7thriv

The One Giveth, And The One Taketh

Jeez, another Republican debate? These might be coming too rapid-fire to be effective, but apparently this was a good one with Romney and Bachmann coming on strong, Perry getting bloodied, and the second-tier guys each getting their licks in. Newt Gingrich, again, had one of the good lines of the evening, this time on the topic of scaring seniors with talk of reforming Social Security:

Great line by Newt, Obama scares seniors every day. He made a strong substantive point, which is that why should be have to live in a system where a President can threaten to withhold social security benefits. It goes to the heart of individual autonomy. My wife responded, “Newt for V.P.” I think he’s earning that spot but may also be the comeback kid in this primary season.

How easily Republicans forget that, for all the talk that they want to "destroy" Social Security - and with it America - the only president who has ever come close to refusing to send out checks was the great progressive hope Barack Obama. Obama has actually been threatening the credibility and viability of Social Security from two directions. His threats during the debt ceiling debate to refuse to send out checks was an acknowledgement that the "trust fund" is little more than a lock box full of empty promises. His repeated use of cuts in the payroll tax as his only (grudging) acceptance of tax-cuts-as-stimulus threatens the very funding of the program itself. No Republican would dare to do either of these things without first putting on some aesbestos underwear to protect against the liberal politico-media onslaught, but Obama knows he can get away with it.

These are the times you realize Obama is truly a sinister figure: once ensconced in office, the smiling "pragmatic moderate" of 2008 has become a cruel tyrant, blithely frightening old people about cutting off the lifeline that Democrats have spent decades conditioning people to count on. It's literally a living example of the old Ford line about a government that can give you everything you want, can also take it all away.

Waste On Waste: CA's Useless Reform of its Green Laws

The headline says "(CA) Lawmakers OK Bill To Soften Environmental Reviews" and CA Greens are making the expected noise about the destruction of the Earth as a result of the pathetic efforts of Sacramento Democrats, but don't believe it.

California lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would soften parts of a landmark, 4-decade-old environmental law and could pave the way for the quick approval of large developments across the state.
In the final hours of the year's legislative session, Democrats pushed through a measure that would give the governor the power to speed up the environmental review process on some large construction projects, including sports stadiums and green manufacturing plants. It was sent to the governor late Friday.
...

If signed by the governor, AB900 would allow projects costing $100 million or more to request streamlined judicial review under the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. That law, passed in 1970, requires public agencies to identify the environmental impacts of construction and other projects and mitigate them.

This is nothing more than standard New Deal-style corporatism. It's a gift to labor unions, big developers, and a few urban pols who want to build sports arenas. The bill's main proponents are city fathers in Sacramento, who want to build a new basketball arena, and the city of Los Angeles, which wants to build a new football stadium. Liberals are the "smart" party, of course, so I guess they know something about economic benefits (economically, they are a loser) of the public funding of sports stadiums that the rest of us don't know.

The bill's limitations are a cruel joke. You need to have a project costing at least $100 million in order to qualify for expedited review. So a dry-cleaner who wants to expand his business, or a developer who wants to build a dozen homes, has to go through every regulatory hoop in creation, while billionaire sport team owners, and their political patrons, sail through.

We don't need $100 million sports arenas or solar panel plants (the bill's proponents are talking grandly about how "green" factories can also benefit from streamlined review, as if the Solyndra BK happened in an alternate reality). We need hundreds of little "developments" - AKA new businesses - that provide permanent jobs, not temporary jobs for a few thousand construction union members. But, Democrats don't understand economics, they understand politics. And politics says the opportunities for graft and corruption lie in "big" projects, not small business.

If you want to reform CA's environmental laws, you need to get rid of them (and the state's enforcement agencies) and rely on federal law, which is bad enough, but would still be an improvement.

The Broken Clock: Jerry Brown Gets One Right

Gov. Brown put on his "maverick" hat, and vetoed a bill sponsored by SF State Senator (and mayoral hopeful) Leland Yee that would have mandated that kids wear helmets while skiing. Along the way he had this to say:

"While I appreciate the value of wearing a ski helmet, I am concerned about the continuing and seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state. Not every human problem deserves a law."

Amen and a half. Needless to say, the bill's proponents did not agree:

Supporters were quick to criticize the veto, pointing out that Brown's Republican predecessor supported an identical bill last year and that the bill mirrored existing bicycle helmet laws for children. Jo Linder Crow, executive director of the California Psychological Association, said Brown "chose to ignore the scientific evidence (and) the ski industry's support."

Wow, so the science is "settled" and "industry" supports it! Also Schwarzenegger supported an "identical" bill! How could Brown resist this avalanche of appeals to authority?I'm guessing it was easy enough. Some things are too dumb, even for government.

Obama's Enron? The FBI Raids Solyndra

Unbelievable. A week after Bay Area solar panel company filed for bankruptcy, the FBI has raided the Green company's corporate offices.

