I like that word "regulate." Aren't we forever told that the government needs to be regulatin' everything?

We need to regulate these unions.

Sounds good, except for one thing.

Three of the four bills restrict the way unions collect dues and the way workers get paid for union activities. The fourth bans collective bargaining between governments and government workers: state and local. Unlike Wisconsin, it affects all government employees, including police and firefighters.

The one problem here is that firefighters, especially, and cops are politically popular.

I know it makes sense that if you're regulating public unions (see? great word) then logic compels you to regulate them all.

But politics isn't just about strict logic. It's about getting things done.

We'll see if the union-regulation sentiment is strong enough in Arizona to overcome the political popularity of the firefighters. It might, however, wind up being a bridge too far.

It's better to let that one go than lose this important governmental regulation of a key sector.

Posted by: Ace at 01:40 PM | Comments (95)
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About an hour ago, CBS News reporter Norah O'Donnell tweeted:

In the Oval Office, President Obama refuses to answer if he stands by contraception rule. Says to reporter: "Come on guys."

Uh, "come on" what? It's a legitimate question. He's forcing this major anti-religious rule on America-at-large, people want an answer, he should give it. He's hiding behind his subordinates again, "leading" from behind them, apparently. What a coward.

Does he stand by the rule or doesn't he? No "come on, guys" about it. I don't have my hopes up, but, man, I wish somebody had gotten this on video. At the moment, there's only one story on it and it has fewer details than O'Donnell's tweet.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:15 PM | Comments (159)
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Unconstitutional.

This depressive egomaniac arriviste is doing tremendous amounts of damage to a constitutional system which has kept us united for 240 years (apart from the Civil War period).

Even worse, nothing in federal law grants Obama the power to issue these conditional waivers. He is unilaterally rewriting federal education policy through selective enforcement. The American Enterprise Institute's Frederick Hess tells the Christian Science Monitor: "NCLB, for all its flaws, was crafted by the US Congress Â… [but] these waivers impose a a raft of new federal requirements that were never endorsed by the legislative branch. Once this administration opens this door, itÂ’s hard to imagine future administrations not building on this precedent."

And last year The Brookings Institution wrote:

It is one thing for an administration to grant waivers to states to respond to unrealistic conditions on the ground or to allow experimentation and innovation. ... The NCLB waiver authority does not grant the secretary of education the right to impose any conditions he considers appropriate on states seeking waivers, nor is there any history of such a wholesale executive branch rewrite of federal law through use of the waiver authority.

That said, Conn Carroll has a sharp idea:

Considering how epically unpopular Obamacare is, this whole sale abuse of a waiver process to fundamentally rewrite federal policy may not be the precedent Obama wants to set.

I don't even want to think like this, but if we're playing Lord of the Flies like this, I can see a Republican president waiving compliance with the National Labor Relations Board too. And the EPA. And unilaterally offering a "waiver" permitting a company to drill in ANWR.

Apologies for the Second Day Off: This isn't an excuse, just an explanation. I drank like three drinks Sunday night after the Super Bowl, and the same three last night at the Breitbart Embassy.

This would not cause problems for most people, but I'm on klonopin, and even that much is now wiping me out the next day. It's like being drugged with a really bad drug that just makes your brain not work.

And last night it wasn't the drinking. It was the return of all-night acid reflux. I did not fall into a restful sleep until... like seven a.m. or eight. Before that, I was waking up every forty five minutes with acid reflux.

I'm sorry about that. I will knock off any drinking during the week at all. Apparently I just cant handle it any more.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (292)
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Truly outstanding. Sen. Rubio killed it with his CPAC speech this morning. I can't find an embeddable one, so click here. It's long, but worth every minute.

Ed Morrissey has video of and some thoughts about Rubio's meeting with bloggers this morning.

Second look at Medically Induced Coma until 2016?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:18 AM | Comments (202)
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Holy shnikes. Looks like CPAC done kilt the blog.

So.

What are your plans for this weekend?

Posted by: LauraW at 10:39 AM | Comments (252)
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So, it's an understandable slip of the tongue.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:17 AM | Comments (416)
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“Ladies and gentlemen, I don't stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

That's what Rick Santorum said after Republican voters in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado gave him impressive victories this week over his Republican competitors. It is an awful, almost idiotic statement. Both for what it concedes and for what it claims. As to the latter, I have a house plant that's a conservative alternative to Barack Obama. No more need be said on that point.

As to the former, Santorum concedes that he's not a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. How could he? Santorum was a pro-union congressman-turned-senator for 16 years, with notable votes against the National Right to Work Act and for the Davis-Bacon prevailing (read: union) wage law. He voted to increase the minimum wage six times and tried to put a union representative on an IRS oversight board. He also voted to exempt IRS union representatives from criminal ethics laws.

