Picking Your Tax Dollars at Work

The rise of ISIS? Zika research?? Man made global warming??? No, my friends! The National Academy of Sciences is on the job, and they've discovered that, around the world, there are more than one thousand four hundred (1,400) words for "nose"... that all contain the letter "N"! (If you win a ton of money on Jeopardy for knowing this now, I want a cut!)

Rest assured! The NAS only receives 85% of their funding from the federal government. Looks like the Obama administration is still picking winners!

Excessive Use of Force On Civilians By the Government is Nothing New

Guess Elian Gonzalez wasn't a "dreamer"? Lucky for him, he wasn't grazing cattle on federal land, either!

Nuttier Than Squirrel Poop

"The Handout"


Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

This Is Beyond Ridiculous. Why The Hell Do I Still Live Here?

by Andrew Roman

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Popcorn May Be Next

If oversized cups of sugary drinks (those larger than 16 ounces) really are a scourge to the health and well-being of a gluttonous, overweight citizenry (as defined by the soft-tyrannical powers-that-be) – I mean, if they are really contributing in such an adverse way to the overall condition of the population to the point that the confiscation of liberties has become necessary (again, as defined by the soft-tyrannical powers-that-be) - then wouldn’t it be prudent, nay imperative,  to simply make them  illegal?

This is a legitimate question, not incendiary finger-snapping blog rhetoric.

Seriously, what would be the rationale for not making them illegal, based on the objective from on high? That soda is only bad for us in big cups as opposed to multiple smaller-sized cups? Or bottles? Or cans? 

If our lives are really at stake here, how can these overseers of all that is good and righteous not ban these immoral body-bloating concoctions?

As it stands right now, should the City of New York bend over, grab its ankles and accept His Royal Highness Michael Bloomberg’s big-cup ban, we the people will still be able to recklessly poison ourselves by cleverly purchasing two sixteen ounce cups of sugar-filled beverages (which, as a product of the New York City Public School System, brings me to a grand total of thirty-two total ounces of sugary drinks, if I’m not mistaken) …or even three cups (forty-eight ounces of sugary drinks) …or ten cups (one hundred sixty ounces).

Why then do it at all (if our well-being is really the issue)? Surely, Blunderberg’s health minions have considered this calamitous  reality, troubled as they obviously are with the health of New Yorkers.

How serious can the New York City Politburo really be about our collective physical states if it is still within our power to legally pour as many ounces of Dr. Pepper into our gobs as we like, albeit somewhat inconveniently in several containers as opposed to one?

Indeed, the Big Apple – or better yet, the Controlled-Portion-Apple – has, out of whole cloth, given itself the power to care about us so much - to do that which is for our own collective good - that it can literally tell a privately-owned entity that it is no longer allowed to sell a perfectly legal item in a perfectly legal manner to law-abiding Americans.  And they do so based on the deadly marriage of dimwitted emotion-based logic and big government liberalism.

Spare me the hackneyed, knee-jerk, ridiculous claims that overweight people are such a burden to the health system that it has become obligatory to curb our liberties.  Is it really the contention of big-government, soft-tyrannical types that skinnier people would bring down costs of health care for everyone across the board in such a way as to legitimize such an unheralded power-grab?

How does that work exactly?

Do people who are not obese and live longer visit their doctors less and require less medication over the course of their lives? Really? Skinny people don’t suffer from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, pneumonia, ulcerative colitis, migraines and Parkinson’s as much as Pepsi drinkers? So, the majority of people in hospitals, emergency rooms, rehabilitation centers and clinics are undisciplined Slurpee guzzlers?

Doesn’t it stand to reason that if someone lives to be 95 instead of 75, he or she will have twenty more years on this earth to suffer illnesses, require medical attention and break down like everyone else? Do skinnier people simply keel over dead when their time is up, out of the blue, from a perfectly healthy state? Don’t most people deteriorate toward the end of their lives, requiring doctor care, medicine and extensive tests regardless of how old they are when the end comes? 

Let's for a moment, look at the zealotry of the anti-smoking crusaders.

If, for example, 50,000 people die annually, as is the contention from anti-smoking warriors, due to second-hand smoke, why would these nanny-staters complain about rising costs? These people are dying, aren’t they? They can’t be a drain on the health care system if they’re dead, can they? And if more people are dying annually from simply being around smokers than die in auto accidents, isn’t it obvious that smoking, too, must be banned outright?  (Maybe autos should be banned as well, no? Maybe breathing.)

