Once Again, Congress Is Exempted

There is a continuing theme in Congress and many of our State Legislatures that what’s good for goose, is only good for the goose.

Take a gander.  Yes, you read that right.  Congressmen can fly around in private jets, and can even buy brand-spanking new ones.  Even though they criticize those in the business world who do the same (remember the CEOs of the Big Three Auto companies?).  The best part is, Congress does it with money that they forcibly take from us (I am loathe to call it “theft”, although the temptation to do so has grown in the past six months).  Businesses do it with money they earn.  Earn.

I think I will start a new category (at The Conservative Reader): Congressional Exemptions.

You see, Congress is of the opinion that they are, ahem, not always obliged to conform to the same set of laws or ideals that the rest of us are.

Truly.

And this is due in no small part to the Constitution of the United States.  Yes that very document that we hold so dear as the last vestige of solace to those that would decry a tyrannical government.

Article I, Section 6 (The Legislative Branch – Compensation): …”They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

This is not language unique to the US Constitution, as most US states and Great Britain provide this protection to their legislative bodies.

It seems absolutely indespensable [sic] for the just exercise of the legislative power in every nation, purporting to possess a free constitution of government; and it cannot be surrendered without endangering the public liberties, as well as the private independence of the members.  [Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Joseph Story, 1833, p. 307]

Those this particular facet of the Constitution makes practical sense to ensure that members of Congress are not waylaid nor compelled to act against their own judgment while acting in their official capacity as a representative of the people, it is nonetheless a part of the large trappings of power that infuses these members with an inappropriate sense of superiority.  But there are days like today when I think we should just arrest the whole lot of them.

Members of Congress were expected from the very beginning to act with integrity and the expectation that they did not live above the law that we all live by (though we know otherwise).  James Madison, writing Federalist 57 (titled The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation), stated:

“I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and, above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America—a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.” [The Federalist Papers – Number 57, Publius (James Madison), 1788]

In other words, there is no reason to believe that, even Congress were so fool-hardy to think they could put themselves above the Law and the People, that the People would surely not tolerate such tyranny.
231 years later, we know a little differently.  For many years now, Congress has been quietly and cautiously finding ways here and there to exempt itself from its own doings.  The existence of internal committees to make rules and set boundaries has certainly helped keep some from jumping off the edge like Daffy Duck diving into that huge pile of treasure in Ali Baba Bunny.  “I’m rich! I’m wealthy! Yahoo! I’m comfortably well off, woo hoo!”.  But not enough to keep Congress from being double-minded.

Congress plays it as a game, and since 1883 has been legislating exceptions for itself routinely.  In 1993, this report (found at the US House’s own Rules Committee web site) provided a list of exceptions that had been established up to that time.  And this list would not likely include something like today’s story… today’s story simply points out hypocrisy and special treatment, not the overt legal exceptions listed in the Rules Committee report.

Why is this okay?  Because, like anything else in government, if no one cries foul then there is no foul.

This whole story is telling.  The game here is that everyone in power, including Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, and those employed throughout the government, are all in on the game.  Despite the “balance of power” delegated to the three branches of government, in hopes of protecting the people from abuse, these same three branches have learned to create a balance that perpetuates a class of power which overshadows the People instead of serving the People.  None of the three is likely to seriously defang the others for fear of bringing the whole house down.

If only the People would wake up and see what kind of duplicity is being perpetrated upon them, they might lift their voices higher and higher to bring Congress down.  Beyond Tea Parties.  Beyond Contracts with America.  It is time to clean house.  It’s time to make 2010 a watershed year for Liberty.

“Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people. It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man.”  [The Federalist Papers – Number 57, Publius (James Madison), 1788]

[sigh]

Reading assignment:

• US Constitution, Article I
• Federalist Number 57
• Congressional Exemptions and Special Rules (US House Rules 1993)
• Congress buys 3 private jets for $200 million (Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, August 5 2009)
• House Orders Up Three Elite Jets (Paul Singer, Roll Call, August 5 2009)
• Congress Flying High on Taxpayers’ Dime… Literally (Meredith Jessup, Townhall, August 5 2009)
• Speaker Pelosi Orders 3 More Deluxe Jets For Congress (Gateway Pundit, August 5 2009)

Cross-posted from The Conservative Reader.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the “Flip Your Lid” Edition

• IT’S A MISTAKE: I said in last night’s Ramble, that the question now with Bill Clinton going over to kiss gargoyle backside, is the price what would get negotiated away. Today, The Wall Street Journal examines that very question:
  

  But the important question going forward is whether Mr. Clinton’s visit was merely the down payment Kim extracted from the Obama Administration for a potentially larger set of American concessions.

  That question is hard to avoid given that Mr. Clinton was met at the Pyongyang airport by Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator. North Korea may have had its own propaganda reasons for putting its diplomat in the photo-op, and the White House insisted that Mr. Clinton’s mission was strictly humanitarian and that he was not carrying any messages from President Obama. We hope that’s true.

  Yet Mr. Clinton’s visit is a message unto itself. It will bolster Kim’s bid to dissolve the six-party negotiations in favor of the direct talks with the U.S. he has long sought. It will also dismay some in South Korea and Japan, which have their own hostages in North Korea and will wonder why Mr. Clinton couldn’t obtain their release as well.

  John Bolton agrees, saying in the Washington Post this morning:

  While the United States is properly concerned whenever its citizens are abused or held hostage, efforts to protect them should not create potentially greater risks for other Americans in the future. Yet that is exactly the consequence of visits by former presidents or other dignitaries as a form of political ransom to obtain their release. Iran and other autocracies are presumably closely watching the scenario in North Korea. With three American hikers freshly in Tehran’s captivity, will Clinton be packing his bags again for another act of obeisance? And, looking ahead, what American hostages will not be sufficiently important to merit the presidential treatment? What about Roxana Saberi and other Americans previously held in Tehran? What was it about them that made them unworthy of a presidential visit?

  One logical answer would seem to be that these other prisoners weren’t working for Al Gore propaganda unit otherwise known as “Current TV”. Think of it this way; Would Obama have sent Clinton had another highly placed Democrat wasn’t directly involved in sending these women to the NORK border? I don’t think so, either. And as with everything else this administration has attempted, its costs not only far exceed projections, but far outrstrip benefits as well.

•  GUNS vs OBAMACARE and VOUCHERS:  John Zogby’s people are saying, this morning:
  

  An overwhelming majority of Americans (83 percent) support concealed-carry laws, while only 11 percent oppose them.

  With this polling data in mind, let’s consider Dick Durbin the other day telling the lie that a vast ajority of Americans support Obamacare. (What the hell poll was he claiming to be using to get that statement, anyway?) How is it we don’t see a massive push in legislatures across the country for CCW laws? I mean, if the will of the people is the reason they’re pushing Oabmacare…. why is the will of the people suddenly an invalid measurement when guns are involved?  Similarly, let’s consider that in poll after poll, Americans overhwlmingly support school vouchers. Yet, the Democrats won’t even discuss it, except to defeat such measures. Think about it; Is the will of the people really important to the left, or is it just another prop to be used to gain their socialist agendae?

•  CASH FOR CLUNKERS, TOO:  The vast majority don’t support cash for clunckers, and yet the Cons are going directly against the will of the people and pushing 2 billion dollars at this turkey… which oughta last about a week and a half if the way the first round went is of any indication. Something of a pattern, here.
•  THE HURICANE SEASON HAS BEEN POSTPONED: They were predicting a huge problem with hurricanes. The cause of course, “global warming. ” Now that the hurricanes havent happened, do you suppose we’ll hear them dare to question global warming at all? 
• HOUSEKEEPING:  WordPress 2.8.3 went up last night. No problems.. a bugfix release.

