The Other Club

Ignore the infighting

2012-01-28T17:17:00.000-05:00

We've been hearing lately about Newt's criticisms of Reagan and tendency to have too many ideas. We've been hearing lately about Mitt's rapacious activities at Bain Capital and his accounts in the Caymans. We've been hearing this from Mitt and Newt respectively.

I'll start with sentiments I generally agree with as stated by The POH Diaries:

Here’s the bottom line. I have no dog in this fight. My candidates either didn’t run or imploded on impact. I’m not comfortable with Romney’s apparent weaknesses, and despite his ability to articulate conservatism my gut tells me that a Gingrich nomination and subsequent Presidency would end in heartache as well. But the main point is this, neither one of these men, whether they’re really conservative or not, whether they’re a rino, liberal, progressive, or just opportunistic, is Barack Hussein Obama. And that’s enough for me. Certainly it would have been nice to have a strong, conservative candidate with populist appeal to take the fight to Obama. But who the challenger in this race ends up being may mean less than perhaps it ever has in history for the simple reason that the incumbent will be Barack Obama. That one fact in itself may be our biggest asset.

Now, two comments about the revisionist history being peddled about Newt and Reagan and one on ideas. I find the "romantic belief" attractive, especially when mostly privately funded.
One. Two. And one.

And a couple of items about Mitt's "vulture" capitalism, AKA the economic system that built America and Obama wants to destroy.
One. Two.

It will help keep our heads clear to consider that GOP on GOP attacks shouldn't sour us on evicting the most corrupt and least competent President we've ever seen. "[W]ho the challenger in this race ends up being" matters less than it has in any election you've ever voted in.

Can't we all just get along?

2012-01-14T18:01:00.000-05:00

Sometimes all of us but CAIR can.

Extreme leftwing Bill Maher and rightwing Rep. Allen West agree on the seriousness of some Marines urinating on enemy bodies:

Maher, “If they were real Taliban, if they were people who burn down girls’ schools you know, and do honor rapes, threw acid in people’s faces, I’m not that upset about pissing on them, dead or alive.”

West, "The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell."

At least we didn't waterboard the remains.

Obama's problem?

2012-01-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

He's never had to contemplate, much less execute, firing anyone. They just leave the sinking ship. He's been spared any angst. And any exposure to reality.

In this way he is unlike the Sun King, who executed some of his citizens. Oh, wait...

The 'greening' of the IPCC

2012-01-08T15:27:00.000-05:00

Defund the IPCC Now

It turns out that the GAO, the US General Accounting Office, says US has been secretly hiding their funding of the IPCC for the last decade...

In other words, the IPCC funding arrangements are of a piece with their “scientific” claims and their other actions—secretive, shabby, with a hidden agenda, and full of disinformation.

Wouldn't you think they'd be proud of funding the IPCC? After all, the Science is Settled, it's For the Children of future generations, it Saves the Planet and it is Redistributing the Wealth via Green 'Jobs' for people who don't actually produce anything. When you keep such obviously "good things" secret people are likely to question your motives.

Managerial progressive?

2012-01-08T14:33:00.002-05:00

Why is Romney doing such a lousy job defending his record at Bain Capital?

That article focuses on the number of jobs created which may be associated with Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain capital, or while he was Governor of Massachusetts. This is over thinking it. The core reason Romney isn't an articulate defender of Capitalism is that, for him, Capitalism is merely a question of managerial competence. Sadly, he lacks a principled understanding of Capitalism, and thus can't defend it as a philosophy. Much like Herbert Hoover.

Someone should ask him if he's ever read von Mises, Hayek or Ayn Rand.

Dolts, Volts and Jolts

2012-01-05T19:48:00.000-05:00

Well, Christmas is over and we have our president flouting the Constitution and the law with a "recess appointment" when the Senate is not in recess, and when the law itself demands Senate approval. We have GM moving Chevy Volt, AKA Obamamobile, production to China. And we have the Europeans dithering - a 90 day delay - about the bailout for Greece, without which Greece defaults in March.

Happy New Year.

2011-12-25T03:36:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas ...from The Other Club

ID This

2011-12-24T13:12:00.000-05:00

Flying requires an ID and a State-sanctioned groping, so it's hard to figure why casting a vote should not require you to at least identify yourself. But in Attorney General Eric Holder's opinion showing an ID to vote is a "racial burden." Of course, he also thinks complaints regarding his own prevarications about supplying guns to Mexican drug gangs are racist. He wants to limit you to purchasing one handgun per month, but voting more than once is not to be hindered.

Requiring ID has a history of being used to keep blacks from owning firearms. Since voting and owning a gun are Constitutional rights, Eric Holder should advocate disbanding BATFE, a clearly racist organization by his own definition.

If it's OK to require ID and registration to buy a gun, a clearly Constitutional right, why should voters not have ID? Which is most dangerous to the Republic, flying without ID, unlicensed guns or voter fraud?

The Gipper for Goldwater

2011-12-01T20:15:00.000-05:00

Where have you gone AuH2O?
A nation yearns to see your like anew.

And we miss you too, Mr. President.

Transcript here.

The AGW Grant Industry's inner workings

2011-11-23T15:03:00.001-05:00

This has been percolating for a day, and it definitely appears as if the AGW grant industry is suffering another embarrassment at their own hands: Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!

If you'd like a nice cross section of the flummery and deceit, go here: http://foia2011.org/

You don't even have to use the search feature, there are many examples already extracted for your reading disdain.

An don't miss this one: John L. Daly’s message to Mike Mann and The Team

Leading suppliers of guns to Mexican gangs? DoD DoS DoJ

2011-11-23T11:56:00.000-05:00

Tom Stilson at BigGovernment.com suggests the U. S. Government May Be Primary Suppliers of Mexican Drug Cartel Guns:

Based upon the statistics I have compiled, our State and Defense Departments may be the premier suppliers of weaponry to Mexican drug cartels...

These statistics imply the State and Defense Departments may very well be the top suppliers of small arms to Mexico’s drug cartels and not civilians. Only the information obtained from ATF Firearms Traces will tell. However, those records are not public

Yes, indeed. I wondered about this very question in a letter to BATFE in April, 2009:

Have any of these weapons been traced to aid provided to Mexico by the United States through official channels? That is, which, if any, of these firearms were legally imported by Mexico from United States law enforcement or military sources, or any other government departments or programs?

I assume that transfers from any programs officially sanctioned by the United States will have been precisely documented.

I got stonewalled. So I asked again in June of 2009:

I am in receipt of your letter dated 22-June-2009, a response to my inquiry of 20-April-2009. The information was not helpful and I do need further assistance. [He asked me to let him know.]

In my April 20th letter, I asked for specific information about the sources of US firearms submitted to BATFE for tracing. You indicate that you have no information about "the total number of firearms seized by government authorities in Mexico." Thank you for letting me know that cannot answer that question, but I did not ask it.

What I did ask, and what has not been answered, regards information you certainly have.

What are the various sources in the United States of those firearms submitted by Mexican authorities to the BATFE for tracing? That is, of the submitted firearms you have, or have had, in your possession - where in the US did they come from?

I specifically inquired about the following: "Which of these weapons can be traced to official aid provided by the United States to Mexico? That is, which, if any, of these firearms were legally imported by Mexico from United States law enforcement or military sources, or other government departments or programs?

I assume that such transfers from law enforcement or military sources in the United States will have been precisely documented.

In addition, can you provide a breakdown by type of weapon? Handguns vs long guns and the number of semi-automatic, automatic and other types would be extremely helpful."

I think it is obvious to both of us that you have this information, since you have had the firearms in question in your possession for the purposes of tracing them.

Thank you in advance,
etc.

Haven't heard anything since.

...[W]hat they imagine they can design.

2011-11-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

Russell Roberts is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Distinguished Scholar at the Mercatus Center, and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.:

“The purpose of economics is to teach men how little they actually know about what they imagine they can design.”
-F. A. Hayek

This lesson is not merely lost on narcissists, it encourages them in their hubris to bring "order" to the market and to "better" all our lives.

Today's example is the plummeting price of solar panels, brought about by overproduction. Overproduction due specifically to government meddling. The solar panel industry has been economically damaged by subsidies, the reputation of "green jobs" has suffered significantly, thousands of workers are losing their jobs, the rule of law has been subverted by politicians covering their bets and taxpayers have been fleeced because they have to cover those bets. Perversely, all this is used as a critique of capitalism.

Those who should be most embarrassed and enraged by these failures, statist environmentalists, are the foremost apologists. It isn't about saving the planet, it's about enforcing their will.

HT Paladin

A moment of silence

2011-11-11T05:00:00.001-05:00

A moment of silence is observed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month because that is when the guns went silent for the armistice that ended World War I. I observe this ritual. I commend it to you.

This day is Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veterans Day. The silence should resound throughout the countries who observe it under those different names.

Eric Holder: "No, Bush didn't do it."

2011-11-10T20:04:00.001-05:00

As if Bush committing an act of war against Mexico would justify Obama doing it. That is the argument you've been hearing from Democrats, though.

John Cornyn forces Eric Holder to admit Wide Receiver is not comparable to Fast and Furious. That won't stop the other apparatchiks from saying it, of course.

Happy 236th Marines!

2011-11-10T19:31:00.001-05:00

Semper Fi!

Green Jobs?

2011-11-09T19:07:00.000-05:00

The Obama Christmas Tree Tax. Really. This isn't The Onion. The Onion might have asked if you now have to go to a Federal Christmastreetion Camp to pay your mandatory tree ransom.

Crony Capitalism, Christmas Trees, and the Stupidest Tax of All Time

If you grow your own do you have to send Obama a check for $0.15?

Lessons from Obamaville

2011-11-05T20:32:00.000-04:00

Obama: Occupy Wall Street 'Not That Different' From Tea Party Protests

In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party...

mr. president, weasel words though those may be, the differences are obvious to any thinking person of principle.

None of the following citations demonstrate that all supporters of the #Occupy movement - whatever that actually means - are anti-semites, favor arson, think rape is a private matter for one consenting individual or feel compelled to perform public genital manipulation. It does suggest the #Occupy movement attracts people who not only support those ideas, but live them.

That is; racists, felons, and violent perverts are comfortable hanging out in the socio-political environment #Occupy has created. That #Occupy can be perceived as anarchist might explain some of this. Living in their various #Obamavilles, they constitute a target rich environment for criminals of all sorts.

Yet they discourage reporting crimes - rape, for example - so that their "movement" may not be sullied. This, while they ask the government to take more power, to suspend the rule of law, to arbitrarily dissolve specific contracts in their favor.

I detect hypocrisy, naivete and quite a bit of Alinskyite manipulation. #Occupy, insofar as they have any clearly stated goals, may reasonably be called fascists or communists or, more generally - totalitarians or statists. They think that Wall Street is the problem, not the general government's considered and deliberate collusion with Fannie, Freddie, GM, Solyndra, General Electric, etc., etc. and etc..

Occupy's mainstream message is most definitely not anarchism. It is statism. They want government to be larger and more intrusive: As long as it does what they want it to do.

Philosophically speaking, this strange and chaotic bonding of the extreme right with the extreme left has nothing in common with the tea party. The fundamental difference is this: How much intervention from the general government is desirable? #Occupy says "None." and they say "All."

There are some moderates who stand between the extremes of the motley crew of anarchists and the rigid collective of statists who compose #Occupy. That would be the tea party movement. Here are the examples:

I recall no arson committed by tea partiers.
Occupy Protester Arrested In $10M Arson Fire

No embassies were occupied by tea partiers. In particular, none with connotations of religious or racial discrimination. Did any tea party ever occupy a mosque, chanting about Palestinian terrorists, for example?
Occupy Boston Occupies Israeli Consulate

I can't remember when tea partiers shut down a major port, nor then went on a smash and grab frenzy.
80 arrested at Occupy Oakland event Wednesday

No tea partier pushed a 78 year old women down some stairs. among other crimes:
Occupy protest turns violent outside Washington Convention Center

The tea party never had an incident reminiscent of Lara Logan's ordeal in Tahrir Square.
‘F– Michelle Fields!’ — Interview With Reporter Harassed at Occupy DC Protest

The tea partiers displayed normal impulse control and a clear grasp of what the word 'decency' means. The OWS folks are experiencing some difficulties with that. In their own words:
We need a JO Tent to protect the women - Occupy Wallstreet

It's not just the Wall Street occupiers who find public masturbation attractive.
Permit denied for Occupy Madison due to public masturbation

Women did not have to be segregated "for their own good" at tea party protests. For OWS, a private tent for masturbation may be necessary, but it is not sufficient. They also must have a tent where they can herd the women away from rapists.
Occupy Wall Street builds tent as 'safe house' to protect female protesters

I am waiting for NOW to comment on this.
#OccupyBaltimore Discourages Sexual Assault Victims From Contacting Police, Offers Counseling for Perpetrators

Someone of a cynical bent might point out that Joe Biden's prediction that rapes would increase if the president's "jobs" bill doesn't pass is coming true. Not precisely how he expected, of course. I'm sure he thought they'd be reported to the police.

