Never the responsibility of the purse, only the power

All pretense has been abandoned:

House Democrats will not pass a budget blueprint in 2010, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) will confirm in a speech on Tuesday.

Bend over and think of England.

I'll have what they're having

And make it a double:

Favoring the constitutional right to bear arms over others' concerns about gun safety, Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without requiring a permit.

The measure takes effect 90 days after the current legislative session ends, which likely puts the effective date in July or August.

"I believe this legislation not only protects the Second Amendment rights of Arizona citizens, but restores those rights as well," Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement.

Take that, you mealy-mouthed, panty-waisted, half-wit hoplophobes!

Damn, but don't it feel good to win one now and again. I think I'll look at some real-estate in Arizona, as it just vaulted itself into the upper reaches of my list of desirable places to inhabit on a semi-permanent basis.

Keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times

I wonder how much longer this policy will last:

If you want to keep your checked valuables from being stolen while you fly, just keep a gun in your suitcase.

Many airports won't let you effectively lock your suitcases when you fly, and the new limits on carry-on luggage thanks to moisture-terror-hysteria mean it's open season for unscrupulous TSA employees and baggage handlers who want to help themselves to expensive cameras and other valuable in checked bags.

But once you add a gun -- even a starter pistol -- to your luggage, it gets extra-locked, gains new tracking privileges, and is subject to heightened scrutiny all the way to your destination.

This would have been helpful a week or so ago, before TSA "randomly inspected" my checked baggage and dumped all of my shampoo (in the 3oz bottle) out, then placed the open container bag in the toiletry-bag, soaking everything else in the bag with shampoo, including my toothbrush. Fortunately, they let a note explaining that my luggage had been searched in the name of Security!, and that I shouldn't worry my pretty little head over the Affairs of State.

Not the worst TSA story ever, but the little things count. Flare-guns are affordable.

Evidently, I will always be at an age at which the Feds will want to wash out my mouth with soap.

The Fed: An Interpretive Dance

Meet the new year, same as the old year

What do reporter David Reilly and the Great White Shark have in common? The ability to devour and digest insane amounts of garbage without ill effect, of course:

Hunkering down by the fire, I snuggled up with H.R. 4173, the financial-reform legislation passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The Senate has yet to pass its own reform plan. The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.

I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this. At 1,279 pages, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is a real slog. And yes, I plowed through all those pages. (Memo to Chairman Frank: “ystem” at line 14, page 258 is missing the first “s”.)

The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.

If you’re a banker, the bill is tastier. While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises.

The chief outrage is addressed in the title of the piece: "Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank". Yep, with a 'T'. Reilly goes on to point out that while the funds are not automatically dispensed, the caveats and restrictions are so (purposely) vague that the whole of it amounts to merely haggling over the price, as the old joke goes.

Working under the assumption that compounding the errors that caused the last crash does not actually provide a viable solution, and that said solution is not the forestallment of a necessary correction, and that HR 4173 receives corresponding support in the Senate (support from the White House is given, at this point), when will the next tsunami of corrections hit?

Is this all as predictable as it seems to be?

I'm lovin' it

Sometimes, good things come from the Windy City:

The U.S. Supreme Court has set a date to hear the landmark civil liberties case that will determine whether the Second Amendment prohibits state and local governments from enacting stiff anti-gun laws.

Oral arguments in the lawsuit, McDonald v. City of Chicago, will be held on the morning of March 2, 2010. A decision is expected by late June or early July.

That muffled popping sound you hear is Dianne Feinstein's dentures grinding in anticipation.

Withholding the truth

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and we're stuck holding the bill:

Effective Sunday, expect less of a paycheck.

The amount of income tax withheld from your check is going to climb by 10 percent.

In the scheme of things, it's not a big hit, state officials and accountants said. But don't tell that to people who feel it's just another form of taxation to make up for an inept state Legislature.

No amount of taxation could make up for the spendthrift habits of our legislature. Also, it's not "making up" for squat: taxation is not the balancing force to a group of parasitic layabouts, it's symptomatic of their presence. There is no way to gently coerce someone out of their wealth.

"There's some perception that I've heard that this is a 10 percent tax increase ... that's absoslutely not the case," Palmer said. "This will, in no way shape or form, change anybody's tax liability. You owe what you owe."

