Jeff Sessions: "Americans First, Please"

Powerline notes a statement by Sen. Jeff Sessions, which points out the fact that Democrat politicians don't give a rotten damn about unemployed US citizens.

One of the most important concerns — and too little discussed — is the economic impact. The last time Congress considered a comprehensive immigration bill, unemployment was 4.5 percent. Today, it’s nearly 8 percent. Forty percent of those unemployed have been out of work for six months or longer. The labor force participation rate is at a thirty-year low. The unemployment rate for teenagers is 25.1 percent. Wages are stagnant. Never before have more Americans been on food stamps and other forms of welfare.

Yet all we hear from those interests pushing for a comprehensive immigration bill is that we have a labor shortage and need to import more low-skill workers

An expanded guest-worker program will not benefit unemployed American and legal workers. . . .[T]he very jobs that would be an entry point into the labor force for the unemployed — particularly for the young — are the jobs that are seemingly being negotiated away as part of this comprehensive bill.

Every American worker, union and non-union, is right to be concerned about a large guest-worker program combined with a large amnesty of illegal workers. There is no doubt that such a program will reduce Americans’ wages and job prospects. Ultimately, Congress must recognize that has to be focused on meeting the needs of unemployed and underemployed American workers. The economic impact of immigration is the overriding concern about which there has been much too little serious conversation.

This is also the case (mutatis mutandis) with the politicians of BOTH stripes who are pushing for H1B "high tech" expansion. 

It's cheap labor, not "quality". 

Although in the case of immigration, it's also (D) votes.  Surprised?

Fat Fed Feeding

That's rather a high percentage, no?

Think Bennie knows how to unwind it before it snaps?

Oh really?

Ask Bennie if there was a housing bubble.  Somebody did, in 2006.  Go find his answer.

HT:  Peter

Good Friday

J S Bach's "Es Ist Vollbracht" (It is finished)

Note the predominance of half-steps, the traditional musical signal for 'death.'

THIS Is a Recovery?

Take it for what it's worth from the NYT:

...median annual income fell by a statistically significant amount from the previous month, according to a report from Sentier Research, a company run by former Census Bureau officials.

– Median annual household income (pretax) in February 2013 was $51,404, about 1.1 percent (or $590) lower than the January 2013 level of $51,994. The numbers are all pretax, and are adjusted for both inflation and seasonal changes.

– February’s median annual household income was 5.6 percent lower than it was in June 2009, the month the recovery technically began; 7.3 percent lower than in December 2007, when the most recent recession officially started; and 8.4 percent lower than in January 2000, the earliest date that this statistical series became available...--quoted at AEI Ideas

Compare that to the price of gasoline in the same time-frame.

Seizing Deposits Next-Door

Jeepiter Monkeys!  It's next-door, too!!

..."The Government proposes to implement a bail-in regime for systemically important banks. This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital. This will reduce risks for taxpayers. The Government will consult stakeholders on how best to implement a bail- in regime in Canada. Implementation timelines will allow for a smooth transition for affected institutions, investors and other market participants."...--quoted at Mish's Place

That, my friends, includes BMO, which is a Canadian bank.

LawDog: Two Shots, Two Kills, Blood in the Bed

We've mentioned LawDog a number of times.  His stuff is terrific.

Here he narrates three victories and one VERY significant loss.

Tree-rats.

"Fertility" Foolishness

Distinguish carefully.  Lefties and the father of lies cannot stand it.

...The pro-homosexual movement uses the matter of infertility in an attempt to gain traction for same-sex marriage by pointing out that if infertile heterosexual couples can marry, then the ability to procreate cannot be a prerequisite for or essential to marriage. Therefore, they reason, homosexuals should also be allowed to marry. However, this argument works only if there is no distinction between the infertility of homosexual relations and those of an infertile heterosexual couple. In other words, all infertilities would have to be equal, ie, existing for the same reason.

Is this so?

It is not. Homosexual relations are essentially sterile, while heterosexual relations are only accidentally sterile. In fact, they are not even both infertilities properly speaking. This is a smokescreen used to deflect attention from the real underlying issue. Infertility is an issue only in respect to those whose exercise of their procreative powers in heterosexual intercourse has failed for some reason that may be due to congenital or temporary health problems.

More where that came from.

HT:  BadgerCath

Walker: Increase Spending, Increase Personnel, Increase ....

Rumblings and rumors:

Wisconsin’s above-average income taxes could decrease and its below-average sales tax and user fees could increase as a strategy to attract more economic development to the state.

Republican Assembly leaders caution that talks on reforming the state’s tax code are in the early stages.

Maybe you readers can discern "SPENDING REDUCTION" in the above lines.  I can't.

You won't find "SPENDING REDUCTION" in the Governor's budget, either.

Nor will you find "PERSONNEL REDUCTIONS" in that document.

But he's unintimidated, or something.

The Law and The Ass

In the case at hand, The Ass is a homosexual-activist who happens to be a (retired) jurist.

“This blog post is a piece of journalism, breaking a story that should be of public interest regarding the conduct of a former jurist on a significant case. This site does not advocate an anti-gay rights agenda, and the proprietor of this web site is a supporter of gay marriage (although he disapproves of the imposition of gay marriage on society through judicial fiat)…..But the behavior of Walker, as revealed by these emails, creates the appearance of a partisan rather than an impartial former jurist who simply believes he issued a correct ruling. Walker was so invested in his ruling that he wanted to watch the appellate courts’ argument himself. He went out of his way to make sure that he consulted with the winning side to help them prevail in the appellate courts. Specifically, he sought to learn whether his attendance at the appellate arguments would be acceptable to the prevailing party — and when told it would not be, he deferred to the prevailing party’s media strategy. All of this, cumulatively, suggests an emotional investment in the outcome of the case. The emails are likely to reinforce the widely held perception among Prop. 8 supporters that Walker was less than impartial in his rulings during the trial.”  --Patterico, quoted at Shepherd

No s*&^, Sherlock.

Remember CH2MHill? Think "Fraudsters"!

The MMSD's engineer was CH2MHill.

...The timecard fraud took place between 1999 and 2008 when CH2M was servicing a Department of Energy contract worth $2.2 billion. A different CH2M subsidiary was awarded an additional $1.3 billion in 2009 for the Hanford cleanup....WaBeacon quoted at Crony

Nothing like a little extra here-and-there, particularly when it's only taxpayer money, eh?

Fashion Advice Here!

From MoonBattery via Paco

WouldaCouldaShoulda

At this rate, Ruger stock will mimic early Apple.

 "Sales rose 52% in the fourth quarter, which translated to an 88% increase in earnings."

No end in sight, either.

Sensenbrenner's FooFooDust Spray

Yadayadayada, Jimbo.

 On Friday, the FAA announced 149 U.S. airports would close their air traffic control towers run by contractors as a result of sequestration cuts.

