Coyote Blog

I must say I am laughing my butt off at the states of Michigan and Florida.  If they had kept their original primary dates, their elections would likely have been critical, if not decisive, in the Democratic nomination.  Both would have gotten full-bore candidate attention, much as Ohio and now Pennsylvania have.  It could have been them who were joining Iowa in the great vote sell-off, trading delegates for promises of ethanol subsidies or whatever the states are perceived to want.  But instead, in a bid to become more relevant, they tried to skirt the rules and in the process became irrelevant.  So instead of promising Floridians that they will enhance old age benefits or doing something with Cuba, the candidates instead are out there promising Pennsylvanians and Ohioans that they will throttle our North American trading partners.

I am working on a longer post on Sheriff Joe Arpaio's sweeps through Hispanic neighborhoods to round up the usual suspects (Mayor Phil Gordon has asked the feds to investigate these practices, which I hope they will do).

But this one is just weird.  Apparently Phoenix tax money is being used by Arpaio to train Honduran police, in a program that makes sense (from a Phoenix point of view) to no one.  Sheriff Joe watchers will enjoy his numerous nonsensical explanations, though the last one probably is the correct one.  For those outside of Phoenix, sit back and enjoy the weirdness -- its the only consolation we here in Arizona get for having the worst and most abusive sheriff in the country.

Explanation One:  Arpaio looks to small Latin American countries as models for his police force

Sheriff's officials told the county Board of Supervisors that the
Honduran National Police possess the "intelligence data, knowledge and
cultural experiences to benefit the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office."

Explanation Two:  We can't tell you, because it would endanger Sheriffs' lives (this is an Arpaio oldie but goodie):

discussing efforts in Honduras could endanger the lives of law-enforcement officers in both countries....revealing details could put lives at risk

Explanation Three:  Honduras supplied millions of photos for Arpaio's facial recognition software (yeah, I know non-Phoenicians, this is weird)

The sheriff's facial-recognition software program is supposed to be among the biggest beneficiaries of the Honduras engagement....When Arpaio was first confronted about the department's trips to
Honduras, he said the agency had received "millions" of photos from
Honduran officials.

Explanation Four:  Its a RICO thing, so we can't tell you (at least, it uses RICO funds)

The agency has spent more than $120,000 on Sheriff's Office employee
salaries in Honduras, and an additional $30,000 in RICO funds seized
from criminals. And some of the trips occurred during a time period
where the Sheriff's Office overspent its overtime budget by nearly $1
million.

Explanation Five:  We can't talk about it, because that would open up public officials to scrutiny for their actions:

The Sheriff's Office will not grant interviews to explain how and why
the program was started and what the benefits are to Maricopa County,
because officials say discussing the program fuels criticism

I would never have thought it possible to position Hillary Clinton as the down-to-earth joe sixpack candidate, but somehow Obama managed it.

Post title from here.

I am increasingly convinced that John McCain believes in nothing, or at least believes in nothing strong enough that he can't turn a 180 on the issue if the polling numbers move the meter hard enough. 

The plan would retire old
loans that homeowners no longer can pay and replace them with less
expensive, 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages that are federally guaranteed.
McCain said families would gain "the opportunity to trade a burdensome
mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects the market value of their
home."

In line with
his concern about bailing out speculators, McCain's proposal would
apply only to homeowners who took out sub-prime mortgages after 2005
for homes that are their main residence. They would need to have proved
they were credit-worthy at the time of the loan.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the notion of "sub-prime mortgages" where the borrowers were "credit-worthy at the time of the loan." 

The likely Republican presidential nominee is well to the left of the last Democratic president on economic issues.  And George McGovern sounds Laissez Faire:

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the
right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating
behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal
economics...

Since leaving office I've written about public
policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I've come to realize
that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to
maintaining a healthy civil society.

Why do we think we are
helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don't take
away cars because we don't like some people speeding. We allow state
lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money.
Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't
operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in
life.

The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will
misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We
should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for
everyone else.

Really, its that George McGovern.

And David Mamet questions the power of government:

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations" - the
hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those
goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military"
of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and
women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a
very hostile world"¦

But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?

I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the
answer, and here it is: We just seem to. How do I know? From
experience"¦

Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night,
and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower
Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why?
Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute - to throw into the pot
what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as
status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.

