Archive → April, 2011
Massachusetts: Marijuana odor not enough
Massachusetts has never been a state known widely for common sense. After all, they elect just about anyone named Kennedy without question. Even having the first couple letters of one’s last name is close enough, right John Kerry? But things have definitely taken a turn for the worse.
The state’s Supreme Court recently decided that detecting “the smell of burning marijuana” was “not enough for police to suspect a person of criminal activity and order them out of a car.”
Say what? Maybe even the presence of plant stands in the back seat wouldn’t be enough, at that rate.
Massachusetts State Supreme Court Chief Justice wrote, “We conclude that, to order a passenger in a stopped vehicle to exit based merely on suspicion of an offense, that offense must be criminal.”
The ruling was a shocking 5-1 majority.
Someone send the sole dissenter a gift basket, quick!
New doomsday gas price predictions
Some economists are so woeful on the diminishing strength of the US dollar, they’re predicting $6/gallon gas before the summer is over. Of course, it’s not merely the weakness of the dollar that plays into this, but the US’s insane demand for dozens of boutique gasoline blends over the summer months, using Algorism excuses.
Now more than ever, this economy needs the budgetary restraint Paul Ryan’s budget promises; in fact, he needs a whole lot more than than, but at least Ryan is running in the right direction, which is to slash spending. Not just slow the rate of growth, but real cuts that result in real savings. Maybe Ryan and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker need a Mega Meeting web video conferencing solution to get the message across; that’d be a nice counter to President Obama’s fake Facebook town hall.
Should I renew my prediction of $12/gallon gas in light of the panicked predictions of economists?
Even Dems are now talking cuts
If anyone doubts just how significant the GOP victory in the budget battle was last week, one need look no further than how the White House is talking about its new spending plan. Even the White House is advocating spending cuts going forward, rather than putting tax increased and additional spending on the front burner.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) has outline no less than $5 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, as part of what he calls “only the beginning” of cuts aimed at solving a $14 trillion budget deficit in DC. While the Dems won’t come near $5 trillion in cuts, the fact that they’re talking about cuts at all is a tremendous indicator of how significant their victory last week has become.
Now the trick is to hold both parties to those priorities, rather than letting them create new entitlement programs every time someone somewhere needs roadside assistance because their Mazda 626 broke down, or their McDonald’s is out of fries.
Trillions, not billions
Fresh off his budget battle victory late Friday, House Speaker John Boehner, in a column for USA Today, stated the next fight would be over “trillions, not billions” in spending cuts. His column said, in part:
That’s why this week, we’ll advance our fight from saving billions of dollars to saving trillions of dollars as we turn our full attention to the GOP budget outlined by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., aptly titled “The Path to Prosperity.” The Path to Prosperity is a powerful blueprint for economic growth and fiscal responsibility that will help our economy get back to creating jobs, stop Washington from spending money we don’t have, and lift the crushing burden of debt that threatens our children and grandchildren.
While Ph.D. candidates could earn teaching degrees studying the Federal budget (though who would want teaching degrees in such a discipline is questionable), one thing is clear: with the GOP House, there’s finally a watchdog to prevent President Obama and the Democrat controlled-Senate from engaging in another two years of out-of-control spending sprees that have damaged the value of the US dollar and resulted in economic malaise unlike any seen since the Carter administration.
Criticism grows with Trump’s poll numbers
Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, seems certain that one man stands no chance to unseat his boss, no matter how bad the economy gets under the current US president.
“There is zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people to do this job,” Plouffe said on ABC’s This Week.
That’s a strong statement considering Obama’s own poll numbers, and while it may be true, it could have a backlash effect. At least Trump can take comfort in the fact that his potential candidacy is now considered legitimate enough that he’s drawing this kind of fire from White House staffers.
Fire up the humidifiers, Mr. Trump… it’s gonna be a sticky summer!
Boehner scores win
In the battle over the budget late Friday, GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner scored a decisive victory for fiscal conservatives, changing the tone in Washington from one of capitulation by conservatives, to one of victory. Now, many observers will whine that Boehner didn’t win on quite enough points, that his victory wasn’t complete enough, and some are even suggesting he blinked when it came to entering into a government shut-down.
Don’t be fooled.
President Obama is the one coming out of this looking more like a laminate flooring salesman than a statesman; his threat to veto any seven-day funding extension proved hollow and in the final deal, Boehner won far more than he gave up on in this first round of economic showdowns.
In fact, one can gauge the significance of the largest-ever one-year cuts in Washington spending by one simple fact: President Obama rushed to take credit for it as soon as the cuts were finalized.
Certainly, more battles lay ahead and the cuts need to get deeper to back America out of its current economic crisis. Boehner needs to prove he’s committed long-term to shrinking, in real terms, both the size and the scope of the Federal government. When the figures start reaching into the trillions in cuts, rather than tens of billions, then we can know that real progress is being made to salvage the American economy.
But credit Boehner this much: even as the Democrats and their liberal media allies carted out all the old familiar clichés about who the Republicans wanted to kill by cutting spending, Boehner didn’t shrink from his responsibility, nor did he weep.
He stayed focused on getting the cuts through. Well done.
