Constitutional Responses

According to the New York Times, Clarence Thomas is breaking with judicial ethics guidelines by supporting Federal historical conservation efforts related to the Gullah/Geechee peoples of the coastal south. Thomas is himself a member of that group. Althouse and Instapundit mention that the proper response to a Supreme Court Judge with inappropriate behavior is impeachment not passive aggressive editorials.

To put it bluntly, Democrats don't want to use the I word. Not when Obama is violating the War Powers Act in Libya. Obama's defense is that it's not a war. The Libyan's military is so inferior to our own that they are no threat to us. Try not to thing about that one too hard or you might wake up your pregnant wife in the next room yelling things like "Then why are we there in the first place!" at your computer monitor. You know, like I did.

Instead they're putting a bipartisan group together to sue Obama in federal court. Really? Look if he's breaking federal law and you think it's important, impeach him. If you don't want to impeach him, then pass a bill that revokes the funding appropriation for activities in Libya. Then dare him to cross that line. If you don't have the votes for that then make political hay. Just don't think that the last one is really doing much of anything.

Not Mine

The Anchoress notes that federal buildings must be warm for Michelle Obama to go in a sleeveless vintage Norman Norelli number without a hint of goosebumps. Unlike you know, every one else who has turned down their heat to fight rising energy prices and higher seasonal heating bills.

I've been working for the government for over eight years now. At no time in my service has the HVAC ever worked right. My building was built as temporary lab space for World War II and the Army has been using it in one way or another ever since. The HVAC has been fixed 3 times since I started working there, but it is still broken. This week highs outside were in the 30s and the AC was on inside. For over a week. To be fair, if they managed to get the heat working it would probably be far too warm to be comfortable.

This is the story on most of the legacy buildings on most US military bases. Heat is central steam heat. The central plant has two settings, on and off. The setting is changed twice a year whether you need it or not. All the steam lines leak so the heat is never dispersed properly. Your building is either far too hot or way too cold. Because of this everyone has both an electric space heater and a fan at their desk. Every few years a contractor comes in and promises to work miracles for a reasonable fee, but then it breaks again in a year or two.

The right side of the blogosphere has this narrative going on that the Government functionaries are living in the lap of luxury while Rome burns. It's BS. Aging infrastructure is not just an issue with the interstate highway system.

Wisdom for the Ages

Clayton Cramer's post of excerpts from Andrew Jackson's fairwell address contain some amazing stuff. Among the topics he discusses are taxes, duties, the expanding role of federal government, and corrupt politicians or businessmen profit from these.

Completing the Census

I must say that the advertising for this year's Census has been either inept (snapshot of America) or offensive (get your piece of the pie). But we still filled ours out and sent it in this week. Unless you're a reality show family, this decade's form is thankfully quite brief. It sticks to the standard name, sex, race statistics that have been present on the form since 1790.

One question I was surprised wasn't on the form was whether each inhabitant was a US citizen or not. It would seem to me that you would want representation to be based on the number of citizens in an area, not merely the number of inhabitants. But I don't think this has ever been the case, going back to the 3/5ths compromise the founders themselves created.

Not Fitting the Narrative

Let it not be said that bloggers can't do this too. Mainstream Baptist is heavily invested in the principle Separation of Church and State and lead a post with the title "Supreme Court Affirms 10 Commandments Decision" this week. The problem? They didn't.

The Supreme Court denied cert. That's legalese for refusing to hear the case. The Supreme Court does this to the vast majority of cases that petition them for appeals because they just don't have the time to hear everything. Denying cert allows the lower court ruling to stand, but does not imply that the Supreme Court agrees or "affirms" it.

Funny how I posted as much in his comments, but that one never came through his review process...

The Reset Button

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again.

Amen to that sentiment assessed by Rasmussen.

