mbecker908's blog

A question for Social Conservatives…

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:20:00 +0000

We’re seeing a number of commenters and a diarist or two insisting they won’t violate their principles and cast a vote for serial womanizer Newt Gingrich.

I wasn’t real happy with the idea of Newt being President when he announced, for a whole variety of reasons, though his personal relationship issues were pretty far down on the list. But we’re where we are today, and the reality of the situation is that we don’t have a solid conservative left in the pack. At some point last year, I was really hopeful that Mitch Daniels would run. He’s got the best record of any sitting governor (Perry included, IMO) in terms of conservative accomplishment. He was panned as a “trucer” on these pages and declared, on the basis of this “affront” to SoCons, to be personna non grata in the contest. He chose to not to run for reasons more likely related to his wife, and he’s out. I defaulted to Perry and would have been tickled to see him inaugurated. He’s gone.

So, we’re down to Newt, Romney and Santorum. I don’t count Paul because he’s not a Republican and is in the contest only because the Republican Leadership in the House didn’t have the balls to toss him out of the Caucus years ago. So, what do we do? It looks right now that it’s coming down to Newt and Romney, Santorum will finish a distant third or perhaps fourth in South Carolina and I doubt he’ll have momentum, money or ground troops to contest Florida. Personally, I say good riddance, we don’t need another big-government former Senator. Newt seems to have the big Mo right now, and while that certainly could change, he’s got a decent shot at what was unthinkable, he could be our nominee. There will not be a brokered convention.

So, my question for SoCon’s is simple. What are you going to do if Newt is the nominee?? And to add some flavor to the broth, note this from Associated Press today:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many church-affiliated institutions will have to cover free birth control for employees, the Obama administration announced Friday in an election-year move that outraged religious groups, fueling a national debate about the reach of government.

In a concession, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said nonprofit institutions such as church-affiliated hospitals, colleges and social service agencies will have one additional year to comply with the requirement, issued in regulations under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Got that? Free birth control. Take my word for it, abortion coverage is only eleven months away.

Now then, if Newt is the nominee, are his personal relationship problems more important than what we all know the Obama Administration will do for their friends at Planned Parenthood. What will you do? Vote in protest for Obama? Stand on your principles and stay home or vote for a third party or write in? Or vote for Newt?

The beginning of the end…

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:38:49 +0000

or at least the end of the beginning, of abortion on demand. And, it’s been initiated in two VERY blue states.

Some personal background. I’m ardently pro-life and have been involved in the movement for well over 30 years. I also am a firm believer that there is next to nothing that a President can do to stop abortion, beyond a minimal impact with Executive Orders reinstating Mexico City, etc. A Constitutional Amendment would be DoA. Not only is 2/3 of the Congress not doable, 2/3 of the States is impossible. Add to that, there are seven versions of the Human Life Amendment (HLA) that have been introduced in Congress and five of them do not “stop” abortion, they simply get the feds out of the debate. I could expand on this, but I hope you get the idea. The Federal government won’t (and realistically can’t) outlaw abortion, the best they’re going to do is return the issue to the states IF we have a more conservative SCOTUS (+2 Justices) who overturn Roe.

So, why would I say that abortion is – or at least may be – on the way to being a bad memory? From the Associated Press today…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities say two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder, an unusual use of a law that allows for murder charges in the death of a viable fetus.
[...]
The investigation began in August 2010 after what authorities say was a botched procedure at Brigham’s clinic in Elkton, located near the border of Maryland and Delaware. An 18-year-old woman who was 21 weeks pregnant had her uterus ruptured and her bowel injured, and rather than call 911, Brigham and Riley drove her to a nearby hospital, where both were uncooperative and Brigham refused to give his name, according to documents filed in a previous investigation by medical regulators.

A search of the clinic after the botched abortion revealed a freezer containing 35 late-term fetuses, including one believed to have been aborted at 36 weeks, the documents show.

Brigham, 55, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. Riley, 46, faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and one conspiracy count.

Read the whole article, there’s a whole lot more there that will turn your stomach, but it’s an important read.

The bottom line here is that two very blue states – Connecticut and New Jersey – are cooperating in investigating and charging two doctors with first degree murder in the deaths of second and third trimester babies. They took the case to a Grand Jury and got an indictment. They will most likely go to trial, and you can bet they’ll be using photographs that no newspaper will run to make their case to the jury.

It’s going to be an uphill battle for sure, nothing worthwhile comes easily, but a win here gives us the opportunity to get courts to affirm that unborn children – at least those beyond the first trimester – are, in fact, “people” with a right to due process.

This is important because it gives the pro-life movement a real “camels-nose-under-the-tent” to begin to roll back the availability of abortion by law.

This action by Connecticut could be a landmark case that does what no President, no Congressional action and no Supreme Court decision involving current law can do.

2012 is going to be a landmark year in more ways than just TheOne. And, given that a conviction of the doctors involved here will most certainly be appealed, and likely all the way to SCOTUS, should give us all the reason we need to support a Presidential candidate who will nominate solidly conservative SCOTUS Justices.

Lamar Smith is a pathetic weasel.

