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Fannie and Freddie's Enablers
You'll love this one. In the strange accountability of Washington, the same folks who put taxpayers on the hook for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now demanding ransom to let taxpayers bail them out. It's as if Andy Fastow insisted that Enron shareholders pay his fines after his fraud cost them their life savings.

"I don't know how in good conscience you come up here and ask me to give unlimited lines of credit" to Treasury for Fannie and Freddie without giving Democrats something in return, Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) told the Journal last week. Come again? This is the same Chris Dodd who long resisted tougher regulation while more recently handing Fan and Fred even more room to expand their risk-taking.

At a February hearing, he derided critics who he said were "repeatedly raising alarm bells about the risks Fannie and Freddie pose to the financial system." You may also remember Mr. Dodd as the fellow who got a sweetheart mortgage from former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo, who was thick as thieves with Fannie Mae....

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Global Warming Activist Freezes to Death in Antarctica
Famed global warming activist James Schneider and a journalist friend were both found frozen to death on Saturday, about 90 miles from South Pole Station, by the pilot of a ski plane practicing emergency evacuation procedures.

...Apparently, while all of Prof. Schneider's friends were assuming that the July trek would be to Greenland, during Northern Hemisphere summer, his plans were actually to snowmobile to the South Pole - which, in July, is in the dead of winter.

Mr. Dolittle related how some people do not realize that, even if there has been warming in Antarctica, the average temperature at the South Pole in July still runs about 70 degrees F below zero. "Some people think that July is warm everywhere on Earth."

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NASA Data Worse Than Climate-Gate Data, Space Agency Admits
NASA was able to put a man on the moon, but the space agency can't tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA's temperature records are in even worse shape than the besmirched Climate-gate data.

E-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) -- the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails -- and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.

The e-mails from 2007 reveal that when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA's data "was more accurate" than other climate-change data sets, NASA's Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said "the National Climatic Data Center's procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate," admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings.

"My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC's data for the U.S. means and [East Anglia] data for the global means," Ruedy told the reporter.

"NASA's temperature data is worse than the Climate-gate temperature data. According to NASA," wrote Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who uncovered the e-mails. Horner is skeptical of NCDC's data as well, stating plainly: "Three out of the four temperature data sets stink." ...

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James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change
Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."...

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Bigger danger of healthcare bill: the arrogance of Congress
We may never fully know the damage that will be done by the massive health care bill Congress passed on Sunday, but one thing is certain: It will lead to lower-quality care at higher costs.

Dozens of new health boards will come on line in the next few years, as bureaucrats gradually take control of our health care system. Who knows how many bright college students will decide to avoid medical careers because they don’t want to follow orders from these bureaucrats?

As alarming as some of the bill’s provisions are, what’s more dangerous is the arrogance this Congress demonstrated.

The House of Representatives used to represent; now it rules.

This health care reform was widely debated for a year, and it became less popular by the month. A weekend poll by Rasmussen Reports showed the depth of that unpopularity, with only 26 percent strongly supporting the reform and 45 percent strongly opposing it.

How can elected representatives defy the considered will of the people?

Because defiance becomes an easy habit when you know that there is almost no chance you will lose your next election. The loss of accountability enables public servants to indulge their own lust for power. As Lord Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”...

...The reason is a century of entrenchment by incumbents looking out for themselves. They have large staffs and budgets to run a permanent campaign; they have pork and patronage to distribute at taxpayer expense; and they enacted campaign restrictions to hobble challengers.

With mostly one-party districts, incumbents own their seats unless they face serious primary challenges. But party organizations controlled by incumbents work to discourage primary challenges, regardless of the performance of the incumbent. In fact, only eight incumbents have lost their primary races in the past three elections combined – that’s a renomination rate of over 99 percent. ...

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Health overhaul likely to strain doctor shortage
WASHINGTON – Better beat the crowd and find a doctor.

Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.

The new law goes beyond offering coverage to the uninsured, with steps to improve the quality of care for the average person and help keep us well instead of today's seek-care-after-you're-sick culture. To benefit, you'll need a regular health provider.

