Gummint: What's It Good For?

Nothing like a modified rock-n-roll line as a title....

Here's Robby George's short-and-sweet take on Gummint:

What are the obligations and purposes of law and government?

(1) To protect (a) public health, (b) safety, and (c) morals, and (2) to advance the general welfare -- including, preeminently, protecting people’s fundamental rights and basic liberties.

Wouldn’t this require the granting of vast and sweeping powers to public authority?

No; the general welfare -- the common good -- requires that government be limited.

You distinguish between government’s primary and subsidiary roles. What are the government’s primary responsibilities?

Government’s responsibility is primary when the questions involve (1) defending the nation from attack and subversion, (2) protecting people from physical assaults and various other forms of depredation, and (3) maintaining public order.

That comes in the middle of a discussion of Paul Ryan's Budget of Subsidiarity.

Some Catholics (and they ought to know better) screech hysterically that the Subsidiarity Budget is evil, depraved, an assault on women/children/elderly/transgenders/blacks/Hispanics/.........(ad nauseam).

.......while they studiously ignore (moral culpability is in play here) the Obozo Contraception Mandate, which is the natural end of their fatally-flawed concept of "Gummint."

The Founders wrote the 9th and 10th Amendments for a reason.  They came to the same conclusion as had the Church, which tells you that 'subsidiarity' is good governance, not "Catholic" governance.

Fr Reese (who was removed from his slot at America magazine for a reason) and his ragtag band of dissenter/followers, including the Cancer of Marquette Maguire, should take a 40-day Ignatian retreat devoted to the study of subsidiarity.

Then they can apologize.

Why Conservatives Often Despise Republicans

The Republicans spew lots of ......stuff...... about 'fiscal responsibility.'

Then they join the Left and spend like the craven cowards they really are.

Here are the names of 25 of the jackasses:

Aderholt (Ala.)

Alexander, R. (La.)

Austria (Ohio)

Bonner (Ala.)

Calvert (Calif.)

Carter (Texas)

Cole (Okla.)

Crenshaw (Fla.)

Culberson (Texas)

Dent (Pa.)

Diaz-Balart (Fla.)

Emerson (Mo.)

Frelinghuysen (N.J.)

Granger (Texas)

Kingston (Ga.)

Latham (Iowa)

LaTourette (Ohio)

Lewis, Jerry (Calif.)

Nunnelee (Miss.)

Rehberg (Mont.)

Rogers, H. (Ky.)

Simpson (Idaho)

Wolf (Va.)

Womack (Ark.)

Young, C.W. (Fla.)

The Obozo Economy: Still Staggering

One can argue--and I do--that the Obozo Economy is 'recovering.'  All the major indicators have been positive for more than a few months.

But "positive" does not mean "great."  In fact, it doesn't necessarily mean "good."

...we learn that the Glorious Obama Recovery seems to have hit a rough patch. Employers added only 120,000 new jobs to their payrolls last March after several months of averaging twice as many. Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of new unemployment claims hit 381,750. This is as poorly as this indicator has fared since early January....

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index deflated last month; it's anemic.  Same with the ECRI Index.  The Fed won't be increasing rates soon, by their telling of it.

It's a bit like watching a drunk walking.  A few halting steps forward, then a pause, reconnoitering, then a half-step backwards, then a lurch forward again, and a hand goes out to feel the way along the wall, then a pause.....

State Department: "War on Terror Is Over" Good!!

The US State Department tells us that the 'war on terror is over.'

Really?

Went to Gen. Mitchell Field yesterday.  Still couldn't park in front of the terminal; still had deputies-with-dogs all over the place; still had dozens of blue-suited crotch-grabbers.

Lotsa payroll cuts coming, right??

PRChina Still an Enemy

Well, the war on terror may be over, but we still have enemies.

Intruders from China hacked into computers and stole the blueprints for America’s new joint strike fighter planes, the F-35 and F-22,  according to the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) made the statement during a Tuesday hearing on cyber security.

....The commission's 2009 Annual Report to Congress, citing a Wall Street Journal article, discussed "intruders, probably operating from China, that exfiltrated 'several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems' of the F-35 Lightning II," one of the most advanced fighter planes under development...

Who'd a thunk it??

Not a Good Day for Abortionistas

Three bits of very good news from Pennsylvania:

Planned Barrenhood spent $100K in a statehouse legislative race--and lost.

The BabsBush-ish ex-chair of the Bucks County Pubbies--another pro-abortion woman--was slapped silly by her pro-life opponent, 63/37.

And a pro-abort Dem also lost to a pro-life Dem in another primary for a Congressional seat.

Erickson Dancing, Mis-Stepping

Erick Erickson, proprietor of RedStates, is dancing.  But he ain't gonna win "Dancing with the Stars".

President Obama is, unlike President Bush, a progressive, but he is not a fascist.

There's a lot to unpack in that sentence.

GWB carried a lot of Progressive water; like Obama, he was and is a "Big Gummint" guy, and the criticism of his 'unitary Presidency' was not just from the Left; it was from Conservatives, too.  Does that make Bush a "Progressive"?  Well, it makes him a Hooverite/FDR-ite, to a certain extent.

As to Obama's 'fascism,' Erickson quotes Wiki:

[ f]ascists advocate a state-directed, regulated economy that is dedicated to the nation; the use and primacy of regulated private property and private enterprise contingent upon service to the nation, the use of state enterprise where private enterprise is failing or is inefficient, and autarky.

...and then claims that Obama doesn't fit into that definition.

Really?  REALLY?

"State-directed, regulated economy"....certainly "regulated"--which happens to lead to "directed" easily (see, e.g., windmills, solar, the killing of coal and petroleum).

"Dedicated to the nation"...or perhaps 'against the "rich"'?

"Primacy of regulated private property ..contingent upon service to the nation"....

That one is a bit more murky, but we could argue that a number of Federal initiatives--principally the attacks on the Catholic Church's immigration and social-services arms are a manifestation of the inverse of 'service to the nation.'  That is to say, just as killing off coal has the result of 'directing' the economy toward wind, solar, (etc.), so killing off the Church's services in the name of "service to the nation" has the same ultimate effect.

"the use of State enterprise where private enterprise is failing...."  Ever hear of College Loans (now strictly a Federal enterprise), Erick?

Rumors abound that we haven't seen the end of Obama's "Unitary Presidency" schemes and plots.

How far does he have to go to get Erickson's attention?

Attack Totalitarians, Get Smacked

Bp. Jenky is absolutely right.

He preached a strongly worded homily denouncing President Obama’s HHS mandate, in which the bishop said that in his attacks on freedom of religion the president “seems intent on following a similar path” as past totalitarian dictators such as Hitler and Stalin.

Naturally, the Perpetually Aggrieved went ballistic, using the curious (and utterly wrong) "Proprietary Holocaust" meme which is the hallmark of ADL.

Sorry, ADL, but 'following a path' is a warning about the Totalitarian-in-Chief's direction.

