New York State of Mind

So I was going to write about what I did on my vacation and show photos of me at the beach, me at the pool, me at the bar, but, well, no one really wants to see that. So let's talk about what happened while I was away. Apparently I can't leave NYC without all heck breaking loose...

STRIKE! - Not the baseball kind, but the union kind - It was blazing hot while I was away. And just in time for the really, really hot weather, the ConEd (gas/electric) workers went on strike or more accurately were locked out by management. They've been out for about three weeks now. As you can guess, it's not about the poor wages or benefits or anything that one would think would drive workers to the picket lines. It's about...well who knows. ConEd says it wants to eliminate the pension and wage structures for new hires, require workers to contribute more to their healthcare, more flexibility in hard times, and, the real sticking point, require 7 days notice before a strike. The 8500 workers say that "[t]hey want to cut medical, they want to cut our pension, they want to cut our wages,”.

Unlike our 2005 transit strike that shut down all public transport and the city for three days, the electricity is still flowing and, as long as the electricity works, no one can even tell there IS a strike. But, much like the transit strike, the ConEd workers are getting no sympathy or support from the citizens of NYC either.

CRIME IN THE CITY - While I was away, the murder/crime rate jumped dramatically - a whopping 10% over last year. On July 4th, nineteen people were shot and four were killed. Three of those four people were gunned down in a hail of 64 bullets fired from an AK-47 into a crowd and reportedly over a girl. The fact that only 3 were killed is kind of a miracle.

All of this comes on the heels of massive protests about NYC's aggressive "stop & frisk" policy. As I've explained before, our Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has come under fire (no pun intended) for his long standing aggressive policing practices of having beat cops stop people acting suspiciously and frisking them for guns and other stuff. The results have brought the crime rate down about 300% in the last 20 years and last year alone took over 700 guns away from criminals. Logically, they have targeted high crime areas which also happens to be high minority areas and now cries of racism have ensued. To his great credit, Kelly has not backed down AT ALL. This week he publicly rebuked community leaders for staging loud protests to voice their outrage against the police department, but continue to be deafeningly silent that their children are being gunned down daily in the streets...

"Ninety-six percent of our shooting victims are people of color, yet these community leaders are not speaking out about that,” he said. “I'd like to see some political outcry... I want them to be outraged that a 3-year-old child is shot on the streets."

In response, Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams said he protests all the time and challenged Kelly to come walk the beat with him without any protection. Kelly responded, no thanks, he has been doing that for 40 years already. And, as you might imagine, Al Sharpton responded with...continued silence...which is kind of amazing, if you think about it. Oh, it shouldn't surprise you that Councilman Williams was arrested earlier this year protesting with the Occupy Wall Street bunch. So yes, he does protest a lot, but just not about children being slaughtered on their stoops.

CRIME NOT IN THE CITY - I can't leave the topic of crime and murder without saying something about Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He may be on to something with his brilliant way of handling the ever-rising murder rate in his tottlin' town. Rather than actually try and slow down the murder rate with aggressive policing tactics like NYC's Ray Kelly, Mayor Rahm has decided to take the kinder, gentler approach, This week he softly admonished (some would say, "begged") the would-be murderers to take to the alleyways -

We've got two gangbangers, one standing next to a kid. Get away from that kid. Take your stuff away to the alley. Don't touch the children of the city of Chicago. Don't get near them. And it is about values. As I said then, Scott, who raised you? How were you raised? And I don't buy this case where people say they don't have values. They do have values. They have the wrong values. Don't come near the kids -- don't touch them.

Not your typical "Don't commit murder or we'll fry you" approach, but a gentler "take it inside, so we can't see it happening" approach. I am sure that will work out just fine, and if Ray Kelly weren't such a brutal, mean guy, he could have done it that way too.

And on a final note - As you may or may not remember, NY had its Congressional Primary on June 26th and at the time I reported that Charlie Rangel won his 4-way primary pretty handily by over 2000 votes. Well, three weeks later, and after major challenges and numerous recounts, it has finally been ruled that Ol' Charlie did win afterall, but by only 800 votes and not without accusations of voter suppression and the like. But that's not the real story here. It's really about the NYC Board of Elections and their credibility gap. Let me explain why.

Four years ago, our city switched from those old-fashioned manual lever-type voting booths (you know, the kind that my Grandmother voted in 50 years ago) to a new, expensive electronic computer voting system. The new system allows for more accurate votes and speeder tallies. However, even though these new electronic voting systems can download the votes directly onto a thumb drive that can be plugged directly into the main system to be counted, our BOE refuses to change with the times. Instead, they have decided to stick with the old system of manually counting all of the votes, recording the counts on little slips of of paper that are then transported by police squad car to a main voting station and re-entered manually at the main voting station. In a perfect example of oxymoronic government efficiency, what could take just hours, continues to take days and sometimes weeks. The rest of the state has moved on, but, citing some quirk in the city laws or something, the NYC BOE says they cannot change the way the counting/recording of votes is done because chaos would ensue and it would bring on the "End Times". Okay, I made that last part up, but after their June debacle, it is coming down to a real crisis with the looming national elections. They must embrace the new technology or the entire Board shouild be replaced. The Board has one more chance to get it right with our local Primary in September, or something will happen maybe. Where's Eric Holder and his voter suppression crusade when we need him?

Next week - The crime and lack of punishment for the lying cheaters at top tier Stuyvesant High School and other pressing issues...

Addendum: Happy Bastille Day!! Viva La France - Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! [+] Read More...

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Film Friday: The Thing (1982) & (2011)

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic in the world of science fiction/horror. It’s tense, it’s creative, and it’s solidly acted. In 2011, they remade The Thing. . . sort of. The remake is an ok film, but doesn’t hold a candle to the original, and it’s the “sort of” which becomes the real problem.

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State Department Still Can’t Find The Enemy

Amid this week’s Congressional hearings on terrorism, the State Department again demonstrated why America remains in mortal danger from terrorists. You can’t destroy the enemy if you can’t identify the enemy. A war on terror or on terrorism may make a nice slogan, but then everybody gets to come up with his own definition of terrorism. Remember the slogan of the left: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

This kind of moral equivalence and philosophical musing is going to get us all killed. For now, it’s just getting a lot of people killed in foreign lands while America either fights battles with one hand tied behind its back or stays completely out of the fray. The current example is Nigeria. Our bumbling State Department stubbornly refuses to recognize the mass murder group Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization. And why? Because it would require admitting who the real enemy is—Islamism.

Boko Haram has managed to kill thousands of Nigerian citizens using typical insurgent tactics and asymmetrical warfare. It murders innocent civilians, has no governmental authority, wears uniforms only for show but rarely during an attack, and recognizes no rules of civilized warfare. That makes it a terrorist organization by any sane person’s definition. But to say it is a terrorist organization requires one to ask what their goal is. And that would reveal the real enemy’s goal—total domination of Islam over the entire world.

The human side of this horror is that Boko Haram almost exclusively targets Christians and Christian sites. The picture accompanying this article was taken last week after another devastating bombing of a Christian church during Sunday services. The organization scarcely shows its head in the Muslim parts of the country, except to parade its successes in the shrinking Christian enclaves. The practical danger of this ongoing jihad is that Nigeria was a relatively stable state with alternating Muslim and Christian chief executives. It is becoming very unstable, and worst of all, it has been a major non-Middle East provider of petroleum to the West.

Our sophisticated and nuanced State Department is doing essentially nothing about the rapidly-growing problem. It has declared certain members of Boko Haram to be terrorists, but won’t even come close to declaring the entire organization terrorist. It’s a bit like declaring Hitler, Himmler and Goering to be international criminals, but leaving the Nazis pretty much alone. And likewise, it ignores the underlying beliefs which trigger the criminal/terrorist acts. Nazism in Germany, Islamism in Nigeria.

Instead of recognizing clear facts and an evolving catastrophe in a friendly nation, the State Department engages in sophistry. When cornered by questions from committee members, State Department spokesman Johnnie Carson (no, I didn’t make that up) rambled: “Before we prescribe actions, it is important that we understand what Boko Haram is and what it is not. The truth is that our understanding is limited at best. Boko Haram is composed of at least two organizations, a larger organization which is focused primarily on discrediting the Nigerian government, and a small more dangerous group that is increasingly sophisticated and increasingly leftist.” Aw, baloney.

