School Shootings

If you ever needed proof that there is no such thing as a rational discussion about gun control, you just have to look at NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre's suggestion that armed guards be placed in all our schools.

No, that is not the irrational part. In fact, his suggestion is the first rational, practical solution to school shootings that has come out. It is the reaction of gun control advocates that proves to be irrational. They are aghast.The mere suggestion has been called "shameful." The gun control crowd is so emotional about this that they have taken to repeating LaPierre's words as if the "idiocy" is so self-evident that no additional comment is required. This is all very much akin to their slogan that "more guns is not the answer." And at first blush, that would seem to make sense. I mean, fewer guns wound mean fewer shootings, right? Well, maybe, if you were able to reduce the number of guns in a "socialistic" manner. That is if you were able to reduce the number of guns equally; those in the hands of good guys, and those that are in the hands of bad guys and the mentally ill.

But let's just look at the possibility and problems with restricting gun ownership. First, there is that niggling item called the second amendment. But let's just use the magic wand on it for purposes of this discussion. Let's say we were able to wave our wand and the second amendment vanishes. And we are now free to restrict guns in America as much as we wish. Furthermore, we have decided to skip the usual legislative process and agree to abide by whatever President Obama or Michael Bloomberg want. They can decide anything from the types of weapons that can be owned to a complete ban.

The first, biggest and some would say insurmountable, problem is that the lowest estimate of the number of guns privately owned in the United States is 270 million. And due to "assault weapon" bans that have been implemented in the past as well as the prospect of future bans, sales of those very weapons have exploded in recent years. Just this week as talk of reestablishing the ban has increased, Walmart sold out of AR-15s. Back when Clinton signed the first ban it was AK-47s that flew off the shelf. Now can we just recognize that anybody buying such a gun under such conditions, is not going to march down to the police station and hand them in upon presidential decree?  Now there will be owners who will turn over all their guns. Those would be the good guy, law abiding citizens. They would be the only ones who would willingly disarm themselves. Why? Because they are law abiding citizens!

So you won't collect a single bad gun, but you'll completely disarm the good guys and make criminals out of everybody in between. Amazingly, this sort of thing is being fantasized about by those who claim that placing guards in schools is not practical. So what about just restricting the type of weapon or it's features? The first assault weapons ban cited some purely cosmetic things like pistol grips and flash suppressors, but also large capacity magazines and armor piercing bullets. And since the latest shootings the large capacity magazines have come under scrutiny again. This is a stupid debate.

There's an old joke about the guy who says the woman at a the bar, "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" To which she answers "Yes."

"Well then" he continues, "Would you sleep with me for twenty bucks?"

"No, what kind of a girl do you think I am?"

"We've already established that, we're just arguing over price now."

 The debate about the type of weapon used is strictly about body count. Yes, had Adam Lanza had to use a revolver or a bolt action rifle, the death toll would likely have been lower, but there would be no guaranty of that. And I contend that a homicidal maniac wielding a sword could kill just as many. The key factor is not what kind of weapon is used, it's the fact that the targets are unarmed women and children. There is nothing about an assault weapon ban that would prevent a single future shooting, and wouldn't even prevent that type of weapon from being used.

Do you really want to talk about prevention? Then we need to stop talking about passing laws. Laws do not prevent crimes, they deter them. And deterrence depends, to a large degree, on a rational, thinking person weighing their actions. This is something that appears to be in short supply among homicidal maniacs (and Islamic terrorists.)  

So why is placing armed guards in the schools irrational? I noticed that whenever I have been to an IRS or other government office, they usually have an armed guard. Nobody is bothered by armed guards at airports. We've had armed guards at banks for hundreds of years. Makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense are school shootings in the first place. And I think part of the problem is that since people can't make sense of the shootings, the idea of defending against them seems illogical too. So you get a lot of, "So the solution is to make our schools armed fortresses? That's crazy!!" And that's the end of their argument.Wayne LaPierre suggested the one thing that actually stands a chance of preventing another school shooting and is denounced as deranged. Armed guards are so ridiculous as to be unworthy of discussion. We need to talk about substantive issues like the size of the clip and whether or not it has a pistol grip.

Cliff View

Here is how I see it.

The Republicans have accepted that they lost the election and will have to give in on raising taxes. But they wanted to salvage a fig leaf by limiting deductions rather than hiking the rates. It's si x one or half a dozen of the other. Taxes go up either way. But this way they could say they didn't raise rates. Well Obama is having none of that. He doesn't care about the revenues anyway. It was never about the deficit or revenues. It's about puishing success and he wants a chunk out of that fine 2% ass. "Any old pound of flesh will not do! I want THAT sliver of ass from THAT 2%."

So let him have it. But do not try to mitigate it in any way. Don't shave a half a point here. Don't beg for an extra 1% on capital gains. That will only be used to blame you later. YOU will then be the reason it didn't work. YOU didn't give us a BIG ENOUGH hike to fix the problem. Republicans need to stand aside and vote present. Give them what they want and make them own it.

Not What I Expected

I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me but it did. About 6 moths ago I decided to get in shape. I said I was not going to just lose weight, but change the shape of my body. And I did. Six months later I now wear a size medium sweater where I used to need a large. My pants went from a 40 inch waist to a 34. I can wear my class ring from college, which I haven't been able to for years, and the weight that I didn't set out to lose ended up totaling 50 pounds.

I just assumed that when people noticed, they would see it as I did and would compliment me on my accomplishment. But the fummy thing was that virtually nobody did that. There was maybe one, young person who complimented me. But the older folks went one of two ways. Either they looked at me with worried apprehension and asked if I was all right, or they asked if I had stopped drinking (Yes and no, respectively.) Not disturbing I guess, just not what I expected.

The Best Laid Plans

During the second presidentiial debate, Mitt Romney was asked if he would please offer the specifics of his plan on taxes and the deficit. The Democrats have been hammering away at him because he refuses to give details. I was very pleased with the asnswer he gave, although I thought he could have explained it better. In fact I think it was a missed opportunity to make an analogy with Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan and get a shot in there.

The gist of his answer was that he wasn't going to hand out a detailed roadmap showing exactly where he wanted to end up in negotiations with congress. He should have explained further that telling the other side what your targets are or what your bottom line is, pretty much assures you will never get there. Think of it as a negotiation over price. If you are the seller you do not start off with the least amount that you'd be willing to accept. As the buyer, you do not lead with the absolute top dollar you'd be willing to pay. As the Commander in Cheif who is in charge of prosecuting a war, you do not announce your withdrawal date in advance. Does that really need an explanation as to why it is so assinine?

Chutzpah

Remember the definition of chutzpah? It’s the kid who murders his parents and then asks for mercy from the court on the grounds that he’s an orphan.


There was what surely would have been considered a major scandal a couple of weeks ago, if only our President had been a Republican. Unfortunately it also occurred close to the Benghazi attack (which holds more potential damage so maybe I shouldn’t complain.) I am talking about the video that was recently “discovered” of Barack speechifying on June 5, 2007, to an audience comprised largely of African-American preachers. It was a shocking video because almost nobody had ever seen Obama speak with that dialect, which to be fair, was pretty much the style, cadence and inflection typical of (surprise) African-American preachers. He channeled Al Sharpton.

Unfortunately, that aspect only served to distract from the real scandal. Obama’s defenders came out and (what else) cried racism. They apparently saw right through the Republican plot to point out to American voters that our president is in fact, black. And they are being sneaky about it. Using “dog whistles” and code words, they are determined to let each and every American know that Barack Obama has more than his fair share of melanin.

In the actual speech that Obama is giving, he is pandering to his audience. That’s hardly surprising for a politician running for president, which he was at the time of the speech. He’s trying to provoke outrage in the audience, racial outrage. And he starts complaining about the Stafford Act. The Stafford Act is a requirement that an area receiving federal funds, chip in 10% themselves. Barack complained the federal government had suspended Stafford in the case of Florida for hurricane Andrew, and for New York City after 9/11, but not for New Orleans and Katrina. Then right out of Kanye West’s mouth, he said of New Orleans, “They don’t care about them as much.” People were supposed to be incensed. They had been denied help that others had received strictly because of their race.

So where’s the scandal? On May 24th of 2007, nine days prior to giving that speech, Barack Obama was present in the senate as they voted 80-14 to waive the Stafford Act requirements for New Orleans. The senate keeps records of who is there and how they vote. Barack Obama was there and he voted. He was one of the 14 who voted AGAINST relieving New Orleans of the Stafford Act reqirements. Now THAT’s chutzpah!

