One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is
the belief that one's work is terribly important.
Bertrand Russell
PGTV's Michelle Fields Pokes a Bear: RFK, Jr. Loses His Mind in a Koch Brother Rant
(HT Carpe Diem). The myth of American royalty, Camelot, and the Kennedy clan. It is sad and pathetic to see. RFK, Jr. becomes a caricature as a left-wing nut job, in response to Fields' suggestions that he and other protesters are being hypocritical in speaking out against the conventional sources of energy making. Nothing new here: just the same old crackpot nonsense about America's wars being over "oil", how a command-and-control economy can transform an economy by mere fiat (instead of creative destruction in a liberalized economy--see below). He has Koch brother derangement syndrome. RFK's "people" are the 1 in 5 "progressives" brainwashed by academia and the Hollywood elite, seeded by Soros and others. In fact, the Koch brothers are libertarians, non-interventionists; and America has hardly benefited from Iraq or Iran's oil wealth. We in fact have spent billions rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. The Koch brothers vastly expanded their father's domestic enterprises; ironically, their conservative/libertarian roots had their inspiration in their father's experience working in pre-WWII Stalinist Russia.
It's the End of Fiscal Year "Use It or Lose It" Federal Spendathon!
- the IRS spent $2,410,000 on "toner products" in a single purchase.
- the Department of Homeland Security paid $251,016 for "Aeron Mesh Task Chairs" and $15,198 for two pianos.
- the State Department obligated $24,969 for a "50 inch LED HD TV" for the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, the total booze tab for the State Department to nearly $100,000 for the month of September
- the Department of Veterans Affairs spent over $1.8 million on artwork, including $375,000 for a "Lobby Piece" and $285,000 on a "parking structure facade project" for the Public Artwork Commissioned Project at the Polytrauma & Blind Rehabilitation Center in Palo Alto.
- A 2013 National Bureau of Economic Research study by Harvard professor Jeffrey Liebman and Stanford professor Neale Mahoney found that federal spending on contracts in the last week of the year is five times higher than the weekly average.
The VA Harasses a Widow Over a 59 Cent Debt
About 6 weeks back, I was in a Texas military medical facility and accompanied a widowed mother to a meeting with a counselor, literally minutes after her husband was declared dead. Just 2 days earlier, her husband, who had had successful back surgery, had just transferred to a rehabilitation center and reportedly had a positive first therapy session. She had just stepped out to grab a bite to eat when her world went upside-down: her husband was suddenly fighting for his life, and the center had called for an ambulance. No doubt the woman, who probably had been looking forward to a major anniversary just a few weeks away, now was focused on making arrangements; she knew a funeral home near her home, but they couldn't accommodate her. The meeting focused on the need to process paperwork with various bureaucrats, how many certificates of death she wanted to order to all related paperwork. What I personally found rather obnoxious was when he started talking about refunding the government for the unexpired portion of August's transfer payments (e.g., military pension, social security payment, etc.)
The USA Today piece reports on an unrelated widow whom found the VA mailed a letter to be opened by her late husband only, asking him to furnish a copy of his own death certificate. Days later, her husband got a letter demanding immediate payment of a 59 cent debt or a late penalty would be assessed; no doubt the processing costs exceeded the amount owed. She got a note reminding her husband get his flu shot and another one scolding him for no-showing a hearing disability meeting without notification (which had been done). Just your well-integrated federal bureaucracy as usual....
Creative Destruction and Blood Tests
I've had more than a few blood tests, each requiring multiple vials, over the past few years, including once being charged full list price of $300-450 back in the Chicago area; I was under insurance at the time and got them to sharply discount the price. Business Insider has covered one of the newest billionaires, Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford dropout and CEO of Theranos, which boasts a technology that requires a painless drop vs. vials which costs 40% or more less than established labs (see a sample pricelist here) through partners like Walgreens. (I find some of the competitor lab reactions interesting, claiming they do more or less the same already, don't require vials, etc., that most of the cost is in lab overhead (which presumably Theranos also has to cover). What particularly grabbed my attention is that Theranos' prices are much lower than government reimbursement prices, which yet again reveals the folly of government price-fixing. Once again, true healthcare reform consists in liberalizing the sector from government domination.
