Category: Government

Marko gives us a preview of a hot new product we can soon expect from the US auto industry.

Jacob Sullum talks about the great expansion of federal hate crime that Congress is considering.  This bill makes federal crimes out of most crimes, enabling double jeopardy.   The problem is that, under our federal system, the federal and state governments are considered separate sovereigns, and so while double jeopardy is generally prohibited, because each sovereign is considered to have its own, separate interest in prosecuting crime.

It’s a nice idea in theory, and it might even work out if Congress were truly limited to its enumerated powers.  But Congress’ power over interstate commerce are now without limit.  With this new hate crime law, a person could easily be acquitted by a jury in state court, and then brought to trial in federal court for the same act, under this “hate crime” law.  The nexus to interstate commerce?  Well, he used a gun see.  And that gun once traveled over state lines.  Lopez was supposed to deal with this problem, but who knows if that’s even still valid precedent, even if it might technically still be.

In DC, you don’t own your driveway or lawn. Now it’s finally coming to the attention of the press since the Congresswoman with no vote started getting tickets for parking in her own driveway.

My old office suffered from this problem. There were no warnings. One day officers just started ticketing all of the cars in the parking lot claiming that it was really public space and not a parking lot. Nevermind that it had been a parking lot since the building was zoned for business or that it was completely paved. We were told we had to preserve it as open space for the city, yet we were also responsible for maintaining it in bad weather. Several very expensive “tax” payments eventually resulted in special permission for us to use it. They had to be paid quarterly, so I wonder if changing this law will finally solve the problem for my old former employer.

I love this headline: “Obama aims to cut wasteful spending,” from the LA Times.  What is their shining example of Obama’s self-evidence fiscal responsibility?

The president singled out a move by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to end consulting contracts to create seals and logos that he said had cost the department $3 million since 2003.

Three million?  Wow.  I am in awe of that number.  With a budget deficit projected at 2 trillion dollars for this year, surely the Department of Homeland security having to go without seals will save our children from this massive, crushing debt.

Do we need any more evidence the media is in the tank?  Two trillion dollars.  Think about that number.  It’s 1000 million to get to a billion, and a 1000 billion to get to a trillion.  And we’re not doing that once, but twice.  That’s 2 million times a million dollars.  Nitpicking little items here and there can add up to real money eventually, but it won’t be a drop in the bucket when all is said and done.

I now yearn for the days of the fiscally restrained Bush Administration!

Kevin Baker, responding to someone questioning the seemingly spontaneous nature of the Tea Party Movment, in the comments over at Uncle’s:

That’s easy: Bush’s “Bailout” of $700 billion in TARP funds, followed by Obama’s “Bailout Expansion” of something on the order of an addition a trillion, with more to come. The demands that come along with this money, whether it goes to banks, auto manufacturers or state treasuries, looks like the Federal government essentially seizing control of anything and everything.

All this happened FAST.

And our normally somnolent population finally woke the hell up.

I sure hope he’s right, but suspect he is.  For those of us who believed in smaller and less intrusive government, we suffered through an abusive relationship with the Bush Administration for eight years.  Obama was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  This is not the change we were looking for.

New energy regulations in California could end up banning 25% of the TVs on the market because they aren’t energy efficient enough.  I think it won’t be long before California is not habitable by any form of homo sapien that doesn’t include granola as a major part of its diet.

An extreme example of the kinds of choices we often face in the political process can be found in the 1979 novel and 1982 movie Sophie’s Choice.  In any just society, parents aren’t asked which of their children they want to live, and in a just system of government, we’re not given conflicting choices between which parts of the constitution we want to keep, and which we will allow to wither.

There are a lot of people who don’t like the D.C. Voting Rights Act, or any of the politicians who will no doubt vote for its passage.  It is a violation of their oath to uphold the constitution if they vote for the bill, many will say.  This is not something I disagree with.  I think giving D.C. representation in Congress legislatively is unconstitutional on its face, as is the compromise granting Utah an extra seat in Congress.  If I were a Congressman, taking my oath seriously, I don’t think I could vote for it even with the pro-gun amendment.  I do hope NRA will only grade the vote on the amendment, rather than on final passage, in that case.

But we are faced with a political Sophie’s choice with the D.C. Voting Rights Act.  Republicans do not have the votes to defeat the bill outright, so the constitution is going to be offended no matter what we do.  This is an inevitable consequence of losing the 2008 elections.  Our choice is between watching the D.C. Voting Rights Act pass without amendment, or attaching an amendment that at least enhances and preserves some part of the constitutional order.  It is not a perfect choice, but I would argue that given that choice, our responsibility is to preserve what we can of the constitution.

Senator McCain is twittering 10 pork project a day from the Democrat’s porkulus bill.  Some highlights:

#6. $632,000 for the Hungry Horse Project

#8. $143,000 for the Historic Jazz Foundation in Kansas City, MO

#10. $3,806,000 for a Sun Grant Initiative in SD

#4. All 13 earmarks for PMA group, which has been raided by the FBI for corruption, totaling over $10 million -THE BEST GOVERNMENT $ CAN BUY

I have to give McCain kudos for highlighting this garbage.  I’ll be honest, though, there’s a part of me that feels like the sooner Obama bankrupts the government, the sooner the political class that’s run this country into the ground will be thoroughly discredited.  The shame is that they will likely drag the rest of us down with them.

Richard Fernandez had an interesting post at the beginning of this week that discussed what I’ve long thought is the fundamental problem with preserving liberty:

Paradoxically, maybe Barack Obama is right about one thing. Capitalism is too preoccupied with doing things. It leaves governance as an afterthought. It puts the “pursuit of happiness” front and center and goes about its business trusting to the existence of a civil society or the continued maintenance of a social contract. People working one hundred hour weeks have no time to think about Roland Burris II. But the problem is that people like Roland Burris II have lots of time to think about them.  People like Blag probably think of nothing but. And therein lies the rub.  Capitalism has this blind spot. Obama is right about that. While government was small and largely charged with keeping the bandidos at bay and collecting the garbage it was possible to leave governance to take care of itself, except for the time just before and after elections. But with the increasing power of the state and its growing propensity to tax, perhaps it is no longer possible for the productive people in America to simply go about their tasks while leaving Washington to amuse itself.

Read the whole thing.  It’s excellent.  Activism is very time consuming.  During the run up to the 2008 election, it was like having a second full time job.  My weekends were spent working gun shows, and weeknights talking to gun clubs and gun owners.  If not that, then making calls for the local pro-gun politicians.  If it were not for the fact that Bitter was not employed, I doubt I could have dedicated as much to it as I did.  The 2010 elections will be much harder on our time if, God willing, we’re both employed.

Activism is difficult for the productive, and people with families.  It’s easy for those who make their careers as community organizers.  We on the right need to start thinking about better ways to organize, that reflect the reality that most of us have jobs and families.  Richard is right.  We can’t afford any longer to leave Washington and the left to their own devices.