The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
When ‘Stimulus’ Destroys Jobs
Nevada Energy, a public utility, “said Friday that it will eliminate nearly 100 positions by next spring,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:
It plans to cut the jobs as it continues to install digital meters through its NVEnergize program. The notices said the electric company, which has 1,750 local employees, is eliminating the positions “due to lack of work.” Layoffs start Oct. 24 and go through May 1.
Remember when President Obama blamed unemployment on automated teller machines? It turns out you can blame these machines on President Obama:
NV Energy is replacing 1.3 million electric meters statewide with digital upgrades. The $301 million program, which received $138 million in federal economic stimulus funds, has already installed 500,000 new meters, and expects to finish by December 2012.
We don’t fault the company for seeking to save money, but why in the world are our tax dollars paying for this–particularly in the guise of a law that was supposed to create jobs?
With Friends Like These
“Civil libertarians are expressing dismay” that David Barron and Marty Lederman, “two law professors who frequently challenged President Bush’s legal stances on his war powers before joining the Obama Office of Legal Counsel,” signed an administration memo authorizing the killing of illegal enemy combatant Anwar al-Awlaki, the Puffington Host reports:
“It’s always more painful for civil libertarians to be stabbed in the back by a friend,” said Jonathan Turley, a scholar at George Washington University law school who has long been a fierce opponent of expansive interpretations of executive powers. “There’s a real feeling of the Ides of March, that the Obama administration has enlisted civil libertarians to sort of do its dirty work.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that “al-Qaeda has also criticized the Obama administration for killing U.S. citizens, saying doing so ‘contradicts’ American law.” So Turley can take heart that at least somebody’s on his side.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