For Once, Two Good Judicial Decisions
An Oklahoma federal district judge basically argued that "the IRS rule is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law", The IRS rule is that federally-operated ObamaCare exchanges are eligible. It is feared that the similar DC Court Halbig finding may be reversed by the full liberal court, but this independent finding may assure SCOTUS decides the issue.
In a second critical case, a federal bankruptcy court has decided that Stockton, CA may be able to cut state pension obligations which may compromise crony unionist reliance on state constitution guarantees that pension obligations are more equal.
Facebook Corner
(Being Classically Liberal). Ok suppose Rand Paul is the Republican presidential nominee in 2016. Do you vote for him, the Libertarian party candidate (probably Gary Johnson again), or not vote at all?
Rand Paul, although I've been concerned about his pragmatic attempts to distance himself from the bogus charges of isolationism and open immigration. I think what will be important is to define a positive vision of a liberalized economy from the shackles of heavy taxation, unsustainable entitlements, unprincipled monetary and costly military interventionism, and innovation/competition-killing regulation. Rand Paul should address a bipartisan agenda on privacy and prison reform, demilitarizarion of police powers, opening constructive alternatives to government monopoly/price-fixing policies in education and healthcare, etc.
I'm assuming no one here would vote democrat, but if you would feel free to leave a comment.
Classical liberalism in the Democratic Party basically died in the Democratic Party with FDR's bait-and-switch campaign. There is no one I know of in the Democratic Party behind sound money, fiscal conservativism, the principles of federalism. free markets and banking, etc. I do think Jerry Brown in the early 1990's had some Laffer-like tax policies, some eclectic fiscal conservatism, and you could fuse those with with an anti-war/pro civil-liberties and pro-immigration perspective, but no candidacy could ever survive the progressive litmus tests and commitments to radically expanding the State.
(Being Classically Liberal). I'm an atheist and I feel no need to defend Christianity but I do enjoy pointing out the hypocrisy of "tolerant progressives" from time to time. To be fair, most progressives probably don't despise Christianity, but a very vocal minority certainly does.
I think the issue is more about the prohibition of religious speech or symbols (crosses, Nativity sets, Ten Commmandments displays, etc.) in the public arena. In one prominent recent case, a Forest Service employee told the father of a young girl killed in 2010 by a falling chunk of ice at a cave site that he needed to remove a simple pink cross with her name.
There's a lot of in-your-face opposition to the point of demanding "equal" treatment of pagan or other symbols (e.g., Nativity scenes), where even one crackpot objector can trump displays of even nominally or general/generic religious symbology. Whereas I am Christian and support independence of church and state, I do not support prohibitionary policies, but policies should not be arbitrarily exclusionary (e.g., allow a cross but bar a star of David).
http://www.kirotv.com/.../forest-service-asks.../nhKM4/
The best policy is rule of law, limited, knowable and general in scope.
(Lew Rockwell). "What would conservatives do without liberals to compare themselves to? Have you ever noticed the subjects of most books by conservatives? They are usually something to do with liberals or liberalism or Democrats. How hard is it to look good by comparing yourself to a liberal? Not very. And don’t forget that Republicans had a majority in Congress under Bush for over four years and choose to destroy the country," says Laurence Vance.
As a fusion libertarian-conservative, I see conservativism in the context of a specific tradition, e.g., republicanism, classical liberalism. I see political constructs in the more global social context, including individualist virtues. If we look at a Hamilton/Jefferson dichotomy, I think social liberalism is actually an extension of Hamiltonian centralism and mercantilism and conservatism is closer to the so-called Old Right, the resistance to FDR domestic/foreign interventionism. FDR had pulled off the ultimate bait-and-switch, running on Jeffersonian Democrat principles but embracing Hooverism on steroids.
(other comment)
I think this is really a shallow analysis; Bush never had a strong enough majority to make his modest tax cuts permanent or even achieve modest social security reform. However, the GOP did manage to derail Clinton's plans for government expansion and achieve the most sustained budget balance in recent history. "The Republicans" chose to destroy the country? Over the top.
More Proposals
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall |
Barry Manilow, "Let's Hang On"
