Supreme Court: All Your DNA Are Belong To Us

June 3rd, 2013

In a 5-4 decision on Maryland vs. King, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can indeed take your DNA sample upon arrest. It was also a decision that split across the court’s usual ideological lines: “Kennedy wrote the decision, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Scalia was joined in his dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.” Any time Thomas and Scalia split on a decision it’s worth taking a look at the underlying issues involved, and I hope to take a closer (albeit of the IANAL variety) look at the actually decision when it’s online and I have time. I suspect the decision may hinge on the definition of “reasonable” search and seizure.

Setting aside (for now) the niceties of constitutional interpretation, I think this is a bad decision for both privacy and limited government, with some truly Orwellian (not to mention Huxleyion) implications. As a science fiction writer, I can think of three or four dozen ways this might be abused, and a National ID card is just the tip of the iceberg. In light of the IRS scandals, having your DNA stored in a federal database is tantamount to handing it over not only to Wikileaks and Anonymous, but any left-wing interest group with a grudge and a sympathetic bureaucrat on the inside (which is essentially all of them). And I can think of a lot darker possibilities…

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LinkSwam for May 31, 2013

May 31st, 2013

The season has switched from not Summer to Summer here in Texas, so here’s a hot, humid LinkSwarm:

  • In Europe, youth unemployment is climbing to scary, stratospheric heights. So scary I’m going to swipe their chart:

    Notice how countries that have kept their deficit spending relatively low (Germany and even the UK, where deficits has at least decreased under Cameron) are doing much better than the PIIGS. Again, Austerity hasn’t failed in Europe, it’s been declared difficult and left untried.

  • Harry Reid calls his close personal friend and business associate Harvey Whittemore (and his wife) “wonderful people.” Oh, and Whittemore is now also a convicted felon.
  • Eric Holder: Obama’s sin eater. “The attorney general has done little in his tenure to protect civil liberties or the free press. Rather, Holder has supervised a comprehensive erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process. This ignoble legacy was made possible by Democrats who would look at their shoes whenever the Obama administration was accused of constitutional abuses.”
  • Pentagon Papers lawyer James Goodale talks about just how bad Obaama is for freedom of the press.
  • ObamaCare rates next year in California: “Obamacare will increase individual-market premiums by an average of 116 percent.”
  • Britain remains in denial over Islamic terror.
  • The Gang of 8 proposal implements amnesty and gives conservatives nothing in return.
  • Ted Cruz actually tries to fix the bill. Gang of 8 tells him to get stuffed.
  • The Chicago Sun-Times lays off their entire staff of photographers. Including a Pulitzer Prize winner.

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Economics, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare | No Comments »

    Texas vs. California: The Fate of Cities

    May 30th, 2013

    There’s a lot to digest in this comparison of migration in California urban areas vs. migration in Texas urban areas. Quick take: Despite anti-sprawl laws, the cores of California cities would be emptying due to migration to the suburbs, were it not for net immigration from abroad. Texas cities, by contrast, are see growth in both the core and suburbs.

    California’s political economy is based on high tax rates; rent control and growth controls; inflated housing values, but relatively low property tax rates because of Proposition 13; mandatory inclusionary housing and more jobs for teachers, tax assessors, subsidized solar power technicians, urban planners and environmentalists. Its immigration policies are mostly the symbolic “Dream Act,” anti-deportation laws and “sanctuary cities.”

    Texas’ economy is based on low or no business and income taxes, no rent control, few growth controls, higher property tax rates based on lower housing values, inclusionary old inner cities by markets, and tax incentives for private sector jobs. Only El Paso and Houston have sanctuary city policies. An anti-sanctuary city bill died in the Texas legislature in 2011.

    California has passed anti-sprawl legislation to try to halt the out-migration from its older big cities. The results would have been miserable if international in-migration had not stemmed the outflow of population.

    Texas has accomplished balanced in-migration into its older city centers where California has failed. The Texas incentive model is performing better than the California disincentive model as far as sustaining the center of its older big cities while Texas suburbs are booming at the same time. Texas is accomplishing what 75 years of public housing and lending policies could not in California: an older city core that is attracting a “return to the city” by domestic and international migration and concurrent suburban growth.

