The U. K. Daily Mail reported yesterday that U. S. border guards arrested Said Jaziri, a Muslim cleric, trying to sneak into the United States in the trunk of a Mexican BMW.

According to the article:

“Said Jaziri, who called for the death of a Danish cartoonist that drew pictures of the prophet Mohammed, was being smuggled into California when he was arrested, along with his driver Kenneth Robert Lawler.”

It would be interesting to know exactly where he was headed.  According to the story, Mr. Jaziri had paid a Tijuana-based smuggling cartel $5,000 to take him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a ‘safe place anywhere in the U.S.’

Mr. Jaziri was deported from Canada to Tunisia in 2007 after it was discovered that he had lied on his refugee application about having served time in jail in France.

It would be interesting to know who else is attempting to sneak across the southern border of the United States.

Stratfor Global Intelligence is reporting today that their sources in Hamas have given them the information in italics below.  They also point out that Hamas has an interest in exaggerating its role in the crisis in Egypt and also exaggerating its coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood. 

The website reports the following unconfirmed, but important information:

“The Egyptian police are no longer patrolling the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Hamas armed men are entering into Egypt and are closely collaborating with the MB. The MB has fully engaged itself in the demonstrations, and they are unsatisfied with the dismissal of the Cabinet. They are insisting on a new Cabinet that does not include members of the ruling National Democratic Party.

“Security forces in plainclothes are engaged in destroying public property in order to give the impression that many protesters represent a public menace. The MB is meanwhile forming people’s committees to protect public property and also to coordinate demonstrators’ activities, including supplying them with food, beverages and first aid.”

I am simply not optimistic about what is happening in Egypt.  Frankly I don’t think it will matter to the United States or Israel whether or not the current government stands.  I think we are entering a very dangerous period in the entire Middle East–with problems in Lebanon and Jordan, as well as Egypt–that is going to last for a while and have a very uncertain outcome.  Until a group of democracies and free countries forms to help spread freedom and to deal with those who deny freedom to their citizens, freedom will not expand. I believe that was the original intention of the United Nations, but somewhere along the way they got lost.  The outcome of what is happening in Egypt is much more likely to be in tune with Iran than with America.

As I write this, the internet is shut down in Egypt, so there is very limited information available on what is going on there.  There is, however, some good perspective from people who have studied the country for years. 

Yesterday, Caroline Glick posted an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post on the situtation in Egypt.  She points out that Mohamed El Baradei is participating in the anti-government demonstrations (although at one point he was under house arrest), and is seen as the ‘presidential hopeful’ amid the chaos.  Mohamed El Baradei was the man who looked the other way as Iran developed its nuclear program.  He is not a moderate Muslim. 

Ms. Glick points out:

“His actions won him the support of the Iranian regime which he continues to defend. Just last week he dismissed the threat of a nuclear armed Iran, telling the Austrian News Agency, “There’s a lot of hype in this debate,” and asserting that the discredited 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that claimed Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 remains accurate.

“Elbaradei’s support for the Iranian ayatollahs is matched by his support for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is an international group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Case in 2004.  The documents uncovered in that case revealed that the .
agenda to be carried out by these groups in the United States in reality had little to do with the organizations’ publicly-proclaimed goals, such as protecting the civil rights of Muslims. Rather, the true goal is to destroy the United States from the inside and work to establish a global Islamist society.

John Waage at CBN News posted an article yesterday stating that:

“Egypt’s next leader might be inclined to embrace Hamas and press harder for an end to Israel’s naval embargo of the Gaza Strip.

“The Egyptian populace is solidly anti-American and anti-Israel. One political party wants to abrogate Egypt’s 1977 peace treaty with Israel. The next leader may need to play to those sentiments to solidify power.

“Also, if freer and fairer elections take place there, they could well produce a similar result as the Palestinian elections in 2006, when the citizens handily elected Hamas.”

