With such a crowded field... how did we let this go for so long?

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We’ve drifted away from the practice for the last 2 or 3 years but we had previously been in the habit of awarding the truly horrible journalism the Walter Duranty Putridity in Journalism Award, in honor of the eponymous Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times reporter and Communist sympathizer.


So bad was the column by David Brooks a couple of weeks ago, we have decided to resurrect the award and reprint our blog response to it below. Congratulations, Brooksy, for taking home the not-so-coveted Walter Duranty Putridity in Journalism Award for 2013:

When shilling for an autocracy is so much easier than swallowing your pride

We've all been there. We read something or listen to someone and your jaw hits the floor with the simultaneous thought, perhaps voiced out loud, "Where has this guy been?", or "What planet is this dude living on?"


David Brooks (pictured), employing what is now a cottage industry in political punditry: decrying gridlock and/or a "dysfunctional" Washington D.C., gave us that moment in his latest column titled "Strengthen the Presidency."


To be fair, Brooks does bring up some valid points. Yes, there are too many K Street lobbyists. Yes, moneyed interests skew legislation to the benefit of just a few. We know all this but Brooks' solution to the problem, as strongly suggested by the title of the column is both dangerous and foolish.


First, though, some false assumptions by Brooks:

"... it is possible to mobilize the executive branch to come to policy conclusion on something like immigration reform. It’s nearly impossible for Congress to lead us to a conclusion about anything.

It's "reform" and "reform" is inherently good, right? No. Not really. You can dress up that pig and call it anything you want and it's still just a pig and the current amnesty plan not to mention Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg and, of course, the mother of all reform pigs, the Affordable Care Act are all proof of that. And please note how easy Brooks can assert singular executive action as a preferable course all in the name of "doing something" whatever that "something" is.

"Fourth, Congressional deliberations, to the extent they exist at all, are rooted in rigid political frameworks. Some agencies, especially places like the Office of Management and Budget, are reasonably removed from excessive partisanship."

Good. We'll keep saying for as long as we have to, but in our constitutional republic, passing laws is supposed to be and is necessarily designed to be difficult... at least it used to be. The Senate's sobriquet as the most deliberative body on the planet was, we thought, a point of pride. Again, this notion that Congress must do “something” is simply wrong-headed. Mere activity of Congress does not equate to beneficial nor productive legislation. There are far worse things than “legislative inactivity” and “legislative activity” would be one of those.

Fifth, executive branch officials, if they were liberated from rigid Congressional strictures, would have more discretion to respond to their screw-ups, like the Obamacare implementation. Finally, the nation can take it out on a president’s party when a president’s laws don’t work. That doesn’t happen in Congressional elections, where most have safe seats.

Now, Brooks is just talking wacky. When he says "respond" does he mean the blizzard of waivers, delays and exemptions the administration has rained down from on high since ObamaCare became law and which has served only to add confusion to an already overly-complex and byzantine law and served only to reinforce the perception of utter incompetence of this administration? Is that what he means by "respond"? God help us. We're bordering on banana republic territory as it is and Brooks appears blissfully unaware that his "respond" mechanism of the executive branch is the main reason why.

And about those safe seats… Tell that to the scores of now-former congressional Democrats that got swept out of office in that 2010 midterm shellacking which was a direct result of the electorate's "response" to ObamaCare.


But, believe it or not, Brooks isn’t done… not by a long shot. Here’s the paragraph justifying more concentrated and constitutional republic-shunning power-grabbing and which is tied directly to his fifth point above:

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout. It’s important to advocate greater executive branch power in a chastened mood. It’s not that the executive branch is trustworthy; it’s just that we’re better off when the presidency is strong than we are when the rentier groups are strong, or when Congress, which is now completely captured by the rentier groups, is strong.

Insane. Simply insane. Brooks lays out exactly why it’s such a bad idea to give the executive branch more power and then doubles down by advocating exactly for that.

And let’s take a quick moment to disabuse ourselves this notion that somehow the executive branch is more insulated from special interests than Congress. For one, the Department of Energy green loan program has been nothing but a pay-off to administration cronies, bundlers and campaign donors.

And the absolute lack of accountability in the scandals involving the IRS, NSA snooping, Fast and Furious and Benghazi are all indicative of responding to political pressure from like-minded political interests. Whether its K Street or within the vast federal leviathan, what does it matter?

If you think that the most powerful office in the world is somehow more insulated from the pressure of interests groups than a congressman, we believe you’d be sadly mistaken.


Poor David Brooks, the center-right columnist of America’s paper of record. Pride is a tough thing to swallow and since he’s been an Obama apologist for years now, it’s probably the easiest path now to double down on proposing the executive branch power grabs for his boy that has already been happening for years. Power grabs that are completely at odds with the ideals of a constitutional republic but it’s apparent that brushing aside political inconveniences trump any fidelity to separation of powers and checks and balances.


Brooks’ assumptions that this can all be justified because of the fundamental decency of one man is that of foolishness and shortsightedness.


Exit question(s) for our liberal friends out there. Sure, it’s all good because of the unsurpassed righteousness, benevolence and wisdom of Barack Obama. But he’s only going to be in office for a little over 3 more years. What then? The executive orders and unilateral actions that had you all so exorcised during the Bush years and that you either turned a blind eye towards or actively cheered during the Obama regime… What now? All those assumed and accrued powers will be turned over to someone infinitely less-saintly than the current occupier of the Oval Office. What will you say then?


We're not holding our breath waiting for an answer.

(end of article)



And we do have a video category for this award for the first time. Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC… come on down and get your hardware while the rest of us enjoy the this montage of the 5 dumbest things you said this year.



It’s no surprise that Fox News skews right and blonde but we’ve got to hand it to the folks at MSNBC for stretching beyond the widely-held standards of common sense and graciousness to achieve previously-thought unimaginable levels of poor taste and derangement. An atta boy all around to that entire network.




That's it, gang. Have a safe and enjoyable New Year's and we'll see you all in 2014.

Not necessarily what you were expecting, huh?

As left-brained, conserva-libertarian suburbanites, one can imagine that womens’ studies and feminism are not our strong suit. However, we’ve had a mad crush on Camille Paglia, our imaginary lesbian Western Classicist girlfriend, for years.


The lede from the Wall St. Journal:

'What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," says Camille Paglia. This self-described "notorious Amazon feminist" isn't telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can't Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that's just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation.

Judging by the way social media has been blowing up over the linked article over the weekend, it’s like everybody has just awakened to what she has been saying for over two decades.