In response, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI-05) expressed concern at the news that all 8 of the air traffic control towers located in Wisconsin would close as a result of the FAA’s decision.

 

Meantime, "Conservative Jim" Sensenbrenner voted to CONTINUE FUNDING OBOZOCARE.

 

Blowhard toady.

"Rights", Religion, and Congress: Not the Courts(!)

Long-ish but significant essay here on the Founders' understanding of "rights" and "justice" as explicated by Willmoore Kendall.  Wherein John Alvis demonstrates that the Founders (and their immediate predecessors) would not look kindly on Marshall's revolution (Marbury), the rise of the Managerial Class in government, nor the current Unitary Executive abomination.  He also 'splains that Ron Reagan wussed out.  Take that, Limbaugh/Levin.

Bits and pieces:

Kendall undertook to examine the founding documents of the nation—The Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights—in the light of political developments native to America. This native tradition for the most part antedated John Locke or could be considered apart from Lockean influence. Kendall went back to the Mayflower Compact, The General Orders of Connecticut and the Massachusetts Body of Liberties in order to locate the ideas—he called them “symbols”—which would carry forward to the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.[1] Kendall constantly emphasized the non-Lockean character of this tradition insisting against the prevailing contemporary view that America’s first principles derive not from European contractarian theory but from the country’s indigenous experience because he had concluded that the form of government developed out of this experience rectified what was faulty in contract theory.

Briefly put, the problem with Locke's contractarianism was the reconciliation of "justice" with "majority rule."

[Thus, m]ajority rule in America looked to a standard beyond the mere expression of a majority will, and that standard was the law of God as the divine law could be known through the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

...One observes that this religious aim was dispersed throughout the colonies north and south, Puritan or Cavalier, and one can show that promoting Christianity continued to be a chief purpose espoused by Americans down through the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776. The last mentioned document declares that all those bound by its provisions have a mutual duty “to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other.” From such statements pointing to a continuity of religious belief from the first settlement to the Revolution, Kendall concluded that the American political tradition conceived the right to free exercise of religion as correlative to the duty to worship God. Persisting beyond the New England congregational theocracies this understanding of civil society’s reliance upon religious foundations carries forward to the Northwest Ordinance with its statement that “Religion, morality, and knowledge [are] necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind”

That red-highlight in the above becomes very important, indeed, in the discussion of "rights."

...Religious belief provided access to a higher moral law, access to principles of natural right which could not be grasped so readily or so broadly by an entire populace outside the frame of scripture or without the authority of churchmen. The foundation of that moral law is the principle just glanced at in respect to right to worship, namely, rights are always understood as correlative to duties. Duties are prior, rights derivative. Without duty no right; whenever a right is asserted it is asserted on behalf of some duty. Hence the Bill of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution lays it down “It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being the Great Creator and Preserver of the universe.” In that same state constitution, moreover, we read that no citizen shall be hindered in worship “provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship.” In other words, the freedom of religious worship, although based on nature, nevertheless admits of those limitations necessary to harmonize its exercise with other ends of civil society, here the public peace and the liberty of others.

...the limits placed upon one liberty with a view to protecting others points to the necessity for constant deliberation upon the scope and exercise of rights and, hence, raises the issue what is the appropriate governmental body for such deliberation. The answer to this question is the considered will of the community determined by its representatives in a deliberative assembly—the congregation in the earliest colonial experience, thereafter the colonial and state legislatures, thereafter Congress, or the state legislatures as adjustors of rights withdrawn from Congressional action under the first ten amendments. One can see incidentally that Kendall found in the pre-1787 tradition an anticipation and confirmation of the argument the Federalist Papers directs against charters of inviolable rights. Since rights depend not in their origin, perhaps, but in their scope, upon situation and circumstance, the business of lawmaking ordinarily and continuously turns out to be defining, adjusting and harmonizing claims to rights

In other words, the primary "adjudicator" of rights is Congress (or the legislatures), not the Courts--an understanding NOT taught in law schools, nor favored by the Progressive Termites who utilize the courts and/or the Executive to do their bidding.

...The virtuous people under God arrange public policy by having delegates who represent the people at their best conduct deliberation under certain procedures intended to perfect discussion. What were Kendall’s grounds for asserting Congressional supremacy? Today as we witness a new kind of contest among the coordinate branches of the government—a contest over control of the bureaucracy—we may discover standards for assessing the conduct of Congress in Kendall’s teaching on deliberation and its responsibilities.

Equally from historical and constitutional considerations Kendall maintained that American tradition prescribes legislative supremacy. The historical evidence turns on two developments: first the assigning of the responsibility for determining rights to the assembly rather than, say, to courts in all the colonial frames of government; second, the clear subordination of the Governors to their legislative counterparts in all of the early state constitutions. Despite Federalist imprecations against irresponsible popular legislatures, the Philadelphia Convention reaffirmed legislative superiority. Both judicial and executive subordination to Congress were secured by provisions of the Constitution of 1787, and because in a regime of laws all measures of public policy must take the form of regularly enacted statutes, the lawmaking body will take precedence over the executing and judging bodies...

Betcha never heard THAT in Civics 101--or 201, or 301, or 401.  Hmmmmm?

...What justifies this ascendancy of Congress over the Executive and Judiciary? Solely the fact that Congress is the body wherein the best deliberation takes place. The discussion process answers the dilemma of majoritarianism which Kendall had confronted in Locke. That is to say, the best protection for the liberties of individuals and minorities is to be found in the way Congressional majorities come about in the first place, and then in the way such majorities must conduct themselves in order to get legislation through the two chambers of the legislature. With respect to the formation of Congressional majorities through elections Kendall, following Madison, stressed impediments to the rise of unjust popular movements, i.e., bicameralism, staggered Senate elections, a far-flung and diverse electorate. Beyond these institutional considerations, however, he observed an important cause of moderation not anticipated by the Federalist argument: the internal regulation and customs of the two houses, especially the committee system, seniority, the filibuster and the unwritten but highly effective code of Senatorial deference—the clubishness of Senators.

Our hero, the Filibuster!!

Having said that, our essayist speculates that Kendall would be dismayed over Congress.

...Today a new outlook upon the nature of lawmaking accompanied by changes in the daily business of Congressmen raise doubts of Congress’s credentials as a deliberative body.

Doubts arise on the grounds of what Congress does not do and on the grounds of what, more and more, Congress does. What it does not do is deliberate upon the pressing moral issues of our day....The difficulty is not that these matters have gotten decided in a leftward manner but rather that they have not been deliberated at all by those whom the system charges with the responsibility for deliberation. One cannot name a Congressional debate on an issue of large moral consequence since the Civil Rights legislation of the mid 1960s. The Watergate orgy was no exception for several reasons, not the least of which was that it was not a debate over a law, a public policy. It seems fair to say Congress has come to prefer other means of doing business to the one means proper to parliamentary bodies: full and free debate addressed to principles. Right, wrong, or indifferent, prudent, extravagant, or timid, Congress is, at all events, reluctant to air principles...