I think there should be an official "vote the bums out" mechanism for Congress. One that doesn't involve pitchforks, torches, and rifles. It could go something like this: when invoked by popular vote, all sitting members of congress at the time of the referendum would be forbidden to run for re-election. The House would turn over upon the next election. The Senate would turn over completely in 3 Congressional election cycles. Anyone effected would be barred from federal office for at least 6 to 10 years. They cannot run or be appointed to elected federal office. They would also be forbidden from being appointed to any unelected office that requires congressional approval. It would essentially be a 6-10 year ostracism from federal office. I think we need one of those.

Via Alphecca.

AIG Bailout to the Nth Power

When I turned on the news this morning, I heard that AIG is receiving even more money from the US Government. Uncle Sam now owns a substantial portion of the business. Why do they keep receiving government funds? Could be a lot of reasons I suppose, but the big one has to do with AIG handling insurance for the US congressional pension program. That's an interesting factoid, isn't it?

By the way, why does Congress still have an old school pension system when the rest of the US government was phased over to 401k style Thrift Spending Accounts when the Federal Employee Retirement System went live over two decades ago? Why does Congress have a retirement system at all?

Inauguration Day

The attendees seem to be full of hope and change. It seems the park service is planning for the attendees to be full of something else as well. Amy stumbled across a blog showing some of the preparations made on the National Mall:


7000 Portapots all in a row.

Tax Code

Instapundit linked to this USNews report on the complexities of the tax code. A nice tidbit contained within is that 60% of filers use hired preparers and an additional 22% buy software. I'm one of the 60% and I think the article misses the point.

I'm a pretty normal Joe. I'm not self employed, I itemize because of the house and my charitable contributions, and I have some tax-deferred income for retirement and health care. I have never had trouble with the federal tax form. All my trouble is with the states. This is compounded by the fact that I live and work in two different states. Every year I have to file two interrelated state tax forms. After software failed me a couple years ago, I've used preparers ever since.

My taxes get done faster because total preparation time is reduced to about an hour and I avoid procrastination. They save me money by both finding additional deductions (or moving deductions around) and insulating me from any possible preparation errors. It worth my while both financially and psychologically.

But in the end reforming the US tax code won't fix any of this, because it isn't where the problem lies.

Gun News from the Old Stomping Grounds

In this case, the Brookhaven PD (in the same school district I grew up in) are refusing to return lawfully possessed firearms to their rightful owner.

In [Thomas] DeOrio’s case, Brookhaven police seized his collection of handguns and rifles in October and turned them over to the sheriff when his girlfriend filed for a temporary protection-from-abuse order. Shields said she perceived something he had said to be threatening. Three days later, after a court hearing, a judge dismissed the order, records show.

Via Snowflakes in Hell and SayUncle.

Death and...

From a recent Instapundit post on taxation:

Personally, I'd like to see everyone pay at least some income tax, and I'd like to see the amount of tax paid, by everyone, go up or down every year in tandem with federal spending. That would encourage fiscal discipline directly. It would also make it harder for politicians to promise everybody a free lunch, but hey -- why shouldn't they sacrifice something, too?

I don't know that everyone should be paying taxes. But I do think the tax-free break point should be indexed to something significant like the poverty line. I'm not against people barely getting by, getting tax relief and at least then it isn't completely arbitrary.

Unfortunately with what little reading I've done on the derivation of poverty line incomes, they seem to be developed somewhat arbitrarily and tying those values to taxation would almost certainly politicize the system even more. There is pretty good evidence that poverty line incomes have grown faster than inflation for instance.

Heller Wins!

In a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. gun ban and affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms. Scotusblog is hosting a copy of the decision pdf. I'm sure the legal blogs will have a lot to take about soon, although they seem to be groaning under the weight of their traffic at the moment.

The 5-4 opinion is disappointing, but depending on the specifics, I suppose it is understandable.

UPDATE: This is a narrow decision in that the SC did not address incorporation to the states because DC is a federal district so they had no standing to do so. The NRA is already moving to test incorporation to the states with challenges of the handgun bans in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco. I may have to renew my membership soon.

Politics and Economic Planning

Steve Lamp has this to say about Barack Obama:

I like Barrack Obama. The problem is I disagree with his position on a wide range of issues. One of the biggest is Social Security. Like most Democrats, Obama is against privatization. In fact, he adamantly opposes it.

