Paul Harvey, rest in peace

Radio legend Paul Harvey has passed away. He was 90 years old.

And now he knows The Rest of the Story…

Power Line on the budget, deficit, and the reporting of them then and now

John Hinderaker over at Power Line addresses the situation – yet again – that our MSM indulges in very different direction of their reporting on the same matters dependent entirely on whether the target of their investigation is left-wing versus right-wing.

Now that his planned deficits are four times larger, does Obama’s budget contain “debt-fattening indulgences?” Has the Times denounced them? Does the Obama administration have a “credible plan to restore budget balance?” Given that Obama’s intended budgets–put aside how optimistic his numbers may be–far exceed the actual deficits during the Bush administration, is the Times still “worried that a structural deficit will push up interest rates and restrain growth as America ceaselessly borrows to steer red ink from imbalanced budgets onto future taxpayers?” If not, why not?

The post is a good one, replete with very specific examples taken from the loudest voice advocating on Obama’s behalf and leading the charge against anything Bush-related: The New York Times. As he says, that was then, this is now.

What I want and what I keep hearing my fellow Americans say they want is news reporting that reports the facts and lets us all weigh the information ourselves. That requires a news organization that provides a consistent coverage of issues and events regardless of who benefits from the information conveyed. As the Power Line article shows, the Times was fervent in their coverage of all of the budget details and in painting the spending of the Bush administration as Very Bad Things™. What I want to know is why they choose to not provide the same coverage now on Obama’s administration given that the budget and deficits are so much worse. Why, that is, except for the concept that the Times cares nothing for reporting the facts, only in making those who share their liberal agenda look good.

Go read the whole article, complete with the quotes from the Times, for the whole story.

Is a law unconstitutional as a whole or just specific parts?

Here’s an interesting question for any of you lawyers or law students. If Congress were to pass a law that had, say, 5 parts or legal effects contained within it and the law was challenged as unconstitutional because 1 of those parts was alleged to be a violation of the 4th Amendment would the Supreme Court be forced to invalidate the entire law to find the 1 part unconstitutional? By that I mean could they possibly find that 1 part unconstitutional and overrule it yet leave the remaining 4 other parts or effects standing?

This is only a test…

This just in from the “No Sh-t, Sherlock!” department:

Created by Train Horn

And those of you who have met me have no doubts as to why, I’m sure!

Sad news: Rocky Mountain News ends 150 years of publication tomorrow

Time and tide, they say, wait for no man. They apparently wait for no company, either. That businesses fail is a fact of life in professional circles. In fact, many more businesses fail than succeed over 5 years. Those that make it a century and a half are truly special and when they succumb to the various pressures in the market, it’s a sad passing, all else aside. Today, I read a story at Real Clear Politics by Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle wherein Ms. Saunders tells us all we’ll be sorry for wanting newspapers to go out of business. The comments section on that story tells the tale that Ms. Saunders has blatantly missed: that people don’t want newspapers to fail. People want the left-leaning PR machines masquerading as newspapers to fail.

The sad part about the market conditions facing the MSM today is that they affect all of the media, whether they’re the aforementioned PR arms of the Democratic party pretending to do actual reporting or they’re actually a news agency doing good work. Both suffer and, lacking the proper resources, both can fail.

Case in point is the Rocky Mountain News, referenced here at HoodaThunk? on a number of occasions. Today, their management broke the news to their employees that their efforts to stay afloat as a second newspaper in Denver had come up short. Tomorrow, Rocky Mountain News will publish their final edition after nearly 150 years in the news business. I don’t subscribe to their paper since I live near DC, not in CO, but I’ve come to find their reporting to be pretty much what people are looking for: give us the facts and leave the editorializing to the editorial page. We can figure out “what it all means” just fine on our own. We don’t need a reporter’s idealogy standing in place of news reporting. The Rocky Mountain News appeared to live by that credo, for the most part, and that’s what’s especially sad. There are people in Los Angeles and San Francisco and New York who would love to have that kind of professionalism working for them at their local paper.

We don’t want true newspapers to fail and I would suggest that if you’re living in a place were an honestly fair newspaper is published, you should subscribe to them. Show them you value their work by paying for it. Here in DC we have the notorious Washington Post. There are good parts of it – I’m thinking of the LoudounExtra section and certain blogs (Living in LoCo), particularly – but the paper is, as a whole, a left-leaning shill for the Democrat party. We have an alternative, here, in the form of the Washington Times, a far more balanced view of the facts and news than the Post has ever been in the 2 decades I’ve lived out here. I’ve been waiting for the Times to start offering a Sunday-only subscription so I coud dump my Post subscription for a paper whose reporting I trust. That doesn’t appear likely to happen soon, so I’m going to look at this more seriously and see if subscribing daily wouldn’t be a good thing after all. I value their work and I should prove it by coughing up the cash.

My hopes and prayers go with the people of the Rocky Mountain Post. I’ve been through a couple of company failures and it’s not fun. The stress, the wondering if there might have been something more to be done, the fear of “what now?” especially for those with families depending on them are all experiences I don’t wish on good people who gave an honest business an honest shot. It’s my fervent hope that they land on their feet and, whether this takes them out of the industry or merely moves them to the industry’s next evolution, that they come through this stronger, brighter, and just plain old better than before. Good luck, folks.

