Smart Play

Rick Santorum is aware that now he has closed on Mitt Romney in the polls, there will be more scrutiny and likely negative ads from the Romney camp.   So he's doing something smart -- he's putting out a humorous ad entitled "Rombo" in which a machine-gun wielding Romney lookalike is shooting mud balls at Santorum (and missing).   What this does is make Romney's negative ads the issue, and perhaps inoculate Santorum against them when they come (and they will).   And, because it's semi-funny, he won't get perceived as bitter and angry the way Gingrich was when he responded to Romney's attack ads:




I remember a campaign twenty plus years ago in Wisconsin where a little-known candidate used humor against his better-known opponents in a race where the major candidates were slinging mud at each other.   The little-known candidate with the funny ads ended up winning.   His name was Russ Feingold.

The more Santorum can come off as a sunny Republican who doesn't get angry, the better off he will be.   I'm not sure he can pull it off -- in the beginning of the race he often came off as pretty much of a sourpuss -- but maybe he's learned his lesson.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act... of 1993

Good article on WSJ about how the Obamacare mandate not only violates the Constitution, but also is illegal under federal law, namely, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993:

The birth-control coverage mandate violates the First Amendment's bar against the "free exercise" of religion. But it also violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That statute, passed unanimously by the House of Representatives and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. It was enacted in response to a 1990 Supreme Court opinion, Employment Division v. Smith.

That case limited the protections available under the First Amendment's guarantee of free exercise of religion to those government actions that explicitly targeted religious practices, by subjecting them to difficult-to-satisfy strict judicial scrutiny. Other governmental actions, even if burdening religious activities, were held subject to a more deferential test.

The 1993 law restored the same protections of religious freedom that had been understood to exist pre-Smith. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act states that the federal government may "substantially burden" a person's "exercise of religion" only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person "is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest" and "is the least restrictive means of furthering" that interest.

The law also provides that any later statutory override of its protections must be explicit. But there is nothing in the ObamaCare legislation that explicitly or even implicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The birth-control mandate proposed by Health and Human Services is thus illegal.

Basic Economics

Michael Boskin, writing in the Wall Street Journal, makes an essential point about Obama's socialist tendencies to think the government should (or can) target investments to particular industries:

Despite his record of picking losers—witness the failed "clean energy" projects Solyndra, Ener1 and Beacon Power—Mr. Obama appears determined to continue pushing his brew of federal spending, regulations, mandates, special waivers, loan guarantees, subsidies and tax breaks for companies he deems worthy.

Favoring key constituencies with taxpayer money appeals to politicians, who can claim to be helping the overall economy, but it usually does far more harm than good. It crowds out valuable competing investment efforts financed by private investors, and it warps decisions by bureaucratic diktats susceptible to political cronyism. Former Obama adviser Larry Summers echoed most economists' view when he warned the administration against federal loan guarantees to Solyndra, writing in a 2009 email that "the government is a crappy venture capitalist."

Look, this is pretty basic economics.   If an industry has sufficient potential to be profitable, private investors will fund its development by putting their capital at risk; that's what they do.   If an industry needs government subsidies, by definition private investors have concluded that it does not have the potential to be profitable, and have refused to risk their capital.   So, by definition, industries in which the government must offer subsidies are industries which are either too risky or else too quixotic (like, for instance, the solar energy industry).  

Unless, that is, your definition of "profitable" is funneling money to your own left-liberal constituencies and contributors.   Which is what Obama appears to be doing with "investments" in companies like Solyndra and LightSquared.

Arrogance

George Weigel, who, among other things, is the biographer of Pope John Paul II, has an article on NRO discussing the Obama Administration's attempt to split Catholics over the issue of Obamacare's mandated coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs:

In his appearance on Fox News Sunday on February 12, White House chief of staff Jack Lew discussed with host Chris Wallace what the administration was determined to sell as an “accommodation” to Catholic concerns, an “accommodation” that tweaked an HHS mandate requiring that all health insurance provide no-co-pay abortifacients, sterilizations, and contraceptives. Lew tried, unsuccessfully, to shore up the administration’s pretense that something in the moral calculus of the original mandate had changed with the administration’s “accommodation” — which, of course, it hadn’t. What was truly striking about the administration spin, however, was Lew’s suggestion that the Catholic Health Association (whose president, Sister Carol Keehan, had quickly and publicly applauded the administration’s “accommodation”) trumped the bishops’ conference when it came to who-speaks-for-the-Catholic-Church-in-America.

