Today was the first day of oral arguments over ObamaCare at the Supreme Court. Here’s a roundup of some of the coverage:
Archive for the ‘Regulation’ Category
First Day of ObamaCare Arguments Roundup
Monday, March 26th, 2012Harry Reid Still Thinks SOPA/PIPA is Awesome, Vows to Bring It Up for a Vote When It’s “Fixed”
Friday, January 20th, 2012As per the Senate Democratic Majority Leader’s official statement:
Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today on the Senate’s PROTECT I.P. Act:
“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.
“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.
“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”
A “compromise.” That means “we only want to censor you a little. Or, we want to wait until the heat is off before we get back to screwing you. (Hat tip: Penny Arcade.)
Sadly, the Republican leadership isn’t sounding much better. My quick and dirty impression is that the rank-and-file Republican members of the House and Senate closest to the Tea Party have gotten the message, good and hard, but that the leadership is still putting their fingers in their ears and thinking they’ll be fine if they just keep humming until to furor dies down.
They must be disabused of this notion.
I would urge you to contact your representative and tell them you don’t want SOPA/PIPA “delayed” or “fixed,” you want it killed dead and a stake driven through it’s heart. Or, to quote Spinal Tap, “just crank that volume to the point of pain.” They must come to dread your wrath more than the thought of losing campaign contributions from the MPAA/RIAA.
You must teach them fear.
A Few More SOPA/PIPA Tidbits
Thursday, January 19th, 2012Here’s a visual representation of congressmen supporting and opposing SOPA/PIPA:
(Click to Embiggen)
By my eyeball count, 40 of those 65 congresscritters still supporting SOPA are Democrats (plus one gray box that I assume is Socialist Bernie Sanders), whereas 56 of 101 opposing it are Republicans.
Via Instapundit comes a commentator on lefty site FireDogLake raging about how Republicans have owned the issue:
Those of us charting the protest yesterday were struck by how most of the lawmakers turning against the bill were Republicans. If you look at the latest whip count on PIPA, for example, you see that more Republicans oppose it at this point than Democrats.
(snip)
The Tea Party has struck fear into their party; the progressive movement inspires laughter.
Finally, isn’t it funny how lots of the same people who decried the Citizens United ruling are singing the praises of Google, Wikipdia, et. al. for weighing in on SOPA?
If corporations have no First Amendment rights, why can’t federal or state or local governments single out, say, Wikimedia Foundation for its SOPA/PIPA blackout? Why can’t they penalize or fine or even dissolve it? Why can’t they single Wikimedia Foundation out for disproportionate enforcement of unrelated laws in retaliation for disfavored speech?
(Hat tip: Dwight)
Rep. John Carter Now Opposes SOPA
Thursday, January 19th, 2012Rep. John Carter announced on his Facebook page that he’s withdrawing his support of SOPA. Carter is my congressman, and sadly, he was previously a SOPA cosponsor. It’s good to see that he’s seen the light.
LinkSwarm for January 12, 2012
Thursday, January 12th, 2012I had a maid service come clean my house in advance of a family event I’m hosting this weekend. It’s amazing the difference between “Bachelor Clean” and “Clean Clean.” It’s almost as big as the difference between “Obama Smart” and “Actually Smart”…
If we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things.
(Hat tip: Slashdot)
LinkSwarm for December 26, 2011
Monday, December 26th, 2011Still getting back up to speed after Christmas, so here are a few links that I’ve been squirreling away like nuts for winter:
Additional hat tips to Insta and Ace.
Audio Interview With Ted Cruz: Part 1
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011When I did this video interview with Ted Cruz on July 30, I also did an audio interview with him at the same time using an iPhone App called Recorder Pro. The video interview was done by Cruz’s staff (who have a much better camera than I do), and the resulting video was editing done to a sort of “Best of” piece emphasizing his campaign themes. I actually think the full interview will be more interesting to conservatives, as he goes into more detail about a number of topics, including border control, the budget deficit, and federal commerce clause overreach and the 10th Amendment, including a discussion of Wickard vs. Filburn.
It’s taken a good bit longer to get it the audio up here than I wanted to, mainly because I’ve been pretty busy, but also because it was something of a pain to edit the interview and get it up here. First, I had Recorder Pro record in CAF format, which isn’t particularly widely used, so I needed one program to convert it into a .WAV file, and then another to edit the file (there was about a minute and a half of extraneous setup noise I wanted to spare you). Then, after all that, I found out the resulting audio file was too large post all at once, so I’ve split it into two chunks. The first half of the interview is below as an MP3. I’ll try to put up the second half in the next day or so, assuming I don’t get distracted by shiny objects.
Also, as a bonus, here’s an essay by Ted Cruz and Mario Loyola on Federalism that discusses Wickard vs. Filburn.
EPA Shelves Smog Rules: Texas Off the Hook
Friday, September 2nd, 2011When last we checked the Obama Administration, as part of it’s ongoing war against (pick one or more) A) Energy, B.) Capitalism, and/or C.) Texas, had the EPA come up with new emissions rules that would have resulted in Texas power plants having to shutdown before sufficient new capacity was online, which would most likely have resulted in rolling blackouts (and probably fatalities) the next time summer came around.
Now comes word that the EPA is backing off on new smog emissions rules. Naturally Rick Perry, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and the 25 million Texans who’s A/C won’t suddenly shut off when it hits 112° in August because some bureaucrat in Washington decreed it are pleased, while radical environmentalists are outraged.
Score one for the good guys.
Texas To (Further) Outlaw Cockfighting
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011The Right Side of Austin reports that HB 1043 will further outlaw cockfighting by closing several loopholes in the law.
The news gives me the excuse to post a video of the greatest song ever written about cockfighting, Tom Russell’s “Gallo del Cielo”: