Crazy Cynthia Award to State Sen. Kevin Parker (D. Brooklyn)

Brooklyn State Senator Kevin Parker has submitted his entry for the "Crazy Cynthia" Tantrum Award (named after former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney). As a CBS News is reporting it:

ALBANY (CBS) ―

It looks like the circus and childish antics are rearing their ugly head once again in Albany.

It started as an angry blow-up, and then it escalated. A state senator with a history of anger management issues says his race-based rant was part of his fight against the "evil of white supremacy."

...

Parker shockingly identified the "enemies" he's fighting as other senators.

"These long-term, white supremacist, you know, Republican senators," he said.

As to his anger management issues:

There have been other temper tantrums involving the senator. Last year he was accused of felony assault after doing $1,000 in damage to the car of New York Post photographer William Lopez and smashing his camera after he snapped Parker's picture.

Two years ago, an aide filed charges against Parker, claiming he pushed her during an argument and smashed her glasses. In 2005, Parker was accused of punching a traffic agent in the face. The charges were dropped after parker agreed to take anger management classes.

How do these people ever get elected?

More headlines: Clean Air and Global Warming

I am almost tempted to classify this under humor, but the following headline is for real:

Could Cleaner Air Actually Intensify Global Warming?

The story follows:

As much of the world marked Earth Day this past week, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that air pollution has declined dramatically over the past 20 years. It sounds like good news, but science writer Eli Kintisch argues that there's a surprising downside: Cleaner air might actually intensify global warming.

"If we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound," Kintisch writes in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times.

Read it all.

Fire up those obsolete steel foundries and fight global warming!

OK, I could not resist. I did file this under humor. Unintended humor though it is.

Unbelievable Headline

The following is an actual AP headline:

Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. law.

As if that were a bad thing!

AP is shocked, shocked, I tell you!

San Francisco Boycotts Arizona

San Francisco boycotts Arizona. Arizona breathes a sigh of relief and sends a thank you note to Mayor of San Francisco. At least, that is what I would do.

Story here.

Open Carry Encouraged by Prohibiting Concealed Carry

Out of Canada, here is a video on open carry in Wisconsin. Wisconsin prohibits all forms of concealed carry. Ironically, that prohibition encourages open carry as we see in the video shown here: http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/thane_burnett/2010/04/23/13698196.html

Draw Mohammed Day

This speaks for itself:

Death Panel Lives

As I reported in December, the death panels are alive and well in the Democrats' health care legislation.

Hotair and others are reporting on the Obama Budget Director video explaining about the power of the Independent Payment Advisory Board to ration health care.

Administration Lied About Health Care Bill Cost -- Updated

A lie is when you are not telling the truth and you know you are not telling the truth. By that standard, yes, the administration lied about the health care bill cost.

DEMOCRATS HID DAMNING HEALTH CARE REPORT FROM PUBLIC UNTIL A MONTH AFTER VOTE

More hope and change–

A damning health care report generated by actuaries at the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department was given to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the health care vote. She hid the report from the public until a month after democrats rammed their nationalized health care bill through Congress.

The results from the report were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries shows that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law.

Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen. [Emphasis added.]

Read it all.

Now the Democrats are pushing a bill to impose price controls in insurers.

Price controls like this never work. Insurers have to make a profit, or they will leave the business.

That is exactly what the Democrats want. If the insurers flee the health insurance market, government will claim it is forced to step in with a single payer system. That is the end game for the price control legislation.

Update: Here is a report suggesting that the White House was involved in covering up the negative report in order to get the Health Care Bill passed.

G.M.'s Misleading Ad

The Washington Times and others are reporting on General Motors's supposed pay back of bailout funds, which GM is touting in a television advertisement. The pay back claim is a fraud, of course. The money "paid back" came from other bailout funds. GM lost money in 2009, and could not have paid back the funds with actual profits.