How we're fedEncapsulating the entire economic understanding of OWS

2011-10-14T19:29:00.000-04:00

We don’t know where it comes from. It just appears, and we eat it.

How's that any different from your previous experience of the world?

NY State Senators: We need Canada's speech laws

2011-10-05T19:30:00.000-04:00

Only 10 times more restrictive.

Proponents of a more refined First Amendment argue that this freedom [speech] should be treated not as a right but as a privilege — a special entitlement granted by the state on a conditional basis that can be revoked if it is ever abused or maltreated.

Refined? That isn't "refined." It's what statist fools mean when they call the Constitution a living document: "It means what we say it means, whenever we say what it means." It's Orwell's Newspeak. It's Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland. It's Bill Clinton expounding on the meaning of the word "is."

If this...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

...isn't clear on the subject of speech, then I suggest it is also not clear on freedom from religion, freedom of religion, freedom to publish, or the right to associate freely. All those things are subject to the whims of unelected and faceless bureaucrats.

Sex and drugs

2011-10-02T10:59:00.000-04:00

Let me see if I have this right: Sexual orientation is societally imposed by the Patriarchy, except when an 8-year old "decides" he is a girl. Then we give him hormone blocking drugs.

The little boy who started a sex change aged eight because he (and his lesbian parents) knew he always wanted to be a girl

We have a society that says 8-year olds can't consent to having sex, but they can decide to change sex?

Get a Clue

2011-10-01T07:30:00.000-04:00

Canadian ice shelves halve in six years

No, what's shrinking is not the little ledge at the back of the penalty box where they keep the Molson Stock Ale, it's glaciers. There are some glaciers apparently melting in Canada.

Professor Steven Sherwood, Co-Director of Australia's University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre, thinks it proves the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory:

The real significance of this, in my view, is that this ice has reportedly been there for thousands of years. The same is true of glaciers that have recently disappeared in the Andes. These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural.

Really? Let's assume this study, unlike many other recent hysterical reports of glacial disappearance, is accurate. (Let's even pass over what a scientist might mean by the odd qualifier "reportedly," when giving such a definitive opinion.) Does Sherwood's contention this melting proves humans caused the melting make sense?

Let's stack the deck further in his favor before deciding. Let's assume that when Sherwood says "thousands of years," he is specifically aware of the state of those Canadian glaciers during the Medieval Warm Period, from about 950 to 1250 AD. And that the plural of "thousand" may have been boyish enthusiasm.

Bottom line? No matter how much latitude we grant, Sherwood's statement that AGW is proved by melting glaciers in Canada is nonsense. When they assert that if A=B and B=X, then A=C, credentialed Co-Directors of University Climate Change Research Centres deserve no less skepticism than that guy selling Government of Greece bonds. You expect scientists to be aware of such things. Anyway, you used to.

A long line of enviro-hysterics and hucksters - from Rachel Carson to Greenpeace using Bardot in the baby seal ploy - have poisoned the well. Since they abandoned Bardot to the seals and recanted their 1970's doomsday Global Cooling scenario, they've been working on predictive Global Warming models that don't predict - even when the models are cooked to favor an AGW conclusion. These flip-flops and errors and prevarications and religiosity from the AGW grant-application industry have many of those who believe in the scientific method a tad skeptical.

Co-Director Sherwood had to have been made co-director in order that he might speak PR for the Climate Change Research Centre. His position clearly didn't depend on his grasp of the scientific method, much less the ability to employ simple logic. He's the "securing funding" co-director. His PhD is probably in Marketing, if that's even possible. (After a search, I see that's wrong. His Ph.D. is Oceanography.)

Lest you think I protest the man's scientific acumen too much, let me paraphrase him once again:

1. Mrs. Peacock had been stable for decades.
2. Mrs. Peacock is now overly stable, room temperature-wise.
3. It is indisputable: Colonel Mustard, in the Library, with an SUV.

Competitors be warned

2011-09-28T05:57:00.000-04:00

Government Motors has powerful allies: The White House, FBI, FCC, NLRB, EPA, IRS, etc., etc.

Ford pulls its ad on bailouts

This is what happens when government seizes corporations. If it will decide to give money to a corporation going bankrupt, to negate legal contracts... to suspend the rule of law, then government owns the result. In the case of GM, literally and morally.

Criticism of such a deal is automatically politicized, and while political speech may be protected under the First Amendment; what is that to the Corporatist Axis? The Axis will suppress free speech in order to protect its ~~political agenda~~ reciprocal "investment."

Ford should keep on, I'll even buy one I don't yet need just to get in Corporatism's face.

The Fifth

2011-09-27T06:08:00.000-04:00

I often assume "Most people already know this, it's been widely mentioned. Don't bother to repost it."

Often, I am wrong. In this case if only one more person learns about it, that will be important.

Therefore, I'm posting this for whatever wider distribution that may achieve:

Thank you Mr. president

2011-09-26T19:15:00.000-04:00

Gallup:

49% of Americans believe the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. In 2003, less than a third (30%) believed this.

Without you, Friedrich Hayek may not have experienced such an upswell of interest.

Close the tax loopholes!

2011-09-24T10:43:00.001-04:00

Those tall bars don't represent job destroying tax loopholes. In Ecotropia, they're your fair share of saving the planet: One political donor at a time.

Source: Committee on the Budget: U.S. House of Representatives
The Empty Promise of Green Jobs

Of course, the half-billion dollars Solyndra destroyed, or the money Jennifer Granholm, et. al. wasted on ethanol and batteries isn't even counted in this graph.

Obama does not have a tin ear

2011-09-22T21:36:00.003-04:00

Depending on the day and the poll, some 70% of Americans oppose more stimulus and think the federal government spends too much. The president knows this; he is a well informed man. Yet in deed and word he not only supports more spending, he demands it.

"What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending - that's the whole point. Seriously".

It reminds me of Frederick the Great's famous pronouncement:

"The People are free to say whatever they want and I am free to do whatever I want."

That is not a tin ear; it is just plain old-fashioned arrogance. In both instances.

Stephen Harper for President

2011-09-21T18:44:00.000-04:00

TOC has skewered Canada from time to time (I lived there for over 20 years), but we've also run quite a few "What we can learn from Canada" posts. There are 79 posts (I didn't count for criticism vs. praise) "labeled" 'Canada' going back to 2006.

I greatly appreciate Stephen Hayward's point at Power Line:

How can it be that after all these years of making fun of Canada for all of the right reasons (its anti-Americanism, its social democratic welfare state, its ludicrous Steyn-hunting “human rights” commissions, its export of Michael J. Fox and William Shatner, etc.), it can now be held up as a superior model to Obama’s America?

RTWT.

What I cannot comprehend is how Hayward failed to mention Jennifer Granholm in his critique of Canadian expats. Then too, he had to be reminded of Celine Dion.

At least Celine Dion's recordings have the social utility to be used to torture those incarcerated at Gitmo. The real damage to this country was done by Jennifer Granholm. Forgiving Canada for that will take a long time.

Soft default

2011-09-18T12:30:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman offers further proof that winning a Nobel Prize damages your brain:

What would a real response to our [economic] problems involve?... it would involve an all-out effort by the Federal Reserve to get the economy moving, with the deliberate goal of generating higher inflation to help alleviate debt problems.

It seems to me that the Fed is already doing what Krugman asks inflation-wise, but, like Stimulus One, it's just not big enough.

One wonders what an all-out effort would look like? Weimar? Zimbabwe? THOSE were all out efforts to inflate debt away.

More than "appearance" of corruption

2011-09-18T11:05:00.000-04:00

Much more.
The Solyndra Fraud

Appearance of corruption

2011-09-18T06:44:00.000-04:00

Among other things, capitalism is about taking risk. When the government removes all risk from an "investment", the result cannot be called capitalism. It can be called corporatism, crony capitalism, mercantilism, fascism or socialism, but not capitalism. Such deals are the province of corporatist whores and their government enablers who suspend the rule of law in order to loot the public treasury.

Solyndra "investors" took out a 535 million dollar risk-free loan from you, and they are not going to pay it back.

The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors — including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama — moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show.

Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.

"Without an infusion of cash... Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy?" So, instead of 1,000 lost jobs we have 1,000 lost jobs at a cost of $535,000 per lost job, and those whose lost their jobs don't get the money, the venture huckster-bundlers do.

The "appearance of corruption" is a good enough reason for the Supreme Court of the United States to suspend our First Amendment rights. The appearance of corruption is apparently not a good enough reason to avoid giving free money to Solyndra connected bundlers.

Go figure.

September 17, 1787

2011-09-17T09:24:00.000-04:00

The Constitution of the United States was signed 224 years ago today.

Celebrate it. Defend it.

Arm yourself to do so here, courtesy of Hillsdale College.

But Rick Perry is the one who's crazy

2011-09-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman: "Social Security Is A Ponzi Scheme And Will Soon Be Over"

"Twice the government has argued before the Supreme Court that Social Security is not insurance."

"Until a half a minute ago, liberals called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, too."

Like "Progressive," the Liberals need a newer euphemism for "Ponzi scheme." Then they could tolerate a discussion about it.

Social Security is a compulsory Ponzi scheme

2011-09-13T20:17:00.000-04:00

Apropos of his fear of calling a spade a spade (see also Obamneycare) Mitt Romney took Rick Perry to task last night because Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. James Taranto mounts a defense of sorts:

Perry was not claiming that Social Security is literally a criminal enterprise but asserting that there are similarities between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme.

It is probably true that Perry did not literally mean Social Security is a criminal enterprise. It should be noted, however, that Social Security is not a criminal enterprise only by definition. The people who define what constitutes a criminal enterprise say so.

Imagine Social Security as an investment fund offered by a private company. The Social Security "prospectus" makes guarantees it manifestly cannot fulfill, and the executives in charge largely continue to lie about that. Its accounting practices are much worse than those of Enron. Payments are funded in a way which put Bernie Madoff in jail. The major difference between Madoff and the United States government is that Madoff could not legally exact "investments" with the threat of violence.

If Madoff could legally have paid US dollar investments back in Zimbabwean dollars, he'd be a free man. In contrast, those ultimately in charge of Social Security deliberately and continuously debase SS payments to their own advantage. Unaccountably, they are free men.

Social Security would be a better system if it were a criminal enterprise.

2011-09-11T05:18:00.000-04:00

Analysis of our president's address to a Joint Session of Congress

2011-09-08T20:35:00.000-04:00

Anyone who opposes me... blah, blah... Democrat applause line... blah, blah... is a foolish, anti-American, baby eating Republican... blah, blah... applause line no one could disagree with if they believed he meant it... blah, blah... Democrat applause line... who deserves to be tarred and feathered because he hates teachers, old people and bridges... blah, blah... blah, blah... hundreds of billions... blah, blah... fiscally responsible, will be paid for... bleh, bleh... there's an election in 14 months... blah, blah.

He does seem to have got his 2008 teleprompters back in service. They did a fine job.

Turning America into Detroit

2011-09-07T05:32:00.000-04:00

The congresscritters in Atlas Shrugged said things similar in meaning, but not one of them was so dumb as Maxine "Moral Hazard" Waters.

If they [banks] don’t come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes that they’ve worked so hard for, we’re going to tax them out of business

The ways in which this is stupid are beyond counting, but one has to wonder what is Ms Waters plan if she destroys all the banks. Didn't we just get done bailing them out?* Are they suddenly too resistant to making more stupid loans not to be forced to fail?

Ms Waters, of course, is the congresscritter who threatened to nationalize the oil companies, "[T]his liberal will be all about socialize [sic]...er, ah ... basically, ... about the government taking over and running your companies!" One can presume she means the same thing when threatening to tax banks into extinction. The "government taking over your banks and giving them to Fannie Mae." We know how that's worked so far.

Even aside from its lack of conciseness, "the government taking over and running your companies," is not a good euphemism for "socialize." It is far too straightforward. But Maxine Waters apparently didn't even get the memo that the proper description of her statist policies is "progressive," which at least has the virtue of moving the statists away from their appropriation of "liberal." A word that doesn't mean what they've turned it into.

*Including her husband's to the tune of $12 million.

Things you won't see in the Lansing State Journal

2011-09-06T11:37:00.000-04:00

...nor elsewhere in the statist media.

Jimmy Hoffa warming up the crowd for our president yesterday:

We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war.

