Talk show host from a whole other region of the country Neal Boortz, whom we follow frequently here, a former lawyer, says it’s going nowhere. I hope not.

Anyone not following this needs to wake the hell up. Your elected representatives just caught wind of a valid contract between two private and freely-acting entities being exercised, decided it would make fine political cover for them, and voted to tax the exchanged money away after-the-fact. The precedent would be that you can still pay for goods and services, and get paid for them, but you’d better make sure this payment would be popular with a bunch of total strangers you’ll never actually meet…or else expect the money to be taken away. If you call that a free market, I see no reason for you to continue voting at all and you probably don’t want to anyway. Just open a jar of paste, grab a spoon, and watch teevee. You’ve done enough damage.

Yesterday’s vote in the House was completely expected. Overwhelmingly, your representatives in Washington voted huge taxes on bonuses for AIG employees. Nancy Pelosi said, “We want our money back and we want our money back now for the taxpayers.” Funny .. after recently passing a bill with more than 8,000 earmarks worth over $400 billion, the hollow-eyed hippy from Haight-Ashbury and her flying monkeys are suddenly worried about the taxpayers.

First point. It is not “their” money. The money, whether you like it or not, belongs to the people to whom they were paid. Those bonuses were paid pursuant to a valid contract and are not the rightful and legal property of the payees. Let’s us also remember that the amount paid in those bonuses was less than one-tenth of one percent of the bailout money received by AIG. Remember, though … politicians believe that ever penny you earn actually belongs to the government. In the official language of Washington any money from your paycheck that these political hacks allow you to keep is a “tax expenditure.” You earned it … but if you’re allowed to keep it they treat it as a government expenditure. To the Democrat mind, and in the mind of all too many Republicans, all wealth is owned by government. Produced by the people, but owned by government.

Second point. This is absolutely unconstitutional. Con su permisio I’ll explain.

So the House succeeded in passing a 90% tax on bonuses given to employees of AIG and any company receiving at least $5 billion in bailout money. But only with those evil rich employees whose family income is above $250,000 a year will have to pay this 90% tax.

You just cannot like what you’re seeing here. These politicians are targeting specific individuals out there who have received some money that the politicians, for political purposes, just do not want them to have. So they pass a law allowing the government to seize that money. Can you imagine where this goes from here? How about Ann Coulter? She delights in writing books that just irritate the ever-luvin’ puddin’ out of Democrats and liberals. Let’s say that one of Nancy Pelosi’s flying monkeys reports to the Princess that Coulter made $1.5 million from her last book. This money was legally paid to Coulter pursuant to a contract. Sound familiar? But Pelosi feels that Coulter has made this money by promoting divisiveness in the population, so she decides that punishment is in order. She then has her minions pass a bill establishing a 90% tax on the royalties from all books and writings that promote political dissention and defame public servants in the Congress of the United States. Come on now, you tell me the big huge difference between a confiscatory tax on legally earned bonuses and one on legally received book royalties.

This is going nowhere folks. It will never make it through the Senate. If the members of the House had any appreciation at all for the Constitution it wouldn’t have gone this far. And why, pray tell, would that be? That would be because of one pesky little clause found in our (once) supreme law of the land.

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5 – United States Constitution

“No bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.”

Do you know what that means? The key is the word “attainder.” Let’s go to Websters: It’s a 15th century word meaning “extinction of the civil rights and capacities of a person upon sentence of death or outlawry usually after a conviction of treason.” A definition, this one from the Catholic Encyclopedia, describes “bill of attainder” thusly: “A bill of attainder may be defined to be an Act of Parliament for putting a man to death or for otherwise punishing him without trial in the usual form. Thus by a legislative act a man is put in the same position as if he had been convicted after a regular trial.”

Well, in this case the Congress isn’t trying to put anyone to death … they’re just trying to steal some money. They are trying to deprive some individuals of property that is rightfully and lawfully theirs without accusing them of a crime and without the benefit of any trial … except, that is, for this trial that has been taking place in the media for the last week. Well, there’s that pesky little Constitution again. A man cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process, and in our country due process means a trial before a jury of one’s peers. Barney Frank et al are trying to take these people’s money through legislative action without a trial. I would truly hope there isn’t a federal judge in this country that wouldn’t smack this idiocy down at the earliest opportunity.

