† Look Before You Leap: Part II (second item): Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) took the path of least resistance and allowed SB793 to become law without his signature that mandates a woman seeking an abortion receive a description of the "anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child," as well as the option to see an ultrasound of it and listen to its heartbeat, reports The Associated Press:

 

[F]acing his first decision on an abortion bill, [Nixon] sidestepped a direct endorsement of the new requirements by citing a Missouri constitutional provision allowing bills to become law without the governor's signature.

 

The legislation is part of a national trend among abortion opponents to encourage women to reconsider their decisions through the use of modern medical technology.

 

A Planned Parenthood official said legal challenges to other states' laws offering ultrasounds generally have been unsuccessful, and its Missouri clinics are preparing to comply with the law when it takes effect Aug. 28.

 

In addition, countering years of pro-abortion propaganda that a fetus is “just a clump of cells,” abortionists will have to provide women with brochure that explicitly explains: "The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being."

 

Editorial Note: MO joins 19 other states that require women to get an ultrasound or information on how to get one before an abortion is performed. Gary Bauer, chairman of Campaign for Working Families, and Daniel Allott, a Washington fellow with the National Review Institute, argue that ultrasound will be the undoing of pro-abortion activists in this op-ed for The Washington Times:

 

According to conventional wisdom, anti-abortion advocates are vulnerable to charges of being anti-woman and anti-science. Pro-lifers subordinate dispassionate scientific inquiry to irrational religious belief, many people believe, and their "fetus fetish" blinds them to the plight of women in crisis pregnancies. …

 

Ultrasound has been responsible for a number of high-profile conversions to the pro-life cause, including several directors of abortion facilities. It also has stirred many Americans who were formerly ambivalent about abortion to adopt the pro-life position.

 

Americans rightly recoil from images and descriptions of torture of prisoners and of cruel treatment of animals. We should not be surprised when they react similarly to the inhumane treatment of unborn babies and their mothers.

 

† Guantánamo Bay Detainees Treated Humanely: Report: The Washington Post marvels, “It’s not every day that detainees attempt to block their own release from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But that is what six Algerians who have been held at the prison for some eight years are trying to do.” This would be the same Washington Post that has repeatedly insisted that Gitmo is a hellhole and a stain on America’s human rights record (even in this editorial). Here’s the backstory:

 

Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia cleared the detainees for release late last year, but she put the release on hold after the United States indicated that it planned to send them to their native country. The men fear that in Algeria they would face abuse, torture or worse at the hands of the government or militant Islamic groups. They say they are willing to go to a third country or to stay in Guantanamo for years rather than return.  …

 

Last week, the D.C. Circuit lifted the hold on the Algerian repatriation; the detainees have since asked the Supreme Court to block their transfer to allow them to fully make their case before an independent federal judge.

 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Obama administration can ship detainees off to whatever country will have them, and Congress has barred detainees from applying for asylum or seeking refugee status. So the most palatable option for them is to stay in Gitmo until (if) they can get a judge to agree that sending them back to Algeria is tantamount to a death sentence.

 

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: News.com.au reports that a study commissioned by the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Environment Group recommends “culling the feral animals that burp and fart their way around Australia's outback … reducing wildfires, limiting tree clearing and allowing vegetation to regrow” could “eliminate billions of tonnes of carbon emissions … the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road every year for the next 40”:  

 

Pew spokesman Barry Traill said a program of culling feral camels was already underway, but needed to be extended.

 

"When feral animals belch they release methane, a particularly noxious greenhouse gas, and every single camel or water buffalo releases the equivalent of around one tonne of carbon dioxide each year,'' he told reporters in Canberra.

 

"When you've got hundreds of thousands, in some cases millions, of these feral animals, it's a very large amount of pollution each year.''

 

[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal]

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (ninth item, Is Hillary Clinton Campaigning For President?): Citing a bunch of depressing economic indicators, Wall Street Journal columnist Pete DuPont notes, “America is clearly failing economically,” and worse will come to worst next year (“the economy will be further depressed by increasing tax rates”; “bad public policies will further drag down the economy”):

 

Add together all these increases in government regulation, spending and taxes and a dim employment outlook, and the result is a dramatic national decline in support of the White House, Congress and their administration of our national policies.

 

The solution is obvious: “[W]e could elect a president with different thinking.” But who? How about … Hillary Clinton!:

 

[T]here are some obvious factors that suggest she might have a chance of defeating President Obama if she were to challenge him for the 2012 Democratic nomination.

 

First, as Peggy Noonan wrote earlier this month, the conclusion one hears from most "normal" American people is that the president "is in over his head, and out of his depth." …

 

Second, she is physically and intellectually strong enough to take on a difficult campaign. She showed that running against Obama two years ago.

 

Third, she is one of the most experienced prospective candidates the Democratic Party has had in a long while: wife of a governor, U.S. first lady, senator and now secretary of state. This is a good record to run on as someone who knows how the government works.

 

Fourth, she is an experienced foreign-policy adviser who understands the threats to our national security: unresolved conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, rising threats of nuclear capability in Iran and North Korea, and uncertainties in Pakistan.