President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.

To be clear, the LSJ, et. al. did report on the Detroit rally, they simply fail to mention Hoffa's "incivlity."

No one in the MSM seems to recall our president's comments following the Tucson shootings:

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Of course, we can't talk in a healing way to people whose motivation is asking the national government to live within its means. That's crazy talk. As the Vice President has indicated, such people are terrorists - unworthy of civil discourse

Your labor is your property, too

2011-09-05T03:02:00.000-04:00

The euphemism "Public/Private Partnership" contains 3 lies in as many words. It isn't "public," it's government. It isn't "private," it's crony capitalists. It isn't "partnership," it's conspiracy. The inevitable result of "public/private partnership" is waste. The only variables are the extent to which liberty is diminished and the amount of public treasure wasted.

At the middle of that scale we have the abject failure of the City of New London/Pfizer Corporation gang-theft of Susette Kelo's home and those of her neighbors. It's not easy to fail so spectacularly, it took impressive incompetence and around $100 million to turn a neighborhood into a wasteland. In the end, imposing this urban blight hinged on the collusion of the Supreme Court of the United States. Federal institutions didn't start it though, the plan was the brain-child of regional government.

Here are some relevant facts about the government/corporatist looters in New London, Connecticut; the quintessential example of what politicians and rent-seeking businesses mean by public/private partnership:

New London had a population of 27,620 at the 2010 census. The Norwich-New London metropolitan area (NECTA[2]) includes twenty-one towns[3] and 274,055 people.[4]

...On February 22, 2005, the United States Supreme Court decided in Kelo v. City of New London, that the city may seize privately owned real property under eminent domain so that it could be used for private economic development, deciding the tax revenue from the private development satisfied the requirement for public interest for eminent domain.

This decision is of a piece with the use of the Commerce Clause to justify forcing Americans to purchase health insurance. If the only requirement for seizure of private property is a local official's estimate of future potential tax revenue, what constraint is there? How does your labor differ in principal? Answer: It doesn't. If you're nearing retiremment age, you've been looted in exchange for promises of Social Security and Medicare you won't see. If you're younger you will be looted for decades whether those promises are kept or not. You don't even have to be born yet.

In spite of the city's legal victory, the project never got off the ground. The city's chosen redeveloper was not able to get financing for the project. In spite of an expenditure over eighty million dollars by the city acquiring and demolishing the area where the taken homes once stood, is now a vacant. In November, 2009, Pfizer, which was to be the primary beneficiary of the redevelopment, announced that they instead are closing their facility adjacent to the site and moving those operations across the Thames River to their site in Groton.[7][8] The New London campus was sold to General Dynamics in 2010.

Where, one might ask, could a city of 27,000 find $80 million with which to persecute and defraud a handful of its citizens? From its regional government:

New London has a form of government centering on a professional city manager and elected city council. Distinct town and city government structures formerly existed, and technically continue. However, they now govern exactly the same territory, and have elections on the same ballot on Election Day in November, the first Tuesday after the first Monday, of odd-numbered years; the officials of town and city interact essentially as do the officials of a single town or city who have different but related responsibilities and powers.

As of 1960, counties in Connecticut do not have any associated county government structure. All municipal services are provided by the towns. In order to address regional issues concerning infrastructure, land use, and economic development, regional councils of governments throughout the state were established in 1989. Most of the towns of New London County are part of the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, the exceptions being the towns of Lyme, Old Lyme, and Lebanon. Lyme and Old Lyme are part of the Connecticut River Estuary Regional Planning Agency, while Lebanon is part of the Windham Regional Council of Governments.

Whenever you hear that we need regional government co-operation, think of Kelo, and if what you hear is coupled with the words "sustainable development," think twice about the outcomes and read up on Agenda 21. Think about half a billion dollars up in smoke at Solyndra.

So what does New London have to show for its arrogance? A 91 acre, weed-strewn dump occupied by feral cats; where there once was a vibrant community. And New London also has 1,400 fewer jobs. Pfizer pulled out of New London, taking those jobs with it.

Chris Whalen says "print money"

2011-09-03T22:57:00.003-04:00

In a King World News broadcast, yesterday, the respected bank analyst openly and unequivocally calls for the Fed to "print money".

I defer to Whalen's judgment regarding bank securities (he thinks BAC should declare Chapter 11). But I often disagree with Whalen on policy issues, and this money printing nonsense is another example.

As I have previously opined, this guy is no Austrian.

Corporatists or Crony Capitalists?You can't tell the players without a scorecard.

2011-08-15T20:44:00.090-04:00

First, it was the banksters; then Fannie, Freddie and the Wall Street crony capitalists. Then it was suspending the rule of law for the Chrysler bondholders. Then it was GE's CEO Jeff Immelt being appointed Chief Apparatchik of Obama's Private Sector Jobs Pogrom. (Immelt's qualifications for this position were 1- spending millions lobbying for "green" regulations and subsidies specifically favoring GE, 2- exporting over 20,000 jobs from the United States and, 3- large contributions to the Democrats and Barack Obama.)

Following Mr. Immelt we get Judith Faulkner:
Democrat donor gets federal health policy slot despite conflicts of interest.

A federal committee that includes a major donor to President Obama and whose company stands to profit from the panel's recommendations holds in its hands the future of health information technology policy.

Judith Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic Systems Corp., secured a seat on a panel charged with recommending how $19 billion in stimulus money dedicated to health IT be spent, despite opposing a key administration position on the issue.

Faulkner and her company oppose the president's vision for health IT, but Epic employees are massive Democratic donors. They've given nearly $300,000 to Democrats since 2006, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That may help explain both Faulkner's appointment to the 13-member Health Information Technology Policy Committee as a representative for health IT vendors, and the accolades her company regularly enjoys from prominent Democrats...

Faulkner told Bloomberg News in 2009 that sharing medical records "doesn't work when you mix and match vendors. ... It has to be one system, or it can be dangerous for patients."

Apparently the terms "X12 EDI" and "W3C" would not signify anything to Ms Faulkner. These are reliable, long standing methods for efficient and accurate exchange of information between computer systems.

Standards controlled by a single technology vendor are "standards". Look at Microsoft, they earned a de facto status as "standard", used it to suppress competition, and got sued by federal anti-trust enforcers. Bill Gates' mistake was never being appointed to a government committee to decide what the mandated personal computer operating system, word processor and spreadsheet would be.

Call these latter day "captains of industry" Crony Capitalists, Corporatists or proto-Fascist* dupes. The part that is worrisome for the United States is that our State Crony Corp. no longer thinks they need hide this.

*Mussolini, after all, called his nation's system "the corporate state"; political and economic power were vested in a cross-industry cartel controlled by the state.

P.S. Isn't it amazing they are still deciding how to spend "stimulus" money while the statist economics gurus whine that the stimulus didn't work because it was too small?

Update Oct 5-2011, 5:41PM
A comment from Veronica Alverston:

I see here you're talking about how Judy Faulkner got a health policy slot in the Obama administration. This article explains how to contact a congressmen to urge an investigation of Faulkner - http://freedomist.com/2011/09/contact-congressman-issa-now-about-the-medical-records-czar-congressman-darrell-issa/# - I really think this goes hand in hand with your article.

Indeed it does.

The Bullying Pulpit

2011-08-11T18:52:00.010-04:00

I'm sorry, but a group called the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) seems like just another group of professional victims organizing their pity party. Or, it did, until the weight of the First Nanny started to come down on them.

Truly, this should help people connect the dots between bullying and the Federal government. It helps explain how Dr. David Ludwig felt comfortable suggesting in public that fat kids be taken away from their parents.

If bullying is so terrible when practiced by children, why is it just peachy when the Feds do it?

Criticism on the basis of body shape is out of line. Just eat your peas, and never mention that though Obama's suit may be empty, the same could not be said of Michelle's shorts.

"...labor cartels with no interest in their customers"

2011-08-10T21:50:00.001-04:00

That's what I said Monday.

Today, Investors Business Daily asks, "Why Are Tuitions So High?"

An IBD analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that from 1989-2009 the number of administrative personnel at four- and two-year institutions grew 84%, from about 543,000 to over 1 million.

By contrast, the number of faculty increased 75%, from 824,000 to 1.4 million, while student enrollment grew 51%, from 13.5 million to 20.4 million.

RTWT You'll soon see that it is the confluence of Federal interference in K-12, Federal regulation of higher education, Federal student loans and Pell grants, and teacher's unions political clout which are responsible for the perfect storm of rising costs.

Higher Education Bubble Rent Seekers

2011-08-08T05:42:00.001-04:00

It's not the students. It's the ADMINISTRATORS.

A Senate bill that would encourage the growth of alternative training programs for teachers and principals, some of which would not be based at colleges or universities but would have the authority to give certificates considered the equivalent of master’s degrees, has come under fire from higher education organizations that argue Congress should focus on higher education institutions in efforts to improve teacher quality...

“While our organizations support the reform of educator preparation programs, we have several concerns about this legislation, and we ask you not to support it,” they wrote in the letter, which was signed by the American Council on Education, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, among others.

"[H]igher education organizations" = arrogant closed shop public employee unions pretending to be professional associations. AKA labor cartels with no interest in their customers.

Of "higher education organizations that argue Congress should focus on higher education institutions" one can only ask, "Where have you been and what have you been doing to improve teacher quality while Congress was solely focused on your ~~votes~~ institutions, whose costs have risen vastly more (439% from '82 to '07) than any other segment of the economy? Why is the biggest category to increase in your bloated spending that of administration? Why are you still propagating useless 'diversity' and 'feminism' studies? What does the term "intellectual diversity" mean to you?"

Cognitive Dissonance

2011-08-07T11:30:00.004-04:00

Our Democrat leaders in Washington passed a bill last week that they didn't much like. The passage of this bill increased government tax receipts by about $30 million a day, and 'saved or created' 70,000 construction jobs along with 4,000 federal jobs. Since the Dems claim to be about 'revenue enhancement' and government 'job creation,' you might wonder why they weren't patting themselves on the back, rather than complaining that the GOP "put a gun to our heads."

The bill in question was a temporary extension (the 21st such since 2007) of the Federal Aviation Administration's operating authority. Since July 23 of this year the lack of this authority had caused the FAA to miss collecting taxes of $28.6 million a day. If the partial suspension of FAA operations continued until September, when all our Congresscritters will have completed ~~reunions with their Pomegranate trees~~ consultations with their constituents, that could have totaled a billion dollars. That's billion with a "B".

The partial shutdown was caused by the Democrat's insistence on preserving $17 million in pork and changing a unionization process rule that has been in place for 75 years. So, for Senate Democrats, pork preservation and enabling public service unions to more easily organize are higher priorities than jobs and tax receipts. These preferences come together under the general heading of 'bribing the base.'

The Democrats were getting a bit squirmy about it, though. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the president pleaded with Congress to solve the problem; As if the problem was the whole Congress and not just Democrats in the Senate insisting on pork and a mini-version of card-check:

The GOP-led House passed a long-term FAA funding bill last month that included a controversial labor provision that would overturn a decision by the National Mediation Board allowing airline and railroad employees to form a union by simple-majority vote. Republicans, who have long been concerned about union intimidation in these votes, want to keep the former rule treating a non-vote as a "no" vote.

But once that bill stalled over Democratic objections, lawmakers turned to a short-term extension that has passed 20 times before to keep the FAA operating since 2007.

But that effort stalled, too, when Republicans added a separate provision stripping $16.5 million in subsidies for rural airline services.

The rural airport subsidies come from the well-worn pork barrel Congressman John Murtha made infamous with the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.

The labor provision may have been 'controversial,' but only because the Senate Democrats were insisting on letting a bunch of bureaucrats at the NMB change a rule that's been in place for over 75 years.

So what did the Senate Democrats do after passing a temporary extension they could have passed 2 weeks earlier? They called a press conference to tell us the delay was all the fault of the Republicans. This charade proved too much even for ABC:

What is scary is that Senior Democrats were not feigning outrage and shock when there wasn't universal acceptance of their ludicrous assertions - they truly believe what they said. When leaders' foundational beliefs and tried and true methods suddenly don't work - even are mocked - dangerous things can happen.

There is a final twist. The Transportation Secretary announced that he is not bound by the pork elimination provision, in any case. So, the Democrats cost the United States Treasury over $200 million in tax receipts, and then will go ahead and spend another $17 million on several examples of Murtha's folly in violation of the law they just passed.

Update 2:05PM: Debra J. Saunders reports in the San Francisco Chronicle that Senator Barbara Boxer, blocked a vote on the legislation.

Sen. Barbara Boxer chided Karl for showing "a certain naivete" in not understanding that "this is about government threats." She also challenged Karl by asking if he had reported on GOP opposition to a vote on a "clean" bill. "Clean" here means no pork cuts.