Meanwhile, the peace accord struck between Israel and Egypt that resulted in Israel’s giving up the Sinai Peninsula also paved the way for America to arm Egypt to the teeth. 

Ms. Glick reminds us:

“Owing to that US (military) aid, the Egyptian military today makes the military Israel barely defeated in 1973 look like a gang of cavemen. Egypt has nearly 300 F-16s. Its main battle tank is the M1A1 which it produces in Egypt. Its navy is the largest in the region. Its army is twice the size of the IDF. Its air defense force constitutes a massive threat to the IAF. And of course, the ballistic missiles and chemical weapons it has purchased from the likes of North Korea and China give it a significant stand-off massdestruction capability.”

I am not sure there is a good outcome to the protests in Egypt.  The current leadership does not support freedom, but the potential new leadership will not support freedom either and will be more dangerous to the supporters of freedom around the world.  At some point the world is going to have to take a really good look at the goal of some of the militant Muslims to set up a world-wide caliphate. The countries who support freedom will have to decide how to unify against that goal.  I don’t think we are there yet.  I am not even sure we are truly aware of the problem.

To look at the documents presented in the Holy Land Foundation Case that detailed the intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood, you can go to Justice.gov, the website of the United States Justice Department.

Wired.com reported yesterday that a would-be suicide bomber was killed in Russia on New Year’s Eve when her wireless carrier sent her an SMS (Short Message Service) text wishing her a Happy New Year.  The message set off the explosives in the safe house where she was preparing for the attack, killing her. 

The article reports:

“The authorities suspect the female bomber was part of the same Jihadist group that is suspected of hitting Moscow’s airport on Monday with a suicide bomb attack that killed 35.”

This is not all that unusual or new.  There is a very old book called THE GANG THAT COULDN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT about wars between the organized crime families in New York City during the 1960’s that had a similar incident where a ‘family’ member was carrying a bomb with a remote control device in order to place it under a gang rival’s car.  Someone made a call on some sort of short wave radio and that was the end of the bomb and the bomb placer.

The Hill‘s Energy and Environmental Blog is reporting today that a draft Environmental Protection Agency report “concludes that expanded production of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel carries an array of ecological risks in the U.S. and other nations, and calls for improved policies to mitigate these harms.”

Wouldn’t it be easier just to develop our nation’s carbon energy resources and be done with it?  (The devil you know, etc.) 

A 2007 energy law includes a requirement that a new analysis of the ecological effects of expanding the development of biofuels be done.  The article reports:

“The report comes as ethanol is already under attack from some environmentalists, and lawmakers seeking to strip tax subsidies. But renewable fuels are valued as a way to displace oil reliance and boost rural economies, and retain powerful political support on Capitol Hill.

“Elsewhere, the report addresses effects on wildlife and habitat. “Increased cultivation of feedstocks for biofuel could significantly affect biodiversity through habitat alteration when uncultivated land is put into production,” it states, also noting risks of plant and animal exposure to pesticides, nutrient runoff into waters and other effects.”

This is another journey into the world of unintended consequences.  There will come a day when America can be weaned from her dependence on carbon fuel.  However, that day will come as a result of a free market and the removal of some of the choking federal regulations that impact businesses.  In the past, an idea was not generally successful the first time it was attempted, but inventors and companies understood the rewards of trying something until they achieved success.  When the government overtaxes and overregulates, creativity decreases.  Government subsidies do not create inventions and innovations, they inhibit them. 

I am not a particularly mechanical person.  My children are impressed that I finally learned how to work the VCR.  Now I find out that VCR’s are no longer sold–you have to get DVD players.  This could be a problem.

Anyway, I never considered some of the unexpected consequences of the electric or hybrid car.  I don’t own a hybrid (Ford doesn’t seem to make the Mustang in hybrid), so I was somewhat surprised when I read the article in today’s Washington Post about the effects of cold weather on battery-operated or hybrid cars. 

The article quotes another article at the car electric:

“All batteries deliver their power via a chemical reaction inside the battery that releases electrons. When the temperature drops the chemical reactions happen more slowly and the battery cannot produce the same current that it can at room temperature. A change of ten degrees can sap 50% of a battery’s output. In some situations the chemical reactions will happen so slowly and give so little power that the battery will appear to be dead when in fact if it is warmed up it will go right back to normal output. . . . “

That doesn’t sound like something that would work extremely well in New England or northern Minnesota.  Why, then, is the government pushing hybrid or electric cars? 

The Washington Post reports in its article:

“In his address Tuesday, the president reiterated his goal of putting 1 million plug-in hybrids and all-electrics on the road by 2015 and insisted that Congress spend hundreds of millions of additional dollars to achieve it. At present, fewer than 5,000 electrics are out there, so auto companies would have to make and sell about a quarter of a million vehicles annually between now and 2015 to meet his target.”

In his pursuit of choosing winners and losers in the American economy, President Obama has chosen the manufacturers of electric cars as winners.  As usual, the free market is ignored and this will become another federal boondoggle.  Buying an electric car in the northern part of the country is not something that is without problems.  The President’s intentions may be noble, but, as usual, there are unintended consequences.

I reported on Tuesday (rightwinggranny.com) that 222 business, unions, organizations, etc., had been granted waivers from Obamacare.  Well, Hot Air reported yesterday that the number has grown to 729 through the end of December. 

The article reports:

“I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that OCIIO (Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight) was asked to hold this development until after the SOTU. Indeed the latest waiver approved in the list is from December 30th. There is an addendum at the bottom of the page noting that four states-Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee-have applied for waivers covering another 93,000 people. The addendum is dated 1/21/11, but I can assure you it was not there on 1/21 or even Monday.”

If Obamacare is so great, why do we have waivers covering 2.2 million people?  Why are these people getting waivers?  Why aren’t you and I getting waivers?

Yahoo News posted an Associated Press story yesterday about the new regulations the Obama Administration is placing on the coal industry.  According to the administration’s own experts, the new rules will cost thousands of jobs and slash production across the country.

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) is replacing the Bush-era rules which set up buffer zones around streams and were aimed mainly at mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. 

The article reports:

“”Neither the environmental impact statement nor the administrative record that OSM has developed over 30-plus year of regulation … justify the sweeping changes that they’re proposing to make,” West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection official Thomas Clarke told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “I’ve had OSM technical people who are concerned with stream impacts and outside contractors for OSM who are subcontractors on the EIS give me their opinion that the whole thing’s a bunch of junk.””

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, D-W.Va, has said that he will do everything he can to block these new regulations.

The article reports:

“Manchin already plans to introduce legislation to curb the powers of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which recently vetoed a permit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had long ago issued for Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County.”

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.  To shut down or increase restrictions on the coal industry is not a wise move for the American economy, particularly during a recession.   This is another example of the government picking economic winners and losers–which is not the job of the government.

There are two sources for this article, an article by Ed Morrissey posted at Hot Air yesterday and an article posted at Yahoo News yesterday.

Rham Emanuel’s name has been put back on the ballot for Mayor of Chicago due to a stay issued by the Illinois Supreme Court. 

Mr. Morrissey at Hot Air reports:

“The Illinois Supreme Court has granted Rahm Emanuel’s stay. Which means he’s back on the ballot.

“Earlier today Emanuel’s spokesman Ben Labolt said the mayoral candidate had plans to turn to the U.S. Supreme Court if he didn’t receive a favorable ruling from the state.”

Yahoo News reports:

“Illinois’ highest court agreed Tuesday to decide whether Rahm Emanuel can run for Chicago Mayor, and justices ordered election officials not to print any ballots without his name until they rule on the case.

“The action bought valuable time for the former White House chief of staff, who a day earlier was kicked off the ballot by an appeals court. The state Supreme Court said it would expedite the matter but gave no specific time frame.

