On this day 80 years ago in 1930, the first non-stop airplane flight from Europe to the United States was completed in 37 hours, as Capt. Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte of France arrived in Valley Stream, NY, aboard The Question Mark.

75 years ago, in 1935, a hurricane slammed into the Florida Keys, claiming 423 lives.

65 years ago today in 1945, Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II; also on this day, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent republic.

September 2 ...

In 1666 the Great Fire of London broke out, claiming thousands of homes, but only a few lives. In 1789 the US Treasury Department was established. In 1864 during the Civil War, Union Gen. William T. Sherman's forces occupied Atlanta. In 1901 Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair. In 1930 the first non-stop airplane flight from Europe to the United States was completed in 37 hours as Capt. Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte of France arrived in Valley Stream, NY, aboard The Question Mark. In 1935 a hurricane slammed into the Florida Keys, claiming 423 lives. In 1945 Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II; also on this day, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent republic. In 1963 Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers. In 1969 North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh died. In 1985 it was announced that a US-French expedition had located the wreckage of the Titanic about 560 miles off Newfoundland. In 2004 President Bush accepted his party's nomination for a second term at the Republican National Convention in New York.

Michael Barone:

The Obama Democrats, faced with a grave economic crisis, responded with policies appropriate to the Big Unit America that was disappearing during the president's childhood.

Their financial policy has been to freeze the big banks into place. Their industrial policy was to preserve as much as they could of General Motors and Chrysler for the benefit of the United Auto Workers. Their health care policy was designed to benefit Big Pharma and other big players. Their housing policy has been to try to maintain existing prices.

Their macroeconomic economic policy was to increase the size and scope of existing government agencies to what looks to be the bursting point.

What we see is Big Government colluding with Big Business and trying to breathe life into Big Labor.
...

The visibly flagging economy and the slapdash stimulus and health care bills have left most voters ready to take a chance on the still reviled Republicans. The still unanswered question is, will the Republicans have an effective alternative to Big Unit governance?

Read the whole piece.

September 1 ...

In 1807 former Vice President Aaron Burr was found innocent of treason. In 1897 the Boston subway opened, becoming the first underground metro in North America. In 1905 Alberta and Saskatchewan entered Confederation as the eighth and ninth provinces of Canada. In 1923 the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by an earthquake that claimed some 150,000 lives. In 1932 New York City Mayor James J. "Gentleman Jimmy" Walker resigned following charges of graft and corruption in his administration. In 1939 World War II began in Europe as Nazi Germany invaded Poland; also on this day, George C. Marshall became Chief of Staff of the US Army. In 1945 Americans received word of Japan's formal surrender that ended World War II. (Because of the time difference, it was September 2 in Tokyo Bay, where the ceremony took place.) In 1951 the US, Australia, and New Zealand signed a mutual defense pact, the ANZUS treaty. In 1961 the Soviet Union ended a moratorium on atomic testing with an above-ground nuclear explosion in central Asia. In 1972 American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. In 1979 the US Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to visit Saturn. In 1983 269 people were killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace. In 1985 the Titanic was found by Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean Louis Michel in a joint US and French expedition. The wreck site is located 963 miles northeast of New York and 453 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast. In 2004 more than 1,000 people were taken hostage by heavily armed Chechen militants at a school in Beslan in southern Russia; more than 330, mostly children, were eventually killed in three-day ordeal.

John Tamny, in Forbes magazine: "High federal pay means less capital formation, lower wages and reduced innovation."

American Forces Press Service:

The single biggest threat to national security is the national debt, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [said Thursday in Detroit] ... American taxpayers are going to pay an estimated $600 billion in interest on the national debt in 2012, [said] Navy Adm. Mike Mullen ... "That's one year's worth of defense budget," he noted....

August 31 ...

