Are they or are they not?
I’m surprised at this.
Obamacare Fallout
Here are two issues that some opponents of Obamacare brought up and were told they were using scare tactics and myths. I suppose not.
First, some companies are weighing whether it is more affordable to provide health insurance or to just drop coverage and pay the penalties. I can’t imagine the insurance would be cheaper, so some companies will drop coverage. Oh, and these aren’t small, unknown companies either. AT&T, Verizon, John Deere, and Caterpillar are all looking at this option.
Second, some medical device companies are considering layoffs. They are trying to save money due to new taxes and fees imposed by Obamacare.
Obamacare is a bad idea. The evidence is mounting.
Incendiary Patriotism
So now it’s “incendiary” to wear a shirt with an American flag on it on the 5th of May, aka Cinco de Mayo. Have people completely lost their minds? What a crock of shit. It is fine to celebrate Cinco de Mayo if you choose, but getting offended just because someone wears a shirt with the flag of the country you live in on it is just stupid.
Kids in California were told to go home or face suspension over this. I am amazed at how far down the hole of political correctness we have fallen. Hell, Roger Ebert has even weighed in on the issue. He tweeted:
Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July.
Really, Roger? I think you have lost it completely.
Minimum Wage
I wish all employers were this open. It might help people understand the economic issues debated in Washington, D.C.
The bottom line is that increasing the minimum wage drives costs up. Businesses then have to decide whether to increase costs (and hope customers till buy their product or service) or cut jobs.
False Statements
The Quincy, Illinois Police Department released a statement concerning Tea Party protesters near President Obama’s location:
During President Obama’s address, at approximately 1530 hours, the MFFT was deployed. A group of individuals positioned themselves on the south side of York Street near 3rd Street. This was within the area that was to be kept secure at the request of the U. S. Secret Service agents in charge of the site. Prior to the event only ticketed individuals were to be in this area; during the event it was restricted to the general public completely. Secret Service personnel requested these individuals leave the area and to go back to the north side of York Street. They did not comply. Quincy Police Department personnel made the same requests and again they did not comply. At that time the MFFT was deployed to stand post between the individuals and the site and, if necessary, remove the individuals. Once the MFFT was in place, the individuals agreed to move. Once everyone complied and the site was again secure, the MFFT returned to their staging point. No physical force was used during this deployment.
The response from Jim Hoft, who was there are posted this at Gateway Pundit:
Of course, this ludicrous statement is a complete fabrication. We are currently contacting the police department to retract their statement.
The problem that the Quincy PD has is that there is video evidence to support Hoft’s claims and not theirs. Of course, people lying to make the Tea Party look bad is nothing new. It’s been going on since the Tea Party formed, but especially after Scott Brown won in Massachusetts.
People accuse Tea Partiers of yelling racial epithets at congressmen, but when video shows it didn’t happen, the only retort is that if you don’t believe a great civil rights leader like John Lewis, then you’re a racist. Apparently, if John Lewis said it happened, then the video is lying.
Microsoft on HTML5
That is the opinion of Microsoft who is now, at least in this case, an ally of Apple. I wonder how Adobe will take this news?
More on Immigration
The Arizona anti-illegal immigration law is still generating lots of discussion (and will for quite some time).
Here is a response from a Hispanic woman, Alicia Colon. She echoes some of my own sentiments and comes to the following conclusion:
If the media wants to know who’s to blame for the Arizona immigration bill why not blame the illegals who are raping, stealing, and murdering Arizonans after sneaking over the unsecured border?
Once again the Democrats are displaying the Pavlovian response of injecting race into issues that should be looked at instead with common sense. The federal government is not securing the border between Arizona and Mexico, thus allowing criminals to wreak havoc in that state — including murder.
Hispanics are once again being used as political pawns to sustain the Democrat Party’s power in the inner cities. I hope the rest of the country realizes that we Hispanics who are citizens are not in its pocket and will support efforts to insure that only U.S. citizens are eligible to elect our representatives.
I hope so, too.