FBI agents executed search warrants Thursday at the California headquarters of Solyndra LLC, which was awarded more than $500 million in federal stimulus loans in 2009 to make solar panels in what the Obama administration called part of an aggressive effort to put more Americans to work and end U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
But the firm filed a bankruptcy petition Tuesday in Delaware, shedding more than 900 full-time employees, leaving just a “core group” of 113 employees, according to bankruptcy records.
FBI spokesman Peter D. Lee said multiple search warrants were served at the company’s Fremont, Calif., headquarters in what he called a joint investigation by the FBI and the Energy Department's Office of Inspector General. But he said he could not provide any details about the ongoing probe.
Energy spokeswoman Karen Sulier confirmed that the department was involved in the investigation but would not elaborate. Solyndraspokesman David Miller said the company was cooperating in the investigation but did not know the reason for the search.
News of the raid prompted key Republicans in Congress, who already were investigating the loan to the company, to issue a statement calling for answers from the company.

The right-wing paranoia aspect of this raid is that the feds are not seeking evidence, but grabbing incriminating documents and sequestering them in the Justice Department. Eh.

Better is the progressive criminality aspect, which is so delicious it's almost chocolate flavored. Conservatives have to listen to liberals talk about how smart they are, how rational they are; and, contrariwise, how dumb and "anti-science" we are. But, I don't remember conservative leaders lining up to praise the expenditure of public money on a corporation that could not make it in the market place on its own, but was able to collect $500 million because its executives were Obama donors. You know how there's "book smart" and then there's "street smart?" This is Exhibit A.

There's also a report out there that Solyndra executives visited the White House no less than 20 times, no doubt bringing extra bags to carry all of that stimulus money that Barak Obama, Joe Biden, and Steven Chu noisily gave them. Honestly, these guys would have been perp-walked in orange jumpsuits during a Republican administration, while liberals railed about Republican corruption. But, at least we don't countenance a fraud like green jobs.

Mythopedia

On a night when MSNBC provided a forum for a Republican presidential debate, this essay about the dumb things liberals believe about conservatives is worth a few rueful chuckles:

Myth #3: The Republican party is moving to the right. When things go wrong for liberals, as they did in last November’s elections, and politics seems especially divisive, it is never because liberals have moved out of the mainstream. There’s only one possible explanation: Republicans must be moving to the right. But in 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected, Republicans stood for lower taxes, less federal spending, smaller deficits, less government regulation, a strong defense, free trade, limits on abortion, and First and Second Amendment rights. Sound familiar? This is the platform of today’s Republicans. The Democratic party, however, has careened far to the left. Who in 1980 could have imagined today’s federal budget of $3.6 trillion, 25 percent of GDP? Or today’s deficit of $1.3 trillion, up from just $161 billion in 2007? Or today’s national debt of $15 trillion? Or today’s defense spending below 4 percent of GDP? Or government control of health care and automobile companies and banks? Or marriage itself redefined? Who’s kidding whom here?

That's a point that can't be emphasized enough. Reagan was the most popular Republican of my lifetime, winning elections not through tactics and "Southern Strategies," but through his strong conservative message, one that could appeal to voters now, of only there was one Republican willing to run on it.

Protest Re-Test: Anonymous Prepares For More BART Protests

The Anonymous protesters say they will be returning to the breach and will disrupt BART service in downtown San Francisco this Thursday during the evening rush hour. The plan is simple, but the rationale is incomprehensible.

BART protesters vowed to block the fare gate exits at the Powell Street Station Thursday in a direct confrontation with transit district officials.
A handful of demonstrators gathered in front of the Civic Center fare gates Monday to detail their plans for Thursday's planned protest.
By shutting down the fare gates at 5 p.m. Thursday, the protesters hope to force BART officials to open the emergency gates and let passengers at the station leave without paying their fares, said Krystof Lopaur, an organizer for No Justice, No BART.
If BART officials refuse to open the fare gates for the protests, as they would after a baseball game, then it will prove that their main concern isn't public safety, but blocking the protest, Lopaur said.

That's right! If you don't release trapped commuters, then you must hate free speech and civil rights! Wow, how will BART officials cut through this Gordian Knot? Uh, can I suggest arresting these idiots and actually charging them with a crime that will keep them in jail for more than two hours?

(btw, I don't get this idea that BART should open the fare gates "as they would after a baseball game." BART doesn't go anywhere near the SF ballpark. As for Oakland's baseball stadium, I've taken BART to A's games several times and never gone through an open fare gate).

As I've explained before, these repetitive protests arise from the shooting of a drunken bum who committed suicide by BART cop back in July. But, the protests really took on a life of their own when BART officials turned off the wi-fi in some stations after it became clear that protesters were coordinating their actions - which included climbing on trains and blocking doors - via Blackberry and Facebook. Turns out that there is a constitutional right to wi-fi access in public transportation systems, even when the "speech" at issue is criminal. Thanks for the update, guys.

These are some of the least attractive, least sympathetic protesters I've even seen. Their cause is not just. Indeed, it's ridiculous. Yet, no one seems able to stop them. They announced their latest action at a BART station, for Heaven's sake! I know San Franciscans are supposed to be liberal, but I can guarantee that nobody will mind if, just this once, these protesters get a whiff of grapeshot, or the 21st century equivalent.