The man with the plan

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We’ve heard internet buzz about it and didn’t pay too much attention to it. However, we can now declare the fight to repeal the presidential two-term limit amendment to have officially begun.


Here’s the opening salvo from Jonathan Zimmerman writing in the Washington Post, "End Presidential Term Limits":

In 1947, Sen. Harley Kilgore (D-W.Va.) condemned a proposed constitutional amendment that would restrict presidents to two terms. “The executive’s effectiveness will be seriously impaired,” Kilgore argued on the Senate floor, “ as no one will obey and respect him if he knows that the executive cannot run again.”

I’ve been thinking about Kilgore’s comments as I watch President Obama, whose approval rating has dipped to 37 percent in CBS News polling — the lowest ever for him — during the troubled rollout of his health-care reform. Many of Obama’s fellow Democrats have distanced themselves from the reform and from the president. Even former president Bill Clinton has said that Americans should be allowed to keep the health insurance they have.

Or consider the reaction to the Iran nuclear deal. Regardless of his political approval ratings, Obama could expect Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and John McCain (Ariz.) to attack the agreement. But if Obama could run again, would he be facing such fervent objections from Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)?

This is mystifying. There is a built-in assumption for Zimmerman, we suppose, that the Affordable Care Act is good legislation and that this hopelessly flawed law would be viewed more favorably if President Obama had more time in office.


And there are many reasons to be skeptical of the Iran nuke deal: it is for only 6 months at which time everything goes back to what it was before the deal, they're not actually turning over any uranium, we don’t actually dismantle any of the centrifuges critical to their nuclear program and … oh, it’s a deal we are making with people we know won’t honor the deal.


So, the reason we should keep our current President is so that he can keep passing crappy legislation and keep making bad deals with bad actors. Is that the big idea?


Back to the article:

Probably not. Democratic lawmakers would worry about provoking the wrath of a president who could be reelected. Thanks to term limits, though, they’ve got little to fear.

Nor does Obama have to fear the voters, which might be the scariest problem of all. If he chooses, he could simply ignore their will. And if the people wanted him to serve another term, why shouldn’t they be allowed to award him one?

That was the argument of our first president, who is often held up as the father of term limits. In fact, George Washington opposed them. “I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the service of any man who, in some great emergency, shall be deemed universally most capable of serving the public,” Washington wrote in a much-quoted letter to the Marquis de Lafayette.

Washington stepped down after two terms, establishing a pattern that would stand for more than a century. But he made clear that he was doing so because the young republic was on solid footing, not because his service should be limited in any way.

We’re not sure if the term “career politician” existed back in those days. We’ve no doubt that Washington harbored these more purer democracy sentiments but we are also of no doubt that the idea of serving in public service at the federal level was not yet the entrenched teet-sucking personal enrichment program that it is now. Can we be sure Washington would hold these views were he to see today’s current condition?



Unfortunately, for Zimmerman, we do not live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic that has built-in mechanisms that prevent rule by simple majority (Senate Democrats and our President are currently having difficulties with that concept). We also have mechanisms by which those mechanisms can be change. If Presidential term limits can be put in place via the amendment process, they can, in turn, be overturned by the same process.



And call us skeptical, we doubt Zimmerman would have had the courage of his convictions to pen this column back in, say, 1986 or, dare say, 2006. We don't believe it to be mere coincidence that this sudden interest in direct democracy comes at a time of a flailing second-term president who can't gain any legislative traction with his agenda.


As it stands, we favor mightily presidential term limits. Again, we are not a democracy and as a republic we have safeguards to protect ourselves from ourselves. Besides, we can scarcely think of what good can come from a President being in office for 12, 16 … however many years. The “message” gets old, the old man gets sloppy and too content and a once-vibrant republic becomes sclerotic.


It’s bad enough Capitol Hill is chock-full of career company men and woman, we don’t need the Oval Office to turn into a vehicle for Chavista-like presidents-for-life.


Especially in this age of low-information voters and hopeless media bias, we’re not about to give democracy that chance.


