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 May 2nd, 2008

Re: We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident

by @ 15:44. Filed under Politics - National.

In case you missed Shoebox’s discussion of a piece that identifies Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as essentially left-of-the-Democratic-center (which is well left of the actual center) clones, do read it. It does illustrate the divide that has happened in the last 20 years, and also identifies McCain as left-of-the-Republican-center.

There is an assumption made by Kevin Poole and company that I do take exception to, however. Take another look at one of the graphics Shoebox borrowed from them, specifically the one comparing the 90th, 100th and 110th Congresses.

It would appear at first glance that the Left hardly moved further left over the last 40 years, while the Right moved quite a bit further right over the same time. However, that assumes that the middle didn’t move either direction. I beg to differ.

Just as a singular example, let’s take a look at Medicare. Back in 1965, roughly half of the Republicans were opposed to its creation (do ignore the error in the House Dems’ “no” vote total; it is a government operation I’m linking to). Of course, since they were in an extreme minority, it passed rather handily.

Fast forward to 2003. In the face of a decade of projections declaring that Medicare was facing a financial time bomb, President Bush (R) proposed a massive expansion of Medicare in the form of prescription drug benefits. Nearly all of the House Republicans and Senate Republicans agreed.

I know, it’s not perfect (neither Congress in the chart was the one that voted on Medicare), and McCain did vote against the drug bill, but it is rather illustrative of the leftward tilt of the Republican Party. I could also mention pork, the shift of the rhetoric of tax-rate cuts from actually reducing the amount of taxes taken in by government to raising the amount of taxes taken in by government, and the utter abandomnent of the idea of getting rid of government agencies.

Before the Lefties start streaming in to say that proves they’ve moved to the right, I’ll briefly touch on why so few Democrats agreed to that expansion of government-run health care. It was not because they didn’t want to also expand Medicare; it was because they wanted to go even farther. Indeed, their Presidential candidates and the last Democratic President wanted to create a “full-coverage” government-run health care system, and saw this as too small a step.

We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident

by @ 11:34. Filed under Miscellaneous.

“There’s no difference between Hillary and Obama!”
“McCain’s no conservative, he’s Democrat Lite!”
“Bush sold himself as a Conservative but has turned out to be just another RINO”

In the most thorough review of the topic that I’ve seen, Keith Poole and associates at the University of California, San Diego have compiled a review of all member of Congress, House and Senate, and analyzed who’s who in the political zoo.

In this first graph we see the confirmation and correction, to several of our “Truths.”

  1. Hillary and Barack are “Change you can Xerox.” Contrary to what Hillary’s campaign is trying to tell people, this study shows that Hillary’s record is to the left of the Democratic party and is imperceptibly different from Obama.
  2. McCain is clearly from the left side of the Republican Party. As I posted in my first post on this site, McCain touts his lifetime Conservative voting record. However, if you look over the past few years, and especially the most recent, McCain’s voting record has moved to the left. The study has a great animated graph that shows how McCain’s voting record began squarely in the middle of Republicans but over time has become an outsider of the Republican members.
  3. Contrary to the feeling of many Conservatives, Bush lines up to the right. The question that this raises for me is “To the right of what?”

Side note for MN and WI readers, Wellstone and Feingold were nearly identical and (dramatic pause for the launch of a surprise statement) they are WAAAAAY to the left of the spectrum.

(more…)

The Morning Scramble – 5/2/2008

by @ 7:14. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

Where else do you go from Elmore James to Iron Maiden? :-)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBY9Q39C1bs[/youtube]

– Teresa lists just some of the bigger ironies of the 2008 election.
– Sticking with the bi-partisan, Shoebox declares stupidity is party-agnostic. Yes, there is a new reason why I call it the bipartisan Party-In-Government.
– Professor Stephen Bainbridge confirms something Shoebox noted a couple months ago; there’s a new Lost Generation coming.
– Jim Geraghty thinks over what John McCain should and should not be looking for in a candidate, using Dan McLaughlin’s 19 Do’s and Don’ts.
– Sean Hackbarth asks, “Why not Paul Ryan?” Do click through to John Gizzi’s case for Ryan. If I thought we had anybody waiting in the wings here in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional, why not indeed.
– Ed Morrissey has a new sponsor for his radio show – LIAGRA. Hillary-tested, Barack-approved.
– Matt Lewis has the RNC smackdown on Barack Obama’s hypocrisy on gas-tax holidays. I wonder when McCain will come out against that </sarcasm?>.
– Speaking of Obama and gas taxes, PrivatePigg lays the economic smackdown.
– Jim Lynch grabs the ReWrite™ Machine and corrects Obama.
– Dan McLaughlin notes the rank hypocrisy of the Kyoto crowd. Guess speaking while being holier-than-thou is conducive to producing copious amounts of carbon dioxide.
– Sgt. Relic asks when Congress will dump the Greenies. “Never” rings a bell.
– Since we’re asking questions, Bull Dog Pundit asks why the presstitutes insist on saying that keeping the current tax rates will cost money. Simple; they and their fellow travelers on the Left believe that since government prints all the money, they own all the money.
– Rick Moran says we will survive even an Obama Presidency. I’m not so sure; the clock is so close to midnight.
– Justin Higgins reminds us why we’re more than just a nation.
– John Hawkins says, “Stand up, be proud.”
– Patrick McIlheran goes into the history vault to answer what happens when America abandons our allies. A free piece of advice to the Dems; those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it.
– Speaking of history, Zip remembers women had more rights in the Middle East before the Islamists took over.
– Lance Burri catches one of the no-ID crowd admitting that it truly is by hook and by crook.
– See-Dubya plays Name That Presstitute Outlet.
– Moron Pundit has the 411 on this month’s Stupid Criminal of the Month.
– Curt has today’s story of government waste. I wonder if the Census Bureau borrowed Wisconsin’s IT department.
– Little Miss Sunshine delivers a literal pick-me-up.
– Chris says no to hybrids.
– Anwyn bemoans the latest example of the decline and fall of Disney. When Walt was alive, they never would have used the language I’ve been known to use from time to time.

Stupidity is Party Agnostic

by @ 7:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

John McCain opened his mouth and inserted his foot, sideways, trying to tie his favorite cause, wasteful spending, to the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis.   On Wednesday, McCain said:

“The bridge in Minneapolis didn’t collapse because there wasn’t enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects.”

He tried to clarify that statement on Thursday by saying:

“No, I said it would have received a higher priority, which it deserved.”

Somebody wake McCain up and tell him that the bridge was scheduled to be replaced in 2020, not because there was a lack of funding but because that was believed to be the useful life of the bridge.   While surveys of the bridge identified “deficiencies,” the bridge was never identified as unable to carry its designed traffic load.   The current evidence is suggesting that the bridge collapsed due to a design flaw that  had gusset plates undersized by a factor of half.

I agree with McCain’s desire to shrink government and end wasteful spending.   However, just because you have a hammer, not every problem is a nail.  

As I said, stupidity is party agnostic.   Regarding his opposition to the federal gas tax holiday, Barack Obama said:

“Remember that bridge in Minneapolis?   We’re already short on money in terms of investing.”

Same response to Barack with this addition…Barack, since when have you been concerned about spending money?   You seem to have money for anything you can possibly imagine.   The last look at the ol’ “Spend-o-meter” is that you’ve committed to spending an additional $850B. You don’t think you could find a mere $350M to send our way?

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