“….their poop stains make them stand out from space.”
Dahlia Lithwick sticks up for Clarence Thomas’ intellect.
I got you this otter baby.
Head of largest network of libertarian newspapers in the country is the new CEO for Playboy Enterprises.
Bob Barr takes to the NY Times to call for a new trial Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis. You’d think the case would shake Barr’s devotion to the death penalty a bit. Apparently not. Meanwhile, Scott Greenfield takes Barr to task, noting that a bill Barr sponsored is what’s getting in the way of having Davis’ claims heard in court.
Meet the 31-year-old Obama has put in charge of “dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.” He has no business training. His work experience consists of campaigns, politics, and a stint at a foreign aid organization. Welcome to the planned economy.
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TheAgitator.com
Head of largest network of libertarian newspapers in the country is the new CEO for Playboy Enterprises.
Needs a link.
In the near future our entire lives, from cradle to grave, will be planned and managed by elitist graduates of Harvard and Yale.
@#2: Your comment rings true, and this scares the living shit out of me.
/Can we at least get a few Iowa graduates to handle the agriculture areas?
//Go Hawks!
///Seriously, more sensible people, less ivy league, thank you very much.
He is not a Yale graduate, the article says he is a “not-quite graduate of Yale Law School.”
This kid, with no real-world experience in what he has been assigned to do, is working on one of the most important economic issues of our times? Really?!?!?! I mean, he is neither an economist nor a auto industry expert. WTF is Obama thinking?
This is worse than putting “Browne” in charge of FEMA!
So after reading the article about Deese, I’m still not sure why he’s qualified to be handling the auto issue. He has no training in economics and worked for the Clinton campaign. Great job of reporting(as always) by the Times.
Considering how many people in the auto industry have lost their jobs over the years, it’s a little disheartening to see this kid who will end up as a career academic running the show. I wonder if he helped Geithner come up with the plan to f*$k over the GM bondholders? it seems like a very “college” thing to do.
I think GM and Chrysler should have been sold for parts.
I think the resulting consequences (including the unemployment) would have been less economically devastating than the bailout (now being referred to as a bankruptcy filing). The mere suggestion that a partnership between government and the auto unions can make the car companies profitable is preposterous. The fact that the population hasn’t rejected it outright doesn’t say much for the raw material of democracy. It’s bad enough that GM and Chrysler have become huge black holes of corporate welfare, but now the auto unions are going to be a continuing influence and an additional welfare constituency long into the future.
I can’t help but feel like Deese is being set up as a fall guy somehow. Either that, or the admin genuinely likes his ideas because nobody knows any better. Either way, it doesn’t end well.
From anti-intellectuals to pseudo-intellectuals. I am so absolutely floored by Deese. Nando made a very good observation, this is an awful appointment of W. proportions.
Obama wasn’t qualified to be President, why should we now care that he is appointing people who are not qualified for there jobs?
Having recently read Amity Shlaes excellent paperback edition on the Great Depression “The Forgotten Man”, I was thunderstruck by the similiarities between Obama’s current State-Run Industries efforts, and the FDR Braintrust’s similar efforts. All ultimately FUTILE folly.
FDR had a bunch of mostly young academics that had never run a kindergarten picnic put in charge of enormous new government programs. Sound familiar?
Even a coincidental media focus on FDR’s first 100 days, and now a media-lovefest over Obama’s first 100’s days.
And, it was the author’s conclusion that the persistent anti-big business attitude of especially FDR and most of his close advisors prolonged a Recovery that was always Recovering……but never did of course recover until the U.S. government started building up the military infrastructure prior to WWII, in 1939-41, with sustained MILITARY spending programs.
Not wasteful pork-barrel spending infrastructure or Make-Work WPA projects, but military bases, shipyards, airplane plants, weapon systems, and millions of men in uniform.
Look historically at the result of ramming a planned economy down the throats of previously free people. Do you think a McCain administration would do anything so radical, with such universal detriment to the economic freedom of all Americans?
Which begs the question, why do you still prefer Obama to McCain? I really would like to know the specific reasons for this.
Putting aside arguments against government intervention into industry in general, I can’t get myself specifically worked up about Deese. This isn’t to say that government intervention is a good idea but simply that I have no *more* of a problem with Deese than I’d have with anyone else in the same position.
