URLs du Jour

2008-06-06

  • As I type, the Red Sox magic number for winning the AL East stands at a nice round 100. After last night's game ("good parts" ably recounted by Red of Surviving Grady) you have to wonder who'll be left standing in October.

  • Bad news: the unemployment rate is up. Missing from most MSM news stories: the term "minimum wage." Captain Ed is on the ball though.

    When the minimum wage increase was under debate last year, many of us warned that it would have precisely this effect. Now we see it unfolding before our eyes. Will the Democrats acknowledge the error and take the blame for hundreds of thousands of jobs lost to their economic meddling — or will they try to shift the blame to the Bush administration for no good reason at all?

    Suggested verbiage for Dems: "Sure, you're out of work. But thanks to us, you're out of better-paid work."

  • In at least temporary good news, the Lieberman/Warner Cap-n-Trade bill is dead for the year.
    Apparently three days of debate was enough for what many senators called "the most important issue facing the planet."

    With little chance of winning passage of a sweeping 500-page global warming bill, the Senate Democratic leadership is planning to yank the legislation after failing to achieve the 60-vote threshold needed to move the bill to the next stage. After a 48-36 vote on the climate change bill, the Senate is likely to move on to a separate energy debate next week.

    But you really shouldn't feel too relieved:

    Democrats did not go into the debate expecting passage of the legislation, but they did celebrate a marginal increase in support for the cap-and-trade system for emissions that was the centerpiece of the bill. Similar legislation in previous years did not even come close to getting 50 votes in the Senate, so Friday morning's vote was a moral victory of sorts. Several senators who missed the vote, including Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), would have voted for the bill, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on the Senate floor this morning, meaning the legislation had the support of the majority of the Senate.

    The debate in many ways was about setting the stage for a more serious climate change effort under the next president. While President Bush would have vetoed any cap-and-trade bill this year, both McCain and Obama back some form of mandatory emissions reduction, so this debate will gain serious traction again next year.

    "We're getting ready for the next president of the United States, who we know ... will be hospitable to this bill," Boxer said.

    Great. The roll call is here. (Senator Sununu, how could you?)

  • But there's not even temporary good news on the stupid Farm Bill, which passed the House and Senate with veto-proof margins. Comments Dan McLaughlin at Red State: "Like all really horrendous things to come out of Washington, this load of legislative fertilizer has broad bipartisan support." (But Senator Sununu was one of the few Republicans to vote against it. You're forgiven for the Lieberman/Warner vote, Senator!)

  • The coveted Pun Salad Read the Whole Thing Award for today goes to this interview with Mr. Clint Eastwood in the Guardian. Topics are varied, including Spike Lee, Dirty Harry, and a little bit of politics:
    But though he has been associated in the public mind with Republican viewpoints, he's something of an individualist. "I don't pay attention to either side," he claims. "I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair. So I believe in that value of smaller government. Give politicians power and all of a sudden they'll misuse it on ya."
    Yesssss! Too bad neither major party is bothering even to pay lip service to that notion any more.

    Sensitive souls beware: Mr. Eastwood uses occasional strong language. Are you gonna tell him he can't?