4 Supreme Court Economic Review 95 (1995); Corporate Political Speech, 49 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 109 (1992) and in my book with Henry Butler, The Constitution and the Corporation (1995) .... So the African-American owners of this SBA-certified minority-owned contractor shouldn't lose their civil rights because they chose to do business in the corporate form. They might be required to sue as a corporation, as in this case, because that’s a convenient way to handle litigation, but that doesn’t determine their individual rights. But courts also should recognize that, by the same principle, people shouldn't lose their speech rights just because they exercise these rights though the corporation in which they have invested. One practical effect of the decision may be to afford corporations some protection from bullying by elected officials.  As the Cato video explains, the power that needs to be curbed is government power, not the power of its people whether they are natural persons or legal persons.

A Must Read Essay

A great essay by Doctor Zero on Hot Air's Green Room talks about the real causes of middle class frustration.   

The frustration of the middle class is the angry confusion of people who can appreciate the opportunities Big Government denies them. It is the anxiety of those who hear the businesses who employ them relentlessly demonized, while the ruling class is never held responsible for its foolishness, waste, and theft.

It's really good.  Read all of it.

Thank You, Massachusetts!

Union Leader:

BOSTON – In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

Washington Post:

State Sen. Scott Brown won a remarkable upset victory over state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) tonight in a Massachusetts Senate special election, a victory likely to spawn broad-ranging political and policy consequences heading into the midterm elections.

"Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken," Brown said to raucuous cheers at his victory rally.

Brown's victory is the first for Republicans at the Senate level for Republican in Massachusetts since 1972 and he becomes the lone GOPer in the 12-person federal delegation from the Bay State.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama called Brown and "congratulated Senator Brown on his victory and a well-run campaign."

While it is a historic win within Massachusetts, the implications of Brown's victory for the national political scene are even more critical.

Brown will give Republicans a 41st seat in the Senate, robbing Democrats of the filibuster-proof majority the party had used to pass President Obama's health care plan late last year. In the immediate lead-up to tonight's vote, Democrats -- including the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) -- insisted that the party would move forward on health care but it is unclear whether that bravado will carry over in the coming days as the party seeks to deal with Coakley's stunning upset.

Washington Post (in denial):

Tuesday's upset Republican victory in Massachusetts may well have less to do with ideology and more to do with old-fashioned retail politics: Scott Brown was a charismatic candidate with a old truck, an intriguing narrative and a promise to shake every voter's hand.

Yeah right.  Keep dreaming.

New York Times:

BOSTON — Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary.

With 98 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

Boston Herald:

State Sen. Scott Brown blasted Bay State expectations today with a bombshell victory over his Democratic rival to capture the open U.S. Senate seat by a 5-point margin.

“I bet they can hear this cheering all the way to Washington, D.C.,” Brown said tonight.

“Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken,” he added. “I am ready to go to Washington without delay.”

Boston Globe (can't bear to report it):

All eyes on Bay State ballot

Brown, Coakley make final push before high-stakes election today

From Pittsfield to Framingham, North Andover to Dorchester, the candidates for US Senate made a last dash across the state yesterday, issuing their final pitches to voters ahead of a special election today that has drawn the eyes of the nation.

Thank you Massachusetts!  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!

Brown vs. Coakley And Ideological Overreach

As the Wall Street Journal points out, when Obama moved into the White House, Democrats didn't have to do a blessed thing except sit back and take all the credit for what we all would expect to happen anyway.  But they blew it.  Big time.

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of President Obama's Inaugural, and it's worth recalling the extraordinary political opportunity he had a year ago. An anxious country was looking for leadership amid a recession, and Democrats had huge majorities and faced a dispirited, unpopular GOP. With monetary policy stimulus already flowing, Democrats were poised to get the political credit for the inevitable economic recovery.

Twelve months later, Mr. Obama's approval rating has fallen further and faster than any recent President's, Congress is despised, the public mood has shifted sharply to the right on the role of government, and a Republican could pick up a Senate seat in a state with no GOP Members of Congress and that Mr. Obama carried by 26 points.

[...]

The real message of Massachusetts is that Democrats have committed the classic political mistake of ideological overreach. Mr. Obama won the White House in part on his personal style and cool confidence amid a recession and an unpopular war. Yet liberals in Congress interpreted their victory as a mandate to repeal more or less the entire post-1980 policy era and to fulfill, at last, their dream of turning the U.S. into a cradle-to-grave entitlement state.

Democrats are ignoring the voters.  This race wasn't supposed to be even close, this special election in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1, yet Massachusetts voters have about a 50-50 chance of sending the 41st vote against health care reform to the US Senate by electing Republican Scott Brown. 