To return to the Nazi analogy, that’s like failing to oppose Nazism because the SS and the SA didn’t share the exact same beliefs. If it looks like a skunk, and smells like a skunk, and is seen it the company of skunks—it’s a skunk. Every platoon of Boko Haram shares a common goal, if not a common belief in how to attain that goal. That goal is the destruction of Western civilization, and in Nigeria itself anything that isn’t fundamentalist Islam. Some groups may blow up Christian churches while others assassinate political rivals, but the goal remains the same. The triumph of Islam at any cost.

Boko Haram wants to replace constitutional government and Western-style governance in Nigeria with sharia law. They do so by terrorist means, but Boko Haram and sharia have one common parent—Islamism. Our cowardly and inept State Department refuses to use either term for these murderous thugs. When they start blowing up mosques and killing imams, I might be willing to call the bloodshed a civil war. But that isn’t going to happen. This is just another attempt to take over a diverse population and control a moderate nation in the name of Allah.

In my lifetime, civilization has faced the threat of Nazism and communism. But our nation rallied behind patriotic governments, Democrat and Republican which knew who the enemy was. Now, late in my life, we face an enemy that our State Department can’t identify and won’t fight. It waffles over whom to support as Islamism takes over the entire Middle East and Africa., arguing over whether the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Shabaab is preferable.

In Nigeria, there’s no such lack of easily-discernible opponents. It is militant Islam versus civilization, and the State Department isn’t sure who should win. During the committee hearing, the State Department spokesman rigidly refused to admit that the State Department should declare Boko Haram a terrorist organization, then proceeded on three separate occasions to refer to it as a terrorist organization. With clarity of thought like that, can there be any question who will ultimately rule Nigeria?

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Bullet [Train] To The Brain

Two news items inevitably caught my attention this week. In the early stages of a national election, both point out the need for liberal government to jam things down the public’s throat that they don’t need, don’t want, and can’t afford. One is about California, the other about the Obama administration. They both say a great deal about why liberals shouldn’t be in charge at the state or federal level.

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A HOLE, STOP DIGGING. Commonsense advice which liberals routinely ignore.

First, we have California’s recent legislative action approving $4.5 billion in state funding for what many Californians call the Bullet Train to Nowhere. Anybody who has been conscious recently knows that California is for all intents and purposes bankrupt. The legislature brilliantly attempted to fix this problem by getting the $3.2 billion in federal funds which would have been lost if California hadn’t voted to throw bad money after worse to build a pie-in-the-sky train. In other words, a bankrupt state is getting money from a bankrupt federal government which is borrowing the money from China.

The picture accompanying this article is an artist’s rendering of the nonexistent train pulling into a nonexistent station in one of California’s bankrupt cities. Last year, the city of Vallejo filed for bankruptcy protection. Recently, Stockton, California followed Vallejo’s filing, becoming the largest city in America ever to file bankruptcy. Last week, the City of Mammoth Lakes filed. Not to be outdone, on Wednesday, the City of San Bernardino, population 210,000, added to the list. Two major credit rating agencies recently reported that 20% of California’s cities face bankruptcy within five years.

So what does a good government do when faced with major portions of its body politic going bankrupt? Spend more money. Currently, the first leg of the fast choo-choo is set to go from Bakersfield to Madera. That’s farmland. But even though the ecoweenies have badly damaged the Central Valley’s water supply by protecting a useless fish, there are still huge areas continuing to produce food items for America’s dinner tables. Those remaining stalwart farmers have been using every means available to them to derail this train. They have been temporarily successful in stalling it at least, because the proposed routes (there have been three so far) cut off farmers, their livestock and their crops from their daily activities and means of transport. In case you're wondering, they don't allow cattle on bullet trains (unless they're service or emotional support animals, I suppose).

But despite astronomical budget deficits and hearty opposition to the train itself, the geniuses in Sacramento went ahead with the project anyway. Why write bad checks by yourself when you have enablers in Washington DC who will help you out with IOUs? Three other states had the good sense to turn the federal high speed rail funds down because of budget deficits. Two of the three have instead cleaned up their fiscal houses and now have budget surpluses. But they won’t have super Casey Jones. How sad.

Never daunted, Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown praised the legislature’s action and promised a quick signature from the State House. Says Brown: “The money is there. We have the capability in California in a $2 trillion dollar economy to finance this thing.” Well, the state had that economy before the train, and it is still billions of dollars in the hole. The estimated final cost of the high speed line is $68 billion (and you know how accurate government estimates are). Brown is another typical Democratic politician who believes that you’re not broke as long as you still have checks.

The second headline news that caught my attention was the reaction from the Obama administration to California’s brilliant move. Basking in the glow of other green initiatives and government glory such as Solyndra and LightSquared, the Obamists are positively orgasmic over California’s approval of the nation’s first High Speed Railway to Nowhere. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood took time off from praising the efficiency of China’s government by three-man dictatorships to extol the joys of the California action.

Here’s what LaHood had to say: “I congratulate the Legislature on taking this action, which will create thousands of jobs and strengthen the California economy. In the next 20 years, California expects more than 7 million additional residents. But, as the state’s residents know all too well, the highways between California cities are already congested, and short-haul takeoff and landing slots at Golden State airports are at a premium.” LaHood fails to notice that California is bleeding taxpayers and taxpaying businesses, so we can guess where those 7 million additional residents are coming from.

I have driven between the metropolitan Bay Area and the metropolitan Los Angeles area literally hundreds of times in my life. Interstate 5 is hardly congested, and I’ve had times in which I drove for half an hour or more before seeing another car. I drive because the waiting time and inconvenience of airports and airlines are outweighed by the convenience of traveling in my own car (though gas prices have changed that formula a bit).

Where does LaHood think these train stations are going to be located? They’ll be placed in exactly the same locations as the current airports. The congestion is not the travel time on either the airplanes or the trains, it’s the highways getting to the stations and airports. And whether the train goes 120 mph or 220 mph, the congestion getting to the stations won’t be any different. Then there’s the joy of leaving your car parked in high-crime areas while you take your high speed trip from crime-ridden Los Angeles to crime-ridden San Francisco. Poor San Diego has to wait for awhile.

So just remember next November that as California goes so goes the nation. Unless we make damned sure that the Democrats don’t win.

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Romney's Great Speech At The NAACP

Let’s talk about Romney’s speech to the NAACP. He gave a great speech and I suspect it will serve him well. Interestingly, the race-baiters seemed to have nothing they could counter with, except calling Romney racist, and that’s not really going to work. As with his appeal to Hispanics, this speech was brave and correct.

● What He Said: Romney made several interesting points in his speech, each of which fit into the theme of his policies making the lives of blacks better. This is an interesting choice because it sidesteps all the race-baiting stuff for which Republicans normally fall. Observe.

First, Romney noted that Obama has been horrible to blacks. Specifically, black unemployment is 6.2% higher than white unemployment and the average income and median family income is lower for blacks than whites. He then promised that his goal as president would be the creation of jobs, but he intends to do so without trying to target things for specific racial groups:

"If I am president, job one for me will be creating jobs. I have no hidden agenda. If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him."

This actually got booed, which tells you something about the audience, doesn’t it? Then he said something fascinating. He essentially told the audience that capitalism isn’t their enemy. Check this out:

"I’ve never heard anyone look around an impoverished neighborhood and say, 'You know, there’s too much free enterprise around here. Too many shops, too many jobs, too many people putting money in the bank.'"

This is a brilliantly subtle point. What he’s doing is saying that no matter what other issues blacks may have vis-à-vis race in America, capitalism is not to blame. And subscribing to free enterprise, rather than the spoils system so popular in black circles, will make their lives better without them even having to give up the other issues which concern them. In other words, he’s trying to depoliticize capitalism and wealth.

Then he spoke about education, calling it the “civil rights issue of our era” and arguing that “mediocre schools” are setting black kids up to fail. To fix this, he pointed out that he supports school choice and won’t be beholden to the teachers unions, as Obama is. Here is how he sold this idea:

"If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, black families could send their sons and daughters to public schools that truly offer the hope of a better life. Instead, for generations, the African-American community has been waiting and waiting for that promise to be kept. Today, black children are 17 percent of students nationwide—but they are 42 percent of the students in our worst-performing schools."