In 1864 Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launched an assault on Atlanta, GA. In 1886 an earthquake rocked Charleston, SC, killing up to 110 people. In 1887 Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his "Kinetoscope," a device which produced moving pictures. In 1888 Mary Ann Nicholls was found murdered in London's East End in what is generally regarded as the first slaying committed by "Jack the Ripper." In 1935 President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act prohibiting the export of US arms to belligerents. In 1939 Nazi Germany mounted a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe. In 1945 singer and songwriter Van Morrison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1962 the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago became independent within the British Commonwealth. In 1969 boxer Rocky Marciano died in a light airplane crash in Iowa, a day before his 46th birthday. In 1980 Poland's Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day-old strike. In 1997 Princess Diana of Wales died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their chauffeur were also killed. In 2000 President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have gradually repealed inheritance taxes. In 2004 Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, Israel, killing 16 passengers; also on this day, a woman strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station, killing at least 10 people.

In order to fix what ails us, it is first important that we diagnose the ailment correctly.

From The Economist's Democracy in America blog:

[Government policy to expand home ownership is not] a story about how income inequality caused the financial crisis. Rather, this is a story about how policies intended to reduce inequality had the unintended consequence of precipitating America's worst economic slump since the Depression. It's very important that we're straight on what the story is, since different stories may have very different implications for policy. If the story is that the level of inequality itself -- and not our ideas about or political reactions to it -- indirectly caused the crisis, then we may think that narrowing the gap is a matter of urgent necessity. But if the story is that an ill-conceived political attempt to reduce inequality -- and not the fact of inequality itself -- led to apocalyptic economic devastation, then we may well conclude that it is better to refrain from equalising initiatives unless we are quite certain they will not backfire. ... the idea that we must be alert to the unintended consequences of policies meant to reduce inequality is rather different, and rather more helpful, than the idea that inequality as such threatens the stability of the economy.

August 30 ...

In 30 BC (on Aug. 30, by some estimates), the seventh and most famous queen of ancient Egypt known as "Cleopatra" committed suicide. In 1862 Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, VA. In 1905 Ty Cobb made his major-league debut as a player for the Detroit Tigers, hitting a double in his first at-bat in a game against the New York Highlanders (later known as the Yankees); the Tigers won, 5-3. In 1941 the World War II siege of Leningrad began as Nazi forces took the strategic railroad town of Mga. In 1945 Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Japan, and set up Allied occupation headquarters. In 1963 the "Hot Line" communications link between Washington and Moscow went into operation. In 1967 the Senate confirmed the appointment of Thurgood Marshall as the first black justice on the Supreme Court. In 1983 Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first black American astronaut to travel in space, blasting off aboard the Challenger. In 1991 Azerbaijan declared its independence, joining the stampede of republics seeking to secede from the Soviet Union. In 1995 the West pounded the Bosnian Serbs with artillery and air attacks in hopes of bludgeoning them into serious peace talks. In 2004 the Republicans opened their national convention in New York City.

James Taranto on "Why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting."

Taranto writes:

The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.'

Read the whole piece.

August 29 ...

In 1533 the last Incan King of Peru, Atahualpa, was murdered on orders of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. In 1632 philosopher John Locke was born in Somerset, England. In 1786 Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, began in response to high debt and tax burdens; the rebellion led many to question the efficacy of the Articles of Confederation, and subsequently led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which produced the US Constitution. In 1809 physician, writer, and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was born in Cambridge, MA. In 1877 the second president of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young, died in Salt Lake City, UT. In 1898 screenwriter and director Preston Sturges was born in Chicago, IL. In 1915 actress Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1943 responding to a clampdown by Nazi occupiers, Denmark managed to scuttle most of its naval ships. In 1944 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris as the French capital continued to celebrate its liberation from the Nazis. In 1957 South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond (then a Democrat) ended a filibuster against a civil rights bill after talking for more than 24 hours. In 1965 Gemini Five, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles ("Pete") Conrad, splashed down in the Atlantic after eight days in space. In 1966 The Beatles concluded their fourth American tour with their last public concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In 1981 broadcaster and world traveler Lowell Thomas died in Pawling, NY, at age 89. In 2004 Tropical Storm Gaston made landfall in South Carolina at near-hurricane strength; also on this day, protesters filling 20 city blocks peacefully swarmed Manhattan's streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that President Bush be turned out of office. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the US Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and costing over $100 billion in damage; it was the worst natural disaster in US history.

