The TOXIC Mud Pit

I’m going to risk invading Bubby’s privacy to say that for once I agree wholeheartedly with what he said.

…I tell them that I went to Madison College."~ From my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law, after watching the youtube videos of the riot.

I think I would say the same thing.

I just received my first Tony Wilt mailer.

Seems like a nice guy (but then who doesn’t on their own mailers?).

A few points caught my attention.

1. There is no mention of wanting to be the republican nominee.

2. It says "Special Election - Tuesday, April 20th  4-8PM"  Isn’t that just a primary? With the special Election following later this spring or summer?

3. I think (though I could be wrong) that the PRIMARY date and location was decided Wednesday night. I got my flier around lunch time today. Someone works fast.

4. I don’t think PETA would like him.

5. He calls Matt Lohr "an effective advocate for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County" and says he will "strive to live up to the high standards that Matt has set".  Ha, so take that Hburgnews readers. You won’t be getting your novelty lighters back anytime soon/

6. I think I found a grammar mistake, but considering number 3 it’s excusable.

7. As mentioned on Hburgnews Tony isn’t listed on VPAP as having officially filed.

So, everybody, be sure you don’t miss the SPECIAL ELECTION on the 20th. Make your voice heard.

If I was a consepracy type person, I would be starting to watch for the black helicopters. Mailers arriving in the mail box with the date and time for the "Special Election" Just a day and a half after those details are decided. The "Special Election" is only 4 miles from Tony’s house and the people most likely to know and support him.

I’m not saying anything shady is going on– just that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone were planting trees. After all this is the party headed by a man who won his nomination by slating the vote . And wasn’t there something about prefiles that were under lock and key somehow escaping or something.

Kinda makes one wonder what would happen if the chosen candidate were to lose the "Special Election".

Apparently, Obama is planning yet another public relations blitzkrieg on health care reform, trying once more to convince a skeptical public that the just-passed bill is really, really awesome. Consider, though, the impact of what the Democrats have done. Megan McArdle, via The Atlantic:

One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi’s skill as a legislator. But it’s also pretty worrying. Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority? Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill. And that mattered basically not at all. If you don’t find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances…
What I hope is that the Democrats take a beating at the ballot box and rethink their contempt for those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate. I hope Obama gets his wish to be a one-term president who passed health care. Not because I think I will like his opponent–I very much doubt that I will support much of anything Obama’s opponent says. But because politicians shouldn’t feel that the best route to electoral success is to lie to the voters, and then ignore them.

She’s right. More Americans opposed this bill than supported it, but the Democrats pushed ahead anyway. The arrogance that demonstrates is quite telling. Democrats know best about what is best for you…you don’t. And they don’t expect you to notice when they enter into secret deals with big drug companies that will keep drug prices high, or when their fight against “special interests” curiously ends when it comes to their own trial lawyer constituency (with respect to tort reform), and to unions. They don’t care what you think, besides, and they expect to get away with it all.

219-212. The Yeas have it. 34 Dems joined with the entire GOP caucus in voting no. I don’t have much else to say, really. Your premiums will continue to rise, it’s likely to cost much more than they claim, and states will probably have trouble paying for the Medicaid expansion. But hey, who cares about silly little things like that when we can realize a great liberal dream?

I will say, though, that at least we know now that there is no such thing as a pro-life Democrat. Bart Stupak, Democrat from Michigan, held out his Yes vote because he wanted stronger abortion language included. Of course he and his cohorts cave at the eleventh hour, citing a meaningless executive order Obama issued promising to make sure federal funds weren’t used to cover abortions. The GOP, in a rare bit of cleverness, forced a vote on a Motion to Recommit which contained Stupak’s own amendment on the abortion issue. If the motion passes, the bill fails. This forces Stupak to stand up and rail against the motion to recommit and, in effect, his own pro-life amendment. He votes no on it, and the lie that is the pro-life Democrat is exposed.

But, that’s of little consequence when 1/6th of the economy has just been turned upside down via legislation produced behind closed doors. No?

…just not now, before it passes. Behold, why the CBO’s preliminary analysis from yesterday is an absolute joke:

Democrats are planning to introduce legislation later this spring that would permanently repeal annual Medicare cuts to doctors, but are warning lawmakers not to talk about it for fear that it will complicate their push to pass comprehensive health reform. The plans undercut the party’s message that reform lowers the deficit, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

Democrats removed the so-called doc fix from the reform legislation last year because its $371-billion price tag would have made it impossible for Democrats to claim that their bill reduces the deficit. Republicans have argued for months that by stripping the doc fix from the bill, Democrats were playing a shell game.

Oops. Sucks when the veil is lifted sometimes, doesn’t it?

