Some Wisdom on the Federal Budget

Until we stop scoring federal programs on how much money we spend on them, and begin keeping score on how well they accomplish what they were set up to do, we'll never shrink the size of government.
      — Rich Galen, Mullings

When Words Don't Mean What They Say

An article published on page 3 of the Business Outlook section of the Albuquerque Journal last week sheds light on the current state of the law and the legal profession. The article, written by Joel Jacobsen and headlined Court puts quirky spin on burglary statute, discussed two recent decisions by the New Mexico Supreme Court. But it seems the disease these decisions exemplify is spread much more broadly than just this state.

At issue was whether entering a business for a criminal purpose in a manner that was not authorized, by deception or in violation of an express prohibition, is "unauthorized" as part of the definition of burglary (a felony) as opposed to shoplifting (a misdemeanor). As Jacobsen wrote,

'Unauthorized' doesn't always mean what it seems to say when would-be thieves enter a commercial enterprise with crime in mind. . . . Because entry into Costco without a valid membership doesn't implicate such highly wrought feelings, therefor it's not unauthorized. Even though it's not authorized. . . . Again, as a matter of statutory construction, the court held that the entry into the store wasn't "unauthorized," even though it was prohibited.

What can make sense out of that sort of self-contradictory verbiage? How can English words be made to say things that are so completely at odds with their normal meanings? The answer to these questions is what is called "statutory construction".

Professor Daniel A. Farber [apparently now at the School of Law of the University of California at Berkeley] once explained how statutory construction works. If a person at the table asks you to pass the salt, obviously he or she wants you to pass a common flavor enhancing condiment.

But it would be unreasonable to assume the person is asking to be given a substance that raises blood pressure and shortens lifespan. Therefore, he or she means for you to pass the pepper.

Why is this important? Jacobsen explains at the end of his article.

In constitutional theory, as expressed in Article III of the New Mexico Constitution, courts have no power to rewrite statutes. But, in judicial theory, interpreting a simple word like "unauthorized" to refer to a complex of emotions that "we" supposedly feel doesn't count as rewriting. And that's why New Mexico now has two burglary statutes, one found in the statute books that covers all businesses equally and one existing only in the opinions of judges that carves out an exception for retail stores. Here's your pepper.

In other words, while judges are not allowed to write or rewrite laws, they do it anyway by changing the meanings of words. As I suggested above, that's not something that's limited to the judges in this state. It seems to be a communicable disease — a communicable mental disease. But a remaining question is whether it is communicated judge to judge (or senior judge to senior judge), or whether that occurs in their initial law school training.

Never Felt Safer

I got this from a friend. I'm not sure it's really a joke.

Never felt safer in my life!

I took down my Rebel flag (which you can't buy on ebay any more) tossed the "Don't Tread on Me" flag and peeled the NRA sticker off the front door. I gave the pit bull to my mother in law and stored my A K. 47.

I disconnected my home alarm system and quit the candy-ass Neighborhood Watch.

I bought two Pakistani flags and put them in my front yard.

I purchased the black flag of ISIS (which you CAN buy on ebay) and ran it up the flag pole

Now, the local police, sheriff, FBI, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, Secret Service and other agencies are all watching my house 24/7. I've NEVER felt safer and I'm saving $69.95 a month that ADT used to charge me.

Plus, I bought burkas for my family. when we shop or travel everyone moves out of the way and security can't pat us down.

Safe at last — Is America getting greater every day or what?

A Dose of Reality About Socialism

We have been hearing A LOT about Socialism — and praise of Socialism — in the current political campaign. A lot has been from Hillary Clinton, and a lot more from Bernie Sanders, and their supporters. A significant amount of the discussion has been lecturing by our Moral Betters of the Younger Generation, who mostly support Sanders.