Deer In The Headlights

Pretty Sneaky

"This is supposed to make you believe that in this tape from before he was president, Barack Obama is revealing his secret plan to be way more black than he seems to you now. This is how he snuck into the White House, right? People didn't know he was this black and if they would have known he was this black, they never would have elected. That's the idea here, right?" - Rachel Maddow

This is a great quote that perfectly explains the complex relationship between barack Obama and his supporters. It was made by, left wing looney Rachel Maddow, as she was attacking a video tape showing Obama channeling Al Sharpton at a convention of black preachers. It's quite an astounding tape. I had never heard Obama speak with that kind of accent, which can only be described as African-American preaching. It's very reminiscent of Hillary's "Ya'll-know-what-I'm-talkin'-about" speech also given to a black audience. Oddly enough, Obama looks just about as out of place as Hillary did during that speech. In short, he looks like a white man trying to play a black man. It's surreal.

I'm still trying to determine how this differs from somebody wearing black face and performing a minstral show.

But don't you just love Rachel. Somebody please explain her quote for me. Those nasty Republicans are pointing out that our President is in fact, black. Actually it's worse than that. They are accusing him of hiding his blackness for the purpose of fooling America, but they won't let him get away with that. Those right wingers have come up with a slanderous video tape that says clearly and right out loud, that Barack Obama is in fact BLACK. And this is just the sort of cheap, underhanded gimmick that they love to pull. Before you know it, everybody in America will be under the inpression that BHO is black, and you will never be able to squelch that rumor. Twenty years form now, people will be recalling where they were on Otctober 3rd, 2012, the day they learned our President was black.

What's The Matter With Them?

When people express exasperation at their inability to understand the behavior and motives of others, it is usually because they have failed to expend any effort to do so, or their thinking has lead them to a place they do not wish to go.


If you are looking at the actions of others, and are convinced that the actions they are taking are detrimental to their own best interests, then you've most likely got it completely wrong. Throwing up your hands and claiming to just give up is a cop out to say the least. That's really just an excuse to avoid any complicating and inconvenient conclusions.

Can't Win

So, after months of Democrats whining and cat calls for Mitt Romney to release more tax returns he did. But talk about damned if you do or damned if you don't, here was something that the Financial Times printed. I don't think they were being critical per se, but you know the Dems will repeat it. Malt writes a blog and manages Romney's finances.

The Republican’s 2011 tax return showed that the candidate – and his wife, Ann – paid $1.9m in taxes on $13.7m in income, derived mostly from investments. That put their effective tax rate at 14.1 per cent, according to a blog post by Brad Malt, the trustee who manages Mr Romney’s wealth.

The Romneys donated $4m to charity last year, nearly 30 per cent of their income but claimed a tax deduction for only $2.25m of this, pushing the candidate’s effective tax rate higher.

“The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year,” Mr Malt wrote.

Under questioning about his taxes this year, Mr Romney had said he would not be qualified to be president if he paid more taxes than were required.

“I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due, I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president,” he told ABC News in July.

Mr Romney pays a relatively low rate because most of his income comes in the form of dividends and capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate then ordinary income.

A Message to Raj

I have these somewhat ambivalent feelings about Pakistanis rioting, burning and looting their cities and killing their fellow citizens. The government of Pakistan, our staunch "ally" in the war on terror, gave the country a holiday in order to protest a bad film that nobody would have ever seen had it not been pointed out to them. And they used the opportunity to kill over a dozen people in widespread rioting. Of course the duplicitous Pakistanis were predictably trying to stick their finger into America's eye for the sake of domestic politics, but I don't think they wanted this. So as they reek havoc on themselves and their cities, it's hard to have much sympathy. Talk about don't get it, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the Pakistani Prime Minister, called on the international community Friday to pass laws to prevent people from insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

He said: “If denying the Holocaust is a crime, then is it not fair and legitimate for a Muslim to demand that denigrating and demeaning Islam’s holiest personality is no less than a crime?”

Ok, Raj let me just start by saying that we don't believe in international laws governing speech. And you are also mistaken that it is against the law to deny the holocaust here in the United States. Deny the holocaust all you want here. Knock yourself out.You see, our experience has been that letting somebody say their idiotic ideas and theories out loud is the best way to show them to be idiotic and discredited. But I do respect the right of other cultures to choose murder and mayhem instead.



  

Encouraging Polls

Yes, there are polls out there right now in which both candidates can find encouragement, but I saw one today that has given me great hope about voters. As a conservative virtually surrounded by liberals, I often get frustrated with the rampant liberal bias of the press. It's been so obvious to me for decades that I have just assumed that I must be in the minority. After all conservatives aren't even a majority. I've just had little faith that voters in general see it like I do. But a Rasmussen Report poll showed that 51% expect reporters to help Obama, while only 9% expect them to help Romney. 59% believe they have treated Obama better so far while only 18% believe they have helped Romney.

It is still not good that 23% don't see anything one way or the other, but 59% means even a large number of liberals can see and admit to it.

Foreign Policy Experts

Could somebody please explain to me how the Obama administration can adopt such inane, and counterproductive positions in foreign policy, yet present themselves as experts in the field? Obama makes the head scratching decision to announce a withdrawal date from Afghanistan. We don't withdraw mind you, we just tell the enemy the date on which we will withdraw. We also inform them that our strategy will be to stay around long enough to train and indoctrinate locals to take our place and defeat the Taliban. Now the locals look at this and must think, "Hmmm, let's see, the Americans are bugging out next year, and the Taliban has said they will take revenge on any Afghan who aids them in the meantime. Since I have no means or location in which to relocate, I just can't decide who deserves my loyalty. This is a real stumper."

Their Convention

The Democrat National Convention in a nutshell: We're good people, the Republicans are not. We're for poor people, they are for rich people. That's because they are all rich, most of them born that way, all selfishly wanting to stay that way, and none of them the least bit appreciative of all the good things that their government benevolently builds for them, such as roads, bridges and schools, with money that government just had sitting around. Republicans do not seem to comprehend all the good things that government could do, if only we’d let them, using money from somewhere. They are mean, and while we never called them racists, bigots, or homophobic out loud, we're pretty sure you got that message too. Obama is a really good guy, a wonderful husband and likely the most perfect father ever. He is actually very warm and caring, and totally unlike the cool, aloof persona he projects. He had an underprivileged upbringing and was raised by his single mom.

Except he wasn't; he was raised by his grandparents and attended only the best schools. He attended Punahou School in Hawaii, an elite college prep school. From there, he went to Occidental College, then Columbia and Harvard. We’re not exactly sure how he gained entrance to Columbia or Harvard because despite their prominent place on his resume, he has sealed all records from both institutions. Al Gore and G.W. Bush both released there college transcripts even though they were both C students. But you cannot see what classes BHO took, what grades he got, or more significantly, how he got in and paid for it. The irony here is that I’d bet anybody $10,000 that if a person received preferential treatment, or extraordinary, undue credit because of their status and race, it was Barack Obama and not the rich, white Mitt Romney. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the thing he is really hiding here is that he received financial aid as a foreign student. I’m not promoting any birther conspiracies, but it is certainly believable that the then Barry Settoro was simply gaming the system to get his school paid for, just believing this little detail would get lost in the weeds and never imagining that it would add fuel to the born-elsewhere theories.

Race, Again

It's clear that there will be no let up in the charges of racism being constantly hurled by Barack Obama's surrogates. I do admit that it gets to me. It really pisses me off to be accused of racism. If it's to simply deflect criticism, it's infuriating.

But here's the deal. Supposedly all these racist Republican politicians use code words and dog whistle politics to remind racist voters that Barack Obama is in fact black. This has obviously escaped their attention for the past four years so some constant reminders are in order lest they forget again between now and election day. That's probably the only reason they voted for him four years ago. John McCain refused use words like "angry," "Chicago" and "golf." But now, a Romney aide points out that Obama seems to be running an angry campaign, and sure enough, everybody in the room has this look on their face that said, "Oh my god, he IS black, why didn't I notice?"

Health Insurance

My favorite serious columnist is Dr. Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute. He has a knack for explaining complex concepts in plain, easily understood terms. Today he wrote another jewel that explains that what we call health insurance is not functioning as insurance should, and why that is. As is usually the case, politicians are to blame, but we've been going along with them every step of the way.