And, by the way, you do not OWN the Holocaust.  Several million Catholics were specifically targeted by Hitler and Stalin, too.

So get off your "We're Offended" rant. 

Schumer's Right, and There's More to Come!

It's hard to ignore this blowhard, especially when he's right.  (Not often the case.)

He called the Arizona [immigration] law an “assault on the domain of the federal government”

And it's long overdue.

"No Vote Fraud", Eh?

The Usual Bozos will trumpet this, saying (artfully) that "there were no prosecutions, and no convictions."

True.

But:

total of 194 cases statewide where police determined a violation likely occurred have been closed because the commonwealth's attorneys in those localities declined to prosecute those individuals, police said.

See?  No prosecutions, no convictions, ergo, no fraud.

Uh-huh.

HT:  AOSHQ

The Pubbie Establishment Problem

The Establishment Pubbies have a problem.  They deny that they exist, of course--which is a problem in itself.

But in addition, they're reduced to nihilist rationalizations, to wit:

”I’m not for Dick Lugar for what he’s done, but for what he can do.”  --Establishment Member Mitch Daniels (ex-GWB aide.)

Brilliant.

Here's a translation:

"Ignore Lugar's despicable track record.  Hope for Change!!!"

Vaguely familiar, no?

HT:  Insurrection

Benedict XVI and Allan Bloom: Frenemies

There's a lengthy essay about Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind" over at the Standard.  (Yes, I read the book, and yes, I still have it.)  The book is now 25 years old.

Bloom and Benedict XVI have, perhaps, only one thing in common--this wisdom:

...Darwin survives, undiminished and if anything enlarged, as the font of a new materialism whose effects Bloom foresaw even then and witheringly described. I can think of lots of reasons why The Closing of the American Mind deserves as many readers as it earned in the eighties; Bloom’s sly wit and the torrential energy of his prose are worth the price of admission, in my opinion. But this one carries a special urgency. As well as anyone then or now, he understood that the intellectual fashion of materialism​—​of explaining all life, human or animal, mental or otherwise, by means of physical processes alone​—​had led inescapably to a doctrinaire relativism that would prove to be a universal corrosive. 

The crisis was​—​is​—​a crisis of confidence in the principle that serves as the premise of liberal education: that reason, informed by learning and experience, can arrive at truth, and that one truth may be truer than another....

Don't believe that?  Look at what occupies the White House--or what passes for "entertainment" these days.

Or this:

What follows when a belief in objectivity and truth dies away in higher education? In time an educated person comes to doubt that purpose and meaning are discoverable​—​he doubts, finally, that they even exist. It’s no mystery why fewer and fewer students in higher education today bother with the liberal arts, preferring professional training in their place. Deprived of their traditional purpose in the pursuit of what’s true and good, the humanities could only founder. The study of literature, for example, was consumed in the trivialities of the deconstructionists and their successors. Philosophy curdled into positivism and word play. History became an inventory of political grievances.

Thanks, Mr. Ferguson!!

Ratzinger on "Social Justice"

Here's the REAL word on 'social justice.'

Political moralism, as we have lived it and are still living it, does not open the way to regeneration, and even. . .blocks it. The same is true, consequently, also for a Christianity and a theology that reduces the heart of Jesus' message, the ‘kingdom of God,’ to the ‘values of the kingdom,’ identifying these values with the great key words of political moralism, and proclaiming them, at the same time, as a synthesis of the religions.”--Benedict XVI

There are implications which we see played out today:

If we pursue this a bit, it looks as if for those formed by secularism anything from outside of our situation, like revelation and what can be drawn from revelation, is to be covered over or completely denied. This strand of thinking goes all the way back to Spinoza and during the radical Enlightenment Voltaire himself advocated that man simply work things out with his own (very truncated form of) reason in a kind of “top-down deist reformism” (Jonathan Israel).

But evidently at the same time Voltaire foresaw a residual elite because: “Enlightenment is not for the majority.” The elite had replaced revelation. In contemporary terms, the elite identify the kingdom values that they judge suitable for the people.

Ahhh, the "cognoscenti"!  Can you say "Ruling Class", as did Prof. Codevilla?

ObozoCare: A Quick Review

Written by a ConLaw prof back in '09.  He deserves plaudits for actually reading the whole damn thing (no elected Democrat has done so yet), and analyzing it vis-a-vis the actual US Constitution (about which no elected Democrat gives a rotten damn, anyway.)

...I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

...The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4^th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3^rd and 4^th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5^th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.

Other than that, it's just dandy!!

HT:  Blosser

Quick Quiz

OK, scholars.

Who said that our forebears fought for the concept that:  “the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

Hint One:  he was a President of the US.

Hint Two:  he was a Democrat.

Hint Three:  he was elected in the 20th Century.

Hint Four:  Dallas.

Yup.  JFK.

HT:  Shepherd

$3 Million Down the Drain. Awwwwwww.....

Seems that the AFSCME and WEAC just pissed $3 million down the drain.

Couldn't happen to nicer guys.

...Wisconsin for Falk, a coalition of labor groups, has spent an estimated $3 million on statewide TV ads and multiple slick fliers touting Falk's candidacy - all without seeing her gain traction against the Democratic front-runner, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

The most recent public and private polls show Barrett with a double-digit lead.

Then Wisconsin for Falk took the most unexpected step in the race so far.

In the middle of last week - with the primary just over two weeks away - the group went dark.

Uh-huh.  She's a loser, with a capital "L", if she's the (D) candidate in June.

The Madistan Establishment has taken a serious body-blow, and they know it.  There they are, kicked to the curb.

Awwwwwwww.......

"STFU", He Explained

The Commie who used to work in the Obozo Administration:

They seem to resent most of America’s achievements over the last century, including unions and public education and environmental protection and so many of the things that made the American century the American century. So I don’t get why we don’t just tell them to sit down and shut up.  --Hot Air quoting Rolling Stone

I'll tell you why, dumbass.  We have more guns.  And ammo.

Elections As Usual (Democrat Style)

McPain got what he deserved:  a loss.

John McCain’s 2008 campaign staff allegedly had evidence that Democrats stuffed ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio on election night, but McCain chose not to pursue voter fraud, according to internal Stratfor emails published by WikiLeaks...

 McCain decided not to pursue the voter fraud in PA and Ohio, despite his staff’s desire to make it an issue. He said no. Staff felt they could get a federal injunction to stop the process. McCain felt the crowds assembled in support of Obama and such would be detrimental to our country and it would do our nation no good for this to drag out like last go around, coupled with the possibility of domestic violence.  --Gateway quoting BizInsider

Also:  The Democrat Party gave J Jackson several hundred thou to shut his mouth about "Da Joos"--and there apparently was a bunch of Russki money in the Obozo campaign coffers.

We know that Obozo can NOT lose Wisconsin this fall.  Speculate with me as to why the Left-o-Wack Madistan circuit judge "temporarily" invalidated the Wisconsin Voter-ID bill.

