Video clip of the day

Commenter to this YouTube clip advises us that this kid's Arabic matches the accompanying close captioning for whatever it's worth.


Consider yourself forewarned as kid may be smarter than you and certainly displays a grasp of the concept of a liberal, secular constitutional republic better than 98% percent of the people we send to Washington.


Ladies and Gentlemen, behold Ali Ahmed, a 12 yr. old Egyptian:


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Pray for this kid's safety as that is not the sort of Tahir Square smack you run without facing some type of consequence.

Photo image of the day

Alternate headline: It’s come to this


Over the years, when we told you one of the dangers of the new federal health care law would be that it would infringe into parts of your life you never thought imaginable, you may have doubted us.


At the time, it was all in the abstract as the new healthcare law and its effects would not come into full effect until Jan. 1, 2014.


For you sports fans, maybe it started sinking in when Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, falsely asserted that she was in active and enthusiastic negotiations with the NFL in running ObamaCare ads to inform the public about the new healthcare law. Fortunately, the NFL did not want to have any part of this political hot potato and denied Sebelius’s happy talk and with it any hopes of being Team O’s patsies and thus keeping the holy day of the week reserved for God, family, friends and football.


From a personal standpoint, our contention hit home last week while reading the latest issue of the WestCoaster SD, a fine monthly periodical documenting the craft beer industry in San Diego. While flipping through the pages, we came across the following:

That’s right, ladies and gentleman… a publication dedicated to a beverage that is said to be proof that God loves us and which we faithfully read as a matter of education, enjoyment and, yes, as escapism cannot even elude the grasp of the ever-expanding tentacles of this horrible, miserable and wretched damn ruinous piece of legislation.


If it can happen to us, it will happen to you.



Don’t ever say we didn’t tell you so.

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Video clip of the day

We’ve noted many times over the years, the selective outrage of progressives whereby when civil rights abuses that had their collective heads exploding during the Bush years is met with absolute silence when those same (and more) civil rights abuses are doubled-down upon during this current Presidency.


Our buddy “JD” (follow him on Twitter @PSUDrozz) took the differing reactions as tacit approval of the current President’s actions noting that the “outrage’’ directed at Bush wasn’t genuine and merely represented jealousy.


We have found no better example of this than the President’s contention that he has the right to kill American citizens overseas without any real cause, due process or oversight. The very people who flipped out over the fact we waterboarded 3 people are pretty OK with the fact that this administration has wacked the same number of people including the innocent teenage son of the dead-by-drone Anwar al-Awlaki.


People, perhaps blissfully unaware that they live in a constitutional republic, allayed our fears by telling us these un-constitutional powers wielded by the President were fine because they simply trusted President Obama on the matter.


Never mind what the next person who occupies the Oval Office and who, obviously, will be of less a magnanimous and saintly character than Barack H. Obama and what that person will do with these powers.




Blogger Mark Dice goes to the beach and meets with great success a petition supporting President Obama’s efforts to repeal the Bill of Rights. Statists/Progressives running amok or simply low information voters swayed by Dice’s oratory persuasiveness? Either way, it’s pretty depressing.








We like to think the "sell" was made that much easier by mentioning the name of a person who despite his wretched policies, remains very personally popular.

Unfortunately, this is playing out pretty much as expected

We’re conditional supporters of legalizing marijuana. We say conditional because the optimal condition for marijuana to exists would be in a low tax/low regulation environment. That, however, is probably not going to happen given the statist ways of our politicians and, unfortunately, a too-large segment of the voting public.


Alas, in Colorado which legalized pot last year, the tragically inevitable is unfolding before our very eyes:

The taxes on recreational marijuana might go a lot higher than first thought. Smokers buying at shops in Denver may pay up to 35 percent in taxes.

Colorado voters will be asked to approve two state taxes totaling 25 percent on all retail marijuana sales in the November election. They may be asked to approve an additional city tax for Denver.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock wants to add an additional five to 10 percent city tax on top of that.