First, you have to understand what insurance is supposed to be. It is the sharing of risk, and in a free market it can be quite efficient in keeping every body's costs down. But politicians can't seem to stand free markets. They just always seem to think it needs a little help to make it "better." Almost without exception, "better" turns out to just be more expensive. In the endless struggle to think well of themselves, they will mandate coverage of things that will surely cause them to be thought well of and premiums to be more expensive. But that's just one aspect of making themselves experts on things about which they know nothing. The most insidious and corrupting thing they did was to make the purchase of health insurance for you, tax deductable to your employer. Not only does this add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy between you and your health care, it immediately inserts your employer into the process of deciding what coverage you need. I know of very few employees, other than those in charge of employee benefits, who actually have any input into what their health insurance covers or costs. At best, the employee gets to choose between two or three types of plans that the employer chooses to offer. But again, it's the employer who is deciding.

And running your health insurance through your employer is the only reason that the term pre-existing condition even exists. If everybody purchased their health insurance directly, changing jobs would not mean changing insurers, which is almost the only time the issue comes up. And the really stupid part is that in almost every case, the employer would rather be paying that money directly to the employee and letting them decide what insurance to buy or not buy, AND the employee would rather have it that way too! They could choose to go out and buy a policy that say, doesn't cover check ups, doesn't cover office visits, doesn't cover inoculations, vaccines or drug co-pays. Maybe it has a deductable like an auto policy, it never starts paying on any malady until you go over $500. A policy written like that would be dirt cheap and something a lot of people would buy.

Now your typical liberal is reading these words (as if typical liberals read this blog) and saying, "No drugs, check-ups or preventative care? What kind of insurance is that? It only covers the really big stuff!"

And they'd have a point, it would actually make it insurance rather than pre-paid health care, which is what they have now. The typical person's idea of perfect health insurance is one where they never, and I mean never, pay a single dime for health care of any kind. And that's a lot of what they like about the idea of living in England or Canada too.


http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/08/28/risky_business

The Penalty of Leadership

One of the things I do as a result of my trivia habit is that I regularly visit web sites like “This Day in History,” which as you can guess is all about the things that have taken place on that date throughout history. A lot of times they will mine that site for potential questions for that night’s games.

So today I read a story about a fascinating man named Henry Leland. You may not recognize his name, but you know the companies he started. He was a businessman/engineer who was hired by Henry Ford Motor Co. to salvage what he could. Henry Ford had grown tired of investors telling him what to do, so he walked away to start Ford Motor Co. on his own. His investors at Henry Ford Motor Co. hired Leland to liquidate the factory. Instead, he convinced them to let him build cars there, and founded Cadillac on this day (August 22nd) in 1902. He was a demanding boss and insisted that his cars could not be just good enough, they had to excel. His cars were a huge success, such that the company was sold to GM, where he clashed with a board who did not share his vision of excellence. During this time he built the first water cooled V-8 engine, the one that powers most vehicles to this day.
He left GM when oddly enough they refused to help aid the US war effort in WWI (???). So he took over an aircraft engine plant right as the war was ending and turned to making luxury cars again, this time they were called Lincolns after his favorite president. Later an economic downturn forced him to sell out to Henry Ford. But here’s the interesting part.
During the internal debate at GM about whether or not to build his V-8 engine, Leland took out a full page ad in a January 1915 Saturday Evening Post called The Penalty of Leadership. It can stand as a manifesto for anybody who refuses to settle for good enough. But all I could think of reading it was that this is likely how Mitt Romney feels about his time at Bain Capital. This was written by a man who had scaled the summit and knew what it took to get there.


The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man's work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone -- if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountback, long after the big would had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy -- but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions -- envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains -- the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live -- lives.

Update

You may recall that I wrote about the social friend that kept trying to bait me into a political debate. Her technique was that she would make a statement about some issue or bring up a TV show plot that was about some political issue. But she always began by talking to my wife, while stealing glances at me to make sure I was listening. That was my cue to be distracted. I would suddenly see something "over there," and look away.

But she finally hit one of my hot buttons, and I couldn't help myself.

She began by talking about gun control in general. Now, she knows I support Concealed Carry laws, but really, gun control is not a hot button issue by itself, for me. I am not even a gun owner. But what does get me going is when liberals talk gun control. And what gets me most is the way they are so completely and utterly dishonest in their arguments.

They have an army of straw men. They want to argue about gun shows. They want to argue about background checks. They want to argue about fully automatic weapons. They want to argue about magazine size. They want to argue about "assault weapons" even though they have a hard time precisely defining what one is. They want to argue about the Castle Doctrine. But mostly they want to have their mantra accepted as a truism. Their mantra is "less guns are better."

So she starts in bemoaning how the Colorado shooter had amassed 6,000 rounds of ammunition by shopping over the Internet, and didn't undergo a background check!

"You just shouldn't be able to get that much ammunition at once without sending up a red flag!"

"If shooting is your hobby and you fire off a hundred rounds a day, that's only a two months supply."

"But he bought full body armor! That should have tipped somebody off."

"Did he buy all that at the same place?"

"N0."

"Do you really want somebody checking out your purchases to see if they "raise any flags?"

At this point she hadn't pushed my button yet. But then she brought up Trayvon Martin and concealed carry and Bo Morrison and the Castle Doctrine. That did it.

"I will remind you that Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrison were two black teenagers killed a half a country apart. Meanwhile in Barrack Obama's hometown of Chicago they had 100 dead black teenagers this year by June, and they were all killed by illegal guns, and nobody claimed the Castle Doctrine as a defense. But for some strange reason we never hear about that. And I'll point something else out too, Chicago has the most restrictive hand gun ownership laws in the country. Illinois is the only state that doesn't allow concealed carry."

"Well, those people need to keep there laws off my uterus!"

I kid you not.

My New Program

A few months back, somebody asked me if I was still riding my bike. They were referring to my recumbent trike that I had bought two years earlier. I had to admit I wasn't and it made me feel just guilty enough to change that. I started riding again within days and have kept at it every day since.

But there is one discouraging epiphany that happens when you look at yourself in the mirror, vow to loose 25 pounds and then proceed to do so.

That occurs when you realize that you greatly overestimated how differently you would look, because you should have been thinking more along the lines of 50 pounds. On the other hand, loosing another 25 pounds doesn't look that tough since I just did that. But I think it must get harder, really.

Looking Ahead

Here is how the presidential race is shaping up.

The President passed one of the most unpopular bills in history with Obamacare and did so without any bipartisan support. He is saddled with one of the worst economies in years with unemployment stubbornly over 8% and nobody on whom he can conveniently blame it. George W. Bush has been gone for three and a half years and people aren't buying that anymore. Obama's approval rating has been stuck well below 50% and they can't move the needle no matter how much they spend on TV commercials. Of course the TV commercials aren't designed to increase the President's positives they are designed to up Romney's negatives. What are Romney's negatives you ask? That would be being very, very wealthy and not releasing every tax return he has ever filed. And in case you don't know it, although that would be hard to believe, he has an elevator for his multiple cars, including those of his wife who has a "couple of Cadillacs," and he once put his dog in a kennel on the roof of his car. This particularly outraged the PETA crowd as well as all the rednecks who haul their dogs in the back of their pick up trucks. They thought using the kennel made him look like a wuss. All pretty damaging stuff.

Seriously. That's the best they can come up with.

The Decision

I've had enough time and read enough analysis now that I think I can safely say this is exactly the kind of shit I can't stand. I'm talking about the written opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts on the constitutionality of the so called, Affordable Care Act.

This is exactly the kind of flawed logic that comes about when your task is to arrive at a predetermined end and the challenge becomes developing a path from point A to point B. This is exactly what I have condemned in the past as judicial activism. There was cleverness, there was nuance. He did manage to reign in the Commerce Clause by specifically stating that was not the legal basis. In fact he said that would have been unconstitutional. But then declared that if we call it a tax, it IS constitutional. The only problem there is that the actual language in the law says it's not a tax and is in fact compelling individuals into the market. See, I have a problem when in order to arrive at the "right" result, we have to redefine words so that they mean something other than what you thought they meant. That makes it very difficult when you try and apply that precedent to future cases.