Could he have been acting on orders from the White House?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?????

Brick by Brick: Dump the RINOs

Orrin Hatch thought he'd bought the caucuses.

He didn't.  Off by 50 votes.

So now he has to face a primary election instead.

Too bad, Orrin.  We despise RINOs.  They make us puke.

Noonan Finally Gets It!

Whaddya think Santorum's campaign was all about, Peggy?

...I've long thought that public dissatisfaction is about more than the economy, that it's also about our culture, or rather the flat, brute, highly sexualized thing we call our culture...

The column is now behind the WSJ's paywall--but Ms Noonan mentions a few of the problems with the adults:  the NYC sex pervert/schoolteachers, the Secret Service whoremongers...and others.

Dumb Republican Tricks

Now--it's budget season--we get to watch the Stupid Party at work.

Frelinghuysen [the subcommittee chairman and obviously a Stupid Party member] said the legislation would provide $1 billion to “strengthen” Energy Department programs focused on determining the causes and impacts of high gas prices in the future, a $36 million boost from current levels. It also would provide $554 million for fossil energy research and development, including a new $25 million shale oil program “to both increase the efficiency and improve the impacts of shale oil recovery,” ...he said.  --RedState quoting GC

Maroon. 

Why RoJo's Under Attack by RINO Snake McConnell

Sen. RINO McDonnell, the Club-Member of the (R) (but not Conservative) persuasion, unleashed an attack on Sen. Ron Johnson the other day.

Wanna know why?

...Without a budget resolution to guide the topline spending numbers, the Senate Appropriations Committee has already begun markups on the 12 appropriations bills at the subcommittee level.

It goes without saying that Senate Republicans wouldn’t reward this behavior by voting for their approps bills – spending bills that fail to eliminate a single wasteful program or agency within the burgeoning government bureaucracy.  There is no way they would help grant Harry Reid superior leverage over their allies in the House like they did last year, right?

Wrong.

Of the 14 Republicans on the full committee, which includes Mitch McConnell, there is only one conservative.  That would be the most junior senator, Ron Johnson.  As CQ reports, Ron Johnson was the only no vote against the Transportation-HUD (subcommittee roster) and Commerce-Justice Science (subcommittee roster) approps bills – the first two spending bills considered yesterday.  Those bills are typically approved by voice vote, but Johnson forced a roll call recorded vote on the spending bills.

IOW, Ron Johnson is doing what he promised to do.

McConnell?

The word "snake" doesn't quite describe him adequately.

The EPA, Hiding the Numbers (Again)

Not yet in the MFM, and not likely to be trumpeted by same:

• EPA has been conducting air pollution effects tests on human subjects since at least January 2010.
• By the time the EPA researchers had published their September 2011 report in Environmental Health Perspectives, they had conducted 41 such tests.
• Of the 41 human experiments, clinical effects were reported by the EPA in only two study subjects. Both of these are controversial. One is the case study reported in Environmental Health Perspectives, which has been previously debunked. The other study subject flagged by the EPA researchers as experiencing a clinical effect (“a short episode of an elevated heart rate during exposure”), in fact, denied feeling any effects. This reported effect was most probably due to some pre-existing condition or other stressor given the low-level of PM_2.5 to which the study subject was exposed. Certainly the EPA has no reason to believe that was not the case or that the alleged heart rate jump was due to the PM_2.5 exposure.
• The other 39 study subjects were exposed to PM_2.5 levels up to 21 times greater (i.e, up to 750 μg/m³) than the EPA’s own permissible exposure limit for PM_2.5 on a 24-hour basis (i.e, 35 μg/m³). All reported exposures among the 39 study subjects were greater than the EPA’s 24-hour PM_2.5 standard. Seven study subjects were exposed to levels 10 times greater than the EPA’s 24-hour PM_2.5 standard. No clinical effects were reported for any of these exposures. 

"We Know Where You Were, Comrade..."

Not only where you were, but how fast you got there.

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.

... Although the text of legislation states that such data would remain the property of the owner of the vehicle, the government would have the power to access it in a number of circumstances, including by court order, if the owner consents to make it available, and pursuant to an investigation or inspection conducted by the Secretary of Transportation...

...or whenever they damn well feel like it.

Buy.  More.  Ammo.

No, Obozo Is NOT the Only Statist in D.C.

Never let it be said that the Republicans in Congress aren't Statist-inclined twits.

The Republican House of Representatives may soon follow the Democratic Senate and give the IRS the power to confiscate your passport on mere suspicion of owing taxes. There's no place like home, comrade.

'America, Love It Or Leave It" might be an obsolete slogan if the "bipartisan transportation bill" that just passed the Senate is approved by the House and becomes law. Contained within the suspiciously titled "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act," or "MAP 21," is a provision that gives the Internal Revenue Service the power to keep U.S. citizens from leaving the country if it finds that they owe $50,000 or more in unpaid taxes — no court ruling necessary ....Vox quoting IBD

Well, if there's a tax deficiency, properly proven and documented, I have a better solution:  let them leave, but not RETURN until arrangements are made for payment.  Make it clear well in advance.  No need to take away the passport at all!

Vatican to Lefty Nuns: "You're Outta Here!"

It is very unusual for the Vatican to speak in a candid manner.  That alone is a sign of the level of concern here.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has launched a 5-year reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)...

 ...The CDF doctrinal assessment, released today, criticized positions espoused at LCWR annual assemblies and in its literature as well as the absence of support from LCWR for Church teaching on pro-life issues, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

The CDF said that the documentation “reveals that, while there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the Church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death...

“Further,” the CDF report said, “issues of crucial importance in the life of the Church and society, such as the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching. Moreover, occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the Bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”

The CDF said, “The Assessment reveals serious doctrinal problems....

This is long overdue; problems with these nuns have been extant since about 1975.

HT:  Gateway

Heil! ObamaReich!!

Quin Hillyer has a convenient list of the Reich's most recent assaults on the Constitution.

NLRB:  ...The company asserts that the NLRB acted through the agency of three board members improperly appointed in January, and therefore ineligible to exercise power. Obama appointed the three, along with Richard Cordray as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, even though the Senate never requested, and the House never granted, permission to adjourn at all during the Christmas season.

Legal precedent had established a ten-day “recess” as the minimum time the Senate must be out before the president can make a key appointment without the usually required Senate confirmation...

EDUCATION:   As George Will noted, citing a thorough study by former Department of Education lawyers Kent Talbert and Bob Eitel,  federal law prohibits the national government from interfering in local or state curricula. The administration, however, has misused the “waiver” process in the No Child Left Behind law to force its own curriculum choices on the states...

"CARD CHECK":  Despite repeated congressional refusal to change the rules governing union-formation elections at individual companies, the administration’s NLRB is proceeding to require union-friendly “card check” rules by executive fiat...