IMHO, that applies particularly to the Republicans (but not the TeaParty folks.)

The result?

Before considering the cause of that abdication let us note its effect: the Court fills the vacuum left by Congress or, worse still, quasi-independent regulatory agencies. Most of the issues set down just now as proper subjects for principled deliberation in Congress have been left to the Courts, as though Congressmen had come to believe only the Courts worthy of deciding matters on grounds of principle.

Let us put it plainly:  Congressmen have no balls.  So instead of worrying about such silliness as "principles," they retaliated in kind:

...It was said that the business of modern government was beyond the scope and competence of Congress, that only managerial expertise could cope with modern needs, and that the only organs capable of these complexities were agencies stocked with experts. Kendall disputed such claims saying that Congress need only decide the principles which would regulate the regulators and this, Kendall maintained, Congress was well-equipped to do. Congressmen, however, had other ideas. They responded to the challenges of managerialists by becoming themselves managers, surrounding themselves with enormous staffs and setting up subcommittees with their particular staffs to shadow the various regulatory agencies of the executive. This shadowing now seems to have become the chief business of Congress....

...They are brokering, canvassing, scrutinizing and poking about among executive agencies while struggling to keep together, improve, and, no doubt, enlarge, their own groups of experts which are their tools for the activities first mentioned. Congress does not deliberate because congressmen are preoccupied with other, more direct, more profitable, less risky and less open methods of rule. Congress is administering rather than governing. Legislative agents and executive personnel are having their functions intermix, and the trouble with their so doing is that responsibility grows confused. More troubling, as congressmen grow fonder of administering, they will more and more neglect the work for which we sent them to Washington. Government by more or less secret, more or less unaccountable, committees and staffers is not what we had the right to expect....

The indictment does cover all of the Congresscritters, by the way:

 ...Do Congressmen today conceive themselves to be men and women selected for their virtue and charged with responsibility to deliberate? If they subscribe to the currently fashionable debauch of the parliamentary ethos known as “interest-group liberalism” they will consider themselves rather the spokesmen for partisan interests, obliged only to replicate desires of constituents or at most to broker their constituents’ interest among 534 other similarly motivated brokers. I should stress that what Kendall meant by the virtue he imputed to the representatives of local communities was something not greatly exalted but nonetheless crucial to constitutional government: namely the ability to conceive and the will to conduct deliberation as a rational process aimed at justice. But if deliberation is no longer so conceived and so practiced but instead Congress has come to think of its business as the mere agitation of interests, then not reason but mere will must stand behind public law.

Nietzsche unbound.

As to Reagan:

...From the outset the Reagan administration shrinked from asserting itself. While he still had the Senate the President did little to promote legislation directed against affirmative action, abortion, homosexuality. Talk against affimative action proved cheap when it became clear Reagan would not, or could not, clear out bureaucrats responsible for continuing affirmative action regulations. One has the impression Reagan was habitully talked out of risking all-out confrontations in Congress. He and his advisors seem to have been reluctant to force the issue at the level of lawmaking. Consistent with the executive timidity of the first term and fully as demoralizing to supporters who had hoped for new principles was the breakdown of presidential leadership in the Congressional elections of 1986. Reagan’s one chance, to say nothing of his duty to his office, was to see to it that he do all in his power to persuade the public that in these elections everything was at issue that had been at issue in the last two presidential elections. It was his responsibility to elevate to the level of principle the differences among candidates for seats in the House and Senate and to make the vote a choice between his policies on all fronts and those of his opponents on all fronts. Large moral issues, domestic and foreign, lay at hand to be seized as levers upon the mass of public opinion, levers to be used by a President who grasped the need to revive traditional understandings of liberty and equality and to combat recent perversion of those founding ideals. Yet instead of striving to make the elections more general in their significance, Reagan took the opposite course. In 1986 Reagan appeared intent upon holding aloof so the better, presumably, to preserve his personal popularity. He guarded his popularity at the expense of those political principles which had been, one would hope, the cause of his popularity....

Nancy, folks.

The *Need* for Groundhogs? Or the "Need" to Take Out Jacque?

Ahhh, the agenda of Da Press.  Here you'll see how a "reporter" attacks both an insignificant change in Wisconsin law AND the Left's most-hated Wisconsin legislator.  The latter is the real reason for the story, folks.

...Rep. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere) is putting the finishing touches on a bill that would remove woodchucks from Wisconsin's protected species list and allow people to kill an unlimited number of woodchucks during a season that would run nearly year-round. Jacque said woodchucks don't serve protected status because they're abundant and a nuisance...

"There really isn't a good justification for why woodchucks are on the protected list," Jacque said. "(The season) is more to control a nuisance. I can imagine they can certainly do some damage."...

Jacque is right.  The damn things are eating machines, their population is huge, and they are a nuisance.

But that's irrelevant to the "reporter" who is on the mission!!

The bill represents another expansion of hunting rights in Wisconsin and promises to reignite a years-old debate over whether hunters really need another target species.

"...hunters NEED"?  Really?  The question is control of a pest, not "needs" of hunters.

The "reporter"'s game, however, has little to do with "hunters", "needs", or pest-control.  It has to do with Jacque, who happens to be the Number One anti-abortion legislator in the State of Wisconsin.

That means Jacque must be taken down, no matter the method.  Anything he does will be fair game.

This begs the question:  does Wisconsin "need" agitprop reporters?

"....More Equal than Others..."

Just a small taste of ObozoPals' actual track records....

...To protect her family’s multibillion-dollar fortune, Pritzker’s enterprises park their money in the very same kind of offshore trusts Obama attacked GOP rival Mitt Romney over. But Obama lapped up nearly $800 million in campaign and inaugural funding raised by Pritzker. A former Pritzker tax lawyer pioneered tax-avoidance strategies for the family, which allowed them to pay $9 million in taxes instead of $150 million in estate taxes after patriarch A.N. Pritzker died....

Goose/Gander.  If Romney was a rich-boy-crook for that sort of thing, why isn't Ms. Pritzker?

 

Chicago to Close FIFTY Schools

This is "for the kids", right?

CPS will announce the closing of around 50 schools between now and March 31. 

Illinois follows California into the abyss.

Stupid Law, Stupid Governor

Cuomo, admitting that he is a dumbass:

...“There is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine. That doesn’t exist. So you really have no practical option,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo admitted yesterday at a news conference, explaining why his tough ban on ammunition magazines over seven rounds should be repealed....

Yah, well, only 90 days ago:

“Common sense can win. You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense,” boasted Cuomo to reporters in January before he signed the bill.

"Common sense" in Albany?  Fuggedaboutit.

Doh. Really?

Gottlieb, attempting to justify hiring 180 new employees at WisDot:

...The Department of Transportation contends it would net $5.6 million in savings over two years by hiring engineers and others because state employees cost less than private consultants. Nonetheless, the DOT would continue to contract for much of its engineering work....