Boxer seemed to have forgotten that she blocked a vote on the House Bill.

She didn't say in which direction

2011-08-04T20:23:00.000-04:00

Wasserman Schultz: "We've Really Begun To Turn The Economy Around"

Iceberg ahead, Sir! Steady as she goes, Helmsman.

2011-08-01T21:00:00.025-04:00

Nancy Pelosi is being coy about her support for the Government bailout of the Government. Congressional Liberals are whinging about 'Satan Sandwiches.' The statist street is suggesting Obama has betrayed them - again. The Vice President called the tea party "terrorists." "Hostage takers," is the Progressive phrase of the day. If the hard left doesn't like it, it must be good, right? After all, the Wall Street Journal is calling the debt deal a 'big win' for the tea party, though continuing to criticize those who were elected for keeping their campaign promises.

It's a set up. All this angst is to reinforce the idea that the tea party philosophy is rigid and unreasonable. It is not rigid, it is principled. It is not the least unreasonable. Still, in the next round we're going to hear, "You terrorist cretins refused to compromise last time, and THIS TIME you're not getting your way."

Here's the terrible thing those moronic Hobbits wrought:

$9 trillion Baseline increase over ten years
$0.917 trillion spending reduction...
For a $8.083 trillion Baseline increase over ten years

Add to that a $1.5 trillion Budget Act Super Committee tax increase, (my prediction) and you get... a $9.583 baseline spending increase over ten years.

And that's if future Congresses don't go back on the promises of the current pirates, and the largest tax increase in American history is enacted by letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

Oh, and we get to have a fantasy vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment in the Senate.

Status quo on the debt trajectory. Size and scope of government unchanged. Summary: We avoid a liquidity crisis by increasing the ongoing solvency crisis.

Here are two examples of what the debt ceiling deal means will continue.

Graphs courtesy Zero Hedge.

You decide if that represents an immediate, existential threat to the United States.

If the tea party are Hobbits, John McCain is Boromir

2011-07-31T11:01:00.040-04:00

Nominations for Grima Wormtongue are open.

John McCain quoted the Wall Street Journal the other day to the effect that tea party aspirations for an end to fiscal insanity resemble a J. R. R. Tolkien fantasy.

...[T]he tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.

Yesterday, the Journal found it expedient to explain the obvious:

These columns drew much notice after John McCain quoted our July 27 “tea party hobbits” line on the Senate floor. Senator (sic) Sharron Angle responded that “it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land.” Well, okay, but our point was that there’s no such thing as a hobbit.

Serious debt reduction achieved in a bi-partisan kumbaya outbreak is a fantasy. It's right up there with belief in the Tooth Fairy and the Social Security 'Trust' fund. And it will forever be a fantasy, absent some major shake-up. The Journal's core assumption is that not raising the debt limit is the worst thing that could happen. Perhaps not.

As to fantasy, the same could reasonably have been said, and was, of the Declaration of Independence. The difference between the Revolution and the debt ceiling question is the immediacy and level of perceived risk.

If you do not think resolution of the Federal spending question involves an imminent, existential threat to the Republic, why would you think Hobbits are imaginary?

If you assume we will return to fiscal sanity at some later date - savings and investments intact, 'social compact' reformed - because the GOP will fix it all when they take the Senate and Presidency in the next election: You may be indulging in a fantasy. As Senator McCain has demonstrated, we wouldn't even be having the debate if we hadn't elected the Hobbits.

If you assume the Democrats will seriously address spending, or even co-operate in so doing, you are beyond fantasy.

The WSJ's analogy could be extended. The Hobbits didn't want to take on Sauron, they were forced to. They got little aid and no little betrayal from a corrupt establishment. They won, despite terrific odds which would only have become worse had they decided the problem could wait for an election in Mordor.

It's a spending problem

2011-07-30T16:30:00.000-04:00

The Facts About Spending Cuts, the Debt, and the GDP
Refusing to allow more spending is the correct choice.

Besmirching All Top Feds' Ethics

2011-07-30T06:08:00.001-04:00

Time for a Special Prosecutor:
ATF: The White House Knew
Lethal fiasco

Twenty Two and Sixty

2011-07-29T21:27:00.002-04:00

Who voted for a "voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion:"

Justin Amash (Mich.)
Michele Bachmann (Minn.)
Chip Cravaack (Minn.)
Jason Chaffetz (Utah)
Scott Desjarlais (Tenn.)
Tom Graves (Ga.)
Tim Huelskamp (Kans.)
Steve King (Iowa)
Tim Johnson (Ill.)
Tom McClintock (Calif.)
Mick Mulvaney (S.C.)
Ron Paul (Texas)
Connie Mack (Fla.)
Jim Jordan (Ohio)
Tim Scott (S.C.)
Paul Broun (Ga.)
Tom Latham (Iowa)
Jeff Duncan (S.C.)
Trey Gowdy (S.C.)
Steve Southerland (Fla.)
Joe Walsh (Ill.)
Joe Wilson (S.C.)

Tim Walberg and Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) are notably absent.

Now Senator McConnell needs to stick to 60.

Brief note on Social Security checks

2011-07-29T16:20:00.000-04:00

TOC noted that normal SS payments can continue to be made from general revenue without raising the debt ceiling, and, should the president decide not to continue normal payments, there is a 2.6 trillion dollar stash in the Social Security 'Trust' Fund.

Cashing in the bonds held by the 'Trust' Fund does not increase US indebtedness. Not to cash the bonds would be another political choice.

The United States has already defaulted

2011-07-29T13:50:00.001-04:00

There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
– Ludwig von Mises

The tea party movement is aptly named, and those elected in its name should remember the will and motivation of the extremists who stormed British ships in 1773.

The "debt-ceiling" debate is such a revolutionary moment, and compromise with fools, charlatans and self-absorbed milquetoasts is out of order. Raising the debt ceiling while pretending we will voluntarily cut spending at some future date is insane. It's doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It guarantees catastrophe.

I, for one, would rather see the real deer-in-the-headlights expressions of John Boehner and Harry Reid than put up with one more shell game. Let August 2nd come and go with no more spending. On August 3rd we can all celebrate the president's 50th birthday and offer prayers that wisdom will come with it. On August 4th, after counting the proceeds of his birthday fundraisers, the president can tell us what he thinks we should do.

If nothing is done before August 2nd, the US need not, and will not, officially default. The debt interest will be paid. Social Security and Medicare can be paid. Our troops can be paid. Comments to the contrary are fear mongering. The rest of our obligations matter less than the principle of correcting our fiscal course. Trouble now, or catastrophe later?

I agree with Michele Bachmann and those tea party stalwarts who insist on doing something real. Theirs' is the compassionate position:

I refuse to be a party to deceiving the American people yet again.
- Michele Bachmann

A vote for "voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion" is a vote for the poor, the middle class and the rich. In that order.

Absent immediate cuts and a balanced budget Amendment, the one thing that should NOT be negotiable is the length of time any increase in the debt ceiling covers. We are told we can't interrupt Christmas. We are told this debate is divisive and should not play a part in the 2012 presidential election. Really? What do the politicians think we pay them for except to practice politics? The most important political question the United States faces is the long term viability of our financial system. The president talks about it now using class warfare rhetoric. He otherwise refuses to reveal any specific aspect of his plans. And he doesn't want to talk about it before he runs again for office? He is a charlatan who thinks you are a fool.

Update 6:23
Default Now, or Suffer a More Expensive Crisis Later: Ron Paul

Demoralized and ready to quit

2011-07-26T20:56:00.001-04:00

We need a term for the 'anti-Chicken Little'. 'Pollyanna' is an inexact antonym and probably insufficient to the task. The 'Boy who didn't cry Wolf'?

The sky is falling. The rose colored glasses are broken. The Wolf is feasting on our sheep. Somewhere, Cassandra is crying.

But Megan McCardle still thinks the US has a credit rating to save and that people will blame the GOP for damaging it (and, hilariously, that that matters), but this piece is interesting for the revealed psychology associated with those beliefs.

The 'deal of the day' (1 $trillion increase in the debt ceiling for 1.2 $trillion in reduced spending over the next decade - DO YOU THINK WE HAVEN'T ALREADY SEEN THIS MOVIE?!) just does not cut it. Megan gets it at the end, "[W]e're hosed." She is correct, but not for the reasons she thinks. We've been hosed since the hoser was elected. I don't know that 2012 is going to matter.

Speaking of shared sacrifice, when we have a President who believes 2 $billion in savings from closing the 'corporate jet loophole' is relevant to a 14 $trillion debt (actually at least 5 or 6 times that if the government had to follow GAAP rules) - and to which he has suggested we should add 1.5 $trillion annually - we are being forced to hose ourselves.

The president believes the Revolution of 1776 was conducted in favor of taxation with misrepresentation.

To very loosely paraphrase an apocryphal anecdote about Winston Churchill:
Would you sleep with me for a 2 trillion dollar increase in the debt ceiling?
Well......... I suppose I would have to consider it.

Would you sleep with me for a 2 billion dollar increase in the debt ceiling?
Of course, not. What kind of monetary system do you think I am?

Madam, we've already settled that question, now we are just haggling about the rate of inflation.

The child in the White House Press Room

2011-07-24T18:30:00.038-04:00

As is his wont, Glenn Reynolds provides some links and a very short comment on each. There are several links in this and more than average length quotes. I found this one to be an excellent summary of our predicament.

Michael McFatter writes with a troubling thought:

I’m worried. See if you follow my concern. Thus far the Democrats have proved intractable on these negotiations. But more than that, they seem to be living in denial as regards the national debt and more importantly the deficits. Right now we’re projecting deficits of 1.5 trillion every year for the next ten years. But those projections are based on growth rates of something like 3 – 3.5% from 2013 onwards. Which is unrealistic when you consider the current debt load plus piling on 1.5T more every year. It’s obvious that these projections are pure fantasy. They’re in denial about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid sustainability and about Obamacare. They genuinely believed O-care was going to “bend the cost curve”! It’s ridiculous.

Now, we all know this. None of this is new information. What has me worried is the idea that the Democrats ACTUALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS IS THE END OF THE ROAD. What if they actually aren’t capable of recognizing when they’ve lost? Or when we’ve run out of other people’s money? None of these people work for a living. Their concept of where money comes from and how wealth is created (and destroyed) is completely divorced from reality because they live in a government bubble. And the very small minority among them that do understand this from previous jobs and experience are okay with Progressive policies aimed at leveling/equalizing/delivering-economic-justice because they just assume that the economy can handle some siphoning. And usually it can. But not at this volume or for this time scale.

Here’s the position I think we may be in. We’ve been negotiating with the President and The Democrats in Congress on the assumption that they’re sane. It’s okay to play hardball with these guys because eventually, whether they like it or not, reality insists upon itself and they have to cave. It’s a painful process so you expect some tantrum throwing and caterwauling, but eventually they HAVE to accept reality. Except if they’re not sane. If they want five apples and there’s only two plus two but they CAN’T ACCEPT that two plus two equals four. Orwell wasn’t just writing a parable about the eventual end point of IngSoc. He was describing what human psychology can drive Ministers to inflict upon the populace for the sake of “justice”. I’m worried they’ll pull the trigger on default as just one more “political” step in the march towards freedom from want or whatever other principle they’re operating under. They’re playing this game as if they could win, as if taxes in a downturn are a good idea with benign consequences. As if debt equivalent to GDP is survivable for the world’s anchor economy/currency, let alone sustainable.

And so maybe, just maybe, Republican strategy (what little there is of it) has badly misread the opposition. Obama tried to add 400 billion in taxes to a deal he had already agreed with Boehner at the last minute. Boehner walks out cause Obama is negotiating in bad faith and has been all along, but what if Obama is actually incapable of good faith negotiation? I think right now that it’s actually possible we won’t see a deal at all. Because the Republicans are looking at the math and at reality and saying “Okay, Democrat demands can’t be serious because they can’t possibly work” and Democrats are looking at politics and how it works and saying “We don’t have to give in cause that’s not how you win these things. You pin it on the other guy politically and then reap the political dividends.” I wasn’t around for the start of WWI, but I get the feeling I understand Kennedy’s fascination with Tuchman’s Guns of August. I’m not talking about a shooting war, but about leaders overestimating and underestimating and just plain misjudging each other in a brinksmanship scenario. In short, it could be too late to do anything when people finally wake up. The crisis may have already arrived with an economic and fiscal momentum all it’s [sic] own that no amount of dealing or compromise or statesmanship can stop.

The Guns of August is a chilling reference for me. WWI didn't start because of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, it started because the leaders who could have stopped it were on vacation.