This is no surprise to anyone paying attention, but it bears repeating for members of the so-called 'open-minded' Left so incredibly mired in groupthink.

The Examiner's Mark Tapscott writes:

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

Disclosure of the heavily Democratic contributions by influential employees of the three major broadcast networks follows on the heels of controversy last week when it was learned that media baron Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp. contributed $1 million to the Republican Governors Association.

Read the whole piece.

On this day 55 years ago, in what is considered one of the singularly most important events that triggered the civil rights movement in the US, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black kid from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, MS, by two white men after he had supposedly whistled at a white woman. He was found brutally murdered three days later. (Two men charged with Till's murder -- Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam -- were acquitted at trial. They later confessed in a magazine article to beating and shooting Till.)

US News & World Report's publisher Mortimer Zuckerman:

Federal spending is moving toward a higher plateau -- from roughly 18 percent of the GDP to almost 25 percent by 2030. We don't know how we are going to pay for this. We don't know how the economy would fare with much higher taxes. We have seen the clouds gathering for years but haven't invested in an umbrella by adjusting federal retirement programs or taking other steps to reduce entitlements.... The United States simply seems to lack a system that can fund the government that the people say they want. We are good at crises, but we do not seem to be good at tackling chronic problems. If we wait until a crisis happens, it will be too late. It is simply not possible to close the gap entirely with the tax increases on the rich that Democratic liberals so desperately believe in. Nor can we close the gap with spending cuts, as the Republicans would like. The liberals will have to concede that benefits and spending ought to be reduced. Conservatives will have to concede the need for higher taxes.

Hope may lie in a new bipartisan panel headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, two unique, wise, and centrist political leaders whose characters raise some degree of confidence that they might be able to come forth with productive programs. As former President Clinton said of them, they "are free enough to disregard the polls but smart enough to take them into account."

But let's not forget, current budgetary trends are capable of destroying the country. As Bowles pointed out, according to a Washington Post report, we can't just grow our way out of this. We can't just tax our way out of this. We have to do what governors do?cut spending or increase revenues in some combination that will begin to pull us back from the cliff.

Obama must know that if he doesn't address this, he will be the president who drove us toward a debt crisis. And so too must Congress, for both have now participated in the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.

August 28 ...

In 1609 Henry Hudson discovered Delaware Bay. In 1749 writer Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was born in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. In 1774 Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint was born in New York City. In 1916 Italy's declaration of war against Germany took effect during World War I. In 1955 Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, MS, by two white men after he had supposedly whistled at a white woman. He was found brutally murdered three days later. (Two men charged with Till's murder -- Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam -- were acquitted at trial. They later confessed in a magazine article to beating and shooting Till.) In 1963 200,000 people participated in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington DC, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. In 1968 police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic national convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president. In 1995 a mortar shell tore through a crowded market in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, killing 38 people and triggering NATO airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs. In 1996 Democrats nominated President Clinton for a second term at their national convention in Chicago. In 2004 Islamic militants claiming to be holding two French journalists in Iraq gave France 48 hours to overturn the law banning the wearing of Islamic head scarves in schools. (The reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were released in December 2004.) In 2005 a mandatory evacuation was ordered by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco as Hurricane Katrina moved nearer to Louisiana; the hurricane made landfall the next day.

Bloomberg's Matthew Brown reports:

Investors face defaults on government bonds given the burden of aging populations and the difficulty of increasing tax revenue, according to a Morgan Stanley executive director.

"Governments will impose a loss on some of their stakeholders," Arnaud Mares in the firm's London office wrote in a research report today. "The question is not whether they will renege on their promises, but rather upon which of their promises they will renege, and what form this default will take." The sovereign-debt crisis is global "and it is not over," he wrote.