And employees can always go to their payroll department and ask to withold less, officials said.

Whether it is essentially a tax or not was perhaps not even the greatest concern, the accountant Theisen and others said.

It's a concern about the potential for the state to again face the same woes it endured this year as it teetered on fiscal collapse.

"It's a fix to a problem that's not going to be fixed," Theisen said.

Taxpayers will get their refunds, but they might get IOUs before that, he said.

So, borrowing without permission, with no intention of repayment. Furthermore, what's to prevent the legislature from appropriating one's paycheck two years in advance? Three? Ten? And to what percentage? What are the absolute limits of the appetite of the State? Does anyone really expect them to make good on the IOU scheme?

If anyone required confirmation that one's paycheck is merely what the State allows one to keep after "wetting its beak", this is it.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- Somewhat aged, but as the target flotsam study floats around the confines of the Internet, this should serve to shut down mindless yapping to its affirmative: Eugene Volokh tears into the University of Pennsylvania study claiming that carrying a firearm increases the chances of being shot by 450%.

- Color me unsurprised: the proletariat in the PRK is unhappy with the situation in Sacramento, but is unwilling to remove the persistent source of the problems that plague the state.

- Unpossible; guns are illegal in Chicago! Perhaps if they made them double-plus-ungood-illegal, that would convince those that already disregard the laws to stop disregarding the law.

- Speaking of, guess what has reached a new low?

- It's popular for a reason.

- Wynn is full of win.

- If "recovery" is a new euphemism for "muddled financial cluster-screw", then this does indeed deserve the moniker "Recovery Act".

When in doubt, empty the clip

- The story is slightly aged, but it's probably still fresher than the last packet from Telkom.

- "Muskelkraft Flieger" would also make a great rock-band name.

- They're trying, but without a towel and large, friendly letters reading "DON'T PANIC", this is going nowhere fast.

- Having decided to take my chances without the above, I'd like to have one of these instead. (With video goodness.)

- Evidently, we're just not modeling hard enough; pass the chicken entrails and bones, please.

- Speaking of financial modeling...

"Time? What time do you think we have?"

Obama isn't an 'A' student, and he definitely doesn't know much about history...

In one of his first major decisions on trade policy, President Obama opted Friday to impose a tariff on tires from China, a move that fulfills his campaign promise to "crack down" on imports that unfairly undermine American workers but risks angering the nation's second-largest trading partner.

The decision is intended to bolster the ailing U.S. tire industry, in which more than 5,000 jobs have been lost over the past five years as the volume of Chinese tires in the market has tripled.

It comes at a sensitive time, however. Leaders from the world's largest economies are preparing to gather in Pittsburgh in less than two weeks to discuss more cooperation amid tensions over trade.

The tire tariff will amount to 35 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Although a federal trade panel had recommended higher levies -- of 55, 45 and 35 percent, respectively -- the decision is considered a victory for the United Steelworkers union, which filed the trade complaint.

Hey, here's an idea: how about deliberately angering the largest creditors of the United States with a tariff, then following it up with yet another bond-auction? Obviously, China isn't worried about our ability to repay the staggering amount of debt that the Federal Government has accumulated, so why not?

The spread between AA-investment grade corporates and 10- year Treasuries was 2.07 percent today. The average for this year has been 3.151 percent.

The U.S. government is concerned about overall demand for Treasuries, not appetite from individual countries, said David Dollar, the U.S. Treasury Department’s economic and financial emissary to China.

“The interest rate on long-term Treasury bonds is at a very low level by historical standards,” Dollar said at the World Economic Forum meeting yesterday in Dalian, China. “That says that the market has confidence the U.S. will get the fiscal problem under control.” The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed more than $12 trillion in a bid to revive the economy and credit markets.

Very interesting, Mr. Dollar. (I realize that this is beginning to sound akin to a Bond script.) As much as we would like to believe that you are not defrauding the American taxpayers, that isn't what we've heard from our sources in China!

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".

"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.

In all seriousness, I'm having a difficult time imagining a more historically predictable or utterly asinine way of handling a severe market-correction.