Read entire interview at the link.

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Video clip of the day

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Reason.com presents their 5th annual year-end Nanny of the Year:







We're it not for term limits, one could probably safely retire this award with Bloomy. Unfortunately, just because he will no longer be mayor of NYC, doesn't mean he won't be around to nag after people as his hilariously ineffective and expensive Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) has proven.


And while we can perhaps sympathize with the plight of Ms. Berry and others in wanting to protect their children, the results of this legislation will create special protections for a separate class of people. This is undemocratic (and is why we are fiercely opposed to hate crime laws which is a story for another time), ergo, we are against it. Besides, who is going to come up with the legal definition of “celebrity” by which people can be prosecuted? The potential vagaries and potential for abuse (no pictures of pols’ kids?) makes this a complete non-starter in our book.



Our vote, however, is with cigarette boy up there in Oregon. The de-normalizing of smoking and smokers continues apace and as Mayor Bloomy has amply demonstrated, once you start criminalizing cigarettes, it’s an easy path to trans-fats, salt or any another item a petty tyrant finds personally distasteful.



With that goes a Holiday message to Nannies all across the fruited plain of this beautiful country of ours:

“Quit banning s**t we like!”

Tending to some blog title-related business

Knocking back a few Sierra Nevada Pale Ales after a de-hydrating Hash House Harrier run 10 years ago was our "gateway" moment in getting into the craft beer scene, particularly that of the West Coast hoppy IPA (India Pale Ale) varieties.


Much like the internet, we scarcely knew what we were doing and how we were doing it before latching on to the craft beer scene.


Anyway...


The Brewer's Association released their craft beer economic impact report where they claim that the craft beer industry contributed $33.9 billion to the U.S. economy in 2012.


From the report:

According to a new analysis by the Brewers Association (BA)—the not-for-profit trade association that represents the majority of U.S. breweries—small and independent American craft brewers contributed $33.9 billion to the U.S. economy in 2012.

The figure is derived from the total impact of beer brewed by craft brewers as it moves through the three-tier system (breweries, wholesalers and retailers), as well as all non-beer products that brewpub restaurants sell.

"With a strong presence across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, craft breweries are a vibrant and flourishing economic force at the local, state and national level,” said Bart Watson, staff economist, Brewers Association. “As consumers continue to demand a wide range of high quality, full-flavored beers, small and independent craft brewers are meeting this growing demand with innovative offerings, creating high levels of economic value in the process.”

Here's a breakdown by state:

As one would expect, California is lead dog with $4.7 billion contributed to the state economy.


Obviously, the "gross" stats will skew towards the more populous states in the union as we don't really see states like Ohio and Texas being hotbeds for craft beer.



So, let's take a look at the states on a per capital basis:

Ah, much better. Oregon, Colorado, Vermont, Maine and Montana, in that order, are the top 5.


Predictably, craft beer is strongest on the West Coast, the interior mountain west and the northeast while the southern and heartland states lag considerably.



How about some more numbers from 2012:

2,347 : number of craft breweries operating in the U.S.

1,132 : number of brewpubs

13,235,917 : number of barrels of beer brewed by craft breweries with an estimated retail dollar value of $11.9 billion

360,000 : number of jobs provided by the industry

As you may know, San Diego is home to a fantastic beer scene so do yourself a favor and give it a shot. If you feel a tad intimidated by the "scene" do what we do and hit up places that a) have a good variety of solid to excellent beers and b) a friendly staff who would love to walk you through the process of ordering a beer that best suits your palate and not be stand-offish pricks about it (we're looking at you Toronado).


Hoffer's in La Mesa, K and B Wine Cellars in Del Cerro and to a lesser extent because they are always so damn crowded, Alpine Beer Co. in Alpine fit the bill. It's the holidays... hit'em up and Merry Christmas from the entire staff here at Beers with Demo.


P.S. What were we thinking...? If Belgian beers are your thing and you aren't going to Brabant in South Park, you're doing it all wrong. And while you're at it, say hi to Max. He'll be there, trust us.



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Some not so random thoughts on this Duck Dynasty thing

Events have unfolded so quickly and there have been so many twists and turns
in the whole Duck Dynasty/Phil Robertson kerkuffle we haven't had sufficient
time to digest all the goings on in order to comment upon them.



A few observations, however, are in order:

1) A&E looks spineless and duplicitous in this whole affair. A&E wins
our Capt. Louis Renault award for being shocked... shocked that the star of
their reality... R-E-A-L-I-T-Y... show might just have views on
homosexuality and express them in a manner as would many other southern,
rural Christians. To our knowledge, Duck Dynasty was the highest rated
cable series ever, making A&E tons of money and they fold like a lawn chair
when push comes to shove.


2) Golly, did Cracker Barrel backpedal faster than a corner covering a go-route
when after removing from their restaurants anything Phil
Robertson-related, they put it all back up after hearing from their
constituents? How bizarre is it that Cracker Barrel, of all places, might
think their customer base of red-staters might give a hoot about what GLAAD
thinks?


3) Disappointed in our fellow travelers on the right, Louisiana Governor
Bobby Jindal being chief among those, who thought this was a free-speech
issue. In our way of thinking, for it to be a free speech issue, the
government would need to be involved. That's how it works. The
government wasn't involved via censoring or otherwise butting into A&E's
affairs, advocacy groups were so it wasn't a free speech issue rather a
we're-totally-offended-by-what-this-straight-guy-said-so-were-going-to-press
ure-A&E-to-shut-this-guy-down issue. Huge difference.


And speaking of speech... the following is an old post and a favorite of
ours as free speech has become a more and more valued right to us over the
years and which we believe has parallels to L'affaire Duck Dynasty.

Exceptional Speech


All free speech isn't created equally or interpreted equally everywhere as
the show trials of Canadian human rights commissions of Mark Steyn and Ezra
Levant have proven. But is our free speech better than Canadian and European
free speech? Some here think we need to revisit the concept that was deemed
important enough to be drafted No. 1 overall when it came time for our
nation's founders to make their selections of really, really important
rights.


But why does it seem that on the whole a more restrictive interpretation of
free speech, and thus a more liberal interpretation of hate speech, occurs
in countries that appear to have the most difficulties with restive
immigrant minority groups. Is there a causal relationship? We think there
may be.