Overheard Debate

Today I overheard an interesting discussion between a conservative and a liberal. It really seems to capture the give and take that is dominating today's heated political debates. it went something like this:

Conservative: "The other day, Obama said I didn't build my business. The gall of that guy! Who the hell does he think built it? It sure as hell wasn't him. First, he blames businesses for our economic woes and then threatens to raises our taxes. He cooks up a big health care plan that we will have to pay for one way or another and criticizes us for not hiring in the face of that massive tax hike. And it IS a tax, the Supreme Court confirmed that. The only way he could get his health care "reform" was to have it deemed a tax, and now he's got to live with that. Obama thinks he can win as long as he just keeps reminding everybody just how rich Romney is. You know, the number of houses he owns, an elevator for his cars. Who cares? That doesn't make him a bad guy! He helped a hell of a lot of businesses when he was at Bain Capital, that should be a source of pride, not derision."

Liberal: "Conservatives are bigots."

The Bane of Bain

Last week and all throughout the weekend, one could not escape the all out assault by Barrack Obama on Mitt Romney and the time he spent as the head of Bain Capital. There were millions of dollars worth of TV commercials along with an army of surrogates on every talk show possible. Romney hadn't just outsourced jobs, he might have done something illegal! He Might be a FELON.

But it wasn't those things that told me if this was a big deal or just another failed plan from the Dems trying to take out Romney completely. No, what made me realize this was a non issue with no legs were all the Obama cheerleaders in the main stream media telling me how important this really was. I think I've seen no lees than 5 articles titled something along the lines of: "Bain, Why It Matters so Much." When the press decides that you aren't quite getting it, or aren't taking it seriously and they need to explain it better, then you can rest assured that you understood it perfectly the first time. Move along, nothing to see here.

Is It Socialism?

Every time I make the statement that Obamacare is socialized medicine, I get a load from the liberals with comments like, "Oh, I suppose you're opposed to firefighters and cops too. What about the roads you drive on, who do you think built those?"

It's as if they think that since we have government do anything, we must have it do everything. The question they seem to have already addressed (to their own satisfaction, apparently) is whether or not health care is appropriately on the list of jobs that we want government to handle. I don't think is is or should be, but I'm amazed at how many others think it should be. And furthermore, they assume everybody else wants it too (or should, if they weren't a bunch of stupid hicks who act against their own best interests.) Then they'll mock you for calling it socialism. They'll explain that THIS isn't socialism. No, single payer would have been what they wanted, but that was too hard to get, so they settled for Obamacare even though it's not ideal, but it certainly isn't "socialism."

I usually like to ask them at that point if they understand who the "single payer" is. Surprisingly many of them DO know that it's the government, but for some reason fail to equate that with government run health care. They seem to believe that government's role in all this is just just providing some coordination. They aren't really running things. Trust me, if they are writing the checks, they are in control.

The NAALCP

The National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People held their convention this week and in an election year, it's always closely watched. People want to know who went and who didn't, what they said and what they didn't say. It seems to me that over the past few Presidential election cycles, the focus has been on the Republican candidate, mainly with an eye on whether or not he would attend. This situation is by no means particular to the NAALCP. It's sort of a kabuki dance. A gathering of a particular group with very identifiable tendencies to vote one way, will extend an invitation to both candidates, presumeably to demonstrate their even handedness, objectivity and of course, an open mind. Now nobody on the planet believes they are actually objective or posses an open mind, least of all themselves. But they love to toss the ball to their despised opponent just to see what he'll do with it. Of course the best response from their point of view would be for the opponent to decline the invite. Then they get to shrug their shoulders and lament. "Well, we tried. It's a shame he felt he had nothing to say to us, we really would have liked to hear his ideas for our community, but it looks like he just doesn't care about people like us." So most politicians seem to have concluded that it's better to go and suffer the slings and arrows than it is to run away. So Romney went and spoke and was roundly criticized by the conventioneers.

I have heard quite the collection of quotes criticizing Romney. He was termed "disrespectful." They said he had no business coming there and talking about jobs to black people. The accusation was that he had talked about things like entrepreneurship and upper middle class jobs that were simply beyond the grasp of African-Americans. He stayed consistent and said he would repeal Obamacare, and got booed. I'm sure that didn't surprise him, but the left then accused him of wanting to get those boos so that the film clip could be shown to "certain racist precincts." A black Washington Post writer said the speech was "hollow." I left a comment on his column. I wasn't able to hear the Romney speech I said, so I asked him if he thought the speech that Romney gave was even more hollow that the one Obama didn't. Oh, I forgot to mention that Obama didn't attend this year's convention. He was of course roundly criticized for snubbing the oldest civil rights organization in the country, and it was suggested this might actually cost him the black vote. (Haha, I bet you got all the way to the end of that sentence before you laughed.)

Emergency Relief

We've all heard it a thousand times already. A young, healthy working person, with enough income to be able to afford health insurance, chooses not to do so. These are the people who are supposedly ruining our health care system because they are young, foolish and think they are bullet proof. Then, the story goes, they come up with an unexpected health crisis and promptly head to the emergency room where they will be treated regardless of their lack of insurance. They then skip out on the bill, leaving the cost to be swallowed by the hospital and eventually all the rest of us who have insurance and see that our bills get paid. "We're paying for it already!" is the hue and cry. And the solution is get that young person to begin substituting preventative health care for those trips to the emergency room. As a liberal blogger once admonished me, ".. what costs more? A birth or birth control? a mammogram or chemo and radiation? a blood pressure test or a heart attack?"

Well there's certainly no doubt those first options are definitely cheaper than the second ones, the problem however is that they are seldom available to trade off so perfectly. But beyond the difficulty of trading off these alternatives, exactly how much of this stiffing of the emergency room is going on? I heard David Axelrod claim to day that those young slackers who don't buy insurance are the problem. But how much can this happen? Their claim is that billions and billions will be saved. Wait, I thought these were the healthy ones!

I want to see some numbers. I don't believe it.

Just Being Social

My liberal friend sits down next to me and I ask him what he thinks about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Obamacare. At first, he launches into his amateur lawyer act and begins dissecting John Roberts' opinion. I cut him off and restate that I just want to know what he thinks about it being upheld, not the reasoning why. I know he's a big liberal who supported Hillary 4 years ago, but I want to know if he likes the basic idea of socialized medicine. Of course you can't really say "socialized medicine" when you talk about it because liberals will then accuse you using that term in order to scare people. They much prefer their own euphemisms like "universal health care" or "single payer." Liberals are good at identifying terms that usually draw a poor reaction, and then changing them to a much nicer sounding word. (Examples? abortion - freedom of choice, illegal alien - undocumented worker, racial preferences - diversity, giving free stuff away - providing access.)

"It's great" he says. "My wife's a nurse and she says that they need to wrestle control of health care away from the doctors." Apparently she is of the opinion that doctors are at the heart of why an adequate amount of care is not being delivered. She is convinced they are the problem, but I don't see how Obamacare helps that aspect. So I pose the question in a more basic way. "Do you think that socialized medicine will be a good thing?"

"What are you talking about? We're not headed for socialized medicine, that's not happening here."

"It's not? I know it's not happening tomorrow, but you've got to see that's where it's headed don't you? All the incentives are designed to make businesses drop private health insurance as a benefit for workers, and force them into the public option. And the funny thing about monetary incentives is they usually work. Businesses are not going to quibble over morality when there is money on the table. First, providing health insurance for their employees is not their obligation, legally or morally. It has evolved that way out of a desire to compensate employees in a creative way. But they are under no obligation to continue doing so, and with all that money as motivation, they will have no problem doing as the government wishes. But the basic point is that once they put all the private insurers out of business, government will be in complete control of all medical payments and therefore in complete control of all health care. They will be deciding who gets what treatment, and who doesn't. The same people who run the Post Office, the IRS and the EPA will be running health care entirely. Doesn't that concern you?"

"Naw, that's not what's happening. We aren't headed for socialized medicine,"

Prices & Costs

Due to the pathetic state of affairs concerning the average persons' lack of economic acumen, politicians have long been able to demagogue many issues. But the greatest con they've been able to perpetrate is the one where they purposely confuse prices with costs. This is rather easily accomplished because most people haven't got a clue as to what the differences are. To them, the price they pay for something is the cost. But when accountants and economists use the term cost, they are talking about all the costs, not just what an individual pays out of their pocket.

The confusion is exploited by politicians who like to tell people that they will provide something to the voter at a lower price than he pays now. He says he'll lower the cost, but he's really just lowering the price.