Linda Douglas has posted video where she tried to convince the public that her boss, Barack Obama, does not want to eliminate private health insurance, video.   Tje problem for Douglas is that Obama was for Single Payer before hie was against it, from Mike Allen, Politicio:

The video the White House seeks to rebut, labeled “SHOCK UNCOVERED,” was linked by Andrew Breitbart on his video site, Breitbart.tv, after a site called Naked Emperor News brought it to his attention.

The clip is labeled, “SEIU Health Care Forum 3/24/07,” and shows Obama saying: “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be, potentially, some transition process: I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out.”

And the video:

Hat video: Breitbart TV.

So who do you believe, what Obama’s paid mouth piece Douglas says or what Obama himself as said?

Michelle calls it desperation:

Take a whiff of the White House bashing of Internet opponents: This is the smell of desperation.

Their lead attack dog? Former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass.

Desperation Hell.  Call it what it is – Panic.

Note to Douglas, statements of Barack Obama do not constitute facts.    Hint, there are not fifty-seven states.   Thought that you would like to know.

Addendum:

Reason Magazine responds to Douglas, video:

Hat tip:  Mark Hemingway, National Review.

Gaius, over at Blue Crab Blvd, has the details.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends… We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside… it’s the most intense nightly read on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Read

(Yeah, I know.. I happened to be playing some ELP, and the mood struck me.)

This is the “Snow” Edition Why? Simple.. it’s 90 outside.  The one really hot day of the year so far, around here. Do you know last month was the coldest July on record for these parts? I blame Global Warming. (Snicker)

•  Greg Craig could be gone….  by the time you read this. Essentially, Craig will be the fall guy for Obama’s sticking with Bush War On Terror Policy.  Does anyone really suppose this will change things?
• Congrats to Ann Althouse and her new Hubby  as of yesterday. Was just discussing with Donna yesterday we’d both like to go there someday,(where they got married)  just to see the mountains, if nothing else.
• BitsBlog Housekeeping:  A bugfix is out for the current version of WordPress. We’ll be upgrading in the next day or so to version 2.8.3.
• How’s that Obama thing working out?  Not so well.  Cash For Clunkers, is itself a clunker, and the word has gone out among the people.  The Economy goes to hell, thus lowering the tax take by near record numbers. What’s Obama’s response? Instead of freeing up business to make money and get the economy moving, Obama wants to Raise taxes, despite his promise not to;
• Voter Anger:  I made mention of several examples of voter anger out there, in yesterday’s Ramble.  Here’s another.
• Democrats in serious trouble… very  very serious trouble…and his people know it.   They’re now reacting to vid being shown of Obama stating repeatedly and flatly that private healthcare plans would be gone, period.   It’s causing Obama serious problems and rightly so.  I said in an article at PJM some months ago, that the pitchforks were being aimed not at the private sector, but at the government that had so mishandled things. That statement is becoming more clearly true by the day. That will be the topic of the next few days and weeks as the congress heads home to face increasingly angry crowds.
• Clinton Kissing Gargoyle Butt:  Bill Clinton is in NORK, trying to get Al Gore’s “reporters” freed. Question of course is what he will negotiate away to get Al Gore’s employees back for him. Politico is saying that NORK state media has them as being ‘Pardoned”

An interesting, if occasionally infuriating piece from Michael Ledeen at Pajamas Media this morning.  A snip and a couple comments:

I studied fascism primarily because I wanted-desperately-to understand how so many people could have appeased it.  Did they-and by “they” I mean the European victims of the Holocaust and the European and American targets of the Axis-not see the evil?  Did they not hear the words of the tyrants who constantly called for the destruction of the Western democracies, the enslavement of the inferior races, and the imposition of a new order?  Did they not see the armies on the march, the concentration camps being built, and the ruthless campaigns against the racially unworthy, from the Jews to the gays, the gypsies and the mentally challenged?

