Category Archives: News

YOU DIDN’T WIN THAT OLYMPIC MEDAL ON YOUR OWN. PAY THE TAX

You won a medal? Okay, fork up, the metal in the medal has a melt-down value and the federal government taxes it.  For the bronze that’s two dollars please.  I kid you not; this is for real.  Marcus Rubio has submitted a bill to end this utterly absurd tax.  Here is the link.  Let’s see what the Democrats do.  What if an athlete is rich?

Yes, there is more to the story.  The tax on the melt-down value is an insult that only a government could devise but the politicians want some real money too.  As though the insult weren’t enough, it comes with a slap in the face – tax on the honorarium.  Using the bronze as an example again, the honorarium is $10,000.  Typically the athlete would get $ 6,498 of that and the rest would go to the IRS, according to numbers supplied by  Americans for Tax Reform.

Why should the government get that?  Is it because the medal winner didn’t win it on his own?  How did he get to the gym to train, didn’t he or she use the roads?  Perhaps there should be a surcharge for cyclists and runners because they actually perform their mastery in competition on public roads.  Ridiculi, ridiculum, does the whole world run on idiocy or only Washington?

Rubio has a winner in this bill.  If the Democrats approve it, it bodes well for Rubio.  If they oppose it, they risk the wrath of Olympic fans.  The amount of money raised by the ‘US Tax on Olympic Achievement’ pales, pales, pales into insignificance compared to the negative statement it makes.  Let us honor our winners, not take a piece of their flesh.

THE JEWISH VOTE

In the old South and the KKK days, blacks in the North who began to vote, voted mostly Republican.  They didn’t vote much in the South because the Democrats imposed a “poll tax” that was too burdensome for blacks to pay.  It was the creation of dependency status that turned the black vote in favor of the Democratic Party.  It was FDR more than anyone else who was responsible for turning that vote.

The Jewish vote and funding has gone primarily to Democrats from the start.  Could it be that Obama will be responsible for changing that metric?  Again from today’s NYT  “the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, is starting a new effort in battleground states to win over Jewish voters.”  And has been noted many places, contributions from Jewish sources for Obama are falling far short of traditional levels.

Obama’s negative attitude toward Israel has not gone unnoticed.  Neither has his non-critical acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood as the Egyptian winners in Egypt.  The Jewish community’s century-long nexus with the Democratic Party is dramatically eroding under this President.  There is no more Jewish populated voting district in America than the 9th District of New York.  In the 2010 election the district elected a Republican Congressman for the first time in 88 years.

It will be interesting to see if the voting follows the same path as the funding.  I believe it will.

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

St. Paul, Minnesota:  Carlos Viveros-Colorado lost control of his car and killed 16 year old Clarisse Grime as she sat on a bench waiting for a bus.  Carlos is an illegal immigrant, a previously convicted drunk driver, a serial speeder, an unlicensed driver and now he is also a killer.

The St Louis Pioneer Press reports that Carlos had been “voluntarily deported” after a 2001 DWI conviction but he re-entered a second time illegally.

– July 19, 2011: St. Paul police cited him for speeding and driving without a license

– March 8, 2012: Newport, MN police cited him again for driving without a license

– April 19, 2012: Minnesota State Patrol cited him for speeding and driving without a license

The Police never asked Viveros-Colorado about his immigration status nor was the knowledge of his deportation and illegal re-entry available to officers when they ran a check on him.  St. Paul is a sanctuary city and prohibits the police from inquiring about immigration status.  Information was not available to the other officers because there was no outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Think about that for a moment.  With all of the money, people and technological resources at their disposal, the federal government, the State of Minnesota, Ramsey County and the City of St. Paul were unable or unwilling to determine that a previously deported illegal alien and convicted drunk driver, driving around town without a license was in their grasp.  So Clarisse died.

That’s your government at work keeping you safe.

The Minnesota Department of Education routinely hands out waivers to high school students who have not met the requirements for graduation.  In the Minneapolis school district more than a third of those receiving diplomas do not meet the requirement.  In St. Paul, there isn’t even an accurate figure because the district doesn’t track the number of waiver-dependent diplomas it issues.

Brenda Cassellius, Commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Education defends giving diplomas to those unable to pass the test required by Minnesota law.  “When you have about half the kids not passing, you know you have to do something,” Cassellius said “you cannot just deny diplomas.”

