Posse Incitatus

Wanted but not expected: Elena Kagan's recusal

The Rube Goldberg law we derisively refer to as "Obamacare" will come before the U.S. Supreme Court next spring or summer for a thorough examination of its constitutionality.  The mandate to purchase health care insurance is the key issue in question.

By now you have probably heard that one of the biggest cheerleaders for Obamacare, Justice Elena Kagan, will be among the jurists who rule on whether the law passes constitutional muster.  She was President Obama's solicitor general during the underhanded machinations that ram-rodded this abominable legislation down the American people's throats back in March 2010.  

The problem is, it is up to the Supreme Court justices themselves whether they recuse themselves from a case in which they may have a conflict of interest.  If Justice Kagan has a shred of integrity, she will recuse herself from this landmark case.

But that's probably asking way too much from someone who was a part of the most political, politicized administration in U.S. history.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and three of his colleagues wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder explaining their rationale for seeking her recusal.  But Holder is the epitome of a hack, and I am certain the letter has fallen on deaf ears.

Imagine the outrage from the old media and the whiny leftists if one of the Supreme Court justices had recently been an outspoken opponent of Obamacare and refused to recuse himself.  If Kagan stays in place, the Supreme Court will have lowered itself to the level of the House of Representatives, which bent and broke rules and protocols with abandon to force Obamacare through at the 11th hour with a series of sleazy backroom deals.

The American people deserve better. 

Back in business, despite the idiocy!

Just got home Internet access for the first time in four days, due to an idiotic snafu from a company I shall demonize shortly.  (YES, I'll call 'em out!).

Although I am a registered Republican, I am far from a conventional GOPer, having voted Libertarian numerous times, and having frequently skewered giant, bureaucratic corporations. After all, isn't the stereotypical Republican supposed to be in the vest pocket of big business and endlessly sucking up to the multi-nationals?  Big business can be as bad as big government, IMO.  But I digress.

AT&T is the latest to incur my wrath.  Back in the 1990s, long before anyone in my family purchased a cell phone, and when telecommunications competition was in its infancy, I had some horrendous experiences with AT&T.  They would lure me into a calling plan that seemed like a good deal, then change the rules in the middle of the game.  There was always fine print, or there were loopholes or clauses that would come back to haunt you.  (Hate to say it, but this type of deception seems all too commonplace among cell phone companies, too.)

Compounding matters, customer service with AT&T was abominable, and still is. It was typical to get an automated answering machine and have to punch in numbers to slog through the speech synthesis maze. If I did get a real, live humanoid on the other end of the line, the person usually was clueless or would transfer me to someone else.

Fast forward 15-20 years, and things haven't changed much.  In April 2008 we terminated our land line and elected to go with cell phones only.  Not only has it saved us, oh, close to $2,000 since then; it has also freed us from being pestered by telemarketers, solicitors and my alma mater begging for money. But alas, we still ended up interacting with AT&T.

For several years, we had DSL Internet service through a small, Michigan-based company.  Due to some technological changes, the company was not able to continue providing the service after September 2010. My wife signed up with AT&T DSL because of a great introductory offer.

The problem was, the company then started billing us at a higher rate than what we'd signed on to. When my wife called to complain, the customer service rep didn't have a record of us as a subscriber. 

She got the runaround.  "Oh, that must have been done through our such-and-such program... We don't have access to their records" or some such mumbo-jumbo.  So this nonsense went on for a couple weeks until we finally got it sorted out.  Things were okay for a year or so.  Then we started getting double-billed, with different return addresses on the envelopes.

My wife entered the fray once again, calling different numbers, getting transferred around, incredulous that in 2011, a gigantic corporation that has been around for more than a century is this disorganized. Take the old saying, "one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing" and expand it.  With AT&T, it seems that several sales divisions or marketing programs don't know what their corporate counterparts are doing, and have no way to find out.  The data bases apparently are "stove-piped," to use an old intelligence term.

Methinks AT&T has been plagued by the same, unwieldy forces and insular culture that nearly unraveled General Motors: Too many years of being king of the hill caused its executives to get complacent, arrogant and aloof -- utterly out of touch with those who pay their salaries.  "The customer is king" was snuffed out by the whole world revolves around us and will genuflect at our feet. 

It is astounding that a corporation as inept and incompetent as AT&T can continue to survive.  And believe me, I have heard from many others who have had similar travails with this big buffoon.  