Chris Wallace quoted the bishops’ February 10 statement rejecting the “accommodation,” to which Lew replied, “We didn’t expect to get universal support of the bishops or all Catholics.” Wallace pressed on, noting that the February 10 statement was “the most powerful statement by the Catholic Church in this country” and that it expressed “grave moral concern.” Lew said that he couldn’t “speak to the differences within the Catholic Church,” and when Wallace asked how, then, he would “respond to [the bishops’] statement that this [is] government coercion,” Lew played the CHA card as a trump: “I would point to the statement put out by the Catholic Health Association, which knows a fair amount about . . . health care in this country. They thought this was a very good solution.”

In the administration’s view, then, primacy in the Catholic Church is not conferred by the pope, but by the White House. Thus Sister Carol Keehan could be recognized by the president’s chief of staff as primate of the Catholic Church in the United States, because she headed an organization that “knows a fair amount about . . . health care in this country” — unlike, for example, those mulish bishops who had failed to be taken in by the administration’s shell game.

So, to get this straight, Obama now claims: (1) the power to tell the Catholic Church that it must violate its deeply-held and long-standing beliefs about Life in the name of a putative right to "preventive" health care; (2) the power to decide what activities of the Catholic Church are sufficiently religious to warrant an exemption from the mandate (houses of worship, yes; Catholic charities and hospitals and schools and universities, no); and, now, (3) the power to determine who speaks for the Catholic Church.  

Arrogance.   Sheer arrogance.  

A Nuttier Nutshell for the Obamacare Contraception Mandate

Michael Gerson of the Washington Post boils down the Obamacare mandate on contraception to an admirably small nugget of truth:

Obama’s goal was not resolution but obfuscation. The contraceptive mandate was shifted from Catholic employers to insurance companies. Instead of being forced to buy an insurance product that violates their beliefs, religious institutions will be forced to buy an insurance product that contributes to the profits and viability of a company that is federally mandated to violate their beliefs.

A distinction, needless to say, without a difference.

Girl of the Day - Kate Upton

Obligatory.... the SI swimsuit issue is out today.

Downton Abbey III?

I happened to read this article about the third season of Downton Abbey, which will premiere in England in the fall of 2012, and then in the U.S. in January 2013.   This line, from the show's producer, jumped out at me:

The third season, Neame said, will likely open in the post-War years, leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Really?   Let's do the math, shall we.   The central romantic leads are Matthew and Mary.   Matthew was an established barrister when the show began in 1912.   Mary was the oldest sister, fairly worldly, and eligible to "date" and perhaps marry some much older men.   I'd say that the show assumed that they were 30 and 25, respectively.   By the end of the second season in 1919, they would be 37 and 32 (though they don't look it).   And that means that by 1939, when WW II starts, they'd be 57 and 52!   Not exactly the stuff of romance.   Meanwhile, Lord Grantham, with three grown daughters in 1912 and having been an officer in the Boer War at the turn of the century, would likely be in his 70s when WW II starts.  I don't see him cavorting with the upstairs maids at that age.

And, of course, the Dowager Countess, played by Maggie Smith, would be pushing 100 years old by then.

I noted this problem with the second season, when sister Sybil announces in 1919 that she was 21, which meant that she was (completely improbably), 14 when the first season started in 1912.   The historical sweep I guess works to make the show more dramatic (in a soap opera-y way).   But it also makes a hash out of the reality of the show.  

Club for Growth on Rick Santorum

Club for Growth, a conservative, free market political organization, has a series of useful "white papers" on the Republican Presidential candidates.   Here is their piece on Rick Santorum.   The bottom line:

On the whole, Rick Santorum’s record on economic issues in the U.S. Senate was above average.  More precisely, it was quite strong in some areas and quite weak in others.  He has a strong record on taxes, and his leadership on welfare reform and Social Security was exemplary.  But his record also contains several very weak spots, including his active support of wasteful spending earmarks, his penchant for trade protectionism, and his willingness to support large government expansions like the Medicare prescription drug bill and the 2005 Highway Bill.

As president, Santorum would most likely lead the country in a pro-growth direction, but his record contains more than a few weak spots that make us question if he would resist political expediency when it comes to economic issues.

In sum, he's not perfect on economic issues.   But, coupled with his strong support of Life and his strong positions on combatting Islamist terrorism and supporting Israel, he's a solid conservative.   In any event, he -- like Romney, Gingrich or Paul -- would be infinitely preferable to the current occupant of the White House.