And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth
grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I
held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations,
the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong
and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other - the
world in which I actually functioned day to day - was made up of
people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort
by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace,
the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my
participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that
country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace"¦

... because that may make it easier for the Democrats to summon the political will to kill ethanol subsidies, though don't hold your breath.  Certainly, though, the NYT, after years of cheerleading ethanol, may finally be coming around:

Congress must take a hard look at the effect of corn ethanol on food
supplies in the same way the new energy bill requires it to review the
environmental effects. It must move toward ending subsidies that will
become even more difficult to justify as oil prices rise and the costs
of producing corn ethanol decline. And it must press other wealthy
countries to do the same before hunger turns to mass starvation.

Via Tom Nelson

By the way, these problems with ethanol we are experiencing today were are inevitable as night follows day, yet we still had to blunder into it before we started questioning the economics.  The power of political correctness to trump science and logic is amazing.

There.  I said it.  And I believe I am right.  My only hope for the Obama administration is that their family is like the Clintons, where Bill was much more moderate than his socialist wife who has held nothing but rent-seeking jobs that gravy-trained off her husbands political position.

"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young
people to do," she tells the women. "Don't go into corporate America.
You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers.
Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging
our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to
move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then
your salaries respond." Faced with that reality, she adds, "many of our
bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management."

I already covered the idiocy of my fellow Princeton-Harvard grad's rant on student debt here.  And let's be clear:  You have absolutely no ground to criticize the state of the economy because kids of middle class black families are not doing well when you are busy counseling them to embrace low-paying jobs over higher-paying ones.

Much has been made of late of the irrational voter, a voter who demands of politicians government economic measures that actually are not in his/her long-term best interest.   For example, a large number of voters want the government to shut down NAFTA, thinking this is in their economic best interest when in fact the evidence is pretty strong that for most of them, it is not.   

What is a gung-ho but thoughtful politician to do?  Do you listen to your experts, who council free trade, or do you pander to the masses?  Do you stick by our trading allies, or do you begin your kindler-gentler foreign policy by unilaterally abrogating treaties with our neighbors. 

Well, if you are the modern presidential candidate, you tell the masses what they want to hear, and then tell our allies you are just kidding.

Update: Cato brings us a great example from North Dakota

Via TJIC, on Hillary:

In 1973 she worked for a non profit.

In 1974 she was a government employee.

In 1975 she failed the D.C bar exam, and married Bubba.

In 1976 she joined the Rose Law Firm, and somehow made partner
three years later in 1979, despite rarely appearing in court "¦a
stunningly quick rise!

Oh, and Bubba became the Governor of Alabama in 1976, but that's unrelated.

In 1976 she was made, through political appointment by Jimmy
Carter, head of a government funded non-profit corporation which did
nothing but launch lawsuits.

In 1978 she laundered $100,000 of bribes through cattle
trading contracts. Despite having never engaged in cattle trading
before, she somehow managed to pick the two best times to trade each
day: she bought cattle contracts at the absolute lowest price each day,
and sell them at the absolute highest price. After laundering the
bribes, she quite cattle trading forever.

From 1993 to 2001, Hillary attempted, from her unelected
position, to socialize American health care, and routinely violated
open meetings laws.

In 2000 Hillary carpet-bagged her way into a senatorship.

Women's groups seem to be supporting Hillary's contention that being married to the President counts as presidential experience.  Wow!  If that is the case, the glass ceiling is exploded!  Melinda Gates has 20 years of experience as Microsoft CEO!

I'd like to say that I would love to see someone who has actually tried to run his/her own business running for the White House, but most of the candidates who claim to have business experience seem to have the politically-connected rent-seeking business experience (e.g. GWB) rather than the real try to make a business work against the general headwind of government bureaucratic opposition type of experience.

I don't really care that much how either party chooses their candidate, beyond a general plea to reduce the influence of Iowa so we can finally put ethanol subsidies to bed.  However, I thought this was a bit ironic:  A self-styled progressive who complained for years about how the 2000 election was decided argues that having the Democratic candidate selected by a few party elites is A-OK:

I really, really hope the Democratic primary doesn't
come down to superdelegates "” the privileged class of delegate that
gets to vote however they want, and were created to ensure that party
elites didn't lose too much control over the process.