Rather than miss principal and interest payments, governments may choose a 'soft' default in which they pay back debts with devalued currencies resulting from faster inflation or force creditors to take lower returns, Mares said ... Population trends may be a better predictor of the ability to meet obligations rather than debt as a percentage of gross domestic product, which doesn't reflect governments' available revenue and is "backward-looking," Mares wrote.

While the U.S. government's debt is 53 percent of GDP, one of the lowest ratios among developed nations, its debt as a percentage of revenue is 358 percent, one of the highest, the report said. Italy has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios, at 116 percent, yet has a debt-to-revenue ratio of 188, Mares said.

The Orlando Sentinel's Marissa Cevallos reports:

... people who sit more than 6 hours a day are more likely to die earlier.

That's even for people who exercise regularly after long sit-a-thons at the office and aren't obese.

That's the sobering news from a new study that tracked more than 100,000 adults for 14 years. Researchers from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta followed 53,000 men and 70,000 women and asked them to fill out questionnaires about their physical activity.

Even after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and smoking, the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die.

August 27 ...

In 1770 German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Stuttgart. In 1883 the island volcano Krakatoa blew up; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia's Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000 lives in Java and Sumatra. In 1894 Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, which contained a provision for a graduated income tax that was later struck down by the Supreme Court. In 1908 Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the US, was born near Stonewall, TX. In 1928 the Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes, was signed by eleven countries in Paris (four others proclaimed support and signed later); 62 countries eventually signed the pact. In 1945 American troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in World War II. In 1962 the US launched the Mariner 2 space probe, the first space probe to reach the vicinity of another planet; it flew past Venus in December. In 1975 Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia's 3,000-year-old monarchy, died in Addis Ababa at age 83, almost a year after being overthrown. In 1979 British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion claimed by the Irish Republican Army. In 2004 President Bush signed executive orders designed to strengthen the CIA director's power over the nation's intelligence agencies and create a national counter-terrorism center.

So we've won the prize. Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.

-- P.J. O' Rourke, "Social Security: Graft for the Millions," in Parliament of Whores (1991)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie:

August 26 ...

In 55 BC Roman forces under Julius Caesar invaded Britain. In 1873 inventor of the Audion tube Lee Deforest was born in Council Bluffs, IA. In 1883 the island volcano Krakatoa began two days of eruptions with increasingly large explosions, leading to the deaths of about 36,000 people. In 1936 the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, calling for most British troops to leave Egypt (except those guarding the Suez Canal) was signed in Montreux, Switzerland (it was abrogated by Egypt in 1951). In 1939 the first Major League Baseball game was telecast, a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn, NY. In 1957 the Soviet Union announced it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson was nominated for a term of office in his own right at the Democratic national convention in Atlantic City, NJ. In 1968 the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, IL. In 1974 Charles Lindbergh -- the first man to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic -- died at his home in Hawaii at age 72. In 1978 Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice was elected the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church following the death of Paul VI. The new pontiff took the name Pope John Paul I. In 2009 Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy died at the age of 77 after a battle with cancer.

Pretty cool.

"Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail. "

CNET's Declan McCullagh reports:

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini offered a depressing set of observations about the economy and the Obama administration Monday evening, coupled with a dark commentary on the future of the technology industry if nothing changes.

Otellini's remarks during dinner at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum here amounted to a warning to the administration officials and assorted Capitol Hill aides in the audience: Unless government policies are altered, he predicted, "the next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here."

The U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business, Otellini said, that there is likely to be "an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we're seeing today in Europe--this is the bitter truth."

Not long ago, Otellini said, "our research centers were without peer. No country was more attractive for start-up capital... We seemed a generation ahead of the rest of the world in information technology. That simply is no longer the case."
...

Otellini singled out the political state of affairs in Democrat-dominated Washington, saying: "I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs. And I think they're flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working."
...

As a result, he said, "every business in America has a list of more variables than I've ever seen in my career." If variables like capital gains taxes and the R&D tax credit are resolved correctly, jobs will stay here, but if politicians make decisions "the wrong way, people will not invest in the United States. They'll invest elsewhere."

