First Jersey Shore, now Donna Simpson? 2010 is a bad year for Jersey, but I’m telling you, while Jersey girls have their own unique kind of baggage, they aren’t generally that bad!
Speaking of “baggage,” by now you’ve heard the buzz about Donna Simpson, that 600 lbs. woman who’s aiming to be the world’s fattest woman ever by reaching the 1000 lbs./half-ton barrier.
That’s when your fat’s fat has a fat* problem!
She can’t walk 20 feet without assistance, she eats about 12,000 calories a day, and somehow thinks she’s healthy. Hey, her boyfriend’s totally supportive… after all, he’s a “belly man!” Her daughter’s a sweet little girl who’s going to be motherless soon. Simpson’s an entrepreneur, though — she hosts a website where people pay to watch her stuff-her-face. Apparently, that’s sexy (barf!).
However, Donna Simpson is such a great analogy for America right now. She’s already so fat that “obese” doesn’t do it justice — there needs to be another word for people like her. While already on the verge of death at anytime, she’s willing to double down and engorge herself to be nearly twice as fat as she is now, into world-record status. Isn’t that like a nation with a $12.5 trillion debt deciding to put 1/6th of that nation’s economy under government control which they cannot even remotely afford?
America… Congress is turning us into Donna Simpson!
*Don’t like me using the word “fat”? Try to catch me, then!
As a Democrat, you know you’ve lost the argument when one Chris “I feel a tingle in my leg” Matthews argues aagainst your position. Here’s Matthews’ putting forth a common-sense (for once) argument against the Slaughter Solution as a Democrat. I guess even a liberal shrill like Matthews can be right every once in a while.
I am getting increasingly confident that ObamaCare as it is currently construed will not pass. Despite the attempts of the state-run media claiming that Stupak’s supporters are caving (they’re not), despite Pelosi’s continued claim that she has the votes, this bill isn’t gaining momentum. Both the state-run media and Pelosi are trying to create that momentum, or fauxmentum as Ace calls it, in order to try to win over more votes. Let’s look at the evidence from the last 24 hours to try and see which way the wind is blowing.
First, the Senate. As we’ve said before, the House is inherently distrustful of the Senate and they are distrustful of the Senate’s ability to pass a reconciliation bill. It has been said all along that the Senate would write a letter to the House promising to pass the reconciliation fix. I scoffed at that idea, as did most pundits, but it turns out that the Senate couldn’t even do that. Instead, they sent a letter stating that they support health care reform in general, but made no promises regarding reconciliation. On reconciliation, after a close-door meeting yesterday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chairman of the Senate Budget committee, noted that many of the provisions in the reconciliation fix were skirting the Byrd rule, and it was possible that many of them would be stripped. Sending both these signals to the House will do nothing to bolster their confidence in the Senate.
And to all those in Congress prepared to vote for that Obama Care monstrosity in the coming days, here’s some Gaelic: pog ma hon! (pronounced pogue ma hone) Pog ma hone indeed.
New Jersey’s non-comatose Democrat Senator, Bob Menendez, just got some bad news today. As it turns out, NJ is one of 18 states which has a recall provision on elected representatives, so a Tea Party activist attempted to recall Bob Menendez. Well, that effort just passed its first hurdle — a three-judge panel has allowed the petition process to move forward despite the typical Lib whining.
Now, Bob Menendez is just 1.3 million voter signatures short of having to face a recall election! Recalling bad politicians, whether successful or not, is important. I know it reeks of parliamentarism, but these are unusual times and Bob Menendez is an unusually loyal Obama sycophant not interested in the will of the people of the State of New Jersey.
From the makers of the infamous Demonsheep ad: this isn’t Hot Air the blog, but a 7+ minute campaign video featuring Barbara Boxer as a blimp. No, not a horrifically overweight person, but an actual, flying blimp. I have to admit, I was glued to my screen for the full 7 minutes, wanting to see exactly what was going to happen to Babs the Blimp. Some great imagery is used to describe Boxer – nails on a chalkboard, a hopelessly deflating blimp, and some of her speeches that just don’t make sense.