“With less than a week to go before the first early ballots are cast, a number of potential scenarios loomed, including the possibility that Emanuel would have to resort to a write-in campaign or wage a desperate bid to take the matter to federal court.”

Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, but this is Chicago and Illinois politics.  I can’t imagine Rham Emanuel being barred from running even if he were a little green man from Mars.  He is part of the political machine in Chicago, regardless of whether or not he has lived there during the past two years.  This may be a very interesting case to follow.  I think it may be safe to say, even at this point, that Rham Emanuel will be the next Mayor of Chicago.  I have no idea how that will happen, I just believe it will.

Chris Field at Townhall.com posted an interesting comment on the President’s State of the Union Speech.  Mr. Field quotes the President as saying:

“We measure progress by the success of our people. By the jobs they can find and the quality of life those jobs offer. By the prospects of a small business owner who dreams of turning a good idea into a thriving enterprise. By the opportunities for a better life that we pass on to our children.”

Mr. Field points out that in the above statement “the president made the Right’s case for eliminating the Death Tax.”  If the American dream is to pass on your wealth to your children, why are the Democrats so intent on taking that wealth away from you when you die?  How many family farms or small businesses had to be sold to pay the death tax because the wealth of the business was not in liquid assets?  President Obama, if you understand that the American dream is a better life for our children, why are you trying to take that dream away from us?

One of the major problems with the Obama Administration is that they seem to make a habit of using the government to pick winners and losers.  For example, the unions were the winners in the Chrysler bailout, the stockholders were the losers.  They ignored existing bankruptcy laws when they did that.  They have picked the American energy producers as losers–the development and use of America’s energy resources has been either serverly cut back or stopped by this administration.  One of the winners they have picked is General Electric.  Now General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt is to lead the President’s new jobs council.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an article about what the federal government and General Electric have in common.

President Obama has stated that he wants to economy to grow.  The article at the Wall Street Journal points out:

“Step back for a minute from the day to day policy fights and consider how an economy can grow faster. One way is to get people to work harder or longer. The government can contribute here with policies that reward work and investment, such as lower taxes.

“A second route to faster growth is innovation, which means inventions or new processes that increase productivity. Government can help with money for basic research, but private investment, human ingenuity and luck are the main drivers.

“The third way is through the more efficient use of capital, both human and monetary. These resources are scarce in any economy, and growth will be fastest if they are allowed to find their highest return. If resources are allocated to less productive uses or create asset bubbles due to bad policy, then overall growth will be slower than it should be.”

The article focuses on the use of capital, both human and monetary.  The Federal Reserve pumped money into the financial industry and real estate, and that bubble burst.  When that happened, the government responded by expanding the federal government. 

The article describes what has happened in the current economy:

“One reason the current recovery has been so lackluster is that it takes time for an economy to retool from these mistakes. Money that went to build now-empty condos on the Vegas Strip–or to government transfer payments–can’t be reclaimed to rebuild American manufacturing and technology.”

The article compares what has happened to the federal budget to what has happened to General Electric in recent years.  During the build up to the economic bubble, GE Capital was the most successful part of General Electric.  The article states,”Yet without federal loan guarantees for debt issuance, among other government aid during the crisis, GE Capital might well have taken the entire company down.”  

The article points out:

“Along with Mr. Obama, Mr. Immelt is now preaching the virtues of U.S. manufacturing and innovation. A glance at the GE homepage invites readers to “watch the rebirth of rails,” of all things. GE also wants to produce more in the U.S., even though its domestic employment fell by about 34,000 from 2000 to 2009. These are laudable intentions.”

The article concludes:

“But even if you believe that such spending (tarp, stimulus, etc.) prevented a depression, it makes no economic sense to keep those resources under political sway now that the recovery is underway. Would you rather have Congress allocating that 4% of GDP, or millions of individuals deciding among Apple, Gilead Sciences, or the next great idea?