***

By the way, here's what CFG says about Mitt Romney's record:

Because of his long tenure in public life, especially his presidential run in 2008, Mitt Romney is considered a well-vetted candidate by now.  Perhaps to his consternation, he has developed an unshakeable reputation as a flip-flopper. He has changed his position on several economic issues, including taxes, education, political free speech, and climate change.  And yet the one issue that he doesn’t flip on – RomneyCare – is the one that is causing him the most problems with conservative voters.  Nevertheless, he labels himself as a pro-growth fiscal conservative, and we have no doubt that Romney would move the country in a pro-growth direction.  He would promote the unwinding of Obama’s bad economic policies, but we also think that Romney is somewhat of a technocrat. After a career in business, quickly finding a “solution” seems to be his goal, even if it means more government intrusion as a means to an end. To this day, Romney supports big government solutions to health care and opposes pro-growth tax code reform – positions that are simply opposite to those supported by true economic conservatives.  How much Romney’s philosophy of governance will affect his policy goals if elected, we leave for the voters to decide.

Birthday Today - Jack Benny

Jack Benny was born today in 1894.   When radio was king, Benny was the King of Radio.   With such a fragmented culture -- don't believe it?  try looking at the list of names of the Top 10 selling albums -- it's amazing to consider a time when literally everyone sat down at the same time to listen to a radio show.   That's what Jack Benny was like.   Even as a kid in the 1960s, I knew the name of Jack Benny.   How many kids under 10 today would know the name of a TV star from the 1980s -- Alan Alda, say, or Ted Danson, or Tony Danza?  

Just listen:

All You Need to Know About the Obama Budget

President Obama's budget for the next ten years was released yesterday.   The Wall Street Journal has a good piece on the subject, but all you really need to know is summarized in one graph and one fact.   Here's the graph:

And here's the fact:  despite the exploding debt, which ought to prompt any responsible politician to cut federal spending, Obama proposes a budget that actually increases spending by $193 billion, to $3.8 trillion, or 24.3% of GDP.  

The Obama budget is not a serious document, and it was produced by a President who is not a serious leader.  Unless that is, his idea of leadership is leading America off a cliff. 

Santorum Preference Cascade Update

Here's the Gallup tracking poll for the GOP presidential primary, which is a five-day rolling average:

The five-day rolling average is key.   Santorum is taking votes both from Gingrich (who is cratering) and from Romney.   At that trend line, he'll be in first by tomorrow.

Birthday Today - Coach K!

Oh, and it's also Mike Krzyzewski's 65th birthday today.   He's still going strong, and I like this year's team, but, what the hell, let's just relive the Moment that made Duke Duke:

Has Downton Abbey Jumped the Shark?

I'm not sure, but it  may have veered too far toward the most obvious kind of soap opera.   Will Matthew walk again (and will his wanger work)?   Will Mary marry the evil Richard Carlisle or stay true to Matthew?  And how will the writers get the sweet Lavinia Swire out of the way?   Who is the mysteriously burned man who survived Passchandaele and claims to be the long-lost heir, Patrick Crawley?   Will Sybil announce her love for the chauffeur, Branson, and what on earth is the attraction there?   Did Bates murder his evil wife Vera?  Will he ever get to marry the angelic Anna?

OK, so I'm still hooked, but I can't help thinking that the writing got weaker once they had a hit on their hands and had to plan for a long series.

***

UPDATE (and bumped):   A lot of people must be coming to the same conclusion, because I'm getting a lot of hits on the old blog from people searching for "Downton Abbey jumped the shark."   After last night's episode, I'm inclined to say that my conclusion is reinforced.   We only watched half-way, but from what we saw you have a completely unbelievable deus ex machina of Matthew regaining his ability to walk (and, presumably, other abilities that will impact the storyline); a wretched storyline with Lord Grantham trying to seduce the maid, Jane (completely out of character and stupid for the writers, since Lord Grantham's decency was one of the things that made the show work); an equally wretched storyline about Thomas' failed efforts in the black market (an evil manipulator who isn't smart enough to check the merchandise?); and an almost unwatchable storyline about Ethel, the erstwhile maid who got herself knocked up by a British major who subsequently got himself knocked off (complete with the world's fattest baby-actor).   Not good.   What the show needs:  more Maggie Smith; a proper lover for sister Edith; more Sybil but less Branson; Bates and Anna free from the clutches of his ex-wife; and a lot more Mary and Matthew.  

