HALF-FULL REPORT 03/15/13

There is a new pope.  To the surprise and dismay of most in the MSM, he’s Catholic.  Pope Francis is the first from Latin America, the first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years.  A "cautious, conservative choice," says Rick Moran. The National Catholic Reporter profiles the Jesuit from Argentina here.  The editors of National Review discuss Pope Francis here.  Conservative Catholics at the American Spectator talk about him here.

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Our new Secretary of Defense visited Afghanistan last week.  It did not go well.  Anti-American statements by Afghan President Hamid Karzai have put our troops at greater risk, said our commander there, who raised the alert level.

The politics of Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and Assistant Secretary of State in the Carter administration, are well to the left of mine.  But I agree completely with what he said here:

Five more U.S. troops were killed there Tuesday.  We can’t bring the rest home soon enough.

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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis) has released his budget plan for FY 2014, which begins Oct. 1.  It would lead to a balanced budget in 10 years without raising taxes, because it would reduce currently projected spending over the decade by $5.7 trillion. The national debt as a proportion of GDP would decline to 62.3 percent.

Ryan’s vision is "cruelly radical," said Washington Post columnist E.J Dionne. His proposed spending cuts "would reverse the country’s nascent economic growth, kill millions of real and potential jobs, and deprive those suffering the most of social assistance," said the New York Times.  It’s "an arch-conservative fantasy that not only protects the wealthy from tax increases, but would reduce the top marginal rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent," said Will Marshall.

Ryan’s budget wouldn’t actually reduce federal spending – just slow it’s rate of growth from the current 5 percent to 3.4 percent.  This disappointed John Tamny. Under the Ryan plan, the federal government would spend $1.2 trillion more in FY 2022 than it’s spending now, noted Veronique de Rugy. 

"Ryan’s budget relies on a veritable garden’s worth of rosy assumptions in order to reach balance, including the repeal of Obamacare and GDP growth of slightly more than 3 percent," said  Michael Tanner.  But he called it "the right step." 

He’d have preferred "a plan far bolder and more innovative," said James Pethokoukis.  But on his proposals for tax reform and Medicare and Medicaid reform, Ryan has "smartly built the GOP economic agenda."

"Conservatives should be proud to support it," said Grover Norquist.

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Senate Democrats will offer a budget for the first time in four years.  Under it, federal spending would rise 62 percent over the decade.  In 2023, spending would be $2.2 trillion higher than it is now, $1 trillion higher than under the Ryan plan.  Annual deficits would be lowered to a bit more than $400 billion (the largest of the Bush deficits, decried so by Democrats, was $250 billion) chiefly by raising taxes by $975 billion (Democrats say) or $1.5 trillion (Republicans say).

"There was a lot of buildup to the first budget released by Senate Democrats since 2009, but the actual document didn’t even meet low expectations," said Phil Klein of the Washington Examiner.

Ryan’s assumption that GDP will grow by a little more the 3 percent a year has been described as "rosy," but isn’t unrealistic if his other assumptions (that Obamacare will be junked and the income tax reformed) are realized. The GDP growth assumptions in the Democrat budget (an average of 4.9 percent a year) are positively surreal.

New Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash, is one of the dimmer bulbs in the Senate.  Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, D-Mont, reportedly is displeased with her work.

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Voters in Pennsylvania are worried more about Obamacare than about the budget sequester. They ought to be, said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex.

Congress must pass a stopgap bill to fund our budgetless government from March 27 (when the current stopgap expires) until the end of the fiscal year.  Cruz has offered an amendment to the Senate version of the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare.  House Speaker John Boehner said Republicans won’t include a defunding provision in their version of the CR, so the Dems and the media can’t blame them for shutting down the government. 

I think both are doing the right thing.  It’s important to keep the focus on Obamacare, against which public opinion is turning, and which should reach a fever pitch next year.  But Republicans can’t afford to give our enemies a means of distracting attention from it.  Cruz is right to keep the pressure on, but the proper place to fight the Obamacare battle is over the budget for FY 2014, and in the states, as Florida – despite it’s chickenfeces governor – is doing.

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Terrible Ted takes on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cal, here on her gun grab bill (which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Wednesday).  Lib journalists say she got the better of the exchange, but if she thought so, I doubt she’d be playing the victim card.

"Nothing I do these days is more amusing than watching Ted Cruz annoy the legacy Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and cause some of them to betray their foolishness," said Paul Mirengoff.

I think Cruz is the brightest of the new Republican stars in the Senate. No wonder the Dems hope he isn’t eligible to run for president.

Don’t fret about the Feinstein bill, says Allahpundit.  It isn’t going anywhere.  The one to worry about, he says, is Chuck Schumer’s sneakier proposal.