Why did it take Pearl Harbor to bomb us into action?  Why did the Soviet and European Communists-intended victims of Nazism-make a Grand Bargain with the Fuhrer?  Why did the Jews, with rare exceptions, go quietly onto the cattle cars?

 

I figure it’s much the same force that caused us to wait until southern Manhatten became an airliner landing zone before responding. Ledeen continues:

Nearly fifty years later, I think I understand at least part of it, and, alas, that understanding applies to the current appeasers as well.  You’ll find it discussed at length in my forthcoming book, Accomplice to Evil, which identifies many sources of the willful blindness that has long been a central part of the foreign policies of the Western democracies. 

Aha. A book. Well, good luck with that, Mike, but I see a probem in the book without ever having laid eyes on it. 

The three most important factors seem to me to be:

-the Enlightenment theory of human nature, according to which “we are all the same, and we are all basically good”;

You know, I have to wonder about the definition of ‘enlightenment’ in Ledeen’s context, because frankly, the word has never been limited to one school of thought. In reality, this is my sole complaint about the article. His doesn’t seem the Kantian vision of ‘enlightenment’ for example, at least within this context.  That’s particularly true given the religious overtones of the next item he  lists:

-Beaudelaire’s profound insight, most recently presented in the great movie “The Usual Suspects”:  “the greatest trick the devil ever played on mankind was to convince us that he does not exist”;

It’s obvious, at least to me, that Ledeen is being euphimistic, here, and is making an argument in extension of his first point. If there’s good in everyone, then evil can’t exist. This fairyland mindset, then, causes us to expect the unrealistic of our government. Witness:

-the terrible costs and risk of failure if we recognize our evil enemies for what they are, and defend ourselves against them.  Politicians don’t like that;  they’d rather leave it to their successors.

Here, we agree. This is an argument I’ve made many times with respect to Bill Clinton’s handling of Radiacal Islam.

If you look at some of the recent commentary on Iran, some of it from very serious, knowledgeable and experienced policy makers, you will find the willful denial of evil in full bloom.  Take, for example, the astonishing essay by Francis Fukuyama in the Wall Street Journal last Tuesday, in which he describes Iran in these terms:

A real tyranny would never permit elections in the first place-North Korea never does-nor would it allow demonstrations contesting the election results to spiral out of control…

Following which he opines on how gradual Constitutional change might produce “a genuine rule of law democracy within the broad parameters of the 1979 constitution,” but concludes it is unlikely, and that the most likely outcome of the present internal conflict is “conflict with other countries in the region.  This could easily consolidate its legitimacy and power.”

Well, look… the first problem is taking Fukuyama seriously on much of anything. I’m sure Ledeen knows this, based on the ease with which he flays the guy without raising a sweat. I’ve remakred in the past how Fukuyama seems bent on finding ways to prove that evil doesn’t exist, thus allwowing it to flourish, meanwhile declaring the west and it’s cultures and activities ‘evil’.  His clear disconnection from reality, in this case particularly in terms of Iran and its ‘election process’, is staggering in it’s implications for just about any other pronouncement he makes.

Ledeen’s article is timely, since as I suggested in yesterday’s Ramble, correct problem identification is step one in the solution process.  I’ll be interested in what his book has to say.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere…The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the “Tea”  Edition

• Savannah Tea Party: linked here.
• Palin continues:  Now, we hear Palin’s planning legal action on the smear we wrote of yesterday, here, and today at PJM.  This should ahve been no shock to anyone that it’d go down this way. Meanwhile the post at PJM continues to do a land office business. Apparently, there’s nothing like the truth to piss off the left. The sheer amount of spin going on in that comments section is enough to make one worry about the development of an artificial black hole.