Hancock said the money is needed to pay the costs of regulating the drug.

Critics complain severe taxes would destroy a new industry already approved by voters.

The Denver City Council has until August to decide if the tax question will go on the November ballot.

(italics, ours)


We won't pretend to know just how marijuana is regulated in Colorado but if the rates stated above in the article are any indication, then that would represent the rather un-optimal condition we fear for "legalizing" marijuana.


Then again, the regulations may be minimal and all this is just indicative of the usual instinct by politicians to tax anything that moves.


Either way, this represents precisely what we fear: taxing and regulating a product right back into the gray market because that will be the ultimate outcome of all this should these taxes go through.


Hopefully, the good people of Colorado not only see these taxes as a step backwards in the freeing of marijuana but also in the unwinding of the drug war.

Tweet of the Day

We saw this on Twitter yesterday and just up and stole it. Something this awesome just needs to be shared giving due credit or not.



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@Mad_Maxamillion @rene1e @mattofsteele "Live your joy. You never know who is leaning on your smile."

— Dean R. Riehm (@deanriehm) July 9, 2013

Did we not say it was awesome?


Smile!

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Wait, what?

One in a series where we take a look at the absurd, stupefying and clueless.



Alternate headline: Another elected politician having trouble with that whole 1st amendment thing.


Here’s Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) explaining the concept of free speech and freedom of the press:

“Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive.”

There’s always a “but” with these people. Do you feel comfortable with people like Durbin defining who and who doesn’t qualify as a journalist? We didn’t think so.

Durbin, feeling good about his grasp of the Constitution, continues:

“A journalist gathers information for a media outlet that disseminates the information through a broadly defined ‘medium’ — including newspaper, nonfiction book, wire service, magazine, news Web site, television, radio or motion picture — for public use. This broad definition covers every form of legitimate journalism.”

Glenn Reynolds rightly describes Durbin as a “constitutional ignoramus.” Read his takedown of Durbin here.



As with most things in Washington D.C., idiotic statements like the above come from good intentions. The background for all this is proposed legislation that would give legal protection for media outlets that expose government secrets, whistleblower protection, if you will.


What Durbin won’t admit to, however, is that his high-mindedness is not about whistleblower protection, it’s about power. It’s about the power to have control over what information gets disseminated and who disseminates it.


You see, Durbin and the Beltway establishment don’t like the concept of blogs and other forms of social media informing and opining on Beltway goings-on in a rapid-fire, non-stop, 24/7 and completely uncontrollable manner.


Durbin and the beltway establishment are indeed freaked-out by the new media as they are placed under levels of scrutiny, accountability and deserved ridicule career hacks, such as, Durbin could not have imagined even as recently as 10 years ago.


Too bad, Dick. New media is not going anywhere and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. We look forward to participating vigorously in its democratizing ways for years to come.

A few thoughts on the ObamaCare mandate delay

We touched on the subject delay a few days ago but wanted to address it more fully here.



In the ultimate pre-holiday news dump, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday, July 3rd, they would delay implementing the ObamaCare employer mandate by one year. This was the provision of the law whereby businesses of over 50 full-time employees would be required to offer health care plans of the feds liking or be forced to cough up a $2,000/employee fine tax if they declined to do so.


The stated reason for the delay is that the administration couldn't figure out a way to implement the reporting requirements for the effected businesses. Going on 3-1/2 years after the law was passed and they still need another year to figure out how to work one of the key provisions of the law. In Washington D.C. this is known as the “Continuing to Implement the ACA in a Careful, Thoughtful Manner.” In Placentia, California, this is known as "incompetence".



It is duly noted that the individual mandate is still in effect. The individual mandate that will effect young healthy voters that supported the President by overwhelming numbers in both of the last two presidential elections. So, yes, Millennials, the President caved to Big Business interests but you, however, are still on the hook for this miserable law.


It is also duly noted that this delay "helps" move this issue past the midterms so you would be correct in assuming there was a large political consideration at play in this decision. More on this in a moment.


