Los Angeles Times Disses 'Atlas Shrugged'

Well, I can't say one way or the other until I see it. And I won't see it until tomorrow, since it's playing in L.A., and I'll be doing tea party coverage today. So take LAT's review FWIW from a leftist outlet, "Movie review: 'Atlas Shrugged': Ayn Rand's opus of unfettered capitalism gets a flat screen treatment."

Meanwhile, you know Roger Ebert's gonna hate it, but read it just for the glimpse into the anti-individualist worldview:

So OK. Let’s say you know the novel, you agree with Ayn Rand, you’re an objectivist or a libertarian, and you’ve been waiting eagerly for this movie. Man, are you going to get a letdown. It’s not enough that a movie agree with you, in however an incoherent and murky fashion. It would help if it were like, you know, entertaining?

(Via Memeorandum.) And others aren't holding off until they see it to weigh in negatively. That said, Kurt Loder did see it and was unimpressed --- and he's writing at Reason.

More later ...

Lowering the Class Warfare Rhetoric

From Carl Cannon, at RealClearPolitics, "Dems and Taxes: Trapped by Talking Points." Folks should just read it all over there. Cannon sounds less a tea partier than the kind of objective commentator that's so few and far between these days. He links to the left-leaning PolitiFact, which debunks the claim that "the well-off received a disproportionate share of the tax cuts."

In any case, speaking of taxes, get a load of this video from ReasonTV:

Going Galt? '69 more firms move jobs, facilities out of California'

Well, speaking of "Atlas Shrugged," here's the latest from California's wrecker economy, at Orange County Register:

So far this year, 69 companies have moved all or part of their California work and jobs to other states or countries, reports Irvine relocation consultant Joe Vranich. It's the fastest rate of departures since Vranich started tracking the exodus in 2009, he says. There have been an average of 4.7 moves per week from Jan. 1 through April 12, compared to 3.9 moves in all of 2010. The numbers are low, Vranich says, estimating that only one in five out-of-state moves is made public. In what he calls "disinvestment events," Vranich counts companies that move jobs, facilities or headquarters out of California. He doesn't count companies that invest outside the state for growth or marketing reasons. Among the 69 are some big names: CKE Restaurants, which started in Orange County and now is based in Carpinteria; Dunn-Edwards paints in Vernon; and eBay Inc. in San Jose which will add 1,000 high-paying jobs in Austin, Tex. after receiving government incentives to locate there.

CKE is Carl Karcher Enterprises, the parent company of Carl's. Jr. But check the link to see the list of O.C.-based firms fleeing the state's inhospitable business climate. And here's the list of reasons:

Why do these and the other companies move out of California? Vranich has updated his top 10 reasons that California companies call the moving van. Number 10 is new: Energy costs soaring because of new laws and regulations. Commercial electrical rates are already 50% higher than the rest of the country, Vranich says, and Gov. Jerry Brown just signed a new law increasing the amount of power utilities must buy from renewable sources plus regulations for the California Global Warming Solutions Act will start soon.

Number 10 is new: Energy costs soaring because of new laws and regulations. Commercial electrical rates are already 50% higher than the rest of the country, Vranich says, and Gov. Jerry Brown just signed a new law increasing the amount of power utilities must buy from renewable sources plus regulations for the California Global Warming Solutions Act will start soon.

The other reasons, Vranich says, are:

9. High and unfair tax treatment
8. Regulatory burden
7. Unfriendly legal environment for business
6. Most expensive place to do business
5. Provable savings elsewhere
4. Public policies and taxes create unfriendly business climate
3. Uncontrollable public spending
2. More adversarial toward business than any other state
1. Poor rankings for California on lists ranging from taxes to crime rates to school dropout rates.

Still more at O.C. Register.

ADDED: Linked at Director Blue and Libertarian Republican.

Also, at Ace of Spades Headlines and Ed Driscoll, "California: ‘More Adversarial Toward Business than Any Other State’."

