Theotropic

Scar Face
Mr. Biden, who owns two shotguns, brings decades of experience and plenty of scar tissue from past battles with the National Rifle Association to frame recommendations that Mr. Obama wants ready by next month. (NYT, 12/29/2012)

Democrats own guns? Why don't we hear more about them?


Confiscatory
He said that he had paid $192 million in taxes over 45 years and complained that the state this year took 85 percent of his income. (NYT, 12/29/2012)

Loving Gerard Depardieu's battles with the French socialists. Kudos to him for calling them out. He makes a point that RedStateVT made many times when socialists in the U.S. (the Democrat party) were harassing Mitt Romney. Namely, never mind the marginal rate for a moment. What is the absolute value of taxes paid? In Depardieu's case, he has an 'absolute' right to ask when is enough enough.


Tick Tock
“This is one of the lowest points of the U.S. Senate,” Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, remarked as she ticked off what she said were other nadirs in a long Senate career, including the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. “This is what we’re doing to ourselves.” (NYT, 12/30/2012)

We disagree with Mikulski, but only on the timing. Clinton's impeachment was not the nadir. It was when Clinton lied to the American people...which led to his impeachment. 


Dirty Harry
On the Senate side, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, took to the floor at midday to proclaim the talks all but finished, shocking even some Democrats. Later he said, well, maybe they were not. Mr. Reid said he had made a counteroffer to the most recent one offered by his Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Then his aides said he had been sort of joking. (NYT, 12/30/2012)

When the times get tough, the Senate majority leader gets...stupid.


Questionable
...the attack also raised new questions about the safeguards in a patchwork private and public mental health system that is supposed to allow mentally ill people to live as freely as possible in the community while protecting them and the public. (NYT, 12/30/2012)

The case of a mentally ill woman who pushed an innocent bystander to death on the NYC subway reminds us again of the Liberal policy of deinstitutionalizing the insane: "They're not insane, they're just differently abled."

Teeter Totter
AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions. (Louis Michael Seidman, NYT, 12/30/2012)

A Georgetown University constitutional law professor comes up with a really clever idea: Let's ignore the U.S. Constitution! What a wonderfully Liberal idea. Of course, Seidman does not want to ignore all of the Constitution....

This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.

Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country. (Louis Michael Seidman, NYT, 12/30/2012)

...he only recommends that we ignore the parts that he does not like. Perhaps his students should ignore the parts of Seidman's class that they do not like.