This isn’t about whether or not those people deserved those bonuses. Perhaps not. But the bonuses were paid pursuant to a legally enforceable contract. The property is there’s. Now we have politicians who are trying to take it away just because they’re unhappy and embarrassed because they didn’t take care of this little problem before the bailout money was paid.

On to the Senate. Let’s hope someone over there has read the Constitution.

Score. I was talking about Bills of Attainder already…sadly, not in these parts…Neal hadn’t said anything about ’em just yet. Neither had any other legal professional.

See, to my way of thinking, a Bill of Attainder is a legislative body acting as a judicial one. By which I mean, saying “that guy, over there, needs to be punished” and not “this deed shall henceforth be punished.” In America, applying a code to a person is a task requiring judicial authority, and nothing outside of judicial authority shall make that possible. It’s a separation-of-powers issue. And it’s been completely trampled-on here. The associated trampling of basic rights is palpable; your elected leaders get to say you’re not entitled to money you earned? Nevermind what kind of rhetoric they can stir up against the contract that was honored. Just nevermind that. This isn’t how free people live.

If you want to argue that, then let’s hold a vote on your last…oh…five paychecks. No wait, make it twenty. See if a majority among us like the fact that you got ’em. See if it made any of us cranky. If the point still doesn’t sink in — well then, you’re beyond hope. Back to the paste and the spoon.

Forgive me, but I’ve become calloused on the subject of politicians expressing outrage. I think if they’re truly outraged about something, they stop it if they can, and if they can’t then they move on to the next thing without uttering a peep.

I’m not taking this one bit seriously. Not at face value, anyway:

The Obama administration says it’s trying to put strict limits on the next $30 billion installment in taxpayers’ money for insurance giant AIG amid questions about whether it responded fiercely enough to executive bonus payments.

President Barack Obama and his top aides expressed outrage at reports that American International Group Inc. went ahead with $165 million in bonuses even though the company received more than $170 billion in federal rescue money. Obama directed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to see whether there was any way to retrieve or stop the bonus money — a move designed as much for public relations as for public policy.

“I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” Obama said Monday, in announcing a plan to help small businesses.

The financial bailout program remains politically unpopular and has been a drag on Obama’s new presidency, even though the plan began under his predecessor, President George W. Bush. The White House is aware of the nation’s bailout fatigue; hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have gone to prop up financial institutions that made poor decisions, while many others who have done no wrong have paid the price.
:
Expressions of outrage across the political spectrum reached a new crescendo Monday when Sen. Charles Grassley suggested in an Iowa City radio interview that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

“Obviously, maybe they ought to be removed,” the Iowa Republican said. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

Bailout fatigue; hah, that’s rich. President Obama thinks going after the bonuses will cut through some of the public’s bailout fatigue. I hope not. If so, may your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget you were once my countrymen.

The outrage has two inspirations, the way I see it: One realistic, and one political. The realistic one is phony, and the political one is just plain stupid.

I’ve received bonuses. My bonuses were items on a contract on which things were expected both of the company, and from myself. Usually, the things expected from me had to do with staying with the company during a term. So realistically, if the company is in this contract, and the other party (the executive) has fulfilled the terms of the contract, the obligation is binding.

But there are politics to be considered. Shouldn’t the executives making the actual payout of the bonus money be able to anticipate the public’s fury over this, the hay that our President will be making out of it, and perhaps just put the kibosh on it? This is more realistic. It’s also expressly stupid.

How many people want to live in a world like this? You enter into a contract and fulfill your part of it. Before you can be paid for your performance someone needs to do a temperature check on the political ramifications involved in paying you your entitlement, and then if that’s found to be tempestuous, give you a big fat “Sorry.” What’s that you say? You’re a more sympathetic figure than some “fat cat” AIG executive? Really? In whose eyes?

Hey, do I have to report that phantom income to the IRS? If I’ve earned it but “everybody” would be mad if I got paid, so I get a big F*ck-You instead?

This is the camel’s nose in the tent. There’s no line drawn; nothing to stop this from reaching an absurd extreme, a situation in which nobody can be paid for anything, until some wise, politically-in-tune savant steps in and anticipates how “everybody” is going to feel about it.

Watch what they say about these fat cat executives. They’re talking about YOU. I know it doesn’t seem like it…that’s why they do it this way. You have to be crafty when you kill capitalism in a society that historically owes as much to it, as ours does. Crafty, sneaky and sly.

