Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted for the rule advancing the debt ceiling compromise to the House floor because the compromise contains the Penny Plan and a return to regular order

The Penny Plan would be triggered in the event 12 appropriations bills are not passed by Jan. 1 annually, automatically reducing spending 1% across the board.

Ending the present bad habit of omnibus spending bills is essential to a return to good governance and represents a good reason to vote for this bill despite its shortcomings.

Massie followed through with his statement during Tuesday evening’s vote when he supported the rule. He also told reporters that he plans to vote for the bill when it comes to the floor on Wednesday after announcing it in a closed-door GOP conference meeting minutes earlier.

“It’s because it cuts spending,” Massie told The Hill Tuesday night when discussing his intent to support the bill.

“Nothing I’ve ever voted on has ever cut spending that’s passed that’s become law; this will,” he added.

During Tuesday’s Rules Committee hearing, Massie highlighted a provision in the debt limit bill that incentivizes Congress to pass 12 appropriations bills rather than relying on omnibus measures to fund the government. The provision threatens to cut government spending by one percent across the board if the measures are not approved by Jan. 1.

“There is one way in which I think this bill got better, and it is this 1 percent cut that we’re all agreeing to if we vote for this bill, Republicans and Democrat, come Jan. 1. If we haven’t done our homework, and if the Senate hasn’t done their homework, and if the president hasn’t signed those bills — so everybody is gonna be in this, responsible for the outcome,” Massie said.

More.

The debt ceiling compromise freezes spending in the next fiscal year about $400 billion too high, and does nothing to pay for the $4.9 trillion added to the debt over and above "normal" deficit spending

The Washington Examiner, here:

In exchange for a two-year hike in the federal borrowing limit, the legislation roughly freezes next year's spending at fiscal 2023 levels, followed by a 1% increase in 2025. The legislation also imposes some changes to work requirements for food stamps and will speed the development of energy projects with permitting reform.

Fiscal outlays for 2023 are projected to hit $5.792 trillion. Adjusted for inflation since 2019 that should be more like $5.385 trillion.

Meanwhile, deficit spending since 2019 through fiscal 2023 has added, will add, $8.5 trillion to the debt, which has been the solution to, and the cause of, all our problems.

We are not governed by serious people.

We have the government we deserve.

Monday, May 29, 2023

The lie of the day comes from Reuters via CNBC

... the national debt, which at $31.4 trillion is roughly equal to the annual output of the economy.

More.

1Q2023 GDP, 2nd estimate: Nominal: $26.4863 trillion.

118% is not "roughly equal".

And look what has happened to interest payments on the debt, which come out of current revenues. They have gone vertical. At $929 billion annualized, they represent 31.4% of current tax receipts annualized.

Everyone minimizing the gravity of this situation is whistling past the graveyard when government social benefits to persons already exceed the tax receipts.

This will continue until it can't, and great will be the fall of it.

LOL, National Review reports AOC expels protesters at her own townhall in Queens, characteristically buried on the Friday night of the summer's first big holiday weekend to minimize such things

‘American Citizens before Migrants’: Protesters Heckle AOC at NYC Town Hall

Brittany BernsteinMay 27, 2023 11:06 AM

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) speaks at a U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., December 13, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger/Reuters)none

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Protesters booed and heckled Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a town hall she held in Queens, N.Y., on Friday night.

A man holding small American flags approached the progressive “Squad” member and shouted, “American citizens before migrants.”

“Where are you on the migrant issue? You’re a piece of s***,” he added.

Ocasio-Cortez said, “OK,” as the man was escorted off.

New York governor Kathy Hochul (D.) declared a state of emergency in New York after the expiration of Title 42 earlier this month. The state has roughly 60,000 asylum seekers relying on social services. New York City has gotten so overwhelmed with the influx of migrants that the city has begun sending them to the suburbs. Hochul said she is “looking at all state assets to help ameliorate the problem that is at a crisis level here in the City of New York,” which could includes housing migrants at SUNY campuses, closed psychiatric centers, large parks and parking lots.

Protesters at the town hall held signs concerning a number of issues: “America First. Vetted legal migrants only,” “Stop funding Ukraine,” “AOC: An Obvious Criminal,” and “AOC: Stop pushing drag queen story hour,”

More protesters came forward throughout the evening, including a woman who was critical of Ocasio-Cortez’s support for U.S. funding in Ukraine. The New York Democrat voted to send $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine last year.

“Stop funding this war, there’s a lot of communities that need help and need that money,” another woman said as she was removed from the event.

Ocasio-Cortez was met with both boos and cheers from the crowd when she suggested the Biden administration should abolish the debt limit, as a June 5 debt default deadline looms.