Take factories. "I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States," Otellini said.

Read the whole piece.

August 25 ...

In 1718 the city of New Orleans was founded. In 1814 during the War of 1812, British forces burned many public buildings in Washington, DC, including the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives, the Library of Congress, and the Treasury building. In 1825 Uruguay declares its independence from Brazil. In 1830 Belgium revolts from the Netherlands. In 1916 the National Park Service was established within the Department of the Interior. In 1921 the US signed a peace treaty with Germany. In 1943 US forces overran New Georgia in the Solomon Islands during World War II. In 1944 Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation; also on this day Romania declared war on Germany. In 1950 President Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike. In 1981 Voyager 2 sent back pictures and data about Saturn. The craft came within 63,000 miles of the planet. In 1985 Samantha Smith, the schoolgirl whose letter to Yuri V. Andropov resulted in her famous peace tour of the Soviet Union, died with her father in an airliner crash in Maine. In 1989 Voyager 2 spacecraft flies by Neptune, the last major planet it could visit before leaving the Solar System.In 1991 Byelorussia declared independence from the Soviet Union. In 1998 retired Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell died in Richmond, VA at age 90. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina made her first landfall in the US, crossing the Miami-Dade and Broward county line as a Category 1 hurricane.

Classic. The beginning of a new and heated rivalry... watch this until the end.

According to a report from the CBS-owned Chicago television station, the identity of the lone holdout on some of the counts against former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been revealed.

Since I am not sure of the ethics or legality of exposing the identity of a jury member, I am not linking to the story.

That said, it should surprise no one that the juror is a retired Illinois state worker, and that this person was apparently the lone holdout on up to a quarter of the counts against Blagoyevich.

This is simply another indication of the depth of corruption in Chicago and Cook County, which is not solely the province of elected officials,-- political sleaziness in Chicago runs several, several layers deep.

August 26 ...

In 55 BC Roman forces under Julius Caesar invaded Britain. In 1873 inventor of the Audion tube Lee Deforest was born in Council Bluffs, IA. In 1883 the island volcano Krakatoa began two days of eruptions with increasingly large explosions, leading to the deaths of about 36,000 people. In 1936 the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, calling for most British troops to leave Egypt (except those guarding the Suez Canal) was signed in Montreux, Switzerland (it was abrogated by Egypt in 1951). In 1939 the first Major League Baseball game was telecast, a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn, NY. In 1957 the Soviet Union announced it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson was nominated for a term of office in his own right at the Democratic national convention in Atlantic City, NJ. In 1968 the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, IL. In 1974 Charles Lindbergh -- the first man to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic -- died at his home in Hawaii at age 72. In 1978 Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice was elected the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church following the death of Paul VI. The new pontiff took the name Pope John Paul I. In 2009 Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy died at the age of 77 after a battle with cancer.

Reason magazine's Matt Welch examines some spin printed in the New Yorker. I know, it's utterly shocking...

Wow.

Washington (Rooters) -- The Obama Administration will name Vandelay Industries CEO George Costanza to a top White House advisory position in the next week, Rooters has learned.

Costanza will become President Obama's top "Do the Exact Opposite of What the President Thinks" advisor, specifically targeting domestic and economic policy, sources told Rooters.

The move, experts say, is designed to stem President Obama's declining approval ratings and to boost congressional Democrats' chances in the November midterm elections.

Political experts praised the move, saying that while "unexpected," it is "brilliant."

"It's vintage Barack Obama. This move is brilliant," one political expert said. "It may well change the course of the November midterms in the Democrats' favor. They may actually pick up House seats now, as a result. The adaptability of this man's soaring intellect is awe-inspiring, and never ceases to amaze."

Another political expert, who wished to remain anonymous, said the move, "while unexpected, was brilliant, and sent a thrill up both my legs and halfway up my left arm to a spot just above my elbow."

Costanza, who has graduate degrees in marine biology and architecture, is credited with turning Vandelay Industries into the world's leading producer of latex.