Boortz says he might’ve run this before, but if so, it’s worth running again.

I agree.

By the sheer size of the budget they are pushing, Obama/Pelosi/Reid are increasing the share of the American economy that will be controlled by the government. Government spending accounts for more than 50 percent of the economies of France and Sweden and more than 45 percent of the GDPs of Germany and Italy. As recently as 2006, the federal government’s share of America’s GDP was 21 percent (with another 11 percent for state and local governments). Now it is approaching 40 percent and likely to grow significantly beyond that if Obama and Co. have their way on health care reform, universal pre-K to college education, and other programs.
:
Per capita economic output has been much higher in the United States than in the European Union. Our growth rates have been consistently higher since the Second World War. Until this recession began, America’s unemployment rate was half of Europe’s, and our unemployed spent less time jobless than did Europe’s. European industry has certainly contributed to world prosperity, but cannot match the United States for innovation, dynamism, freedom, or wealth creation. And the Europeans are failing the most basic test of vitality — they are demographically disappearing. That’s one reason why the term “once-great” applies to places like Great Britain and France.
:
It didn’t seem possible six months ago that capitalism in the United States could be in danger. If Obama/Pelosi/Reid have their way, the U.S. too will bear the prefix “once-great.”

The title of this post could have been a handy, six-word summary applied to any one of a number of metropolitan areas throughout the country last year: San Francisco, the Chicago From Whence Our White House Messiah Cometh, Detroit, DC, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, it applies to the nation as a whole. The left-wing talking point, even, has nothing whatsoever to do with the time-honored “aw, things aren’t nearly that bad”…rather, it’s the equally time-honored “Failed policies of that other guy who came before us.”

Say it loud, say it proud: Liberal policies don’t work. They don’t, they don’t, they don’t. Stop being inquisitive about it. Stop being open-minded. Yes, sometimes that is good advice, and right now’s the time. All things in life are not necessarily open-ended questions.

Cassy Fiano notes what housing prices are doing in Detroit. Can’t blame Republicans, there aren’t any.

This is really sad:

It may be tough to get financing for a new car these days, but in Detroit you can buy a house with a credit card.

The median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a listing service.

Not $75,000. Remove a zero—it’s seven thousand five hundred dollars, substantially less than the lowest-price car on the new-car market.

Among the many dispiriting numbers that bleakly depict the decrepitude of this onetime industrial behemoth, the steep slide of housing values helps define the daunting challenge to anyone who wants to lead this shrinking, poverty-pocked city of about 800,000 people.

:
It’s not too late for Detroit to be saved. However, the rest of us should take notice. This is what happens when liberals are allowed to make all of their dreams a reality (well, maybe combine Detroit and San Francisco). Once great cities are reduced to a shell of their former brilliance.

Do we want this to happen on a larger scale?

Precisely.

Awhile ago I had put out a story about the sailor with the pet duck who was given his choice of which sister to marry, out of three: the oldest one, History; the middle one, Logic; and the baby of the family who had to have everyone’s attention all the time, Rhetoric. The sailor had a pet duck named hope — and, noticing Rhetoric got along best with Hope (she never once stopped talking about that damn duck), he turned his back on the two older sisters and married Rhetoric.

Hope ended up dead. Logic came by afterward and pointed out to him what an unusual and exceptional thing it was that History and Logic went in one direction and Rhetoric went in the other…it should have told him something about what’s the right thing to do.

I was asked what I would change about that story if I had to write it again. Two things. One, the duck named Hope should’ve been a pelican. Ducks are freshwater fowl. I don’t understand what a sailor would be doing with a pet duck. Even if he lost his memory and washed up on an island somewhere. What’s a duck doing there? Anyway, while ducks are funny, pelicans are funny too. Should’ve gone with the pelican.

The other thing: I should’ve had some kind of rant by History about all the things Rhetoric said she said, that she never really said.

That would have been another smashing uppercut, one that, again, runs parallel to real life. There’s lots of rhetoric out there about what history says, that history doesn’t really say. Reaganomics didn’t work, Roosevelt saved us from the Depression, Nixon started the Vietnam War, Saddam Hussein was a lovable harmless old teddy bear.

Rhetoric speaks for history. History said nothing close to what rhetoric says she said. And always, liberal ideas are made to look good.