However, we encourage Mr. Zimmerman to enthusiastically pursue changes to these republic safeguards should he feel so compelled to do so. The means are certainly at his disposal.


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A little more on this belonging to the Government nonsense

Apparently, some people are either OK with being useful idiots for their political party or they indeed believe that they are the property of the government.

In response to the DNC’s “We all belong to the government” ad that was run at the convention and which we covered here, some delegates at the convention were asked what they thought of it.

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These responses simultaneously sadden, disappoint and anger us.
These people are utterly clueless though we will hand it to the statist-left of this country in successfully substituting “government” for “community” or “country” and getting the Democratic Party as a whole to buy into this sick fascistic concept hook, line and sinker.


Here’s a memo to you folks that might be a little wobbly on the concept (not to those in the video – those zombies are long gone): In closing his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln spoke of “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”


The government is of us, the people. The DNC has it completely the other way around, they know it and they completely agree with it. As collectivists and not individualist, of course, your baseline belief system is that the government is at the center of the circle from which all else comes forth.


When you hear statists call for higher taxes on the rich, they’ll talk about fairness but that’s just window dressing for what they really believe and that is the fact that money is not really yours rather it’s the government’s and it is only the government’s kindness that lets you hang on to whatever the tax code allows.


This is soft tyranny, pure and simple – this belief that we are somehow owned by or belong to the government. We fought a war of independence to upend such thinking and practice and, for now, we will content ourselves with fighting an electoral war and one of winning hearts and minds to upend such thinking and practice here in early 21st century.


The RNC was slammed for being a convention of hyper-individuality. The fallibility of human kind may make that type of thinking dangerous for many but the 20th century was nothing more than a cautionary tale of the miserable and deadly folly of hyper-collectivism.

ObamaCare SCOTUS ruling round-up (UPDATED)

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(please scroll to bottom of post for update)



Well, despite having some queasy feelings about it as recently as yesterday (when we put a hundy down at The Double Standard getting 5/2 odds that the mandate would be upheld) we certainly did not see this coming...


Via Sir Charles at Doo Doo Economics:

From the National Journal:

The Supreme Court upheld the health care reform law on Thursday in a ruling in which conservative Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal wing and spelled out ways to keep the highly controversial law within the bounds of the Constitution. The ruling vindicates President Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative, even if it doesn’t stop the political debate over the sweeping Affordable Care Act.

The 5-4 ruling lets stand the mandate – the requirement that just about everyone carry health insurance or pay a fine. But the ruling calls the fine a tax, allowing the law to escape arguments that it violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

And here we thought it was Justice Kennedy, who voted with the dissenters that would be the swing vote.


Some thoughts:

The short take-away: The Supreme Court has granted the federal government the power to do whatever the hell it wants as long as it can be called a tax. But, remember, the President, in selling the legislation insisted the penalty for not complying with the mandate was not a tax.

Remember, this guy?:



We actually thought it a penalty instead of a tax as well.


The irony, as we see it, is that ObamaCare was saved by what many on the right insisted it was all along (a tax) and which the President and the rest of the Democrats insisted that it wasn't in order to grease the legislative skids. Let's face it: Roberts bailed them out.

And now that the honor and integrity of the Supreme Court has been restored, we're curious as to what the left is going to whine about now? Oh, that's right: all that money in politics.



Our favorite moral scold, KT, responded to the ruling in precisely the manner we expected (there is much to be said for consistency):

So What's The Big Deal?

If you're hoping that 9 guys in robes are going to save you from your own feckless greed and laziness, you've got some serious problems. With the Supreme Court decision upholding ObamaCare, the culture of demanding what you have not earned rolls on.

And "lee" in the comments:

I was really hoping just five guys in robes were gonna save me from some other clowns' feckless greed and laziness. And I know in November, I will vote, and I will vote for people who CLAIM they will undo this evil, but it's Washington, and it's a monster that makes the creature in "Aliens" seem as cute as a beagle puppy eating a cupcake.