His business experience, which is deep and varied -- including stints in the real estate, computer, fashion, professional sports, and publishing industries -- is not without controversy, however.

Costanza's employment at Pendant Publishing, a New York-based trade and paperback book publisher, ended in controversy when he was accused of sexual misconduct stemming from his romantic involvement with a co-worker, including allegations of sexual liaisons on company premises.

Vandelay Industry spokesman Cosmo Kramer addressed the sexual misconduct charge by saying that Costanza's relationship was "consensual," and that "if [Costanza] had known that having sex on his office desk with a co-worker was in any way frowned upon, he would never have acted on his impulses.

"Mr. Costanza deeply regrets any embarrassment he caused his former employer and has put the past behind him. He looks forward to his entry into public service, and relishes the chance to serve his country, because he believes -- and this is a direct quote: 'We're living in a society here.'"

A White House spokesman said the sexual misconduct charge against Costanza was "old news."


(My thanks for providing the inspiration for this piece goes to the LA Times Top of the Ticket commenter "nothing like change," and of course to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld.)

Time magazine's Mark Halperin:

In a move as predictable as Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, Democrats are using Social Security scare tactics to gain ground before the November election. President Barack Obama is not only tolerating this classic old politics maneuver by his party -- he is leading the charge.

Amid a flurry of Democratic Party news releases and press conferences warning voters that Republicans are targeting Social Security for destruction, the President devoted his radio and Internet address last week to commemorating the 75th anniversary of the signing of the law that created the program. He cautioned that "some Republican leaders in Congress don't seem to have learned any lessons" from the past and are "pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress." This familiar refrain might indeed help the Democrats limit their midterm losses, but Obama's involvement shows that on this issue he is putting party before bipartisanship ... Obama is living in a parallel Vulcan universe if he thinks he and his strategists can spend the next two months using campaign appearances, advertising, robocalls and other voter communication to demonize Republicans on Social Security, and then turn around in January and try to make a deal on that same issue.
...

It is hard to imagine that Obama can be the leader of such a process in 2011 if he takes the current, sky-high level of personal and political mistrust and elevates it further by using Social Security as a weapon of distortion in September and October. And yet it appears that the White House believes there is no contradiction or connection between those two sequential presidential goals.

Read the whole piece.

August 23 ...

In 1305 William Wallace, a Scottish patriot and the leader of a revolt against England's King Edward I, was brutally executed. In 1754 France's King Louis XVI was born at Versailles. In 1785 US naval hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingston, RI. In 1914 Japan declared war against Germany in World War I. In 1926 silent film star Rudolph Valentino died in New York at age 31. In 1927 Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. In 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In 1944 Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescu was dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies. In 1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon. In 1972 the Republican national convention nominated President Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for a second term in Miami Beach, FL. In 1979 Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York. In 1982 Lebanon's parliament elected Christian militia leader Bashir Gemayel president. (However, Gemayel was assassinated some three weeks later.) In 1989 in a case that inflamed racial tensions in New York City, Yusuf Hawkins, a 16-year-old black youth, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by white youths in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. In 1990 Saddam Hussein appeared on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages to try to prevent the Gulf War); also on this day, Armenia declared its independence from the Soviet Union, and West Germany and East Germany announced that they would unite on October 3, 1990. In 1996 Osama bin Laden issued a message entitled 'A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.'

August 22 ...

In 1485 England's King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the War of the Roses. In 1775 Britain's King George III proclaimed the American colonies in a state of open rebellion. In 1787 inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat on the Delaware River to delegates of the Continental Congress. In 1846 the US annexed New Mexico. In 1851 the schooner America outraced the Aurora off the English coast to win a trophy that came to be known as the America's Cup. In 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first US chief executive to ride in an automobile, in Hartford, CT. In 1911 it was announced in Paris that Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa had been stolen from the Louvre Museum the night before. (The painting turned up two years later, in Italy.) In 1920 science fiction novelist Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, IL; also on this day world-renowned heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley was born in Houston, TX. In 1941 Nazi troops reached the outskirts of Leningrad, leading the seige of the city. In 1956 President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were nominated for second terms in office by the Republican national convention in San Francisco. In 1978 President Jomo Kenyatta, a leading figure in Kenya's struggle for independence, died; Vice President Daniel Arap Moi was sworn in as acting president. In 2004 as shocked spectators watched, armed thieves stole one of four versions of the Edvard Munch masterpiece The Scream and a second Munch painting, Madonna, from the Munch museum in Oslo, Norway.