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:39:37 +0000

You can find all the details about Smiths in-kind work for the MPAA with SOPA in Neils diary, but I just found an update courtesy of Instapundit and TechDirt:

Despite the fact that Congress was supposed to be out of session until the end of January, the Judiciary Committee has just announced plans to come back to continue the markup this coming Wednesday. This is rather unusual and totally unnecessary. But it shows just how desperate Hollywood is to pass this bill as quickly as possible, before the momentum of opposition builds up even further.

Bottom line, Smith is a sleaze, call your Rep and demand a stop to this farce. Oh, and hey Texas, got anybody to primary this schmuck?

Hmmm. Interesting results over there…

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:02:13 +0000

At HotAir…

A little background first. I think it’s common knowledge that I don’t like “candidate specific” polling this far out and I absolutely hate internet polls. So, I will be making no claims about the efficacy of this one. But it’s interesting nonetheless.

HotAir tends to be home for lots of fans of Sarah Palin. I’m not accusing HotAir of being biased or being in the Palin Camp, only that lots of her fans (not necessarily Shriners, just fans) seem to hang out there. And it’s reflected in their monthly GOP Presidential polling results. Palin has come in first in their poll every month for a very long time, I think it’s safe to say every poll, but I’m not sure about that. I am sure that she’s been way ahead of the crowd in every poll I’ve seen at HotAir. Until today.

Palin’s numbers dropped for the second consecutive month, but the news is that Perry’s numbers have not only overtaken Palin but are higher than she’s ever been at 48% of respondents favoring the three term Governor from Texas. Palin is still holding onto second place in the HotAir poll by a wide margin at 32%.

Equally interesting is the second round where the pollsters ask for your choice if your first choice isn’t running. Perry comes in first there too and Palin drops to number four.

I’ll be interested to see the commentary after the next couple of debates, we’ll likely find out if Perry is a flash in the pan or if he really has “the mo”.

So here’s a new standard for stupidity…

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:57:44 +0000

From WBALTV.com, we bring you [drum roll please]…

This would be Otis Rolley

Otis Rolley is a candidate for Mayor of Baltimore. You guess which party. Otis Rolley is dumber than a box of small rock. That’s rock singular. Small rock singular. Multiple rocks would overwhelm his intellect. If elected, he could give Shiela Jackson Lee a run for the dumbest elected official in the US.

So Becker, why are you making such a racist statement? Well, thank you for asking.

A mayoral candidate’s plan to reduce violence in Baltimore includes a “bullet tax” that he said will increase the cost of committing a crime.

Otis Rolley said he would, if elected, propose a $1 per bullet tax on all bullet purchases in the city. The idea was part of an overall crime plan he unveiled Tuesday.

Got that?

This jackass has an “overall crime plan”. I’ll admit I haven’t read it. Don’t think I have to, given that this piece of stupidity is included in it.

Rolley said the bullet tax would cause a decrease in “random firings that too often happen around holidays” and put a high price tag on the cost of committing a crime.

“While the courts have consistently ruled against significant gun control legislation, there is still a way to decrease crime: substantially increase the cost of its commission,” Rolley’s plan states.

Hmmm. Let’s say I was a resident of Baltimore. Let’s say I own a gun. Let’s say I’m low on ammo. How might I possibly avoid a $1,000 surcharge for 1,000 rounds of 223 ammo that I can purchase from a retailer in Phoenix for $250? Hmmm. Gosh. Hmmm. Oh yeah…

Wilmington, DE – 71 miles – 1 hour 25 minutes.
New Freedom, PA – 38 miles – 50 minutes.

And that’s just for starters.

Hopeful office holders, and current office holders, in addition to “office”, hold the record for abject stupidity.

Now then, for the real point of this diary, pay attention to that $1 tax. SCOTUS repeatedly beats down these fools who have a hearty dislike for the Second Amendment and they’re looking for a way around it. Well, here it is. And it will turn your incredibly effective $2,900 integrally suppressed AK47 into a not very effective stick.

Here’s your choice:

Pick one.

Time to elect a RINO.

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:49:48 +0000

But he’s not running, a victim of his ability to put both feet in his mouth on the national stage and the self-righteous stupidity of one segment of the Party. I recall the frequent epithets hurled at Mitch Daniels when he was considering getting into the fray, and often as not “RINO” was the least of the accusations.

From the Washington Times yesterday…

As Washington stares at rising national debt and projected deficits for years to come, many states are faced with the opposite problem: whether to spend their budget surpluses and, if so, on what.

At least a dozen states ended fiscal 2011 with surpluses. Indiana reported one of the largest, with an extra $1.2 billion in its accounts. Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, on Friday authorized bonus payments of up to $1,000 for state employees. An employee who “meets expectations” will get $500, those who “exceed expectations” will receive $750 and “outstanding workers” will see an extra $1,000 in their August paychecks.

“No state anywhere comes close to Indiana’s record of spending tax dollars carefully, with total savings over the last six years in the billions. Your spending efficiency has enabled us to stay in the black even as revenues plummeted,” said Mr. Daniels, who recently flirted with a run for the White House but ultimately stayed out of the race.