Here is the ad edited with comments (not mine):



Here is my question. IF GM will deliberately mislead us on the bailout money issue, how can you expect honesty in its product advertising?

I will probably have to buy a car this year. I am not at all interested in helping GM. I will be looking elsewhere, probably Ford.

I don't trust GM and never will as long as GM is majority government and union owned. By this ad, GM has shown us that it will delight in misleading us. How can we trust it not to lie about its products?

Supreme Court to Review Video Dealers v. Schwarzenegger Case

On February 20 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Video Software Dealers Ass’n v. Schwarzenegger (9th Cir. Feb. 20, 2009), struck down on first amendment grounds California's law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

The Ninth Circuit held that the California law violated the First Amendment as banning content related speech. Even though that law was directed at protecting minors, the court applied a strict scrutiny standard that required the state to establish a compelling interest in regulating this sort of speech. The court said that the state failed to show why there were no less restrictive means for protecting minors.

I see this as a defeat to the statists who want greater and greater regulatory power over all of us.

The Supreme Court has agreed to review the case.

Moron of the Day: Unidentified Protester

Ya gotta love lefty protesters. Hate doesn't count if it is against someone the left doesn't like (in this case, Sarah Palin).

EU Binge Drinking Championship!

Slow news day, so we focus on the coming war between Ireland and Great Britain. That is, the war over which is the greatest binge drinking nation in the EU:

The gauntlet has been thrown down:

Headline from the Irish Times:
Irish binge drinking "highest in EU."

Headline from the Telegraph (UK):
Britain is the "binge drinking capitol of Europe."

The Funeral Guy has the story.

Be sure to follow up on the Funeral Guy's posts on Great Britain's current most notorious binge drinker, Laura Hall, here and here.

Sailor Speaks

I wish I had said this:

Video Entry For EPA Regulation Contest

On April 19, 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency put out a call. It instituted a contest for the best video applauding its regulation of us. That's right. They want ordinary citizens, the victims of EPA regulation, to tell EPA how much we love being regulated.

Here is the entry from Americans for Prosperity:

ACORN Funding Ban Reinstated

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the ACORN funding ban voted by Congress, Human Events is reporting. A copy of the Second Circuit's order is here.

This an appeal from the District Court ruling that had found the funding ban unconstitutional as a bill of attainder. Somehow, the District Court thought that ACORN has a constitutional right to continue to receive your money even if it behaves badly.

On September 18, 2009, I called Jerrold Nadler a nut for suggesting that ACORN had a constitutional right to your money, but the District Court judge agreed with him, called the legislation a bill of attainder.

A bill of attainder is legislated punishment imposed by Congress after the wrongful act has occurred. It has typically been thought of as a criminal law enacted after commission of the act now legislated to be criminal. For example, Congress could not punish Nancy Pelosi for her back-room deals on the health care bill by making those deals illegal after-the-fact.

Acorn's President Lauds Socialism

A curious rant. It seems to me that it is more the tea party types that should be worried about some new McCarthyism.

Bertha Lewis as socialist is not exactly a surprise.

Acorn is struggling. When your primary funding comes from a single source, in this case the government, you will struggle if the single source dries up. No loss to society, I think.

Earthquakes Explained by Iranian Cleric

The MailOnline is reporting that Iranian cleric has an unusual notion of what causes earthquakes: Scantily clad women, of course.

Why didn't I see that coming?

I think the earthquake is all in his panties.

Too True

What the Tea Party Really Is -- Updated

Take that Rachel Maddow and the other loonies who call Tea Parties "racist."

Update: The reporter, Kelly O'Donnell, has taken some heat for even asking the question. I agree with her that the question was appropriate. It was appropriate not because there was ever truth to the accusation of racism at the tea parties. The question was appropriate, because the false accusation has been so pervasive.

I thank reporter O'Donnell for asking the question. I thank NBC for broadcasting the answer.

Contrast: Tea Party v. SEIU

In Columbus, two different demonstrations.