The fact that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has a near 100%
conviction rate is proof-positive of giving an air of legitimacy to quite
anything that an aggrieved plaintiff may bring before it as "hate speech".
If you as the aggrieved are almost always guaranteed satisfaction from this
particular court system every time you cry foul, then the hate speech bar is
lowered to the point where being offended or feeling your group has been
incited against with respect to nearly anything written or said is indeed,
culturally and legally, justifiable.


The whole system both legally and culturally in Canada and much of Europe
thus invites grievances, promotes isolation and discourages assimilation.


Let's contrast that with the United States where Muslims don't riot or burn
American flags, where there are no fatwas declared against writers and
filmmakers are not murdered while walking down the street and the hate
speech bar is set much, much higher.


Precisely because the bar is set higher, the legitimization of hate speech
is much more infrequent. Rather than officially recognize alleged hate
speech in courts of law, the rantings of say, a Jeremiah Wright or the
suggestions by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson that the acceptance of
homosexuality in this country was, in part, responsible for 9-11, it is
instead held up for public scorn, ridicule and mocking.. as it should. The
question of legitimacy is taken off the table and in fact, it is viewed not
as court-defined "hate speech" but rather, "illegitimate speech." In other
words, speech that is outside the legitimate circle of polite and civil
discourse.


We will not take you to court, we will, however, make fun of you and then
simply ignore you.


A perfect case-in-point for this is the Iranian mad-bomber, Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad, who came to New York last year to make a number of speeches and
appearances. We understood the calls for banning and/or boycotting his
speeches but we generally came down on the side of letting the man speak
knowing that the true Mahmoud would reveal himself and sho'nuff, the raving
lunatic, homophobe and anti-semite we knew him to be did not disappoint.


Despite the serious nature of what he said, we, collectively, mocked and ridiculed the guy,
essentially turning Ahmedinejad into a late-night punch line effectively
neutering and delegitimizing his message.


A Canadian, himself recognizes this exceptionalism. Jason Gratl a lawyer for
the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association:

"Canadians do not have a cast-iron stomach for offensive speech," Mr. Gratl
said in a telephone interview. "We don't subscribe to a marketplace of
ideas. Americans as a whole are more tough-minded and more prepared for
verbal combat."


And Mr. Steyn: "Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable
with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish
the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world."

This exceptionalism is worth preserving. We've seen how free speech
interpretation works elsewhere and the results are less than American.


Embrace the hatred of hate speech laws.

(end of old post)




Over the weekend it was reported that GLAAD now wants Robertson to spend
some time with gays there in Louisiana as if his current chastening wasn't
enough. This re-education camp mentality is troubling and would suggest we are losing the tough-mindedness of which Mr. Gratl speaks.

Video clip of the day

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Check out what passes for intelligent political discourse these days in this exchange between Piers Morgan and Barbara Walters on Morgan's show on CNN.


(transcript is below video embed)

Via NewsBusters:

PIERS MORGAN, HOST: You have interviewed every president of my lifetime. Why is Obama facing so much opposition now? Why is he struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?

BARBARA WALTERS: Well, you've touched on it to a degree. He made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be - I shouldn't say this at Christmastime, but - the next messiah. And the whole ObamaCare, or whatever you want to call it, the Affordable Health Act, it just hasn't worked for him, and he's stumbled around on it, and people feel very disappointed because they expected more.

It's very difficult when the expectations for you are very high. You're almost better off when they are low and then they rise and rise. His were very high and they've dropped. But you know, he still has several years to go. What does he have, three years, Piers? And, you know, there will be a lot of changes, one thinks in that time.

The quantity and degree of infantilism displayed by these two chronological adults is stunning.


From a practical, reality-based standpoint, what the hell does "...fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement..." even mean? If immigration "reform" legislation somehow managed to land on the President's desk for his signature, would that more satisfy Morgan's delusions of grandeur? Seriously, what sort of concrete achievement clears Morgan's goalpost? Wasn't ruining this nation's healthcare system enough?


And we can ask the same of Walters . These two are standard-bearers for modern day progressivism and they are talking like 6 yr. olds. Specifically, to what "change" is Walters referring? Is it a policy position... a specific piece of legislation... a court appointment... what? Their words hold no actual meaning. With respect to the messianic Obama, they have deluded themselves into reducing everything they say to bromides, cliches and campaign sloganeering.


It is duly noted that Clintonista, John Podesta, who has been brought into the White House to shake things up, has likened House Republicans to Jonestown cult followers (also duly noted and in a bit of irony, Jones before decamping to Guyana was somewhat of a star in California Democratic politics in the mid-70s). This is known as projecting as only Kool Aid-drinking progressives circa 2013, can convince themselves that things like "kill lists" and a domestic spying program are A-OK as long as the the Dear Leader is at the helm.


"... fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement..." is it any wonder this Presidency has been such a disaster when that sort of completely unserious language is the coin of the realm for this President's supporters and the Beltway at large. A disaster borne of the conceit that the man actually believes his own bulls**t.



Alas, much like how bagels are merely a vehicle for the heavenly cream cheese upon which it sets, this entire post is merely a vehicle for, hands-down, the creepiest, un-democratic, bootlicking campaign video of all-time.

Don't be that guy

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Didn’t get an invite to the party? No worries. Show up anyway with that six pack… er, now four pack of Natural Lite and let the good times roll.

District of Columbia officials are recruiting young residents this weekend to enroll in ObamaCare by showing up where they “party by night and shop by day.”

Officials on Saturday visited two Footlocker stores where Nike’s exclusive Air Jordan 12 “Taxi” sneakers were going on sale. And they are scheduled to visit two Denny’s restaurants from 2 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

“My motto is ‘Get them health care while you get them Jordans,” DC Health Links representative Vanessa Brooks told Fox News outside a Footlocker in the city’s downtown.

“Get some health care to go along with them taxis, OK?” Brooks told those at the store. “You got to have it. And you need it.”

The Obama administration and other supporters of the Affordable Care Act have worked hard since enrollment started in October to connect with young people, knowing their participation will help cover the cost of the elderly and others who need more medical care.

However, problems with the federal ObamaCare website and the 14 state-run sites appear to have made the tech-savvy generation wary of the entire program, combined with members’ general feeling they won’t get sick or injured, which has prompted Brooks and other D.C. Health Link officials to call them “young invincibles.”

Terrific. ObamaCare has been reduced to being that 40-something creeper with the bad hair at the house party.


And what a marketing disaster to call this target demographic whom you are depending upon to support this federal Ponzi scheme, “Young Invincibles”. What better way to get people to sign up for healthcare insurance than to re-enforce the belief of their own indestructibility. Wouldn’t “Young Vulnerables” be a step in the right direction? Or, if you wanted to cut right to the chase, how about “Young Compliants”?