First of all, the article is terribly misleading to say that he’s in charge of anything. He’s described as being the most *influential voice* due to the fact that people like his ideas. In other words, he works for Obama’s economics team and *because* he came up with what they consider to be good ideas he has placed himself into a position where he has a large amount of influence. He has no inherent decision making authority, no say in things, no veto pen, no unchecked authority. This is far different from what is implied, which is that he was picked from a hat and placed in charge without any experience.
In a different context, many folks on this site would lionize such a person who, without formal narrow training or expertise rose to a position of influence simply by coming up with good ideas. In a different context, many folks on this site would argue that it is an asset to have an outside perspective without formal training. What if you wanted to put someone in charge of reforming the justice system by ending the drug war and restoring the police to their intended purpose of serving and protecting rather than treating citizens as criminal by default? Would a person with formal police training *necessarily* be better equipped than an outsider without such training?
There are plenty of excellent arguments for why the government should never have gotten involved here, but given that the government *is* involved I have no additional problem with a guy rising to a position of influence simply because he came up with a bunch of ideas that a lot of other people really liked. Wouldn’t we be praising this guy if he were in private industry?
*sigh* Another day, another news story proving it’s about time for me to get that “Ayn Rand was right” bumper sticker.
Do you think a McCain administration would do anything so radical, with such universal detriment to the economic freedom of all Americans?
You bet I do. Maybe I’m ignorant, but as far as I can tell, McCain hasn’t exactly been opposing this crap.
Which begs the question, why do you still prefer Obama to McCain?
Foreign relations. And Obama is black.
Lefty flacks, righty hacks, whatever. If you believe these people are that different, blame Clinton for getting his duck sicked in the oval office, bringing up the “character” issue, and allowing stooge Bush II to win the election, setting the stage for a right-wing fall of incompetence. Then blame ourselves for having always put up with it, currently put up with it, and will continue into the far off future to put up with it. Politics -spit- these people are all dirty.
I’m not sure (as a libertarian) I’d brag too much about the fact the Playboy CEO used to head libertarian newspapers, what with the “hate fark” list of conservative women that was recently published by Playboy.
Isn’t this essentially the same as when W appointed a gaggle of young Liberty University graduates to the DOJ or to bring democracy to Iraq?
As far as I can tell from the article, Deese isn’t in charge of anything. In fact, it isn’t clear to me that he has any authority at all.
His duties seem to consist of running the numbers, making suggestions and trying to broker deals.
@ 12
I hear what you’re saying Gary, but Deese hasn’t come up with *good* ideas. It’s a twist on the same crap. We surely wouldn’t put him in charge of NASA, because even if he had good ideas, he has no experience with the complexities of space flight to implement them. I think that holds true with less complicated automobiles.
And he didn’t get to his position by earning profits in the free market proving the merits of his innovation. He was appointed through a certain amount of political allegiance.
I suppose you’re right on another aspect of your post. Had Obama picked Lee Iacocca who had experience, I wouldn’t be much happier. And you make a good point about our justice system would be better reformed with someone who wasn’t jaded by years of service in the machine. I just don’t think that comparison holds true here.
Ultimately, the bearcats are taking on a book of business they have no expertise in running. They would be better off selling GM to private equity firms and creating a safety net for people who lose their jobs and some tax deferments for a few years. That is not ideal by any means, but it is far better than being state run.
BEARCATS? Shouda been Bureaucrats. Spell check fail on my part.
The phrase “stupid sexy Flanders” comes to mind…
@ Liberty Tiger # 2
I’m not sure whether to give you an up-tick for snarky accuracy or a down-tick for being so depressing.
;)
OTOH, Can a 31-year-old elitist really do worse than the “experienced, worldly businessmen” who ran GM into the ground?
@ Mattocracy # 19.
“Bearcats” works just fine.
[...] Radley Balko states: He has no business training. His work experience consists of campaigns, politics, and a stint at a [...]
I do believe you are ignorant. McCain has voted against it. Yes, he is one of the least principled Republicans. But I would have expected his administration to sometime thwart collectivist Democrats and sometimes help them, like a butterfly fluttering here and there randomly. There’s no way they would have been pushing the focused drive towards collectivism, driving the train full steam ahead like Obama’s.
Obama is ramping up US troops in Afghanistan. They’re still in Iraq. The Guantanamo prisoners still aren’t being given their day in court. You’re wrong on that one, too.