And what does Democrat House Speaker Pelosi intend to do about it?  Why, she plans to ignore the voters, of course.

"Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care -- one way or another," Pelosi told reporters in San Francisco. 

But how?  The Speaker was less clear on that question.

"Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts," Pelosi said. "[It’s] just a question about how we would proceed. But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill."

Privately, Democratic Congressional leaders are less certain.  The most likely scenario, and one preferred by the White House, is for the House to simply pick up and pass the bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve.

Massachusetts voters, if you haven't gotten out to vote for Scott Brown yet, go now and do it.  There is a lot riding on it and your country is depending on you.

Today's The Day

Sissy Willis urges her fellow Mass voters, "Don't vote alone!"

We're emailing the following message to all our Massachusetts friends and relatives as part of Scott Brown's voterbomb push to get out the vote for tomorrow's special election:

Tomorrow's the big day.

We Tea Partiers behind enemy lines here in Taxachusetts sprang to life under ideal growing conditions afforded by big-government overreach last year, and now is our moment to fire "The Scott heard 'round the world."

Scott Brown has asked me and other volunteers to write to our friends and neighbors to fulfill a pledge to make sure you will be voting for him in tomorrow's special election to fill what some have called the "Kennedy seat." As our candidate explained to a clueless David Gergen in last week's debate with Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley:

"It's not the Kennedy seat. It's not the Democrats' seat. It's the people's seat!"

Yesterday frequent commenter CaptDMO noted with some amazement that Tea Party fever in the form of active support for Scott Brown has spread north of the boarder into the Granite State.

This weekend I was amazed to see a couple folks waving at passing motorists while sporting "NH Conservatives for Brown" placards, along the "strip" (Commercial avenue that NOW looks like ANY well developed Mass. retail strip-complete with vacant stores and buildings) of our resort community that caterer heavily to folks from, well, ...Mass. folk, with "extra" cash to spend on affordable recreation and tax-free retail shopping.

I wonder if our southbound guests made the connection, as they returned to their home state from the weekend?

The usual local suspects. No "imported" astro-turf folks.

In my reflections on last year's September 12th Tea Party in DC I made an optimistic prediction that appears to be coming true today.

I have to say, I came away from the weekend with a fairly high degree of optimism.  There were tens of thousands, probably close to a half a million people there who, like Susan and me, invested a little money and a lot of time to make it to this Washington event.  We spent eighteen hours in the car to get there and back.  Not everybody traveled that far, but there were some who came farther.

This is not the crowd that plans to stay home on election day.

Today's the day, and the Tea Party crowd isn't staying home.  I must confess, though.  Optimistic as I was last September, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine Massachusetts would be in play.  But here we are!  Do us all proud, Massachusetts!  Elect Scott Brown!

Update:  CaptDMO is quoted on Sisu.

Yesterday's Assortment of BS

Reading through the essays appearing on yesterday's Real Clear Politics, I couldn't help but be struck by the pure BS that comes leaping off the pages.  Here they are in no particular order.

How to Pass the Bill--Whatever Happens Tuesday, by Jonathon Cohn who seems to think this health care takeover has been a deliberative process.

...Snowe has grown increasingly disenchanted with health care reform. And after her vote against it on the floor, the Democratic leadership has become increasingly disenchanted with her.

Snowe's main complaint--that the process seemed rushed--makes no more sense to me now than it did when she first raised it.

I suppose you could say it's true, calling the process rushed doesn't make sense to Mr. Cohn, but then Mr. Cohn just wants a bill.  It doesn't matter what's in it, so how long do the Democrats need to talk about it?  

Under the headline His health-care agenda at risk, Obama stumps in Massachusetts, which should actually come under the heading, "missing the boat", Paul Kane and Karl Vick write in the Washington Post,

Brown's momentum has been fueled by his success in tapping voter anger about double-digit unemployment and massive federal spending.

Well, yes, but no mention of health care reform?  Brown bills himself as the 41st vote against it.

But the grand prize goes to the inimitable Paul Krugman with What Didn’t Happen.

The Obama administration’s troubles are the result not of excessive ambition, but of policy and political misjudgments. The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.

Is he kidding?  Obama took every opportunity, and then some, to put blame on the Bush administration. Throughout his first year in office, every other time he's opened his mouth it was to say he inherited a mess from the Bush administration that he's cleaning.