There was the Tea Party that the goofy media claims is potentially violent. Reported violent incidents or arrests yesterday? Zero.

There there was the lefty SEIU demonstration. 25 Arrests for disorderly conduct.

At least it was not actually violent. They sat down in the street to impede traffic. They had worked out with the police in advance that they would get arrested and not resist.

Unlike the SEIU, the Tea Party protesters did NOTHING illegal.

Tax Day

I'm too busy to post.

Tax day simply makes me angrier and angrier at the federal government.

Go to your local tea party today -- if you have your taxes done, and maybe your extension.

More Evidence That Obamacare is Moronic -- As if We Needed More

Obamacare will stop budding hospitals in their tracks, if the hospitals would be owned by doctors.

Let's see.

Mandated insurance purchases will inevitably lead to more demand for medical services. So the centralized planners in Congress cut the supply of medical services by banning new doctor-owned hospitals from receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.

Morons abound.

Anyone who voted for that bill deserves to become unemployed at the next election. It makes one wish for recall provisions in the Constitution. Maybe we need an amendment.

Repeal and replace.

The Cost of Tax Compliance: Another Way That Congress Screws Americans

.
Warning: The following video contains concepts that may be too difficult for Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Alan Grayson, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, Rep. Maxine Waters, and many other Democrats to grasp:

Mandated Insurance Purchases: Terrible Economics

The dishonest Obama administration and equally dishonest Congressional Democrats keep bashing insurance companies. In fact the insurance companies love the mandate to purchase insurance. If you were an insurance company wouldn't you? The insurance companies are not worried too much about the follow-up regulation. They control plenty of campaign contribution dollars.

Even before the Obamacare mandates, the widespread system of health insurance coverage for the trivial, doctor visits and all the minor stuff, has directly caused the raise in overall medical costs. After all, if visiting the doctor and getting care is free or virtually free, more medical services will be demanded. Doctors have an incentive to over-prescribe in a abundance of caution. The ability to pay is no impediment thanks to insurance. And the doctors desire to avoid a potential malpractice claim. More is better for the doctors. As more services are demanded due to low marginal cost to the consumer, more services are supplied and total medical expenditures rise. Who care if the office visit is $35 or $100? Let the insurance company worry about it. Let the insurance company worry about whether those shots for which the insurance company is billed were really received. It is really easy to spend someone else's money.

As people are forced to buy medical insurance, they will use it. Total medical expenditures will necessarily rise even more.

A far more sane system was the health savings accounts (HSA's) controlled by the consumer with catastrophic insurance coverage. No one gets their appendix out unless it is necessary. With HSA's, people care about the cost of their care, because they pay directly for normal care. They get to shop prices for their own care. Normal medical services are paid for with their own money, not someone else's money, so they pay attention to the cost.

The insurance companies try to keep costs down. High school graduates are hired at barely over minimum wage to second-guess doctors on medical decisions. They are ineffective at rooting out fraud or sloppy billing.

I reviewed my mother's final hospital bill and found numerous overcharges. I contacted Medicare and was told not to worry about it because the bill was going to be discounted in such a way that those overcharges would not get paid anyway. OK. I was glad the overcharges would not get paid, but what if they had been legitimate? The hospital would have to bear those charge because of excessive discounting. Horrible system.

The insurance mandate will drive up total demand for medical services and will drive up the total costs.

I will probably address the evils of substituting the overpaid government bureaucrat high school graduate for the insurance company's barely more than minimum wage high school graduate for the job of second guessing medical decisions. Or maybe it speaks for itself.

Update: It begins now, Medical Schools Can't Keep Up.

More Evidence that Grayson is Nuts

Alan Grayson (D-FL) crashes a Republican meeting at a Perkins pancake house and proves that he really is nuts (which Of course we knew already).

Warning, some of this was filmed sideways.



Mycongressmanisnuts.com

Courtroom Deputy Stoddard's Contempt Upheld

I have previouly reported onte bizarre courtroom behavior of an Arizona courtroom deputy here (with video of behavior), here and here.

