Independence Day

Posted on 4 July 2013 by eehines

I posted this last year; it bears repeating.

On this day 236 years ago, a group of Americans got together and, pledging their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor to each other while relying on the protection of divine Providence, took our country free from tyranny and set us on a new, wholly experimental course.

These men openly acknowledged both our right and our duty to throw off any government that too badly violates its moral obligations to us sovereign citizens, that for too long abuses our liberties and our individual responsibilities. At the same time, though, they acknowledged that routinely rebelling at every small offense was equally wrong: Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. Yet those light and transient offenses want correction along with those abuses and moral failures.

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Progressives and Democracy

Posted on 26 June 2013 by eehines

The Texas legislature, Monday morning, moved forward a bill to ban abortions after the 20^th week. The Progressives’Democrats’ behavior during the debate was—and will be, apparently—illuminating.

Democrats used parliamentary tactics to draw out the debate for 15 hours, pointing out technical mistakes in the process or trying to tack on amendments to fundamentally change the bill.

And

Congresswoman Jessica Farrar (D) gave a personal privilege speech decrying how the Republicans were manipulating the parliamentary process to rush it to a vote.

Never minding that the voting deadline was just hours off, while she and her colleagues were doing everything they could to prevent the vote being taken.

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A Little Bit of Cynicism

Posted on 26 June 2013 by eehines

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up, in its next term, the question of recess appointments and of what is a “recess.” The DC Circuit had ruled, in the case being appealed, that certain NLRB appointments were unconstitutional and so invalid because they had occurred while the Senate was in session and not in recess. That court also held both that an actual recess could only occur between the year-long sessions of a Congress and that a recess appointment could be made only for a vacancy that originated during that recess.

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Continued Government Interference in our Markets

Posted on 13 June 2013 by eehines

…most recently in our financial markets. Now the Feds are expanding their hectoring of our financial institutions over their fees. The Federal government already has chosen to prevent them from making money the old fashion way—through lending—with its artificially suppressed interest rates. It’s already inveighed against them over one set of fees which they charge as a means of earning a profit for their owners—our fellow Americans.

Now the government is going after another set of fees, with their objection centered on the fact that these Know Betters just don’t like the fees.

This is a preview of Continued Government Interference in our Markets. Read the full post (425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Progressive Government Run Amok

Posted on 11 June 2013 by eehines

In no particular order, we’ve had in just the last few months the following:

1. The State Department leaving Benghazi consulate personnel to die, with too little security and no effort to help real-time; a President who absented himself from the situation in favor of a political campaign; and subsequent lies and cover-ups by both about events surrounding that.

2. The Department of Justice targeting our free press and individual members of it in order to suppress reporting of the secret doings of our government.

This is a preview of Progressive Government Run Amok. Read the full post (385 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

The Wall Street Journal’s Embarrassing…Naiveté

Posted on 9 June 2013 by eehines

In a Friday op-ed, the editors of the WSJ had this to say, among other things, about the government’s invasion of American privacy in the name of “security.”

The effectiveness of data-mining is proportional to the size of the sample, so the NSA must sweep broadly to learn what is normal and refine the deviations. A nongovernment analogue might be the credit card flags that freeze payment when, say, a New Yorker goes on a shopping spree in Phoenix.

This is a preview of The Wall Street Journal’s Embarrassing…Naiveté. Read the full post (448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

There are Times

Posted on 8 June 2013 by eehines

…when I wish The New York Times could still be taken seriously. Their editorial in this morning’s edition is one of those times.

Read it in full. It still beats the drums for some of NYT‘s hobby horses (not to mix metaphors, or anything), but those are asides; the central point is plain. It may be that the NYT finally is waking up to reality.

Permanent link to this post (67 words, estimated 16 secs reading time)

Government’s Commerce Power Grab

Posted on 7 June 2013 by eehines

The Federal government wants to nationalize another American private industry, this one nascent rather than burgeoning. The State Department wants to classify privately owned and operated manned space vehicles as weapons and then to control these as such.

In a proposed Amendment to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (recall that Secretary of State John Kerry says in all seriousness that the US will sign the just concluded international arms control “treaty”), State insists pretty much that anything that flies into space must be a weapon, and so cannot be allowed to leave the United States government’s control. The immediate effect will be to hinder, if not destroy, a budding space tourism industry, an industry that has such serious enterprises as Virgin Space, Xcor, and SpaceX, as major players.

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Holder’s Defense

Posted on 6 June 2013 by eehines

On 15 May, Attorney General Eric Holder testified under oath before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that

With regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I have ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy.

Yet he had already been consulted concerning, and subsequently approved, a search warrant application to search the personal emails of an individual reporter (James Rosen of Fox News), a warrant that said in part

Because of the Reporter’s [Rosen's] own potential criminal liability in this matter….

This is a preview of Holder’s Defense. Read the full post (508 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

IRS Targeting

Posted on 3 June 2013 by eehines

The IRS’ targeting of groups and individuals who disagree with government increased sharply with President Barack Obama’s accession to office. Reminds me of how he won his first election in Illinois.

As a community organizer, [Obama] had helped register thousands of voters. But when it came time to run for office, he employed Chicago rules to invalidate the voting petition signatures of three of his challengers.

The move denied each of them, including incumbent Alice Palmer, a longtime Chicago activist, a place on the ballot. It cleared the way for Obama to run unopposed on the Democratic ticket in a heavily Democrat district.

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