Now, the coup de gråce: AT&T turned off our DSL either late Tuesday or early Wednesday.  It is now Saturday night, and our Internet still is not working.  The company says it will restore service on Tuesday.  This is ridiculous.

Fortunately, our neighbor across the street gave us the password to use their wireless until we get our Internet service restored.  

A second go-around with AT&T is like marrying someone you divorced years ago, thinking THIS TIME it will work, and then the same old crap resurfaces.  "This Will be the Last Time," as the old Stones song says...

CONGRATS, LEGENDS CHAMPS — The Michigan State Spartans just completed a phenomenal 10-2 regular season with a 31-17 victory at Northwestern.  This was the first year the Big Ten Conference was divided into divisions, and the Spartans are the first ever Legends Division champs.  They will play the Wisconsin Badgers, champions of the Leaders Division, for the conference title on Dec. 3 in Indianapolis. MSU defeated Wisconsin in East Lansing on Oct. 22.  It was a close, hard-fought game.  It is very difficult to defeat the same team twice in one season, so MSU could find itself on the outside looking in when it comes to getting an invitation to one of the prestigious BCS (Bowl Championship Series) bowl games. Although MSU finished 7-1 in the conference, ahead of Legends Division rival Michigan, 6-2, and MSU beat Michigan head-to-head, the Wolverines would likely be invited to a BCS game, along with Wisconsin, should Wisconsin defeat MSU next weekend.  It's a bitter pill to swallow: defeating Michigan and winning the division, then watching Michigan go to a BCS game.  But it could well happen, because college football often isn't fair or rational.  The powers that be in college football apparently took too seriously the title of that old Talking Heads song "Stop Making Sense."

Phoning it In

President Barack Obama is not only in over his head, arrogant, petty and thin-skinned.  He is also grossly negligent and derelict in his duties.

While the so-called Deficit Supercommittee hemmed and hawed for weeks on end attempting to cut a modest $1.2 trillion over TEN YEARS, the Celebrity-in-Chief was strangely distant and aloof.  He has also ignored the useful recommendations of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission which, it seems, was for nothing more than show.

The 12-member supercommittee has reached the deadline sans a solution, and without the president lifting a finger to help mediate an agreement.  Unless Congress makes other arrangements, automatic spending cuts will kick in during fiscal year 2013, including a heavy budget ax falling on defense spending, which will cost thousands of jobs and devastate communities from coast to coast.

I don't have any idea what could be going through this strange man's head.  You'd think he would be more concerned with the election fast approaching.  But this guy is obviously on a different plane -- one distorted by his own ego and pride.

It seems unlikely that the American people will be foolish enough to sign on for another four years of this nonsense.  But then, it never seemed likely that such an inexperienced, unvetted politician would become president.

Perhaps you've heard the adage, "Either lead, follow or get out of the way."  Obama chooses to do none of the above.

I Spoke Too Soon

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about Detroit possibly being a comeback city. My comments linked to a Wall Street Journal story about the resurgence of Detroit's auto makers.  I also alluded to several major Motor City employers, including Quicken Loans and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, relocating their headquarters to Detroit, creating hundreds of jobs; and other employers offering employees incentives to purchase housing in Midtown Detroit.

In the blog, I fully acknowledged that many serious problems continue to plague Detroit, including horrible schools, crime, gangs, drugs, illiteracy, apathy and the 70 percent illegitimacy rate among blacks that perpetuates the urban pathologies as thousands of children grow up without a father to serve as a mentor, role model, disciplianarian and guardian.

The truth is, I gave short shrift to the fiscal and budgetary problems besieging Detroit. The city has grave fiscal problems, with a $155 million deficit and dozens of intractable unions that won't wake up and smell the coffee.  Mayor Dave Bing just announced 1,000 city employees will lose their jobs early in 2012 to save an estimated $14 million.  Many more mandatory layoffs could be coming if the obstinate unions don't get real.

As the weeks go by, it becomes increasingly likely that a state-appointed emergency fiscal manager may need to take the reigns in Detroit.  Those who favor home rule and local automony (generally Republicans, but in this case Democrats, who are well represented since Detroit is a heavily Democratic city) will whine like a stuck pig.  

But the truth is, although Michigan's government traditionally has granted autonomy to municipalities and counties, according to the Michigan Constitution, cities and counties are in actuality adjuncts of the state government, i.e., they do NOT have 100 percent autonomy.  If they veer radically from fiscal responsibility or any other responsible course of action, the state has the right to step in and set things right.

