No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for March, 2010

March 31, 2010

Shocker – the Barrett Bypass/Doyle Detour to end “early”

by @ 16:54. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Transportation.

The gang at the very-unofficial ScottForGov.com nailed the bullshit call on the 8-week closure timeframe trotted out by the DOT and dutifully parrotted by the LeftStreamMedia. Word has just come down that the new northbound US-45 span over eastbound I-94, which has been closed since last Friday, will reopen at 5 am tomorrow Friday morning. The Journal Sentinel’s Tom Held amazingly continues to parrot the government li(n)e that it is 7 weeks ahead of schedule.

News flash – as I noted when the old bridge was closed, the deck on the new bridge was already poured. All that remained to be done to put the new bridge into service was to let the concrete cure, put some asphalt down for the approaches, and restripe some lanes. Given the original closure limitation to nights and weekends, the original schedule of no full closure last weekend to do said approach work, and the fact it took half a weekend to pave the approaches, that delay is, depending on whether the work crews would have worked the holiday weekend or next weekend, either 4 or 11 days.

Revisions/extensions (5:02 pm 3/31/2010) – Somehow confused Thursday and Friday.

Drill Here, Drill Now Tues…er, Wednesday – Obama “allows” drilling (or does he?)

(H/T – Ed Morrissey)

The Washington Post reports that President Obama announced that he will eventually approve drilling leases well off (a minimum of 50 miles out) the southern East Coast and the Florida Gulf Coast. While it is a good start, the devil, as always, is in the details. First, let’s take a quote from Obama:

“We’ll protect areas vital to tourism, the environment and our national security,” he said. “And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence. That’s why my administration will consider potential new areas for development in the mid- and south-Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic. That’s why we’ll continue to support development of leased areas off the North Slope of Alaska, while protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay.”

Note the word used to describe the new areas – consider. Given Obama’s track record of both shutting down various sources of energy, both oil and coal, and of issuing statements that have expiration dates, I don’t exactly see this as a full return to late-Bush-era Drill Baby Drill proposals.

Then there’s the timing involved. HotAir reader cs89 found this little tidbit in the WaPo story:

If there is enough interest from industry and if the government determines that offshore drilling does not harm the environment or interfere with military activities, the Interior Department intends to hold a 2012 lease sale for exploration 50 miles off the coast of Virginia, as well as a similar one for Alaska’s Cook Inlet.

There’s plenty of time for the “pledge” to reach its expiration date.

March 29, 2010

Deconstructing the Zoo Interchange Debacle

by @ 17:41. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Transportation.

Some semi-random thoughts on what has become the Barrett Bypass:

  • The moment I-94 between the airport and the Illinois border became the post-Marquette priority at the end of 2004, this became inevitable. The 2005 veto of engineering funds by Jim Doyle (supported by Tom Barrett) and the 2009 veto of most of the engineering funds (again a joint Doyle/Barrett production) would not have done anything to stop this. On the other hand, Barrett had a big hand in Doyle making that decision – at the time, it had been widely expected that the Zoo Interchange would be the post-Marquette priority, and Barrett’s staunch opposition to a Zoo rebuild that would accomodate an 8-lane Zoo-to-Marquette I-94 led Doyle to the “expedient” alternative.
  • That said, had the Zoo been rebuilt first, it is quite conceivable that before the Mitchell Interchange would have been rebuilt, it would have faced a similar situation. While those bridges (carrying traffic from I-894 to both directions of I-94, and to I-894 from northbound I-94) are 4 years newer than the Zoo bridges, they were of the same superstructure as both the failing Zoo bridges and the Marquette bridges.
  • The $1.2 billion that Doyle raided from the transportation fund is another key component. Do remember that on this type of project, the federal government typically pays for 80% of the cost. Thus, a $1.4 billion rebuild of the Zoo would have required $280 million from the state.
  • As for the $820 or so million for the car-speed train between Milwaukee and Madison’s airport, while that “stimulus” money is earmarked for that specific project, Doyle and company could have, instead of trying to cram commuter rail down our throats, applied to use that money for rebuilding the Zoo.
  • Bold prediction – once the last “original” bridge (the US-45 northbound bridge over I-94 westbound) is replaced (ahead of the 2016 “start date”), if Barrett’s governor, he’ll declare the Zoo fixed for “all time” (or at least until he departs the governor’s office). There are two bridges with rebuilt superstructures (the pair of US-45 southbound bridges, rebuilt in 1984).
  • If you believe that it will take until Memorial Day to open the northbound US-45 bridge, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. The deck of the new structure was already poured before the Friday closure. In fact, the guys at the very-unofficial ScottForGov.com blog are predicting the new bridge will be open before Opening Day (that would be next Monday).

Neumann enters falsehood-mongering territory

by @ 9:09. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

I’m almost at a loss of words to explain various attempts by both the Mark Neumann campaign and Neumann himself to spread falsehoods on Scott Walker’s political future – despicable is about the only one that comes to mind. Fortunately, Christian Schneider broke out the full Dennis York on his Twitter feed this morning. A couple of my favorites…

Scott Walker is quitting the governor’s race to teach motor scooter safety to legless senior citizens.

If Scott Walker is elected governor, he will outlaw use of the letter “N.”

I have decided to drop the blog neutrality in the race because of this. I have tried to keep my personal endorsement of Scott Walker separate from the blog becuase up until this broke, I had also respected Mark Neumann. However, there is a difference between a factually-based “negative” campaign and a campaign built on lies, and Neumann crossed that line.

Republican Lieutenant Governor debate – tonight

by @ 8:08. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Ozaukee County GOP will be hosting a debate among the four candidates for Lieutenant Governor, Dave Ross, Rebecca Kleefisch, Ben Collins and Brett Davis, tonight at 6:45 pm at the Cedarburg Performing Arts Center, W68N611 Evergreen Blvd. in Cedarburg. Jeff Wagner will be moderating the debate.

I plan on being there.

Polling the Rightosphere – March right-of-center likability edition

by @ 7:30. Filed under Politics - National.

