Monday, September 11, 2017
Sunday, September 10, 2017
The price of the latest continuing resolution will probably be a big tax increase
The last time we had a really big continuing resolution, defying "regular order", the Republicans gave away the store in exchange for lifting the export ban on oil.
Exports began in early 2016. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude has actually risen 51.6% since then, from an average of 31.68 in January 2016 to 48.04 in August 2017.
Larry Kudlow thinks Trump is a genius for clearing the deck with the debt ceiling, hurricane emergency funding, continuing resolution deal with the Democrats because now Congress can finally get down to tax reform and pass it before the end of the year.
Watch your wallets, I say.
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Here's how the House and Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling, fund the government for three more months, and provide hurricane relief
The Senate passed the measure 80-17. That story is here.
The House passed the measure 316-90. That story is here.
See how they use a crisis?
The year 2017 will end without a restoration of regular order in the House, where spending is debated and voted on. And I'm betting we'll never see a return to regular order. It'll be more such continuing resolutions as far as the eye can see.
The debt ceiling is an impediment in genuine emergencies, such as funding disaster relief. But there is no excuse for the continuing dearth of fiscal probity.
There is also no excuse for Trump caving on his promise to shut down the government if he doesn't get funding for The Wall. Extending and pretending was more important to him.
And Trump's new pledge to sign DACA legislation only adds to the perception that he was never serious about The Wall in the first place. He just turned on the magnet again on The Great Illegal Immigration Machine.
One picks the best horse one can, but this horse has decided to drink from The Swamp, not drain it. He'll be promptly unrideable, and we'll have to find another.
James Madison had little faith in a bill of rights, repeatedly violated in "every state" in his own time by the tyranny of the majority
From a letter to Jefferson in 1788:
[E]xperience proves the inefficacy of a bill of rights on those occasions when its controul is most needed. Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State. In Virginia I have seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current. Notwithstanding the explicit provision contained in that instrument for the rights of Conscience, it is well known that a religious establishment wd have taken place in that State, if the Legislative majority had found as they expected, a majority of the people in favor of the measure; and I am persuaded that if a majority of the people were now of one sect, the measure would still take place and on narrower ground than was then proposed, notwithstanding the additional obstacle which the law has since created. Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.
James Madison on parchment's powerlessness to stop the legislative's theft of our money
From Publius, Federalist 48:
Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power? This is the security which appears to have been principally relied on by the compilers of most of the American constitutions. But experience assures us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly overrated; and that some more adequate defense is indispensably necessary for the more feeble, against the more powerful, members of the government. ... [A]s the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has in some constitutions full discretion, and in all a prevailing influence, over the pecuniary rewards of those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter, which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former. ... The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.
Friday, September 8, 2017
Thursday, September 7, 2017
It looks more and more plausible that both Trump and Ayotte lost in NH due to Democrat vote fraud
From the story here:
But more than 80 percent of voters who registered on Nov. 8 using out-of-state driver’s licenses, or 5,313 of them, neither had a state license nor registered a motor vehicle almost 10 months later. Double voting is illegal, and 196 people are being investigated for casting ballots in New Hampshire and in other states. In the presidential race, Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Republican Donald Trump in New Hampshire by 2,736 votes. In an even tighter race, for the Granite State’s U.S. Senate seat, Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan defeated incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte by 1,017 votes.
Cloudflare protects muslims in calgary dot ca, which promotes female genital mutilation
But stopped protecting The Daily Stormer in August.
You know whose side Cloudflare is on. Which side are you on?
McKinsey analysis finds health insurance premiums shot up 279% on average, mostly because of guaranteed issue and community rating
From the story here from Sally Pipes:
The analysis was conducted by McKinsey for the Department of Health and Human Services. The consulting firm looked at rate hikes in four states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Tennessee. Premiums in each had doubled or tripled since 2013 -- the year before Obamacare went into effect.
In Georgia, the average premium for the equivalent of a mid-level "Silver" plan for a 40-year-old male went from $94 a month in 2013 to $323 a month in 2017. In Tennessee, it went from $104 a month to $431.
Nancy Pelosi: Our founders were successful disruptors of the status quo
Status quo: Instagram and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter . . ..
Hm.
Hm.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
DACA rescinded with a drop-dead date of March 5, 2018: Pressure transferred to Congress, where it belongs
From the story here:
Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke has issued a memo formally rescinding DACA and starting what the administration calls an "orderly wind down."
The government will not process any new applications or requests for DACA protection.
People currently protected will not be affected before March 5, "so Congress can have time to deliver on appropriate legislative solutions," according to Duke.
Current DACA holders' protection from deportation and work permits will remain in effect until they expire, at which time they will no longer be shielded. The government will hear all pending applications for DACA protection and renewals and decide on them on a case-by-case basis.
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