Some further evidence that the Democrats are not sane in this matter:

1- Friday, the President decided to add the demand for a $400B tax increase to a deal (already viewed suspiciously by the many freshman House Republicans) that was nearly complete. Then he called a ~~sanctimonious tantrum~~ press conference - the prime intent of which seems to have been to panic the markets. We'll see Monday if he succeeded.

It would be to John Boehner's credit if he were to say at 4:31 PM on Monday, "The House has already passed 2 separate measures that would raise the debt ceiling. One of them is supported by two-thirds of the adults in the United States.

We have negotiated in good faith. The President has not. Americans can either 'eat their peas' slowly over the next several decades, or have them forced down our throats in one sitting and go hungry thereafter. It is up to the Democrats now. Let them offer something in lieu of the budget they have avoided proposing for over two years, the absence of which has brought us to the brink. Let them offer something other than the class warfare that they call a plan. Let them offer one single specific proposal.

Today we have stood at the brink, and glimpsed the precipice as a result of the President's ill-considered rhetoric and Democrats' pervasive bad-faith."

2-Even the AP acknowledges the President's fecklessness. They describe it as pragmatic shifts in a volatile situation, though it is nothing but a series of partisan flip-flops.

The Democrats are not negotiating about the debt ceiling, they are negotiating about re-election of a president and redistribution of wealth - as to the creation of which they have no clue. As Obama warned us, his plan is "Fundamentally Transforming the United States of America." It's not like he kept this a secret, it's just that voters have limited imaginations. Transforming America via his own anti-exceptionalist vision fully explains his every puzzling action.

Better immediate default than Obama's long-term vision. Default would cause less pain to fewer people in the long run and give more people better opportunity.

As I write, and in half an hour, gold and silver are up 1%, the US dollar is down more than that. Thank you, Mr. president. We'll see if the toxins you spewed Friday take hold.

Reckless Endangerment

2011-07-17T08:58:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to get this book for several weeks. Rex Murphy persuaded me to download the Kindle version to my iPad this morning.

Obama's Bluff: Call it.

2011-07-16T09:12:00.000-04:00

On Friday the President said,

I am still pushing for us to achieve a big deal [on the debt ceiling]."

"Big deal" = "Never let a crisis go to waste."

The Truth About the Debt Ceiling
Raising the Debt Limit: It Just Makes Sense. Not.
Regime Change May Be Needed To Cut Deficit

No dog food for you!

2011-07-12T20:08:00.002-04:00

The United States spends 44% more each month than it receives in tax revenue. Failure to raise the debt limit therefore means an immediate 44% cut in expenditures. Then we must make choices about what spending has to be cut.

The Weekly Standard provides an example of the choices that could be made:

[It is projected that] there will be $172 billion in federal revenues in August and $307 billion in authorized expenditures. That means there's enough money to pay for, say, interest on the debt ($29 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), Medicare and Medicaid ($50 billion), active duty troop pay ($2.9 billion), veterans affairs programs ($2.9 billion).

That leaves you with about $39 billion to fund (or not fund) the following:

Defense vendors ($31.7 billion)

IRS refunds ($3.9 billion)

Food stamps and welfare ($9.3 billion)

Unemployment insurance benefits ($12.8 billion)

Department of Education ($20.2 billion)

Housing and Urban Development ($6.7 billion)

Other spending, such as Departments of Justice, Labor,
Commerce, EPA, HHS ($73.6 billion)

You can get all the cuts you need right there in the last 3 items. DoE, EPA, and HUD can simply be disbanded and their assets sold. HHS can be cut in half.

However, the President announced today he is unsure he wants to pay Social Security recipients if the Republicans don't tack a trillion dollar tax increase on top of Obamacare. He said he might choose to take away the dog food Republicans have been force feeding to Grandma:

I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.

Mr. President, be serious. At the end of 2010 the Social Security Trust Fund had a surplus of 2.6 trillion dollars. So, even if we decided not to pay Social Security out of the general fund, as was demonstrated above that we could, you could just cash in some government bonds. What?! Social Security payouts are just another form of interest on our debt?

Well, then, I guess you are right, we'd better pay the foreign creditors first.

PS, It's true we couldn't immediately defund DoE, EPA, HUD and HHS. in exchange for their demise we should raise the debt limit enough to give give all the employees a severance package and cover an orderly winding down of their operations before the 2012 elections. Disbanding BATFE will pay the interest on that.

Parsing the President

2011-07-11T19:26:00.001-04:00

President Obama today chastised Republicans for their ~~willingness to follow the recommendations of the President's own National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform~~ refusal to accept as a compromise the President's own half formed and spendthrift "budget outline" which includes an additional (to Obamacare) trillion dollar tax increase.

The President even managed to get in a plug for the First Lady's nutritional initiatives:

This is the United States of America. And, you know, we don't manage our affairs in three-month increments...

We might as well do it now: Pull off the band-aid. Eat our peas...

I will not sign a 30 day, or 60 day, or 90 day extension.

Let us examine the President's meanings:

"[W]e don't manage our affairs in three-month increments."
Sir? It's the Democrats who haven’t produced a budget in 2 years. You call that management? ...Oh, right.

“We might as well do it now."
Translation: No one will have time to read the bill.
cf. Obamacare.

"Pull off the band-aid.”
Euphemism for: Making an $800 billion stimulus happen.
cf. “Pull off the heist.”

“Eat our peas.”
Translation: We’ve already eaten the seed corn.
cf. “Pull off the Band-Aid.”

In August 2009, President Obama was selling his $800 billion stimulus boondoggle in Elkhart, Indiana. (That's the stimulus without which unemployment would go over 8%.)

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up – take more demand out of the economy and put business further in a hole.

By “the last thing” the President apparently did not mean “something you never want to do,” but rather “we want to do this, but at the very end.”

“I will not sign a 30 day, or 60 day, or 90 day extension.”
Yes, that's the last thing he wants to do.

Hold firm GOP, it's a requirement of your employment.

Vast and Curious

2011-07-10T13:29:00.002-04:00

On the heels of their claims that 90% of weapons supplied to Mexican drug gangs originate from the collusion of ~~BATFE~~ ~~DoJ~~ rogue US firearms dealers with ~~HSA officials~~ ~~FBI informants~~ purchasers who failed the National Instant Criminal Background Check, the Obama administration is preparing new anti-2nd Amendment proposals:

"As you know, the President directed the Attorney General to form working groups with key stakeholders to identify common-sense measures that would improve Americans' safety and security while fully respecting Second Amendment rights."
-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, July 7.

Carney's right - if the stakeholders are straw purchasers abetted by BATFE, if working groups are Mexican drug cartels and if shipping weapons to Mexico is a common-sense measure that respects human life.

Otherwise, not so much.

Carney unaccountably failed to euphemize "public/private partnership" and "smart diplomacy." The former is BATFE using "stimulus" funds to mount an operation forcing firearms retailers to make sales they knew were bogus; the latter is DoJ failing to inform the Mexican authorities.

I wonder if the jobs "created or saved" by the Gunwalker stimulus expenditure is greater than the number of lives "negated or destroyed" as a result.

Update: 4:20PM
Mark Steyn: It's time to re-aim our pitchforks

Best sentence:

"Stimulus dollars went to fund one federal agency to buy guns for the paid informants of another federal agency to funnel to foreign criminals in order that the first federal agency might identify the paid informants of the second federal agency."

That's the most concise and lucid explanation of Gunwalker/"Fast and Furious" you're ever going to see.

GunHolder?

2011-07-06T20:00:00.000-04:00

Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department

It strains credibility to claim that the assistant attorney general, the AGAC, the directors of the five major DOJ agencies in charge of law enforcement, and all the U.S. attorneys in the Southwest region were privy to Gunwalker, but that the attorney general himself was unaware of the operation. It suggests that either Holder is being untruthful about what he knew about the operation, and when he knew about it, or that he is so out of touch with a major operation conducted by his key law enforcement agencies that he is too incompetent to fulfill his official duties.

Indeed.

Happy semi-Independence Day

2011-07-04T05:33:00.051-04:00

Emphasis mine.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap

2011-07-01T16:55:00.001-04:00

TOC sarcastically urged the fairness doctrine of "Search Neutrality" as an anodyne to Google's crony capitalist push for “network neutrality.” Indeed, ye should be careful what ye wish for, Google. "Search neutrality" statists are now on your case.

Neutral search is what you should have championed, and demonstrated beyond all possible doubt. It's the prime directive for your abandoned motto - "Don't be Evil."

Your neutrality is was your sacred trust, and getting straight with that discarded motto is probably a matter of survival as a private company. You promote open source software, though that's more lip-service than reality. You lobby to make internet infrastructure a government service. Why should you object to enforced "neutral" search?

If people believe that exchanging your search algorithms for those of the Obama Administration wouldn't make all that much difference, where does that leave you? You need to start thinking about all the things that distinguish you from Orwell's Ministry of Truth. If you can't explain these things, you will be assimilated by the O'Borg. And who will notice?

Mexican firepower II

2011-06-27T05:09:00.001-04:00

Another Murder Linked to US Gunwalker Case

This really isn't news if you have been following Gunwalker, and it isn't fair to blame the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for the murders of US Border Agent Brian Terry or Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez. The thugs who killed these men, and many other Americans and Mexicans, would have used other weapons - probably firearms smuggled across Mexico's border with Guatemala - if BATFE had not sanctioned the weapons they did use. The brutal and violent evil bastard Mexican drug thugs probably would have preferred to commit the murders with full automatic AK-47s instead of the semi-automatic "variants" BATFE intentionally put into their hands.

The egregious part of this is not that people died. It is that BATFE, the Presidents of the United States and Mexico, and the US Secretary of State all claimed drug-fueled firearm violence in Mexico should be blamed on the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. These sly and disingenuous evil bastards were clamoring for suppression of Americans' civil rights based on false information they promulgated.

TOC has commented on this multiple times. Here are two of those posts.

There is not a better argument for abandoning the failed and costly "War on Drugs," nor for disbanding BATFE. There is also an argument here for Mexican officials to increase their own southern border security rather than actively subverting ours.

Supreme Deniers

2011-06-26T09:37:00.000-04:00

The justices of the United States Supreme Court this week became the world’s most august global warming sceptics. ... Global warming is by no means a settled issue, they made clear, suggesting it would be foolhardy to assume it was.

A 5-4 split? What did the Liberals say in dissent? You'll have to RTWT.

Arming the Drug Lords

2011-06-20T18:13:00.000-04:00

Mega-Scandal: Was ‘Gunwalker’ a PR Op for Gun Control?

Yes.

Heroism as self-abnegation

2011-06-19T09:17:00.002-04:00

I received an email this morning with the subject line "What is true heroism?" The body contained this:

Arthur Ashe had a prescient observation on the subject.

In honor of all those who served, Memorial Day 2011.

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."

I shared these thoughts with my correspondent:

I understand that Ashe's aphorism appeals to your sense of fair play and generosity of spirit, but it is the root justification of statism: The interests of every person trump the interests of each person. Looters such as our President will fully approve.

Consider Ayn Rand on the topic:

The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -- the man who lives to serve others -- is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit. The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man, and he degrades the conception of love. But that is the essence of altruism.

Those who prate that the highest purpose is serving others soon conclude that others can be best served only when those others are required to live up to the terms of service. Insisting that the highest aspiration is placing others' interests above your own is a perversion of the Golden Rule.

Rand again:

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Ashe is saying exactly the opposite. Atlas Shrugged was prescient, Ashe is merely banal.

Your email mentions Memorial Day, as if Ashe's words describe the ideals of the men and women of our Armed Forces. I disagree. Our men and women in the Armed Forces should not be described as sacrificial objects. If they are sacrificed, it is by a government using them to serve others: What We Owe Our Soldiers

Fred Upton is a fool

2011-06-13T20:24:00.000-04:00

As noted on several previous occasions. And he also appears, no surprise, to be a liar.

Fred, like incandescent bulbs, you're banned. The best thing the House leadership could do, for their own sake, is revoke your Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

It's bad enough we have Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow and John Conyers without your RINO butt taking up our legislative space.

Barring a reversal of your perfidy, you are gone. I will be in your district. Your defeat is now my cause.

Gas prices are too low

2011-06-12T11:37:00.000-04:00

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson thinks the federal government should raise gas taxes by as much as $1 per gallon. He thinks this would make customers more receptive to smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles.

According to the Detroit News:

A government-imposed tax hike, Akerson believes, will prompt more people to buy small cars and do more good for the environment than forcing automakers to comply with higher gas-mileage standards.

Translation: "If we're going to be forced to build cars we can't sell. Consumers should be forced to buy them."

GE already accomplished this with CFLs, so why not give it a try?