Kurt Loder Reviews 'Atlas Shrugged' at Reason

See "Where is John Galt?":

Anyone not familiar with Rand’s novel will likely be baffled by the goings-on here. Characters spend much time hunkered around tables and desks nattering about rail transport, copper-mining, and the oil business. A few of these people are stiffly virtuous (“I’m simply cultivating a society that values individual achievement”), but most are contemptible (“We must act to benefit society”…“a committee has decided”…“We rely on public funding.”) These latter creeps should set our blood boiling, but they’re so cartoonishly one-dimensional that any prospective interest soon slumps. We are initially intrigued by the recurring question, “Who is John Galt?” But since the movie covers only the first third of the novel (a crippling miscalculation), we never really find out, apart from noticing an anonymous figure lurking around the edges of the action, togged out in a trench coat and a rain-soaked fedora like a film-noir flatfoot who’s wandered into an epoch far away from his own.

S.E. Cupp is Keith Olbermann's Latest 'Mashed Up Bag of Meat With Lipstick'

The return of Keith Olbermann’s "misogynistic freak show.

The full story's at The Blaze, "OLBERMANN: S.E. CUPP SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN BORN, PROVES ‘NECESSITY’ OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD." It all starts with S.E. Cupp's appearance on Joy Behar's show:

Then Olbermann goes ballistic on Twitter.

See the follow up report from Caroline May, at Daily Caller, "Olbermann says S.E. Cupp demonstrates the ‘necessity’ of Planned."

Andrew Breitbart Saves the World (Or at Least Your Sanity)

I'm reading it now, and loving it. It's hard to put down, and I don't say that about many books these days.

A review from Derek Hunter at Daily Caller, "Righteous Indignation: Andrew Breitbart is out to save the world( and he just might)" (via Big Government):

Of all the things Righteous Indignation does, perhaps its most important function is to pull back the curtain on the unholy alliance between all the cultural and media institutions and the left-wing industrial complex and expose how they fit together like puzzle pieces to advance an agenda. If you trusted the media or the entertainment industry before reading this book, your eyes will be opened. If you didn’t, you will know you are not alone.

Breitbart might not save the world with his book, but he might just save your sanity. Or he might inspire readers to stand up and say “no more!” and take action to defend liberty. Come to think of it, if that happens, he might just save the world.

She's Hot. She's Sexy ... Ayn Rand's Bigger Than Ever

From Matt Welch at Hit and Run, "How Ayn Rand 'was loathed by the mainstream conservative movement'."

Following the links takes to Donald Luskin's piece at WSJ, "Remembering the Real Ayn Rand: The author of "Atlas Shrugged" was an individualist, not a conservative, and she knew big business was as much a threat to capitalism as government bureaucrats."

Welch notes that Luskin's got a new book coming out, "I Am John Galt: Today's Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It." And he also points us to Reason's 2009 cover story, "She’s Back! Ayn Rand is bigger than ever. But are her new fans radical enough for capitalism?" It's a little dated (nobody's "going Galt," for example), although there's an important message there, revived again this week by President Obama's speech on the budget:

For Rand’s popularity to achieve political traction, Randism will have to move beyond the strange preoccupation of a few politicians and the full-time passion of two specialist think tanks. Her ideas will need to become the guiding principle for a significant voting bloc or politically active movement. And that is a difficult problem for Objectivism, which as an organized movement never managed to convert the millions of cash-paying Rand customers into active “radicals for capitalism,” to use the author’s own self-description.

I love the celebration of the individual, but I'm no atheist and some of Rand's individualist abandon leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But Rep. Paul Ryan is cited at the piece. Ryan's Catholic, so he's not going in whole hog for Rand's vision in the moral sphere. But he does endorse the emphasis on liberty in the market (narrowly defined), and the threat from the bureaucratic Leviathan that's more real than ever under the current Democrat regime. I think these points indicate an adaptable Randism for people who aren't that radical. Frankly, it's pretty rad just to go Rand on economic individualism, so folks can sort out Objectivist ethics in others moral realms after that point.

Christmas For Democrats!

Tax time, from Americans for Limited Government:

It's Been 11 Years Since 'Scream 3'

And the Weinstein Company says that's not a problem.

At LAT, "Word of Mouth: 'Scream 4' takes a stab at relaunching the franchise":

Following a bloody scene near the conclusion of "Scream 4," the character played by the horror franchise veteran Neve Campbell turns to series newcomer Emma Roberts and self-referentially cautions her to not mess with the original, though she uses cruder language to express her displeasure.

The question this weekend is whether fans of the first three films also might feel that the new thriller tramples on the "Scream" legacy.