Gottlieb was not asked what the savings would be over 5 years, or 10 years.

It would have been embarrassing, don'cha know.

DHS Ammo Grab for "Training"? B.S.

Numbers don't lie, but Big Sis does.

Over the past decade, we have seen blatant indications that domestic agencies of the Federal Government are in the midst of arms stockpiling, and, in the past two months, they are pushing harder than ever before to reduce the defensive capabilities of the American public.

The Department Of Homeland Security has in only a few years placed orders for ammunition totaling at least 1.6 billion rounds, and new orders indicate they may be accumulating over 2 billion rounds.  The DHS has initiated a disinformation campaign through the mainstream media claiming that this ammunition stockpile, which is to be delivered over the course of five years, is for “training purposes only”.  Here is the reality…

First, by the department’s own numbers, training and qualification exercises taking place in three facilities nationwide use a total of 15 – 20 million rounds of ammo yearly.  This means that if the DHS claims are true, they have ordered enough ammo to last a minimum of 75 years!  No government agency plans this far ahead.

Second, the DHS and most federal and state law enforcement agencies DO NOT use hollow point pistol ammo and expensive Sierra Match King hollow point sniper rounds for “training”.  Anyone who knows anything about combat simulation training knows that you use the cheapest plinking ammo you can find, and this includes the government.  The ammo purchased by the DHS is used for one thing only; killing people. 

Third, if this ammo is being used only for non-threatening purposes, then why is the DHS now redacting order requests in a ploy to hide what they are purchasing?

Then there's the question of the 2,700++ MRAPs.  No, they are NOT being ordered by DHS for the USMC.  The Marines know how to write their own requisition forms.

HT:  ColdFury

Never Heard of FinSpy?

Hmmmmm.

...What they found was the widespread use of sophisticated, off-the-shelf computer espionage software by governments with questionable records on human rights. While the software is supposedly sold for use only in criminal investigations, the two came across evidence that it was being used to target political dissidents.

The software proved to be the stuff of a spy film: it can grab images of computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes. The two men said they discovered mobile versions of the spyware customized for all major mobile phones...

Nice.  It's also designed to evade all of the anti-virus software.

Here's what EFF has to say:

“This is dual-use equipment,” said Eva Galperin, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group. “If you sell it to a country that obeys the rule of law, they may use it for law enforcement. If you sell it to a country where the rule of law is not so strong, it will be used to monitor journalists and dissidents.” 

Did I mention that the US is running this software?

Need I mention that the US Attorney General has.......ahhhhhh........*less* than a stellar record on civil rights?

HT:  Schneier

"Smart Growth" Redux

About 20 years ago, the then-Statists-in-D.C. cooked up the term "smart growth" to describe their plan to quash sub- and ex-urban development.

It's back, re-named, and being pushed by the current Statists-in-D.C.

...The Times, and just about every other major news outlet, neglected to note that on the day of Obama’s Argonne speech, the Department of Energy released a series of coordinated reports called “Transportation Energy Futures” (developed in cooperation with Argonne). This DOE project explores a variety of strategies designed to curb America’s greenhouse gas emissions up to 80 percent by about 2050. 

Arguably the most controversial of those reports covers the “effects of the built environment on transportation.” To put it plainly, the “built environment” report lays out strategies the federal government can use to force development away from suburbs and into cities, supposedly for the sake of reducing carbon dioxide emissions given off by all those suburban commuters. The Obama administration wants to force so-called smart growth policies on the country: get out of your car, stay out of the suburbs, move into small, tightly-packed urban apartment complexes, and walk or take public transportation instead of driving...--quoted at the Captain's place.

Wanna bet that living in sub- or ex-urbia will be castigated as "racist" in se over the next 5 years?  I've already heard that from an acquaintance of the Leftish persuasion....

"Bend Over and Kiss....."

Denninger:

In two years federal medical spending along with Social Security and interest will, on current paths, reach the total of all tax receipts. At the outside the market will realize that Congress will never address the underlying issue with medical care because they have steadfastly refused to do so. --quoted at Vox

He's not talking about ObozoCare per se.  He's talking about the overall costs--Medicare, Medicaid, AND ObozoCare, as currently administered.

Meantime, the violin section (Boehner, Ryan, and McConnell), are sawing away.

Vastly Improved Bumper-Sticker

HT:  Cold Fury

Priebus: McCain Wuz Right!

This might set off a few fireworks.

...To counteract this perception the Priebus report recommends, “We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform.”

In addition to embracing amnesty, the Priebus report also recommends Republicans abandon social conservatism. From the report: “Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.”

Also sprach Priebus.

Good luck with that, Mr. McCain Priebus.

Perhaps Priebusism is what infects Paul Ryan, who wrote a budget increasing Federal spending by 4%/annum for the next 10 years.  Or John Boehner, who simply dropped his sword and gave up on de-funding ObozoCare.

Or is it the other way around---that the DC Elites gave Priebus their disease?

No matter. 

To echo Sykes:  I'm not a Republican, I'm a Conservative.  More true now than ever before.

"Go Ahead With Keystone" *Wink, Wink*

Another politician who can have it both ways.

...Bloomberg reports that the Obama administration “is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they should consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects.” Up to now, under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), federally approved projects had to consider potential impacts like dangerous spills or air pollution, but not global warming. Directing all federal agencies to take climate change into account under NEPA will transform environmental policy in this country, putting a huge new drag on the economy in the process....

That little Friday-night newsbite is likely to precipitate an onslaught of lawsuits...against Keystone.

...So the Obama administration could green-light the pipeline, file a report that stops short of calling Keystone a major global-warming hazard, and still find the project delayed for years by environmental groups bringing court challenges under the new NEPA guidelines....

Well, why not?

Republican "leaders" promise to de-fund ObozoCare to get elected, and promptly trashcan those promises with their very next budget.

Obozo's merely following the "leaders."

HT:  PowerLine

What Republican "Leaders"?

Drudge headlines it this way:

Bozell Blasts GOP Leaders

What "leaders"?


"Paul Ryan, you're a good man and you mean well, and good for you for your courage trying to reform Medicare and rid us of Obamacare. But your proposed budget that has the federal government spending $41 TRILLION over the next ten years, with more and more and more spending increases every single year, and assumes all the oppressive Obamacare taxes.   

Congressman, that's what liberal Democrats do, not us.

"This is not conservatism. It is, literally, Democrat Lite.

IOW, it's not 'leadership.'  It's "followership."

Even more for the other three jokers:

"John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy: You said all the right things to conservatives to propel the GOP back to the majority and you to the top three leadership positions in the House.

'You, like virtually every single other Republican elected to Congress solemnly vowed to rid us of Obamacare, which you can do simply by refusing to fund it. Why haven't you done so?