As it stands, the “YCs” aren’t signing up. It’s the “Old and Sick”, a demographic that ObamaCare wants nothing to do with… at least not if the YCs aren’t going to pick up the tab for them.


After all, who but the sick aid elderly are going to have the patience and time to wade through the still-glitch-riddled state and federal exchange sites?


Not us. We’ll see you all later on tonight at IHOP.


Hollah. Yo.



h/t: @TriciaNC1

When shilling for an autocracy is so much easier than swallowing your pride

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We've all been there. We read something or listen to someone and your jaw hits the floor with the simultaneous thought, perhaps voiced out loud, "Where has this guy been?", or "What planet is this dude living on?"


David Brooks (pictured), employing what is now a cottage industry in political punditry: decrying gridlock and/or a "dysfunctional" Washington D.C., gave us that moment in his latest column titled "Strengthen the Presidency."


To be fair, Brooks does bring up some valid points. Yes, there are too many K Street lobbyists. Yes, moneyed interests skew legislation to the benefit of just a few. We know all this but Brooks' solution to the problem, as strongly suggested by the title of the column is both dangerous and foolish.


First, though, some false assumptions by Brooks:

"... it is possible to mobilize the executive branch to come to policy conclusion on something like immigration reform. It’s nearly impossible for Congress to lead us to a conclusion about anything.

It's "reform" and "reform" is inherently good, right? No. Not really. You can dress up that pig and call it anything you want and it's still just a pig and the current amnesty plan not to mention Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg and, of course, the mother of all reform pigs, the Affordable Care Act are all proof of that. And please note how easy Brooks can assert singular executive action as a preferable course all in the name of "doing something" whatever that "something" is.

"Fourth, Congressional deliberations, to the extent they exist at all, are rooted in rigid political frameworks. Some agencies, especially places like the Office of Management and Budget, are reasonably removed from excessive partisanship."

Good. We'll keep saying for as long as we have to, but in our constitutional republic, passing laws is supposed to be and is necessarily designed to be difficult... at least it used to be. The Senate's sobriquet as the most deliberative body on the planet was, we thought, a point of pride. Again, this notion that Congress must do “something” is simply wrong-headed. Mere activity of Congress does not equate to beneficial nor productive legislation. There are far worse things than “legislative inactivity” and “legislative activity” would be one of those.

Fifth, executive branch officials, if they were liberated from rigid Congressional strictures, would have more discretion to respond to their screw-ups, like the Obamacare implementation. Finally, the nation can take it out on a president’s party when a president’s laws don’t work. That doesn’t happen in Congressional elections, where most have safe seats.

Now, Brooks is just talking wacky. When he says "respond" does he mean the blizzard of waivers, delays and exemptions the administration has rained down from on high since ObamaCare became law and which has served only to add confusion to an already overly-complex and byzantine law and served only to reinforce the perception of utter incompetence of this administration? Is that what he means by "respond"? God help us. We're bordering on banana republic territory as it is and Brooks appears blissfully unaware that his "respond" mechanism of the executive branch is the main reason why.

And about those safe seats… Tell that to the scores of now-former congressional Democrats that got swept out of office in that 2010 midterm shellacking which was a direct result of the electorate's "response" to ObamaCare.


But, believe it or not, Brooks isn’t done… not by a long shot. Here’s the paragraph justifying more concentrated and constitutional republic-shunning power-grabbing and which is tied directly to his fifth point above:

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout. It’s important to advocate greater executive branch power in a chastened mood. It’s not that the executive branch is trustworthy; it’s just that we’re better off when the presidency is strong than we are when the rentier groups are strong, or when Congress, which is now completely captured by the rentier groups, is strong.

Insane. Simply insane. Brooks lays out exactly why it’s such a bad idea to give the executive branch more power and then doubles down by advocating exactly for that.

And let’s take a quick moment to disabuse ourselves this notion that somehow the executive branch is more insulated from special interests than Congress. For one, the Department of Energy green loan program has been nothing but a pay-off to administration cronies, bundlers and campaign donors.

And the absolute lack of accountability in the scandals involving the IRS, NSA snooping, Fast and Furious and Benghazi are all indicative of responding to political pressure from like-minded political interests. Whether its K Street or within the vast federal leviathan, what does it matter?

If you think that the most powerful office in the world is somehow more insulated from the pressure of interests groups than a congressman, we believe you’d be sadly mistaken.


Poor David Brooks, the center-right columnist of America’s paper of record. Pride is a tough thing to swallow and since he’s been an Obama apologist for years now, it’s probably the easiest path now to double down on proposing the executive branch power grabs for his boy that has already been happening for years. Power grabs that are completely at odds with the ideals of a constitutional republic but it’s apparent that brushing aside political inconveniences trump any fidelity to separation of powers and checks and balances.


Brooks’ assumptions that this can all be justified because of the fundamental decency of one man is that of foolishness and shortsightedness.


Exit question(s) for our liberal friends out there. Sure, it’s all good because of the unsurpassed righteousness, benevolence and wisdom of Barack Obama. But he’s only going to be in office for a little over 3 more years. What then? The executive orders and unilateral actions that had you all so exorcised during the Bush years and that you either turned a blind eye towards or actively cheered during the Obama regime… What now? All those assumed and accrued powers will be turned over to someone infinitely less-saintly than the current occupier of the Oval Office. What will you say then?


We're not holding our breath waiting for an answer.


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Correct sentiment, bad execution

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Our idea of hell: Being stuck on a cross-country flight in the middle seat between two dudes rambling on about their fantasy football team. Ugh. We shudder at the mere thought because there is nothing more interesting on the planet than your own fantasy team and nothing least interesting than everyone else’s. That’s a bad combo.


So, we’ve been interested to see whether or not the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) moves to lift the ban which currently hangs in the balance.


Two Republican congressmen, however, are not going to wait for the FCC to act and have introduced legislation to keep the in-flight cell phone ban in place.



From The Hill:

Political momentum to keep a ban on cellphone calls during flights gained momentum Monday as lawmakers said it would be crazy to allow them.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) became the second lawmaker after Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to offer legislation to keep the ban in place.

“Let’s face it, airplane cabins are by nature noisy, crowded, and confined,” said Shuster, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “For those few hours in the air with 150 other people, it’s just common sense that we all keep our personal lives to ourselves and stay off the phone.”