Maybe
I'm just being contrarian here, but why would this be so bad? After
all, the only way it could happen is if the voters themselves split
nearly 50-50. And in that case, the nomination would end up being
decided by a massive effort to sway uncommitted delegates anyway. So
who cares if that massive effort is directed at superdelegates
(senators, governors, etc.) or the more plebeian regular delegates
(typically county chairs, local activists, etc.). And in any case, why
shouldn't the party elders, many of whom have to run on the same ticket
as the presidential nominee, get a little extra say in the process?

Here is how I think such a scenario will play out.  I think by convention time Obama will substantially lead Hillary in the polls.  However,  Hillary will be at a distinct advantage in the knife-fighting for long-time party movers and shakers.  We could well see the party elites overturning what at the time may be a strong popular sentiment among Democrats for Obama.  Hillary's biggest advantage will be that many party officials will be afraid to cross her.  Obama needs to be able to assure them that he has their back if they scorn Hillary. 

I probably shouldn't, but I must admit that I am being hugely entertained by the calculus of guilt and victimization in the Democratic Party as supporters of the white woman and the black guy vie to claim the title of being the most put down by "the man."  I can just see the voter in Berkeley yesterday nearly imploding with stress as she tried to figure out whether it was less PC to vote against a black or a woman.  Anyway, MaxedOutMamma is also having fun with the whole thing, and is surprised to find out that "If Hillary doesn't win
tonight it will obviously be proof that the old WASP boys club [of Georgia!] has
conquered using a black guy with the middle name of Hussein."  Yes sir, I remember that time when Georgia went so far as to secede from the union to keep women in bondage....

I will not be voting today, because in Arizona to vote in the primary one must register with the government as a member of either the Coke or Pepsi party.  I just can't make myself do it.

Apparently, some conservatives are trying to fuse social conservatism with economic populism. With a bit of hawkish international projection of power thrown in.  Barf.  The only possible good outcome of this is that maybe it might lead to a redrawing of political lines between such big government folks and libertarians, but I am not that hopeful.  Does anyone really doubt that we are heading back to the bad old days of the 1970s?

I had just started to think that Fred Thompson might have been the least-bad candidate in the race, so of course he just quit.

OK, the comment thread in my post on Romney evolved into a good discussion on health care, but I did not get a very good answer on how Romney supporters could possibly consider him the inheritor of the Reagan small-government legacy.  Apparently, I am not the only one confused on this, as both Michael Tanner and Jerry Taylor chime in with the same question.

What does it say about the Republican Party when the leading fusionist conservative in the field - Mitt Romney, darling of National Review and erstwhile heir to Ronald Reagan -
runs and wins a campaign arguing that the federal government is
responsible for all of the ills facing the U.S. auto industry, that the
taxpayer should pony up the corporate welfare checks going to Detroit
and increase them by a factor of five, that the federal
government can and should move heaven and earth to save "every job" at
risk in this economy, and that economic recovery is best achieved by a
sit-down involving auto industry CEOs, labor bosses, and government
agents armed with Harvard MBAs to produce a well-coordinated strategic
economic plan? That is, what explains the emergence of economic fascism
(in a non-pejorative sense) in the Grand Old Party at the expense of
free market capitalism?

Unfortunately, 1970-style Nixonian Republicans are back in force.  Can "Whip Inflation Now" buttons be far behind?

Update:  Apparently William F. Buckley is happily returning to the 70's as well.

Frequent readers will know that unlike most other libertarian blogs, I have not plastered the site with hopeful articles and endorsements for Ron Paul.  I have always been 99% supportive of his work in Congress and was happy to have him there.  But I resisted even registering in the Arizona primary to vote for him.  Arizona requires that to vote in a primary, I have to register as belonging to that party, and I am just not going to do that.

Part of my reluctance to jump on the bandwagon has been my general disaffection with politics and some ambivalence as to whether my elected overlord is from Coke or Pepsi.  The rest, I think, was a subliminal fear of supporting any Libertarian candidate because they always seem to turn out to be wing-nuts.  QED.

Update:  The excuse that he didn't know what was in a series of ghost-written newsletters is just ridiculous.  I will accept that excuse for one issue, a mistake in selecting partners (I am sure there are bloggers out there who regret guest-blogger selections) but a long series of newsletters implies tacit approval or at least acceptance. 

This is pretty funny:

A labor dispute which has darkened US light entertainment and chat
shows claimed another victim on Wednesday, forcing the cancellation of
a CBS News debate among Democratic White House hopefuls.

