Constant Conservative

It is no secret that the President (and apparently his administration) do not want Canada to bring tar sands oil through our country to refineries in Texas via the Keystone XL pipeline.

P&R points out that the President’s very decision in the matter shows us more about his grandiose thinking than the real issues involved:

I shouldn’t have to bother with Congress.  I’m the Messiah!  Did Jesus need the disciples’ consent?  Did he have to get some silly Congress to approve?  If you’d just get these evil Republicans out of my hair, I’d work some miracles – you’ll see!

Here is real issue, though. We do not currently have–as a country–the energy we need without using fossil fuels. Canada has crude oil that we can process into a portion of those needed fuels. And, even if all the refined oil is shipped off to other countries, we benefit because of the jobs which are created to build and maintain the pipeline and to refine the fuel.

Some people seem to think that the states through which this pipeline would pass are virgin stretches of desert and prairie which are untouched by the dirty hand of man. Not so.

Are there issues to work out with the states through which the pipeline would pass including some very important questions about the proper and improper use of eminent domain? Absolutely. Last I checked, however, the states were largely in favor of this project.

It is hard to understand, as even the Washington Post notes, why Obama does not want jobs–arguably “good jobs” and tens of thousands of them:

ON TUESDAY, President Obama’s Jobs Council reminded the nation that it is still hooked on fossil fuels, and will be for a long time. “Continuing to deliver inexpensive and reliable energy,” the council reported, “is going to require the United States to optimize all of its natural resources and construct pathways (pipelines, transmission and distribution) to deliver electricity and fuel.”

It added that regulatory “and permitting obstacles that could threaten the development of some energy projects, negatively impact jobs and weaken our energy infrastructure need to be addressed.”

The Post goes on to note that the position taken on Keystone XL gives the President the immediate opportunity of removing some those self-same obstacles–since he is the one who has created them.

Here is hoping (because I have little reason to believe) that the President will get his much ballyhooed jobs laser back into focus–’cause right now I’m blinded by the scatter.

What happens when a government promises everyone the moon–or at least pieces of it? Well, something has to give when it runs out of moon pieces:

The Treasury on Tuesday started dipping into federal pension funds in order to give the Obama administration more credit to pay government bills.

“I will be unable to invest fully” the federal employees retirement system fund beginning Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress.

Federal employees will be quite happy to hear that they may be called to sacrifice for the cause. Right?

Unlike a very tasty desert which sounds similar. Heritage weighs in:

Under the laws, upon a court order, third-party companies and websites would be forced to crack down on rogue websites — and even ones that unwittingly host or link to material that may violate copyrights or trademarks, whether or not they have knowledge of the violation. Internet service providers would be required to block Internet addresses of offending sites — a measure that Internet engineers warn could threaten Internet security. Search engines would be prohibited from including pirate sites in search results, a requirement that goes well beyond current law and may, in fact, violate the First Amendment. Heritage’s James Gattuso and Paul Rosenzweig explain ramifications:

[L]imits on speech here are almost certain to be extended to other cases. If links to pirate sites are banned, why not links to sites disseminating national security secrets? Or sites “facilitating” violence by propagating extreme political positions? Moreover, other countries that have pursued content controls of their own, such as China, may be encouraged by steps in the U.S. to limit content.

Let your elected officials know that this is a proverbial case of using a sledgehammer to kill a fly.

If you don’t keep up with Thomas Sowell’s writing, you probably ought to. From a recent article on the US Post Office and Kodak, he closes with this:

A society in which some people make decisions, and other people are forced to pay the costs created by those decisions, is a society where a lot of decisions can be made despite their costs being greater than their benefits.

That is why the post office should have to face competition in the market, instead of lobbying politicians for government help. We cannot preserve everything that was once useful.

Two thoughts. 1. We are most assuredly the society described in that first paragraph. 2. Conservatives do not simply believe that we should keep things (everything) the way it was.

I understand that wolves used to roam the land where I reside. I’m fine with them being in the past tense. They were once useful within the ecosystem which existed before humans built towns and railroads all over the prairie. Now? They would provide large moving targets–but that is about the limit of their usefulness.