I don’t know if this video will have any effect (7-minute campaign ads rarely do) but you gotta give the Fiorina people credit for thinking outside the box. Overall, a better effort than the Demonsheep ad, although not quite as memorable, and still a bit on the odd side, which makes me question exactly what the Fiorina people are smoking when they come up with these ads.
As it turns out, today was a busy news day regarding the ordinarily quiet SCOTUS. Usually, without any major decisions coming down, we hardly hear anything from The Nine*. Here are three recent stories:
First, Butler University is cool with Chief Justice John Roberts attending his niece’s graduation this May, but think Roberts is simply too controversial to actually speak at the commencement. While Butler is not usually into political commencement speeches (unless you’re Evan Bayh or Mitch Daniels), I think they are blowing a unique opportunity to have a brilliant and classy Justice speak to their Leftist-leaning liberal arts graduates.
Secondly, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni is going to be open about her support for the Tea Party Movement from her website and lobbying group, Liberty Central. So, predictably, some Lefties are upset that this will create a conflict of interest for her husband, while at the same time take advantage of the latest SCOTUS decision regarding lobbyist groups. I think Ginni can do whatever she likes and her husband can recuse himself if necessary.
“I have a great admiration for [Obama], and certainly think he’s capable of picking successfully, you know, doing a good job of filling vacancies…. You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.”
Well, couldn’t he have come to this conclusion to retire two years ago? Jerk. But at least he’s leaving, likely to be replaced by an equally liberal rube. So, it’ll continue to be 5-4 most of the time after he leaves, but at least another old Lib dinosaur moves on.
* I couldn’t resist — ancient, sometimes creepy, can do a lot of damage, they scare people, you can’t seem to ever get rid of them, and all they wear black robes… it just seemed to fit!
The Democrats released a 2,300 page “shell” bill from the budget committee yesterday. The bill is actually one of the House versions of ObamaCare that had come out of the Education and Labor as well as the Ways and Means committee last year. It wasn’t the final bill used for passage by the house, but was set aside in favor of the bill that ultimately passed. The shell bill was introduced in order to provide a “legislative vehicle” for reconciliation that could be done quickly without the usual committee input. The bill now goes to the rules committee, headed by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who will substitute the text with the reconciliation instructions to the Senate, and likely the “Slaughter” rule, which will deem HR 3590, the Senate health care bill, to have been passed. This is to insert a contingency provision to try to circumvent the process of having House members cast a vote on the hated Senate bill. One pesky problem for the Democrats, however, is the Constitution:
But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.
Needless to say, if Pelosi thinks this is the best way to assure passage, it is what the House will try to do. Even with this approach, there are no guarantees. The Democrats still do not have the votes in the House, and even if it does pass in this fashion, the Senate may not be able to push it through reconciliation. Regardless, they are playing with fire. If they do somehow manage to push through ObamaCare this way, it opens up the door for the GOP to do the same thing. The courts could very well overturn this, and even if they don’t, the GOP can “deem” ObamaCare to have been repealed once they retake congress, as part of any bill. It will be very difficulty for Obama to veto every single bill if the GOP simply deems something to have been repealed. In fact, the GOP could use this rule to undo a lot of failed Democrat policies.
That’s the problem with using wacky rule changes to push through your unpopular agenda, in that the other side will eventually use those same procedures against you. I still believe that at the end of the day, this bill will not pass. Yet even if it does, the high disapproval of the American people along with the breaking of the rules to ram this thing through will make it far easier to repeal than would have otherwise been possible. The backlash from such a move alone will cause a major shifting of the electoral landscape in the Republicans favor, one that may take many years for the Democrats to recover from.