 

Fifth, experience will be even more important to voters in the 2012 presidential election, whose 2008 gamble on someone with little experience is proving costly.

 

Finally, Washington's deadly left-liberal policies that have propelled the American economy in a very bad direction can be turned around. If Mrs. Clinton made the case that America must get rid of the huge debt the current administration has created, must create much better economic growth with lower tax rates, and must strongly assist employer job creation, she would appeal to a broad voter coalition.

 

The Stiletto agrees that voters will be looking for experience this time around (which rules out Sarah Palin as a candidate for 2012, though she will regardless make her mark on the Republican platform) and Hillary Clinton is not only a seasoned lawmaker, but knows how to get things done in Washington. On the down side, her tenure as Secretary of State has been unimpressive, with simmering crises such as Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programs ready to come to the boil.

 

When Hillary Clinton lost the nomination to Barack Obama after beating his brains out during their debates, his supporters claimed that rather than weakening him she toughened him to go up against John McCain in the general election (too bad Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney did not have the same effect on McCain, but that’s another story). With his ineptitude, you could say that Obama has returned the favor. No, not by making her look smart by comparison, but in a more subtle way: Obama’s progressive overreaching is the embodiment of the yearnings of Hillary Clinton’s liberal soul and she got a real-world look at the ruination that resulted. Not just the country’s, but Obama’s presidency and legacy.

 

Experience – in this case, Obama’s – is the best teacher and Hillary Clinton won’t make the mistake of living out all her liberal fantasies by foisting unpopular programs on an unwilling public. And if she hangs tough on Afghanistan, she may end up becoming our Margaret Thatcher.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (Is Obama Already A Lame Duck?): One reason that white professionals - you know, the Chablis and arugula crowd who felt all warm and fuzzy inside for being "enlightened" (that is to say, "not racist") enough to vote for an inexperienced, untested (Who cares? He's biracial!) man for president - have buyer's remorse is encapsulated in this horror story of  laid-off attorney Laurie-Allen Shumaker, who has 23 years' experience. She sent out 1,000⁺ résumés without a single interview to show for her efforts. It's not that she was picky - she also went after jobs as a secretary, file clerk and daycare worker.

 

It’s not her fault – nor the fault of the millions of job-seekers who network, send out résumés and set up pages on Linked-In and Plaxo. The Washington Post reports:

 

Nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash, roughly one-quarter more than at the beginning of the recession. And as several major firms report impressive earnings this week, the money continues to flow into firms' coffers.

 

Yet all the good news from big business hasn't translated into much promise for jobless Americans, leading many to wonder: If corporations are sitting on so much money, why aren't they hiring more workers?

 

The answer to that question has become a political flash point between the White House and big business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which held a jobs summit Wednesday and accused the Obama administration of dumping onerous regulations on businesses. That has created an environment of "uncertainty," which is causing firms to hold back on hiring as the unemployment rate has hovered near 10 percent, the Chamber said.

 

The White House countered that companies are wary of hiring not because of new regulations but because they're still waiting for consumer demand to return. The administration also claimed credit for 3.5 million jobs created by the stimulus bill from last year.

 

Unfortunately, Shumaker and other jobless Americans will not find their salvation in the financial reform bill, reports The Washington Times:

 

The financial reform bill … is chock-full of provisions that have little to do with the financial crisis but cater to the long-standing agendas of labor unions and other Democratic interest groups.

 

Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States. …

 

Business groups are also rankled that the legislation would impose costly new burdens on airlines, utilities and other non-financial businesses that were victims rather than villains in the crisis, simply because they use financial derivatives to hedge their businesses against risks such as fluctuations in oil prices, interest rates and currencies. …

 

The bill would create more than 20 "offices of minority and women inclusion" at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies [that would] apply "fair employment tests" to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis. …

 

The powerful new consumer protection agency that is the centerpiece of the reform bill also would provide substantial employment opportunities and funding for Democratic and social-activist groups such as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), critics say.

 

Rather than focus on the abuses in the mortgage-lending market that led to the crisis, the new consumer agency would have broad-ranging powers to regulate and punish virtually any company that has a financial relationship with consumers - even those that had nothing to do with the crisis, said Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican. …

 

"During our negotiations on the consumer bureaucracy, my Democrat friends were not focused on the mortgage market. Their sights were set on the rest of the economy," he said.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Eat My Shorts: Goldman Sachs E-Mails): To settle a fraud suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $300 million to taxpayers and $250 million to two foreign banks that invested in a subprime-mortgage investment that the Wall Street investment bank allegedly knew was designed to fail, reports The Washington Post:

 

The fine is the largest the SEC has ever assessed against a financial company. But the settlement also is striking because Goldman agreed to a host of changes to how it does business and because the bank, while not admitting wrongdoing, agreed to express "regret" for including "incomplete information" in marketing materials touting the investment to clients.

 

By doing so, Goldman acknowledged "the fundamental basis of our complaint," SEC enforcement director Robert Khuzami said at a news conference, standing with 10 colleagues who worked on the case. "Today's settlement is a stark reminder - a very stark reminder - that there will be a heavy price to be paid if firms violate the principles fundamental to securities law."