This has produced a response on Facebook from former chess champion and current freedom activist Garry Kasparov, which has been repeated by Thomas Lifson:

I'm enjoying the irony of American Sanders supporters lecturing me, a former Soviet citizen, on the glories of Socialism and what it really means! Socialism sounds great in speech soundbites and on Facebook, but please keep it there. In practice, it corrodes not only the economy but the human spirit itself, and the ambition and achievement that made modern capitalism possible and brought billions of people out of poverty. Talking about Socialism is a huge luxury, a luxury that was paid for by the successes of capitalism. Income inequality is a huge problem, absolutely. But the idea that the solution is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd.

Lifson goes on to note that

Socialism rewards laggards and penalizes strivers, so naturally you get more of the former and fewer of the latter. It isn’t terribly complicated.

Young people, full of energy, idealistic, and inexperienced in human nature, are seduced by the vision of an egalitarian paradise with less suffering. What they don’t see is the decline in wealth, and the focus on gaming the system and winning political approval (instead of actually producing wealth) that inevitably produce decline and corruption.

How has this happened to so many of our young people? I think, as Lifson suggests, that it's because

The virtually complete takeover of public and higher education by the left has resulted in a vast cohort of the American public completely ignorant of the failure of socialism everywhere it has been applied. Thus we have public opjnion polls indicating that younger voters are not averse to socialism and younger Democrats supporting Sanders.

To me, the most important truism in all of this is one short line:"Talking about Socialism is a huge luxury, a luxury that was paid for by the successes of capitalism." That's a line from Kasparov's original Facebook post, speaking from experience.

Socialism kills, in all its forms from Democratic Socialism to Fascism and Communism. It's just that some forms of Socialism kill more quickly and efficiently than others.

A Lesson on Motivation — and Irony

This makes sense to the bureaucrats. It's part of the reason the voters are so angry this year, explaining the success of both Trump and Sanders. And for that, see this.

EPA Screws Up Again

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has celebrated the two-month anniversary of its amazingly incompetent Gold King Mine spill by causing another toxic spill at the Standard Mine above Crested Butte.

Though smaller than the Gold King Mine spill, it still "raises questions about EPA procedures" according to US Representative Scott Tipton. But I would say that was done long before the earlier spill. What this spill has done is demonstrate — again — that EPA's procedures and its oversight of its contractors are fatally flawed. Completely negligent.

And that's not even counting the fact that, once again, they failed to notify relevant authorities (such as the Crested Butte mayor) until two days later. They also hid that information from the public, failing to disclose it in response to press inquiries about this specific mine. And that despite the fact that they had fouled the Crested Butte water supply with toxic heavy metal contamination.

EPA and its responsible contractor(s) should be shut down until the spills they have caused have been completely cleaned up and the cleanups have been verified by competent state authorities. And they should all be heavily fined. After all, why should the EPA and its subordinates be treated different from anyone else? Why should they be treated differently from the way they treat everyone else?

Government Negligence And Bulls**t

I wrote earlier about the government's incredible negligence and gross incompetence in causing a massive toxic waste spill into a tributary of the Animas River in Colorado and New Mexico. That spill also fouled the San Juan River, into which the Animas flows, along its path through New Mexico and Utah. Specifically, it was the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, which this incident indicates is horribly misnamed) that demonstrated this extreme negligence and incompetence in their "clean-up" of a long-closed Colorado mine. That negligence included ignoring a warning from the closed mine's current owner, and threatening him with jail if he didn't stay completely away from the EPA's operations around the mine. It culminated in the toxic waste spill on August 5th, which was not reported — at least not to either New Mexico or the Navajo Nation — in anything like an appropriate time.

Still, there are things I don't understand — some in the way the story hass been reported and some in the story itself. Here are a couple of those things.

One thing is come of the reportage on the spill itself. It was reported on August 8th as a spill of more than a million gallons. By the next day it was reported as actually having been a spill of three million gallons — and that is how it has been reported ever since. But there's a problem with that. It was reported in early August, and is still being reported now, water is still flowing from the mine at 550 gallons per minute, 33,000 gallons per hour, 792,000 gallons per day, more than an additional 3 million gallons every four days. That means an additional 36.4 million gallons that have flowed from that mine from August 10th through today. Are the reporters trying to claim — without having the guts to say so — that all of the toxic waste was in the initial three million gallons and none in the more than thirty-six million gallons since? I'm not sure that makes any sense.