Speaking of Bates, I can understand from a literary perspective why he's reliving the Book of Job, but didn't anyone realize that inflicting endless pain on one of our favorite characters makes for bad TV?

And this doesn't even begin to deal with the ridiculous time-frame of the story, where Sybil looked 21 in 1912 when the story started, and now, in 1919, announces that she can marry whomever she wants because she's.... you guessed it, 21!   And are we to believe that Mary, who was the older sister and seemed to be about 25 in 1912, is still waiting around for Matthew seven years later? 

I still like the show, and will still watch it, but sheesh is this one I could have written better.

Insight

From Legal Insurrection:

Remember when George Stephanopoulos, at the New Hampshire Republican debate on January 7, brought up and harped on whether the candidates thought states could ban contraception?


Everyone, at least on our side of the aisle, shook their heads in disbelief as to why Stephanopoulos was bringing up the issue.  There was no active controversy over contraception, it wasn’t in the news, and there were far more pressing political issues, yet what seemed like an eternity of debate time was devoted to the subject at the insistence of Stephanopoulos.


It was, shall we say, something out of left field.

Well what do you know, about a month later the Obama administration proposes administrative rules under Obamacare which would require free contraception be provided even by religious institutions which oppose contraception on religious grounds.


It’s almost as if Stephanopoulos got the memo first. Unless, of course, you believe in coincidences.

When a high-ranking Democratic Party operative like George Stephanapoulos becomes a card-carrying member of the media elite and then somehow gets permitted to "moderate" a GOP Presidential primary debate, we should have known that the fix was in.  

Krauthammer Rocks on the Obamacare Mandate and on the Israel-Iran Nuclear Standoff

Charles Krauthammer, as usual, gets both of the pressing moral issues of the day exactly right:

From Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier Friday, February 10, 2012

On the president’s revision of the administration’s earlier ruling that religiously affiliated employers must insure the cost of contraception and abortifacients:

This compromise is smoke and mirrors. It’s an accounting trick. Before the so-called compromise, Holy Cross Hospital, for example, was required by law to provide health insurance and required by law to include in that insurance birth control, morning-after abortion pills, and tubal ligation. After the so-called compromise, Holy Cross Hospital is still required to provide all these areas of health insurance, and the employee is guaranteed by law the same benefits. The only difference is, when the employee gets a letter about what he or she is entitled to, Holy Cross will send a letter leaving out these items and [he or she] will get a separate letter from the insurance company saying, “Oh, by the way, you are entitled to these items, the birth control, morning after pill and tubal ligation, for no charge at all.”

Now, it makes no difference whatsoever morally who tells you about the source of your insurance.

And second, is there anybody who believes this will be given away for free? If so, it’s the first time since the invention of insurance in Renaissance Italy that insurance has ever given away a service for nothing. This is magical thinking. It’s deceptive thinking. It’s cynical thinking. Other than that, it’s a great idea.

On speculation that Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear program:

Our own secretary of defense has said that it’s highly likely. And he gave a timeframe — April, May, June, which means the Israelis think that the moment, the zone of immunity, where they can no longer attack successfully, is approaching.

I think he is right. I think the Israelis are serious [about attacking] unless something happens between now and midyear, or even November, that will threaten the regime. Because it [Tehran] won’t change the policy. I think Israel will strike because it cannot live under the threat of annihilation from Iran.…

Unless something intervenes, I cannot imagine the Israelis are going to allow Iran to go nuclear and to hold a Damocles’ sword over six million Jews all over again. Israel was established to prevent a second holocaust, not to invite one.

Girl of the Day - Kim Novak

The local bijou has a Saturday matinee program showing classic movies on the big screen.   Last weekend it was West Side Story.   In a couple of weeks they are playing Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (they previously showed Rear Window, another classic James Stewart vehicle.   The love interest in Vertigo is Kim Novak, and while she's not Grace Kelly (who is?), she was almost an archetype of the 1950s bombshell (recalling her dance scene from the great William Holden movie, Picnic).

Born on February 13, 1933, Novak is still around and kicking at age 79.   She's been married to a veterinarian for 36 years, and lives on ranch, raising horses and llamas.   It's nice to report -- with Whitney Houston in the news -- on a Hollywood starlet who ended up living a normal and useful life.