Yet recently published reports predict a shortfall of roughly 40,000 primary care doctors over the next decade, a field losing out to the better pay, better hours and higher profile of many other specialties. ...

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Your Medical Records Aren’t Secure
...In fact, the passage of HIPAA in 1996 (under President Bill Clinton) set the course for this outcome. The fact that HIPAA privacy was undone during the Bush administration is a coincidence convenient for his ideological and political opponents. If I’m mistaken, the proof will be the reversal of the policy during the current administration. I’m not aware of any plan for that to happen.

“Electronic record systems that don’t put patients in control of data or have inadequate security create huge opportunities for the theft, misuse and sale of personal health information,” says Peel. I agree, but more importantly, I think, public policies that don’t put patients in control create the same—or at least parallel—problems.

Transferring control of health care to the federal government transfers control of health information to the federal government. The government has interests distinct from patients, and no matter how hard one fights to protect patients’ privacy interests, the government’s interests in cost control, social engineering, and such will ineluctably win out....

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Stunning flood of claims held in secret diocesan archive
A METICULOUSLY maintained secret archive on abuse allegations against clerics in the Diocese of Cloyne has shocked both victim representatives and church investigators.

The revelation came as the Irish Independent has learnt that the same archive will be used to support a flood of civil damages claims once a state-ordered probe into alleged clerical abuses in Dublin and Cloyne is published.

The archive contains stunning data -- recorded in meticulous detail -- on abuse allegations dating over several years, related correspondence, clerical responses and the diocesan handling of the individual complaints. Gardai were, at the time, unaware of significant data in the file.

The number of people alleging clerical abuse in the sprawling Cork diocese in the 1970s and 1980s has almost doubled since a shocking church child protection watchdog report was launched three years ago.....

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Democrats threaten companies hit hard by health care bill
...On Thursday and Friday, the companies -- so far, they include AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M -- said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees. Now, both retirees and current employees of those companies are wondering whether the new law could mean reduced or canceled benefits for them in the future.

The news is an embarrassment for Democrats. As President Obama and congressional leaders tout the purported benefits of the new health care law, some of the nation's biggest companies are saying it will mean higher costs and fewer benefits -- not exactly what Democrats want to hear in the days after their historic victory.

So Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill's opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it....

...Waxman's request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation....

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The ObamaCare Writedowns
It's been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or "political."

Perhaps that explains why the Administration is now so touchy. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that while ObamaCare is great for business, "In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them." In a Thursday interview on CNBC, Mr. Locke said "for them to come out, I think is premature and irresponsible."...

...In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

On top of AT&T's $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million....

...The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don't make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

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Another T.S.A. Nominee Withdraws
...Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding, a retired Army intelligence officer, was selected to take over the Transportation Security Administration, or T.S.A., just two and a half weeks ago, following the withdrawal of Mr. Obama’s first pick under fire.

No third choice was announced, and the back-to-back failed nominations mean that the job is likely to remain unfilled for months to come.

General Harding’s bid came unraveled after reports that his firm collected more federal money than it was entitled to for providing interrogators in Iraq. ...

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Government Caused the Meltdown
... The first part of the book examines the government’s policy blunders, beginning with the very notion of federal housing policy. The Constitution says nothing about housing, but in 1938 Congress and President Roosevelt created the Federal National Mortgage Association, usually called “Fannie Mae.” They did so because they thought it was a good idea to promote home ownership and figured that establishing a “government sponsored entity” to buy mortgages from lenders would do that. Of course, there were millions of Americans who owned houses prior to the creation of Fannie. There was no problem that needed to be solved, but the politicians thought it would be a popular move, so they went ahead, never contemplating that getting the government into the home-financing business would one day lead to disaster.

Fannie’s mortgage-backed securities were sold to investors worldwide, most of whom assumed that the paper was sound, backed by the U.S. government. Woods writes, “Everybody knew that if the GSEs [Fannie and its younger sibling, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation or “Freddie Mac,” are known as government-sponsored enterprises — GSEs] ran into trouble, they would be bailed out at taxpayer expense.” They ran into enormous trouble and were bailed out, but hardly anyone has had the guts to blame these political pets and call for their abolition.