Once again, John Hawkins provided an outlet for the rest of us (or at least the 82 of us from 80 blogs who responded) to give our opinions on 35 different people in the right-of-center sphere. To tease you on the results, I’ll give the top 5 (give or take ties) most popular and least popular, and note that John has the top 10 of each:

Most popular (strongly like plus like votes):
Tied for 4th (74 votes) – Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh
Tied for 2nd (76) – Marco Rubio and Michelle Malkin
1st (80) – Thomas Sowell (notably, nobody dislikes him; the only reason it’s not 82 is 2 people didn’t give an opinion on him)

Least popular (strongly dislike plus dislike votes):
Tied for 4th (64) – Lindsey Graham, David Brooks and Pat Buchanan
3rd (67) – David Frum
2nd (69) – Arnold Schwarzenegger
1st (71) – Meghan McCain

On page 2 (it’s been a while since I’ve done that split; those of you reading on the feed will need to click here), I’ll give you the Rasmussen-defined “Passion Index” (strongly-like percentage less strongly-dislike percentage) rankings for everybody in the poll:

March 26, 2010

The “24” clock has run out

by @ 19:32. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

While Fox Entertainment and Kiefer Sutherland have not yet confirmed the news, almost everybody else involved with “24” is saying that Season 8 is the last. The details are over at Blogs4Bauer.

Northbound US-45 through the Zoo Interchanged closed indefinitely

by @ 12:14. Filed under Transportation.

WTMJ-AM is reporting that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has closed the US-45 bridge over I-94 eastbound to all traffic because of additional cracks on the present bridge until its emergency replacement is in place. As part of the closures, the on-ramps to I-894/US-45 northbound from Greenfield, Lincoln and National Aves. are closed, and 84th Street at I-94, including the westbound off-ramp from I-94 to 84th, is closed to local traffic to facilitate the detour route (exit to I-94 eastbound, exit at 84th Street, enter I-94 westbound at 84th, and exit to US-45).

That particular bridge had also been subjected to a 30-ton weight limit since last August, with two other bridges (the south-to-east and north-to-west ramps) also subject to weight limits and an emergency replacement program. That had been scheduled to finish up at the end of May, with only nighttime and very-limited weekend closures.

I do have had a couple questions (one of them was answered in the video from WTMJ-TV)

The plan had been to use new alignments for the three movements affected. Specifically with respect to north US-45, that alignment was expected to have a design speed of only 50 mph, compared to the current design speed of 60 mph. With only preliminary work (at least as of the last time I went through the interchange) done on the US-45 north emergency bridge, and the opportunity to replace on the same alignment now available, will the DOT take advantage? Scratch that – that span is already largely in place. That also means it is likely that the closure will not be as long as Memorial Day.

– Given the northbound US-45 bridge over westbound I-94 (which also carries traffic going onto US-45 north from I-94 east) is of the same age and construction type, is that bridge going to remain standing until the interchange is rebuilt?

Revisions/extensions (12:44 pm 3/26/2010) – One of the questions I had appears to have been answered.

March 25, 2010

Message to the nutjobs threatening members of Congress

by @ 11:23. Filed under Politics - National.

Knock your fucking shit off NOW! There’s an election in November, and time for the new members of the next Congress to reverse everything the current Congress has enacted and wants to enact.

Just how unfriendly is Wisconsin toward new business?

by @ 11:16. Filed under Business, Politics - Wisconsin.

Christian Schneider at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute illustrates just how unfriendly. If you prefer a pictoral, just click the thumbnails below.

Revisions/extensions (11:43 am 3/25/2010) – I should’ve taken a look at the WPRI post – Christian posted it just after noon yesterday. My screenshots were taken about 11:15 am this morning.

R&E part 2 (1:05 pm 3/25/2010) – Guess it takes Charlie Sykes pointing this out to get results. The site’s fixed.

The New York Times catches up to NRE – admits Social Security is running a cash deficit

by @ 10:50. Filed under Social Security crater.

It’s nice to see The New York Times catch up to what Ed Morrissey and I have been noting since September (with the first alarm bells rung in May), and what the Associated Press noticed ten days ago. I’ll go with Ed’s take on the catch-up:

We’ve been writing about this for the last few years, and when we wrote about it, we presented the entire political backstory, including how Barack Obama’s OMB Director Peter Orszag predicted in 2008, while running the CBO, that this day would come — in 2019. We included mentions of how Harry Reid and other Democrats insisted in 2005 that George Bush was scaremongering when he attempted to reform SSA through partial, elective privatization, and how they assured us that Social Security was safe for decades without reform.

Does the Times mention any of this? Not exactly. In fact, the name “Orszag” doesn’t appear once, nor does the name “Reid.” Guess how many times the name “Greenspan” appears in this article by Mary Williams Walsh? Five:

One thing Ed left out of that – in the FY2010 budget prepared by Orszag, he predicted there would be a $21 billion primary (cash) surplus in Social Security. Depending on whether one believes the OMB or the Congressional Budget Office, the primary deficit is somewhere between $29 billion and $34 billion, or a miss of $50 billion-$55 billion in a program with somewhere around $700 billion of cash outflow.

One more thing – that CBO $29 billion estimate might yet be low – it is unclear whether the money to pay for the second round of $250 pay-o…er, “stimulus” checks that Obama wants to hand out would come out of the “Trust Funds” or the general fund. If it’s the former, it would add another $12 billion to the former estimate, making that hole $41 billion.

Back to Ed:

Forget those two years of black ink, too. That will only happen under the rosiest of scenarios for economic growth and employment. As the recession’s effects continue, people will continue retiring earlier or not going back to work. SSA’s revenues will continue to plateau before dropping steeply as the rest of the Baby Boomers leave the workforce and demand their benefits.

Some people predicted this day would arrive at about this time; those were the people Democrats accused of attempting to frighten seniors out of their benefits. Some predicted that this day wouldn’t come for almost a decade longer than it did and argued that reform wasn’t necessary in 2005, when it may have helped extend SSA’s life. Those are the people making the economic decisions in the White House now.

The country’s in the best of hands.