"While we're at it... when the Secretary of HHS decrees that we should be forced to pay for the murder of babies, why don't you decree that Americans are no longer going to pay for HHS?  What of all the other oppressive, and in the case of Planned Parenthood, evil organizations immorally funded by our tax dollars?  What of the utterly useless agencies like NPR, and PBS, and Legal Services, and the NEA and so many others you solemnly pledged to put out of our misery?

Little Lord Fauntelroys all, foppish self-aggrandizing twits who wouldn't last 9 months in the real world.

This is "leadership"?  Be serious.

Why Not Here?

Over the weekend, all depositors in Cyprus banks lost either 6.75% or 9.9% of their deposits.

They were removed by Eurozone executive action, and applied to Cyprus' own deficit.

You can bet that the Bloombergites--many of whom occupy Congress and the White House--were paying attention.

The NSL Abuse: Gone?

There's a little glimmer of hope in California (!!)

Ultra-secret national security letters that come with a gag order on the recipient are an unconstitutional impingement on free speech, a federal judge in California ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop issuing so-called NSLs across the board, in a stunning defeat for the Obama administration’s surveillance practice.  --Wired, quoted at Hit & Run

Let's not forget that Jim Sensenbrenner voted FOR this abuse of US citizens.

Mollie Hemingway Is Right

First thing that occurred to me on Portman's *cough* switcheroo was exactly what Hemingway posted:

Leaving apart the question of whether marriage law should be changed, this strikes me as a problematic approach. I mean, marriage law should be changed or it shouldn’t be changed — but it shouldn’t hinge on the sexual attractions of one senator’s son, should it?

What if a conservative senator said, “I’m reversing my views on whether abortion should be legal because my daughter got pregnant and wished she weren’t.”

One of the fascinating things about society today is that personal experience trumps everything else in argumentation. Very few people seem to care about fundamental truths and principles while everyone seems to care about personal experience and emotion. It’s the Oprahfication of political philosophy.

Seems to me that Portman's "faith-based" prior opposition is the problem. It is NOT 'a matter of faith.' 

It is a matter of nature.

HT:  HotAir

Tread Very Carefully, Boys

Solzhenitsyn, quoted by Grim:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking:  What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?  Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? . . . The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

DiFi's 6th-grade tantrum will soon be buried, but the Statist impulse lives on.....for a while.

What DiFi "Needs"

Senator Cruz was very polite in attempting to help Sen. DiFi from making a damn fool of herself.

But she persisted.  DiFi became a damn fool.

What DiFi really needs is a good old-fashioned Joe Biden-delivered whack in the puss.  Nothing that she'd have to pull out her shotgun and blow both rounds over, mind you.

Just a not-harmful whack across the puss.

Bart Simpbama

I didn't do it.

Nobody saw me do it.

You can't prove anything.

Applies to Benghazi, too!!

Sensenbrenner: Another El-Foldo Act?

We're told that Boehner was on the Hannity show and managed to restrain his tears long enough to say that he doesn't have the guts to fight ObozoCare.

Neither does Paul Ryan.  But Ryan will keep the ObozoCare tax schemes, and claim that he's going to "balance the budget" with those tax increases.

Sensenbrenner, the self-billed "conservative"?

He's hiding in the closet on ObozoCare. 

Retire, Jim.  Do your country a favor and just get the Hell outtathere.

Schumer: Not Treading Carefully

Well, we knew it was going to happen sometime.

...Schumer’s S. 374, the Orwellian “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013,” has been an empty shell… until he slipped in Amendment ALB13180 (PDF) today...

So?

Here's "so":

If you leave home for more than 7 days and leave anyone at home, that becomes a felony illegal transfer. 5 years in prison for each of you.

If you take a friend shooting and allow him to fire your gun, that is a felony illegal transfer. 5 years in prison for each of you.

If you have a gun lost or stolen and don’t report it within 24 hours, you’ve committed a felony. 5 years in prison.

If you lend a gun to someone for to try out at the range, provide a loaner for a student in training, let your son shoot a rifle you purchased while hunting, or provide a gun to a woman for self-defense, you’ve committed a felony. 5 years in prison for each of you...

This won't get through the Senate.  But it is the flag which Obozo will salute.  (That's because it is NOT an American flag.)

Paul Ryan's Dirty Little Secret

Paul Ryan issues a plan to balance the budget in 10 years.

How does THAT happen--when his last one was balanced in about 23 years?

Simple.

Ryan’s latest blueprint would balance the budget, producing a small surplus in 2023 — a goal achieved not primarily through deeper spending cuts, but by the addition of more than $3.2 trillion in new tax revenue.  --WaPo quoted at AOSHQ

That would be the ObozoCare taxes.  (See cite at the link)

In case you didn't notice, you have paid your admission ticket and are now in the Theater of the Absurd.

Hilarity Ensues

Pepsi's done a couple of these--the last one I saw was a b-ball game joined by a geezer who was actually an NBA star.

This, however, is absolutely hilarious from start to finish, except the commercial.

Do NOT take a drink before starting this.  Your screen will never look the same.

More On the Keynesian Morons

While they bleat and screech about "recovery-through-debt-pileup" and (in a fallback) then prattle that "US bonded debt is not a problem, we can roll it forever" (!!), there's pitiful little to show for it.

There has been no change in employment statistics that have been positive.  

Let's look simply at the non-adjusted "employed" figures for the last four months and compare against last year.

In November 2012 we lost 490,000 jobs.  In December, 489,000.  In January, 1.446 million.  And last month we gained 614,000.

In November 2011 we gained 83,000.  In December, we lost 389,000.  In January, 737,000.  And in February 2012 we gained 740,000.

Yah, that's progress, eh?

The SPLC: NOT an "Authority"

Pretty much takes the cake:

Mount St. Michael, home to a Latin Rite or Tridentine Catholic church, school and convent north of Spokane, has been listed since 2006 by the law center as a radical traditional Catholic group and accused of anti-Semitic activities.  --quoted at Gateway

Yup.  Those mean old terrorist nuns.

Let's Talk About "Needs"

The Democrat Party Hard Leftists like to discuss "needs."

"Do you NEED 30-round magazines?"

"Do you NEED AR-15's?"

"Do you NEED fast cars?"

Yadayadayadayada.

They Democrat Party Hard Leftists also admire the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez.

Seems like those tinpot Commies, so admired by the Democrat Party Hard Leftists had "needs," too.

...According to Jerry Brewer, president of CJIA, “the personal fortune of the Castro brothers has been estimated at a combined value of around $2 billion.” “The Chávez Frías family in Venezuela has amassed a fortune of a similar scale since the arrival of Chávez to the presidency in 1999,”  --quoted at CronyChronicles

Not to mention an extremely large cache of AK-47's.

Sixteen Grafs Down, the Real Story Emerges

Sykes and Belling have pointed out for years that the REAL newspaper story usually begins around paragraph 15 (or later.)

So it is with the "less US households have guns" stuff from the Slimes.