It's been 11 years since "Scream 3" arrived in theaters, and franchises don't normally relaunch themselves after such a long hiatus. Audience tracking surveys suggest that "Scream 4" will be eviscerated at the box office by the animated comedy "Rio," but there are precedents that make "Scream 4" maker Weinstein Co. optimistic about its long-term prospects.

Paramount's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in 2008 followed the previous Harrison Ford treasure-hunt tale by 19 years with poor reviews but a global gross of more than $786 million, and last year's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" from New Line, which trailed the previous Freddy Krueger movie by seven years, grossed a respectable $63.1 million domestically.

"Audiences like it a lot," Bob Weinstein says of the new horror film, which so far is attracting fair but not great reviews. "'Scream' is an icon of a franchise."

Hmm. We'll see, but Weinstein might have a point. When kids think of slasher flicks nowadays the "Scream" movies get first mention. And I remember when my oldest kid first asked if he could watch slashers he mentioned "Scream." My wife wouldn't let him watch it. That was years ago, so I've lost track, but my youngest is 9 years-old, and it's no way Jose. That said, I liked the first "Scream" a lot. In fact, I might even be heading out to the movies this weekend for some scary slasher thrills. You're only young once!

FreedomWorks: 'Atlas Is Shrugging'

Via Daily Caller, "For FreedomWorks, Atlas is Already Shrugging":

RELATED: From Donald Luskin, at Wall Street Journal, "Remembering the Real Ayn Rand."

Change! Share of Americans Working Near 30-Year Low

At USA Today, "More Americans Leaving Workforce":

The share of the population that is working fell to its lowest level last year since women started entering the workforce in large numbers three decades ago, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983 and down from a peak of 49.3% in 2000. Last year, just 66.8% of men had jobs, the lowest on record.

The bad economy, an aging population and a plateau in women working are contributing to changes that pose serious challenges for financing the nation’s social programs.

More at the link above.

This administration has no clue.

America’s Fading Middle East Influence

From Shmuel Bar, at Policy Review:

The middle east has gone through eras of projection of power by external powers, and it has adapted to the balance of power between them. This was the case during the age of colonialism (predominance of Britain and France), the Cold War (competition between the U.S. and the ussr), and the period of American predominance since the end of the Cold War. For the last two decades, the region has been characterized by the conflict between “status-quo” and “anti-status-quo” forces. The former were represented by the existing regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., and the latter by Iran, the Islamic movement, Hezbollah, and their allies. For over two decades, the United States has been the predominant superpower in the region and the main force in maintaining the status quo.

However, today, the Middle East is undergoing a sea change. The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya were the result of developments within the countries themselves: deep economic and social malaise and the perception of the loss of domestic deterrence by ossified regimes led by aging leaders. However, the popular perception that the United States had abandoned its erstwhile allies to support those revolutions facilitated their spread to other theaters. This turnabout in American policy is not seen in the region as reflecting American power though intervention, but rather the decline of American power, manifested in a policy of “bandwagoning” after years of proactive American policy. Clearly, the decline of American projection of power in the region will have as profound an effect as the projection of American power had at its height.

The policies of the United States under the Obama administration have given rise to a broad perception in the region that the United States is no longer willing to play the role of guarantor of the security of its allies there; America is indeed “speaking softly” but has neither the present intention nor the future willpower to wield “a big stick” if push comes to shove. This perception is reflected in seven, key interrelated regional issues: (1) Islam and jihadi terrorism; (2) revolution and democratization in the region; (3) nuclear proliferation; (4) Iran; (5) the Israeli-Arab peace process; (6) Iraq; and (7) Af-Pak. In all these issues, the U.S. is perceived as searching for the path of least resistance, lowering its strategic profile, and attempting to accommodate the de facto powers in the region. In all these areas, the United States is projecting an aversion to proactive action, disinclination to project power, and lack of resolve to support its allies. Remaining American allies in the region realize that they cannot rely on the United States and must adapt themselves to pressures of the masses, predominance of radical ideologies, and Iranian strategic hegemony.

An excellent piece. RTWT.

Wednesday Drive Time

Heard it yesterday morning during drive time, at 100.3 The Sound. Quite a change of pace from Lady Gaga and Rihanna. REO Speedwagon, "Take It On the Run":

Walking Back the Breezy Optimism on Gabrielle Giffords' Medical Recovery

It's a pretty candid essay, impressive even, given Newsweek's recent history. But Tina Brown's editor now, and the last of the old Jon Meacham team has finally left the magazine. See, "What's Really Going On With Gabby Giffords."