That leads me to another item from the Times, this one from Monday (H/T – Allahpundit):

That leaves Social Security, the other big entitlement benefits program and one that Mr. Obama has suggested in the past that he is willing to tackle. While its looming problems are not of the scale of those afflicting Medicare, it now stands as the likeliest source of the sort of large savings needed to bring projected annual deficits to sustainable levels, many budget analysts agree.

And, they say, packaging future reductions in the retirement program that Democrats zealously defend with tax increases that Republicans typically oppose would have the makings of a grand compromise to shrink the debt.

“You would think that there ought to be a way to get together and talk about a balanced package of some changes in benefits and some increases in revenues that would actually help Social Security,” said James R. Horney, the director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning research organization….

Yet Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the moderate Democrat who is the House majority leader, gave a speech this month in which he called for the two parties to compromise on a mix of tax increases and benefit reductions to avert fiscal chaos. Among his options were proposals to gradually raise the retirement age for future Social Security recipients and to reduce benefits for those with high incomes.

I’ll ignore the misapplication of “moderate” to Hoyer. This was tried in 1983, with benefit reductions (in the form of taxation of benefits, and a raising of the “full-benefits” retirement age from 65 to 67) and tax increases (a 14% increase on both sides of the withholding tax and a 64% increase in the self-employment tax). At the time, it was deemed a “forever” fix. That “forever” fix has lasted 22 years on a combined yearly cash-surplus basis, almost certainly won’t last 30 years for the Disability Insurance portion of Social Security, and likely won’t last 50 for the bigger Old-Age and Survivors Insurance portoin.

I’ll go back to what I said last month when Obama floated the idea of lifting the cap on those taxes out in Henderson, Nevada:

As for Obama’s claim that eliminating the cap would make Social Security solvent long into the future, let’s take a quick look at that. Assuming that it has no effect on on the economy, removing the cap would increase the FICA/SECA tax take by roughly 21%. Some very-back-of-the-envelope number-crunching refreshes my memory of a semi-forgotten study that found that lifting the cap entirely would only delay the inevitable decline and collapse of Social Security by roughly 15 years. Ever-so-conveniently, that would move fund exhaustion barely beyond Obama’s life expectency.

Open Thread Thursday – Seek and Destroy

by @ 9:46. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

It’s time to scream, live with Metallica (crank it up unless you’re at work or have ears sensitive to Biden’s language)…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLBpLz5ELPI[/youtube]

I actually have a couple things working today, but I’m sure I’ll miss at least a thing or two.

March 24, 2010

Latest Thompson rumor – 75% there, final decision Easter week

by @ 7:04. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen Hayes posted a pair of Tweets that strongly suggest that Tommy Thompson will in fact announce he’s running for the Republican nomination for US Senate to run against Russ Feingold, and that decision will come sooner rather than later:

Tommy Thompson doing what a candidate-to-be does prepping to run for Sen. Quit a corp board Friday. Final dec on vacation over Easter w/fam.

Those talking to Thompson generally believe he’ll run, seems gen interested in being a senator. One source says he’s 75 percent there.

Revisions/extensions (7:15 am 3/24/2010) – And the story has hit The Weekly Standard blog. Two items from the story:

  • That corporate board of directors Thompson resigned from is CNS Response, Inc., a health-care data company. That was more of a sideways move, as Thompson agreed to become chairman of its advisory board.
  • The latest Democrat-affiliated Public Policy Poll had Thompson down 3 to Feingold 47%-44%, a significant improvement over its previous poll in November (50%-41%). Meanwhile, Rasmussen recently had Thompson up 47%-45% (a narrowing of a prior lead), WPRI recently had Thompson up 51%-39%, and a GOP internal poll had Thompson up by 5 points.

March 23, 2010

The world’s most-dangerous car is proving its title

by @ 8:41. Filed under Transportation.

(H/T – Huckleberry Dumbell)

When I previewed the Tata Motors Nano, I termed it the world’s most dangerous car. However, I didn’t think it would be a flaming deathtrap. From Engadget (note – link added to the text – Engadget had it on the pic):

According to Indian Autos Blog, the manufacturer is particularly well known for its combustible motorcars these days — back in 2009, three Nanos caught fire, and now we have pictures of the latest to go into flames, courtesy of an insurance agent Satish Sawant. Apparently, the auto dealership was delivering the vehicle to its new owner when a motorcyclist overtook the driver to get his attention — just like that old episode of CHiPs.

It brews up real nice.

Tuesday Hot Read – The Republican Party of Dane County “apologizes”

Lance Burri thoughtfully reposted an e-mail from the Republican Party of Dane County (for those of you outside Wisconsin, that would be the county with Madison as its county seat):

Republican Party of Dane County Apologizes For Its Opposition To Obamacare

We at the Republican Party of Dane County would like to publicly apologize for opposing the Obamacare health care bill. We have now seen the light and support it. There are a few reasons for our change of heart:

The Democrats are correct that the health insurance companies don’t make enough money. Obamacare will be the largest transfer of wealth to the health insurance industry in history. The Democrats are also correct that our budget deficit isn’t large enough. Moody’s has warned that passing this bill will likely cost the United States its AAA bond rating – and we agree with the Democrats in saying “good riddance!”

The Democrats are correct that it’s ridiculous that all Americans now have access to health care. Obamacare will dramatically decrease the number of doctors, and will dramatically decrease the amount of medical innovation in this nation. Who needs new cancer drugs anyway? More than 6% of United Kingdom citizens have reported pulling out their own teeth because they can’t get access to a dentist, despite “universal” health care. That’s the spirit!

Finally, we agree with Democrats that the electoral chances of the Democratic Party in 2010 are far more important than whether a new unfunded entitlement system that we’ll be stuck with forever is good for this nation. They have argued incessantly that even Democratic congressmen who hate the bill should vote for it because of the electoral consequences in 2010 and 2012. Absolutely!

So we applaud the Democratic Party. It takes a great amount of courage to simultaneously put aside the US Constitution, the laws of economics, the negative effects of a bill on the quality of health care in this nation, and the will of the people. Open the fridge and crack open a cold one, Democrats. You’ve earned it!

While you can put all the Republicans who actually live in Dane County in a phone booth, they sometimes do come up with a real winner.

