Rumpelstiltskin
Rumpelstiltskin spun gold out of straw. Fed chief alchemist Bernanke spins dollars out of…I have no idea. But Wall Street somehow got the idea that he was thinking of not doing it any more and didn’t like it one bit.
Farm Bill
Congress is working on a new farm bill. Fifteen lawmakers receive direct payments from the Agriculture Department according to Bloomberg. Heritage’s The Foundry is happy to show us who else gets farm aid here.
Tale of Two Dicks
During an interview with Charlie Rose that aired Monday the president protested again that he’s not Dick Cheney. He has a point. I haven’t heard that Cheney tried to intimidate journalists and their sources, or use the IRS to intimidate political opponents.
James Taranto, in a column titled We’re all Dick Cheney Now, says Obama is trying to send a message to his base that they were right to distrust Cheney but not to distrust him for adopting and expanding the same program of spying on Americans.
Victor Davis Hanson says, “deception is now institutionalized in the Obama administration”. He calls it, “the most untruthful cast since Nixon, Halderman, Zeigler, and John Dean”.
DNA Patent
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that natural human DNA cannot be patented. On the other hand, the court says you can patent unnatural manmade genetic material. When the patent runs out will there be generic genetic material?
Co-Conspirator
Eric Holder signed off on a warrant calling Fox News reporter James Rosen a co-conspirator even though he doesn’t think he is one and has no intention of prosecuting him. In an interview with NBC’s Pete Williams Holder bemoaned the fact that, despite his “great respect for the press”, it’s necessary to brand a reporter, “doing his very important job”, as a criminal in order to get a warrant against him. So, why did he want a warrant against such a swell guy?
Holder also says he has no intention of stepping down.