The court of appeals has upheld the contempt finding, but remanded for a more appropriate sanction. Judge Donahue had previously ordered that the contempt be purged by a public apology at a press conference. Read the full opinion is Detention Officer Adam Stoddard v. Donahoe.

Adam Stoddard has refused to apologize for his misbehavior. If I were still practicing in Maricopa County Arizona and if I were appearing in that courtroom, I would have to consider a suitable motion to restrict Stoddard's conduct while I was in the courtroom. Stoddard has refused to acknowledge that he did wrong, so he is likely to do it again.

Time to Consider Separation from the Statists

Walter Williams column in the Washington Examiner gives voice to thoughts I have been having for a long time:

Here's the question asked in my September 2000 column titled "It's Time To Part Company": "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?"

The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows. Of course, the marriage can remain intact and one party tries to impose his will on the other and engage in the deviousness of one-upsmanship. Rather than submission by one party or domestic violence, a more peaceable alternative is separation.

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them. The Democrat-controlled Washington is simply an escalation of a process that has been in full stride for at least two decades. There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways.

Read more at the Washington Examiner.

I think it is time to begin a national negotiation on separation. Do we separate along the Mississippi River? Do we separate along the Mason-Dixon line (or something like it)? Do we separate state by state in a manner that leaves potentially a non-continuous patchwork of separate states? Is there some way to separate into two governments legally, without a geographic division?

Will our statist overlords even consider losing the tax base of the most productive in our population who would most likely migrate to the free market half? I think the statists count on having productive people to oppress.

Steele's Best Should-Have-Saids

Larry Elder nails it on what Micheal Steel should have said when asked if being an African American meant he had a smaller margin for error in his work for the RNC:

Steele could have said: "Yes, there is a slimmer margin of error -- but not because of racism. It comes from the double standard applied to Republicans. I'll give you just one example. Republican Mark Foley resigned from Congress because of sexually explicit Internet messages to an underage intern. It was such a big media-driven scandal that it helped Democrats regain control of Congress. His Democratic successor, a married man, put his mistress on his congressional payroll. When he fired her, she threatened to sue, and he paid her a six-figure settlement. Not big news."

He could have said: "According to a Web site by Republican David Frum, the DNC has spent lavishly on parties, travel, hotels and limos -- including $6,000 at a D.C. club with stripper poles and go-go dancers. But I guess Democrats and strippers don't make news like Republicans and strippers."

...

He could have said: "Black Republicans pose a special threat because black Republicans disarm the left wing's weapons of racial grievance and the victicrat mentality. Black Republicans are a scary bunch. They don't follow the script by blaming everything on race, as if nothing's changed. Like a gay who supports traditional marriage, a Latino who wants the borders secured first, a woman who is pro-life, or a poor person who doesn't want to soak the rich -- we threaten groupthink and identity politics."

Read it all at the Washington Examiner.

Should have saids are always great in hindsight. How many times have each of us wished we had said something different or better given the chance?

Moron of the Day: Chris Matthews

Here is Chris Matthews pointing out that Mr. Obama has not gone out to sell the advantages of a "social state."



Earth to Chris: I Mr. Obama went out to sell the advantages of a "social state," he would have to admit that he is a socialist.

Except for bureaucrats who gain power over people, there are no long term advantages to the "social state" over the free market state.

None. Zero. Zip. Zed.

It is not worth the short term advantages: being that the favored few poor folk do not get "Obama Money" to blow through before the enslavement of all. The "social state" is just that, enslavement of the people kept beholden to Papa government for all material blessings.

