Vice Presidents

What, in the history of the vice presidency of the United States, would lead a successful senator or a governor to accept that position? I think it has become a dead-end position, a place where politicians at the end of their careers can go to be the back up in case of disaster.

Ben Smith on Norwell Sports

Ben Smith, in his article, Rich Farmland in Ossian yields athletic success, writes a very nice article on how well the boys and girls baseball, football and basketball teams programs have done and  the great athletes that come out of Norwell, including Miss Basketball Jessica Rupright, Colts quarterback Chandler Harnish, and Oakland A's picture Jarrod Parker.

We don't elect Restaurateurs

A culture that redefines food choices as moral issues will demonize the people who don't share the tastes of the priest class. A culture that elevates eating to some holistic act of ethical self-definition - localvore, low-carbon-impact food, fair trade, artisanal cheese - will find the casual carefree choices of the less-enlightened as an affront to their belief system

James Lileks on Michael Bloomberg's decision to try to limit the size of drinks in NYC.  Read the whole thing.

Hidden Carbon Tax

seven such states with RPS mandates saw their rates soar by an average of 54.2 percent between 2001 and 2010, 

more than twice the average increase experienced by seven other coal-dependent states without mandates

Robert Bryce's Manhattan Institute article "The High Cost of Renewable-Electricity Mandates" is a good read.  More than half the states have seen their cost of electricity increase (skyrocket, in fact) as they pass laws forcing their power companies to provide higher and higher percentages of power from renewable sources.  At the same time, many states are providing tax breaks to renewable energy companies and renewable energy efforts by normal companies, so the taxpayers have to 1) pay more for energy and 2) make up tax shortfalls from companies that avoid millions in taxes through renewable energy loopholes and subsidies.

In 2011, California passed a mandate that 33% of their energy would come from renewable sources by 2020... they did no cost benefit analysis.  As these mandates continue to be passed, even during this long recession, more and more of the poor are tapping state and federal programs to help them pay their power bills, so not only do power companies pass all these costs on to customers, get greater and greater profits from renewable energy subsidies, but the less than half of America who pay taxes, have to pay more.

Additionally, as the EPA forces older coal plants out of business, many of the Midwest states without mandates, like Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, etc, will be seeing their rates pushed up as the costs are passed along; not to mention that the end-users are also being forced to pay for smart meters being added to their homes to the tune of several dollars every month for years.

All in all it is just a state and national energy policy mess costing the taxpayers increasingly billions of dollars.

Freedom in Decline

"when the leader of the third-biggest party in one of the oldest democratic legislatures on earth has to live under constant threat of murder and be forced to live in "safe houses" for almost a decade, something is badly wrong in "the most tolerant country in Europe""

Read Mark Steyn on The Spirit of Geert Wilders... 

Hogwarts at Sunset

Last Chance Iran?

A report in the Haaretz (Israel) newspaper is out saying Secretary of State Clinton has asked her counterparts in Russia to warn Iran that military strikes are months away unless they negotiate away from their nuclear ambitions.  This isn't to say that the strikes would come from the United States... but if it comes to that, it will add yet more fuel to the volatile summer election campaigning.  

Guns and Contraceptives

Let's say you're a pacifist, and you belong to a pacifist religious organization. Maybe it's the Mennonite Central Committee, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, Pax Christi or any of numerous Quaker groups.

 

Let's say your organization needs a new staffer and you hire me because I'm a perfect fit for the job and an all-around wonderful human being.
Imagine that at some point during my tenure with your organization, a right-wing president and Congress so advance the cause of a citizen militia, as it existed in the Founders' day, that a law is passed mandating employers to provide employees with free guns if the employees wish to have them....

 

But this analogy is a near-perfect fit. Guns and contraceptives are consumer products that we all have the right to use, but the use of one or the other violates some faith-based organizations' doctrine.

 

There's one small difference between them, though. The right to bear arms is actually articulated in the U.S. Constitution, while the right to health care is not...

Ruth Ann Daily, Food and Weapons, they're my rights, too

The Right to Resist

Fatal Shooting of Ex-Marine

For those who wonder about Indiana's Congress working on a law to allow people in their own homes to resist the police... the 68 year-old's Life Alert alarm went off. Paramedics and Police responded. When he told them he was fine and refused to open the door, the police broke it down and shot him dead.

How this Court is Different

The strangeness of the current Supreme Court.

Rest Andrew

Fiery the angels rose,

and as they rose deep thunder rolled

around their shores:

indignance, burning with the fires of Hell

and Bostons Angel cried aloud,

"Why trembles honesty

and like a murderer, seeks refuge?

Why do the generous tremble
and leave their joy to the idle,

to the pestilence that mocks them?"

So cried he, rending off his robe

and throwing down his scepter,

and all thirteen Angels

descended down on the land of America,

flame folded roaring fierce.

- William Blake

The STRIP Act

In the dead of night, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) administratively reclassified airport security screeners as Transportation Security Officers. The TSA then moved to administratively upgrade TSO's uniforms to resemble those of a federal law enforcement officer. They further completed the makeover with metal law enforcement badges. Not surprisingly, government bureaucrats at the TSA left out one crucial component during the artificial makeover – actual federal law enforcement training as is required of Federal Air Marshalls.

In order to help rein in the TSA I introduced H.R. 3608, the Stop TSA's Reach in Policy Act aka the STRIP Act. This bill will simply overturn the TSA's administrative decision by prohibiting any TSA employee who has not received federal law enforcement training from using the title "officer," wearing a police like uniform or a metal police badge. At its most basic level the STRIP Act is about truth in advertising.

Though their heart is in the right place with the STRIP act, if passed it will probably just end up costing more money by forcing TSA to recruit and train tens of thousands agents.  The whole thing should be removed from federal hands and replaced with a set of guidelines for State and Local authorities to handle.