When the average guy talks about the cost of health care, he's referring to what he pays, the price. He might be talking about what he pays for care, or he might be talking about the price he pays for health insurance. But the cost of health care contains things like $100,000 tuition for medical school for the doctor, or the estimated $800 million it takes in research and development cost to bring a single new drug to market. There ARE ways to lower some of those costs. For instance much of that $800 million bringing a drug to market has to do with FDA regulations that some consider restrictive. There's an argument that you might increase the possibility of approving a drug that's harmful if you ease those regulations, but it's debatable and it would hold the potential to actually lower costs. Subsidizing health insurance for private citizens does not lower costs, it lowers the price. And prices are what we use to cover costs. So what happens when the price is not enough to cover the cost? That's where the laws of supply and demand take over.

Let's say a guy borrows $100,000 goes to medical school and becomes a doctor just as the government takes over health care. He's got a lot of debt and is hoping to pay it off in 5 years. But all the doctors work for the government now and the starting pay isn't what it used to be. The prices are not covering the cost. That will lead to a reduction in supply. That can happen two ways, quantity or quality. If less and less people see doctoring as a lucrative career, you'll get a reduction in quantity. If the very best and brightest no longer see a medical career as desirable, you'll get a drop off in quality. Britain's health care system has been run by the government for decades now. They haven't been able to train their own doctors for some time and the majority now come from other countries where the training might not be up to the same level as in Great Britain. As you can imagine, such changes are very gradual and hard to measure. But the ones who really suffer the consequences, are those receiving substandard care without being aware of it.

I Thought This Race Was Over?

So, one of my liberal friends says to me, “Isn’t it funny that when people are asked about Obamacare, they almost all oppose it. But when you ask them about the individual provisions contained in the bill, they overwhelmingly approve. Why do you think that is?” This is accompanied by a smirk that says, “I just can’t imagine” with heavy sarcasm.

A liberal woman I know says to me, “Can you believe Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, wagging her finger at a black man like that?”

Just some examples of the ever present racism charge that seems to follow our president and his supporters. It’s always just off to the left, waiting for an opportunity to nudge its way into the conversation. I am starting to imagine it as a person who follows BHO supporters around. He’s in the background so you might not notice him right away. He looks harmless enough, even shy. In my imagination, he is Jon Lovitz. You get the feeling that he really doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t want to talk to anybody either. He just stands there looking at the floor and pretending to not be listening. But listening he is. As you stand in a small circle conversing, somebody brings up the name “Obama” in a less than flattering tone.

Suddenly, he is in the circle. He’s not saying anything yet. He’s just making little attention getting noises, like clearing his throat, or grunting Tourette’s-like. Nobody stops talking, but they are watching him out of the corner of their eyes. Then one of them crosses the line. He says something downright critical of the president or his policies. In a soft, barely perceptible voice he mutters, “Oh, I didn’t know you hated black people.” Whatever happens next, I promise you, it is not a discussion of the president or the policy that was criticized. Mission accomplished.

I sometimes wonder if Democrats planned this all along. Is this why BHO came out of nowhere (well, Iowa is pretty close to nowhere) and upset the Hillary juggernaut? Did Dems know back then that they could stop opponents cold with one word? Well if they didn't know it then, they sure do now. Who are the people who oppose Obamacare? Racists. Who are those "tea party types?" Racists. Who is citing the Attorney General for comtempt of congress? Racists, of course. Four years ago I wrote that a lot of people who had voted for BHO were going to be disappointed. I thought the main source of this disappointment would be with those who voted for BHO in order to prove they weren't racist. But I didn't consider the disappointment from those of us who didn't vote for him. I didn't vote for him, but I did think that once he was elected, the racism charges would subside, not swell. I really think the man has made race relations worse. In fact, everytime race is the subject (think Louis Gates or Trayvon Martin,) he absolutely steps in it.

Pre Existing Conditions

I hate the cliche, but when it comes to health insurance and how Democrats veiw it, there is a real "disconnect."

Lately, there has been a lot of emphasis on the aspect of Obamacare that would prohibit insurance companies from charging higher rates, or denying coverage to an applicant who has a pre-existing medical condition. Of course this has been the practice for years, and according to my concept of insurance, a perfectly reasonable and sane business practice. If insurance companies allowed you to get covered after you get sick, then nobody would ever buy insurance until they were sick. Now everybody understands that would not work for insurance companies economically. They would only get premiums from people who were simultaneously making much larger claims than the amount they are paying in. They would have a permanent and fixed, negative cash flow.

Again, everybody understands how this works and why it must be this way, even liberals! But in their never ending quest to feel better about themselves and what they are doing for (to) the world, liberals cannot see how this plays out. Well allow me to point them in the general direction.

Liberals think that the mandate is what allows them to dictate the rules. If everybody has to buy insurance, they reason, then nobody can wait until they are sick before getting coverage. So now they think they've gotten around all the consequences, right? But when insurance companies got to exclude coverage based on a pre-exuisting condition, then they also got to dodge paying for that illness going forward. Now they can't. So how's that going to work? Well let's see, where do insurance companies get their money? Premiums, of course, but you've just made it illegal to charge the sick guy more, what are you going to do? Oh, I see, just charge eveybody more, what could be simpler?

Little White Lies

I'm wondering how it would have gone for George W. Bush had a bunch of friendly reporter types revealed that he had embellished some facts and made others up out of whole cloth, in writing his autobiography.

You may not have heard, but respected author David Mariness, has written a book about Barrack Obama and revealed just such liberties with the truth. There are no dead bodies or juicy scandals to see, just little white lies that were designed to boost BHO's image. I mean these are REALLY little ones, about the most inconsequential details. But that is what makes them so telling. One example is a story where BHO says he was racially ostracized along with another black student. Only the student in question was half Japanese, not black, and neither of them were harassed racially. And he told of a "big fight" he had with a white girlfriend over racial attitudes, after she had seen a play with racial themes. Except that she never saw the play and they never had the fight. Then there was the high school basketball coach who didn't start Obama because he, Obama, played "black." Ok, this one made me laugh. Have you ever seen BHO on the basketball court? If there was only one word to describe his game, that word would be "white." He's not the worst player I've ever seen, but he'll never be confused with Jason Williams (aka, White Chocolate, and a guy who really does play "black.)

But notice the pattern. He's just trying to certify his street cred with the homeys that he never hung out with. All the lies are about how he had an authentic "black" experience growing up in a white world. After all, he had to explain how he got into Columbia and Harvard, and it just won't do to suggest that it was because of how white he acted and spoke.

But back to my first thought. How would the press have treated it had we learned that George W. Bush had fabricated a story about how he had done something admirable? Say he claimed to have saved the life of a drowning fellow Boy Scout, but then we learn that he was never in the Boy Scouts. I have a feeling it would be deemed the final arbiter on the issue of the content of his character, don't you?

Breaking News

This just in. Filmmaker Spike Lee has announced that should President Barack Obama not win a second term this year, it just might not be entirely due to racism.

It has only recently ocurred to Lee that people may have other reasons to vote against Mr. Obama other than his well established lead in melanin. "People are hurting," the film director pointed out. "They don't have jobs and I don't care what color you are, when you can't find a job, that's a problem." Mr. Lee said that other than the unemployed though, all those opposing the first African-American president are surely racists.

Hoover Damned

Recently, a lot of liberal bloggers and pundits have been reviewing lists composed by various historians and "experts" of the best and worst presidents in United States history. They are all truly nonsense. Some will try and add an air of scholarship to it by measuring something nonpartisan like "leadership" or "effectiveness in implementing their agenda." But that's just a smoke screen. The score is what matters and every measure is of something that is completely subjective to the writer. You might find one you like, but if you dig, you'll likely just find that it was composed by someone with whom you happen to agree politically.

But there are some constants even between lists made on the right and the left. One is that Richard Nixon will rank near the bottom and another is that FDR and Ronald Reagan will rank near the top. But the guy who always gets the short end of the stick is Herbert Hoover. The All In The Family theme song had a line that went, "Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again." Of course the line was sung by the redneck bigot Archie Bunker while also praising his old LaSalle, just in case you didn't realize how out of touch he was. A while back I was having a political debate by email, and sent the guy a link to a column by Thomas Sowell, a man I consider to be nothing less than brilliant. The liberal responded by ignoring the content of the column and just pointed out that Sowell was employed at the Hoover Institute. "You remember Hoover don't you?" It was as if that was response enough. Apparently being at the helm of the ship of state when the stock market crashed is unforgivable and negates anything else you might have done.