Another of the culprits Woods identifies is the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which used political leverage to compel banks to make more loans “in their communities.” This law (again, outside the constitutional authority of Congress but enacted anyway) was a power play to force banks to make loans they would not otherwise choose to, directing capital in ways that please the activists and politicians. Under the Clinton administration, this statute was used to compel banks to meet quotas of home loans to high-risk people. At the same time, Clinton forced Fannie and Freddie to purchase high-risk mortgages. Woods shows, in short, that political pressure was used to undermine the traditionally cautious lending standards in the mortgage industry.

Politicians in both parties took delight in crowing that home ownership was increasing, especially among minority voting groups, without realizing that home ownership is not necessarily good for everyone. For persons with low and unsteady incomes, home ownership can be a costly mistake, as later proved to be the case for millions who had taken out loans they couldn’t repay.

By themselves, however, Fannie, Freddie, and the CRA could have done only minor economic damage. Woods identifies the main villain in this drama as the Federal Reserve System. For years, the Fed under long-time chairman Alan Greenspan pumped up the money supply so as to drive interest rates down to artificially low levels. Artificially low interest rates tricked people into acting differently than they otherwise would have. Home ownership and housing construction looked like great investments during the years 2002 to 2006 because of the outpouring of credit from the Fed, steered by politicians toward the housing market. If interest rates had remained at market levels, the housing bubble could not have grown to the enormous size it did. ...

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On Health Care Day, Obama Skips Signing Executive Order on Abortion; Stupak, on Defense, Compares Order to Emancipation Proclamation
President Obama signed the Senate health care bill into law Tuesday. He did not sign the executive order on abortion negotiated with Michigan Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak in an 11th-hour arrangement that may well have saved the entire health care reform effort.

A White House official told Fox, Obama will not sign the Executive Order Tuesday and has set no specific date to do so. Stupak predicted Obama would sign the order later this week. The White House said only that Obama would sign the order "soon."...

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The Government Pay Boom
It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It's the 45% premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.

And the gap is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), from 1998 to 2008 public employee compensation grew by 28.6%, compared with 19.3% for private workers. In the recession year of 2009, with almost no inflation and record budget deficits, more than half the states awarded pay raises to their employees...

Cantor Says Campaign Office Was Shot At, Accuses Dems of Exploiting Threats
Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that his Richmond campaign office has been shot at and that he's received "threatening e-mails" -- but at the same time the House minority whip accused top Democrats of trying to exploit the threats they've been receiving for "political gain."

Cantor said "a bullet was shot through the window" of his campaign office. The incident happened Monday, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress. Most of the threats so far have been reported by Democrats, but Cantor -- the No. 2 Republican in the House -- is one of about 10 lawmakers who has asked for increased security protection, Fox News has learned.

In brief and pointed remarks, Cantor said he would not be releasing any information about the other threats he's received, as some lawmakers have done, out of concern that it would "encourage more to be sent." ...

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REMEMBERING WHEN G.O.P. Offices Were Vandalized: “An apparent mob of vandals attacked the North Carolina Republican Party headquarters, causing minor smoke damage, breaking windows and leaving vulgar messages, police said.” I don’t remember a national panic over this, or over the bullet-riddled Bush/Cheney headquarters.

Then there was this episode. And, of course, this: “A group of protestors stormed and then ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters building in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.”...

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Obama's opposition to the individual mandate.
..."When Senator Clinton says a mandate, it's not a mandate on government to provide health insurance. It's a mandate on individuals to purchase it. Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20% of the uninsured because they've concluded that that 20% can't afford it. In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can't afford it so now they're worse off than they were. They don't have health insurance and they're paying a fine. In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you've got to have a very harsh, stiff penalty."...

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The Obamaklatura
...But the Tribune story shows that political control introduces its own kind of inequality, to benefit the political class:

While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help through a shadowy appeals system created in recent years under former schools chief Arne Duncan.