I got twenty more years before they hand me the pamphlet, "So You Want to Die and Leave More Room and All Your Limited Access to Healthcare to Someone Younger Who Deserves It More Than You, You Old Goat," before I shove off down the Soylent Green Highway....

Both valid points.



Here's Leslie at Temple of Mut:

Basically, the US Supreme Court has said: “If you like your death panel, you can keep your death panel”. I cannot understate how disappointing it is to see that Chief Justice John Roberts decided to side with the big-government oriented justices, and merely amend the poorly written law developed by both houses of Congress. However, Roberts did leave us one clue on how we citizens can still fight back, as controlling healthcare is merely a front for controlling every other aspect of our lives. His decision includes this passage:

The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.

drozz over at The Double Standard had these thoughts:

Double Standard Industries pays Dean over at Beers With Demo 375 (100 investment + 275 payout) internet dollars. Congratulations.

Hey I correctly interpreted Kennedy's vote (who cares).

Ginsberg, like all liberal judges argues that the mandate is necessary so it's proper in her separate concurring opinion. Her opinion is garbage based on the line that the mandate "solves an economic and social problem" (see Ginsber's opinion at p.12). Bullshit, it solves an economic problem.

Another promise made by Napoleon regarding of Obamatax has been broken.
Know who loves having their taxes raised? Young adults, small businesses, the middle class. And I hope they reward Napoleon by voting in November.

Ann Althouse's opinion of the verdict "President Romney".

Snark aside, this is a huge loss. The opportunity to reign in federal power was there, and now it's gone.

Roberts drew a clear line for Congressional power under the Commerce Clause. Then gave them a loophole to get around it.

Where do we go from here? Well, I'd say the Tea Party hornet nest was just stirred. My hope is that others wake up and realize what exactly just happened.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know just how we feel about this ruling. We've been covering all manner of things related to ObamaCare and this ruling is indeed hugely disappointing as we're not sure what limiting powers the federal government via Congress now has. Again, the majority logic appears to be, if you can attach a tax to it, then Congress can mandate it.
Will this now extend to GM cars and Solyndra solar panels?

And as Captain Ed over at Hot Air pointed out: Hey, Lefties, you realize that this tax, though imposed by the feds, will be going directly to the private insurance companies. Let's alter that slightly for full effect: that tax money will be lining the pockets of for-profit private health insurers. Your welcome.


Silver lining?: We didn't have the courts do our heavy lifting in the fight for freedom and liberty. No? Well, then, we suppose we've got some work to do ahead of November 6.





(UPDATE #1): B-Daddy of Liberator Today fame finds some cheer from his parsing of the decision:

But here are my reasons why this isn't the full-fledged disaster I might have thought.

1.The ruling didn't expand the power of the commerce clause to infinity. From the WSJ: "The Commerce Clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave, simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions," the chief justice wrote.

2.Most conservatives had always felt that had the mandate been honestly labeled as a tax, it would have never been challenged. Even though J.E. Dyer at HotAir asks what limit there is on the power to tax, the fact is, there has never really been a limit, so the ruling changes nothing.

3.I always thought the mandate's financial penalty was too weak to force compliance.

4.The mandate has no criminal enforcement provision, including asset forfeiture in the portion of the tax code in which it resides.
5.Because the mandate is a tax, it's repeal can't be filibustered in the Senate, where the rules on filibuster do not apply to spending bills.

6.The ruling on the Medicaid portion is likely to be more substantive. From Volokh: the federal government may deny the states additional Medicaid funds if they refuse to comply with the coverage expansion requirement, but may not take away their preexisting Medicaid funds. The states may then opt out of the expanded coverage, without risk to their current Medicaid funding. In the long run, this may kill the whole scheme. I am encouraged that seven justices accepted a states' rights argument.

7.The Chief Justice worked to protect the reputation of the court. I disagree with the way he did it, but understand the concern. The court should give deference to the legislative branch. The court's failure to interfere here may buy it good will in the future with Americans less invested in right vs left politics.

