Below The Beltway

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Archive for April, 2009

Here’s How The Right Can Fix Itself

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under Libertarians, Politics, Republicans

The Cato Institute’s Ed Crane tells conservatives what they need to do:
Time for those conservatives serious about limited government to re-read Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative. Strategically, conservatives have made three major mistakes. The first was to follow the advice of supply-side guru (and big-government Democrat) Jude Wanniski and not talk about spending cuts, much [...]

Condi Rice Channels Richard Nixon: If The President Authorizes It, It’s Not Illegal

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under George W Bush, Politics, Republicans, U.S. Constitution, War On Terror

This is pretty disturbing:

“The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture… The United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture, and so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it [...]

Chrysler Makes It Offical

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under Auto Industry, Barack Obama, Business, Economics, Politics

As suspected, Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection today:
Chrysler, the country’s third-largest auto company, filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under a plan that President Obama said will give the troubled automaker “a new lease on life.”
“I have every confidence that Chrysler will emerge from this process stronger and more competitive,” Obama said [...]

What We Need Are More Republicans Willing To Say Stuff Like This

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under Politics, Religion

From the guy who wrote Conscience Of A Conservative.
“There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use [...]

Swine Flu: Much Ado About Nothing

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under Health, In The News, Swine Flu

As I noted yesterday, the panic over the new strain of Swine Flu is a bit irrational given that the “regular” flu kills far more people every year than even have the new virus at this point.
Now, it appears that the medical world agrees that there’s very little to worry about here:
As the World Health [...]

Biden On Swine Flu: Panic, Panic, Panic !

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under Health, In The News, Joe Biden, Politics, Swine Flu

Vice-President Joe Biden appeared on The Today Show this morning and proceeded to stoke the fires of needless Swine Flu panic:
Vice president Joe Biden said today he would tell his family members not to use subways in the U.S. as the swine flu outbreak spread to 11 states and forced school closures amid confirmation of [...]

Chrysler Bankruptcy Appears Imminent

by Doug Mataconis @ Thursday, April 30th, 2009. Filed under Auto Industry, Barack Obama, Business, Economics, Politics

Thirty days ago, Chrysler was given a deadline to strike a deal with Fiat and it’s debtholders. That deadline expires tonight at midnight, and it appears likely that no deal will be reached, meaning that bankruptcy is all but inevitable:
DETROIT — Last-minute efforts by the Treasury Department to win over recalcitrant Chrysler debtholders failed Wednesday [...]

The Michelle Bachmann Historical Ignorance Tour Continues

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, April 29th, 2009. Filed under Dumbasses, Politics

Yesterday, we noted that Minnesota’s crazy Republican Congresswoman was blaming Democrats for a Swine Flu panic that actually occurred under a Republican President.
Today, she’s invented a piece of anti-trade legislation called the Hoot-Smalley Act, which FDR apparently signed into law:

By the way, those “Roaring 20’s” she refers to ? Yea, that was a Federal Reserve [...]

Stupid Republican Congresscritter Lies About Matthew Shepard

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, April 29th, 2009. Filed under Dumbasses, Politics

I’m no fan of hate crimes legislation, mostly because I don’t believe that it matters one bit if someone murderers someone because they want their wallet, or if they do it because of their race, religion, or gender.
That said, these comments by North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx are both wrong and stupid:

H/T: William K. Wolfrum [...]

Ron Paul On The Swine Flu Scare

by Doug Mataconis @ Wednesday, April 29th, 2009. Filed under Health, In The News, Politics, Ron Paul, Swine Flu

Ron Paul seems to be one of the few sane voices in Washington right now on what still seems to be a relatively small flu outbreak:

As Paul mentioned, we have been through this before, back in 1976 when the death of a single soldier at Fort Dix led to a nationwide vaccination program that ended [...]

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