• 

  Barack Obama

  Buyer’s Remorse:So now we’re starting to admit to ourselves that the plan was to eliminate private health coverage all along. We’ve even uncovered vid of Obama saying exactly that.  And Nancy Pelosi following suit, just recently. And Dingy Harry, as well. We also see that the promise about not raising taxes on the middle class was just so much moo muffins, too.   I hate to seem gouche, but… guys… you elected a socialist.  We’ve told you this right along. Why on earth would you be shocked that he would actually govern, … you know… as a socailist?

• Problem identification:  I’ve always considered correct problem identification key to problem rectification.  Billy looks at the poster to the left, here, and  says:
  

  I love it, but it’s just annotation. Amsoc is on a roll, now, and this sort of thing will have no bearing on it. Tammy is wrong. This is not “trouble” for Obama. It simply marks someone’s awareness of where we’re all going.

  Billy, I respect your thoughts, but frankly, I’m not so convinced. There’s a lot around the country to suggest the revolt is of far greater weight than Billy makes it. Clearly, folks have correctly identified the problem. What do you suppose the next step is? Speaking out, for example?

• A measure of the support Government healthcare has:
• The Revolt is spreading: I’d say offhand, Specter is in serious doo-doo, but I’d say the Democrats in general are. Wouldn’t you? I am reminded of an old Kristofferson performance, where he wasn’t too popular among the morons there… and he was quoted as saying he’d continue in spite of everything but rifle fire. And it’s been happening all over the country. Austin, for example  and Long Island for another (Vid)

To the best of may knowledge Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii in 1964.   That  is only my opinion.    Yet lame reporters, from the Lame Stream Media continue to attempt to report on their personal opinions as if they were facts    Case in point, Steven Benen, Washington Monthly:

THEY’LL NEVER STOP…. Last week, Hawaii’s health director apparently checked the president’s birth certificate again, and discovered that Obama was, in fact, born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, and “is a natural-born American citizen.” A nutty right-wing website, however, produced an obviously-fake document purporting to show that Obama was born in the “Republic of Kenya” in February 1964

Bensen has never seen this puported birth certificate.    Benen does not even know if his unindentied health director has, seen or verfied this supposed birth certificate.   Yet for reason or reasons, which Benen sees fit to obsure, Benen reports the “fact” that Obama was born in Hawaii.    As a free citizen, Benen is certainly entitled to his personal opinion.   However has a journalist, Benen is not entitled to report his personal opinion as if it were fact.  Do not report Obama campaign talking points as if they were facts.

Both David and myself have commented extensively on the divorce rumors surrounding Sarah Palin and her husband.

This morning, at Pajamas Media, I go little deeper with these issues surrounding the former Alaska governor, including her resignation:

Look at the “name in the paper” syndrome that followed Palin resigning her office and the stir that caused on the left. Not only did she reinforce her name recognition with that move with publicity you couldn’t buy from the dinosaur media at any price, but the press attacks on her actually brought out a lot of sympathy from grassroots types who don’t like and don’t trust the dinosaur media anyway.

I am beginning to think Palin played the press for fools on that one. All an accident? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Think of it in the following way. What could she have possibly done by plan or accident to get more press, more name recognition, and more favorable polling reactions from voters than resign as governor? That degree of success smacks to me of planning.

…

If she’s so much the idiot, what does it say about her attackers when they come away bloodied and broken after each attack attempt? Do you suppose it’s possible they’re desperate now and are tossing anything and everything at the wall hoping that something will eventually stick?

You get the idea. There’s far more, of course, at Pajamas Media.

Confirmed, the nation mocks Barack  Obama.  

Barack Obama

As seen on the streets of Los Angelos:

Barack Obama Joker poster

Hat tip photos: Founding Bloggers, and News Busters.

Donald Douglas, American Power, covers the birth  and death of an internet hoax:

Sarah Palin to Divorce? Left’s Biggest Fantasy-Smear Dead on Arrival

From the Christian Science Monitor, “Palin Getting a Divorce? Nope”:

Mr. and Mrs. Todd Palin

Hat tip  photo:  Conservatives4Palin.

