Judging by the recent hubub in Wisconsin over stripping government employees of their collective bargaining rights, we government workers of Texas are mighty oppressed. All of those things the Wisconsinites lost – we’ve never had!
Today’s Austin American-Statesman has a neat story on what life’s like here behind the Lone Star Curtain for oppressed government employees. It’s the story of Travis County settling a lawsuit with a woman for $90,000. In the course of this story we learn:
For six years, the discord between this woman (who made $141,181 per year at the time of her firing) and another female county employee (one of her subordinates, who eked out a meager existence on $118,598 per year) created a bad work environment for others.
To learn that fact, the county hired a consultant for $54,500.
To alleviate the discord, the county hired a mediator for $12,900.
When the $12,900 mediator failed (!), the county fired the two women.
The county paid $40,000 to the subordinate to avoid a lawsuit, but rejected the supervisor’s settlement offer of “more than $500,000.”
The supervisor, the subject of the story, then sued the county.
Because certain people at the county attorney’s office might be called as witnesses, the county hired outside legal counsel.
That legal counsel has thus far cost $125,000 just to deal with this matter.
The county is now paying this woman a $90,000 settlement, because it would have cost $200,000 to take it to trial.
What lessons has the county drawn from these facts?
[County Judge] Biscoe said he does not think Perez should be rehired to the human resources department. However, Perez could seek employment with other county departments that are run by other elected officials and for which the commissioners do not make personnel decisions, he said.
You’ve got to have a heart of stone not to find this hilarious:
My favorite bits are at 1:04-1:07, and at 11:30, when Gaga says she could be friends with ghosts and then the translator explains that “Japanese ghosts are pretty scary.”
This will undoubtedly be but the first of many such attempts by the Obama administration and Senate Democrats to avoid spending cuts. So let us first drop acid and get in the Wayback Machine. Fun times.
Second, rather than in engage in the any-tool-at-hand argument style that the Left is so fond of whenever the Constitution is mentioned, I shall point out why, upon reading the entire Constitution, this argument is obviously wrong. Congress – not the president – has the powers to borrow and tax. If Congress decides not to borrow money, the president has no power to do so in its stead. The president can no more borrow money if the Congress refuses to do so than the Congress can appoint Supreme Court justices if the president refuses to do so.
A second reason why this argument is wrong is that there is plenty of tax money to service our debt without threat of default. There is not, however, plenty of tax money to service our debt and engage in recklessly huge spending. If Congress does not allow further borrowing, the president, as the executive, will be obliged to prioritize Constitutionally-mandated spending (i.e. servicing the debt) over statutorily-mandated spending (e.g. Medicare). It’s really quite simple how that works out. Saying that the 14th Amendment would allow the president to borrow money not authorized by the Congress is just another example of trying to get around the plain meaning of laws through bad lawyering.
These points, I think, are pretty persuasive in showing that the 14th Amendment argument is meritless. But let’s say you disagree with them; you think that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment overrides the seperation of powers plainly evident in Articles I and II; you think that Section 4 of the 14th Amendment allows the president to borrow for discretionary spending rather than simply forcing him to prioritize the spending of money he actually has. Okey dokey. Well let’s continue reading all the way to the end of the 14th Amendment to see if it offers us any clue as to which branch of government has the power to enforce its requirements:
5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
The Constitution: You’ll find the darnedest things if you read it.™
N.B. Here’s a neat trick. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment only guarantees “[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law.” Let’s say the president borrows money without Congressional approval. Because that debt would not be authorized by law (either statutory or constitutional), its validity would not be guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
Update (9:25 pm): I just realized that the genius floating this idea is Chris Coons, who beat Christine O’Donnell in last year’s election. The nation was collectively beat about the head region for months by Respectable People telling us how stupid and unprepared O’Donnell was. Yet here’s the guy that all the Respectable People endorsed, himself a lawyer, endorsing a legal theory that is at least ignorant and almost certainly idiotic. Point: Christine O’Donnell never said anything half as stupid as this legal theory from Chris Coons. Congrats Delaware, you’ve found a worthy successor to Joe Biden.