Right on! We couldn’t agree more. Keep at it fellas:

“For passengers, being able to use their phones and tablets to get online or send text messages is a useful in-flight option,” Shuster said. “But if passengers are going to be forced to listen to the gossip in the aisle seat, it’s going to make for a very long flight.”

Shuster and Alexander, who both face primary challenges in 2014, say they are responding to popular opinion.

“Imagine two million passengers, hurtling through space, trapped in 17-inch-wide seats, yapping their innermost thoughts,” Alexander said last week in a statement. “The Transportation Security Administration would have to hire three times as many air marshals to deal with the fistfights.”

“Stop and think about what we hear now in airport lobbies from those who wander around shouting personal details into a microphone: babbling about last night’s love life, bathroom plans, next week’s schedule, orders to an assistant, arguments with spouses,” Alexander said.

“Imagine this noise while you travel, restrained by your seatbelt, unable to escape,” the senator continued. “The FCC commissioners will earn the gratitude of the two million Americans who fly each day by deciding: text messages, yes; conversations, no.”

These guys are saying exactly what they are thinking but they’re wrong… dead wrong on the issue of legislating a cell phone ban.


Call us wacko birds but we thought the Republican brand was to not be buttinskis in private enterprise matters and though we realize the regulated nature of the airline industry is what it is, this would be a perfect opportunity to let the airlines themselves figure this out.


For those of you averse to free market mechanics, why don’t we just settle on the concept of freedom of choice. Freedom of choice for the airlines to make their own business decisions on how to handle this and freedom of choice for you the consumer on which airline to patronize depending upon those airlines’ business decisions.


How about smoking/non-smoking flights and/or sections? How about slapping a big fat scarlet letter on the cell phoners to shame them out of the market completely? We’ve essentially done the same thing to smokers, why not stigmatize these other social undesirables as well? The possibilities are endless.


Sorry, (R) congress-critters. Time to let the airlines and consumers figure out this one.


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We'd better be careful...

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... because we're in danger of becoming the only western industrialized nation without Gestapo-like speech police.



Via Charles Cooke at The Corner

A SHOP boss was arrested and quizzed by police for eight hours for cracking Nelson Mandela jokes on the internet.

Neil Phillips said he was fingerprinted, DNA-swabbed and had his computers seized.

The 44-year-old was held after posting: "My PC takes so long to shut down I've decided to call it Nelson Mandela."

Another read: "Free Mandela - switch the power off."

But police swooped after a councillor complained over the gags about the former South African leader, who passed away on Thursday, aged 95.

(italics, ours)

That's actually pretty damn funny. But now back to the unfunny part.

Mr Phillips, who runs Crumbs sandwich shop in Rugeley, Staffs, was arrested after complaints by Cllr Tim Jones about the one-liners, aired when the anti-apartheid hero was critically ill.

Mr Phillips who insisted he meant no harm, said: "It was an awful experience. I was fingerprinted, they took DNA and my computer.

"It was a couple of jokes, Bernard Manning type," he added. "There was no hatred. What happened to freedom of speech? I think they over-reacted massively."

Continue reading at the link where Cooke (a British ex-pat now making his living in the States) explains which speech law passed in 1986 Mr. Phillips was found suspected of violating (the article does not mention what, if any punishment, Phillips received. No matter. The damage had been done).


For years we have been warned that the chains of tyranny and theocratic autocracy would descend from the right. It's never happened. Quite to the contrary, what you read above is a progressive wet dream. After all, who would want to live in a society where one even runs the risk of being offended by someone's untoward choice of words? How can you talk of free speech when we're talking about feelings, here, man?


And please note that in crossing British speech laws, one does not even need to be the target of said hurled unpleasantries. One need only feel aggrieved on behalf of someone else... a dead person in this case... in order for the offender to be frog-marched to the local constabularies for questioning and DNA swabs.


It's frightening to think that this happened in the land of our closest ally and cultural Western civilization kin. This is why we have and will continue to opposes speech laws and particularly hate-speech laws at every turn. The progressive vision of controlling your speech and the thought that generates that speech is the goal here. Never forget this: it's not about potentially offending, embarrassing, shaming or even slandering someone else. Like "sensible" gun control laws, it's never about what they say it is - it's strictly about control pure and simple.


Freedom and liberty are concepts with which people outside the royal faculty lounge cannot be trusted. You, friends, are simply not advanced enough nor trustworthy enough to be entrusted with these constitutionally-enshrined guarantees.


Let's fight to make sure what you read above never happens here because western Europe appears to be more and more acceptance of the tyranny progressives have always warned us about yet it is their ideology from whence this tyranny springs.

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Video clip of the day

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The absurdities surrounding the Affordable Care Act abound so you can just file the following under "You just can't make this up".


From the Daily Caller:

The Department of Health and Human Services has crowned a YouTube video entitled “Forget About The Price Tag” as the grand prize winner in a contest meant to encourage young people to sign up for Obamacare.

The video contest, announced in August — in partnership with a group called Young Invincibles — encouraged participants to produce clips filled with pro-Obamacare messaging.

HHS’s grand prize-winning video, announced Monday by the White House, features a young woman named Erin McDonald singing an Obamacare-loving version of Jessie J’s hit single, “Price Tag.”

A law sold on the premise that other people are going to pay for your healthcare... so of course, the winning video is titled "Forget About The Price Tag."


And when these Young Invincibles, who are being counted on to foot the bill for this entire Ponzi scheme get smacked up side the head by sticker shock, it's... no biggie, man... forget about the price tag.


Another brilliant marketing ploy by Team O: telling 20 and 30-somethings hammered by sky-rocketing premiums that it's all for the greater good when making the world a better place via the Affordable Care Act.


When you are convinced you are the smartest kids in the room and that your crap doesn't stink, we suppose it leads you to do and say all sort of critically un-selfaware things.

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What we and others have been tweeting

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Thanksgiving may be over but we're still thankful...

Thankful that my family has successfully de-emphasized gift-giving at Christmas. @BDaddyLiberator

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 28, 2013

The regime decided to "dump" latest ObamaCare delay on the day before Thanksgiving, the most heavily travelled day of the year. Probably not a hot idea:

Half of America finding out about latest #ACA delay in airport terminals. Should've just waited until Friday, geniuses. #CNN

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 27, 2013

B-Daddy with a bit of snark:

Obamacare Event Hands Out Condoms as Prizes for Young Dems who hopefully won't be having offspring. http://t.co/u1iFq27OSV via @sharethis

— B Daddy (@BDaddyLiberator) November 27, 2013

Some things are just better left undone:

Band covering the Smith's "Stop Me (if you've heard this one before)" right now: Stop it. Just freaking stop it.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 28, 2013

Had plenty of characters left... forgot to add "kill lists"

You say "delay", "waiver", "exempt", "end the filibuster", I say "banana republic."