Scott Brown For Senate - Coakley Sinking

A well-connected Democratic strategist tells Byron York that the bottom has fallen out of Martha Coakley's poll numbers, and he's talking about her internal poll numbers.  According to this strategist, Coakley's own numbers have her down by five points in her race against Scott Brown for the Senate seat that once belonged to the late Ted Kennedy.  

And that means it's time for Obama to start putting a little distance between him and Martha.

Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor's race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama's policies or those of the national Democratic party.

The same sort of thinking is emerging in Massachusetts. "This is a Creigh Deeds situation," the Democrat says. "I don't think it says that the Obama agenda is a problem. I think it says, 1) that she's a terrible candidate, 2) that she ran a terrible campaign, 3) that the climate is difficult but she should have been able to overcome it, and 4) that Democrats beware -- you better run good campaigns, or you're going to lose."

With the election still four days away, Democrats are still hoping that "something could happen" to change the dynamics of the race. But until that thing happens, the situation as it exists today explains Barack Obama's decision not to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Coakley. "If the White House thinks she can win, Obama will be there," the Democrat says. "If they don't think she can win, he won't be there." For national Democrats, the task is now to insulate Obama against any suggestion that a Coakley defeat would be a judgment on the president's agenda and performance in office.

Let's see.  Brown is riding a surge, largely on his promise to be the 41st vote against Obama's health care legislation.  But a Brown victory will not be a reflection on Obama's agenda.  Do I have that right?

Brown Surges Ahead of Coakley

A new poll shows a shift in favor of Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race.  It's a potential disaster for the Democratic political agenda.

The Suffolk University survey released late Thursday showed Scott Brown, a Republican state senator, with 50 percent of the vote in the race to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.

Democrat Martha Coakley had 46 percent. That was a statistical tie since it was within the poll's 4.4 percentage point margin of error, but far different from a 15-point lead the Massachusetts attorney general enjoyed in a Boston Globe survey released over the weekend.

The Suffolk poll also confirmed a fundamental shift in voter attitudes telegraphed in recent automated polls that Democrats had dismissed as unscientific and the product of GOP-leaning organizations.

And it signaled a possible death knell for the 60-vote Democratic supermajority the president has been relying upon to stop Republican filibusters in the Senate and pass not only his health care overhaul, but the rest of his legislative agenda heading into this fall's mid-term elections.

Brown has pledged to vote against the health care bill, and his election would give Senate Republicans the 41st vote they need to sustain a filibuster.

A Coakley campaign ad accuses Scott Brown of voting with Republicans 96% of the time.  It may be a counterproductive smear.  In light of recent Rasmussen polling, guilt by that particular association may help Brown more than it hurts.  In one poll Republicans lead Democrats by nine in the generic congressional ballot.  In another the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats at its lowest in the last seven years.  Coakley may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Special Interests vs. Voters' Interests in Massachusetts

When candidate Obama promised that the health care debate would be televised on C-Span, he said it was so that everyone would be able to see who represents the voters and who represents the special interests.

Specifically, then-Sen. Obama said on the campaign trail that "we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."

Based on candidate Obama's promise, one might reasonably expect President Obama to see that this important debate is conducted in an environment in which constituent interests would get fair representation.  Transparency!  That's the ticket! 

Well, transparency is definitely not in the cards.  And if there is any doubt about which interests Democrats represent, special or voters', look to the Massachusetts special election between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley.  The seat held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy is up for grabs and a victory by Scott Brown represents the potential 41st vote against Democrats' health care legislation.

As first reported by Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner, the host committee for the fundraiser at Pennsylvania Avenue's Sonoma Restaurant includes lobbyists for Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Novartis and sundry other drug companies that have been among the biggest of ObamaCare's corporate sponsors. Other hosts—who have raised at least $10,000 for Ms. Coakley—include representatives from UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana and other insurers. As far as we can tell, the insurance industry claims to oppose ObamaCare's current incarnation.

Naturally, lobbyists from America's Health Insurance Plans and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the major trade groups, were on hand too. Money follows power in Washington, obviously, though this example seems especially inexplicable given that Ms. Coakley's GOP opponent, state senator Scott Brown, may be the last chance to defuse the health-care doomsday machine. But maybe someone in the press corps will bother to mention this episode the next time President Obama takes aim at the "special interests" he claims are opposing his agenda.

Against overwhelming public opposition, the only things keeping ObamaCare alive at this point are power politics and the misguided corporate cease-fire that Democrats have either coerced or bought—or is homegrown at companies like Pfizer that are deeply invested in more government control of the economy. Ms. Coakley's election would make that outcome a certainty.

When Democrats complain about special interests, it's important to recognize that government is its own special interest.