Archiving 'This Just In' (2/5/14 - 2/18/14): The Speaker of the Other Party of Government Needs to Go

2/18/14
A few words on DC’s recent passage of a “clean” (i.e. unconditional) bill to raise the debt ceiling, in the style of ‘LAS the Predictor.’ (1) It will contribute to deeper Democrat losses in the 2014 midterm elections. Because nothing brings out voters like anger, and the angry bloc this year is fiscally conservative. (2) But, not so fast, Establishment GOP cronies. Don’t count on 2014 being a boon election for you, either. The principled grass roots conservative (i.e. TEA Party affiliated) caucus within the GOP will increase in strength. Because nothing brings out voters like anger, and the angry bloc this year is fiscally conservative. (3) The leadership challenged Campaigner-In-Chief will spend his last two years in office complaining about a do-nothing Congress, while he does nothing to negotiate with the co-equal branch of government about doing things . (4) The constitutionally challenged Saul Alinksy Radical Occupying the Oval Office will continue to push the limits of lawless governance with increasingly blatant unconstitutional unilateral executive actions. (5) The republic will survive because the Founders gave us a brilliantly designed, tyranny resistant, system of governance featuring divided powers. For example, I believe we will see the House exercise the power of the purse with more vigor in the coming years. That means cutting off the Executive branch’s allowance for those unfamiliar with how the constitution works.

I believe Speaker Boehner would have liked to have attached a spending restraint condition to the debt ceiling bill. I also believe he could have accomplished this if he approached the problem differently. He foolishly tried to present a lame condition he came up with himself (cleaning up the veteran’s benefits mess left over from the budget deal ) to the TEA Party caucus as a fait accompli. Wrong time, wrong bill. Not only does it increase the debt bottom line (the opposite of a restraint condition!), but it was also transparently an insider political gift to Paul Ryan. More spending *and* more pork barrel … it’s almost as if Boehner set out to piss off his future party leaders. (The veteran’s benefit cuts were restored the very same day in a separate “clean” bill with overwhelming bi-partisan support, proving how lame the Speaker invented quid-pro-quo was. But, if nothing else, this trend toward smaller bills is a good thing.)

There were other, much better, conditions to attach. I liked Keystone XL pipeline approval. It would have created a favorable debate context in which to explain the principle of debt reduction by economic growth. Plus it would have put Obama into a pickle with the gaia worshiping enviro-wacko Left, as well as the 80% of the public that doesn’t understand why he just doesn’t approve it already. Charles Krauthammer suggested attaching a provision preventing any bail outs for the insurance companies from the ObamaKare train wreck. Also an argument the GOP could have won with TEA Party caucus support. If Boehner had exercised a little different leadership style, engaging the TEA Party caucus to solicit ideas on what to attach, these and other superior ideas would have surfaced. The Speaker of the Other Party of Government needs to be replaced and the mid-term elections of 2014 will make that clear.
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2/13/14
Federal government closed today due to standard issue nor'easter snow storm. My back of the envelope calculations have determined the republic will save eight gazillion bazillion trazillion dollars in compliance costs, from regulations not published today. Any more of this 'climate change' and Obama's economy might actually create a real full time job.
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2/10/14
NBC's coverage of the winter olympics has included giving us an empathetic portrayal of the all time statistical leader for genocide in the 20th Century Ideologies competition.
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2/7/14
Speaker Boehner has announced the perfect condition for moving forward with an immigration bill. The Saul Alinsky Radical Occupying the Oval Office must convincingly demonstrate he is enforcing the laws currently on the books. Even the most casual observer knows selective enforcement of the laws (an impeachable offense in my opinion, and many others) has been a core feature of this administration's mad rush to 'fundamentally transform' us. This quid-pro-quo forces the corruptniks in this radical administration to justify their unconstitutionally ideological executive practices. Well done, Speaker.
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Soon it will be time to pick the best fight to have over our now ritualistic semi-annual debt ceiling debacle. I'm partial to tying approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to adding another couple of trillion to the national credit card. The recently released State Department analysis leaves no reason not to approve the multitude of jobs it will create. Bringing this issue to the forefront puts Obama in a pickle with the only people who object - the 20% (at most) of the voting public belonging to his gaia worshiping fringe Leftist base. But, who knows, maybe the Speaker will come up with a better condition. He's on a roll now.
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2/6/14
Has the GOP gone mad? One of their hacks actually thinks it's a good idea to require every single driver in America to keep meticulous records of mileage driven and pay a "mileage tax." Orwellian, supremely impractical, and fraught with the potential for fraud. We're supposed to leave that stuff to the real party of government. It's news like this that earns the GOP the title The Other Party of Government.
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2/5/14
Local news anchor informs me this morning it is 'National Weatherperson Day.' I can see why it is a group recognition, as opposed to individual awards like the Oscars or something. I get exactly the same predictive data regardless of which 'Weatherperson' outlet I access, the time horizon for reliable prediction is exactly the same for all (24-36 hrs), and when they are wrong they are all wrong at the same time.
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The First Five Laws For The Internet Darwin Awards