Notice that again, he’s telling blacks that this is an issue which they should depoliticize and thus support his education policies, which have proven effective. He’s also tossing a wedge between blacks and the teacher’s unions.

Finally, he made a direct appeal for them to look past the ideology and take an honest look at him:

"I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president."

That’s a pretty solid appeal across the board.

● Smart Move: Romney was never going to win over the NAACP because those people have blinded themselves to anything they don’t want and nothing Romney could have said or done would have won him their vote or endorsement. So was it smart to give this speech to a hostile crowd? Well, yes. Winning over the NAACP wasn’t Romney’s goal. Instead, Romney was speaking to several other groups:

1. White Moderates. By speaking to the NAACP, Romney shows himself to be inclusive and willing to hear from everyone, not just his most loyal constituents. That makes moderates comfortable.

2. White Conservatives. By refusing to pander, Romney continues to show that he has strong conservative instincts -- though this point will be lost at some blogs.

3. Hispanics. By being seen appealing to blacks, Romney demonstrates to Hispanics that he’s not a white candidate speaking to white audiences. Following his speeches to Hispanics, this will help soften Hispanic fear that Romney wants to make them second class citizens.

4. Average Blacks. Obama will need every black vote he can get. Last time Obama got 96% of the black vote, and he still polls at 92% now. By speaking to the NAACP and speaking honestly, while making it clear he wants to help blacks, Romney could peel off a few percentage of blacks, which could make a key difference in some states. In other words, he doesn’t need to win them all to be successful, every percentage point counts.

● He’s Racist: The moment Romney finished, the race baiters started whining. There was nothing in his speech they could attack so they turned him into an evil genius by claiming he designed his speech so he would be booed, with the intention of using that booing to win over racist whites. Clearly they don’t believe this, but they know that many of their followers are stupid enough and paranoid enough to think this is true. So it’s a decent strategy in that regard. In fact, the smears started yesterday when Romney was called "too white" to speak to the NAACP. But I think ultimately, this speech is the kind of speech which could shift the needle a couple percentage points over time. And if Romney’s message that blacks don’t need to fight us on all issues finds legs, then the race industry is in serious trouble.

● Final Thoughts: Romney continues to impress, quite frankly. I have no doubt that if Newt or Santorum were the nominee, they would have told this group about all the laws they passed to give blacks spoils. Santorum would have promised some piece of civil rights legislation -- Newt would have promise seats on the new moon base. And in the process, both would have strengthened the liberal meme that everything related to blacks needs to be seen through the prism of race.

What Romney did here is give a speech which basically laid out how a color-blind agenda will help blacks too, and he suggested to them that it was all right to agree with us on issues like economics and education because they didn’t need to surrender their beliefs on other issues to do that. That’s incredibly smart.

Thoughts?

(P.S. Obama sent Biden to the same conference. He said racist things, told a sex joke and insulted veterans.)

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Remake Review: Anastasia (1956 / 1997)

By tryanmax
At the beginning of the Russian Civil War, Czar Nicholas II, along with his family, was assassinated by the Bolsheviks. However, there were rumors that his daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, had escaped. As years passed and rumors intensified, several women came forward claiming to be Anastasia. These rumors serve as the backstory for two very different films about the legendary princess.

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The Smell of Disaster

Ya know, you take a week off to give the world time to refill its collection of news stories and then you come back to find nothing is going on. What the heck? Did the world get lazy? . . or sane? Well, no, not quite. There are a few things worth discussing. It seems things aren't going well on the left.

● Uh, Whoops (Part 52): Once again, Team Obama has stepped up to the plate with a new attack on Romney. And once again, it’s failing miserably. This attack involves calling Romney an outsourcer of jobs. The only problem? No one cares. . . if they’re even listening. Moreover, Romney has once again turned Obama’s attack back against Obama and made him look stupid. This time, Romney made the obvious counterattack by calling Obama the nation’s “Outsourcer in Chief” and pointing out that Obama’s policies have encouraged jobs to be sent oversees and resulted in taxpayer money being paid to overseas companies. Indeed, let’s not forget that the president of Obama’s President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Jeffry Immelt of General Electric, sent 25,000 American jobs overseas in the two years before Obama appointed him. Whoops.

● Carolina Dreamin’: Speaking of Obama, here’s proof he’s going to lose North Carolina even though the polls show a neck and neck race. Democratic Representatives Larry Kissel and Mike McIntyre will both be joining the Republicans in voting to repeal ObamaCare this week. Neither will endorse Obama. And Kissel voted to impeach Eric Holder. Neither would be doing any of that if they didn’t think their constituents hated Obama.

● Uh. . . no: Carolina isn’t the only place either where Obama has problems. Consider this. Obama has decided to play a little class warfare before the election. Specifically, he’s calling for letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire for anyone making more than $250,000. Sounds like a no-brainer for the Democrats, right? Well, not so fast. Several House and Senate Democrats are freaking out and want to raise that number to $1,000,000. Senators from Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Nebraska and Virginia all have taken this position. Interestingly, three of those are considered “battleground” states, and apparently, Obama is losing the battle.

● Turning Up The Hate: With Democratic frustrations mounting, they and their allies are starting to turn up the hate. A former Media Matters executive just put out a racist youtube video in which he says Romney is “too white” to meet with the NAACP, something Romney is doing this week. The ad features an actor pretending to be the man who created the Willie Horton ad, and he says this to Romney about trying to meet with the NAACP:

“You are so white, you are extremely white, you make Wonder Bread look like pumpernickel.”

He then tells Romney to “get all Mormon, Martin Luther King” on the audience. Is anybody really surprised by this? I doubt it. Not when James Earl Jones became the latest celebrity to label the Tea Party “racist.” Joy Behar says it regularly. Also this week, Biden said this to minorities: “Republicans have changed the law so you get arrested if you vote.” He claims he was joking, but how is race-baiting funny? Not to mention, he also told the National Council of La Raza, a race hate group: “Romney wants you to show your papers.” At the same time, Rep. Jim Clyburn called Republican attempts to trim the food stamp program, which exploded since 2008 through an administrative change, an “abomination” and implied Republicans want to starve poor children. David Letterman joked that Romney wants to put gays back in the closet. Barney Frank said something similar. And so on.

It’s amazing how consistently the Democrats try to bait minorities with false claims of racism or other –isms. It makes you wonder how they sleep at night spreading so much hate?

● Lost Faith: Finally, the MSM has hit another all-time low. In the days of Edward R. Murrow, the MSM was the undisputed arbiter of the truth. If they said it, Americans believed it. But like anything else liberals infest, the MSM has lost its way. And as alternative methods of staying informed have become available, people have started discovering just how biased our liberal friends in the MSM have been. That, in turn, leads to a huge erosion of trust.

That brings us to Gallup. Gallup has been asking people about their level of confidence in the MSM for years now. And surprise surprise, this year’s result shows that the American public’s confidence in the MSM is at an all-time low. How low? In 1993, 46% of the public said they trusted the nightly news. In 2012, only 21% trust the nightly news. In 1979, their peak year, newspapers were trusted by 51% of the public. In 2012, only 28% trust newspapers.

A lot of this is the result of liberals, whose trust in the news and newspapers fell from 30% last year to 19% this year. But even leaving that aside, it’s clear that something is very wrong with the MSM if only one in five Americans trust them. But maybe the better question is, what’s wrong with the one in five?

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Delta Reservations. How May I Help You?

Remember when you thought an idea was so crazy that it would happen "when pigs fly?" Well, hold onto your overalls. Pigs will now fly, on commercial airline flights. Most of you had a problem believing that the feds would require that mini-horses be allowed in public facilities. Some of you even believed that I was making mini-horses up entirely. So you're really not gonna believe this one.

When you leave the restaurant after stepping over mini-road apples on your way to the airport, consider this: Watch your step as you go down the aisle of that jumbo jet, lest you step in some used pig food or trip over Porky. I'll bet you didn't know there was an Air Carrier Access Act. And if you did, you probably thought they were talking about wheelchair access, or access for the sight-impaired. But it's much bigger than that.