Let's just go to the real stuff:

...Detailed data on gun ownership is scarce. [So whatever shows up is reliable?]  Though some states reported household gun ownership rates in the 1990s, it was not until the early 2000s that questions on the presence of guns at home were asked on a broad federal public health survey of several hundred thousand people, making it possible to see the rates in all states. 

But by the mid-2000s, the federal government stopped asking the questions, leaving researchers to rely on much smaller surveys, like the General Social Survey, which is conducted by NORC, a research center at the University of Chicago. 

Measuring the level of gun ownership can be a vexing problem, with various recent national polls reporting rates between 35 percent and 52 percent. Responses can vary because the survey designs and the wording of questions differ.  [So we'll simply assert "much less" as a fact, eh?]

But researchers say the survey done by the center at the University of Chicago is crucial because it has consistently tracked gun ownership since 1973, asking if respondents “happen to have in your home (or garage) any guns or revolvers.”

[Huh?  Just because it has 'consistently tracked gun ownership' makes their numbers "better"?]

The center’s 2012 survey, conducted mostly in person but also by phone, involved interviews with about 2,000 people from March to September and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

[Red flag:  few will speak openly to a random person on their doorstep.  I didn't when some Impeach Walker critter-ette showed up here, e.g.]

Gallup, which asks a similar question but has a different survey design, shows a higher ownership rate and a more moderate decrease. No national survey tracks the number of guns within households. [Yah.  They estimate 47% in 2011--before the huge gun-buys really began (which was just after Newtown.]

There's more!

 ...The survey was... paid for by the National Science Foundation (a government entity), and analysis presented  in the Times article was done by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy Research, an organisation that receives funding from anti-gun groups like the Joyce Foundation. The Johns Hopkins Center operates under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

In the end, the NYT/Hopkins stuff is irrelevant, of course, except as propaganda.  But it is a good lesson on "how 'news' is written" these days.

HT:  Sipsey 

The Genius-But-VERY-Wrong Keynesians

Well, I call them "Genius" only because they can't imagine that they're really, really, stupid.

Headline unemployment is now 7.7%.

...In January 2009, Team Obama economists predicted that the unemployment rate by 2013 would be 5.1% (and the economy would be booming at 4% annual growth). Heck, even without the stimulus, they thought the jobless rate would be down to 5.5%. That’s a big miss...

But we still have drive-by yokels telling us that the stimulus is working and that US bonded debt is irrelevant because, after all, we pay ourselves the interest.  (At near-0%, who gives a damn, by the way?)  Oh, yah, and 'corporations roll debt all the time, so the USGummint should do it too.'

.....forgetting that 'corporations' serve entirely different purposes than does Gummint...and that bond-rolling happens ONLY because the particular corporations actually EARN money, not just run up debts.

But that's a bit complex for the Genius-But-Very-Wrong Keynesians.

Henry V, Revised

Go here.  It's worth it.

Whassis? Budget Without ObozoCare?

Hmmmmm.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Sunday that his new budget includes the repeal of President Obama’s health-care reform law known as ObamaCare.

Ryan told “Fox News Sunday” that the new proposal will make enough cuts to balance the federal budget in 10 years, compared to his previous one that tried to achieve that goal in 25 years.

Well, maybe.  Or maybe not.  Or maybe not quite, almost, sorta:

...Ryan said the focus of the ObamaCare repeal would be to stop the expansion of Medicaid, the federal program that provides medical services to low-income U.S. families.

“Our budget does promote repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with a better system,” said Ryan, who did not say whether his 2014 budget is based on a full repeal.

Ummnnnhhhh...

Ryan said his proposal attempts to reach a balanced budget, in part, by slowing the rate of federal spending from 4.9 percent to 3.4 percent....

*cough*

Only 3.4%/annum?  ONLY?

GDP hasn't grown at TWO percent for the last few years.  Is Paul Ryan telling us that GDP will be >3.4% over the next 10 years?

Or is he telling us that he'a a modified-limited-hangout kinda Gummint guy?

McCarthy v. Paul: What Andy Misses

Andy McCarthy makes some good points vis-a-vis the Rand Paul filibuster.

But what Andy misses (as do most others) is that Paul's point was not necessarily 'who is an enemy combatant and what can we do with them,' but rather, 'what limits must a President observe in executing his office.'  Or more clearly:  'what limits must be imposed upon an imperially-inclined Executive.'

IOW, Paul was creating a metaphor.  It had nothing, really, to do with the confirmation of the CIA Director, either.  But it had everything to do with EPA, the Department of "Education," and the TSA.

Here's Paul's post-action summary:

...I hope my efforts help spur a national debate about the limits of executive power and the scope of every American’s natural right to be free. “Due process” is not just a phrase that can be ignored at the whim of the president; it is a right that belongs to every citizen in this great nation.

I think Andy McCarthy would agree.

Prosecuting Bradley Manning

Thought-provoking item; the Gummint will prosecute a capital-offense without proving intent.

...The prosecution will likely not accept Manning's guilty plea to lesser offenses as the final word. When the case goes to trial in June, they will try to prove that Manning is guilty of a raft of more serious offenses. Most aggressive and novel among these harsher offenses is the charge that by giving classified materials to WikiLeaks Manning was guilty of "aiding the enemy." That's when the judge will have to decide whether handing over classified materials to ProPublica or the New York Times, knowing that Al Qaeda can read these news outlets online, is indeed enough to constitute the capital offense of "aiding the enemy."...

...the language of the statute is broad. It prohibits not only actually aiding the enemy, giving intelligence, or protecting the enemy, but also the broader crime of communicating -- directly or indirectly -- with the enemy without authorization. That's the prosecution's theory here: Manning knew that the materials would be made public, and he knew that Al Qaeda or its affiliates could read the publications in which the materials would be published. Therefore, the prosecution argues, by giving the materials to WikiLeaks, Manning was "indirectly" communicating with the enemy. Under this theory, there is no need to show that the defendant wanted or intended to aid the enemy. The prosecution must show only that he communicated the potentially harmful information, knowing that the enemy could read the publications to which he leaked the materials....

This theory is unprecedented in modern American history....--quoted at Schneier

We've seen this before, typically under "regulatory law," which does not take intent into account when determining "guilt" or "innocence."  But this is a capital offense, not a traffic ticket.

'Community' is Not Statism

Briefly put:

...George H. Nash has succinctly outlined Nisbet’s thesis: “The weakening or dissolution of such bonds as family, church, guild, and neighborhood had not, as many had hoped, liberated men. Instead, it produced alienation, isolation, spiritual desolation, and the growth of mass man.” With the weakening of alternative authorities, as Mark C. Henrie has noted, “the individual has nowhere to stand to articulate a perspective differing from that of the liberal polity and its culture.”...

Nisbet's book is available at TIC's bookstore.

This is a post-Middle Ages development, and the United States is not immune, as has been demonstrated since Lincoln.

