Just to make up for not posting all day, here are some potential topics:
First Baptist to buy downtown YMCA — What is the Y’s thinking in selling? They say they’re not leaving downtown, but what does that mean? And why are they trying to be so secretive about it? If I read this correctly, John Monk found out about it despite their best efforts to keep it from the public. What made them think they could keep it secret after distributing a memo to staff? And other questions.
Are things getting better, or worse, in Ukraine? — Some headlines emphasize Putin moving troops away from the border. Some make it sound like a good thing that he’s calling for a postponed referendum. Others make it sound bad that he’s backing any referendum. It’s confusing. But based on what we’ve seen so far, I’m not terribly optimistic.
Mayor Rob Ford says “Rehab is amazing.” — And therefore the people of Toronto should vote for him again.
Or whatever you want to talk about…
Related Posts
Where are my commenters this evening? Google Analytics shows me there are people reading right now, here in SC and as far away as Lorain, Ohio.
But everyone is lurking…
It’s too darn hot.
And now Cole Porter is in my head. There could be worse things.
But baby, it’s cold outside.
Carolina Baseball Game. That’s where.
Was reading about all the situation in Nigeria regarding the Islamic group Boko Haram killing people and kidnapping girls to sell them into slavery.
This is some bad stuff.
You just grokked that story? I guess we read different media.
It’s seriously awful, and we can possibly help, unlike so many other situations. I am glad we are.
Pardon me, but I haven’t “grokked” since I got the stomach bug back in November. I couldn’t keep anything down for 24 hours.
“Grok” is a great word. It doesn’t get used often enough…
And I hate to say this, but I don’t think Kathryn used it right. “Grok” doesn’t mean “be aware of.” It means to have a deep understanding of. Among other things. For instance, it also means “drink,” and “love” and “hate” — the verb forms of those words, I mean…
It’s like the Martian version of “aloha”…
Well, yes. For those who desire to fully grok Benghazi, grokking something we can actually do something about is far more important….but it doesn’t make Hillary look bad, so far as I can conjure, so….
In related news of the oblivious, Kim Kardashian has finally decided to care about racism http://jezebel.com/kim-kardashian-discovers-racism-exists-pens-thoughtful-1573387940
Here’s an interesting article on how Harry Reid bent (broke) the rules and ignored the Constitution in order to pass Obamacare. Since legislation that raises taxes are supposed to originate in the House, he took a bill completely unrelated to Obamacare, stripped out everything from it, and then inserted all the Obamacare legislation. Now it’s up to a court to decide whether that approach was valid.
http://news.yahoo.com/bid-topple-obamacare-court-did-harry-reid-bend-120003810.html
Using a House bill is valid. I would be dumbfounded if the Court bought the petitioners’ argument.
It seems clear to me that the Senate can use a “shell bill” from the House to propose a tax and then send it back to the House, as happened with the ACA. (See, Stuff James Madison Said, Vol. IV).
Companies do this all the time in the free market economy – often to convert into a publicly held entity.
Doug’s not too keen on the sausage-making process.
Yes, Mark, I try to avoid understanding things that are unethical. In my line of work, I don’t try to find ways to rig the system in my favor. I rely on being upfront.
“..the sausage-making process..” for once was out in plain view of the public if anyone cared to watch it. Openly taking a 6 page bill, hollowing it out, and replacing it with 2,000 plus pages of hastily cobbled together wish lists assembled over a 30 to 40 year period and dumping on the public with the proclamation, “we have to pass it before we know what in it”.
No wonder doctors and dieticians recommend against ingesting too much sausage made with a high pork fat content.
When the original House bill was sent to the Senate, it had nothing to do with ACA. The Senate emptied the contents of the bill from the House, rewrote it, passed it, and sent it back to the House for reconciliation. The House passed the bill 220 – 215. The entire process apparently was predetermined and since congress and the White House were controlled by Democrats, a bill that could be hollowed out and reworded was a slam dunk.
Yahoo News, May 8, 2014:
“In the runup to the vote on the ACA, Senator Reid used a “shell bill” to satisfy the technical requirement that the legislation arrive from the House.
He used the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 as a template for the maneuver. That law, HR 3590, offered tax credits to military members who were first-time homebuyers.
Reid eliminated the entire text of the six-page law and replaced it with the 2,000-plus page bill that became the Affordable Care Act. All that remained of the Home Ownership Tax Act was the bill number, HR 3590.
After winning Senate approval, the “amended” HR 3590 was sent to the House where the Democratic majority approved it. The bill was then sent to President Obama who signed it into law in March 2010.”
The argument that the original bill was a “tax” bill is ambiguous at best since ACA and a tax credit bill meant for military first time home buyers. The court will decide after arguments presented today and if history indeed does repeat itself, the court will uphold ACA as passed by the House. The 3 judges on the panel were appointed by Clinton and Obama.
Wording should have been …”first time home buyers… ‘and ACA which was not a tax at the time are worlds apart. If not for Roberts decision, the entire process of passing ACA would have been illegal.”