Category: Politics

From the February 6, 2012, Ozarks Farm and Neighbor (registration and subscription required):

With the release of the fourth quarter fundraising report, the Your Vote Counts Committee disclosed that the vast majority of their funding comes from the extremist animal-rights groups and donors from outside Missouri. The report, found on the Missouri Ethics Commission’s website, shows that Your Vote Counts Committee received a total of $164,863.92 in monetary and in-kind contributions from out-of-state individuals and special interest groups. Animal-rights groups ASPCA and HSUS contributed $50,000 and $87,305.39 respectively. Only two donors accounting for $150 were from the state of Missouri. In total, 99.91 percent of the Your Vote Counts Committee’s funding came from outside of Missouri in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Here’s that report if you’re interested.

So many ballot initiatives are driven by organizations and committees that have some idea of controlling something that displeases the committeemembers’ sense of aesthetics, and those committees are either directed or helped greatly by out-of-jurisdiction, centralized organizations dedicated to promoting those very laws. The committee forms, gets a couple sawbucks from actual residents, and then the bulk of its money from national organizations.

Another example: The Citizens for Clean Air Springfield, who successfully initiated a local ballot measure and banned smoking in Springfield, Missouri, got the vast majority of its monies from the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society (PDF report). A couple dollars from Springfield residents, a couple dollars from other local residents who do not live in Springfield itself, and tens of thousands of dollars from national organizations.

Did you know if you’re giving money to the American Cancer Society or the American Heart Association, you’re giving money to drive local bars out of business? Of course not. You thought you were giving money to research treatments for these things, but it’s all a big slush fund with national charities.

(Related: Springfield smoking ban targeted by group hoping for repeal)

Does this mean the ballot initiative process is flawed? Well, sort of. It presupposes an informed populace who respects individual freedom and understands that most issues can’t be adequately explored in a bumper sticker or a calendar full of puppies.

Does this mean the organizations should not spend their moneys influencing politics? Well, no, those organizations have the same rights as individuals, corporations, and other organizations in political speech. However, donors and voters need to know where their donations are going and whether the fundraising and political speech on the radio or television actually represents the feelings of their fellow citizens or whether it’s the views of a couple of local citizens and a couple of wealthy citizens from somewhere else.

Neo-neocon spots a campaign sticker:

You know, I thought that was clever when I wore it on a button in 1992.

And look where my mirthful apathy got us then.

Ladies and gentlemen, as the GOP presidential primary and caucus process continues to its conclusion next year and a candidate to challenge Resident Barack Obama in 2012, we’ve been fed a steady diet from the campaigns and the media of white papers, plans with varying numbers of bullet points, and doodyhead/am-not claims. We have focused on issues, and by issues, I mean the aforementioned “doodyhead” considerations, but we have failed to take one important question into account:

Which candidate will make the best giant puppets and effigies for 8 years of protests?

    

I have to go with Newt Gingrich on this one. Not only is he more easily caricaturable, but there are many, many editorial cartoon artists ready to come out of retirement to lend their expertise to criticizing him.

You don’t want to challenge the protestors too much, do you? They only have masters’ degrees in puppetry and papier-mâché.

So I was reading this article about cockfighting in Forbes Life, and….

Well, of all the ways to start a blog post.

But it’s true. The son of a writer for Forbes, kinda like a Chris Buckley rerun, meanders through the story of his last year between working as an investment banker and then bumming around Asia. He starts it out like this:

Bloodied red feathers are swept to the side of the ring. Spectators throw thousands of tightly rolled Filipino pesos back and forth on the floor of Manila’s Araneta Coliseum to settle bets. The victor, a Sweater Kelso cock, is rushed to get his wounds stitched, while the limp body of a yellow-legged hatch, the challenger, is carried from the ring. It’s the last fight before the halftime show: a routine by the Thunderbird Girls, a chicken-feed company’s cheerleaders. Scantily dressed in schoolgirl outfits and dancing to T-Pain’s “Take Your Shirt Off,” the girls make the crowd, overwhelmingly male, Catholic, and Filipino, lose control. Welcome to the World Slasher, the twice yearly Super Bowl of cockfighting.