They aren’t.

I’ll go even further. They aren’t even designed to do good. Listen to the talking points sometime; listen close. What are our liberals going to do for us here…something to do with making the economy work for everyone, right? What’s that mean? How come the goal is never expressed as anything with meaning. Like, get the Dow back up above 10,000 again. Isn’t it odd, that this is what normal people have in mind when they hear about “fixing the economy” — but you’ll never hear a liberal come out and say it in those words?

That’s because this isn’t what their plans are supposed to do. Make the economy work for “everybody,” means making it work for those who have bet against it. It means hurting the economy.

Wow, I’m sure that sounds extremist and harsh. But let’s just keep our eyes & ears opened for a famous, luminous and respected liberal spokesman to come out and directly contradict it. Wait for it. You’ll be waiting awhile.

Meanwhile — what’re we doing? We just turned our backs on history and logic, and went with rhetoric, for the sake of our pet waterfowl named Hope. That’s why we did this. It was part of the campaign sloganeering…part of the rhetoric.

And how’s hope doing right about now? Feelin’ rather chipper? Healthy? Vibrant? Compared to November 5th? Compared to January 20?

Update 3/3/09: On that note…answering my own question, I see via Neal Boortz’s reading assignments, a new report that capitalism is on strike. Three trillion dollars missing since The Holy One was ensconced. “We’ve seen the change as the economy’s deterioration accelerated. Now where’s the hope?” Yup, that’s pretty much it.

Via Gerard: Review in Frontpage Magazine about Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, by David Brooks. Must be a great book, since it notices what I’ve been noticing for a while; that’s long been one of my favorite litmus tests.

Bobos, or bourgeois bohemians, are, to put it bluntly, the new establishment. Bill Clinton is a bobo. So is anyone else who has the income and power that only fat old men in oil paintings used to have, but who also has the mores, personal tastes, and culture of a 60’s radical college student. This is easy to laugh at, but it is not a superficial phenomenon. Brooks has put his finger on the central weirdness of our current ruling class: they have blithely combined the power and wealth of the old establishment with the cultural and intellectual trappings of its supposed mortal enemy, the counterculture. The two camps that have seemed to be warring for America’s soul since the 60’s have not just reached a detente, they have merged. This is, of course, exactly what you get when you send your best and brightest to universities where bohemian ideals are taught and then release them into a world where the realities of material life inexorably impel them into moneyed positions. As the author puts it,

“This is an elite that has been raised to oppose elites. They are affluent yet opposed to materialism. They may spend their lives selling yet worry about selling out. They are by instinct anti-establishmentarian yet somehow sense they have become a new establishment.”
:
The essence of the bobo lifestyle is being rich while pretending you’re not. Bobos love luxury as much as anyone else with five senses, but because they have been educated in a leftist critique of it, they would suffer damage to their self-image if they openly and honestly imbibed it. Therefore their lives are a peculiar dance, whose subtle application of abstract rules to everyday life would boggle the mind of an ultra-Orthodox Jew, in which they seek to indulge luxury in ways that somehow, according to the bobo code, don’t count.

What this ushers in to our society with disturbing alacrity, is self-loathing, and up there among our highest echelons of private and state authority. The self-loathing comes out in bizarre, secularist but cultish rituals indulged to cleanse some kind of a “soul” — to manifest some inner goodness that isn’t really there.

The Holy One managed to touch on quite a few of these last night.

An American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, notorious for carrying much pork and little beef, held aloft as an emblem of victory nevertheless — even though it isn’t fooling anybody anymore. Tax cuts for “working households,” democrat code words for people who don’t work and don’t have taxes to cut. Oversight led by the Vice President “because nobody messes with Joe.” Renewable energy. Caps on carbon pollution. Socialized health care. Socialized education. Closing down Guantanamo.

Much of it is, of course, what has come to be the traditional “Christmas in February” from democrat Presidents to constituency groups — teachers’ unions, global warming scammers, aparatchiks of the ballooning single-payer healthcare movement. (The unintentional comedy is that in the days ahead this will be referred to as something new and bold, although there is very little in Obama’s first SOTU that isn’t recycled.)

