I want to highlight a few pieces that a found particularly entertaining.

The Federal Reserve is accountable to the Congress for two objectives–maximum employment and price stability, on an equal footing.

While those stated objectives are accurate, accountability is questionable. With unemployment reaching 10% and a 100-year record of depreciating the dollar by over 95%. If they are accountable, Congress isn’t holding them to it.

From the Associated Press:

During a speech Tuesday in Boston, Bernanke said the steps the Fed took during the crisis proved to be successful.

Really? Successful? By what measure? Didn’t you just say that the economy was  “close to faltering”?

A Reuters article from 4 October states that:

Earlier this month, Bernanke told members of Congress that the economy “is close to faltering.” He assured lawmakers that the central bank was prepared to take further steps to try to bolster economic growth.

Also from the Associated Press:

Minutes of the Sept. 20-21 meeting reflected the policymakers’ uncertainty over why the economy is struggling to grow and create jobs more than two years after the recession has ended.

So which one is it? Did your steps prove to be successful? Is the economy close to faltering? Do you just not know what’s going on? Does it even matter if you aren’t accountable for the things you do?

Here’s an excerpt:

“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.” He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

The rest of the article explains what drove Crockett to give that speech. It’s worth the time to listen to it.

Peter Barnes: Is there a risk that the United States could lose its Triple A credit rating, yes or no.

Tim Geithner: No risk of that, no risk. If you listen carefully now, you see the leadership of the United Sates of America, the President, the Republican leadership in both houses, and the Democrats, recognizing now that this is the right thing to do for the economy. We have to put in place now reforms that bring down our long-term deficits in ways that will help strengthen future growth. And that’s an incredibly important recognition by people, and we’d like to put something in place as soon as we can so we can begin that process.

Peter Barnes: So Standard & Poors is wrong. The United States will keep it’s Triple A credit rating?

Tim Geithner: Absolutely.

Not like the experts have never been wrong before. See Bernanke before the last recession, or select quotes from the Great Depression.

According to the analysis of Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, published in the Teachers College Record, A’s represent 43% of all letter grades. It hasn’t always been that way. 50 years ago, only 15% of grades were A’s and the most common grade really was a C. In 1960, approximately 35% of grades were C’s, 32% were B’s, 16% were A’s, 11% were D’s and 6% were F’s. Grade inflation spiked in the 60′s, slowed down – and even reversed slightly – in the 70′s and early 80′s, and then began a gradual increase that’s still climbing 25 years later.
Chart from New York Times  (free registration required)

In the 60′s, there was a traditional bell curve around a C grade. In the 80′s there was part of a bell curve around a B grade. As of 2007, there was half a hill. There’s no longer a bell curve. The chart below shows these curves and shows that although the inflation is happening at both public and private schools, it’s happening at private schools faster.

Chart from New York Times  (free registration required)

According to Rojstaczer and Healy, one of the concerns is that,

When college students perceive that the average grade in a class will be an A, they do not try to excel… It is likely that the decline in student study hours, student engagement, and literacy are partly the result of diminished academic expectations.

Straight A’s are now much less impressive.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and  concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

- John Adams in a letter to Jonathan Jackson, Oct. 2, 1789

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right… The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.

- H.L. Mencken in Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)

(One of the “Snowflake” memos written by Donald Rumsfeld during his tenure as U.S. Secretary of defense, from Harper’s Magazine, May 2011).

Via TYWKIWDBI.

In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J. Res. 23, which states in part that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.” The recent NIE tells us that Iran in 2003 halted its effort to design a nuclear weapon. While this does not mean that Iran is no longer a threat to the United States or its allies, it does give us time to conduct aggressive and principled personal diplomacy aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

However, before bombing Libya, Obama did not seek use-of-force authorization from Congress. Although the use-of-force was approved by the United Nations Security Council, it was not approved by Congress.

To read a thorough post on The Phony Arguments for Presidential War Powers, check out this post by Tom Woods.

And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.
- Barack Obama in Spartanburg, SC. Nov. 3rd, 2007.

Will Obama actually put on those shoes? Probably not. This quote does show one thing though… he likes to talk.

2011 State of the Union Address

Not much has changed since 2010. Not that I would have expected it to.

2010 State of the Union Address

Update:
Thanks to a commenter, I was wondering if all State of the Unions look the same. They don’t.
Clinton State of the Union 1995
Washington State of the Union 1790

The difference between Bush’ stump speech, and his actions during the subsequent eight years is astounding.

Gore: The world’s coming together, as I said, they’re looking to us. And we have a fundamental choice to make: Are we going to step up to the plate as a nation, the way we did after World War II, the way that generation of heroes said, “OK, the United States is going to be the leader”? And the would benefited tremendously from the courage that they showed in those post-war years.

and the response…

Bush: I’m not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, “This is the way it’s got to be. We can help.”  And maybe it’s just our difference in government, the way we view government. I mean, I want to empower people, I don’t you know, I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do.

I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country, say, “We do it this way, so should you.” Now, I think we can help, and I know we got to encourage democracy and the marketplaces…

But maybe I misunderstand where you’re coming from, Mr. Vice President, but I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course.

See the full text here