Girl of the Day - Rita Moreno

Since we're seeing West Side Story today, I thought a little Rita Moreno was in order.   Here she is, stealing the show:

The "Accommodation" in a Nutshell

From Yuval Levin at NRO:

Under this rule, then, it would still be the case that as a result of being employed by a religious institution that provides insurance coverage (which Obamacare would require employers to do, or else pay a large fine), workers at that institution would have free access to contraceptives and abortifacients that they would not have had if that employer did not offer insurance coverage. So it’s still the case that the rule would require religious employers to purchase a product that violates their convictions, in the same way as the original rule (a fact also highlighted by the administration’s decision to retain the exemption for actual houses of worship in this new rule, just as in the old one). The choice for religious employers is still between paying an insurer to provide their workers with access to a product that violates their convictions or paying a fine to the government.

The "Compromise" Is a Joke

Don't believe the rhetoric you'll hear that the Obama Administration is "caving" or "walking back" its decision to require Catholic employers to provide insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization.   The so-called "accommodation" would simply require that the insurance companies provide these services to the employees of religious-based employers for "free," under the erroneous assumption that the Catholic Church's opposition to these services is that that they have to pay for them.   (No.   The opposition is that the Church will not and cannot be a party to any contract under which such services can be provided, whatever the cost.)  

But this is the type of abstract thinking that comes out of an administration populated by people who have never run a business.   An insurance company doesn't provide services for free.   They can't; they're a business, and such services cost money.   Instead, what will happen is the insurance company will simply raise the price of the insurance and say (read:  pretend) that part of the price isn't going to be amortized to pay for the provision of the offending services.   It's magic!   Or, it's stupid, depending on your point-of-view.

The Catholic Church doesn't pretend about Life.   The Church and its affiliated organizations simply cannot provide insurance coverages to their employees that provide, in any way, for services that are contrary to the Church's most basic moral teachings.

***

UPDATE:  Funny line over in the comments on Ace of Spades.   "Obama thinks he can just decree that money isn't fungible." 

Santorum Preference Cascade

Fox News' polling over the past four days:

The key numbers are in the last column.   Before Tuesday's contests in Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota, national polling showed Romney with a 9 point lead over Gingrich, and Gingrich with another 9 point lead over third-place Santorum.   After Santorum's victories in those three contests, Santorum's support jumped 13 points, Gingrich's collapsed 10, and Romney's collapsed five, meaning that Santorum took some support both from Gingrich (as the putative conservative candidate) and from Romney (as the putative "electable" candidate).   Conservatives decided practically overnight that Santorum was a better option than Gingrich, and at least some Republicans decided practically overnight that Romney wasn't so electable if he couldn't win any of the three contests.   It will be very interesting to see where the polling is in another few days on Gallup and Rasmussen and others, but it could be that Santorum could be the frontrunner within a couple of days.    Stranger things have happened.

A caveat:   this is a small poll, with a big margin for error, in an extremely volatile election.  

How the Media Sausage Gets Made

If you want to see how reality gets ground up and spit out as the mainstream media's liberally-salted sausage, here's an unfortunately typical example.  

Politico, a prominent liberal political website, recently published an article about the controversy over the Obama Administration's decision to impose its liberal views about providing abortifacients (the "morning-after" pill), contraception, and sterlization.   They chose a picture to go with the article of Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York (a great man and, perhaps not incidentally, both a future Cardinal of the Church and a St. Louis Cardinals fan... the Regular Guy once took His Eminence to a Cardinals-Brewers game in the firm's box, along with a dozen or so other parishioners who had purchased the night at our parish auction).   Here is a picture they could have chosen, from among many available showing Archbishop Dolan in his natural state, which is friendly, smiling, open-faced, loving, kind, humorous... utterly a man of the most gentle Christian faith imaginable:

That picture took me literally ten seconds to find on the Internet.   But here is the picture they actually chose:

Bias?   Consciously chosen to make the Archbishop look harsh?   Of course.  

This is what Catholics and other people of faith have to put up with every day... bigotry, subtle perhaps, but bigotry nevertheless.

Girl of the Day - West. Side. Story.

The Regular Girlies and I are going to take in a big-screen showing of West Side Story at the local "artsy" theater, that is doing a Saturday matinee program of classic films for $3 a ticket.   (The Regular Son and I have already seen This Gun For Hire with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, and Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart and a too-scrumptious-for-words Grace Kelly.)    So it seems fitting to recall probably our favorite Girl of the Day, Natalie Wood:

Also too-scrumptious-for-words.  

