Dim Won, b/k/a Barack Obama has talked of solving problems by waving his magic pen. Yet Joe the Plumbers pipe wrench is capable of doing something that Dim Won’s magic pen can not do, to wit create wealth. A Mickey D burger flipper is no more valuable after Dim Won were to wave his magic pen to decree that the bugger flipper flip for fifteen dollars an hour. On the flip side, your drain is much more valuable when it drains as when it is clogged.
Hat tip: Daniel J. Mitchell
Sam Pizzigati wonders why we just all can’t earn the same, Useless Toady:
Only 7% of Americans, Gallup reports, currently feel “very satisfied” with our nation’s distribution of income and wealth. Only 26%, adds the latest USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll, feel that the government should do “not much” or “nothing” to reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else.
Out beyond the Beltway, in other words, we have overwhelming public support for taking meaningful action against inequality. Yet we’re more likely to see sunshine and 70 degrees at the Super Bowl this Sunday than have America, by the end of this year, headed in a significantly more equal direction.
[…]
Another test: Fast-food workers are pushing for a $15 hourly minimum wage. If the federal minimum had risen since the 1960s as fast as the incomes of the top 1%, that minimum today would exceed $22.
An 80% top tax rate, a $15 minimum wage. Simple steps. Let’s take them.
Thomas Sowell meanwhile points out that not all doing is equally valuable, Real Clear Politics:
One of the problems with so many discussions of income and wealth is that the intelligentsia are so obsessed with the money that people receive that they give little or no attention to what causes money to be paid to them, in the first place.
The money itself is not wealth. Otherwise the government could make us all rich just by printing m, Raore of it. From the standpoint of a society as a whole, money is just an artificial device to give us incentives to produce real things — goods and services.
[…]
Intellectuals’ obsession with income statistics — calling envy “social justice” — ignores vast differences in productivity that are far more fundamental to everyone’s well-being. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg has ruined many economies.
The liberal apparent obsession with income inequality is just their latest distraction. If Dim Won wants to boost the economy, with the mere stroke of a pen, all he need do is to approve the completion of the Keystone Pipeline. Increasing Bill Gates taxes will not put more gas in your car. Bringing the price of gasoline down will.
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The Snark of the Day, from Jim Moran, via Gateway Pundit:
“I’m afraid that the millennials, if you will, are less likely to sign up. I think they feel more independent, I think they feel a little more invulnerable than prior generations,” Moran says. “But I don’t think we’re going to get enough young people signing up to make this bill work as it was intended to financially.”
Congressman Moran a rather dull blade is caucus full of dull blades. But unlike Captain Barack Smith, Moran is just smart enough to see that the Obama Care ship is taking on water.
Because the thought of getting behind the controls of this one point two million pound machine is enough to make the founder blogger drool and that thought spending five year restoring in enough to make me pine for Cheyenne, Wyoming, from George Lauby, North Platte Bulletin:
The historic Big Boy No. 4014 — said to be the biggest steam locomotive in the world — took another step toward Cheyenne, Wyo. Sunday, when it entered the national rail network for the first time in 52 years.
Hat tips to RailGiants Train Museum for taking such good care of Big Boy for over fifty years and to Union Pacific for turning back the pages of the calender.
The Snark of the Day, from Ted Cruz, via Ed Morrissy, Hot Air:
“For the State of the Union, one of the things President Obama really ought to do is look in the TV camera and say to the over five million Americans all across this country who have had their health insurance cancelled because of Obamacare — to look in the camera and say, ‘I’m sorry,'” the Republican senator from Texas suggested during an interview with Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday . “‘I told you if you like your health insurance plan you can keep it. I told you if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. And that wasn’t true. I’m sorry.'”
In my best John Wayne: That sorry stuff, doesn’t cut it any more. Video at the link.