I'm not pro-smoking, by the way. I'm pro-liberty.

Personally, I haven't had a regular soda of any kind for years and haven't smoked a cigarette since 1998. These are my choices, not Mayor Bloomberg's choices. 

If the freedom to choose the Big Gulp is really contributing to the escalating costs of health care and the deteriorating quality of life in the City of New York as claimed, then isn’t it incumbent of the East Coast Kremlin to banish all sugary drinks, period? How can something so important and so critical be instituted conditionally? Do they not care enough?

And what of those people who are thin and healthy who wish to have a 64-ounce Coke at a venue like Yankee Stadium? Setting aside the immediate benefit to the state of being able to collect more tax money from the guy forced to buy three sixteen-ounce sodas instead of one, is the New York Politburo going to assert that this infringement on choice – which libs are always championing when it comes to being able to scrape away inconvenient embryonic tissue in the womb – is still for his own good? Does King Bloomberg know better what is better for this man's body than the man himself?

Obviously he does, because as expected, the Apple Health Police are now looking to expand their reach into our private lives by targeting such society-crippling pleasures as popcorn, milkshakes and specialty coffee drinks.

From MYFOX.com:

The board hand-picked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that must approve his ban of selling large sugar-filled drinks at restaurants might be looking at other targets.

The New York City Board of Health showed support for limiting sizes of sugary drinks at a Tuesday meeting in Queens.  They agreed to start the process to formalize the large-drink ban by agreeing to start a six-week public comment period.

At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods.

One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered.

"The popcorn isn't a whole lot better than the soda," Vladeck said.

Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits.

"There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories," said board member Dr. Joel Forman.

Mayor Bloomberg says the drink rules are an attempt to fight obesity in the city.  It would limit food service establishments in the city from serving drinks bigger than 16 ounces but would allow refills.

Did you catch that? The government would "allow" refills. How sporting of them. How generous.

Who the hell are these people to tell us what we can and cannot choose? And under what authority do they claim to be able to do it? Whim?

Seriously, I dare them to try and take away my wife's daily 32-ounce Iced Mocha Latte. I double-dare them.

It’s funny, tragic and sad at the same time….

The Occupy Wall Street types spent months on end living like unkempt hobos in the park, defecating on police cars, disrupting businesses, screaming and yelling about the tyranny of corporations and free markets. They marched, protested, attacked and broke laws to rail against the oppressions and injustices of capitalism. Yet, there isn’t a single corporation in all of America with the power to come to your home and take away your liberties. No bank, retailer, investment firm, restaurant chain, automobile manufacturer or oil company can show up on your doorstep and make you less free.

Not one.

Only government can do that.

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The King Wants Your Big Gulp

by guest blogger Andrew Roman

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Yes, liberals live (and love) to ban things. If they could, they'd ban more. It's that we're allowed to do so many things and make our own choices that causes them so much distress. And in circumstances where an outright ban isn't possible (e.g, guns), they are madly infatuated with imposing restrictions. Modern liberalism has shown us that the road to Utopia - ever under-construction and always under-funded - is more easily navigated when those who know what is good for us (and the Earth) remove these hazardous obstacles. 

For instance, if the planet could communicate directly with us (outside of the melting glaciers and mounting polar bear corpses), no doubt she would breathe a much-needed sigh of relief now that the Los Angeles City Council has banned plastic bags from super markets. The environment-crippling single-use plastic bag is slated to be replaced with that dinosaur of free-market-transport: the paper bag ... which, incidentally, was replaced many years ago by the very same plastic bags that are now being banned from use.  Something about saving the earth, if I recall. The ban is intended to reduce the amount of garbage in landfills, cut back on litter and show the environment some love.

But facts are pesky things. They can burst blissful bubbles and annoy the self-congratulatory well-intentioned.

Plastic bags make up less than one half of one percent of all garbage in the State of California.

Plastic bags make up a full one percent - that's one part out of a hundred - of all litter nation-wide.

These same plastic bags make up nearly two percent of all plastic debris found on beaches or in the oceans.

That we have anything left alive in our seas is astonishing.

Let us not forget about the jobs that could potentially be lost domestically thanks to the ban. Yes, plastic grocery-store bags are manufactured right here in the good old U-S-of-A.  And what of the inescapable trouble that will arise from those disgusting  bacteria-laden reusable bags that are now being pushed by environmentalists?  (Most of them are made in China, by the way). Would you put your peaches in one of those things?

