A plank I can heartily endorse

Looks like Bill’s pomeranian has a rival.  And I like the way she thinks:

:Zucca stands strongly in favor of restoring the 4th Amendment.  Zucca feels that the widespread, indiscriminate use of police tactical teams leads to unneccessary death and wholesale violation of citizen rights.  Zucca stands in opposition to trigger happy goons who shoot the dog first and ask questions later.   Zucca proposes a bright line test for the use of police tactical teams.  Any incursion into a house where a dog of average intelligence cannot determine if the intruders are police or criminals is wrong and should be punished.  Zucca believes that the only time a police tactical team should engage in a high risk entry is to rescue hostages.  Otherwise they should cordon off the area and talk the suspects out.  Any police officer who shoots a dog without reasonable justification should be jailed.

There’s more truth than humor here.  Sad Infuriating, isn’t it.

Related:

(Zucca via KurtP, Vanderboegh via Mike)

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Because they *really* don’t want *any* cuts...?

Instapundit:

RASMUSSEN BUDGET POLL: 60% Say Cut Everything. "Only 28% want any program spared.”

UPDATE: Reader Chris Hauser writes:

Looking at the Republican side, WHY has not a SINGLE Presidential candidate embraced this as the foundation of their platform: an across-the-board cut of such-and-such percent on EVERYTHING?...

Related:

More Republican FAIL:

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:40:14 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Blogstuff - catching up

While Homer was nodding...

In the Good Folks department, Susan, formerly at Wildrun, now has new (blogging) digs at The Owl House.

Wildrun was a wildlife control and cat chasing venture started by a 28 year-old young woman with a truck, a boyfriend, a catchpole, who got a real sense of joy being out in the small wild lands that edged our suburban world. I caught things.  Woodchucks, raccoons, skunks, now and then a beaver and...cats.  My life was running around, catching things.

The Owl House is a house on a quiet road in something close to the middle of nowhere, surrounded by older neighbors of German and Finnish origin, and younger neighbors who just wanted to walk out their door and see the sky, hear the creeks, and appreciate other folks who loved such things.  And instead of me having to go get the cats, the cats more often come to me.

A change in focus, but still "all about” cats. I’ll update her link shortly.

Jammie Wearing Fool(s) (sidebar link: "Court Jester in PJs”) has a new address and a new look, but, unfortunately, a bunch of design problems: Most of the links - including "Contact Us” - don’t work for me, and select-and-copy text is locked out.  (I suspect bad code in one of those goddam third-party widgets that seem to pollute more and more web pages, but I viewed the source and still can’t figure out what’s happening.  Maybe Brian ought to have a look... if just for a laugh.)  For the moment I’ll leave the link pointing to the old site, and give ’em a week to get things fixed, at which point I’ll change/delete it.

More successfully, Daily Pundit hasn’t moved, but has done a restyling.  Bill is still tweaking with the PHP, but unlike JWF, ’most everything’s working.  Go take a look.

Next Indy blogmeet?  Roberta is calling for suggestions, and Thanksgiving is almost upon us.

And finally, today it looks like the Islamists have hijacked Atomic Nerds. Joy.

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More taxes: *Exactly* why we voted for the Republicans in 2010, right...?

Hot Air:

Forty House Republicans sign letter encouraging Super Committee to consider new revenues raising taxes

(fixed it for ’em!)

Steven LaToruette [RINO-OH]:

...said if he had a nickel for every one of the Republicans who said they supported the letter’s goal but feared how [Americans for Tax Reform President Grover] Norquist would react, "I’d be rich and retired, and we’d have 200 signatures on the letter.”

Good. If we can’t inspire them with love, then paralyze them with fear!  Oh, let’s and remember to give Mr. LaTourette his retirement wish in 2012, too.


The List*:
(*Transcribed from an uncopiable - wonder why? - PDF):

And Who’s Surprised By This?  Dept:

Just means there’s more work to do...

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Lamar Smith leads another assault on liberty

Radley Balko:

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday [October 6] that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) — even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they’re carried out.  The new law, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA...

"Cornellian,” commenting at Volokh:

...This statute would make it a criminal offense to have this conversation in the United States:

Friend 1:  Hey, let’s go to Amsterdam and smoke weed where it’s legal!
Friend 2:  Great idea! I’m in! (agreement)
Friend 1:  Lemme check airfare on Expedia. (overt act)

"LaSuthenboy,” commenting at PJ Tattler:

This is exactly the kind of crap that gives the left fodder for going after the right, exactly the kind of behavior that drives people away from conservatism; minding other people’s business...  This busybody BS from Republicans feeds the growth of the busybody left.