From the Philadelphia Zoo, here's something you don't see everyday...

On this day in 1990, West Germany and East Germany announced that the reunification of Germany would officially take place on October 3 of that year. Also on that day, Armenia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

August 24 ...

In 79 AD long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash. An estimated 20,000 people died. In 1572 the slaughter of French Protestants at the hands of Catholics began in Paris. In 1814 British forces invaded Washington DC, setting fire to the Capitol and the White House. In 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ, in just over 19 hours. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty went into effect. In 1954 the Communist Control Act went into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the US. In 1968 France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific. In 1970 a bomb planted by anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht, and injuring four others. In 1981 Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for slaying rock star John Lennon. In 1989 the US space probe Voyager 2 sent back photographs of Neptune; also on this day, Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Pete Rose from the game for gambling. In 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; also on this day, Ukraine declareed itself independent from the Soviet Union. In 1995 China expelled Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu, hours after convicting him of spying.

From the Telegraph:

Television images showed the sand coloured Qiam (Rising) blasting into the air from a desert terrain, amid chants of "Allahu Akbar"...

Nothing to worry about here, folks. Move along....

These people are very serious.

The Scotsman's Shan Ross reports: (emphasis added)

A climate change protester managed to breach security at the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland by making an appointment to speak to an adviser and then glued herself to a desk.

The woman dressed in bank worker-style clothes to avoid detection by police and bank security guards before the stunt yesterday.

An hour later, shortly before noon, up to 150 protesters managed to get past security guards and into the bank's grounds at Gogarburn.

They danced round the perimeter of the building while music blared out from a sound system mounted on a bike.
...

Last night, organisers for the Camp for Climate Action praised the "non-violent" protest action.

Dan Glass, a member of the camp's media team, said: "I think the protests today, especially the woman's actions, have been brilliant. They were a strong and legitimate form of protest aimed at stopping a higher crime - that of RBS's role in financing fims who are destroying the environment.

"Civil disobedience can play a strong and legitimate role in public protest and what happened today was highly creative.

Mr Glass added: "RBS themselves at Gogarburn have been quite nice to us providing things like water but we are not going to be fooled by their nicey-nicey attitude."

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars public policy scholar Aaron David Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times, "President Obama, like most of our consequential presidents, arrived at the right time; unlike them, he may have badly misread his moment, and America's."

He further writes:

Woody Allen got it wrong. Ninety percent of success in life isn't just showing up; it's showing up at the right time and knowing what to do once you get there.

Barack Obama has gotten it half right then. Like most of our consequential presidents, he arrived at the right time; unlike them, he may have badly misread his moment, and America's.

This intuitive capacity (or lack of it) to read the nation's mood and circumstances accurately is a crucial component of effective leadership. In Obama's case, it may well be that who he is and what he has wanted have prevented him from seeing clearly what most Americans want and need.

Read the whole piece.

August 21 ...

In 1831 former slave Nat Turner led a violent insurrection in Virginia. (He was later executed.) In 1858 the famous debates between Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas began. In 1878 the American Bar Association was founded in Saratoga, NY. In 1888 the adding machine was patented by William Burroughs. In 1904 jazz great William "Count" Basie was born in Red Bank, NJ. In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen by a Louvre employee. In 1940 exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died in Mexico City from wounds inflicted in an assassination attempt by a Stalinist agent. In 1944 the US, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China opened talks at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington that helped pave the way for establishment of the UN. In 1945 President Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's allies during World War II. In 1959 President Eisenhower signed an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. In 1986 carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing over 1700 people up to 20 kilometers away. In 1991 the hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin; also on this day, Latvia declared its full independence from the Soviet Union. In 1993 in a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft as it was about to reach the Red Planet. In 1995 ABC News settled a $10 billion libel suit by apologizing to Philip Morris for reporting the tobacco giant had manipulated the amount of nicotine in its cigarettes; also on this day, a suicide bomber set off an explosion that tore through two crowded Israeli commuter buses, killing five others. In 2000 rescue efforts to reach the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk ended with divers announcing none of the 118 sailors had survived.