“The path back to faster growth, more jobs and a more competitive U.S. economy does not travel through more political mediation. Nor does it lie in endlessly easy Fed policy in a misguided attempt to refloat the housing bubble or revive the financial boom. A better economy requires policies that reward work and innovation, while letting capital flow to the companies and individuals with the best ideas. They might even be GE’s.”

If the economy is to grow, we need to get the government out of our pockets and out of business.  Let business run business.  The winners and losers will emerge in the free market without government intervention.

Last night Yahoo Finance posted its fact check on President Obama’s State of the Union Speech.  These are some of the issues they found:

1.  STATEMENT:  Healthcare reform is one way to stop the growth of the deficit.  FACT:  There are some very arguable assumptions that go into the statement that the healthcare reform bill will save taxpayers (or consumers) money.

2.  STATEMENT:  The President promised to veto any bill that contains earmarks.  FACT:  Republicans have taken the lead in battling earmarks while Obama signed plenty of earmark-laden spending bills when Democrats controlled both houses.

3.  STATEMENT:  The President stated, “I’m willing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, including one that Republicans suggested last year: medical malpractice reform to rein in frivolous lawsuits.”  FACT:  This has been suggested by the Republicans in the past and gone nowhere.  The problem is that trial lawyers are a major part of the Democrat Party’s funding.

4.  STATEMENT:  The President praised the bipartisan fiscal commission that gave its report last year.  FACT:  The President has not endorsed any of the ideas put forth by the commission.

5.  STATEMENT:  The President claimed that his diplomatic efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons has been successful.  He cited the fact that Iran “faces tougher and tighter sanctions than ever before.”  FACT:  He neglected to mention that although the sanctions have supposedly gotten tougher, they have not been effective. 

The President doesn’t seem to be aware of either the results of the November election or the danger that the growing deficit creates for our country.  He needs to allow America to develop her own energy resources for a start.  That will create jobs, provide affordable gasoline prices, help with the trade deficit, and stop the American funding of terrorism.  None of that was in the speech.  This man simply does not see the economic danger his budgets for the past two years have created.  The best thing that can happen for America is a 2012 election when a President who is actually willing to allow the economy to grow can be elected.

Today’s Daily Caller posted an article stating that California Democrat Representative  Loretta Sanchez has requested that Representative Gabrielle Giffords be taken off of the House Armed Services Committee until she recovers from the injuries she sustained in Tucson.

These are the same Democrats who put Representative Hank Johnson on the House Armed Services Committee where he made the following statement to a military officer during a briefing about troop increases on Guam, “My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,”   I think they can wait for Representative Giffords to get back to Washington.  I hope and pray that her recovery will continue to go as well as it has.

Representative Sanchez said that since every vote on the committee was critical, she felt Representative Giffords should be replaced at least temporarily. 

The article reports:

“A spokesman for Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon told TheDC that he does not support Sanchez’s call to have someone fill in for Giffords.”

Someone needs to explain to Representative Sanchez that it’s not always about votes–sometimes it’s about compassion.

Today, Mark Tapscot at the Washington Examiner is beginning a series of reports on the Democrat Party.  The reports deal with the influence of special interest groups within the party and the impact they have on the party.  In his initial article today, he reminds us of the Howard Dean statement as to why tort reform was not in the healthcare reform bill even though it was needed. 

The article quotes Howard Dean:

“Here’s why tort reform is not in the bill.  When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put into it, the more enemies you make.  And the reason the tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on and that is the plain and simple truth.”

Wow.  An honest answer from a political figure. 

The article lists the four gourps that currently control the Democrat party–lawyers, environmentalists, unions, and insiders.  These groups fund the party and thus control the agenda. 

Please follow the link above to read the article and see the list of upcoming articles in the series.

Or are they getting waivers because they supported the bill?  That is the question.  What am I talking about?  Unions and healthcare reform.