CARBON EMISSIONS:   Congress refused to add tighter restrictions on carbon emissions – so Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, willfully using bad science as a basis, imposed new rules anyway, again by decree

 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY:  The administration’s edict forcing faith-based employers to provide insurance that includes free provision of abortifacients (and other contraception) likely will not stand, but it is an egregious attempt to strangle religious liberty in its very crib...

Hillyer suggests that der Fuhrer's attempts should be arrested.

My suggestion?  Arrest der Fuhrer, not the "attempts."

Lies, Damned Lies, and Democrats

As usual, the Democrats want to raise taxes.  And as usual, the MFM covers it up.

The two leading Democrat candidates for governor in the looming recall election have come out in favor massive tax increases and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel seems bent on framing that in an uncritical and positive light. Tom Barrett and Kathleen Falk, both local government executives, have unveiled similar plans to repeal tax cuts approved by Walker during the first year and a half of his administration. Reporting on the tax hike proposals, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used opaque and arcane language saying the two Democrats were proposing to “roll back some tax decreases.”

OK.

Marty Kaiser asked if his reader(s) wanted to participate in an online survey about the JS.  

Why would anyone waste the time?

Well, We Regret Having Leon Panetta!

Awfully damn civil of him:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday he regrets the cost to taxpayers for his weekend trips to his Carmel Valley home, but says it's important "just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight."

Panetta said he'd try to find some savings, with each round trip costing approximately $32,000.

"I regret ... that it does add costs that the taxpayer has to pick up," Panetta said...

Stuff your apology where the sun never shines, Leeeeeon.  Just put on your big-boy pants and move to DC like a real job-holder would.

Bob Lutz, Moron

Lutz is a very smart car-guy.

The smarts end there.

“If I were emperor of the United States, I would raise the fuel tax in the United States by 25 cents a gallon per year,” said Lutz during a panel discussion on energy independence co-sponsored by the Hudson Institute.

... Lutz claimed an annual tax hike on fuel would create predictability in the auto market and consumers would be more inclined to buy electric cars.

He also called the 18 cents per gallon federal tax on fuel, “ridiculous,” because 18 cents a gallon is in his view too low, and lamented the political risk in the U.S. of advocating for higher taxes on fuel.

“In the states, the political process is such that we can’t use the market mechanism of fuel price to drive demand for these alternative fuel vehicles. So we leave taxation where it is, and then we have to find a somewhat artificial means to incent customers to look at these [electric] vehicles,” he said.

Those damn States and that damnable 10th Amendment.  Who needs that, anyway?

No reporter has looked in Lutz' garage to determine if he drives ONLY Volts, by the way.   That might make interesting television, no?

One Step From the Gulag: the "Justice" Department

The US Department of Justice prefers to bury its mistakes, thankyouverymuch.

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people nationwide, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

This is not a Republican or Democrat problem.

This is a manifestation of Statism; of the corruption bestowed by absolute power. That "Wolverines" stuff didn't start because someone was bored.  It started because--going all the way back to Ruby Ridge--people are paying attention.

RoJo, GM, The Titanic. Get the Connection?

Sen Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is actually doing what he said he'd do:  raising Hell in the Clubroom.

Maybe it's not a coincidence that he started the trouble just before the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's demise.

...Senate Republican Leadership staffers are now attacking Johnson either on behalf of leadership or because Senate GOP Leadership has lost control of their staff. Either way it’s bad, and Senators must be wondering about McConnell’s leadership skills.

After the leadership fight, instead of backing down, Johnson has voiced his displeasure with the lack of a coherent conservative strategy from McConnell’s office.

In typical fashion though, rather than taking Johnson’s advice and developing a conservative strategy, Leadership retaliated last week with a cowardly hit piece on Johnson. The article contained quotes from a “senior GOP aide.” The aide was too gutless to be named, but my Hill sources say it is likely someone from McConnell’s office.

Look folks:  this is not hard.  The United States is on the same glidepath taken by the Titanic and General Motors.  The Clubroom management, having been insulated and isolated in its own little world for years, ignores the red-screen of the radar--or of the balance-sheet and income statements, and proceeds, full speed ahead.

Politics-as-usual, which usually means talking a lot and doing nothing substantive, is no longer an option.  There is no Bailout Daddy for the Federal Government as was the case for GM.

There is only the cold, deep, ocean.

Maybe the "Buffet Tax" Should Target Only Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet earns his money the old-fashioned way:  by manipulating the Federal Government.

...Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a Berkshire Hathaway investor, “bragged at a Chamber of Commerce meeting that he took advice from Warren before he voted for the Wall Street Bailout.

Ummhnnnhh, yah.  So then what happened?

As economist Susanne Trimbath points out, “We may not want to look too closely at where [Buffett’s] money comes from – like the 15 percent return he’s earning on the $5 billion investment he made in Goldman Sachs the week before they got a $10 billion bailout; or the fact that Berkshire Hathaway was the largest shareholder in American Express Co. when they received $3.4 billion from Uncle Sam.”...

No, he's not the only one.   But he sure likes to talk about increasing taxes. 

Guilty conscience at work....

Dostoevsky, MLK, Santorum, and Moral Relativism

R R Reno contributes on the question of moral relativism.

In The Brothers Karamazov, the rationalist and unbelieving Ivan is visited by the devil, who lays out the moral consequences of atheism. After belief in God is extinguished, “man will be exalted with the spirit of divine, titanic pride, and the man-god will appear.” Of course few will have the courage of the “man-god” to live in an entirely secular world. Ivan has the courage to face the fact that God is dead, or so the devil seductively suggests. And thus for him, “everything is permitted.”

Reno observes that "everything is permitted" really means that only SOME things are permitted, in the relativistic world of atheism (or practical atheism--which is the world we live in.)

...Matthew O’Brien allows that there may be natural reasons to believe in moral absolutes, but argues that they are not enough. Sometimes circumstances are such that following a moral absolute seems to invite disastrous consequences. The classic example is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States directly targeted innocent civilians—a violation of the moral prohibition against killing the innocent—but the alternative of invading Japan would probably have resulted in the death of many more people, perhaps even more innocent people.

Saturation bombing with conventional explosives in Europe involved a similar suspension of the moral absolute. Ever reliable as a theorist of our secular age, John Rawls (whom O’Brien helpfully cites) defended the total-war doctrine that we tacitly adopted during World War II: The “incalculable moral and political evil for civilized life everywhere” that a Nazi victory portended “justifies invoking the supreme emergency exemption.” The same way of thinking underwrote the West’s Cold War nuclear policy of massive retaliation: mutually assured destruction. In dire situations, we can suspend moral absolutes. The “supreme emergency exemption” is plenary—and thus “everything is permitted.”

(Whenever Rawls is cited, it's time to be on guard.)