I heard a little buzz a few weeks back about some people who are upset with government who want to organize to get this country moving in the right direction by breaking the gridlock in Washington and get our representatives to be more representative.
Sounds great, right? Kind of sounds like the Tea Party Movement, but you’d be wrong… it’s the fledgling “Coffee Party” movement, which seems to some in the MSM to potentially be “the next big thing.”
But I had to look into this myself. I’m a Tea Party guy and would like to hear what the potential opposition has to say.
Here goes: Annabel Park, the founder of the Coffee Party, was apparently upset at the pace of change in Washington due to Republican “obstructionism” (umm… until Scott Brown’s win less than two months ago, the Republicans could do virtually NOTHING to stop ANYTHING in Congress, but I digress) and upset at the angry libertarian tone of the Tea Party, so she set up a Facebook page and got lots of friends. Of course, we all know that (most of the time) the amount of friends you have on social networking sites is inversely proportional to how cool you actually are, so being popular on Facebook doesn’t impress me. I needed more to underpin my initial opinion.
My antennae went up immediately and numerous times during her soft-toned plea, as I’m sure yours did too. So I dug a little deeper and discovered that (strangely enough) Park worked for BOTH the Jim Webb for Senate campaign and (you knew this was coming) the Obama campaign in 2008! She’s even had an OpEd published in the Washington Post and has done research for the New York Times! Uh oh. That’s that I suppose.
So, is the Coffee Party an honest, open activist movement of a truly grassroots nature, or merely a trendy latte-sipping Leftist “astroturf” campaign from well-placed insurgents within the Obama Nation? I looked for about ten minutes and got my impression pretty quick: Coffee Party = Air America, the social movement.
The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that the Senate cannot vote on a reconciliation ‘fix’ to ObamaCare until the original bill has become law. This is a major setback for the Democrats, as they were trying to convince House members to go along with the Senate bill by passing the reconciliation measure first or as part of a ‘trigger’ option that has become known as the “Slaughter” approach. Even if the house did that, the Senate would be unable to act on it until Obama signs the legislation. Let’s see how long the parliamentarian keeps his job.
In other Health Care news, Democrats have announced that they cannot reach agreement with the Stupak 12, so they are going to try to round up enough votes without him and his colleagues.
Word came yesterday that Chief Justice John Roberts was upset about the treatment the Justices got from both Congress and the President at January’s State of the Union Address, questioning even whether or not SCOTUS should really even show up anymore. Here’s my opinion about that address and the treatment of the court who are 1) NOT constitutionally bound to be there and 2) protocol indicates that they’re not suppose to react to what’s said. This isn’t usually a problem, but Obama’s Chicago-style verbal thuggery at the SOTU Address makes me agree with Roberts questioning whether or not they should show up anymore.
Ok, this whole nanny-state thing is getting freaking absurd and downright annoying. Earlier this year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a city-wide campaign against salt, which consisted of wasting money on ad campaigns telling people that salt was unhealthy. Stupid, yes. An annoying use of taxpayer dollars, yes. Now, New York State assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) has introduced a bill that would literally ban restaurants from using salt in their cooking. The text of A. 10129 says in part:
No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises.
Now, I’m no cook, but as my co-bloggers will attest, MrsSal is a fabulous cook. When she heard about this last night she practically went ballistic. You see, as any good cook knows, salt is an essential part of cooking and of flavor. For example, MrsSal and I frequently watch the Food Networ’s Dinner Impossible, in which Chef Robert Irvine is given seemingly impossible tasks such as create a 7-course savory meal for 500 people that uses chocolate in every course. In one show, he was at a casino and had to gamble for his stable ingredients, oil, sugar, and salt. He won oil, but he lost on salt and sugar. It required quite a bit of ingenuity for him to actually be able to cook because of that. He needed to use foods and ingredients that already had salt in them (such as soy sauce) to make things work.