A second thing is related. The news stories keep referring to the pollution of the Animas River and (sometimes) the San Juan River through the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. But, in Utah, the San Juan flows into the Colorado River. The Colorado then flows into and across northern Arizona before becoming the boundary between that state and the states of Nevada and California. The San Juan is a tributary to the Colorado, so the water from the former flows into the latter — bringing with it whatever it's carrying. But it seems the reporters are trying to claim — without having the guts to say so — that all of the toxic waste was magically removed from the San Juan's water before it flowed into the Colorado River. I'm not sure that makes any sense.

Something I don't understand in the story itself is this: The EPA-caused spill is bad enough. So why would the EPA, with the connivance of other government agencies, want to make it worse by providing false and misleading information about it? But that is apparently what has been done, both in the information made available to the public and in their testimony to Congress. Yes, they have "taken responsibility" and yes, EPA has provided assistance to some of the affected people downstream. But significant chunks of the information EPA has provided has apparently been intended to minimize the seriousness of the EPA's screw-up rather than to provide accurate information on the problem they caused.

What's even worse, one of the major groups affected by the EPA negligence is being further damaged by the government (non-)response. The Animas and San Juan rivers provide a huge part of the water for the Navajo Nation — both drinking water and irrigation water for the Navajo farmers across the eastern part of the sprawling Navajo Reservation. EPA provided a series of emergency water tanks for drinking water shortly after the spill in recognition of this fact. But on the fourth of September, after the Navajo Nation requested additional assistance, EPA announced instead that it would be removing those emergency water tanks — tanks that are critical for the Navajos right now. Meanwhile, FEMA also rejected the Navajos' requests for assistance in recovering from the effects of the mine spill.

And neither President Obama nor his agency cronies appear to give a damn. All this has got to be hard for the believers in this Administration and its EPA. Even as they're waiting for another serving of their favorite Kool Aid.

My recommendation, only slightly modified from before, is that the EPA and its responsible contractor(s) should be shut down until the spill has been completely cleaned up and the cleanup has been verified by competent state authorities. And they should all be heavily fined. After all, why should the EPA and its subordinates be treated different from anyone else? Why should they be treated differently from the way they treat everyone else?

I noted in the prior article that "the EPA (like other government agencies) believes there's one set of rules for them and another set for everyone else." It's well past time for that to be stopped.

Government Negligence Causes Major Damage

The Albuquerque Journal headline reads Wastewater from Colorado mine reaches New Mexico. (See this story, too.) The Associated Press story is about a large — more than a million gallons — toxic waste spill into the Animas River in Colorado. That's automatically a big story here because the Animas River flows into New Mexico's San Juan River. The San Juan is part of the Colorado River watershed, joining the Colorado River while in Utah. Before that, the Animas River passes by Silverton and through Durango, significant tourist attractions in southwest Colorado. It is a major part of the drinking water supply for these towns, and others, as well as rural areas.

The toxic waste in the spill came from a long-closed gold mine. It contains lots of heavy metals. That means the cleanup will be a huge problem, which will probably require digging all the sand & dirt & rocks from the riverbed and taking it all to a toxic waste dump. Those cleanup costs and the government fines will put the company whose negligence caused that spill out of business. Bankrupt.

Oh. Wait. . . . It wasn't a company that was negligent. It was the EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency. The federal government. Or, as an online story headlined it, EPA, Saviors Of The Environment, Spill 1 Million Gallons Of Waste Water Into Animas River, Turns It Bright Orange…. EPA was "using heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine on Wednesday morning" when their machinery took out a plug from a waste pond and released the waste. More than a million gallons of it. In fact, the spill is now estimated at over three million gallons and, as of today, is still increasing at something like 550 gallons per minute.

The Gold King Mine has apparently been closed since 1923. Was this the first time EPA was getting around to dealing with this site?