Here are the words from the final draft of the Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel Assistance Manual: "Swine must be allowed on airplanes if they are determined to be service animals." The airlines have always allowed too many swine on their planes, but they previously weren't the four-legged kind. The manual then goes on to provide airline employees with helpful tips on how to determine if the animal is a service animal or just a plain old pig.

"A passenger arrives at the gate accompanied by a pot-bellied pig. She claims that the pot-bellied pig is her service animal. What should you do?" I know what I'd do, but then I would be an ex-airline employee. They are told to ask: "What tasks or functions does your animal perform for you? What has its training been?" They forgot to add: "Keep a straight face." It goes on: "If you are not satisfied with the credibility of the answers to these questions or if the service animal is an emotional support or psychiatric service animal, you may request further verification."

What if the employee is still not sure? There's always that supervising bureaucrat to call in for help. "You should call a CRO (Complaints Resolution Official) if there is any further doubt as to whether the pig is the passenger's service animal." I suppose the CRO will then ask questions such as: "Are you so emotionally-crippled that you have to fly cross-country with a pig?" If the passenger weepily says "yes," then all aboard.

Now I see some discrimination that hasn't been addressed here. What about the pig's credentials? Since political-correctness says that pets no longer exist, and there are only non-human companions, the pig should have to answer a few questions as well. For instance: "Are you carrying or have you ingested any explosives in the past 24 hours?" Or: "Have you at any time in the past year disguised yourself as a sheep in order to make contact with Al Qaeda or some other terrorist organization?"

Wendy Ponzo of the North American Potbellied Pig Association says the pigs can be used as service animals because they also seem to have a sense if the owner is not feeling well to stay by them." And do what? But I'm nitpicking. At least they can be trained to use a litter box, though I'm not sure where on the plane they would put it and who's responsible for cleaning and dumping it. And after all, they're small--right? A pot-bellied pig can weigh up to 300 pounds.

I'm also a little curious about how the employees and their CROs are going to handle it when an angry group of Yemeni Jihadists board the plane and get their first sight of Porky occupying a seat in first class. The feds insist that other farm animals are excluded, such as horses (but not mini-horses), cows, mules, sheep, goats, spiders and snakes. But if Porky is allowed today for emotional support, can Betty Boa be far behind? "Betty, do you provide emotional support for your human companion?" Answer: "Yesssssssss."

You've heard the expression "the camel's nose under the tent." Well, meet "the pig's snout under the trough." All aboard the Petticoat Junction express!
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Zombiconomy

Braaaaains. Braaaaains. Our leaders have no braaaaains, and that’s the problem. And the evidence is coming through loud and clear from the economy, which the scurrilous wags as CNBC have declared a Zombie Economy. This is gonna be ugly.

In normal times, an economic recovery following a recession will produce real economic growth of around 4-5% and will restore all the jobs lost plus add a few more. That’s not happening this time. Instead, growth has been an anemic 1-2%, and the economy has come close to dipping back into recession three times now. In effect, the economy is stumbling along at the edge of recession. How bad is it? Well, it’s the weakest recovery since 1948!

Moreover, the jobs numbers are horrid. Just to keep pace with population growth, our economy needs to produce 120,000-125,000 jobs each month. In June, this “recovery” produced only 80,000 jobs. In May, this was 77,000 jobs. In April it was 68,000. All told, only 2.6 million jobs have been created since June 2009, for an average of 72,200 per month. That means for the last three years, 50,000 people have joined the workforce each month without finding a job. And that is on top of the millions of people who lost their jobs when the recession began. Indeed, we still have about 5% fewer jobs than we had before the crash.

And it gets worse. As people are running out of unemployment benefits, they are trying to get onto permanent benefits like disability. Remember how the economy produced 80,000 jobs in June? Well, 85,000 workers left the economy that same month to go on disability. That’s right, and that wasn’t an unusual month. Since June 2009, the economy has produced 2.6 million jobs, but 3.1 million workers have gone on disability! That’s unsustainable.

These problems are going to get worse too. To get a genuine recovery, an economy must reach “escape velocity.” That’s the point where economic conditions become strong enough that the recovery sustains itself. In other words, the point where there is enough production that enough new workers must be hired that their incomes begin to spur demand, which requires more production and creates more jobs: a virtuous circle, where good things lead to more good things. If an economy can’t hit that point, then it will slip back into recession or stumble along at the edge of recession, like Japan has done for the past couple decades.

Right now, there are four things preventing the economy from reaching escape velocity:

1. There’s just not enough good news to make people believe the worst is over. Housing and factory orders are up, yes. BUT they are weak and consumer confidence is falling at the same time. The rental-market has hit an all time high in terms of number of people renting, meaning people aren’t buying. And China has slowed its buying.

2. Uncertainty more than anything keeps people from acting, and right now everything is uncertain. Right now no one knows how much of ObamaCare will ever kick in, and until that’s clarified, people won’t hire. Add in the fact that a business would be foolish to act before the election, and you have a recipe for inaction. Inaction means recession.

3. Business has gotten hooked on handouts from the Fed and the other central banks over the past four years, and they are waiting for their next hit of free junk. Ditto on the continuing “stimulus” bills. Why buy anything when Santa keeps coming back to your house?

4. Finally, those banks Obama fixed. . . the ones who now control so much of the economy. . . well, they aren’t fixed. Dozens of them are being caught up in an interest rate manipulation probe across several countries. JP Morgan lost $2 billion in bad trades. Many of them still hold debt that will never be paid. And Greece and Spain and Italy hang around their necks like an inflated albatross.

This is a recipe for stagnation and collapse before the election, not a recipe for growth and happiness. And that’s really bad for Obama. Now the Republicans need to work to make sure they know how to fix this once they take over. For that, I would recommend:

1. Stopping the continuous stream of handouts through stimulus bills and Fed “quantitative easing.”

2. Repealing unnecessary regulations. But this needs to be done in one shot so business won’t keep waiting for more.

3. Killing ObamaCare with any means possible as quickly as possible.

4. Breaking up the big banks into component parts and keeping people’s savings (the money taxpayers guarantee) from being used for speculation.

Thoughts?


P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.

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Killing ObamaCare From the Inside

Sometimes, evil can’t be killed. It can just be buried somewhere until the next generation of teenagers stumbles across it. Some suggest that’s the case with ObamaCare. Frankly, I see no reason why it can’t be killed with reconciliation, but let’s assume arguendo that the Republicans somehow don’t capture the Senate or can’t get it through reconciliation. Is there another way to drive a stake through this unearthly terror? Actually, yes.

There are four or five ideas being battered around right now on how to kill ObamaCare without a full repeal. I think a couple of these are excellent temporary measures, but a couple others would be disastrous. Here are my thoughts.

● Method One: Starve It. Most federal laws require funding to function. Without funding, they cannot hand out cash, award contracts or even assign government workers to perform tasks. In some instances, this won’t matter because the law is enforced by private individuals who can bring suit to make it happen or, in the case of criminal law, it can be used by DOJ without specific funding. But ObamacCare isn’t that kind of law.

ObamaCare requires the creation of federal exchanges, requires enforcement officials, workers to process paperwork, inspectors, etc. It requires the payment of money to insurance companies and states, funding for the creation of demonstration projects, etc. It even requires money for IRS agents to be able to pursue the penalties. Without money, none of that can happen.

Usually, when laws like ObamaCare get passed, the Congress appropriates (assigns) money in advance to make the law happen. Those appropriations then become line items in the federal budget and take on a life of their own because they become part of each subsequent budget unless they are specifically voted down.

But in this case, the Democrats got careless (or more accurately tried to hide the price) and didn’t appropriate any money. To make up for this, Obama has been funding the law from an HHS slush fund meant to pay for the Federal government’s general health care expenses. Romney can stop this on day one and effectively kill the implementation of the bill. And unless the Congress decides to force funding on Romney, the bill will be dead until Romney is out of the White House.

This could kill about 90% of the bill for up to 8 years.

● Method Two: Ignore It. An offshoot of the first method would be that Romney could simply tell his agencies not to enforce the law. Thus, the IRS would not collect the tax, HHS and Medicare would do nothing to implement the law, etc. Obama has done this with laws he doesn’t like, like many related to immigration.