CNS News reported yesterday that:

“Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.”

Thus far, 45 out of the 222 waivers given have been given to labor unions.  The other 177 waivers have been given to businesses and charitable organizations.  One of the recipients of a waiver was the AARP, which also strongly supported the bill.

The article further states:

“A total of 1,507,418 enrollees are now included in the waivers. More than one-third — 512,315 – of the enrollees affected were insured by union health plans.”

I didn’t like the healthcare reform bill to begin with (or the way it was passed), but I really dislike its being used to repay political favors.

This is a link to a three page letter written on January 25, 2011, by General Petraeus to the troops.  The letter was posted on Michael Yon‘s website. 

There are a few things in the letter that I find encouraging:

“The implementation of our stategy in 2010 was helped considerably by the deployment of additional ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces, the growth of the Afghan Army and Police, an increase in the number of our civilian partners, and the associated funding to enable it all.  Indeed, together with the establishment of additional organizations and refinements of our stategy, the additional resources enabled us this past fall to get the “inputs” right in Afghanistan for the first time”

“…In sum, 2010 was a year of significant, hard-fought accomplishments.  The year ahead is likely to be a tough one, too.  Again, though, I am confident that the combined efforts of ISAF and Afghan forces will enable further important progress in 2011.”

There are two things to note here.  Thank you to all our military troops and their families (who also serve), and thank you to General Petraeus for the job he is doing.

Hot Air reported Saturday that Idaho, the first state to sue the federal government over Obamacare, has now announced that it plans to use an18th century legal remedy that recognizes a state’s right to nullify any federal law that the state has deemed unconstitutional in order to prevent Obamacare from being implemented there.

According to the article:

“Idaho is not the only state considering nullification as a remedy. Six others, including Maine, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming, are also considering bills that would in essence nullify the president’s signature on the reform law.”

Wow.  The article reminds us that there are now 27 states involved in the lawsuit against Obamacare.  Stay tuned for a whole bunch of legal battles.

One of the things that needs to be included in any reform of healthcare insurance is tort reform.  We have reached the point where the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors is through the roof, and the huge settlements awarded in lawsuits do not always go to the injured parties–the lawyers take a very large chunk.  I don’t begrudge lawyers earning a living (I raised one), but I do think that we have lost some of our perspective when it comes to damages and who collects them.

All this relates to an article in Friday’s Daily Caller.  The article deals with the role lawsuits have played in the practice of American medicine.  The article begins with the story of the British medical profession and the idea that the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was causing autism.  Medical researcher Andrew Wakefield was working on a lawsuit and came up with ‘evidence’ to support his case.  His studies have been proven false since then. 

The article reports:

“The most disturbing effect of this fraud has been to convince many parents that no vaccines of any kind are worth getting for their children.  According to one publication, “vaccination levels plunged as low as 80% in the U.K…and in 2008, measles was declared endemic in Britain and Wales.”  Infections are surging elsewhere, too.  The BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL article reports that in California last summer, 10 babies dies from whooping cough “in the worse outbreak since 1958.””

As I said, the bogus research was put together for use in a lawsuit.  The article also cites a drug called Bendectin.  This is a drug used to cure morning sickness.  The drug is illegal in the United States, but used in Canada and Europe.  The article states that the drug was taken off the American market because lawyers used faulty medical conclusions to sue the company that manufactures it.

I am not a medical researcher and do not know what the standards for medical research are, but it seems to me that a medical researcher who does research for an attorney might not be entirely objective in his research.

On Friday, Charles Krauthammer posted a column at the Washington Post about the repeal of Obamacare.  He points out that the Congressional Budget Office numbers the Democrats are using to say that repealing Obamacare will increase the deficit actually say something else.  Dr. Krauthammer points out that the way Obamacare decreases the deficit is to raise taxes by  $770 billion while increasing spending by $540 billion.  It might also be noted that tax revenues are predicted–not guaranteed–while spending is guaranteed to be at least what is predicted, if not more.  To see an example of this, follow the link to a rightwinggranny.com on November 12, 2010, detailing what has happened to the plan to insure people with pre-existing medical conditions. 