8.This is likely to help Romney, who is making the argument that the only way to get rid of Obamacare is to get rid of Obama. Supposedly, $1 million has rolled in since the decision.

9.The court has ruled officially that Obama has raised taxes on the middle class.

10.Ultimately the public got what it deserves for electing Democrats in such overwhelming numbers, including the 2008 nominee, who lacked the experience to inject any leadership into this miserable bill. We are reminded of why we need a tea party movement to restore government to constitutional limits because we, the people, demand it.

The last point, is something we related in a FaceBook post (yes, we realize that FB and politics don't miss, but...) as an appeal to all our friends be they liberal, middle-of-the-road or conservative. We're all stuck with this miserable thing for the time being and we need to come to grips with the fact that this cozy, corporatist relationship that exists between the government and the health insurance companies will do anything but bend downward the cost of healthcare. If we are going to get this thing repealed, it will take people across the political spectrum to act in good faith with the knowledge that ObamaCare is not reform rather a furthering of an already miserable status quo.



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And where Robert Reich has a conversation with a paleo-conservative stereotype

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When he's not divvying up Porkulus or lecturing America on "the other", he's having imaginary conversations with people and writing about them. Well, maybe he is having actual conversations but not with an actual person, but rather, in Presidential book-writing parlance, "composites". Here's Reich, Bill Clinton's former Labor Secretary yesterday in Business Insider:

Recently I publicly debated* a regressive Republican who said Arizona and every other state should use whatever means necessary to keep out illegal immigrants. He also wants English to be spoken in every classroom in the nation, and the pledge of allegiance recited every morning. “We have to preserve and protect America,” he said. “That’s the meaning of patriotism.”

We're not going to debate the finer and varied points of border control and immigration policy but is Reich aware of this concept of English immersion which became the law in the state of California about some 15 years ago and has been found to work quite well. And what does Reich have against saying the Pledge every morning before class? He never explains.



Back to the article:

To my debating partner and other regressives, patriotism is about securing the nation from outsiders eager to overrun us. That’s why they also want to restore every dollar of the $500 billion in defense cuts scheduled to start in January.

Yet many of these same regressives have no interest in preserving or protecting our system of government. To the contrary, they show every sign of wanting to be rid of it.

In fact, regressives in Congress have substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above loyalty to America.

The GOP’s highest-ranking member of Congress has said his “number one aim” is to unseat President Obama. For more than three years congressional Republicans have marched in lockstep, determined to do just that. They have brooked no compromise.

Funny. We remember a Democrat in the Oval Office and solid Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate in 2009/2010 and as is their right that had been granted to them electorally, we don't recall a whole lot of compromising and to show for it we got a big fat $800 billion political payback in Porkulus and an unpopular overhaul of the healthcare system that puts even more regulatory burdens on the health insurance companies and with no real way to pay for it.

The American public thought so much of these accomplishments, the Democrats were swepped out of power in the House by historic margins. True story. We aren't making this up. Republicans were sent to D.C. with a mandate from the public to stop the statist expansion of the federal government and Reich is bitching about gridlock? You all brought it upon yourselves, you nitwit.




And you just knew this was coming:

Regressives on the Supreme Court have opened the floodgates to unlimited money from billionaires and corporations overwhelming our democracy, on the bizarre theory that money is speech under the First Amendment and corporations are people.

Count on this being whine du jour from here until November and beyond if things continue to go south in opinion polls and elections later on this Fall. Again, all that money in politics wasn't necessarily a problem back in 2008 when Reich's guy turned down public financing of his campaign so he could crush McCain in fundraising which included record amounts of cash from Wall Street firms.


More:

True patriots don’t hate the government of the United States. They’re proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.

What? Generations of Americans did no such thing. Generations of Americans risked and sacrificed their lives in defense of this country and the Constitution, not its government. You may think it's a distinction without a difference but in the context of Reich's partisan attack piece, here, it's a convenient yet hopelessly false strawman. Reich's intellectual laziness is palpable


Reich, signing off:

But regressive Republicans loathe the government – and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing much of anything. Tea Partiers are out to gut it entirely. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”

Yep. We don't know why we aren't the slightest bit skeptical of our government these days. After all, it's not like the federal government was running guns across the border and into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels. It's not like they recently gave themselves the power to kill U.S. citizens overseas for alleged terrorism without due process or to detain, indefinitely, the same here on U.S. soil without due cause.