Really, Mr. Podhoretz?

J Podhoretz thinks that Rand Paul is dangerous, very dangerous.

So he wrote a short essay about this "danger".

Too bad that Mr. Podhoretz chose to ...ahhh.....ignore a few inconvenient facts.

...Just to take one example, he said we are living in a state of perpetual and endless war, and used Iraq as an example — Iraq, from which we pulled out entirely in 2011. To listen to Paul, you’d think America was already a police state, and the planet its evil playground.

Yes, many people believe this, but that doesn’t make it true. It wasn’t true under Bush and it’s not true under Obama....

Oh. 

Mr. Podhoretz forgets Afghanistan, where we began fighting BEFORE we hit Iraq under GWB.   And he forgets that the US has been back into Iraq, albeit in small numbers, on-and-off since we "pulled out entirely."

So we had Iraq One.  Then Clinton put US troops in Bosnia/Herzegovina.  Then we had Iraq Two, enveloped by Afghanistan, which continues to this day.

1988 to present, or about 6 times the years it took us to enter and exit WWII.

That's more than enough, Mr. Podhoretz.  But you can volunteer to join the Army, if you wish.

More Cojones Than Sensenbrenner Has

Sensenbrenner, the self-styled "conservative", doesn't have the guts to do this.

...some Senate Republicans are proposing an amendment to delay funding the implementation of Obamacare — and they are threatening to stop the entire continuing resolution process unless their amendment is given a vote.

The amendment is the work of Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, joined by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. “I intend to object to consideration of any continuing resolution that does not include a vote to delay funding of Obamacare,” Cruz said in a press release Wednesday.  --quoted at Real McCain

Somebody needs to be primaried.

McPain STILL a Loser

Frankly, it makes no difference if he was quoting someone. 

McPain is a loser--except when it comes to marrying money after dumping the wife who waited for him throughout VietNam.

Gee. Spending Cuts Work!

Despite the rabid drooling by Keynes' butt-kissers, the evidence is clear, and contemporary.

Cut spending = improve the economy.

...There are alternative policies. One is to cut government spending, or cut it more than you raise taxes. As Boskin points out, the Netherlands in the mid-1990s and Sweden in the mid-2000s "stabilized their budgets without recession [with] $5-$6 of actual spending cuts per dollar of tax hikes."

And he notes that Canada reduced government spending in the mid-1990s and early 2000s by an amount equal to 8 percent of gross domestic product....

There are those who despise Boskin, such as Barry over here.

Too bad that he doesn't produce any counter-factuals to the above, eh?

HT:  AOSHQ

Yup. The Big Banks Are More Equal!

Interesting item here:

...Many are still angry about the 2008 bank bailouts, and they now have an on-the-record confirmation from Justice's top official that the department is treating big banks softly just because they are large. Compare it to how law enforcement typically treats American citizens when they break the law — often times by throwing the book at them — and it's easy to understand how that anger could grow into more popular support for a big bank breakup....

(That would include Citi, WellsFargo, USBank, and a few others--like AnchorBank of Madistan.)

Now where did that essay appear?

The American Banker magazine.

What does that "soft treatment" really mean?

...Congressional investigators estimate that the big US banks launder about $250 billion in drug money every year in addition to their $12 billion in estimated annual mortgage fraud.  When caught, they occasionally pay a monetary penalty.

...and you pay what, exactly, for a parking-meter violation....?

HT:  Vox

Go, RoJo!

Nice to see that ONE of Wisconsin's Congressional delegation will take on the ObozoReich.

...The Republican senators who participated in the filibuster with Paul include, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John Barrasso (R-Wy.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)....

Sen Cruz read the entire St Crispin's Day speech from Henry V.

 

Benghazi: There Were Specific Warnings

The conspiracy theorists who claim that GWB "knew about" the 9/11 attacks in advance should time-shift.  There is no paper trail which supports their theory. 

However, there IS a paper trail on Benghazi, and yes, Hildebeeste and Obozo knew about it in advance.

Go, Rand, Go!!

Yup.  About damn time that someone stiffarms Obozo.

And Paul's not alone, thank God.

"We Still Remember the Alamo"

As usual, LawDog writes about a great deal more than meets the casual eye.

Where's Sensenbrenner on the First Amendment?

First I heard of this was from Levin.

Apparently Boehner's going to cave on ObozoCare and toss the First Amendment into the trash.

Will Sensenbrenner, Ryan, Duffy, and Petri join Boehner?

None of them co-sponsored this bill, which is telling.

Ol' Jim plays a conservative on radio and TV.  Turns out he just slept at the Holiday Inn.

Your Kids' School Records, For Sale

Send your kids to the publick screwels?


...the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.

Yah.  Facebook---except you and your kid(s) did NOT consent.

And just who has bought this system?

 ...inBloom officials say they will likely start to charge fees in 2015. So far, seven states - Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Massachusetts - have committed to enter data from select school districts. Louisiana and New York will be entering nearly all student records statewide.

Wait, wait!!  Isn't Louisiana the State governed by a 'Republican policy wonk'?

 HT:  Ticker

The Reich's Lawyer, Eric Holder

Oh, really?

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”

That's a result of the GWB-signed (Feingold-opposed/Republican-backed) Patriot Act.

Smooth move, George.

Reminder

....or from your children, their children, their children's children.....

HT:  MoonBattery

Here Comes the BS About the CR

See how wonderful this CR will be??

If House Republicans can pass the government funding bill, aka Continuing Resolution (CR), introduced by Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rodgers, R-Ky., yesterday, they will have positioned themselves well for a surprise victory over President Obama in the latest government spending showdown.

In brief, the CR moves some sequester-money around towards the DoD.

Wunnerfulwunnerfulwunnerful, so smart, so elegant....

What Hal Rodgers and his sycophant press do NOT mention is that Hal Rodgers' CR continues the funding of ObozoCare.  No change, no deletion.

IOW, Hal Rodgers is a crapweasel--just like Cryin'John Boehner, who approved this turd in the pudding.

Buffett. Buffoon?

Wherein Reason Blog calls out the abortion-lover for his "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose" annual letter.

Why Eddie Flynn Obfuscates

You recall our post on Eddie Flynn, the political slime of the Milwaukee PD.

You recall that he very carefully did NOT break down the numbers of 'cops shot by semiautomatic weapons.'

There's a reason.  He was trying to infringe on the 2A rights of law-abiding citizens.

Here's the reality:

...What do the official FBI crime statistics say? 3.76%. That is the proportion of 2011 firearm homicides in which a rifle was documented as the weapon. Compare that to 4.15% for shotguns and 72.47% for handguns. (Rifles were implicated in 2.55% of all murders.) An important qualification should be made: 19.62% of cases involved “Other guns or type not stated.” I am also taking for granted that the FBI database is reliable. That being said, handguns were documented more than 19 times as frequently as rifles....