...I’ve come to see that this describes the moral atmosphere of our times quite well. We each take on the role of commander-in-chief, often invoking the “supreme emergency exemption” to address what we imagine to be dire circumstances in our lives, or the lives of others. For example, a friend recently asked me if I honestly believed that abortion is always immoral. “What if your daughter was fourteen and became pregnant? Would you really refuse to make an exception? Would you really force her to live with the consequences?” The question is typical, reflecting not an insouciant and amoral relativism, but instead an anguished awareness of dire circumstance. Most Americans who support Roe v. Wade see abortion as a personal Hiroshima. The same holds for euthanasia. It’s “tragic,” but “necessary.” We’re to respect life—except when, regrettably, we’re not.

Something similar is at work in relaxed attitudes toward divorce and permissive views of sexual morality. Both involve a desire to make accommodating adjustments. “Would you really want a couple in conflict to stay married? Do you actually think that homosexuals should have to live with the unhappiness of their sexual desires unfulfilled?” These questions and others that point out the hard demands of rigorous moral judgments give rise to the paradox of moral relativism, one that Dostoevsky saw emerging in his own day. We must deny moral truths for the sake of humanity, for the sake of a moral task that seems urgent in an unbelieving world. We need to re-engineer right and wrong to make everything come out right in the end.

Perhaps not "atheism", eh?  Maybe just each of us being 'like unto God.'  CF:  Genesis, or Babel.

...The language of human rights has become very influential in recent decades, suggesting that our secular world is capable of a new set of strong moral norms that can replace the old absolutes. Yet, without religious belief I doubt that the West can sustain a robust commitment to rigorous moral principles of any sort. Relativism has a moral mission. Its goal is to allow us to adjust to difficult situations, making exceptions to moral principles, or revising them to better fit human realities and mitigate human suffering. In dire circumstances what is normally prohibited is permitted. And as we get accustomed to our roles as moral commanders-in-chief the threshold gets steadily lower.

Uhmmmmnnnnnhhhh....

...The progressive mentality tends to see dire circumstances everywhere, and this mentality, in conjunction with the way in which atheism tempts us to take charge and ensure justice by whatever means necessary, helps explain the contemporary dictatorship of relativism. The sort of reasoning Rawls provided to justify the total-war doctrine against Nazism justifies the violation of every moral principle, including the essential rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And in a world dominated by an atheistic elite, I’m afraid they very likely will be violated, always for the sake of the high moral purpose of preventing an “incalculable moral and political evil for civilized life everywhere.” It will be part of the moral mission of relativism...

Indeed.

If you've raised children, the phrase "just this once, Mommy [Daddy]??" should be ringing in the back of your head.  And those children could appear to be adults, too.

Now you know where that came from.  Dostoevsky merely repeated what he'd learned by reading Genesis.

...In recent decades a consensus has emerged that religious ideas and theological notions are sectarian and private in character, and therefore they should not be offered in the public square. A genuine “public philosophy,” to use the term of art, must appeal to principles of “public reason,” another term of art, which are accessible to all citizens. It is therefore supposed that a public philosophy can’t rely on the sorts of claims about God, providence, salvation, and morality that religious people make. Religious themes can be used for their rhetorical effect. Martin Luther King used a rich biblical imagery to promote civil rights, and his sermons and speeches are widely admired. But his core ideal of equality remains non-theological, or so it is claimed...

So not even MLK can withstand the parsing of the Progressives, eh?  Now THERE'S a conundrum!

But MLK is hardly the last target of the Progressive Practical (or real) Atheists:

When Rick Santorum makes the altogether rational and sensible observation that racism involves moral judgments about skin color (an odd basis for moral judgments) while opposition to homosexual acts involves moral judgments about behavior (the usual basis for moral judgments), his views are labeled as “controversial.” Meanwhile, proponents of gay marriage make arguments that are controversial and divisive, as the current political climate indicates, and yet are deemed acceptably “public.” One cannot avoid the conclusion that a “controversial” stance largely means a policy, principle, or position that liberals oppose.

Just ask Mrs. Romney, or Sarah Palin.

HT:  Terry

Good News!! We're in "Recovery"!!!

It's all good!!

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of the start and end dates of a recession, determined that the recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009.

This is a Democrat "recovery," which is why the labor-participation rate is for crap, why unemployment won't really move off the mark, and why Obozo still calls it "Bush's fault."

HT:  Insurrection

Here's the Flow-Chart

Everything you need to know!!

HT:  MoonBattery

Dipwad-in-Chief Pushes Statism Economics

This poor bastard sees the world through the wrong end of the scope.

"This [Buffet rule] is not just about fairness, this is also about growth,” he added. “It’s about being able to make the investments we need to strengthen our economy and create jobs. And it’s about whether we as a country are willing to pay for those investments.  --AOSHQ quoting The Hill

Yah, that's the ticket!!!

Squeeze (or eat, what the hell) the RICH, which means that Obozo gets to pick and make "investments."

Like, for example, Solyndra.

Marx and Goebbels would be proud of him.

As for real Americans:  BUY MORE AMMO!!

Remember the Milwaukee Sentinel?

There's a screenshot of the old Sentinel's "news" page at this site.

And a really good prediction, too!!

Slave Labor? Close To It! And IT, Too!

Not really surprising.

Information Technology firm and high-tech industry powerhouse, Infosys, is being accused of bringing low-paid foreign wokers to the U.S. illegally, CBS News reported.

You've all heard that those H1-B's are smarter, faster, and better-trained, right?

Bullsh*t.

...Palmer said at first, most came over on H-1B visas. These visas are for people with specialized talents or a level of technical ability that can't be found among American workers.

When asked if all the people had some special expertise that couldn't be found in the U.S., Palmer said, "Absolutely not. Not even close. Many of them is what we call freshers. People that would just come over, whoever they could get to come over. Whoever got accepted for a visa." 

"Many of the people brought in, in fact, didn't know what they were doing at all," Palmer said. "There was not a project or program that I was involved in that we did not remove somebody because they had no knowledge of what they were doing," he said.

Palmer says that Infosys' motive to bring in foreign workers was purely for profit. 

Palmer says the Indian workers on his team were paid substantially less than an American would have made in the same job.

When the U.S. State Department began to limit the number of H-1B visas, Palmer said Infosys began using another type of visa, the B-1. The B-1 is meant for employees who are traveling to consult with associates, attend training or a convention. But Palmer said the employees were brought in not for meetings, but for full-time jobs.

These are literally slaves.  They cannot leave Infosys without being forcibly ejected from the USA, so they cannot go to the next body-shop and increase their wages.

And of course, Infosys is billing out large dollars for these people--who are incompetent.

I'm sure that the US companies who are contracting with Infosys are diligently checking out the situation.

/sarcasm

What's That You Said?

We've arrived in 1984.

...the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

So why is it under construction now?

Hint:  A Democrat-dominated Congress and the Totalitarian/Marxist-in-Chief.

Bradley, Shirley Must Go

Prosser's right:  Bradley and Screechin'Shirley must recuse from Prosser's hearing.