Why are we worried about the random exercise of power? It's not like we have an executive branch that is issuing executive orders that countermand written law with respect to immigration or simply stops enforcing written law when the Supreme Court hands down rulings that it doesn't agree with regarding the same. That sort of stuff never happens.

So, let's all turn that frown upside down and pick up the flag of the U.S. government for which so many have sacrificed, because, as you can see from the above, patriots, there is nothing to fear... they're from the government and they're here to help.




* An earlier online version of this article did not speak of a debate, only a "conversation".

/down twinkles

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We'll say this: it certainly hasn't been any picnic since the OWS (Obamaville's Whining Squatters) set up their encampments around the country. All that sexual assaulting, STD spreading, class warfare messaging and police brutality were due to take their toll.

Most of the roughly 300 Occupy L.A. protesters were released from jail by Friday evening, with some immediately speaking out on the police raid that cleared their camp.

One speaker suggested that some of those arrested might need therapy. Several said they felt traumatized after witnessing police use nonlethal force and being forced to wait for hours in zip-tie handcuffs. Some displayed cuts on their wrists from the handcuffs. Others complained that they were forced to urinate in bags on the bus as they were transported to jails.

One speaker urged others to document any complaints. "Make note of every single violation of human rights," she told those assembled.

It is duly noted that these folks who have been struggled against by what they feel is an over-aggressive government that has used force and coersion to achieve its ends wants that same government to use force and coersion to achieve OWS' ends of income and wealth re-distribution.

Good to know.

Great moments in the history of statism

Alternate headline: We don't think trans fats is what these guys had in mind

During a United Nations General Assembly summit on non-communicable diseases -- a discussion that included diet and eating habits -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option."

Speaking on the government's role in diet and health last week, Bloomberg told the UN General Assembly, “There are powers only governments can exercise, policies only governments can mandate and enforce and results only governments can achieve. To halt the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases, governments at all levels must make healthy solutions the default social option. That is ultimately government’s highest duty.”

We don't care what your political stripings are to be able to realize and appreciate what sort of misery government can afflict upon its people with a going-in position like Bloomberg's. No matter that he was speaking in the lowest common denominator form to the rest of the petty tyrants and thugs in that assembly.

There are powers only individuals can exercise, policies only individuals can mandate and enforce and results only individuals can achieve.

Which society do you want to live in?

Link of the day

... but first, a very important message from Alexis de Toqueville speaking to us from Democracy in America:

after having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd.

The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupifies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which government is the sheperd.

(paragraphs and italics, ours)

If any of this sounds relevant, it should because it's called being killed with kindness. And remember, this is when the "good guys", i.e., the people that know what's best for you, are in charge - just wait 'til the bad guys get behind the wheel.



Totally related and under the category of Newspeak...

Out: "Government"

In: Your "Federal Family"

Harrison has the details here.

It's come to this

If it will bend the cost curve downward, then we suppose everything is on the table... or off the table as the case may be.

H/T: Weasel Zippers

Programming Alert (UPDATED)

If you think we're spending too much time on health care, we've got some very bad news for you as we will be venting and then plotting and scheming for a while with respect to ObamaCare. No other piece of legislation in our lifetime has been as great a threat to our freedom and liberty as this one is.

Please feel free to pass on this blog for a while if you feel differently. If not, please stick around and help us strategize how best we can blunt the effects of if not ruin ObamaCare altogether.

We were pretty depressed yesterday evening. We woke up this morning, though, energized and ready for the battle. Join us, won't you?


(UPDATE #1): Ask and ye shall receive. Liberated from the comments courtesy Sarah B., Dawn from the Southern California Tax Revolt Coalitions has some initial thoughts on first response strategy to ObamCare, here.