Jennifer Rubin:

To be blunt, Obama suffers from a lifetime of others excessively praising his intellect. It insulates him from ideas and facts that conflict with his pre-existing liberal rubric (so 'every economist' believed his stimulus would work). It leaves him unprepared to engage in real debate with informed opponents (e.g. the health-care summit). It skews his understanding of how geopolitics works, as he imagines that his own wonderfulness can sway adversaries and override nations' fundamental interests (the Middle East).
...

The image of himself clashes with the results he achieves and the reaction he inspires. No wonder he's so prickly. You'd be, too, if everyone your entire life had told you that you were swell but now, when the chips are down and the spotlight is on, you are failing so badly in your job.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Steve Huntley:

President Obama has been getting a lot of mileage in campaign appearances with his automobile analogy about Bush administration policies driving the country into a ditch. He talks about "D" standing for Democrats and driving the country forward and "R" representing Republicans and going backward. The problem with this analogy is that cars have a reverse gear for a reason, and sometimes it's useful for getting out of trouble.

Anyone who reads this site knows there are few as critical of the disgusting, systemic corruption that defines the Chicago Democratic Party.

However, the publishing of the name of the holdout jurist in the Blagojevich trial by Chicago's CBS affiliate is absolutely outrageous, and the people responsible should pay some consequences for that action.

As corrupt and sleazy as I suspect the jurist's motives are in this matter, the publishing of the jurist's name is beyond the pale, and should be repudiated vigorously.

Is this the best "It's Bush's Fault" yet?

From Fox News:

Embattled Rep. Maxine Waters on Friday blamed the Bush administration for her ethics problems -- saying she had to intervene with the Treasury Department on behalf of minority-owned banks seeking federal bailout funds -- including one tied to her husband -- because the Treasury Department wouldn't schedule its own appointments.

On this day in 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

August 20 ...

In 1818 novelist Emily Bronte was born in Yorkshire, England. In 1833 23rd President of the US Benjamin Harrison, was born in North Bend, OH. His grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was the ninth US president. In 1866 President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after the fighting had stopped. In 1882 Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuted in Moscow. In 1914 German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I. In 1918 Britain opened its offensive on the Western front during World War I. In 1940 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." In 1953 the Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb. In 1955 hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria. In 1964 President Johnson signed a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure. In 1968 the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek's regime. In 1975 NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars. In 1977 the US launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature. In 1982 a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon. In 1991 more than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev; also on this day, Estonia reclaimed its independence and seceded from the Soviet Union after being occupied by the Soviets for more than 50 years. In 1998 US military forces attacked an al Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan with cruise missiles; also on this day, the UN Security Council extended trade sanctions against Iraq for blocking arms inspections.

John Stossel:

Last weekend, President Obama pandered for votes by trashing Social Security privatization.

"I'd have thought that debate would've been put to rest once and for all by the financial crisis we've just experienced," Obama said. "(N)o one would want to place bets with Social Security on Wall Street" (http://tinyurl.com/28mkgqs).

Such demagoguery sells. It's probably been poll-tested. Many Americans fear privatizing anything they've come to view as government work. They object to privately managed roads, independent charter schools, private prisons, etc., despite private companies' repeated success at providing better service while lowering costs.

Private retirement accounts seem particularly threatening. Rep. Paul Ryan includes a version in his budget-reform package (http://tinyurl.com/2u6jaw7). But as The Washington Post said, "(F)ew GOP lawmakers today support the idea...."

What a shame.