Steve goes on to briefly discuss the state of Social Security (as assessed by the Social Security Administration) and how Obama's solution to it amounts to sticking his finger in his ears and humming loudly.

What is most sad about the coming election is that we really need a candidate that wants to put the Federal Government's finances in order. Bush started doing this early in his first term by reducing the rate of government growth, but completely failed to follow up after 9/11. Neither Obama nor McCain have any record of slowing government growth or solving problems outside of massive government spending. Both of these are practically mandatory at this point.

The US government really needs to have our finances together by 2017. After that the SSA is going to start cashing in it's treasury securities. Which means money essentially comes out of the general fund to pay for social security instead of coming in from surplus SS taxes. That's a big deal.

Government Card Fraud

I've seen this story about abuse of government cards on QandO and now at Kim's place. I've commented both places, but I'll leave a record here as well.

I'm a government travel card holder. I have to undergo regular travel card fraud/waste/abuse training. The training is mostly bullshit because using travel cards is common sense and abusing them is premeditated.

The reason people are pulling this crap is because they know they can get away with it. Their organizations are lenient or just don't bother to follow up properly and the kiddies using the cards know it. If they didn't know this in advance, they wouldn't be making the charges. Why? Because on a travel card, the card holder (me) is stuck with the bill not the government. I get permission to travel, but I'm personally responsible for everything on the card. The government simply reimburses me for the valid expenses before I get the bill. And that bill is due, payable in full, when it shows up at your door at the end of the month. Nobody is going to pull this crap if they don't know they can get away with it in advance, because nobody wants to get stuck holding the bill.

If you want to see this stuff stop, you just start leaving people with the bill for these abuses. If the auditors let them slip through, you fire them for not doing their jobs. The problem is that you need someone with the stones to implement this as policy. Crack down on this and you'll see it grind to a halt just like it did years ago in the corporate world.

Delaware Firearms Laws

Wynder in the Delaware Open Carry board has built a PDF containing a compilation of Delaware firearms laws. And by Delaware, I don't just mean state law. Those are useful but you could get them by searching the Delaware Code. What makes this a wonderful resource is that it also contains the local Delaware laws that are still in effect because they predate Delaware's preemption law (like Newark and Wilmington's ordinances). I don't know if this list is definitive, but he's working on making it as close as possible.

Flunking Out of Electoral College

Geek with a .45 has two posts about recent trends in Maryland and New Jersey to disenfranchise their own state by apportioning their electors according to the results of the national popular vote. This would break down the districting system created by the electoral college that forces candidates to campaign widely instead of narrowly.

It is a stupid idea. Fortunately, once Maryland and Jersey vote one way and the national popular vote goes the other, they will probably turn on their state legislatures and demand a return to some sort of state-wide apportionment system.

If you don't want to go all-or-nothing, then using Congressional districts is probably the only other serious option. I don't like it, because the President will tend to be of the dominant Congressional Party using that methodology, but it might work. The MD/NJ system is just foolishness.

UPDATE: NJ isn't as stupid as I though, their law is designed so it only goes into effect once the majority of electoral votes are determined through the national popular vote. Unfortunately, it also creates a multi-state agreement which, unless Consented to by Congress, is probably Unconstitutional. But hey, when did the Constitution stop New Jersey from doing anything?

WWII and Tactics

McQ at QandO has been watching Ken Burn's new series The War. He likes what he's been seeing.

Meanwhile Kim du Toit is dispelling some bigotry spouted by David Frum towards the American fighting man of WWII:

It’s all very well to say that Americans win because they have more equipment than anyone else. Here’s the newsflash: that’s how we fight.

We are a technology-based society, and we have a giant economy with which to back our troops up.

From Band of Brothers in the WWII era: “Horses? What were you thinking? Say hello to General Motors, and Ford, and Chrysler!”