But it’s something else. The euphemisms are carefully chosen. Chosen to make the upper-crusters feel better about themselves, as they toss those crusts to the rest of us. As if they were doing that, at their own expense instead of at the expense of our children. And as if we needed it. Obama, I’m afraid, doesn’t get it…just like any one of the other bobos doesn’t get it. He says “…even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.” Somehow, in the bobo mindset, that rugged determination that perseveres, mighty a fire as it may be, requires kindling. It needs to be actuated. It first requires a leviathan government to take our money away from us and give it back to us again.

The “credit crunch” demands more borrowing.

We’re all out of money; the solution is to spend it.

We aren’t living life the way we were intended to; the answer to the problem is a cap-and-trade carbon exchange system, so we can live less life.

It isn’t confined to the federal level either. Cities enact needle-exchange programs. They build skateboard parks, not because of exemplary behavior on the part of the skateboarders, but because of atrocious behavior. Violent thugs are paroled who don’t deserve or merit parole. Once Congress raises the minimum wage, several states raise it still higher — all to show what good people we have in charge running the show. See how good we are! Tomorrow we’ll show you again!

We are buried in bad laws, because a certain generation can’t live with itself.

It’s become an “Everyone Else is Blogging It, I Might As Well Do It Too” thing.

Santelli wants to know if President Obama is listening. Sen. Boxer, I’d like to know if you’re listening.

Paying your mortgage has become a moral hazard.

Update: Blogger friend Rick is following this back-n-forth — two additional installments as of now, more to come, fer sure.

Looks like there is a “bullying issue.” Not sure I agree with that. Propaganda Minister Gibbs is being not quite so much a bully, as a snot. Same ol’ fluff and nonsense from the Obamaton camp: If you disagree with our wonderful remedies, you’re a dolt and we have some reading for you to do. If you agree, on the other hand, we’re not even going to inspect your level of intellect let alone ridicule it. Even though you might think President Obama is gonna put gas in your car.

It’s a case of making complicated things simple and simple things complicated…which is what you have to do to make left-wing ideas look good. In this case, this doesn’t even involve reading anything. Not so much as a page. It’s human behavior: If people are entitled to wealth without working for it — or if they are no longer entitled to the property for which they did work — guess what? People don’t feel like working for wealth anymore.

And other than people working for wealth, what is an economy?

Now the ball’s in your court, Mr. Gibbs. Do tell me what I should print out and read, that will shed new light on the situation, as it exists today in the way I’ve summed it up.

The wireless connection is up & down like a whore’s drawers. We’re arguing with the broadband company about it, and I must say this morning the experience has sapped my creative energies somewhat. It’s not so much that I’m exhausted, it’s more like I don’t feel like writing things if it’s just an exercise in frustration to get them posted.

But there’s one thing I want to make damn sure I preserve for posterity.

Neo-Neocon on “Tragedy of the Commons” (from Wednesday), whose words I’ll just suck in here verbatim, without editing nuthin’. Besides, I got a feeling these wireless woes represent a great example of what she’s talking about.

The economy, bubbles, and the tragedy of the commons

The current economic crisis exhibits characteristics that illustrate the tragedy of the commons:

“The Tragedy of the Commons” is an influential article written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968. The article describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even where it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term interest for this to happen.

Central to Hardin’s article is a metaphor of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons), on which they are all entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin’s view, it is in each herder’s interest to put as many cows as possible onto the land, even if the commons is damaged as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from the additional cows, while the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group.

Subprime mortgages began with Congressional acts that ordered banks to make bad loans in order to bring housing opportunities to the poor. But, although we can blame that for opening the door to the practice, the mortgages made under Congressional fiat were but a small percentage of the final total of bad real estate paper. Over time, mortgage companies and other lenders ran amok with the notion. Ultimately, the toxic paper was spread throughout our entire financial system.

Why? Why did so many people violate the most obvious standards of prudence, and endanger us all?

It’s the tragedy of the commons, stupid: there was money to be made from these loans in the era of ever-ascending housing prices that constituted the real estate bubble. The lenders and borrowers involved in such loans not only profited from the rising housing prices, but they also helped fuel them. And all homeowners liked seeing the value of their homes increase, especially those who took out second mortgages counting on that figure to remain the same or to continue to go up. Many people seemed to benefit.

In the short run, that is—although in this case, the “short run” lasted many years. Those involved in the deals were betting either that housing prices would never come down (a truly insane assumption, but it seems that many otherwise rational people convinced themselves it was true),—or that, when the decline did happen, they themselves would still have come out ahead.