    Read the whole thing.

    And while we’re on the subject, this piece on the dynamism of Houston is worth reading as well.

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    Posted in Economics, Texas | No Comments »

    Susan Combs Stepping Down as Texas State Comptroller

    May 29th, 2013

    Texas Comptroller Susan Combs won’t run for reelection in 2014. And that despite having a $7.3 million warchest.

    Naturally lots of Republicans are lining up to run for the spot, though many are probably waiting to see what Rick Perry and Greg Abbott are going to do before jumping in.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Newsweek Owner Seeks New Buyer To Nail It Back To The Perch

    May 29th, 2013

    Evidently Newsweek (or the online-only digital carcass of same) is for sale again. Gee, people don’t want to pay for an online version of a stale newsweekly turned into another carrier-medium for liberal opinion? Who knew?

    Previously:

    Back in 2009, you may remember Newsweek‘s decision to remake itself as a liberal opinion weekly, an odd financial choice in a country where conservatives outnumber liberals nearly 2-to-1. Since then Newsweek has managed the amazing feat of hemorrhaging readers faster than other print publications. Then the Washington Post company decided to sell the venerable newsweekly to Sidney Harman for $1, screwing its shareholders but keeping the magazine’s money-losing liberal slant under Tina Brown’s editorship. Hired to steer the ship around the iceberg, Brown instead decided to teach the iceberg who’s boss by ramming it a few more times.

    Vast swathes of legacy print media are in trouble in the Internet-era, but Newsweek‘s demise is more like an assisted suicide than a graceful decline. It’s like a Type II diabetic who had already lost three toes deciding to immediately go on a diet consisting entirely of ice cream.

    Newsweek had a choice between being profitable and being liberal, and they chose liberal.

    And remember that Newsweek‘s steep circulation decline, which happened right around the same time they decided to tack hard-left, was considerably more severe than declines at other newsweeklies.

    So if Newsweek was worth $1 before Tina Brown managed to destroy all its remaining value, how much is it worth now?

    Can they find someone willing to shake the cage a little longer?

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    PETA: People Killing Healthy Animals

    May 28th, 2013

    Via Slashdot we now learn that PETA, the supposed animal rights group, sucks at keeping animals, you know, alive.

    In 2011, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) behaved in a regrettably consistent manner: it euthanized the overwhelming majority (PDF) of dogs and cats that it accepted into its shelters. Out of 760 dogs impounded, they killed 713, arranged for 19 to be adopted, and farmed out 36 to other shelters (not necessarily “no kill” ones). As for cats, they impounded 1,211, euthanized 1,198, transferred eight, and found homes for a grand total of five. PETA also took in 58 other companion animals — including rabbits. It killed 54 of them…its adoption rate in 2011 was 2.5 percent for dogs and 0.4 for cats.

    For exactly what PETA does to the animals in it’s care, see here. (Warning: Graphic photos of dead animals.)

    You would do better, much much better, dumping your pet in a box on a random street corner with a “take me” sign on it.

    Not only does PETA not operate “no kill” shelters, they seem to operate “all kill” shelters.

    PETA Is not an “animal rights”group, they’re a radical anti-meat group. Handing over your dog or cat to them is tantamount to murdering them.

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    What Austerity?

    May 27th, 2013

    Forbes makes the same point that I have made repeatedly: Austerity has not been tried and failed in Europe, it has been found difficult and left untried.

    The official figures show that PIIGS governments embarked on massive spending sprees between 2000 and 2008. During this period, their combined general government expenditures rose from 775 billion Euros to 1.3 trillion – a 75 percent increase. Ireland had the largest percentage increase (130 percent), and Italy the smallest (40 percent). These spending binges gave public sector workers generous salaries and benefits, paid for bridges to nowhere, and financed a gold-plated transfer state. What the state gave has proven hard to take away as the riots in Southern Europe show.

    Then in 2008, the financial crisis hit. No one wanted to lend to the insolvent PIIGS, and, according to the Keynesian narrative, the PIIGS were forced into extreme austerity by their miserly neighbors to the north. Instead of the stimulus they desperately needed, the PIIGS economies were wrecked by austerity.