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 29, 2013

Related:

Everything about the Imperial Presidency that The Left whined about under Bush is actually happening under Obama.

— THE GayPatriot (@GayPatriot) November 27, 2013

And further related: Because of what has transpired over the past 5 years, we scarcely know what "liberalism" means anymore. As far as we can tell, at least partially, it means that the government can force you to give money to a private for-profit entity. That definitely was not a platform plank prior to 2009.




We haven't dug into this nearly as much as we should:

http://t.co/Cqlnj5uHFo WTF? #IRS audits cancer victim whose premiums sky-rocketed under #Obamacare... and had the temerity to go public.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) November 29, 2013

Whining about the anti-social aspect of social media has become a near-cottage industry because...

It's really disturbing how anti-social all this new technology is making us. pic.twitter.com/yTy35etCVA

— Donnie Clapp (@DonnieClapp) November 27, 2013

heh.





Yeah. We missed the end of that epic Alabama-Auburn game and had to settle for the hi-lights owing to a DVR screw-up. Lesson learned.

@BDaddyLiberator Well, that'll teach us to leave the game to do something as lame as have family dinner together. #ironbowl #Auburn #Bama

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 1, 2013

This whole #Movember thing has got pretty absurd:

OK, gang, it's December 1st - now time to shave off that ridiculous thing growing on your upper lip.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 1, 2013

In case you missed our defense of presidential term limits:

http://t.co/IwVbmaZ0Au New post is up. It's official: the movement to repeal presidential term limits is on. #BeersWithDemo

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 1, 2013

Related:

http://t.co/IwVbmaZ0Au Sudden interest in direct democracy not coincidental with a flailing 2nd term president that can't gain any traction

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 2, 2013

And where we noticed some similarities:

So, that November 30th date should not have been treated as "a line in the sand' either, huh? #ObamaCare #ACA #Syria

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 2, 2013

Turns out, improvements to http://t.co/KciDBS2OGK were "unbelievably small" also. #ACA #Syria

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 2, 2013

Feds considering allowing cell phone calls on flights. Not so sure that's a good thing:

My concept of hell: on a x-country flight btwn 2 guy yacking on cells about their fantasy teams. & u STILL won't accept Jesus into yr heart?

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 2, 2013

More ObamaCare's-loudest-supporters-want-nothing-to-do-with-it:

http://t.co/FpkwIOMXfx I would assume that when he loses his job in 2017, he'll be dumped into the exchanges, right?

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 3, 2013

Tis the season:

We need to update 12 Days of Christmas: "10 lights a- ..." ahem. @davethu: @BenjaminKruse RT @ProducerSusan pic.twitter.com/fxj3ghcOxe

— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) December 3, 2013

The regime has themselves a kiddie korps:

How did I forget condescending Wonka??? #WHYouth pic.twitter.com/LnmNUlec4S

— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) December 2, 2013

Every time you tell someone how great Obamacare is, a #WHYouth gets his armband.

— Razor (@hale_razor) December 3, 2013

Because calling anything "(blank)Youth is a good idea, ever? #WHYouth. Ffs, how ignorant of history are these people?

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 3, 2013

When you believe you are the smartest kids in the room and that your s**t doesn't stink, you don't really think things through.





#MSM just now getting around to doing their job:

http://t.co/zKgGxt1VfO Politico: Golly, #MSM did a pretty crappy job of digging into #ACA problems prior to now.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 3, 2013

http://t.co/cwYXlA7ydf #LATimes now helpfully informs readers of disastrous nature of government run IT programs. #ACA

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 3, 2013

It's not "un-needed" "un-wanted" nor "un-necessary"... it's "comprehensive":

@chrisabowyer @sarahmseltzer @seanmdav Also, I'm a permanently infertile woman & now have to pay for "maternity coverage." How's that fair?

— Peace Love 2nd Amnd (@peaceloveamnd2) December 3, 2013

Chew on this:

Amazing how much CA hi-speed rail hz in common w/#ObamaCare. Sold on bad assumptions & lies & kept alive by disingenuous spin.#BeersWithDemo

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 3, 2013

Was following a Twitter thread when I was informed that U.S. Navy protection of shipping lanes was a subsidization of the world's oil market/prices:

U.S. Navy "subsidizes" world oil prices? I guess in the same way U.S. Marines "subsidized" this country's existence from 1941-1945.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 3, 2013

Same thread claimed that other people paying for someone else's birth control was a right:

Refuse sex unless the man provides BC. He will. Problem solved. @RobertfromTN @GayPatriot @sarahmseltzer

— laura w (@laurww) December 3, 2013

Fixed!

@chrisabowyer @sarahmseltzer @seanmdav The "Keep your laws off my body" set now making their private/personal matters everybody's business

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 4, 2013

Society somehow responsible for covering everyone's birth control:

@chrisabowyer @sarahmseltzer @seanmdav If "society should" then I should have a say in whom you bed. See how that works?

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 4, 2013

So, you're telling us they didn't? Damn.

http://t.co/3LAHFHvyhU I can't be the only one to be mildly disappointed that perhaps the Mossad didn't poison is sorry ass. #Arafat

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 4, 2013

If we're living in a post-American world how about some movie ideas:

Post-American Graffiti: 26 yr. olds celebrate last day of junior college by cruising Williamsburg, Brooklyn in EVs & hitting up fuh joints.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 4, 2013

A reminder from this country's big dawg:

"Remember, gang, delaying, exempting and waiving the law of the land are just things we do together." - Preezy #ACA

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 4, 2013

And lastly...

http://t.co/deRg4M7LRQ I can't be the only pro #2A conservative out there that has zero problem with #NFL choosing not to run pro-gun ad.

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 4, 2013

A lot of fulminating from our conservative brethren that we don't understand. The NFL wisely rejected the feds overtures that they play patsies for ObamaCare and they have wisely steered clear of another hot button issue. Why would the NFL play with that particular potato?





Hasta la bye-bye...

You'll feel much better about things after reading this sob story... trust us

The healthcare.gov website recovery/resurrection deadline of December 1st has come and gone and as far as we can tell the spin coming out of the White House has been that enough improvements have been made that they can declare victory and move on… to talk about anything… anything other than that damned website.