I’m the first to point the finger at Daniels ability to make ill-conceived statements. But there is no better record of accomplishment out there than his. On fiscal matters AND on social concerns like abortion. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have room for highly credible and extraordinarily competent and conservative Governors like Daniels.
We seem to be looking for someone with marginal accomplishments who can whip up the base.

Great News for Texas. Ron Paul Edition…

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:56:03 +0000

The jackass is done with politics next year.

AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Rep. Ron Paul said Tuesday he will concentrate on running for president and will not seek re-election to Congress, ending a 24-year career as one of the more colorful members of the House of Representatives.

The 75-year-old Republican said he will serve out his term through December 2012, whether his presidential campaign is successful or not. He told The Associated Press he has been criticized for running for Congress while seeking the presidency in the past.

He won’t be the Republican nominee. He won’t be running a third party campaign, at least one that matters. He’ll be gone from the Republican Caucus in the House, finally – and they should have tossed his worthless butt out of the Caucus long ago because he’s not a Republican.

The best part? Texans will get the opportunity to actually elect a congressman who might actually be an effective member of Congress and represent the interests of the district with something other than earmarks.

Farewell sir. It’s well past time for you to go. Like 22 years past time. You won’t be missed.

Conan O’Brien absolutely nails it!

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:20:38 +0000

HT to the really smart guys at Powerline.

Conan O’Brien was the commencement speaker at Dartmouth this year.

Dartmouth also saw fit to honor George HW Bush with an honorary degree.

Let me note that I have generally no use whatsoever for commencement speeches. They are typically long, nobody remembers a word of them and they do absolutely nothing but enhance the checking account of the ego driven speaker who loves to hear him/herself talk. That said, Mr. O’Brien is at the top of a very, very short list of really important and memorable things said to a graduating class:

Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired President of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable television talk show host, have been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today.

Thank you for your honesty Mr. O’Brien. You’ve jumped way up in my estimation of you (not that it matters), and that deserves to be the quote of the century to this point.

Christine Gregoire gets it half right!

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Congratulations Governor Gregoire, you’re finally on the right track.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, said today she won’t seek re-election to a third term and will devote her remaining time in office to finding a solution to the state’s economic woes.

Ms. Gregoire, if you really give a hoot about creating jobs in Washington you should simply resign now. And actually, you, in conjunction with the Obama Administration and the Unions in Washington State have done a pretty good job of creating jobs. In South Carolina.

Hopefully Republicans can find somebody who’s willing to go to war come the next election.

Romney: First it was RomneyCare, now we’ve got WarmingMitts.

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:10:23 +0000

Reuters has the story today.

(Reuters) – Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change.

“I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that,” he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“It’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors.”

This is just another pebble on the pile for Mitt as far as I’m concerned. The guy was very good in private industry. He was a big government, give the Democrats what they want but do it cheaper, when he was Governor of Massachusetts and he’s yet to find a problem that government can’t solve.

I’ll vote for Ron Paul or Sarah Palin before I vote in the primary for Mitt Romney.

Well, this is certainly going to be interesting…

Mon, 23 May 2011 13:00:34 +0000

HT to Hotair…

We need more nerdy wonks. We’ve grown fat and stupid on a red meat diet.

I don’t know if TPaw should be our candidate, but I think this is a good start. He got bad reviews at CPAC for a red meat speech that he didn’t carry off particularly well. Hopefully he’ll fight the urge to repeat that fiasco. In this two minutes of pre-announcement, he seems to be setting the stage for a serious run. And he notes several important things. First, he served two terms as Governor of a Democratic state. Second, he governed as a solid conservative and moved the state to the right. Proof of that is that after two terms of conservative, and sometimes pretty hostile, governance the people of Minnesota turned both houses of their legislature over to Republicans and many of those are pretty conservative. Third, he understands the issues – the deficit, the overreach of government and jobs.

I think this is a good start. By the end of today, it could be an excellent start.

The debt ceiling really doesn’t matter.

Sun, 01 May 2011 17:28:33 +0000

We’ve had a whole lot of talk about raising the debt ceiling in the last few months and the conversation, frankly, is mostly just hot air. The US is most likely headed for a financial wall at high speed without regard to action on the debt ceiling and that howling that if we don’t raise the ceiling we’ll damage the “full faith and credit” of the US government is laughable. It’s happening right now and is about to accelerate like the space shuttle leaving it’s launch pad.

Here’s a simple explanation of why we’re about to go into the “face meets wall mode”.

First let’s look at how we finance the US government. The financing mechanism for Uncle Sam is made up of a number of cash in-flows:

Federal income taxes.
Tariffs and fees.
Borrowing through the use of US Treasury bond auctions.

Tariffs and fees account for a miniscule portion of the revenue, taxes are the major revenue producer and the debt auctions have to make up the difference between “income” (taxes, tariffs & fees) and “expenditures”, the total of on and off-budget spending by the Administration and Congress. With me so far?

I’m going to assume that our readers understand the tax revenue stream so I’m not commenting on that here. If you have questions, post them in the comments and they can be answered individually. Tariffs and fees fall into the same category and are a generally small portion of overall revenue.

Which brings us to the Treasury auctions. The US auctions off Treasury bonds on a regular basis. Very generally, the auctions work like this:

The Treasury schedules an auction and announces it will be selling $X billions of dollars of bonds at Y% yield.
Buyers purchase said bond offerings.
Buyers include: other countries (China, etc), private bond investment houses.