You have nothing rational to offer. You’re dismissed.
Oy, if we start the “my side is better than your side” crap again I’m outta this thread.
I do hope that if this guy is as inexperienced as it sounds that he’s not really in charge of crafting policy. I hoped for better than Brownies out of O but I expected no less.
Do you think a McCain administration would do anything so radical, with such universal detriment to the economic freedom of all Americans?
Since McCain is so staunch a drug-warrior that he’s against even medical marijuana, supported the invasion of Iraq, flip-flopped on every issue on which it was convenient to do so, was a documented liar, and had a decades-long reputation for being an immature asshole, I don’t doubt he’d have found lots of ways to be just as horrible as Obama. The Republicans will always be as bad as the Democrats. And vice versa.
This 31-year-old is doing gruntwork so that the actual decision-makers (headed by Prof. Larry Summers, who has considerable experience) can make the actual decisions. Deese is not in charge of anything. Perhaps he has the ear of the people of who make decisions, and they seem to like what he’s saying, but that’s as far as it goes.
Baby otter!
I had to send the otter baby picture to my wife and kids complete with caption. In terms of cuteness, I think it beats the penguin poop story by a wide margin.
Nonsense. You can still convince some Republicans to respect your property rights. Democrats, on the other hand, base their policies on the premise that you don’t own what should rightfully be yours.
I don’t vote, on the principle that moral questions should never be subject to the whim of popular opinion. I oppose much of what the typical Republicans stand for. Still, I know enough of history to see the end result of the Democrats’ steady push for socialism, and it’s far worse than the abominable War on Drugs (which Obama and the Democrats still continue, anyway).
When you have to go begging to the government to see a doctor, to air condition your house, to drive a safe and useful vehicle, you’ll understand how the destruction of economic liberty affects your life far worse than anything the Republicans do worse than Democrats.
Re: Meet the 31-year-old Obama has put in charge of “dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.”
Ah, the country truly is in the very best of hands.
Ah, Government Motors, you’ll be so swell.
EFF YOU CEE, KAY EE DEE,
AY GEE AY EYE ENN!
Hmm.
See a doctor – The government decides who can and can’t be a doctor, intentionally restricts the supply of doctors, driving up the price, and will cage any unauthorized persons who attempt to sell medical services. Or any persons at all who sell treatment they wake up and decide they don’t like. I suppose we’re not quite to the point of begging, but we’re pretty damn close.
A/C my house – I have little knowledge here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the government decides who can and can’t install the things. And California (or some parts, if I’m not mistaken) require the installation of a neat little gadget that allows them to turn off your A/C remotely.
Drive a safe & useful vehicle – What do you mean “when” we beg for this? We already beg for the privilege of driving on roads we pay for whether we want to or not, then we beg for the privilege of owning an approved vehicle, and we pay periodically for both privileges. Just because they say “yes” to almost everybody who begs doesn’t mean it’s not begging.
1984 has come and gone, and nobody noticed…
These penguin scientists are behind the times. The method they are using has been used to track Rosie O’Donnell’s travels for years now.
*cough*…I can’t stop it…must post…
Republicans respect property rights? When I bothered to claim a party I used to say I was a Repub and even then we cackled about making johns walk by stealing their cars when we busted them with hookers…and if you’ve been afk for the whole asset forfeiture expansion in the last ten years lemme lay out for ya that Repubs think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
Anecdotally, it was a republican cop that took my sig .45, it was a democrat prosecutor that told em they had to give it back to me. Please for the love of god stop acting as if party affiliation matters man, it’s a lot like soviet russia back in the day…everyone that wants to play has to spout the right crap and be a party member. Here in America we just give em a choice of color to wear.
As an addendum let me say I understand your need to believe in something. Please for your own good stop pretending the ideals *you* stand for are a part of a party platform. You clutch to that one true thing and pretend someone champions it…they use you for whatever the hell they feel like doing on a sunny Tuesday and give less then a damn about truth, justice, the American way or duty honor and country. That you might know someone in politics that made you feel like they agree with you and will stand for your beliefs says only that they’re a damned fine manipulator and that you refused to look close enough to see the lie.