It's never an easy road for Detroit.  Those of us who grew up in Michigan and appreciate the city for the economic, historical and cultural marks it has made on America, sometimes feel downright sad about its plight.  But we soldier on, knowing that the road that leads somewhere worthwhile often is laden with obstacles.

 

 

 

 

Zookerdammerung strikes again, Penn State rehab begins

Well, I was wrong.  Sure, I knew Ron Zook had terrible judgement, awful clock management and basically managed to underperform in every way, but I did not expect the Illini to come out looking that bad.  Not the whole team, mind you.  The defense was solid.  It was the offense that sucked.

In some cultures, a performance like that would be followed with ritual suicides by those responsible.

I want to be clear - when i say the Big Ten is having a "down year," I do not mean that my favorite team is doing poorly and therefore the conference is weaker.  This is what Skunk Bear and Buckeye fans do - especially when they find themselves losing games.  They use it to deny other teams any kind of credit.

But the Big Ten is objectively down this year - the Penn State/Iowa game was horrid to watch.  Same with the Penn State/Illinois game.  Ugly, inept football by badly-coached teams unable to execute even basic fundamentals.  Sad to say it, but if I want to see decent game play, I have to watch the cheaters in the SEC.  It's that bad.

Making it worse is that the Wolverines are rolling along in the fetid wake of this Tsunami of suck, acting like their team has accomplished something.  It hasn't, it has simply showed up to watch other teams self-destruct.

Tomorrow's game against Nebraska will be decisive.  I expect the Huskers will stomp all over the Wolverines, who (as one would expect) are starting to buy into their own hype.

Beating Nebraska would be huge for the Skunk Bears because it would mark their first quality victory of the season.  I think it says something that a team can go 8-2 without beating anyone ranked and still think they have accomplished great things.  Oh well, time will tell.

PENN STATE'S HELPING HAND FROM ESPN:  Well, that was fast.  here I thought Penn State might pay some sort of price for its grotesque pederasty scandal, but the college-football-industrial complex can't let an institution like that go down without a fight.

It was all I could do not to vomit during the ABC/ESPN coverage last week featuring maudlin music and Paterno's sobbing kid saying "We miss you, dad."  Yeah, I bet you do.  And I bet those kids miss their innocence and not feeling violated.  Shame how your football program self-detonated.  Let the record show that this blog feels no sympathy whatsoever.

Indeed, the more I find out about Penn State, the more twisted the whole thing becomes.  Joe Paterno is indeed a tragic hero in the Greek sense - a man with great gifts who is ultimately doomed by his own flaws.  That's pretty much the definition of tragic.

But I do not have a lot of sympathy for a man who basically got to punch his own ticket for 40+ years.  JoePa's supposed to be a Catholic, so he should remember the Seven Deadly Sins.  Pride is the one that got to him.

Seriously, the time to retire is when the put up a statue to you.  Honestly, they should at least wait until you are dead, but since we now live for the moment, having you totter over in your walker upon your well-deserved retirement is fine.

The problem with putting it up while you are still working is that if things go badly, they may want to take it down.  Oh, the university is saying they plan to leave it alone, but it's still early yet.  Wait till the trial starts.

Pride is what did in Paterno.  He wanted to be the winningest coach evah, but what does that even mean in this day and age?  We play 50 percent more games than teams used to, so it's an easy mark to make.  Brady Hoke has an "unprecedented" eight wins already in his first year.  Back when Michigan had nine games on the schedule, that was saying something.  But now?  It's hitting par, nothign more.

Indeed, despite the record, it's been clear for a while that Paterno doesn't really coach much.  he's been sitting in the press box more often than not, and his assistants do all the recruiting.  Things were different when he started, of course, and that's the point.  Paterno's old enough to know that Bear Bryant didn't have platoons of grad assistants to cater to his every need, which is why his "milestone" is even more pathetic.  He's old enough to know better, and that what makes this whole thing so tawdry.

GO STATE, BEAT INDIANA:  Of course I cannot neglect my beloved Spartans and enthusiastically support their efforts against the hapless Hoosiers.  No mercy!  Give them nothing, take from them everything!

And start saving it up for Wisconsin.

Like a Two-Year-Old's Temper Tantrum

The late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings infamously proclaimed, following the Republicans' shellacking of the Democrats in the 1994 election, that it was like America having a temper tantrum equivalent to that of a two-year-old.