 

[B]y settling, Goldman is able to escape a protracted court case while it is trying to rebuild its public reputation. The company has lost billions of dollars in market value since the filing of the fraud suit and continues to face a Justice Department probe and private lawsuits. …

 

Judge Barbara S. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York must approve the settlement. Late last year, a judge sitting on the same bench rejected an SEC settlement with Bank of America, saying it was far too modest. Later that bank and the SEC settled for a much larger sum.

 

An SEC complaint against Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman vice president who arranged the deal, continues.

 

The Wall Street Journal reports that the SEC split along party lines with Republican Commissioners Kathleen Casey and Troy Paredes voting against settling the suit and SEC chairman Mary Schapiro, who was appointed by President Barack Hussein Obama, casting the deciding vote:

 

People familiar with the matter say … Casey questioned the SEC staff Thursday on their decision to abandon the strongest fraud charge and strike a settlement involving a lesser allegation, and given that, how the SEC could justify such a large penalty on a lesser charge.

 

The political split over the case comes at a time when the agency remains under fire for its policing of the financial markets during the financial crisis. The SEC commissioners often split on party lines over policy decisions, but rarely do so on such high-profile enforcement cases.

 

The disclosure of the dispute also raises fresh questions about how strong a case the SEC had against Goldman.

 

Russell Ryan, a former SEC enforcement lawyer, said the negotiation to drop the strongest fraud charge is "usually a strong indication the SEC had some doubt whether it could prove intentional fraud." …

 

The division in the settlement vote casts a cloud over what the SEC had claimed on Thursday was a major victory. Investors had expected any SEC fine in the case to be $1 billion or more. Goldman's shares have jumped since Thursday.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, Terrorist Mouthpiece Disbarred): On the instructions of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider his original sentence of 28 months, Southern District of New York Judge John Koeltl re-sentenced terrorist mouthpiece Lynne Stewart to 10 years in prison. Koeltl not only took into account Stewart bragging that she could serve 28 months "standing on my head" when he first sentenced her in 2006, but also “a statement in a television interview that she would do ‘it’ again and would not ‘do anything differently,’” reports New York Law Journal:

 

Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support by passing messages to and from her imprisoned client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, to his followers in the U.S.-designated terror organization the Islamic Group. …

 

In sentencing her to 10 years, [Koeltl] also recommended that she be placed in the federal facility in Danbury, Conn., to be closer to her family.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II): Despite - or maybe because of - the best efforts of The New York Times and sister paper The Boston Globe to turn Starbucks customers into "teatotlers" over the company's tolerance of concealed weapons brought into its coffee shops in those states that allow residents to exercise their Second Amendment rights, Online Media Daily reports that the chain is more popular than ever on social networking site Facebook:

 

A year ago, Starbucks knocked off Coca-Cola as the most popular corporate brand on Facebook, with its page on the social network drawing 3.7 million fans. Now the coffee giant has become the first brand to clear the 10 million-fan mark on Facebook, with its nearest rivals - Coke and Skittles - both trailing behind at about 6.5 million.

 

To put Starbucks' social ascent in perspective, the company is close to catching up to pop icon Lady Gaga in Facebook fans. She's just ahead in the rankings, with about 10.4 million, according to data compiled by the Inside Facebook blog.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, Obama’s Judgment On Judges): Writing in the New York Times blog "Opinionator" about an article in the New York Daily News that Justice Anthony Kennedy has “no plans to retire,” Linda Greenhouse confirms a prediction that Lyle Denniston made on Scotusblog earlier this year about the center of gravity of the court shifting to the right. But while Denniston argued that Justice Anthony Kennedy's tie-breaking votes will drive this rightward drift, Greenhouse contends that he rather than being “the decider” (“the boundary separating liberals and conservatives on the court was at least theoretically permeable and that he was willing to cross it”) he’s now firmly wedged into the court’s conservative bloc:

 

A plausible case can be made that it is no longer the “Kennedy court.”

 

That label has been applied to the Supreme Court for the last few years, including by me. It reflected the fact that on a polarized court, with two blocs of four justices reliably taking opposite sides in any case with a hint of ideological content, the majority in important cases turned out to be wherever Justice Kennedy was. …

 

But during this past term, Justice Kennedy was in dissent in 5 of the 18 cases decided by five-vote majorities (a figure that amounts to one-quarter of the 73 cases decided with signed opinions, down from 31 percent in the previous term and 40 percent in the term before that.) Three justices to Justice Kennedy’s right, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., all cast fewer dissenting votes in those close cases (three, three and four, respectively) and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was tied with Justice Kennedy at five. …

 

Here is a final set of numbers suggesting that the most accurate description of the Supreme Court today is that it is a court securely in the collective hands of its five most conservative members. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy collectively dissented during the past term a grand total of only 39 times, averaging 7.8 dissents per justice over the course of a term that produced 73 decisions. The four others - Justices Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, John Paul Stevens and Sonia Sotomayor - dissented 78 times, for an average of 19.5 dissenting votes per justice.

 

Of course Justice Kennedy isn’t going to retire - not when he is on the winning team.