Mixed Feelings

Although I disagreed with him on nearly every public policy issue and think he benefited from treatment/forgiveness that would never have given to a Republican, I was a little bit sad to hear that Ted Kennedy had passed. I genuinely think he had the best interests of people at heart. Politics Daily had a well-written post by Alex Wagner about a touching experience her family had with Sen. Kennedy. Her father had worked on his presidential campaign, and a few years later her mother went through terrifying surgery for a tumor in her throat. Kennedy called the hospital several times to help ensure she was getting the best care, which was quite a decent thing to do and beyond what one would expect him to do for the spouse of a former campaign aide. It also highlights exactly what I and a lot of other people who aren't closet Nazis fear about government involvement in health care. When my mom gets sick, will she get the same care under a heavily government influenced system as the mother of someone who worked on a presidential campaign? I fear not.

A positive impact in Mexico?

Our nation's chief law enforcement officer, Eric Holder, on the renewal of the ban on the sale of guns with cosmetic features that scare liberals:

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Intelligence?

While everyone else in the free world was rooting for the protester in the famous photo from the Tiananmen Square protests, the man Obama has chosen to lead the National Intelligence Council was rooting for the guys in the tanks.

Probation Period

Wow! The stock market indices have fallen to the same point they were at when I was in law school 12 years ago. Trillions of dollars of wealth have been destroyed (including about half of the money my wife and I have been saving for retirement) since late last summer when it became clear that a socialist might become president of the United States. Now that a socialist is president, the pace of destruction has accelerated.

Most jobs I've held have had a 30- or 90-day probation period. The understanding has been that if you really are a bad fit, you and your employer will amicably part ways at the end of the period. Of course, the American presidency comes with a 4-year probation period, but I think it's time for us to consider whether we ought to begin to apply political pressure for Obama to step aside. He has shown he is not a good fit to be president, and it's time for Mr. Obama and the country to amicably part ways.

Best Wishes?

There seems to be a split among conservative and libertarian writers as to whether they want Obama to succeed (with many of them publicly saying they do). I think it's a more nuanced issue -- I wish him success in protecting the nation's security, winning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ending the recession and protecting people from violent and financial crimes that cross state borders. I want him to fail on every other public policy issue.

JMK was wrong

This is the best explanation I've seen as to why Obama's apparent Keynesian assumptions about government spending as economic stimulus are wrong.

Moran Acting Boorishly (as usual)

My Congressman, Jim Moran, once again shows he is a thug.

Inaugural Address

I thought Obama's inaugural address was OK but not quite as good as I expected. I don't like his politics, but there is no doubt -- the man can give a good speech; so I expected something better. The media wing of the Democratic party are always fawning over JFK's inaugural address, but if you want to hear a really good one, check this out:

The Inauguration

I worked from home today, having long ago conceded that I would not be able to make it to my office and back home given all of the road closings for the inauguration. I stopped working long enough to watch the (botched) swearing-in ceremony and Obama's inaugural address. I don't share the politics of many of the folks who stood in the cold to see the inauguration, but I was touched by the scenes of older African-Americans who never thought they would see a black president. We really do live in a great country.

Thank you

George Bush and Dick Cheney have with nearly unbelievable grace accepted more harsh criticism than any one else I can recall. Although I haven't always agreed with them, I am most thankful that they managed to keep us safe for seven years straight. In fact, they did such a good job that today's inauguration ceremony -- most certainly the biggest, ripest target for a terrorist attack in modern American history went off without even a credible threat, much less a real attack. I was working in DC on September 11 and remember seeing the smoke rising from the Pentagon as I watched through a conference room window. I would not have believed that we would be protected from another attack for so long.

Party like it's 2009

I'm all for having our nation's capital loosen its regulatory grip on its citizens and businesses, but extending the hours of bars in D.C. during the days surrounding Obama's annointment seems passing strange. The city is expecting up to 4 million visitors for the inauguration (more than 6x D.C.'s population). Having a bunch of drunks entering the streets just before rush hour seems pretty dumb if you ask me.

Thank Goodness!

Looks like Chambliss won.

Nukes but No Guns

There has been considerable buzz on the friendly parts of the Internets promoting the utility of armed civilians in thwarting an attack like the one in Mumbai. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, but in reading this very detailed account of the attacks in the WSJ, it's clear that India has "progressed" to the point that many of the law enforcement/security officials are as unarmed as the civilian population. I've parsed a few sentences from the lengthy WSJ article to give you some of the flavor of how poorly prepared these folks were:

Most police officers at the station -- as they are throughout India -- were unarmed or carried only bamboo sticks known as lathis. ....

The hotel had metal detectors, but none of its security personnel carried weapons because of the difficulties in obtaining gun permits from the Indian government, according to the hotel company's chairman, P.R.S. Oberoi. ….

Uptown, the two gunmen who had attacked the train station -- recorded by the station's surveillance cameras -- reached the nearby Cama Hospital for women and children, authorities said, shooting dead two unarmed guards at the entrance and racing up the stairs. ….

The three policemen armed with guns drew them. The nine others waved their bamboo sticks.

Terror Attack in India

The recent terror attack in India is a reminder that the industrialized world is still at war. I was hopeful that we had stifled the command structure enough to seriously limit their ability to make coordinated strikes. Apparently, I was wrong.

Clubbing Obama's Seals

What is with Obama and these damned seals? First, before he even received his party's nomination, he rolls out his own variation on the standard presidential seal. Then, he makes up an office and creates a seal for it. He was a U.S. Senator, the presidential nominee of a major political party, and in a few weeks he's going to be the president of the United States of America for crying out loud. Does he really need to aggrandize himself with this crap?

Citibank

I spent nearly all of the three years of law school flat broke. When I graduated, I had (no exaggeration) $44 in my bank account. Rather than travel to Europe following the bar exam like most of my classmates, I had to beg the firm that had hired me to let me start early so that I wouldn't go hungry.

I recall distinctly that about halfway through law school, Citibank cut the limit on my only credit card to an amount that was less than the modest balance on the card. At about the same time, they jacked up the interest rate on my balance and increased the monthly minimum payments. I had relied on that card to carry me from the time I'd burn through my student loan funds until the time I'd get my first paycheck from my summer job; so it was pretty devastating for me to be cut off and led me -- for hopefully the only time in my life -- to have to borrow money from my Dad. Given my financial situation at the time, though, it was pretty sensible for Citibank to take those steps. Now that the tables have turned and it's Citibank that is in a tough financial spot, I think it's time for the taxpayers to insist on the same sensible actions that Citibank would take with one of its cardholders. Let's cut these guys off.

SHTF in the WSJ

Usually, I come across descriptions of SHTF scenarios inadvertently when I'm researching take-down rifles or shotgun/rifle combos. I came across this one on the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal today. It may be time to check on your stock of .22 LR.

Another Lost Battle in the War on Drugs

If the mainstream media covered the War on Drugs the way they covered the Iraq War, they'd be citing the death of an FBI agent in the Pittsburgh area this week as another senseless death in pursuit of a failed policy. The young agent was shot and killed by the wife of an alleged drug dealer after a team of agents forcibly entered the home to execute a search warrant. The wife claims that she thought her home was being robbed while her two children were inside. I suspect she is telling the truth.

Although I consider myself to be a fairly ardent civil libertarian, my sympathies generally lie with the men and women who are tasked with the enforcement of our laws. They face off against violent criminals so that the rest of us don't have to. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to on-the-ground operational decisions. I do not give that same benefit of the doubt to law enforcement policy makers. The policy makers have allowed (or used) the War on Drugs to drive the militarization of domestic law enforcement. The media did a nice job of portraying the agent who was killed as a good family man and a top-notch law enforcement officer. I wish they would also ask the tough questions of the agent's superiors about the need for us to continue with what seems to be a risky and mostly failed strategy toward the War on Drugs.

Medicine for Pirates

Drudge had a photo today of one of the anti-pirate forces off the coast of Africa with an old-school M16 rifle (carry handle and fixed stock) at the ready. (It was one of those photos that Drudge annoyingly embeds on his site without a link or any caption. From a story that he linked to separately, it looks like it might have been one of the Dutch.) This pirate problem has gotten remarkably out of hand, and I think it's going to take something more than a few varmint guns to solve it. Something like this would work:



Yeah, I know battleships with the 16-inch guns shown in the video have all been mothballed, but pirate-fighting duties would be a great excuse to pull one back into service.

Moran can't even do earmarks right

My (mis)representative in the House, Jim Moran (D (of course)-VA) was mentioned in an article by Radley Balko in Reason for loading up a Defense bill with millions of dollars worth of earmarks. (H/t to Glenn Reynolds.) Of course, earkmarks and pork irk me, but what irks me even more is that Moran has nothing to show for all of this other than the furtherance of his own career. I've spent most of the past 14 years in Arlington, and I can't think of a major, federally funded public works project in my district during that time.

Some of my politically formative years were spent in Southwestern Pennsylvania in the early 90s watching hacks like Joe Kolter and Austin Murphy (both D's, of course) up close. These guys were buffoons who didn't know jack about any of the major issues of the day, but they at least had something to show for their efforts at directing pork to their districts. Kolter and Murphy both played big roles in a major road construction projects, including the opening of one of the sweetest 20-mile stretches of 6-lane highway in the country. Part of the road had a small toll, and consequently hardly a soul used it. I lived near the south end of the new highway, and a young lady I was dating at the time lived near the north end, about 25 miles away. For fear that my wife may being reading this blog, I'll just say that this particular young lady had some attributes that were rather appealing to a young man in his early 20s (or a middle-aged man in his early 40s for that matter), among them a penchant for Kentucky bourbon. For the better part of a year, I made that road my own personal autobahn. I'd say a prayer of thanks for Murphy and Kolter every time I pulled into the parking lot of my girlfriend's apartment complex 20 minutes or so after I left the late shift at work.

Now, I curse that bastard Moran every time I get stuck on I-66 with our three-year-old in the backseat crying because she has a load of pooh in her pants.