This reminds me of something I learned about in southern California twenty years ago. Before each rocket engine test on Edwards Air Force Base, airmen would have to search all likely flame areas for desert tortoises. Any that were found would have to be collected before the test, and put back in their exact same locations afterward. In all the years rocket engine tests were being done, no tortoise was killed by a test. The only tortoise that died due to human interaction was (in effect) killed by a government inspector. There, as here, it was the goverenment inspectors — our "protectors" — who caused the damage, not those they were supposed to be protecting us from. No, the government inspector wasn't punished. But any one of the airmen, and his agency, would have been.

And so we have this and much greater examples of government negligence showing up. That's why my reaction to the Animas spill is this:

Colorado and New Mexico should heavily fine EPA for this spill and the negligence that led to it. New Mexico should also heavily fine EPA for failing to notify the state about the spill.

More broadly, EPA should be shut down until the spill has been completely cleaned up and the cleanup has been verified by competent state authorities.

New Mexico assessed a big fine against the Department of Energy because of the WIPP accident. The EPA should be next, for this one.

UPDATE: EPA continues to downplay the seriousness of their spill, telling the public there is no health hazard from the waste they spilled while delivering bottled water — all of this while their spill continues at 550 gallons per minute, 33,000 gallons per hour, 792,000 gallons per day. They are behaving in the cavalier ho-hum manner they charge and severely punish in others. Guess the EPA (like other government agencies) believes there's one set of rules for them and another set for everyone else.

The responsible EPA folks, including those well up the management chain from those running the heavy equipment, should face possible jail time. Independent of that, the EPA must be fined, and fined heavily — and not allowed any additional funds to pay the fines with. Again, why should EPA be treated different from anyone else?

End of the Year Chuckles

Lately I have been struck by the humor in things I have run across. I have collected a few of them here. Some of these have a sharp edge to them, and some (especially the last ones) are just funny.

First up: Retirement benefits, anyone? Who has earned theirs?

Russian President Vladimir Putin's government may have fallen on hard financial times, but he still feels like he can issue a warning to his neighboring state.

This cartoon brilliantly captures political correctness run amok.

I like things that are punny, too. Especially if the pun is terrible, like this one.

And then, for end-of-the-year laugh-out-loud funny, it's hard to beat this description.

Unbelievable!

I've seen various acerbic statements from Maxine. Usually very sharp, and frequently right on the mark. This one, however, is outstanding — even for her!

 

But for sheer jaw-dropping unbelievability, it will be really, really hard to top this!

This Is Scary!

This starts out as a fairly complex story. But it ends up with some very scary simplicity.

There are a lot of conflicting claims in the run-up to the current situation. The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) claims Cliven Bundy was grazing his cattle illegally on 600,000 acres of federal land. And the BLM claims it has banned grazing on that land to protect habitat for a species of desert tortoise the government says is endangered. But Bundy says the land is his and has belonged to the Bundy family for generations. His family has been running cattle there since the 1870's, long before the BLM even existed.

This sounds a lot like the MacDonalds in New Mexico. Their ranch land was borrowed in World War II — the Trinity Test was managed from the MacDonalds' ranch house, and took place on the MacDonald ranch. The land was subsequently taken by the federal government (it's now part of the White Sands Missile Range). Neither MacDonald nor his family has ever been compensated for the federal government taking their land.

So what has the BLM done? After claiming the land for the federal government, they first restricted the number of cattle Bundy would be allowed to graze on that land, and then banned his use altogether. Bundy ignored the BLM's edicts.

So now the BLM has changed tactics. They have banned Bundy from even setting foot on any of that land. They have sent 200 or so agents (rustlers?) to collect his cattle from their land. They arrested one of Bundy's sons for shooting film of the landscape — and, incidentally, the cattle roundup. They used a taser on another son — multiple times. They assaulted one of Bundy's daughters, knocking her to the ground.