Simply put, if salt is banned in New York’s restaurants, that means that flavor is banned from New York restaurants. It is the height of government overreach to claim to know what’s best for our health (even though the latest research seems to contradict the idea that salt is bad) at the expense of one of the simple pleasures of life, enjoying good food. New York has always been known for some of the world’s best restaurants, but if this bill passes, that reputation will be a thing of the past.
Time for a good mid-week diversion. Want to goof off at work without your co-workers or boss finding out? This timesuck looks like productive work in that it is a series of games made to look like productivity software such as spreadsheets and graphs. There are even options to pause and make it look like a real spreadsheet. The site, out of the U.K. is called Can’t You See I’m Busy? There’s even a cost calculator that estimates the total productivity cost of people who have been on the site (in British Pounds, of course). Perfect for those times when you just can’t seem to focus on your job.
Charlie Crist didn’t have to get on the bad side of Conservatives. True, most Conservatives knew he was a moderate, and most Conservatives knew that he would be somewhat of a RINO, but after the thrashing Republicans got in the elections last year, they may have been willing to put up with a Charlie Crist. The turning point came when Crist was seen hugging Obama and touting the biggest piece of pork ever implemented by any congress, the stimulus. Now, Crist is way behind Marco Rubio in the polls, and absent some major scandal involving Rubio, will likely lose the Florida GOP primary.
Talk has been that he will run as an independent, but some polls (disclaimer: Axis of Right does not consider Public Policy Polling to have a track record or methodology that is yet highly accurate) even make that possibility seem like a long shot. Crist should do the honorable thing and bow out now, or wait out the primary results and then step aside gracefully. He could continue on as Governor until November, work to rebuild his reputation, and then consider a run for higher office in another year. If he runs as an independent, however, he is through and Conservatives and Republicans alike will never give him another shot. So do the right thing Charlie, and give it up.
Despite talks of optimism from Nancy Pelosi, all the signs are there that the Democrats don’t have the votes to pass ObamaCare, and don’t even have a plan on how to procedurally do it. The fact of the matter is that the House doesn’t trust the Senate to push through the reconciliation fixes, and most members of the House do not want to be left with just the Senate bill.
Earlier reports to the contrary, Bart Stupak is not wavering on his position, and he made it clearer last night. He will not waver unless he gets acceptable language into the bill, and not unless there is a guarantee that the Senate will act on it. No small feat. Besides the fact that the Senate can’t be trusted, the Republicans are planning on denying the waiving of the point of order that would allow the Stupak amendment to be part of reconciliation, which means that it would likely be stripped from the bill in the Senate. Keep in mind that every one of the Stupak 12 voted for ObamaCare last time around, and that if even one votes no this time around, the bill is toast.
Next, take a look at the parliamentary maneuvering that the Democrats are attempting in order to try to make this work. Their latest idea is to change the rules of the House (something that can be done with a simple majority vote) to allow the Senate bill to be bound to the reconciliation fix. This would allow the Democrats in the House to pass both as separate but tethered together, so that if the reconciliation fix fails in the Senate, the Senate bill would not become law. However, the Senate is another matter. It has no provision for considering “tethered” bills, so it would also require a rules change (not the mention the question on whether it is even legal or Constitutional). Unlike the House, where a simple majority sets the rules, the Senate has “standing rules” which carry over from session to session. These rules require a 67-vote super-majority to be amended, which is fairly impossible in the current climate.
So where does that leave us? Jim Geraghty does the math, and determines that at most, the Democrats appear to be one vote short of passage. He counts 216 no votes and 215 yes votes as the Democrats’ best-case scenario. That assumes that EVERY one of the Stupak 12 votes yes, and that no other yes votes from the previous bill flip to no. The truth of the matter is, if she had the votes, it would be on the floor today. In reality, there is no bill, no roadmap on how to move forward, and not enough “Yes” votes. Yet the President keeps going all-in on this issue, which most Democrats wish would just go away.
