Apparently Some Don’t Actually Work for a Living

A beef about lawyers’ fees in a bankruptcy exposes some attitudes about actual work.  In the Washington Mutual bankruptcy case, finally wrapping up the last details—like allocating the legal fees—generated this argument: some of WaMu’s creditors didn’t like the size of the fees awarded, since those would cut into the creditors’ recovery.

The core of the beef was that the billing included 24-hour days and working through weekends, resulting in weeks’ worth of work without breaks.

Hmm….

Any graduate student would be familiar with that.

And the bankruptcy judge on the case, Mary Walrath, an ex-bankruptcy lawyer herself, was having none of it, either.

The day I started at my firm they filed a huge Chapter 11 case and I did not take a day off for six months.  I am not surprised that there were many days of even 24 hours because I spent those times in the office as well.

Are Harry Reid and Joe Biden Bigots?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this the other day on the Senate floor—and it’s the second time he’s made this particular accusation:

The word’s out that [Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney] hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years.  Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.

What’s with this religious bigotry?  What does Reid have against Mormons?

And this, according to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann:

He [Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama—a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one[.]”

Reid did apologize for these racist remarks, but still.  Would he have made either set of remarks (he refuses to apologize for his religious assault) in the first place were he not prejudiced?

Next, there’s then-Senator Joe Biden about then-candidate Barack Obama:

I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking buy.  I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

Biden did issue a caveated statement that he masqueraded as an apology, but again—would he have made these remarks in the first place were he not prejudiced, just a little?

By Reid’s own logic, it’s not on the questioner to provide any proof at all (although I have offered their own words in support of my questions, which is more than they have done).  It’s entirely on the target to provide the proof of their innocence.

I ask, again: are Harry Reid and Joe Biden racists?  They have a lot to answer for.  Where’s their proof?

Democrats Do Axelrod

As Fox News reported last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—again—went onto the Senate floor and accused Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney of not having paid any taxes for a decade.

The word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years.  Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.

Never mind that the “word is out” because it’s Reid putting it out.  And that Reid refuses to identify his “source.”  But I have to wonder: is Reid’s source President Obama?

And then there’s this:

House Democrats’ campaign arm is retracting claims it made that Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a prominent Republican donor, was financially tied to prostitution—claims it now says “were untrue and unfair.”

The retraction comes after Adelson’s lawyer sent a letter last month to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asking it to “retract and apologize for” what it called defamatory and libelous claims that Adelson, who heads Las Vegas Sands Corp, encouraged and profited from prostitution in Macau and donated “Chinese prostitution money” to Republican leaders.

Of course, it’s an easy retraction to make, now that they’ve done the smear and caused the damage.  It’s of a piece, too, with the smears the Democrats do, generally, on those who support people and causes of which they disapprove.

But it’s all part of the tactic President Obama’s campaign mouthpiece David Axelrod so dishonestly first put into play in the 2010 election campaign, when he asked why the US Chamber of Commerce was using foreign funding for campaign matters—which would have been a felony, if true—and then refused to cite any evidence.  He just asks questions, he said; it’s on his targets to prove their innocence.

Evidently, this is the level of integrity to which we can look forward from the Democrats this campaign season.

Culture and Badminton

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that four(!) doubles teams of badminton players were thrown out of the Olympics for deliberately attempting to throw their first-round round robin matches in order to gain a better seeding in the next, elimination round.

Cheating in the Olympics—or in any sport or any sport’s tournament—isn’t new, and it’s no less reprehensible for that.  But what are the players saying about this?  Many—most?—favor the disqualifications.  But the People’s Republic of China’s Lin Dan, one of their top male badminton players, said he didn’t think the players were at fault, saying the sporting body

should have thought ahead and seen that this kind of situation might happen and thought what they could have done to avoid this situation.

What kind of culture teaches its people that it’s OK to cheat unless some external authority tells them not to?  What kind of culture teaches that if an individual fails of his honor, it’s not his fault—it’s some external authority’s fault?  What kind of culture takes away individual responsibility, individual honor, and usurps them to some external authority to see to?

Some Thoughts on Culture

I had some words on the subject of culture the other day.    Another man weighed in on the subject last Tuesday; maybe you’ve heard of him: ex-Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.  He offered these thoughts on culture and its role in a society’s freedom and prosperity.

[W]hat exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture?  In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth.  Many significant features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor and oath, our family orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our patriotism.  But one feature of our culture that propels the American economy stands out above all others: freedom.  The American economy is fueled by freedom.  Free people and their free enterprises are what drive our economic vitality.

The linkage between freedom and economic development has a universal applicability. One only has to look at the contrast between East and West Germany, and between North and South Korea for the starkest demonstrations of the meaning of freedom and the absence of freedom.

Israel is also a telling example. Like the United States, the state of Israel has a culture that is based upon individual freedom and the rule of law. It is a democracy that has embraced liberty, both political and economic. This embrace has created conditions that have enabled innovators and entrepreneurs to make the desert bloom. In the face of improbable odds, Israel today is a world leader in fields ranging from medicine to information technology.

I visited three lands—Israel, Poland, and Great Britain—which are defined by their respective struggles for freedom….  I am only strengthened in my conviction that the pursuit of happiness is not an American right alone.  Israelis, Palestinians, Poles, Russians, Iranians, Americans, all human beings deserve to enjoy the blessings of a culture of freedom and opportunity.

What he said.