I was an initially cautiously optimistic about Barr ‘08, but he rapidly lost my support with how he conducted his campaign. I was more than willing to accept his “conversion” if he had been more open and honest about it (i.e., being more explicitly anti-Congressman-Barr). In fact I think he would have got much further with a clean break from his House days than with the half-apologize-for-it, half-brag-about-it approach he took. In the end, though, it was his and his camp’s decision to try to remake the LP into the disgruntled conservative party rather than the kind of broader libertarian coalition (to both the left and right) that is the LP’s only hope, that really made me angry at him during the campaign.
Having said all that, I don’t think he’s as phony as some have accused him of. He’s definitely undergone a distinct, gradual evolution that does in some ways stretch back to some things he tried to do in Congress (i.e., sunsetting the Patriot Act, for which he deserved a lot more credit than he got, and trying to get his own DC medical marijuana amendment repealed). Barr would hardly be the first Ayn Rand fan to be disillusioned by conservative political activism and migrate in a more liberty-friendly direction. As Greg Gutfeld put it his reason.tv interview, “Being around liberals made me a conservative. Being around conservatives made me a libertarian”- a lot of libertarians can claim as much (or vice versa). And on a wide range of issues, Barr has certainly become a lot *more* libertarian than he used to be, sometimes as he was pulled along to satisfy his new recalcitrant constituency. He shouldn’t have been the LP’s nominee, and no doubt he is still very much a right-libertarian, but I think he does still deserve some credit for how far he’s come. He’s still better than 99.999% of ex-Congressmen.
I am so turned off by the two main parties that the mere mention of their names in the context of meaningful discussion pisses me off simply because it legitimizes their existence.
As far as I’m concerned, Republicans and Democrats are the biggest impediment to democracy in this country. What we need more of in the U.S. is a strong grass-roots aversion to political parties. Nothing leads to self-examination like the threat of extinction.
If capitalism is dead (and it is), its body is being given the “Weekend at Bernie’s” treatment by the Democrats.
Relax, the Republicans will get the corpse in time for the sequel.
Read what I wrote, again. I said “some Republicans” not all. Your anecdotes are not instructive, because they don’t highlight the underlying structural differences between the philosophies. While Republicans tend to be more law-and-order hard asses on vice crimes and immigration, Democrats tend to be similarly law-and-order hard asses on zoning, permits, environmental rules, unions, etc.. You can have your car confiscated for frequenting prostitutes, or you can have your house auctioned off to pay the school taxes (which go up despite increasing failures).
The crucial differences between parties is that the underlying philosophy of nearly all Democrats is that “wealth” is a wellspring that comes from nowhere and needs to be redistributed fairly, i.e., that your wisdom, intellect, and effort which produced the wealth in the first place don’t matter. What matters to them is need. The old lady next door needs medicine, so your paycheck is fair game to them. Plenty of Republicans gave up fighting Democrats on this and seek compromise for the sake of winning elections (not that that works very well). But a non-trivial fraction of Republican politicians and a sizable majority of Republican voters oppose (imperfectly) such Democrat notions. I don’t trust either party, but if you put a gun to my head and make me choose, I’d take my chances with the Pubs.
That’s crap. Democrats are worse, because they are more socialist. They affect more people. If you’re gay, an immigrant, or a drug user, Republicans will probably infringe on your freedoms more. But under Democrats, everyone “shares the burden” and gets screwed over en masse. You need to pay closer attention and make the crucial distinctions, instead of throwing up your hands and saying it’s all bad. Yes, it’s all bad, but when I look down the road at my future and the futures of my descendants, the Democrat path is the fast road to economic collapse, civil war, and perhaps even the Gulags. The Republican path might get there some day, but it won’t be as fast.
You’re not paying attention to what I write. I said, “I don’t vote, on the principle that moral questions should never be subject to the whim of popular opinion. I oppose much of what the typical Republicans stand for.” I’ve said it for years, too. This isn’t about advocating Republicans. It’s about dismay at any liberty-minded individualist even thinking about taking sides with Democrats.
“If you’re gay, an immigrant, or a drug user, Republicans will probably infringe on your freedoms more. ”
Or if you support abortion rights, or separation of church and state, or if you oppose the national security measure de jure, or however many other issues you want to list. I don’t seem to remember the government being particularly limited from 2002 onward.
Barr, like me, believes the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for some crimes.
Unlike me, he still trusts “the system” to work, and that only the guilty will be executed.