Oh, and the greatest opening of any movie musical ever:

Planned Parenthood's "Liberal" Fascism

Michelle Malkin today does a good job of recalling for those who may have forgotten just where Planned Parenthood originated -- and just what kind of "planning" they were really all about:

As she wrote in her autobiography, Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916 "to stop the multiplication of the unfit." This, she boasted, would be "the most important and greatest step towards race betterment." While she oversaw the mass murder of black babies, Sanger cynically recruited minority activists to front her death racket. She conspired with eugenics financier and businessman Clarence Gamble to "hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities" to sell their genocidal policies as community health and welfare services.

Outright murder wouldn't sell. But wrapping it under the egalitarian cloak of "women's health" — and adorning it with the moral authority of black churches — would. Sanger and Gamble called their deadly campaign "The Negro Project."

In other writings, historian Mike Perry found, Sanger attacked programs that provided "medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers" because they "facilitate the function of maternity" when "the absolute necessity is to discourage it." In an essay included in her writing collection held by the Library of Congress, Sanger urged her abortion clinic colleagues to "breed a race of thoroughbreds." Nationwide "birth control bureaus" would propagate the proper "science of breeding" to stop impoverished, non-white women from "breeding like weeds."...

Fast forward: Five decades and 16 million aborted black babies later, Planned Parenthood's insidious agenda has migrated from inner-city "birth control bureaus" to public school-based health clinics to the White House — forcibly funded with taxpayer dollars just as Sanger championed.

This is why Jonah Goldberg of NRO calls this sort of thing "Liberal Fascism."   I'd leave off the "liberal" -- it's just fascism, plain and simple, and there's a direct line from Sanger to Mengele. 

Blue Devils!

Every time I think I've lost interest in college basketball and my Duke Blue Devils, for whom I have rooted since I arrived at Duke for grad school in 1983 (the sophomore year of Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas and David Henderson, Coach K's first great recruiting class).... every time I think it's lost its drama because of the early exits of great players to the pros, something like last night comes along.   Austin Rivers, Duke's star freshman, the clock winding down, Duke down two after a furious rally (they'd been down by 10 with just over two minutes to play), calmly dribbles the ball to the right wing at the preferred 45 degree angle, gets a big (UNC's Tyler Zeller) to switch out on him, then freezes him with an almost imperceptible move forward and back, and then shoots a game-winning 24-foot three-pointer over him.   

Un.   Be.   Lievable.

Girl of the Day - Emmy Rossum Redux

It's almost the weekend, so it's almost time for Downton Abbey on Sunday.  We always watch Downton Abbey live, and then DVR Shameless to watch later in the week.   But the Regular Wife said a funny thing this week when we watched Shameless.   As gross as it is, as vile as the characters are (especially the Dad, Frank Gallagher, played by William Macy), as offensive it is to the Regular Wife's delicate Catholic sensibilities -- think "Church Lady," or "Sexy Librarian" -- she noted that it was "much better written than Downton Abbey."   So it is.  

And, at the heart of the show is the character of Fiona Gallagher, played by Emmy Rossum, who holds her family together (sort of) while her own love life is largely falling apart.   It's a great role, and she's great in it.

 

I Don't Mind Being My Brother's Keeper, But I'm Not Too Keen on Being His Cell Phone Provider

Twenty years or so ago, I made some of my undergraduate students angry when I suggested that, because money is fungible, and because food stamps are essentially just another form of government currency, when the government gives someone food stamps, they are really just giving them money to buy whatever they want.   A dollar not spent on food, in other words, frees up a dollar to spend on something else.   My example was always cable television -- largely because I was always late with my own cable bill back in the bad old days of English instructor poverty, and always having to go over to the cable company office to pay my bill and get my cable turned back on, and always seemed to see a lot of somewhat sad sacks who looked like they might be on food stamps there (for all I know, they thought the same thing about me).  

I don't mind buying someone food if they're starving, I would say, but I sure don't want to buy them cable television.   But because money is fungible, and food stamps are money, to the degree that we give people food stamps we are also buying them cable television indirectly, if they then go out and buy it with their freed-up extra money.  

Needless to say, some of the more liberal undergraduates didn't like the food stamps = cable TV stamps argument.