In Stephen Ambrose's book Citizen Soldiers, there is a story about two generally equivalent infantry units fighting over a medieval fortification in France. The Germans take the old fort and barricade themselves into a great defensive position. The American infantry tries to take it, but meet murderous resistance and have to fall back. So the Americans wheel over a 155mm howitzer and blow the hell out of the place. When they storm it, they capture it easily. After the fight, the Germans accused the Americans of poor soldiering because under the same conditions the Germans would have had to make do with what they had. The Americans replied that what they had was a 155mm howitzer thank-you-very-much and enjoy your stay as a POW with Uncle Sam.

An often-overlooked aspect of the war is that after Normandy, the US Army was actually employing something like modern combined arms doctrine. Not only did we have more stuff, but all our "inferior" units could cooperate efficiently to form a superior whole. If American infantry units ran into trouble, their first resort was to liberally apply high explosives via air or artillery or armor support. Most of the other Armies just couldn't do this. What was unfair or poor soldiering according to those Germans was actually an artifact of American tactical and strategic superiority.

VP Rendell

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is being put forward as a possible VP candidate. Great... I'm not a big fan of Rendell and I'm even less of a fan now that he's going to be shutting down all gun sales in Pennsylvania. The state is upgrading their background check system, which will require closing the system down for three days over the Labor Day Weekend. This will essentially close down every gun dealer in the state for that period. Gun dealers aren't happy because Labor Day weekend generally brings out lots of hunters prepping for the start of various seasons. I suppose it could be worse for them, it was going to be down for four days.

The interesting wrinkle in this story is that under state and federal law, you only have to wait 48 hours for a response from the background check system. Any more and you automatically pass. We'll see if the gun shops have the stones to use the loophole or not.

Zombie Languages

Judge Alice Batchelder insists that latin is not a dead language. Unfortunately Latin isn't dead in her court, but frankly it should be. After all how can you write and enforce laws and regulations on a people who are not capable of understanding them? That's just bad documentation.

Should I become God Emperor of the Universe, I intend to make edicts to repair some of the great injustices in the World. My first law will be that laws applying to the general populace shall be written in a manner and language that is easily understandable by the general populace. This isn't hard to do, you just grab a bunch of congressional pages (who generally are in the middle of their college education), give them copies of proposed legislation, and ask them whether they can understand it. If not, you must rewrite it. Exceptions would be made for technical regulations which apply to professionals in a given field and not to the general populace as a whole.

For instance, all citizens should be able to understand most of the tax code and most criminal law. However corporate and business taxes could be more complex as could the criminal code apply to, say, securities fraud. The first apply to the general populace, the latter to professionals.

It is one thing if you break the law because you are ignorant of it. It is another if the law (and by extension the case law) is so obfuscated by technical jargon that it cannot be understood by a non-professional. The first is at least partially the fault of the law breaker, while the second is a fundamental failing of the government itself.

A Look at the Budget

A friend from work showed me an interesting article from The Kiplinger Letter. It listed the percentage of federal spending by program from three different years: 2008, 1983, and 1968. Some interesting things I learned:

• Despite the fact that we're fighting a war, defense spending as a percentage of the federal budget today (~21%) is lower than in '83 when Reagan was rebuilding the military up during the Cold War (26%). It is much lower than spending during Vietnam (46%).
• While Social Security's share of the budget has largely remained constant over the last 15 years (~21%), Medicare and Medicaid have been growing exponentially and are now as expensive as Social Security or National Defense.
• The low income tax credit is much larger than it used to be.
• Agricultural subsidies are actually down by quite a lot in comparison to past years. In '68 and '83 they were about three percent of the budget, now they're less than one.

I have to wonder what this data would look like in real dollars though instead of percentages. Has the federal budget just ballooned to such an extent that certain things look the same or have gotten smaller in proportion. We're probably paying far more in agricultural subsidies today than in '68, but the federal budget is so much larger the actual percentage of federal spending has dropped.

UPDATE: Jim the Baptist points out that largely the war has been funded by supplemental spending requests that don't appear in the main budget. He is right. However the reason Kiplinger did this comparison is that their 2008 budget doesn't have this problem. Which is why the Defense portion of the budget is $600 Billion instead of some smaller amount.