Happy New Year!
1. House Rules Package is a Nice First Step to Control Spending
2. A Concern About Reince Preibus
3. SIGA’s stocks more than double since SEIU’s Andy Stern was hired on board
4. A Union Boss in Charge of Procurements? What could possibly go wrong?
5. Paul Ryan given power to bind and to loose.
6. MTV’s Teen Abortion Sales Pitch: It’s Just “A Ball of Cells”
7. Klein’s Crazy Constitutional Commentary.
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1. House Rules Package is a Nice First Step to Control Spending
Just before the holidays, House Republican leaders released their proposed “rules” package for the next Congress. It will be considered first on January 4th by House Republicans alone, and then thereafter by the full House of Representatives. Since the House is not a continuing body (like the Senate), it must adopt a new set of rules and procedures every two years when a new Congress is sworn in. Normally, they take the existing rules and make a few house-keeping tweaks. This time Republicans are attempting to write some real checks into their rules to help limit federal spending. I finally had a chance to read through the full package of reforms, and it does some nice things. Nothing groundbreaking, but some very important reforms nonetheless. Why is any of this important? As Rep. John Dingell once said, “If I let you write substance and you let me write procedure, I’ll screw you every time.” In short, procedure dictates policy.
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2. A Concern About Reince Preibus
I have a concern about Reince Preibus and it has nothing to do with whether or not he or his law firm helped communities get stimulus money.
Back in January of 2009, I raised the concern that Michael Steele was using Blaise Hazelwood to run his campaign for the RNC. The concern related to the willingness and ability of the Republican consultant class to glum on to their preferred RNC Chairman and bilk the GOP of gobs of cash.
At the time, Michael Steele, seeking to address the concerns I raised, sent out an email saying, “No member of the RNC staff will benefit financially from the RNC beyond their salary. The RNC will utilize a RFP process that mirrors best practices among national non-profit organizations. Contracts will be awarded strictly on merit.”
In fact, after Michael Steele won, Hazelwood, the Andersons, and others — all good people mind you — did in fact continue getting grand sums from the RNC. The RNC paid Hazelwood $761,000 for grassroots targeting, $48,000 for web advertising, and her husband received over $2 million. See here, here, and here.
Well, this year it turns out that the same cadre of consultants who backed Michael Steele in 2009 are backing Reince Preibus.
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3. SIGA’s stocks more than double since SEIU’s Andy Stern was hired on board
Former SEIU boss Andy Stern doesn’t quite deserve all of the credit. After all, SIGA Technologies’ scientists did come up with ST-246 (a smallpox vaccine) long before Stern was brought on board to pitch the company to his friends in Washington. However, hiring Andy Stern (who happened to have a key to the back door of the White House) was most assuredly a good investment since, a mere four months after his hiring to SIGA’s board of directors, SIGA was awarded the brass ring of contracts that may be valued up to $2.8 Billion.
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4. A Union Boss in Charge of Procurements? What could possibly go wrong?
If you’re anything like me, until today, you probably had very little idea what the Government Printing Office is all about. And, because there are more important things in life than keeping track of every little-known governmental agency and the administration’s various political appointees, you might have missed the White House press release letting us know that President Obama just made a whole bunch of recess appointments on Wednesday.
One of those recess appointments, as it turns out, is the appointment of William Boarman, one of eight sector vice presidents with the Communications Workers of America. The President, it seems, has opted to bypass the Senate (again) and appointed Boarman to head the Government Printing Office as the Public Printer of the United States.
Another presidential appointment of another union boss to a position of power…So, what’s new? [At least, that was sort of my reaction until looking into the GPO a bit further.]
As it turns out, the Government Printing Office is a kind of a big deal.
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5. Paul Ryan given power to bind and to loose.
Elections. Have. Consequences.
And here’s one coming up, now: the incoming House majority will be establishing a rule that will give the House Budget chair the ability to set the spending ceiling for any 2011 budget. This rule is currently causing House Democrats to freak out like koalas deprived of their eucalyptus leaves/junkies deprived of their heroin/hipsters deprived of their iPhones, for two reasons:
The Democrats never passed a budget in 2010, so this is going to affect spending for this fiscal year. A lot.
Who is going to be the House Budget chair? Why, Rep. Paul “Embrace the sweet pain that comes from cutting entitlements” Ryan.
And when I say “freak out,” I mean freak out: the Democrats are so upset about this that they’ve lost all control of their higher brain functions and have reverted to babbling about Social Security privatization. And unilateralism! We haven’t heard that one in a while.
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6. MTV’s Teen Abortion Sales Pitch: It’s Just “A Ball of Cells”
In July of this year, leftist Feminists were openly, and proudly, rooting for an abortion to be portrayed on prime-time television. And in April of this year, leftist Feminists like Jessica Valenti of Feministing were grossly bemoaning the fact that Mtv’s show, 16 and Pregnant, did not portray any teenage girls having abortions. They wanted sixteen year old girls to have abortions. On television. Way to be pro-woman and For The Children ™, faux feminists! By For The Children, I of course mean totally not at all for the children – unless they can be used and exploited to further an agenda, natch. You see, it’s never actually about women nor children to them; it’s always about an agenda and an ideology that treats motherhood as a yoke around a woman’s neck. Motherhood is so old school and oppressive and stuff! What with those pesky children wanting to be nurtured and loved, while providing a joy that fills one’s heart so full that it cannot be adequately put into words. Well, and wanting to, you know, live. Who do they think they are?
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7. Klein’s Crazy Constitutional Commentary.
Ezra Klein, the Washington Post’s young liberal pundit has offered up a brilliant bit of left-wing honesty. Klein admitted on national television that he thinks the U.S. Constitution is confusing because “it was written more than 100 years ago.”
It really makes you wonder why liberals were so upset with George Bush supposedly shredding the thing if it confuses them anyway. The video really is a must see video.
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