Purchases Of This Wine Should Be Made Deductible

This is for my friend the Lord of Truth, who (I am guessing) will go and buy a case (or more) of this fine wine... assuming that he has any money left after paying the tax man.

The Left's Dumbest Idea Of The Week

So that we're clear, the left is convinced that the Tea Parties are filled with racists who think President Obama was born in Kenya.  So how do they go about proving it?  By trying to infilitrate Tea Party rallies as imposter racists and birthers.  No, really...

Jason Levin, creator of http://www.crashtheteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate tea party events for April 15 — tax filing day, when tea party groups across the country are planning to gather and protest high taxes.


"Every time we have someone on camera saying that Barack Obama isn't an American citizen, we want someone sitting next to him saying, 'That's right, he's an alien from outer space!'" Levin said.


...Levin says they want to exaggerate the group's least appealing qualities, further distance the tea party from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them.


"Do I think every member of the tea party is a homophobe, racist or a moron? No, absolutely not," Levin said. "Do I think most of them are homophobes, racists or morons? Absolutely."


..."We've been ignored, we've been ridiculed. Well, now they're coming after us," said Judy Pepenella, a co-coordinator for the New York State Tea Party. "Gandhi's quote is one we understand: 'First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.'"

Love that last quote. For years, I've had to hear the left parroting it to annoy me; it's kind of nice to see if coming from my side.

I'm not sure which is more stupid -- opting to "infiltrate" the rallies, or advertising your intent to do so. As Allahpundit notes, this pretty much gives the right the opportunity to claim that any kook sign found at a Tea Party comes from a leftie infiltrator. But it's also incredibly telling that the best argument the left can make against a Tea Party gathering is not a counter-protest, but an attempt to make them look bad through trickery.  If the Tea Party groups were as bad as the left thought they were, they wouldn't need to send infiltrators to portray them as racists or kooks.  But maybe the problem is, the Tea Party folks aren't racists or kooks -- they're just ordinary Americans who are engaged in political protest against a rapidly growing government and the political elite that want tax dollars from our citizens while ignoring their input.

Nah.  The Left would never lie.  I'm sure Michael Moore will be doing a documentary exposing the Tea Partiers next.

The Healthcare Follies Continue

If this is true, I may re-consider and opt to support Obamacare...

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members.


For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.


The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?


The law promises that people can keep coverage they like, largely unchanged. For members of Congress and their aides, the federal employees health program offers much to like. But, the report says, the men and women who wrote the law may find that the guarantee of stability does not apply to them.


“It is unclear whether members of Congress and Congressional staff who are currently participating in F.E.H.B.P. may be able to retain this coverage,” the research service said in an 8,100-word memorandum.


And even if current members of Congress can stay in the popular program for federal employees, that option will probably not be available to newly elected lawmakers, the report says.


...The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.


But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.


The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.


Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago.


In addition, the report says, Congress did not designate anyone to resolve these “ambiguities” or to help arrange health insurance for members of Congress in the future.

In other words, they raced to pass the bill as soon as they could, and in doing so managed to leave a loophole that may leace members of Congress and their personal staffs without insurance coverage... in a law intended to make insurance coverage available to millions more people!

Allahpundit has more here, but it's safe to say that Congressional members did not intend to do this (after all, who's going to pay for John Kerry's pec implants?).  Then again, they probably still don't know what they intended to do.  The benefit of passing a bill they didn't read is that they can always claim they didn't say it.

Funny, But A Little Too Close To The Truth

God bless the Onion.


In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

I love the close from the woman from the Future Progress Institute: "If you love America, you throw money in its hole."

We're A Work In Progress

Um, excuse me?  We're working on it?  Silly me, I thought we'd established one a couple hundred years ago...

President Obama said Sunday that the United States is still "working on" democracy and a top aide said he has taken "historic steps" to improve democracy in the United States during his time in office.


The remarks came as Obama met with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev -- one of the U.S. president's many meetings with world leaders ahead of this week's nuclear summit.


Kazakhstan, which has been touting its record on combating nuclear proliferation, is a key player in the NATO supply network to Afghanistan and currently heads the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).


Some observers see a conflict between Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the 56-nation OSCE, which plays an important role in monitoring elections in emerging democracies, and its own widely criticized human rights record.


But if the Obama administration saw any disconnect, it kept its criticism to itself.


"In connection with the OSCE, the presidents had a very lengthy discussion of issues of democracy and human rights," NSC senior director Mike McFaul said on a conference call with reporters Sunday. "Both presidents agreed that you don't ever reach democracy; you always have to work at it. And in particular, President Obama reminded his Kazakh counterpart that we, too, are working to improve our democracy."


The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman asked McFaul to clarify.


"You seemed to be suggesting there was some equivalence between their issues of democracy and the United States' issues, when you said that President Obama assured him that we, too, are working on our democracy," Weisman said. "Is there equivalence between the problems that President Nazarbayev is confronting and the state of democracy in the United States?"


"Absolutely not ... There was no equivalence meant whatsoever," McFaul said. "[Obama's] taken, I think, rather historic steps to improve our own democracy since coming to office here in the United States."

Let's get past the debate on whether one can ever "achieve" democracy or not -- I think one can always improve the state of a country's governance and governing institutions, but I find it silly to claim that you don't ever "reach" democracy.  Or maybe the President really does believe Kent Brockman's credo: "I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work."

I'm more impressed by the continuing narcissism of our current President. He's taken "historic steps" to improve democracy?  Man, what an ego.