I think I’ve figured out the underlying theme of the Obama administration: They take every complaint anyone ever had about George Bush, and then they turn it up to eleven. Whatever problems were implicit or subtextual under Bush, Obama blares them at maximum volume with explicit lyrics.
So when the Left spent eight years complaining that the Bush administration was implicitly questioning their patriotism, Obama’s Secretary of State goes to Congress regarding a matter of foreign policy asks “Whose side are you on?”
Apollo posted this at 7:37 AM HKT on Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 as CHANGE!
Because this is surely the product of illegal drug usage on a massive scale. The alternative explanation is that numerous federal legislators have gone insane:
Senate Democrats want the deal to include more money for highway construction, a payroll tax cut and clean-energy subsidies to bring down the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.
Just because my governor has better hair than they will ever have and is an impeccable dresser does not make it acceptable for unkempt journalists to spread rumors that he’s gay. Rumors of metrosexuality – in case any acid-dropping hippy-types have flashbacks to 2004 – should also be considered shot down.
This statement from a spokesman is much more revealing than it was intended to be:
It should come as no surprise that there would be some disagreements, even within an administration, regarding the application of a statute that is nearly 40 years old to a unique and evolving conflict.
Everything’s “unique” to this administration. The recession of 2008-09 was “unique” so it justified porkulus and our lengthy spending binge. Healhtcare is a “unique” market, so according to the administration’s arguments in court it can be the subject of unique government controls. And now a war in which we’re bombing another country is “unique” because . . . well . . . I guess it’s unique because it’s only the third time we’ve attacked Libya? Can anyone think of an actual way in which this war is “unique”?
The rule of law is premised on the fact that almost nothing is truly unique. There are rules, and they apply whether you like them or not. You may think you’re special, but the law, frankly, doesn’t give a damn. Simply saying that a situation is “unique” and therefore not subject to the normal rules is an argument for nothing less than despotism – in a world in which the guy with all the power gets to determine when the rules that limit his power don’t apply, it’s not obvious to me that the law still exists.
P.S. Think about this sentence: “A sticking point for some skeptics was whether any mission that included firing missiles from drone aircraft could be portrayed as not amounting to hostilities.”
Can it really be that we’re going to kill off the ethanol subsidy? In one fell swoop, could Congress both make my food cheaper and make my car’s engine last longer? Short of cutting me a check, it’s hard to think of a single act that Congress could take that would have better effects on me personally.
P.S. I’m sorry for the ghastly picture of DiFi the Post has at the link. Block that out of your mind. Think, instead, of the gorgeous new M5, and all the pleasant sounds it will make while burning corn-free gasoline.
Stanley Kurtz has some links and analysis about how our raid into Pakistan to kill bin Laden is playing out in Pakistan itself. The NYT story he links to is particularly worth reading (and here is the WaPo story, which he mislinked). I’ve been concerned about this more or less since I heard the happy news of OBL’s death. There is a non-zero chance that the good that came from killing him will be overwhelmed by the harm of a strong anti-American backlash in Pakistan.
Apollo posted this at 3:14 PM HKT on Thursday, June 16th, 2011 as Global War on Terror
This story contains a baffling statement from the Obama administration regarding Libya: “There’s been no exchange of fire with hostile forces.”
What? What what? Are they saying that our planes are shooting at Libyans but Libyans aren’t shooting at us (no “exchange”)? Or are they saying that we’re not shooting?
If it’s the first case, that may border on monstrous: are we really killing people who do not want a fight with us and aren’t firing back? That seems like exactly the sort of warmongering that Congress ought to put a stop to. Perhaps its in our interest to bomb people who don’t want to fight us, but it probably isn’t. The constitutionality of the War Powers Act aside – Congress has a role here and it needs to play that role.