What was ignored was that, despite individual benefit, such gains would be temporary for most. The fact that the risk was so thoroughly spread throughout the entire financial sector that it poisoned everything was either not understood, or ignored. In addition, even among those who did see a downturn coming in a general sense, most did not foresee that there would not necessarily be enough warning when the bubble burst to get out safely.

After all, that’s the nature of bubbles—they get larger and larger, and while that is happening, their outer surfaces become thinner and thinner, stretched finally to the breaking point.

Where exactly will that breaking point be? Hard to predict, but when it happens it happens suddenly and dramatically. Poof! The bubble is gone, and all that’s left behind is a tiny bit of slimy foam.

[NOTE: And don’t think government can rectify the situation. Not only does Congress lack the tools to foresee and correct the problems, but it is an excellent example of the tragedy of the commons in action.]

Good to see.

Malkin:

Hundreds of taxpayers took time out of their busy day to protest President Obama’s “stimulus” bill-signing in Denver today. Jim Pfaff of Colorado Americans for Prosperity, Jon Caldara and the Independence Institute, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, and several GOP officials and state legislators spearheaded the event. Count us all among the “chattering classes” appalled at the massive pork and the short-circuited process that paved the way for the trillion-dollar Generational Theft Act.

Why bother? It’s for posterity’s sake. For the historical record. And, hopefully, it will spur others to move from the phones and computers to the streets. Community organizing helped propel Barack Obama to the White House. It could work for fiscal conservatism, too.

Well, there are some Republican senators who don’t agree with that last remark. “Republicans pretending to be democrats” has such a rich, solid history of working out so swell (sarc), that they’d like to give it another go and make a national bank.

Long regarded in the US as a folly of Europeans, nationalisation is gaining rapid acceptance among Washington opinion-formers – and not just with Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman. Perhaps stranger still, many of those talking about nationalising banks are Republicans.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for South Carolina, says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agree with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.

Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.

“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”

Actually, federal control is what got us into this mess. Federal control from zombie legislators. Sen. Graham, I revert to my age-old question about such things — as yet completely unanswered: What in tarnation is there to make a government regulator un-greedy? Or unzombified, in this case.

Founding Father Jefferson said it better:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ” all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.

1. They are not among the powers specially enumerated: for these are: 1st A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States; but no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.

2. “To borrow money.” But this bill neither borrows money nor ensures the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill first, to lend them two millions, and then to borrow them back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please.

Jefferson expounds much, much further. Do go read it all, especially if your last name is McCain or Graham.

I still think we’ll survive this, folks. Capitalism will survive this. Our government has laid a siege upon capitalism before, in the 1930’s. Capitalism survived. But, it should be noted, it was scarred for life and has never been the same since then. This could end up being worse. Victory is not guaranteed.

Let the porkulus protesters be your role model. Your representatives need to hear from you, that you want to exchange goods and services freely, as the Founding Fathers decided God intended for you to do.

Maybe it’s time to storm a ship and throw some crates of tea into a harbor.

A Congressman who would like to see some more information about so-called “global warming” before he decides humans might be the cause, or supports any restrictions on “carbon emissions”…

…or a Congressman who supports a bill to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on bullshit social programs to “stimulate the economy” — without reading it?

Just askin’.

I was informed nearly a month ago that Rush Limbaugh hopes Barack Obama fails, and instructed to believe that this meant Limbaugh wants the economy to keep on tanking and for lots of people to suffer. I’m a big believer in following instructions, after all, if someone takes the time to give ’em to you, the least you can do is to obey them. So I penciled in my dutiful compliance, and proceeded to think with all my might that Rush Limbaugh wants the economy ruined.

I did jot myself a note to go and look up context, though. I couldn’t help noticing people were leaving it out when they were telling me what to think.

I just got around to looking it up, and I found out the context changed the message quite a bit. I’m not the least bit surprised. But I don’t think Rush Limbaugh wants the economy ruined or for people to suffer.

Why don’t you read the comments in whole, and tell me what you think.

I got a request here from a major American print publication. “Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal.” Now, we’re caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your “hope.” My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, “Well, I hope he succeeds. We’ve got to give him a chance.” Why? They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I’m not talking about search-and-destroy, but I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay down and support him. Look, what he’s talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.

