Opinion: May 19 buzz: ‘Job killers,’ DSK and Goodwin Liu
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Most viewed: In California, ‘job killers’ that aren’t
Donald Cohen of the Cry Wolf Project takes on the California Chamber of Commerce’s annual list of bills it deems ‘job killers.’
The chamber’s argument is always the same: If ‘job-killer proposal X’ passes, companies will go bankrupt, shrink or move out of California. Excessive taxes, regulations and paperwork, especially on small businesses, will crush private sector investment. […]But if we look backward, we find that the job-killer predictions are often wrong. Despite the chamber’s political clout, some of the bills on its lists became law. So it is possible to evaluate whether the organization was providing honest analyses or crying wolf and engaging in scare tactics. Here are some examples.
Read on for Cohen’s examples.
Most commented: DSK and France’s code of silence
‘Somewhere between the French embrace of satyriasis among political leaders and Americans’ puritanical intolerance of sexual impropriety is a happy medium,’ the editorial board writes in regard to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case.
Does it matter if a brilliant leader is also a sex addict? Not necessarily. The American media, like the French, tended to ignore such things half a century ago, and what the country didn’t know about President John F. Kennedy’s affairs didn’t hurt it. But sometimes it does matter. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is Exhibit A in the case against ignoring a politician’s personal life. His alleged adventures with an underage prostitute have not only embarrassed his nation, but the ongoing revelations about his sexual escapades and the criminal charges connected to them have made it difficult for him to continue governing. A politician’s sexual misdeeds can reflect more than his attitudes toward marriage; they can indicate his respect for women and adherence to moral, ethical and legal codes.
In response, reader quixote7 writes on our discussion board:
There is a huge difference between anyone’s private life -- not just a politician’s -- and committing physical assaults on another human being. The fact that those assaults involve sexual organs and victimize women does not somehow make them ‘normal.’ Private lives should be private. Crimes must be prosecuted, and leaders should not be criminals. They should be in jail. What is so hard about that concept?
Most shared: 9th Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu deserves a vote
The editorial board asked that the U.S. Senate give Goodwin Liu a straight up-or-down vote.
Republicans -- and Democrats -- inclined to oppose Liu’s nomination are free to vote against it. But they would do an injustice to Liu and the Senate by refusing to allow his nomination to come to a vote. The Senate should make such a vote possible -- and then approve Liu.
Republicans blocked the appeals court nominee for which our right-of-center readers offer some perspective. They say:
Liberals seemed perfectly okay back in 2003 when the Democratic minority in the Senate used the filibuster to block the nominations of Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Charles W. Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, David W. McKeague, Henry Saad, Richard Allen Griffin, William H. Pryor, William Gerry Myers III and Janice Rogers Brown. Question: Where was their outrage for THESE qualified nominees? Answer: Cloaked in liberal hypocrisy. You see, their calls for a ‘straight up-or-down’ vote are always dependent on the situation and according to whom is being nominated and who is doing the nominating. Democrats forget they INVENTED Borking. If they want this silliness to end, then they need to act a little more contrite about the shrillness and hyper-partisanship that they, themselves, have brought to the judicial nomination process. Also, they ought to refrain from using the courts as a fallback position for enacting laws via judicial fiat that they cannot otherwise get passed through the normal, legislative process for lack of votes. --GregMaragos Liu is an active leftist, and the Republicans would not be serving their constituency if they did not do everything that’s legal and proper to prevent his appointment. We already have to live with the many horrid rulings of the wacked-out 9th Circuit; we don’t need another of their ilk. -- Jaded Cynic
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--Alexandra Le Tellier
