Martin Luther King Jr. is now memorialized with an imposing statue on the D.C. National Mall. While the honor is long overdue, his legacy should not end with a statue. A fitting practical tribute would be to tear down legal barriers that continue to hinder the equality and opportunity he fought for. Three such policies come to mind immediately: immigration restrictions, occupational licenses, and minimum wage laws.
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here . Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.] As you might have seen ABC News’ article where Bush supposedly gives his “first public reaction” to the killing of bin Laden. Now you can nitpick that, gee, the official Bush statement the night of would seem to have been the first, but aside from that it is a nice little article: “I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies,” Bush said when asked what he was doing when he received the call from President Obama, according to an ABC News contributor who attended the event. “I excused myself and went home to take the call,” Bush said. “Obama simply said ‘Osama Bin Laden is dead.’” Bush said Obama described in detail the secret mission to raid bin Laden’s Pakistani compound and the decision he made to put the plan into motion. He told Obama, “Good call.”… When asked by forum moderator Melissa Lee of CNBC how he felt upon learning the news, Bush said he was “not overjoyed,” explaining that the campaign to track down the 9/11 mastermind was done not “out of hatred but to exact judgment.” The development is ultimately a victory for the American people, he said. “The guy is dead. That is good,” Bush said of bin Laden. “Osama’s death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader.” “The intelligence services deserve a lot of credit. They built a mosaic of information, piece by piece,” he said, claiming no credit for himself. So it was a nice little article showing us what was most admirable about the man, including his graciousness. For instance, the closest he came to claiming credit for himself was mentioning the “mosaic of information” that led to bin Laden’s location. Surely in his mind that includes some of the intel his administration gathered, but one suspects that the reference is more designed to make sure we don’t forget that Eric Holder is still threatening to prosecute those interrogators, rather than any sense of self-aggrandizement. Still except for that, I have trouble figuring out what anyone could really object to about what Bush said. But if you really, really hate Bush you will find something to complain about. So Oliver Willis wrote another idiotic post entitled: Failed President Bush Still Lives Down To Expectations And besides quoting from the article this was the sum total of his commentary: A simple man who once, sadly, had a complex job…. That’s right Bush, the Bad Man Gone Away Now. The Bad Man Gone Away. Now back to your French food and hobnobbing with hedge fund managers. So seriously, I had no idea what he was even complaining about, so I inquired really politely (okay, not so politely), tweeting : @owillis Shorter Willis: BUUUUUSH GGGGRRRR! What an idiotic criticism. what do you think he should have done differently?* To which he replied : @AaronWorthing speak like an adult, for one My response : @owillis lol how did he fail to do so? He complimented Obama for his good call. and? you just hate everything Bush does, that’s all. And finally he actually starts to offer a coherent explanation : @AaronWorthing and, again, he could be more than his usual simplistic grunts. look, he’s never gonna do better. is what he is. My response : @owillis lol so you are mad that he didn’t over complicate it? is he supposed to write a 1,000 word poem about what a good call it was? He goes on to ridiculously reiterate the claim that somehow this was not “ adult ” and I made the obvious point that there are lots of adults who speak plainly and simply—and that is a good thing . But it’s worth going back to this passage from the ABC News report, which Willis himself excerpted: “I excused myself and went home to take the call,” Bush said. “Obama simply said ‘Osama Bin Laden is dead.’” So if Obama says something “simple” that is okay, but if Bush does… Finally I asked him this : @owillis Seriously, write the words bush should have said that would have been adequate in your mind. And then frankly my annoyance with him got the better of me : @owillis share with us the opus bush should have said in order to avoid being attacked by a fat comic book nerd on the net. He responded (although missed for a while because of twitter outage): . @AaronWorthing and there it finally is, the personal insult, because you can’t actually think and express yourself in an adult manner. And I had already resolved before seeing that to say I was sorry for what I said. I don’t think it’s the personal nature of the insult that makes it wrong as much as the cheapness and irrelevancy of it. If criticism or insult of is of a personal nature, but fair, accurate and relevant, I don’t have a problem with it. But my words violated that standard. So, I was wrong, and I did send him an apology . But wow, isn’t that hypocritical? So he doesn’t like personal insults… I mean he just spent how many minutes personally insulting our former president? He even wrote this , in regards to Bush: @AaronWorthing i demand some sort of intelligence from a leader. not much to ask. And in my last post on him I showed you how he insinuated that Fox News, the Daily Mail, Pamela Geller, Mike Savage and Glenn Beck were racists. Isn’t that a personal insult—and a false one, at that? And at the site right now he calls Donald Trump a racist and a grifter , called the entire state of Florida “ one of our stranger, dumber states ” (based on the false claim that the state outlawed all sex), and called Newt Gingrich a “ morally questionable bully without any gravitas and half a brain .” The reality is he doesn’t mind personal insults, as long as he is the one making them. Myself as I said above, I don’t have a problem with personal insults (with the caveats I mentioned). But for him to pretend he is somehow above that just isn’t honest. ——————— * Like last time, I am not going to fix the typos or bad grammar in these tweets. It’s the nature of the beast. [Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
Go here to see the original:
Like Superglue to Stupid (II): Did You Know That Oliver Willis REALLY Hates George W. Bush?
