Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Welfare For Politicians, Take Two

Congressman Ben Chandler spoke to students at Eastern Kentucky University yesterday. He told them he has a plan to limit the influence of lobbyists in Congress.

His plan is nothing more than welfare for politicians.

The Richmond Register reported: "Public financing of congressional campaigns would be the best way to limit the influence of lobbyists in Congress, Chandler said."

Wow. Very deep.

Three Words: Line Item Veto

I hear too many people making too many good points about the lack of difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Governor Fletcher has a great opportunity to show that a distinct difference still exists.

The folks at the Bluegrass Institute are leading the charge again, urging readers to send the Governor a pen to strike offensive spending from the state budget.

My favorite, by far, is the $50 million bonded to buy computers for schools. Let them use a pencil and a piece of paper for just one more year and you will be able to buy the same computers for about $30-$40 million. There is no more misused tool in our schools than the computers. Better still, keep the $50 million out of it, concentrate more on teaching kids to think, and then computer "literacy" will be a snap when one is needed for more than word processing or playing games.

The New Political Slur

Senator Dan Mongiardo sank to a new low yesterday. Liberals have apparently gotten tired of calling Republicans "Hitler." Now they are invoking the the specter of Benito Mussolini.

Blaming Senate President David Williams for Mongiardo's own failure to read a bill that was coming up for a vote, Mongiardo whined: "We don't have leadership; we have dictatorship. My grandparents came here from Italy to flee fascism."

This guy is a little light in his loafers to be running for Governor. And no, I'm not talking about his questionable "dating" habits.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Normalizing Homosexuality, Kentucky Version

A dog biting a man is not news. Neither should it be newsworthy when a private, Southern Baptist college that prohibits sex outside of marriage and homosexuality kicks out a homosexual student. That didn't stop the Lexington Herald-Leader from putting this story on its front page.

Again, unfortunately, the homosexual lobby is demanding special rights. Their rabid supporters in the MSM are only too happy to help. People who practice homosexuality can freely attend lots of colleges in Kentucky. They just can't go to University of the Cumberlands. If they really wanted to be treated like everyone else, they would see that school as just like Midway College. Men can't go there.

But no. They won't be happy until homosexuals are celebrated everywhere and rules apply to them nowhere.

A Warning For Immigrants?

This is interesting.

Maybe we should put together a DVD and distribute it around Mexico. We could explain to them that using a hospital emergency room as a family doctor, sucking up welfare dollars, and otherwise leeching off our taxpayers will not be tolerated in the United States of America.

Wait a minute... Are we holding Mexican illegals to a higher standard than we do our own citizens? If we would only clamp down on the citizen-bloodsuckers who won't take jobs here in America, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about getting and keeping enough Mexicans to do the work "Americans just won't do."

No matter where you stand on immigration, you have to know that if the illegals keep taking lessons from the leftist protest groups they are going to set off a war they will surely lose.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Ben Chandler's Faith-Based Plea

And they say we are crazy for suggesting humans didn't evolve from lizards and monkeys.

Rep. Ben Chandler declared in a newspaper column that global warming is no longer theory, but is now "an unsettling reality."

The following sentence from Chandler's essay is a stark example of the vacuousness of the radical international enviro-left:

Whether or not you believe recent weather patterns are a result of global warming, there is no doubt that future generations will be drastically impacted by climate change.

In other words, "Even if you are too stupid to understand that George Bush and his oil buddies are causing global warming, you will still be swept up in a hurricane, parched in a drought, or die some other kind of horrible death at the hands of our global warming bugaboo."

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Schism on Left: WaPo Off Leak "Scandal" Train

This will make them blow a gasket for sure.

A Cautionary Tale About Runaway Courts

Courts Flunk the Civics Test
By ROSS SANDLER and DAVID SCHOENBROD
April 8, 2006 ;

On March 23, a New York appellate court ordered the state legislature to provide an additional $4.7 billion for operating the New York City schools, plus another $9.2 billion for construction. These are immense sums, even in the Empire State . The advocacy group that brought the suit, Campaign for Fiscal Equity, declared the court's decision would "get real action" because the legislature must "come up with a solution now, right now." This was good spin, but it's not true.

Contrary to a widespread misconception, courts have no power to force a state legislature to appropriate money; nevertheless the ersatz order, coming as it did in the final days of the state's budget process, could tilt the legislators towards more spending. This is apparently what is happening in Albany , where, in a partial tip of their hats to the court, legislators authorized $11.2 billion in new debt to pay for school construction in New York City .

And what was pulled off in Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. New York seems to be part of a pattern. Last July in Kansas a similarly timed judicial decision prodded its state legislature to pony up a hefty increase in school funding. This year Texas is under a June 1 deadline to change the source of school funding. Before the scam spreads further, it's time to lay it bare.