Here's the quote: "Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming," said Jennings. "Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week."

This condescending drivel was just one of many outrageous statements journalists have made that have underscored beyond the shadow of a doubt the mainstream media's left-leaning ways.

I suppose if by some miracle one of the anchor people of the legacy networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) were to refer to Occupy Wall Street riff-raff as behaving like two-year-olds, liberals would be outraged and indignant.  But such a description would be accurate.

These incoherent anarchists cannot articulate what they want; all they know is they are very angry because life isn't fair.  Somewhere along the way, they got it into their warped minds that they are entitled to things -- a high paying job (even if all they have is a worthless degree in English Lit or women's studies); forgiveness of student loans; free health care...

Conditions at many of the "Occupy" camps have deteriorated badly in recent weeks.  We've heard reports of rats, people defecating in public, head lice, sexual assaults, drug use, fights, and even a few deaths. Even liberal mayors like Jean Quan in Oakland and Michael Bloomberg in New York have finally had to put the hammer down.

While the old media bent over backwards trying to portray Tea Party folks as extremists, kooks and racists, they downplayed the bad side of "Occupy" riff-raff until it became too big a story to ignore. Unfortunately, the Occupy forces are bound to descend into radical behavior like their counterparts at the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle: hurling molotov cocktails, breaking windows, setting fires... This could get really ugly.  But don't count on the media hacks to accurately report on developments.   

 

 

Uninformed, Out of Touch, Irresponsible

I've long observed that people who ought to be the most embarrassed or ashamed about saying or doing something outrageous typically are the least aware of it.  In other words, they're so far gone, they're clueless about how others perceive them.  Maybe that's a good thing, or they might just die from humilitation!

CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian is a prime example.  The other night, during a presidential press conference, Lothian shamelessly sucked up to The One. 

Lothian asked the president if several GOP candidates who stated during a debate that waterboarding is not torture and they support its use are “uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible." Hmm... Offering three options for the president with the clear implication that the answer just HAS to be one of the three... Isn't that blatantly biased?  Doesn't it just underscore what millions of us have known all along: that the old media in this country is in the tank for Obama and Democrats in general?

Perhaps Lothian is uninformed that waterboarding got terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to sing like a canary, leading to the raid on, and killing of, Osama bin Laden.

Could it be he is out of touch with what millions of Americans believe, i.e., that water boarding is NOT torture, despite what the ACLU types say, and even if it were, we'd still support its use against terrorists to save innocent lives.

And isn't it plainly irresponsible for a supposedly objective journalist to ask a loaded, biased question on national television?  Nothing like strutting your bias for all the world to see.  But again, Lothian is proably the last person in the world who would ever grasp what he's done and feel any regret for it.

Network television news may soon go the way of many newspapers (severe downsizing because of plummeting revenues due in large part to dropping circulation).  More and more viewers will just plain tune out, and the news departments of NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS just might find themselves going the way of Blockbuster Video. 

And if that happens, I am certain most of the anchors and reporters at those fair organizations will be absolutely stunned.

The American Idol Debates

Is anyone else getting sick and tired of these endless GOP debates with WAY too many candidates on stage? I've lost count, but it seems like there have been 15 debates so far, with another, oh, 30 or 40 to go... Okay, so I exaggerate.  But there have been a lot, and there are many more to come before the primary elections begin.

After each debate, the press analyzes things to death.  The Rick Perry "brain freeze" was an embarrassment, yes, but it's not like it happened to Romney or the president.  Perry was going nowhere anyway.  Why get so worked up about it?

The analysts expend inordinate time and effort picking apart how the sexual harassment charges against Herman Cain and Cain's responses to related questions will affect his candidacy.  They drool over Newt Gingrich's alleged past lobbying for Fannie and Freddie, and fret about Michelle Bachmann's pro-waterboaring stance. (Oh, my! Waterboarding is TORTURE!!!!! Have a cow!)

Meanwhile, the ubiquitous polls keep flowing like diarrhea.  Does anyone besides Beltway wonks and media hacks really put much stock in these things?  It's patently obvious that results can be dramatically affected by the way questions are worded. 

There is also the whole issue of pollsters calling people with land lines rather than cell phones, when a huge segment of the population has ditched land lines in favor of cell phones, VOIP, Skype, or some combination of these alternative communication technologies.