Ok, Hoover did  make some missteps in trying to jump start the economy. The biggest one was that he tried to jump start the economy. He thought government intervention would be a good thing, but he wasn't able to turn things around in time to save his job. Government spending did not stimulate much of anything through 1931 and '32 and by then he was out of office. I guess it wouldn't bother me so much that Hoover gets the blame for putting us into a prolonged depression, if it weren't for the fact that FDR seems to get all the credit for lifting us out of it. The fact is that FDR came in and tried the exact same failed strategy as Hoover. Moreover, he stubbornly stuck with those interventionist policies for his entire presidency, 13 years. During that span, he managed to drive unemployment up to twice what it had been under Hoover. And he kept it in double digits for a decade, until World War Two bailed us out. Amazingly, he kept getting re-elected as he made things worse and worse. I have to believe that had Hoover been re-elected to three more terms that he would have, at some point, realized that it wasn't working and changed course. Not FDR. He kept at it until he died and yet somehow came away smelling like a rose. Hoover is banished to the dust bin of history for implementing bad economic remedies for a two year period and not getting results. FDR implements the same policies for 13 years, makes things far worse, and ends up on top of the historians all-time greatest list.

The Real Black Holocaust

Convicted rapist Mike Tyson has now weighed in on the Trayvon Martin case, and he thinks it’s a disgrace that George Zimmerman has not yet been shot. Two weeks ago Spike Lee tweeted what he thought was George Zimmerman’s address (it wasn’t) thereby unleashing a wave of terror on the elderly couple who lived there. Apparently after a few days, Mr. Lee apologized to the couple he victimized, but hasn’t regretted the gist of his action. Of course Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have expressed their outrage publically, with Jackson declaring that “blacks are under attack.” The black liberal columnists like Leonard Pitts and Eugene Robinson have written columns on it saying that this is just so typical of the black experience in America. Certainly everybody can be outraged at the death of an unarmed, black youth. And the Reverend Jackson is correct to say that blacks are under attack. But they have all picked the wrong case to rally around.

Here is the scenario that has their collective undies in a bundle. A “white Hispanic” (a term developed just for this story) was a neighborhood watch captain out looking to play hero. He had a concealed carry permit for the 9mm handgun he was packing. He ignored advice from the 911 operator to not follow Trayvon. A confrontation occurred and Trayvon wound up dead.

There are two obvious factors that have vaulted this case on to the front page. First, is that Mr. Zimmerman is white. Except that he isn’t. Like our president, he had one white parent, but his mother was Hispanic. (But for some reason we never refer to Mr. Obama as a “white-black” or a “white-African American.”) The second thing that stands out is that Zimmerman had a permit to legally carry a gun. This makes the case particularly attractive to liberals who have been predicting Wild West shootouts for years. When you’ve waited as long as they have for this to happen, you just can’t resist jumping on it with both feet, and so they have. But all of these people refuse to talk about the elephant in the room. This case is far and away, the exception rather than the rule.

Jesse is right when he says that blacks are under attack. But Jesse didn’t mention where that attack is coming from even though he knows very well. In the city that is home to both Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama, Chicago, there have been over 100 murders by gun this year alone. Over 70 of those murder victims were black males. Over a dozen were teenagers, with one as young as 14. If prevailing statistics bear out on these crimes, around 90% of the shooters will also turn out to be black. Blacks are definitely under attack, but from other blacks, not white Hispanics. And this ongoing black holocaust is not being perpetrated with legally carried guns either. The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case is an outlier. It is a statistical aberration. But that didn’t stop a NY Times columnist from declaring that the problem was these legally carried weapons. In her column she linked to an anti-handgun web site that documented all the gun deaths where the shooter had a permit. The list was an attention getting 400 people including 13 police officers. And that does seem to be a significant number of victims. Until you realize that it’s over a five year period and covers the entire United States. If they keep the pace up, Chicago will surpass that number this year alone, and they are a single city representing less than 1% of our nation’s population. And there are a number of cities that can challenge Chicago on the matter of young dead black men: New Orleans, Philadelphia, LA, Washington DC, Houston and New York. I don’t have all the numbers to calculate it, but does anybody doubt that the ratio of black men killed by black men carrying illegal weapons, to the number of black men killed by white men with legal weapons is over 50 to 1? More likely it’s over 100 to 1. Where is the outrage? Why aren’t Jackson and Sharpton railing against the real killers of black youth? Because there is nothing for them down that road.

The New Center

We have a political situation that seems very familiar. Today noted liberal columnist, Leonard Pitts, declared that Ronald Reagan couldn't get the Republican nomination. This is hardly an original thought. In fact it appears to be a standard talking point amongst the Democrats these days. Obama himself said the exact same thing a few days ago and other liberal pundits have been pushing it for weeks.

This is all very reminiscent of 2008. You may recall that famous moderate Republican, Colin Powell, told us that year, that the Republicans needed to nominate a more moderate, centrist candidate like John McCain. He had run slightly to the left of G.W. Bush in 2004, or at least that's where everybody had him on the political spectrum. G.W. Bush wasn't really that far right to begin with. He had gone out of his way to compromise with Democrats and never so much as threatened a veto, always giving in on spending. But people still veiwed McCain as more moderate. And as always seems to happen in an election year, the messages were mixed. The left declared that McCain was just "Bush's 3rd Term." While moderates like Powell said that McCain was the moderate we needed to nominate.

And just about the time that McCain actually secured the nomination that Powell thought he deserved, Powell came out and endorsed Obama for President.

So for 4 years Republicans waited and told themselves they would not make the same mistake. By the time the Iowa caucuses came around, the positioning of Republican candidates had experienced a siesmic shift. The guy in 2004 that had been considered the conservative, Mitt Romney, was suddenly viewed as the moderate and everybody else was to his right. Romney has spent almost the entire time trying to convince voters that he REALLY is conservative, while the others took turns as THE conservative candidate. But Romney has prevailed, and he will most certainly be our nominee. So natually, it's time to "rehabilitate" Mr. Romney and portray him as a radical right-winger. I can't wait to hear who Colin Powell is endorsing.

Obviously, I'm The Problem

Asked about Mr. Obama's astounding belief that the Supreme Court overturning laws is "unprecedented," press secretary Jay Carney explains that we idiot bumpkins out here in flyover country just may not be up to the task of understanding the words coming from that enormous brain that is our President/Teacher.

"...the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand." said Mr. Carney.

Does this mean that one must attend law school in order to understand this president, or is he saying that law professors are simply not understandable? Or could it possibly be that our president said something that makes no sense, and is untrue, making the statement itself incomprehensible? I guess that makes two people I don't understand.

Here is the exact quote with which WE seem to be having a problem:

"I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

I'm absolutely serious when I say that the only truthful words in that sentence is that this congress was democratically elected. It is neither unprecedented nor is it extraordinary for the court to overturn a law, in fact, that is their job. This law was passed pretty much along party lines by the slimmest of margins, not a strong majority. And by the way, are there some other laws that aren't passed by congress? But the biggest lie is where he says that he's confident the court will NOT overturn. If he actually believed that, he wouldn't have made this remark in the first place.

Judicial Activism

The term "judicial activism" has been thrown around for the past 20 years or so. I'm not a lawyer, and I'm certainly not a constitutional scholar nor a former teacher of constitutional law like our President is. Never set foot in a law school in fact. But I do understand plain English, and I thought I knew what the Supreme Court's job is.

So during the current debate about how the SC is going to vote on Obamacare, we've heard all sorts of reasons why they shouldn't strike this law down:

1.) This is a major piece of legislation and it would be wrong to strike down such a significant law by a thin 5-4 decision.

2.) Ruling this law unconstitutional would be "unprecedented" since it was enacted by a "democratically elected" congress.

3.) Overturning laws, is itself, judicial activism.

4.) Overturning this law will create chaos and deny health care coverage to millions.

Liberal pundits and Presidents have all used one of these or some similar argument.

Excuse me, but ruling on the constitutionality of a law IS WHAT THEY DO! A friend of Cheif Justice Oliver Wendal Holmes once told him as they were parting and Holmes was headed back to work, that he needed to "Do justice!" Holmes replied, "That's not my job. My job is to apply the law."

The Supreme Court does not pick winners and losers. They are not supposed to assess the desirability of any law, just the constitutionality. Overturning laws is what they do. Was it judicial activism when they struck down separate but equal?