Quote of the day – PlaceboCare edition

by @ 7:15. Filed under Politics - National.

The Godfather of the Badger Blog Alliance, Jib, broke his near-silence with this gem on the passage of PlaceboCare:

I’m not happy and I don’t have much to say except for this:

Dear President Bush,

If you are destined for low approval ratings, this is how you spend political capital. Wish you would have spent yours more wisely.

Toodles,
Jib

Point of order – outside the 2003 tax cuts (and a couple elements of the 2001 edition), the War on Terror, and the aborted attempt to reform Social Security, governing from the Left is pretty much how Bush spent his political capital – from the 2001 stimulus checks (repeated in 2008) to Medicare Part D, from No Child Left Behind to the 2008 stimulus checks, from the pre-TARP bailouts of certain well-connected Wall Street firms to TARP itself (and the attendant bailout of GM and Chrysler, which ultimately begat Government Motors and UAW Motors).

One item – because of a problem with Jib’s template, you have to head to his blog’s home page to comment.

March 22, 2010

Pay No Attention to That Flashing Red Light

From Bloomberg:

Obama Paying More Than Buffett as Bonds Show U.S. Losing AAA

Yup, in short order, we the American taxpayer are paying more than Warren Buffet and his green companies for debt.  Hell, we’re even paying more now than the Germans!

Haven’t the debt markets heard that the deficit problem has been solved?  Yeah, you see, we’re going to pay for 30 million more people to have all the health coverage they want, none of them will pay a dime for it and yet it won’t cost the government an extra nickle.  In fact, they’ve got this health thing so figured out that by paying for more people, we’re actually going to save money as a nation!

OK, to be fair, the article does say that part of the reason that the corporate debt yield is lower than the Treasury is that high credit companies don’t seem to be borrowing as much anymore.  Huh, why do you suppose that is?  Do they know something the Federal Government doesn’t?  Yeah, probably one thing; any money they borrow they’ll eventually have to pay back without the ability to make wage slaves of their customers.

We’re so screwed!

Giving Shoe His Due

by @ 5:30. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

Some of you may recall the dueling posts I had with Shoebox some months ago.  It has been my position since the day the health care legislation was introduced that it would not make it out of the conference committee.  Shoebox believed that the Democrats sensed they had to do something on health care in order to avoid looking like Bill Clinton when he was unable to move Hillarycare through Congress.  Shoebox was right; I was wrong.

I must tell you I am still in shock.  I really didn’t believe that our Congress had moved that far in the direction of statism.  I am devastated.  I cannot even begin to imagine what this fiscal burden will mean to my children.  I don’t want to live in a country that relies upon the government to ration health care.  This is truly a bad day in America.

March 21, 2010

Without Comment

by @ 21:25. Filed under Miscellaneous.

March 20, 2010

I knew I should have taken the Jayhawks as the first team out

by @ 19:08. Filed under Sports.

Congrats to the four of you who picked this one correctly – your first second-round final involving a Number 1 – Northern Iowa 69, Kansas 67.

Which #1 seed will be the first out of the NCAA tourney?

Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed

  • Syracuse (47%, 9 Vote(s))
  • Duke (26%, 5 Vote(s))
  • Kansas (21%, 4 Vote(s))
  • Kentucky (5%, 1 Vote(s))

Total Voters: 19

Loading ... Loading ...

Of course, I’m still sticking by my prediction that Syracuse will not make the Sweet 16. The problem was, I didn’t take a look at the timing before I made my selection.

March 19, 2010

They Put One of Yours in the Hospital…

You put one of theirs in the morgue.

March 18, 2010

Open Thread Thursday – DemonPass edition

by @ 9:27. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

Since the CBO finally released (or allegedly – as I type this, there is still nothing on the CBO site) the score for PlaceboCare 5.0 (aka Wreckonciliation), that seems to set up a Bloody Sunday vote…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdceKu89SxY[/youtube]

Just as a reminder, that Wreckoncilation version represents a $77 billion tax hike over the version of PlaceboCare (3.0, the Senate abortion-and-payoff version) now set for said Sunday vote. Even with that score, it’s looking more and more like DemonPass, a spawn sibling of DemonSheep, will rear its ugly horn.

Okay folks, have at it.

March 17, 2010

Wednesday HOT read – Field v. Clark

Yes, there is a reason why I fully-capitalized “HOT” in the title. Once you’re done reading the portion of the opinion of the Supreme Court in Field v. Clark (courtesy Justia.com) dealing with a challenge regarding differences between an “enrolled” bill as signed by the President and the same bill as voted out of Congress, your blood will be boiling at the worst decision of SCOTUS ever, yes, even worse than the Dred Scott decision.

First, a bit of background. Yesterday, Mark Tapscott kicked over an anthill when he found that Nancy Pelosi and Louise Slaughter are hypocrites when it comes to the Constitutional requirement that a bill that is presented to the President be voted on by both Houses in identical form. Ed Morrissey, among others, noted that the group Pelosi and Slaughter sided with in 2005 lost their challenge that the House passed a slightly-different (specifically, a two-character difference) version of a bill than the Senate, with the appellate court relying on Marshall.

That led me to the actual Marshall decision, and I note that, while there is a dissent-in-part, that dissent does not extend to this portion of the opinion of the Court. Rather than excerpt it, I’ll give you the entire section that deals with the differences between the “enrolled” and “voted upon” versions of the bill in question, starting at 143 U.S. 662:

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

Duties were assessed and collected, according to the rates established by what is known as the “Tariff Act of October 1, 1890,” on woolen dress goods, woolen wearing apparel, and silk embroideries, imported by Marshall Field & Co., on silk and cotton laces imported by Boyd, Sutton & Co., and on colored cotton cloths imported by Herman, Sternbach & Co. 26 Stat. 567, c. 1244, § 1.

The importers severally protested against the assessment upon the ground that the act was not a law of the United States. Upon appeal to the Board of General Appraisers under the Act of June 10, 1890, known as the “Customs Administrative Act,” the decision of the collector in each case was approved, c. 407, secs. 14, 15, pp. 131, 137. The judgment of the board having been affirmed by the circuit courts of the United States in the respective districts in which these matters arose, the cases have been brought here for review.
The appellants question the validity of the Act of October 1, 1890, upon three grounds, to be separately examined.