“$100 billion for Ukraine that you voted for!” one man shouted in response to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments on the debt ceiling.

The progressive lawmaker said earlier this week that the “stakes of a default cannot be understated.”

“The chaos that would ensue and the impact on people’s everyday lives would likely be immediate and it is one of the reasons why we need to take default off the table,” she said.

Send a tip to the news team at NR.

The Dingbat meant overstated, not understated.

Sunday, May 28, 2023

If California won't do anything to clean up the fuel for wildfires, the insurers will do it for them

State Farm to stop accepting homeowners insurance applications in California due to wildfires, construction costs

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Owner-occupied housing levels are still a long way off from those reached pre-Great Recession

Friday, May 26, 2023

Democrats should impeach Bill Gates lol

REVEALED: Bill Gates's Russian 'lover' and her links to notorious Kremlin spy...

The voters have made yet another colossal error in judgment, but NBC doesn't really want to tell you how big

New research published this month, involving millions of people worldwide over decades, is adding to worries that heavy use of high-potency cannabis and legalization of recreational weed in many U.S. states could exacerbate the nation's mental health crisis in young adults. “There is a big sense of urgency not just because more people are smoking marijuana, but because more people are using it in ways that are harmful, with higher and higher concentration of THC,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), said in an interview. ... The magnitude of the connection between cannabis and schizophrenia for young men surprised study author Volkow, who was expecting the number to be closer to 10%. “This is worrisome,” she said.

But NBC doesn't tell you the number:

Among 16–20-year-old males, no clear pattern over time is observed, with PARFs generally fluctuating between 10% and 20%. In older males, the PARFs show a clearly increasing pattern, ending up around 20–30% until the age of 31–40 when PARFs fluctuate between <1% and nearly 20%.

More.

Let's see how long G$$GLE leaves this up before censoring me like last time.

Inflation remains stuck, year over year in April 2023 at 4.7%, meaning at minimum that interest rates will remain higher for longer

The Fed can't do it alone.

Congress needs to rein-in spending.

Supremes slap down EPA meddling in property owners' wetlands under Clean Water Act, reversing yet another pestilent view of former justice Anthony Kennedy

A majority in Rapanos (2006) couldn’t agree on how to limit EPA’s authority over wetlands. Four Justices said the Clean Water Act’s scope extended to “only those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water” such as oceans, rivers and lakes, and wetlands that were directly adjacent and “indistinguishable” from those waters.

However, the agencies and lower courts have adopted Justice Anthony Kennedy’s lone opinion that federal jurisdiction extends to land that has a “significant nexus” to a waterway. This test is as clear as a swamp.

While all nine Justices ruled for the Sacketts, they disagreed on the scope of federal power. The majority strips away the “significant nexus” ambiguity from Justice Kennedy’s Rapanos opinion, but reaffirms the conservative plurality’s view that a “wetland” must “be indistinguishably part of a body of water that itself constitutes ‘waters’ under the CWA.”

Ronald Reagan's worst appointment.

More.

Kim Strassel: Republicans should claw back $80 billion IRS infusion in wake of IRS targeting of Taibbi and Shapley

IRS Needs a Cage, Not More Cash

The cases of the whistleblower Gary Shapley and journalist Matt Taibbi show why the GOP should claw back that $80 billion infusion.

As House Republicans and the White House wrangle over a debt-ceiling deal, one GOP demand ought to be nonnegotiable. A politicized Internal Revenue Service has no business keeping its untrustworthy fingers on last year’s $80 billion cash infusion.

More.

This is lol great

“On day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons,” DeSantis said in his response. ...

DeSantis replied, “I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big.”

The Justice Department said this month more than 1,033 defendants have been arrested as part of its probe of the Capitol riot. ...

DeSantis said he planned to use the pardon power “at the front end” instead of waiting until the end of his term in the White House.

“We’re going to find examples where the government’s been weaponized against disfavored groups, and we will apply relief as appropriate. But it will be done on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

More.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Excellent News: Insurgent "Eight-Year Alliance" forms from 100 former Trump administration officials who now back Ron DeSantis

According to multiple sources within the group, officially known as "The Eight-Year Alliance," DeSantis is "a proven winner," a contender with a depth of policy proven by what he's accomplished at the state level, and a leader who "does what he says."

The primary motivation of the group, the sources said, is to promote a candidate they feel would be a viable contender for two presidential terms, something they see in DeSantis. They also want to prevent former President Donald Trump "immediately becoming a lame-duck president" should he win back the White House, considering the polarizing affect his persona has had on American politics.

More.

Key point: depth of proven policy in Florida sustainable nationally over two presidential terms is a better choice than another drama-plagued and by definition ineffectual presidency under the best of conditions.