Anybody else see a problem with Government Motors petitioning the government for a tax hike?

Memorial Day

2011-05-29T08:51:00.000-04:00

HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

i. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

ii. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

iii. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.

By order of

JOHN A. LOGAN,

Commander-in-Chief

N.P. CHIPMAN,

Adjutant General

Official:

WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.

Things we can learn from Canada

2011-05-27T14:52:00.000-04:00

Thank you, Stephen Harper, for defending Israel from President Barack Obama.

Danger Close

2011-05-21T08:55:00.000-04:00

The debate about this Administration's incompetence has included speculation about its ignorance vs. intentionality, but it is moot whether the President has adopted the motto "Never Remember" consciously or otherwise. President Obama has done a very dangerous thing.

Ignorance of history is a necessary condition for his betrayal of Israel, but it is not sufficient. This ignorance must be coupled with a visceral disdain for Israel and for the United States.

The links below illustrate the ignorance and the danger. The first reminds us of the facts of the 1967 War the President either does not know or wants to erase. The second is an astute analysis of what the President means by "fundamentally changing America." Neither is short. Both are worth your time.

Contemporary coverage of the Six Day War

Obama's abandonment of America

Whether the President's ignorance is real or feigned, the only difference is whether his ideology requires lying or the lying enables his ideology.

Picking whiners

2011-05-18T18:28:00.000-04:00

This morning I got up to find a letter I wrote in the State Journal.

Taxpayers gave 'new' GM about $40 billion, which was converted to common stock. In November, the Feds sold 480 million GM shares for $20 billion. If taxpayers are to break even, the remaining 350+ million taxpayer-owned shares need to be sold above $55. GM is trading at $31.36 as I write.

The Feds gave 'new' GM $14 billion in future tax breaks, even though the losses of the 'old,' defunct GM had to be counted to justify the largesse. That accounting sleight-of-hand had never been allowed before.

GM is presently profitable. This is better than the alternative. But celebrating profitability resulting from an interest free $40 billion loan, and a $14 billion tax-avoidance gift – after giving your major creditors a major haircut and while your stock sinks below its IPO price – is premature.

If taxpayers had given each of GM's 75,000 pre-bankruptcy hourly workers $250,000, we would have be ahead compared to the cost of the bailout and tax breaks.

Picking winners is bad. Picking losers to make into winners is worse.

Tonight I find out GM wants billions more in tax subsidies. Sigh.

The 34% solution

2011-05-15T16:25:00.000-04:00

The border with Mexico is 1,900 miles long. About 650 miles of it are fenced against illegal immigrants. Our President calls the fence "basically complete."

It follows, then, that our President defines "basically complete" as 34% complete. Or perhaps less. I'm sure 32% would qualify. Maybe even 25%.

In fact, it doesn't matter to the President whether we have control of our southern border. The GAO says we only have effective control of 50% of it. At what point does sovereignty becomes suspect? According to the President, effective control would be somewhere in the low 30% range.

Perhaps our President meant "complete" in the sense of "over, done with, terminated, stick a tenedor in it." Or maybe it's just affirmative action for fencing material.

Congratulations, Mr. President

2011-05-02T18:53:00.002-04:00

Well done!!

And THANK YOU to the SEALs who carried this raid out.

I hope we will find out more about the sources of the intelligence that led to Osama's execution, and whether Pakistan cooperated.

Rumor has it that the intelligence resulted from "enhanced interrogation," and the deceased was living just 50 miles from Islamabad: In the same town as Pakistan's version of West Point, alongside many Pakistani military officers.

Inquiring minds want to know if waterboarding worked and if Pakistan should be trusted or vilified.

Take precautions

2011-04-26T05:16:00.000-04:00

As regular readers will know, the precautionary principle is a prime element in Envirostatist rhetoric. For example, it justifies a Luddite opposition to genetically engineered plants, and encourages a reflexive support of the Kyoto treaty. The fact that "golden rice" could eliminate beriberi as a disease, for free, is irrelevant. The risk posed by ~~global warming~~ climate change is said to be so great that no preventive expenditure is too large. Failure to act could mean extinction of all life.

However, by estimation of its proponents, the Kyoto Protocols might reduce ~~global warming~~ climate change in the year 2100 by two-tenths°C (from 2.1°C to 1.9°C) - at a cost of a trillion dollars. It is argued that the enormity of the risk justifies the expense, despite the fact that the prediction, and its mitigation, rely on computer models which - beyond even their serious methodological deficiencies and "plugged" data - cannot even “predict” past climate change given certain knowledge of the variables.

The precautionary principle seeks to convince you, ipso facto, that the absolute minimization of risk is desirable. It pays no attention to the costs. The idea is that you should be allowed to live a zero risk life. Strike that, you must be forced to live a risk free life.

This is mistaken. Had we followed the precautionary principle throughout history, we would have forgone, for example, fire, penicillin, electricity, the wheel, internal combustion and aspirin. None of these technologies are risk-free.

Following the precautionary principle results in conclusions such as this: Since the ~~global warming~~ climate change threat is so serious, we must ban incandescent light bulbs because they are less efficient than Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs. Carbon dioxide production must be reduced, or we will all become bit-players dying in a movie imagined by Al Gore.

So, do you prefer incandescent light-bulbs to CFL bulbs? Too bad. Incandescents have been banned through the efforts of "environmental lobbyists" and, specifically, the corporatist whores at General Electric.

This has come to pass despite the fact that CFLs contain mercury in sufficient amounts to cause the Feds to tell you to clear the room for 15 minutes if you break one; while leaving the windows open. Used CFLs present a mercury pollution problem for our landfills far beyond that of dry cell batteries, and infinitely larger than incandescent bulbs*.

Now, we find out that you should not have a CFL near your head, as you might do if you were reading, because CFLs give off toxic chemicals while intact and in normal use.

"They should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head,” because a fog of carcinogens is generated when they are on.

Where is the precautionary principle when you need it? Well, it isn’t about risk, it’s about power.

*Apparently, the tungsten lobby wasn't up to the challenge.

Envirostatist Day

2011-04-22T19:49:00.003-04:00

Reason.tv: The Top Five Environmental Disasters that Didn't Happen

In 1976, Greenpeace became internationally recognized because of their protests against Canada's annual seal hunt. It was this Greenpeace fundraising scam that kindled my skepticism about environmentalist promoted panics. Greenpeace was quite happy to destroy the livelihood of Newfoundlanders for no reason other than that baby seals are cute enough to boost donations.

Of course, clubbing seals is gruesome - even if humane - but most of the people offended to the point of contribution by viewing the Greenpeace videos have never visited the slaughterhouses from which they receive their neatly packaged steaks. That is quite gruesome, too. No matter, Greenpeace is concerned about the hypocrisy of their donors even less than they are about their own.

The Envirostatist pattern: Produce scant, or even fabricated, evidence about some future environmental catastrophe; insist on strict observance of the precautionary principle; and demand that governments force their citizens to live as if the dire outcome is a certainty, and tax them as if death were not.

None of this is about the environment. Notably absent from the litany of woe is any mention that it is economic liberty, and the wealth created thereby, that produces a better environment. Witness what we discovered about Romanian industrial production after the Berlin Wall came down. There, the government had absolute control of environmental regulations.

When the panics Reason notes (and there were many others) proved to be nothing more than sequential plots to loot governments and force all persons to affirm that the looting was in their best interest, the envirostatists were not dismayed. They proclaimed global cooling, then global warming and morphed that into climate change.

If the precautionary principle were actually the trump Envirostatists portray it to be, they would be demanding trillions of dollars for an asteroid defense system. There is a danger demonstrated to be life-ending on a planetary scale, and the probability of it's occurence is at least as high as the 0.5 degree reduction in global temperature 30 years in the future; the benefit of the Kyoto Protocol claimed by its proponents.

The application of the precautionary principle as implied by Silent Spring, has made Rachel Carson into a biological mass murderer.

For other interesting views on environmental topics, check some of these links:

They're always available here, just scroll to the "Environment" section of the links.

On the utter humourlessness of Canadian feminist fellow travellers

2011-04-17T19:59:00.002-04:00

Canadian University Suspends Student Team After Racy Photo

The lack of humor, not to say complete dearth of self awareness, by those in charge of the University of Waterloo is evidenced by the fact that University spokesprole Michael Strickland can, without apparent irony, say the following about an attractive female engineering student posing bikini-clad before a car she helped build:

The university's engineering design centre, where the photo was taken, has rules covering the type of equipment that can be brought in as well as the manner in which it can be used.

The equipment Mr. Strickland objects to is apparently not intellectual, but biological. I thought women wanted to be recognized for the former, rather than characterized by the latter.

The message is we can't have that sort engineer displaying that sort of equipment. The UoW's interpretation of what constitutes an independent woman countenances neither elegance in biological design, nor deviation from group thought.

Here's a thought experiment: Would she would have been suspended for wearing a Burqa? If there is any victim here, it is not the University of Waterloo, even if Mr. Strickland's paternal reaction would have it so.

UoW goes on to say,

Engineering remains committed to creating experiential learning opportunities where all members of the community can achieve academic success and personal growth.

Yes, so long as such experiential learning implies no challenge to neo-puritan administrators, or the views of the feminist hegemony in the Department of Wymyns ~~Stud~~Broodies. (I can't figure out how the 'Y' in Wymyn crowd has missed that 'stud' problem all these years.)

To whom, besides the Mrs. Grundys running the University of Waterloo, is it "inappropriate and denigrating" to be intelligent and attractive, and able to demonstrate both?

I speculate: In Canada's legislative equivalent to our Tilte IX there is a clause interpreted by UoW as follows: "Because any female engineering student is, ipso facto, more intelligent than any Wymns Broodies student, the playing field must be leveled. No female engineering student is allowed to be physically more attractive than the average of the females majoring in Wymyns Broodies. Aspirations to science and math must be ruthlessly suppressed in females."

If the Wymyns' Broodies program at UoW really wanted to do something useful, it might apply its talents in defense of a core tenet of its so called philosophy instead of harrassing a woman who actually has some brain. Unearthing Matriarchy

Word choices

2011-04-17T19:33:00.000-04:00

Bloomberg is excited:
Shortage Threat Drives Texas Schools Hoarding Bullion at HSBC

BusinessWeek is more circumspect:
Texas University Endowment Storing About $1 Billion in Gold Bars

Hoarding, Storing. One word justifies seizure by the government, the other signifies prudence in uncertain times.

Who is Wesley Mouch?

2011-04-15T20:08:00.027-04:00

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes marked: 'Account overdrawn.'
-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

Rand is right: The nature of money is a fundamental moral question.

The Bernank says there is not inflation, or where there is it doesn't result from his creation of "money." The official inflation figures exclude food and energy, but they do include the cost of housing. That certainly keeps a lid on it. As long as the price of your house has tanked, don't worry about buying food or gasoline: It averages out. We are also reassured that the increased capability of iPad2 offsets the increased cost of food, and is factored into reducing the CPI calculation. No worries.

Aside perhaps from corn, production of which taxpayers must subsidize so they may then be taxed when they are forced to burn it in their automobiles - in order to appease lobbyists representing Iowa farmers and Archer Daniels Midland - I can't see why else food prices are so rapidly increasing. Neither can Walmart's CEO, nor the truly poor in Egypt and Libya, for example, who don't buy iPads of any sort.

For a view somewhat contrary to that of Ben and his Banditos - who, after all, have a vested interest in convincing you there is no inflation - I'd suggest checking here and here (you'll have to select a country).

Captains of Corporatism

2011-03-31T19:52:00.000-04:00

First, apologies for the length of time between posts. I have 4 or 5 drafts nearly ready to post, but, for various reasons, never completed them. Now they are out of date.

In any case, I'm writing about today's Lansing Chamber of Commerce Economic Club lunch, where Governor Rick Snyder was speaker.

The Governor is passionate about his plans, and is a decent speaker. He delivered an engaging address, without notes or teleprompter. He spoke about his thinking in preparing his economic plan, and addressed some of its controversial aspects with logic and reason.

The Governor's performance isn't why I write, however. At the end of his speech he answered a few questions. The questions were selected by the LCoC from emails sent by LCoC members. They were not all softballs. A couple were thoughtful and incisive. The Governor did a good job of answering them. I think he would have liked to expound on the difference between S-Corps and C-Corps, but he restrained himself.

The last question, however, stood out. It perfectly illustrated the single biggest problem with the thinking of "business people" today. The question was this (I paraphrase), "Given the obesity problem in Michigan, what are the chances of a government incentive to employers to help get their employees to become more fit?"

This question could have been planted by Michelle Obama. It clearly displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what "free market" means. It embodies the corporatist whore mentality. Yet, the LCoC presenter read it with no trace of irony or sarcasm.