This is the coliseum where Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought out their epic Thrilla in Manila, where Pope John Paul II once led Mass, and where Taylor Swift would perform in two weeks. (Her face flashes on the JumboTron between fights.) As the Thunderbird Girls conclude, the announcer’s voice beckons over the loudspeaker: “Now to honor our distinguished international guests….” I’m wedged in a line between Third World business tycoons and Tea Party–esque expats from West Virginia, Louisiana, California. As we head past security guards and through the VIP section, our names are being called out.

What the devil does that mean, Tea Party-esque expats? I mean, other than a handy way to imply Tea Party-minded people like cockfights?

I wonder if it’s supposed to mean anything else.

You know the old cost-benefit analysis failure that masquerades as a justification for all sorts of intrusion into individuals’ private lives? “If x saves just one person, it’s worth it”? Well, my friends, push that button:

If a Herman Cain presidency stops just one man from smoking, it’s worth it.

Wait a minute: What if Barack Obama promises to stop smoking if he wins re-election? It’s neutralized!

(Link seen on Hot Air.)

A satellite falling from space, like Skylab in 1979? Seriously?

This one is probably not even his fault, but when it rains, flaming technology wreckage literally falls from the sky.

Where were you when Skylab came down? Me, I was nine, living in the projects and already I just knew that the space station was going to land on me. My fatalism is not a recent thing, gentle reader. I’ve been steadily improving it for decades.

Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme.

Social Security is a Fonzie scheme, and it’s putting on skis with its leather jacket.

Perry once invested in firm that profited from porn.

W00t! An early investor in Vivid Entertainment? Not so much:

A 16-year-old investment by Texas Gov. Rick Perry in a firm that rented pornographic movies is drawing new scrutiny in light of his just-launched presidential campaign.

Liberal bloggers and a handful of news sites have been taking the Republican candidate to task for his 1995 investment in the now-defunct Movie Gallery, which at the time was an Alabama-based video store chain that attributed some of its profits from renting pornographic films.

What? He just invested in a movie rental chain? That’s a firm that profited from porn? Hang on, let me pause here to laugh outrageously again.

You’ve got a Republican Christian running for president, so all of a sudden, it’s a bunch of gotcha journalism, wheels within wheels of HYPOCRISY! Journalists who kind of nod at national Democratic leaders’ churchgoing (it’s the pageant) and who ignore moral defects suddenly start thumping the bible like a drum to send a message to the savage natives that THIS MAN IS NOT A CHRISTIAN! (like you, rube.)

Let those amongst you who have not invested in Blockbuster or Johnson and Johnson (who profits from products that promote premarital and homosexual sex!!!! amongst other things) cast the first stone.

(Joke, and I hope this is really just a joke, seen via Hot Air’s headlines.)

I watched the first half of the Republican debate in Iowa last night, and I’m pleased to announce that I won.

I won because I saw the candidates with the potential to win the presidential nomination (Romney, Bachmann, Pawlenty, and maybe Cain), and I did not react to any of them with an Ew, not him.

Unlike in 2008, where a McCain caller early in the process got very snitty with me because I didn’t think McCain would be much of an improvement over Hillary Clinton. McCain was a candidate I would support only with my reluctant vote (although his vice-presidential choice got me to an event or two with some grubzits).

But those people on stage, yeah, I can send them money (and have, in one case) and maybe spend a little time at the local HQ volunteering. And that gives me hope and a little sense of some semblance of a role to play in shaping the future of the country. Instead of just reluctantly voting for whomever the party has put out there because he’s slightly better than Hillary or the Sena (only a half term, so he only gets half the title) from Illinois.

Rep. Paul Ryan is getting a lot of undeserved heat for his recent purchase of $350 bottle of wine in a hotel restaurant. Apparently, when leftwing blog Talking Points Memo asked him about it, he said:

Yeah, I was like this is ridiculous. Who buys wine that expensive? It surprised me, and I think it’s stupid under any circumstance to pay anything close to 100 dollars for a bottle of wine.

James Joyner quips on the “parallel” to John Edwards’ $400 haircut:

Second, Edwards’ $400 haircut story had so much traction because it reinforced the image that he was less than the manliest of men and spent far to much time caring for his pretty hair. What’s the parallel here? Republicans like wine?

It’s true. Republicans do like wine if my old township is any example.

