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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 11:06am PT
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The Omnibus spending bill down the tubes. Reid couldnt pull it off. So great.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 11:12am PT
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L.A. TIMES: Royal snub for the Obamas: No wedding invite from Prince William and Kate Middleton. Well, they’ve already got an iPod loaded with his speeches, so there was no point inviting him just for the gift.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 11:17am PT
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FROM INSTAPUNDIT TODAY:
A good sales job, but whose policy was Obama selling? “The Democrats voted for Obama’s deal, but Obama’s deal consisted of endorsing the tax rates proposed by George W. Bush in toto. Not just the income tax rates, either, but also the capital-gains tax rates that Obama insisted on raising during the 2008 campaign to either 20% or 28%. In the end, those tax rates got more votes last night in a Democratic-controlled House (277) than they did in the GOP-controlled House in 2001 (230), and more Democrats voted to extend them than Republicans, 139-138. If that’s a victory for Obama, may the next two years be filled with such victories.”
Even Politico calls it “capitulation.”
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Dec 17, 2010 - 12:00pm PT
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definition of karma:
pelosi's congress ratifies W's tax cut
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Dec 17, 2010 - 12:42pm PT
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from vdh:
"Fresno’s California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president’s announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won’t comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program’s sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.
I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.
So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, “Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate.” I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?
I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed “indifferent.” California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant — no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd — to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta — that California is at once both the nation’s most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest."
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Dec 17, 2010 - 01:10pm PT
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Furthermore:
"the study found that Fox News viewers, regardless of political information, were "significantly more likely" to believe that:
--Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)
--Most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
--The economy is getting worse (26 points)
--Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
--The stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
--Their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
--The auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
--When TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
--And that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)"
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 01:15pm PT
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Drudge: Obama reads a book to 2nd graders -- his own, of course...
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 01:25pm PT
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December 17, 2010
Coercion Is Not Commerce
By David Harsanyi
From RealClearPolitics
Let's imagine -- for the sake of this discussion I'm having with myself -- that forcing people to purchase health insurance is desirable, ethical and a much-needed tool in solving a national crisis. Well, even those indulgences do not make the individual mandate any less authoritarian or dangerous.
At some point in the next few years, the Supreme Court will decide whether coercing individuals to purchase a product is constitutional. That's when we'll find out whether the document is worth anything at all anymore.
To this point, we've authorized Washington to micromanage our "economic activity" per the commerce clause -- which, technically speaking, means everything. We've permitted government to set up elaborate bureaucracies to keep us safe from drop-side cribs and artificial sweeteners. From our investment decisions to the snacks we're allowed to feed our kids in the schools we're forced to enroll them in, government makes choices for us in the name of the public good. What we haven't done is compel people to buy stuff.
Now, unlike the president, I have not garnered any special constitutional expertise. And if the Supreme Court rules that forcing citizens to become consumers against their will is tantamount to commerce itself, I'm happy to have skipped the trouble.
Commerce, in fact, is often more significant -- certainly more tangible -- to the average person than many sacred constitutional freedoms we like to talk about. Our life in commerce -- where we live, where we work and what we spend our dollars on -- consists of thousands of daily exercises in freedom and choice.
Yet if this mandate stands, any political group need only cobble together a majority of elected officials and find some open-minded judges dedicated to "doing the right thing" rather than upholding their oath, and government can be handed unlimited power to control not only what we can buy but also what we must buy.
Washington would be free, for instance, if it chooses, to mandate we all purchase newspapers (to bolster the public's knowledge!) or salubrious foods (eat well or we all pay). Local governments -- the kind that see nothing wrong in banning certain restaurants, for instance -- would no doubt be especially interested.
Oh, that will never happen, you radical, hateful, right-wing, Fox-News-crony nut job.
Because, as you all know, government never abuses a new pathway to intrusive power. Now, to be fair, I do not believe the individual mandate itself means the end of freedom as we know it or anything as dramatic as that. It's the logic behind the mandate that sets the corrosive precedent.
It would be a pleasant change of pace if proponents would be honest and say: Listen, we have concerns that are far more vital than choice or freedom (you hater), like, for example, setting up a government-sanctioned, state-monopolized, price-fixed, quasi-market for health insurance. Let's face it; there always comes a moment in any Utopia-building project when the free riders and nonbelievers have to get with the program.
Instead, we hear that Americans are all part of the health care system sooner or later. We all pay. Thus, it should be by default considered commerce, and government can proactively force "participation."
As U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson, who found the mandate unconstitutional recently, points out, "the same reasoning could apply to transportation, housing or nutritional decisions. This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation."
Maybe that's the point. Force someone to buy a gun? Awful. Force someone to buy insurance? A victory for fairness. The limits of this philosophy depend solely on the subjective ideals and imaginations of powerful advocates.
So it's a good thing we have a Constitution.
One hopes.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Swimming in LEB tears.
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Dec 17, 2010 - 01:45pm PT
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Skipt said In fact I'm bettin' you get the same bill. It's called a 1040.