To hell with those perfectly sanitary,  fish-killing, dump-filling, beach-trashing, dog-poop-picker-uppers! I demand my right to acquire E.coli while saving the planet!

Next, a riddle...

If a million people tried doing serious damage to the environment by getting together, say in Central Park, and pressing a million asthma inhalers simultaneously into the air, how many holes in the ozone layer could be created? How many species could be eliminated from an already fragile collection of eco-systems teetering on the brink? How many degrees could surface temperatures across the globe by ratcheted up? What would the caribou death count be?

Thank goodness that these noxious threats to the ozone layer are being phased out. 

Whether or not President Obama's EPA is aware that people who use these over-the-counter inhalers actually release the chemicals contained in them into their own bodies and not into the atmosphere is unclear at this time.

Not to worry, though. Prescription inhalers cost at least three times as much as the over-the-counter variety being banned.  After all, asthma sufferers were looking for ways to spend more money on their life-saving medications, weren't they?

There is solace in knowing the carbon footprint of the United States will be that much smaller.

Here in New York City, where banning things is a way of life, our King - Michael Bloomberg, his most exalted majesty - has once again kicked aside an obtrusive roadblock on the path to sweet Utopia by telling us yet again what is good for us. (If not for him, how many dead would litter our streets like so many banned plastic grocery bags?)  Recall, he rescued us by banning certain cooking oils in privately owned restaurants. (Yes, in privately owned restaurants). He banned smoking in bars. (Yes, in privately owned bars). He has waged war on salt, forced calorie counts to be posted in restaurants, usurped the will of the people by thumbing his nose to term limits, extended the welcome mat to  illegals, and rejected the real purpose of government  - that is, to protect freedom Rather, he has used elected office as a platform to hoist personal feelings about the morality of health upon the rest of us.

The King has proposed - and will almost certainly get - a ban on all sugared drinks in containers that measure larger than sixteen ounces.

This is not a joke. It isn't a Rush Limbaugh parody, a Saturday Night Live bit or a Mad Magazine spread.

Michael Bloomberg, from on high, has decided that it will be illegal - yes, illegal - to fill a cup larger than sixteen ounces with non-diet soda and other sweet drinks in any of the five boroughs of New York City.

Illegal.

Say goodbye to super-sized sodas. Say goodbye to choice. Say goodbye to liberty. Say goodbye to sanity.

Say howdy to more big, intrusive government.

Say hi to unabashed liberalism.

The Bloomberg ban would affect restaurants, street carts, delis, movie theaters, stadiums and arenas. Yes, that means that it will be against the law to buy a 32-ounce Mountain Dew at Yankee Stadium to wash down my Nachos, but perfectly fine to buy seven beers before the first pitch is ever thrown.

 Such thinkers, these liberals.

The ban wouldn't apply to diet drinks, fruit juices, booze or even milk shakes - because it is common knowledge that large quantities of ice cream and whole milk are better for you than a jumbo Coke .

To be fair, the ban would not include bottled soda in grocery stores and convenience stores, but would wipe out the famed Big Gulp.

I  can see it all now.

The scene is a 7-11 convenience store somewhere near Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It's lunchtime. A pickup truck packed with construction workers pulls up. Out come four hungry, thirsty he-men. One of the guys, parched from a hot summer's morning of work on the new office building across 4th Avenue, grabs a Big Gulp cup and places it underneath the dispenser at the soda machine. His arid throat tingles as he anticipates the rush of icy cold Coke about to pour in, squelching the burn of his thirst, soothing his overworked body.

As the man's Big Gulp cup - built for 32 ounces of pure refreshment - fills past the half-way point with frosty Coca Cola, three red lights suddenly emerge from the front of the machine and begin flashing in rapid sequence. The machine immediately shuts itself down as two iron-pronged grills slam down in front of the dispenser. An alarm sounds. The store clerks quickly put on their protective eye gear  and duck behind the display of black-and-white cookies. Customers scatter.  A woman screams.  

The store's front door is bolted shut as a nine inch thick steel titanium bar is lowered from behind the portrait of Mayor Mike Bloomberg above the lottery ticket wheels. Simultaneously, two metal rods project from the sides of the soda machine, expanding themselves toward the Big Gulp cup from either direction until they penetrate the cup, piercing the skin, causing the Coca Cola to empty into the overrun pan. The straws and cup lids are electronically sealed behind bullet-proof glass from a remote location. The Slurpee machine melts into a pool of molten metal.