It is perfectly rational and sane to make illegal the plotting of illegal activities over the border.  But, to specifically include activities legal over the border is just another grab for power for the government.  Right or Left, the ultimate goal is to eventually have laws governing everything you do or think, down to the hours you sleep and your breaths per minute.

Lamar Smith and every representative that was party to this needs to be held by the scruff of the neck and chased around in circles with a hickory stick until he can’t sit down for a week while having the first amendment read to them over and over….with a bullhorn.

We’ve noticed Lamar Smith before.  He’s the guy who wanted to apply civil forfeiture to copyright enforcement (so the RIAA could confiscate your computer).  And who thought it would be a good idea to require anyone operating a WIFI access point maintain two years worth of user records in the name of "aiding police investigations.”

So we know what Smith is about, and it’s not about individual liberty.  It’s probably too much to ask the Republicans to read Smith out of the party; what’s less understandable is whythehell supposedly freedom-loving Texans keep re-electing him.


Naming names:

H.R.313, the "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011.”

Unlike most legislation, the effect of this two-page bill would seem easily understandable by anybody (except possibly its sponsor^[1]): It adds this paragraph to Section 406 of the (existing) Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 846):

Whoever, within the United States, conspires with one or more persons, or aids or abets one or more persons, regardless of where such other persons are located, to engage in conduct at any place outside the United States that would constitute a violation of this title if committed within the United States, shall be subject to the same penalties that would apply to such conduct if it were to occur within the United States.

Simple, direct, obvious... right?  No exception for legal conduct, and no excuses for voting for it, either.

Vote:  October 6, 2011: Order to report as amended, passed 20-7

In fact, there’s even less than no excuse:  Before the order to report was voted, Robert C. Scott [D-VA] offered an amendment that would have fixed the problem:

Page 2, line 16, after "that" insert "is a criminal offense in the place where the conduct occurrs and".

The committee REJECTED Scott’s amendment, 11-3.

So Mr. Scott tried again, this time eliminating prosecution for de minimis offenses:

...insert "punishable by a term of inprisonment greater than 20 years" after "violation of this title"

That one was voted down 11-12

So: Every Republican who voted for this bill had been made aware that there was a problem, and chose to ignore it.  Lamar and his Gang of 15 (Republicans, plus 4 Democrats) have a bunch of explaining to do.

Elsewhere:

^[1] Related (added 111030 20:15):

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 20:31:46 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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“It’s like stream of consciousness lightly sprinkled with punctuation.”

S.Weasel mocks Meghan, so you don’t have to...

Quick, get John McCain a chair!

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 22:04:20 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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What do they have in common?

Today’s quiz:

...A former Congressman who apparently thinks it's actionable to criticize an elected official and that he has some sort of right to draw a paycheck from the federal government. ...An incompetent federal judge who seems unfamiliar with the protections established well over 200 years ago for political speech in this country or the idea of judicial conflicts of interest.

What do Driehaus and Black have in common?

Elsewhere:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 17:41:42 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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More mush, this time from the candidates

From Mitt Romney, the expected:

"I don’t know on which issue I’m not conservative,” he told Sean Hannity in a radio interview...  "I think my record is as conservative as you’ll find..”

Romney did identify one way in which he differs from some of his GOP rivals: "I may not be as incendiary or outlandish in rhetoric.”

To which Smitty replies

Shag your rhetoric, mister: it’s your results that have people wondering...

And from Rick Perry, the disappointing:

My Tax and Spending Reform Plan
…
ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed…

Why only "section 404,” Mr. Candidate?  What’s so special about the rest of SarBox that it deserves to survive?

and, if necessary, replaced…

No.  Right there, you accept defeat.

NONE of these laws were ever "necessary.”  By allowing that possibility, you imply that as President you’d be just fine with the usual beltway-driven tinkering and no-results cleverness instead of achieving what we need now: the outright obliteration of the federal programs and regulations that are eating our economy alive.


Related:

Previously:
Romney and Smitty links via (and my remarks cross-posted at) Daily Pundit.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 18:09:13 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Because shooting the messenger *always* works...

The Wall Street Journal:

The European Commission is leaning toward proposing a ban on the issuing of sovereign-credit ratings for countries in bailout talks...

Should the Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, come to view these sovereign ratings as inappropriate, "we could ban it or suspend the rating for the necessary time frame,” [European internal market commissioner Michel Barnier] said...

Mr. Barnier had indicated previously that he liked [the] idea- originally proposed by International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde when she was France’s finance minister...

I’d say that if you’ve been waiting on a signal to pull your money out of Europe, now you’ve got one.

Elsewhere (added 111026 15:40):
Related:

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 19:10:50 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oooh... New Pratchett

Posted by: Old Grouch in Dear Diary... at 20:10:20 GMT | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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