The debate, scheduled for Los Angeles on December 10, was nixed
after candidates including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama said they
would refuse to cross a picket line that the Writers Guild of America
Union had threatened to set up.

"CBS News regrets not being able to offer the Democratic
presidential debate scheduled for Dec. 10 in Los Angeles," CBS said in
a statement.

"The possibility of picket lines set up by the Writers Guild of
America and the unwillingness of many candidates to cross them made it
necessary to allow the candidates to make other plans."

Since the writers have nothing to do with the debate (presumably, unless Hillary's question-writing shills are part of the guild) then their picketing the debate makes no more sense than if, say, the meat packers were picketing.  Is the winning candidate going to refuse to enter the White House if any union is picketing out front?  As Ed Morrissey points out, this does not bode well for any of the candidates being able to stand up to special interests as president.

Update:  Next up, Democratic candidates to commit to not hire anyone for their administration who did not attend a government-run, NEA-unionized high school.

Though I did not pay any attention to it, apparently the Clinton camp managed to stack the CNN Las Vegas debate doubly or triply in their favor, including having most all the talking head on CNN analyzing the debate be folks who are currently or have in the past been on the Clinton payroll.

Whatever.  I don't think it is any news that the Clintons play the politics game hard and well, though its amazing to me that she is embraced by those who complain about Bush being secretive and power-hungry.

Anyway, this did make me wonder.  The Democratic candidates were up-in-arms earlier this year that a debate (I think this one) was to be hosted by Fox, presumably because Fox is seen as part of the vast right-wing conspiracy.  But given that there were no Republicans at the debate, I wonder if Obama and company now regret this decision.  Because it is almost certain that whatever problems Fox might have, Fox would certainly not have stacked a debate in Hillary's favor.

Regular readers know that I am a critic of the Bush administration for any number of failings, perhaps most importantly its flaunting of the separation of powers and its attempts to avoid scrutiny by hiding behind the war and calls on patriotism.  In this post, aimed mostly at the drift in the Republican party, I threw in this  observation:

in response to a Republican President thought to be over-reaching,
secretive, and overly fond of executive power, they seem ready to
nominate Hillary Clinton, who may be one of the few people in the
country more secretive and power-hungry.  Anyone remember how she
conducted her infamous health care task force?  I seem to remember she
pioneered many of the practices for which Democrats tried to impeach
Dick Cheney this week.

Q&O links an article from the National Review which goes further on Hillary:

If grumbling about a basketball story seems excessive, it's also
typical of the Clinton media machine. Reporters who have covered the
hyper-vigilant campaign say that no detail or editorial spin is too
minor to draw a rebuke. Even seasoned political journalists describe
reporting on Hillary as a torturous experience. Though few dare offer
specifics for the record--"They're too smart," one furtively confides.
"They'll figure out who I am"--privately, they recount excruciating
battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep
suspicion. Only surgically precise questioning yields relevant answers.
Hillary's aides don't hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as
when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by
threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the
magazine had in the works. Reporters' jabs and errors are long
remembered, and no hour is too odd for an angry phone call. Clinton
aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top
editors. "They're frightening!" says one reporter who has covered
Clinton. "They don't see [reporting] as a healthy part of the process.
They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game."...

It's enough to make you suspect that breeding fear and paranoia within
the press corps is itself part of the Clinton campaign's strategy. And,
if that sounds familiar, it may be because the Clinton machine, say
reporters and pro-Hillary Democrats, is emulating nothing less than the
model of the Bush White House, which has treated the press with thinly
veiled contempt and minimal cooperation. "The Bush administration
changed the rules," as one scribe puts it--and the Clintonites like the
way they look. (To be sure, no one accuses the Clinton team of outright
lying to the press, as the Bushies have done, or of crossing other
ethical lines. And reporters say other press shops--notably those of
Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards--are also highly combative.)

The only quibble I have is the distinction that Hillary is not lying, but Bush is.  That seems, at least to this libertarian, to be a silly statement.  There is no reason to believe Hillary is any more or less mendacious than GWB.  Though I will say, with the right audience, Hillary can be surprisingly honest and open about her aims:

10/11/2007:  "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all."

June, 2004:  "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common
good," she told San Franciscans in June 2004. As first lady, she said:
"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what
is best for society."