Yes. That's the same bill that you just said we SHOULDN'T send to the heirs of millionaires....so that they would have enough wealth to pay the bill you aren't sending. I can see that you've even lost yourself in this logic gap. Or maybe you don't read your own posts.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Dec 17, 2010 - 02:12pm PT
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I'm thinking the reason you are a socialist is that you like to throw terms
around like "stolen" but really have no plans on taking anyone to court and
making the victim whole again. No, justice is not your goal.
Rather you just want to take from people and give it to government.
You know nothing, but the propaganda you've been spoon fed all your life.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Dec 17, 2010 - 04:31pm PT
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Just for a change of pace, it appears that Barack and Michelle Obama will be snubbed, that is not invited to the Royal Wedding. This will be the first time a sitting US President will not be invited to a Royal wedding.
I guess that's what you get when you give the Queen a gift of an Ipod loaded with your speeches, and return the bust of Churchill from the White House...
The Brits explained it that it is not a state occasion since Prince William is not heir to the throne, but European and other world leaders will be attending.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 04:43pm PT
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Obama -- the WORST president, ever, ever.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 04:53pm PT
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ED MORRISEY:
How often do omnibus spending bills go down to defeat? Approximately … never, as Dave Weigel reminds us, and pork is usually the reason why. Not only do omnibus bills appear only when the budgeting process has failed and funding becomes an urgent issue, they also get so large and stuffed with perks that few dare to challenge them.
In this case, though, earmark reformers got the edge thanks to the series of measures designed to impose transparency on pork requests. . . . this result vindicates the efforts of Porkbusters. When the outrage became high enough and transparency identified the offenders, the porkers abandoned their earmarks. As a result, we will see a reduction in spending, thanks to the new GOP majority in the House. The omnibus spending bill, chock-full of not just earmarks but funding for big-government programs, won’t be passed into law after all. Without pork, legislators will have no incentive to pass massive new spending by excusing it with self-promoting home district projects any longer, and the overall spending itself will become the focus — as it should have been all along.
The system worked. This was always going to be a long game on pork reform, and this is the first fruit of an effort started years ago.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Dec 17, 2010 - 04:54pm PT
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Just for a change of pace, it appears that Barack and Michelle Obama will be snubbed, that is not invited to the Royal Wedding. This will be the first time a sitting US President will not be invited to a Royal wedding.
Well, we gave the royal family a much bigger snub back in 1776!
Of course, the conservatives of that day fought on the side of King George, so perhaps conservatives might be upset at not being invited to the wedding.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 04:55pm PT
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W was terrible on many fronts, specifically spending, the border, and affirmative action. He was great on judges, taxes, and terrorism.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 04:59pm PT
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FROM POWERLINE TODAY:
The symbolic value of the agreement for conservatives is huge. For nine years, Democrats have gnashed their teeth at the "Bush tax cuts" and have vowed to reverse them. Democrats have now controlled Congress for four years, and have made no effort to do so. When they couldn't put off the issue any longer, what happened? A majority of House Democrats and a large majority of Senate Democrats voted to perpetuate the Bush administration's tax policies. By doing so, the Democrats have implicitly admitted (in some cases, the admission was explicit) that the Republicans were right all along: the sort of punitive tax burden for which the Left hungers is economic poison.
I'm not a smoker, but if I were, I would light a cigar to celebrate the day when Congressional Democrats and the leader of their party's left wing, Barack Obama, gave in to reality and endorsed the Bush tax cuts.
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shut up and pull
climber
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Dec 17, 2010 - 05:06pm PT
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ANOTHER SHOE DROPS, FROM THE WSJ:
A federal judge in a 20-state lawsuit against the Obama administration’s health overhaul signaled Thursday he is sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ argument that requiring Americans to carry health insurance violates the Constitution.
But Judge Roger Vinson seemed skeptical of the second plank of the states’ suit: that the law forces states into a costly expansion of their Medicaid insurance programs for the poor. …
Judge Vinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, signaled he saw the requirement as unprecedented and a potential imposition on Americans’ individual liberties. The case is one of some two dozen federal lawsuits that are ultimately expected to be decided by the Supreme Court.
“It would be a giant leap for the Supreme Court to say that a decision to buy or not to buy is tantamount to activity,” Judge Vinson told the court. … “If they decide that everyone needs to eat broccoli,” then the commerce clause could allow Congress to require everyone to buy a certain quantity of broccoli, the judge said.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Dec 17, 2010 - 07:42pm PT
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I'm doing an experiment, I will watch Fox News and Listen to Rush and Mark Levin for a month
and will see if they can make me accept Satan as my savior, and become a Neo-con Christian Conservative
I hope it works, maybe I can get in on the entitlements and handouts to the Rich and connected
I have a better idea.
Call the Mark Levin show. See if you can debate him on any issue. If you are careful to be rational he will treat you with respect but he will win. You will lose. I hope I am listening when he takes your call.
Heck. I'll email him and give him a heads up that you are someone he should have on his show. Bring all your best ammo but avoid the mud slinging. Go there and he'll hang up on you.
On the second comment, please provide details on the entitlements and handouts the rich get. And while you are at it please define who you mean when you say "rich."
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