But none of that is in the scary part. Flagrant government overreach, yes. Deliberate stupidity, yes. But not really scary. What's scary is the specific reason why Dave Bundy was arrested. According to the news story,

On Sunday, the Logandale, Nev.-based Moapa Valley Progress reported that Dave Bundy, son of rancher Cliven Bundy, was arrested while taking photographs of his family’s cattle that are being rounded up by federal agents. According to the report, Bundy was violating an arbitrary "First Amendment" zone that had been established by federal agents. Worse yet, federal agents also deployed snipers against the man.

“He was doing nothing but standing there and filming the landscape,” Ryan Bundy said of his brother Dave. “We were on the state highway, not even off of the right-of-way. Even if they want to call [the area that we were filming] federal land; which it’s not; we weren’t even on it. We were on the road.”

None of the family members on the road were armed, but 11 BLM vehicles each with two agents arrived and surrounded him as he began filming the cattle, Paul Joseph Watson said at Infowars.

“They also had four snipers on the hill above us all trained on us. We were doing nothing besides filming the area,” Ryan added.

Bundy also said federal agents told them they had no First Amendment rights except in the areas so marked.

"The BLM has established two fenced areas near the City of Mesquite, that they have designated as free speech areas for members of the public to express their opinions," the Progress said.

So the federal government, represented by the Bureau of Land Management, has arrogated to itself the authority to determine where and how US citizens can exercise their constitutional rights, or even whether citizens have any rights. Let me restate: The federal government says it can determine when, where, and if you have any of your inalienable constitutional rights. That's scary!

My reaction to that is like Mark Steyn's, and that of someone who posted a sign on the "First Amendment Area" fence: The First Amendment is not an area. And as Donald Sensing noted: You probably thought that the entire United States was a "First Amendment Zone." At least that's what the Constitution says.

And then there's the BLM's statement about the younger Bundy's arrest:

“An individual is in custody in order to protect public safety and maintain the peace,” BLM officials said in an email. “The individual has rights and therefore details about the arrest will not be disclosed until and unless charges are filed.”

That statement qualifies for a "Say what?!?!?" moment.

And then there's this additional information:

Making matters worse, Bundy says the family has nowhere to go for assistance.

“We don’t have any policing representation,” he said. “Our local police will not respond. The County Sheriff will not respond. NHP will not respond.”

Bundy's father, Cliven, had reportedly called for help, but was told to get off the phone or face arrest, the Progress added.

That's pretty scary, too.

Oh. Did you notice? The BLM had snipers drawing down on unarmed peaceful citizens. Aside from the impropriety of that action, just by itself, there's this:

As I wrote only last week, if someone wants to stroll in to Fort Hood and shoot as many people as he's minded to, the fellows on the receiving end have to call 911 and wait for the county sheriff to send a couple of deputies - because "the only government department without a military force at its disposal is the military". But the Bureau of Land Management has snipers.

That, too, is scary.

What makes the whole situation even more surreal is the stated reason for the land withdrawal, cattle roundup, arrest, assault, etc. It's supposedly to protect habitat for an endangered species of desert tortoise. But, because of budget cuts, the federal government itself has killed hundreds of the tortoises. In other words, the federal government is much more of a danger to the endangered tortoises than Cliven Bundy could ever be, even if he tried.

That sounds a lot like something I ran into in the 1990s at the Rocket Lab on Edwards Air Force Base. There was a habitat for a species of endangered desert tortoise just below the rocket engine test stands. The California state animal protection and conservation department insisted that the area below the test stands be carefully walked before a test, and all tortoises removed, to be replaced in their exact locations and orientations after the test. The irony was that the Air Force was never responsible for the death of even a single tortoise, but the state personnel were responsible for a number of tortoise deaths on Edwards AFB.

All that is a good part of the reason that "Many believe that [the endangered tortoise's habitat] is merely a smokescreen to take control of the land." (Side question: Is it really the federal government, or is it Harry Reid? He certainly seems dishonest enough.) Why the suspicion? As the article notes,

The government doesn’t have the money to run the center to save the tortoise, but they can spend at last report at least a million dollars to move against Cliven Bundy to supposedly protect the tortoise, while they are actually killing them.

Can you see why I think this story is so scary? Rights restricted and denied. Citizens threatened. And that's without even considering whether or not Cliven Bundy is right in saying the federal government stole his land.

UPDATE: Suspicion confirmed. As reported by InfoWars:

The Bureau of Land Management, whose director was Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) former senior adviser, has purged documents from its web site stating that the agency wants Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's cattle off of the land his family has worked for over 140 years in order to make way for solar panel power stations.

Deleted from BLM.gov but reposted for posterity by the Free Republic, the BLM document entitled "Cattle Trespass Impacts" directly states that Bundy's cattle "impacts" solar development, more specifically the construction of "utility-scale solar power generation facilities" on "public lands."

"Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle," the document states.

Another BLM report entitled "Regional Mitigation Strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone" (BLM Technical Note 444) reveals that Bundy's land in question is within the "Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone and surrounding area" which is part of a broad U.S. Department of Energy program for "Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States" on land "managed" by BLM.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE: It was tense for a while, as this shows

but this standoff is over — for now — and Bundy's cattle that were being held near Mesquite, NV (and that BLM said it was going to sell) have been released back to Bundy by BLM.

Religion In Your Life? Or Only In Your Church?

It's getting harder to find justice in the civil courts of this state and country. But sometimes something reasonable and appropriate does happen. Here's a case in point:

The Court of Appeals in Washington, DC appears to be taking the view that the law (in this case, Obamacare) actually means what it says. In the case at the bar, the statute says that Obamacare subsidies are only available for health insurance plans purchased through the state healthcare exchanges, and not for plans purchased through the healthcare.gov exchange run by the federal government. The subsidies were extended to the federal exchange by IRS fiat, contrary to the law, thus provoking the lawsuit. Now it appears the Court of Appeals will side with the law and the plaintiffs. That's sure to give the White House heart attacks, so it's sure to be appealed to the US Supreme Court — perhaps arriving there about the same time as the lawsuit over the Obama Administration attempting to compel the Little Sisters of the Poor to direct others to provide contraception and abortion drugs on their behalf.

Meanwhile, too, we're waiting to see what the Supreme Court will do in the Hobby Lobby case. (I forget the name of the other primary plaintiff in that case — the Mennonite wood products manufacturer.) The decision, when it comes, will answer two key questions:

1. Does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (passed unanimously in the House and nearly so in the Senate, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton) mean what it says?
2. Do Americans enjoy religious liberty protections when they are at church, or do Americans enjoy religious liberty protections when they are Americans?

I'm not sure I hold out a lot of hope. One reason is an item in the news today. (See this report, too.) The US Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of a case from the New Mexico Supreme Court. In it, an Albuquerque professional photographer would not accept a job to assist in celebrating a gay commitment ceremony. (At the time, the NM Supreme Court had not yet unilaterally rewritten the state's marriage law, so it was a commitment ceremony rather than a marriage.) The gay couple easily got another photographer, and paid less in the process, but sued this photographer for illegal discrimination. The courts convicted the photographer of discrimination, and the NM Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Comments made by the justices in their opinions include that the photographer is “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.” and that the photographer "must surrender the faithful practice of their religion in the name of citizenship." And the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

An article about this case, written at the time of the New Mexico Supreme Court decision, can be found here. A current update that also notes some of the comparable cases is here. Some of those other cases are also discussed here. Perhaps the US Supreme Court will take one of these other cases and use it to make clear that the New Mexico Supreme Court screwed up.

I have heard it said that the best way to attack a bad law is to insist on its vigorous enforcement. Perhaps we can do that here. No, not against the Left — they have no principles or scruples to press them on. But perhaps we can press one of the Left's key allies. Like this:

That may be the quickest and easiest way to get everyone to agree that religious principles matter.

The Media Got It Wrong

The stock market took a dive yesterday morning. The headlines said it was because of worries over the financial situation in Europe.

BULL

The stock market's movement Monday morning was just a reflection of the futures market's movement Sunday afternoon. And that market took a dive immediately after the White House let out the information that President Barack Obama would be calling for $1.5 trillion in tax incraeses. I saw the graph showing that movement Sunday evening.