Were the liberals out there hoping Bush succeeded or were they out there trying to destroy him before he was even inaugurated? Why do we have to play the game by their rules? Why do we have to accept the premise here that because of the historical nature of his presidency, that we want him to succeed? This is affirmative action, if we do that. We want to promote failure, we want to promote incompetence, we want to stand by and not object to what he’s doing simply because of the color of his skin? Sorry. I got past the historical nature of this months ago. He is the president of the United States, he’s my president, he’s a human being, and his ideas and policies are what count for me, not his skin color, not his past, not whatever ties he doesn’t have to being down with the struggle, all of that’s irrelevant to me. We’re talking about my country, the United States of America, my nieces, my nephews, your kids, your grandkids. Why in the world do we want to saddle them with more liberalism and socialism? Why would I want to do that? So I can answer it, four words, “I hope he fails.” And that would be the most outrageous thing anybody in this climate could say. Shows you just how far gone we are. Well, I know, I know. I am the last man standing.

I’m happy to be the last man standing. I’m honored to be the last man standing. Yeah, I’m the true maverick. I can do more than four words. I could say I hope he fails and I could do a brief explanation of why. You know, I want to win. If my party doesn’t, I do. If my party has sacrificed the whole concept of victory, sorry, I’m now the Republican in name only, and they are the sellouts. I’m serious about this. Why in the world, it’s what Ann Coulter was talking about, the tyranny of the majority, all these victims here, we gotta make sure the victims are finally assuaged. Well, the dirty little secret is this isn’t going to assuage anybody’s victim status, and the race industry isn’t going to go away, and the fact that America’s original sin of slavery is going to be absolved, it’s not going to happen. Just isn’t, folks. It’s too big a business for the left to keep all those things alive that divide the people of this country into groups that are against each other. Yes, I’m fired up about this.

That changes things just a bit. At least in my world, it does.

Update 2/12/09: I’ve now reached that awkward age at which it is an everyday occurrence for one to follow certain complex thoughts and research projects through to their bloody conclusions, without having the slightest residual idea what originally brought one past the trailhead. I’m afraid it is now costing more than one good blogger friend some well-deserved credit.

Do go see what Rick had to say about this…he was talking about it before I was talking about it…

The culture today is replete with the notion that voices like mine (who Limbaugh represents, people who are direct, blunt, to the point, etc) should be marginalized and dismissed simply because we’re not politically correct in the methods employed in our communications. The substance of what is being said gets lost in the style.

What do you really need to know about leftist propaganda? It makes simple things needlessly complex, and complex things unrealistically simple. That’s what you have to do to make liberal ideas look good.

And so, Barack Obama is not a lousy judge of character because his pastor was Jeremiah Wright…there are way too many “after alls.” After all, Obama didn’t know Wright talked that way, and after all, it’s high time we had a national dialogue on race. Anytime a liberal politician is revealed to be systematically making potentially disastrous decisions, deliberately or otherwise, there’s a bunch of “truths” that have to be considered. Much of the time, these have to do with “moving on” to “more important” things.

On the other hand, Limbaugh wants the economy to tank, plain & simple. Sarah Palin’s a dumbass because she can see Russia from her house (something she never said) — plain & simple. And Guantanamo? We just gotta close it down. Nevermind the consequences.

Simple things complex, and complex things simple; that’s the formula.

The issue is the bonus paid to Wall Street executives. Bonuses. Bonuses for I-don’t-even-know-how-many “executives” or what exactly it is that they do.

Our current President has never allowed a dearth of information to get in the way of a frothy opinion, though. For a guy with such a rep for this “calm demeanor” I keep reading about, No-Drama-Obama can really go on a tear when He wants to:

Overpaid Wall Street executives and employees are a rather easy target these days.

So it didn’t take long for President Obama and Vice President Biden to respond today with outrage to the New York state comptroller’s report that despite the financial meltdown and the federal bailout, bonuses totaled more than $18 billion last year.

The New York Times front-page story this morning said that was the sixth largest total in history, though it also noted that it was the largest drop on record, from about $33 billion in 2007.

“Outrageous” was Obama’s reaction, according to spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Obama told reporters that the bonuses are not right when the firms were seeking help from taxpayers, who are tightening their own belts and were being warned that the financial system could not fail.