First. The seventh section of Article I of the Constitution of the United States provides:

“All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if the approve, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and, if approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house, respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.”

“Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States, and, before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.”
The Revised Statutes provide that

“Whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote of the Senate and House of Representatives, having been approved by the President or not having been returned by him with his objections, becomes a law or takes effect, it shall forthwith be received by the Secretary of State from the President, and whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote is returned by the President with his objections, and, on being reconsidered, is agreed to be passed, and is approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and thereby becomes a law or takes effect, it shall be received by the Secretary of State from the President of the Senate, or Speaker of the House of Representatives, in whichsoever house it shall last have been so approved, and he shall carefully preserve the originals.”

The original enrolled act in question, designated on its face “H.R. 9416,” was received at the Department of State October 1, 1890, and, when so received, was attested by the signatures of Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Levi P. Morton, Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate, and had thereon these endorsements:

“Approved October 1, 1890 BENJ. HARRISON”

“I certify that this act originated in the House of Representatives.”

“EDW. MCPHERSON, Clerk

It is made the duty of the Secretary of State to furnish to the congressional printer

“a correct copy of every act and joint resolution as soon as possible after its approval by the President or after it has become a law, in accordance with the Constitution, without such approval.”
That duty was performed by the Secretary of State with respect to the act in question, and the act appears in the volume of statutes published and distributed under the authority of the United States. Rev.Stat. §§ 210, 3803, 3805, 3807, 3808.

The contention of the appellants is that this enrolled act, in the custody of the Secretary of State and appearing upon its face, to have become a law in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, is to be deemed an absolute nullity in all its parts, because — such is the allegation — it is shown by the congressional records of proceedings, reports of committees of each house, reports of committees of conference, and other papers printed by authority of Congress, and having reference to House Bill 9416, that a section of the bill, as it finally passed, was not in the bill authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers of the respective houses of Congress and approved by the President. The section alleged to have been omitted was as follows:

“SEC. 30. That on all original and unbroken factory packages of smoking and manufactured tobacco and snuff, held by manufacturers or dealers at the time the reduction herein provided for shall go into effect, upon which the tax has been paid, there shall be allowed a drawback or rebate of the full amount of the reduction, but the same shall not apply in any case where the claim has not been presented within sixty days following the date of reduction, and such rebate to manufacturers may be paid in stamps at the reduced rate, and no claim shall be allowed or drawback paid for a less amount than five dollars. It shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, to adopt such rules and regulations, and to prescribe and furnish such blanks and forms, as may be necessary to carry this section into effect. For the payment of the rebates provided for in this section there is hereby appropriated any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated.”

The argument, in behalf of the appellants, is that a bill, signed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, presented to and approved by the President of the United States, and delivered by the latter to the Secretary of State, as an act passed by Congress, does not become a law of the United States if it had not in fact been passed by Congress. In view of the express requirements of the Constitution, the correctness of this general principle cannot be doubted. There is no authority in the presiding officers of the House of Representatives and the Senate to attest by their signatures, not in the President to approve, nor in the Secretary of State to receive and cause to be published, as a legislative act, any bill not passed by Congress.

But this concession of the correctness of the general principle for which the appellants contend does not determine the precise question before the Court, for it remains to inquire as to the nature of the evidence upon which a court may act when the issue is made as to whether a bill, originating in the House of Representatives or the Senate, and asserted to have become a law, was or was not passed by Congress. This question is now presented for the first time in this Court. It has received, as its importance required that it should receive, the most deliberate consideration. We recognize, on one hand, the duty of this Court, from the performance of which it may not shrink, to give full effect to the provisions of the Constitution relating to the enactment of laws that are to operate wherever the authority and jurisdiction of the United States extend. On the other hand, we cannot be unmindful of the consequences that must result if this Court should feel obliged, in fidelity to the Constitution, to declare that an enrolled bill, on which depend public and private interests of vast magnitude, and which has been authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress, and by the approval of the President, and been deposited in the public archives as an act of Congress, was not in fact passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and therefore did not become a law.

The clause of the Constitution upon which the appellants rest their contention that the act in question was never passed by Congress is the one declaring that

“Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, except such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.”

Article I, Section 5. It was assumed in argument that the object of this clause was to make the journal the best, if not conclusive, evidence upon the issue as to whether a bill was in fact passed by the two houses of Congress. But the words used do not require such interpretation. On the contrary, as Mr. Justice Story has well said,

“the object of the whole clause is to insure publicity to the proceedings of the legislature and a correspondent responsibility of the members to their respective constituents. And it is founded in sound policy and deep political foresight. Intrigue and cabal are thus deprived of some of their main resources by plotting and devising measures in secrecy. The public mind is enlightened by an attentive examination of the public measures; patriotism and integrity and wisdom obtain their due reward, and votes are ascertained, not by vague conjecture, but by positive facts. . . . So long as known and open responsibility is valuable as a check or an incentive among the representatives of a free people, so long a journal of their proceedings and their votes, published in the face of the world, will continue to enjoy public favor and be demanded by public opinion.”

2 Story on the Constitution §§ 840, 841.

In regard to certain matters, the Constitution expressly requires that they shall be entered on the journal. To what extent the validity of legislative action may be affected by the failure to have those matters entered on the journal we need not inquire. No such question is presented for determination. But it is clear that in respect to the particular mode in which, or with what fullness, shall be kept the proceedings of either house relating to matters not expressly required to be entered on the journals; whether bills, orders, resolutions, reports, and amendments shall be entered at large on the journal, or only referred to and designated by their titles or by numbers — these and like matters were left to the discretion of the respective houses of Congress. Nor does any clause of that instrument either expressly or by necessary implication prescribe the mode in which the fact of the original passage of a bill by the House of Representatives and the Senate shall be authenticated or preclude Congress from adopting any mode to that end which its wisdom suggests. Although the Constitution does not expressly require bills that have passed Congress to be attested by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses, usage, the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings, and the rules under which the two bodies have acted since the organization of the government require that mode of authentication.

The signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill is an official attestation by the two houses of such bill as one that has passed Congress. It is a declaration by the two houses, through their presiding officers, to the President that a bill, thus attested, has received, in due form, the sanction of the legislative branch of the government and that it is delivered to him in obedience to the constitutional requirement that all bills which pass Congress shall be presented to him. And when a bill thus attested receives his approval and is deposited in the public archives, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable. As the President has no authority to approve a bill not passed by Congress, an enrolled act in the custody of the Secretary of State, and having the official attestations of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, of the President of the Senate, and of the President of the United States carries on its face a solemn assurance by the legislative and executive departments of the government, charged, respectively, with the duty of enacting and executing the laws, that it was passed by Congress. The respect due to coequal and independent departments requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept as having passed Congress all bills authenticated in the manner stated, leaving the courts to determine, when the question properly arises, whether the act so authenticated is in conformity with the Constitution.

It is admitted that an enrolled act thus authenticated is sufficient evidence of itself — nothing to the contrary appearing upon its face — that it passed Congress. But the contention is that it cannot be regarded as a law of the United States if the journal of either house fails to show that it passed in the precise form in which it was signed by the presiding officers of the two houses and approved by the President. It is said that under any other view, it becomes possible for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate to impose upon the people as a law a bill that was never passed by Congress. But this possibility is too remote to be seriously considered in the present inquiry. It suggests a deliberate conspiracy to which the presiding officers, the committees on enrolled bills, and the clerks of the two houses must necessarily be parties, all acting with a common purpose to defeat an expression of the popular will in the mode prescribed by the Constitution. Judicial action based upon such a suggestion is forbidden by the respect due to a coordinate branch of the government. The evils that may result from the recognition of the principle that an enrolled act in the custody of the Secretary of State, attested by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress and the approval of the President, is conclusive evidence that it was passed by Congress according to the forms of the Constitution would be far less than those that would certainly result from a rule making the validity of congressional enactments depend upon the manner in which the journals of the respective houses are kept by the subordinate officers charged with the duty of keeping them.

The views we have expressed are supported by numerous adjudications in this country, to some of which it is well to refer. In Pangborn v. Young, 32 N.J.Law 29, 37, the question arose as to the relative value as evidence of the passage of a bill of the journals of the respective houses of the legislature and the enrolled act, authenticated by the signatures of the speakers of the two houses and by the approval of the governor. The bill there in question, it was alleged, originated in the House and was amended in the Senate, but as presented to and approved by the governor did not contain all the amendments made in the Senate. Referring to the provision in the Constitution of New Jersey requiring each house of the legislature to keep a journal of its proceeding — which provision is in almost the same words as the above clause quoted from the federal Constitution — the court, speaking by Chief Justice Beasley, said that it was impossible for the mind not to incline to the opinion that the framers of the Constitution, in exacting the keeping of the journals, did not design to create records that were to be the ultimate and conclusive evidence of the conformity of legislative action to the constitutional provisions relating to the enactment of laws. In the nature of things, it was observed, these journals must have been constructed out of loose and hasty memoranda made in the pressure of business and amid the distractions of a numerous assembly. The Chief Justice said:

“Can anyone deny that if the laws of the state are to be tested by a comparison with these journals, so imperfect, so unauthenticated, that the stability of all written law will be shaken to its very foundation? Certainly no person can venture to say that many of our statutes, perhaps some of the oldest and most important, those which affect large classes of persons or on which great interests depend, will not be found defective, even in constitutional particulars, if judged by this criterion. . . . In addition to these considerations, in judging of consequences, we are to remember the danger, under the prevalence of such a doctrine, to be apprehended from the intentional corruption of evidences of this character. It is scarcely too much to say that the legal existence of almost every legisaltive act would be at the mercy of all persons having access to these journals, for it is obvious that any law can be invalidated by the interpolation of a few lines or the obliteration of one name and the substitution of another in its stead. I cannot consent to expose the state legislature to the hazards of such probable error or facile fraud. The doctrine contended for on the part of the evidence has no foundation, in my estimation, on any considerations of public policy.”

The conclusion was that, upon grounds of public policy as well as upon the ancient and well settled rules of law, a copy of a bill bearing the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of the legislature and the approval of the governor, and found in the custody of the Secretary of State, was conclusive proof of the enactment and contents of a statute, and could not be contradicted by the legislative journals or in any other mode. These principles were affirmed by the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals in Freeholders of Passaic v. Stevenson, 46 N.J.Law 173, 184, and in Standard Underground Co. v. Attorney General, 46 N.J.Eq. 270, 276.

In Sherman v. Story, 30 Cal. 253, 276, the whole subject was carefully considered. The court, speaking through Mr. Justice Sawyer, said:

“Better, far better, that a provision should occasionally find its way into the statute through mistake, or even fraud, than that every act, state and national, should at any and all times, be liable to be put in issue and impeached by the journals, loose papers of the legislature, and parol evidence. Such a state of uncertainty in the statute laws of the land would lead to mischiefs absolutely intolerable. . . . The result of the authorities in England and in the other states clearly is that at common law, whenever a general statute is misrecited, or its existence denied, the question is to tried and determined by the court as a question of law — that is to say, the court is bound to take notice of it and inform itself the best way it can; that there is no plea by which its existence can be put in issue and tried as a question of fact; that if the enrollment of the statute is in existence, the enrollment itself is the record, which is conclusive as to what the statute is, and cannot be impeached, destroyed, or weakened by the journals of Parliament or any other less authentic or less satisfactory memorials, and that there has been no departure from the principles in the United States except in instances where a departure has been grounded on, or taken in pursuance of, some express constitutional or statutory provision requiring some relaxation of the rule in order that full effect might be given to such provisions, and in such instances the rule has been relaxed by judges with great caution and hesitation, and the departure has never been extended beyond an inspection of the journals of both branches of the legislature.”