    Not so according to the official European statistics. Between the onset of the crisis in 2008 and 2011, PIIGS government spending increased by six percent from an already high plateau. Eurostat’s projections (which make the unlikely assumption that the PIIGS will honor the fiscal discipline promised their creditors) still show the PIIGS spending more in 2014 than at the end of their spending binge in 2008.

    Remember: Real austerity is cutting budgets until receipts match outlays. In Europe this hasn’t been tried outside the Baltic states. Meanwhile, Japan has been trying Keynesian stimulus for two decades and has nothing to show for it but a mountain of debt.

    Or take this abstract (I’m still working through the actual paper) from German Institute for Economic Research economist Georg Erber: “The core thesis of the paper is that taking a close look at the actual statistics available from Eurostat on the PIIGS-countries plus Cyprus, one finds little empirical evidence that the governments there have de facto reduced their total public expenditures.”

    Keynesian pump-priming hasn’t worked in Europe. Could real austerity (i.e., cutting budgets until they’re balanced) work to restore growth in Europe (and here)?

    Why not actually try it and see?

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    Posted in Budget, Economics, Welfare State | No Comments »

    NEWFLASH: Gov. Perry Vetoes SB 346

    May 25th, 2013

    That was the prenicious legislation that required groups who took in $25,000 or more for political purposes to register with the state, reveal their donors and exempted unions. It was evidently Speaker Joe Straus’ baby, and it’s unclear to me why Republicans let it pass. Given the burgeoning IRS scandal, the last thing politics needs is more state involvement in determining “acceptable” opinions.

    Perry just vetoed it.

    Text of the bill.

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    LinkSwarm for May 24, 2013

    May 24th, 2013

    A LinkSwarm for a very wet Friday in Austin:

  • Charles Krauthammer isn’t buying any lame IRS excuses.
  • Adopt a child, get audited by the IRS.
  • “The Obama White House is starting to make the Nixon administration look like Sesame Street.”
  • ObamaCare is only designed to screw small businesses and individuals. Large businesses can still get cheap policies.
  • Really, who among us hasn’t misplaced $80 million of our net worth?
  • Does illegal alien amnesty not have enough votes to beat a Senate filibuster?
  • Perry 2016?
  • Manhattan is incensed that residents can rent out their own condos.
  • Dear Femen: Nothing says “tolerance” quite like burning a cross.
  • Before and after Oklahoma City tornado pics.

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    Midday Obama Scandal Update for May 23, 2013

    May 23rd, 2013

    Mostly IRS scandal material:

  • “What we are witnessing now is not a crisis of democracy but a crisis of authority. The administrative state, in thrall to a decadent cultural elite, has lost the consent of the governed.”
  • Remember how Jay Carney said that the IRS targeting of conservative groups stopped in May 2012? He lied. (I know. Try to contain your shock.) It’s still going on today.
  • The IRS scandal needs a special prosecutor:

    This administration’s management of the Obama Internal Revenue Service scandal so far consists of a slow-walking, rolling disclosure of facts; equal parts equivocation, amnesia and indignation from IRS witnesses; deer-in-the-headlights non-responses by the White House press secretary; parsed, lawyerly statements from the president himself; and now one of the central key players is taking the Fifth. And all this comes from what the president claimed would be the “most transparent administration ever… if the president is innocent, he will end up needing and wanting a special prosecutor sooner rather than later. If he and his White House already have too much to hide, then they must clam up, cry partisanship and hope their allies on the Hill and in the media have the stamina for the long, hard slog ahead.”

  • What do you know, those crazy right wing activists were right, when they claimed the IRS was targeting conservative groups all the way back in February 2012. Though like many of the IRS articles I’ve seen lately suggests that the Tea Party was in decline when the scandal broke. Tell that to Dick Luger. Or Ted Cruz.
  • Goal of the top aides for Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43? Keep him informed. Goal of Obama’s top aides? Keep him out of the loop. Or should I say “Keep him from being indicted”?
  • Obama demands faith in the federal government…or else. From last week, but still well worth reading.

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