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Another Sunday talking head show snippit from Meet The Press back on 2/8.  The topic in that round table was that of vaccines – is it up to the Individual, the parents, that get to decide for their children whether or not to get vaccinations?  Or is it something that Government decides, period?  At what point are we free individuals and at what point, are we not?  Chuck Todd, host of MTP, at least raised the issue even if put in terms of Republican verses Democrat?

Chuck Todd: I guess it is the larger issue of, sort of, personal freedom versus the public good which of does do divide the two parties

And of course, it is rather easy to see which part the Democrats play and which the Republicans play in.  But then Andrea Mitchell slid in under Todd’s voice with a bit of what she thought was a zinger:

Andrea Mitchell: What about seatbelts?

Well, this is supposed to be the mic drop moment?

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When I read this post about the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis (a socialist, btw) in his demands that Europe send even more money to Greece (because GREECE!), all I could think of was a screaming match I had one night with Michael Kitsch over the fact that Irefused, as a Budget Committee member, to tax my townfolk more than necessary so that the “excess” could be sent to other towns and cities that had spent themselves into bankruptcy.  When I pointed out that would be wasting money, as those towns and cities had been so mismanaged for years such that they were in deep debt, he blew up.  “PEOPLE ARE HURTING!” was his retort.  Right, so send money to those in charge that have already demonstrated incompetence is a good thing? Besides, bad decisions have bad consequences and those voters that kept voting in these fools were now suffering that deserved consequence. This set him off even more; a litany of adjectives flowed out of his mouth with the more polite ones being cold-hearted, flinty, selfish, uncaring (reformatted, emphasis mine):

A meeting last Wednesday failed to produce an agreement — so the Greeks, with only a few weeks worth of cash left, and their creditors are heading into new talks Monday morning.  As the Monday meeting in Brussels loomed, Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis penned an op-ed in the New York Times.  His goal: “To fashion a fresh mind-set that transcends national divides, dissolves the creditor-debtor distinction in favor of a pan-European perspective, and places the common European good above petty politics.”  Varoufakis decried a “tyranny of consequences,” implying that the economic laws of scarcity need not apply to Greece because its thriftier northern neighbors have cash to spare and should willingly fork it over without any conditions.

Words right out of Kitsch’s mouth,

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And it trickles down.  Here I mention a few examples with the meme that once our “leaders” start disregarding The Rule of Law, it will spread – both horizontally and vertically.  After all, if leaders can ignore it, why not the rest of us?  In that previous post, it was clear that it was for ideological reasons – politics trumping The Law.  Here, I just don’t get it – vandalism on a memorial dedicated to police that died in the line of duty – in front of other police just standing around ordered by their superiors to do NOTHING:

[On Saturday, February 14,] approximately 100 to 200 people marched down Colfax Avenue from Lincoln Park to the Denver Police Department headquarters located at 1331 Cherokee Street. . . .Denver police say some protesters poured red paint over the memorial dedicated to fallen police officers. The memorial is located in front of Denver police headquarters and lists the names of police officers who have died in the line of duty.

[Denver Police Union President Nick] Rogers spoke exclusively to CBS4’s [Lauren] DiSpirito following the incident. He said officers monitoring the protest were told by their superiors to not to interfere and to let the vandalism happen.

Thanks to the Progressives pushing the anti-cop movement

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And if it is up to them, we’re gonna keep this taxpayer sucking, dependency creating program that breaks EVERY plank in the Republican Party that is even remotely related to it.  From the Union Leader:

Including the state’s share of the cost of Medicaid expansion for the final six months of the next biennium, when the state has to begin paying 2 percent of the cost, while also removing the program’s sunset is a mixed bag on the spending side of the ledger.

The House leadership, including House Finance Committee Chairman Neal Kurk, R-Weare, are unwavering in their opposition to continuing the program, but the NH Health Protection Act was sponsored by Morse and Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, and they want it to continue.

For sponsoring Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion, I have to ask this question:

How do you tell the Republicans from the Democrats?

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I’ve been busy all day (you know, that “balance” thing) so blogging has been light.  Pretty much most Sundays, I do watch the talking head shows.  On today’s This Week, “Republican strategist” Anna Navarro who never seems to lose an opportunity to “sniff” at conservatives did exactly that.  Donna Brazille talked about the conservatives she knew that they want a true conservative to run and win; she said “I dunno if that is Jeb Bush”.  True to form, Navarro said exactly what I would have expected an Establishment Republican to say:

“We have been in White House exile for 8 years. The hunger on the Republican side is to win and whomeever convinces they can then, we’ll support.”

Spoken like a true political operative

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Liberals have shown a repeated tendency to simply not enforce laws they don’t like.  In 2011, Obama’s Justice Department decided that it would effectively repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act without the consent of Congress.

A year later, Politico was reporting that the Obama decision to not enforce the laws it didn’t like had expanded. The story began this way:

On issue after issue — gay rights, drug enforcement, Internet gambling, school achievement standards — the administration has chosen to achieve its goals by a method best described as passive-aggressive. Rather than pushing new laws through a divided Congress to enact his agenda, Obama is relying on federal agencies to ignore, or at least not defend, laws that some of his important supporters — like Hispanic voters and the gay community — don’t like. ‘If the president says we’re not going to enforce the law, there’s really nothing anyone can do about it,’ University of Pennsylvania constitutional law professor Kermit Roosevelt said. ‘It’s clearly a political calculation.’

