Unbelievable

The “answer” to a stalemate where the President is stomping his feet and insisting you do things his way or old people will die is to cede power?

The proposal would transform the political dynamics of the debate, placing the entire burden for raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit on Obama. Republican lawmakers would be spared from voting to raise the limit and could shift their campaign for unprecedented spending cuts to the congressional appropriations process, where the risk of stalemate is shutting down the government instead of capsizing the U.S. economy. However, they would lose the approaching deadline as leverage to pursue their cost-cutting agenda.

The proposal is “not my first choice,” McConnell told reporters. But with a bipartisan agreement looking increasingly doubtful, he said, “we’re certainly not going to send a signal to the markets and to the American people that default is an option.”

Hey power brokers….the reason Obama is sounding so desperate is because he’s desperate. Now is the time to hold your ground. I mean it.

Ahem

I am as much against Obama as the next guy. He is shameless and foolish and a slimy liar.

However – do not think for one second that I will not call you out (you on the right who I basically agree with) if you speak of us as in “peacetime” when there is still fighting and dying going on in 3 countries now.

Rich Lowry

The two parties have a conflict of visions. Republicans view the current levels of spending — an astonishing 24 percent of GDP — as a bizarre exception to peacetime norms in America.

and John Podhoretz

Perhaps voters don’t care all that much about the specifics of the debt ceiling, although it sure seems like plenty of Republican voters do. One thing is probably for certain: No matter how he tries to spin it at a press conference, voters are not going to be persuaded that the man who oversaw and pushed for unprecedented peacetime growth in the size of government has suddenly become the nation’s foremost fiscal hawk.

Boehner on track

Thank you John Boehner. You figured out their evil plan and are sticking to your original ideals. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Evil plan:

But here’s what we’re told is Mr. Boehner’s political kicker: The proposed deal would also include some kind of “trigger” device, so far undefined, that would compel House and Senate negotiators to complete tax reform discussions over the next several months. We’re told the White House has said it is open in principle to a top rate of 35% on individuals and something like 26% or 27% on corporations—in return for closing various loopholes.

More troubling than these details is the staggered timing. Republicans would be putting their fingerprints on a tax increase in return for spending cuts as a first order of business, which would raise the dividend and top income tax rates to 39.6% (from 35%), or 41% if you include the phase-out of deductions. (Plus the 3.8% payroll tax hike baked into ObamaCare.) Only then would Mr. Obama and the Democrats negotiate the details of tax reform and lower overall rates.

But why at that point would Democrats want tax reform?

Original Ideals:

“Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes,” Boehner said in a statement released less than 24 hours before the White House meeting was scheduled to begin. “I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase.”

This is definitely NOT a fail. Do we need reform? You bet. Is two weeks before a deadline the time to overhaul Medicare and Social Security? No.

For any debt limit increase, just make the cuts that are great than any debt increase. Then move on to step two.

Thank you for not being sucked into that vortex of Democrat plans.

Honesty

This story in the NYTimes talks about the changes that are occurring with same sex marriage being legal there in NY now. eg Companies no longer offering benefits to partners when said partners could be a spouse.

Camilla Taylor, marriage project director at Lambda Legal, explains a few of the complications. One of which has to do with adoption.

When it comes to adopting a child, couples may run into trouble if they are trying to adopt from a place that restricts same-sex married couples from adopting. Having one parent adopt while still single may be easier. “If you want to be able to answer honestly in paperwork, multiple interviews and background checks, then you won’t want to get married,” Ms. Taylor said, adding that many foreign countries ban adoptions to same-sex couples.

If a country bans adoptions to same sex couples and you ARE a same sex couple, just not “married”, then are you being honest by adopting anyway but not announcing that your live in is actually your other half?

I don’t think that’s how honesty works.

Friday Fun

Or..last day of vacation…..
Either way.

Here is Axel, watching the morning.

Here’s a photo of the view he sees. We saw a deer the day before. I think he was hoping for another.

And just to let you know, I’ve added XKCD to the links on the side. Its just good stuff.

Debt Ceiling

The GOP has said, no increase in debt ceiling without a reduction in spending.

How hard is that?

Yet I return to the news and find that the spin has changed. Lately all the stories are saying that the GOP’s position is essentially, “no increase in debt ceiling period”.

And Obama’s answer to compromise is, “let’s cut Social Security AND increase taxes”. Why not just cut?

President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.

Just cut damn spending. Start with ACORN.

Links

3 days, 0 electronics, 0 people, 0 newsbits……so isolated that my dog had a cow last night and wanted to eat my folks (who he likes) when they dropped by. I don’t think they registered to him as being allowable in what he hoped was our new environment….

Ah well…and now after catching up on the news….a little bit of a headache.
So first, some links:

Cheating? Really? From teachers in 44 out of 56 schools investigated in Atlanta.

For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.

They changed test scores so they looked good and are blaming a “culture of fear”? Do people have no sense of right and wrong? How about walking off the job and going straight to the media? How about telling everyone you know? How about saying, “Um, no”?
Shame.
………………..

And in other news, researchers find, what earlier researchers found. Calorie counts will not change the US obesity epidemic.