Whispers have long swirled that some children get spots in the city's premier schools based on whom their parents know. But a list maintained over several years in Duncan's office and obtained by the Tribune lends further evidence to those charges. Duncan is now secretary of education under President Barack Obama.

The log is a compilation of politicians and influential business people who interceded on behalf of children during Duncan's tenure. It includes 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard Daley's office, House Speaker Michael Madigan, his daughter Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun.

Non-connected parents, such as those who sought spots for their special-needs child or who were new to the city, also appear on the log. But the politically connected make up about three-quarters of those making requests in the documents obtained by the Tribune.

This is "the aristocracy of pull," in Ayn Rand's memorable phrase. Its existence is probably inevitable inasmuch as government's is, but its extent can only increase with the power and reach of government.

If you and Larry Summers both get sick and need a treatment that the Medicare Advisory Commission (dysphemistically known as the Death Panel) deems too expensive, what are the odds that you'll find a way to get it anyway and he won't? How about the other way around? In the Soviet Union, those privileged by political connections were called the nomenklatura. Here, we can call it the Obamaklatura....

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All the 'Nuance' That's Fit to Print
The New York Times relaxes taboos about Nazi Germany.

The other day David Leonhardt, who writes the "Economic Scene" column for the New York Times business section, offered an analogy that some are likely to find shocking:

In the summer of 1933, just as they will do on Thursday, heads of government and their finance ministers met in London to talk about a global economic crisis. They accomplished little and went home to battle the crisis in their own ways.

More than any other country, Germany--Nazi Germany--then set out on a serious stimulus program. The government built up the military, expanded the autobahn, put up stadiums for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and built monuments to the Nazi Party across Munich and Berlin.

The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn't look kindly on collective bargaining. But Germany did escape the Great Depression faster than other countries. Corporate profits boomed, and unemployment sank (and not because of slave labor, which didn't become widespread until later). Harold James, an economic historian, says that the young liberal economists studying under John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s began to debate whether Hitler had solved unemployment.

What interests us here is not the merits of the argument but the fact that it is being aired at all on the pages of the nation's leading liberal newspaper. Not long ago it was considered in horribly poor taste to praise anything about the Nazi regime, or to liken contemporary liberalism to Nazism or other fascist movements of the past. (The left's hostility to Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" rested heavily on the latter element of the taboo.)...

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Obama gives sugar plums to the special interests
"Tonight," President Obama intoned near midnight Sunday, after the House had passed two health care bills, "we pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. ... We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people."

But even before the president spoke, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America -- whose $26.1 million lobbying effort in 2009 was the most expensive by any industry lobby in history -- hailed the health package as "important and historic."

The second-biggest industry lobby in America, the American Medical Association, also cheered, as did the American Hospital Association, the No. 5 industry lobby. Throw in the goliath senior lobby AARP and Beltway powerhouse General Electric, and you realize Obama's underdog tale is all bark and no bite.

The health care bill Obama signed into law Tuesday is a triumph for the special interests. It will benefit the biggest businesses, and by injecting more government into the economy, it will permanently stimulate K Street.

Yet all along Obama has claimed the opposite. ...

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A Point of No Return?
...If the current legislation does not entail the transmission of all our individual medical records to Washington, it will take only an administrative regulation or, at most, an Executive Order of the President, to do that.

With politicians now having not only access to our most confidential records, and having the power of granting or withholding medical care needed to sustain ourselves or our loved ones, how many people will be bold enough to criticize our public servants, who will in fact have become our public masters?

Despite whatever "firewalls" or "lockboxes" there may be to shield our medical records from prying political eyes, nothing is as inevitable as leaks in Washington. Does anyone still remember the hundreds of confidential FBI files that were "accidentally" delivered to the White House during Bill Clinton's administration?

Even before that, J. Edgar Hoover's extensive confidential FBI files on numerous Washington power holders made him someone who could not be fired by any President of the United States, much less by any Attorney General, who was nominally his boss....