Here’s where it starts to get hinky. Let’s say the Treasury is offering $100B in bonds at a 3% yield. The auction produces $65B in purchases at that offering. The Treasury now has two options, they can take the $65B and not sell the other $35B or they can raise the yield above 3%. The conundrum is this. If they don’t sell the $35B they have, in effect, lowered the debt ceiling and will not be able to meet the cash expectations of the appropriators effectively cutting the budget by that $35B. They also send a loud message to bond holders/traders that demand is down, and think about the basic law of supply and demand here. When demand is down for automobiles, the cost of the car will go down to bleed off supply overages. When demand is down for financial instruments, the yield of those instruments must go up in order to increase demand.

Bottom line, can’t sell the bonds this time, the next time that 3% will 4% or higher. That raises the interest cost line in the federal budget and makes it necessary to either get more money (borrow more) or reduce spending in other places by a comparable amount. See the spiral effect?

Lately, the Treasury is having problems finding buyers for their bonds so the federal reserve has undertaken a program of buying up the left overs in order to keep the yield low. Let’s see now, where does the federal reserve get money since they can’t tax or charge tarriffs or fees. Oh yeah, they print it. The net effect is that there have been significant shortfalls in bond sales to third party buyers and the US government is buying up the debt, in effect lending money to themselves. Think Ponzi.

OK, so you’ve got the basics now and you see that the federal government is buying it’s own debt to finance operations. Here’s the problem. Come June the federal reserve is planning on stopping the printing press. They’ve said that they’re going to get out of the bond buying business. Well hey, there’s always the Chinese and the private bond traders, right? Jim Lacey at National Review lays out the ugly scenario in detail, please read the whole article, he’s much better at this than I am.

Researchers at [a major bond investment house] estimate that in the last quarter, the Fed purchased 70 percent of all new Treasury debt. This is a disaster in the making. By printing new money to buy debt, the Fed is both holding interest rates artificially low and flooding the world with dollars. Fed purchases have lowered rates to the point where there was no room for further decreases. With no more upside potential to holding debt, investors are fleeing on the assumption that the Fed will soon exit the market, causing rates to rise dramatically. Such a rate rise lowers the value of all current U.S. debt…

Lacey notes that pretty much all of the major investment houses have stopped or dramatically curtailed US Treasury purchases and many are dumping their current inventory of Ts on the expectation that new auction yields will jump dramatically. Other major holders are also dumping inventory, namely the Chinese.

So what’s on the horizon? If you’ve got a weak stomach, stop here.

Come June, the Fed will be in a bind of its own making. If it stops pumping money into the system, interest rates will increase, and not just on Treasury bonds. Mortgage rates will rise and business credit will become more costly. The recovery could be strangled in its infancy. If it keeps on buying bonds, however, it risks never being able to wean the markets off the equivalent of monetary crack. Worse, the flood of dollars will continue to drive down the value of the dollar, raise commodity prices, and propel global inflation.

There pretty much is NO upside here. Rates go up and or inflation takes off. Mr. Obama you need to bring Jimmy Carter back from North Korea and add him to your stable of economic advisors who’ve never held real jobs.

Enjoy May. We’re in for a really long hot summer. And when you can’t borrow money or the cost of the borrowing is so excessive that the cost no longer justifies the purchase you’re left with about one alternative. Downsize. This is why the arguments about the debt ceiling are hot air. And why Paul Ryan’s budget proposal may begin to look like nothing more than trimming around the edges. The reality is – and we’ll likely know over the next three or four months – the government may well shut down and not because the Congress didn’t pass a budget or raise the debt ceiling, rather because nobody will lend us money any more.

Sure is going to be an interesting primary election season.

Yes! Winter’s over and the Silly Season is upon us!!

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:35:17 +0000

Looks like the Republican Primary maybes are getting warmed up to the task. And a caveat, I don’t consider the following to be “silly” in any depreciating manner, I just enjoy the sight of politicians either defending the indefensible or admitting they screwed up.

Let’s start with Defending the Indefensible. Mitt is the current undisputed champion in this category. I’m sure we’ll have people giving him a run for his money before long, but he IS the standard here. From Reason…

Mitt Romney is still defending the health care overhaul he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. So are liberal defenders of ObamaCare, an overhaul explicitly modeled after the Bay State’s law.

And from his own lips…

“Overall, ours is a model that works,” Romney said in response to a question after a speech at Iowa State University. “We solved our problem at the state level. Like it or not, it was a state solution.”

This pretty much leaves me speechless. You really should read the whole Reason link, it will give you a good idea just how out of touch with reality Mitt Romney is.

Moving right along to the Oops! category…

We’ve got two early entrants. The first would be Mitch Daniels who, after being invited to a tar and feather party where he brought his own feather pillow named “truce”, it looks like he got the message. As has been documented all over Redstate for the last couple of days, Mitch announced he’s signing the bill that will restrict some abortions and defund Planned Parenthood. He didn’t come right out and say “I was an idiot to talk about a truce.” but this is pretty close.

