Dumb or Dishonest

A tax cheat is now the head of the IRS and treasury. If he is not a cheat then he is dumb, either or, the future is not looking too bright there.

Oh well, maybe what Obama is doing is showing the inherent imperfectability of government by appointing a dumb cheat.

Lakeshore Laments Back Online!

My Blogfather — Kevin Binversie is once again active with Lakeshore Laments.

Who Controls the Military Part XI

Simple answer President Barack Obama, and my guess is the mainstream mastodons will back him up there. That will be a refreshing change.

However, many executive institutions have their own will, their own inertia. We have seen various executive institutions resist both Republican & Democratic presidents. The military has its own will and inertia too, what will it do when commanded by President Obama? It seems President Obama is avoiding the mistakes made by the Clinton Administration, my guess is he will have better military relations.

The problem usually does not come down to critical situations. That is, if President Obama commands the 48th Bunny Thumper Division to attack the killer rabbits in Timvilistanberg the 48th Bunny Thumpers will promptly attack. However, if President Obama then commands the 48th Bunny Thumpers to wash their armor the Bunny Thumpers may resist. The Constitution may not like it, but human nature is human nature, no?

Don't get me wrong, the Bunny Thumpers should immediately be cleaning their armor upon President Obama's command, but we all know, simply being the commander on the organization chart does not mean the commander commands.

Rush, Jerry, and Edison Middle School

Oh How Funny,

I noted this at the Bader Blog Alliance but will do so again here.

Edison Middle School in Green Bay chose to use WTAQ to provide the feed for President Obama's inauguration. Well, anyone with a pulse in Green Bay should understand that from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm WTAQ carries Rush Limbaugh, and that Rush Limbaugh would trouble that hotbed of TIC (teacher's industrial complex) activists, i.e. the teachers.

Well, Rush decided to embellish and concurrently comment on the inauguration. He bleeped out the utterances of Hussein (so as not to offend Senator McCain) and as for the concurrent commentary I do not know about. I was listening to Winter Was Hard by the Kronos Quartet so I did not get the full dose of Rush's coverage. Anyone who knows Rush and what Rush is about, has to know he is not going to bow down in awe here.

Anyway, a teacher phoned in to WTAQ to complain about this and established an e-mail dialog with Jerry Bader. WTAQ & Jerry obviously alerted Rush's syndicator as the opening of Rush's show he addressed the situation. In the end, Rush has offered to come to Edison Middle School and deliver a lecture on civics and to take a select few students for a jet ride and economics lectures. The school should take him up on the offer.

Anyway, the complaint was not so much about the student's distress but about the teacher's distress. When I was at the age of these students my main thoughts sitting through such a thing would have been when is recess and can I go home to play space invaders. I hardly doubt students were moved to tears

In the end, my position is close to Jerry's. Rush should have shown the respect to the office, the office deserves. He could have had a field day afterwards, but in the end, the left has so poisoned the waters in the past eight years I don't give a rip, they only reason they are whining is because they are receiving what they so generously heaped out. Enjoy it.

On Geithner

It sounds like Tim Geithner is going to be confirmed. How sad, a guy in charge of the IRS is on the record of trying to cheat the IRS. I have no sympathy for the IRS, but the take that the notion is paying taxes is for the little guy is very much present here.

Tim is trying to pass the buck to TurboTax. Come on do you buy that? I don't, whenever you make money you have to report it. I am quite certain the situation Tim was in is so uncommon as to be one of the questions TurboTax asks about. Come on Tim do a little research. I sold some stocks a number of years ago and had to do some independent research on how to report the purchases and sales. I figured it out and dealt with it.

What is somewhat disconcerting on my part is this guy is a wizard of smart and is supposed to know all about getting us out of our current economic problems. Count me as skeptical and I urge he NOT be confirmed.

President -elect Obama

Congratulations to President Barak Obama.

I did not vote for or support you, but you are my president none-the-less.

The Dianafication of the Presidency

I am studiously avoiding the inauguration coverage, I just fired up music on my system in order to avoid even a music only public radio station referrals. Let it be known I have not gone out of the way to watch any recent inauguration, I don't put my faith in government, I put my faith in God.

Kathryn Jean Lopez comes up with the right description of what is happening:

The danger today, of course, is that Inauguration Day is not a moment for civic renewal and responsibility but that this one is more of a Princess Di moment, as a friend just put it to me, as we look at the "Sea of Humanity" as Drudge has it and listening to the over-the-top (U2's "Beautiful Day" playing) media coverage.

Source: The Corner — Kathryn Jean Lopez (re: I-Day)

Inauguration Day by its very nature is about change — the peaceful and methodic change of government from one administration to another. Of course, it is quite ceremonial as the changeover has been going for sometime and will continue for a sometime on. Its been pretty obvious, we have had two presidents now for a while, one dealt with foreign policy issues the other pronounced on things domestic. Today that changes, back to one president.

But what we have been seeing in this campaign and the runup to this day is over the top. It is as noted above the Dianafication of the presidency. That is not good.

The press for the last eight years was a government watchdog and now it seems they want to be government boosters. President-elect Obama is not going to fail, even if by objective measures his is a failed presidency the mainstream mastodons will not allow Obama to be seen as a failure. I find it funny, how much adulation Lincoln is getting from the media now, Lincoln's contemporary media sounds like they could be talking about W today.

In the end, I wish Obama well, I would advise him to listen to conservatives and implement conservative policy ideals but that is not going to happen. I am fastening my seatbelts.

Reid Rolls

No surprise there. Burris is in the senate.

Preidiction: Illinois government removes Blagojevich from office and Blago's successor "reappoints" Burris to the senate. This way, the Democrats are hoping to spray a little bit of perfume on the odor that Burris is covered in. No dice Burris loses when he is up for re-election. The question I ponder is does he lose in the primary or in the general?

Western Sunrise

This is looking out of our window to the Southwest. Note, this is not a photo of a sunset, but a photo of a sunrise!

Can you explain?

Is the Senate Racist?

Is Harry Reid a bigot?

Of course, I believe neither is true but were the senate controlled by the GOP that is what we would be hearing. However, that observation is already old and banal.

There is a claim that senate rules require the secretary of state's signature. Well is it?

Let us look further into that by studying the pertinent rules Here is the key phrase:

3. The Secretary of the Senate shall send copies of the following recommended forms to the governor and secretary of state of each State wherein an election is about to take place or an appointment is to be made so that they may use such forms if they see fit.

THE RECOMMENDED FORMS [emphasis added] FOR CERTIFICATE OF ELECTION AND CERTIFICATE OF APPOINTMENT ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Source: Senate Rules - Rule II (PRESENTATION OF CREDENTIALS AND QUESTIONS OF PRIVILEGE)

Nothing in Rule II seems to imply explicitly or implicitly the state's secretary of state needs to sign anything — only that it is suggested they sign off. Nope, Harry Reid and his cohorts are correct to want to get a non-Blagojevich tainted senator in office (so the taint doesn't affect the senator's election chances), but that does not appear to be a choice.

So, who is it now ignoring law?