Obamacare is for the Little People...

The little people like you and me.  Our betters don't want it, that's for sure.  Will they have the gall to pull this off?  Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Note that both parties are talking about this.

Rope.
Tree.
Congresscritters.
Some assembly required.
Speed may be of the essence.

Dangerous Sociopaths Take Over Capitol HIll...

Details here...

Proof Positive...

Californians elected Nancy Pelosi to the House of Representatives multiple times, continuously since 1987.  Most recently, 85.1% of her district voted for her.

Frequently Ms. Pelosi does something to add to my sense of wonder at her election.  The fact that Californians (in San Francisco) continue to elect Ms. Pelosi is proof positive of something.  I'm not entirely sure what it's proving, but I'm absolutely positive it's something bad.

Now she's done it again.  Consider this statement she made on Valentine's Day, on the subject of a proposed cut in Congressional pay:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she opposes a cut in congressional pay because it would diminish the dignity of lawmakers' jobs.

"I don't think we should do it; I think we should respect the work we do," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. "I think it's necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded."

You likely already know that Ms. Pelosi is one of the wealthiest members of Congress (her net worth is about $58 million, primarily through her husband).  She keeps getting re-elected.  She was the House Majority leader, and is now the House Minority leader.  You'd be forgiven for thinking “She must have something on the ball!”

Then you read her statement.

You try to parse her statement.

You try to figure out what it's even attempting to say.

You have to conclude she's an idiot.

What else could explain her apparently belief in the dignity of a member of Congress – the most despised politicians in America? 

Or her belief (if my attempt to parse her sentence is on the mark) that members of Congress deserve some kind of reward?

She's an embarrassing idiot, or better, an obliviot.  And my fellow Californians keep re-electing her, every two years.  That definitely proves something.  And reinforces my already firmly settled inclination to get the hell out of Dodge...

Great Quotes...

Passed along by blog friend Jim M:

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
-- John Adams

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
-- Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
--Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-- G. Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
--James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-- Douglas Case, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-- Frederic Bastiat, French economist(1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
--Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
-- Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-- P. J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
--Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-- Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-- Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap, except when Congress does it.
-- Anonymous

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
-- Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-- Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-- Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class, save Congress.
-- Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
--Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
-- Aesop

Don't Hold Your Breath!

Via my mom:

I met a fairy who said she would grant me one wish.

Immediately I said, "I want to live forever."

"Sorry," said the fairy, "I'm not allowed to grant eternal life."

"OK," I said, "Then, I want to die after Congress gets its head out of its ass."

"You crafty bastard," said the fairy.

Infographic: Congressional Control History...

xkcd has a spectacular infographic showing the history of the House and Senate on a vertical timeline, and all the signficant changes that occurred over time.  It's a beautifully compressed view of the Legislative branch's history.  Full size graphic here.

New Commemorative Pistol from Ruger...

It's called the “Congressman”.

It doesn't work and you can't fire it.

Via Jim M...

Senior Citizen Health Care Solution...

Via my mom, and attributed to the Maxine cartoon strip:

So you're a sick senior citizen and the government says there is no nursing home available for you, what do you do?

Our plan gives anyone 65 years or older a gun and 4 bullets. You are allowed to shoot four Senators or Representatives.

Of course, this means you will be sent to prison where you will get three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating, air conditioning and all the health care you need! Need new teeth?
No problem. Need glasses? That’s great. Need a new hip, knees, kidney, lungs or heart? They’re all covered. And, as an added bonus, your kids can come and visit you as often as they do now.

And who will be paying for all of this? It’s the same government that just told you that you they cannot afford for you to go into a home.

Plus, because you are a prisoner, you don't have to pay any income taxes anymore.

Is this a great country or what?

Quote of the Day...

Dave Carter is a regular poster on Ricochet.  He's also a long-haul truck driver, which gives him quite an unusual perch from which to observe the world.  I always enjoy his posts, so when I see his byline I drop everything to read it.

This time his post is a long story about the great care he got recently in Maryland for a kidney stone.  These are apparently extremely painful.  I've known several people with a tendency to have kidney stones, and the pain of them is the main thing any of them talk about.  Here Dave describes getting the pain medication, but the close of this paragraph had me rolling on the floor laughing.

... In moments it seemed the world slowed down as the pain began to subside, taking with it my capacity to speak coherently, focus on anything, or process any information in a rational way.  I was in a numbed stupor.  I felt like a Congressman. 

Dave, you're my kind of man!  Read the whole thing; you won't be sorry...

It Takes One to Know One...

Via my mom:

Having already downed a few power drinks, she turns around, faces him, looks him straight in the eye and says, “Listen here good looking, I screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, your place, my place, in the car, front door, back door, on the ground, standing up, sitting down, naked or with clothes on, it doesn't matter to me. I just love it.”

Eyes now wide with interest, he responds, “No kidding. I'm a Congressman too. What district are you from?”

Spending: Up, Always Up...

It's the first law of government: spending always grows, even when they say it isn't.  Here's a nice interactive graphic to help you explore what's happened to the U.S. budget over the last 30 years or so.

The perpetual mystery to me is how so many Americans can remain so blissfully ignorant of the disaster that's being visited upon them by the corrupt, incompetent government we've voted into office.  Even with the data readily available, and even with other nations illustrating the future we're careening towards (hello, Greece!)...most of our citizens are somehow unaware of what's happening to us.

I have blue days when I think the human race may be doomed.  Over the past few days, I've been doing a lot of reading about Greece.  Result: this morning, I'm fearing we're doomed...

