The Overhanging Sky

If it Quacks Like a Duck
The Phil Robertson controversy follows a similar pattern, indeed it is engraved in the playbook of the Gay Thought Police (GTP). Find a Christian target. It could be a politician, a celebrity, a businessman, an athlete or some other public figure. Ask them what they think about homosexuality. Then express outrage when they give you an honest answer. It has happened so many times that it is predictably boring. The difference this time is that the non-gay public, and frankly some thoughtful gay people as well, have had enough. 

We again implore everyone to adopt the RedStateVT philosophy which goes like this: 

Everyone is entitled to love who they love.
Everyone should stop talking about their sexuality. 


Conspicuous
After the Newtown killings a year ago, state legislatures across the country debated measures that would have more strictly limited the gun rights of those with mental illness. But most of the bills failed amid resistance from both the gun lobby and mental health advocates concerned about unfairly stigmatizing people. In Washington, discussion of new mental health restrictions was conspicuously absent from the federal gun control debate. (New York Times, 12/22/2013)

Because, God forbid, we do not want to stigmatize mentally ill people who may become violent.

And if the gun lobby truly did resist efforts at restricting access to gun by the mentally ill then shame on them. 


The Democrat Philosophy
Democrats Work to Raise Number of Female Governors (New York Times headline, 12/22/2013)

Here it is in eight words. 

Not let's find competent governors. Not let's find qualified governors. Not let's find experienced governors. 

No, let's find women governors. Because it is all about identity politics with Democrats. Hence, Hillary Clinton is already a front-runner. Another box to be checked. 


Repetition
Union cash helps elect politicians who then reward the unions with higher pay and benefits. The cycle repeats until taxes become destructive and spending is unaffordable. Exhibit A is Detroit. But some 38 local governments have filed for bankruptcy since 2010, "largely because of out-of-control pension costs," Mr. Bloomberg said. (Wall Street Journal, 12/20/2013)

Well stated.


Slammin' It!
MSNBC hosts David Gregory and Chris Matthews slammed the nomination of Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) to Ambassador to China Friday afternoon.

Meet the Press host David Gregory characterized the choice as “curious” considering Baucus’s lack of foreign policy experience and the immense security challenges the United States faces with China. (Freebeacon.com, 12/20/2013)

And we know that Gregory and Matthews are sincere because they similarly criticized the choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Clinton who - like Baucus - had no foreign policy experience. 

Or are we remembering that wrong?


Significance
Suzy K. Johnson, who is president of Employee Benefit Advisors, an insurance brokerage firm in North Carolina, said HealthCare.gov had been working smoothly for her clients. “The website is working, and many are getting significant subsidies,” she said. By midday, she said, her office had helped six people sign up for coverage. (New York Times, 12/24/2013)

How exciting! Many are getting "significant subsidies." 

Question: Where do these subsidies come from?
Is it from a) The Magic Government Money Machine, or b) Money collected from taxpayers?


Lesser
The president opted for a bronze plan, one of the less expensive options on the HealthCare.gov site. (New York Times, 12/24/2013)

Curious that Obama shopped price. Which frankly is what most people will be forced to do given the sky high premiums. Most people that are not having their health insurance paid for through subsidies, i.e. from taxpayers. 


Snow Job
During more than 14 hours of interviews in Russia, the former NSA contractor reflected on the roots and repercussions of his decision to go public with caches of top secret documents. By his own terms, Snowden succeeded beyond plausible ambition. The NSA now faces scrutiny it has not endured since the 1970s, or perhaps ever.

“For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” Snowden told The Post’s Barton Gellman. “I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself. (Washington Post, 12/23/2013)

Hey, Snowden. You know what isn't finished? Your life sentence once you step back on American soil!

What We Know

Disarmament
Republicans armed themselves with disputed talking points from the gun lobby about how a bill to expand background checks and outlaw a national gun registry was instead tantamount to a national gun registry. Turning the dispute from gun safety to gun rights, they took to the Senate floor to denounce the compromise, even arguing with its sponsors, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, two National Rifle Association-blessed lawmakers who could not contain their umbrage. Mr. Obama on Wednesday accused the gun lobby and opposition lawmakers of willfully lying about the measure. (NYT, 4/17/2013)

We'll make three points:

1) We wonder if Democrats armed themselves with "disputed talking points" from Liberal academics and the Obama administration about Obamacare.... Of course, there was no "willful lying" back then.