For a country finally coming to grips with the public policy problems with unions---particularly government employee unions---Santorum would make an awful national leader. Don't get me wrong, he's saying the right words now, but back when he was in Congress he wasn't exactly on our side. He excuses himself, of course:

"And you need to remember, I was from the state of Pennsylvania. State of Pennsylvania does not have a right to work law. The state legislature and our governor for a long time had rules in place that were inconsistent with right to work.

"And I wasn't, as United States senator, representing the states of Pennsylvania going to go down and by federal vote change the law on the state. I believe the state has the right. If they want a union dues requirement, that the state should be able to do that."

So he stood for state's rights on the union issue. Conservatives may find something admirable in that, I suppose. At least we know he's familiar with the Tenth Amendment, unlike Obama and the Democrats. Oh, wait:

"As a president, I have a very different point of view. I have already signed a letter and sent it to the national right to work that I would sign a national right to work bill because now, I'm no longer representing that state."

Well, nevermind. I guess union rights aren't a state right after all. Or maybe state's rights don't matter because now he's no longer representing a state? Oy.

Santorum makes a similar claim about his former support for Davis-Bacon prevailing wages, noting that he worked for a state that had a "large percentage" of state contractors working under state prevailing wage laws. Is it possible that Santorum is unaware that as president he would be working for a country that has a "large percentage" (aka 99%) of federal contractors working under the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law?

Santorum had a fairly long career inside the Beltway and he's from a blue industrial state, so some poorly-explained flip-flops like these are bound to crop up. But Santorum's lack of conservative bonafides is worse than just some flip-flops. He is remarkably not adopting a "very different point of view" on issues that were central to the Republican and Tea Party resurgence in 2010.

His paean to earmarks and ridicule of earmark opponents should be enough to disqualify him. The $100 million dollars he secured for a clean-energy facility in Pennsylvania should be raising eyebrows, not to mention his go-along-to-get-along vote for the Bridge to Nowhere. The total cost of Santorum's earmarks tops $1 billion. He went so far as to sue Donald Rumsfeld to prevent base closures in Pennsylvania. And he joined Democrats to prevent Republicans from cutting and reforming food stamps. These weren't isolated or unusual votes for Santorum and he continues to believe that they were the right thing to do. As a result of votes like these, Santorum has a lower ACU rating than, for example, Newt Gingrich.

So, please, don't pretend to me that Santorum is an outstanding conservative. He's a presidential candidate with a recent, suspicious, and only partial commitment to mouthing conservative beliefs. A man once wisely said, "A track record is a pretty good indication of what youÂ’re going to do in the future." It was Rick Santorum.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:29 AM | Comments (655)
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Follow 'The Daily DOOM' on Twitter: @AoSHQDOOM.

Yay! We get to bail out homeowners who are under water on their mortgages! What if you've sacrificed and been prudent and bought a house you can afford? What if you decided to rent instead? Well, no money for you...SUCKER! (And of course this deal only involves private sector banks but not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Because, you know, they're protected.) This is at least in part a result of the banks' "robo-signing" scandal, so I have a limited amount of pity for whatever hardship they bear; what irks me is that a relatively small portion of homeowners will be "helped" while taxpayers must once again bear the major part of the burden.

The Greek bailout travesty just keeps dragging on and on. I expect some face-saving last-minute "agreement" to be announced some time today, but it won't really mean anything.

Why we are DOOMed, in a nutshell: 49% of US households now the recipient of government cheese. Half of the households in this country are now on the dole to some extent, which means that a huge percentage of the population is now personally invested in not only perpetuating the welfare state, but enlarging it.

Rep. Paul Ryan is still beating the DOOM drum. He's making the same point I am: we don't have an unlimited amount of time to address our fiscal problems. We have maybe five to ten years to put the brakes on and start getting this runaway train under control. more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:38 AM | Comments (136)
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Happy Thursday. Today is the first day of this year's CPAC. You can watch the events (more speeches than you can shake a stick at) on C-SPAN.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:58 AM | Comments (113)
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Are You A Class Enemy?

So just how close to being in the dreaded 1% are you?

Well the New York Times helpfully provides an interactive map that lets you find out exactly what percent you're in. Just enter your household income and it shows how you compare at the national, state and local level.

And nationally you have to make over $383K to be guaranteed to be in the evil 1%, but in say Alabama you need a lot less. So you better check your income against your local area because you might be a neighborhood class enemy and not even know it. And that usually leads to awkwardness at the local workers council potlucks.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:00 PM | Comments (589)
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