In Eddie Flynn's world, it's the cops vs. the citizens, and facts/statistics be damned.

Retirement Savings? Fuggeddaboutit

They're baaaa-ack:  the decidedly Lefty Brookings is pushing a new tax.

On your 401(k)

...The budget challenges confronting the federal government are leading to scrutiny of tax-advantaged savings accounts such as 401(k)s because they’re among the costliest tax breaks. A Brookings Institution report released Tuesday adds to research that recommends curtailing the benefits for top earners to boost U.S. coffers.

"Costliest tax breaks"?  "Costliest"?

Oh, yah.  I forgot.  Brookings thinks that all money is Uncle Sam's money.

 Note, too, the weasel-wording "high income".

"Sequester", Eh?

Some purchases are not part of Sequestergeddon.

Like the zillion-bullet purchases of Homeland "Security"--or these:

The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.

That would be more than 50 per State.

What's Obozo expecting?  

Man-Up Time in Congress

Last year, Sensenbrenner, Ribble, and Duffy signed a letter promising to de-fund ObozoCare.

Ryan?  M.I.A. 

Petri?  Fat and lazy--and he thinks the same of you.

Next week the House will pass a continuing resolution to fund Gummint for a year.  Will Sensenbrenner, Ribble, and Duffy man-up and keep their promise?

Will Ryan get onto the right side of history--or toss his presidential aspirations into the toilet of ObozoCare?

Will Petri ever retire and relieve us of his statist moanings?

Chisholm the Stonewaller

When Chisholm first became the DA for Milwaukee County, there were optimistic rumbles that he might not be a handmaiden to the local Sovietskyy Commissariat.

Wrong.

...Individuals testifying before a John Doe are bound to silence by court order.  They have their lives and reputations trashed by leaks out of the DA’s office and have no way to defend themselves or explain their role in the investigation without breaking the court order.   It is a process that is hopelessly one-sided, and needs to be reformed.   Interestingly, even as he ends it, John Chisholm has locked in this uneven playing field by placing a gag order on all John Doe documents and participants as a condition of his decision to end the probe.   Why?   What is he hiding?...

Helluva good question, Charlie.

And since ALL the State's taxpayers funded this smear-campaign-disguised-as-Legal-Inquiry, we'd ALL like to know.

Four Days Without the Computer....

....and I missed Sequestergeddon!

Fortunately, there will be more.

Koresh, the "Cop-Killer Lunatic"

Arms/Law reminds us that the Waco Massacre is now 20+ years old.  Timely reminder, what with drones now overflying the entire country in search of "terrorists."

Anyhoo, Clinton and his Hive were wont to tell anyone who'd listen that Koresh was a 'cop-killing loony' who was paranoid--he wouldn't talk to cops, and would just as well shoot 'em first.

Really?

Arms/Law found a document in the case files which demonstrates that politicians (and their house-servant appointees) lie like Hell, all the time. 

And when they're not lying, they're thinking up the next lie.

Big Sis Watching You!!

We've NEVER been a fan of GWB's Big Gummint crap.  The reason?

Obozo and Big Sis.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show. 

 ...The prospect of identifying armed Americans concerns Second Amendment advocates, who say that technology billed as securing the United States' land and maritime borders should not be used domestically.

So far, the drones are unarmed--but some versions are capable of carrying Hellfires.

The usual "...we won't do THAT...." crap is in the BigSis response.

Uh-huh.

Remember that in Obozo/BigSis Land, anti-abortion demonstrators are TERRORISTS.

Yah, Well, It's Just Co-Incidence, Right?

Just by co-incidence....

An insurance company known for not keeping its contractual obligations has received $340 million in federal loans to set up a health care exchange under ObamaCare. Critics say the only apparent criteria for the loan is the fact that the company is led by a friend of Barack Obama during his community organizer days. She is also a former leader of a George Soros-funded politically radical organization....

...Congress has opened an inquiry into the eligibility of President Obama’s close friend Sara Horowitz and her embattled health insurance company to receive $340 million in taxpayer-funded loans....

...FIC has been rated the “worst” insurer in New York for the past two years by state regulators, and has weathered numerous public relations and customer service crises since it launched in 2008. The company is so unpopular it has spawned its own hate blog, “Upset Freelancers’ Union Members,” where those who buy their healthcare from FIC meet to complain, strategize, and give each other tips on how to navigate labyrinthine restrictions and try to get results from the notoriously frustrating customer service hotline.
In 2011, the New York State Insurance Department ranked FIC dead last in customer satisfaction among insurers. Despite its relatively small size, FIC had the most complaints of all the state’s insurance providers. Last year, FIC again ranked “worst” in complaints. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says FIC’s complaint rate is more than seven times the national average.

In a few moments, the Usual Suspects will bring up GWB, Cheney, and Halliburton.  Too bad that Halliburton's record is a helluvalot better than that of the Commie described above, eh?

The World's Smalles Violin....

You all know the rest of that headline. 

What's that?  You don't know the tune?

Well, here it is.

...In fiscal year 2002, the USDA spending was $68,978,000,000, according to the Final Monthly Treasury Statement for fiscal year 2002. That’s $88,031,880, 000 in 2012 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

By fiscal year 2012, USDA spending climbed to $139,714,000,000, according to the Final Monthly Treasury Statement for fiscal year 2012 released last September. That’s a 58.7 percent increase in real inflation-adjusted dollars....

And we all KNOW that USDA is delivering fifty-eight percent more services to us.

Right??

Hello?  Hello??

Ed Flynn, Hack Lefty Politician

You might mistake Ed Flynn for a police chief, until you read this pile of manure.

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn called on Congress to pass a ban on new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to civilians, saying “our nation’s cities are enduring slow-motion mass murder every single year.”

Flynn was one of several witnesses to appear at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on “The Assault Weapons Ban of 2013,” a bill authored by Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California.

The weasel-wording is in the next graf:

Flynn cited Milwaukee crime data and invoked specific incidents in the city in recent years involving the use of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He said that in less than three years, seven of his officers were shot with assault rifles or semi-automatic weapons.

Note that Flynn very carefully combines "assault rifles" (a term which he does not define) and "semi-automatic weapons"--which happens to include almost all the handguns commonly used by criminals.  But he doesn't break out the numbers, does he?

Then he manages to insult anyone who LEGALLY owns a gun:


Flynn said of the ban drafted by Feinstein:

 “This bill does not take guns out of the hands of Americans. It does not strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights. The (objections) raised here have more to do with commerce than they do with the Second Amendment … A lot of people make a lot of money selling firearms and ammunition.”

Actually, Ed, removing weapons which are COMMONLY OWNED AND USED by law-abiding citizens DOES "strip Americans of their 2A rights," you lying weasel.

“It’s time for Congress to pick a side," Flynn said at the hearing. "This time I hope it’s law enforcement.”

LEO's vs. law-abiding citizens.  Smooth move, Eddie.