The problem with this approach is that once money is obligated by Congress for a specific purpose, the President must do that. Until Nixon, Presidents often impounded such money rather than spend it, but a weakened Nixon administration gave up this power. So while Romney could ignore the law for a little, the courts would eventually force him to act. Although, that could take a couple years.

This could kill about 90% of the bill for up to two/three years.

● Method Three: A World Without Rules. To implement a law, the Executive Branch issues rules which tell everyone how the government will enforce the laws. In most cases, these rules are written by the agencies on behalf of the White House -- though a few are handled independently. A new President has the power to re-write any regulations which prior Presidents have issued. Thus, in theory, Romney can wipe out or re-write all the rules related to ObamaCare to neuter it.

But there’s a catch with this method: wiping out rules isn’t as easy as it sounds. For one thing, once rules are promulgated, the agency must go through the whole rulemaking process to change them. That means the rules must be issued in proposed form, the public must be allowed to comment, the rules must be issued in final form, and then dozens of lawsuits will be filed before the rules go into effect. Until that point, Obama’s rules would still apply. This wouldn’t apply to any rules Obama hasn’t finalized yet, but it would apply to all the rules he has finalized. Thus, most of his rules could stay in effect for two to three years.

The other problem is the legal review. As unbelievable as it sounds after Obama’s term, the Executive is required to enforce the laws as reasonably written. So it would be nearly impossible for Romney to just change the rule to “just kidding.” He could cleverly sabotage much of it, but not all of it. Also, the next administration could simply redo his rules.

This could eventually wipe out most of the law, but it would take time and it would only last until the next administration changed the rules.

● Method Four: Misimplementation. Because the law was written with the idea that Democratic administrations would handle all the dirty details away from the sight of the voters, the law gives HHS a lot of discretion in terms of how to implement the law. Romney could exploit this by certifying that people, businesses and states are in compliance when they aren’t really. This could defang the law.

Personally, however, I don’t like this option at all. This wouldn’t wipe out any of the law and it runs the risk of turning into cronyism. It also wouldn’t stop liberal states from taking advantage of the law to demand massive federal subsidies.

That leads me to another method of misimplementation. When the Democrats drafted ObamaCare, they made an interesting mistake. The way the law is written, it doesn’t allow the Federal government to give subsidies for buying insurance except through state insurance exchanges. Thus, if states refuse to set those up, the federal government can set up alternate exchanges but it can’t provide subsidies.

Some conservatives are saying this would be a good move. I completely disagree. This does nothing to kill the bill. It also allows the establishment of federal control, which can become rather oppressive, especially if the Democrats manage to sneak funding into a bill somehow. In effect, this would be like letting a robber hold a gun to your head just because you think it’s not currently loaded. Moreover, this would allow liberal states to implement the law and get subsidies from taxpayers all across the country, while people living in conservative states would not get the subsidies. In effect, conservatives states would be subsidizing big rich liberal states, and the bill would appear much cheaper. This is a bad solution.

Thoughts?

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Don't Mess With Texas

Before Eric Holder has a chance to file a lawsuit against the State of Texas for violating the civil rights of illegal immigrants and drug cartel murderers by virtue of creating its own navy, I thought it might be fun to look at what a state can do to protect itself. That nasty-looking critter in the photo is one of four patrol vessels launched on the Rio Grande by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Instead of creating the sarcastic “moat with alligators” that Let 'Em All In Obama suggested, Texas has used the already-existing major waterway used by illegal immigrants and potential terrorists to cross into the United States from Mexico and launched gunboats instead of alligators. Called the Tactical Marine Unit, these little boats float like a butterfly and sting like a bee—a big bee. Each boat is named after a Texas State Trooper who has given his life in defense of the people of Texas.

The boats were funded by the Texas legislature and existing grants from the federal Homeland Security Department. If Janet Napolitano realizes that while she was campaigning for The One and trying to cover up the damage done by Fast and Furious, that will probably be the end of non-earmarked DHS grants to Texas. Each boat costs about $558,000. But she can't un-ring this bell.

While the Obama administration is busy painting bucolic pictures of illegal immigrants just wanting a better life, Texas has recognized reality. Just across the river in Mexico, over 50,000 people have been murdered by the drug cartels. On our side of the river, deaths are becoming commonplace, and just last week an ICE agent was killed while performing surveillance duties in Texas.

Federal agents are seriously hampered by unrealistic rules of engagement. If I know Texans at all, the rules for the officers on the new boats won't be nearly so restrictive. Say, for instance, “if you're fired upon, shoot back with intent to kill.” Imagine that! The boats will be a lot safer for their crews, and a lot deadlier for the criminals than the politically-correct transports that the feds expect their officers to patrol in. Each boat is armed with the most modern and lethal technology—ballistic shielding, night vision, and several different versions of high-rate-of-fire automatic weapons. Draw, partner!

Texas has by far the longest border with Mexico of any of the states. Most of that border is comprised of the relatively shallow and easily crossed Rio Grande. These boats have a shallow draft and each has three high-powered outboard engines to reach a point of entry very quickly. They are swift and deadly, though I wouldn't call them swift boats lest John Francois Kerry get his nose into the matter.

Smugglers, human traffickers, drug dealers and recipients of Fast and Furious weapons, beware. The Texans are on the prowl. They're madder than hell and they aren't going to take it anymore.

Note: While Arizona and New Mexico also grapple with their own dangerous immigrant problem on dry land in the face of federal opposition, California has solved the problem. Not satisfied with “sanctuary cities” like Los Angeles and San Francisco, a California legislator has introduced a bill which would make California a sanctuary state. If nothing else, that might take some of the burden off the shoulders of the other border states. Why swim, hike or otherwise sneak in at great risk when you can simply walk into a State that will welcome you with open arms and open wallets?.
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Sunday Go To Meeting Post

This is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice, and be glad in it. Be thankful today that at least one Congressman is not afraid to say that our public education system is a failure, that almost all American kids are left behind, and that the best way to revivify the schools is to model them after religious schools.


The Congressman is not bothered by the constant drumbeat of separation of church and state. He just wants kids to get a disciplined, intelligent education.

You probably haven't read about this in the mainstream press, and your first thought is likely to be that the anti-Christian, anti-Jewish forces of militant secularism are at it again. Well, not quite. The reason you probably haven't heard about it is that the religious schooling that the Congressman is talking about is Islam, and the model schools are madrassas. Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) said in a recent speech: “America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged and where the foundation is the Koran.”

In order to criticize the Congressman for his desire to mix mosque and state, the mainstream media would have to quote him and identify the specific religion he is espousing. That won't do. Islam (the “religion of peace”) is the only religion whose real tenets are off-limits to the mainstream. This, by the way, is the same Congressman who said that the Tea Party would love “to see black Americans hanging on a tree.”

II Timothy 2:15 says “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (citation corrected, thanks to tryanmax)” But poor old Tim was a Christian, so we can't use him or the thousands of Catholic and other parochial schools as the examples. The Bible must be kept out of the schools, but maybe the Koran is all right. After all, according to Carson, Islamic madrassas use all the modern teaching techniques encouraged by the Koran. “We need an educational model that is current, that meets the need of our students. America must understand that she needs Muslims.”

Would that be the madrassas that don't allow females in at all, or just the ones that segregate them and teach them how to be obedient wives as young as possible? Is that the Koran which is utterly meaningless without the hadiths which explain what the garbled words actually mean? Would that be the innovative educational practices which still cling to Ptolemaic astronomical theory (the universe revolves around the earth)? Or perhaps it's the cutting-edge science that says that substances are formed by the will of Allah, not by Jewish chemical principles.

Still, you must admit that the madrassas are heavy on moral principle. You could search all day to find a Catholic or other church school teaching that heaven awaits with sexual and earth-like rewards if only you have the fortitude and education to strap on explosives and blow yourself up in a crowd of other (preferably non-Islamic) people.

For once, I have to agree with the Congressman that religious schools are better-organized and better-staffed than our current public schools. But then, a gathering of prairie dogs is more coherent and educational than most of our present public schools. I simply don't agree with him that we should jump out of the frying pan and into the fire by replacing non-educational public schools with non-educational Islamic schools. There are plenty of solid non-Islamic religious schools to draw inspiration from, and the teaching methods work with or without the religious instruction.