When John Conyers ridiculed those who wanted him to actually “read the bill” last summer, we nodded our heads and generally agreed that people like him were the problem in Washington — so, we elect people to pass laws that they don’t even bother to read? Yup. We thought it, and it was confirmed in plain English.
“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it [my emphasis], away from the fog of the controversy.”
WTF???
Yup. I guess the Speaker of the House not expected to read the bill or know what’s in it either.
I’m too stunned even to write a proper introduction to this:
Dear Resident,
About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.
Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely, Robert M. Groves Director, U.S. Census Bureau
Following the letter, there are instructions in six different languages, telling me to go to 2010census.gov for help in completing my census form when it arrives.
So the government wastes probably millions of dollars to send a letter to tell me that the census is coming. Let’s estimate a cost here, since there is no available data for how much it cost to send this letter.
I am going to assume another $0.005 for envelopes and ink. It is likely more, but it will do for the purposes of illustration.
Assume an average of 5 seconds to fold and stuff an envelope, and a labor cost of minimum wage, $7.25 / hr.
This does not even take into account the labor cost of sorting the envelopes, delivering them to the post office, and the usual inefficiencies associated with government work. So let’s see what we’ve got
Total postage cost: 105,480,101 x 0.382 = $40,293,398.50
Total paper/envelope/ink cost: $1,054,801.01
Total labor cost: A worker at maximum efficiency (1 envelope fold and stuff every five seconds) can fold 12 envelopes per minute, and 720 per hour. At that rate, to fold and stuff 105,480,101 envelopes, it would take 146,500 hours. At $7.25/hour, the total labor cost would be $1,062,125.
The total cost for this mailing, assuming lowest rates and maximum efficiency, is $42,410,324.51.
That’s over 42 million dollars to send out a letter that simply tells people that the Census will be coming in a week. Now, I know that’s a small number in a budget that has over a $1.5 trillion deficit, but this is illustrative of the fraud and waste that is present in our government. Who needs a letter to say “The Census is coming! The Census is coming!” It will arrive in ten days, and people will either fill it out or not fill it out. Can anyone name one positive benefit to having this letter mailed? This is far more wasteful and pointless than the $2.5 million census Super Bowl ad that didn’t make any sense. this one
We need to restore some fiscal sanity to this government of ours. When a letter as pointless and stupid as this one surfaces, it reminds me in a clear and concrete way why I am a Conservative. The fact that my hard earned money went to pay for this waste of paper is nauseating. Just think – if government gets hold of health care, we’ll probably get letters from them to remind us to take our vitamins. What a waste.
Yesterday, Iraq had another in a series of successful parliamentary elections, moving them closer to a functioning democracy which can police itself and defend it’s territorial integrity. It’s wasn’t a perfect situation, dozens were killed in attacks on election sites, but the people seem determined to take the path of democracy.
In unrelated news, yesterday, the Academy decided to give its coveted “Best Picture” award to a movie about the Iraq War, 2008’s The Hurt Locker. The film also won the “Best Director” award for Kathryn Bigelow (James Cameron’s ex-wife… his film in the game was Dances With Wolves Avatar). Could it be that the Academy is going soft on the Iraq War, or did they just recognize a good movie as a good movie? Might be a little of both.
Apparently, many people are a bit upset because not many people have seen The Hurt Locker, so they don’t understand why it won. Well, that’s why Best Picture winners show up in the theaters for an encore and why the Academy always gets criticism from me for being too insider.