President Fifty Seven States knows best. He told the New Yorker’s David Remnick, that his problems were all the fault of those stoopid republicans and dastardly Rush Limbaugh, from Hill:
President Obama said that gridlock on Capitol Hill stemmed from an inability to “penetrate the Republican base” and convince voters there that he’s “not the caricature that you see on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh,” rather than his oft-questioned willingness to socialize with lawmakers.
Hat tip and reax,Jammie Wearing Fool:
Starting year six of his failed presidency, the petulant man-child lashes out like a three-year-old. Without the evil Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, he’s apparently have a 100% approval.
More, Karen, Lonely Conservative:
That’s the problem with so many leftists these days. They’re all in desperate need of counseling. Unfortunately, they project their shortcomings onto their political opponents and the electorate buys it and puts them in power. How is that working out for us?
No wait a minute. According the Jerusalem Post, the Obama administration’s problems are due them sneaking Jews, via Legal Insurrection:
A US official close to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry said both men are disturbed over what is being perceived in their inner circle as “Jewish activism in Congress” that they think is being encouraged by the Israeli government, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.
Reax,David Gerstman:
According to Obama and Kerry American Jews are following the lead of the Israeli government. There’s something distasteful about that. Is the administration so convinced that it is following the proper course of action regarding Iran and the peace process that no one could object to their approach based on cold rational analysis?
Just because Obama and Kerry want a nuclear Iran and an Israel confined to her indefensible 1967 borders. All you Fifty Staters and bitter clingers will just have to trust President Fifty Seven States.
The Snark of the Day, from Jay Leno:
‘Doctors warn pot smoking impairs young people’s thinking, which of course makes them much more likely to sign up for Obamacare’
Hat tip and video: Jammie Wearing Fool
A never ending campaign to instill a fear of guns, from Christopher Flavelle. Bloomberg:
One of the report’s more distressing findings centered on the effect mass shootings have on Americans’ ability to cast a ballot. The commission noted that schools are the best venue for polling places: “They have the needed and desirable space, are inexpensive, widespread, conveniently located, and accessible for people with disabilities.”
But the December 2012 Newtown shooting has led some states to look at limiting access to schools for voting.
Reax, from Eduwonk:
This Bloomberg editorial about how the fear of gun violence is complicating efforts to use schools as polling places is unconvincing. You could identify any of a host of social ills and make the same claim. In practice, interest groups, notably the teachers unions, like schools closed on election day because it’s easier to engage in political activity – especially get-out-the-vote work. Meanwhile, unfortunately, if you’re going to have a bunch of people you don’t know in and out of a school you can understand why school officials would rather not have students around, and it’s not because of guns.
It is not fear of gun violence. It is hoplophobia. Students are more apt to be raped by his teacher than to threatened or injured by a law abiding adult, from Robert Stacy McCain:
All seven of these cases made headlines in the past month, and if we were to extrapolate this figure over the course of a year, we could estimate that at least 80 female teachers are charged with sex crimes annually in the United States. Perversion is rampant and we may be in the midst of a complete societal breakdown.
Remember this, the next time you see a poll asking whether the country is “on the right track” or heading in “the wrong direction.”
Maybe having the possibility of having an armed adult on campus might make our students safe for one day?
Roe v. Wade was decided forty-one years ago and fifty-five million American babies have died. Yet for some strange reason, Dean Obeidallah is concerned about what is said outside of aborturiums, Daily Beast.
So why did I visit an abortion clinic for the first time in my life? Because I was confused as to what is the real face of the people gathered outside of abortion clinics.
[…]
The Supreme Court decision regarding the Massachusetts law is due in June. The question is will the other Justices be taken in by the fairy tale being spun by people like Scalia or will they open their eyes to what is really happening outside abortion clinics on a daily basis? The decision they render will answer that question.
Alas the problem is not what happens outside aborturiums but rather what happens inside them. A problem to which Obeidallah is oblivious.