Anyone running a pool on that?

We note that the MFM's headline on this matter refers to Bradley and Screechin'Shirley as "rivals."

How about "assailant and accomplice"?

Buffet the Fraud

Like most high-visibility folks, Buffet likes the rules:  one rule for you, another rule for him.

...Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett's holding company, owns NetJets. NetJets is a company millionaires use in order to arrange fractional ownership of private jets -- time shares, of sorts. NetJets lobbied like crazy, as Ryan Grim and Ariel Edwards-Levy at Huffington Post explained last month, to change the treatment under the tax code of flights on fractionally owned jets.

It's complicated, but basically it's about whether to charge a per-passenger tax as Washington charges commercial flights or a per-gallon tax as Washington charges the operators of private jets that are owned by one party. The latter treatment results in lower taxes.

Congress -- mostly Ohio Republicans Pat Tiberi and Rob Portman, according to media accounts -- stuck the NetJets provision into the transportation bill. The result is a "a much-reduced tax liability" for NetJets customers, and thus much higher profits for Warren Buffett. And earlier this month, the IRS began implementing this tax-law change.

See how that works? Go ahead--YOU can try that, too!

Go Ahead: Pay a LOT for Gas!!

The story on Channel 12 is not too slanted. 

Since Our Benevolent Master's EPA has determined that Milwaukee is no longer a PollutionPit, let's dump the ultra-pricey reformulated gas.

Personally, I don't care; I buy in Madistan and have not yet paid more than $3.97/gallon this year.

"Stand Your Ground" Has NOTHING To Do With Zimmerman

As usual, the MFM is totally inadequate to the task of telling the truth.

...other states took a common-sense approach to self-defense, which the U.S. Supreme Court in Beard v. U.S. endorsed as early as 1895, when the Court unanimously declared that an innocent person under attack was, “not obliged to retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground, and meet any attack upon him with a deadly weapon, in such a way and with such force as … [he] honestly believed, and had reasonable grounds to believe, was necessary to save his own life, or to protect himself from great bodily injury.”

Ummmhhh....yah, so ....?

...Florida’s SYG law provides that a person under attack can use force—including deadly force—against his attacker if he, “reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm … or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.”

...Under any version of the facts, Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law did not apply in the Trayvon Martin incident. If Zimmerman pursued a confrontation with Martin, then Zimmerman was an attacker and cannot claim SYG. If Zimmerman’s account is true that he was on the ground and Martin was on top of him, then retreat was impossible, so there would be no duty to retreat anyway. A victim in such a situation can use deadly force, but only if he reasonably believes he is being attacked with deadly force.

To our knowledge, that is the law in all fifty states. It was the law before SYG statutes were ever passed, and SYG did nothing to change it.

(Having no more facts-in-evidence than what's been presented by the media (and the far-more-reliable blogs), it appears to me that Zimmerman is going to have one helluva time proving that he was being 'attacked with deadly force.'

Interesting that the DA charged 2nd degree--which will ALSO be difficult to prove.)

Back to the Moron Parade, led by No-Salt/No-Fat Bloomie of Gotham:

Bloomberg, joined by leaders of national African-American groups, announced the “Second Chance on Shoot First” campaign aimed against a law in Florida and elsewhere in the country that allows individuals to use lethal force whenever they feel threatened, commonly known as the “Shoot First” law. 

Actually, it's "Stand Your Ground".  Now that you've read the reality about SYG, you understand the monstrosity of the lies propaganda of such as Bloomie--who travels with his own personal armed-guard security force called the NYPD, by the way.

Salt-and-fat deprivation must have effects on cognition.

The Correct Epitaph for Santorum's Run

Belvedere has it exactly right:

As for Rick Santorum…

You tried to get people to start understanding how cultural and social decay is linked directly to economic and political decay.

You showed that you understood what John Adams meant when he wrote:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

There are smaller minds--specifically in Madistan--who substitute 7th-grade caricatures and "thinking" for criticism of Santorum, Grothman, and others.

Too bad. 

The Forest Service Says "Die, Dogs!"

Ahhh, the joys of totalitarian regimes!

...In 2011, the Monument Fire ripped through the Huachuca Mountains in Arizona-land belonging to the U.S. Forest Service.  Following the fire, floods and torrential mudslides destroyed mountain spring water lines to the town of Tombstone.

Approximately one year later, "The Town Too Tough To Die," is still unable to fix its water lines, affecting 1,500 residents and more than 400,000 annual visitors. 

Due to the location of the springs being on a government wild land area, Tombstone residents cannot use the heavy machinery necessary to fix its water supply-Forest Service rules won't allow it. 

Yes, there's even MORE!!

...Because of the damaged water supply, an element called arsenic is running through Tombstone resident's tap water at a higher level than allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

What the hell.  Drink the arsenic, or die of dehydration.

The Forest Service will be just fine, of course.

Homeland "Security", Mission Creep, and Totalitarianism

Oh, yes, ALL those words belong together in that headline.

...Our Nation’s vision of homeland security is a homeland safe and secure, resilient against terrorism and other hazards, and where American interests and aspirations and the American way of life can thrive. In seeking to fulfill this vision, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aspires to avoid burdening minority and low- income populations with a disproportionate share of any adverse human health or environmental risks associated with our efforts to secure the Nation....

Some of you may have (stupidly) thought that "environmental justice" was not part of body-groping and nudie-scanning at airports.

Now you know better!

By the way, "environmental justice" is another term which cannot be defined.  IOW, it's a license for more totalitarianism from the Obozo Regime.

HT:  PowerLine

When "Law and Order" Crosses the Line

We mentioned that Republicans have a tendency to fall for "law and order" and "defense at any cost" silliness.

Here's another example, found by Boots/Sabers:

In an effort to make sure the most violent offenders are held accountable, Governor Walker today asked the Attorney General to submit a plan to implement the collection of DNA at the time of arrest for some felonies and serious sex-related offenses...

Really?  Mere 'arrest' is now an excuse for DNA collection?  We can't wait for charges to be filed?  Conviction (if any)?

The Governor ought to re-think this one.

"Formal and Material Cooperation"

Those are terms which were rarely used by the good-time-plastic-banana-rock-n-roll Bishops of the US throughout the '60's, '70's, '80's, and '90's.

That's because those terms had to do with..............SIN..........(and we all know that only Republicans are sinners ipso facto).........so who needs all that legal mumbo-jumbo, right?

Cdl. Burke was interviewed recently:

Thomas McKenna:  “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin…the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”

Cardinal Burke:  “This is correct.  It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”

Abp Dolan, the current President of the USCC, has admitted that the US Bishops were utterly and totally derelict of their teaching duties on matters of sexuality beginning in the 1960's.

No kidding.

The Un-Definable As a Weapon

One thing that professional liars are good at is using un-definable terms.  (It also works for Stalinists.)