And then there’s Tim Pawlenty up in New Hampshire. I give him three gold stars for this…

Asked in a public question-and-answer session about his past support for a cap-and-trade-like program limiting carbon emissions, Pawlenty answered: “It was a mistake, it was stupid and I’m sorry.”

And then he kept going.

“I don’t try to defend it. Everybody’s got a couple of clunkers in their record,” Pawlenty continued, repeating: “I don’t try to defend it. It was dumb.”

Good job TPaw.

Oh, and Romney followed TPaw, was asked about RomneyCare and defended it again.

I can’t wait for things to really heat up.

Apparently still the Stupid Party…

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:58:33 +0000

It’s been an interesting year so far. We’ve got Republican Governors standing up to public employee unions and winning not just the legislative battles but the PR battles as well. Wisconsin, Indiana, New Jersey in the bag with more fights looking like wins in other states. We’ve actually got Governors who’ve figured out that unions are not their friends and will never be.

And then there’s Florida.

Some background. State Senator John Thrasher introduce a bill in the Florida Senate that had two fundamental provisions. First of all it would require public employee unions to get permission from their members annually to spend union dues on political activity. Second, the state would stop collecting dues. The State Senate in Florida has 40 members, 28 of whom are Republican.

Even though the Florida House has already passed a similar bill, the bill has been withdrawn.

It seems Republican members of the Florida Senate have bought into the lie that unions are bipartisan and friends of Republicans in Florida.

Union lobbyists repeatedly said the bill would cripple the payroll deductions that fuel labor’s political efforts while continuing to allow similar deductions at 360 organizations and private companies, including insurers, that spend money on politics.

Unions also said they were being scapegoated for Florida’s budget problems. They argued that the recession and Wall Street, not union-negotiated pay and benefits, caused Florida’s $3.6 billion deficit.

Those arguments resonated with lawmakers.
[...]
In a sign that the bill is in trouble, Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, personally lobbied four Republican senators on Wednesday to back it…

So, it appears that Florida’s new Republican Governor is on board, the Florida House is solid but the Senate is beyond wishy-washy. Apparently 12 of 28 Republican Senators oppose this bill, and of course the Democrats are solidly sold out to the unions.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s a Republican legacy.

Now we find out what Mitch Daniels is made of…

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:02:14 +0000

Governor Daniels is facing the Gordian Knot in his home state of Indiana and I’m guessing that by this time next week his political future will be cast.

The Indiana House and Senate have both passed, by what appears to be veto proof margins, a bill that bans abortions after 20 weeks AND cuts Planned Parenthood off from all state and Medicaid funds. The bill is headed for Governor Daniels desk.

Let me note here that I don’t know a whole lot of specifics about Mitch Daniels. My perception is that he’s been an excellent governor for his state, he’s taken on the public employee unions and consistently won and he’s reduced the scope of government in his state, not a line most politicians can put on their resume. He also seems to have demonstrated a remarkable ability to stuff a bunch of feet in his mouth simultaneously.

OK, now to his conundrum. Daniels is solidly pro-life and apparently has an excellent record in Indiana on life issues. He’s also done an excellent job of dealing with state spending. Rubber meet road…

family planning in Indiana is a fiscal as well as a social issue. Half of all births in the state are covered by Medicaid. If Daniels signs the Senate version of the bill, he would likely be giving up $4 million in federal dollars and bringing the state into a costly legal battle.

Because federal law blocks states from choosing which organizations can provide family planning services to Medicaid patients, the measure could cost the state all federal funding for family planning. Planned Parenthood is prepared to sue if the proposal is signed into law. They also estimate that the move would cost the state $68 million in Medicaid expenses for unintended pregnancies by reducing birth control access.

You can bet your last farthing that both PP and the Obama Administration will take the state to court. They will likely win in the opening rounds and the case(s) will be decided at the appellate level at a minimum.

You can also bet that same farthing that if Daniels vetos this bill he’s done as a potential Presidential candidate.

Personally I think he could veto the bill and make a decent case for doing so. I also know that a large segment of Republican primary voters could not care less about his reasoning, frankly me included.

It’s gonna be an interesting next few days…

It’s the Economy, Stupid…

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:37:17 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Some interesting snippets on matters of the economy at the end of the week.

Reuters lets us know that the economy in the fourth quarter of last year grew a tad stronger than was initially thought.

(Reuters) – The U.S. economy grew more quickly than previously thought in the fourth quarter…

Gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 3.1 percent, the Commerce Department said in its final estimate, revised up from 2.8 percent.

Several thoughts on this, first of all, even though 3.1% growth isn’t particularly anything to write home about, it’s better than 2.8% so you’d think that the Administration would be crowing about it. After all, it’s moving in the right direction. So why’d they release the news on Friday? Maybe it could be the rest of the information in the article, ya think? What could be wrong? Well…

…first-quarter GDP is shaping up to be on the soft side,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

According to Sweet, data so far suggests growth in the first three months of 2011 was between 2.5 percent and 3 percent.

Oh, first quarter will likely be less than the fourth. Oh. And what, pray tell, could be the reason for the “pull back”?

Rising fuel prices, boosted by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, are largely blamed for the expected pullback in growth, although economists expect it will be temporary.