No, judicial activism is when a justice stands logic on it's head in order to arrive at the "right" conclusion. Here is a perfect example, and one that we've lived with for some 70 years now. In the 1930's when FDR was pushing the New Deal, he had some rather strange ideas about what was ailing the economy. One of those bizarre theories was that prices were too low. So he instituted minimum prices for everything. A farmer in a particular state was raising wheat (I think) and using it strictly for his own and his farm's use. He was not selling it across state lines. And that was significant because without interstate commerce being involved, the Supreme Court had no standing to even weigh in on the case. But they really, really wanted to support FDR, so they came up with the following logic: Even though the farmer was not engaging in interstate commerce, his mere production of the wheat would have an effect on the prices that were being charged in interstate commerce, so they let themselves in that side door and ruled on the case. THAT is judicial activism.

Keeping It In Perspective

So our former mayor has been blogging since he was removed from office, and it's more aggravating than ever. When he was mayor you only had to hear him when he had something official to deal with. Now we get to have him weigh in on whatever strikes his fancy. And what has stricken him recently is the Trayvon Miller slaying in Florida, along with the one in Slinger, Wisconsin. There are some similarities. Both victims were young, unarmed, African American men. They were both killed by gunshots from men who claimed self defense. So Citizen Dave has determined that it's the gun that is at fault, and wants to repeal the Concealed Carry law that only passed in Wisconsin last fall. His logic is that if the gun was not there, nobody gets killed. True. But this happy result does not extend to every situation. There was a case in Oklahoma earlier this year when a woman living alone with her infant, had her house attacked by two men trying to gain entrance. When the first one came through the door they broke down, she shot and killed him. For some reason the other guy left. So if there is no gun? Hmmm maybe it's not such a happy ending.

Then I see a column by a New York Times writer where she links to a list of 400 people who have been killed by people who held CC permits. This is supposed to get us outraged. She is playing off the fact that in the Florida shooting, the shooter had a CC permit. She of course portrays him as a cop wannabe who shouldn't have had a gun to begin with. And Citizen Dave offers up a bit of Catch-22 logic, saying that if you think you need a concealed weapon, then that just proves you are unfit to be armed. (You may recall from the book, that in order to be grounded as a pilot, you had to request so on the grounds that you were crazy. But if you asked to be grounded, that just proved you weren't crazy at all, because only crazy people would keep going up there flying missions.) Both of these clowns come to the conclusion that these particular guns need to be off the streets and these laws repealed.

The 400 people killed by permit holders is over a 5 year period, across the entire United States. I sent her this link http://homicides.redeyechicago.com/ which tracks the murders just in Chicago. They've already passed 100 for the year and that was before April. 90 of the victims were black. More than a dozen were under the age of 20, with one of them 14. They had six shot dead in one day. Chicago is bad, but are they unique? Hardly. A young black kid in Florida died when he jumped from two stories up to elude some mall cops who were chasing him. At his funeral a fight broke out with multiple guns and 14 people were shot, with two dead. Of course we don't know for sure, but who would like to bet me as to whether or not anybody had a permit?

For every one case where a permit holder is the shooter, there are a thousand where he is not. But nobody wants to take those guns away. All the effort is to take the guns away from permit holders only. And the truth is, that's a law that would actually be "effective," in that it would be followed, because these are people who respect the law.

It Keeps Not Happening

For many years now, the states of the United States have been enacting concealed carry laws that enable their citizens to arm themselves with handguns for self defense. Wisconsin became the 49th state to do it, leaving only Illinois without a concealed carry law of some kind. Opponents of these laws have been predicting chaos for years. And during that same time they have also ignored the explosion of gun violence in that city to our south, Chicago. There were 49 shootings in Chicago last WEEKEND. Wow, just imagine how bad it would be if they allowed concealed carry! That's a joke of course, since the number of shootings would be more likely to go down, not up, if they had concealed carry. You'd think that after predicting chaos so many times and continuing to be wrong, they would take a different tack. But I guess when you've got such a good story, it's hard to let it go. You wait, and wait and hope for some clown with a permit to lose it and do something stupid that proves you were right. But darn it, it just keeps not happening. They thought they had one a few years back. It seemed to be the epitome of an impulsive act, the kind we were told would happen daily if everybody started packing heat. A permit holder in Minnesota shot a guy at the drive up window at McDonald's. It looked perfect. A guy gets into an argument with a fast food worker and then pulls out his too handy pistol to impulsively shoot the offender. But the problem is it turned out that he didn't have his gun with him. So he went home got it, and then came back to shoot the guy. But this week they got the story they wanted.

A young black man walked from his father's house to the convenience store. On the way back he is confronted by a member of the neighborhood watch, who is armed. The police tell the watch captain that he should not pursue the man, but he does anyway. By the time police arrive the young black man is dead and the gunman is claiming self defense. My proof that the mainstream media has been waiting for this story is in the complete saturation coverage it has received. The victims family has been on the Today show every morning this week. Countless columns have been written connecting this story to gun control, because this is what kept not happening. This was, FINALLY, the story of a good gun gone bad.

You see, in the debate about concealed carry, advocates make the argument that the "bad" guns are already out there. They are in the hands of criminals who don't give a damn about what the laws say. They are going to carry guns whenever and wherever they want. They are the "bad" guns, and they are a given. Enter, the "good" guns. These are the guns that are now being carried by "good" people. For the longest time, gun opponents would have you believe THESE are the guns you need to fear. Their mantra was more guns equals less safety. They would concede that the bad guns were out there, but they saw all guns as equally bad, and reasoned that more guns just meant more trouble. And so they waited for that thing that kept not happening, a good gun gone bad. And there's not much doubt that is what did happen in Florida.

But it's the massive coverage that tells you something is up. In my opinion, there was a far more compelling story earlier this year. A single mom in rural Oklahoma who had recently been widowed, heard two men breaking into the house where she and her infant lived. When the first one broke through the door. she calmly shot him dead. The other one wisely decided to leave, and was arrested later. If you were a journalist, which story would you rather write about? Unless you have an agenda, it's pretty clear which one is more of a feel good story. But for some reason, the Oklahoma widow never made it on to the Today show. In fact, you likely never heard about it. See, that was a good gun, done good and doesn't help at all.

Desperately Seeking Bob

I have a friend that I see once or twice a week in purely social settings, and this person has suddenly developed an intense desire to start a political discussion. As you know, I seldom shy away from such a fight, but I frankly do not see any one good thing coming from it. I've picked up on this person's politics before, but that's not what keeps me from taking the bait that they've thrown out there each of my last few encounters. I detected this person's relative position on the political matrix ( and BTW, it is a matrix and not an axis) but I've also gotten a feel for the depth of their political acumen, and it's mostly from a level of Rachel Maddow talking points. And that means very particular subjects from a very particular angle. Let's just say that keeping Iran from going nuclear would not be on the list, nor would the best way to stimulate the economy and create jobs. No. it would all be about the social positions of particular conservatives, and the quotes from them that I would be asked to defend or condemn.

They seem to be quite desperate to engage me in particular, and I'm kinda having fun with it in that I am frustrating them at each turn. At the risk of sounding conceited, I'm guessing that they just don't know any other smart conservatives to engage. It seems that I am their Holy Grail and they are convinced that they can take me down, as long as they can pick the subject. I'm sure I have not seen the last ham handed attempt to pick a fight. But you know how I said in my last post that I do have friends that I can argue with, and remain civil? I don't think this debate would fall into that category. So I think I'll just enjoy keeping my mouth shut and seeing how far they will push it.

Avoiding The Argument

Usually, I'm up for a good argument, particularly when it's about politics. The saying in the household where I grew up was that if we were walking along and saw two guys going going at it in the middle of the street, we'd stop and ask, "Is this a private fight, or can anybody join in?" At a very young age, I didn't understand what the dropping of a hat had to do with anything, but my mother constantly assured me that I would be glad to argue about it.

I enjoyed the give and take, but let's be honest about it, I really liked what everybody likes: winning. I never took forensics in high school or college, but I learned how to state my case. Over the years, I think I learned to both stay on point, and detect when my opponent was not. I learned to not get personal, and have found a few friends that I can still engage in a political debate, and not alienate them. I firmly believe that a good argument is the only way a mind gets changed. That doesn't happen when I say "X," you say "Y" and then I conclude, "Oh, you're right, now I see that it IS 'Y'." No, for me, it happens when I start to make my point about "X" and suddenly realize that the words coming out of my own mouth are bullshit. When you aren't buying your own arguments, it's time to reassess. My mind is the one that ends up changed, not my opponent's. At least, that's how it works for me.

