Monthly Archives: September 2013

Hypocrisy

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Here is a 2008 exchange between Candidate Barack Obama (D) and the Boston Globe concerning the US’ use of force against Iran’s nuclear facilities [emphasis added]:

Globe: In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites—a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

Obama: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
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As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced SJ Res 23, which states in part that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.”

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing earlier this week concerning US intervention in Syria, Senator Rand Paul (R, KY) offered this amendment to the draft authorization bill being debated:

It is the sense of the Senate that the President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Paul’s amendment was voted down 14-4, with all 10 Democrats present voting against.

Apparently, the President does have that power, so long as he’s from the politically correct party.

Mr Panetta Misunderstands

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Ex-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had an opinion in a recent Washington Post.  As he went on about how disastrous the sequester is (while ignoring the salutary effect it’s having in reducing government spending even trivially while the apocalypse of spending cuts is not destroying our economy), he also made this remark:

…US citizens will lose trust in our system of governing….

Thus, his misunderstanding: Americans haven’t, at all, lost trust in our system of governing.  We’ve lost trust in the present government, given its blatant, years-long, and cynical deviation from our system of governing.

Oddly separately, Panetta had these remarks, too, but I’m not sure he fully understands what it is he said:

If leaders are willing to take the risks associated with leadership, it’s at least possible to avoid crisis. But if leadership is not there, then we will inevitably govern by crisis. Today, unfortunately, we are governing by crisis after crisis after crisis.

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the world will view the United States as less able to back its word with power.

Indeed.  Yet President Barack Obama insists on leading from behind.  Or not at all.

Who’s Actually Repaying Federal Loans?

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Here’s one example.

Under the 2008 Farm Bill, the United States Department of Agriculture is required to buy sugars like refined beet sugar and sell it to ethanol producers if the sugar producers are, in the opinion of the USDA, likely to default on certain Federal loans (this requirement is unchanged by the current Farm Bill modifications wending their way through Congress).

You read that right: the Feds loan sugar producers money, then the Feds buy the producers’ output so the producers can repay the loans.  Federal money—which is to say, our money sent to the Feds as taxes—is loaned to sugar producers in support of an ethanol program that no one wants.  Then, when repaying those loans becomes inconvenient, or even impossible, more of our (tax) money is used to buy the borrowers’ output, providing them with the funds with which to pay up.  The borrowers, courtesy of…Uncle Sugar…use (our) purchase money to pay us back.  We’re screwed two times in one deal.

But wait—there’s more.  In one illustrative case,

[t]he USDA paid about $3.6 million for the sugar, which it purchased from Western Sugar Cooperative, a sugar-beet processor based in Denver, according to a notice posted on the agency’s website Friday.  Front Range Energy LLC, a Windsor, CO-based ethanol maker, paid $900,000 for the sugar, according to the USDA notice.

We’re screwed a third time.

And that’s the purpose:

By buying the sugar, the USDA aims to boost prices to a level where sugar processors will be able to repay $298 million in outstanding federal loans that come due at the end of August and September.

It really is just this barefaced.

Some Employment Numbers

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Here are some graphs of our nearby employment history, from Express Employment Professionals, a 30-year-old provider of professionals for temporary employment.

This first graph shows the labor force participation rate since its peak in 2007.

This second graph shows the unemployment rate over the same time period.

There are two items of interest in these two graphs.  The first is that although participation rate was starting to drift down from its early 2007 peak, it didn’t get going in earnest until late summer 2008—with the unemployment rate peaking just a few months later.

The other takeaway is that the unemployment rate began drifting back down from that peak, and fairly steadily so, in concert with the labor participation rate drop-off.  While the unemployment rate has fallen by roughly 2.5 per centage points, the labor force participation rate (the denominator of the unemployment fraction) has also fallen by almost 2.5 per centage points.

Folks just aren’t able to get back to work.  More than 4 million Americans have been out of work for more than 6 months, and that number hasn’t shrunk much over these last 4, and more, years.

What kinds of jobs are being had?  Americans working part-time workers for economic reasons (they would work full-time if they could, but full-time work isn’t available) numbered some 8.2 million as recently as last July.  That’s “only” some 5.5% of those employed that month, but so far this year, there have been nearly 4.5 part-time jobs created for every full-time job.  Last year, that ratio was reversed: 0.2 part-time jobs were created for every full-time job.

We have to think about whether this is a structural change to our work environment and our labor force composition, or whether this is “just” an aspect of the continuing failed economic recovery.

A State Supreme Court

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…gets it right.

A Mississippi judge had held up the state’s recently passed firearm open carry law, insisting that it was unconstitutionally vague.  The law, in a burst of logic unusual for politicians [/snark], says in essence that “adults don’t need a permit to carry a gun that’s not concealed.”  The Mississippi Supreme Court overruled the state judge—by unanimous opinion—and allowed the law to take effect.  Justice Randy Pierce, writing for the Court, had this in part:

This court now finds that the circuit judge erred as a matter of law when he found House Bill 2 to be vague and, therefore, unconstitutional.  He also erred when he stated that a “reasonable person reading the bill could not discern what the law allows and what it prohibits[.]”

Indeed, that judge seems to have simply rubber-stamped the artificial and disingenuous argument that

it has caused confusion about where people may carry guns that aren’t concealed.  They also say it could put law enforcement officers in danger if people with no training are carrying guns.

This, of course, cynically conflates two separate arguments.  The first is deliberately obtuse.  There is no confusion: existing Mississippi laws clearly describe locations where guns are proscribed.  Not requiring a permit to carry a gun openly in no way permits carrying a gun where it’s banned.

The second argument is relevant to the open carry matter only to the extent that the cop who’s “in danger” knows it because the gun is in plain sight.  It’s the cop who’s dealing with a man with a concealed weapon who’s in danger—no matter the training of that man.

As an aside, the state circuit judge seems, himself, to have been willfully obtuse.  That’s dangerous to the rule of law, allowing a judge to overlay his whim on a law.  It’s good that wiser heads prevailed, this time.