Three Branches, Three Stooges, Three Strikes?

Over the weekend, Chuck Schumer (Democrat) talked about the three branches of government on CNN - the President, the Senate and the Congress. To quote Sarah Palin, WTF???

Hey Chuck, here's a visual aid for you.

Clear?  It's not the Three Stooges, it's not the three ships Christopher Columbus came over to the New World in, and it's not the Three Strikes law.  In other words, dude, you forgot the Supreme Court.  Maybe it was wishful thinking on your part, but it was just wrong.  It's not like you are Chris Matthews and you happen to think the Panama Canal is in Egypt rather than Panama.  

What's my point? Are conservatives being petty?  Maybe in Chris Matthews' case because he's petty in that regard and tit-for-tat might feel good.  With regard to Matthews, it'd be nice to say okay, we can rise above hyper-partisanship, and overlook obvious speaking errors if you can do the same.  Whether it can happen is another question.

But in the case of Schumer, all his smugness aside, he REALLY should know better, and he should know the three branches of government.  That's like forgetting there's three strikes in baseball.  That's an error that's really confounding.  Let's hope Schumer can add some clarity as to why he said that, because a man in his position should know better.  A slip like that would lead you to believe he may have voted on the health care bill without reading it because it seems he like he hasn't read the Constitution.

Pelosi, Chocolate, and the Air Force

Pelosi, gone but sadly not forgotten.

Obamacare deemed unconstitutional. Duh.

Ya  think?

Spoiler alert - this ain't over. In any case, some comforting analysis for conservatives, Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post hits the nail on the head;

Liberal pundits who have consulted liberal law professors about liberals' great achievement -- ObamaCare -- are pronouncing the ruling by Judge Roger Vinson to be much to do about nothing. The ruling is. . . um. . . thinking of a case liberals hate.. um... just like Bush v. Gore ! (Except it has nothing to do with the Equal Protection Clause or any other aspect of that case.) It is, we are told, "curious," "odd," or "unconventional."

These are complaints, not legal arguments. And they suggest that the left was totally unprepared for the Constitutional attack on their beloved handiwork. After all, the recent mocking by the left of conservatives' reverence for the Constitution suggests they are mystified that a 200-year old document could get in the way of their historic achievement. They are truly nonplussed, and so they vamp, not with reasoned analysis but with an outpouring of adjectives.

Liberals are particularly perturbed by Judge Vinson's ruling on severability, the determination as to whether the individual mandate is so central to the law as to make the law unrecognizable and unenforceable without it. But here, the left has only the administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress to blame.

Don't Sweat Obamacare - Get Exemptions

Don't sweat Obamacare. Those who were most vocal in backing it seem to have found the solution: opt out. Get an exemption and you don't need to worry. More and more exemptions have been granted and the interesting part is who is on that list.

From the Washington Times:

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)...

The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?

The problem is, this solution is only a temporary reprieve. What makes this the case is that the exemptions and the non-exemptions are all about insurance and not medical care. People talk about nationalized health care as if it's a takeover of the doctors and hospitals. It's not - it's a takeover of the insurance industry as a first step on the march towards single payer coverage. At that point, the government becomes a monopoly and would indeed dictate to the medical industry as well what is and isn't allowed.

Those who pushed for this have set themselves up to be the next in line to be dictated as to what coverage medical care they can receive. An exemption today is not going to be worth the paper it is written on in a few years time if Obamacare isn't rolled back.

Constructive criticism of Obama on Egypt

President Obama appeared effete and indecisive when it came to the uprising in Iran.  The result - the hard-line regime is still in place. Contrast that with President Reagan on the uprisings across Europe, from Gdansk Poland (where there is a park named after the former President) to East Berlin.  Remember the words "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"?

Remember President Kennedy's "Ich Ben Ein Berliner"?

The point is that both men understood the importance of history and not being caught like a deer in the headlights.  President Obama was non-existent in the Iran crisis, and he seemed extremely slow or disinterested in the Gulf oil spill.  Now, something potentially game-changing is going on in Egypt, and from the White House?  Crickets.

Here's some constructive criticism for the President.  On Egypt - do something.  Anything.  At this point it is abundantly clear to most that if something doesn't fit into your agenda (especially when it comes to international affairs) then it's a trivial matter for you.  But if you do something, anything, even if you get it wrong, you can't be accused of voting 'present' for what could be one of the biggest international events in your presidency.  You'll probably get it wrong, but you'll get more respect at home for doing something than for doing nothing.  Rather than sitting on the sidelines waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before you choose a side, stand up for something.  If you really believed in freedom, democracy and human rights, the choice would be pretty simple.  If an ally who isn't as democratic as you'd like is more important to you than democracy in Egypt, there's a rationale for that too. Except that it would prove a certain hypocrisy on your part when you make decisions as a matter of national interest rather than principle (say for example when it comes to something like keeping the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay open).

Whatever you do it won't change most people's opinion of you, so what's the harm in taking a side?

When to believe Obama's serious about spending cuts

As much as I'd like to say never and just leave it at that, there is a slim chance that the President was serious when he mentioned during his most recent State of the Union, practically in passing, that cutting government spending was important.  He spent most of the speech talking about investing the future (spending).  So it's hard to take the President seriously when he pays lip service to spending cuts.  A record $1.5 trillion dollar government deficit for the current fiscal year doesn't lend any credence to it either. So how, or when would it be possible to take President Obama seriously on the issue that is most serious to the country right now?

That's easy. When he starts talking out of the same side of his mouth as he did less than one year ago when he talked about PAYGO - pay as you go - for government spending.  The idea is simple - no new spending should be submitted for his signature unless it is accompanied by either a commensurate spending cut elsewhere or a tax increase so that there is no new deficit spending when something new is done.  That might work if the government were in a more revenue neutral position and not a huge deficit situation.  However, at least there was some logic to it in terms of not compounding the error of excessive government spending.  So Obama 2011 is at odds with Obama 2010 as seen here;

When should we believe President Obama is serious about curbing government spending?  Not for a long time.  He doesn't agree with dramatic cuts because in the latest state of the union address he talked about spending more (what he termed investments) and he couldn't seemingly even reconcile with his own revenue neutral rhetoric from February of last year.  If he were to pay for those new investments with cuts to entitlements it would certainly start to look like spending was on his radar. After all, that probably represents the biggest opportunity to offset net new costs.

Sorry Mr. President, I for one do not accept your words on the debt and deficit at face value.  I can't yet tell you when it might be feasible to believe Obama's serious about spending cuts, but I can safely say that now, is not the time.