As for the Playboy item, I think the magazine does a wonderful job of illustrating why “libertarian” and “libertine” are not synonymous. While libertarians champion anyone’s right to be libertine (or not), Playboy’s editorial stance has always seemed to favor, “All the licentiousness you want, and a government big enough to make sure you can get it.”
So you’re saying everyone is terrible…except for a few republicans?
or maybe they’re just not so bad (not all of them, lemme pick and choose my words here carefully and maybe we can keep rolling)?
Listen man, fascism and evil shit is bad. If you prefer your boys’ flavor to the other boys’ gang go for it, but don’t expect me to agree with you that brown poop’s better for me than dark brown poop.
Oh, and your beloved Republicans (you know, the ones you don’t actually like you just side with to bitch about democrats?) are the torture daddys. Socialism may piss you off and it may not be healthy but torturing and disappearing da brown ppl is evil. Period. It’s why I hated socialism. If you don’t have a problem with it then you, personally, are the enemy. There’s no semantics or bullshitting around this subject. If you like it: You’re evil. If you don’t like it but find it useful so what they hey: You’re evil. If you don’t like it but turn your head so you can pretend you’re not a part of it but still support it: You’re empowering evil and are on the brink of it yourself.
Argue about your taxes with democrats all you like. The republicans have made killing, torturing, and kidnapping people part of my america and they can eat shit, every one.
Gah…this is why I can’t stand arguing about this with a republican or quasi-republican or a closet republican or an ex-republican that still yearns for the good old days or whatever the hell it is you are.
Your people are torturing. Get over them. There is nothing they can do to make up for that.
Elliot,
If the Democrats score a 20% on “The Liberty Test” and Republicans score a 40%, they both fail and they should both be disqualified from running the government.
Both parties are happy to go to war, to arrest drug users, to empower cops and decrease due process, and, yes, to take personal property. Both parties want to empower the government and control our bodies and our properties. The degree to which they do it depends on the circumstance, but the bottom line is that both parties fail “The Liberty Test” miserably. If two job candidates pathetically fail the test I give them, I wouldn’t bother to wonder which one failed more, I would just keep looking for candidates who might possibly pass.
I’m sure we can agree that, as long as there are party loyalists, we’ll be looking for qualified candidates for a long time.
Look here. The word “terrible” is your word. I’m not going to try to parse what you wrote, when you start off by trying to cram words in my mouth.
What I said should be clear. And, it certainly doesn’t justify your lies:
None of the rest of your comment has any bearing on reality, being so infused with outright fabrications. I said nothing about torture, so if you intended to imply that I supported US agents torturing prisoners, that’s yet another lie. I don’t. I’m opposed to government agents having any legal power to torture or execute. It’s not that I’m a bleeding heart, but I know that government is inherently flawed and innocent people (or people who don’t deserve such harsh punishment) will eventually fall victim to the state machinery.
Note that before you try to make torture a one-party issue, you need to get Nancy to get her story straight.
In summary: anyone who wants to defend individual rights should not support any political party. Moreover, it is insane to favor the most socialist Democrats over the lame, wishy-washy Republicans on the grounds that the Democrats will be better for individual rights. Clearly, they will not. Stating that fact is not, in any way, a defense of the GOP. All of them should be rode out of town on a rail.
I says Hallelujah, brother! I wouldn’t trust Bob Barr or Ron Paul to run the government, even though they would be less awful than the alternatives.
I don’t look for any candidates. I’m just objecting to people who purport to support individual rights favoring the most socialist Democrats over wimpy, wishy-washy Republicans.
Dave Kreuger “As far as I’m concerned, Republicans and Democrats are the biggest impediment to democracy in this country. What we need more of in the U.S. is a strong grass-roots aversion to political parties. Nothing leads to self-examination like the threat of extinction.”
Spot on as usual Dave!
Elliot,
Not looking for candidates seems to be the most radical and most sensible thing we can do.
“Meet the 31-year-old Obama has put in charge of “dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.” He has no business training. His work experience consists of campaigns, politics, and a stint at a foreign aid organization. Welcome to the planned economy”
Probably as good as the 27 year old Bush put in charge of restarting the stock exchange in Iraq. The great business trained experts of GM & the financial idustry put us in this situation. Is your answer to rely on them to get us out?
+1 to Greg S for referring to the campy, yet entertaining, musical L’il Abner.
Wow. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Last time I looked at my comment about the parties, it had a bunch of negative karma. Thanks to you, now it’s positive. :)