By now you know the template. Dummy posts something wholly inappropriate or utterly embarrassing on the Internet. Dummy is mocked mercilessly by friends, enemies, and strangers alike. Dummy learns the hard way delete doesn't really mean delete on the Internet, not as long as anybody has a free screen capture utility.

It's the careless ute blasting out a tasteless selfie on Instagram. The overpaid and barely talented Hollywood thespian tweeting out vulgar charges concerning topics and movements she knows nothing about. The Facebook post by the bungling criminal that leads the cops to his door.

Thus I call for the formation of an annual Internet Darwin Awards modeled on the original. And I begin this call with the presentation of the first Five Laws to guide its development.

Law 1: All human beings are born in Original Ignorance.

Law 2: Each human being is randomly assigned an individually discrete capacity to learn.

Law 3: Each human being learns an individually discrete capacity to act discreetly.

Law 4: The Internet presents an illusion that everyone is your friend.

Law 5: The Internet never forgets.

Archiving 'This Just In' (1/20/14 - 2/214): That Prep Time to Fun Time Ratio Reminds Me of Something

2/2/14
On a lark yesterday, picked up a couple of cheap toy remote control helicopters. Even found the perfect environment for playtime with my teenage son - an enclosed racquetball court. While becoming competent at hovering mine, learning to crash less often, and dodging the kamikaze attacks from my son's machine, it became clear why the Jetson's vision of flying cars has not been realized during my lifetime. Also, the preparation procedures clarified why the Department of Energy - a very well funded federal agency that has a habit of endowing "green energy" administration crony start-up companies with taxpayer funded loans bankruptcy "investments" - has failed to bring us the mass produced electric car. Charge time 30 minutes = flight time 6 minutes. Hmmmmmmm.
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1/30/14
After delivering a State of the Union address that drove the nation to drink, the Campaigner-In-Chief is running around the country doing the only thing he ever really knew how to do - delivering red meat political speeches to hand-picked friendly audiences. The problem he has now is everyone will soon notice that this trick, the only trick he has ever really known, is doing nothing to improve his sorry a$$ poll ratings. The Empty Suit has a record now, and no amount of speechifying can fix it.
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1/29/14
In last night's monumental waste of time State of the Union address, the second biggest applause line (second only to the obligatory standing O for the wounded war vet) was after the Redistributionist-In-Chief trotted out that old leftist talking point about equal pay for equal work for women. What this signals politically is Team Leftie will be out there maniacally executing the gender warfare chapter of their playbook to promote Hillary's 2016 run at the Oval Office. Some prominent conservatives - Rand Paul comes to mind - have apparently noticed this, but are taking the wrong counter-measure. Paul and others are resurrecting the Lewinsky sex and lies scandal as an attempt to discredit Hillary's credibility. This is a mistake, as it paints Hillary a sympathetic victim and enhances the victim hood politics of Team Leftie's gender warfare strategy. Better to just stay focused on Hillary's empty public record of "accomplishment." Hammer on, in descending order: (1) The leadership failure before Benghazi coupled with the YouTube video lie invented during Benhghazi (literally while the firefight was still hot) and propagated after Behngahzi, (2) HillaryCare (1993) was the original ObamaCare, only even more bureaucratic and Big Brother inspired, and (3) yeah, did you know her college thesis was about Saul Alinksy? In other words, make sure the people know electing Hillary is electing the Empty Suit Known as Barack Hussein Obama to a third term - except it's an empty pant suit filled with a white female stealth Saul Alinsky radical this time.
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1/25/14
Last week the hacks of the Establishment GOP (aka the RNC) met to strategerize the 2016 nomination cycle. The two time losers to the Saul Alinsky Radical Occupying the Oval Office believe Mittens lost the general in 2012 because his coronation wasn’t easy enough. They want to shorten the length of the primary season, have an earlier convention, and have fewer debates. They think Mittens was ‘pulled too far to the right' in the primaries. Wrong. Mittens lost because he was the perfect ‘Richie Rich’ caricature to be pilloried by the class warfare demagoguery of the Left. If anything, the competitive primaries pulled Mittens out of the crony capitalist bubble in which the Establishment GOP (the other party of government) lives, and gave him a chance to win the general.