Apparently, nobody in charge at the LCoC can parse that question, so I'll do it for them: "Governor, how can business use this "crisis" to get taxpayer dollars from the government?"

800 plus people had just listened to Rick Snyder tell us why he had proposed some tough economic reform. 800 plus people had just heard him talk about the dangers of government picking economic winners (though we still have Pure Michigan and the MEDC). 800 plus people had just heard him talk about his 3 principles of the tax code: Simplicity, fairness and efficiency.

Apparently, connecting that message to the negative aspects of granting of government favors is beyond the capability of the Lansing CoC.

Let's do the Snyder test on this question of subsidizing employers for their employees' fitness.

It isn't simple because it has to have necessarily imperfect rules administered by necessarily imperfect bureaucrats.
It isn't fair because it grants special status to one class of beggars.
And it cannot be efficient because of the first two problems.

How is a subsidy to businesses to solve the "obesity crisis" any different than a subsidy to public employee unions for defined benefit pensions? Principle, people, principle. Read Atlas Shrugged to get a clue.

The Governor answered this question by talking about a Fall "initiative" on healthy living. He ended that answer with a comment about individual responsibility. I am hoping that was a subtle rebuke.

As for me, I would have ripped that question a new orifice.

Al-taqiyya

2011-03-15T04:01:00.026-04:00

Brutally stabbed to death in their home by Islamic fanatics: Udi and Ruth Fogel, 36 and 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4 and baby Hadas, 3 months.

In the land of Hamas this atrocity was celebrated by dancing in the street and the passing out of candy. One can understand a twisted mind. This is a twisted people.

In defense, Hamas invoked Al-taqiyya, Islamist's standard operating procedure: Hamas Speaks

Try Bing, it's not good, but it's not double-plus ungood

2011-03-14T19:46:00.004-04:00

Herb Kohl vows Google probe

Senator Kohl (D-WI) is of the opinion that net "neutrality" and Anti-Trust laws grant him the authority to regulate content providers, internet infrastructure and what you see when you type a search into Google.

Google disagrees. They consider their search algorithms to be protected property (and the results also belong to them), while having it that net "neutrality" - making bandwidth providers unable to control their property - makes sense. Senator Kohl is going to protect you from both:

"Maintaining competitive choices in this industry is crucial to consumers and the health of the national economy," he wrote. "We will also examine the issue of network neutrality principles and monitor whether consumers continue to have the freedom to access the Internet content they wish without interference from their internet service provider."

I guess he's right. That is, if Congress is going to prevent interference with content delivery they should prevent it without regard to which part of content delivery we're speaking of.

If we are to have net neutrality, let us start with publication of Google's search algorithms so that we may see wherein there may be bias, and to insure equal access to unbiased information for all. If the internet is a raw-data pipe then Google is an information pipe. Pipe rules ought to apply to both. No throttling of data speeds and no throttling of information. Google's ownership of its algorithms is no different than Verizon's ownership of its infrastructure.

Nothing whatever is surprising about Eric Schmidt (technology advisor to President Obama and chairman/CEO of Google), Andrew McLaughlin (Obama's deputy chief technology officer and Head of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs for Google), and Sonal Shah (head of the President's Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation and former head of Google's head of Global Development Initiatives) joining Jeffrey Immelt (CEO of General Electric and chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness) as expert advisors to the President on some aspect of the economy in which their shared interest is crafting regulations favorable to their enterprises instead of delivering value.

Paying Tribute to Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone and Alec Baldwin

2011-03-06T09:29:00.012-05:00

Governor Snyder suggested in his budget plan that film subsidies should be eliminated. Nevertheless, he left $25 million on the table and gave the movie industry a reason to complain about uncertainty.

Here's why he should simply have been a "semi-tough guy of near average intelligence," and cut it completely:

Movie math
Why can't states grasp the absurdity of giving welfare to film and TV producers?
By Michael Kinsley
March 1, 2011

Film subsidy fans ignore critical facts
Movie industry tax breaks don't pay for themselves, they're a drain on the state
March 04. 2011 1:00AM
Frank Beckmann

Firefighters or Mitch Albom's Movie Subsidy?
By Kathy Hoekstra
Feb. 28, 2011

State Film Subsidies: Not Much Bang For Too Many Bucks
By Robert Tannenwald
December 9, 2010

Ernst & Young, however, says good things are happening in New York:
Study Says Film Subsidies Create Jobs, in New York
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
January 27, 2009

And Ernst & Young claims that for every $1 spent on film subsidies in Michigan the state gains $6:
New study says film incentives bring millions of dollars to Michigan
February 21, 2011
By Jackie Headapohl

If Ernst is correct, it is hard to see why Michigan shouldn't spend $250 million on film subsidies.

Unfortunately, the Senate Fiscal Agency has another view. They tell us that we realize ten cents in tax revenue for every Michigan taxpayer dollar spent:
FILM INCENTIVES IN MICHIGAN

A Connecticut study reaches similar conclusions:
Fiddling While Rome Burns: Connecticut’s Multi-Million Dollar, Money-Losing Subsidy to the Entertainment Industry

So, there is good reason to eliminate, not reduce, the film subsidies. We should stop competing with other states to shove money into the pockets of the film industry. They've survived quite well on their own ever since the invention of talkies.

However, with Ernst & Young studies showing a 6 to 1 benefit (BS though that logically is) the Michael Moore Corporate Welfare Fund can't fail to get the Governor's approval for more than the $25 million he's toying with.

After all, he pushed to raise the “Pure Michigan” tourism permanent bail-in fund from $15.4 million to $25.4 million. In that case a study by Longwoods International (paid for by Travel Michigan, the tourism promotion agency within the Michigan Economic Development Corporation) purported to show a mere $2.23 was gained for every tax dollar spent. Pure Spending — GOP Finds More for Tourism Subsidies
By Ken Braun
March 4, 2011

Politics ain't beanbag

2011-03-05T13:48:00.007-05:00

Bringing a Bean Bag to a Gunfight

When Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered by drug smugglers in Arizona last December, Tom Tancredo revealed that Terry’s BORTAC unit (the Border Patrol’s equivalent of a SWAT team) were armed with bean-bag rounds in their weapons

Speaking for Janet Napolitano, officials at U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would have us believe that Agent Terry chose, on his own, to fire beanbags at Mexican thugs armed with AK-47s. To believe this you must believe Terry, a former Marine, was incredibly stupid, stunningly naive or recklessly foolhardy; likely all three. It isn't true. Beanbags are policy.

While agent Terry followed the CBP rules of beangagement he was murdered by Mexican thugs who obtained their weapons via the sponsorship of another Federal agency; the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives.

Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, [John] Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen...

Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.

So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it...

On Dec. 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down. Dodson got the bad news from a colleague...

Two assault rifles ATF had let go nearly a year before were found at Terry's murder...

Dodson said they never did take down a drug cartels. However, he said thousands of Fast and Furious [ATF sponsored] weapons are still out there and will be claiming victims on both sides of the border for years to come.

BATFE tells us that 90% of weapons they are asked to trace by Mexican authorities originate in the United States. The President and the Secretary of State and Mexico's Ambassador to the United States twist that into "90% of all weapons" seized by Mexican authorities originate in the US. I still want to know how many of the weapons BATFE traces were supplied under the protection of BATFE, and how many people have died as a result.

Mr. Finley Peter Dunne, a Chicago-based U.S. author in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, originated the phrase "Politics ain't beanbag," the entire quote is: "Politics ain't beanbag: 'tis a man's game, and women, children 'n' pro-hy-bitionists had best stay out of it."

Border patrol officers should be able to stay out of politics, too, because as Mr. Dunne also wrote: "A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable."

Update 2:28PM The Christian Science Monitor reports

ATF officials told the Center for Public Integrity that the ATF allowed a total of 1,998 weapons to pass from gun shops to straw buyers connected to the gun-running rings, with full understanding that those weapons could be used in the commission of crimes. Of those weapons, 797 were recovered by the ATF as a result of some kind of criminal investigation, including 195 inside Mexico.

It's quite reasonable to assume that there are still 1200 of these BATFE specials in Mexico. I wonder how they'll be counted if they're submitted to BATFE for tracing. Probably the same way they counted the 195 they already got.

Wisconsin coverage

2011-03-02T19:32:00.000-05:00

Althouse - Ann Althouse, Professor of Law at UoW Madison - has had excellent coverage of the protests. If you haven't checked it out, you should.

Teddy worse than imagined?

2011-02-28T19:09:00.002-05:00

I'm a Powerline fan, but here I think they screwed up the headline:
"The Teddy Files: Even Worse Than You Thought!",

...and the conclusion:
"However bad you thought Ted Kennedy was, he was worse!"

I do not find it surprising in the least that the "Lion of the Senate" rented an entire brothel for a night. I wouldn't find it surprising if he'd driven off a Chilean bridge and drowned some young woman there; then ran away from the crime scene and later claimed diplomatic immunity.

No, this tawdry peccadillo does not make me think any less of Ted Kennedy. He did many worse things than temporarily enriching a few Chilean whores.

The English astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington said, "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." The same cannot be said of Edward Moore Kennedy's morality and ethics - and certainly not of the actions based on the the lack thereof.

It's the moral hazard, stupid!

2011-02-27T16:05:00.001-05:00

How budget battles go without the earmarks

...[T]he absence of earmarks also allowed for a more freewheeling debate on the House floor during consideration of the Republican plan to slash $61 billion from this year's budget since Democrats and Republicans were not caught up in protecting the special provisions they had worked so hard to tuck into the spending bill...

[Earmarks play] an insidious role in pushing up federal spending through what is known in legislative terms as logrolling.

RTWT.

Earmark aficionados have advanced 2 major defenses of the practice.

Individual members best know the needs of their constituents, directing the money should not be left to bureaucrats.
It's a minuscule amount of money relative to the Federal budget.

Amazingly enough, the first argument evaporates when there is no money to direct. It appears to have depended on a presumption of what "presumption" means. As in presuming you have the right to a permanent floating slush-fund.

The second argument was never more than an attempt at obfuscating the 2 major moral hazards of earmarks: bribery by your peers using other people's money, and becoming accustomed to it.

Without earmark trinkets, it becomes significantly more difficult to leverage a few millions here and there into trillions in Federal spending. Votes bought in exchange for Federally funding an indoor rain forest in Iowa, for example, will be harder to come by. When the bribery opportunities disappear, spending debates can be more nearly rational. Whooda thunk it?

Well, everybody. Really. Even most Lobbyists, Bureaucrats, Representatives and Senators.

The only point of earmarks has been assisting the continued growth of Big Government by enhancing the power of the loot dispensers. This issue is multi-partisan - excluding only those representatives who adhere to morally equivalent Big Government philosophies, like fascism and socialism.

If any of your congresscritters insist on defending earmarks, they need to be retired.

2nd Anniversary

2011-02-27T15:54:00.000-05:00

Today is being hailed as the 2nd anniversary of the modern Tea Party.

OK, here's Lansing's first Tea party.

Take a look

2011-02-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

YOUworkforUS.net

Axis of Corporatism

2011-02-23T21:36:00.002-05:00

Even FDR Understood: No Collective Bargaining for Public Servants

Since public servants work for the people, their wages, benefits, and working conditions are set in accordance with the will of the people, as determined by the democratic process. This is why it is not legitimate to ask the people to compromise with public servants in collective bargaining. And this is why the pay, benefits, and working conditions for federal workers are set by acts of Congress, not through collective bargaining.

Yes, the problem is they (Congresscritters and public service union honchos) think of taxpayers as their servants, not the other way around.

Unions and Medicaid

It's not that the union position never coincides with the interests of Medicaid beneficiaries--of course they want there to be more beneficiaries, so they're going to fight to the death against a decline in enrollment. But when it's between them and the beneficiaries, the unions choose . . . themselves. So if the question is higher reimbursement for home health care aides, the union will always be on the "higher" side, even if that means fewer people get served, or cuts have to be made in other areas, like medical devices.

...[I]t's going to be a fight between people who want to control the growth of health care costs in order to provide as many services as possible ... and workers whose paychecks depend on further growth in health care spending.

Obviously. It should have been one of my examples yesterday.

Yes, it's about power

2011-02-22T21:48:00.004-05:00

Another must read "Best of the Web Today" from James Taranto:

The Means of Coercion

The privileged are revolting in Wisconsin.

To make sense of what's going on in Wisconsin, it helps to understand that the left in America lives in an ideological fantasy world. The dispute between the state government and the unions representing its employees is "about power," Paul Krugman of the New York Times observes accurately, before going off the rails:
What [Gov. Scott] Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin--and eventually, America--less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that's why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators' side.