That being said, I thought it was a really good movie. It was apolitical (as much as one can about the Iraq War), really tense (the plot revolves around a careless guy on bomb squad looking for IEDs), and dealt with a lot of other military and personal issues. It doesn’t seem like a Best Picture kind of movie: it’s intimate, it deals with a controversial topic not presented with an obvious Liberal bias, and its stars and director are generally unknown. But, I liked the movie (a solid A-), even though its plot was kind of thin. Here’s the trailer:
Mark Halperin at Time Magazine has soured on Obama. In fact, in a piece this weekend, he hurled the ultimate insult at Obama – that he is similar to the dreaded George W. Bush. The article compares not necessarily the policies (although there are many differences, Obama has continued many of Bush’s policies that he campaigned against, such as closing Gitmo in the first year, doing away with the Patriot Act, etc.) but on process. As Ed Morrisey points out, most of Halperin’s points are nonsensical, but he hits one squarely on the head – that Obama has let congress roll over him rather than lead them. By entrusting so much power to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Obama has effectively put the fate of his Presidency in their hands, and now they are leading him to ruin.
The free market is a wonderful thing. Companies that are run effectively usually succeed, and companies that are run haphazardly or inefficiently tend to fail. The free market weeds out the bad companies (unless of course, the bad company has a labor union or is “too big to fail” and obtains a government bailout – but I digress) and rewards the good companies. This same principle trickles down to individual workers as well. Workers who excel and help their company succeed are rewarded, while those whose job performance is sub-par do not, and indeed are often let go.
This same cycle that exists everywhere else, however, does not exist in the American school system. Before I continue, let me just state that I have the ultimate respect for teachers. They have to put up with a lot that we in corporate America don’t even dream of – poor parents, drugs, violence, apathy, etc. There are also far more good teachers than bad teachers. The fact remains, however, that just like in any other profession, there are excellent teachers, good teachers, and poor teachers. Unless you want to believe that the teaching profession is somehow “more pure” than every other profession out there, and that there are not really poor teachers, just like there are poor lawyers, (and poor software engineers, poor accountants, etc.), then you must accept this fact.
Once you accept that fact, take this into account. A recent Newsweek article illustrates that the rate of firing teachers with cause is far below the national average of other professions. Take New York City, which has 30,000 tenured teachers, yet only dismissed three for cause in 2008. In Chicago, the termination rate of teachers is 0.1 percent, in Toledo it’s 0.01 percent, and in Denver and many other cities, it is 0 percent. Why does this happen? There are several reasons.
First, the teacher’s unions promise a heavy legal battle anytime anyone is terminated without cause, potentially costing the cities and towns tens of thousands of dollars simply to fire a single teacher. Second, the current administrational structure of most schools does not lend itself to a good management-teacher relationship. The single “principal” structure and lack of middle-management can lead to cronyism without any kind of checks-and-balances. Third, there is virtually no incentive for self-improvement among apathetic teachers. In most jobs, a manager can come to an employee and tell them that they are not meeting performance expectations, and need to shape up or ship out. In most cases, that type of ultimatum can motivate an apathetic employee into at least a moderately successful one. Because the threat is real, it can have an impact. With no such threat with teeth in our public school system, teachers who are apathetic can remain so without consequence.
The Newsweek article also illustrates how innovation in education hiring practices along with incentives can improve the prospect of education, even among inner city kids who don’t have supportive parents. We need to take a long, hard look at our education system and come up with creative ideas. The teacher’s unions have been “innovating” and trying new things for a generation now, with no results. It’s time we took a fresh look at public education, and apply free market principles to it in order to attempt to bring our education system back on par with the rest of the world.
Episode #3 of Axis of Right Radio is now available. In this episode, Mike, Ryan, and Sal discuss the current state of ObamaCare, from the Health Care summit to the current push for reconciliation; the role of the filibuster in American history; the current state of the media, old vs. new; and the latest polls in some unlikely potential GOP pickups for the 2010 Senate races.
I haven’t been to the movies lately (mostly due to snow and nothing really piquing my interest), so I missed out on the new Clash of the Titans remake trailer which has been floating around out there. I knew it was coming, but hadn’t seen anything beyond a few flashy TV commercials. It looks pretty awesome!