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Cancelling White House tours has backfired big time, says The Hill newspaper.  Proof of that is this Washington Post editorial calling it a "ham handed" example of the "Washington Monument syndrome."

It wasn’t my fault, Zero told ABC News.  The Secret Service and Congress are to blame.  Obama "is absolutely not telling the truth," a former Secret Service agent said.  The White House was responsible, Press Secretary Jay Carney admitted. 

Carney got snippy when reporters asked him questions about how much of our money Zero spends on himself, and when they asked about polls showing the president’s job approval tanking.  Covering for a sociopath who lies all the time is hard work.  Carney is "clearly stressed, burnt out," say the libs at Mediaite.  They wonder: Is it time for him to go?

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A state Supreme Court judge in New York has thrown out Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on the sale of large sugary sodas.  The ban is "arbitrary and capricious," and the city’s Board of Health has no authority to issue it, said Justice Milton Tingling.  CNN is upset.

"The bottom line is that the courts are kind of tired of the mayor ruling through decree and bypassing City Council, both here and with taxis," said New York University law professor Rick Hills. 

"The mayor’s office is particularly anxious over the fate of the soda ban because the mayor is more and more concerned over his legacy," noted Rich Lowry. "He shouldn’t worry. His reputation as the nation’s foremost highhanded scold is already well-established."

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There is "deep ideological polarization" and a "disappointing lack of professionalism" in the Voting Rights section of the Civil Rights Division, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice said in a very lengthy report Tuesday. Jack Wheeler’s friend Quin Hillyer summarizes all the important stuff here.

The IG, Michael Horowitz, an Obama appointee, was particularly critical of Thomas Perez, who succeeded Coates as chief of the Voting Rights Commission.  The timing of the report is awkward for Mr. Perez, who President Obama has nominated to be Secretary of Labor.  More background on Perez is here.  Jack Wheeler’s friend Quin Hillyer summarizes all the important stuff here.

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An insufficiently sung heroine in the MSM is CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Ms. Attkisson doggedly reported on Gunwalker when only one other MSM reporter (Richard Serrano of the LA Times) was doing so.  She’s pursuing Benghazi as doggedly and diligently.

Noting that six months have now elapsed since the terror attacks of 9/11/2012, she asked Monday (3/11): "Where are the more than two dozen U.S. personnel who survived the attack but haven’t been seen nor heard from in public since?"

Republican lawmakers want to ask those who witnessed the attacks firsthand about what they saw, but the administration keeps them hidden.  Catherine Herridge of Fox News recounts what we know about them here.  The GOP may subpoena the survivors, if that’s the only way to hear their accounts of what happened on 9/11/2012.

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Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was found guilty Monday (3/11) of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion and filing false tax returns.  There is a pertinent word that describes him that was absent in the CNN report, buried in most other MSM accounts.  I bet you can guess what that word is.

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A poll worker in Cincinnati has been indicted for voting for Obama at least six times.

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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was a "big hit" at the Gridiron dinner last Saturday, said Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times.  Mary Katherine Ham thinks so, too.  No governor has given teacher unions more heartburn.  Now he’s planning to abolish the state income tax.

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The Conservative Political Action Conference was last weekend, I said last week.  My bad.  CPAC is this weekend.  Of the speakers so far, the one who’s given the most "fiery" speech is former Rep. Allen West.  Black conservatives "absolutely terrify" liberals, West said.  Give a listen, and you’ll see why:

Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, was a big hit, too, lending credence to what West said about black conservatives.

"How can the last two elections be a rejection of conservatism when we didn’t nominate conservatives?" asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry.  The GOP has grown "stale and moss covered," said Rand Paul.

You can hear Marco Rubio here.

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After taking a poll, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has lost its enthusiasm for having actress Ashley Judd take on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky next year.

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Mexico has signed into law a reform which weakens significantly the power of teacher unions.  The head of the largest teacher union has been arrested.  If it can happen there, it can happen here.

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A new conservative news channel will air later this year.  My difficulty with Fox News is not that it is insufficiently conservative, but that – aside from the fabulous "News Hour with Bret Baier," there’s too much blather, too little news.

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Whether we focus our attention mostly on the economy and the world situation – both of which are deteriorating – or on public support for Zero and the Democrats, with also is deteriorating, will determine whether we think the glass is half full or half empty. 

Times are hard and will get harder.  But I think a week in which Zero gets slapped around by the Washington Post, Nanny Bloomberg gets slapped around by a judge, and a gun grabber gets slapped around by Ted Cruz is a week in which the glass is more than half full.  I’m off to fill mine with an IPA from the beer bar at Whole Foods, and to drink a toast to Ted.