Make it real hard to pass their bills:

Here was Democrat House of Representatives kook member Dennis Kucinich just three days ago, in a Cleveland Plains-Dealer op-ed:

I voted for this version of the health care bill, and it passed in committee. It was a compromise, but a reasonable one. However, the version of the bill that reached the House floor was considerably watered down. It had a severely weakened public option and the employee-retirement waiver had been stripped. It no longer constituted an incremental step forward that would provide relief to my constituents, so I could not support it. The version of the bill that passed the Senate was even worse.

Absent a strong public option or legal protection for states that wish to pursue single payer, the bill that the president is proposing is a step in the wrong direction. Even with the few modest improvements in the bill, the insurance companies will still have dozens of loopholes to deny care and continue to find ways to leave Americans with the unpayable bill.

Read the whole thing. So this UFO afficionado voted against the House bill because it wasn’t socialist enough, and he told readers in the Plains-Dealer that the Senate version was even further away from what he couldn’t support.

Now, after some White House schmoozing and bribes, the goofball has decided gee, he will vote for the Senate version that, days before, he had just trashed. So much for principle, right? This is why people hate politicians and loathe the city they lie and pontificate in. He thought it was a bad bill before…now, he’s seen the proverbial light and the “call of history” negates all that? Only a schmuck would buy that.

Did I mention his might be the deciding vote on this abortion? Yeah, it just might be.

Let me just say, for the record, that I do not own a gun. Of any kind. I’m not a hunter, and besides that I’ve never felt the need or desire to have a handgun. I feel pretty safe as is (though I understand why those living and working in certain areas would not). In my opinion, too, some people purchase guns not out of necessity or fear of personal safety, but simply because they can. There is probably a sense of empowerment that comes with owning a gun, and I suspect that is what drives some to buy them. I’m not suggesting that is wrong; rather, simply pointing out that in some cases the desire to “protect the family” is secondary to the desire to actually have such a weapon in one’s possession. I have no studies to back that up, and I’m too lazy to search for some…simply an observation based on those I know and talk to.

With all that said, the uproar over Virginia’s move to allow concealed carry in restaurants has been a little over-the-top. Some of the comments I’ve read seem to suggest that this will turn Virginia’s eating establishments into wild west saloons, with families huddled under tables as bullets rain overhead. That seems incredibly unlikely to me. Fact is, people were probably packing heat in those same restaurants before anyway, so the practical effect of such a change is virtually nonexistent. (Just like the move to raise the speed limit…people are driving well over 70 now, and have been.) Plus, I suspect most gun owners are well-educated about their firearms and schooled in the areas of safety; buying a gun doesn’t mean you suddenly have wanton disregard for human life. It would seem that most would want to learn how to use it properly. And, there is something to be said for the sad truth that gun free zones don’t equal safe. In the Columbine and Va Tech situations, you could argue that law-abiding citizens were put at a decided disadvantage due to policies that perps never follow themselves. (I’m not advocating guns in schools, merely pointing out that those with criminal intent don’t tend to follow laws and regulations.)

So, I think it’s much ado about nothing. Personally, if I were in elected office I wouldn’t choose this particular battle to fight, but that being said I don’t see a big problem with it, either.

Hey that’s according to a study, so its gotta be accurate ‘n stuff:

Volunteers who bought up to $25 worth of ecofriendly stuff from the green store shared less money ($1.76) than those who purchased from the conventional store ($2.18). (Just to be clear, the volunteers were not given a choice about which online store to patronize.) For the green buyers, altruism in the dictator game decreased. More alarming, when the green buyers were then given a chance to cheat on a computer game, and lie about it to the scientists in order to win more money—basically, to steal—they did. Buyers of conventional products did not. And in an honor system in which they took money from an envelope to pay themselves their winnings, the green buyers stole six times more than the conventional buyers did.

Follow the link for more details on how the study was conducted. Bottom line: greenie weenies are simply bad people and are not to be trusted. In other words, they’re like vegans.

I kid. Actually, as the article explains, this isn’t all that surprising. Those that bought the green products had done their good deed, so naturally they had banked some brownie points with themselves, or built up enough internal goodwill, that doing something bad was now OK. They’re kind of rewarding themselves for the good they did. People engage in that type of balancing act all the time, in all sorts of areas. The money piece:

It was especially striking that the moral balancing occurred in an area of life—being generous with money, cheating on a computer game—that has nothing to do with green behavior. “This suggests that if we want to change people’s behavior for the better, we have to be sure it doesn’t backfire,” says Mazar—starting, perhaps, by eliminating the halo of self-congratulatory, smug virtuousness that surrounds green behavior.

So greens-who are more than likely liberals-are smug, pompous jerks? Who knew? Good luck getting that to change…