Dr. Krauthammer points out:

“In fact, the whole Obamacare bill was gamed to produce a favorable CBO number. Most glaringly, the entitlement it creates – government-subsidized health insurance for 32 million Americans – doesn’t kick in until 2014. That was deliberately designed so any projection for this decade would cover only six years of expenditures – while that same 10-year projection would capture 10 years of revenue. With 10 years of money inflow vs. six years of outflow, the result is a positive – i.e., deficit-reducing – number. Surprise.”

The column by Dr. Krauthammer reminds Congress that they should not repeal Obamacare without offering a replacement.  He conludes:

“But amending an insanely complicated, contradictory, incoherent and arbitrary 2,000-page bill that will generate tens of thousands of pages of regulations is a complete non-starter. Everything begins with repeal.”

That is why the vote in the House last week to repeal Obamacare was not symbolic–it was real.  Now the idea is to get Senators on the record as to whether or not they are willing to try to get healthcare reform right.  What was passed last year was a tribute to special interests and pork with very little regard for the consumers of health care.  Hopefully this Congress can put together something much less complicated and much better.

Card Check is the voting process in union elections in which the secret ballot is eliminated.   An employee votes on whether or not he thinks his company should unionize while a union representative is standing there waiting for him to mark his card.  It takes away a true free election–it lets either the unions bosses or the company bosses know who they need to intimidate.  The unions have been pushing card check because they believe they will be the winners if it goes into effect.  The unions are looking for more members for two reasons–more members means more power and influence politically, and more members will help delay the day of reckoning for the union pension funds.  More members means more dues, more dues means more money to pay pensions that have not been fully funded.  However, union membership is not growing.

John Hinderaker at Power Line reported yesterday:

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics says unions lost 612,000 members in 2010. That drops the unionized share of the work force to 11.9 percent from 12.3 percent in 2009.”

“In the private sector, union membership is down to 6.9 percent, “a low point not seen since the infancy of the labor movement in the 1930s.” Unions continue to thrive only in monopoly environments, like professional sports and government.”

The report at the Bureau of Labor also states that 7.6 million out of 14.7 million union members are in the public sector.  Union membership is highest among older workers and lowest among younger workers.  The crunch point for the unions will come when the states are not able to pay the unfunded liabilities that are the pensions the unions have demanded in their bargaining agreements.  I don’t know what the legal outcome will be, but there are several states that are looking into something similar to bankruptcy in order to get out from under union contracts.  At that point the value of having the union do your negotiating decreases drastically and paying your dues becomes an expense that has no benefit.  It is going to be an interesting year for the unions.

Money.msn.com is reporting today that the U. S. Government has awarded Black & Veatch a no-bid contract for an electricity project in southern Afghanistan.  Last year the Government had promised a competitive bidding process on the contract.

The article reports:

“In January 2010, USAID said companies would compete for the electricity project, awarded to Black & Veatch Corp. of Overland Park, Kansas, a company that the agency earlier had chastised for big cost overruns and busted deadlines on a diesel-fueled power plant in Kabul. But the government let 10 months pass before deciding to award a contract without competitive bids, saying that it couldn’t spend more time seeking offers.

“A rival company that was interested in bidding, Symbion Power LLC of Washington, D.C., said USAID broke its promise and spent more than it should to expand electricity into war-ravaged Helmand and Kandahar provinces in southern Afghanistan.”

I have no way of knowing whether this is sour grapes on the part of Symbion Power or if there is something underhanded about the way this was done.  One of the practices that has long been a problem within our government is the awarding of no-bid contracts to people who have in some way gained favor with an administration.  I hope that this is not an example of that process.  I would hope that Congress will put this contract on its list of things it needs to look into.