OK, then, but…

If u r an Obama hack & considering the back end is nowhere near being complete, you'd b insane if u wanted a fully functioning website.#ACA

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) December 2, 2013

As a slight aside, at least one cyber-security expert thinks the pre-existing security concerns have been made worse by the “fix”.

“It doesn’t appear that any security fixes were done at all,” David Kennedy, CEO of the online security firm TrustedSec, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Kennedy said fundamental safeguards missing from Healthcare.gov that were identified by his company more than a month ago have yet to be put in place.

“There are a number of security concerns already with the website, and that’s without even actually hacking the site, that’s just a purely passive analysis of [it],” he said. “We found a number of critical exposures that were around sensitive information, the ability to hack into the site, things like that. We reported those issues and none of those appear to have been addressed at all.”

After warning Americans when testifying before Congress on Nov. 19 to stay away from Healthcare.gov, Kennedy now says the situation is even worse.

But back to and to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, accessing the website so we can find out what’s in it – that may not end up so well.


Via Hot Air:

Binns had been trying to navigate the government’s health care website since October to find affordable insurance for her husband, a 60-year-old who has a pre-existing condition and whose job doesn’t offer coverage.

What she finally found for him Monday carries a premium of more than $400 a month and a $5,000 annual deductible.
“How can I pay this kind of money out?” she asked. “It’s going to take at least a second job and praying that I would make enough on a second job just to pay for this health insurance.”
…
“I thought this was going to be the miracle for us,” she said, “and it’s not.”

Expecting miracles of your federal government is probably not the healthiest sentiment for a functioning constitutional republic a concept from which we are moving away at break-neck speed if you have been paying attention.


But what is most puzzling about this anecdote is that the elderly and/or people with pre-existing conditions… these people… were they very people ObamaCare was supposed to help. Yeah, we all knew that the young and healthy were going to take in the shorts, paying more for healthcare they won’t use in order to subsidize the care for people like the Binns but it turns out the Binns are getting screwed as well.


Kind of puts a dent in that “wealth redistribution” argument conservatives and libertarians have been making against ObamaCare, huh? Really tough to make that argument when it appears that everyone is getting soaked by this thing.


It wasn’t supposed to be this way but don’t you, in that egalitarian heart of yours, feel better that your government is not appearing to be playing favorites. Yeah, we thought so.




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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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Video clip of the day

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It may not technically still be Thanksgiving but it's still Thanksgiving weekend and that is certainly good enough for us.


An oldie but a goodie from the fine folks at Reason.com on Thanksgiving and property rights!:


(video approx. 2-1/2 min. long)







Here's Pilgrim head honcho, William Bradford, breaking down the problem:

"Yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompense....

And for men's wives to be commanded to doe service for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brooke it."

Wow. Who knew that collectivism and sexism went so well together?



Here's to everyone continuing to enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers and the rest of the weekend.

Your California high-speed choo-choo update

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In two separate rulings on Monday, the same judge dealt potential death blows to California's beleaguered boondoggle, the largest public works project in American history, California high-speed rail.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

A Sacramento judge on Monday tore up California's funding plans for its bullet train project in separate orders that could force the state to spend months or years redrawing its plans for the $68 billion rail line.

Judge Michael Kenny rejected a request from the California High-Speed Rail Authority to sell $8 billion of the $10 billion in bonds approved by voters in 2008, saying there was no evidence it was "necessary and desirable" to start selling the bonds when a committee of state officials met last March.

He said the committee was supposed to act as "the ultimate 'keeper of the checkbook'" for taxpayers, but instead relied on a request from the high-speed rail authority to start selling bonds as sufficient evidence to proceed.

In a separate lawsuit, Kenny ordered the rail authority to redo its $68 billion funding plan before continuing construction, a process that could take months or years. He had previously ruled that the authority abused its discretion by approving a funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of the law. The judge said the state failed to identify "sources of funds that were more than merely theoretically possible."

Judge Kenney ruled that the Rail Authority in having completed environmental clearances for only 28 miles in the Central Valley violated the terms of Prop. 1A (the approved proposition of 2008 that got the wheels moving in this whole sorry mess) that required all the environmental clearances be in place as well as specifying the sources of funding for the first operable segment of the high speed line.


They've had about 5 years to secure clearances for the first 28 miles of track. It doesn't take a math major to extrapolate the lengthy time frame it's going to take to secure the rest of the clearances for the distance between LA and San Francisco.


Back to the article:

Still, Kenny stopped short of blocking the project altogether, and rail authority officials characterized Monday's rulings as a setback rather than a fatal blow.

"Like all transformative projects, we understand that there will be many challenges that will be addressed as we go forward in building the nation's first high-speed rail system," authority board Chairman Dan Richard said in a written statement.

This may not be a death blow but these two rulings definitely put high-speed choos on the ropes. And there may not ever be a death blow, per se, rather death by a million cuts.


We already know that the official estimate of $68 billion was accomplished in disingenuous fashion by Governor Brown’s people, slashing the electrical infrastructure and the actual choo-choos from the project (another violation of Prop. 1A). What happens when that bit of budgetary chicanery is made fully public? What then? Where will the money come from to finish the job?


And what of the other suits that are still pending? And remember, the environmental and logistical delays being experienced already by this project are occurring on what should be the easy part of this. It’s the flat, relatively sparsely populated Central Vally not the Tehachapi Mountains nor the congested Bay Area or L.A. Basin.


Brown’s in-state allies and the statist acolytes both in California and across this country are playing a waiting game and hoping to establish just enough forward momentum and progress that the project becomes terminal and can no longer be walked away from regardless of the absolute financial black hole it becomes… and it will.


Short of a radical re-structuring of the current one-party rule that currently exists in California, count on Cali’s high-speed choo-choos to be far and away the most disastrous public works program this country has ever seen. In a sense, it already is.

Tales from Green Nation

*

Fisker: the Solyndra with wheels



Fisker had secured $192 million in tax-payer dollars to build hybrid sedans here in Delaware Finland at $50,000-$60,000 a copy. Unfortunately, no one wants hybrids that cheap, so Fisker went from manufacturing high-end sedans to truly luxury sedans at $110,000 per model.


Given this outstanding business model it should come as no surprise that in 2012 Fisker sold an estimated 900 cars as the Feds moved in to seize assets in this all but closed company.


But there is some good news. The feds have found a buyer. The bad news is that the tax-payer will once again take a bath on yet again another failed DOE green loan venture whose only apparent intent was to line the pockets of this administration’s politically connected.