With Islamic chemistry, Islamic physics and Islamic math, there is no division between the religious and the empirical. Islam the political/social/educational cannot be separated from Islam the religious. Secular indoctrination in the public schools and religious indoctrination in the madrassas are just two sides of the same coin.

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They Say It's My Birthday!

Hey folks, just dropping in to say I'm enjoying my vacation and to let you know that contrary to rumors I have not joined a monkery, and I will be back soon with all new thoughts. And for those in the know, I am officially 42 (click me) today! Yep, it's my birthday. And yes, I have a towel. Leave your thoughts as to the meaning of life below! :)

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Admiral Of The Great Green Fleet

Anchors aweigh! Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. We have not yet begun to fight. Those have been the battle cries of the US Navy for decades and even centuries. Now we have to add a new one: “Damn the expense, we’re running on pond scum!” July will mark the first time the Navy has used biofuel in an operational maneuver. Five Navy ships of the Great Green Fleet will be cruising off Hawaii, using a 50/50 mixture of biofuel and traditional fuel.

In pursuit of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus's plan to wean the Navy off traditional fossil fuels, he has ordered that 50% of the fleet must be entirely fueled by alternative fuels by the year 2020. Now that's better than the other civilian green weenie plan to require all-electric cars on the road by 2040, but not much better.

So what is this miracle fuel? It's biofuel, made up of sticks, twigs, seeds, algae and chicken fat. The downside, the fuel costs six to seven times as much as traditional fuel ($3.60 per gallon versus $26.00 per gallon). The upside, we have lots of sticks, twigs, seeds, algae and chicken fat and we can always print more greenbacks to pay for them. It's green all the way around. Since the Navy hasn't figured out how to fit ships to be run by solar power or wind turbines, why not use a technology already available?

The proponents of biofuel tell us that there will be no additional expense because engines do not have to be converted to use the biofuel. They haven't told us yet what will happen to the engines after two or three years of use of the biofuel. But what the heck, it's green and that's all that's important. They also assure us that the costs will go down, eventually. I suspect their "experts" are former employees of Solyndra.

Those reactionary Republicans are questioning the efficacy of the green fleet program. But more than that, they are questioning its immense cost. The US Navy is one of the world's largest consumers of fuel. A six or seven times price disparity between traditional fuels and biofuels is no small matter. And we are just supposed to take the "experts'" word for the eventual decrease in biofuel prices. Republican House Member Randy Forbes of the Armed Services Committee says that biofuel will always be more expensive, and demands that the Secretary produce actual studies backing up the contention of future lower fuel prices.

The green fleet proponents also invoke the spurious arguments about patriotism and self-sufficiency. They also use the ruse of referring to costs as "investments." Says Secretary Mabus's office: "Investment in biofuel will produce a competitively-priced and domestically-produced alternative to conventional fuel. Such investments help the Navy and the nation become less dependent on foreigh oil and thus less subject to volatility in oil prices that directly affect our readiness." Notice how he slyly manages to avoid talking about becoming less dependent on foreign oil by encouraging domestic production instead of trying to kill it in the name of the greening of America.

Green weenies never look at cause and effect, supply and demand, or the market. At some point in the future, the technology may be sufficient, the demand adequate, and the need genuine, such that this alternative fuel might be an answer. But for now, this is ideology over practicality. In the middle of an economic crisis, with enemies facing us on multiple fronts, this is no time to be messing with the fleet.


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How To Stop A Revolution

From Philadelphia, home of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, comes this news item about the new revolution--the Occupy movement. To remind America of the true meaning of Independence Day, a group of Occupiers on July 4 gathered in Philadelphia, only to be waylaid.

And now I'm guessing you expect to hear the story of how the fascist police, owned and controlled by the evil capitalist banks, drove tanks into and used heavy artillery on the crowds to suppress the voices of freedom. Or how the local sanitation district used water cannon on the throng in order to suppress the smell. Or perhaps it was those sneaky Tea Partiers, blocking the way with a fleet of Lipton delivery trucks.

Well, you would be wrong. The huge throng of sixty or more protestors almost missed their own protest. Comprised about half of Act Up gay activists and half of Occupiers, the patriots were all set to storm the halls of government and take over the offices of banking behemoths USB, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The were lean. They were mean. And they were ready to sacrifice their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to bring Philadelphia back to the people.

But even great social movements with a cast of dozens can be bushwhacked by greater sinister powers. And so it was in Philadelphia on July 4, 2012. While preparing to storm the barricades, the Occupy troops were suddenly confronted with an unconquerable barrier--a Ben and Jerry's ice cream truck handing out free ice cream. It is one thing to have to face a determined foe, armed to the teeth and backed by all the great might of the most powerful government on earth. It is quite another to be expected to fight the good fight when lunch was already late and now the minions of the aged hippies from Vermont have shown up to distract the crowds from the cause.

So once again, the forces of good have been defeated by the ignominious interference of cruel fate. How can any solid patriot be expected to continue to fight when confronted with a free cone containing Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey? In the end, a few of the more stalwart members managed to drag themselves to the stock exchange and a couple of the banks. They cheered a few cheers, shouted a few slogans, offered a few obscenities, then returned to their camp only to find that the Ben and Jerry's truck had departed the premises. Alas, the Revolution must wait.
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Fourth Of July--Independence Day

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! As we enjoy our get-togethers with family and friends on this the 236th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I want to wish everyone the fun and celebratory nature of the holiday. But each year I reflect on what it took to get there, best exemplified by Emerson's Concord Hymn, which I share with you below.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those spirits dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

The hymn was written to celebrate the unveiling of the Concord Memorial, and as a reminder that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
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The Wall Comes A'Tumbling Down

At last, we have a major liberal declaring that the wall of separation between church and state is a misreading of the Constitution and historically incorrect. Following in the footsteps of Chief Justice Roberts who declared a mandate a tax, this constitutional liberal scholar declares that political issues are moral issues. And where better to look for moral guidance than the churches? She even said so from the pulpit. And who is this mystery liberal? None other than First Lady Michelle Obama.

Appearing in the role of lay pastor at the African Methodist Episcopal Church's forty-ninth general conference in Memphis, Michelle told the gathering: “To anyone who says that church is no place to talk about political issues, you tell them there is no place better—no place better. Because ultimately, these are not just political issues, they are moral issues.”

Aside from specifically endorsing political candidates or ballot measures, many of us conservatives have been saying the same thing for decades. We have been called “religious zealots” and “fascists” for doing so. But when Michelle speaks, the sheeple listen. And let's face it, Michelle wasn't talking about moral issues, she was talking about following Barack Hussein Obama, the self-appointed messiah. That takes the moral ground out from under her argument and turns it into the very politicization of religion that the Founders actually intended to prevent when they instituted both secular government and freedom of religion.

Says Bill Donahue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: “Michelle Obama followed in the footsteps of her husband yesterday when she called for the politicization of religion.” In the spirit of “if you can't lick 'em, join 'em,” Donahue went on to say: “Since the Obamas have taken the gloves off—in effect calling for Americans not to be restrained by separation of church and state legalisms—others should follow suit. I hope that the bishops, priests, evangelical ministers, and the orthodox members of all religions are taking note.” Amen, Brother!

Neither Donahue nor I call for the pulpits to become political forums. But quite simply, religion has a major role in our political lives. It was the churches of the 1800s that led the people toward the eradication of that great stain on American freedom—slavery. It was the churches of the mid-1900s that fostered the Civil Rights movement, eliminating de jure segregation of the races and culminating in the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education. We are simply saying that for most Americans, moral and religious issues are intertwined, and speaking of them in church is a perfectly valid constitutional exercise. If an issue which contains moral and religious ramifications is preached from the pulpit seems to favor or disfavor a candidate or party, so be it.

Obamacare is a perfect example of what we mean, and what Michelle doesn't mean. The Catholic Church (and my own Missouri Synod Lutheran Church) have declared the mandate/tax/penalty which requires religious institutions to participate in birth control measures such as abortifacients to be an absolute violation of religious freedom. Though it has not yet come to it, they are suggesting future civil disobedience, just as their predecessors did with slavery and segregation. They would be crossing the line by saying “defeat Obama” or "vote for Candidate X because he will vote against Obamacare.” But raising the issue is a religious imperative that leaves the congregants to draw their own conclusions using their own individual consciences.