Any women who would like to not talk to me in that tone of voice, please feel free.

Update I: Dennis adds the following update:

UPDATE! From Pamela Geller, “CNN Tells, Sells More Lies About Palin, it’s Time to Expose the Truth About Obama” (FULL CONTENT WARNING: PRESIDENT OBAMA’S MOTHER ANN DUNHAM SOFT-PORN PICS AT ATLAS SHRUGS!! LINKS BELOW!! – CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK!! – REPEAT!! CLICK ANN DUNHAM NUDE PICS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!):

The Palin camp has issued a statement decrying rumors of a Palin divorce being spread by Alaskan CNN stringer Dennis Zaki, sourced to an anonymous Anchorage blogger and the National Enquirer.

Let’s understand this, CNN won’t touch the birth certificate issue, the Rezko/Auchi corruption, his anti-semitism, ACORN/SEIU ties and corruption and legitimate stories that need investigation. But they write fiction about Palin. Daily. So why not tell the truth about Obama and his reported strange sexual predilections? My question is, it is well know[n] that Obama allegedly was involved with a crack whore in his youth. Very seedy stuff. Why aren’t they pursuing that story? Find the ho, give her a show! Obama trafficked in some very deviant practices, where’s the investigation?

Why isn’t CNN pursuing the nude pornographic of Obama’s mom, Stanley, (untouched pictures here and here and here) – I never ran the pics as it was unseemly and wasn’t relevant. But this assault on Palin is too disgusting. It’s time to tell the ugly truth about the enemy in the White House and their whores in the media. It’s Obama operatives spreading the Palin lies. They know we won’t play dirty, so it’s time to play dirty.

I strongly recommend that conservatives start sending emailing these family pictures taken by Obama’s spiritual father, Frank Marshall – child rapist and famous communist. I say when they ratchet up the lies, then we ratchet up the truth.

Now that’s what I’m taking about!

See, “Democratic Stimulus Funds Go to Perv-Porno Promotions: ‘Four Men, Three Women and a Gorilla’.”

It’s called two can play the game. And it’s about time. I’ve been wanting to take the gloves off for years, now. See also, heat, kitchen. It’s about to get a trifle warm.

Update II: (Eric) Sister Toldjah quips:

Hey, look, lefty bloggers are, once again, just making stuff up!

Yeah… who’d have thought it possible?  There is this, also ; If Palin is the idiot the left likes making her out to be, how is it they can’t use the truth in their attacks against her? Why is it they feel they must make stuff up?

Update III:   (David L)

I can’t recall so much todo bases on so little evidence.    Where is an  excerp by, Gryphen, the Immoral Minority from blog post which started it all:

Earlier this week one of my best sources claimed to have explosive new information for me.

It took all week for us to finally get together, but last night we finally sat down for an amazing conversation. And what I heard made my jaw drop.

According to my source Sarah is finished with Todd and has decided to end their marriage.

She has purchased land in Montana (I wonder whose donations paid for that?), and may be considering moving herself and the children as far away from Alaska as she can get.

I will not link the site.   The most respectable site linking the story appears to be the Puffington Post.   What does that tell you?    This is  a story that the neither the MSM or any respectable blogger will touch.

According to Gryphen the story, is attributed to a single unnamed source.    A divorce would be a legal proceeding.   Yet Gryphen makes utterly no reference to any legal documents.   This supposed,  or shall I say imagined, divorce is alleged to exist purely as Mrs. Palin’s unannounced, and yet unfiled, intentions.

Gryphen makes no mention how this insight into Mrs. Palin’s mind was somhow gleemed.   Not only is this imaginary source neither named, nor characterized,  neither is the nature of the source’s revelation.   Gryphen makes no reference to attempt confact either Todd or Sarah Palin for confirmation.    We have much to do about nothing.