If it’s the second case . . . well, that would be weird. But let’s say that our soldiers aren’t involved but we’re just helping the Europeans bomb Libya. Again, that’s just warmongering. We invaded Afghanistan on the premise that because Afghanistan provided a safe haven for Al Qaeda, it was responsible for Al Qaeda’s actions. Well here we are helping European countries bomb a sovereign state – so long as we’re materially aiding a combatant, we’re involved. Again, Congress needs to exercise its oversight and investigatory role and figure out what the hell’s going on, and stop the president from starting unnecessary wars.
The article helpfully explains:
Still, the administration acknowledged that unmanned U.S. military aircraft are operating in Libya, which can mean striking targets inside that country, and said American warplanes can respond if fired upon. Those would seem to test the limits of what is considered hostile action.
Under what possible definition of “hostile action” is this not “hostile action”? We fly armed planes over their territory to “strike targets inside that country.” And it merely “tests the limits of what is considered hostile action”? Whatever numbnut lawyer the administration has coming up with this crap needs to be fired, because he’s just spouting nonsense. Just because you assert that a particular fact pattern doesn’t meet a particular definition doesn’t mean you’ve made an actual legal argument.
We all need to brace ourselves for what’s about to come. If you thought it was bad now when people only get to attack the things that Sarahpalin says, just wait until they have 24,000 emails to take wildly out of context and nitpick. This is going to be painful beyond reckoning.
If I were governor, I would communicate using only disappearing ink, on that self-destructing paper that Chief Quimby used to give instructions to Inspector Gadget, hand-delivered by Carthusian monks.
So stupid that even when she’s right, it’s only because she’s “lucky,” and we should presume the the way in which she was correct probably wasn’t “what Mrs. Palin was referring to.” Fortunately, we have the Massachusetts Democratic Party, which doesn’t let the fact that Sarahpalin was “correct” stop them from making fun of her. Because that’s what you do to stupid people, right? You make fun of them for being stupid whether they’re “right” or wrong, because in reality, they’re always wrong.
Added: See also, Althouse, who notes that excreable Dr. S. must constantly remind himself of what a farce Sarahpalin is. If one were to venture onto his page (I don’t recommend it – I just did it (3:04) to see if he had altered any of his notions of how stupid Sarahpalin is in response to the subtle fact that she’s right; needless to say, he’s using the fact that rightwingers are pointing out that Sarahpalin was right as evidence that rightwingers are a bunch of hyperdefensive types who ignore reality), one would need no other reminders that he is a hack, and no longer a terribly entertaining one at that.
I categorically refuse to believe negative things said about Sarahpalin in the media; they completely blew their credibility some years ago. But maybe her bus is running red lights and, horror of horrors, SPEEDING!!! I refuse to believe Politico, but I accept that it may well be true.
But theses journalists who are running red lights and engaging in erratic behavior just to follow her and report on gossipy stories – they are bad people. They are risking other people’s lives (I don’t care about them risking their own lives; that’s between them, their families, and their God) in order to … what? Be the first to report on what sort of motorcycle Sarapalin rides in the Rolling Thunder rally? They hate Sarahpalin, they cover her like she’s an idiot who has nothing worthwhile to say; yet they are willing to risk the lives of others just so they can keep up with her completely non-substantive bus tour. These are affirmatively bad people.
P.S. I like the whiny tidbit about the poor poor paparazzi who had to take a leak on the side of the road. Somewhere, the world’s smallest violin-maker is crafting the appropriate instrument to play the lead instrumental of the dirge that will be sung at this point when this man’s life is turned into an opera.
If numerous people link to a news story to highlight a specific quote, and then that quote goes missing from the story – without any notation that the original story has been changed – the onus is on bloggers to ask the mighty New York Times where the quote went. Lest you get a snippy email, suggesting that you’re lazy. What, did you forget that you’re the idiot?
Pretty much every time we get an insight into the minds of journalists at mainstream publications, it reveals nothing more than a sense of pompous entitlement. That – not curiosity – is the defining characteristic of the modern journalist, I believe.
Apollo posted this at 11:12 PM HKT on Friday, June 3rd, 2011 as Journalism