Our brave new world

What are you doing right now? What are you eating right now? Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t care but as yesterday’s vote on health care has signaled, these are no longer “normal circumstances”.

You see, though Obamacare is not a single-payer system, the template for complete government control of healthcare has been set and the battles in the future will not be for a repeal of Obamacare (given electoral realities, we just don’t see a full repeal being a possibility) but rather against the incrementalism towards a full-blown, British-style NIH system.

So, back to what you are currently doing/eating/drinking/smoking/watching. Drop it in the comments section but try to keep it as brief as possible because under our eventual single-payer system, we are going to have quite a few people to keep track of.

“They are chastising me for telling her she should lose some weight because it is raising the cost of health care and it is also bad for her children and she is going to end up with diabetes,” Sunderhaus said. “I had to take three days out of my practice and go down to Raleigh, losing income, just because somebody didn’t like that I told her that she was fat.”

The patient complained that Sunderhaus poked her thigh and told her she was fat, and scolded her as irresponsible for being unemployed and relying on taxpayers to pay for another pregnancy.

“I told her the thick glasses were not going to blind her, she would go blind because of her thick thighs because diabetes is the No. 1 cause of blindness in this country,” Sunderhaus said.

Sunderhaus is an eye doctor in North Carolina who is some dutch with the state’s medical board to where he may lose his license for having the temerity to suggest to one of his patients she might possibly be better served by altering her eating habits for her own good and for that of the overall health care system.

It’s bad enough that a common sense-speaking doctor dispensing some common sense in private to one his patients might actually cost him his job - now that we will soon be paying for all of your healthcare, that unfortunate responsibility of being a nag falls to us.

As we enter this uncomfortable intersection in cultural history where we hesitate pointing out any unhealthy life-style choices among others for fear of being labeled a prude and the single-payer era where we are all invested in each others life-style choices, again, the government has the solution.

If one feels uncomfortable moralizing about another’s smoking, drinking, crappy driving, sexual promiscuity or what have you, just give it a little bit of time before the government will simply ban whatever untoward behavior or substance that may bend the cost curve of health care upward. So if you don’t feel quite right about suggesting someone not take the hair dryer into the shower, don’t sweat it, the government’s got you covered.

The government has already engaged in some “price signaling” with respect to tobacco and trans fats and some other nasty, nasty stuff that needs to be regulated if not banned outright so here’s hoping we’ll be spared the role of our brother’s nag by the government stepping in and regulating or banning many other products and activities.

It’s all just so much simpler that way.

But until that time comes, we are politely asking KT to cut back somewhat on his beloved spice-laden and deep-fried Cajun/Southern cuisine. Also, B-Daddy, we know you are fond of cholesterol-inducing grilled red meat. Might want to dial that back, bro. Foxie, you are currently on a dairy farm or were raised on the family dairy farm, yes? Well, might want to think about a different profession. We’ll get to addressing others that we know in due time.

We’re glad to be of such overall societal benefit to you all. We’re sure you’ll see the wisdom of Obamacare and our collective roles in making it happen in the by and by.

This is what we fought a revolution for?

A real brew-haha has beer lovers in the City of Brotherly love frothing over with anger.

To one side, the suds uproar is borne out of typographical errors, hard-to-spell beer names and archaic, Prohibition-era liquor laws. To the other, it's a simple matter of making sure bars and beer manufacturers aren't scamming the system.

It all came to a head after an anonymous complaint that a Philadelphia bar was selling beer that had not been properly licensed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, an agency created after Prohibition in 1933 to regulate the sale of alcohol.

That tip led to raids last week at three upscale bars, where police confiscated three quarter-kegs and 317 bottles of beer that were not believed to have been properly registered with the state. Raids at Memphis Taproom in Philadelphia's Kensington section, Local 44 in west Philadelphia and Resurrection Ale House downtown caught the couple who run them by surprise.

"I feel like there are a lot of typographical errors that caused this," said Leigh Maida, who received calls from staff around midday March 4. "The laws were really developed before there were so many kinds of beers."