We all remember the old-school Clash of the Titans from 1981, which amazingly had a lot of good actors and actresses in a film which at the time was really really cool to this Kindergartener and can still hold up on the cheesy camp-value scale as well. Check out the old trailer here. Cheesy? Yes. Campy? Yes. Sweet.
However, back in the day they used to make up for bad special effects with good story lines and above-par acting. I hope the remake holds up in that department too. It will look cool (it’s even in 3-D), but will it be true to the story? We’ll see March 26.
Three House Republicans, Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling, and John Campbell, are proposing a Constitutional amendment which states that Federal spending shall not exceed 20% of the economy unless in times of war, debt repayment or by the will of a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress.
Known as the Spending Limit Amendment (pdf file), co-author Mike Pence makes clear in this C-SPAN video why this not a radical proposal and really quite reasonable:
The SLA, however, faces a daunting task — the Constitution has 27 Amendments, but throughout history nearly 5000 have been proposed! Not very good chances, but the co-authors understand that. If they fail through traditional means, I think Pence and crew might want to try the amendment process through the state convention provision in Article V — from what I understand, it’s the only part of the Constitution which has never been used. It’s a long shot, but short of repealing the 16th Amendment (income tax), I can’t see any way to prevent the Congress from controlling spending unless they are compelled to.
Governor Chris Christie inherited a huge mess in New Jersey when he took office about six weeks ago. Since then he’s taken an approach which has dealt with cutting large state expenditures in order to try to deal with the state’s $2.2 billion budget deficit. His first offensive was against the pension system (which I have my own unpopular opinions about), and it looks like the next wave seems to be against NJ Transit system.
New Jersey is mostly a state of “bedroom” communities where many who work in New York choose to live away from the city’s hustle-and-bustle and ridiculous taxes. That being the case, NJ Transit seriously relieves traffic congestion going into New York and has become the third largest transit system in the nation. Honestly, I only use it going into the City for fun or to Newark Liberty Airport.
But NJ Transit has had some major systemic waste (a $300 million budget deficit!) and Christie is thinking about reducing already massive state subsidies by 11%. So, as a subsidized, wasteful mass-transit system which has predictably had less business since the recession hit, the NJ Transit Authority is thinking about raising fares 25%!
Very typical and predictable.
However, the political problem for Christie is two-fold: first, he just appointed the guy making the recommendation for the fare hike, and second, the people being affected are wealthier working-types who were with him on the state pension cuts, but will be a little miffed that they ostensibly face a new toll hike. Some are calling it a stealth tax increase (which Christie graciously promised he wouldn’t do), others say the Transit system should make the necessary cuts since it’s having less business.
Ultimately, NJ Transit will be the loser here because anyone who’s taken Econ 101 (at a decent schoolanyway) knows: if you want less of something, tax it. At the end of the day, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, nor a free ride and NJ Transit is taking the wrong approach — they should cut as if fare hikes were not even on the table.
With the ObamaCare debate possibly ending in the next several weeks (hopefully in catastrophic defeat), it is worth looking at what is coming down the pike. What appears to be on the docket is amnesty. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) an Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC) are gearing up to reintroduce “comprehensive immigration reform” in the Senate (note: any legislation labelled as “comprehensive” is usually a warning sign of bad legislation). The Democrats want this because it will give them more votes in November, and hopefully mitigate the losses that they are expected to experience. The question is, after the political hit the caucus is taking on ObamaCare, will enough Democrats be willing to cast another controversial vote?
Some accused Senator Scott Brown of being a RINO when he voted for Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill. Yet isn’t it worth him voting the wrong way a few times if he’s solid on the real important legislation, such as ObamaCare?
Nicely said, Senator Brown. I’m so glad he’s MY United States Senator, and not Martha Coakley. Now if we here in Massachusetts can just dump John Kerry.