When members of the Giffords medical team discuss her progress with reporters, they are constrained by patient-privacy laws and by the specific instructions from Giffords’s family and staff. Before the team held a press conference last month (the first since February), the boundaries of permissible information had been carefully negotiated, and the result was a generally upbeat report featuring many superlatives but few details. Dr. Dong Kim, the neurosurgeon who drained excess fluid from Giffords’s brain when she arrived from Tucson, reported that she was progressing in “leaps and bounds,” and that she was starting to walk and show an ability to express herself that was “a constant and wonderful thing.”

Reflecting on that media event, Kim tells NEWSWEEK, “I can understand how somebody listening to us might say they expected her to show up and be normal. But if you polled a bunch of neurologists or neurosurgeons as to what we were saying,” he goes on, “they would understand exactly what we were describing and what we think a good recovery means.”

First and foremost, the nonspecialist should understand that when Kim and the other doctors on the team speak of progress, it is in relative terms, given that the patient has suffered severe brain damage. “‘Leaps and bounds’ means much faster recovery than the average patient from a similar type of thing,” Kim says. When he says that he is having conversations with Giffords, he means that he has asked her a question (“How are you today?”) and that she has answered (“I’m better”). Kim adds that there is a bottom line for all such patients, whatever their recovery curve. “If somebody has a severe brain injury, are they ever going to be like they were before? The answer is no. They are never going to be the exact same person.”

Dr. Gerard Francisco, the physiatrist in charge of the Giffords medical team, says he is quite pleased with his patient’s progress, although he acknowledges that outsiders, especially the media, might be misinterpreting what the doctors and therapists are trying, however circumspectly, to describe. “It’s how we measure the change,” Francisco says. “Some people will expect changes to be big. I’m happy with small changes, as long as I see these changes every day, and that’s why I’m very encouraged. Some people would like things to get better within an hour, within a day, within a week. Rehab is not measured that way. It is a long-term process.”

What Francisco and his rehab team aim for is an optimized “new normal” for each patient. “Everyone around her needs to understand, hey, this is a different situation,” says music therapist Meagan Morrow, who is working with Giffords. “After you have a brain injury, you are a different person. It doesn’t matter who you are.”

It's worth reading the entire article.

Dana Loesch Interviews Donald Trump: 'I'm a Very Conservative Guy in the Republican Party'

At Big Journalism, "Donald Trump on Running as An Independent, Past Campaign Donations and More."

Trump indicates he's a loyal party guy but also open to bipartisan cooperation. Interesting interview. Be sure to listen until the end, where The Donald slams Barack Hussein on the birth certificate fraud:

Don't Mess With Congressman (LTC. Ret) Allen B. West!

At The Hill, "West to critics: Beware whom you target":

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) used an email to constituents to respond to a threat against his Florida office last week and to warn critics to "be careful of whom you are choosing to employ these tactics against."

Last week, West's Florida office received an envelope containing white powder and a letter with derogatory remarks directed at the congressman. A hazmat team later determined the powder wasn't harmful.

"This incident, is just another in several incidents that have occurred over the last couple of years and, have put me in quite a bad mood," West wrote in an email sent to constituents Tuesday.
He offered the example of a "liberal blogger publicly stating that he wanted to 'skin me alive,' " and a protest outside his office led by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) "castigating me as a 'misogynist.' "

"I find it interesting that in all of these instances, the media simply dismissed the incidents," West said. "One might wonder — is it open season on a principled black conservative?"

****

"Let me be very clear to all reading this missive, but mostly to liberals who subscribe to this behavior, be careful of whom you are choosing to employ these tactics against," wrote West. "I consider myself an easy-going fella who will always engage in intense intellectual exchange. However, if you choose this path of personal attacks, intimidation, and threats you will encounter a very different Congressman (LTC. Ret) Allen B. West."

That's called standing up for your values and standing against progressive thuggery.

A great man. It was my honor to meet him at CPAC.

Obama's Toxic Speech

Background at Los Angeles Times, "Obama lays out deficit reduction plan."

Watch the speech. I was getting nauseous after the first few minutes. The president takes no responsibility for maxing the national credit card. But see the Wall Street Journal, "The Presidential Divider: Obama's Toxic Speech and Even Worse Plan for Deficits and Debt":

Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama's extraordinary response to Paul Ryan's budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama's fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.