At this point you may be asking, "Hey, Wait a minute. Wasn't Team O counting on that revenue from big businesses to help subsidize low-income workers and the previously un-insured. They sure were. In fact, the CBO estimates the one-year delay will cost ObamaCare $10 billion that would otherwise go to those subsidies.


It has not yet been explained from where or what is going to make up that revenue shortfall but since the middle class is going to bear the brunt of the cost of this horrible piece of legislation in the first place, why not ask tell these folks, they're going to have to dig a little deeper.


But here's what doesn't make sense about this delay from a political standpoint. We used air quotes with helps in a previous paragraph because we don't think this helps either the administration or Democratic party mid-term aspirations in 2014 as the conventional wisdom is telling us.


In a situation like this, we much prefer the "rip the Band-Aid off" approach to this latest debacle afforded by ObamaCare. The biggest driver in the negative perception of ObamaCare has been its inherent uncertainty. We can all exercise some healthy speculation about how ObamaCare can and will suck, it's just that we don't know how bad it's going to suck until it's fully in effect.


This decision simply keeps alive the uncertainty issue and that will be a huge theme used against the Democrats going into next fall.


With that in mind, why not just get it over with and move on? In fact, polling data through the years has shown we Americans actually love our completely unsustainable entitlement programs. They may be costly and overly-bureaucratized but dammit they're our costly and over-bureaucratized entitlement programs.


It would seem that we, as a country, are more and more resigned and accepting of our government's incompetence, arbitrariness and corruption where it exists, so why should rolling out the employer mandate before it's anywhere near ready be such a bad thing?



Unfortunately, we've become the frog in the kettle and the burner nob ticked up a notch and we're kind of OK with that.

A story about Milton Friedman...

... that may or may not be true but is in keeping with his character.

Sometime, back in the 70s, Friedman was over in China and the Chi-comm officials hosting his visit took him to one of their massive public works projects out in the countryside. Don't recall whether it was a dam or a highway but anyway, Friedman noted that all the workers were using garden variety manual labor tools; shovels, pick axes, wheelbarrows, etc. Friedman, extremely perplexed, asked a party official why there wasn't any big mechanized earth moving equipment being employed. The party honcho rather loftily and proudly responded that they were creating more jobs by doing it in this manner. Friedman, being careful not to offend his hosts but shaking his head none the less, offered up his own advice based upon the logical extension of Communist labor theory: "Well, in that case, why not give them all table spoons."

We have yet to even scratch the surface of understanding and articulating market theory and economic behavior like this American giant and we are poorer for it.

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Independence Day 2013

To all our readers, please have a safe and fun 4th of July.

"Freedom is not the power of doing what we like but the right of being able to do what we ought.” - Lord Acton

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Sarah sez

One in a series that takes a look at some of the zany, wacky and madcap things said by the ex-governor of Alaska.




It's fourth of July weekend and you all know what that means, right? But merely celebrating our nation's independence isn't enough for this year. Governor Palin is thinking big picture and thinking that we should also be celebrating the new federal health care law.

Here she is from this past weekend:

Next week when we celebrate Independence Day we'll also be observing health independence.

This week marks one year since the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, it captures the spriit of our founders, the spirit they wrote in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Affordable Care Act offers just that-a healthier life, liberty to pursue a person's happiness, to be free of constraint, to be job-locked because they're policy-locked-so if you wanted to be a cameraman, a writer, if you want to be self-employed, if you start a business, if you want to change jobs, whatever it is you want to do, you are free, you have the liberty to do so.

So we've had Social Security, Medicare, and now health independence, and that's something our members will take home to celebrate over this Independence Day.

Of course, that wasn't Sarah Palin rather that Sarah sez stalwart and glittering jewel of colossal ignorance, House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi.

We know what you're thinking: Independence Day is precisely the day to celebrate a greater dependence upon the federal government. After all, that is exactly what George and the boys fought for well over 200 hundred years ago, right?