Bill Mims confirmed as new AG in unanimous decision by Virginia General Assembly

Bill Mims, the chief deputy under Bob McDonnell, has been confirmed as the new Attorney General by the unanimous action of the General Assembly according to Bearing Drift. An excellent decision.

Bill was the State Senator for my district when I moved into Countryside back in 2004. It was during the 2004 Presidential elections that I found out he was also a neighbor, living just a few doors down from me on my street. Seeing him take the job under Bob McDonnell in 2006 was sad for me for 2 reasons: I liked him as a Senator and his taking the job in the AG’s office also meant I was losing him as a neighbor. It was Virginia’s gain, however, and moving him into the AG’s slot is to Virginia’s greater advantage. He’ll do great.

Congrats, Bill!

Heritage Foundation: Another $275B headed for the drain.

The Heritage Foundation’s Foundry has a quick brief on the problems with Obama’s latest $275B bailout of the home mortgage sector. The MSM is making sure you’re informed as to Obama’s side of this issue. Get informed about the other before you decide that it’s good or bad.

Concealed carry modification law headed to Gov. Kaine

Virginia Senate Bill 1035 (SB1035) has passed in the General Assembly and is headed to the Governor’s desk for his signature. SB1035′s brief reads:

Prohibits a person who carries a concealed handgun onto the premises of a restaurant or club from consuming an alcoholic beverage while on the premises. A person who carries a concealed handgun onto the premises of a restaurant or club shall inform a designated employee of the restaurant or club of that fact. A person who consumes alcohol in violation of the provisions of the bill is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor and a person who becomes intoxicated in violation of the provisions of the bill is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

The bill was amended in the House to remove the requirement to notify the restaurant’s manager or employee upon entry to the restaurant. I can’t find the official reasoning for the amendment in the House but I would imagine it was twofold. First, it’s difficult to identify a particular restaurant official in many of these places and you’d wind up having to explain the need to several other employees, pretty much removing the whole point of “concealed” carry. Secondly, I’d imagine the restaurant employees wouldn’t be to eager to pile “keep an eye on the guy with the gun you can’t see” to their list of duties. Would that make them liable in the unlikely event that a CCW holder ordered a beer? Possibly. CCW holders are already among the most law-abiding members of society and none that I know personally would break this law, watched over by a waiter or not. Besides, as the law is today if one of them chose to have a drink while carrying, they’d just remove their jacket and expose the firearm. Then it’s perfectly legal.

Governor Kaine is widely expected in these circles of CCW holders to veto the bill. It’s a ludicrious thing to veto this bill that clearly has the support of the representatives of the citizens of Virginia and of many of those citizens individually. I certainly hope he’ll not take that route.

Don’t forget it’s Ash Wednesday

Don’t forget to get to Church.

DC, the Federal City – representation in Congress is for States, not federal cities

At first blush it would appear to be a simple matter of fairness and equal rights for all citizens: residents of the District of Columbia should have the same representation in Congress as do residents of Virginia, Ohio, Wyoming and Idaho. That they don’t has given rise to license plates echoing the “Taxation without Representation” battle cry of our Founding Fathers as well as a myriad of calls for Congress to pass laws changing that status quo. There’s a problem, however: such an action would be unconstitutional and a violation of the oaths taken by every member of Congress.

The Foundry over at The Heritage Foundation sums the various points up very neatly in this post, “The Constitution is Clear: DC is a Federal City.”

The Constitution of the United States of America

• Congress Doesn’t Have the Authority: Congress lacks the constitutional authority to simply grant the District a voting representative, as the Constitution explicitly limits such representation to states alone. Members of Congress are bound by their oath to reject proposals that violate the Constitution.
• Article I, Section 2: “Representatives…shall be apportioned among the several States.” The District, as courts and Congress have long agreed, is not a state.
• Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power … To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States.” Congress has the same power over “forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings”—and it’s obvious that Congress can’t give a Navy pier or a federal building a seat in the House.
• The Framers Had a Plan: The Framers’ plan created a “federal town” designed to serve the needs of the federal government, as all Members of Congress would share the responsibility of protecting a city they live and work in.

There’s lots more in the article but 1 thing is quite plain. There’s a method to do this that’s explicitly stated in the Constitution – make a amendment. The fact that this path is difficult and takes time is a feature, not a bug, and it’s no excuse to simply ignore the rules and do what pleases a few out of our body politic. The amendment process was undertaken once with Congress passing the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment in 1978. With its passage by both the House and the Senate the measure was sent to the states for ratification. The Constitution requires three-fourths of the states to ratify the amendment for it to be considered adopted. This required 38 states to ratify it and that must be done within 7 years. When that time elapsed on 22 August, 1985 the amendment failed and the measure was not implemented.

All of the talk and all of the news coverage in the world do not change the facts about what is necessary to provide DC with representatives in the chambers of Congress. Be you for or against it, a Constitutional amendment must pass and be adopted. Everything else is just political theater. I would suggest to those advocating for such a change that their efforts would be better spent trying to get an amendment passed than in seeking useless resolutions.