What Michelle wants from the pulpit is “Vote for my husband. He's black, he's beautiful, and he knows what's best for you because he is in personal contact with the deity. Do this in remembrance of him, and ye shall be saved.” Of course there's that little matter of the Obamas' marriage and twenty years of faithful attendance at a church where Barack's pastor and mentor boomed from the pulpit: “No, no, no. God damn America.” Somehow, I don't think that Michelle's understanding of religion and politics is the same as mine. How about you?

I'll be around during the Fourth of July week holding down the fort while Andrew takes a mini-vacation. When you're not too full of hot dogs and hamburgers, and after your barbecue fire has safely died down, come and join me.


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Horsefeathers!

If you think that the EPA is the only administrative agency attempting to ruin America through fiat and regulation, think again. Sure, the EPA can halt construction of a dream home on private property by “discovering” a wetland on the property. But what if a miniature golf course has hills that are too steep? Or what if a restaurant doesn't allow horses at dinner?

Enter the warriors and all the bureaucrats who enforce the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act). Of course there's the Department of Justice (DOJ) to punish the malefactors.

Recently, the DOJ generously extended the deadline for violators of the new ADA rules. Well, maybe not so generously. The requirements also affect judicial facilities, prison facilities and public recreation facilities. Such governmental agencies always lag behind private businesses in complying with the law. So in actuality, the extension was self-serving. In the private sector, the new rules and regulations already cover the aforesaid miniature golf courses, driving ranges, amusement parks, sauna facilities, the aforesaid restaurants, and shooting ranges.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez spoke at a conference in Baltimore early in June. He said: “We expect the implementation of these accessibility standards to open up doors for full participation in both the responsibilities, such as jury duty, and the benefits, such as playing at city parks, of civil life for people with disabilities.” Thus, the extension of time for implementation. But the same rules apply to private businesses. The public facilities will be improved and made compliant using taxpayer dollars, so what the heck. But the cost to private businesses will be borne by individuals already struggling to survive in a terrible economic environment.

Get out your tape measures and surveying tools, folks. Fifty percent of golf holes on miniature golf courses must be accessible to the handicapped. The ground space around a hole must be a minimum of 48 inches by 60 inches, “with slopes not steeper than 1:48 at the start of play.” At gyms, at least one of each type of exercise machine must be positioned so that it is “accessible” to a person in a wheelchair.

Saunas must have “sufficient turning space” and at least one bench specifically designed for the disabled (sitting and sweating in your wheelchair not allowed). For inside gun ranges, there must be “sufficient turning space for each different type of firing position (my question on that one is 'does that include the standing position?').” Full-sized golf courses get even more attention. There must be an accessible route to connect all accessible elements within the boundary (this could be a bit difficult if the fifty percent of “accessible” holes are not contiguous). Swimming pools must have a wheelchair accessible entry point unless the pool is larger than three hundred linear feet, in which case it must have at least two such accessible entry points.

And now for those restaurants (and taxis, by the way). Well, now it's time to let those guide horses in. Most of us are used to, and understand, rules that allow guide dogs for the blind where other dogs would not be allowed. More recently we have begun to accept the reasonable exception made for those physically or emotionally handicapped persons who are almost entirely dependent on their canine companions for normal activity. But horses?

OK, so they're not going to require that the restaurant owner or taxi driver allow Secretariat or Seabiscuit into their eateries or cabs. It's only miniature horses which must be allowed and facilitated. “A public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability.” Miniature horses are cute as hell, and can be very affectionate. But no matter how you cut it, they're not as smart as certain breeds of dogs, though most are smaller than a St. Bernard. But whoever heard of “dog flies?”

The justifications for adding miniature horses are many. Among them are religious objections by certain segments of society to using or having contact with dogs. Another is allergy to dogs (a handicap on top of a handicap). There is also the “fact” that miniature horses have a longer useful life span than dogs (seven years for dogs, as much as twenty-five years for miniature horses).

At Joe's Greasy Spoon Restaurant, the biggest objection (other than equinophobia) is the potential mess a horse of any size would be likely to produce where humans are eating and a minimum of sanitation is expected. No problem, say the mini-horse people. Says one ADA spokesman: “Similar to dogs, miniature horses can be trained through behavioral reinforcement to be 'housebroken.'” Since there is not yet a visible “housebroken” certificate or horse tag identifying the little horse as housebroken, it would be a quandary for both the restaurant owner and the taxi driver. What if the mini-horse actually isn't potty trained? Answer: horse manure.

Nobody has yet addressed the potential conflict when two disabled persons show up, one with a dog and the other with a mini-horse. What if Fido and Man O' War don't like each other? How about the patron who is terrified of dogs, or the other one who gets the heaves at the sight or smell of a horse (big, small or indifferent)? But I'm sure we can trust our government bureaucrats to solve those conflicts with ease.

This is going to be great fun (except for those who end up in jail for failing to comply, or in the poorhouse for complying). The possibilities for increasing the number of overpaid bureaucrats to enforce the rules are almost innumerable. San Francisco, always in the forefront of enforcing ADA rules, has proven just how silly loosely-written ADA laws can be, as well as the deleterious results they produce. You'll be seeing things like the San Francisco nonsense nationwide soon.

For instance: A deli-restaurant beloved by San Franciscans for four decades, located on bustling Market Street, was found not to have a compliant disabled accessible entryway. The owners realized that the requirements were both reasonable and legal. So they did what any good citizen does. They spent hundred of thousand of dollars on construction of a disabled accessible entrance. Doing so on Market Street would have been a major interruption of business and would have required outrageously expensive relocation of fixtures and replacement of load-bearing walls and columns. So the owners quite logically and reasonably did the construction at the side of the building on Sixth Street. If you can call construction of a disabled accessible structure a work of art, this was one—including the automatic opening doors.

All was well, right up through the grand re-opening, at which point one potential customer in a wheelchair objected to the structure, since it was on the side of the building rather than in front, and filed an ADA discrimination suit. He won, and the owners were required to go forward with the far more expensive and unnecessary construction at the front of the restaurant in addition to the one on the side. The owners threw in the towel and closed the business. It sat empty and decaying for months. San Francisco lost a great local restaurant, only to have it replaced much later by a Wendy's franchise. Wendy's could afford better lawyers, and ultimately the handicapped entrance on Sixth Street was allowed after all.

In the “let the taxpayers pay for it” example, all of the San Francisco superior courts and clerical offices were closed while City Hall underwent an earthquake retrofit following the big Loma Prieta quake of 1989. The City/County of San Francisco rented a skyscraper located in the financial district for the period of the retrofit. The building was already wheelchair accessible, though the courtrooms had to be upgraded for accessibility for the public and the jurors. But they forgot one little detail. They didn't make the judges' chambers and benches wheelchair accessible. Doors had to be widened, and ramps built to allow the disabled judges to get onto their seats behind the bench. The cost to the taxpayers ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, approaching a million.

Now for the reality. There was only one judge in the entire superior court judicial panel who was actually in a wheelchair. And he wasn't the one who complained. He simply asked nicely if they could fix things up for him, and it was done forthwith. He was happy as a clam. It was an officious intermeddler who was not even part of the system who filed the complaint. So all the courtrooms and judicial chambers were made wheelchair accessible. Only one was ever used. And now the courts are back in City Hall, and all that construction and expense was for naught. But the bureaucrats still have a satisfied smile on their faces as San Francisco sinks farther into debt.

I guess we should be grateful that the one wheelchair-bound judge didn't have a miniature horse to help him out. Now that would have been some really cool reconstruction. "Reasonable modifications in policies, practices or procedures" has an entirely different meaning for government bureaucrats from the meaning you or I would give it. Get ready, this is only the tip of the bureaucratic iceberg.
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Some Final Thoughts On Obamacare

I’m taking the week off until next Monday. But before I go, here are my final thoughts on the ObamaCare ruling. Basically, while this is a legal disaster for the country, I think politically this is a very good thing. Also, by way of a bonus, at the end of this article, I’ve included some links to the CommentaramaCare proposal which outlines the reform we really need.

