On March 31, some people will be sitting in the dark to express their “vote” for action on global climate change. Instead, you can join CEI and the thousands of people around the world who will be celebrating Human Achievement Hour (HAH). Leave your lights on to express your appreciation for the inventions and innovations that make today the best time to be alive and the recognition that future solutions require individual freedom not government coercion.
Some folks are left in the dark.
Case in point:
So join me tonight at 2030 (or 8.30pm for you non-military folks). Let the house blaze. We’ll spare pjKid since she’ll already be in bed. But she’s the exception!
So argues U. S. Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla. to justify the failure of passage of a bill which would have capped federal discretionary spending next year to less than a trillion dollars. Of that failed plan:
That budget plan, authored by the conservative Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called for replacing federal support of Medicaid with block grants to the states in an effort to curb runaway spending on that program.
Too much power to the states. But aren’t they supposed to have that power anyway? I suppose fiscal sinkholes like Illinois could be problematic–the money would get strangely siphoned away somehow–but then it would be the state’s responsibility to answer to its citizens, no? And if citizens don’t like it, they can vote with their feet.
Lankford did add:
“I’m going to support the most conservative budget we can get out of here […] I’d love to see more cuts faster.”
You and me both.
The good news: after Jordan’s budget failed–which would have balanced the budget in 5 years compared to Ryan’s 28–Ryan’s passed.
House on Thursday voted to pass a budget blueprint for the next decade that would cut billions of dollars in planned federal spending, reduce taxes and reform Medicare.
The bill, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., passed 228-191, over the objection of House Democrats, who said the proposal would cut taxes for the wealthy at the expense of seniors and the poor.
The Ryan budget has virtually no chance of passage in the Democratically held Senate. But putting it on the floor for a vote gave the GOP a chance to showcase its fiscally conservative credentials before upcoming elections that may serve as a referendum on the job they have done upholding their 2010 pledge to reduce the country’s massive debt and the ever expanding size of government.
Scalia also joked that the task of having to review the complex bill violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
“You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” he quipped. “Is this not totally unrealistic, that we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”
The comments did not sit well with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a member of the Gang of 14, which in 2005 established guidelines for considering judicial nominees.
“I am concerned that Justice Scalia’s comments call into question his impartiality and instead suggest judicial activism,” Nelson said.
Nelson was taken aback by Scalia’s suggestion that reading the law was too much to expect of justices ruling on its constitutionality.
Want to talk impartiality, eh? Let’s do. How about that new Justice who should have recused herself because she wrote the arguments to defend Obamacare as the last Solicitor General. Just sayin’.
What seems to have Nelson’s knickers in a twist is the mention of the “Cornhusker Kickback.”
Traitors take so much abuse, poor things.
And get this:
Democrats are not inclined to give Scalia any slack because they think his mind is closed against the healthcare law and his judgment clouded by partisan politics
Seriously. As if Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan or Ginsberg aren’t “closed” in favor of Obamacare (with the latter even assisting the SG in his weak arguments) or their judgement clouded by partisan politics.
I guess it isn’t partisan if it’s the side you’re on, eh?
So writes Instapundit of Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, a mother of two who decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore and abandoned her family to live in Japan and pursue writing. He’s right, of course. She is a finalist for the National Book Award for her memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning. From the article at Parenting:
This morning’s TODAY Show featured a segment on a woman who chose to leave her husband and two young sons (ages 3 and 5 at the time) while on an extended research trip to Japan because she realized she didn’t want to be a mom anymore leaves my chest tight and my gut aching. Photos show her boys as pre-school-age angels. I want to hug and kiss them as my own.
[…]
Reiko Rizzuto speaks of her struggles to stay true to herself and admits that she had never wanted children (which begs the question why she had two). “I didn’t want to be swallowed up,” she says on the TODAY Show interview.