In New York , the courts found that the government is violating a state constitutional clause that the legislature "shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of the state may be educated." The Kansas case was to enforce a similar clause. That most children in New York City and elsewhere in the state are not getting much of an education is not the question. What to do about it is.

Plausible suggestions include freeing the schools from rigid union contracts and bureaucratic procedures that make it all but impossible to fire incompetent teachers, reward good ones and remove disruptive students from the classroom. Other potential solutions include more charter schools and vouchers. One strand of thinking relates school failure to cultural norms rather than lack of money. In New York City , spending per pupil is among the highest in the nation, $13,400, and the educational results among the worst. The plaintiffs chose, however, to focus on the solution -- more money -- that delights teacher union allies. The courts played along.

Most people assume that the legislature must cough up the cash because courts have the power of contempt, which allows them to punish those who disobey their orders. In the school case, however, the courts can't punish anyone. State legislators are not defendants in this case, and even if they were, they can't be punished because they are immune from suit. The state's treasury is immune because the court lacks authority to appropriate more funds and can't fine the state for the legislature's unwillingness to do so. The remaining defendants are officials, including Gov. George Pataki. They can't be held in contempt for failing to produce the money because they are powerless under the state constitution to spend money the legislature has not appropriated.

Longstanding impediments to coercing legislators and governors have never stopped courts from nullifying statutes that violate constitutional rights by, for example, segregating schools, or suppressing free speech. But courts rightly have a tougher time when they want to exercise the legislature's power of the purse.

There are, to be sure, cases where courts have indirectly pressured legislators to spend more. The leading one was in New Jersey , in 1976. After the state Supreme Court found that the state had violated a constitutional requirement that all school districts have equal per-pupil funding -- and the legislature failed to give more money to the poorer districts -- the court ordered state officials to close all the schools until the legislature equalized spending. Faced with that prospect the legislature passed an income tax to raise the extra money.

The New Jersey court argued that its job was to vindicate the constitutional right to equal spending and, if the legislature would not achieve that result by increasing spending, the court would get it done by reducing spending for everyone to zero. The argument has a certain cold logic, but it's a nonstarter in New York and Kansas , where the right being enforced is to a sound basic education.

If a New York court closed the schools, it would be the judges who violated the state constitutional right, by denying any education to all students. That would undercut the only leg the court has to stand on, the rule of law. Nonetheless, when the Kansas court raised the question of whether it should close the schools, the threat was enough to pry some money from the legislature.

New York 's high court made a grave mistake when the judges transferred the power to decide what is a sound basic education from the legislators to themselves. Assuming it is too late to admit its error, the court should stick to issuing a declaratory judgment that the state does not deliver a constitutionally adequate education rather than ordering the legislature to do anything. This, as it happens, is precisely the position urged by both Gov. Pataki as defendant, and his counsel, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

The coercive force behind such a declaratory judgment would come from all those who want to improve the schools, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who demanded and got responsibility for the city's schools, and the voters of the state, for whom there is no more important issue.

When courts claim that they have power to make legislatures spend more to vindicate a constitutional right to basic education, they tamper with a basic tenet of our democracy -- no taxation without representation. Voters are entitled to hold political officials accountable for the taxes they levy, the money they spend, and the education they produce. When judges pretend that legislators are their marionettes, the legislators can escape accountability, but only if the voters are fooled. They shouldn't be.

Messrs. Sandler and Schoenbrod are professors at New York Law School and authors of "Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government" (Yale University Press, 2003).

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Courier Journal Goes Daily Kos

The Courier Journal editorial board has a deep-seated dislike for Republicans, but sometimes they veer from political rhetoric to visceral hatred.

Today is one of those days.

That is the only rational explanation for them joining in the extreme "Bush is and Evil Leaker" parade usually reserved for the extreme left on the blogosphere.

Compare this and this.

There is a big difference between leaking classified information and divulging non-classified information. If this is the best they can come up with now, it is not hard to expect that by November most people will decide that empty rhetoric isn't worth the risk of putting them back in charge. Unfortunately for us all, deceptive practices like this from the left make it easier for bad politicians in the GOP to skate by knowing the public holds little real hope in a liberal alternative.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Don't Just Do Something, Protest!

If we keep expanding our government entitlements, we could wind up like France. Today, their future generations are learning that mass protests to avoid work are more profitable than actually working.

Bad News For Teachers Union, Good News For Us

School choice is working in Washington D.C.

National GOP Like Kentucky Dems?

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney earned Kentucky Kudos on Monday with a good teacher pay plan.

Today, he gets the opposite for his compulsory health insurance plan and another very dubious political move.

Supporters point to requirements for drivers to carry car insurance, but that is a weak analogy. The government doesn't spend taxpayer dollars buying car insurance for low-income people. The law requires them to stay off the road and offenders face jail time if they drive without insurance. Romney's socialized medicine deal expands the entitlement mentality further up the income scale. Some people complain about pay increases putting them into higher tax brackets, but that is only a marginal increase. Under Romney's plan, upwardly mobile workers would find increasing incomes causing a tangible loss to their government health insurance subsidy.