To put it as charitably as possible, the media got it wrong! The alternative choice is that the media deliberately lied to us.

Obama's "Stimulus Junior"

President Barack Obama gave his speech and introduced his "jobs bill" ten days ago. Two things were said at that time about how the bill's expenditures would be paid for: (1) that the White House would release the revenue details in the next week, possibly at the same time as the bill itself, and (2) that the "supercommittee" formed under the debt ceiling bill would be tasked to find the money.

It appears he has actually done both.

At least one Congressman has read the text of the bill Obama sent to the Congress (but which has apparently not yet been introduced by anyone). He noted in an interview that a late section of the bill requires the debt ceiling "supercommittee" to increase its revenue/savings target by the cost of this bill. Elsewhere in the bill are the $467 billion in tax increases Obama has proposed to pay for the $447 billion estimated cost of his jobs/stimulus bill. (This, too.) Thus, the bill's cost is apparently "paid for" twice. Does the Administration intend more spending than it has acknowledged, and is using this opportunity to raise the extra money they want? Or is this a recognition that its proposal to pay for this bill with tax increases that have already been rejected — by Democrats and Republicans alike — is not serious?

There are other things wrong with this bill, too. Among these are:

• Obama's bill creates at least two new federal bureaucracies, neither related (so far as I can determine) to job creation. This continues the Administration's pattern of using various bills and proposals to add to the bureaucracy and the national regulatory burden.
• Most, if not all, of the spending proposals are repetitions and continuations of the same old tired things Obama had in his failed 2009 stimulus bill. They didn't work then, and they almost certainly won't work this time, either. That must be why Obama and his followers are calling this a jobs bill instead of a stimulus bill. The Obama people still want to pretend the stimulus worked, but they know the American people know that's bunk — which is why they won't use the stimulus term.
• If spending on these proposals didn't help create jobs in 2009 and 2010, how are they going to create jobs now in 2011 at half the spending level?
• Pretty much all the spending proposals are recycled from Obama's failed 2009 stimulus bill. So this is a "green" bill. The Administration pretends that "green" and recycling are good things, but I doubt that recycling failure is worthwhile.
• Obama's bill raises taxes in a recession. Obama himself has said that's exactly the wrong thing to do. Obama and his people must know this. Therefore, either that statement or his current proposal is fraudulent and unserious.
• Obama's bill raises taxes on the very people he's calling on to hire people. Increasing their costs is the surest way to insure they won't create any new jobs.
• Obama's bill assumes, but apparently does not state, the expiration of the "Bush tax cuts" (required by the Democrats' previous intransigence). That expiration means a tax increase for everyone who pays taxes — as well as many who no longer do. That's a part of the tax increases Obama has been pushing for since before he became president. And that one alone — even without the additional tax increases Obama proposes — will be the largest tax increase in the history of the United States. Another massive job killer, again courtesy of Barack Obama.

Beyond all of this, there's something else we all should have noticed. Obama is proposing permanent taxes to pay for his extremely temporary stimulus. That is the bottom line. This is just another way — another attempt — for Obama to accomplish what he wants in raising taxes on "the rich". And as with Bill Clinton, it appears Obama's definition of "the rich" is "everyone with a job".

The original Obama stimulus was a total failure. His recycled "stimulus junior", if enacted, will be no better. At best.

Two final words on Obama's recycled "green" "stimulus junior":

The Plan That Isn't There

Once again — action was called for, and Obama gave a speech.

And it wasn't even that good a speech. It was full of attacks on straw men and caricatures. Some said it made a mockery of the debt deal that was only a couple of months old. Whether that was true or not, it certainly proposed something like $450 billion in new spending without proposing where the money would come from. (The White House said it would take them at least a couple more weeks to come up with that proposal.)

What's even worse is this: President Obama intoned “Pass this bill now!” at least 17 times in his speech, but there is no bill! (The White House promised they might have a proposal to Congress “maybe sometime next week” — which makes me think of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement that “We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.”)

