Time Out

Short Circuit
To recap: California's emissions mandates are so onerous that they require mandates for electric cars that consumers won't buy without subsidies that go mainly to the wealthy and that are now so expensive that they have become another drain on the state budget. Look for the middle class to be hit with a fee or tax increase to make up the difference. (WSJ, 9/17/2013)

From poverty to crime to energy, when Liberals begin social engineering you can bet the result will be a mess.

Can you imagine what will happen if they get a carbon tax?


Unwillingly
I'm talking about the hesitant, timorous America that we have seen—through the incredible sequence in which Secretary of State John Kerry's wise, forceful speech was juxtaposed against Barack Obama's strangely indecisive remarks—taking seriatim and almost simultaneously every conceivable geopolitical position. I'm talking about an America willing itself into weakness. A quiescent America that Mr. Putin, with his astounding lecture on democratic morals published in the New York Times, has allowed himself the luxury of humiliating on her home field. (Bernard-Henri Levy, WSJ, 9/18/2013)

Obama decries the actions of Assad and says that the use of chemical weapons would be a "red line."
Assad uses chemical weapons.
Obama decries the use of chemical weapons.
Kerry makes Obama's case for bombing the Assad regime.
Obama says Congress must approve bombing Assad.
Obama says that he never said "red line."
Putin says: "I can fix this."
Obama agrees.
Putin smiles. Won again.


Revolutions
Washington’s health care revolving door is spinning fast as the new online health insurance marketplaces, a central provision of President Obama’s health care law, are set to open Oct. 1. Those who had a hand in the law’s passage are now finding lucrative work in the private sector, as businesses try to understand the complex measure, reshape it by pressing for regulatory changes — or profit from it. (NYT, 9/17/2013)

Frankly, RedStateVT has little or no problem with this. But shouldn't Obama find this appalling? Isn't he the one who railed endlessly against just this thing? Like so many things about this administration, we are supposed to just ignore it.


Level Setting
Time and again, Mr. Alexis’s behavior fell below a level that would have brought a serious response, like a less-than-honorable discharge from the military or involuntary commitment to a mental institution, experts and officials said. (NYT, 9/17/2013)

Another tragic reminder of the failure of Liberal policy; namely the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. And - what do you think - maybe we should reset that level?