Research in a fast-food restaurant in King County, Wash., where calorie labeling is also law, found similar results. The stated finding was grim: “Mandatory menu labeling did not promote healthier food-purchasing behavior.”

And poor people are too stupid for their own good.

Lowenstein, in his editorial, cited just one “rigorous” study showing a positive effect: at Starbucks stores in New York City, where diners seeing calorie information reduced their intake — but only for food, not beverages. Researchers consider that result a bit of an outlier, theorizing that Starbucks consumers are more sensitive to nutritional information. “I’m sure the average BMI at Cheesecake Factory or McDonald’s is a lot larger than at Starbucks,” Loewenstein said, only half-joking.

But don’t worry because taxes will fix this problem.

Another recent study shows what really worked was imposing a higher price — by way of a tax — on big-calorie items.

………………..

I find if hard to believe (see bold below), but it’s becoming more believable every freaking day.

“The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities,” they wrote.
“It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns. Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify.”
That’s the key to this mess — and the reason that Operation Fast and Furious might turn out to be the biggest Washington scandal since Iran-Contra.
As Issa and Grassley note in their letter, had the other agencies shared information — theoretically the goal of the post-9/11 revamp of the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies — “then ATF might have known that gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ had already been identified.”
So if the identities of the Mexican criminals were known to the feds, what was the point of Project Gunrunner — and why is Holder so desperately trying to stonewall by withholding hundreds of documents from Congress?
Law-abiding gun owners and dealers think they already know. With the Obama administration wedded to the fiction that 90 percent of the guns Mexican cartels use originate here — they don’t — many suspect that “Fast and Furious” was a backdoor attempt to smear domestic gun aficionados as part of its stealth efforts on gun control by executive fiat.

Happy Independence Day!!

Victor Davis Hansen has this covered (bold is mine):

Individual freedom in America manifests itself in ways most of the world can hardly fathom — whether our unique tradition of the right to gun ownership, the near impossibility of proving libel in US courts, or the singular custom of multimillion-dollar philanthropic institutions, foundations and private endowments. Herding, silencing or enfeebling Americans is almost impossible — and will remain so as long as well-protected citizens can say what they want and do as they please with their hard-earned money.
……………..
This year, a minority of babies born here will resemble the look of the Founding Fathers. Yet America will continue as it was envisioned, as long as those of various races and colors are committed to the country’s original ideals.
The Founders’ notion of the rule of law, coupled with freedom of the individual, explains why America runs on merit, not tribal affinities or birth.

…………..
While EJ Dionne just doesn’t get it.

Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, “governments are instituted.”

Only divisions this deep can explain why we are taking risks with our country’s future that we’re usually wise enough to avoid. Arguments over how much government should tax and spend are the very stuff of democracy’s give-and-take. Now, the debate is shadowed by worries that if a willful faction does not get what it wants, it might bring the nation to default.

This is, well, crazy. It makes sense only if politicians believe — or have convinced themselves — that they are fighting over matters of principle so profound that any means to defeat their opponents is defensible.

Then he goes on to explain how those damn tea partiers just don’t understand their own movement. If they did, then they would bend and we could all go forward.

What he doesn’t get is that government spending needs to be reduced BEFORE taxes go up.
If government spending continues to grow at the rate it has grown in the last few years we’re all going to fail. If the government can’t show that it is willing to give up some of it’s spending, and leave it like that for a little while, I bet we’d all be happy to pay a little more to get some of this freaking debt reduced. But NOT with a government that thinks our money is their money.

Dionne does not get it.
We are a free people because we insist upon it. Not because the federal government grants it. That IS a principle so profound that it’s worth standing your ground.

Security

Ever wonder how closely all those ID’s and boarding passes etc are eyed? My driver’s license is almost due so the photos is from 15 years ago. I try to smile the same worried, that I don’t look like that person anymore.

Apparently there is no worrying needed. Because even though they say things like:

“We take security matters very seriously…”

It can’t really be true if after some complained of body odor on a plan:

A flight attendant asked Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi for his boarding pass and was surprised to see it was from a different fight and in someone else’s name. She alerted authorities, and Noibi went back to sleep in his black leather airline seat. When the plane landed, authorities chose not to arrest Noibi, allowing him to leave the airport.

On Wednesday, Noibi was arrested trying to board a Delta flight out of Los Angeles. Once again, he had managed to pass undetected through security with an expired ticket issued in someone else’s name. Authorities found at least 10 other boarding passes, none of which belonged to him. Law enforcement sources told The Times they suspect Noibi has used expired plane tickets to sneak on to flights in the past. On his website, Noibi describes himself as a “frequent traveler.”

Now, federal authorities and Virgin America are trying to explain how the Nigerian American was able to get through layers of security — and then avoid arrest for five days after officials discovered he was a stowaway.

That….all of that….describes “we take security matters seriously”??
Me thinks they don’t understand what that means.

Hurray for Canada!

Finally somebody said it!

“North Korea is simply not a credible chair of a disarmament body,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in a statement Thursday. “We call on North Korea to pass the chair on to a credible country that will advance the disarmament agenda within the UN.”

ht Small Dead Animals