Temporary? Did I sleep through the headlines that the Obama Administration has lifted the “moratorium” on drilling for oil? Or that they are doing something that is going to ease the unrest in the ME? I didn’t think so and apparently neither does the Pentagon since they have no clue when we’ll be out of Libya. What sort of assumptions are required to reach this sort of a conclusion?

“Assuming that oil prices stabilize and fall a little and that Japanese reconstruction and recovery will begin in the next few months, this softness in growth is likely to be short-lived,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Got that? Oil prices fall, no impact from Japan. I’ve learned something through this exercise. Economists are no smarter nor are they any more honest than realtors. You know, those guys who were telling us in 2005 that there was no housing bubble. OK, so the bottom line for this part of the exercise is that economic growth will be falling in the first quarter and even that guess requires assumptions that are off the chart stupid. And then there’s this…

Several Fed officials on Friday described the economy as being on a firmer footing and said the U.S. central bank was unlikely to extend its $600 billion government bond buying program when it ends on June.

Let’s remember that the Fed has been printing $$ like crazy and buying T-Bills in order to hold down the yields. Holding down the yield keeps the interest rates lower and has a direct impact on the cost of interest in the budget. If the Fed stops buying there is every probability that the auctions will fall short and the fit will hit the shan. If the auctions start falling short a bunch of bad things happen: the debt limit votes won’t matter because if we don’t sell the Ts there’s no debt to worry about. Oh, and there’s no money to spend, which will take care of the debate about that $100B reduction in the budget and then some. And then, in order to not run out of money, yields will go up. So will rates. So will the cost of our debt. You get the idea.

Now then, just to restore your faith in mankind, Reuters has another article on a tangential subject. Consumer confidence. Now, before reading the following paragraph go back and take a quick glance at the National Association of Realtors economists said about the coming turnaround. OK, now then, let’s see what we common folk are thinking.

(Reuters) – Consumer sentiment in March fell to its lowest level in more than a year as gasoline and food prices rose, a survey released on Friday showed.

There’s more drivel in the article related to interpretation of the data by “professionals”. I’ll leave you to read that at the link and draw your own conclusions.My conclusions, FWIW, are that we are headed for deep do-do in the second half of the year. Very deep. In addition to food prices and fuel prices, the housing sector will be continuing deeper into the tank. I think things are going to get really ugly, not just in the economy on the street, but in the halls of Congress and State Legislatures. The snow ball has started and it’s getting bigger. And will be soon rolling much faster.

Out of the mouths of babes…

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:08:19 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Let me start with a basic statement of facts.

I favor legal immigration and I favor increasing the number of people allowed to legally immigrate into the US.
Immigration must be managed in a way that brings people based on their ability assimilate and be productive citizens.
I am unalterably opposed to illegal immigrants, from whatever their home country.
I favor laws, at the state level if necessary, that makes housing, employment and education as close to impossible as we can make it. I favor the use of e-Verify or a similar system to validate the right of every individual to housing, employment and education and I favor harsh penalties aimed at employers, landlords/property managers and school administrators who allow illegal aliens to live, work or attend school.
I favor an interpretation of the concept of “birthright citizenship” that grants US citizenship to children born of parents who are legal immigrants to the US and disallows citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.

It’s worth noting that I live in Phoenix, AZ. I have more than a passing exposure to the effects of a flood of illegal immigrants on the economy and the culture of my home state, and on my country, and it is devastating. The United States is subject to an invasion from Mexico, an invasion that is defacto organized and supported by the Mexican Government. In the US, there is a significant faction made up of high profile members of both major political parties who are complicit in enabling this invasion, who are complicit in doing everything in their power to stop the enforcement of long existing immigration law and who have stopped efforts to secure our southern border.

Illegal immigration is costing our state more than just billions of dollars. Illegal immigrants – from Mexico – are systematically destroying our culture and the foundation of the nation in our educational system. K-12 classes are typically crowded with students for whom English is a distant second language. These students, some if not many of whom are actually US citizens, come from families who have illegally immigrated from Mexico. By and large they have no intention or inclination to assimilate into US culture. They, and their families are nothing more than an occupation force in this country.

Recently, a substitute teacher recounted his experience in a metro-Phoenix eighth grade classroom in a letter to state Senator Russell Pearce. Pearce is the Senate Majority Leader and was the driving force behind SB1070. He has also introduced additional legislation this year aimed at denying “birthright citizenship” to the children of illegal aliens. His letter wasn’t meant for publication but it found its way to the pages of The Arizona Republic:

I currently work as a substitute teacher in the west valley areas of Phoenix, Glendale, and Peoria. I was called upon to teach history and language arts for 8th grade at a Glendale public school. The number of students I had in each class ranged from 28 to 38 children, which were almost all Hispanic and a couple of Black children. The day started out as usual turning on the television listening and watching the announcements and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. During the Pledge of Allegiance I notice the vast majority of students refusing to stand and say the pledge. I asked the students why they refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance and they responded by saying, “we are Mexicans and Americans stole our land.”