I saw one of the hacks on TV say he didn’t want anyone like Newt rising in the next primary. Translation: ‘Don’t pop my crony capitalist bubble, dude.’ As I explained repeatedly on this blog in 2012, Newt was their only chance to break through voter ADD and media bias to win in 2012 - because Newt was by far the best debater. On today’s uneven political playing field, debates are the only forum on which anyone not tagged (D) can break through. Mittens' poll bump during his uninspiring performance against the Empty Suit during the 2012 debates proved it. (Newt, of course, would have had the chops to go for the kill on that stage.) So, how does less debate help us identify the best debater? It doesn’t.
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1/23/14
It begins. The wave of employer based health plan cancellations is already underway. Neither the Leftists who gave us the Train Wreck Known as ObamaKare,nor their propagandists in the legacy media, can spin the economic realities for these employers. "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" is destined to be remembered as the lie that launched one of two socio-political waves. I believe it will be a living monument to government incompetence launching a new small government libertarian gestalt. But it's still entirely possible it launches, in a twisted Machiavellian way, the excuse for the Left to make a successful argument for Single Payer. Maybe the campaign slogan will be something like "If you like your ObamaCare, you will love Single Payer."
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1/21/14
Federal government closed today for a few inches of snowflakes. Jack Wiley Dithers has intercepted and decoded an encrypted cable from the White House to the Park Service, invoking Executive Order 1800FU, which initiates Operation Barrycade whenever the government is shut down.
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1/20/14
Today is Day 1 of a deal struck between a committee of experts and bureaucrats representing the civilized world (lead by Monsieur John Kerry-Heinz), and the Shi'ite mullahs of Tehran. The civilized world agrees to lift economic sanctions on Iran, and the mullahs agree to pretend to give up their dream of producing a nuclear bomb (the better to put the fear of Mohammed into infidels). The civilized world believed the cover story offered by the mullahs, in which they are interested in nuclear power for generating electricity - even though Iran sits on a veritable sea of fossil fuels. (Note global warming is not recognized by Islam as valid canon. The only religion elevating global warming to sacred mythology is the atheist Left.)

Many pundits are now saying an Iranian nuclear bomb is inevitable, and we will be forced to adopt a policy of 'containment.' This won't be your father's Cold War era 'containment' - in which the nukes were handled in plain view by uniformed military forces bound by the Geneva Conventions. Iran is also recognized as the leading state sponsor of terror on this planet.