Yes you can.  And when you don’t the final lesson you teach is that rules don’t count and laws don’t need to be obeyed.  As for the “you have to do something” how about fixing the schools so they will teach.

This is your government at work educating your children.

If Obama wins re-election, your government will be at work providing your healthcare as well.

Digested and edited from an excellent blog post by Tim Droogsma.

IMAGINE THIS VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE – CONDI RICE vs JOE BIDEN

The debate would be like the New York Yankees taking on the Chicago Cubs, except funnier.

A very wise man teased me with a question about 3 months ago.  What attributes would the ideal VP candidate have?  He suggested the ideal candidate would be someone who is black, a woman, well known, experienced in government and not from the Northeast.  He had Condaleeza Rice in mind of course.

It didn’t take a lot of culling to find this very brief video of one of Uncle Joe’s Bidenisms.  It is from a speech he made yesterday declaring that “Children should be educated to the degree they are educable.”  It was a minor error of course, but it was a mistake Condi wouldn’t make because Condi is fully educablated.

OUR LAWLESS PRESIDENT

Less than 3 weeks ago I penned a post with the heading This President Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Congress To Change The Law.  Judging by his comment this week he thinks he doesn’t need Congress to make new law either.

“I’ll work with anybody who wants to work with me to continue to improve our health care system and our health care laws, but the law I passed is here to stay,” Obama said at a campaign event in Ohio.

It was not a Freudian slip either; it is simply the way the man sees himself and his presidency, Obama the omnipotent.  Remember the presidential like seal he had emblazoned on the seat of his campaign plane, and the Roman columns for the Inauguration?  In one of his early acts as President, he subrogated bankruptcy law to his own dictate by ignoring the legal rights of Chrysler’s secured bond holders and awarding their money the labor unions.  That was June 10, 2008.

A year later Charles Rowley recounts the event.

“June 10 will be a silent anniversary, but one worth noting by those alarmed at the past year’s assault on free institutions.  It was last June 10 when the federal government tossed aside the option of proven workable bankruptcy procedures in order to nationalize Chrysler on behalf of its union allies.” Mitch Daniels, ‘Hoosiers vs. Crony Capitalism’ The Wall Street Journal

The Chrysler intervention by Barack Obama breached the rule of law and categorized his administration as yet another Third World despotism that despises the rule of law and forces discriminatory practices down the throat of a weak and cowardly judiciary. It provides an almost perfect example of state (crony) capitalism at its worst in the hands of an unscrupulous would-be tyrant.

If it’s the law you say, surely the bondholders had their day in court.

Naturally, the secured bondholders started out by defending their legal rights. Obama’s apparatchiks  (notably Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner)  attacked them mercilessly, warning of the serious consequences that would surely  follow from their continued resistance. Large numbers of secured bondholders chose safety over liberty and acquiesced to federal pressure.

The tagline Saul Alinsky used to introduce the Rules for Radicals chapter called Tactics is “We will either find a way or make one.”  When a gangster is holding a gun to your head it does no good to argue with him about the law.  Obama’s gun was the bailout money.

ROBERTS VOTED AGAINST IT BEFORE HE VOTED FOR IT

Why?  That’s the question now, Why?

(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

It gets even more bizarre.  It was Justice Kennedy who fought the hardest to bring Roberts back to his original stance but it was to no avail.  Roberts couldn’t be persuaded to change his second opinion.

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent.  They deliberately ignored Roberts’ decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

We must keep in mind that the scenario CBS describes is hearsay and will likely remain as such.  Nevertheless, it’s plausible.  If Roberts did come down on one side then switch to the other it was because his first thought was, as a Supreme Court Judge, to protect the integrity of the Constitution.  Then later, as the Chief Justice he decided to protect the integrity of the Court by not miring it in the controversy.  As I speculated in an earlier post he passed the buck to the voters.  In so doing, he harmed the Court because now the controversy is the Court.

Read more…

WINNERS AND/OR LOSERS OF THE SOTUS DECISION, MAYBE

Justice Roberts’ decision is not controversial only because it let Obamacare stand, there is also controversy about the consequences of the decision going forward.  Some good arguments have been given claiming at least partial victory or defeat for both the left and the right in the near and in the long term.  There is also a logical opinion that the court has passed the buck by returning the decision to the voters.

