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 July 22nd, 2009

Tom Petri thinks you drink and crap too much, and don’t stink enough

(H/T – Van Helsing)

Tom Petri is an original co-sponsor to an abomination of an act called the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2009, authored by Earl Blumenauer (D, or is that Moonbat-Oregon). According to the short summary provided by Blumenauer, the various local units of government can’t come up with $534 billion in “needed” drinking water/wastewater infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years without raising taxes incredibly on the locals. So, what’s Blumenauer’s and Petri’s solution? Raise $534 billion in federal taxes over 20 years (or $26.7 billion per year) on those same locals! The dirty details:

  • A 4-cent-a-bottle tax on water-based beverages because, as the summary says, they “rely on drinking water as their major input and result in both increased flows and increased waste in our waters.” Surprisingly, alcoholic beverages, the number one cause of public urination, are not included in this tax. Beverages made from concentrate also escape the tax man.
  • A 3% excise tax on toilet paper, soap, detergent, toothpaste, perfume, sunblock, shaving cream, hairspray, water softener, and cooking oil because they all end up in the water. That’s right, cooking oil is on the list despite every homeowner knowing that simply dumping the oil down the drain only clogs it. Guess Petri hates fish frys.

    Oh, and don’t think you can make your own soap and escape the tax man like “Big Alcohol” and “Big Juice”. They’ll tax you on the estimated retail value of your homemade soap.

  • A 0.5% excise tax on pharmaceutical products because people are too stupid to not throw their pills in the toilet and because Big Pharma is an easy target, but mostly because Big Pharma is an easy target.
  • A 0.15% tax on corporate profits over $4 million because they use water too and because it’s just soooo unfair that the Superfund tax sunsetted, but mostly because the Superfund tax sunsetted.

Is there nobody in east-central Wisconsin that will challenge Petri?

“You’re Going To Destroy My Presidency”

(H/T – JammieWearingFool, from whom I shamelessly stole the headline)

An article in NationalJournal.com’s CongressDaily perfectly illustrates why Shoebox put up “Obama worship” as one of the categories:

“Let’s just lay everything on the table,” (Sen. Chuck) Grassley (R-IA) said. “A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ “

There’s several different ways to take this one. JWF wonders if waaaahmbulances are covered under ObamaCare. Given they’re the prefered mode of transportation for the perpetually-aggrieved, I’m sure there’s a full subsidy.

Regarding the inevitable “Two Minutes Hate” that is about to be ordered, I have to wonder who is going to be in bigger trouble for proving that it is all about Emperor Obama I – Grassley for letting that slip into the press, or the unnamed Dem Congressman who leaked it to Grassley.

As for the destruction of Obama’s Presidency, I wouldn’t be particularily bothered if health care was, as Sen. Jim DeMint said, his “Waterloo”, though the stall at the gates of Moscow is a more-accurate historical description. After all, while Waterloo was the end of Napoleon, his failure to take Moscow before General Winter and General Mud took hold was what made Waterloo possible.

Finally, we just learned which of the government-takeover plans Obama wants to happen – the Heavy plan in the House.

Impress the Press

President Obama will once again face the preprogrammed withering onslaught of questions from the compliant skeptical press this evening.  We’re being told that amongst other things, President Obama will be telling us that six months into his term, he has saved the economy.

Originally, tonight’s press conference was to be held at the White House.  However, I’ve been told that due to the importance of tonight’s message, the President has decided to change venues.  The new venue for tonight’s presser is shown here:

Mission Accomplished

Toomey within 1 of Specter, NRSC hardest hit

by @ 7:35. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Jim Geraghty, who has to have earned a TRQ with this gem – “Heed my words, for dey are da chilling sounds of your Toom.”)

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on the latest Quinnipiac poll, which has Sen. Arlen Specter (RD) barely beating presumptive Republican challenger Pat Toomey, 46%-45% 45%-44%. Worse for Specter, and the Democrats, are some of the other results:

– Specter has lost the independents, both specifically against Toomey and against Candidate X.
– Specter’s approval ratings are 47% positive, 46% negative (the highest negatives ever and the lowest positives since Specter/Toomey Round One in 2004).

Now, who insisted on backing Specter right up until his betrayal, and who insisted on trying to find a moderate-to-liberal to try to replace said turncoat moderate-to-liberal?

Revisions/extensions (7:41 am 7/22/2009) – I need caffeine because I originally posted the wrong percentages.

R&E part 2 (8:24 am 7/22/2009) – The raw numbers are now available from Quinnipiac (H/T – Allahpundit/HotAir Headlines), and they’re not encouraging for the Penn Dems:

– Specter bumped up his lead over Joe Sestak in the Dem primary from 50%-21% at the end of May to 55%-23% now.
– Toomey also whups up on Sestak, beating him 39%-35% (the end-of-May poll had Sestak up 37%-35%).
– While Specter does beat Peg Luksik, who only draws 6% to Toomey’s 47% in the Republican primary, by a 47%-40% margin, a near-majority say that he does not deserve re-election (49% no, 40% yes).
– Speaking of Luksik, she would lose to Sestak head-to-head 39%-30%.

R&E part 3 (8:57 am 7/22/2009) – Via Moe Lane, it actually looks like the NRSC finally realized the inevitable and endorsed Toomey on July 14. As someone who wanted the NRSC to stay out when it was Toomey vs. Specter in the primary, and with a very minor challenge to Toomey shaping up, I’m not entirely happy that the NRSC is in at this point, even if they’re backing a good candidate.

R&E part 4 (9:27 am 7/22/2009) – More quotable Geraghty – “Toomsday is coming.”

[No Runny Eggs is proudly powered by WordPress.]