California Cross Stomping

Video here.

Two thoughts:
1. The woman should never have brought religion into the debate. Her values might be informed by her religion (good), but she shouldn't be using her religion or its symbols as a rhetorical club.

2. What absolute cretins. They'd already won the debate when she felt she had to resort to religious symbols, they didn't need to stomp on the symbols of her faith.

Instapundit sez "at least it wasn't a Koran." I know he's being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it doesn't matter to me what religious symbol she had used. Religion in this context is an ad hoc argument, and such shouldn't be allowed in political debate.

(h/t Insta)

I Love This Guy

Tom Coburn on President-Elect Obama's historic victory:

The unmistakable mandate from the 2008 elections is one that applies to both parties in equal measure--it's time to define a "new kind of politics" not just with our words but with our actions. If anything, a "new kind of politics" means elected officials putting aside their careerist aspirations in pursuit of solutions that work.

And then some tough love for his own party:

What led the Republican Party to this day was not the application of conservative principles but the abandonment of those principles while hypocritically appealing to those tenets. The past few years have shown a strong correlation between electoral success and fidelity to limited government conservatism. The more Republicans abandoned conservatism, the more voters abandoned Republicans.

One comment on election day

I hope for one of two things...
1. Whoever wins, wins by an easily proven margin.

-or-

2. Sen. Obama wins the electoral count, but Sen. McCain wins the popular vote.

The latter would really only be possible if McCain enjoys an astoundingly close race in large states like California and New York. In other words, not gonna happen. But if it did, I will spend the next four years throwing it in the faces of the Bush haters.

Ongoing Earmark Battle

The Seattle Times has a great story on earmark-related corruption in the 2008 defense spending bill.

But time after time, Congress exploited loopholes or violated those rules, a Seattle Times investigation has found. An in-depth examination of the 2008 defense bill found $8.5 billion in earmarks. Of those, 40 percent — $3.5 billion — were hidden.

(h/t Instapundit)

Bush and Palin

Read through the transcript from the Biden-Palin debate. Who does Palin remind you of?

"May I call you Joe," "Darn right," "Bless their hearts."

Then read what Peggy Noonan of the WSJ said about Palin.

She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did.

I'm done with action-only people. I want action AND thinking. I don't want any more "campaigners". Such people lack persuasion skills. And you cannot govern a nation of 300 million without persuasion.

Paulson Plan One Week Later

Larry Kudlow argues the Paulson plan is good for the economy, good for the financial markets, and good for taxpayers.

I don't think a lot of folks understand this win-win scenario. Let me repeat: The taxpayers own the bonds the Treasury buys; the taxpayers own the cash flows generated by the bonds; the taxpayers own the profits when the bonds are sold; and the taxpayers benefit when the profits and cash flows are used to pay-down government debt.

The troubled assets purchased by the Treasury right now are likely to be very under-priced because of the chaotic and frozen market conditions. But over time, through monthly cash-flow payments or through loan sales, taxpayers will get all their money back and in great likelihood a handsome profit.

The troubled assets are underpriced because they're troubled. They're based on bad loans. Many of them have or will default unless the borrowers get some kind of relief.

Thus there's no guarantee that those assets will appreciate as Kudlow predicts. Of if they do appreciate, it will be because the Democrats in Congress get their way and vote a huge subsidy for the foolish homeowners that bought more house than they could afford. Either way, there's a decent chance the Paulson plan will in fact result in a government bailout for someone: Wall Street, unwise borrowers, or both.

Oversight

When Sec. Paulson first introduced the $700 billion bailout package, critics focused on the lack of oversight. But in the days since, all we've heard from Congress is complaints about executive compensation and home mortgage assistance.

It seems very odd to me that the same people who created this mess out of shortsightedness are now the ones responsible for fixing it. These are the same hacks that made it possible for Fannie and Freddie to run uncontrolled. They blocked any meaningful GSE reform. They also blocked any regulation of the derivatives market, for fear such regulation would impact the GSE's. Now they want to prop up all those homeowners that buried themselves in risky mortgages.

And lest we forget, these are the same legislators that thought they could prevent future securities scandals with Sarbanes-Oxley.

Can we please get back to the serious issues? Like oversight on the biggest government bailout in world history?