Back in the days of dinosaurs (the 1950’s), kindergarten was a place where you learned to build with blocks, paint, and get along with your fellow classmates.  Your teacher read stories, you had snacks, and generally speaking, life was good.  Somewhere between then and now kindergarten changed–not necessarily for the better.  Now kindergarteners write, begin to read, learn their numbers, etc.  It’s much more complicated.  I don’t know if they still learn how to get along with their fellow classmates, which brings me to the point of this article.

Yesterday Hot Air reported that Keith Olbermann abruptly left MSNBC.  In 2008 Mr. Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension, so his departure was rather sudden.  The article reports that an agreement to end the contract between MSNBC and Mr. Olbermann was reached at the end of last week, but kept secret until last night.

Yahoo News posted an Associated Press story that reports:

“Olbermann returned from one last commercial break on “Countdown” to tell viewers it was his last broadcast, and read a James Thurber short story in a three-minute exit statement. Simultaneously, MSNBC e-mailed a statement that “MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract.” The network thanked him and said, “we wish him well in his future endeavors.””

The story at Hot Air has many updates that were added as the situation developed, but the overall conclusion is not reached until the end of the article:

“In recent weeks, sources tell Mediaite there have been meetings on the topic of Keith Olbermann and his future at the network. Did Comcast-as many Countdown viewers seem to suspect-order Olbermann out? It appears that the end of the Olbermann era at MSNBC was not “ordered” by Comcast, nor was it a move to tone down the network’s politics. Instead, sources inside the network say it came down to the more mundane world of office politics-Olbermann was a difficult employee, who clashed with bosses, colleagues and underlings alike, and with the Comcast-related departure of Jeff Zucker, and the rise of Maddow and O’Donnell, the landscape shifted, making an Olbermann exit suddenly seem well-timed.”

The bottom line here seems to be that Keith Olbermann never learned the lessons of kindergarten.  He was a difficult employee, and despite the fact that he brought viewers to the network, the network decided that it was not worth it.

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about one of the latest investigations of the Obama Justice Department–the Department that has refused to deal with the voter intimidation issue caused by the New Black Panthers.

Common Cause has written a letter to Attorney General Holder charging an ethics violation by Supreme Court justices Scalia and Thomas.  This is the complaint:

“Common Cause hereby formally requests that the Justice Department promptly investigate whether Justices Thomas and Scalia should have recused themselves from the Citizens United case under 28 U.S.C. § 455. If the Department finds sufficient grounds for disqualification of either Justice, we request that the Solicitor General file a Rule 60(b) motion with the full Supreme Court seeking to vacate the judgment.”

So what exactly did the two judges do?  They were unpaid guest speakers at seminars sponsored by Koch Industries. 

The article points out:

“Common Cause writes that “no mention of such an event is listed on the Justices’ disclosure forms for 2008 and 2009.” I assume they are talking about financial disclosure forms, and that the justices’ speeches at the Koch seminars weren’t listed because they weren’t compensated.”

Common cause claims that since Koch Industries (along with every other corporation in the country) had its free speech rights confirmed in the Citizens United case, there was a conflict of interest.

John Hinderaker concludes:

“So, let’s add this up: Justices Thomas and Scalia accepted invitations to give speeches, presumably on legal topics, to a high-level audience of business people and other leaders. They weren’t paid for doing so. The events were sponsored by one of America’s most respected companies. That company, like every corporation in the United States, had its First Amendment rights confirmed in the Citizens United case. And Common Cause seriously claims that Scalia and Thomas violated ethics rules by failing to recuse themselves from that case?

“The claim is risible, but then, Eric Holder is the Attorney General, so perhaps anything is possible.”

Let’s hope this silliness does not go forward.  I will be willing to limit corporate spending in elections when union spending in elections is also limited.  Don’t hold your breath!