...According to media reports, "fairness" will be one of the central messages of the entire Obama campaign. So fittingly, the Senate will pretend to vote on the Paying a Fair Share Act -- or the "Buffett rule" -- later this week.

..."Fairness," an elusive idea normally exploited by spoiled children, is now the foundation of the Democratic Party's economy policy.

"Fairness" is much easier to enforce when you have all the guns, or are hiring hundreds of IRS agents every year, of course.

Willfully Blind

Foggy Bottom at its usual:

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said Monday that  “religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria--just one day after a Christian church conducting an Easter service was targeted by a car bombing that left 39 dead.

Similarly, on Christmas Day, the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, attacked a Catholic church in that country, killing more than 40 people.

Had nothing to do with "religion."  See, those Christian and Catholic church-buildings happened to be in the wrong place.  If those buildings had been, say, 100 yards north, it woulda been "no problem," see?  

Nothing to see here.  Move along.

Obama Delenda Est

Moving on.

Obama delenda est.

Marxism hasn't worked anyplace it's been tried, and it won't work here.  

Money Talks

Noted by McCain:

If Romney is indeed now the "inevitable" nominee, it is a status he has obtained by crushing conservative opposition in an astonishingly expensive and negative campaign: According to the Washington Post, Romney's super PAC has spent nearly $30 million on advertising, 91 percent of it on negative ads aimed at either Gingrich or Santorum. By some estimates, the Romney campaign is spending at a rate of more than $15 per vote, compared to less than $6 per vote for Santorum.

And with all that, he managed a FOUR-point 'victory' in Wisconsin.

My, my.  What an amazing display of electoral strength!

Sewer Engineers (CH2MHill) Have a Problem

The engineering firm most famous for MMSD has another problem.

A Colorado-based consulting, engineering and construction firm, named CH2M Hill, was awarded nearly $2 billion from the stimulus to perform cleanup work at the Hanford nuclear site.

The company used those funds to hire roughly 1,300 employees.

They then inflated the hiring numbers by using a Department of Energy metric known as "lives touched", which allowed them to boast that the stimulus helped somehow helped or 'touched' three-and-a-half times as many people as they had actually employed.

When the stimulus funds ran out, so did the ability to support the jobs created or lives touched. Roughly 1,500 employees were laid off.

Net/net, Hanford Site lost 200 workers.

But that's not all!!

The Department of Labor has awarded a $1.3 million National Emergency Grant to help laid-off Hanford workers find jobs.

The largest portion of the money will be used for retraining former Hanford workers who lost their jobs as federal economic stimulus spending at the nuclear reservation came to an end.

Hanford Site will have contractors forever; it is a mess.  The mess isn't helped by "stimulus", nor by craven contracting practices.

HT:  AOSHQ

GSA Executive Speaks Truth on Gummint

Reported at HuffPo, through the Blaze:

“Meetings are good to have in between breaks,” the clown mocks. “Government — if you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions.”

The Government official who played 'the clown' has not yet been identified. 

Who's 'Politicizing' SCOTUS?

Umnnhhh....yah, well,.........

Barack Obama’s argument that the Supreme Court should not reject Obamacare because it would be an “unprecedented” move against the will of a “democratically elected” Congress means that his Department of Justice should be supporting, not opposing, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, according to legal analysts..

DOMA really DID have 'overwhelming majority' support (bi-partisan, too).  So in Obozo's alleged 'mind,' "judicial activism" is overturning Obozocare, but it is NOT "activism" to overturn DOMA.

Sure. 

Es Ist Vollbracht

The St John Passion of JSBach, aria "It Is Consummated"

Note the half-steps, the musical 'sign' of death.

More Homeland "Security" Chickens***

Is there REALLY a reason for keeping Homeland "Security"?

The government presented no evidence – none – that the Joneses intended to evade the reporting requirements. Kyle told Hernandez that he did not know the amount of money he was carrying. Saying “I do not know” is not a deliberate failure to report. After Hernandez insisted on an answer, Kyle said that he would have to guess.’ Guessing is not a material omission or a misstatement of fact – certainly not one the government can use to steal the money. --PowerLine quoting a Fed Judge opinion

Homeland "Security" stole $31K from a couple--and now WE get to pay the lawyer's fees and court costs--not to mention paying the salaries and bennies of these assholes.

Hostage to PRChina? Thank the Gummint!!!

Actually, you ARE a hostage to PRChina, and yes, the FedGov put you there.

Even a (D) Senator gets it!

American businesses are finding it easier to do business with the ChiComs than with the American government to get these minerals. Democrat Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania writes that China is leveraging its position (and the Obama administration’s regulatory hostility to mining) to hold a monopoly.

How does China maintain its control over rare earth elements? For one thing, it controls production. The only mine currently producing rare earths is based in China. They also ensure that most of the supplies remain in China by deliberately limiting exports through strict quotas and stiff duties. These illegal measures operate to chill exports and drive global prices through the roof.

As a consequence, today American manufacturers struggle with ever-escalating costs of production, compromising the ability of American companies to compete and create jobs.

--Gateway quoting  the Hill

Let me repeat:  dump 20% of the FedGov staff from the payroll, along with the regulations they enforce.

Screw this bunch of micro-despots (and their godfather, Obozo). 

Congress Isn't the Only "Mockery"

Here's the nominee for Moron of the Week:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the U.S. government’s long-term fiscal commitments are “unsustainable,” but that they should not be the country’s top priority, because the government still needs to “do things.”

“Our fiscal commitments are unsustainable over the long run, but we cannot put our long-run fiscal challenges above all others,” Geithner told the Economic Club of Chicago on Wednesday. “We have to be willing to do things, not just cut things.”

Here's what you "do", Timmy.

Cut 20% of Gummint staff across the board, for starters.  And zero out travel/entertainment budgets.

That's "doing" stuff.

No Kidding?!?

Somebody figured it out.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that federal spending will drive the national debt to “unsustainable” levels in the coming decades, fueled by ever-rising health care costs and federal entitlement spending.

It's the SPENDING, Stupid!

The ACLU Wrote ObozoCare's Anti-Religion Regulation

To the ACLU, the First Amendment is anathema.

...In 2000, the California Contraceptive Equity Law was passed. In it there is a provision defining what qualifies as a religious employer, and it was written by the ACLU. Besides noting that the institution must be a non-profit, the exact qualifying language is as follows:

“The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the entity”

“The entity primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the entity”

“The entity serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the entity”

The Health and Human Services edict forcing Catholic institutions to provide for abortion-inducing drugs in their insurance coverage also allows an exemption for groups it deems religious. Besides noting the non-profit status, the exact qualifying language is as follows:

“Has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose”

“Primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets”

“Primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets”

Gee.  That alternative moniker, "Anti-Christian Libertine Union" fits better every day.

"Think Marbury Didn't Happen? Then Show Us!!"

The Fifth Circuit is a bit feisty--and definitely Conservative.  So when Obozo denied the existence of Marbury,.....