Now, I would like to attribute as much of this behavior to either good-natured ignorance or old-fashioned congenital idiocy, but the limit of this behavior is fast approaching deliberate, calculated evil, as I find that the collection of "our best and brightest" on Capitol Hill cannot or will not drop the pitched slap-fight over non-issues to address the debt. Indeed, they seem to be doing everything within their power to not only avoid it, but to exacerbate and accelerate its arrival.

The hour is later than you think.

Speaking of instituitions...

If at first you don't succeed, use a bigger mallet:

In essence, the report calls for a new Bretton Woods-style system of managed international exchange rates, meaning central banks would be forced to intervene and either support or push down their currencies depending on how the rest of the world economy is behaving.

The proposals would also imply that surplus nations such as China and Germany should stimulate their economies further in order to cut their own imbalances, rather than, as in the present system, deficit nations such as the UK and US having to take the main burden of readjustment.

Of course! Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong this time?

Wait for it...

Although many economists have pointed out that the economic crisis owed more to the malfunctioning of the post-Bretton Woods system, until now no major institution, including the G20, has come up with an alternative.

No alternative that favors State-control of the currency, that is. Of course, no government (or aspiring government, or ramshackle clubhouse staffed by tin-pot soapbox dictators) worth its swirling cesspool of crawling parasites would advocate such a restriction on the most subtle form of taxation, would it?

How very apropos

The Final Exam of Voxiversity III: Liberal Fascism was posted today, and the timing could not be more perfect:

“At the moment, except for the people without insurance, we’re not in a health-care crisis,” said Stephen Wayne, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington. “You do need a crisis to generate movement in Congress and to help build a consensus.”

I am sure that Rahm and the Council of Doom are arranging something to bolster the flagging support for ever-increasing Federal control of the economy in the face of a manifesting depression that ought to offer up something truly worthy of the title "crisis".

Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the administration made unprecedented health-care progress in eight months.

“We gave Congress a charge, we gave them broad outlines, which is the reason we are farther along than any of the five presidents that have tried,” Emanuel said in an interview yesterday. “We’re not there yet, and this speech is intended to finish the job.”

Stay the course, Rahm. I'm sure the marginal increases in speeches, outlines and hope-change will sufficiently stimulate the Congress into recovery...

It's already been written-off

Could you speak directly into the lamp, please?

Tackling the Medicare debt-horizon

With officers like these, who needs criminals?

This must be more of the "new professionalism" that Scalia had crowed about:

The suspect said that he was hit three times with a Taser after he was already handcuffed and face-down on the floor. Murphy's investigation found evidence that the suspect was hit twice with the Taser — once in the back before he was handcuffed and once in the buttocks after he was cuffed.

Murphy said the officer who used the Taser -— described as Officer #3 in the report — also coarsely threatened to use the Taser in the man's anus and genitals. Murphy's report says that use of Taser on a man's buttock's does not violate policy in and of itself; the question is whether it was "reasonable and necessary."

If the question remains open to the nature of water-boarding as torture (it is), then how is this within the realm of consideration for "reasonable and necessary" action?

Unsurprisingly, the review yielded these recommendations:

— Use-of-force investigation policy review. Establish specific standards and procedures needed for those tasked with investigating reportable uses of force by Boise police officers. "It is important that such acts be investigated and documented using consistent, best practices," he said.

— Training regarding positional asphyxia. During the arrest in question, the suspect was placed face-down on the ground and handcuffed with his hands behind his back and had the weight of three officers on his body. "None of the officers seemed to be aware of the possible danger posed by positional asphyxia," Murphy said.

More training and additional bureaucracy is the answer to persistent abuse of authority? If anything, it is demonstrably the antithesis of known solutions to the systematic abuse of power.

This is not law, and it is not justice, but both of them will out, legally or otherwise.

Constitutional Law, with Guanotations

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Coercion and Enforcement Syndicate* hands down an edict from on high:

From Tennessee Firearms Association:

The ATF - as expected - has issued a letter in which it disregards the 10th Amendment restrictions on federal power (as seems to be the trend since the late 1930) and has notified Tennessee’s federal firearms dealers that the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act is meaningless. Essentially, ATF is saying to the state of Tennessee that the 10th Amendment no longer exists.

We expected such from a tyranny that no longer lives within the bounds of its express authority…

Interesting times ahead, folks. Every time the patricians tighten the vise on the citizens, there is an inevitable move towards a grey market, which causes the cycle to begin anew.