Before he can process all that has happened, the thirsty man is surrounded.  In an instant, someone starts reading him his rights as his wrists feel the cold steel of the cuffs clenching down. It's all over within thirty seconds, and it's all for his own good.

Voices within the store begin to buzz: "Shoulda went with the diet" ..... "It's really for the best."  A couple of the older men - grizzled nanny-state veterans -  reflexively suck in their guts as they watch the man escorted from the premises. "I don't touch the stuff anymore myself," one says to another.  "Does he want to die young or something?" another one nervously asks out loud. An old lady in a rocking chair chuckles uncontrollably. Some begin looking around, anticipating an appearance from King Mike himself. "Another life saved!" someone calls out from just beyond the rotating sausages. "It's for our own good," a mother of nine affirms.

And just like that, life returns to normal in the Brooklyn 7-11.

One of the men from the pickup truck buys two 16-ounce cups of icy cold Coke without incident. Another buys a 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi from the cooler, while the third says he is going to the Baskin Robins  across the street for a large ice cream soda.

Now seriously....

Is this idiocy really about health? Does anyone in their heart of hearts genuinely believe this entire power play is about curbing obesity?

What's to prevent people from buying multiple cups of smaller sized soda? What's to keep people from their free refills in fast food joints? If this is really about cutting back on fat, why not just close down the bakeries?  Or put restrictions on the number of Kit Kats allowed per household? Or limit potato chip consumptions to one bag a week. Or pizza delivery to two medium pies every ten days? Or mandate that no one within the five boroughs can sit down to watch any television program with less than two vegetable servings and a fruit platter?

There is so much asininity in this proposal that environmentalists would have me hung for the amount of trees it'd take to supply the paper I would need to list the ways.

People are living longer than ever before. And if you properly adjust statistics by taking away those that die in car accidents and are murdered , the United States has the highest life expectancy on Earth.

In reality, this is a freedom-curbing intolerable intrusion into our lives that has nothing - repeat, nothing - to do with improving the health of our citizenry. Ultimately, regardless of intention, this is only about expansive government. It is about making the individual even smaller in the shadow of a growing state. It is about shrinking liberty. It is about the right of the people to be able to make personal choices that were never intended to  the fall under the awning of the power of government.  Free people must have the right to make these decisions themselves, good or bad. Indeed, choices have consequences, but none so menacing as  allowing government to take away - ban - things it deems as a "public concern."

Where is the line?

Where does it stop?

Human beings just don't know when to say when.

C.S Lewis wrote, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Go ahead and redefine the millennia-old definition of marriage. Please feel free to terminate as many unborn children as you wish.  Hand out condoms to school children as you see fit.

But don't you dare put seventeen ounces of Sunkist Orange in a cup in this city.

Incidentally, today is the 75th Annual National Donut Day in New York.

That's right, National Donut Day.

Our Majesty-In-Chief will be out and about today celebrating this internationally heralded health food, culminating in a proclamation letter written by ... himself.

Can a Boston cream donut even fit in one of those Big Gulp cups?
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Bam's Jobs Bill Jam

by guest blogger Andrew Roman

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Same body, different suit?

Same septic tank, different commode?

(Make up your own and insert here).

Senator Mike Lee (R, Utah) used the phrase "Old wine in old bottles."

Last week’s jobs bill speech by President Barack Obama should have all but pounded the final nail into the pine box of Obama's presidency - that is, if there is any sense of order, common sense and justice to the universe. 

How bad is it for the president?

A Republican has just won Anthony Weiner's old seat in Congress here in New York City - a district that hasn't gone Republican since before anyone ever heard the term "social security." 

Babe Ruth was only in his fourth season with the Yankees the last time the Ninth District went GOP.  

The first licensed commercial radio station in the United States had been on the air only three years.

Ronald Reagan was not yet a teenager.

In bluer-than-blue New York, in a district that is at best 4 to 1 Democrat over Republican, that's how bad it's getting for Bam.

The Obama "jobs speech" - the highly anticipated, built-up-beyond-proportion, latest-in-a-long-string-of-America-saving-jobs-speeches from Brack Obama - was yet another one of those head-shaking "just wow" events. (I have them cataloged and meticulously cross-referenced using sophisticated database software).

Not that any of us in the thinking class expected anything less than what we received from the Chief Executive. Not that any of us believed for one moment that anything other than the same-old, same-old was coming our way from the podium of the House chamber.