The teacher’s instructions were for the students to read a few pages and answer the questions regarding Mark Twain in their history textbook and to finish their final drafts to Senator Steve Gallardo thanking him for his position on Illegal Immigration rights. Their teacher apparently had showed them a video with Senator Steve Gallardo and Lou Dobbs. Most of the students came unprepared for class not possessing paper and pencil. I provided the students with paper and pencils only to have them wade-up the paper and throw it at each other along with their pencils.

The students’ final drafts that I read were basically the same. Most of them stated they were in the country illegally, White Americans are racist…

It’s worth a minute or two to read the whole letter. The bottom line is pretty obvious though. Classrooms that are out of control from a discipline perspective, assignments that are designed around the racist and Mexican nationalist perspectives of its pathetically ignorant students and in general, a school that is allowed to ignore the real educational needs of its students.

Mexico has, covertly, declared war on the US. There are about two million criminal illegal aliens in the US. Given that the illegal alien population is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million, a very significant proportion of the illegal population are criminals. Numbers like that should put to rest the clap-trap that they are just “good, hardworking families seeking a better future for their children”, especially when taken in context with the attitudes expressed by the eighth graders above.

In addition to being able to displace a significant proportion of their population – and their criminal element – north of the border, money sent by wire transfer from the US to Mexico represents the second largest segment of the Mexican economy, behind oil revenues. The Mexican government has a serious vested interest in keeping up the flow of illegal Mexicans into the US so the flow of US dollars south can continue to prop up their economy. From Newsmax:

A Mexican-based financial company is forecasting $22 billion in remittances for 2010 making it Mexico’s second highest revenue maker behind crude oil.

In terms of cost to US taxpayers, FAIR – the Federation for American Immigration Reform – found in a study done last year, the cost at the federal, state and local level is $113B per year. The cost to most states happens to coincide with structural deficit in those states. For instance, the cost of illegal aliens to the state of Arizona is $2.5B, the structural deficit is about $3B. In California, cost of illegal aliens is $21B, deficit is $33B.

So, what to do? I’ve said this before, but not for a while so I’ll repeat it. We need to do what works to secure the country. The solution is really quite simple – not necessarily legislatively simple, but structurally simple. We don’t need to call out the National Guard for round-ups in the barrios, we just need to take appropriate administrative steps to make life a very in-hospitable thing for illegal aliens.

Require e-Verify forms proving legal right to work in every employee file. This is similar to the current requirement of an I-9 form. Use of the e-Verify system is free and requires only access to the internet and less than a minute to input the personal information supplied by the employee or potential employee. It is NOT an onerous or expensive burden on business.
Require e-Verify forms on every resident of rental housing.
Institute criminal penalties – a $10,000 per person fine and a lowest class felony charge for either employing or renting to an illegal. The fine has to be big enough to entice law enforcement to actually enforce it.
The fine must be attached to the business owner/ranking officer of the business if it’s a public company and not be dischargeable in bankruptcy.
The felony charge can’t be able to be pled down to a misdemeanor and it should require a modest amount of jail time, maybe two months per head. The reason for the felony is simple, most states deny liquor, contractor’s and business licenses to felons.
End the practice of granting US citizenship to children born of illegal aliens. And, deport the mother and the baby when they are released from the hospital.

Efforts like these will work. Illegal aliens are like a water leak in the house. They will find the path of least resistance, and coincidently, like a water leak they will ruin the house. Both Arizona and Prince William County, Virginia have discovered that when laws are passed that make address the problem, illegals will go elsewhere. That’s why about a dozen other states are considering laws similar to Arizona’s SB1070.

The American Dream – Illegal Alien version – Tea Party Nation (gds44.wordpress.com)
‘Gang Members and Gangsters’: Teacher’s Letter on Hispanics Sparks Immigration … – ABC News (news.google.com)
Illegal immigrants disguised as U.S. Marines latest border ploy, officials say (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Hi. I’d like to introduce you to reality.

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:13:08 +0000

So, the public employee unions and their lap cats the Democratic Party have drawn a line in the sand with a back hoe. Union membership and representation is a God given right and since Thomas Jefferson was a union organizer the right to organize and hold the American taxpayer hostage is somewhere in the Constitution. And I can guarantee that there is no shortage of judges who will have no trouble finding said “right”. In the meantime, the Wisconson Democrats have discovered that if the Democrats have somehow been unable to either win or fix enough elections to hold majorities in state legislative bodies, they can leave the state and there will be no negtive consequences from the country club Republicans – including the Tea Party variety – and they can play the issue for the front pages and for time. The bottom line here is simple, the Democrats and the unions are at war. Republicans are just simple.

My bet is that Democrats and unions will “win” on the issue of contracts, wages, benefits and pensions. Please note the scare quotes. They’re gonna “win” in court and in the short term, in the court of public opinion. The reason they’ll win in court is because the judiciary is stacked, roughly right up to the SCOTUS, where eventually they’ll lose. Eventually. Public opinion will sway their way because they are a lot like Chinese water torture, constantly repeating lies until people believe them. People will believe them because for the most part, they are products of the US unionize education system and can’t do independent research or put two rational thoughts together in the same month. So, the Unions “win” and keep their money. Democrats “win” and keep their number one source of funds, taxpayer money passed through the hands of union members to their bosses to the DNC. I used scare quotes because, while they will almost certainly be able to work the courts and the voters for a while, they won’t beat the fundamental laws of mathematics and economics.