I guess that's why even folks on the floor of the House during the speech (and everyone else who heard it) were incredulous about what Obama was saying (see the “Historic Hysterics” item, talking about Obama's “travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham of a speech to a joint session of Congress”). It seems nobody, including Barack Obama, thought this speech's proposals were really serious. Just another phony excuse for a phony set of proposals from a phony excuse for a president.

I'll be glad when we can get an adult into the Oval Office again.

No Depression, No Jobs

The Obama economy is the worst in 75 years. Here's just one example showing why, and what the impact is on those the regime ignores.

The latest figures say there was NO GROWTH in jobs in August — for the first time since World War II. And you KNOW the revision that comes next month will revise the jobs numbers down, not up. And that's with the regime "cooking the books" by removing from the labor force numbers those who have exhausted their unemployment insurance. Even without correcting for that — even using the data the way it would have been used when Obama took office — the calculated unemployment rate would be well over 11½%.

The policies of the Obama Administration have damaged the US economy. It's time to stop the regime.

The Right Idea

The right idea:

If “market failure” is an excuse for taking power away from markets, shouldn’t “government failure” be a reason to take power away from government?

We've certainly had lots of government failure lately.

Obama Jobs Plan, Again

President Barack Obama said in August that he would reveal his plan for creating jobs and putting Americans back to work — right after he finished his vacation with his elite friends on Martha's Vineyard.

If that sounds familiar, it should. That was Obama's promise in August of 2010 — just over a year ago. I suspect he will make the same promise in August of 2012.

When something needs to be done, Obama makes a speech.

NLRB Supports Union Coercion

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is supposed to be an "honest broker" able to mediate between unions and businesses. But that's not the way it is now. Under the Obama Administration, the NLRB is a partner to the unions.

The latest example: The National Labor Relations Board announced on Tuesday a decision in the Lamons Gasket case that overturns its own 2007 Dana Corp. decision and effectively ends workers' rights to even request a secret ballot election on unionization.

The Dana Corp. decision allowed workers the opportunity to request a secret ballot election within a 45-day window following a “card-check” organizing effort. Card-check organizing efforts are when union bosses try to get workers they’re targeting to sign cards indicating they want to have a union election.

What union bosses often neglect to tell workers is that if enough workers sign cards, there’s no need for an election. They’d already be unionized.

And now, after such "abusive card-check campaigns", the workers will have no recourse against forced unionization.

To me, the worst aspect of this is not that the NLRB has taken its orders from the unions and done the unions' bidding. Again. It's not even the NLRB's direct, blatant, and extreme violation of the rights of the workers it is supposed to protect. To me, the worst aspect of this the totalitarian behavior of the Obama Administration. Congress considered the unions' card-check legislation, recognized what an abuse it was, and refused to pass it. So the Obama regime, unable to get its way by legislation, determined to get its way through regulation. Unable to get its way through democratic or even semi-democratic processes, it issues orders by executive fiat. Again.

These people have no respect for the law, no respect for democracy, and no respect for the will of the people. They're making us look more like a Banana Republic every day.

There is never a legitimate reason to deny people — workers or otherwise — their right to a secret ballot.

Just more Obama hope & change.

Obamas Party While the Economy Burns

It's not just Barack. And don't expect to see this in the major press in this country — they're still supporting and covering for Obama. But here's another tidbit about the Obamas priorities, and their version of "shared sacrifice".

The Daily Mail is carrying White House reports the Obamas have spent more than $10 million on vacations in the past year. The article ties the vacation spending to "vacation junkie" Michelle Obama because of the several vacation trips she took without her husband, as well as the vacation trips she took with him (like the current vacation on Martha's Vineyard). The White House source says "It's disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position."

It has long appeared that both Barack and Michelle are taking full advantage of their positions to get anything they can get. You might say they're just in it for the perks.

It appears the only U.S. press coverage of this story is in the National Enquirer. (Just like the John Edwards stories? This one, just as an example? For a long while, the Enquirer was the only publication covering that story. Is the National Enquirer becoming mainstream?)

It is increasingly clear we can't rely on the major media to keep us informed, except where it fits their agenda.