● The Supreme Court Fails: Legally speaking, the ObamaCare decision is horrible. Some conservatives have latched onto the fact Roberts made a lot of great points about how the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause don’t extend nearly as far as the statist would have you believe. Sure, that’s nice. BUT then he turns right around and opens an unlimited window for Congress to use its tax powers to do anything! There may eventually be limits on this power, but as it stands right now, this is one of the five or six biggest power grabs in Constitutional history.

It is also troubling that this decision is based on verbal semantics: punishing someone for non-compliance is not the same thing as forcing someone to comply. Really?! That’s nonsense! That’s a distinction without a difference -- a verbal game -- and it’s disturbing that the Supreme Court would accept this double-speak as reasoning. This will lead to a whole new world of control once Congress realizes it can just “tax” you into compliance without ever triggering the limits on its power to “punish.” That’s troubling.

● The Conservative Opportunity: Politically, however, this is a very different story. Politically, I think this decision is a Godsend for two reasons.

First, this decision will destroy the Democrats, and not just Obama. Human nature tells us that people forgive and forget misbehavior if it stops before the negative consequences kick in. So long as people assumed the Supreme Court would rein in ObamaCare, the public was very likely to forgive the Democrats and consider this a non-issues. Now that assumption is gone, and this decision revives the possibility of negative consequences. That will wake up the public and end its forgiving mood. Indeed, I would suspect this will endanger another 3-5 Democratic Senators in flyover country and could ultimately give us another 2-3 seats. And while I don’t think that will give us enough seats in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, it will be the difference between a majority (52-53 seats) and a solid majority (54-57 seats), which should be all we need under the new scorched-earth Senate.

Secondly, I think this ruling saved us from a disaster. If the Supreme Court had struck down the mandate, but left the rest, I have no doubt the Republicans would have declared victory and just moved on. That would have left a plethora of horrible things ensconced in law, including trillions in taxes, dirty deals with drug companies, anti-competitive requirements on hospitals and doctors, new entitlements, the unfunded expansion of Medicare, the creation of these insurance exchanges, etc. In effect, the least damaging part of the law would have been struck down and the other 99% of the harm would have remained. Now the Republicans will need to address the bill itself, and the pressure will be to repeal and replace the whole thing. That means they will actually need to fix much of this. That is the real reason this decision may ultimately prove to be a saving moment for the Republic, because it means the Republicans can’t ignore the real problems.

● Repealing Stupidity: Repealing ObamaCare should be simple. Passing it by reconciliation means that by definition it can be repealed by reconciliation. And reconciliation only needs 51 votes. Naturally, the Democrats (and some weak Republicans) are whining that somehow the bill can’t be repealed by reconciliation, but that’s nonsense.

● Building A New Crisis: There is an economic crisis built into ObamaCare and it will be interesting to see what happens. The law expands Medicaid to the point that it will shatter state budgets. But states don’t need to sign up for this. Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled that the states can refuse to expand Medicaid as the bill requires, and the Federal government cannot withdraw Medicaid funding if the state so chooses -- it can only withhold the additional funds intended to cover that expansion.

But just because states don’t need to sign up, doesn’t mean they are smart enough to refuse. A few Republican governors have said they won’t sign up, but most see this more as an opportunity to negotiate a lot of freedom from the requirements of Medicaid. It will be interesting to see what they obtain. The problem, however, lies with the Democratic states. . . as always. These idiots are rushing to sign up as a show of support. This will result in a dramatic increase of their Medicaid costs, which will bust their budgets. At first, the federal government funds this expansion, but within a couple years, that subsidy vanishes. That’s when states like California and New York will find themselves in budget hell (as if they weren’t already). Without federal money, I don’t see this as sustainable, but how will they cut off so many people once they sign them up? Watch out if you live in a liberal state which accepts this expansion!

● Death to the Middle Class: Conservative economist and Senior Economics Writer for the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore, just made an interesting statement. He claims that 75% of the cost of ObamaCare will fall on the middle class -- people making less than $125,000 per year. That’s not at all surprising because that’s who always pays for these programs. Still, this is unwelcome news for a middle class which has been hit with falling incomes, falling asset values, falling home prices, massive inflation, an ever-higher tax burden, and fewer job prospects. At some point, this rubber band will break.

Conclusion

To sum up my thoughts, this bill is a disaster. It will crush the stupid states, it will crush the middle class. It will damage our healthcare system a lot. The Supreme Court’s ruling has damaged our Constitution. BUT this will wake up the public and will help to finish off the Democrats. It will also force the Republicans to act. In the end, this decision may prove to be the moment which spurred the Republicans to actually fix the healthcare crisis, and thereby save the country. Let’s hope.


Finally, by popular demand, here are some links for you to consider:

First, here’s what’s wrong with our healthcare system: Out of Control Costs, Out-of-Control Costs II, Access, and Quality Control Problems.

Secondly, we have a report card on why ObamaCare fails to address these problems: FailureCare.

Lastly, we have CommentaramaCare, a proposal on how the system should be fixed: Com-Care Tort Reform, Com-Care Medical Reforms, Com-Care Coverage Reform, and Com-Care Summarized and Priced.

Have a happy and free Fourth everyone!

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Former Obama/Holder Target Explains Roberts

Back in July of 2009, I did a piece on UC Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo here. Professor Yoo served in the Bush II administration as legal counsel. He was also one of Barack Obama's and Eric Holder's earliest banana republic targets. They sought to prosecute Yoo for advising Bush and the military about enhanced interrogation in a manner unpleasing to the new emperor.

Long after the DOJ thugs went after Yoo, the courts found Yoo's advice to be protected by executive privilege and a specific constitutional provision. The irony is that Holder's political lawyers went after Yoo specifically about the private advice that Yoo gave Bush in which he correctly told the president that waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques were allowable according to then-existing law. Mind you, he did not advise Bush that these techniques should be used. He merely advised him that they could be used.

Upon the entry into office of El Rey Obama and Generalissimo Holder, the administration changed those rules, and the Congressional Democrats developed collective memory-loss about what they had earlier approved. Those facts did not deter the DOJ political shysters from attempting to prove that Yoo's advice was criminal. And here's the ultimate irony. When Congress, now safely in Democratic hands, requested the memos from Yoo to Bush explaining what Yoo had advised and when, they were turned over.

Holder and the Democratic Congress threatened Yoo with contempt if he did not turn over all the communications between himself and the president. Holder unequivocally stated that it would be unprecedented (there's that word again) if Yoo refused and/or Bush raised executive privilege. But they didn't refuse. The documents were turned over, which is a great deal more than we can say about Holder and Fast and Furious. Yet by virtue of his cooperation with Congress, Yoo was hounded by Holder's "human rights" shysters.

Without ever having raised the issue of executive privilege (or its variant, communications privilege), Yoo was totally exonerated by the courts. The holdings were clear. The personal advice given by Yoo to Bush may or may not have been covered by executive privilege, but that didn't matter. The courts clearly ruled that Yoo was protected because he was a lawyer advising his client, and also further held that Yoo's advice was absolutely correct based on the law as it existed when the advice was given.

It greatly distressed Eric Holder and his amateur lawyers to find out that they couldn't prosecute someone for giving advice that was based on the law as it was, not as the law was to become. It's a little thing forbidden by the Constitution called an ex post facto law. Only banana republics prosecute their enemies under laws passed subsequent to the new boys taking power.

That's your basic background on the difference between Professor Yoo and Shyster Holder. But since the good professor is a particular favorite legal authority of mine, I'm going to do something I rarely do. Since I'm still flummoxed by the strange opinion of Chief Justice Roberts in the Obamacare case, I'm going to let Professor Yoo, a far cooler head, express my opinion, only much better.

Here is Professor John Yoo's Wall Street Journal take on Chief Justice Roberts: Roberts and his Apologists.

PS: When I wrote the original article in 2009 I accidentally referred to Professor Yoo as "Woo" twice. We're unable to edit posts that old, so please ignore the errors.
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The Great (film) Debates vol. 44

Comedy comes in two forms and ONLY two forms. We've already asked about physical comedy. Now let's talk about verbal comedy.

Who is the best comedic actor for verbal jokes? (and what is their best role)

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