Question: Why? Why is it the law to have to register beer at one’s establishment?

Under Pennsylvania liquor law, manufacturers of malt or brewed beverages must pay a $75 annual fee to register each brand. About 2,800 beers are now registered in the state; manufacturers submit applications to the liquor board, showing the agreement they have with the wholesaler.

Answer: Money grab. There is no societal benefit to these laws. Incidentally, often times small brew pubs that will carry just one type of beer from each brand/brewery, that $75 registration fee represents a full 50% of the cost of a keg of beer from that brand. 50% for the privilege of carrying that particular brand.

In the recent raids, a tipster contacted the state, saying the bar owners were selling unregistered beers, said Sgt. William La Torre, commanding officer of the Philadelphia office of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, which enforces the liquor laws. Statewide, police say there are typically fewer than 10 complaints a year about unregistered beer.

Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft, don't know who filed the complaint. They believe the problem largely results from archaic liquor laws and misunderstandings about formidable beer names that often get abbreviated.

The tipster should be shot.

The liquor code, they say, is no match for beers with names like Dogfish Head Raison d'etre and a dark ale called 't smisje BBBorgoundier. The rigid code also isn't able to account for when they abbreviate Allagash White Beer to "Allagash Wit" on their menus.

At one bar, Maida had a beer listed as "de dolle Oebier gran reserva;" the beer itself was "de dolle oerbier," but the police had it spelled as "de rolle oebier," she said.

"The laws were really developed before there were so many kinds of beers," she said.
These are obviously crimes against humanity that must be dealt with in the harshest and most irrational manner possible.

Maj. John Lutz, director of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, said police are working with the board to try to figure out which of the recently seized beers are registered.

So far, 72 of the 317 bottles seized were being returned after police determined they were registered, Lutz said. No charges have been filed in the ongoing investigation.

"We're trying to sort out the whole labeling issue," Lutz said. "Anything that was just a spelling mistake, hopefully we've caught."

As part of their follow-up to last week's raids, police seized about 12 cases of beer from a distributor in northeastern Philadelphia, he said.

But with the growing number of breweries nationwide, enforcement of the state's liquor laws has become more challenging.

Words (almost) fail us. We have an obvious bias on this matter (a small government bias in case you were wondering) but this is just good ol’ fashioned harassment, plain and simple. It’s difficult to imagine the police force of a big city like Philly doesn’t have any more pressing issues than proof-reading menus and bar bills.

Again, there is absolutely no societal benefit to these laws. They bring nothing to the table save ensuring a revenue stream to the state and bar owners and managers making sure the wait staff can spell correctly.

Great moments in the history of centrism Pt. IV

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) discovered some astounding language in the bowels of Senatecare regarding the Independent Medicare Advisory Board which, when it comes to fruition, will not be confused with either “independent” or merely “advisory”. Here’s what DeMint said on the floor of the Senate this past week

There's one provision that I found particularly troubling and it's under section c, titled "limitations on changes to this subsection."

And I quote -- "it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

This is not legislation. it's not law, this is a rule change. It's a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.

I'm not even sure that it's constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. I don't see why the majority party wouldn't put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates.

I mean, we want to bind future congresses? This goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future co congresses.

(emphasis, ours)

Reid must be pretty committed to making sure your healthcare decisions will be permanently taken out of your hands with language like that.

And weren’t the statists in the press just recently whining about “the system” being “ungovernable”? Well, this certainly puts a cherry on top of that. Forget “ungovernable”, how about “why show up at all” when you have made rules that prohibit repealing, changing or modifying existing laws.

C’mon, libs – let’s hear it. We want to hear the howls of indignation regarding just how truly undemocratic this bill is. We wanna hear more about how ungovernable the system will be under these new rules Reid has fashioned. We certainly want to hear more about the transparency under which they were fashioned and we want to hear more about the centrism being embraced by the Democrats with respect to Obamacare.

Quote of the Day

“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.”

This wisdom generated from a man who did not even have a computer in his classroom. How could it be?