Obama Humor From the Late Nights

I don't have the time today for any heavy lifting, so we'll just have to be satisfied with these quotes:

The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree and think 25 to life would be appropriate.
America needs Obama-care like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask. -Leno

Q: Have you heard about McDonald's' new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it. -O'Brien

Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser. -Leno

Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners. -Letterman

Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved?
A: America! -Fallon

Q: What's the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers. -Kimmel

Q: What was the most positive result of the "Cash for clunkers" program?
A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road. -Letterman

Repeal and Replace

If the RNC is wondering why people are disgusted with Republicans and are leaving the Republican party in droves, it need only look at the current crop of quitters on the repeal effort. "It's impossible," they whine.

Nothing is impossible. The impossible just takes a little longer. You just have to find a way.

Message to Republican Congresscritters: If you think repeal and replace is impossible, you are probably right that it is impossible for you. So get the heck out of the way. Find some "Can Do" candidates to repeal and replace you.

The Congresscritters who are saying it is impossible to repeal and replace make me sick to my stomach. I don't want a quitter on such a vital public issue representing me.

Is Grayson Nuts? Grayson Provides the Evidence

Alan Grayson (D-FL) is the subject of the website "MyCongressmanIsNuts.com" and continues to work overtime to deserve the description. Mr. Grayson wants to file a medical complaint against a doctor who prefers not to treat patients who voted for President Obama.

Mr. Grayson seems to forget that his is supposed to be America and that a doctor has the right to express his political opinion -- even if it disagrees with Grayson's. Apparently Mr. Grayson thinks that if you don't approve of a vote for Mr. Obama, you must be racist.

Even the liberal Anderson Cooper seems to recognize how loony Grayson is:



Is Mr. Grayson nuts? Judge for yourself.

Tea Party Movement Explained -- On Letterman

Much left wing ink (electrons, really) has been exhausted in vilifying the tea party movement. Yet, recent polls are showing a large percentage of tea partiers are Democrats. Analysis continues on this recent phenomenon, examples here and here. I was at the last year's tea party really in Columbus and I plan to go to the next. I must be one of those crazies.

A real understanding of the tea parties comes from as unlikely a source as a David Letterman interview with Pam Stout below.







I am proud to have this lady, Pam Stout, as the voice of the tea party movement.

C'mon, Janeane Garofalo . Call Pam Stout a racist or other nasty names in public. I dare you.

Health Care Nanny State: Breast Feeding Law

More Nanny-state regulation in the Obamacare bill according to the law firm Seyfarth Shaw:

As part of the recent Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA), Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide breaks for nursing mothers. Under section 4207 of the PPACA, which appears to be effective immediately, employers must provide a “reasonable break time” for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child. The requirement applies for one year after the child’s birth. The PPACA places no limit on the number of the breaks to be provided, and does not contain any guidance with respect to the duration of such breaks.

In addition to providing reasonable breaks, the employer must also provide a place where the employee can express breast milk. The place must be somewhere other than a bathroom and must be “shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public.”

The law exempts any employer with fewer than 50 employees if providing the break (or the place to express breast milk) would impose an “undue hardship” on the employer. For the purposes of the PPACA, “undue hardship” is defined as “causing the employer significant difficulty or expense” when considered in relation to relevant factors. . . .

Moron of the Day: Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL)

He doesn't care what the Constitution says, then quotes the Declaration of Independence thinking he is quoting the Constitution.



How can you respect any Congress-jerk who doesn't know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- and respects neither. "It doesn't matter to me," says Phil Hare.

The Constitution doesn't matter? He is in Congress? What a Moron!

The following is one of the colonists' complaints contained in the Declaration of Independence: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

Sounds like the Federal government, doesn't it?

But it doesn't matter to Phil Hare.

Just what we need. Congressional representatives who don't care about the Constitution that they swore to uphold.

More Reasons to Hate Obamacare

Liberals never seem to understand that government regulations, however well-intended, are more likely to hurt than help the consumer.

In this case, the drafting of the bill the behind closed doors, the failure to expose the bill in public hearings with public testimony and public criticism and scrutiny of its, well, dumb provisions, inevitably leads to foul unintended consequences.