Anyway, I've made the argument since to other people -- my wife would say ad nauseum.   Sometimes I use cable TV, but more often I use cell phones, which have become ubiquitous since then.   It's a much better analogy: there are something like 46 million Americans on food stamps now, but there aren't 46 million people who don't have a cell phone, and the usage of cell phones can be seen everywhere you look.   (Not to be a meanie, but something on the order of 90% of African-American children in America will at some point be the recipient of food stamps before their 20th birthdays, but at the same time 87% of African-Americans in 2009 had cell phones -- higher than the national average.   You do the math.)  

So, my argument would go, if you give someone food stamps, you're really giving them "cell phone stamps," since the extra marginal income doesn't allow them to by food (they'd buy that anyway if they had to do so not to starve), it allows them to buy something else, like, for instance, a cell phone.   Q.E.D.  

But, to me anyway, it was always just an argument.   It never occurred to me that the federal government actually did have cell phone stamps:

“Government’s programs, once launched, never disappear,” said Ronald Reagan in his 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech. “Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” And a finer example of the immortal nature of taxes and other government initiatives than the telephone tax you will never find. It was passed in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American war and stayed on the books in different forms until 2006, despite that conflict having ended in the same year it started. Added to this in 1996 was the Universal Service Fund fee, which was introduced in the Telecommunications Act of that year. And I bet you don’t know what it pays for.

Among the typically vague justifications for the levying of the Universal Service Fund fee — the best of which is to “promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable, and affordable rates” — is that it pays for a program called “Lifeline,” which is not remotely as urgent or necessary as its name suggests. Bottom line: You are paying for millions of other people’s phone service with every call you make. 

There are currently 12.5 million wireless accounts registered under the scheme, which is administered by the FCC. Any American citizen who is on food stamps, Medicaid, or who earns up to 135 percent of the federal poverty line can apply. If an application is successful — and, given that the FCC actually advertises it by direct mail, who are we kidding here — the $1.6 billion program will pay for either a cell phone (up to the value of $30, of which there are many available) or a landline installation, and then pay your bill to the tune of $10 a month, which is roughly equivalent to about 250 minutes talk-time on an entry-level handset. To paraphrase Rick Santelli, Congratulations! You are now paying your neighbors’ phone bill.

The Lifeline program has become increasingly popular in the last few years, and spending on it has more than doubled, from $772 million in 2008 to $1.6 billion in 2011. It is now so popular, in fact, that many people have registered multiple times; an FCC audit conducted in 2011 showed that up to 269,000 wireless subscribers had free phones and cell service from at least two carriers. (And people who don’t qualify appear to like it, too.) These abuses have caught the attention of Democratic senator Claire McCaskill, who has called for an investigation.  

The FCC will be hard-pressed to do much about the abuse, however, as until it was investigated, it had not considered it necessary to build a database to keep track of its handouts. It has now rectified this and claims to have saved $33 million since the audit. Greater efficiency is always laudable; but nobody seems to have stopped and asked a basic question: Why is the federal government running a semi-secret program to equip 12.5 million Americans with phones and pay $10 of their bills each month?

 

 As Mark Steyn says, we're the brokest nation in history.   Why exactly are we spending $1.6 billion a year of our tax dollars to pay for people to have access to a technology that didn't exist a generation ago, i.e., something that Americans had managed to live without for, oh, about two hundred freakin' years of our history?!

Pass the Law Now

The House, with a Republican majority and a Republican Speaker (John Boehner, shown above), needs to pass a bill-- let's call it the Freedom of Conscience Act -- revising Obamacare to preclude the HHS from making any regulation requiring employers to provide insurance coverage including access to abortion, abortifacients, contraception or sterilization services, where those employers file a simple form stating that they have moral objections to providing such services.   (In other words, it's not just Catholics who might not like this requirement; I can imagine, for instance, that Southern Baptist charities or organizations wouldn't like it much either.   And, frankly, you don't have to be religious to conclude that life begins at conception; I came to that conclusion well before I married a Catholic.)

Then, the Republicans in the Senate need to demand that Harry Reid bring the bill to a vote in the Senate.   There are 23 Democratic Senators up for reelection this year.   I expect that many of them don't want to be on the wrong side of this issue, so you could get 60 votes necessary to bring the bill up.

Then it will be up to Obama to veto a bill in an election year that simply permits institutions like the Catholic Church's hospitals, charities, schools and universities to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Pass the Law Now!