My old Township Republican Club in the St. Louis area had a wine tasting after its monthly meetings. Whoever provided the wine certainly espoused the Paul Ryan Theory of Wine Purchasing: They served Foxhorn wines, which cost like $8 for the 1.5L bottles. I know very well, because that’s the kind of wine I buy for myself. One thing about Foxhorn: it certainly is a wine tasting because unlike, say, $10 bottles of (750mL) wine, you sure can taste Foxhorn. Sometimes for quite some time after you’re done with a glass.

It certainly played against the stereotype of Republicans that elements of the left are trying to perpetuate with this non-story.

The President has spoken:

And even if you have a job, chances are you’re having a tougher time paying the rising costs of everything from groceries to gas. In some places, gas is now more than $4 a gallon, meaning that you could be paying upwards of $50 or $60 to fill up your tank.

Of course, while rising gas prices mean real pain for our families at the pump, they also mean bigger profits for oil companies. This week, the largest oil companies announced that they’d made more than $25 billion in the first few months of 2011 – up about 30 percent from last year.

Now, I don’t have a problem with any company or industry being rewarded for their success. The incentive of healthy profits is what fuels entrepreneurialism and helps drives our economy forward. But I do have a problem with the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies we’ve been handing out to oil and gas companies – to the tune of $4 billion a year. When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right. They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.

The President would seem to argue that raising the cost of doing business for the oil companies will lead to a lowering of gas prices. He cannot believe that, can he?

Those subsidies are not payouts from the government. Apparently, they’re money the government doesn’t take from the oil companies:

Amid rising gasoline prices at the pump, President Barack Obama urged congressional leaders Tuesday to take steps to repeal oil industry tax breaks, reiterating a call he made in his 2012 budget proposal earlier this year. The White House conceded his plan would do nothing in the short term to lower gas prices. [Emphasis added.]

Apparently, he or someone at the White House does not believe this will lower gas prices. He must then think that some people will react to the attack on the cartoon character Big Bad Oil.

Sadly, I know some people who do hear that bell and drool appropriately.

Here’s a hint: If the cost of doing business goes up, price goes up. And money the government does not take from you is not a subsidy. If you firmly believe that, one could make a case the government could trim the deficit by ending your graphic novel subsidy, that is, the money it does not take from you that you spend on graphic novels.

Sadly, one has difficulty arguing with people who feel Big Oil is the bad guy and the President is the good guy.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge that this president is, in fact, effective at achieving his goals.

If only there were contests for making up inspirational conspiracies blaming Bush instead of whole jobs doing that as columnists and television personalities, I would submit the following explanation of how Bush is responsible for the current high gas prices:

Oil companies kept oil prices artificially low during the Bush presidency to prop up Bush’s poll numbers, and now the oil companies have to redouble their gouging to make up for the lost revenue.

That’s weapons-grade punditry right there, folks.

My latest attempt at bumper sticker zeitgeist:

It’s available at CafePress, of course.

Buy one for your Democrat friends, if you have any left.

AP headlines GOP victories move nation to right.

The article itself gives the president plenty of quotage from his news conference yesterday wherein he explains away the misunderstandings and ignorance of the populace that serves him and its recent errors in the election. The article then gives the Republicans a couple of quotes to respond.

However, whoever wrote that headline happily conflates country with government. The elections did not move the country. The country used the elections to move the government to the right. More aligned with the country’s beliefs than the government proved to be in the years 2007-2010, most particularly in the years 2009-2010 where the Democratic Party held the legislature and the executive.

The text of Missouri Constitutional Amendment #2 on the November ballot is:

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to require that all real property used as a homestead by Missouri citizens who are former prisoners of war and have a total service-connected disability be exempt from property taxes?

The number of qualified former prisoners of war and the amount of each exemption are unknown, however, because the number who meet the qualifications is expected to be small, the cost to local governmental entities should be minimal. Revenue to the state blind pension fund may be reduced by $1,200.

As a conservative, I both love lower taxes and respect veterans who have served the country. However, I don’t favor extending tax relief to special classes who are more beloved of the majority of voters, legislators, or petition signers.

What, exactly, is the principle involved here? The former POWs served the country, so they should not pay property taxes on their primary homes? What about other disabled veterans? Why are they not special enough? Or law enforcement and fire fighting personnel? And volunteer firefighters. And teachers! We all love and respect teachers. Clerks at the Revenue License Offices? And so on.

I favor lower taxes for everyone, not just limited subsets of people who behave according to government favor.

(Cross-posted at 24th State.)