2) In his remarks, Obama expressed indignation that some on the other side objected to his constant parading of the Newtown parents. Here is how we see it. We are heartbroken for the loss these parents suffered. It is incalculable. Do the parents have a right to speak out? Of course they do. However, we should not reflexively pass legislation that the parents want simply because they have suffered a loss. For one thing, the parents do not speak with one voice. Some Newtown parents have come out against gun legislation. Similarly, anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan was said by some on the Left to speak with "absolute moral authority" against the war because her son had died in Iraq.  Until it was pointed out that some moms of deceased soldiers supported the war! Ann Coulter was excoriated by Liberals for her attacks on the "Jersey Girls." But Coulter's point was that the Jersey Girls had given up their status as apolitical victims of a horrible tragedy to take a political position in opposition to the Bush administration. Once they did, they were subject to the same public scrutiny as any public commentator on their motives and their political views. That's the way it works.

3) If we are beaming today, it's because we were listening to Rush Limbaugh today and heard him repeat a point from yesterday's post. Namely that the failed gun legislation would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the Newtown massacre. Does El Rushbo read RedStateVT?


Relatively
According to a Unicef report issued last week — “Child Well-Being in Rich Countries” — the United States once again ranked among the worst wealthy countries for children, coming in 26th place of 29 countries included.
...
According to the report, the United States has the second highest share of children living under the relative poverty line, defined as 50 percent of each country’s median income, and the second largest “child poverty gap” (the distance between the poverty line and the median incomes of those below the line).

The United States ranked 25th out of 29 in the percentage of people 15 to 19 years old who were enrolled in schools and colleges and 23rd in the percentage of people in that cohort not participating in either education, employment or training. (Charles M. Blow, NYT, 4/17/2013)

And yet somehow, despite the abject poverty and abysmal conditions in the U.S., people from other countries will risk everything to come to America. Amazing!

Humor columnist Blow apparently never got....er, never read the memo that notes that other countries report fraudulent data. No country wants to be at the bottom so they game the study. Liberals like Blow just love these studies because they confirm their beliefs that the U.S. is a corrupt country that can only be cured by more spending on entitlements. 

Ancient Virtues

Remove and Replace
The tax, which applies to devices like artificial joints, pacemakers, wheelchairs and gloves, is expected to raise about $29 billion over 10 years. It is one of several sources of new revenue in the health care law that will pay for the expansion of health coverage to 30 million uninsured people, many of them poor. The industry claims the tax will hurt demand for its products, but, in fact, sales of these devices, which are not purchased directly by consumers, are unlikely to be affected by price, especially by a small tax increase. As more people receive health coverage that pays for devices, the industry will more than make up the cost of the tax.
...
Ms. Warren and other Democrats say they would support an actual repeal of the tax if another tax could be found to replace it. That could save the tax, because Republicans aren’t interested in raising another tax, and the Obama administration already has its eye on potential replacement taxes for other, more important purposes, like investments in education and infrastructure.  (New York Times editorial, 4/1/2013)

Interesting editorial wherein the Times laments....well, a couple of things. 

First, the bi-partisan Senate opposition to the Obamacare medical devices tax. As the Times tries to tell us, this harmless tax was going to pay for health insurance for the poor. How dare anyone oppose it!

Second, the fact that the medical device industry had the nerve to lobby Senators including the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Al Frankel who - good on them - did what Senators are supposed to do and represented the interests of their states. In the New York Times worldview, it is perfectly all right for the Sierra Club to lobby, but never a corporate interest.

Well thankfully as the Times points out, Team Obama has "replacement taxes" lined up. Liberals always do, don't they? Although we ponder how these replacement taxes are going to fill the gap of the medical device tax in paying for health insurance for the poor when the Times says they are going to pay for education and infrastructure*.... Perhaps the Times did a sloppy cut-and-paste on their various editorials with the theme of: Why We Need More Taxes.

* Editor's Note: Henceforth RedStateVT will always refer to "infrastructure" by the more correct description "crumbling infrastructure."


Tight Lies
Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation.

The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan. (NYT, 4/1/2013)

First, we repeat again our suspicion that Obamacare is such an unwieldy beast that it may self-implode. 

Second, does anyone else get the sneaking fear that "limited to a single plan" sounds a bit like "single payer?"


Unaided
But it stipulates that any educational institution that receives aid meant to encourage or promote normalization of ties with Israel will face punishment: a 10-year prison term for an individual perpetrator and a fine of 20,000 Jordanian dinar (about $28,200) for any institution involved in organizing exchange programs or activities that include Israelis. (NYT, 4/1/2013)

This edict from Hamas. And the world wonders why there is no peace in the Middle East. Imagine if the Israelis "stipulated" something like this!


Dark Future
The bill makes little attempt to grapple with the complicated issue of how to identify and treat the violent mentally ill. That thorny topic has been relegated to a committee to study and report on, at some future date. (WSJ, 4/2/2013)

Connecticut punts on the real issue raised by the Newtown massacre.