Dangerous ground for our Republic – Leadership roles are watched and then emulated; when the President, when top Federal appointed officials, refuses to “faithfully execute the laws”, what to do?  Certainly our “feckless” opposition (e.g., the GOP) seem to have no answer (mostly because they are too scared to hammer down and use their Constitutional powers (impeachment and/or power of the purse) because they are more willing to risk the Republic than to risk their seats.  “But we’ll LOSE”, they whine.  Well, what’s the difference when you fail to “win” with your asses in those seats?  But that behavior is emulated and trickled down; Conservative Review continues:

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During our discussion with  Greg Moore from Americans For Prosperity – NH we brought up the fact that the NH State Senate Republican passed Medicaid Expansion is already starting to see overruns and playing havoc with the budget – UNEXPECTEDLY much higher startup and on-going costs for many more people signing up for this Federal Govt Dependency program than first thought.  Gee, who’da thunk it – offer free stuff to people that were paying for it themselves and you think they’d turn it down?  Nope, Democrats have been changing the psyche of the American Public for decades – and the NH State Republicans (like Chuck Morse, Jeb Bradley and Jeannie Forrester) are trying to defend that giveway of other peoples’ money.

Yes sir, Democrat-lite.  And it isn’t just NH Republicans that are in fiscal trouble over it – it seems that other Republican officials just couldn’t resist the lure of “free money” and mimicking the siren call of Democrats of “look what I can do for you!”; from the Washington Times:

First of all, there is no such thing as free money from the federal government. Taxpayers are the ones footing the bill, and we are already $18 trillion in debt. We simply cannot afford it….And congressional leaders like Republican Paul Ryan are already saying the federal government will likely require states to kick in more than that down the line.

Heck, even *I* said that same thing – but I’m just a lowly blogger.  So what other Republican led States are in trouble for grabbing that “free money”? 

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“There is something in the progressive mind-set that promotes, nay, requires compulsive lying. We see it in John Kerry and his fake stories of secret missions in Cambodia and his flying dog; Hillary Clinton, and her Bosnian snipers; Susan Rice and her video explanation for Benghazi; Eric Holder with Fast and Furious; and even FDR. . . . Your standard progressive activist has really done nothing very interesting, so he or she needs to get proper credentials, to show that he or she knows what’s what, and that progressivism is what the world needs to deal with “problems”–after all, isn’t life just a series of problems calling for progressive intervention? They want to see what they believe. We, hence, have progressives making up the sort of stuff that puts them, the elite, in the center of the battle, on the ramparts, in the muddy trenches and downed helicopters with the common schlubs–the sort of worldly experience that allows progressives to tell us how to live our lives. Telling lies is essential to progressivism.”

(H/T: The Diplomad via Instapundit)

It is rather true – and it isn’t just lying by commission, as with the latest scandal of NBC’s anchor Brian Williams of lying about his experience as

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My friend Chan over at Weekend Pundit was the guy that introduced me to the term Watermelon Environmentalist years ago when we first started the ‘Grok.  Watermelon Environmentalist – Green on the outside, Red on the inside.  I had to think about the for a moment – the Red standing for the classic Socialist / Communist color

Sidenote: I still haven’t figured out how the Democrats stuck the Republicans with the color red…still not amused

Often, those named folks don’t like being called that.  For some, they are enviros first but have gotten frustrated that the rest of us don’t take them seriously.  However, those that are well described as Red get ticked as the rest of us now understand that the Green was just a front, they were always Red – not just on the inside but also on the outside.  Turning Green was just a way to hide – but sometimes that full on Red comes roaring out; exhibit Naomi Klein &  Global Divestment Day! (reformatted, emphasis mine):

To spearhead these activities, the interested parties have tapped the talent and resources of author Naomi Klein, perhaps best known for her book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate. (The title alone should tell you all you need to know about her.) She took part in a web chat for the true believers recently where she explained the importance of divestment from energy stocks and their associated profits. But the goal, as she explained it, involves doing a lot more than just getting the trust funds to dump their Chevron stock. That’s not going to solve anything. The real purpose is for the people to rise up, seize control of the companies and take all that dirty money away from them.

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Having come from a family background where my father was a Captain of deep sea tuna boat out of Cohassett, MA, I have always loved boat (sadly, not so much TMEW; I have yet to obtain one living within a few (ok, many more than a few) stone throws from the Big Lake).  So when big beautiful boats come up for viewing, I love it.  Sure, they cost from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions and I’ll never afford a single one of them.  But I can appreciate them – and without a single twitch of envy that I can’t.  So when CNN had this story about the BIGGEST superyacht EVAH, I was intrigued.  Then got depressed because, well, no pictures.  Nothing to oogle and ah about.  But one thing caught my eye (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Yet in a global climate of “haves and have-nots,” is it morally justifiable to spend $1 billion on a private yacht catering for 36 guests?

“To be honest, what ordinary mortals think is ‘moral,’ is not actually relevant to these people,” said Kampfner.

“You have to understand that we’re not talking about the top 1% — in this instance we’re talking about the 0.01%. This is a tiny group who live in their own bubble, they mix only among themselves.”

Now, if you didn’t know it, CNN is rather Leftist and certainly Sheena McKenzie let it show, didn’t she…

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