Swallowed up. There is a remedy for that, actually, it’s called embracing the life you’ve chosen. With a soon to be four year-old and another on the way, I do understand the sentiment at times. Except I thank God daily for the family that I have and remind myself of that when the going gets tough. I can imagine parenting can be more challenging without some kind of perspective. I’m lucky my faith provides it. As does my sense of life. How incredibly sad for her–and for her sons–to know that she wasn’t thankful. That she didn’t want her life after all.
Then again, bioethicists argue for this very reason that abortion should be available as an after-birth option. Because adoption is too traumatic. And some people really do realize after the baby’s born that eh, maybe this life’s not for me. At least Reiko Rizzuto let her children live…
UPDATE: linked by Pundette as a Recommended Read. Thanks!
In a rare show of unanimous bipartisanship, House Democrats and Republicans united in their opposition to President Obama’s 2013 budget, which failed tonight with 414 votes against and zero in favor of the budget.
Such opposites as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Michelle Bachmann joined each other in voting against the bill, but the White House preemptively dismissed the tally.
Of course the spin begins:
“But let’s be very clear: A vote on Congressman Mulvaney’s resolution is not a vote on the president’s budget,” said White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage in a statement today. “This is just a gimmick the Republicans are putting forward to distract from what the Ryan budget does: protects massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires while making the middle class and seniors pay.” Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., introduced the president’s budget in order to draw a vote.
I’m not sure how you can spin zero votes in favor of Obama’s budgtet as a GOP gimmick, but such is life.
Bring on the rest of the change I can believe in this November, please!
As a lifelong Democrat, I never thought I would be in this place. I never thought I would have to confront this dreaded unforeseen fear — the terror that is, for me, dating a Republican. I don’t even know very many Republicans. But it turns out, I’m not alone. Outside of Washington D.C., the entire country is pretty segregated when it comes to political parties. According to dating website, seven out of ten people are in a relationship with someone of the same political persuasion. I grew up knowing very few Republicans and the rare ones I did know got made fun behind their backs, be it children or adults. I know there were some Republicans at my college because there was a “College Republicans” group on campus, but this was the Bushy era and the conservatives who were smart enough to get into my university were too smart to be vocal defenders of the Dick Cheney puppet show that was the aughts.
It gets better [Emphasis my own]:
I’ve been living in Los Angeles ever since in the type of place where, at the moment President Obama was pronounced the winner of the race, we threw open our windows and whooped and shrieked out into the streets till an impromptu parade erupted and bars served free drinks. I cried. I’ve worked for the Democratic Party, interned for a Democratic Congressman and Senator. And even though I went to a more conservative law school, there were enough liberals on campus that if you included the faculty, we could flock together so that I rarely interacted with those others who met with our derision.
Ah, derision. Such a shame that those cretins can still exist knowing we heap our scorn upon them. How can they not shrink in horror and mend their ways? Now, to her horror, Liberal Woman is dating a RINO. I mean, he’s not even really conservative, but hellsbells, this could spell disaster!
How did I come to date a man who told me he “liked a lot of Mitt Romney’s ideas” and that he thought John Kerry wasn’t really a war hero and that cap and trade is a terrible system? At first I didn’t think it would be a big issue. I fell in love with someone who has many similar interests and a big generous heart and when he told me he was an Independent, I thought that was just something moderate Democrats said when being pretentious about how non-conformist they are. I didn’t realize I was dating someone who would spend every single Tuesday night glued to Wolf Blitzer’s analysis of another Republican primary. And to be frank, at this point, it’s making me freak out. I get mad at him just thinking about our past political discussions. I can’t date a Republican! What was I thinking? What if I have little Republican babies?
I guess there isn’t a prenatal test for that yet. Good thing you support abortion, eh? So just abort ’em all to be safe. Better not let ’em grow up with that shadow looming over their heads.