Last week President Obama had a closed-door meeting with a dozen barons of the modern tech age. Among those he attempted to wine and dine guests were Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Erick Schmidt, and Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs. He also plied them with pro-businesses mantras, though he practices policies that hurt them. While the press was not allowed to cover the event, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney released an e-mail about the dinner. Apparently Obama chose these 12 titans of technology because “American companies like these have been leading by investing in the creativity and ingenuity of the American people, creating cutting-edge new technologies and promoting new ways to communicate.” Indeed: If anyone knows how to lead the country by pushing it to nearly-boundless creative and communicative abilities technologically, these guests – who also included Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, and Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle — might know a thing or two about it. According to Carney, during the two and a half hour meal, the president discussed “his proposals to invest in research and development and expand incentives for companies to grow and hire, along with his goal of doubling exports over five years to support millions of American jobs.” That’s the sort of statement a president would make in a meeting surrounded by business tycoons. Unfortunately, Obama’s policies that would “expand incentives for companies to grow and hire” do the opposite. If his track record is any indication, only a nearly untouchable CEO of a major corporation worth billions would be encouraged. But let’s remember that when Facebook began, it was just Zuckerberg and a few like-minded geniuses; many businesses start out small. Unless the health care reform law is repealed, Obama’s most prized legislation will stunt the very growth he claims to want to create. In just three years under Obamacare, companies with 50 plus employees will have to offer health care to employees or pay penalties of up to $2,000 per employee for all but the first 30. If start-up companies are punished by way of additional health insurance fees merely because of their size, many will buckle under the excess cost or keep their company under 50 employees. Obama’s ideas don’t advance growth; they nip it in the bud. Obama courts businesses, pulling them shoulder-to-shoulder with one hand while crossing his fingers behind his back with the other. During a recent weekly radio and Internet address, Obama commended Intel for its contribution to promoting math and science education: “Winning this competition depends on the ingenuity and creativity of our private sector. But it’s also going to depend on what we do as a nation to make America the best place on earth to do business.” It’s not just empty talk; it’s perverse. Obama may extol the virtues of the private sector, but as House Republicans pointed out in their ” Pledge to America ,” the government under his administration has “increased a staggering 88 percent” (in non-security discretionary spending). The desire for increased power has accompanied increased spending. A 2009 Senate bill , dubbed the “kill-switch” bill, would give Obama emergency control of the Internet giving him the ability to flip a switch and “shut down online traffic by seizing private networks” in an undefined emergency. The bill died then but in light of the Egypt protests, proponents of the bill announced they will bring the bill back to the table. Another flawed concept that hurts businesses is the Obama-supported FCC ruling in favor of net neutrality. While some companies, such as Google, support the idea — many in the tech industry are happy to support subsidies for themselves and regulations that harm less established competitors — many do not. Cisco Systems, whose CEO and chairman John Chambers attended the dinner, is one such opponent. In 2008, its senior managing director, Robert Pepper, described the effects of net neutrality thusly: “Without additional regulation, service providers are likely to continue doing what they are doing. They will continue to offer a variety of broadband service plans at a variety of price points to suit every type of consumer.” With additional regulation, in other words, all bets are off. Here we have Obama’s modus operandi : He might sidle up to technology companies and talk about making “America the best place on earth to do business,” but his policies guarantee it won’t be. Don’t take my word for it, though. You can Google it yourself.
The rest is here:
Meeting With the Masterminds
What to watch for : The House will try to vote on the budget to send it to the Senate. President Obama will visit Intel in Oregon and name CEO Paul Otellini to the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness ( Politico ) Gov. Scott Walker “won’t be bullied” as Wisconsin public worker unions continue protests ( The Hill ) Obama administration may have to decide whether or not to veto a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank ( ABC News ) On the main site: An Arab Spring? by Roger Kaplan: What’s it all about — an unquenchable thirst for freedom? The Muslim Brotherhood? As Algeria is showing again, this just the start. The War in Wisconsin , by Ross Kaminsky: The Democratic assault on democracy. Debt Demagoguery , by Joseph Lawler: Failure to raise the debt ceiling,
White House sources say that they are pleased with the initial rollout of President Obama’s “Startup America” program, which they say will focus on encouraging American businesses to speed up investments in manufacturing, information technology, green technology, bio-sciences. A stated goal of the program is to encourage those companies that are startups to do so in economically distressed areas of the country. U.S. business coalitions, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, which have roundly criticized the Obama Administration’s handling of the economy and its anti-business rhetoric and policies, are supportive of the program, and a number of member companies, such as IBM, Intel, HP, GE, Google, among many others, are committed to participating, says the White House. The program is being overseen by former AOL founder Steve Case . But because much of the program will have ties inside the Obama White House, the Commerce Department, and other Obama agencies, White House sources say, Obama’s political operation will be able to monitor — and they hope influence — political giving for the 2012 election cycle from those companies. “Technically, we are all on the same team now, so why would a company that is working with us so closely on ‘Startup America’ or some of the other ‘pro-business’ projects we’ve been announcing want to give financial support for the campaigns of Republicans?” says a White House policy staffer who will shortly be moving to a new job at the Democratic National Committee’s expanding 2012 campaign operation. “It’s one more way to engage corporate America. We know many of the executives are predisposed to Democrats, this is just a way to build more connections.”
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Funny Business