The provisions of the California Constitution, in force when the above case was decided relating to the journals of legislative proceedings, were substantially like the clause upon that subject in the Constitution of the United States. The doctrines of the above case were reaffirmed in People v. Burt, 43 Cal. 560. But it should be observed that at a subsequent date, a new Constitution was adopted in California under which the journals have been examined to impeach an enrolled bill. County of San Mateo v Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 13 F.7d 2.

A case very much in point is Ex Parte Wren, 63 Miss. 512, 527, 532. The validity of a certain act was there questioned on the ground that although signed by the presiding officers of the two houses of the legislature and approved by the governor, it was not law because it appeared from the journals of those bodies, kept in pursuance of the constitution, that the original bill, having passed the house, was sent to the senate, which passed it with numerous amendments, in all of which the house concurred, but the bill as approved by the governor did not contain certain amendments which bore directly upon the issues in the case before the court. The court, in a vigorous opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Campbell, held that the enrolled act, signed by the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives and the governor, is the sole exposition of its contents, and the conclusive evidence of its existence according to its purport, and that it is not allowable to look further to discover the history of the act or ascertain its provisions. After a careful analysis of the adjudged cases, the court said:

“Every other view subordinates the legislature and disregards that coequal position in our system of the three departments of government. If the validity of every act published as law is to be tested by examining its history, as shown by the journals of the two houses of the legislature, there will be an amount of litigation, difficulty, and painful uncertainty appalling in its contemplation, and multiplying a hundred-fold the alleged uncertainty of the law. Every suit before every court where the validity of a statute may be called in question as affecting the right of a litigant will be in the nature of an appeal or writ of error or bill of review for errors apparent on the face of the legislative records, and the journals must be explored to determine if some contradiction does not exist between the journals and the bill signed by the presiding officers of the two houses. Where the law is to be declared by the court, it must inform itself as best it can what is the law. If it may go beyond the enrolled and signed bill, and try its validity by the record contained in the journals, it must perform this task as often as called on, and every court must do it. A justice of the peace must do it, for he has as much right, and is as much bound, to preserve the Constitution and declare and apply the law as any other court, and we will have the spectacle of examination of journals by justices of the peace, and statutes declared to be not law as the result of their journalistic inquiry, and the circuit and chancery courts will be constantly engaged in like manner, and this court, on appeal, have often to try the correctness of the determination of the court below as to the conclusion to be drawn from the legislative journals on the inquiry as to the validity of the statutes thus tested. . . . Let the courts accept as statutes, duly enacted, such bills as are delivered by the legislature as their acts, authenticated as such in the prescribed mode.”

In Weeks v. Smith, 81 Me. 538, 547, it was said:

“Legislative journals are made amid the confusion of a dispatch of business, and therefore much more likely to contain errors than the certificates of the presiding officers to be untrue. Moreover, public policy requires that the enrolled statures of our state, fair upon their faces, should not be put in question after the public have given faith to their validity. No man should be required to hunt through the journals of a legislature to determine whether a statute, properly certified by the speaker of the house and the president of the senate and approved by the governor, is a statute or not. The enrolled act, if a public law, and the original, if a private act, have always been held in England to be records of the highest order, and, if they carry no ‘death wounds’ in themselves, to be absolute verity, and of themselves conclusive.”

To the same general effect are Brodnax v. Commissioners, 64 N.C. 244, 248; Nevada v. Swift, 10 Nev. 176; Evans v. Browne, 30 Ind. 514; Edger v. Randolph County Comm’rs, 70 Ind. 331, 338; Pacific Railroad v. Governor, 23 Mo. 353, 362, et seq.; Lottery Co. v. Richoux, 23 La.Ann. 743. There are cases in other state courts which proceed upon opposite grounds from those we have indicated as proper. But it will be found upon examination that many of them rested upon constitutional or statutory provisions of a peculiar character, which, expressly or by necessary implication, required or authorized the court to go behind the enrolled act when the question was whether the act, as authenticated and deposited in the proper office, was duly passed by the legislature. This is particularly the case in reference to the decisions in Illinois. Spangler v. Jacoby, 14 Ill, 297; Turley v. County of Logan, 17 Ill. 151; Prescott v. Canal Trustees, 19 Ill. 324; Supervisors v. People, 25 Ill. 181; Ryan v. Lynch, 68 Ill. 160; People v. Baranes, 35 Ill. 121. In the last-named case, it was said:

“Were it not for the somewhat peculiar provision of our constitution, which requires that all bills, before they can become laws, shall be read three several times in each house and shall be passed by a vote of a majority of all the members-elect, a bill thus signed an approved would be conclusive of its validity and binding force as a law. . . . According to the theory of our legislation, when a bill has become a law, there must be record evidence of every material requirement, from its introduction until it becomes a law. And this evidence is found upon the journals of the two houses.”

But the court added:

“We are not, however, prepared to say that a different rule might not have subserved the public interest equally well, leaving the legislature and the executive to guard the public interest in this regard, or to become responsible for its neglect.”

The case of @ 73 U. S. 511, was relied on in argument as supporting the contention of the appellants. The question there was as to the time when an act of Congress took effect, the doubt upon that point arising from the fact that the month and day, but not the year, of the approval of the act by the President appeared upon the enrolled act in the custody of the Department of State. This omission, it was held, could be supplied in support of the act from the legislative journals. It was said by the Court:

“We are of opinion, therefore, on principle as well as authority, that whenever a question arises in a court of law of the existence of a statute, or of the time when a statute took effect, or of the precise terms of a statute, the judges who are called upon to decide it have a right to resort to any source of information which in its nature is capable of conveying to the judicial mind a clear and satisfactory answer to such question, always seeking first for that which in its nature is most appropriate, unless the positive law has enacted a different rule.”

There was no question in that case as to the existence or terms of a statute, and the point in judgment was that the time when an admitted statute took effect, not appearing from the enrolled act, could be shown by the legislative journals. It is scarcely necessary to say that that case does not meet the question here presented.