(Previous posts on this epic boondoggle upon which we have blogged extensively can be found here)



From The Daily Caller:

The Energy Department has sold off its $192 million loan guarantee to Fisker Automotive to Chinese billionaire Richard Li for $25 million — the biggest taxpayer loss on a green loan since the failure of Solyndra.

The Energy Department will announce the “selling of the promissory note” to Hybrid Tech, which is owned by Chinese billionaire Richard Li, according to sources familiar with the sale. The DOE sold the loan to Li for $25 million after lending the financially troubled green automaker a total of $192 million since 2009.

A Chinese billionaire? We were previously unaware that Communists allowed such a species to exist. We’re sure there is nothing fishy going on there.


We’re not opposed to green energy. What we're opposed to is throwing away $167 million at a cronyisitc green scheme that never had a chance of surviving.


Mr. President, we know you will never get the clue that picking winners and losers is no way to run an economy so we’ll just have to wait for term limits to effectively achieve the same goal.





* Perhaps the quintessential image of the Fisker Karma: Being towed off the track after breaking down shortly into Consumer Reports test drive of the car. On the bed of that truck, the Karma achieves the greenie dream of a zero emissions vehicle lumbering down the highway on a flatbed at 50 mph.



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Insert nail-in-the-coffin joke here

(We're a little late to the party on this one but you will understand after reading the below why it is worthy of reporting out on)




A story we have been following for over 3 years appears to have finally reached a happy and just conclusion.


The good monks of Saint Joseph Abbey of Covington, LA, had been making simple un-adorned caskets as a means of income for the Abbey for over 100 years. The monks ability to make and sell these caskets didn't sit well with state agency that regulates such matters (You would not be surprised to learn that embalmers and funeral directors make up 8 of the 9 members of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors) and as a result the monks were given a cease and desist order by the Board regarding the Abbey's hand-crafted caskets as they were unlicensed... and cheaper than the government-approved caskets of Big Funeral.


The monks turned around and sued the Board 5 years ago under the 14th amendment which prohibits states from, "depriv(ing) any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."



Back in April, the federal judge hearing the case found the Louisiana state law by which the monks were being mandated to be unconstitutional. The court ruled that the Louisiana licensing law represented economic favortism in its effective barring of competition in that particular marketplace and that the law did not serve the greater interest of the citizens of Louisiana.


This was a classic case of regulatory capture where the moneyed interests of Big Funeral used the regulatory regime to eliminate competition and thus prop-up their expensive our-caskets-only business model.

However, Big Funeral did not go gently into the good night and instead appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supremes refused to hear the case letting the lower court decision stand.


Here's one of the monks commenting on the entire affair:

"I was hesitant at the beginning to file the lawsuit. But it's the best thing that could have happened to our business," Abbot Justin Brown of St Joseph Abbey told the Los Angeles Times.

"We had all this excellent publicity, and now we are selling more caskets than we had ever expected. I think a lot of people heard about our case against the funeral directors and decided to buy one of our caskets."

However small our part was, we have been more than happy to give this important case free publicity.


No god-awful nail-in-the-coffin jokes here, just a simple case closed on a battle and huge victory for free markets.


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Possibly a bigger mess than we realize

Simply mind-blowing.


Cory Gardner (R-CO) in a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing is questioning Henry Chao, the Deputy Chief Information Officer and Deputy Director of the Office of Information Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.


Feel free to skip ahead to the 2:40 mark for the exchange between the two on the readiness of Healthcare.gov, the federal online exchange whereby one, in theory, can purchase healthcare coverage.








Chao estimates that healthcare.gov is still 60-70% incomplete before amending that to state that healthcare.gov is 100% complete and that it’s the entire Obamacare infrastructure/system that is still 60-70% away from being complete.

As Chao states at 4:10, this includes the payment system.


Uhhhh…. If you wish to be covered by New Year’s under ObamaCare, first payment is due December 15th… not even 4 weeks from now.



The last minute or so of the clip Gardner questions Chao about testing the system while it’s still being built. Suffice to say, if we answered that line of questioning from our boss or our customer in the manner that Chao did, we would be without a job.



Let’s give Chao the total benefit of doubt (and since we don’t feel like doing any mathematical heavy lifting) and grant the entirety of the ObamaCare system for being 50% complete. A sure-to-be-glitch-ridden system without proper built-in security protocols will be “completed” in November 2016.

Ya like apples?




Totally related: Prosecute the feds under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act for false advertising and failure to establish adequate security protocals.


Money quote:

“The bottom line is that no private entity would be allowed to get away with what the Obama administration is trying to get away with.”

Cause... Effect?

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An Associated Press investigation that was reported out on earlier this week absolutely hammers the practice of corn-based ethanol (aka the worst alternative energy idea ever) as fuel for being environmentally counterproductive and not the return on investment financially the those in Big Corn say it is.


How bad is it for Big Corn? Here’s the lese from the AP’s expose’:

The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply.

Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine.

Naaah. We made up that last part but couldn’t resist the similar apocalyptic yet myth-making prose of Grantland Rice.



So, consider our surprise then when the administration that is absolutely addicted to horrible alternative energy implementation ideas said that via the EPA, they were scaling back ethanol production mandates.


Also from the AP:

The Obama administration on Friday proposed to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply for the first time, acknowledging that the biofuel law championed by both parties in 2007 is not working as well as expected.

While the proposal highlights the government's struggle to ramp up production of homegrown biofuel s that are cleaner-burning than gasoline, it is unlikely to mean much for consumers at the pump.

The change would reduce by almost 3 billion gallons the amounts of ethanol and other biofuels blended into gasoline in 2014 than the law requires.

The 2007 law tried to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and prop up the rural economy by requiring oil companies to blend billions of gallons of biofuels into their gasoline each year. But politicians who wrote the law didn't anticipate fuel economy to improve as much as it has in recent years, which reduced demand for gasoline.

How bad is it for Big Corn that this administration may be finally acknowledging reality? That reality being even without ethanol we have become increasingly less dependent upon foreign oil. (We need to find the link but a widely reported study has this country being energy independent by 2025. In case you were wondering, this is a good thing.)

Reality being that many oil and natural gas reserves we are now tapping into in the Dakotas, western Pennsylvania and upstate New York are in the very rural areas ethanol purports to help. Reality being that, prima facie, burning food to run your Prius makes absolutely zero sense.


We applaud the administration for acknowledging these realities that we have been hammering away on for years.