One common line of thought is that the decision put a cap on the lefts widespread abuse of the Interstate Commerce Clause to justify all manner of expansion of federal powers.  Mark, an attorney commenting on our earlier post takes a contrary view.  In his opinion an even wider door was opened to Constitutional erosion by finding the Affordable Care Act can stand on the basis of the federal governments unquestioned right to tax.

Justice Ginsburg adds to the ‘we won but we lost’ confusion by taking the unusual, albeit not unprecedented step of writing a dissent against a decision she voted in favor of.

Charles Krauthammer declares Justice Roberts’ action was brilliant.  Rush Limbaugh swears it was stupid.  Mitt Romney vows to make the repeal of Obama care the immediate focus of his presidency and he may have the House and the Senate with him to do it.  Nancy Pelosi says now it’s cinched; the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.

If it turns out that Obamacare is repealed in the next Congress, it will mean the right was the ultimate winner of the Supreme Court’s decision.  If Obama is re-elected it will mean the left was the winner.  If Obamacare is repealed and replaced by health care reform that preserves choice and quality and broadens demographic coverage at an honestly affordable price, the people and the right will have won.  The left will have lost because health care users will have maintained control of their own destiny and not surrendered to the specter of socialized medicine.

We just have to wait.

OBAMACARE IS IN! WHAT’S NEXT?

The libs get excited, rightly so.  Obama’s ratings get a blip up, but will they hold?  The House will vote on a bill to repeal Obamacare, but it won’t pass the Senate.  Karl Rove takes his wife out for a beer —  no champagne and caviar tonight.

Now the ball is in Romney’s court.  On the Tuesday before Thursday’s announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision Romney said “If it is deemed to stand, then I’ll tell you one thing: We’re going to have to have a president, and I’m that one, that’s going to get rid of Obamacare.  We’re going to stop it on Day 1.”  To accomplish that Republicans will need to win control of the Senate as well as the presidency.  If they do, then expect some form of repeal and replacement.

The Supreme Court’s decision that the law is constitutional is not an endorsement of its advisability, only a decision that it is legal.  Chief Justice Robert’s opinion was explicit about that.  Obamacare will rival jobs and the economy as the number one issue between now and November.  That is not a plus for Republicans.

On a brighter note a greater threat was averted.  During the debate prior to the Bill becoming law, the President emphatically denied the mandate was a tax.  Coming before the court, however, the administration’s attorneys argued the opposite; that the mandate is a tax.  The court agreed, more or less, more more than less.  The opinion read that the mandate ‘could be’ seen as a tax, in which case it ‘would be’ constitutional.  If the court had ruled that Obamacare could stand under Commerce Clause, such a decision would have gutted the Constitution setting a precedent that almost anything would be allowed under the clause.

Rumors are abounding that a deal was made or that Roberts bent to intimidation.  I don’t think we have sunk that low.

THE UNITED STATES vs. ARIZONA – THE SUPREME COURT’S IMMIGRATION DECISION IN A NUTSHELL

Four issues were argued and decisions rendered.  The most significant and most controversial provision in Arizona’s law was upheld by the unanimous vote of eight of the nine Justices.  Judge Kagan recused herself.

The other three provisions of Arizona’s law were struck down on a 5 to 3 divided vote.

Upheld
Arizona police may check the immigration status of an individual stopped on reasonable suspicion of having committed a crime.

Struck down
1. Arizona state law that mirrored existing federal law making it a crime not to complete or carry immigration papers.

2. A provision of Arizona law that made it illegal for an illegal immigrant to apply for or hold a job.

3. A provision of Arizona law allowing police to arrest and detain an illegal alien not yet convicted of a deportable crime.  Police must release the individual after telling them to show up later for a hearing.

Justice Scalia wrote the dissent.
Here is the decision.
Here are excerpts from Scalia’s dissent.

Post Script – The case is actually identified as AZ vs. US but I think the United States against Arizona better reflects the reality.

JIMMY CARTER RIDES AGAIN

The New York Times published an Op-Ed piece today written by Ex President Jimmy Carter.  It seems Carter is very concerned about the human rights abuses he sees occurring around the world.  Right up front in the second sentence the former president calls for an end to abuses against American citizens in particular.

In an article that is 753 words long there is only one nation in the world that he censures for having a despicable record on human rights.  You guessed it.  It’s the United States.  There is not one word about China, Syria, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Somalia or any other nation.  In Carter’s eyes, the only bad guy on the planet is the US of A.

Jimmy, why don’t you go back to certifying elections in Venezuela.  We don’t need you here any more.  You have been replaced.