...a three-member panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to "answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law."

The response is to be three pages long, single-spaced, according to an unnamed lawyer who was in the courtroom.

I love it.

"For your homework, Mr. US Attorney General, please demonstrate that our 150++ strikedowns of un-Constitutional Federal laws did not happen.  Show your work."

And tell your Statist-in-Chief to shove it, too.

We Love Our State Employees, Right?

You may or may not love them, but you sure PAY them well.

Wisconsin taxpayers still pay significantly more to provide health insurance to state employees than taxpayers in surrounding states, even after increasing the employee premium contribution and making plan changes to reduce costs.  Wisconsin taxpayers also continue to pay significantly more than most private‐sector employers in the greater Milwaukee area.

Sweet!

Wisconsin employees enjoy (literally) a no-deductible, $1,000 (family)/$500.00 (single) stop-loss plan, for which they contribute $972 (single) and $2412 (family) premium per year.

Nice work, if you can get it.

It's Not the Earmark. It's the Logrolling!

The slime continues to ooze.

Republican Representative Steven LaTourette, an 18-year House veteran, said the earmark ban “has affected discipline” within the party. “You can’t get 218 votes (out of 242 Republican House members) and part of that has to be if you can’t give people anything (earmarks), you can’t take anything away from them.”

 

If a member of Congress agrees with 90 percent of a pending bill but is “uncomfortable” with the other 10 percent, “Sometimes taking care of your district (with earmarks) made up for that 10 percent,” he said.  --RedStates quoting Reuters

Oh, goodie!!  Here's the plain-language version of that crap:

It’s not about the $500,000 earmark.  It’s about the $500,000 earmark that is used to buy off a conservative vote for a $1 trillion omnibus or some other terrible transformational legislation.

We sent this slime to Congress.  It's time to apply a lot of bleach.  Direct-spray is a good method,.

The Not-Very-Sweeping Ruling Against Act 10

Somehow, this didn't make the MSM.

....the failure of [the dues-collection] portion to stand up did not seem – at least in the court’s opinion – to be a situation where the start can’t stop the unions from collecting voluntary dues by payroll deduction, but rather that they can’t be selective in doing so. The problem, it seems, was that Walker – likely in an effort to bolster public support – exempted “mandatory public safety” unions such as police and firefighters from the rule.

Hoist by his own petard.  This has to do with the somewhat cockeyed 'traditional GOP' view that ANY spending on cops, firemen, or the Pentagon is, ipso facto, GOOD spending.  (See Sensenbrenner's Big Stupid Mistake below, e.g.).

No actual Conservative believes that crap, by the way.

Swinburne's Song of Christ

Literature one should know over at Grim's place.

What We DON'T Know

AOSHQ has a short list of stuff Obozo is hiding.

1. Tax returns from the 80's
2. Tax returns from the 90's
3. Occidental College records and transcripts
4. Columbia University records and transcripts
5. Columbia Thesis paper
6. Harvard University records and transcripts
7. Medical records
8. Illinois State Senate schedule
9. Illinois State Senate records
10. Law practice client list
11. Certified Copy of Original Birth certificate
12. Harvard Law Review articles published
13. University of Chicago scholarly articles
14. Record of Baptism 

Other than that, the guy's an open book.   And what we DO know is, ahhhhhh........distasteful in the extreme.

Another Project for Wisconsin Leggies: Refute Sensenbrenner's Error

Since Wisconsin regained its common sense, pitching Doyle and his Left-O-Wacky leggies into the minority, another worthwhile project emerges.

A coalition of organizations led by officials at the Rutherford Institute is urging members of Congress not to even consider plans to revive the failed Real ID Act of 2005,...

...half the states adopted resolutions or other prohibitions on the federal plan.

Those included Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Washington, and officials said 15 of them actually adopted laws prohibiting the implementation of the act.

Cong. Sensenbrenner made an egregious error by pushing this Statist-enabler through the House.  That was a doozy of a mistake.  He chose not to fix the real problem--INS and State's sloppy/stupid/careless visa and immigration policies.  Rather, he chose to impose a "Your Papers, Please!!" regime on actual citizens.

He should have known better, but the Wisconsin Legislature can fix that.  And they should.

BPA: "It's Just Fine" Says FDA

Awww.  The JSOnline and a bunch of trial attorneys have to find a new devil.

The Food and Drug Administration's decision to reject the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) call for the agency to ban bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging is a huge win for businesses, and more importantly, for consumers.

BPA has been helping ensure food safety for decades and has not been proven harmful to people. In its decision, the FDA rebutted left-wing activists who have said for years that it is a human health threat, by pointing out that the studies cited by green groups cannot be applied to humans.

"While evidence from some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans," the agency said, according to The Associated Press.

"Science" by advocates may be dangerous to your health.

Holy Week

John Henry Cardinal Newman:

...it is but a superficial view of things to say that this life is made for pleasure and happiness. To those who look under the surface, it tells a very different tale. The doctrine of the Cross does but teach, though infinitely more forcibly, still after all it does but teach the very same lesson which this world teaches to those who live long in it, who have much experience in it, who know it. The world is sweet to the lips, but bitter to the taste. . . .Therefore the doctrine of the Cross of Christ does but anticipate for us our experience of the world.

HT:  Catholic Thing

This Passes for "Learned"?

One has to choke when addressing Justice Breyer with the phrase "...with all due respect, Mr. Justice...."--because there's no 'respect' due to this clown.

"...I say, hey, can't Congress make people drive faster than 45 -- 40 miles an hour on a road? Didn't they make that man growing his own wheat go into the market and buy other wheat for his -- for his cows?.."

No, that's not what Wickard was all about, dingbat.  Not even close.

That's only one of FOUR errors in his yappaflappa cited at the link.

The National Bank was not a 'commerce clause' creation; speed limits are not, either. 

One wonders how Breyer finds his way to the office every day.

HT:  PowerLine

The Economy: Still Struggling

While it's true that the economy is improving, it's simply not hot.  Here's another piece of evidence:

The first graph shows real personal income less transfer payments in 2005 dollars. This has been slow to recover - real (inflation adjusted) personal income less transfer payments decreased slightly in February. This remains 4.2% below the previous peak in early 2008.

"Transfer payments" are Gummint payments such as UC, SocSec payments, and EIC.

IOW, earned personal income is still 4.2% below 2008 levels. 

HT:  CalcRisk

"Some Doubts" About Science?

AOSHQ notes a new study.

Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a "great deal" of trust in the scientific community now--quoting Yahoo News/Blog

Could there be a reason for this?  Or is it mindless moronism of "conservatives"?

During a decade as head of global cancer research at Amgen, C. Glenn Begley identified 53 "landmark" publications - papers in top journals, from reputable labs - for his team to reproduce. Begley sought to double-check the findings before trying to build on them for drug development.

Result: 47 of the 53 could not be replicated.  --quoting Yahoo News

Hmmmm.