But sometimes a debate goes on long enough that just about every angle and argument has been explored. Here in Wisconsin I believe voter ID is just such an issue. But both sides have failed to recognize the BS coming out of their respective mouths. Now we have a law that infuriates the left, and will likely be tied up in legal challenges for some time to come, which infuriates the right. When this matter first came up, I was, predictably, on the side of conservatives. The left would say that it was a fact that very little actual voter fraud took place, that this law wasn't needed. They would cite studies and statistics on charges of voter fraud. I argued back and said that their studies only proved that voter fraud was incredibly hard to detect. Their studies only covered the people who were caught. And voter fraud was one of those crimes that did not make itself evident. They had no idea how much fraud had actually taken place. They just knew how many were caught. They claimed it was a burden to voters. And I would respond that you needed an ID to rent a lousy video. Surely we could ask for this tiny bit of proof on something as important as the integrity of the voting booth, couldn't we? "You're disenfranchising voters" they cried. "And you're enabling voter fraud among the convicted felons and illegal aliens," I'd respond.

But then it occurred to me that they had a point, all be it, a small one. I asked myself if an indigent, homeless person should have an unimpeded right to vote. The answer was, yes, they do. And I further had to admit that having to secure a certified birth certificate was an obstacle, however small. So I had a thought about a way to ensure integrity without putting up obstacles.

You set up a digital video camera at each polling station.

As it is, a person has to step up to the table and state their name and address so the poll worker can look you up. All that would be different is that now, you just add the caveat that you are in fact a legal voter, and you do it in front of the camera. Plus you add that the penalty for making a false statement under those circumstances, is a year in jail and a $10,000 fine. Rather than create another obstacle, this would make it easier to vote. You wouldn't even need to produce a utility bill.

I started to circulate the idea to see what objections there would be, and that's when I had my "aha" moment. At first, a few people said that the problem was you'd have to have somebody view all that video. I'd politely explain that they were missing the point. This was not a system that would verify, it was system that deterred, in spades. Like the endless hours of surveillance video that a store records, you'd only view the tape if you thought there was an issue. But the big point was that not even the most wild eyed, Walker-hating union worker would step in front of that camera and provide iron clad proof that they just committed a crime that could land them in jail for a year and cost them $10,000. All for the sake of casting a singular, fraudulent vote for Kathleen Falk? I think not. And liberals couldn't say anybody was denied their rights. Don't speak English? Say it in Spanish. You're deaf? You can sign it in ASL.

I gave the idea to both sides, but the only positive response I had at all was from my liberal state rep. He wrote me back and said he liked it and would be looking into it. At that time, the ID law had not yet been passed. It's been crickets ever since. It made me think that maybe Republicans actually were looking to suppress votes, and maybe Democrats actually were looking to benefit from felons and other illegal voters. I don't want this to sound like it's all about me and my idea. I'm not miffed because nobody listened to me. I'm miffed that we are still having the same arguments and it was all so avoidable. Republicans need to admit that their law will prevent people from voting. It doesn't matter how few, and it doesn't matter if they think the obstacle is really small. Poll taxes and literacy tests sounded pretty reasonable in their day too. There should be NO obstacles, not just small ones. And Democrats need to admit that catching so few after the act does not translate into "not happening at all." If you had the cameras in place, they couldn't argue about any of this. And that makes me wonder if that's why they won't do it. They both seem to prefer their arguments to a solution.

Whose Ox Is Being Gored

While I am most definitely a Green Bay Packers fan now, it wasn't always so. Actually, when the famous "Ice Bowl" was played decades ago, I was on the other side of the famous goal line stand, cheering for Bob Lily and Jethro Pugh to stuff Jerry Kramer and Bart Starr (to no avail.) I grew up in Texas as a Cowboy fan. And in Texas there are only two sports: Football and Spring Football.

It didn't happen over night. I moved to Wisconsin in 1978 and remained a die hard Cowboy fan even through the Danny White years and the over-hyped 44-0 ass whuppin' at the hands of the '86 Chicago Bears. I bet football games back then, and would bet on the Boys when I thought they'd cover, but I'd never bet against them. But gradually, two things started to test my team loyalty. First, I was living in Wisconsin and this was before satellite TV could bring you all the NFL games. I was getting a steady diet of Packer games, and almost never caught my Cowboys on TV, it seemed (although I'm sure everybody else was asking why they were "always" on.) I even had to drive to Rockford for that Bears game. Then a personal friend started playing for the Packers and they became a "co-favorite team." Then Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys, unceremoniously fired Tom Landry, and brought in the likes of Michael Irvin and Deon Sanders. Their attitudes and antics just didn't fit with my image of them being the good guys who always wore white. Staubach, Dorsett, Lily, Drew Hill and Chuck Howley were gone. Jerry Jones had made me a Packer fan. I'm always proud to point out that was before anybody even knew who Brett Favre was. But don't get me wrong. Irvin, Sanders and Emmit Smith are all deserving Hall of Famers. Deon Sanders is perhaps the best athlete in my lifetime. It was the antics and showboating that turned me off.

Now, most of people may not remember the origins of the Excessive Celebration rule in the NFL, but I do. It was squarely aimed at "The Fun Bunch." They were a group of Washington Redskins who ran into the end zone and had a choreographed dance routine they would perform after every Redskin touchdown. There were six or eight of them, who formed a circle and did their elaborate dance. Some weren't even playing at the time, and would come off the bench to dance. It was infuriating. So much so, that when they did it at Texas Stadium once, a Cowboy defensive back (who had just been burned for the TD) charged into the circle, blasting and shoving them to prevent the dance. A large brawl ensued, and the NFL instituted the Excessive Celebration rule.

Still, touchdown celebrations continued to evolve from a simple spike to things like The Ickey Shuffle. Everybody, including me, seemed to accept it more and more. But none other than Vince Lombardi, used to tell the rookies, "When you get into the end zone, act like you've been there before." That's what two of the greatest to ever play the game did. Walter Payton and Barry Sanders never did anything other than hand the ball to a referee, or congratulate a teammate. These days, that seems quaint. Which brings me to the "Discount Double Check." I watched last week's Packer game with other dedicated Packer Fans and we all anticipated and enjoyed the new versions of State Farm Insurance's popular commercials featuring Aaron Rodgers and his Championship Belt "dance." The commercials, with BJ Raji and Clay Matthews are very clever and all in good fun. But during the actual game, (which was a debacle for the Pack,)an interesting thing happened. A New York Giant put Mr. Rogers on his butt with a timely sack, and then did Roger's own Championship Belt move in his face. Ouch. My friend Shirley, as avid a fan as there is, cried foul. "He can't do that!!" Oh, but he can, and he just did. I admit, it pissed me off too. But then I realized it was just whose ox was being gored, mine. After all, the move is a look-at-me-aren't-I-great dance, not like the Lambeau Leap, which is more a celebration of and for the fans.

I heard that State Farm had a Greg Jennings spot already shot, and planned for broadcast at the Super Bowl if the Packers had gone that far. And I hate to be the one to throw cold water on the Packers. But maybe Aaron Rogers should take the Giants loss as a lesson in humility and start doing something really cool and classy, like handing the ball to the referee.

Tacky, tacky, tacky

Tonight, ABC plans to air an interveiw with Newt Gingrich's 2nd (out of 3) wife. Apparently, she says that as their marriage was disintegrating, that Newt suggested an open marriage where he could have a mistress, and he knew just the person for the job, his now 3rd wife, Calista.

On the Mitt Romney front, while he's trying to defend his effectice tax rate of 15%, it comes out (also from ABC,) that he has millions stashed in The Cayman Islands, a well known tax evaders haven. They can't say (yet) that he was actually cheating, and Romney claims that he wasn't. But there is no doubt that the location of these funds, part of Bain Capital, is due to Caymans's status as a tax dodge, at least for those Bain investors who do wish to cheat. So at best, he is subordinating tax evasion for others.

Just a couple of observations: Along with Herman Cain's bimbo eruptions, I have to ask, did any of these guys consider this stuff before they threw their hats into the ring? Newt's Ex is pissed, and seemingly of a mind to say, "If I can't be first lady, then neither can Calista." Did Newt have any idea how she felt? How could he not know she was that bent out of shape? Did Herman Cain think none of them were going to say anything? Did Mitt Romney ever consider that he would be forced to reveal his tax returns? Because I don't think he can avoid it now, not after they play a clip of him demanding that Ted Kennedy release his returns when Mitt ran for Kennedy's senate seat.

The other thing is, are there going to be any Republicans standing at the convention other than Rick Santorum and Ron Paul? Will one of the "darlings" like Chris Christie, or Paul Ryan be convinced to step up, and step over the dead bodies littering the path to the White House?