Samizdata

Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings. Several of them, echoing political analysts, expressed concerns that Mrs. Clinton's spending priorities amounted to costly errors in judgment that have hamstrung her competitiveness against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

"We didn't raise all of this money to keep paying consultants who have pursued basically the wrong strategy for a year now," said a prominent New York donor. "So much about her campaign needs to change — but it may be too late." . . .

The firm that includes Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton's chief strategist and pollster, and his team collected $3.8 million for fees and expenses in January; in total, including what the campaign still owes, the firm has billed more than $10 million for consulting, direct mail and other services, an amount other Democratic strategists who are not affiliated with either campaign called stunning.

Doesn't this make you think that if she had control over federal purse strings, she'd be spending our money on luxuries and enrichment of her cronies?

 

American Spectator

Serfdom by a Thousand Cuts

by Christopher Orlet

If it is indeed true, as George Bernard Shaw commented, that democracy ensures we get the government we deserve, then I have little sympathy for my neighbors who whine about the smoking ban as they puff their Camel filters in the parking lot outside the bowling alley in the freezing February rain.

And yet the smokers are not without hope. Less than a year after Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the smoking ban, and gushed, "This law will save lives. The realities are that smoking kills people...My only regret is that this took so long," the news out of Springfield is that the owners of taverns, casinos and strip clubs may soon be able to buy a "special license" that will allow their patrons to smoke inside.

So all of that talk about saving lives from second-hand smoke was all just a bunch of...second-hand smoke. Or was it just another Chicago-style scam so the state could sell expensive smoking licenses to bowling alley operators? The fact is officeholders thought the smoking ban was a terrific idea -- or at least an efficient way to get those annoying single-issue pressure groupees out of their offices and off their backs -- until they discovered that Illinois would have a budget shortfall of $750 million next year, and learned how much tax revenue the state made off its smokers, boozers, gamblers and stripshow devotees.

Illinois bar owners report that revenue is down in some cases by 50 percent. Casinos report that the ban has caused a 17 percent drop in gaming. I haven't spoken to any strippers recently, but I bet they are feeling the pinch too.

Anyway the fish down at the bowling alley don't give a fig if their elected officials are hypocrites. To them, the terms politician and hypocrite have become synonymous. All they care about is that their local publican purchases one of them new smoking licenses so that they can come in from the cold.

Whether bar owners purchase special licenses will depend, I suppose, on how much the special licenses go for. Many adult entertainment venues and casinos are owned by multi-billion dollar gaming and adult entertainment corporations. They can easily afford to purchase a truckload of special licenses. Your mom and pop saloon owner, however, may find the cost a bit a bit more painful to bear.

ALL OF THIS IGNORES the bigger picture. A recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch story quoted the manager of a southern Illinois VFW Post complaining about the ban: "Are you going to tell those guys who defended your country that they can't smoke?" he said pointing to men in VFW hats. "They fought for those freedoms."

Well, why not? The state is already hassling innocent motorists at sobriety and seatbelt checkpoints. Sobriety checkpoints nab few drunk drivers, but they do enrich the municipality's coffers as officers hand out hundreds of citations for petty offenses, like failure to wear a seatbelt. (National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration figures show that the largest reduction in alcohol-related traffic deaths occur in state's that do not use sobriety checkpoints.) And when elected officials aren't busy with the now annual drive to lower blood alcohol limits (until a single swig of lager makes one "legally drunk"), they are making it easier for police to watch your every move via ubiquitous traffic cameras. Sorry, but I didn't hear the Veterans of Foreign Wars squealing about those infringements of their rights.

These aren't the quaint, looney laws that you read about on the comics page. ("A Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through any of its streets.") Instead these laws create new classes of criminal behaviors; conduct that only yesterday was perfectly legal. Cynically the state assumes that, with time, the masses will get used to fewer rights, and to an ever-expanding, ever-meddling nanny state. All is well as long we are stripped of our rights gradually and imperceptibly.

Earlier this week Eric Peters wrote this in regards to mandatory seatbelt laws, "Since it's probably a losing battle to fight this creeping nannyism head on, one must adopt guerrilla tactics of evasion and obfuscation to assert one's right to make decisions about personal matters for oneself."

I was struck by how much this sounded like life under the old Soviet regime. You couldn't fight the Reds, so you did little things that made you feel like you still had some control over your life. You cracked jokes about the regime in the privacy of your home, hoping the walls weren't bugged, or your friends wouldn't rat you out.

Yes, it is pitiful. But that is what we've come to.

 

Neal Boortz

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has decided that his city is not doing enough to combat climate change. So what is his solution? More government! Not only more government, but a new government bureaucrat will be added to the payroll in San Francisco. Looking for a job? San Francisco's Director of Climate Protection Initiatives will make a generous $160,000 a year. Not bad for a government bureaucrat dedicated to hack science and a phony cause.

Wait .. there's more. Newsom could, perhaps, get away with this new position ... if he didn't already have 25 employees on the city's roster that are dedicated to "climate issues." This means that the taxpayers of San Francisco are already paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to tackle climate issues, and now they will only be paying more. Not to mention that the city is bracing for a $233 million budget deficit next fiscal year. So while lawmakers are sitting in the chambers trying to figure out ways to cut down on emergency room hours and delaying playground improvement projects, Mayor Newsom gets to sit in his office and create a new job in the name of climate change.

So who are these 25 employees already dedicated to fighting the good fight against global warming? And how much are they costing the tax payers?

You San Francisco taxpayers must be absolutely orgasmic in your appreciation for your mayor and his spending priorities.

 
Borowitz Report

One day after The New York Times published an article raising ethical questions about Sen. John McCain’s dealings with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, the Arizona senator pushed back today at a press conference in Cleveland, telling reporters, “Vicki Iseman did not force me into any positions.”

Calling suggestions that Ms. Iseman could make him assume a different position “ridiculous,” Sen. McCain said, “At my age, I’m not about to try out new positions that I’m uncomfortable with.”

While Mr. McCain was vague about his official dealings with Ms. Iseman, he told reporters, “I would not allow a lobbyist to perform any favor for me unless it felt really, really good.”

The Republican frontrunner said that neither he nor Ms. Iseman had been aware that The New York Times was conducting an investigation into their relationship, adding, “Vicki and I have been in the dark together for a long time.”

But he vehemently defended the lobbyist’s professionalism, telling reporters, “Vicki Iseman is an energetic and passionate woman who has bent over backwards to please me.”

Early reaction to Sen. McCain’s comments was mixed, with some Republicans wondering whether he had done himself more harm than good.

But Mr. McCain did receive high marks from at least one Senate colleague, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Id.).

“I called John today to offer him my encouragement,” Sen. Craig said. “I said, ‘It’s hard, and it’s going to get harder, but stick it out.’”