As to this supposed Montana land purchase,  land transactions generate a paper trail.    Yet aside from being somewhere in the third biggest state in the nation, no information is provided about this imagined land deal.

In the words of Mrs. Palin, Gryphen is simply making things up.    What drives this non-story to the top of Memeorandum simply befuddles me.

So, this morning comes a note from “Think Progress”…. a website which contributes to neither thought, nor progress…  The article whines about a report from The Politico.  Says the amazingly accurately initialed TP:

This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. For example, in one incident, right-wing protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety.  This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. Recently, right-wing demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. Missing from the reporting of these stories is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.

Even assuming the rather ‘right wing conspiracy’ tone of the post, what they fail to mention in the article, of course, is the idea that these tactics are exactly every Republican  every one…  since Ike was President,  has dealt with from the left. It’s the left who removed civility from politics, decades ago under the guidence of Saul Alinsky.

When the tables get turned, we see the complaints from the left that for years were ignored when the right made them.  (Shrug) I  guess it’s only valid when the left does it.  Their own tactics are being used against them, and they’re uncomfortable… nigh paranoid, looking at TP of late.  Our here in the real world, if we  can take the polling as any indication, the left is already falling by  their own sword, used against them.

Tough.

The Thirteenth Amendment, to the Constitution of the United States:.

Section. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

From the Associated Press

NEW YORK — Hanqi Miao said she wanted to donate her eggs to help infertile couples reproduce, but she acknowledged the money is good, too: She said she’ll be paid about $5,000.

[…]

Soon, New York women will be able to donate their eggs not only to help others get pregnant, but also for stem cell research. And they’ll still be able to get reimbursement of up to $10,000 — paid for by taxpayers.

I do not, and will not, consent to owning slaves.  Will you?

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nigtly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the Flying School Edition Into each life a little plane must fall, I guess.

• WHO PAYS WHAT, AGAIN?: Caught a blast from the Tax Foundation, this morning, you’ll be interested in.
  

  Newly released data from the IRS clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the “rich” are not paying their fair share of taxes.Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.

  Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.

  To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.

  And they’re still saying the tax policy isn’t progressive enough…. that we’re not stealing enough from the ‘rich’.

• AND THEN THERE’S REALITY:  Despite the  huge taxation, and the huge spending, car dealers are concerned that the “Cash for Clunkers” program is falling apart for lack of money. The implications, here are far broader than just the car industry, of course.  Drudge links a WCBS/2 report wherein we see a car dealer suggesting that if they can’t administer a comparatively simple “Cash for Clunkers”, we may wanna rethink turning our healthcare over to them.  Gee… ya think? Government simply isn’t supposed to be DOING this stuff… and this is why.
• Speaking of Healthcare… Melissa Clouthier does her usual excellent job examining what happens when the government gets intot he exam room.
• THE WHITE HOUSE BEER FESTIVAL went off yesterday, as per schedule. A media circus, of course. What we have here is a White House looking for closure on Obama’s overtly racist display.  But…. nobody apologized. So it was all for show.  You knew that was the case when Biden decided to show up.  Something tells me his being there would put the squeeze on any gains that might have been made.  Oh.. and instead of calming the field, Obama’s dog and pony show actually added a new group of people annoyed with him… American Beer producers.  And that black cop who was in on the arrest… why wasn’t he invited?  Gee, I guess his attitide might have something to do with it…  Well done, Barry.
• CULTURES AND RESPECT: Phyllis Chesler is still on about the gang rape of an 8 year old in Phoenix, and rightly so.  I ask again… as I have so often in the past… On what basis do we claim that all cultures are equal?

Bitsblog is proud to invite the President of the United States, Barack Hussien Obama, to dine at the luxurious Casa del Bit,  from Politicio:

Insert photoshop here

Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office.

But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president.

Bring the strutting Delaware Blue Hen and bring plenty of cash.   We don’t take American Express.