I ask again: what part of "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is unclear? Furthermore, what makes it an acceptable legal practice to completely ignore the Ninth and Tenth Amendments?

* A new tag has been created.

Shocked! Shocked!

Evidently, the "increased transparency" in governance has been extended to assertions made while under investigation:

The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee came to the defense of the National Security Agency today, saying that the federal agency didn’t commit flagrant abuses in its program to intercept American’s phone calls and emails — but stopped short of denying that the agency had overstepped its bounds or broken the law.

To quote Rick, "I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one." One would think that the least Pelosi and Feinstein could do would be to share a successful strategy for working the press on their respective denials. Pathetic.

But wait, there's more!

Meanwhile, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized Attorney General Eric Holder, for refusing to declare that the warrantless wiretapping program started under the Bush administration is against the law. Holder testified before the committee today.

“I was disappointed by Attorney General Holder’s unwillingness to repeat what both he and President Obama had stated in the past – that President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was illegal,” Feingold said in a statement. “For an administration that has repeatedly stated its intention to restore the rule of law, this episode was a step backward.

I suspect that realizing the importance of the case, they are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.

Timothy Geithner, Rocket Surgeon

The Chinese may be buying our assets*, but even they have their limits:

"Chinese assets are very safe," Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.

"Mr. Krugman, our esteemed thaumaturgist, has promised that the ancestral animal spirits will smile upon our money harvests once again," Geithner continued, "But only so long as we maintain our confidence that they will do so. To doubt the animal spirits would be folly!"

I suspect Geithner is fearing for his job (I am hesitant to call it a career, as it is unskilled labor), as he may yet need to exchange his suit for motley:

In his speech, Geithner renewed pledges that the Obama administration would cut its huge fiscal deficits and promised "very disciplined" future spending, possibly including reintroduction of pay-as-you-go budget rules instead of nonstop borrowing.

"We believe in a strong dollar ... and we're going to make sure that we repair and reform the financial system so that we sustain confidence," he said.

"Initial phases of balancing the spending increases include the sales of various government properties, including former Navy shipyards in Arizona and New Mexico, and necessity-based taxation of excess assets in the private sector," Geithner added, "The Obama administration is determined to fix our economy, good and hard."

* In the least-valuable sense of the term.

A half-truth is a whole lie

For the many times I have seen this story posted, not once have I seen a clear distinction made between the Exploring and Boy Scouts, as many that have posted about it have failed to bother themselves with independent research or digging in the New York Times' rubbish-bins. To wit, Learning for Life (the parent organization for Exploring) recently posted a response to the article that addressed the deliberate obfuscation of that distinction:

Last, the article inaccurately describes Explorers as Boy Scouts. Exploring is a program of Learning for Life, a nonprofit organization that provides character and career education programs to participating agencies or groups. Learning for Life is affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America.

Overall, the complete piece was a weak, ineffectual reply to the article, but this is more of a reflection on its leadership, which cannot afford to be principled by nature of its relationship with a broad variety of national education-focused programs. This is not to say that I approve of the aims of the Learning for Life program; to the contrary, I neither approve nor condone the existence of a program so intimately involved with the State, and it is my sincere belief that the Boy Scouts of America would do well to totally disassociate itself from the program and focus its attention on Scouting.

This, of course, is the the point: lingering association with Learning for Life has damaged the reputation of the Boy Scouts of America, and it will continue to do so as long as the BSA continues to espouse its rights as a private organization. This has been the avenue of drift since I was in the Boy Scouts some years ago as a youth, during which traditionally-used buildings on military property at the Defense Language Institute (rest in peace, Uncle Paul) became increasingly unavailable due to the refusal of the BSA to adopt a "more inclusive attitude".

On a more personal note, and speaking for more than a few Eagle Scouts other than myself, involvement in the program has done infinitely more good by us than any of the public-schooling, forced volunteerism or feel-good "Rock The Vote" schema implemented by public do-gooders, even in their most fevered delusions. Indeed, much of this obligatory social-engineering has back-fired due to our Scouting experience, and many of us have become self-professed (and actively agitating) libertarians with a penchant for good-natured mayhem because of it.

It's not a perfect program, but I've yet to see better.