Some things are worth conserving–and some things are not. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

You’ve seen quite a bit about the debt, no doubt. But you may not have seen the following video. It puts the matter into a perspective that no one (well, no adult) should not be able to understand.

Thanks to PM for sending me this.

Those who continue to argue against laws which require voters to prove identity before voting in public elections continue to lose ground. Most recently, this happened in New Hampshire. The following video shows the work of Project Veritas as dead people were resurrected to vote:

From the description for the video on YouTube, we have the following:

On January 10th, Project Veritas reporters walked into New Hampshire Polling Locations during the Presidential Primaries, saying dead people’s names. We stated the name of a dead person we got from the NH obituaries. The names of the deceased were both Registered Republican and Democrats. And in almost every case, saying a dead person’s name, we were handed a ballot to cast a vote. We used no misrepresentation and no false pretenses. In fact, in almost every case, we insisted we show ID and they insisted that we vote without showing ID. Thanks to DailyCaller.com for breaking story.

Wow. Allow me to say it again. Wow.

From the Daily Caller article mentioned:

“Live free or die,” an election worker told one of the investigators in the video. “This is New Hampshire. No ID needed.”

Allow me to say that that worker does not seem to understand that the people who wrote that motto would be incensed to know that it was being used to make a mockery of the voting system.

How much more proof do we need that showing an ID to vote is necessary to maintain reinstate the integrity of the voting process?

When he starts talking outside of his knowledge. But first, here is the context: Wisconsin recently joined the ranks of most of the rest of nation in admitting that its citizens have a constitutional right to carry arms for self-protection. Unsurprisingly, a number of the state’s citizens are doing what they need to to take advantage of the recognition of this right–and arming themselves.

Enter the chief of police for Madison, WI. He is not particularly happy with the state of affairs:

[Chief Wray] says his concern is that whenever you add guns to the community, legal or otherwise, the peril grows. He points to a homicide on Vera Courton the city’s north side in October in which quick access to a gun escalated a gang conflict.

Advocates of the law would say they are law-abiding and that the Vera Court homicide wasn’t about the weapon, but Wray is worried about more than just more guns in the hands of criminals. He says a situation involving a depressed person or someone under the influence who barricaded themselves from police could grow into an “officer-involved shooting” if there is access to a gun.

Regarding “the peril grow[ing]” based simply on the presence of guns, it would appear that the science is hardly settled on that topic.

On the larger point, Wray observes: “What I can’t understand is how come we have not evolved beyond the point that the best way to protect ourselves is a gun? How come we cannot come up with something that is less destructive and less permanent.”

The Chief believes, somehow, in the face of all the criminal activity which he has seen in his lifetime that we are somehow getting better and better (i.e. evolving beyond needing to protect ourselves with guns). I don’t think he is saying we should all have developed non-lethal psionic force projection abilities, but then again, maybe he is.

May I say, Chief Wray, that we have come up with things which are less destructive and less permanent (and the article goes on to list a few of them)? The problem is that some people are willing to continue in their destructive criminal ways unless and until their very lives are threatened or, in extremis, ended by a person using a gun in self-defense.

Just in time for the Friday news drop, word that the President will provide amnesty for illegal aliens on his own initiative:

The Obama administration will announce Friday a proposed new regulation that would allow certain undocumented immigrants to remain in America while applying for legal status — a step aimed at keeping families intact and one that may also shore up the president’s support with Latino voters.

[...]

Under the proposed rule, which would not require action by Congress, people would be allowed to file requests for hardship waivers in the United States, according to a person familiar with the administration’s plans. They wouldn’t need to go abroad, and thus could stay with their families while their requests were adjudicated.

The proposal comes at a moment when President Obama is making greater use of executive power to overcome congressional resistance to his policy goals.

Well, that’s one way to put it. The other way to state it is that the President seeks to make this an imperial presidency in fact as well as flavor. Whatever has happened to the co-equal branches of government? You remember those, don’t you?

If things continue down the current path, memories may be all we have.

And please, don’t say “well, they have to prove hardship for this to work.” Hardship will be defined as having to work in a foreign country.