It was simply one of those, "Wow, I can't believe that this guy is in charge of the whole shootin' match" moments.

If it weren't for the fact that the economic well-being of the nation hangs in the balance, one could almost feel sorry for the man being so far out of his league. If it weren’t for the fact that his experiments in nation transformation have resulted in the highest poverty levels in decades, one could almost take him by the hand, slap him on the back and say, “You tried, kid. But we gotta get some people in here who can fix this. Now, let’s go get some pancakes.”

All that's missing at the White House these days are the antlers and headlights.

While Barack Obama continues to make the job of conservative talk radio hosts tremendously easy, he makes America's economic recovery more difficult. It’s almost inconceivable to believe that he cannot see what he and his ever-encroaching big government ways are doing to this country. But once again, he’s peddling the same spend-spend-spend, expansive policies that have already failed - policies that also stunk up the joint when his predecessor, George W. Bush, implemented his own inane "stimulus" package. It was stupid then; five times as stupid when Obama did it the first time; and even more stupid now that the president wants to try it again.

If ever a man has personified - in spades (no slur intended) - Albert Einstein's over-quoted definition of insanity, it is President Barack Obama. If Obama's proposed jump start to an economy already paralyzed by the ropes of big government is to be taken seriously by anyone not under the influence, then Einstein truly had it pegged.

The logic of the President's thinking would have us handing out shots of Jack Daniels at alcohol anonymous meetings.

Seriously, are we to believe that nearly a half-trillion dollars in additional spending is all we really needed to get us over the hump? That the first Obama stimulus was almost the fix we required to bring us back to economic health? Were we really that close to the fix? Just a half billion dollars off? Did we miss it by that much?

Why not get this economy roaring back with a vengeance? Why not a trillion dollars more? Or five trillion more? While we’re at it, why not raise the minimum wage to $18.50 an hour? And tax the rich at a 70% tax rate? (Even if those Americans making $500,000 a year or more were taxed at a full one hundred percent, revenues wouldn’t even cover the entirety of this year’s deficit. There’d still be $500 billion left to fund somehow).

We already tax the rich in this country.

Yet, there’s a block of taxpayers – approximately 47% - who pay no federal income tax.

“Fair share” anyone?

The President’s rhetoric is tired. He talks about tax cuts in his new plan to get Americans working again, but what he’s proposing aren’t genuine tax cuts. They are temporary tax credits (which means the money is being swiped from elsewhere only to be redistributed) to the tune of approximately $500 a year for the average middle class American family. That’s a whole $500 a year. That’s about $42 dollars a month, or about $10 extra bucks a week.

Shopping malls beware. The stampede’s a-coming.

How does taking money out of the economy and returning it in nearly infinitesimal chunks to other people who did not earn it jump start a flailing economy? When did it ever?

The last Obama tax credit – the one that brought the payroll tax down from 6.2% to 4.2% - really got things moving, didn’t it?

And now, he wants to do it again?

Genuine tax cuts are obviously great - nay, necessary ... but they have to be the right kind of tax cuts. Minuscule credits at the expense of the job creators in this country will prove to be, as it always does, nothing more than ineffective, feel-good, campaign-fodder class warfare. 

It will solve nothing.

And don’t think for second that Democrats will back this “jobs bill” without additional stimulus spending tacked on.

Bank on it.

And why didn't the President actually - and finally - define what "fair share" means in regard to taxing "the rich?" What an opportunity it could have been for him for set the parameters of the debate. He could have told us once and for all what the fairest level of taxation for the "fortunate" among us is.

And notice how the President used the word "fortunate" to describe the wealthiest Americans, as opposed to "hard working," "creative" or "successful."

That simply would never do. It would alienate and/or offend.

That's because good fortune suggests randomness and chance - the luck of the draw.

Creativity, innovation and hard work, on the other hand, place the onus directly on the individual. It suggests that wealth may actually be deserved and earned - an anathema to Obama and his equality-over-liberty ilk.

Think about this: The left believes that government is the answer to almost everything, that only government can get things right. But look around. Government is practically everywhere in the form of taxation, over-regulation, the takeover of private industry, and so on. The size of government continues to grow. Yet, there are now 22 million children living in poverty, according to Government figures. There are now more people without health care coverage than there were last year. Unemployment is fixed at around 9%. There was absolutely no job growth in August.

And yet, the President wants more government?

Oh yeah, it's bad.

Paging Mr. Einstein.

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