'The Apartment' Open Thread

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Terrance Takes Ms. Parker to Task

Pundit and part time TV personality Kathleen Parker has offered some commentary on the changing face of the Republican party:

"Republicans aren’t really stupid, of course, and Begala acknowledges this. But, as he also pointed out, the conservative brain trust once led by William F. Buckley has been supplanted by talk radio hosts who love to quote Buckley (and boast of his friendship) but who do not share the man’s pedigree or his nimble mind."

To which Terrance observes:

The intimation is that people who "boast" of being Buckley's friends couldn't really have been such because they don't have the same sparkling wit and intellectual class as Buckley himself. Of course, that would mean that Buckley had almost no friends, since few were his intellectual equals.

And hoisting Ms. Parker on her own petard

To imply that someone else's talk about a personal friendship is meaningless with no evidence other than that the friends have differences is not only anti-intellectual because no proof is given, it also betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of friendship.

Nice.

Read the whole thing here.

- These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For...

With a pronouncement of such hyperbole that it bordered on the absurd, Democrat Henry Waxman professed to Obama Administration Energy Secretary Steven Chu that the Administration's failed investment in Solyndra saved the world from fires, droughts and floods.

“I want to put this in perspective Dr. Chu,” Waxman told Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the Solyndra failure. “You’ve been trying to move our nation toward a clean energy economy. And that’s essential to protect American families from fires and droughts and floods and other extreme weather that climate change will bring.”

What?!

The curious comments came during Dr. Chu's halting testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That's half a billion tax payer dollars that went down the tubes, but according to Waxman's way of thinking, who really cares? In fact, to decry the waste of the $535-million loan is a trick of party politics.

“My Republican colleagues on this committee have been trying to block these efforts [green subsidies] every step of the way. Republicans in Congress and their allies in the coal and oil industry oppose efforts to put a price on carbon pollution. They oppose funding research into new clean energy technologies. They oppose investment in clean energy companies which – like Solyndra – would produce new technologies. I think you’re on the right side of history. The Republicans are on the wrong side and I think what they’re doing is leading us astray”

Oh, so the guys that are blowing billions of dollars on failed start-ups in a technology industry with a strikingly limited market are the guys on the right side of history? The guys pulling out with millions of dollars while the US tax payers are on the hook for billions, these are the guys on the right side of history? No Mr. Waxman, they are not on the right side of history, and you sir, are no on the right side of history.

“What Congress should be doing on energy policy is to encourage development of new energy sources so that we don’t have to rely on oil and coal and nuclear,” he said.

Nope. What congress should be doing on energy policy is take steps to increase the production of energy here in the United States, not blow soap bubbles or use tax payer funds to dream up pie in the sky solutions.

"We've lost the money. There’s nothing there. Move along.”

“We have lost the money, it’s unfortunate, but there’s no scandal there,” said Waxman. “There’s nothing there.”

Who does this guy think he is?!

A Chequer-board of Nights and Days Shines Light on the Solyndra Scandal

Paul Krugman, the 'brilliant' New York Times columnist never troubled himself very much over the Solyndra scandal, as his brush off back in September showed:

The Solyndra Scandal

Haven’t written about this. But it is indeed a terrible scandal, because the private sector never ever puts money into ventures that end up failing.

Totally missing the point. But it did give occasion for one of our fav writers, Pejman Yousefzadeh of A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days to have at it time and time again:

I guess this means that the people who repeatedly told us during the debt ceiling crisis that it would be terrible for the U.S. to default (a position I agreed with then, and agree with now), are presently telling us that it isn’t newsworthy that a government-backed business defaulted on loans that it had to pay back to the United States government.

Yes, default is unthinkable for the US government, that would be irresponsible, but for companies the government loans its money to, why they can default all week long, and twice on Sundays, and we're not in the least bit troubled by it.

And now The Washington Post reports:

The Obama administration, which gave the solar company Solyndra a half-billion-dollar loan to help create jobs, asked the company to delay announcing it would lay off workers until after the hotly contested November 2010 midterm elections that imperiled Democratic control of Congress, newly released e-mails show.

To sum up the Obama administration, the government's got tons of money to throw around, sure. That's not the problem. The problem is you and I aren't putting out our fair share to pay on the debt they've been piling up.

Sheesh.

Everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney

The sensible and acerbic Ann Coulter has issued an affectionate slap across the face of the conservative faithful:

"The mainstream media keep pushing alternatives to Mitt Romney not only because they are terrified of running against him, but also because they want to keep Republicans fighting, allowing Democrats to get a four-month jump on us.

Meanwhile, everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney."

I'm not so sure, Annie.

First off, no one's voted yet. Second, Romney puts our collective feet to sleep. I'm sure he will make a fine president, but let's not bear down just yet for the Romnification of America. Any one of those candidates running for president would be a much better choice than the one we have now. You know it, and I know it. Let the big dogs run awhile. No need to rush forward into what you may live to regret, and for the rest of your life.

Loretta: "Twice I took the name of the Lord in vain, once I slept with the brother of my fiancee, and once I bounced a check at the liquor store, but that was really an accident."

Priest: "Then it's not a sin. But... what was that second thing you said, Loretta?"

Kagan Country

We all wondered about the remarkable mind numbing silence Elena Kagan offered on most any probative question during her confirmation hearings, but this latest offered by the CNS News Service makes you wonder what she could possibly be thinking:

"On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the day the House of Representatives passed President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan and famed Supreme Court litigator and Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe, who was then serving in the Justice Department, had an email exchange in which they discussed the pending health-care vote, according to documents the Department of Justice released late Wednesday to the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com's parent organization, and to Judicial Watch.

“I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing,” Kagan said to Tribe in one of the emails."

Boy, that must have been really exciting news for the Supreme Court Justice, who next year will be asked to rule on the constitutionality of that very same piece of exciting legislation.

28 U.S. Code Section 455 stipulates that a justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”

"The Justice Department released a new batch of emails on Wednesday evening as its latest response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by CNSNews.com and Judicial Watch. Both organizations filed federal lawsuits against DOJ after the department did not initially respond to the requests. CNSNews.com originally filed its FOIA request on May 25, 2010--before Elena Kagan's June 2010 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

The March 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe raises new questions about whether Kagan must recuse herself from judging cases involving the health-care law that Obama signed--and which became the target of legal challenges--while Kagan was serving as Obama's solicitor general and was responsible for defending his administration’s positions in court disputes."

So, she is a partisan, and she lacks the judgment to make simple decisions like recognizing when she is no longer impartial on an issue. And this person we confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice.

Unbelievable.

- 'Dr. Zhivago' Open Thread

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