The Volokh Conspiracy is now associated with, partnered with or controlled by the Washington Post. From William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection:
In the earliest days of the internet, an Instapundit reader suggested the term “take the Boeing” to describe when bloggers join big media outlets.
Today, Volokh Conspiracy took the Washington Post’s Boeing:
There a blogs written by law professors. Blogs fronted by law professors. Then there are blogs written by law professors about the law. The Volokh Conspiracy has the premier blog written by law professors who wrote about the law. Professor Jacobson:
I wish them well. They are the premier group of law professor and lawyer bloggers who actually blog about the law.
I only hope that the Volokh Conspiracy retains their excellence. Time will tell.
I compared Texas Senator Wendy Davis to John Kerry yesterday. Both marry for money and dump their spouses when they no longer need them. Albeit that Kerry is better at it. Now Davis has gone Delaware Blue Hen and done a Joe Biden, in reference to her opponent for governor Greg Abbott, Davis said, via Neo-Neocon:
“I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.”
Reax:
Since Abbott doesn’t walk at all, it’s a rather infelicitous figure of speech, don’t you think?
Abbott is paraplegic
The Snark of the Day, from Emily, Naked DC :
[Wendy Davis] a woman in power because she used a man’s money and influence to get her there.
So Ms Davis is basically John Kerry in a skirt. She marries for money and dumps her spouse when no longer useful.
Funny the Constitution makes no mention of either journalists or journalism. Yet some have taken to holding the First Amendment protection of free speech only applied to professional journalists, employed by traditional media outlet not named Fox News. Not so, via Robert Stacy McCain:
The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities.
Nice to be as well protected as the New York Slimes.
The Snark of the Day, from Joe Biden:
“John [Kerry], thank you for your passion and perseverance and the incredible, incredible energy you’ve shown in representing American interests around the world,” Biden said. “I have been here for — I have to admit — for eight presidents, and I have never seen a man or a woman with as much energy and commitment that you have shown. John, we thank you for that.”
Hat tip: Moe Lane. Moe is right.
I’d might be willing to pay money for a ring side seat on a Joe Biden, Mrs. Clinton debate.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, (New York) a/k/a Mario, Jr. via Life News:
The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.
Andy, despite your assertions to the contrary, the Second Amendment has nothing to with deer hunting. On April 19, 1775 the militia was not out looking for deer. Had the citizens of Massachusetts taken your view of our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, we would still be subjects of the Queen. I know what an assault rifle is. To wit, it is a fully automatic machine gun, and has been legally unavailable to the public f9r several decades. I don’t know of any modern military that restricts itself to arms only capable of holding seven or fewer rounds. Yet you seem to believe that any citizen wanting a reasonable self-defense weapon to be the equivalent of a terrorist.
As for me being pro-life, so what! I happen to believe that the Constitution’s Right to Life is not restricted to the post-born, and that you have no right to tell me where to live based solely on the fact you don’t like my particular political beliefs. Feel free to attempt to prove me wrong.
As for those with the preference for same-sex sex, that is their choice and their problem. All I ask is that I not be forced subsidize their chosen life-style, and we don’t use public monies to promote their particular agenda. I see no particular need to wage war on the population. Their fratricide seems a sufficient problem burden.
Hat tip: Hot Air.
Academic fraud at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from Epoch Times:
Multiple independent investigations suggest that hundreds of African and Afro-American Studies Department courses offered over more than a decade, many “taught” by Nyang’oro, simply did not exist. No syllabi were created, no lectures delivered, no grading standards imposed. Hundreds of additional courses grades were changed and hundreds more “independent study” grades awarded. A large and disproportionate number of students involved were male football and basketball players.
Hat tip: Small Dead Animals.
So how many Tar Heels, to wit UNC student athletes, not named Michael Jordan make to the pros? How many other so-called universities are also running sham college programs for sham athletes? If a college athlete can not meet the same academic requirements as every other college student, he simply does not belong in college, period.
