I’ve been prodding the left to submit state level bills on enhancing background checks—we already have them so any more would be “enhancing” the ones we have–and we finally have some Democrats stepping up to the plate.

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Heh!:  “Due to the absence of either an FY 2014 appropriation or Continuing Resolution for the Department of Health and Human Services, there is no one to process your action or respond to your message. If you require immediate attention, please contact 410-786-4160”

See below for the inside joke

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Quick note: It seems that the Obamacare Exchange being run by the State of Maryland has some really “cute” slugs on the “privacy” that Marylanders think they might have.  Now, if you KNEW this and had any doubts of your, er, past, do you think this might give you reason to pause?

“[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”

And if you are going “phew, only the cops?  Nobody else?” – Hah!

“your correspondence could be disclosed to other parties upon their request in accordance with Maryland’s Public Information Act.”

Cool!  Maryland’s law, that Public Info doo-hicky, will keep my info from the badness that is Big Biz, right?  To which my retort would be: when’s the last time you actually sat down and READ that PIC?

Better yet, before handing over your name, your address, your birthday, your social security number, number of people in your household, your income, your “household income” (from little Jimmy to Granny), all of the social security numbers of everyone living in your household, citizenship/immigration status; did you READ the Privacy on whatever Exchange you were using?

Like you have much choice, right?  With 16,000 new IRS agents,

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I wanted to start with a snippet from Charlie Arlinghaus’ recent Column on the State Budget and surplus.  This clears up a few things I got wrong here about which budget the surplus came from that Hassan is taking credit for.  It was the First O’Brien Budget–the one that was to usher in the apocalypse.    Yeah.  It produced a $76 Million dollar surplus, proving once again–a point I always seem to get right–that Democrats are almost always wrong about spending and taxes, and continue to be  your worst enemy regardless of the economic environment.

From the UL

The state has just announced a surplus left over from the budget prior to the current one. New Hampshire’s two-year budget finishes up on June 30 of the next Legislature’s term, and the unaudited final numbers aren’t announced until October. So we just received a final report (actually semi-final, there will be slight changes to the audited number) on the budget passed in 2011.

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…specifically allowed.  Certainly not by legislation but by fiat by the Executive Branch.  It has been said that each of us breaks four or five laws everyday (either statutory or regulatory) without ever knowing it.  How can one defend themselves when one, even if trying hard to not, is breaking a law under that condition?  The philosophy undergirding our system of jurisprudence is that a law has to be short, clearly stated, and understandable by the average person.  Nowadays, just seeing the multitude of just lawyer specialties, how can the ordinary person cope?  Or are we already sacrificed on the altar of Legality?

And that sacrifice comes merely because nobody asks “when is Enough, ENOUGH”?

So when I saw this, I went – yup, good start – can we keep this Slimedown (er, can you call it a Shutdown when only 17% of the Fed is actually shut down?) going?:

Regulators and proponents of stronger protections warn that rulemaking delays will jeopardize public safety and health. But some conservatives say the reprieve from red tape is welcome, even if it doesn’t last long.

“We’re very pleased that the Obama administration’s ongoing efforts to wreck the U.S. economy with more and more heavy-handed and colossally expensive regulations has been put on hold,” said Myron Ebell, director of the right-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute’s energy and environment center…

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Really!  With their new coal industry killing regulations, and that PA’s electrical generation is heavily skewed to coal,well, the obvious is about to happen. From Junk Science (“Pennsylvania prepares to downsize economy rather than build more power plants“), we see that (with all due respect to Mary Poppins)  “money will make the crap go down, the crap go down”:

Using less electricity will become more lucrative for Pennsylvania universities, government agencies and industries when coal-fired power plants close during the next several years.

A regional power-management group is boosting payouts to organizations that conserve voluntarily, offering money if they curtail demand on summer’s hottest days. Maximum payouts will climb about 33 percent by 2017, management group PJM Interconnection told the Tribune-Review.

The move should help contain power prices for residential customers and small businesses by easing pressure on limited supply, industry observers said.

“It really is just supply and demand,” said Stu Bresler, a vice president with Montgomery County-based PJM. “If customers are able to shift their demand, there would be less need for additional capacity for generation or transmission.”

That is, for the replacement capacity, for the current capacity being taken away by bureaucrats.

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From The Corner comes this story about how the Establishment Republican Old Guard just can’t stand that  now taking a shot at a seated TEA Party / Libertarian, Congressman Justin Amash:

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post reported yesterday that Representative Justin Amash, the House’s ur-libertarian, could have a primary situation:

Within Grand Rapids’ powerful business establishment, patience is running low with Amash’s ideological agenda and tactics. Some business leaders are recruiting a Republican primary challenger who they hope will serve the old-fashioned way — by working the inside game and playing nice to gain influence and solve problems for the district. They are tired of tea party governance, as exemplified by the budget fight that led to the shutdown and threatens a first-ever U.S. credit default.

So it seems all over – a Republican that actually says what he believes and then walks that talk come voting.  It is the TEA Party / Libertarian wing of the party that is not pulling the Party rightward (which infuriates the Dems as they follow that foreign philosophy call socialism and throws a monkey wrench into the “go along / get along – we’ll do the same things but do them better than the Democrats” world view of the Republican elite (here, in Michigan, at the national level, everywhere).  They find it hard to understand that, more and more, many of us are returning back to the philosophy on which this Country was founded – and standing on them.   They don’t understand that the “New Republicans” aren’t motivated by “getting stuff done” or “moving the Country FORWARD!“.

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Government seems to have forgotten that they exist at the will of the people, not to rule over them, but to serve them in the needs of society, organization, stability, and public safety. Recently, due to the total failure of of our two party system to work cooperatively, to negotiate and compromise in the best interests of the people, we saw one proud group ignore their childish attempts to punish the people over their own partisan ego and divide, and refusal to compromise on either side of the aisle. I am referring to World War II Vets, often referred to a the Greatest Generation, who would not let childish self-indulging political power plays get in the way of them visiting monuments to honor them on public land that belongs to all of us. The Federal government may set aside parts of our country as protected lands, but they do not have the right to deny us access to is it because it does not belong to them, it belongs to us, the people. Like our founding fathers, these old Warrior Veterans revolted against the orders of government, and we should all be proud of their actions. In fact we should be so proud that we follow their lead – tear down the barricades and refuse to accept that government even has the right to close public facilities – after all this is our country, not a Communist state where Government owns and can dictate who gets to use what land for what purpose. I mean how can we be so adamantly opposed to Eminent Domain and yet accept that the government has the right to deny us access to land they took in our names, and supposedly for our benefit?

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The same state government that claims it can determine intent when it comes to domicile, see also every OFA college kid who parachuted in, voted here, and immediately left after the election (some from the homes of emloyees of the AG’s Office) is now looking for the authority to guess the intent of anyone who owns or possesses a firearm so that they might then seize that weapon…based on their “perception” of imminent risk.

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I’m always looking for connections…

Democrat Rep Piper submitted an LSR to empower government to arbitrarily seize guns based on the state’s perception of intent.  By state I mean any authority, local, county or state. Given that this party, that being the Democrat party, is prone to abuse the police state simply because you disagree with them on when life begins, if condoms should be free, who actually owns your water, wages,  or property, the idea that law-abiding citizens could be disarmed by the state based on political rhetoric transmogrified into an arbitrary perception of intent,  is chilling. (2014-H-2400-R

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