Do we really want entitlement disincentives to plague the middle class just as the old "War on Poverty" has crushed the poor for decades? I suppose if we really wanted to follow this track we could provide government car insurance and subsidies for car purchases and sliding-scale prices for gasoline and car repairs based on income. Hey, where's my leather seat subsidy?!

Anyway, as 2008 draws ever closer, national Republicans wanting to keep the GOP in the White House face the same problem as Kentucky Democrats who want their party to regain the Governor's Mansion. No candidate.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

It Just Gets Worse For Worley

As Senator Ed Worley(D-Richmond) prepares for an April 19 hearing on the ethics complaint regarding his hidden business interests, he faces even more bad news.

One of his companies, Highland Centre LLC, has over $11,000 in delinquent property taxes owed to Madison county, according to the Richmond Register. The Madison county clerk's office confirmed the delinquency and plans a sale of the tax liens.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Terrorists Find Another Downing Street Memo

Al-jazeera is at it again. How long will it be before the American Left picks up this story?

I'd say by this weekend we will be hearing in the MSM how attacking Iraq made the terrorists mad at us and caused the subway bombings in London.

Once again, the Bush administration is stuck between those who want to surrender the war and those who want to turn the Middle East into a sea of glass. It is a shame when protecting America's interests responsibly is the minority position.

The Bio-terror Lab That Could Have Been

When Hal Rogers was putting together a Kentucky-Tennessee coalition to bring the federal bio-terror laboratory to Somerset, where the heck was Ben Chandler?

Lexington is a much better fit, with the University, the educated workforce, and the infrastructure needs already in place. I'm all for southern Kentucky getting this and it will be a great boon to the state, but it would be nice if central Kentucky had an alert Congressional representative as well.

And yes, it is sour grapes. It is also an I-told-you-so.

It's Another Isolated Incident!

As Tom DeLay steps down, we are reminded that Republican officeholders under ethical clouds usually step down (Newt Gingrich, Robert Livingston, Tom DeLay) and Democrats usually cling to power as if their lives depended on it (Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Johnny Ray Turner, Ed Worley).

The point is that all the Democrat tv commercials already in the can for running every race against Tom DeLay just lost their sting.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Stumbo Runs Aground

Does anyone doubt there is more to this story?

Seems interesting that the AP reports he went out last night looking for fishing locations, but wasn't reported missing until 9 AM today. Has his family grown accustomed to Stumbo's all-night excursions not ending until the middle of the next morning? Also, don't most people carry a cell phone in case of a "boat accident?"

The Pinellas county Sheriff's Office says that charges will not likely be filed against Stumbo in the incident.

Hey, A Republican With An Education Plan!

Gov. Mitt Romney deserves major points for taking on the education establishment in Massachusetts.

The top teachers union thug in his state calls Romney's plan to bring sanity to the teacher pay issue "inequitable, divisive, and ineffective."

In English, that means it is good.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Frustrate A Liberal: Support School Choice

Fear is a great motivator. Fresh off two consecutive Frankfort wins versus taxpayers, the education establishment, for their own good, really needs a little healthy fear thrown their way.

It is high time we give it to them.

Since most of us know throwing more money at our public school administrators isn't the answer to improving student education, when are we going to realize we don't have to sit back and keep endorsing blank checks to an unaccountable school bureaucracy? Seriously, how much better would our public schools be if parents could choose to take their tax dollars and their children elsewhere if they saw a better educational opportunity?

The education establishment doesn't want you asking questions like that. Unfortunately, too many elected Republicans (a seemingly natural anti-government monopoly constituency) have turned into nervous Nellies at a time that taxpayers have every reason to be questioning the status quo.

They really, really don't want you to click here to see what is coming to Kentucky. But go ahead, you rebel, and do it anyway.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Howard Dean At Your Front Door

The DNC has put the word out for Democrat volunteers to go door-to-door across the nation on April 29.

Here is part of their script:

Democrats are working on the following issues:
Which issues are the most important to you?
Honest Leadership & Open Government
Real Security
Energy Independence
Economic Prosperity & Educational Excellence
A Healthcare System that Works for Everyone
Retirement Security


I would choose each one of these issues and ask the volunteer to describe in detail what the Democratic Party is going to do differently. If this effort receives the media scrutiny it deserves it could amount to a monumentally hilarious screw-up. Think one part Jay Walking and one part Dean Scream. Then multiply those by thousands of mad-as-hell half-cocked lefties invading neighborhoods from sea to shining sea and getting their empty rhetoric thrown back in their faces, making up silly answers to questions, and melting under the pressure of real world situations.

Someone needs to follow these people around with video cameras. What we really need to do is come up with a great name for the reality show that would come as a result of all this.