Last week I posted on the violence in Greece due to the first signs of the collapsing of the Bismarckian welfare state, which has been the norm in Europe for a hundred years. The significance of this and the rest of the PIIGS in Europe is that the trends facing Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain will affect the rest of the EU and eventually the USA as the bills for our entitlements outweigh our ability to pay for them.
Well, today there was some new insight into the violent protests in Greece and the protean unrest in Portugal. Apparently, those funding and organizing the youth protests are labor unions with connections to the Communist Party of Greece. It’s been said many times that while America’s unrest is focused against an out of control government, in Europe the unrest is focused on keeping big government strong enough to prop-up the special interests (the communist-leaning labor unions in the case of Greece). That, at least, gives us a little hope.
Glenn Beck has been way ahead on the issue reviewing the radical book, The Coming Insurrection, last July which says that the capitalist system is dying and must eventually collapse through all means necessary, including street action and violence. Sounds like the old communist mantra back during the early 1900s. Here are excerpts from the official “Product Description” at Amazon (the bold words and phrases were altered by me), which struck me as very relevant given the recent events in Greece and the communist connections now coming to light:
The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe…. One of its members more adequately described the group as “the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.” The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to “spread anarchy and live communism.”
Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the “war on terror.”
Hot-wired to the movement of ‘77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized forms-of-life.
There could be a much larger problem on their hands in Europe than anyone thinks.
Does Obama even have the votes to pass ObamaCare via reconciliation? Interestingly enough, the problem may lie in the House, not in the Senate. Obama has decided to go all-in with reconciliation, but now he must convince his own caucus in the House to unite around a single bill.
The original ObamaCare proposal passed the house with 220 votes (217 were required). Since then, there have been several retirements and the lone GOP has announced that he would switch his vote the next time around, leaving Pelosi one vote short if everyone else votes the same way. The final House bill, however, was also somewhat of a compromise between Pro-life Democrats and Progressives. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), an ardent pro-life Democrat, led the charge and won a complete, explicit restriction on abortion in the House bill. Progressives in the House grudgingly accepted it due to the fact that the House bill contained a public option. Now, the Senate bill (which is what the Obama Administration claims they are using going forward) has far fewer restrictions on abortion, as well as no public option. Both the Pro-lifers and Progressives find this unacceptable.
Bart Stupak claims he has 12 former supporters of the bill who will vote “No” unless his original amendment is inserted back into the bill. Additionally, several Progressives are now indicating they may vote “No” because they are upset that the Public Option is not in the bill, and that Obama has added a few Republican ideas (even though they are only token inclusions for show). ObamaCare’s fate is by no means sealed. The fight over these two issues is going to intensify in the coming weeks, and it may ultimately be the abortion issue that sinks the bill. We shall see.
Where’s the modern day Paul Revere galloping through the towns this night shouting “The White Coats are coming! The White Coats are coming!“? Maybe Paul’s waiting to see how things shake out over the next few weeks.
As it turns out in a speech earlier today, President Obama decided that health care reform simply must be rammed through in an “up-or-down” vote the next few weeks regardless of what anyone thinks, inferring that the “reconciliation” process should be used in the Senate. Yet, here’s a montage of what the President has said in the past about the “50-plus-1″ reconciliation-like approach to governing. Here’s the President today:
“We can’t just give up because the politics are hard. I know there’s a fascination, bordering on obsession, in this media town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. … I will leave it to others to sift through the politics. Because that’s not what this is about.”
Even though the President already won a Nobel Prize (cough), he seems convinced that what he’s doing is going to get him a chapter in some new Profiles in Courage one day. Hypocrisy doesn’t seem to phase our “true-believer” President. I don’t think this is merely about flanking himself with people in lab coats to convince a wavering public that Dear Leader is right. The stagecraft is merely obligatory now. The will of the public and the institutional Congressional process are against passage of any kind of bill like this, but when Chicagoland comes to DC, rue the day when one comes between this beast (the bill) and its prey (us).
That’s not how I think the system is supposed to work.