Girl of the Day - Lana Turner

It's Lana Turner's birthday.   Born in 1920, Turner was one of the great names of Hollywood, so much so that you maybe have always thought she was a bigger star than she actually was.   In reality, she was nominated for one Academy Award (for Peyton Place) and didn't win.   Her best films were The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful (with Kirk Douglas), and Imitation of Life, but looking at the list, none of them would qualify as "great" movies.   A beautiful gal, who had something of a tough life, including a spectacular scandal when her daughter murdered Turner's gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato, in 1957 in self-defense.

Can Santorum Do It?

Romney's campaign is at pains to stress that last night's stunning victories by Rick Santorum in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri don't mean much in the long-term because of Romney's superior "organization" and Romney's edge in "resources" (read:  money from big donors to fund his Super PAC).   But I wonder whether money and organization matter as much in the Internet age, where momentum goes viral in the blink of an eye and the touch of a touch screen.   The confluence of events is remarkable:   Santorum, who is known best as a Catholic politician, emerges as Romney's main challenger at the precise time when the Obama Administration chooses to affront Catholics all over America with its obnoxious decision to require Catholic institutions to offer birth control, abortifacients and sterilization procedures in their health insurance plans, making Santorum the most logical candidate to stand up for Catholics and Christians in general who are outraged by the intrusion by Big Government into matters of faith.

Can Santorum ride that wave through the end of the month and pick up another win in either Arizona or Michigan on February 28th?  If he were to beat Romney in Michigan, where Romney's father was governor and where Romney presumably has much greater name recognition, that would mean that Santorum's appeal really does play in the northern Midwest where Republicans must win to gain the Presidency.   Then the Big Enchilada comes on Super Tuesday on March 6th -- Ohio, where Santorum's Pennsylvania roots ought to play well.   If he were to win Michigan and Ohio, and fair well elsewhere, he might just pull this thing off, which would be one of the more remarkable comebacks in American political history.

Fairness

We hear a lot from Democrats about "fairness."   What they usually mean is that it's "fair" to practice the politics of envy and use government power to confiscate the income and savings of those who have earned more and saved more in order to fund (a) the work force of Big Government, and (b) the clientele of Big Government (constituencies who are dependent on government largesse and corporations who are dependent on government subsidies).  

Anyway, Stephen Moore has a great article up on the Wall Street Journal that consists of a series of "fairness" questions.    The Regular Guy's favorites are bolded:

President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own policy record—stack up according to those criteria?

Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?

Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country's income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?

Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?

Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C.—but millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and forced to send their kids to rotten schools?

Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money—paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars—must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and as much as 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?

Is it fair that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, former Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel and other leading Democrats who preach tax fairness underpaid their own taxes?

 

Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics, the poor are poorer, the poverty rate is rising, the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?

Is it fair that roughly 88% of political contributions from supposedly impartial network television reporters, producers and other employees in 2008 went to Democrats?

Is it fair that the three counties with America's highest median family income just happen to be located in the Washington, D.C., metro area?

Is it fair that wind, solar and ethanol producers get billions of dollars of subsidies each year and pay virtually no taxes, while the oil and gas industry—which provides at least 10 times as much energy—pays tens of billions of dollars of taxes while the president complains that it is "subsidized"?

Is it fair that those who work full-time jobs (and sometimes more) to make ends meet have to pay taxes to support up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for those who don't work?

Is it fair that those who took out responsible mortgages and pay them each month have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize those who acted recklessly, greedily and sometimes deceitfully in taking out mortgages they now can't afford to repay?

Is it fair that thousands of workers won't have jobs because the president sided with environmentalists and blocked the shovel-ready Keystone XL oil pipeline?

Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama's largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees on their investments in renewable energy projects that went bust?

Is it fair that federal employees receive benefits that are nearly 50% higher than those of private-sector workers whose taxes pay their salaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office?

Is it fair that soon almost half the federal budget will take income from young working people and redistribute it to old non-working people, even though those over age 65 are already among the wealthiest Americans?

Is it fair that in 27 states workers can be compelled to join a union in order to keep their jobs?

Is it fair that nearly four out of 10 American households now pay no federal income tax at all—a number that has risen every year under Mr. Obama?

Is it fair that Boeing, a private company, was threatened by a federal agency when it sought to add jobs in a right-to-work state rather than in a forced-union state?

Is it fair that our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids—who never voted for Mr. Obama—will have to pay off the $5 trillion of debt accumulated over the past four years, without any benefits to them?