Category Archives: politics

This is what real change looks like

It’s no longer the place bills go to die:

GOP doubles 2014’s Senate votes in under 3 weeks

Acting on a promise to put the Senate back to work after a lazy 2014 when just 15 assorted amendments were debated in the grand body, the new GOP leadership has pushed through 38 amendment votes in less than three weeks.

The return to regular business is a success for the GOP leadership, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who promised an end to the chokehold that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had on the body last year when he was the majority leader.

The shift has promised much more action in Congress, said Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Whip.

[…]

“One number that’s really interesting is the number 24,” said Scalise on Tuesday. “Yesterday marked 24 different amendments that have been voted on by the Senate. That is more amendment votes than the Senate took in the entire 2014 calendar year. On one bill over the course of three weeks, the Senate has already had more amendments on the floor that have been voted on than all of 2014.”

Change you can believe in

Cartoon - China Number One Economy

We’re Number Two

The U.S. was the world’s number one economy prior to World War II, but it took off bigtime after the war and there has not been a day of my long life in which we were not number one—until now.

The International Monetary Fund recently released its calculations regarding the world’s economy and concluded that China is the number one economy, producing $17.6 trillion in terms of goods and services, as compared with the U.S. producing $17.4 trillion. It’s not an overwhelming gap, but it is a warning that our economy is going in the wrong direction and has been before and since the financial crisis of 2008.

GOP Joins Team Obama

Disgusting. I’m not even sure the moniker “Democrat Lite” is sufficiently descriptive of these RINO pukes, as they’ve basically grabbed their ankles and let 0bama have his way with them. They were voted in to stop his lawlessness, but now they’ve gone and done this:

GOP Joins Team Obama

The merger of the RNC with the DNC has begun. Led by John Boehner 162 House Republicans voted to join Team Obama and become part of the problem. Conservatives across the nation are fuming over the betrayal handed to them by the Republican Party and are left wondering if the GOP is worth saving. For years we have contemplated the possibility of leaving the GOP and forming a new political party that would be more to our liking, and now that the GOP has responded to an overwhelming mandate to end Obama’s amnesty by totally surrendering to his wishes, it appears we may now have no other choice.

Make no mistake, it is no longer Obama’s amnesty plan, it has now become Washington’s amnesty plan. By voting to fund the program the GOP has become complicit in the President’s illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral scheme. Contrary to what some may believe, Boehner did not push this bill through because he feared being blamed for a government shutdown; he did so because he wants to pass amnesty just as much as Obama does. John Boehner and the establishment Republicans represent the wishes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce rather than the people who voted them into office.

If I wanted the Democrats in charge, I would’ve voted for the bastards. What good is voting for Republicans, though, if they’re going to squander the mandate they were given little more than a month ago? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just tell Weepy Boner and his minions to FOAD, go down to the elections office, and ditch the Republican affiliation I’ve maintained for over 20 years. Democrats are still abhorrent on social and cultural issues, so there’s a snowball’s chance in hell I’d ever throw in with them, but on the more existential issues that we face, I can’t find a dime’s worth of difference between the two. They’re both treating the Constitution like toilet paper. The Democrats do this by actively dismantling the rule of law, while the Republicans do this passively by not putting an end to the Democrats’ shenanigans. Either course leads to the same foul end.

On the excesses of feminism

It’s long past time for the feminists to sit down, STFU, and get some perspective before they further embarrass themselves:

Dr Matt Taylor’s shirt made me cry, too – with rage at his abusers

Except, of course, that he wasn’t crying with relief. He wasn’t weeping with sheer excitement at this interstellar rendezvous. I am afraid he was crying because he felt he had sinned. He was overcome with guilt and shame for wearing what some people decided was an “inappropriate” shirt on television. “I have made a big mistake,” he said brokenly. “I have offended people and I am sorry about this.”

I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology – at the moment of his supreme professional triumph – and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people.

Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations.

Making the case against net neutrality

tl;dr: It’s another instance of the government butting in with a cure worse than the alleged disease:

Here’s What ‘Net Neutrality’ Is… and What to Think About It

Simply put, net neutrality is the principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally. So your internet service provider, under a system of net neutrality, isn’t allowed to send some kinds of data to you faster. It has to treat everything the same—even if you wouldn’t mind, for example, slower emails if it meant smooth HD video on YouTube.

It also means that no one can pay to get their services to you quicker: Amazon can’t make its on-demand video services more attractive by outbidding Netflix so it can stream to you in higher quality. Finally, all applications and websites are treated the same—so if your internet connection is choppy, your service provider can’t prioritise Spotify to ensure smooth music playback.

In other words, it’s a bit of a drag. It limits a service provider’s freedom to operate their networks as they see fit, to provide customers with the best service, and it stops those providers offering higher-priced packages to heavy data users so they can enjoy a fast lane for Netflix without slowing down their neighbours’ connections. Product differentiation is one the main ways companies compete with one another, and providers will be denied that if net neutrality becomes law.

So why do so many people treat net neutrality as an article of faith? Well, the clue’s in those last three words, because most of the arguments in favour of neutrality have a suspicious ring of dogma about them—and most factual claims offered up to support neutrality don’t entirely stand up to scrutiny.

14 Ways Obamacare Is Still A Disaster That You Won’t Learn From Vox

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14 Ways Obamacare Is Still A Disaster That You Won’t Learn From Vox

Here’s the short list…go to the article for the details:

  1. Premium Increases
  2. Exchange Subsidy Roller Coaster
  3. Reducing the Quality of Insurance
  4. Slashing Quality of Employer-Provided Insurance
  5. Here Come the Trial Lawyers!
  6. Enrollees Are Older and Sicker than Average
  7. People Dropping Exchange Coverage Are the Ones Exchanges Need Most
  8. The Exchanges Benefit Big Business at the Expense of Smaller Businesses
  9. Policy Cancellation Déjà Vu
  10. Medical Research Has Tanked
  11. Medicaid Still Provides Terrible Care for the Poor
  12. The Deficit Will Increase $131 Billion in the Next Ten Years
  13. Fewer Jobs for Low-Wage Workers
  14. More Economic Woes Ahead

I can corroborate point with my own experience. When our policy renewed in mid-2013, we had a choice to make: accept a switch from PPO coverage to HMO coverage for roughly the same price, or accept a 4x rate increase to keep PPO coverage.  At the time, there was a possibility that Tabitha might need to switch to my insurance if she had to quit her job due to her illness.  Her oncologist was available through the PPO, but not the HMO, so we bit the bullet and took the more-expensive option.  I’ve since switched to the HMO plan; it’s inferior coverage compared to the PPO plan, but since I’m not really using it, why spend more than I must?

The 2014 renewal fortunately didn’t include further alterations of the deal.  Who knows what 2015 will bring, though?  Horror stories like those described in the article would make it awfully tempting to  cancel coverage altogether, and to tell whatever goons the feral government sends by to GFY.

Old? White? Men?

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those (I’m two out of three, though Tabitha would’ve argued I’m all three):

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From left to right: Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Mia Love (R-UT), Joni Ernst (R-IA).