At least she knows he’s a RINO:
Another burgeoning concern is that I’m starting to feel like I always have to watch what I say. Yes, I know there are many intelligent Republicans out there and if the party was made up of just David Frums and Christopher Buckleys or even Mitt Romneys, they’d be a reasonable moderate party that I have an intellectual disagreement with and there wouldn’t be anything to make fun of. But for now, there are a lot of crazy extremist cooks running the Republican party and when you get into Santorum territory and Palin country, I want the freedom to openly mock and deride in a forum where I don’t have to worry about offending someone. Is that so wrong? I’m sick of back-peddling every time I accidentally call them teabaggers.
Oooh. It gets really nasty when she feels her boyfriend insults her intelligence at the expense of defending Sarah Palin. I’m surprised she didn’t walk out. Instead she tossed around “hick” and “dolt.” What strikes me most, however, is she holds up Democrats as only nominating folks who are intelligent for city council much less the vice-Presidency. I guess she hasn’t seen Joe in action. Or if she has, she’s too much of a “doltish hick” to understand how stupid he is.
Is it just me, or does anyone else have perpetual problems proving you’re not among the robots? I apparently always fail the type-the-wavy-text and have just failed the hearing test as well because I couldn’t identify one of the words of the string. At two different blogs trying to leave comments.
(But if I’m a robot, why do I always want to sleep?)
So thanks, Chris Wysocki (I tried to leave a comment!) and ohmygoodness, Sherry, that sounds crazy! Picaken, if you must know. (And during Lent. Scandalous!)
So says Tom Golstein in regards to the government’s “bad day” at the SCOTUS. Please someone, issue a DNR; that’s our best hope for salvaging the country and eliminating debt. More:
“‘The government had in my view as bad a day as it reasonably could have,’ said Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog and a regular litigator at the high court. ‘It won’t cause the government to have a complete cardiac arrest — they’ll just be nauseous for months. … The only people coming out of that building optimistic today were the plaintiffs.’…
What, pray tell, could cause such a bad case of heartburn for the federal government? Oh, Justice Anthony Kennedy eviscerating the Solicitor General Donald Verilli in charge of presenting the government’s case as to why Obamacare should survive. But I’m getting ahead of myself. More from Politico:
“In the orgy of panel discussions, interviews and feature articles previewing this week’s arguments, law professors, Supreme Court litigators and journalists confidently predicted that the justices would uphold the individual mandate as a logical extension of the federal government’s well-established ability to regulate the health insurance market…
“Within the first few minutes of Tuesday’s arguments, that bravado seemed to go out the window.
Chief Justice John Roberts brought up the cellphone mandate: if the government can force you to buy health insurance because it’s “good for you,” then what else can you be forced to purchase that’s also “good for you.” Vegetables in every cart? A cellphone for emergencies?
“I thought that was an important part of your argument,” Roberts told Verrilli. “That when you need health care, the government will make sure you get it. Well, when you need police assistance or fire assistance or ambulance assistance, the government is going to make sure to the best extent it can that you get it — get it.”
But Roberts asked whether the same assurance that the government will provide emergency services could lead to a requirement that everyone buy a cellphone to help facilitate communication in an emergency.
Where does it stop? Gym memberships? Newer, safer Government Motors vehicles?
It doesn’t.
Verelli caused much angst and anguish on the left for his “trainwreck” performance. Brian Bolduc at NRO writes:
CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called the arguments “a train wreck for the Obama administration.” “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down,” Toobin said. “I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong.”
Jamie Dupree, reporter for Cox Radio, tweeted, “One thing was clear, the Solicitor General [Donald B. Verrilli Jr.] (arguing for the Obama Administration) had a bad day in court.” Justice Kennedy asked him the seemingly skeptical question, “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?”
“Essentially, the Solicitor General’s performance was so abysmal that it fell to the [Democratic] appointees to make his argument for him,” says Adam Serwer, reporter for Mother Jones.
Of course they did. At one point Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg apparently interrupted Verelli to try to clarify his argument for him. Heh.
Scalia unleashed:
I shouldn’t get too excited. Ed Whelan makes a valid point:
I’m always leery of inferring much from oral argument. Now that I’ve listened to the audio and reviewed the transcript (both available here) of today’s argument, I don’t claim to have any meaningful read on which side has the advantage.