And that claiming mandatory compliance to a law is indicative of greater independence suggests just how warped and Orwellian letting your mind stew in statist/collectivist rot can get.

But so nice of Pelosi to not single out ObamaCare but to also mention Social Security and Medicare, two more completely unsustainable entitlement programs that are breaking this nation, as reasons to fire up the sparklers this coming 4th (if your local ordinances still allow you to do so). Somehow we think her "members" that voted for this coming train wreck will be hearing something different than a celebratory cheer from their constituents during the summer break.




And in other totally related news, Team O has delayed requiring compliance with ObamaCare for businesses over 50 employees by one year. That's right, gang, Team O rolled over for the moneyed interest of #BigBusiness.

The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.

Instead, it will delay enforcement of a major Affordable Care Act requirement that all employers with more than 50 employees provide coverage to their workers until 2015.

The administration said it would postpone the provision after hearing significant concerns from employers about the challenges of implementing it.

The administration also would like to avoid another mid-term disaster like they experienced back in 2010 owing in large part to voter dissatisfaction with the very same law. ObamaCare: the Democratic Party problem that just doesn't go away.

Now employing the logic we heard back in 2009-2010 as reason to pass ObamaCare now!, this one year delay granted by Team O will cost this country 40,000 lives.


While the Obama administration has granted a one year reprieve to big businesses while they try to figure out this byzantine law, there's one group of people who won't be spared their fate:

http://t.co/jVYL4Rcynh Hi, young voters. Big business let off #ObamaCare hook for one year. You, however, are still on it. Enjoy.

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

That's all, folks. Everybody enjoy a fun and safe Fourth!

Video clip of the day

Reason TV presents their Nanny of the Month:


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








From Reason TV:

School’s out for summer and Nanny of the Month is taking the opportunity to salute the zealots within the otherwise laudable anti-bullying movement. They take a real problem--few things are more loathsome than picking on the vulnerable--and bungle the response, as has been done with most every “get tough!” effort from D.A.R.E., the failed anti-drug program, to all the idiotic iterations of the “zero tolerance” fad.

Do we really need to ban trash talking at high school sporting events? Do we really need attorney general investigations of foul-mouthed jocks? And for the love of whatever remnants of common sense remain in our schoolhouses and statehouses, do we really need to fight bullying with jail cells?

Not only did this month’s top nanny introduce a bill that would criminalize speech deemed to be bullying--up to a year in the clink!--she introduced a bill that, according to UCLA First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh, is not limited to speech about children (despite it being touted with the typical “for the children!” justifications). Volokh notes that the bill, if passed, could punish harsh speech directed at journalists, academics, celebrities, politicians, and the like, if the speech results in “substantial emotional distress.”

Presenting the Nanny of the Month for June 2013: New Mexico State Rep. Mary Helen
Garcia!

If you wonder why nothing has us heading for the exits quicker than legislation that is "for the children", what you saw and read above is a perfect example.


Good intentions hold no water when poorly-written legislation or back door attempts at power-grabbing are involved.






And on a related note, the following was passed along to us from W.C. Varones via Facebook:

As you are probably aware, we find no end to the deliciousness in irony that the ideological descendants of the free speech movement and New Left of the 60s have been at the forefront of attempts to squelch free speech and tamp down on dissent.


People that whine about the Citizens United decision do not, in our estimation, have an appreciation that it is the speech that is central to the 1st amendment and not differentiating who it is that is exercising that speech.


Forgive us our skepticism of any cautions against "shadowy money in politics" as we've been around too long to not take that as code for preserving the status quo of the political/ruling class in this country. If the intentional targeting and harassing of organizations of a particular political hue by this nation's tax collection agency hasn't warned you to all this, we scarcely know what will.



On the way out the door: Our friend, Leslie, at Temple of Mut has been doing a bang-up job of covering the massive demonstrations and current unrest in Egypt. Hey, maybe we can back the good guys this time around.