Connect The Dots

More recently, he had cocooned himself in front of electronic game consoles in the basement of their home, playing warfare games.

The contents of the Lanza house are of intense interest because the lives of the family have been picked apart since the shootings, often yielding little insight. A clear understanding of Adam Lanza’s thinking and the texture of his relationship with his mother and others has yet to emerge. What pushed him to his brutality may never be discovered.
.....
Though Mr. Lanza’s life remains mostly opaque, interviews in recent weeks show that he was a socially fragile individual captivated by warfare video games and bent on military service....They said they believed that Mr. Lanza had spent most of his time in the basement of the home, primarily playing a warfare video game, “Call of Duty.” (NYT, 3/29/2013)

The New York Times has the answer. 

The New York Times writes the answer.

The New York Times refuses to acknowledge the answer.

Another Unpublished Op-Ed!

Amendment by Amendment

On January 16 President Obama, acting on recommendations made by a task force overseen by Vice President Biden, implemented a number of measures aimed at curbing gun violence in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings.  As the New York Times reported:

Mr. Obama’s plan included 4 major legislative proposals and 23 executive actions that he initiated on his own authority to bolster enforcement of existing laws, improve the nation’s database used for background checks and otherwise make it harder for criminals and people with mental illness to get guns.

Which should lead Americans to ask: who is heading the task force to examine the role of violence in movies on society and when will those recommendations be ready?

While politicians debate the ideal capacity of a gun magazine or the relative merits of a flash suppressor, let’s consider for just a moment what impressionable young adults might be exposed to; a group which likely also includes mentally unstable individuals such as Jared Loughner, age 24; James Holmes, age 24; and Adam Lanza, age 20.

One does not have to look very long or hard to find descriptions likely to unsettle the average parent or community mental health professional.  First up, a movie called “The ABCs of Death” (yes, the title is not encouraging):

A sickened moviegoer is just one reaction the director Jason Eisner (“Hobo With a Shotgun”) witnessed in response to “L Is for Libido,” a segment of “The ABCs of Death” a new anthology of 26 horror shorts, each centered around a different letter of the alphabet and depicting death in grotesque, comic, erotic and head-scratching ways. Among other things, the unsettled patron never got to see Mr. Eisner’s “Y Is for Youngbuck,” about a boy who assumes the spirit of a deer and goes on a revenge spree against a pedophile. (New York Times, January 25, 2013)

Head-scratching yes, but something else also. Revolting, perhaps? Vile, maybe? How about gratuitous or unnecessary?

Next we learn about new films being showcased at the Sundance Film Festival where we are told Hollywood’s finest go to be seen and to look for the next edgy auteur:

Movies about a New Jersey pornography addict, an abused adult film star, a lesbian housewife-turned-prostitute and a British smut kingpin all generated strong offers from distributors at this year's Sundance Film Festival, proving once again—if it needed to be proven—that sex sells. (Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2013)

Question if you will the conflation of sex with violence here, but understand two things. First, our teenagers are watching these films. One shudders to consider what the episodic equivalent of Newtown might be in society when it comes to the effects on our young of the portrayals of sexual depravity in movies. Second, there are more than enough examples that speak to the issue of violence alone.  If one side of the argument seeks limits on the gun manufacturers and their customers, does it not seem fair to at least question the film distributors and their “strong offers” and other enablers of entertainment violence? 

Quentin Tarantino, widely admired in Hollywood, reacted recently with outraged indignation at an interviewer’s question about violence in his new film “Django Unchained” described by the Wall Street Journal as “ferociously violent, ludicrously lurid…”  Which begs the question of how direct a line needs to be drawn between mental illness, movie violence and school massacres? What discussion would we be having if Adam Lanza had a movie stub for “Django Unchained” (or “The ABCs of Death”) in his pocket and perpetrated his horrific deed with a knife or a bomb and not a gun?

So notwithstanding a Second Amendment that speaks to the right to bear arms we have a spirited debate in this country about very specific details of gun ownership. Fine, let’s have that discussion. The country will be better for it. We also have a First Amendment that speaks to the right of free speech. Should we have a discussion about that as well?

Lest anyone think for a moment that the films discussed above are in any way not representative of the product that Hollywood produces, the following description is of Tom Cruise’s latest movie “Jack Reacher” which opened on December 21st:

…“Jack Reacher” brings its hero to Pittsburgh, where a sniper has just shot down five innocent people, including a nanny accompanying a small child, in broad daylight. (New York Times, December 20, 2013)

Another Hollywood stalwart, Sylvester Stallone has a new movie opening on February 1st. 

It is called “Bullet to the Head.” 

The massacre at Newtown occurred December 14th, less than 50 days ago.