I will, though, repeat what I’ve been sayingall along: Opponents of Obamacare will be making a terrible blunder if they count on the Supreme Court to deliver the death blow to Obamacare. We need to work to elect this November a Congress that will repeal and replace the monstrosity and a president who will sign that legislation
True enough.
H/t to Allahpundit here and here. He’s on fire. Read the rest of both and this one, where he confronts the notion that the SCOTUS striking down Obamacare could help Obama win reelection. (Perish the thought).
Of course Obama confuses the two. In case you haven’t heard, Obama was caught inserting his foot in his mouth with an open mic in South Korea. Via ABC news, the gaffe (except it’s more than that) heard round the world:
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
The media reports this as if it were a gaffe–just like they did the last time Obama’s mic was on and he trashed Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu to French President Nicholas Sarkozy. But it’s not a gaffe. Ed Morrissey:
So far, the tepid coverage from National Journal and the Washington Post suggests that the media doesn’t consider a request to another nation to pipe down so an American President can win a second term and deliver more favorable policy to a potential antagonist more than a “gaffe.”
Selling out our national security and that of our allies isn’t a gaffe. The fallout from this should reverberate until the election. A President who tells an enemy–yes, Virginia, the Russians are not our friends–just hold on a bit, and I’ll keep the favors flowing needs not be President for that reason alone. As if there aren’t myriad others to ditch the O.
Predictably, our friends are now scared to death. Bryan Preston on this “smart” diplomacy we were promised:
Obama’s Republican rivals aren’t the only ones alarmed by his hot mic suggestion that missile defense — implicitly, defending Eastern Europe from Russia — could be softened after his re-election. The headline in the largest Polish tabloid, Fakt: “Were they trading Poland? Puzzling Obama talk with Medvedev about the missile shield.”
Photo of the headline at the link. Poland has no reason to trust this president. Most of our longstanding allies have in fact been treated shabbily by the same man who was caught conspiring with the head of Russians’ corrupt regime.
Beyond the normal implications of Obama’s comments–chiefly that he’s willing to compromise our national security and that of our allies in order to reduce the global nuclear arsenal (ha, as if the Russians would truthfully comply)–the suggestion that he would seek to “accomplish” things in a second term voters would never approve galls me. Preston delves deeper:
And then, there is the anti-democratic aspect to the president’s comments. What plans are he formulating, that make his “last election” relevant? What is he planning to do that, if the American people were aware of it, would make him unelectable? That is what he is suggesting to the Russian leader — that this final election for him creates “flexibility” on policy that he does not have now.
Give him even more flexibility next fall. Kick him out of office.
UPDATE: linked by Pundette AND a “Recommended Read.” Thanks!
Type the URL “socialists.com” or “communists.com” and be redirected to Obama for America’s site where you’ll be prompted to answer whether you like Obamacare:
It’s the two-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. Since then, the law that almost everyone calls Obamacare has been doing exactly what the other side has hoped it wouldn’t do: It’s been working.
Say you like Obamacare—and you want everyone to know
It serves no point to try to rename “socialism” or “communism” or to eliminate the words from our lexicon. The terms refer to theories of social and economic organization in the same way that “capitalism” does — and the theories continue to attract adherents to greater and lesser degrees. The president has openly stated his approval of wealth redistribution and has also displayed a marked tendency toward central planning, particularly in the area of energy policy. Why he should balk at being called either a “socialist” or a “communist” puzzles me. Why not attempt to defend his ideas instead of hiding behind conservative rhetoric as he pushes a progressive agenda? I’d never recoil from the label of “capitalist” even though “the 99 percent” thinks capitalism is evil. What does it matter to the president if half the country doesn’t like his ideas? Oh, right. That’s why it matters. He has an agenda to push, yes, but he has to win reelection to push it. That’s why this prank is so brilliant. I’d love to hear the president explain why he doesn’t want those links to redirect to his website. Or, better yet, I’d love to hear him explain why he does.
Politicaljunkie Mom 