Doctor Zero has an excellent piece on the issue of laws that are not enforced, not only pertaining to immigration but in other areas as well.
The federal government’s failure to enforce its immigration laws, and the President’s unfortunate decision to demagogue the issue at the expense of Arizona voters, puts the lie to the entire concept of a centrally managed society and economy. There’s no reason to believe thousands of pages of regulations for health care, banking, and energy production will be enforced any more carefully and honestly than immigration laws are. On the contrary, the daily news is packed with plenty of expensive evidence this Administration is virtually incapable of honestly enforcing anything. The notion that such a government can somehow build a “fair” and prosperous economy from a scrap heap of complex new regulations is laughable.
The notion is laughable to anyone with any sense.
Oh, and Arizona has already amended the law to clarify the “lawful contact” issue.
So now, in response to those critics, lawmakers have removed “lawful contact” from the bill and replaced it with “lawful stop, detention or arrest.” In an explanatory note, lawmakers added that the change “stipulates that a lawful stop, detention or arrest must be in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state.”
“It was the intent of the legislature for ‘lawful contact’ to mean arrests and stops, but people on the left mischaracterized it,” says Kris Kobach, the law professor and former Bush Justice Department official who helped draft the law. “So that term is now defined.”
Good.
More Car Hilarity
This is the best use of a car I have seen in a while. Using proven hooligan techniques to assist in the apprehension of a criminal.
Awesome.
Honey, Where Did You Park the Benz?
OOPS! I wonder how some people make it through the day. I can’t even imagine the level of inattention this would require.
Well, it is Oklahoma.
This is Very Serious
Apparently there is to be a vote later today on a bill regarding Puerto Rican statehood. They are calling it “non-binding” but it is not non-binding! It is a trap. The bill makes eventual Puerto Rican statehood a virtual certainty. This is despite the fact that statehood has been voted down repeatedly. The Puerto Rican people don’t want it!
This is a huge issue. The Puerto Rican people have always rejected statehood but, as James M. Simpson points out in the post, this bill is designed to force statehood. Read the whole thing, especially this part:
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a senior Democrat Congressman no less, just posted his views on this bill at Huffington Post. Here is what he has to say about it:
I am a senior Democratic Member of Congress, whose parents were born in Puerto Rico, and for whom Puerto Rico self-determination has been – and remains – a central issue of my congressional career. This statehood bill is the opposite of self-determination.
It is designed to craft an artificial majority for statehood where none exists now. Every time the people of Puerto Rico have been consulted on this issue through a plebiscite they’ve said NO to Statehood. NO to Statehood in 1967. NO to Statehood in 1993. NO to Statehood in 1998. This should be called the “Don’t you dare say NO to Statehood Bill”.
But he is just getting going. Listen to this:
When a similar Puerto Rico bill came up under Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Republican controlled Congress a decade ago, it was the product of lengthy and thorough hearings and an open and fair process. Then, I was given time to offer seven amendments. Then I was able to clarify the bill for the Puerto Rican people. Then, each of my seven amendments got 30 minutes of floor time for debate.
Flash forward to now. Now a Democratic Majority Congress is only allowing me two of the 16 amendments I offered in the Rules Committee on Wednesday. Now I only have 10 minutes to debate each one.
Now, under Democratic Leadership, we get one hearing, no forewarning, no companion Senate bill, and a debate only a few seconds longer than a NASCAR pit-stop…I get more time to debate renaming a Post Office than I will get to debate a bill that could make Puerto Rico the fifty-first state.
In my opinion, this bill is the political equivalent of a shady Goldman Sachs derivative: It’s secretive. It lacks transparency. It’s likely to blow up down the road and cause systemic risk to out democracy. And those who put this political derivative together don’t really tell you what this is really about and will play dumb when it explodes.
Also at issue is the fact that Puerto Rico will gain 6 or 7 representatives and 2 senators. The big problem there is that since we are at the maximum of 435 representatives, those 6 or 7 will come from other states. Additionally, given the income levels in Puerto Rico, we’ll have a huge number of new people who qualify for government benefits.