And can someone please tell me why candidates like Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum are still being allowed to participate in these debates?  When you include several candidates with 1 to 3 percent support in the polls in a 1 1/2 or 2 hour debate, you severely limit the response time for the serious candidates.  Besides, Huntsman strikes me as a pompous snob who takes himself way too seriously and is totally full of himself.  I cannot stomach watching him for another minute.

In the vast majority of debates, the main goal of the questioners is to trip up the GOP candidates, make them get into petty cat fights, and generally try to embarrass them.  They want the GOP contenders to pound each other to provide good sound bites for their man Obama in the general election, and also to wear them out.  Same old crap.

I don't know about you, but I don't believe debate performance is a very good method of judging what kind of president a candidate would make.  Especially not in this era of TV/Internet/YouTube/tweets/blogs/endlesstalkingheads/vapidanalysis/chitter/chatter B.S.

I haven't spent more than, oh, 30 or 40 minutes watching debates (that's in TOTAL going back six or eight months or whenever these infernal dog-n-pony shows began.  I'll be damned if I'll spend another half hour on this rubbish.

 

The Carrier Classic was brought to you by the Obama re-election campaign

Well, tough break for the Spartans.  They looked good for a while there, but the kids in the Powder Blue Argyll jerseys were too much.  After watching North Carolina take control I ceded control of the television and busied myself with gun cleaning.

Overall, it was a cool event and the pause for evening colors was great.

I was, however, a bit put-off by Presidet Obama showing up and basically taking things over.  What is it with this guy?

I'm trying to think of a recent president that would have walked down to center court and done a mini-election plug like that.  Even Bill Clinton would have been content to wave from the stands and acknowledge the crowd.

You see, it wasn't about him.

Yet our Narcissist-in-Chief acts like everything is better once he touches it.  When he started on the "that's why I've signed into law..." I couldn't believe it.  Absolutely no class.

As for the rest of the presentation, it was great.  And of course because he was the president, no one could tell him not to talk on a Navy ship.  Pure, unadulterated abuse of power to hijack an unrelated event - an event that had nothing at all to do with him.

To some folks, this is nitpicking, which is fine.  But it would be nice for those of us who are getting burned out on politics to be able to watch a freaking college basketball game without the president popping into tell us how great he is.

Enough already.

Are You Ready for Some Hoops?

For many years, Michigan State fans have suffered through football season, as Spartan teams were either mediocre and full of sloppy play, or just downright bad and lacking in talent.  Basketball season, due to the Spartans' tremendous success under head coach Tom Izzo, was always something to look forward to. 

Thanks to Coach Mark Dantonio, the Spartans football team has become a winner, built great depth, and for the most part, put futility behind it.  The football Spartans now are legitimate contenders to sign top recruits, unlike most of the past 40 years.  They ought to be contenders for the Big Ten title for the foreseeable future.

So, basketball isn't the huge relief it used to be, but I still look forward to it.  The Spartan hoopsters won the national championship (their second) in 2000, and played in five other Final Fours under Coach Tom Izzo  (1999, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2010).  Last year's team began the season ranked No. 2, but floundered badly due to a couple players getting suspended and later kicked off the team, plus injuries and inconsistent play from upper class players.

This year's team is young but talented, and not expected to be great.  But I know from past experience that when no one expects a lot out of the Spartan hoopsters, that's when they fly "under the radar" and surprise the skeptics.  I am hoping for that this season.

This evening the Spartans are playing No. 1 North Carolina on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in San Diego.  Should be a great spectacle, as President Obama will be in attendance and the teams will wear special camouflage uniforms in honor of the military.  It'll be great to see the Spartans getting a fresh start after last season's turmoil and disappointment.  GO GREEN!

THANK YOU, VETERANS — My co-blogger said it more eloquently than I could, so please read his blog. I just want to express my deep gratitude to all the veterans of this great nation, whose service and sacrifice have protected our precious freedom.  Our service men and women are prime examples of what makes this the greatest nation in the world.

ANOTHER GRANHOLM OUTRAGE — I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but enough can't be said about the bad ideas of ex-Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and the damage she did to our state. Today I learned that in 2006 the Granholm administration began treating parents who are caregivers for mentally disabled adults receiving Medicaid as state employees.  The Service Employees International Union is therefore entitled to siphon off some of the Medicaid payments into its coffers.  And we all know what happens to the union dues: They end up helping fund Democrat campaigns.  This is an outrage, and I hope Gov. Rick Snyder's administration puts and end to it promptly.  My disdain for Granholm will never cease!