Nor do the cases of South Ottawa v. Perkins, 94 U. S. 260; Walnut v. Wade, 103 U. S. 683, and Post v. Supervisors, 105 U. S. 667, proceed upon any ground inconsistent with the views we have expressed. In each of those cases, it was held that the question whether a seeming act of the legislature became a law in accordance with the Constitution was a judicial one, to be decided by the courts and judges, and not a question of fact to be tried by a jury, and without considering the question on principle, this Court held, in deference to the decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois interpreting the constitution of that state, that it was competent for the court, in determining the validity of an enrolled act, to consult the legislative journals.

Some reliance was also placed by appellants upon section 895 of the Revised Statutes, providing that
“Extracts from the journals of the Senate, or of the House of Representatives, and of the executive journal of the Senate when the injunction of secrecy is removed, certified by the Secretary of the Senate or by the Clerk of the House of Representatives, shall be admitted as evidence in the courts of the United States, and shall have the same force and effect as the originals would have if produced and authenticated in court.”

But referring now only to matters which the Constitution does not require to be entered on the journals, it is clear that this is not a statutory declaration that the journals are the highest evidence of the facts stated in them, or complete evidence of all that occurs in the progress of business in the respective houses, much less that the authentication of an enrolled bill by the official signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses and of the President, as an act which has passed Congress and been approved by the President, may be overcome by what the journal of either house shows or fails to show.

We are of opinion, for the reasons stated, that it is not competent for the appellants to show, from the journals of either house, from the reports of committees, or from other documents printed by authority of Congress, that the enrolled bill, designated “H.R. 9416,” as finally passed, contained a section that does not appear in the enrolled act in the custody of the State Department.

Allow me to translate that for you – as of right now, the ONLY court-acceptable evidence that an “enrolled bill” actually passed Congress, or was even introduced into either House of Congress, is the signatures of the Speaker of the House and the Vice President (or presumably the Senate President Pro Tempore) on said “enrolled bill”. That’s right – a troka of the Speaker, Vice President and President have had the power to unilaterally enact law regardless of the other 534 members of Congress and indeed the Constitution for the last 118 years.

Roll bloat – DemonPass edition

by @ 7:18. Filed under The Blog.

In case you haven’t noticed, the #demonpass hashtag has sort of gone viral on Twitter. While I might not have quite been the first with it, it wasn’t until the hostess of the latest addition to the overstuffed roll on your right, Sissy Willis of sisu, Melissa Clouthier, and I got together that it took off.

Seriously, sisu is one of the best reads out there. Do not wait as long as I have to make it one of your mandatory reads.

Pulling The Plug

by @ 5:38. Filed under Miscellaneous.

First, an aside:

For both of you who have been kind enough to have read my previously regular blather, I owe you an explanation. 

I have not lost interest in the topics of the day or blogging.  I couldn’t be more passionate about either.  No, the reason you haven’t seen much from me lately is that I’ve taken a new role in KY (go Wildcats!) and have been commuting between there and my family back in Minnesota.  With a new role that is all consuming and a family who would like to be all consuming, I just haven’t had the time to sit down and pen much.  I hope that in the future I can rebalance work and life and get the time to get back to my avocation.  OK, on to the meat….

Being involved in a loved one’s death can be an emotionally and physically trying experience.  Oh, I’m not referring to the occassional parental notion to eat their young, I’m referring to the actual physical death of a loved one’s earthly body.  While I haven’t experienced the death of a member of my immediate family despite several close calls, I have watched the impact as Mrs. Shoe has lost both her oldest brother and her father.

In the case of Mrs. Shoe’s oldest brother, he had a long, debilitating battle with mesothelioma.  I saw as this large, robust specimen of a man was reduced to something approaching a 98 pound weakling size as the cancer took its toll.  I also watched as his family, including Mrs. Shoe, dealt with the inevitable while hoping and praying for the miraculous.  I don’t remember exactly the time frame but, I believe it was about three years that the family dealt with the continuous deterioration and in many cases, the hopelessness of the disease, before he passed.

In the other case, of Mrs. Shoe’s father, while he too had a debilitating disease, emphysema, no one really considered the likelihood of his death much until we got the call.  Mrs. Shoe’s dad had contracted pneumonia while on vacation.  While in the hospital, his doctor put him on a ventilator to allow his lungs to heal.  Unfortunately, what was intended to heal, ultimately led to his death.  It turned out that Dad’s lungs, once relieved of the daily effort of providing for the body, never wanted to work on their own again.  After a few days, dad slipped into a coma and the family was left with the decision of waiting, hoping, praying or “pulling the plug.”

Of the two experiences, I’m hard pressed to determine which is preferable.  On the one hand, a long drawn out illness allows the family to adjust.  On the other hand, the adjustment is continual and you go through some real emotional roller coasters as you get a bit of hope only to be dashed by a new, negative prognosis.

When looking at an “end of life decision,” the good is you only have to make the decision once.  The bad is that you have to make the decision at all.

At this point you may ask, “Why the morose litany Shoebox?”

It is now clear that no matter how the Democrats ultimately vote on Placebocare they are watching the death of the Barack Obama Presidency and likely, the Democrat party as we know it.  All the polls are showing a solid majority of Americans against Placebocare.  Moreover, the anti Placebocare is not just a passing fancy.  The folks who are against it are against it vehemently.  When you look at the state by state and district by district polling, there is no way that the Democrats will maintain the House and it is becoming more likely that they could lose the Senate.

If the Democrats pass Placebocare they may placate their base.  By doing so they may be able to give Obama a “victory” which might allow him to at least appear like he is in charge until November or more appropriately, January of next year. 

If the Democrats don’t pass the Placebocare, President Obama immediately becomes a lame duck President.  The Senators up for election and the entire Democrat caucus of the House will immediately go into self preservation mode.  The result will be that no legislation proposed by Obama, other than supporting a proclamation for Mother’s Day, will get any support from either House and President Obama will be politically neutered.

In the final analysis, for President Obama and the Democrat party the end will be the same, they will die politically.  The only question in my mind is whether the Democrats will pass Placebocare and watch Obama and the party waste away to a 98 pound weakling before succumbing or whether the Democrats will have the courage to “pull the plug” and save us all the interim agony?

[No Runny Eggs is proudly powered by WordPress.]