Rotten Highway Bill...

Jim DeMint is an aberration – a voice of sanity in our Congress.  One can listen to him, or read his writings, and come away with the sense that you're actually talking with a rational person who's interested in our national welfare.  As I said, a Congressional aberration...

He's got a piece in today's Wall Street Journal talking about the latest highways bill.  In it, he reviews the disgusting history of highways bills, and in particular the corrupting Davis-Bacon act that's still operative.  He makes a plea:

Here's a radical idea: Why not pay for new spending by actually cutting wasteful spending in other areas? It's no wonder our country is near fiscal ruin when the option of cutting spending is not even being considered. 

In Congressional Cuckoo-Land, that's just crazy talk.  But it sure sounds good to my ears.

I just wish there was some realistic chance of Congress listening...

Albino Squirrels Cut the Budget!

Via my mom, this unexpectedly funny video about the $1.2 trillion budget cut that Congress is allegedly working on.  I wish this guy was running!

Reform Congress...

Here's the conclusion of an excellent opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal:

I've learned from local, state and national political experience that the only solution to entrenched corruption is sudden and relentless reform. Sudden because our permanent political class is adept at changing the subject to divert the public's attention—and we can no longer afford to be indifferent to this system of graft when our country is going bankrupt. Reform must be relentless because fighting corruption is like a game of whack-a-mole. You knock it down in one area only to see it pop up in another.

What are the solutions? We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren't really blind because they're managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever.

This call for real reform must transcend political parties. The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace this. The tea party's mission has always been opposition to waste and crony capitalism, and the Occupy protesters must realize that Washington politicians have been "Occupying Wall Street" long before anyone pitched a tent in Zuccotti Park.

The author is Sarah Palin...

Congress, Explained...

Via my mom:

The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

We are all familiar with a Herd of cows, a Flock of chickens, a School of fish and a Gaggle of geese.

However, less widely known is a Pride of lions, a Murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an Exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a Parliament of owls.

Now consider a group of Baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Believe it or not ... a Congress!

I guess that pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington!

Congressional Reform...

Our friend Vera S. passed this along:

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

This is one of many variations of Constitutional Amendments running around, all the result of the current anger the public (including me!) feels toward their Senators and Representatives.  Some elements of this proposal I'd happily support; others (like 6) are more problematic – there are good reasons why the founding fathers decided that Congressmen needed protection from some law enforcement.

But... 

I think that such attempts to mandate the behavior of Congresscritters are largely missing the point.  Basically these are an attempt to get back to the “citizen government” that we like to believe is what our founding fathers intended.  But the truth is that we've drifted toward our current situation because of the Congresscritters we've elected, not because of the lack of any laws to control them.  The solution is actually simple, and does not require a Constitutional Amendment: we just have to elect the right people.  The Tea Party's successes in the debt-ceiling debate demonstrate quite graphically the power of the vote.  It's remarkable what they've achieved, despite being a tiny minority.

Imagine what they could achieve if they had the majority!

The 545...

My mom sent me an email containing a column by Charlie Reese, along with a poem and a list of taxes.  While the column was indeed written by Reese, it wasn't something published recently (as the email implied) – it was published in 1995 (and actually written 10 years before that!).  The rest of the email was a mashup someone decided to do.

The Reese column is a famous one, and worth reading if you've never seen it.  What I find most interesting about it is that its observations (like those of Mark Twain or H. L. Mencken) are just as pertinent today as when they were written.  Here's the conclusion of Reese's famous column:

We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that's what majorities in Congress and presidents in the White House wanted. We have troops in various Third World rat holes because Congress and the president want them there.

Don't be conned. Don't let them escape responsibility. We simply have to sort through 260 million people until we find 545 who will act responsibly.

Go read the whole thing.

Washington Doesn't Speak English...

Despite being somewhat cynical about politics and politicians, I still occasionally get caught by their manipulative language.  It just happened again, in the debt-ceiling debate.  The Republicans are insisting on the need for spending cuts.  I agree, government needs to get smaller.  But “spending cuts” mean something different in Washington than they do to this country boy...

I thought “spending cuts” means that we'd spend less money in the future than we do today.  Oh, silly me.  It turns out that Washington uses a different definition.  To them, “spending cuts” means a smaller increase than would otherwise be planned.  Even with the “spending cuts”, the Boehner plan would spend more each year than in the year before.  Some “cut”!

Can you imagine anywhere other than the loony bin that is Washington where one could get away with this sort of blatant misuse of common English?  In any business environment, you'd be out on your butt before you could blink.

Rope.
Tree.
Politician.
Some assembly required...

Symbolic Reading...

The Republicans are going to read the current version of the U.S. Constitution on the floor of the House today.  This is mainly a symbolic gesture to reinforce the notion that the U.S. is a land of laws, not of (powerful) men.  It's also an acknowledgment of the role of the Tea Party in the Republican's newly-won majority.

The reaction of the left to this reading is instructive.  It's almost entirely negative, ranging from hand-wringing about the cost (that's rich, after the last two years of spendathon!) to entirely predictable snide remarks about the irrelevance of the literal Constitution to governing today.

This symbolic act is a bit like having a powerful flashlight that one can shine into the warren of Congress-critters to illuminate those who see the Constitution as fundamental to our way of governing, and those who would prefer to ignore that pesky, dusty old document.

Bring on that flashlight, Speaker Boehner!

The More I See of this Guy...

...the more impressed I am.