“That is the height of irresponsibility,” the president said.

“It is shameful,” Obama added.

“And part of what we’re going to need is for folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. The American people understand that we’ve got a big hole that we’ve got to dig ourselves out of — but they don’t like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole even as they’re being asked to fill it up.”

Biden agreed, and went further. “It offends the sensibilities,” Biden said in an interview on CNBC. “I’d like to throw these guys in the brig. I do know what they are thinking, and they are thinking of the same old thing that got us here: Greed. They are thinking: ‘Take care of me.'” [emphasis mine]

If there’s something to indicate “these guys” didn’t earn the money they were paid, it was left out of the story. I haven’t been elected to anything yet — but be that as it may, on my planet, that means they probably earned it.

And if they earned it, it’s not the “height of irresponsibility” to pay it to them.

Is this some alternative meaning of the word “bonus”? When I’ve received bonuses, by the first quarter of that year — that would be January, a year ago — there was some gleaning of how the bonuses were to be earned. Maybe that’s not always binding…in fact, it usually isn’t, it’s contingent on how well the company does…but the actual pay-out is just following through on these guidelines that were set up previously. I know Obama and Biden don’t want me to have a decent working memory, but I do gots me one, and I remember all this bailout-this and tumbling-Dow-that started up somewhere around the end of the third quarter of ’08. Not all private companies did okay before that point. But many did. Many did more than okay.

Frankly, I’m outraged by the President and Vice-President’s attempt to make this look like a December-25 itch-between-the-ears, when they damn well know that isn’t the case.

But here’s what really frosts me:

What the hell is an economy, anyway? It’s people paying people to do stuff. Right? Goods, services. That means, people and companies pay money to other people and companies, in order to acquire a claim on their time and treasure.

Sometimes, there’s no difference between a job being done adequately, and a job done excellently. None whatsoever.

Other times, there’s a huge difference. This is why you tip the waiter and hostess when it’s your first date with the lady and you really want to get into her pants. It’s also the reason why people earn bonuses in certain industries…like the financial industry. Obama & Biden are supposed to be pretty sharp guys. I would imagine they’re plenty bright enough to see how, when you acquire financial services from financial professionals, you’d care about getting excellent service rather than “eh” service. So there are probably going to be bonuses paid.

In fact, let’s take another look at this part —

The New York Times front-page story this morning said that was the sixth largest total in history, though it also noted that it was the largest drop on record, from about $33 billion in 2007. [emphasis mine]

Okay, then.

Financial people — who are going to be the very first to be paid bonuses, one could reasonably assume, out of pretty much the entire economy — are paid bonuses. Most of the time, out of a plan that has been in place throughout all of 2008, the first two-thirds of which were alright. The bonus payout was therefore mostly just follow-through. And it was a decline from last year’s figure of about half.

Which, as Neal Boortz points out, is going to cost New York City about a billion dollars in tax revenue this year. One city. A billion dollars.

The amount of money these folks did manage to scoop up, is offensive to Smug-n-Plugs — oh, dear. I guess they’d like NYC to be out another billion.

Just something to file away, I guess, when they say they want to stimulate and revive “the economy.” If these guys aren’t trying to fool people, then it comes down to this: They wouldn’t know what an “economy” is, if it ran up and bit ’em square in the nuts. They have a problem with people working, and as a result of getting the work done, being paid big money. When that happens, in fact, Joe Biden wants someone thrown “in the brig.” And by big money, I mean money outside what’s normal. What they consider to be normal. They won the election, and now they want to define what normal is…with some jail time to back it up, if Biden has his druthers.

Folks — that is socialism.

Update: One can’t help but wonder: Are those overpaid, evil Wall Street bonus recipient executives indulging in Wagyu steak?

Update: I wonder what cheeriogirl would think of the dichotomy? I’ve got a gut feeling you could spend an entire year showing it to her, and she’d never quite see it.

I cannot tell you how much better I feel with [Barack Obama] at our helm.

Nice clear rules to follow, set out ahead of time. There will be no counting to three for infractions from this President!

I also love how he warns that his newly administered rules INCLUDE the SPIRIT of the law, and how he holds himself accountable to all of these rules. Obama does not, and has not ever considered himself above the law.

How refreshing is that?

And you folks call yourselves the Reality Based Community. Hehehehe!