I almost never ever post on politics and political races, but I had an interesting conversation the other day.  As a secular libertarian, I find no one (beyond Ron Paul) among the Republican candidates even the least bit interesting.  I trust none of them to pursue free market and small government principals, and several, including McCain, Giuliani, and Huckabee, have track records of large government intrusiveness.

What I found interesting was a conversation with a friend of mine who self-identifies as a Christian conservative  (yes, I know it is out of vogue, but it is perfectly possible to have quality friendships with people of different political stripes, particularly considering that I am married to a New England liberal Democrat).  My Christian conservative friend said he found no Republican he was really interested in voting for.

I find it interesting that the Republicans (again with the exception of Ron Paul, who I think they would like to disavow) unable to field a candidate that appeals to either of its traditional constituencies.  It strikes me the party is heading back to its roots in the 1970s in the Nixon-Rockefeller days.  Yuk.

Update:  Which isn't to necessarily say the Democrats have everything figured out.  For example, in response to a Republican President thought to be over-reaching, secretive, and overly fond of executive power, they seem ready to nominate Hillary Clinton, who may be one of the few people in the country more secretive and power-hungry.  Anyone remember how she conducted her infamous health care task force?  I seem to remember she pioneered many of the practices for which Democrats tried to impeach Dick Cheney this week.

I almost never ever post on politics and political races, but I had an interesting conversation the other day.  As a secular libertarian, I find no one (beyond Ron Paul) among the Republican candidates even the least bit interesting.  I trust none of them to pursue free market and small government principals, and several, including McCain, Giuliani, and Huckabee, have track records of large government intrusiveness.

What I found interesting was a conversation with a friend of mine who self-identifies as a Christian conservative  (yes, I know it is out of vogue, but it is perfectly possible to have quality friendships with people of different political stripes, particularly considering that I am married to a New England liberal Democrat).  My Christian conservative friend said he found no Republican he was really interested in voting for.

I find it interesting that the Republicans (again with the exception of Ron Paul, who I think they would like to disavow) unable to field a candidate that appeals to either of its traditional constituencies.  It strikes me the party is heading back to its roots in the 1970s in the Nixon-Rockefeller days.  Yuk.

Update:  Which isn't to necessarily say the Democrats have everything figured out.  For example, in response to a Republican President thought to be over-reaching, secretive, and overly fond of executive power, they seem ready to nominate Hillary Clinton, who may be one of the few people in the country more secretive and power-hungry.  Anyone remember how she conducted her infamous health care task force?  I seem to remember she pioneered many of the practices for which Democrats tried to impeach Dick Cheney this week.

As a libertarian, I tend to get turned off by most political pitches.  But here is one I can definitely buy into, and it is not even from Ron Paul.

As a libertarian, I am hugely excited that Ron Paul is getting some positive attention.  However, I have a terrible time syncing up the enthusiasm for him in some quarters with the historic indifference to libertarian ideas in the same quarters.  I am worried that this country has a 5-10% Howard Beale segment (I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more) that will get enthusiastic about any third party candidate who seams to challenge the establishment.  Do these people behind Paul really understand him, or are they just the same folks who supported Ross Perot's populist melange?

Much has been said of Hillary Clinton's absurd and fiscally irresponsible populist pandering idea of giving every baby $5000 at birth.

But has anyone thought about what effect this might have on abortion and birth rates among the poor?  Her husband bill took a lot of flak from his own party to take on welfare reform, and reduce the financial incentive for poor single women to have babies.  So now, Hillary is going to revive this incentive?  Every woman who goes in to have an abortion is basically torching a $5000 bill.  She may do more to limit abortions than George Bush.

Postscript:  Yeah, I know, the program would probably be structured as some sort of bond that doesn't come due until age whatever.  If so, how long do you think it will take payday loan companies to figure out how to factor this bond and pay out now in exchange for the bond's future value.

I almost never post about politics, because I don't really have a horse in the Democrat-Republican race.  However, this post from Kevin Drum quoting E.J. Dione kind of tickled me.  They claim Democrats are winning the suburbs from Republicans, which I have no particular reason to dispute.  But the whole concept of Democrats competing in the suburbs is kind of funny to me.  Almost at every turn, the Left tends to use the suburbs as its great cultural whipping boy.  We hate your SUV's and your lack of public transportation and your large houses and your Walmarts and your churches and your private schools and we take your money and send it to the city centers which culturally we have much more affinity for, but thanks for voting for us.