What an idiot is this Nobel Prize winner, Krugman. Anyone who thinks the corporatist whores need to be balanced by public sector unions has made (at least) two serious errors.

One, many corporations, particularly large corporations, pander for government favors, like GE under Immelt. They cooperate enthusiastically with government restrictions on speech and promote privacy invasion, like Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page (whose motto should be stated - "Don't do anything doubleplus ungood."). They promote regulatory regimes calculated to damage their competitors; again see GE and Google - and don't forget Big Pharma's deals to secure Obamacare.

Mostly, that's "mere" regulatory interference. The regulatory costs are greater (in treasure and in moral erosion), but less obvious than the TARP-based looting on behalf of the bankers, insurance companies and car makers which woke many people up.

We're pissed at "big corporate money" for EXACTLY the same reason we're pissed at public sector unions. Neither has any regard for the people paying for their privilege. The common, enabling element is Big Government, without which neither Immelt nor Stern could get away with their scams. Krugman would have us pit GE's CEO, Immelt, against SEIU's President-for-Life Stern. I have no idea how he makes this determination, but I think Immelt is more despicable. Andy Stern never pretended he considered capitalism to be a good idea.

Two, public sector unions are part and parcel of the corporatist axis. They certainly are no counterweight. More "green" jobs means more tax-breaks to administer and more money to control. More taxes, and remember corporations don't pay them, means more in salaries and benefits for public sector union employees. More taxes means more movie, battery, ethanol, windmill and tourism advertising subsidies - and more public sector jobs to administer the loot.

Finally, on the intent of Krugman's argument: That it is evil, self-interested capitalists behind the critique of public sector unions - we need to assert that no one may be called a capitalist who does not believe in free markets. Capitalists do not seek advantage by manipulating government regulation. They do not take bailouts. They do not attempt to subvert Constitutional protections for their own amusement. No, those are Fascists.

And we should remind him that FDR said much the same thing. He opposed public sector unions.

It's the hoarders and speculators

2011-02-19T10:05:00.016-05:00

Couldn't be monetary policy.

Rising wholesale prices spur inflation concerns
There's no inflation in the US, though.

According to someone who can't figure out how to use TurboTax, the inflation is in China.
Geithner: Chinese Inflation Helping U.S. Compete

Unfortunately, that would appear to be contributing to rising food prices.
As Speculative Bullish Bets Surge, Is Rice The Next Silver

In Taiwan, they're taking direct action.
Prosecutors Office vows to crack down on food hoarding

In the US, where there is no inflation, preparations are being made for seizure of ~~alternative currencies~~... ~~the hoardings of greedy capitalists~~... inedible commodities.

Prepare To Give Up All Private Data For Any Gold Purchase Over $100

That will make it easier to recycle some of FDR's executive orders:

Executive Order 6102 - Requiring Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates to Be Delivered to the Government
April 5, 1933

Executive Order 6814 - Requiring the Delivery of All Silver to the United States for Coinage
August 9, 1934

No, it couldn't be monetary policy that causes people to shift savings from fiat currency to commodities and alternative forms of money. It couldn't be government printing presses that promote food inflation.

Therefore, you are required to hold on to your dollars until the dollar bubble bursts. If you don't, we'll take your stuff and give you US dollar denominated food stamps in exchange.

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration's Ever-Normal Granary accepts US dollars and food stamps. To avoid disappointment, check exchange rates before entering the queue.

Agricultural Adjustment Administration, USDA, c. 1936.
Source: Special Collections, National Agricultural Library

Prescient post of the yearGiven what's going down in Wisconsin

2011-02-18T20:26:00.000-05:00

Just after reports of NY City union members' slowdown in snow clearing as a negotiating tactic, Tom Smith, at The Right Coast, had this to say.

If the argument is, some [government] functions are too critical to public safety to put in private hands, then that is an argument against allowing them to be unionized. If unionized, then the state no longer has a monopoly on the power exercised by that arm, which is the whole idea of putting it in the public sphere. So if you can't have private police forces running around, let's say, then it makes no sense to have the monopolized force of the state colonized or even dominated by a union with interests frequently opposed to those of the public.

Some people in NYC died because the snow prevented public safety personnel from getting to them. The Snow Plowers Union didn't think about that one way or the other.

Why should they? The interests of public-sector unions are necessarily not congruent with the public interest. Even FDR opposed unionization of government employees, because of the moral hazard involved.

That, of course, is the problem Mr. Smith brilliantly and succinctly points out. It applies equally well to the arguments of teachers' unions. Simply change the words "public safety" to "public education."

You go, Governor Walker. Stay the course. Governor Snyder can use a moral example.

Holy Congressional Hearing, BATFEman!

2011-02-17T18:39:00.005-05:00

Grassley to Holder: ATF refused to answer specific questions in briefing

No surprise the ATF would not be responsive to questions about firearms used by Mexican drug gangs, but I think they may have made a mistake in refusing to co-operate with a US Senator.

Corporatists to the left of me, whores to the right...

2011-02-15T20:53:00.003-05:00

..."Stuck In The Middle With You"
Apologies to Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan.

There was whining in the letters page of the Lansing State Journal about GM spending millions on Superbowl ads. Oh well, I consider this to be a legitimate business expense. That doesn't mean I like paying for it, but if they are going to sell cars, they need to advertise. The Superbowl is no worse a place to do that than the State Journal. Probably better.

There has been far less outcry regarding GM's plans to pay major bonuses. The average UAW worker at GM is going to get around $4,000: Because GM has been "profitable." I think GM should buy itself back from the US Treasury Department before it pays any bonuses. I'll bet the bondholders who were told to pound sand in 2009 feel the same way.

And let us not ponder the $4,000 direct subsidy for every Chevy Volt built at a loss.

But if none of those expenditures bother you, try this blast from the past. In 2009, when the Feds took scalping knives to Chrysler and GM bondholders, the "new GM" was quietly allowed to carry forward $45 billion in net operating losses. This regulatory undersight will allow GM to avoid paying up to $16 billion in taxes on their "profits."

The Obama administration appears ready to disregard years of precedent in bankruptcy and taxation law as it remakes the U.S. auto industry.

The latest example is the General Motors (GMGMQ) bankruptcy, where the intent is to have a newly created GM assume the benefit of tax losses at the old GM.

The problem, says Jeffrey Coyne, senior lecturing fellow at the Duke University School of Law and a management consultant who specializes in reorganizing troubled companies, is that tax losses can be passed on only to companies whose owners controlled at least 50% of the predecessor company. Since the start of 2005, General Motors has reported losses of about $87 billion.

"You can't form new GM, which has never transacted business before, and sell the assets (of existing GM) and then sell the net tax benefit to the new company," Coyne says. "And as far as I can tell, the NOL is not a saleable asset." An NOL, or net operating loss, can be used as a tax loss carry forward, an accounting technique that allows it to be applied to future profits to reduce tax liability...

The rules are different in the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies because the government is the major financier and a major shareholder...

Coyne said... 'The law is the law unless the government is a creditor.'

Indeed. In 2009 the United States Government bought more than 50% of GM. Then the United States Government exempted itself from its own rules so as to hand even more money to GM the UAW.

We bailed them out. We paid for their Superbowl commercials. We're subsidizing the cars they build. And now we're paying bonuses to the UAW.

Can anybody tell me how bonuses paid to any GM employee are morally different from the bonuses paid to AIG employees that caused so much angst? Well, let me suggest a couple of distinctions:

1- The AIG employees involved had nothing to do with the mistakes AIG made. They did not work in the division that brought AIG to its knees.

In GM's case, the UAW - ably assisted by GM management - was directly responsible for GM's demise.

2- Like the UAW bonus recipients, the AIG employees had contracts specifically including bonuses paid for performance. Those AIG employees achieved their goals - before AIG was bailed out. AIG's bailout would have been much more expensive except for their success.

OTOH, UAW members were handed ownership of General Motors despite the fact they had performed at least as badly as had GM management for decades.

Keeping themselves employed

2011-02-07T04:59:00.002-05:00

From the LA Times: Guns tracked by firearms bureau found at firefight scene

...federal law enforcement sources have confirmed that two guns, part of a series of purchases that were being monitored by authorities, were found at the scene of the firefight that killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona.

TOC has commented on BATFE many times. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives is complicit in the sale of firearms to Mexico. The illegal sale of firearms. BATFE is also responsible for tracing guns seized by Mexican authorities to find out if they originated in the US. Of course, Mexican authorities only submit guns they think originated in the US. They are correct 90% of the time.

The headline could easily, have said, "Guns supplied via firearms bureau found at firefight scene"

BATFE could save everyone a lot of trouble by just sending the serial numbers to the Mexicans in advance.

Global Gauss Change

2011-02-06T17:59:00.002-05:00

Severe weather events may be associated with the recent movement of Earth's magnetic poles. This is an unsurprising outcome if magnetic north is actually moving. However, associating man's activities with such movement may be a challenge for proponents of anthropogenic climate change. TOC is here to help.

The magnetic north pole is moving because of the massive amount of iron in those SUVs we drive. The pole has been pulled toward us.

It is obvious that if we did not have so much gasoline we would not drive SUVs, incidentally spitting tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Al Gore has told us, the internal combustion engine is evil. We now have even more reason to return to a 19th century agrarian existence.

Unfortunately, former Vice President Gore's insistence that the "science is settled" hints at an additional, even darker, anthropogenic cause for accelerating magnetic pole shift. It is well known that Mr. Gore's multiple mansions consume enough electricity to power a medium sized town. What if he is using the power to run immensely strong magnets?

It is suspicious, don't you think, that the phrase "regaussing galore" is an anagram for "algore guessing," plus the letters "ra." As we all know, Ra is the Egyptian god of the sun. Guessing about climate is how Al Gore made his fortune.

Questions that need to be answered: Is Gore purchasing the type of cryogenic materials needed for supercooled electromagnets? Does his reading list include Carl Pestano's How To Become A Speaker With A Magnetic Personality - Learn The Secret Art Of Public Speaking And Draw In Large Crowds? Is his solar power subsidy support entirely secular? Is he planning another movie titled Inconvenient Fatal Attraction?

Civility in foreign policy

2011-02-04T05:53:00.001-05:00

Assumes you are dealing with civilized people.

The LA Times reports:

The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.

The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals if the U.S. is to be comfortable with it taking part in the government, the White House said.

If it's that easy, why doesn't he just ask Mubarak to do it?

Pure as Ceasar's wife. Not.

2011-02-03T18:38:00.000-05:00

Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February

On January 21st, president Obama appointed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, to head the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

It's worth noting that GE has been whoring after "green"backs for years. The last company that should benefit from an environmental regulation suspension, in the last state that should be allowed one.

BATFEces

2011-02-01T21:39:00.002-05:00

I wrote a letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in April of 2009. My purpose was to find out if BATFE knew if any of the firearms seized from Mexican drug thugs had originated from government sources in the United States. I describe it here, but this is the central point:

Have any of these weapons been traced to aid provided to Mexico by the United States through official channels? That is, which, if any, of these firearms were legally imported by Mexico from United States law enforcement or military sources, or any other government departments or programs?

I assume that transfers from any programs officially sanctioned by the United States will have been precisely documented.

The word "legally" appears to have been overprecise, but more on that later. By June I received a non-response from BATFE, so I wrote again.

What are the various sources in the United States of those firearms submitted by Mexican authorities to the BATFE for tracing? That is, of the submitted firearms you have, or have had, in your possession - where in the US did they come from?

That letter received no response, and I contemplated a FOIA request. But that isn't easy, and BATFE was highly likely to make it expensive. I never did it.

Then, 2 weeks ago, I find out BATFE didn't want to talk about this question because BATFE is very likely a source of weapons purchased by Mexican drug gangsters. Whether BATFE sponsored illegal purchases represent a "legally" transferred weapon in the hands of a drug gang I leave to the courts. That seems to be precisely the question in the video here.

Now, some of those weapons have been detected in use. There is strong evidence that BATFE arranged the sale of hundreds of guns to Mexican drug gangs, and that some of those guns were used to kill a Border Patrol officer.

Since BATFE is being asked to explain this contretemps by a United States Senator, I doubt a FOIA will be necessary.

Nonetheless, I would like to know how many of the guns being counted as "origin United States" over the last several years were part of "origin US government." The President of the United States, the Secretary of State of the United States, the President of Mexico and Mexico's Ambassador to the United States, to name only the highest rank officials, have been telling us we need to suspend the 2nd Amendment to save the corrupt state of Mexico from American purchased firearms. They tell us strict gun control is the only answer.

On the evidence, and judging by the responsiveness, BATFE Control is a more obvious way to address this problem. That, and maybe extending 2nd Amendment rights to ordinary Mexicans.