That brings us to Costa Mesa, California. Costa Mesa is a city of about 117,000 people 37 miles southeast of Los Angeles. The median family income is a little more than $55,000 and three of the top five employers are colleges. I’m guessing that in nary a single one of those schools do they teach math, economics or reality. Costa Mesa is discovering the latter of these concepts. The City of Costa Mesa employs 472 folks serving the residents including police officers, fire fighters and all those other kinds of city workers. Oh, make that “employed”.

In all, more than 210 of Costa Mesa’s 472 employees received notices that they might get pink slips.

Now let me be clear, the key word in that sentence is might. But for sure, there’s going to be a fight. But the rubber has the possibility to meet the road big time. Remember those Costa Mesa residents? The ones who pay the taxes so those 472 “hard” working city employees salaries. And pony up for their health care benefits and their pensions. Their pensions. Gee, I wonder what kind of pension plans those taxpayers have. Hmmm.

According to city figures, for every dollar the city pays a police officer or firefighter, it must also set aside more than 40 cents to fund the employee’s pension. For every dollar paid a general employee, it must set aside 27 cents.

The average Costa Mesa police officer earned $105,000 in base overtime and certification pay in 2010, according to city records. The average firefighter earned $109,000 in base, overtime and certification pay last year.

You can read the rest of the article, it contains the standard level of whining that you’d expect on this issue. Actually, I’m shocked that they are only writing about cops and firefighters, there’s not a single word about teachers in the piece.

I can’t wait to see what happens. One interesting thing is that in the last election the Mayor Pro-Tem campaigned on getting the pension issues under control and bringing both reality and the laws of economics to bear in the city’s finances. We’ll see what happens, but that happens to be a good start. And, surprise surprise, the police and firefighters unions poured tons of dough-re-me into losing the election. I’m guessing they aren’t done.

This issue is way bigger than Costa Mesa. In 2009 almost six in ten state and local pension funds were underfunded. You can bet that number isn’t lower two years later and you can count on one hand the number of states, counties and cities that are actually doing – or trying to do – something about the big freight train headed through the tunnel right at us. That light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight on the train, not the sun.

Mitch Daniels, you’re toast to me…

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:23:01 +0000

Mitch Daniels has been oft mentioned as a possible candidate for President in 2012. He’s done some good things as Governor of Indiana and appears to be popular with the folks in his state. He’s also tarnished his conservative credentials a couple of times with some “missteps” like his proposal for a “truce” on social issues until we can get the fiscal problems facing us on the way to being fixed. And then there’s his opposition to a bill in the Indiana legislature that would make his state – where he eliminated some collective bargaining ability by unions by executive order – a Right To Work state.

Frankly, I can live with the concept of the truce. Mostly because in the real world, social issues – primarily abortion – isn’t going to come off the table, it’s just not going to be front and center but there will still be ongoing legislative actions to curtail the practice when the opportunity presents itself. See the Congress working to defund Planned Parenthood as an example.

I’m not real fond of his opposition to making Indiana a RTW state, his rationale seems really weak and basically says, “We can’t possibly work on more than one thing at once. Oh well. If he gets the rest of his labor agenda passed, I can live putting off RTW too.

Now then, all that said, today Mitch crossed the line.

Turning toward Hoosier State politics, Daniels offered hearty support
to Sen. Dick Lugar, who is facing Tea Party opposition in the run-up to
the 2012 GOP Senate primary. “I’m for Dick Lugar, he’s the role model
I’ve had,” he said.

Daniels, who once served as Lugar’s chief of staff, emphasized that he
would not meddle in the primary. Voters, though, will know where he
stands. “Folks in Indiana know that I am for him and that I admire him
and think if he wants another term, he ought to have one,” he said.

The Washington Post had an excellent article on my Great White Hope!

Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock will launch his primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Tuesday with the support of a majority of both the state’s 92 Republican county chairmen and its state party executive committee, he told the Fix in a recent interview.

“I feel bad that he’s going to be humiliated by this list,” Mourdock said.
[...]
That such a large contingent of the party establishment should come out against or withhold support from an incumbent senator is highly unusual and reflects the difficult path ahead for Lugar in advance of the May 8, 2012, primary fight. It also suggests there is a clear path to victory for Mourdock.

Sorry Mitch. If you can’t back a known quantity like Mourdock who is head and shoulders better than Lugar, who is arguably worse than either my Senator John McCain or Lindsey Graham, if you can’t stand with the majority of the Republican Party leadership in your own state against a guy who is an out-and-out liability then your complete lack of judgment renders you unqualified to be President. And just so there’s no mistaking how pissed off and disappointed I am by that pile of crap you left on the floor of the studio with that non- endorsement, I wouldn’t be writing this if you’d said Charles Manson was your role model, you’d still be in the running for my vote.

You’ve had some bad days recently Mitch, but today was just pathetic.

And the final word on the SCOTUS decision re: Westboro…

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:10:30 +0000

I’ve been trying to think of something to say about this but I really can’t come up with any more than this young lady (which will put my age in reference for you) has to say in her song…