The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan's plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. "Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," he said, supposedly pitting "children with autism or Down's syndrome" against "every millionaire and billionaire in our society." The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which "starts," he said, "by being honest about what's causing our deficit." The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

Further details and analysis at the link.

RELATED: At National Journal, "CBO Says Budget Deal Will Cut Spending by Only $352 Million." (Via Memeorandum.)

J. Crew President Paints Son's Toenails Pink

Don't get me started.

Obliterating gender difference is key to the radical left agenda. If gender roles don't matter, then neither do traditional parental roles, child-rearing roles, marriage --- you name it. That's why freak extremists like Racist Repsac3 go for the aggressive demonization should someone call bull on this deviancy.

The story's at ABC News, "J. Crew Ad With Boy's Pink Toenails Creates Stir: Social Conservatives Call Ad 'Propaganda;' Transgender Groups Say Reaction is 'Ridiculous'" (via Memeorandum):

Cited there is this piece, from Dr. Keith Ablow, "J. Crew Plants the Seeds for Gender Identity":

In our technology-driven world—fueled by Facebook, split-second Prozac prescriptions and lots of other assaults on genuine emotion and genuine relationships and actual consequences for behavior—almost nothing is now honored as real and true.

Increasingly, this includes the truth that it is unwise to dress little girls like miniature adults (in halter tops and shorts emblazoned with PINK across the bottoms) and that it is unwise to encourage little boys to playact like little girls.

If you have no problem with the J. Crew ad, how about one in which a little boy models a sundress? What could possibly be the problem with that?

Well, how about the fact that encouraging the choosing of gender identity, rather than suggesting our children become comfortable with the ones that they got at birth, can throw our species into real psychological turmoil—not to mention crowding operating rooms with procedures to grotesquely amputate body parts? Why not make race the next frontier? What would be so wrong with people deciding to tattoo themselves dark brown and claim African-American heritage? Why not bleach the skin of others so they can playact as Caucasians?

Why should we hold dear anything with which we were born? What’s the benefit of non-fiction over fiction?

Well, the benefit is that non-fiction always wins, in the end. And to the extent that you take flights of fancy into masquerading through life, life will exact a psychological penalty.

And while the regular cultural radicals are shilling for this cultural degeneracy, we also have Doug Mataconis engaging the debate, "Social Conservatives Freak Out Over J. Crew Ad." Doug's libertarian, and he's blogging at Outside the Beltway, ostensibly a conservative blog, but I doubt most parents are down with painting their young sons' toenails hot pink. People of decent morals just know instinctively the dangers in such behavior. And what's bothersome --- no, loathsome --- is to be lectured by the deviants themselves about how "intolerant" are people of old-fashioned morality.

Nancy Pelosi: 'Elections Shouldn't Matter as Much as They Do'

She's a strange woman, in many respects. I don't see someone like Pelosi as possessing anything approaching critical thinking facilities. It's all just emotion and stream of consciousness. And that really explains the talk she gave at Tufts, where she says that Republicans should just take back their party because we "share values about the education of our children." Never mind that we don't really have shared values, especially when people like Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary in the Obama Department of Education, is a prototypical exponent of those values. Nancy Pelosi is out to lunch when she claims that "elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do." In fact, I might have passed up on this, but Steven Hayward has an essay worth sharing, at Power Line, "THE MASK SLIPS, FALLS TO GROUND, EXPLODES." I still think she's out to lunch, but this is good:

It is a mistake to dismiss Pelosi as the complete nitwit she often appears. The most clarifying single moment of the last generation may well have been Pelosi's famous remark that we'd need to pass the healthcare bill to find out what was in it. Rather than being a matter of ridicule, I thought Pelosi expressed perfectly the innermost character of congressional legislation in the modern administrative state. What she said was quite true and accurate: even at more than 2,000 pages, the enormous discretion and policy responsibility delegated to executive branch agencies meant that in effect the actual operating law would be formulated by administrators rather than Congress. And the huge number of waivers being granted under ObamaCare reveals the essentially arbitrary (some might say lawless) nature of administrative government.

RTWT.

Vice President Joe Biden Falls Asleep During President's Budget Speech

At Riehl World View, "Biden: Obama's Budget Speech No Big Effin' Deal'." (Also at The Note and Memeorandum.)