Bill Whittle runs the numbers–and tells us that there is more hope than we might see at first glance.

The Christmas holidays have taken a bit of wind out of my writing sails. Between having two deer nearly run me over and painting a couple of rooms in the house, all while attempting to work though some computer issues, I’ve not been keeping the virtual ink wet.

As a result, this will be a quick run-through of a few items which caught my eye but didn’t get the full treatment.

Remember Philadelphia? That’s the city where the school superintendent got an almost $1 million severance package only to turn around and put in for unemployment. Now, we have a member of the city council who retired, became eligible for a pension which is worth almost $.5 million, and was rehired to the same job the next day. No, not illegal–but probably not the type of public servant behavior which William Penn envisioned for his city.

The big ethanol subsidies died a quiet death over the holidays. Surprisingly, no one in Iowa seemed too concerned about this for the caucuses. Dare I think that people have, in most cases, quietly come to understand that subsidizing ethanol is bad all the way around?

And finally, a few words from Governor Walker of Wisconsin.

From Colorado:

A Denver police officer fired for driving 88 mph above the speed limit while intoxicated has appealed his dismissal, arguing that the penalty is unfair and overly harsh.

[...]

Saunders was traveling 143 mph in a 55-mph zone on June 17, 2010, according to the order terminating him, issued by Manager of Safety Alex Martinez on Dec. 7.

Pretty clear. Right? He wasn’t doing 59 or 61 or even 71 mph. He was doing 143 miles per hour. So he got fired. Sounds equitable. Oh, and the article states that he did this while over the legal limit for alcohol and with a passenger–so not only did he have the potential for endangering others outside his vehicle, he had the immediate potential for endangering his passenger.

Now, he wants his job back. And who is backing him in this display of Rocky Mountain chutzpah? Why the union, of course:

The penalty is “disproportionate to the offenses alleged and/or is excessive so as to be punitive rather than corrective in nature,” according to the appeal, filed by the Denver Police Protective Association’s lawyers.

Is it any wonder that actions like this help to move the modern labor union ever closer to its demise? Unbelievable.

Sometimes when I look at material such as the following, I am reminded of the pointlessness of comparisons for those whose minds are made up. Then, I am reminded that I should stop being so cynical:

[quote from the NY Times]

The New York Times examined the permit program in North Carolina, one of a dwindling number of states where the identities of permit holders remain public. The review, encompassing the last five years, offers a rare, detailed look at how a liberalized concealed weapons law has played out in one state. And while it does not provide answers, it does raise questions.

More than 2,400 permit holders were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun.

Bob Owens follows it up with this:

In other words, 200 permit holders were convicted of felonies out of 240,000 permit holders, or 0.0833333334-percent of NC concealed carry permit population.

I would love for the New York Times to do the research and see what percentage of the NYPD,  Chicago PD, Los Angeles PD, or New Orleans PD is convicted of felonies in any given year.

Thinking that there must be some publicly available data which would bear on this, I went looking. Unfortunately, it would seem as though no one collects this data (or at least does not provide it publicly). I wonder if this is the type of information which should be accessible via an FOIA request–or one its non-federal equivalents?

The point of collecting this data would not be to show that LEOs are criminals, but rather to provide an honest comparison between groups of individuals who carry weapons on a regular basis.

Until we know otherwise, I am thinking that a convicted felon rate of less than 1% is sad, but probably not out of line with the general population, nor worth tromping on a fundamental freedom for US citizens.

UPDATE

Instapundit has a round-up of more people taking apart the NYT. But I particularly like this bit from one of the articles he links:

North Carolina has a statewide murder rate of about 5 per 100,000. Even without counting manslaughter, that’s 25 murders committed per 100,000 North Carolinians every five years. There are about 230,000 valid concealed-carry permits in North Carolina, so by pure chance, you’d expect these folks to be responsible for nearly 60 murders over five years. And yet only ten of them committed murder or manslaughter. Instead of “rais[ing] questions,” the Times has demonstrated yet again that permit holders are more peaceful than the general population.

Indeed. Shame on the NYT.